Juiced Sports Blog*: Writing Enhanced by Flaxseed Oil » Guest Post

NASCAR Sucks

mhblatt — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 06:53:25 +0000

I’m on vacation until January 7, so I have some guest posts lined up. Today, I’m featuring Rick from Halftime Adjustments

First a thanks to JSB for the invite. If you are a Halftime Adjustments reader, then you know that my primary interests in sports are the Cleveland pro franchises, and the Ohio State Buckeyes. Aside from fantasy football, I usually don’t have much time to watch or follow many other teams or sports. I recently moved into an area however, that has a huge NASCAR fan base. I can’t tell you how nauseated that makes me.

Like most people, I have a few pet peeves. Two of mine are traffic and crowds, and as such I can’t stomach the idea of paying to sit in a huge crowd and watch a traffic jam. Seriously. I am not impressed. Do I think that there is great skill involved in driving a race car? Sure. It takes great reflexes, yada yada. But no way do I think that these drivers are athletes. Could some of them be athletic…of course, but it takes no special athletic prowess to drive fast and turn left. I do it all the time.And as for the fans, why not save your cash, get drunk at home, and watch the race on TV? By the way, I had to laugh at the fans who painted a number 8 on their trucks, and now have to figure out how to turn it into a different style 88. Awesome. And another thing, can we get the Dale Sr. flying angel 3’s off all vehicles now? That would be great. So the question is, after spending a significant amount of time in ‘NASCAR land’ will I be transformed somehow? Um, no. I don’t think so. Thanks for playing. And thanks to JSB for the chance to rant.- rick

Sports Road Trip: Phoenix

mhblatt — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 00:40:00 +0000

Sports Brethren blogger, Panther Superfan Jerry,
is greated at University of Pheonix Stadium.

Guest Post: The Sports Brethren

How Can a Stadium be Named After an Online University?

For all intents and purposes, this was my first time in Phoenix; it was resplendent with potential.

Entering from the West on the freeway you can make out the University of Phoenix Stadium just north of town. It looks like a grain silo. It looks like a melted Hershey kiss. It looks like, god forbid, a soccer stadium. I eyed it with disdain, as that was the battlefield on which my Panthers would soon play.

Phoenix has an exponential history with sports. While the Suns have been there for forty years, and the Cardinals have called Phoenix home for twenty, the Coyotes, Mercury and Diamondbacks have only been around since the 90s. NASCAR has a race in Phoenix, and they are trying to get an MLS squad there, which is surely the reason soccer hasn’t caught on in the US.

We number two! I mean #1! …Well, at least better than the Cards…

It’s a pleasant town, as are its surrounding metropolises that house their sports teams. Technically, only the D’backs, Suns, and Mercury play in Phoenix, along with the Arena League Rattlers. Everyone else is either in Tempe or Glendale. It’s kinda like those smaller fish you see drafting with sharks, only the sharks are Steve Nash.

The secret is out, as Phoenix is the fastest growing city in America and let me tell you, it shows. There’s a ton of construction going on, and high rises are sprouting up like wildflowers. The greater the population, the more sports fans. From what I gathered, Arizona State’s still the biggest draw in town, but I’d like to gauge the city when the Suns are in full bloom.

A day on the road

Stopping to shop (and dance) Refueling…

Ready to drive again…

The sports fans of Phoenix are a dichotomy. There are fanatics for the Sun Devils, and bottle-throwers for the Diamondbacks, but we didn’t see too many gung-ho types for the Cardinals. That probably has something to do with their, y’know, performance more than anything else. The denizens are very proud of their new stadium and it inspires sympathy more so than any other emotion. It’s kind of adorable.

All in all, Phoenix is a great town for sports fans and I eagerly look forward to returning when Old Jesus leads our Panthers to the Super Bowl in February. Hey, we did beat the Cardinals…

Good thing this picture ain’t in focus.

Want to guest blog? Email mhblatt(at)gmail.com if interested.

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PRESEASON, PRESEASON, WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?

mhblatt — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 14:08:00 +0000

Guest Post: S2NBlog

Preseason May Be Annoying, But It’s Necessary

Pre-season football serves a purpose. Or so we think. Well, actually, if you’re watching Hard Knocks on HBO, you see that it does serve one: teams really have to distinguish what their needs are, whom they have on their depth charts, and which picks and free agents aren’t panning out.

But everything about the pre-season from a fan’s point of view stinks, except for the fact that after a summer full of baseball, most of us are ready for Sundays as we know them to return with a vengeance. The return of football in some form doesn’t quite make up for what we get in August. If you’re a season ticket holder, you’re getting fleeced for the exhibitions as well as the eight home games, and when your team winds up with injuries that either put a scare into the coaching staff (say, Redskins QB Jason Campbell’s bruised knee), wreak havoc on depth charts ( the four players the Giants lost against the Ravens on Sunday night, although only the ruptured Achilles of receiver Michael Jennings appears to be the big one), or nearly destroy your season before it begins (the Broncos lose Ebenezer Ekuban on the D-line and get a scare from Travis Henry’s knee), you could be convinced that the number of games before the season starts does more harm than good. There’s a reason players with secure roster spots hate these games; some even negotiate not playing in pre-season games into their contracts (I believe LaDainian Tomlinson is the latest to do this.)

However, what’s the alternative? Every year someone will write a column or a blog post about the futility of pre-season games, propose playing fewer of them, and it will be lost in the ether for one specific reason: there’s really no other way to evaluate the non-secured folks reliably than to simulate game conditions. Practice and training camp can only tell you so much. If you have to play for your life as a professional, you’ve gotta show it in some form in game action. Sadly, there is no easy fix here, and this is why personnel guys at camps have a Rolodex filled with player names to call up for a tryout at any time (evidenced by the last episode of the aforementioned Hard Knocks, where the Chiefs personnel pro is dialing up four wideouts to replace one who’s likely out for the season.) Truthfully, the futility is part and parcel of football: the risk is great, but the risk of not playing those games and being able to separate the wheat from the chaff is greater, possibly even fatal, to the careers of the coaching staff, the front office, and the players with secure positions.

The least the teams could do to compensate for this is sell the pre-season game tickets for a quarter to half price. If you’re only going to see the first team for about a half or so at most, adjust the costs accordingly. But, this is professional sport, and the owner of your rooting interest is only interested in doing something for you when you can do something for him (like going halfsies on that new stadium by asking you to voluntarily up your property tax rates.) Altruism in the boardrooms of NFL teams is in short supply. Thing is, we’re all just as addicted for evidence that this is the year for our team, even though exhibitions have no relationship to actual regular season performance (Oakland only lost one pre-season game last year before proceeding to go 2-14), and the cycle continues, unmolested.

Preseason

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