Category: Sports

The Way Kathy Lee Needed Regis That’s the Way I Need Rejus

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, NFL Football, Sports8 Comments

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Alright – I’m officially excited.  When I wrote my college football preview a few weeks ago and predicted a Motor City Bowl appearance for the Illini (which plenty of people at the time thought was a monster stretch), I didn’t think in my wildest dreams that they would do so well that the most important football game between teams from Illinois and Wisconsin this past weekend would end up taking place at Memorial Stadium in Champaign as opposed to Lambeau Field in Green Bay (the Bears are slowly redeeming themselves, but that’s a post for another day).  Now, I’m clearing out my holiday calendar with the real prospect of Illinois making a top tier bowl.  While we are a long long way from legitimately talking about a Rose Bowl with games against Michigan and Ohio State still coming up, let’s just say I’ll break the bank to make it to Pasadena if that ever happens.  Honestly, next to an Illini national championship in basketball, watching the Illini in the Rose Bowl is my top sports wish – as much as I love the Bears, White Sox, and Bulls, seeing Illinois finally finish at the top would mean the most to me personally.

What I love about how the Illini are playing right now is that these are anything but fluke wins.  I got to witness the victory against Penn State a couple of weeks ago in person, which meant that I also got to attend the coming out party for my favorite athlete in the world today outside of Devin Hester:  Arrelious “Rejus” Benn.  I’m not sure how Ron Zook is getting top recruits such as Benn and Vontae Davis to come from Washington, D.C. to Champaign, but it needs to continue.  Rejus is the type of guy we would always see across the line in a Wolverine or Buckeye uniform before – a huge wide receiver who will also burn the best cornerbacks (and also in the case against the Nitanny Lions, the best special teams units) out there.  Anyway, considering that Benn is only a month into his college career, he has a pretty good chance of becoming the best athlete that I have seen in an Illini uniform for either football or basketball (even more so than Deron Williams) if he keeps up this pace.  The only thing with having such a talent is that he may have a short stay in Champaign he could very well be a top ten NFL draft pick after playing the minimum of two years in college.

As starry-eyed as I am with Rejus, it’s Rashard Mendenhall and the Illinois running game that’s really the team’s catalyst in rolling over teams.  Sure, Wisconsin might have been the second most overrated number 5 team in country this season (after our good friends at the University of Michigan), but can you believe that we put up another 289 yards on the ground against them?  I was brought up on old-school smash mouth Chicago Bears and Big Ten football, so there’s nothing more beautiful to me than watching the Illini just ram the ball down people’s throats.  Quarterback Juice Williams might still be throwing the ball as if he spent the summer at the Rex Grossman Passing Clinic, but the boy (along with his backup Eddie McGee) can still run like he stole something.

So, it’s going to be the middle of October and Illini football is still relevant.  There’s the proverbial trap game next week atIowa – as bad as the Hawkeyes might be playing this year, Kirk Ferentz seems to have our number – and if we survive and advance there, it makes the prime time game against Michigan into the biggest game in Champaign since, well, the most horrific sporting event that I have ever attended in person.  When we’re six weeks into the season and we’ve already won more games in 2007 than the past two years combined, Illini fans are entitled to some irrational exuberance.  I know I’m there.

Rextasy Island and Land-o-Links for 9/26/2007

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, Chicago Cubs, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Major League Baseball, NFL Football, Sports1 Comment

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Well, it looks as if though Rex Grossman is heading into the overflowing dustbin of Bears quarterback history alongside a long list of illustrious names such as Moses Moreno, Cade McNown, Peter Tom Willis, Jonathan Quinn… oh man, just shoot me now.  Let’s face it: this isn’t looking to be a very good season for the Bears and it’s not just about the QB position.  Cedric Benson has gone back to sucking.  The defense is decimated with injuries.  Devin Hester followed up a brilliant performance against the Chiefs to dropping pretty much every ball kicked to him by the Cowboys.  Maybe we can still get into the playoffs since the weakness of the NFC North can never be underestimated, but with the way the so-far undefeated Packers (ugh) have spurred the latest round of the media fellating Brett Favre, the Lions have finally put their 25 first-round draft pick wide receivers to use with some gaudy offensive numbers, and the Vikings having who I believe will be one of the next major stars of the NFL in Adrian Peterson (can we switch ours for theirs?), this certainly will not be a guarantee.  As for the QB situation specifically, I’ve long tried to at least provide a counterpoint to the constant calls for the Bears to bench Rex, but at this point, he’s become the football equivalent of Steve Sax.  A year ago at this time, Rex Grossman was in the driver’s seat to being the NFL MVP and we were contemplating the possibility of the Bears going undefeated since there was finally an explosive offense to go along with a stifling defense.  Now, we’ve got slews of calls to Chicago sports radio shows arguing that Kyle Orton, much less Brian Griese needs to be put in at quarterback as opposed to being the team sideline keg master.  Oh, how things change on a dime in the NFL.

Anyway, here are some links:

(1) The Sex Cannon is Dead; Long Live the Sex Cannon (Kissing Suzy Kolber)  – I’m not sure what the KSK guys are going to do with Rex not playing.  With Brian Griese now at the helm, the Bears officially have the two most blogged about backup quarterbacks in the history of the interweb in Rextasy and Orton.

