Let’s just get the NuttyBuddy out of the way first. And the NuttyBuddy is reason 3,897,672 why youtube is one of the greatest inventions since the iPod.
Yeah, it’s a great clip, but the Chris Sabo cameo at the end puts it over the top… and it includes a Jack Clark story! Fantastic! (Apperently this has been around for a while, according to my buddy who sent it to me... I guess you've got to play minor league baseball to know it exists).
VFLOAB made our way over to the Bulls game last night for the first time in a few years. Good game, blah, yadda, blah, yadda. I would have liked to seen a little more of Ty Thomas, but the Bulls won. In the 4th, Ben Wallace took the game over down low grabbing every rebound. And Luol Deng was the best player on the floor last night as he continues to mature and get better and better, he’ll never be a #1 guy, but he’s a hell of a #2.
In the last ten weeks or so, I’ve been to two NFL games (Bears), two-college football game (Big Ten), one NBA game, and a few baseball games (Nats and White Sox). The NBA game was the only game that didn’t feel like a game. It was a friggin’ show. Races, dancers, music, lights, fireworks, more lights, games, flying t-shirts and t-shirts falling from parachutes, inflatable mascots, balloons… it was insane – complete and total sensory over load. The game itself was an after thought.
And I can’t help but thinking… this is what’s so great about David Stern? That he’s turned the NBA into a circus? Can you blame this NBA players for being nuts? If you went into to work every day and you’re job was the main event to a 73-ring circus, wouldn’t you be a little nuts? Feel like a… well, I’m not sure. But William Rhoden does offer up one theory.
I’m not going to make drastic connections, claim that NBA players aren’t athletes or something different than entertainers. But that line is blurred to the point where I’m not even sure what the point of the ‘game’ is. I know, sports aren’t a life and death event… and yes people take sports way too seriously… but there is fine line between sport and entertainment. We know that a game is entertainment, but we also want to look beyond the entertainment and find some civic meaning to sports. We suspended belief for a moment to give the game more meaning that it actually is.
What the NBA has done is blurred that line to the point where it’s difficult to suspended that belief. It isn’t a game any more - it is pure entertainment. That’s fine, but it takes away from the game, which not only pisses off the purists* but also the average sports fan who follows the NBA but if were asked to rank the NBA in terms of the other leagues, it would come in around 3rd or 5th. I have no greatest desire to go to a Bulls game today, the bells, whistles, and lights more annoy me than excite me. The above average fan is being pushed to the side to give the white-coporate-yuppie-50-year-old-company-man even more power. Like he needs it, the dickwad has it as it is anyway.
(Though, we did sneak down to the sweet seats during half time and sat in them for the first three minutes of the third until Mr. Yuppie appeared. The look on the guys face to see us in his seats was priceless, a total ‘hey I paid 100 bucks for those seats, but I really don’t want a confrontation since I got this shirt at Brooks Brothers’ look on his face. Either that or the dude was a mute).
That’s also why the NBA is in the state it’s in. For good or bad. I honestly don’t know. There’s a Bill Veeck analogy to make somewhere here but that’s for another time. But I’m pretty sure David Stren is the last 20th, early 21st century B.T. B
(*who btw, only make up 10% of the people in attendance so they really don’t have much of a voice despite them usually being the loudest voice).
We’ve officially reached the point where there is Michigan and Ohio State… and then everyone else. Sorry SEC lovers, but both of those teams would clean up with anyone in the SEC.
And what else can you say about yesterday?
Notre Dame suddenly looks really, really good – in fact don’t be shocked if they find themselves in the National Title game if they beat USC. Of course they’ll get killed, but whatever.
The ACC continues to get worse. And what the hell is going on at Florida State? If they don’t beat Western Michigan, they’re probably not going to go to a bowl game. Amazing.
Cal, Texas, and Auburn all played themselves out of the National Title race… and Cal (unless they beat USC) and Auburn probably played themselves out of the BCS.
As it stands there are four at large BCS bowl bids. Michigan/Ohio State has one of them. Notre Dame has to be a lock at this point. Boise State won so they’re still in. And that last spot? Right now you’d have to look at one of the teams from the Big East, or a two loss SEC team… but that’s going to piss off the likes of Okalahoma (who could argue that they should only have one loss), a whole bunch of ACC teams, and Cal and USC if Cal beats USC. That would be a mess.
And I’m not even bring up Wisconsin since even though they’ll finish with one loss, they can’t be in the BCS since the Big Ten can only send two teams to the BCS.
But I’m almost willing to guarantee that this Wisconsin ‘issue’ isn’t going to die. The Badgers, assuming they beat Buffalo next week, will finish 11-1. That’s good enough for a top ten finish (especially after all those losses yesterday). In fact, I could see Wisconsin finishing around #6 or 7 in the nation before the regular season is over. Yet they’d be shit out of luck in the BCS because… well… the Big Ten can’t send three teams to the BCS. Talking heads… START YOUR ENGINES!
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