The 2012 Dubsy Awards

Every January since this blog was created, we here at Dubsism have given an award for achievements during the previous year in some under-recognized categories in the world of sports. In prior years, the nominations for the awards were done exclusively by an internal committee. This was the first year we allowed nominations from the general public.

Between our committee and our valued readers, we had more quality nominations than we could ever possibly use.  Thank you so much for that. When we received an outstanding nomination that proved to be a winner, we made sure to recognize those who submitted it. However, we did also receive nominations on multiple ballots that proved to be winners. If you see a winner that you nominated, and you weren’t credited, just know that you weren’t the only one who had the same idea.

With that, and after careful consideration, here are the winners of the 2012 Dubsy awards.

The Ever-Changing Looks of Alexi Lalas Are More Proof Soccer Is Gaining In Popularity In The United States…

ESPN soccer commentator Alexi Lalas at auction purchased Geraldo Rivera’s mustache and had it dyed ginger.

This is important to note because only a guy working in a growing sport could pay those kind of prices.  If you doubt that, take a look at some of Lalas’ looks from when soccer was the red-headed step-child in America.

Remember the earlier days of Major League Soccer when Lalas was running around looking like a bicycle-kicking ginger Jesus. Of course you don’t; nobody watched the MLS until Drew Carey bought a team.

That led to PlayStation Lalas. Who even has a PlayStation anymore? Aren’t we up to like PS9 by now?

After that, we get Serie A Lalas, the first American in the modern era to play in the top Italian league. The difference is all in hair and beard length.

One thing you have to be careful of is the ease of which any variant of the long-haired bearded Lalas can easily be confused with Metallica’s James Hetfield (again, depending the length of hair or in this case, the presence of Lars Ulrich).

When you are being compared to one of the unquestioned gods of rock, your level of popularity is only going up.  And when you get your own bobblehead, you are certainly going places.

With an increase in popularity comes the beginning of the end for the look you’ve become known for as there is a mainstreaming effect. This is why Lalas showed up one day looking like Chuck Norris.

But at some point, the beard has to come off, and there is no better proof of  your arrival than parody.

The upside to losing the hair disguise is you can end up in a major motion picture, which is the height of popularity. The downside is if you are a ginger with big face bones…well, the picture says it all.

Through all of that, we as a nation find ourselves at a point where now that Lalas can afford to buy Geraldo’s mustache, destroy it’s Smithsonian value by dyeing it, and play Rocky Dennis while playing in two FIFA World Cups, there’s no denying the popularity of soccer is on the rise in America.

Oh, and Lalas got Hannah Storm pregnant.  You aren’t even allowed to talk to her unless you are on the “A” list at ESPN.  But don’t tell anybody; let’s the tabloids have their day with it because she’s like 70 years old.

NBC Sports Network Is Your New Home For The English Premier League; This Is Very Bad News For ESPN

Last week, the NBC Sports Network announced that through an $83 million bid, they have secured the broadcast rights in the United States for the English Premier League (EPL) for three years beginning with the 2013-2014 season.

However, this move means more than soccer fans finding the “beautiful game” on another channel.  This move has some long-term implications for not only the EPL but for the popularity of soccer in the United States, and for the futures of ESPN, Fox Sports, and NBC Sports Network?

Before we get into the details, Americans are going to need to understand one crucial fact; while the NFL is currently the world’s most profitable sports league, the EPL is the most popular. While the NFL’s television presence in foreign (excluding Canada) markets is little more than novelties like the occasional regular-season game played in London or the Super Bowl, there’s has been a bare-knuckle brawl for the overseas broadcasting rights to the EPL.  This means in very short order, the EPL is going to replace the NFL as the world’s most profitable sports league.  That will become important later.

Americans who believe the NFL will always be the most popular sport in this country might consider this a wake-up call.   Not only did NBC make the biggest bid anybody has ever made for the U.S. rights to broadcast the EPL, they raised the price of poker by nearly quadrupling the bid that Fox Sports made back in 2009. This took everybody else out of the running, before NBC Sports Network was given the deal, ESPN, Fox Sports, BeIN, and Al Jazeera were all told they would not be getting the contract.