(2) The Dissenter (New York Times) – A fascinating in-depth interview with Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens (also a Chicago native).

(3) In China, a Moon Cake Makeover (Washington Post) – It’s the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival (also known as the Moon Festival) and the traditional moon cakes are getting some new types of fillings.

(4) Fixing ‘Nowhere’ (Chicago Tribune) – Prior to Mayor Daley’s ridiculous playing of the race card in the fight over the plans to move the Chicago Children’s Museum to the northeast end of Grant Park (and I’m actually someone that has usually supported Hizzoner, despite his occasional tantrums or tearing up of airfields in the middle of the night without telling anyone), Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin put together a nice piece on what the Children’s Museum would need to do in order to be deserving of what would be a high profile location, while also essentially acknowledging that something needs to be done with what is now Daley Bicentennial Plaza.  I’ve always that that this part of Grant Park is one of the most embarrassing parts of downtown Chicago with a leaky Cold War-era fieldhouse and an oversupply of old cracked unused tennis courts.  This might suffice for a so-called neighborhood park, but when this is the space that people get to the end of Frank Gehry’s winding bridge from the magnificent Millennium Park, it’s time for some action.  Kamin is right to make sure that the city shouldn’t put a building in that space just because “something is better than nothing”, but I truly hope a solid plan is put into place quickly.  (The other embarrassing place in a high profile location, which thankfully is finally getting fixed: the Roosevelt Road Metra station.  The bridge is from the Temple of Doom and the station itself is a shack straight out of Deliverance.  I’m not exaggerating.  You would have thought the city would have pushed Metra to put something up a little bit nicer much sooner for the gateway to the Museum Campus and Soldier Field.)

On a related note, I have absolutely no sympathy for the residents in that area complaining about the potential additional traffic that the museum might bring nearby.  The residents have seen their property values skyrocket as a result of the opening of Millennium Park and, for Pete’s sake, they live in DOWNTOWN CHICAGO, the most high traffic area in the United States outside of Manhattan.  Museum or no museum, what the hell do these people expect when they choose to live in DOWNTOWN CHICAGO???  This is like people that live in Wrigleyville complaining about the crowds as if they didn’t realize a 40,000-seat ballpark that sells out all of the time is right down the block.  If you don’t want to deal with traffic and crowds, then it would be wise to not live in a place that, you know, has a lot of traffic and crowds.

And finally…

(5) Bear Down: There’s Only One Answer To The Bears’ QB Problem (Deadspin) – I think that you could probably guess who Deadspin is voting for to replace Rex – let’s just say that it involves a uncontrollable neckbeard and a bottle of Jack.

I’m off to Champaign this weekend to watch Rashard Mendenhall run over JoePa and company.  Until then, Go Illini and Go Bears (and if you’re the type of person that likes the Cubs, don’t choke).

(Image from Chicago Tribune)

The Devin Hester Experience

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago Bears, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, NFL Football, Sports2 Comments

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I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the Bears home opener in person with none other TK, which meant we got to experience the thrill ride known as Devin Hester live and in-person. A few other thoughts before we get to Hester, though. First, with this being my first visit to the “new” Soldier Field, I must say that as much as it looks as if though they plopped the upper deck at U.S. Cellular Field in the middle of the classic colonnades from the outside, the interior of the stadium has spectacular sightlines even in the higher sections. Second, I had been much more worried over the offseason about the Bears running game in the hands of Cedric Benson as opposed to Good Rex/Bad Rex, which was certainly validated after that pathetic performance in the season opener against the Chargers. His performance against the Chiefs was certainly better by gaining just over 100 yards, but for the life of me I can’t understand why he dances to the outside when he’s a downfield power running back. From what I saw, Benson is being way too indecisive when he gets a hand-off, which is not a good thing since he’s the type of back that needs to hit the open hole immediately as a guy without the breakaway speed of someone like Ladainian Tomlinson. Third, I’m simply at a loss with Rex Grossman. I don’t want to pile on him since his approval rating in Chicago right now is hovering at around O.J. Simpson/Britney Spears levels, but the two interceptions yesterday were completely his fault and he can’t fault a non-existent running game (even if it wasn’t spectacular) for not opening anything up downfield. Let’s face it – the Bears should have been able to score on the Chiefs the way the Illini took down Syracuse on Saturday (you know that I had to weave that in, no matter how pathetic the Orange are this year). Yet, those two interceptions kept a Herm Edwards-led team in the game on the road in a hostile environment until late in the fourth quarter. At the same time, the only offensive touchdown this season has been a trick play to a backup offensive tackle (which TK brilliantly called as soon as John St. Clair reported as an eligible receiver).  I’ve generally been a Rex defender if only because I know that Brian Griese isn’t really that sexy of an alternative – the old Wolverine simply doesn’t have the arm to keep opposing secondaries honest. Meanwhile, Kyle Orton seems to be on a mission to grow more hair than Chewbacca – I swear that I saw him pouring some Jack Daniels into his Gatorade bottle on the sidelines. Anyway, if teams can stack eight in the box like they did against the Bears from two years ago, we’re simply not going to far.

