Archive for the ‘Recreational Sports’ Category:
Goodbye OKC… (And Good Riddance)… Part 2
Here is the “much anticipated” conclusion to to my “wonderful” trip to Oklahoma City to see the Jayhawks fall flat, and the Wildcats rise to greatness. As I mentioned in the last blog, this one will be focusing on the non-game related events of the weekend in OKC…
Oklahoma doesn’t really care about their roads.
Growing up miles away from the Missouri border, I always thought Missouri had the absolute worse roads to drive on. Whether it be the main highways in Kansas City or some of the smaller highways connecting to Ozark region, they were really bad roads. But then I drove through Oklahoma this weekend.
First, I got the experience of driving through the panhandle (for those complaining about western Kansas being barren, need to take a trip south into the OK panhandle, YIKES!). I had to attempt to avoid potholes the size of small children and got motion sickness (and getting it again now just thinking about it) as the roads acted like harsh waves for miles at a time. Just BAD!
But then, my theory was proved correct on Sunday when we were heading home. Hours after a snowstorm dumped a pile of snow on the roads, the highways were still very, very, very poor just west of Oklahoma City. We went about 20 miles in nearly TWO HOURS, because every couple of miles traffic came to a standstill because there were still large patches of rough ice and snow covering the highway. This was at 1 p.m. on Sunday, with the sun shining bright and the temperatures in the 40s — and not a single snow plow in sight!
Support for the Thunder is growing — except from the retailers.
Talking with my girlfriends uncle and cousin, the support from the community is growing for the Oklahoma City Thunder. I was even told that Oklahoma and Oklahoma State basketball is suffering to bring in crowds because of the liking for the Thunder. (“Why go to a college game, when we have Kevin Durant and other professionals?”) I was blown away when my girlfriend’s uncle told me that. I never would have thought that a professional team could take away from the long-lived relationship between a person and their college, but apparently its doing that Oklahoma City. Thanks to its one and only professional sports team in the state.
But despite the lovefest from fans, apparently retailers aren’t falling in love so easily. On Friday, we hit up the mall in Edmond (a suburb on the north edge of Oklahoma City) and I went on a search to find Thunder apparel to purchase. In the two large sports apparel shops in the mall, I found just one Thunder hat — and it was in youth size — and just a few T-shirts — including a very ugly shirt with the likeness of Durant on the front.
When I found the “Hat World” aka “Lids”, I thought I would for sure find a section of Thunder hats to choose from. After spending five minutes searching the store, I gave up just before my girlfriend found them. Two rows, on the bottom, below MLB hats were the Thunder hats. And while there were two rows, there were only about three or four different styles of hats. In comparison, I found five different styles of KU hats.
That’s pretty sad, that the ONLY pro sports franchise in the state has such little pull in retail stores!
I’m good at Cranium. But maybe too good!
So to cap off our Friday and Saturday nights, we played the board game Cranium at my girlfriend’s cousin’s house where were staying. Friday night, it was me and the girlfriend vs. her cousin and his girlfriend. We played two games, both won by me and my girlfriend.
On Saturday, with my sister staying over, she joined the cousin’s team since they had lost the night before. The three-player team knocked off me and the girlfriend, though not in a 100 percent fair way. They were using my clues, humming and drawing, in order to win several head-to-head contests within the game (known as Club Cranium games). Apparently, I’ve got such a knack for the game that opposing teams will simply use me to get the victory.
Needless to say, it was VERY irritating to lose, knowing that the opposing team had to cheat off of your clues in the process!
Subscribe to the comments for this postWho would win a boxing match between Conan and Leno?
I know this is technically a sports blog, but I can’t help myself. The whole debacle by NBC in the battle for late night — and prime time — has just gotten too great to ignore.
So, to keep with the sports blog theme, I pose this question to readers: Who would win a boxing match between Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno?
AP Photo/Conan O'Brien hosts NBC's "The Tonight Show"... at least for the time being.
