If you are a sports fan and you don’t read Bill Simmons by now, you should really get on that… or if you’re too lazy to listen, get his podcast. He recently put out his ridiculous holiday mailbag email because as he stated that someone could justify that “Maybe I needed something to distract me from the terrifying realization that the Patriots’ 2008 season rests in the hands of Brett Favre”. Well said.

I’ll quote a couple of the completely bizarre emails that were sent to him with his replies and you can read the rest of them here: Sublime meets ridiculous in holiday mailbag

Q: How ’bout this hypothetical? It’s 2012, Matt Cassel is the quarterback for the Vikings and standing with a Super Bowl MVP trophy in one hand and a Super Bowl trophy in another. It’s his third Super Bowl MVP in four years, two with the Vikings and one with the Patriots in 2009. He states in his opening remarks, “I would like to dedicate this Super Bowl to Tom Brady for getting injured and allowing me to finally get my shot.” Flash to Foxboro, where Tom Brady has never returned to his 2007 form and reinjured his knee three times since, and Bill Belichick has retired from coaching due to having a heart attack from seeing Cassel win his second Super Bowl without the Patriots. Jump to 2022, as the Patriots have become the ’90s Cincinnati Bengals and you are hysterically crying while writing a piece titled “The Curse of Matt Cassel: IT IS REAL.”
– Andrew, Boston

SG: Just real enough that I made the same face that babies make when you stick a lemon in their mouths.

 

Q: If you’re sitting on 24 wins in “Streak for the Cash,” shouldn’t you hop on a flight to Vegas and bet about $250,000 on the opposite of whatever you pick for your 25th selection? All the games ESPN.com puts up as straight win/loss picks are close in point spreads, so I am sure you could get a money line in Vegas that would pay out straight up. That way, you ensure yourself of a minimum victory of $250,000, and can win a maximum of $750,000. I mean, you gotta protect yourself at this point right? I’m sitting in class at law school going insane thinking about this guy NOT doing this.
– Bryan, New York

SG: One catch: Where do you get the $250,000 to slap down at a sports book? This plan only works if you’re a multimillionaire or you’re running a Ponzi scheme. By the way, you’re not gonna believe this, but Bill Simmons is a huge “Streak For the Cash” fan. Every time I get to three in a row, I start dreaming about ESPN.com’s worst-case scenario of one of its employees (in this case, me) beating the game, followed by a mammoth Bob Ley investigation and 27 caustic Phil Mushnick columns.

 

Q: When I found out Al Davis’ mother lived until she was 103, I thought about impaling myself with a dull garden tool about 103 times. I’ll be 67 by the time the Raiders are respectable again. Can you please offer me some hope?
– Scott, Holiday, Fla. 

SG: (Shaking my head sadly.)

 

 

Q: I don’t care what the SEC says: The J-Kidd transaction was Cuban’s greatest trading transgression of 2008.
– Marchy, Malibu, Calif.

SG: (Applauding.)

I still can’t believe their show is over… anyways, this is a great piece that describe the sentiments of probably a majority of their listeners right now.

Sadly on Thursday August 14th, 2008 my childhood came to an end. A part of me has died. My life will never, ever be the same.

Mike and the Mad Dog, the long time afternoon drive show on WFAN in New York came to an end as Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo decided to leave the station for good.

Ever since 1989 my life has been based around that show. I didn’t exaggerate that statement. My schedule on a day to day basis was based on the fact that I had to be near a radio at 1pm in order to hear the “Aaaaaaaaaannnnndddd good afternoon everybody how are you today”. They were it for me, what they said was absolute gospel. When I say my life has been based around the show, I mean my life has been based around the show:

- I had / have friendships that are purely based on the mutual affection of Mike and the Mad Dog.
- My sister can recite the entire open to their show and she couldn’t even name five players in the NFL
- I have Tivo’d there show on YES every single day since 2002..-I bought my house based on the idea that I could get Direct TV so I can watch Mike and the Mad Dog on YES every single day

- I could tell you each of their kid’s name and I know that Dog’s dog is named Jordan

- I have read both of Mad Dog’s books and have had people mail me video tapes of “Mike’D Up”, Francessa’s Sunday night TV show on NBC in NY.
- I have been imitating them for the majority of my life both on air and off air…”Say something funny”… “I knew you would say something funny, Bill told me.”
- I have a picture in my room in NY of Dog and I from his old SportsChannel TV show when I was 8 years old.
- I force the Mike and the Mad Dog language “Oh is that all?” upon almost everyone at the station.
- I am so obsessed with them that my mom said to me tonight that its like my version of the Beatles breaking up.

They just did it better than everyone else. They would say things that others wouldn’t.

- Asking former Islanders GM Mike Milbury “How do you have a job”
- Telling Roger Gooddell to “show some guts” and “kick him out of the league” referring to Pac Man Jones
- Screaming and yelling at Joe Torre for taking too many Yankees to the All-Star Game a few years back
- Dog willing to give up kids to get a SF Giants post season series win.

They were absolutely fearless. There is nothing they wouldn’t ask a guest. They have been instrumental in major moves in NY Sports.
?
- Got Jeff Torborg fired from the Mets
- Got Mike Piazza traded to the Mets

Most kids grow up with athletes as their sports idols. My dad grew up as a Yankee fan loving Mickey Mantle and he like most kids in NY had their favorite players, I had Mike and the Mad Dog. There was no player on any team that even held a candle to those two. If there was a such thing as a Mike and the Mad Dog jersey I would have been wearing it, I would have been trading their “baseball cards” if they existed.