That being said, I’m running out of superlatives for Devin Hester. I was telling Minneapolis Red Sox in an email exchange earlier today that nothing compared to watching Michael Jordan in person in terms of electricity in the building. However, the way the crowd buzzed every time that Hester got in position to return a kick was akin to those moments when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa came up to plate in 1998 (which in hindsight with the steroid scandal seems almost farcical, but those who went to any Cubs or Cardinals games that year know what I’m talking about) – everyone in the crowd stopped and there were several moments of anticipation that we were all about to witness something special. When that special moment actually comes through, like when Devin Hester broke free for a touchdown on Sunday, you’ve got a story to tell your buddies and kids for years on end.

Devin Hester isn’t going to be the greatest Bear in history (with names like Payton, Butkus, Sayers, and Grange out there, there’s no real shame in that), but I feel as though that even if he doesn’t score another touchdown again, his burst into the NFL going to remembered as one of those flashes of sports brilliance that will live on years later, like Dwight Gooden’s rookie season or Bo Jackson’s football career.  Bears fans need to enjoy these moments while they last.

(Image from Chicago Tribune)

Hail to Those Motherf…

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Sports3 Comments

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Well, the first college football Saturday of the season turned out to be much more than anyone could have possibly bargained for. The Illini almost completed a huge comeback against Missouri in St. Louis with redshirt freshman quarterback Eddie McGee doing a more than adequate job stepping in for Juice Williams (who got his bell rung at the very beginning of the game). Of course, that means that if Juice starts seeing his pass completion percentage dip toward his 39.5 percent mark from last year, it won’t be long before there’s another legitimate QB controversy on campus. I’m pretty sure that the old adage that the most popular person in town is the backup quarterback had its genesis in Champaign since, with the exceptions of maybe Jack Trudeau and Jeff George, every Illini quarterback since the Red Grange era has had Rex Grossman-like accuracy with Kyle Orton-like arm strength and Brian Griese-like speed – it would be akin to creating a player on EA Sports NCAA Football and giving him the lowest attribute ratings in every possible category. I still think Juice is still the man the build around since he has incredible athleticism, but McGee showed on Saturday that there’s a viable alternative waiting in the wings.

Despite the 40-34 loss, I was able to enjoy a rare fall Saturday where the Illinois football program looks like a beacon of hope compared to its Midwestern neighbors of Notre Dame and Michigan. The Fighting Irish’s own quarterback controversy in hindsight turned out to be the most ridiculous sports talk show topics in recent memory with the way that they were all pummeled by Georgia Tech in a 33-3 loss (the worst Notre Dame loss in an opener in school history). I’ve been challenging my Irish fan friends over the past couple of years to provide me with concrete evidence that Charlie Weis is any better of a coach than Ty Willingham, since that seems to be the common perception yet the records don’t support that conclusion. So far, I haven’t heard many arguments other than the fuzzy wuzzy “Notre Dame spirit” proclamations from the fact that Weis is an alum, which really doesn’t go into anything as to the quality of his coaching abilities. It will be interesting to see how much the Irish fan base will stay supportive of big Charlie if the team doesn’t make it to any type of bowl this season (when looking at the schedule is more of probability than just a possibility). Something tells me with the way Willingham and Bob Davie were ousted over the past few years, however, it won’t be any prettier this time around.

Of course, it’s impossible not to comment on what I believe is the sports story of the year and what is the biggest upset I’ve ever witnessed in my lifetime (I was alive for the “Miracle on Ice” in 1980, but was a bit too young to remember watching it as a 2-year old). Well, I actually didn’t witness it since, even though I am one of the five people in the country that has access to the Big Ten Network as a DirecTV subscriber, the household I was at on Saturday had BTN-less Comcast. Just hearing the scoring updates from the game, though, literally made my heart race. Appalachian State beating #5-ranked Michigan in the Big House is beyond anything that I could have possibly imagined happening. On Friday, I picked the Wolverines to actually make it to the national championship game, yet the very next day that get squashed by a Football Championship Subdivision I-AA Division Conference whatever the hell they call it team. (By the way, what is the NCAA’s problem with just sticking with logical names? The NCAA Tournament was neatly divided into the East, South, Midwest, and West Regions until the association decided to name the regions by their sites every year, leading to such flow-off-the-tongue creations like the “East Rutherford Regional”. At least the 2005 region that the Illini came out of was called the Chicago Region as opposed to the geographically correct Rosemont Region, which would have made the average person on the street believe that they determined one of the Final Four at the United terminal at O’Hare. Fortunately, the NCAA went back to the old region names this year. This logic obviously led them to get antsy and move forward with approving the switch from the perfectly logical Division I-A and I-AA distinctions to the Frankenstein they have now.) While this sort of wounded my pride a little bit as a college football prognosticator along with understanding that this would severely damage the perception of the Big Ten conference for this season, you can’t help but love to see such a monster upset, especially at the expense of Michigan (who for my money, is the “Evil Empire” of college football they way that the Yankees are in baseball and Duke is in college basketball).

I try to stay away from the “instant history” shenanigans that people seem to enjoy playing these days, but the Appalachian State shocker is justified. This is bigger than any type of upset that you could ever see in pro sports since I would argue that the talent gap between the best pro team and the worst pro team in any given sport is much smaller than the divide between a BCS superpower at the level of Michigan versus a lower division school. This is especially true when comparing football, which requires depth and size at a multitude of positions that makes it very tough for true upsets to occur, to basketball, where a team that might be shorter on talent can get hot from the three-point line (this is the typical anatomy of an upset in the NCAA Tournament). The Boise State win over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl was an upset in terms of perception only – the Broncos were an undefeated top-15 team at the time (if the school’s name were Alabama or Florida State, no one would have ever termed it as an upset). Meanwhile, George Mason was ranked in the polls during the 2006 season prior to its run to the Final Four, so that team that supposedly “came out of nowhere” for most of the American public was actually on the radar of a number of people in the sports establishment.