That’s a pretty bold move.  All those other networks had at some point broadcast the EPL, and Al Jazeera was actually the best English-language coverage available. But the EPL is building a model based on getting a major piece of its revenue from foreign television broadcasting rights.  These rights totaled $1.4 billion dollars of revenue for the EPL over the past three seasons, and that number is only going up.  The country in which the EPL is the least popular is the U.S., but the fact that NBC Sports jumped the bid nearly four times over only tells you what the future value of EPL rights will be.

While the NFL and the ESPNs of the world are doing everything they can to kill their own popularity, the EPL is doing exactly the opposite.  Here’s why…the EPL realizes you can’t force Americans to buy a cable channel.

That’s really what the NFL is doing with the NFL Network and it’s host of Thursday games which can’t be seen in half the households in America. ESPN is doing the same thing with ESPN Desportes, which is where much of ESPN’s soccer coverage ends up.  Fox Soccer Channel is also in the high-number hinterlands of the average cable package.  Don’t even ask me where you can find BeIN or Al Jazeera on your cable box.

The fact that NBC Sports Network is on basic cable will lead to an increase of ratings, especially since for the price they paid, NBCSN is not going to relegate prime games like Manchester United vs. Chelsea to the 7:30 a.m. time slot. They know you can put Stoke City vs. Queen’s Park Rangers there.  Fox figured out you can run EPL games tape-delay at 4 p.m. ET, not to mention we live in a DVR world.  Hell, ESPN figured out tape-delay works thirty years ago when they had the rights to the NCAA Basketball tournament.  Soccer fans in America are willing to adapt to the time difference because they enjoy the game; this is one of the fundamental misunderstandings the NFL has about trying to be popular in Europe. This will not work in reverse.

The Fox thing is important, because since soccer is growing in popularity and NBC is largely shut-out in the “big” American sports right now; all they’ve got now is Notre Dame football, horse racing, and the Olympics.  Yet, other than the Olympics, all those contracts will come due for bidding in the next few years, and until then, NBC and it’s Sports Network can use the most popular sports league in the world to boost it’s standing, and therefore make more money, and therefore become a player when it comes to bidding for contracts.

Fox did already blaze the trail for the EPL being broadcast on over-the-air network television, but NBC could really make a run with this, since as we’ve already mentioned, the EPL is growing in popularity and NBC is almost certain to recoup the large bid they laid down for the rights.  Granted, there’s a chance this could backfire and NBC Sports could take a loss on this venture, but that would require soccer to quit growing in popularity. That’s not going to happen.

While this is a big win for NBC, its a big loss for some others, not the least of which is ESPN.  The World Wide Leader was once the bastion for soccer in the United States, but has now lost the Champions League, the World Cup, and now the EPL. This means that after World Cup 2014 and Euro 2016, ESPN will have no current soccer contracts.  What’s even worse for ESPN is the option of sub-contracting games (like they did with Fox Sports) will be off the table since it is clear NBC Sports Network intends to compete directly with ESPN.  Naturally, this means ESPN will have another temper tantrum and refuse to cover soccer, giving it the same cold shoulder it currently gives to the NHL.

 

For all intents and purposes, Fox Soccer Channel will be destroyed.  Despite the fact it will still have the big European tournaments, such as the Champions League, the FA Cup,  and the Europa League, those simply do not have the week-in, week-out attraction during the soccer season the EPL provides. No EPL means filling 38 weekends per year with the Australian A-League and Scottish Premier League (a league which just lost one of its biggest clubs to an insolvency issue). That’s not going to work.  Without regular top European league broadcasts, Fox Soccer’s situation will soon become dire, because it is a premium cable channel  requiring a sports package. Frankly, to even hard-core soccer fans, it just became not worth the price.

Let’s get to the bottom line. NBC Sports Network is quietly putting together a realistic competitor for ESPN, and I’m all for it.  While many American major league sports broadcasting rights are tied up in long-term deals, and with the uncertainty with the NHL,  NBC needs some top tier sports coverage to use as a cornerstone while it sits and waits.  What better for that than the world’s most popular league?  Along with it’s Major League Soccer contract, NBC Sports Network will become the home for soccer in America.