In conclusion, I do what I do because of them. They were the pioneers of sports talk radio and I only wish that one day I can affect someone the way they have affected me. I will miss them more than anyone could possibly imagine. They are everything to me, they are my vice. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I use them and listening to them as my fallback to everything in life. There has been truly no moment over their almost 19 years on the air that listening to them has not made me happier than I was prior to tuning in. I am going to miss them and I thank them for being there for me for almost 19 years and giving me a direction in my professional life. Thank you both for everything.

[Source: ESPN 760 - Have You Seen My Childhood?]

Edit: As my friend Joe pointed out in the comments, NBC is showing a ton of coverage online which is unprecedented but there is some trouble on the horizon for those of us who subscribe to Cablevision.  Cablevision has decided not to air all 3,600 hours of Olympics-related programming, but it appears viewers who get their broadband Internet service will be limited to 1,400 of those hours.

That is because NBC is charging carriers a premium for its 2,200 hours of live video from the Olympics – as well as for two special channels dedicated exclusively to soccer and basketball – but Cablevision has declined to sign up.

NBC said most TV and Internet carriers have agreed to its terms. It said in a statement:

“A substantial majority of the industry, about 90 percent of multiplatform subscribers, will have access to NBCOlympics.com broadband content. Nearly every distributor, including all majors [Comcast, DIRECTV, Time Warner, DISH, Cox, Mediacom, Verizon, AT&T] are making Olympic broadband content available to their customers. To date, Cablevision has not elected to offer its customers the enhanced Olympics package.”

Just fantastic news for us Cablevision customers. [Source: Neil Best, News Day]

————————

Well the Summer Olympics are finally here amid all the protest over human rights, Tibet’s freedom and internet censorship. I know a couple of people who are in Beijing either watching the games or helping out volunteer so good luck to them and hope you have a great time.

So is anyone else actually going to watch the Olympics? There has been talk recently that it does not generate much interest anymore but I find that hard to believe but then again, maybe it is not that hard to believe. I barely hear anyone talk that they are looking forward to watching the games and it is mostly about how they are overrated and not very exciting. I call all of that nonsense and completely garbage as the Olympic Games can be a place to bring issues to light, to bring athletes and people from all over the world together to watch an event that has entire communities and countries biting their nails awaiting the result. It used to be a stage where people spoke out on issues that were being suppressed in everyday lives.

Two people who come to mind for that are Tommie Smith and John Carlos who gave everything for their country (United States) and were humiliated when they returned home. Smith and Carlos were largely ostracized by the predominantly white U.S. sporting establishment in the following years and in addition were subject to criticism of their actions. Time Magazine showed the five-ring Olympic logo with the words, “Angrier, Nastier, Uglier”, instead of “Faster, Higher, Stronger”. Back home they were subject to abuse and they and their families received death threats. At least they made a positive difference in the world we live in today and it was nice to see them being honored by ESPN for their 40th year anniversary of the event at the ESPY’s this year (that I blogged about here).

I don’t know about all those doubters but I have always been a fan of the Olympics (Winter and Summer both) because once every other year, atheletes from all over the world can sort of come together and compete against each other while proudly wearing their country’s colors. For all the other times (at least in the US anyways) you just see the title of “World Champion” or “World Series” get tossed around like it means something when the teams only consist of the United States and only a handful of teams from north of the border.

I have tried to stay away from much of the details regarding the opening cermony as I want to watch it live tonight (7:30 PM on NBC) will be shown in taped-delay fashion. There has been much anticipation regarding what the Chinese have in store for the opening ceremony as it certainly will be lavish and I am particularily curious to see be the last to light the Olympic Torch. Who can ever forget Muhammed Ali lighting the Torch in the Summer Olympics of 1996 in Atlanta, Ga.

For anyone interested in the history of the Olympic Medals for a summer Olympics by country, year, or ranking, New York Times once again put out a brilliant interactive Graphic on the matter that can be found right here. The graphic is pretty clear as it changes the size of a particular country based on the number of medals they have won in a given year and they also detail each medal won if you just click on a specific country. For example who knew that the only medal Dominican Republic won in the 2004 games was a Gold Medal by Felix Sanchez in 400m hurdles.

Well the Yankees just seem to be on a roll drafting unique pitchers. Yesterday I had the story of the Yankees signing the pitcher with six fingers. Now here is Pat Venditte, a pitcher they drafted in the 45th round who can pitch with both hands. So obviously this was bound to happen as he faced a switch hitter as neither side could decide which side of the plate the batter wanted to bat from and then which hand the pitcher wanted to pitch from. Chaos ensues.

As one blogger stated perfectly and sums up my thoughts exactly.

This story doesn’t deserve a 30 second blurb at the tail end of Baseball Tonight. This story deserves a 5-minute ‘Tim Kurkjian recites baseball history’ voiceover that we get with every other monumental baseball milestone. This story deserves further footage.

Here is the SportsCenter clip: [0:35]

Here is the live SNY clip, chaos as it unflods in front of your eyes: [5:29]

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tsFSALrA1o

Got this straight from Rick Reilly’s article from <ESPN the Magazine> about a pitcher and catcher from Stephens County who were upset with the umpire’s calling of balls and strikes that they plunk him with a fastball in the face… The catcher ends up losing his position at the college he was going to next year and the school is fined $1,000 while the umpire has found a lawyer and hopefully sues the heck out of the school and those two kids.

As a side note, the brother of the pitcher (who was playing shortstop) was had just been drafted #15 overall by the Los Angeles Dodgers – Ethan Martin.

By the way, Stephens County lost the game to Cartersville 13-1 in the Georgia high school Class AAA championship game.