When Barry Sanders retired, he left numerous breakable records on the table – most notably the 1,500 yards he decided not to pursue that would have broken Walter Payton’s record of career rushing yards. The fire went out, and Sanders left football before his wheels fell off, failing to break several attainable all-time landmarks. After Sanders’ retirement, there was natural outcry over seeing one of the game’s most entertaining stars hang up his cleats. It was a unique decision made by a unique individual. He chose not to pursue the record. Read more
Everywhere you look this week there are end-of-year and end-of-decade recaps summarizing who succeeded and made the biggest impression over the time period. Obviously, with sports it’s easier to measure success on a large scale – championships are won, awards doled out at the end of each season. But one thing that is often ignored is futility. While half the teams make the playoffs in the NHL each year, the other slate of teams is sent home without any sort of recognition or attention for their struggles.
That’s why I’m impressed that CNNSI has included a “Worst Franchise” of the decade along with the other awards the site dished out. For some reason, though, nobody talks about the Thrashers as the joke of the league. Sports has a contemporary set of teams who’ve become synonymous with being routinely awful – the Clippers, Raiders, Pirates, to name a few. However, none really stands out in hockey as the team everyone beats up on. Is it because those other teams have storied histories that they can fall back on? Could we be pitying the new guy, giving him some time to establish himself before we really let him have it? Read more
The NFL has gone completely pass crazy. The best teams are those with the best quarterbacks. No longer is it true that a team can win without a quarterback playing at an elite level. Look at the quarterbacks who have clinched playoffs spots already: McNabb, Romo, Favre, Rodgers, Brees, Warner, Brady, Palmer, Manning, and Rivers. Elite quarterbacks playing at elite levels.
Meanwhile, top rushers leading top teams have gone the way of the Dodo. As my fellow Pittsburghers at Mondesi’s House pointed out, there’s a possibility that none of the top five rushers in the league will be playoff bound (though either Thomas Jones or Ray Rice will probably end up there). But the five quarterbacks with the highest QB ratings…all of them have already extended their seasons. Read more
During the “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” year-in-review episode that aired this week, the host talked about the players he most enjoyed covering and seeing grow up. That player was Brandon Jennings. It’s one of those unique sets of circumstances where a reporter sets out to write one story – in this case about Jennings’ transition from high school, to Italy, to the NBA – and winds up finding an even bigger story. The question of whether more young players will follow in Jennings’ footsteps and head overseas until they turn 19 and are eligible for the NBA is almost irrelevant. What Gumbel keyed in on instead is Jennings’ fast maturity and ability to prove his doubters wrong by showing what he’s made of, on- and off-the-court.
The Bucks’ guard has gotten off to a fast start that surprised even him. “Actually I was kind of scared, how good I was playing,” Jennings told Sports Illustrated. Some saw Jennings’ 55 points in a game a few weeks ago as a coming out party. Not Jennings, though. He’s since settled back into his job as a “solid” player who now commands extra attention from defenders after showing that he’s capable of taking over the game at any point. Read more
I used to rag on baseball all the time for the innate unfairness of the sport’s unregulated field. Especially in a statistic-driven sport, it feels plain old silly that such a serious game would be designed without official sizes. Though I understand that in any given game, both teams are playing with the same dimensions, it simply seems wrong that over the course of a season, one team gets the Green Monster for 81 games and another gets Coors Field.
Alas, if I want to continue griping about our National Pastime, I have little choice but to lump football in the same category. As it stands now, the four best teams in the NFL will not have to play a game in the cold throughout the playoffs. The Colts, Saints, Vikings, and Chargers are teams built for speed and finesse. And two of them will likely glide their way to the Super Bowl by the sheer Teflon-ic virtue of Astroturf. Read more
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Peyton Manning has been the most dominant and consistent player in the NFL – and arguably all sports – of the decade. Yet somehow entering this season, Manning was met with skeptics – his age, his new coach, a depleted wide receiver core, uncertainties at running back, and so on and so forth. For every plausible reason they could come up with, people doubted Manning still had the fire to get it done on the field. In August, entering the season, some even tried to warn us: Manning might be better than ever.
But now that the Saints undefeated season has been sideswiped, you are seeing people returning to Manning and the Colts who, at 14-0, are finding themselves with a lot of pressure and even more support from fans. Manning just takes it all in stride, using his leadership and experience to stay in command and control. It’s that everyday workmanship and sense of monotony that might lead NFL fans away from Manning until they’re forces back. He’s an old story who continues to remain relevant. Teams like the Saints, on the other hand, provide fresher topics of interest. Even if you’re not paying attention to him, Manning does his job with more precision than anyone else at any position. Read more
In front of 12,178 fans at the Prudential Center on Wednesday night, Martin Brodeur tied Patrick Roy’s NHL record for regular season appearances by a goalie. In 16 seasons – all with the Devils – Brodeur has played 1,030 games as of this writing. For the record, it took Roy 18 seasons to reach the mark. Brodeur was playing when I became interested in hockey back in the early 90s during the Lemieux/Jagr regime. Not only is he still playing, he’s dominating – just as he did back then, making him, possibly, the quietest-dominant player in the sport. Read more
While everyone was focused on Roy Halladay, Curtis Granderson, and, you know, other sports that are in session, the Chicago White Sox have been piecing together a brand new roster focused on speed and athleticism ahead of the power that defined their team over the past few seasons. As is prone to happen with aging stars like Jermaine Dye and Jim Thome at the helm, the Sox struggled to keep up their offense. So, as the season wound to a close, manager Ozzie Guillen began to frame a new gameplan, the one he secretly always wantd to implement.