Division III Chaminade over #1-ranked Virginia in 1982 is often considered the greatest upset in college basketball history, but even that game had exigent circumstances, such as Virginia coming off a trip to Japan and basically playing a game in a layover in Hawaii, not to mention Ralph Sampson just having recovered from a bout of pneumonia. For Michigan, though, there was simply no excuse. This was the first game of the season in front of over 110,000 friendly fans at the Big House with a healthy and fresh starting lineup that plenty of people believed could be playing for the national championship. The Wolverines losing to a team in a lower division, much less a non-BCS school, in the friendly confines of the Big House is simply unfathomable. Honestly, the only comparison that I could make would be if a Single-A minor league ballclub came up and swept a three-game series (not just win one game) against the fully-stocked and rested Yankees team at Yankee Stadium. That’s how incredible Appalachian State’s achievement was on Saturday.

Finally, I’d suggest you check out a time capsule of the feelings of the game at this open game thread from Saturday that was on the always entertaining mgoblog. You can see the close to 1000 comments made during the game from mostly Michigan fans, tracking from the first half where they thought they were just going to have a tougher come-from-behind day to that moment where they knew they were the victims of one of the greatest upsets in the history of modern sports. Let’s just hope Illinois doesn’t take their Subdivision Submarine opponent Western Illinois that’s coming to Memorial Stadium on Saturday.

(Image from Detroit Free Press)

The Juice is Loose: Frank the Tank’s College Football Preview 2007

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Sports6 Comments

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I don’t know about you, but with the worst White Sox season since the millennium droning on (with Cubs fans becoming more and more insufferable since it’s hard to see them not backing into the NL Central championship) and the Bears in the midst of another week of questioning whether Rex Grossman can hold onto his balls (not to mention Lance Briggs’ driving skills), the start of the college football season couldn’t come soon enough. That means that it’s time to get on with the annual college football preview:

(1) Illini Are Bowling This Year… Seriously – OK, I know that I said the same thing last season, but it’s got to be our time to get to a lovely bowl destination such as Detroit. Even while taking account Ron Zook’s coaching ability (or lack thereof), there’s way too much talent on the Illinois squad this year to continue to be muddled with the traditional bottom-feeders of the Big Ten such as Indiana and Northwestern. The Big Ten isn’t as strong of a conference as it was a year ago, so I’ve got a good feeling that this club is going to do the proverbial snakebite on a lot of teams. The Illini are returning 20 starters plus adding blue chip superstar players on both offense (wide receiver Arrelious Benn) and defense (outside linebacker Martez Wilson). Meanwhile, Juice Williams can only improve on his 39.5 percent completion rate in his 2006 freshman campaign (right?) and senior J Leman heads up a stable defense.

Looking at the Illini schedule game-by-game, we’re set up to get to that magic .500 mark for bowl eligibility. This weekend brings the return of the football version of the Braggin’ Rights game when Illinois takes on Missouri at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis. I think with this game we’ll find out right off the bat whether this is going to be a whirlwind season with a meteoric rise or one where we merely take some solid steps to get back into the upper half of the BCS echelon. If the Illini can beat Mizzou, who is the trendy pick to win the Big 12 North this season (which is akin to winning the National League Central this year – whoever is left standing at one or two games above .500 will promptly get slaughtered in the postseason), then I think we’re heading toward one of those wacky years where we perform way beyond expectations, such as 1999 when we beat both Michigan and Ohio State on the road. Even if we lose, though (which, in all rationality, I think we will), Illinois is going to still be in okay shape to go bowling. The home opener against Western Illinois is going to be a win, while I’m also fairly certain that the next two road games against a severely depleted Syracuse squad and a just-plain-awful Indiana team will be victories for the Illini. That’s halfway to the six-win bowl mark.

So, where are the last three victories going to come from? Penn State is going to be a tough one – we have a nasty habit of spotting them a point or 60 in the first half, so I don’t think it’s coming there. The Wisconsin game is one that I’m strangely confident about since we always seem to play the Badgers a bit better than expected. Still, Wisconsin is a team that is probably the 2nd-best team in the Big Ten this year after Michigan, so I doubt the upset will happen. Playing at Iowa City isn’t going to be great situation for a relatively young Illinois team, so I’ll chalk the Iowa game up as a loss for the Illini. The Michigan game is pretty much the focus of every Illinois fan this year since it’s set-up as a prime time ABC game at Memorial Stadium (which I can’t attend, as I explained in my last post), but I’m pretty much accustomed to getting my hopes completely crushed every time that we play the Wolverines (not to mention that I can’t see how Michigan isn’t getting at least a Rose Bowl berth this year, if not even better, as I’ll note later), so let’s put this as an Illini L. Next up, our athletic department was nice enough to pay Ball State to come to town so that we can finally win a homecoming game, leaving us with needing two more wins with three games to go. We can beat Minnesota even though it’s in the Hump Dome. Next up is Ohio State at the Horseshoe… we’ll just skip over that one. Getting Northwestern at home for the regular season finale, though, ought to be the clincher in spite of a pretty good Wildcats defense. That gets us to the magic six wins a nice trip dodging bullets in Detroit for the holidays. Honestly, the thought of a bowl game in the world’s worst tourist destination outside of Baghdad making me this excited shows you exactly how putrid the Illinois program has been in recent years. I’ll take anything at this point.

