Quite simply, the Steelers have to beat the 9ers tonight, or the season is over.
Go Steelers!
by John Cole| 6 Comments
This post is in: Sports
Quite simply, the Steelers have to beat the 9ers tonight, or the season is over.
Go Steelers!
by John Cole| 6 Comments
This post is in: Sports
I completely understand this mentality:
Fan Blames Himself For Team Losing Game
SILVER SPRING, Md – The Washington Redskins lost today and its all Oliver Willis’ fault. The 25 year old fan failed to wear his lucky jersey, which caused his team to lose in the fourth quarter to the Carolina Panthers. “Stupidly I thought that what I wore during the game had nothing to do with the outcome. I assumed that it ws up to the coaches and players to win the game, but it’s pretty obvious I was wrong.”, said the lifelong hater of the Dallas Cowboys.
Willis’ mistake dropped the Redskins to 4-6 on the season and puts them on the brink of missing the playoffs yet again. “When I dropped that pass in the fourth quarter, I knew it was Oliver’s fault”, said Redskins wide receiver Darnerian McCants. “Sure, I get paid millions to catch the ball and I was wide open, but I can’t shake the feeling that Oliver is to blame.” Redskins head coach Steve Spurrier echoed McCants’ concerns: “You’ve got two choices – either I could have called better passing plays in the first half, or Oliver could have worn his lucky jersey. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that Oliver is the one who screwed up today.”
The Steelers meet the 9er’s tonight for MNF, and I didn’t know if it was appropriate to wear my new Steelers shirt, because I didn’t wear it last week when they broke their losing streak. Now I have to spend the whole day worrying about where I can watch the game. The Steelers are 1-0 when I watch at my friend Sean’s house, 1-4 when I watch at home, and 1-1 when I watch at my friend Chad’s house. Looks like I am off to Sean’s.
Also, I have no idea what sort of ritual I am supposed to go through tonight, because this is our first MNF game of the season. I have all my rituals down for the day games. This is quite a problem.
by John Cole| 3 Comments
This post is in: Sports
Today is the Backyard Brawl, which, sense West Virginia has no professional sports teams, is probably the biggest sporting event of the year (maybe the WVU/Marshall basketball game, or the AAA High School football championships, or maybe Bridge Day). Here is a little bit on how important the game is:
11-15-03.
The date has been displayed prominently on a large sign in No. 16 Pittsburgh’s weight room since before preseason camp started.
It’s not a reference to a game against a high-profile national opponent such as Virginia Tech or Miami. It’s the date of the game with rival West Virginia.
Following decades in which the Backyard Brawl meant a lot more to the team south of the Pennsylvania-West Virginia border than it did to the team north of it, Pittsburgh now realizes how big this game could be.
“Coach (Walt Harris) wanted to reinforce what the game means to us,” Pitt cornerback William “Tutu” Ferguson said Monday.
Maybe big enough to decide the Big East title. Maybe.
There is bad blood between the two teams, even if the players try to play it down. perhaps it is better stated that there is bad blood between the two team’s fans. When WVU still had a rivalry with Penn State, the shirt of the day was ‘Penn State Sucks’ on the front, and on the back ‘But Pitt Swallows.’ Even the announcers get in on the act. Several years ago, when the game was held in Pittsburgh, the stadium announcer stated over the loudspeakers “Attention West Virginia Fans. Someone has left their lights on- will the own of a tractor with the license plate E-I-E-I-O please go to the parking lot and turn your lights off.” He got fired for that, which I thought was a damned shame- I thought it was hysterical.
WVU can also win a BCS berth if they beat Pitt today and if Miami loses again.
At any rate- the town is currently a zoo. It feels like there are 2-3 times the population here just visiting, and more are on their way from Pittsburgh. You simply can not underestimate how tough it is for opposing teams to play at Mountaineer Field, because the fans are thoroughly lubricated and EXTREMELY loud. At any rate, I am ordering a pizza and watching the game from the couch with the cats.
by John Cole| 7 Comments
This post is in: Sports
I feel like the Soviets must have felt like in 1980:
Now here’s a stunner: The defending champion U.S. baseball team will be at home next summer while countries like the Netherlands and Italy compete for an Olympic medal in Athens.
Manager Frank Robinson and his team of mostly minor leaguers were beaten at their own game, falling to Mexico 2-1 Friday — a loss that eliminated them from a qualifying tournament with no second chances.
I am really speechless.
by John Cole| 7 Comments
This post is in: Sports
I suffered through an entire season of Pirates Baseball, and my reward is Steelers football. They are now 2-6, the playofs are out of the question, and I seriously doubt they will hit .500.
I still love them, but they are testing me.
This post is in: Sports
How about those Mountaineers, beating the hated Va. Tech Hokies 28-7, in the biggest upset in Mountaineer History. Unbelievable. And if it had not been for that Horrible call, we would have blanked ’em. Way to go, ‘Eers!
*** Update ***
Great- this story made Drudge.
by John Cole| 7 Comments
This post is in: Sports
This will raise some eyebrows:
VV: I’m curious. What did you think of the Rush Limbaugh incident? I wrote an article [in Slate] essentially in support of what Limbaugh said, that Donovan McNabb was in fact overrated and that a lot of sportswriters were rooting for him to succeed because he was black. I admitted that it was certainly true in my case. My liberal friends were horrified. Several of them won’t speak to me now. That’s certainly an indication that in one form or another, the subject of race is still a hot button in sports.
LR: I think that’s true, and I thought of that when I heard about what Limbaugh said. Of course a lot of people, myself included, rooted for black ballplayers because they were black. I don’t know why that should be considered a controversial statement. That leads, inevitably, to overrating certain players. I’m not defending Limbaugh’s politics, but I think he just said out loud what some people were thinking. I don’t see anything particularly wrong with it.
VV is Allan Barra of the Village Voice, LR is Lester Rodney, described in the piece as “the sports columnist and sports editor for The Daily Worker, the largest and most influential Communist newspaper in the U.S. For more than a decade he was one of the leading agitators for the breaking of baseball’s color barrier.”
Communists to the defense of Rush Limbaugh. It’s a mad, mad, world out there.
(Via Max Sawicky)