Now, if they would also cover La Liga or Serie A…

Signs We Are Near The Civilization: Dodgeball Takes a Sadistic Twist

Today, we are going to learn how much pure sadism and hilarity can come from one sixteen-second video.

First of all, where does one find a school that would line up 9 boys heads down and their pre-pubescent taints exposed for prime soccer-ball damage? Not one of them seems to know what is coming; otherwise you might think they might put a hand or two over their little giblets.

Actually, that’s eight head down boys and one whose being a bit of a bitch.  There’s always that one kid who just can’t play along, which is why he’s the one to keep your eye on in this clip.

Now comes the part that we can’t decide which is funnier…

1. The fact this girl wails a soccer ball full-on at these boys from about six feet away
2. The fact that she nails two taints, and still gets a full face shot out of the deal
3. The stance on the kid still standing really makes you want him to get nailed

The sad part is some Phys. Ed. teacher somewhere is probably going to lose their job over this, which is too bad, because then we will never know why thses boys got lined up against the wall.

A Few Thoughts On Canadian Women’s Soccer and American Women’s Gymnastics

I’ll try to keep this simple.  Let’s start with the basic facts.

Tuesday’s Olympic women’s soccer semifinal between the U.S. and Canada was one of the most dramatic games you’ll ever see.  It also had some of the shittiest officiating you’ll see this side of Major League Baseball.

Tuesday’s Olympic individual event finals in women’s gymnastics had some of the most dramatic moments you’ll see in the London Games.  It also had some of the shittiest officiating you’ll see this side of Major League Baseball.

It’s just easier to spot a bad call in soccer than it is in gymnastics.

In the soccer match, Canadian goalkeeper Erin McLeod got called for holding the ball too long.  For you Americans who don’t know, in soccer there is a rarely enforced six-second violation for goalies holding on to the ball. This is to prevent to soccer equivalent of the basketball “four-corner offense” which is all about running out the clock.  The referee awarded the U.S. a free kick, which the same referee deemed to have been been struck with the hand of a Canadian player. That ruling resulted in a penalty kick, which to U.S. converted into a match-tying goal with about ten minute to go in regulation time.  40 minutes later, the U.S. scored the game-winning goal at the end of extra time.

In the gymnastics, American Aly Raisman’s routine on the balance beam was given an initial score of 14.966, which prompted American coach Bela Karolyi to go apeshit from the stands urging Raisman’s personal coach to file an appeal of the scoring.  Mihai Brestyan followed the screams of the Hungarian Yosemite Sam of gymnastics, filed the appeal and voilá, Raisman’s  score was elevated to a 15.066, which left her tied for third-place with Romanian Catalina Ponor.  And in another bit of scoring gymnastics, while Raisman’s and Ponor’s difficulty scores were identical at 6.300, Raisman’s execution score was higher, which gave her the bronze medal.

So, now that we’ve outlined the basic scenarios, let’s breakdown some cold hard facts which illustrate a crucial point.

Cold Hard Fact #1:  Complaining about the officials usually forgets an important point.

This is where I have to point out that if you execute and don’t make a shitload of mistakes, the referees really are limited in taking victory away from you.  This whole “bounty-gate” situation with the New Orleans Saints let Minnesota Vikings’ fans have another crack at their bullshit whining about how the officials screwed them in the 2010 NFC Championship game.  Naturally, this argument ignores the five turnovers the Vikes committed.

In the case of the Canadians, they may very have a legitimate argument that the referee gave it to them prison-style, and that had that not happened, they would have won 3-2. The trouble is that that also forces the “what if” game to take a turn in the Canadian favor; it forces them to assume that the Americans would not have scored anyway in the last ten minutes of regulation time. While that might normally be a safe assumption, it isn’t in this case because the Canadians gave up far too many scoring opportunities throughout the second half to say with the same level of certainty they have on the “ref dicked us” angle that they Americans would not have scored.  In other words, it is equally as possible that what happened at the end of regulation could have just as easily happened at the end of regulation time.

