Everyone deserves a Second, Second chance.

           One of two things seems to have taken place over the last two weeks. Either Michael Vick and Cedric Benson missed Roger Goodell way too much or, and the more likely scenario, there is just something magical about an evening out at a night club for NFL players. 

The two former offenders of the NFL conduct act found a way to make it back into the graces of Roger Goodell through stories published this week. Cedric Benson, fresh off his turn-around season with the Bengals, gets into fisticuffs with a bar employee in Texas in May. He claims, through his attorney, that the facts laid out are not how the events unfolded. Assault charges pending. Explain that to the ROGER. A man with a previous BUI (Boating under the influence) charge and DUI charge claims that this 3rd account of drunken misconduct is also flawed; similar to his defense in the two previous charges. 

Possible ROGER penalties: 4 game suspension and finger wag.
Possible Verdict: Guilty

Now the second story comes out of the strictly law abiding section of Virginia Beach,Va. Once home to the ever hospitable Bad Newz Kennels canine appreciation center, and current home to upstanding citizens like Marcus Vick, Allen Iverson, and "everybody kills everybody" Terrell Pryor. Michael Vick, fresh off his own redemption season, makes one classic NFL life-rehab flaw: sticking by those troubled childhood friendships. After his 30th birthday party, (wrong side of 25 big boy) a shooting broke out at the exact bar he held said party. Who should be the victim of the shooting? One of Vick's former "Kennels" business partners, Quanis Phillips. If Ray Lewis can get rid of those 'ne'er do wells' for friends, Vick should be just as able. And not so much Cain. I kid. 

Vick maintains that he left the party 30 minutes before the shooter arrived. Everyone corroborates this, but very few will give police witness accounts of the incident; obstructing justice. This casts a curious eye over Vick. Who are these friends he is keeping? People that draw the ire of other "nasty Nathans," to a point where weapons are drawn out? Something seems fishy and Goodell is quite the angler. He'll get to the bottom of this. While Vick may be innocent, the ROGER gave him a short leash after his dog walking days and he may have run too far with it. 


Possible ROGER penalties: 4 game suspension or banishment to Siberia/CFL.

(Its not as exciting as Ricky makes it out to be.)
Possible Verdict: Not guilty or obstruction of justice.

The hope here is that both players learned from the 2nd chances to make their 3rd chances a little less hectic than their 4th chances will be. Beware the ROGER, he is no Paul Taglia-pushover. Retribution may be swift and the Argonauts may find a replacement for Damon Allen after all.

First Shootout of The World Cup! and musical mood setter: Desperado

  Paraguay beats Japan after extra time in the first shootout of the South Africa World Cup. A tight gripped defensive match went straight through a scoreless extra period and into the biggest heart break of all, a shootout. Shootouts: the one time when soccer (futbol/football) becomes strictly an individual sport and thus adding to the brutalness of a defeat. 


No player will feel the pain worse than Japan's Yuichi Komano. The defense man banged his shot off the cross bar to break the deadlock and give Paraguay the lead. Still for Paraguay to win they needed one final shot by Paraguay's version of Jose Altidore. The poise displayed by striker Oscar Cardozo to nail the last shot was unheralded. Considering, until that point he had drawn the ire of his native country by not performing up to his potential thus far in the games. So Paraguay moves on to face either Portugal or Spain....


Well Paraguay had a good run. But, facing either one of these FUTBOL powerhouses, that's enough to make Cardozo return to his group play underwhelming performance. But for now lets allow Paraguay to celebrate and we'll cheer them on with some help from Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. Cardozo you truly are a "Desperado."


DESPERADO!!!

Portugal vs. Espana preview (why Portugal is going home tomorrow)

While this titanic soccer matchup between Portugal and Spain seems to point towards a heavyweight battle to the finish, this battle will prove to be more one sided than most would like to think.  Had the Brazil-Portugal game turned out differently, its not entirely impossible to imagine these two sides squaring off in the final game, however that is not the case, and one of these teams must go home earlier than desired.

These bordering countries are both perennial soccer powerhouses (or at least have been since the turning of the millenia) and save for Spain's epic 2008 Euro victory, neither one have had very much to show for it.  Both clubs have an exorbent amount of talent on their squads and have been projected to go deep in the tournament since the end of the 2006 World Cup. 

