Sports
Monday, February 6, 2012
Posted
by Ted Cox on
Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 3:32 PM
The NFL is looking more and more like the NBA—the NBA of 30 years ago, before Michael Jordan, when it was commonly said games were 46 minutes of guys running up and down and then two minutes of real basketball.
All right, it's not quite that bad. Teams do prod each other and parry and thrust on offense and defense throughout the game. Yet when Bob Costas asked New England quarterback Tom Brady before the Super Bowl if he'd rather have a three-point lead and his New York Giants counterpart Eli Manning with the ball in the final minute, or have the ball and be trailing by three (and that indeed is the dynamic that developed), that shows just how predictably unpredictable things have gotten.
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Tags: Super Bowl XLVI, New England Patriots, New York Giants, Tom Brady
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Saturday, February 4, 2012
Posted
by Ted Cox on
Sat, Feb 4, 2012 at 12:00 PM
No doubt about it: the Blackhawks had a tough stretch ahead of them coming out of the All-Star break, in the form of a nine-game, three-week road trip. Call this the ice-show trip—while a Disney family extravaganza takes up residence at the United Center—in contrast with the circus trip in November. The odyssey did break up conveniently into a trio of three-game sets, with the Hawks to return home to their own beds to start each week before embarking out again. How'd the first set go? Terribly.
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Tags: Blackhawks, NHL, hockey, Patrick Kane
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Posted
by Kevin Warwick on
Sat, Feb 4, 2012 at 10:00 AM
Last year's Super Bowl XLV between the Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers brought in an average audience of 111 million U.S. viewers—that's just over 30 million more viewers than the last episode of
Cheers, a show that, aside from being loved by my mom, had early-90s
Seinfeld as a lead-in and revolved around the life and times of Ted Danson, a bar full of drunkards, and mugs of beer. The Super Bowl often brings in the largest TV audience of the year and is built for rowdy viewing parties and the consumption of delicious, terrible-for-you food.
For those who could give a shit about football, the overblown mess of television features celebs "caught on camera" pretending to enjoy football, nachos, and light beer; reanimated corpses of pop and rock 'n' roll legends playing the halftime show; and a slew of (wannabe) edgy and innovative commercials. (I have no shame in admitting that I was addicted to Crystal Pepsi in my younger years thanks to a mix of
perfectly timed advertising and Van Halen's "Right Now.") In short, the game ain't just for run-of-the-mill Monday-morning quarterbacks.
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Tags: Super Bowl, TV, NBC, CBS, Fox, ESPN, Cheers, Crystal Pepsi, Van Halen, cable
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Friday, February 3, 2012
Posted
by Ted Cox on
Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 4:01 PM
"Defense wins championships," goes the conventional wisdom, and it applies to football as well as basketball, and by extension to baseball (where it translates as pitching) and hockey (where it's a hot goalie). And the New York Giants clearly have the better defense going into Sunday's Super Bowl XLVI. Yet there's another old gambler's saying that applies equally well to the New England Patriots, who saw their pursuit of a perfect season four years ago dashed by the Giants in a Super
upset: "In the rematch, bet on Goliath."
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Tags: Super Bowl XLVI, New England Patriots, New York Giants, Bill Belichick, Goliath
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Thursday, February 2, 2012
Posted
by Ted Cox on
Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 2:33 PM
Basketball will graduate to a major sport, in my opinion, when it finally develops referees with the spine to call a game the same for the home and road teams.
I'm already on the record with my disdain for the way NBA refs are reluctant to call traveling, to the point where I gave up trying to count the unenforced traveling violations in Sunday's game in Miami between the Bulls and the Heat. There seems this unwritten NBA law that, if a player is fouled and the refs don't call it, that player is allowed an extra step or two, depending on the severity of the foul. In much the same way, if a player is fouled and the ball goes out of bounds, the refs may well not call the foul, but award the ball to the team of the fouled player—an unspoken agreement whatever dunderhead was doing the color analysis on ABC tacitly acknowledged when, after Derrick Rose was fouled in the final minute, putting him on the free-throw line, the announcer said he'd rather have seen the ball awarded out of bounds to the Bulls.