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(2) Big Ten Final Standings Prediction – All of you know that the last thing that I want to do is give any praise to Michigan, but I’m fairly surprised that there’s not that much buzz about the Wolverines getting to the national championship game this season. Sure, they got pasted by USC in last year’s Rose Bowl and their top-ranked run defense has lost a lot of firepower, but the offense is going to be ridiculous with Chad Henne, Mike Hart, and Mario Manningham at the skill positions paired up with an NFL-ready offensive line. Michigan could very well be 10-0 by the second week in November, when they’ll then have back-to-back monster games against Wisconsin and, of course, Ohio State to at least decide who gets to the Rose Bowl, if not the national title game for the second year in a row. I’ll know this much – Lloyd Carr better have a Monster.com account in place if his team loses to the Buckeyes again. As for the rest of the upper echelon, Wisconsin will hold serve as the second-best team in conference while everyone needs to look out for Iowa – it’s as if though people have forgotten how dangerous Kirk Ferentz’s teams can be.  Here are the projected conference standings: (1) Michigan, (2) Wisconsin, (3) Iowa, (4) Ohio State, (5) Penn State, (6) Purdue, (7) Illinois, (8) Michigan State, (9) Northwestern, (10) Minnesota, (11) Indiana.

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(3) BCS Conference Champions Prediction – Nothing too wacky here, although the media continues to astound me with how it has anointed West Virginia as national championship contender yet again (#3 in the preseason AP poll). Here’s what I said about the Mountaineers last season: “[T]he worst argument that anyone can ever have to say that someone is a national championship contender is that the team has schedule akin to playing the runners-up from a sixth grade Punt, Pass, and Kick contest every week, which is what a number of prognosticators seem to be saying about Big East member West Virginia.” The exact same thing is being said about West Virginia this season, which leads me to believe that the team will suffer the exact same shortfall against Louisville to plummet them to a Motor City-type Bowl. The projected BCS champs: Big Ten – Michigan, SEC – LSU, ACC – Virginia Tech, Big 12 – Texas, Pac-10 – USC, Big East – Louisville.

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(4) BCS Championship Game Prediction – I still have to chuckle every time that I hear the name “John David Booty” (heh-heh, Beavis), but let’s face it – the USC Trojans are the team to beat again. It’s coming down to a rematch of last year’s Rose Bowl in this year’s national championship game (for a virtual Rose Bowl with the Big Ten/Pac 10 matchup) with Michigan and USC. Unfortunately for Big Ten supporters such as myself, the result is going to end up being the same. Predicted national championship result: USC over Michigan.

Anyway, if the Illini end up beating Mizzou this weekend, we might be looking forward to something a lot better than Detroit over the holidays. Anyone up for a road trip to Toronto?

(Images from Wikimedia Commons, Bean’s Blog, Jerkass Clothing, and The Big Lead)

Land-o-Links – 8/22/2007

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, NFL Football, Sports1 Comment

I apologize for the radio silence over the past few weeks.  Here are a bunch of links to tide you over:

(1) 3 Large Drops of Sweat (Chicago Tribune) – If you’ve been a regular reader of this blog, you know what I think of preseason football, particularly in its ability (or lack thereof) to predict outcomes in the regular season.  That being said, it looks like we’re finding out how Rex Grossman is avoiding throwing interceptions downfield into triple coverage – he’s just going to lay the ball right on the ground.

(2) Yes, Deep-Fried Oreos, but Not in Trans Fats (New York Times) – For my money, the deep-fried Snickers bar is the carnie filet mignon – it’s like melting the candy bar and stuffing it inside a Krispy Kreme doughnut.  It’s good to know that this delicacy can re-enter my diet without guilt along with a bucket of trans fat-free KFC.

(3) Did Hawk Invent the Batting Glove? (South Side Sox) – Hawk Harrelson also invented a way to blow smoke up your ass every single inning of baseball broadcasts every single night.  Who knew that we had baseball’s Enrico Fermi in the booth, White Sox fans?

(4) Brought Down By Arrogance (Washington Post) – There’s been an overload of banter about the Michael Vick dogfighting case and his plea bargain, so I’ll just point you to this Michael Wilbon column that largely encapsulates all of my personal feelings on the matter.

(5) 2007-08 Illinois Men’s Basketball Schedule Released (fightingillini.com) – This is definitely not an easy non-conference tilt for the Illini (something tells me that the bulk of this schedule was put together when we still though Eric Gordon was headed to Champaign to play prior to Satan’s Spawn luring him away).  I’m really looking forward to the Maui Classic right before Thanksgiving (one of my favorite college basketball events every year regardless of who’s participating), particularly with the prospect of playing Duke (assuming that we can advance after the opener with Arizona State).

