Tiger is the Needle, Like it or Not

This contains my original posting on ESPN's message board for the article about how this year's Masters ratings were the lowest in 10 years....

The PGA has done their best to put up certain younger players on a pedestal in hopes of retaining the TIger-boomers. It just hasn't worked. First it was Anthony Kim, then it was Camillo Villegas, then it was Rory now its Speith. Who knows who the next flavor of the year be in a few years. Whether or not Speith wins a major or not, it will NOT move the needle. It will make for great conversation in a bar amongst friends, but it wont bring any more viewers. PGA is fearful of the day Tiger decides not to play anymore. Its great for the game to have these younger players, we will root for them. But we wont watch full 18 hole coverage of it. It just isn't the same. The PGA cant really say anything about it because they have to try to reel in as much revenue as possible. I know that they have to work extra hard to come up with $$$ when Tiger isn't competing.

Lets also face another fact, the casual fan will not sit through 3 hours of coverage like a diehard golf fan. Those are the fans they are trying to hook, but it works against them in a way, they would rather be playing golf on a Saturday or Sunday than home watching it.

Its not that is anything personal against Speith, Rory, etc. They seem like nice kids. But they are not as polarizing as Tiger. That is just a fact. That is not to say they are not good golfers or will never win multiple majors, they probably will. But they will NEVER have the effect that Tiger had, and to think any other way at this point is naive due to the lack of viewers during the worlds most popular major.

The PGA's worst nightmare would be having the world catch up to Tiger and other American golfers. You can make the argument that it has. Not only that, the personalities of some of the players are rather bland and boring. The PGA tried to push (wrestling term) Jason Dufner and the "Dufnering", but it is as boring to watch him play as it is to watch others sit on the ground. Just doesnt work. Im not really bashing the PGA, its just reality. The golf culture of "acting cool" and showing no emotion is not what the public wants. Because being Tiger is cool and is "in" because he is "the needle".

What the PGA needs to do, is to not stray too far from status quo in an effort to keep the Tiger-boomers. There is nothing worse than a contrived orchestration of riff raff. It would just seem weird to see Jason Dufner yell and scream at a drive like Boo Weekley would do. Or see Steve Stricker wearing Loud Mouth apparel. They need to get lucky, again. 

 

The Douchbaggery of Individual Sports is putting the F-U in Fun

LONG AWAITED RETURN OF MY BLOG

Ok, this particular topic has been long overdue. What tipped it off was the sighting of a shirt I saw saying "Running Sucks". THANK GOD someone said it. It does suck! Not only because I cant think of a 'sport' that is deceivingly bad for your body, but because of the douchbags that have tainted the innocence of it. Same goes for cycling, and....yes..... GOLF. Let's do this OLYMPIC style!

EVENT - RUNNING

Bronze - The runner at 12am when everyone is going out with....you know...friends and having fun, this guy decides to show his dedication by saying "I don't need friends! They only make you fat and slow".

Silver - The runner who runs in snow in shorts and short sleeved shirt. OK, apparently this guy is more worried about his cardio than catching a cold.

Gold - The guy with no shirt. NEED I SAY MORE!

Breakdown: This was a landslide. The guy with no shirt really pulled away at the end. Asking him "I'm in law school, and I need to look good while I spend 3 to 4 years looking for a paying job. I dont wear a shirt because I want to show how good I look without a shirt. But please ignore the fact that my last girlfriend I had I cheated on her with the next girl that saw me run shirtless and got all googly eye'd.

EVENT - CYCLING

Bronze - The guy who decides to go for a bike ride with his wife and 3 kids on a Sunday in traffic. First of all, if you have children and you want to take them cycling, and you want to decrease the number of LIVING children in your life, by all means. Its also a good way to start vocabulary lessons with your kid as you hold up traffic and the city of Boston will let you know how they feel.

Silver - HUBWAY RIDERS. Yes, we get it, you cant afford a bike, but because you continue to support these companies, you continue to take up KEY parking spaces around the city. AWESOME A PARKING SPOT.....no....wait......its a rack of bicycles........doucebag.