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Tags: NBA, Bulls, Heat, Derrick Rose, LeBron James, Illinois, Fighting Illini
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Monday, January 30, 2012
Posted
by Ted Cox on
Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 10:02 AM
In his session with the media before the start of
SoxFest Friday at the Palmer House, new White Sox manager Robin Ventura was self-deprecating to a fault, well aware he has big shoes to fill as a media personality in replacing Ozzie Guillen.
"I was just as big a fan as anybody of his press conferences. Mine's not going to be that way, but that's just a different personality," Ventura said. "Personalitywise, for me, this is my least-favorite thing to do. Nothing personal against you," he added, disarming the reporter who asked the question. "I would rather just do baseball stuff."
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Tags: White Sox, Robin Ventura, Kenny Williams, Jake Peavy, Paul Konerko, A.J. Pierzynski, Ozzie Guillen
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Thursday, January 26, 2012
Posted
by Ted Cox on
Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 5:48 PM
- Flickr
- Bud Selig: Say wha?
The White Sox seem determined to challenge their fans to enjoy 2012 right from the get-go. As if it weren't daring enough for Adam Dunn to attend
SoxFest this weekend at the Palmer House Hilton in downtown Chicago, the Sox will kick things off Friday evening with a "State of the Game" seminar featuring Commissioner Bud Selig, not exactly a popular figure in any realm.
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Tags: White Sox, Adam Dunn, Bud Selig, Kenny Williams, Robin Ventura, SoxFest 2012
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Posted
by Ben Joravsky on
Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 5:01 PM
- Bobak Ha'Eri/Wikimedia Commons
- Tim Floyd. Thanks, coach!
As Mary Dempsey, the old library commissioner, walked out, and Brian Bannon, her replacement, walked in, I had a flashback to 1998.
That's when Tim Floyd replaced Phil Jackson as the coach of my beloved Chicago Bulls.
Before I go further—time out for an explanation for our more sports-challenged readers. We'll take it one step at a time, like it's a TIF explanation.
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Tags: Mary Dempsey, Chicago Public Library, Brian Bannon, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Wilmette, Sam Smith, David Halberstam, Jerry Krause, Jerry Reinsdorf, Michael Jordan, Chicago Bulls, Tim Floyd
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Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Posted
by Kevin Warwick on
Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 5:40 PM
- Pburka/Wikimedia Commons
- Wynn Casino
I do.
But that's no reason for anyone else to give a shit. For some, the culmination of the NFL season is all about the spectacle, filled with fireworks and celebrities, the extra-decked-out national anthem and halftime-show absurdities. For others, the draw is a simple combo of commercials and queso dip. The one unique, nondiscriminating glory of the holiday, though, is the gambling—a safe, fun hobby meant to be enjoyed by the world wide.
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Tags: Super Bowl, Eli Manning, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, gambling, prop bets, Gatorade, NFL, queso dip
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Posted
by Ted Cox on
Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 3:36 PM
- Horge/Wikimedia Commons
- Duncan Keith
The Blackhawks get a week off for the All-Star break, and they looked like a team that needed it Tuesday night against Nashville at the United Center. They seemed a step slow in the first period, as when Jamal Mayers, sensing danger with the puck slipping out in front of the Hawks' net,
whiffed on a clearing swipe, allowing the Predators' Crag Smith to sweep in a shot. With Jonathan Toews and Patrick Sharp injured, coach Joel Quenneville spread his veterans out—for instance, having Andrew Brunette shepherd rookies Jimmy Hayes and Brandon Pirri. But no sooner had they put together a good stretch than, their very next shift, Hayes was caught slow trailing Mike Fisher in the slot, and Fisher turned a centering pass into another goal that prompted Corey Crawford to snap his goalie stick over the crossbar. (Just stick around on those same highlights.) Quenneville put Crawford's frustration into words, saying, "The first two goals were very generous on our part."
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Tags: Blackhawks, Nashville Predators, Joel Quenneville, Duncan Keith, Jamal Mayers, Corey Crawford, Jimmy Hayes, Jonathan Toews, Patrick Sharp
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