As far as Raisman is concerned, her bronze medal on the balance beam is a direct result of Brestyan convincing the judges that Raisman’s routine had been scored incorrectly.  Scoring in gymnastics is completely subjective, so who the hell knows what is correct and what isn’t?

Having said all that, complaining about officiating when done in the wrong way can have a serious boomerang effect. Somebody on the Canadian women’s team crossed the line; you can criticize, but you can’t make allegations that games a re being fixed. Every sports organization takes an exceptionally dim view of such allegations, and FIFA (despite the fact it is an incredibly corrupt organization) is no exception.

Cold Hard Fact #2: Canada and Catalina Ponor likely were legitimately screwed, but it doesn’t matter. 

The six-second rule is a bit hackneyed, it’s soccer’s completely subjective, called-at-will rule like holding in the NFL, traveling in the NBA, or an umpire in baseball deciding the batter hit by the pitch didn’t make a sufficient attempt to get out of the way of the ball.  The point is it matters little if the rule is rarely enforced; its still a rule.  It would be weak to get a speeding ticket for going two miles an hour over the limit, but you were still speeding.

This get a bit tougher to nail down in gymnastics, where the whole thing comes down to what a bunch of  judges think.  But you know it is entirely possible that the appeal discussion went something like “Uhhh, the Americans are the star power and they bring the TV money, so maybe we’d better give her the medal.”

Cold Hard Fact #3:  If you are going to play the “What If?” game in your favor, you have to play it to your detriment as well.

See the earlier reference to the 2010 Minnesota Vikings. To maintain any semblance of legitimacy, you have to be willing when asking “What if the referees hadn’t screwed us?” you must also be willing to ask “What if we didn’t commit those five turnovers?”

This means if you are the Canadian women’s soccer team, you have to ask “What if we didn’t blow three leads in the second half?” This means if you are Aly Raisman, you have to ask yourself “What if I hadn’t made that one stumble on the balance beam?”

Don’t misunderstand the point here. It is the God-given right of every sports fan to bitch about officiating. All I’m saying is with rights come responsibilities, meaning you have to understand that complaining as a fan never changes the result; complaining as a competitor is almost as equally pointless. But having said that, as a fan you must never let anyone tell you can’t scream over the inherent unfairness of sports until your voice-box sues for divorce.

But as a competitor, you also have to remember that you actually have the power to eliminate the argument in the first place; nobody ever bitches about the referees in a 30-point blowout. That’s exactly why blaming the officials is so easy; it means you don’t have to own your piece of the loss.

The Crucial Point: When it comes to sports, Americans are complete hypocrites…and the Canadians are just like them. 

Face it, America, there’s really no denying this. The very same people who attacked a Tweep of mine for saying the Americans played cry-baby in the gymnastics scenario are the same ones high-fiving each other over the result of Tuesday’s soccer game.  Americans love the “What if?” game when it works for them.  If you doubt that, imagine what the headlines Wednesday morning would have looked like if Catalina Ponor were an American?

To be honest, this is the true beauty of sport; it reflects life.  Life isn’t fair, and neither are sports. They aren’t supposed to be.  Fairness is a fantasy dreamed up by those same assholes who believe everybody should get a trophy for competing.  Sports is supposed to teach you important lessons about life, and ironically one of the tools for success in life taught by sports is how to lose graciously.

Canada and Catalina Ponor both got screwed.  Granted, the Canadians eventually ended up with the bronze, and Ponor won the silver medal on the floor exercise. They didn’t go home empty handed, but they left with less than they should have.  I know, by all rights the glory, the medals, and the trappings should have been theirs, but guess what? It’s called “sports,” not “should haves.” It isn’t fair, but that the way it is.  No matter how much hand-wringing you want to do over it,  you can’t change it.  Trying to make everything fair just takes us that much closer to making Harrison Bergeron a reality.

Through bad officiating, they both lost a medal.  Not because the games were fixed, but because officials are human, which means they are going to fuck up; sometimes so horribly and so perfectly timed as to offer the definition of soul-crushing defeat. That’s why the true winners learn how to handle such defeat.  After all, the world hates an inglorious winner as much as it does a sore loser.

