Some observations on sport

When the number of games you are back in your division is greater than your number of wins, you are a bad baseball team.  I’m looking at you, Kansas City Royals.

Watching the opening ceremonies for today’s Italy v. United States World Cup match, I came to realize how much better suited Italy’s national anthem is for this than ours.  When they play the Star Spangled Banner, it always has to carry this reverence with it.  But when they play Il Canto degli Italiani, it can be treated as a war song.  Our players stand there solemnly listening, theirs jump up and down with intensity.  We need a war song.  Go back to the drinking song roots of our current anthem.

Who would have thought that the Heat would come back to tie the NBA Finals 2-2?  Fantastic.  I’m just mad that the whole finals are spread out over something like two and a half weeks.

On basketball, part II

So things have changed since we last discussed basketball.

Namely, basketball has seemed to change. We’re currently knee-deep in the NBA Playoffs, which many are calling the best in years. So far, there have already been more postseason overtime games then ever before. And there are still many games to play.

There have been some phenomenal performances. LeBron. Nash. Wade.

And I’ve just gotten into it like never before. I really don’t know what it is, but I’ve watched nearly all of the games. Sure, a bunch of the teams I’ve been rooting for have been knocked out (Clippers, Cavs), but every game has still been high intensity, quality basketball.

So I rescind most of what I said in my first post. The high scores are great, as long as they’re close. The constant scoring is actually pretty fun. Penalties still bug me. The tights are still stupid. And the number of time-outs and penalties in a 12 point game with 20 seconds remaining is still infuriating to me. And I still don’t like college baseketball.

But I was young, and I was seeking to be inflammatory. I’m sorry, basketball. Let’s be friends.

Take me out to the ballgame

Went to my first baseball game of the season tonight, a delightful little 12-6 romp over the Seattle Mariners by the Oakland A’s.  Adam Melhuse hit a big grand slam that now entitles me and 16,000 other ticketholders to a free one-topping personal pizza at Round Table.  What more can you ask for from a night?

Well, we’ll find out tomorrow night, when I head back to the Coliseum for an A’s Double Play Wednesday.  What does that entail, you ask?  Why, it entails $2 tickets and $1 hot dogs, as far as the eye can see.  A complete dinner and a show for just five bucks.

It’s good to like an unpopular team.