Though I’m a big fan of Conan — and have never found Leno to be all that funny, especially in comparison to Conan — my money is on Leno. How can you not go with “The Chin”? I’m sure it’s solid bone under there and would be difficult for Conan to knock out.
However, I do give Conan a puncher’s chance due to his height and wing span. It will be very difficult for Leno to land any punches (especially to the head), so it may come down to conditioning for Conan. If he can hold out for the chin to finally break, he may just have a chance!
It’s Just One of Those Years
So the luck of the fantasy gods weren’t limited to baseball for me this year. After winning my lone fantasy baseball league in the summer, I carried on the tradition — and the team name: “The Funky Bunch” — into the football season.
I participated in two fantasy football leagues this season — one with a few fellow GCTelegram current and former employees based out of Pittsburg along with a league contrived of teachers in the school district. After slow starts in both leagues, I reached the championship match for both leagues.
PLAYOFFS??? I JUST HOPE WE CAN WIN A GAME!
In the Pittsburg league, I started the season 2-4 and I had a Jim Mora mentality. But then the tides shifted, the momentum swung and the stars aligned. I went on to lose just one of the final 10 games — seven regular season games and three playoff games — with the lone loss being a hard-fought 123-105 loss two weeks before the playoffs.
In the first two games of the playoffs, I had to face the last two teams I had lost to in the regular season. But vengeance would be mine.
In my opening round game, I came away with an eight-point victory thanks to Tony Romo scoring 20, Ricky Williams and kicker Rob Bironas scoring 19 each and The Steve Smith racking up 14 and Maurice Jones-Drew coming away with 13.
Then, in Round 2, facing the only team I had lost to in the last 10 weeks — a team which sported Drew Brees, Larry Fitzgerald, Wes Welker and Thomas Jones and was No. 1 in the league in scoring — I more than doubled the opponents point total for a 134-66 victory. Romo put up 23, Steve Smith 26, MJD 31 and Baltimore defense came up with 18 to win 134-66 to reach the championship game, where I would face off with former GCTelegram web editor Emily Behlmann — who just like me, put up 134 points in the semifinals and eclipsed 100 in the first round thanks to one Chris Johnson.
(AP Photo) Atlanta Falcons receiver Roddy White (84) celebrates with teammate Michael Jenkins after catching a touchdown pass in the first quarter of an NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills on Sunday in Atlanta.
The Tennessee running back set a gut wrenching tone on Christmas with a 28-point outburst for Emily. But fortunately, Ben Roethlisberger’s 12 points ended up being Emily’s only other double-digit contribution. I, on the other hand, received five 10-plus totals — and then some. Roddy White, who I had traded for thanks to having four top 10 running backs, scored 30 points, while Cedric Benson put up 18, Santonio Holmes registering 14, Romo another 13 and Steve Smith with 12. For the first time this year, I was able to rely on my wide receiver corp — which was needed with MJD scoring a meager nine points. Final score: Funky Bunch 120, Emily 63.
The Definition of Parity:
As for my Garden City teacher’s league, parity reigned in the playoffs. After reaching the post season as the No. 7 seed with a 6-7 record along with three others, the league was “plagued” with a swarm of upsets.
In the opening round, all four of the top seeds where upended leaving a semifinal of No. 5 vs. No. 8 and No. 6 vs. No. 7 as I sneaked past No. 2 seed by two points.
Then in the semifinals, I held on for a five-point victory thanks to the Philadelphia defense putting up 15 points — right behind Matt Schaub with 16.38 points to lead my team — and overcame a 27-point outing for Peyton Manning, a 17.87-point outburst from Beanie Wells and 14.8 points from Reggie Wayne.
Also pulling an upset in the semis was the No. 8 seed, scoring 133.86 points on the heels of a 115-point total in Round 1 — all this coming from the lowest scoring team in the league during the regular season.
The No. 8 seed got a big boost from former K-State running back Darren Sproles, who had a season-high 23.33 points, to go with Phillip Rivers’ 18.46 points and Frank Gore’s 16.5 total.