(6) Only Single Tickets Remain for Illinois-Michigan Football Match-Up (fightingillini.com) – On the other side of the Illini sports world, the buzz for the upcoming football season has gotten so irrationally exuberant that people are actually spending their hard-earned dollars to buy up game tickets.  I know that I would have been going to this game (nationally-televised prime time game = 12 hours of tailgating and 80,000 variations on Ann Arbor’s promiscuity) if not for the fact that a certain someone has a wedding on this date.  (He’s not an Illini, so I guess it’s somewhat excusable for the prospect of this happening not being the very first thing that he would think about, but with college football schedules published years in advance, scheduling conflicts should be the primary cross-check if you have a disproportionate number of people going to your wedding that went to a particular school.  That’s why I had a June wedding.)  On another note, my annual college football preview will be coming very soon.  (Preview of the preview: I like how Illinois is set up this year.  Obviously, I know that shocks you all.)
And finally…

(7) The Singing Bee – Filling in the Blanks (TV Blend) – Lord only knows that I initially wanted to see any Joey Fatone-fueled television vehicle enter the trash bin of bad couch potato ideas along with “The 100 Lives of Black Jack Savage” and Tim McCarver calling baseball games.  Yet, when I ended up flipping on to “The Singing Bee” a few weeks ago, it was as hypnotic as a Lou Pearlman production: brainless, empty-caloried, yet strangely satisfying.  Sure, it’s the equivalent of televising karaoke night at your local bar (I mean, the next thing you know and they’ll be televising guys sitting around playing poker and bass fishing), but the fact of the matter is that if you watch the show, it’s almost impossible not to start playing along.  Once that happens, you’re basically hooked on TV’s crystal meth, only the drug won’t kill nearly as many brain cells after a half-hour.  There’s no hope for me, so please save yourselves!

The Sports Census Maps

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, Chicago Blackhawks, Chicago Bulls, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, NHL Hockey, Sports3 Comments

If you’re one of the three regular readers of this blog, it’s probably readily apparent that I’m a big sports fan.  What you probably don’t know, however, is that I’ve also always been a dork about maps (when my family took road trips when I was younger, I used to collect maps from as many states and cities as possible) and census data (for whatever reason, population and socioeconomic demographic statistics have always fascinated me – I could pore over that stuff for hours on end).

So, when I ended up finding the CommonCensus Sports Map Project, which has put together maps of the geographic distribution of sports fans of teams in Major League Baseball, NFL Football, NBA Basketball, NHL Hockey, and college football, I was predictably sucked in.  Granted, the data is based upon those who vote in the accompanying poll, so it’s not scientific, but it looks as if though the sample size is getting large enough where there is a pretty accurate view of who cheers for what sports teams across the country.  (Note: be sure to also check out the separate “United Countries of Baseball” map discussed on Strange Maps and Deadspin.)

Here are some observations from a look at the different CommonCensus Sports Maps:

(1) The teams that I like are pretty popular in general in terms of total votes.  The Bulls are the #1 NBA team, the Bears are the #3 NFL team (after the Patriots and Cowboys), Illinois is #9 out of all NCAA Division 1-A football teams, and the Blackhawks are the #4 NHL team (maybe there is hope for hockey in Chicago when Bill Wirtz finally relinquishes his throne).  Not surprisingly, my White Sox are the exception as the #15 MLB team out of 30.  If I were a “Cox” fan, I might be enthralled with the Cubs’ #2 MLB ranking (after only the Red Sox), but since I’m not, I just have to shake my head at how the severe the nation’s lemming epidemic is today.

(2) The baseball map is the most fascinating since it really shows the regional rivalry lines.  Growing up as a Sox fan on the South Side, I honestly had no clue how seriously people in Downstate Illinois take the Cubs-Cardinals rivalry until I went to college in Champaign.  I think that most Cubs fans that grow up in the Chicago area look at the White Sox the way, by comparison, Yankees fans look at the Red Sox (just complete and utter disdain for the other team and their fans) while the Cardinals are more like the Yankees’ view of the Mets (really strong dislike).  There are some individual exceptions to this (i.e. the Cubs fans that always love to claim that “they just don’t pay attention to the Sox at all” or the contingent that merely uses Wrigley Field as a happy hour spot before hitting the other bars in Wrigleyville) , but that seems to be the general rule in Chicagoland.  That changes when you get towards the center of the State of Illinois, where I could see clearly that the feelings between Cubs and Cardinals fans are a lot more intense, showing that proximity breeds contempt.  As you can tell by the baseball map and drilling down into the statistical breakouts, the state pretty much splits between the Cubs and Cardinals just south of the U of I campus, with the Cubs also taking most of Iowa and Indiana.  White Sox Nation is relegated to the space bounded by Madison Street, I-80, I-294, and Michigan City (we like to keep our club nice and exclusive).

(3) For college football, the Chicago area is not surprisingly dominated by Illinois, Notre Dame, and Northwestern, followed by other Big Ten teams plus Northern Illinois.  Most of the figures pass the smell test with the exception of the SEC schools along with ACC counterpart Florida State, who seem to be severely underrepresented in terms of votes at this point in time.  I would make a joke that the Confederacy is just moving on from 8-track players, but Arkansas State and East Carolina actually have significantly more votes than Tennessee, Alabama, LSU, and Florida State.  Any sports fan with any semblance of the college football world would know those figures must be inaccurate.  The CommonCensus project coordinators ought to take a look at this because those numbers from the South are completely out of whack with all of the other regions of the country.

