...took steroids. What a shock.
Ironically enough, the first ever post by the Sports Maunderer (he had not even been named as such yet) was also about David Ortiz. So the last post on this particular incarnation of the Sports Maunderer brigns with it a certain amount of symmetry. Why the last, you say? Because the Sports Maunderer has moved.
Across the street, but still, it is a move. Instead of http://sportsrantblog.blogspot.com/, which was always a silly hyperlink, the blog shall now be located at http://thesportsmaunderer.blogspot.com/, a longer but more eponymous title.
In addition, I will re-post some of the few entries that actually stand up to the test of time in the new venue, to get it started. Then I will undoubtedly write a self-righteous, self-serious, existential piece about whether a sports blog is in any way a useful pursuit. Buy a helmet to protect yourself (preferably one of the long, alien-head helmets they use at the Tour de France for time trials sprinting. This way, you will also be getting a Halloween costume for free.)
This blog will stay afloat as the Archive, and I'll have a link to it on the new blog if, for some reason, you want to refresh yourself on what moronic thing I said about the Indianapolis Colts half-way through the 2007 season. Never know when such information will come in handy.
And so, I bid thee adieu.
And Rick Sutcliff is still an idiot.
~The Sports Maunderer~
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Categories are for Sissies.
While *other* bloggers have stooped to compartmentalizing and, dare I say it, organizing their posts such that it might imply an official mien, or a respectable writing outlet, or some type of order in their nutty universe, we here at the Sports Maunderer will of course never do such a thing. The Sports Maunderer does not organize. He maunders.
In that spirit, this post has no purpose nor coherence. No cogent thoughts shall emerge, no syllogisms shall be constructed, nothing shall be told in careful detail (and certainly not perspicuous detail) and most of it will make no sense.
I know this won't scare any of the Sports Maunderer's vast readership away, because if such a post scared them away, they would have been lost back when the first post was unleashed upon the world (sorry about that, by the way).
Joba Chamberlain bites on a mouth guard to relax his face. No word on why exactly his face is the thing needing relaxing.
Nick Swisher needs a haircut.
Did you hear B**** F**** might be looking to play with the Vikings but--oh wait, nevermind, he isn't anymore! Little known fact. And I see the Sports Maunderer's self-censor is working perfectly.
Alberto Contador is only five years away from tying Lance. And only six from beating him. I rarely root for the Spanish agaisnt Americans, but I guess if they are going to get a little revenge for 1899, this isn't a bad way to do it.
The Sports Maunderer just realized he could do a running blog of a Yankee game now that he owns a beautiful portable computer. This will happen. The question is only when. Nominations for dates, times, starting pitchers, opponents, etc. will be accepted in the comments.
A-Rod is a ballplayer.
The Yankees away uniforms seem to have been shrunk. The inner workings of Jeter's gluteus maximus.... well... not something I am interested in. I suppose some females might disagree.
Not to harp on this categorizing/labeling/organizing thing, but, yeah, I'm going to harp on it. It's The Man winning. The Man is winning.
Did you know Kate Hudson was a baseball fan? I sure didn't.
In that spirit, this post has no purpose nor coherence. No cogent thoughts shall emerge, no syllogisms shall be constructed, nothing shall be told in careful detail (and certainly not perspicuous detail) and most of it will make no sense.
I know this won't scare any of the Sports Maunderer's vast readership away, because if such a post scared them away, they would have been lost back when the first post was unleashed upon the world (sorry about that, by the way).
Joba Chamberlain bites on a mouth guard to relax his face. No word on why exactly his face is the thing needing relaxing.
Nick Swisher needs a haircut.
Did you hear B**** F**** might be looking to play with the Vikings but--oh wait, nevermind, he isn't anymore! Little known fact. And I see the Sports Maunderer's self-censor is working perfectly.
Alberto Contador is only five years away from tying Lance. And only six from beating him. I rarely root for the Spanish agaisnt Americans, but I guess if they are going to get a little revenge for 1899, this isn't a bad way to do it.
The Sports Maunderer just realized he could do a running blog of a Yankee game now that he owns a beautiful portable computer. This will happen. The question is only when. Nominations for dates, times, starting pitchers, opponents, etc. will be accepted in the comments.
A-Rod is a ballplayer.
The Yankees away uniforms seem to have been shrunk. The inner workings of Jeter's gluteus maximus.... well... not something I am interested in. I suppose some females might disagree.
Not to harp on this categorizing/labeling/organizing thing, but, yeah, I'm going to harp on it. It's The Man winning. The Man is winning.
Did you know Kate Hudson was a baseball fan? I sure didn't.
The Lakers signed Ron Artest and the Celtics signed Rasheed Wallace. Neither of these moves are particularly strong basketball moves, so one is left to believe they are trying to outdo each other in the "who does everyone hate more" department.
Everyone hates the Lakers more. Everyone.
The Phillies traded for Cliff Lee. The Yankees should have done this, if only to keep the Phillies from doing it. Now the Phillies are a semi-respectable NL team. The problem with semi-respectable NL teams is that the far superior AL teams reach the World Series exhausted after brutal battles with other far superior AL teams, and whoever reaches the World Series from the NL has only the distinction of somehow managing to be not as bad as everyone else. So a semi-respectable NL team is one that, given much more rest and much less stress (look up the Yankees lineup. Then look up the Rockies lineup. Tell me who you are having more trouble with in the division round) might be able to steal the World Series from the far superior team. Notice examples such as the Cardinals and Phillies in recent years. Even the Marlins, in 2003, won a game 1 they had no business winning because the Yankees had just been through the most intense ALCS ever. But the Marlins were legitimate. They were good. Yanks still should have won (*grumble grumble grumble*) but they had Josh Beckett, A.J. Burnett and Carl Pavano before he was a corpse. I mean... not a bad starting three. The Marlins were good.
