The Game High

Manute Bol Sighting at the United Center

Manute Bol, the 7'7 former NBA oddity and mentor to Luol Deng, was present at the United Center to simultaneously watch the Bulls and obstruct the views of anyone sitting within three rows behind him.  The Bulls squeaked out an 83-81 victory, but there were some notable events that transpired, besides clinching a playoff spot.

Easy Points
Tyrus Thomas was standing 2 feet inside the three point line, took one dribble and dunked the ball.  He had at least 3 fourth quarter dunks.  For a jump-shooting, perimeter oriented team, it was nice to see some easy baskets come the Bulls way.

Garbage Shots
Ben Wallace banked a shot off the top of the backboard.  Big Ben typically puts a high arc on his shoots, but this was straight out of H-O-R-S-E.  Total garbage.  We'll take it.

Favorable Calls
With the game tied, Kirk Hinrich got fouled by Carlos Delfino on a 3-point shot with 2.8 seconds remaining.  Even at home, the refs never give the Bulls these calls.  Then again, it was Carlos Delfino.

Opponent Respect
Tyrus Thomas is dunking his way into the respect of the league veterans.  Case in point, Rasheed Wallace had some words for Tyrus Thomas after the buzzer.  Rasheed genuinely seemed to be communicating a "good game" endorsement to Tyrus.  And it always nice to see Rasheed playing nice.  It wasn't long ago that Rasheed would spend his court time yapping at Bulls players, staff, scoreboard operators, or any fan within earshot.

Let it be known that the Pistons were without Webber and Hamilton, but still the Bulls managed to blow a 12 point lead with 5 minutes left.  Nonetheless, it was pleasant to witness an uncharacteristic Bulls win.

Another Reason to Get Stoned Instead of Boozing

Maybe the world should ease up a little on professional athletes who occasionally indulge themselves in non-performance enhancing drugs.  According to new research, and anyone without a complete lack of commonsense, alcohol and tobacco are more harmful than cannibis and ecstasy. 

Using a "matrix of harm" to classify 20 different drugs:

Professor Colin Blakemore added: “Drug policy is primarily aimed at reducing the harm to individual users, their families and society. But at present there is no rational, evidence-based method for assessing the harm of drugs. We have tried to develop such a method. We hope that policy makers will take note of the fact that the resulting ranking of drugs differs substantially from their classification in the Misuse of Drugs Act and that alcohol and tobacco are judged more harmful than many illegal substances.”

Or, as the great Jeff Spicoli once said:

All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I'm fine.

Seriously, has anyone considered why an athlete might choose to smoke weed, beyond the juvenile explanations you would hear from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency?  Does competitive stress have something to do with it?  You can't tell me it's not a factor.

Now, getting caught driving around with 213 pounds of marijuana in your van is one thing (see Nate Newton), but otherwise athletes are fairly discreet about their personal drug habits.  That's why the press shits egg rolls whenever a player is publicly linked to drug possession, even if it was an empty container, as in Michael Vick's airport questioning.

No one, athletes included, is going to stop smoking weed.  The hundreds of millions of dollars in annual drug busts shows how much demand there is in the U.S. alone.  The seizure amounts get larger every year, so it can't just be the entire Portland Trailblazers team roster who is out there purchasing it.

 

PicksPal as a Gambling Guide

Disrupting the gambling market is always entertaining.  So if PicksPal, a fantasy sports betting site (no money is exchanged), can continue its predictive dominance over Vegas, look for yours truly to give it a spin.  And with all my gambling proceeds rolling in, I'll have more time to peruse the internet for quality content like this:

Ballers with Randoms

See if you can find the former Bulls hangin' with the ladies in this amusing photoset. 

This could easily be a quiz for fans to identify some rather obscure NBA players.  Michael Doleac anyone?

Life Is a Bracket

Life is full of choices, so why can't they all be made using brackets?   Well, authors Richard Sandomir and Mark Reiter have a little book that breaks it all down for you - "The Enlightened Bracketologist".   Hardly an original concept, the book does offer some interesting brackets on some ridiculous topics such as Male Vices, Game Show Catchphrases and Plastic Surgery Disasters.  However, the sideline reporter "Who Would You Do? tournament bracket is conspicuously absent.

