Well…holy, holy crap! Michigan just beat Ohio State by the score of 42-27 and I am so damn geeked…Big Ten East champs and go into the playoff next Sat for the championship…and if they win that one, they will be in the playoffs for the National Championship in January…probably the most complete game I have ever seen the Wolverines play…they just ran over Ohio and matched them every time they scored….it has been such a long time since Michigan did this that I thought they never would again….today they were the much better team and will end up in the top four at least and maybe all the way up to second since Ohio was 2nd and got completely whipped….I think I’ll have a smile on my face the rest of the day…Go Blue!
Category Archives: Sports
Man U has become the Lions…
Well….going to talk a little sports today since I don’t have any interest in anything else right now….I think it may be possible that some of you out there are Detroit Lions fans, and if you are, you know the frustration that comes with rooting for a team that hasn’t won anything since before I was in kindergarten…and that same frustration and dread is now there when I watch Man U play…I mean, losing to Watford 4-1? And being in 7 th place in the PL already 12 points behind Chelsea and it’s not even December yet? With all of the money they’ve spent bringing in Christiano Ronaldo and many other players who were supposed to be stars and already losing 7 games in the league? I guess the normal change that happens when a team sucks has happened with the firing of OGS and appointing Michael Carrick (again) as interim manager but who can they get that is better? All the big names that have been successful in the PL are already snapped up so that leaves second tier managers who have never been in charge of a PL team before and who wants to go through that after the same thing with OGS? For a long time, you could watch Man U and expect a good performance and 90% of the time you’d get a win…but now I get the same uneasy feeling in my stomach that they are going to find some way to screw it up…just like I get when I watch the Lions…and there is no reason to subject myself to that as I have for over 60 years…just don’t have the energy for it…so, do I watch Man U play Villareal in the champions league Tuesday…yeah, probably….they haven’t sucked for 60 years yet….
I was wrong about Michigan today…
Well…in the last one, I kinda went off about Michigan and their offense that was stinking up the place and the defense that was letting Wisconsin back in the game…nevermind…in the second half they scored 25 unanswered point and whipped ‘sconsin 38-17 getting them to 5-0…but Wisconsin was 1-2 coming in so they weren’t the team they’ve been over the past few years…so, a bright spot in today’s sports…finally…but Michigan has a tough schedule for the next month so we’ll see how they do with that….yay!
How about some sports?
Well….haven’t done one on sports in a while so I thought I’d see what’s going on in that world…to me anyway…now, Man U is disappointing the hell out of me so far this year…I mean leading until 8 mins to go and then letting Everton back into it and settling for a draw? They just look stiff and they are not playing like a team…there were so many times the defense broke down they got lucky they didn’t lose the game…and this happens in every damn game…with all of the stars on that team, they should do better…if they don’t change something to start scoring more, they can kiss the champions league goodbye for next year. Then Michigan….again, no offense to speak of…they barely squeaked by Rutgers last week and Wisconsin is coming back against them right now and the lead is down to 3 points…not a normal Michigan team at all and it’s getting to be kind of painful to watch them…yeah, I know they are 4-0 but that looks like it’s going to end today against a 1-2 team…and that sucks…one good thing is that nascar is back on in the afternoon today and it isn’t interrupting my nights like it has the past few weeks….not a fan of having cocktails and watching races…would rather watch a movie or a show in my que instead…it just doesn’t feel the same at night with a race on…I would rather watch svengoolie and a bad scifi or horror movie on sat night….and I can do that tonight since the races will be over by then….and then Rat Patrol at 10…..back to normal…
This is just strange…
Well…okay, let’s talk about something different today…not feeling the political thing right now so I want to talk about an ad I saw the other day on the internet that made my jaw drop…I’ve owned boats in the past with the largest outboard motor being a 1961 Evinrude 75 horsepower two stroke 4 cylinder…but yesterday, I saw what I think is just strange…Mercury Marine just announced what I think is the biggest outboard motor ever built…a 450 cubic inch V-12 that makes 600 horsepower….and that’s not the strangest part, that is the price…77,000 dollars…yep, you saw that right, 77 grand for an outboard? My house only cost 13 grand more…you can buy a new Corvette for less than that…you can buy a BMW M3 for less than that….who the hell is the market for something like this? Mercury says it’s for people with 32 to 60 foot boats and those go for close to 200 grand or more so I guess it’s for people with more money than sense….I’m still shaking my head….
This is nuts….
Well…you know, being a female athlete looks like a pain in the butt with men running all of the sports they play….just yesterday, a story broke that the Norwegian womans beach handball team was going to be fined because they didn’t want to wear bikini bottoms when they play…preferring shorts instead since it made them more comfortable…but, that’s not good enough for the head of the Norwegian Handball federation…of course a man, who said “it’s not appropriate clothing for the activity when they are playing in the sand!” So let’s take a look at the men’s team….hmmmmm….I wonder what they are allowed to wear…you guessed it…shorts! So, I wonder when the men will be fined for wearing shorts? This is just nuts but it gets worse…an paralympian long jumper was just told that the official running briefs that she has been using for the past nine years and that Adidas have had approved for use around the world are “too short and inappropriate” and that embarrassed the hell out of her…why are woman constantly subjected to this nonsense? Why can’t these women athletes decide for themselves what to wear? Yeah, we know why….men like to see women in skimpy outfits and the heads of these federations are just a little sexist and think they know better than the athletes themselves…what the hell year is it, anyway? 1860? This crap has to stop and I’ll support any female athlete if they just boycott these sexist assholes….they are people, not objects for men’s amusement…geez…
Formula 1 screwed up my big race day…
Well….it you’ve been here for any bit of time, you’ve heard me go on about my favorite race day of the year…normally the weekend of Memorial Day when we had the F1 race from Monaco, the Indy 500, and then the Coke 600 all on the same day and I spent that day being a couch potato watching 15 hours of racing…but this year, F1 moved the Monaco race to this weekend and screwed up my big race day…ever since I can remember, I’ve spent my Memorial Day Sunday watching all three races and this is going to put a big dent in my fun…I guess I’ll be able to get a bike ride in that morning now instead of using the races as an excuse to take a day off…oh, well….but, it just won’t be the same….