The Cardinals were not. Neither, really, were the Phillies. And now that the Phillies are slightly kind of maybe just a wee bit decent, they have a serious shot at knocking off whoever comes out of the epic struggle that is the AL.
Guess it's time to wrap up, but did you know Mark Harmon sported a mustache on a few NCIS episodes? Disturbing.
Oh. And Rick Sutcliff is still an idiot.
~The Sports Maunderer~
Sunday, July 19, 2009
The Tour de--what?
It isn’t easy to pique The Sports Maunderer’s interest in a new sport. It isn’t even easy to convince him that said activity is a sport. There has never been a near miss quite like the Tour de France, though.
While never denying the nearly super-human ability it requires to bicycle through the Alps (Hannibal had elephants to ride on and even he found it difficult), the Tour de France seemed like a less interesting NASCAR, which itself is neither a sport nor particularly interesting.
He was nearly converted, though, when he discovered that the Tour de France is, in fact, a sport. Most bike-racing probably is not, but this particular race involves that often forgotten but always essential element of sport: defense.
Turns out, not only is it a team sport, but riders actively attempt to discourage other riders from doing well, as opposed to merely seeking their own best time and pitting it against everyone else’s. The Sports Maunderer is not yet quite sure about all the ins and outs here, but he has been satisfied by the commentators’ explanations to the point that he is willing to admit the Tour de France into the pantheon of sports.
Which is a great segue into another point: the commentators are good. Not the American ones who speak in stupidese for everyone watching in prime time, but the European blokes who annotate the race live. They manage to explain without patronizing, and in a sport where few people understand much of anything, they still manage to provide salient points that aren’t completely hackneyed. This is particularly difficult when you remember that during the vast majority of the Tour de France, absolutely nothing is happening.
Of course, this is where the problems began. The first few stages were exhilarating. When Astana blew the doors off of everybody in the team time trials, it was fun to watch. When Contador broke away to overtake Lance soon after this—and began a bit of a poop-throwing fight between them—that was interesting.
So here I am, sitting down to watch the Tour, expecting tons of exciting things to happen. Turns out, they don’t. For a whole freaking week, the peloton did nothing. No breakaways, no chasing down the leaders, nothing. I was told to wait for the Alps. That’s where the real action happens.
So The Sports Maunderer waited for the Alps. Turns out, nothing happened the first two days in the Alps, either. But a particular racing advocate was adamant: Sunday is the big day. Turns out it was. Contador annihilated everyone and suddenly the race was over.
WHAT?!
This is like a baseball game being done after 5 and 2/3 innings. This is like ending a football game in the 3rd quarter. Now you might say, some baseball games *are* practically over by then and the same goes for football. But not when they were ridiculously close until twenty seconds earlier! And even if it happens once upon a time, it isn’t the expected result. The Tour de France yanked me around like I don’t think I have ever been yanked before.
Sure, it is cool to see Lance Armstrong get brutally slapped down by just about anyone, and I now root for Contador to break Lance’s record of 7 tour victories (not that I am claiming this is even remotely possible, I’m just saying), but I mean… that’s it?! It’s over?!
It’s like if in the middle of this entry, I just
While never denying the nearly super-human ability it requires to bicycle through the Alps (Hannibal had elephants to ride on and even he found it difficult), the Tour de France seemed like a less interesting NASCAR, which itself is neither a sport nor particularly interesting.
He was nearly converted, though, when he discovered that the Tour de France is, in fact, a sport. Most bike-racing probably is not, but this particular race involves that often forgotten but always essential element of sport: defense.
Turns out, not only is it a team sport, but riders actively attempt to discourage other riders from doing well, as opposed to merely seeking their own best time and pitting it against everyone else’s. The Sports Maunderer is not yet quite sure about all the ins and outs here, but he has been satisfied by the commentators’ explanations to the point that he is willing to admit the Tour de France into the pantheon of sports.
Which is a great segue into another point: the commentators are good. Not the American ones who speak in stupidese for everyone watching in prime time, but the European blokes who annotate the race live. They manage to explain without patronizing, and in a sport where few people understand much of anything, they still manage to provide salient points that aren’t completely hackneyed. This is particularly difficult when you remember that during the vast majority of the Tour de France, absolutely nothing is happening.
Of course, this is where the problems began. The first few stages were exhilarating. When Astana blew the doors off of everybody in the team time trials, it was fun to watch. When Contador broke away to overtake Lance soon after this—and began a bit of a poop-throwing fight between them—that was interesting.
So here I am, sitting down to watch the Tour, expecting tons of exciting things to happen. Turns out, they don’t. For a whole freaking week, the peloton did nothing. No breakaways, no chasing down the leaders, nothing. I was told to wait for the Alps. That’s where the real action happens.
So The Sports Maunderer waited for the Alps. Turns out, nothing happened the first two days in the Alps, either. But a particular racing advocate was adamant: Sunday is the big day. Turns out it was. Contador annihilated everyone and suddenly the race was over.
WHAT?!
This is like a baseball game being done after 5 and 2/3 innings. This is like ending a football game in the 3rd quarter. Now you might say, some baseball games *are* practically over by then and the same goes for football. But not when they were ridiculously close until twenty seconds earlier! And even if it happens once upon a time, it isn’t the expected result. The Tour de France yanked me around like I don’t think I have ever been yanked before.
Sure, it is cool to see Lance Armstrong get brutally slapped down by just about anyone, and I now root for Contador to break Lance’s record of 7 tour victories (not that I am claiming this is even remotely possible, I’m just saying), but I mean… that’s it?! It’s over?!
It’s like if in the middle of this entry, I just
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