In the simplest of terms, brackets are fun.  You don't have sports in March without a 64 team basketball tournament.  And without a bracket structure, there is no Madness.  It's difficult to see why other sports haven't considered converting their post seasons to fixed brackets.

For instance, what if the NFL put all of its 32 teams into a bracket to the Super Bowl?  Seeding could be based upon some combination of team record, margin of victory, computer ranking, etc.  You would then have 5 weekends of playoff games as the bracket filled itself out.  Eliminate a preseason game or two and it's not as if the season would be any more grueling. 

Who wouldn't want to participate in an NFL tournament bracket pool?  The amount of cash wagered on football would skyrocket.   The NCAA will never admit it, but the gambling interests in its tournament is an economic boon to college basketball.  The more brackets that get filled, the more viewers tune in to watch the games, the higher the broadcast rates the NCAA can charge.  The benefits would be no different for the NFL.

The only difficulty I see in making this happen is sorting out the home field advantage issue.  Although, it would be hilarious to have Soldier Field serve as a neutral site to host the NFC South regionals where two football games are played back-to-back on a wintery Sunday.  The playing field turf would be absolutely destroyed.

The Finality of Sport

Good morning class, and welcome to today's lecture, "The Innate Male Ability to Watch Sports Endlessly:  Disease or Superpower?"

With the NCAA tournament bracket now set, the perfect storm of sports viewing is upon us.  Over a 4-day timespan beginning this Thursday, there will be 48 tournament games with at least 40+ hours of televised basketball available on CBS alone.

For any basketball-loving male, or any guy competing in a tournament office pool, it's not difficult to imagine him sitting on the couch all weekend soaking up the games.  For any female acquaintance of his, it's quite easy to imagine her being less than enamored with his monopolistic command of the remote control.  But why?

The simple answer:  the finality of sport.  At the end of any game, there is a scoreboard that tells you who is the winner and who is the loser.  Unless the game was referee'd by Hue Hollins (see Game 5, 1994 Eastern Conference Finals), this is unequivocal proof of who the better team was.  In life there is no scoreboard.  There are no clear cut winners or losers.  Every day is an open-ended question mark that only leads to another day.  It's just too damn complicated.  Enter sports.  A distraction from the drudgeries of life with a simplistic means of determining the outcome. 

This finality of sport is extremely gratifying to all men.  (I know this because I surveyed myself about it.)  Women, generally less deterministic about such things, derive considerably less pleasure from it.  (I know this because I asked one about it yesterday.)  The reasons why a man can watch 12 hours of football on Sunday are the same reasons why a woman chooses to watch "Days of Our Lives" all week.  Soap operas never end.  Their overall lack of finality is exactly what appeals to women.  The drama will always continue to the next day.

Understanding such gender differences might alleviate ignorant commentary from your mother-in-law when she suggests to your wife that "your husband watches so much sports, I think he might have has a disease."  Of course, there is a fine line between a passion for sports and a sports addiction, but I can't think about it now because I have a bracket to fill out.

Between the tournament games and the north side St. Patrick's Day celebration all happening this Saturday in Chicago, this town is set for one massive hammer-to-the-head pounding hangover come Sunday.  So if you're stuck on the couch without the strength to move, there's only one thing you can do.  Watch more basketball.   

Ronnie "Woo Woo" Is Looking for a Free Meal At HoHoKam

Overall fan nuisance, Ronnie "Woo Woo" Wickers is about one Cubs uniform away from being a homeless man.  Yet every year, he somehow manages to keep on, keeping on.  Random tales from the life of Woo Woo always seem to trickle in over the course of every Chicago summer.  However, a good friend and great Cubs fan sent me this early Spring training report on Ronnie's antics.

I'm at HoHoKam today for the Cubs v A's game doing what I do at all the games... pretty much nothing except catch a little ball and bullshit with players.  As I am the concessions warehouse manager I have a radio to keep in touch with the other managers on premise.  All day I listen to the most unintelligible drivel. 

Today a call came across the radio asking if "we (the concessions company) feed the players."  A moment of silence followed and the question was asked to be repeated.  "Do we feed the players?"  The concessions manager, who may be the most clueless individual I have met, claims to be checking on it. 

Moments later, after consulting with the GM (who isn't clueless), he gets back on the radio and says..."No the team supplies their food so if they come to a concession stand they are on their own." 