Gold - THE GUY WHO RIDES AROUND DRESSED LIKE LANCE ARMSTRONG! Wow, its amazing that paying $50 gets you a sponsorship. You mean I can look like Lance Armstrong while riding my bike. Here's a blank check sir.

Breakdown: The family had the lead for a little bit, but little Jimmy kept complaining that he wanted to go home and play with his friends and held up the family's progress in the race. Hubway had a pretty decent lead at the halfway point due to the fact that they rode really really fast, then later got tired because it is really the only exercise they have had in the last 3 months. But Lance Armstrong, again, took the lead and the would never be relinquished. "It feels good. I like to thank these companies that are on my shirt....um...I dont know what they do, but I thank them." Unfortunately, the ceremony was short lived because the rider later tested positive for being a douchbag.

EVENT - GOLF

You know what....stay tuned for these results, this will be a separate blog all in itself.

It's not a missile...... It's a space station.....

Wow! Either our government isn't as good at coming up with cover-up's as it once was, or someone messed up royally. This blogger's guilty pleasure is reading about war stories and international espionage....and watching 'To Catch A Predator'. But the former, to me, is very interesting. So, everyone with half a brain knows that this projectile, was not an airplane. Unless Richard Branson has a new toy that know one knows of yet.

But lets cut to the chase. How can anyone REALLY think that this was an airplane. I mean, last time I flew, I wasn't launched at a 90 degree angle with a plume of contrail (that is the new buzzword by the way) coming out the back of my aircraft. It looked too much like a video that is released by Kim Jung Il on a quarterly basis.

So what happened? I think it was either a test launch of a missile WITHOUT payload and they didn't want to admit it. Which is fine. Or it was an accidental launch of an upcoming test launch that was originally scheduled for next week.

Either way, there is no way that was an airplane.

You know what really grinds my gears?? Johnny the gallery pro.

As I sit here this morning, watching golf (The Shanghai tournament featuring Tiger, Phil, Kaymer and Westwood), one of my many pet peeves came to mind. I've gone to the Deutchebank tournament in Norton, MA the past two years and nothing..I mean NOTHING...was more annoying than fans being 'that person'. Which person? You know who it is. The person in the concert hall that wants to be the first to STAND and applaud the performer. The person at the meeting, or presentation, that HAS to ask the most generic, vanilla, buzz word filled question. "Are we going to be integrating any new business strategies?" The person I am referring to, is the guy in the gallery that talks to the golf ball of the professional at the golf course as if it will listen to him. I am PHILOSOPHICALLY opposed to talking to my own golf ball. I just don't. The damn thing wont listen to me AFTER I hit it the wrong way. Like when you putt, I don't yell out 'STAY UP!' or 'GO!'. I don't do any of that garbage. It's stupid and its sounds dumb.

So, its annoying when 'Johnny the gallery pro' talks to Y.E. Yang's golf ball to 'GO!' or "STAY UP!' My lord its so annoying. Like it will listen to you and not the professional. As if the golf ball will decide 'OH MY GOD! Johnny the gallery pro just told me to 'go', so I shall!' What is also annoying, yet not as much, is when you have Johnny the gallery pro make a few comments about 'now, he has to play the ball back in his stance', etc, then CONVENIENTLY, look around at the people in the gallery as if to make sure that someone heard his earth moving advice for Hunter Mayhan. No, sir, you are not looking around to see if you notice a friend, you are looking around to see if anyone heard your advice. I heard it, and its stupid. Its like a guy staring at a shirt full of breasts, then the girl catching you, and you pretend to have an irritation in your eye. Ok, maybe not like that, but you get the point.

What else is annoying is when the gallery pro, talks to his buddy, or girlfriend, about how to play the course. Like I need your god damn advice. I need your advice about the course you just shot 120 at last week with your buddies.

And that's what really grinds my gears!

Diane.......

(If you haven't seen that episode of Family Guy, you wouldn't get the joke)

We're BAAAAAAaaaaaaaack!

After reading message boards around the web, I'm getting back that loving feeling for the Patriots. Yes, the Patriots, according to message boards, are 'one of the worst 6-1 teams of all-time'. I LOVE IT! This is exactly what Patriots football is all about. This is exactly where we want to and what won the Patriots 3 Super Bowls in the early 2000's. All the Patriots concentrated on was winning. They didn't care how, they just won. Defense one day, special teams the next, offense the week after. The only problem with this team as opposed to those other teams is that this defense lacks what I call, play-makers and heart-breakers.