 Although arriving to meet in the second round, both of the squads had a bit of a rocky start in South Africa. Spain suffered an uncharacteristic loss to Switzerland, and despite obliterating evil Korea 7-0, Portugal acquired the rest of its points in two scoreless draws with Cote d'Ivore and Brazil.  On the plus side they held Brazil to no goals, and put up a handsome amount of points against a North Korean team that played squarely against the dominant Brazilians.  On the minus side: ITS FUCKING NORTH KOREA.  If they were in any other continent or area of the globe the odds of them even making it to South Africa would be comparable to the odds of getting struck by lightning whilst riding a unicorn.  They are a crap team (105th in the world and I didn't even know 105 countries even played soccer for realz) and 7 goals against a crap team is still not a noteworthy performance, nor a strong judgement of your skill. 

While playing against decent teams Portugal has yet to even score a goal in this tournament.  This is a major obstacle to overcome considering Spain's defense is anchored by greats such as Sergio Ramos and Carles Puyol.  Should an errant Portuguese attacker get through they will still have to face the likes of Iker Cassillas, who is internationally regarded as one of the world's greatest keepers.  If that isn't bad on the other side of the ball you have David Villa who is playing to near perfection up front (minus his hat trick loss on a missed penalty kick), and the extremely deadly Fernando Torres: who despite recovering from injury is still trying to find his finishing touch has seen lots of opportunities (and if he is able to bury just one it is highly likely that scoring touch will be back in full force).  If  Torres is able to get back to form it will be hard to imagine any country beating this very solid Spanish team down the stretch. 

For Portugal to win someone is gonna need to come through and come through big.  That's right, all eyes are on you; Christiano Ronaldo.  Ronaldo the tremendous young football phenom whose good looks and quick feet are overshadowed only by his gargantuan vagina.   You are the "worlds best player" (meaning he is Lionel Messi) and if you wish to live up to your credentials and have people stop referring to you as an std laden, crybaby/pretty-boy now would be a good time to come through for your home country who desperately wants to taste success.  Ronaldo is THAT good, and he can come through and win this game for his country if he plays to potential, however it is far more likely that this potent Spanish offense will score first and a staunch defense will keep Ronaldo frustrated and playing sloppy as a result. 

If Ronaldo and co. score first in an early goal look for an exciting game.  However if the Spanish strike early expect Portugal to start packing their bags.  The latter result is more likely as the Spanish team has more talent spread around, and a very solid chemistry flowing through all eleven players on the pitch.  Final prediction: SPAIN  reigns victorious 2-0.          

A timeline of catatstrophe: the poetically just tale of France's 2010 World Cup run

Can you really blame French Coach Raymond Domenech for France's poor performance in these 2010 World Cup Finals?  Yes....and sadly no.  On the latter end one must first consider what a colossal fuck up this French team is as a whole.  The team ended up dead last in arguably one of the easier qualifying groups following an embarrassing 2-1 loss today against the host country South Africa.  Bafana Bafana got a much needed win in order to keep a shred of dignity while becoming the first host nation to fail to advance through the qualifying stage. 

Yes, even the incompetent 1994 US team made it through the group stage rather gracefully (with out the likes of superstars Tim Howard and Landon Donovan no less).  In lieu of losing even to the worst performing host nation in World Cup history, one must wonder how the defending runner's up have fallen so gracelessly.  For one, the team is not nearly as strong as people make them out to be. 

Just because you were good, doesn't mean you are good, and this 2010 French team is NOT good.  For starters they lack a large depth of talent in any given area.  You have strong players in MF Franck Ribery (the most french looking fuck on that team, I cant stand to even look at his face), F Nicolas Anelka, and D Eric Abidal.  Notice I said strong players, not exceptional players.  These are all good players but none of them are able to hold a candle to the great French players of old such as Zinedine Zidane and Thierry Henry (when he was young and actually could score). While they are all good players in different areas of the field none of them seem to be able to connect, and all of them have had noticeable problems.  Ribery seems to be trying to shoulder the weight of this team in the absence of Zidane.  Noble as his intentions may be, my memory fails to serve me the last time a left winger single handedly led his team anywhere.  Abidal has had strong seasons with his Barcelona squad, but has been shoddy at best in the tourney and had a devastating penalty in the box against Mexico that put any hope of tying that game to rest.  And Anelka....ooooohhh Anelka.  Your heroic display of male diva-ness should be applauded by the likes of Terrell Owens.  You had a pissy fit with your idiot coach and caused your whole awful team to skip out on some much needed practice.