I got 21 points from Randy Moss, along with 18.8 points from newly acquired Jerome Harrison and another 14.34 points from Tony Romo.
(AP Photo) Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson (28) scores on a run past Chicago Bears linebacker Lance Briggs (55) in the second half of an NFL football game in Chicago on Monday.
Heading into the Monday night game, I trailed 96.29-71.44 — a 24.85 deficit — with Minnesota Vikings players Sidney Rice and Adrian Peterson to face the less than spectacular of late, Chicago Bears defense. And thanks to Peterson putting up 22.27 points and Rice 9.73, I claimed a second fantasy football championship. Add these two along with the baseball championship, I went a perfect 3-for-3 in fantasy sports league in 2009 — after having never won a fantasy league prior.
Championship Rosters
Pittsburg League:
Tony Romo 13
Roddy White 30
Steve Smtih 12
Santonio Holmes 14
Cedric Benson 18
MJD 18
Visanthe Shiancoe 10
Rob Bironas 6
Baltimore D 8
Garden City League:
Tony Romo 14.34
Randy Moss 21
Sidney Rice 9.73
Adrian Peterson 22.27
Brandon Jacobs 0.10
Vernon Davis 7.2
Jerome Harrison 18.8
Stephen Gostkowski 5
Philadelphia D 5
When The Cat’s Away, The Mice Will Play (Movies)
Well, it’s early summer, little local coverage to speak of and the girlfriend is out of town for a week. So what else would a nearly 25-year-old, no longer single male do? Watch a bunch of non-chick flick movies, of course!
While going through my giant tub of DVDs looking for wasteful ways to pass the time when not at work or catching up with friends, I noticed the large amount of sports movies I own (and remembered the handful or so more that I at one point owned on VHS and left back home). So I thought, ‘Why not hit two birds with one stone?’ I could watch movies to pass the time and by relegating it to sports movies, I can write my blog about it. Ingenious, I know.
Well, with the idea coming back on Thursday, the possibility of getting ALL of my sports movies watched by today, I decided I would make this a two-part blog. Today’s blog being about the movies I watched over the weekend, and next Sunday’s about the rest of the movies. I decided I would watch my baseball movies first since we are in the heart of the professional baseball season and since the College World Series began over the weekend.
To help with writing the blog, I am going to rank the movies I own. But not just one big list (though that will come at the end). First, I’m going to break them down by sports with baseball movies, football movies, basketball movies, hockey movies and a miscellaneous sport movies category. Then, I will rank them by genre and ending with a complete ranking off all movies.
*Spoiler Alert*
Before the possibility of getting complaints from my baseball list and concerning where I placed “Field Of Dreams” I just wanted to justify my decision for having it further down in the list than many would expect. I took a Sports Literature in the Movies class at KU and one of the books turned movie that we read was “Shoeless Joe” which is the book “Field Of Dreams” is based on. Now, I had seen the movie (and probably would have had it atop the list) prior to reading the book. However, after reading it and discovered so many glaring elements were left out from the book that made it completely different, my view about the movie diminished a bit.
For instance, in the book the main character Ray Kinsella actually has an identical twin named Richard and plays a role in the book. In the movie they decided to combine the two character traits of the twins into Ray Kinsella. Another difference, which I think would have made the movie even better if they would have followed the book, is that the bleachers were not along the first base line like was portrayed in the movie. Instead, Ray Kinsella had built a small section of a left field wall in which there was a door to get up to the bleacher seats. There wasn’t an entire fence, but it would have been really cool to see how a baseball diamond in a cornfield would look with just a portion of a wall in the outfield. Had the movie followed he book, it would have easily been No. 1 on my list and No. 1 in my heart of all-time movies (sports-related or otherwise).
On With The Show
Now that I’ve given my peace on the one discrepancy people may poke at with my list, I now present you with the list along with memorable quotes from each movie:
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Shot of cover of movie "Major League
Major League — “Juuuust a bit outside.”
- Bull Durham — “I want to bring the heater. Announce my presence with authority!”
