четверг, августа 31, 2006

Deadline Time!

Last Saturday proud Arsenal lost to the beggers that play for Manchester City 1-0, and the transfer deadline was less than a week away with Ashley Cole pouting to join the russki bluebellies at Chelsea, and Jose-Antonio Reyes longing for the plains of Spain where it mainly rains. Well, today Cole is with all the cup-toting jerks at Chelski and Reyes is at Real Madrid. But Arsenal was not left empty handed with rain pouring off its hat brim while seeing a beloved wear blue as the Germans wear grey. No, Gooners received Willy Gallas, a Frenchman (Allez Les Bleus!) and five million pounds in exchange for Cole. In exchange for for Reyes Arsenal received Julio Baptista, a Brazilian whom I know almost nothing about, but a number of Goonerbloggers are excited about Baptista.

Myself, I'm excited about Gallas joining Arsenal; Cole and Gallas are both fine defenders, and both have to protect their sad sack sorry no good excuses of keepers from being shown to be the hucksters they are. But... Gallas is verstile player with yo-yo like ball control and superb ability to play the field.

Hopefully, Baptista will provide similar variety of skills, and both should fit in Wenger's Total Football schemes.

If anybody would like to make a correction or would like something explained, please do so in the comments.

понедельник, августа 21, 2006

Baseball Zombies and Other Happenings

Mariners are no longer rugged seafarers riding, conquering the high seas, currently they're a crew-- not unlike the undead of the Pirates of the Carribean movies--manning not some fearsome man'o'war, but a paddle-boat. They haven't won for two weeks and Saturday they commited the unpardonable sin of trading Jamie Moyer, a pitcher who has spent most his career with the M's, to the Phillies for two single-A pitchers. I feel helpless supporting a team that would make such a senseless--tasteless--trade like that. Mariner Housewife also is gloomy about the trade.

Premiership swung into motion on Saturday, with Arsenal finishing 1-1 against Aston Villa. Arsenal's goal came off a Theo Walcott pass to Gilberto Silva. Walcott, age 17, was on England's World Cup squad, but never saw a moment of action all the while. Now, he has shown himself in a game, and hopefully we will be able to see more action like this from him for this and upcoming seasons.

Walcott's place on the World Cup squad came at the expense of Jermain Dafoe, a star striker who was featured in Adidas ads during the cup, and Dafoe, not only is more established player than Walcott is also the star of Tottenham Hotspurs, the Gunners' arch-rival. Dafoe tore up the pitch in a recent friendly for England to show Eriksonn was an idiot for not bringing him along, and Theo showed him to be a wanker for not playing him.

Here is David Hirshery of Deadspin account of last weekend.

суббота, августа 19, 2006

Golden Helmet League

The Golden Helmet League-conference?- is kinda my version of Fantasy league. Instead of building an imaginary team out of real players with those players stats, it's an imaginary league of six real teams, Army, Navy, Notre Dame, Pitt, Purdue and Vanderbilt, and I keep track of the results. To no one's suprise Notre Dame won the league, beating Navy, Pitt and Purdue. I'm afraid these teams aren't BCS eligible, and can only win an at-large berth. All these teams are East coast teams with golden helmets (no duh), Georgia Tech is applying, and UCLA and Washington are asking for exemption.

Schedule:
Notre Dame vs Purdue Sep. 30
Navy vs Notre Dame Oct. 28
Army vs Notre Dame Nov. 18
Army vs Navy Dec. 02

Vanderbilt and Pitt are not playing any in "conference" games.

пятница, августа 18, 2006

Towel Throwing

It's official, I've given up on blogging the Mariners for the remainder of the season. It'll be a mercy when it's over. It has an almost halfway decent year for them, but I think they've given up, and I can't think of any reason not to join them in their dismay. The only way I'll mention them again is if they get involved in a massive brawl with the Oakland A's that involves actual punching, leaving the field strewn with Athletics. Fat Chance.

But before I quit I'd like to leave you with a boatload of links to Mariner websites, blogs and Seattle newspapers. Yeah, I should've done this a long time ago too.

Mariner Magic
Official site
USS Mariner
Sports and Bremertonians
Mariner Housewife (Best blog of the bunch, plus she's a Portland resident).
Mariner Morsels
Marinerds
Nice Guys Finish Third
Seattle Times
Seattle Post Intelligencer

But I aint done yet. College and pro football is just around the corner, the English Premier League is ready to get going. After all of this is the start of the NHL season, then a month later the NBA (home of hometown favorites Portland Trailblazers).

Tomorrow I'll try to write up a preview of the Golden Helmet League. But for now here is a link to the Deadspin preview of the New England Patriots (my favorite football team), and links to That's on Point's preview of the Premiership, parts one, two, three and four.
I'm rooting for Arsenal, a team that's probably overloved, but at least it's not Manchester United or Chelsea. Chelsea might seem to be the more logical, Russian choice for me considering that its sometimes nickname "Chelski" comes with being owned by the Russian billionare Roman Abramovich and features the talent of the Ukrainian striker Andrij Shevchenko, but they're just plain sick, with throwing money to construct a half-baked All-star team that would leave Grand Sith Lord George Steinbrenner quesy.

And oh yeah school, five weeks away.