From 2001 to 2005 we had play makers like Ty Law and Richard Seymour and heart-breakers like Mike Vrable and Tedy Bruschi. What I mean by heart-breakers are players that teams and fans alike totally disregard as a factor or a play-maker and sneak up on you with a big play that seals the game. Tedy Bruschi was the BEST at that. The quarterback would look over the middle for a pass on, what would be, a game winning drive, throw a pass and Tedy Bruschi would just jump up and snatch it out of the air. Interception, game over, bring out the victory formation.

From here on out, teams will totally take the Patriots for granted. The other teams will play a very vanilla cover 2 defense just to get picked apart by Tom Brady like a vulture over a dead body in the desert. Players like McCourty, Cunningham and Spikes are really turning out to be play makers. Wait...weren't they all from the same draft class??? And we Patriots fans got all bent out of shape for not drafting Dez Bryant.

The most BIZARRE and UNDERRATED sports story of ALL TIME

I was just thinking about how bizarre this whole Randy Moss story is. About how he was traded from the Patriots to the Vikings because he wanted a contract, or was bored. I’m a big Randy Moss fan by the way, and want him back. Now that he was essentially released by the Vikings and now there are questions about would Bill Belichick want Randy Moss back? I hope so. I mean, Randy Moss basically said ‘…I miss the Patriots’ after the Vikings lost to the Patriots and after the coach of the Vikings, Brad Childress, opened up the spy gate chest again and refused to listen to Randy Moss’s advice on how to beat the Patriots. This is why Randy Moss would be USELESS play for another team, because he is already so steamed about this, where he is like, ‘…you know what, I should just go back and be on my best behavior. They have the best coach, the best quarterback and the best owner in the NFL, I never realized how good I had it until now’. But that brings me to probably the most bizarre story in the history of sports.

This story I would say is the most bizarre, because it doesn’t involve murder, or assault or anything that is against the law. No, it has to be a real ‘head scratcher’. A story that makes you say ‘what?!?’ and go straight to Wikipedia to read more about it. Yes, before there was Tiger hitting fire hydrants, before there was Brett Favre sending pictures of his junk to cute interns and before there was Kobe being Kobe, we had Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich.

This story, if you don’t know it already, would have made MAJOR LEAGUE headlines all over the world if it were to happen today. One day Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich, who both played for the Yankees in the 60’s and 70’s, became close friends. Apparently close enough to decided one day to change things up a bit. They decided to make their very own trade. Not for uniform numbers, or roommate assignments or even locker room positions. No, they decided to trade families. Yes sir, they decided to swap wives, children, dogs, etc. Imagine what ESPN could have done with this story? Imagine all the tabloids?

Now, like most trades, there is a winner and a loser. Fritz Peterson is STILL married to former Mrs. Kekich while Mike and the former Mrs. Peterson didn’t last very long.

Congrats to the San Fransisco Giants

Congratulations to the San Fransisco Giants on winning the 2010 World Series. This World Series I actually found pretty watchable. Probably because the games lasted under 3 hours. As opposed to Red Sox/Yankees games that are contractually obligated to last over 5 hours, or Bud Selig would call the game a tie, thus not counting as an official game

I discussed this with my friend Phil, the Giants are probably up there (or down, depending on how you look at it) as one of the least talented offenses to WIN a World Series. But, for sure, one of the best TEAMS of all time. This team was put together with scotch tape and recycled newspapers. And they have Edgar Rentaria, who was just named World Series MVP. Who also became only the 4th player of all time to have 2 game-winning RBI in clinching games in World Series history: Gehrig, Dimaggio and Yogi Berra were the others. And according to Wikipedia, those three players were pretty good. Of course he will always hold a special place in Red Sox fans' hearts for making the FINAL out of the 2004 World Series. (Happy Place)
Speaking of which, I would like to see a baseball simulation between the 2004 St. Louis Cardinals, who were probably one of the most talented offenses in World Series history not to win and the 2010 San Fransisco Giants.