Finally you can blame a great deal of this on the aforementioned idiot coach.  In my eyes a coach/manager has two main responsibilities: to come up with formidable strategies, and to get the most out of your players.  Domenech has failed miserably on both accounts.  His teams lack of cohesion and inability to string passes together are a testament that his implemented strategies are simply not working...this team is NOT playing like a team (ask Zidane he will back me up).  And secondly he is not getting the most out of his players, namely because they all hate his guts.  In bringing together this mediocre crew he left of a few big names out as well as brought in some questionable aging players....ahem, Henry.  That man is old enough to need a colostomy bag (in soccer years that is).  Your little fight with Anelka would have been handled very well, if you were a coach that had the respect of the rest of your team!  You cant just go kicking players off the team without the unwavering support of the rest of your squad, and you can't hope to keep that by replacing Evra as captain undeservedly and having a general diregard for both the morale and health of your team.  Its the sort of incompetence that has soccer fans around the world thinking:  "No, he would never be stupid enough to do any of that! Doing any of that would almost certainly gurantee mutiny.  What?! He did ALL of that?  What a fucktard!"

Lastly, must we all forget that this is the team that made it into the world cup by beating Ireland on a handball goal that would make Maradona blush.  The dirty cheats got what they deserved, and now they have to wait another four years making cheese and wine to prove that they only kind-of suck instead of really sucking.  Good riddance, I say.  Come back next time and leave your handballs and geriatrics at home.

McPhailure with a capital "O"! ( And say it with Baltimore Accent.)

I swore when I started writing I would never be a homer. I never wanted to let my true feelings on "my" sports teams come through in composition or blog posts. 

But I decided to break my rule. Not so much because my team is deserving of an recognition; it is actually the exact opposite.

You see...I am a life long Baltimore Orioles fan. Stop right there with the sympathy. I made my bed long ago. I could have jumped ship for the Red Sox years ago. (I could claim my father's uncle's cousin was a die hard fan and so am I...just like every out of the wood work fan of the mid-2000s) But I stuck with Orange and Black the whole way through. So this article works under the premise that I am very proud the Orioles got national recognition the other night by David Letterman.

Midway into his monologue Letterman joked that "Lady Gaga is going from ball park to ball park making a fool of herself, just like the Orioles." Even Dave couldn't get the line out without laughing. Its PATHETIC. And I'm not mad at Dave. He's right. I am proud of one thing: After 12 straight losing seasons, the Orioles found a way to actually get worse. (you could cut the sarcasm here with a butter knife.)           


After years of the futile Syd Thrift regime, the Orioles brought in the two headed monster (literally) of Mike Flanagan and Jim Beattie. When that failed, the Orioles brought in an actual effective G.M., Andy McPhail... or so we thought. Before McPhail, the only drafted pitching prospect to stay on the roster over 10 seasons was Jim Johnson. (And he's in Triple A Norfolk, currently.) Think of all the pitchers they drafted over that time?! Its near 50!!!!

So McPhail comes in. The emphasis is on developing young pitching. Good. And they go out and get it. They draft some of the youngest, best arms, and hope they will develop. We as a fan base are told to be patient, but that progress is happening. Around year three that's when we should notice improvement...


Fast Forward to Year 3: It is late June and they have not won even 20 games. Several of their young arms have succeeded and then subsequently failed and gone back down to the minors. Their key free agent pick ups did not pan out. It would be one thing for Garrett Atkins to not hit; you cut him. But Mike Gonzales, that is unacceptable. Not only can he not pitch, but he cost the team a 2nd round pick this year. A top high round pick. The season begins to go bad and then spirals out of control. They lose game after game. The young bats of Weiters, Jones, and Reimold go backwards in development. It is a disaster. But there is a silver lining.


For the first time in years the national media is constantly reporting on the Orioles. Their roster moves are constantly examined and everyone wants to find a way to solve the Camden Catastrophe. So the Orioles are back on the map, so to speak. But the biggest break through comes when you are futile enough to become the butt of a joke. 

Thank you David Letterman for making the Orioles at the least... humorous. I am a fan; and no one laughed harder than me. Except maybe Andy McPhail. I hear he might have a sense of humor. He has to...right?