(4) In terms of the NFL, the Bears take most of Illinois as expected, although I thought that I’d see a bit more Bears dominance in the northern part of Indiana since there’s a lot more entrenched history there compared to the Colts (much like the baseball Cardinals were the favorite team for generations of southerners prior to the Braves moving to Atlanta).  Still, the Bears appear to be one of the few teams that has a substantive fan presence in nearly every major market (with the exception of Green Bay, Wisconsin, of course).

Anyway, I find all of the data and corresponding maps extremely fascinating.  I recommend for everyone to take the time to vote in the poll so that the quality of the results can continue to be improved.

Big Ten Expansion Talk and Land-o-Links for 7/31/2007

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, Chicago Bears, Chicago Bulls, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, College Football, Food, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, Movies, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, Sports2 Comments

Big Ten commissioner Jim Delaney caused a stir last week by mentioning that conference expansion might be on the table for a school other than the usual suspect of Notre Dame. Last year, I argued for Syracuse as being the best choice other than the Fighting Irish for a 12th team and I still stand by that. Rutgers has a great location near New York City, but it’s going to take a whole lot more than one good football season to make them a viable candidate. The always entertaining mgoblog, even though it supports the enemy, had an intriguing comprehensive write-up on the potential additions. That being said, I disagree with his analysis. If the Big Ten goes in a direction other than Notre Dame, I believe that it’s got to be toward the East Coast as opposed to adding onto the fringes of the Midwest. We need to look to expand our boundaries instead of looking inward. Anyway, here are some links:

(1) Certain Degrees Now Cost More at Public Universities (New York Times) – A number of public universities, including the University of Illinois, are starting to charge more for engineering and business programs compared to the rest of school. I’m glad I got in and out when there was still flat pricing.

(2) Celtics, Wolves Closing in on Deal (ESPN.com) – This was exactly what I was worried about: Kevin Garnett coming to the Eastern Conference to a team other than the Bulls. Even though Ray Allen and Paul Pierce are on the downsides of their careers, adding KG to Boston will catapult that team from the doghouse to the upper echelon of the East. Do I have confidence that the Bulls would be able to shut that team down in a head-to-head playoff series? Nope. Joe Smith is a decent power forward, but it’s not as if though he’s leaps and bounds better than P.J. Brown. Assuming Dwyane Wade are healthy next year, I would put the Heat (don’t read too much into the Bulls’ sweep with Wade at half-strength), Cavs, Celtics, and Pistons ahead of the Bulls next year. I know I’m beating the proverbial dead horse here, but this is what happens when you don’t have a superstar – other teams pass you by pretty quickly (i.e. the Cleveland Cavaliers of the early-90s). This Garnett deal isn’t set in stone yet, so maybe the Bulls can make one last run at him, yet it’s extremely disappointing that they haven’t tried already.

(3) How Do Cats Like Rabbits? Very Much, And Preferably Raw (Wall Street Journal) – In response to the pet foot contamination scare from earlier this year, raw rabbit has all of the sudden become a hot commodity among cat owners. This might be something my cat would go for, but he’s already ridiculously spoiled. I honestly think that he believes my wife and I are his pets, considering that he’s the one that’s fed on demand and gets his poop picked up everyday.

(4) A Dark – But Not So Secret – ‘Knight’ For Sequel (Chicago Tribune) – Since my office is right by some entrances to Lower Wacker Drive, I’ve been seeing props for the new ‘Batman’ movie all over the place, including a Gotham City police car and paddywagon. Other than that, though, the filmmakers seem to be keeping the shooting under tight security.

(5) It’s Official: The Cubs Are Awesome (Goat Riders of the Apocalypse) – Don’t get too cocky, guys. Meanwhile, I’ll just go back to seeing who will be left on the South Side by the end of the day.

(6) Briggs Signs (Da’ Bears Blog) – Despite an offseason of Drew Rosenhaus-fueled acrimony, Lance Briggs will back in Chicago for one more season. Only a month until football season – I’m getting all tingly inside.

And finally…

To my horror when I went out to lunch today, the Chinese chicken place (it was one of those places that just had two neon signs that said “Teriyaki” – despite having little in the way of Japanese food offerings – and “Chicken”, kind of like a roadside restaurant that is identified by only an “Eat” sign or the “Hot” pancake syrup at IHOP) at the Citigroup Center food court in the Loop has been shutdown. If you’ve ever been in that food court, you know exactly what I’m talking about: $6.05 after tax for a heap of fried rice plus two different types of fried MSG of your choice. With the cheapest lunch in the Loop outside of McDonald’s pushing towards $10, the Chinese chicken place was an oasis of full and inexpensive goodness. I have no idea why it has closed since it has always had the longest line in that food court. The obvious thought would be health code violations, but normally there would be notices with respect to that and there none visible. Anyway, this has been such a terrible blow to me (I’m seriously getting the shakes just thinking of the Cashew Chicken/Sesame Chicken combo that I’d always get) that I just had to get it out. R.I.P., Chinese chicken place.