Now these calls about feeding the player are coming from the stand in the center field lawn seats, a good five minute walk from any place a player could be, the bullpen being the closest.  This call was placed in the 5th inning just as the starters began to be pulled.  What player wants to go to the lawn seat concession stand, through a crowd of fans during the game for a hot dog?  Not even the biggest scrub. 

Turns out it was Ronnie Woo Woo.  The people, specifically the stand manager, thought Woo was a player.  One of the biggest laughs I've ever had.

Classic Woo Woo.

Got Vomit?

Researchers at the Navy have been hard at work, developing a vomit gun.  In case you were wondering were your tax dollars are going, Invocon Inc. is developing a weapon that can shoot invisible beams through walls and cause people to get dizzy and fall over. The beam can also cause motion-sickness that can induce vomiting.  The device is not to be confused with Rex Grossman's throwing arm, which has been known to produce similar effects.

In fact, let's hope "vomit gun" becomes a new addition to the sports vernacular of football.  Sportscasters always describe hard throwing quarterbacks with corny phrases such as "He's a gunslinger" or "He's got a cannon for an arm!"  Well, what do you say about a strong armed QB with a penchant for throwing off his back foot into triple coverage?  Let's all say "He's got a vomit gun".

Bears Wasting No Time Destroying Fan Optimism

The Chicago Bears organization, still fresh off it's disappointing Super Bowl performance, is doing everything it can this off-season to eradicate any hope it can return to the  Super Bowl. 

First, the pennypinchers allowed the contract negotiations with coach Lovie Smith to become a public spectacle.   Any goodwill between the Bears and Lovie Smith has now been eradicated and I get the sense this relationship will forever be estranged.  I don't recall Smith smiling a whole lot at his press conference announcing his new $22M deal.

Of course, the Bears must find a way to pass this new expense onto their customers, so here come the increased ticket prices!

The Bears follow this maneuver by pissing off Lance Briggs with a franchise tag.  As much as Briggs may be overreacting, his quote is telling:

"There's a difference between the Chicago Bears team and the Chicago Bears organization.  The Chicago Bears team? The coaches, players, city and fans? Yeah, I could stay there forever. I love it. But the Chicago Bears organization? I don't want to be there anymore. I won't play for them and I'll do everything in my power to keep from playing there."

Briggs nailed the difference between the Bears team and organization.  This sentiment has been echoed by former Bears for decades.  Player pay raises don't come easily from the Bears, especially for an organization that "throws quarters around like manhole covers" (classic Ditka quote).

Finally, the Bears hit the PR disaster trifecta by trading Thomas Jones to the Jets for a 26-spot move upwards in the second round.  Other than hand over the running back duties to the injury-prone Cedric Benson, how does this help the team?  Unless you're handing off to Larry Johnson or LaDainian Tomlinson, almost every team in the league is using a two-man tandem at running back.

The Bears incompetence at running a franchise never ceases to amaze.  Sure, players become discontent and demand to be traded or are unhappy with their contracts.  But the Bears consistently bring these shit-storms upon themselves and deserve absolutely no sympathy from its fan base..  Draft Benson when you already have Jones, don't resign Smith or Briggs last season to lesser extensions when you had the chance... it's business as usual for the Bears.

Best Bulls Game of the Season, On Tape Delay - Brilliant!

Kudos to the schedule makers at WCIU television, who found it frivolous to actually broadcast the Bulls game live on Sunday.  Instead it came on tape delay at 5 PM, a full three hours after tipoff.  I realize that WCIU has a tough job, juggling all of its high quality shows around, with classics such as "Malcolm and Eddie", "Jamie Foxx", "King of Queens" and "Cheaters".   Some many important reruns, so little time slots! 

The fans of "Martin" and "Living Single" reruns must have quite the pull over at WCIU to bump the Bulls game back 3 hours on their precious Sunday afternoons.  But if you're a Bulls fan, you just got screwed out of what may have been the best game of the season.

To re-enact the game, I've selected Lloyd's dream from "Dumb and Dumber".  Lloyd will be representing Ben Gordon, while the restaurant chef will be posing as Michael Redd.  That's right.  For three and a half quarters, the Bulls took a beating from Redd (52 points, 44 points through 3 quarters).  Then Ben Gordon got up, wiped the blood off his lip, grinned, and tore out the Bucks' heart (48 points, 20 in the fourth quarter).

[The fight scene is around the 2:50 mark]

Enjoy!