With General Manager Ken Williams’ approval, Guillen has gone immediately to work on his team to turn them into a faster and grittier bunch. With the additions of some versatile veterans like Mark Kotsay and Omar Vizquel, Guillen has a lot of flexibility at play in his line-up card possibilities. You listen to Guillen speak about the upcoming season and he comes alive like he did in 2005 when the Sox were at their best. It was this week’s addition of Juan Pierre, via a trade with the Dodgers, that brought Guillen the last piece of the puzzle: a speedster to replace Scott Podsednik in the outfield and atop the batting order. In Guillen’s new approach, it all starts with Pierre. Read more
Of the eight current division leaders right now, six starting quarterbacks have started every game. Naturally, that is no coincidence. Stay healthy; win games. As is the case in the injury-riddled NFL, however, staying healthy is easier said than done, especially for quarterbacks. Through the first 13 weeks of this season, exactly half of all starting quarterbacks have started every game. In the case of Tennessee, Cleveland, and Oakland, starters have sat due to other reasons than injury. No less, teams looking to make the playoffs often have to turn to their backup quarterbacks. With the keys to the car in a new driver’s hands and the season’s future suddenly in jeopardy, teams start to realize the value of a reliable backup quarterback. Read more
You’ll often hear sports fans rattle off details about games that they recall as their first sports memories. While the 1989 World Series Game 3 that was interrupted by the Loma Prieta earthquake is my most vivid “first” memory, it’s not entirely true. As I do recall the earthquake interruption, I wouldn’t exactly say that I experienced it as a sports fan, failing to recognize the impact of that moment at the time. What’s more interesting a question, in my opinion, is what moment serves to truly exemplify your earliest memory as a sports fan.
Mine took place on December 5, 1990. It wasn’t even during a game. Rather, it was a trade that the Padres and Blue Jays made that was what I remember asa blockbuster deal. The Padres sent Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter to the Jays in exchange for Fred McGriff and Tony Fernandez. I was a young baseball fan at the time and I appreciated then that such a trade of high-caliber and highly valuable players was a rarity. I don’t remember following either of those clubs in the 1990 campaign, but I did find myself enthralled by the idea of two teams swapping players in the off-season in a move to improve. Read more
Barring a catastrophic 2008-or-2009-Broncos-esque meltdown, the Cleveland Cavaliers will make the playoffs this year. And when they do, Shaq will make the post-season with his fifth team. Shaq. Who will retire with the fifth most points in NBA history. Five teams. With Iverson’s return to the 76ers this year, he too, has hit the historic landmark of changing teams at least four times. Two all-time great players are playing for their fifth teams in the NBA. Read more
TheSportsNook.com saves ticket buyers 20% by eliminating service and handling fees
December 10, 2009: TheSportsNook.com, an online ticket broker announces a “no up-charge” ticket buying experience. Using a straight-forward “what-you-see-is-what-you-pay” pricing structure, the Site’s customers never encounter surprise add-on fees.
That’s a completely different approach than other online ticket services. Most ticket sellers lure customers in with artificially low ticket prices. But as soon as the buyer clicks the “buy” button, they’re hit with add-on service and handling fees. Those fees can increase the total ticket costs by as much as 20%. “We know other sites are making a killing on their fees, but we don’t do business that way,” says TheSportsNook.com CEO Josh Gould. “Our customers pay the listed price plus a reasonable shipping fee. Nothing’s hidden, so in the end, we’re almost always cheaper,” he adds.
“We know other sites are making a killing on their fees, but we don’t do business that way.”
TheSportsNook.com sells tickets to NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, College Basketball, Football and Hockey, Horse Racing/Rodeo, Olympic Sports, as well as Auto Racing, Concerts and even Theater tickets. Gould invites ticket buyers to run a side-by-side price comparison to see how much they actually save on his Site.
The NBA All-Star game has never been about the game itself. It’s about the “hoop”la that surrounds it. The Saturday night competitions, the press conferences leading up to it, the who’s who at the parties, and especially the selection process to get there. Being chosen as an all-star has never been about who the most deserving are, rather it’s an indication of players’ popularity among fans. I’ve written before about the importance of transcending the American audience and game to become a global superstar. It shows in the All-Star voting.
Tracy McGrady is on pace to be selected as a starter for the Western Conference despite not having laced up his shoes for a game this season. While this may come as a surprise to those who deem McGrady unworthy as a result of the injury that’s sidelined him, it’s a reflection of how much name power alone can propel a player’s career forward. As the article points out, McGrady has greatly benefited from his association with teammate Yao Ming who garners attention and votes from overseas fans. It’s true that if McGrady had been in the lineup to this point, he’d probably have earned his rightful spot on the frontlines for the Western team. Yet, without playing a minute of basketball, he’s secured it anyway. Read more
Jimbo Fisher may be an excellent choice to replace Bobby Bowden as Florida State University’s football team’s head coach. Cincinnati’s Brian Kelly has certainly earned the credibility to fill the Notre Dame vacancy. If Kelly leaves, the Bearcats, of course, will open up a job search as well. Kansas and Louisville already have openings and the college football off-season isn’t over yet. In fact, it hasn’t even begun. Read more