And there lies the heart of American sports hypocrisy.  The same American soccer mom who thinks everybody should be a winner is also the one who screams the loudest when the “fairness” doesn’t go her way.  The same Americans who are calling the Canadians “crybabies” are the very same who would have wanted to declare war had the tables been turned.

Ponor handled her defeat with just such grace, you didn’t hear her stomping around making allegation of fraud.  Too bad I can’t say the same about the Canadians.  For all the sniffing, elitist bullshit I get to listen to out of Canadians about how their frozen, socialist utopia is so much better than their bulging, evil neighbor to the south, I was amazed at how American-like they acted when confronted with the soul-crushing defeat.  My amazement ended when a Canadian friend (who we will refer to only as “Gordy”) explained it to me.

Ponor refused to show her emotions.

According to “Gordy,” the best way to describe Canada is that it is essentially what a bastard child between America and Europe would be.  To that end, he says there are only two types of European-descended Canadians; those who are pissed because they wish their country was more like Europe, and those who are pissed because they wish they country was more like America.  To me, it doesn’t really matter; they are all Canadians and can feel however they want about their heritage. But no matter what, they can’t bitch about Americans then act just like them just because they lost to them.

At the end of the day, the Canadians shouldn’t be worried about how they lost that soccer game. They should be more concerned about how one Romanian female gymnast took an equally-crushing loss more like a man than their entire nation did.

The Twelve Most Useless Statistics in Sports

12) Minutes Played 

Let’s be honest. In basketball, it isn’t about how often you get on the floor, it’s what you do when you get there. That’s probably why all the leaders all-time in minutes played are (or will be) in the Hall-of Fame.  This statistic gets even more worthless when you add the divisor “per 48 minutes.”  To quote the great Charles Barkley, the only reason you need to calculate what a player would do in 48 minutes is because he’s not good enough to play all 48 minutes.

11) Penalty Minutes 

In general, the more penalty minutes you have in hockey, the more of a goon you were.  It would make more sense to me to simply count fights won vs. fights lost like we do with boxers. If you have a lot of penalty minutes and weren’t a goon, you were just a cheater. Either way, a minute count just tells me how often you weren’t available because you broke the rules.

10) Time of Possession 

Fans of football have been duped into believing this statistic is an excellent predictor of wins.  The logic is that the more you can control the ball, the more you can control the outcome of the game.  This thinking ignores some crucial issues, such as quick scores – as in long passes, kick returns, and turnovers in general.  Plus, hanging on to the ball for eight minutes then settling for a field goal after stalling inside the 20 doesn’t really help a team.

9) Shots On Goal 

This one really perplexes me. If you think about it, this stat really counts the number of time a hockey player fails to score, and uses that as an indicator of success, as if the team who takes the most shots scores the most goals.  Actually, the team that makes the most shots scores the most goals, which should seem pretty obvious.

8 ) Wins 

This statistic applies to baseball pitchers, hockey goalies, and Tim Tebow. Remember last fall when we were in the throes of Tebow-Mania? Remember how his defenders obfuscated the discussion about his lousy number by claiming “he just wins?” See, the problem is that in team sports, individuals don’t win; teams do. The Tebow-philes never seemed to remember that in almost all of the Broncos wins with Tebow at quarterback, it was the defense who kept the team in position to have a shot at winning the game.

Many baseball purists may revile at this thought, but that a pitcher has the sole determination in whether his team wins or loses completely defies logic, because the is no hard correlation between the pitcher’s performance and that pitcher earning a win.  How many times have I watched Tim Lincecum pitch eight scoreless innings, then give up a solo home run and lose because the Giants can’t score? Conversely, how many times have I watched (insert Yankee pitcher here) serve up half a dozen earned runs and still get a win because the Bronx Bombers plated 10 runs?

Don’t even get me started how a “win” recorded by a relief pitcher is usually just a blown save…

The same applies to netminders, with the distinction being goalies are far more dependent on their team’s defense, specifically it’s ability to kill penalties. A goalie who has a bad won-loss record very easily can be a guy who has to play short-handed too often. Imagine what would happen to a pitcher if he had to play an inning without a shortstop?