- BASEketball — “Steeeve Perry!” (There were so many great ones to choose from, unfortunately many of them are not PG quotes!)
- Field of Dreams — “If you build it, he will come.”
- Eight Men Out — “Say it ain’t so, Joe! Say it ain’t so!”
- Major League 2 — “Women… Can’t live with them and they can’t pee standing up.”
- The Rookie — “So how does it feel to be the oldest rookie in the last 30 years?”
Fun Factoids:
- Many relate baseball movies to Kevin Costner, what with “Field of Dreams”, “Bull Durham”, “For Love of the Game” and oft forgotten “Chasing Dreams”. But let us not forget the name of one Charlie Sheen. Sheen has carried his own in baseball movies. Obviously he was the star in “Major League” and “Major League II” by playing the memorable role of Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn, but he was also in the movie “Eight Men Out” as one of the eight baseball players involved in the infamous “Black Sox Scandal.”
- After having watched all seven baseball movies that I own, I wracked up 12 hours and 57 minutes of movie watching. And to think, I’m not even halfway through my collection of sports movies!!!
Mike’s REALLY, REALLY (un)real trip to the French Open
OK.
Before I can even begin to explain this extremely weird, awkward and quite frankly strange moment you can all observe of my new friend Pierre taking me down on the clay court of Roland Garros I must explain. It’s quite funny really.
You see, the idea was quite simple. All I wanted to do was witness my favorite tennis player, Roger Federer, win his 14th major championship and complete a career Grand Slam. By him doing so he would become just the sixth man in tennis history to win a title in each of the four Grand Slam events. “With Rafael Nadal out, no one can beat my boy Roger,” I thought to myself with excitement like I had never felt before.
I headed to Paris
So with my life savings I jumped on a United Airlines flight to Heathrow in London, then took the Chunnel to Paris, arriving at Roland Garros just in time to observe history. Heck. I made history myself at the French Open when I became over anxious and jumped over the photographers pit and ran on to the red clay. As I flung around a Barcelona flag I had grabbed out of the hands of a bald Federer fanatics’ grasp, I attempted to put a hat on Roger’s head. He didn’t care too much for that as he pushed me away and I had a new challenge of getting away from security. As I broke away from the well-dressed group in their white shirt and black jacket and pants apparel, I leaped over the net and was met at the baseline by, yes, Pierre, the All-France rugby star who tackled me to the ground. As my face hit the red somewhat slimy surface I yelled “I love clay.”
Security didn’t find my shenanigans too funny and two security guards along with Pierre carried me off.
French questioning is really no fun
After explaining myself to a bunch of french authorities and Pierre in a God-forsaken dimly-lit dungeon of some sort under Roland Garros I was allowed to leave and go back into the match. Evidently, the security who asked me all the questions in French (which I have no idea how to speak) felt they had tortured me enough with questions I could not answers, and answers they just laughed at knowing I had not the slightest of what they were saying!
Almost in a lot of trouble again
So once I was back in the tennis court confines. I took my seat in an obviously way too close spot as I tried to get on TV and security once again started to haul me off. 
Eva to the rescue
Lucky for me, Eva Longoria ( my favorite of the Desperate Housewives ) had taken some what of a shine to me watching as I buffooned around Roland Garros. She talked security into allowing me to sit next to her and we spent much of what was left of the match making kissey-kiss faces at one another. I won’t lie…. it was awesome!
When it all ended what an adrenaline rush!
As the match neared its end though, I found myself in the photographers pit once again as Roger won the final point of the third set and claimed his record-tying 14th major title. I jumped as high as I could and rammed both hands into the hard surface that is the stands. Bloody knuckles couldn’t keep me from enjoying the moment.
Now that Roger has won his 14th major title, No. 15 will be even more special. If the hands heal in time…. Wimbledon here I come!
Editor’s note: All photos have been supplied by the Associated Press and in each one of them a little bit of photo shop work has been done as to make the image not 100 percent true as to how it was shot.