Soccer and greed…
Well…as you know, I’m a big soccer geek with a great affinity for the Premier League in England, so if you don’t care about soccer, you can wait til later when I do a political one…go ahead, I won’t mind…I really can’t say that I’m sure you’ve heard about this…that the richest teams in Europe tried to create a new league called the super league that would allow them to insulate themselves from competition and the thing that makes the Premier League so cool…that, if you have a bad season, you can be relegated to a lower league and have to fight your way back to the Premier League over the next season to get to the financial windfall that being in the Premier League brings. I would be like if the Detroit Tigers had a bad year (don’t they always?) they would be demoted down to AAA ball and play teams like the Toledo Mud Hens or if they were really terrible, they may even go down to AA ball the next year…and this is what the new Super League was designed to do…to guarantee that the money keeps rolling in no matter what the performance of the team is….and this bastardization of soccer would have ruined the entire league set up across Europe where the seasons would mean nothing if there was no way to qualify for this new league. And, guess who this money grab was engineered by? Of course the American owners of three of the Premier League teams along with a few of the big teams in Spain…this announcement was met with outrage across England where soccer is more than just a game but is a way of life for the fans and they saw this as a betrayal of their support over the years that made them the success they are….fortunately, the outcry of the fans and of soccer organizations across Europe killed this stupid idea before it was two days old…and I share the relief of the English fans since I am a huge fan of Man U and to have them as one of the traitors to the tradition of the league irritated the hell out of me and I was prepared to stop watching them in protest…but, thankfully that won’t need to happen and I can continue to enjoy my game….
Too many rules in racing….
Well…if you’ve watched any type of racing in the past 20 years or so, you have seen the explosion of rules that have taken all of the innovation out of the sport. Watch any Indy car race for example…every car is a Dallara that looks exactly the same as all the rest…and all of the engines must meet a rule package that is tested all season to make sure that no one figures out how to make more power or reliability…when I started following this series, there were every kind of car imaginable and they only had to have 4 tires and then anything else went…you had Offenhouser 4 cylinders, Ford V-8′s, Novis, diesels, turbines…front wheel drive, all wheel drive, rear wheel drive cars and any body work they needed to cover the engine and driver….and it was cool to see what people had come up with over the winter to try to get an advantage…now they shave .003 of an inch off a side plate of a wing and the car is disqualified….too many damn rules. This misguided reliance on rules permeates NASCAR, too…with cars being rejected in inspection for being .0002 inches too low or for having a rear fender that is a 16th of an inch too wide and all of this is measured by lasers which is taking all of the creativity out of the sport…I sound like an old guy but, again, when I started following nascar in the early 60′s you had people like Smokey Yunick showing up with a Chevelle that had a foot cut out of the center of the car to lower the drag…and no one would have found out but someone parked a rental Chevelle next to it and then you could easily see the difference…and what about Freddie Lorenzen’s 1966 Ford “banana car” that had the front of the car pushed down by a foot while the rear had been bent up by a foot to give it more downforce…or the special manufacturer cars like the Charger Daytona or Torina Talledaga that gave each manufacturer an advantage for a while. And the engines….like the Chrysler Hemi, the Ford Boss 429, and the Ford SOHC 427 that were built just for this series….and now the engines are basically all the same and in the truck series, they ARE all the same engine built by Ilmor and put in the Fords, Toyotas, and Chevys…no innovation at all other than what is allowed by the series…and this has made all of the series just too damn boring. I think they should have a”run what you brung” series that goes back to 4 wheels and a driver and no other regulations…I mean Bill Elliot lapped Talladega at over 215 mph all the way back in 1985 and the cars have just gotten slower and slower since and how can that be exciting? Okay…that’s enough for now…don’t even get me started about formula 1….it will take one of these just for that….
Is Manchester United for real?
Well…I was going to combine all three of these sports posts into one but the first one went a little long so I decided to break them up into their component parts as I sit here and try to stay busy…I am a little confused about Man U after their start this year in the Premier League….they were mired down the table at about 15th and it appeared they could be headed to relegation which would be one of the biggest shocks in English football…or soccer…but, something happened over the past few weeks and they have climbed up to 7th, only 5 points from the top and with a good shot of making the top four to get back to the champions league in Europe in the spring. But, damn, they are becoming cardiac kids that is a little stressful to watch…like their game yesterday, they went behind 2-0 early and the score stayed that way until well into the 2nd half when I just turned it off with frustration with how they were playing…but then, like someone turned on a switch, they came back to win in the final minutes of the game 3-2 and I missed it until I saw it on the game highlights later in the day….I was shocked to say the least and maybe I’ll have to stay with them in their next match just to see if it’s a fluke or not….it would be nice to have one team that I follow do well since all of the rest of them really, really suck this year….fingers crossed…