Land-o-Links – 7/25/2007

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Land-o-Links, Law, Major League Baseball, Sports1 Comment

Some random links to take your mind off of point shaving and dog fighting:

(1) No Objections Here (Washington Post) – Here’s the pecking order at large law firms from someone with first hand knowledge: (1) partners, (2) summer associates, (3) administrative and support staff, and (4) full-time associates.

(2) The Race is on for the ‘God  Particle’ (New York Times) – This could turn out to be Fermilab’s magnum opus.

(3) This Never Would Have Happened at Marshall Field’s (Chicagoist) – I used to eat downstairs at the State Street store formerly known as Marshall Field’s all of the time when I worked on the east end of the Loop back in the day.  This won’t be happening much in the future, though.

(4) New Lion House Space Opens (Chicago Tribune) – No real comment here other than that I’ve always loved the Lincoln Park Zoo and the link has a picture of a red panda.

And finally…

(5) Remembering Harry Caray’s Last Broadcast (Deadspin) – Even as a Sox fan, I miss the voice calling out for Arne to check out the guy in the sombrero.  R.I.P., my man.

Low Scoring Isn’t the Problem: The Real Roadblock for Soccer in America

On By Frank the TankIn Soccer, Sports4 Comments

david-beckam.jpg

Mr. Posh Spice AKA David Beckham has arrived in America and there’s been the predictable discussions as to whether his presence in Major League Soccer will finally bring the United States into concurrence with the rest of the world of viewing the original football as a preeminent spectator sport.  A lot of the naysayers argue that Americans will never warm to soccer because we need lots of scoring (being the land of excess that we are), which soccer doesn’t provide.  Of course, I’ve always found this ludicrous, since a 1-0 pitchers’ duel in baseball is infinitely more exciting than a 12-11 slugfest, while football of the American variety assigns multiple points to each of its scores which artificially raises the numerical total score (we might look at it differently if a 21-14 game was instead called a 3 touchdowns to 2 touchdowns game).  Sure, there are those that like scoring for the sake of scoring, just as there are those that believe Larry the Cable Guy is a comedic genius.  That doesn’t mean that this is necessarily the view of the majority.

However, I will be a naysayer on soccer’s popularity as a spectator sport in the U.S. on a different front which ought to be obvious but I rarely hear being brought up in discussions about the game (in contrast to the simplistic “low scoring” issue).  If you’ve ever read “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman, he uses an apt sports analogy as to how the United States has attained its success over the past century.  He states that historically, we have been the best on grabbing the “first round draft picks” from around the world in nearly every walk of life, whether it’s scientists that come to study and research at our top universities, computer and technology pioneers building companies in Silicon Valley, financiers running the world’s capital markets on Wall Street and LaSalle Street, actors and actresses making films in Hollywood, and competitive eaters attacking hot dog stands on Coney Island.  Our success has largely been predicated on attracting the best of the best from the rest of the world (look at the disproportionate number of immigrants in America that have founded technology companies, run corporations, or are A-List celebrities) and the world of sports in general is certainly no exception.  The world’s top basketball players, even if they are superstars in their home countries, invariably long to come to the NBA.  The same thing applies with baseball.  When we watch professional sports in this country, part of the allure is that we know that we are watching the very top players in the world competing at the highest level.  That’s why we feel justified (or maybe we’re so vain) to crown our ultimate winners in the postseasons of our pro sports leagues as “World Champions” – other countries be damned.

Of course, there’s one glaring exception to this superiority, if you haven’t already figured it out: soccer.  If we called the champions of the MLS “World Champions”, that would be the biggest joke to the rest of the world since the fact that we voted George W. Bush into office not once, but twice.  (I’ll admit that I was a contributor to this.  Sorry, folks.)  Do you know how NBA fans like myself have a nice chuckle over the grainy footage posted on YouTube of Yi Jianlian posting up 5′ 5″ power forwards in the Chinese Basketball Association since the quality of play between the leagues is so glaringly wide?  Well, that’s exactly how fans of the English Premier League and other top European leagues feel when they watch the MLS.  The reason why watching the MLS feels like watching minor league baseball to me is because that’s exactly what it’s comparable to: it can be perfectly nice family entertainment for an evening, but it’s very apparent that the best in the world aren’t on the field.

Americans have already shown that they have the capacity to watch top quality soccer with their increasing interest in the World Cup and the U.S. national team over the past decade.  The ratings for the World Cup last year vastly exceeded expectations even when the U.S. team got bounced out early.  However, that doesn’t translate into increased attention for the MLS at home since the average sports fan intuitively knows the difference in the quality of play between the World Cup and MLS, even if the games have the same 1-0 score (just as you can tell the difference in the quality of play between a Major League Baseball game and a minor league baseball game even if the scores are the same).  We will gladly spend our precious time and hard-earned dollars on watching the best of the best, whether it’s sports or movies, but we will only give a passing glance to anything less than that.

What American soccers needs is David Beckham… from five years ago when he was in his prime, along with attracting other soccer superstars from around the world while they are at the tops of their games as opposed to being on the descent.  Until the MLS (or some other professional soccer league) gets to the point where it can legitimately call its champion at the end of the year the “World Champions” or at the very least be able to compete with the top European leagues without being laughed off the field, soccer as a spectator sport is going to have a hard time gaining traction outside of the World Cup and the U.S. national team.  The scoring issue has nothing to do with the soccer’s problems.  It’s all about the quality of play.

(Image from The Big Lead)