7) Holds 

While holds are not an official major league baseball statistic, they do show up in some box scores, and they are exceptionally worthless. While intended to measure the effectiveness of middle relievers, it lacks a uniform means of calculation.  In some means, particularly that used by the now-defunct SportsTicker, it doesn’t even matter if pitchers can get batters out.  A pitcher can get shelled, not even record a single out, but still be credited with a hold if the next pitcher out of the bullpen cleans up his mess without giving up the lead.

6) Saves 

Saves are really just “wins” for the guy designated to pitch the ninth inning.  But, just like wins for a starting pitcher, this is a flawed measure of a reliever’s performance. First of all, the criteria are completely arbitrary; it really can be just a circumstance such as being the last guy to pitch for the winning team.  If a pitcher enters the game with a lead and pitches the final three innings and the team wins – even if he comes into a 10-0 game and gives up 9 runs – that pitcher gets a save. Pitchers also can earn a save for pitching with a three-run lead in the 9th inning.

5) Plus/Minus Rating 

This may be the ultimate in useless statistics, because a player can rack up numbers here simply by being on the ice. While being specifically defined as a measure of a player’s “goal differential,” it really is just “minutes played” combined with “minutes where good stuff happened.” In other words, anytime a goal is scored (not including penalty shots or power-play goals) the Plus/Minus rating is increased by one (“plus”) for those players on the ice for the scoring team; likewise for those players on the ice for the team giving up the goal, their rating decreased by one. While this is purported to be a measure of defensemen and forwards who largely play a defensive role, two of the top three single-season ratings belongs to two of the great scorers of all-time (Wayne Gretzky and Bobby Orr).

4) Championships (as an individual statistic)

The two groups of people most responsible for using championships as an individual statistics are basketball fans and people judging the greatness of NFL quarterbacks. You’ve heard the argument; a player can’t be truly great without having won a championship. It’s a complete load of crap because championships are team accomplishment. Charles Barkley never won a ring, yet he is one of only 4 players with 4,000 assists, 10,ooo rebounds, and 20,000 points. Stacy King has three rings and only led the league in weight gained on the bench. Which would you rather have?

3) Batting Average 

Baseball fans love this stat; and as much as I love baseball, I find it to be largely irrelevant on its own.  To me the prime example is in a comparison between the average season’s of a high-batting average player like Tony Gwynn (.338/9 HR/76 RBI/92 runs scored) and a run producer like Jay Buhner (.254/34 HR/106 RBI/88 runs scored). Gwynn collected more unproductive hits, whereas Buhner produced more scoring. Scoring wins ball games, not singles.

2) Player Efficiency Rating (PER) 

Here’s the first example of a statistic that was created by ESPN. PER attempts to account for just about anything a basketball player does by mashing positives like points, rebounds, shooting percentages, blocks, et cetera into a gargatuan complex formula with negatives like turnovers and fouls. The trouble is that it is nearly impossible to understand, and it does almost nothing to quantify defensive contributions other than rebounds.

1) Any System for Rating Quarterbacks 

Whether it is the Passer Rating or that goofy Total Quarterback Rating that ESPN dreamed up, they are both so convoluted they manage to do exactly the opposite of what they were intended to do. The entire concept of either of these formulas was to give a clear and quantifiable value accounting for all the things quarterbacks do. Of course, you could just watch the damn game and figure that out.  Besides, when’s the last time you heard somebody say “Wow, did you see that game last night? That quarterback must have had a rating of at least 95!”

-Dubsism is a proud member of Sports Blog Movement

Famous Sports Rivalries In Which I Hate Both Sides

The sporting world is full of rivalries which engender so much passion there are clear battle lines drawn between the camps. But what happens to those of us who may feel animus toward both sides? Here’s a list of several such examples that make the collective colon here at Dubsism slam shut like a steel bear trap.

12 ) Chicago Cubs vs. Chicago White Sox

It is almost impossible to find two teams that exemplify their shit-hole of a city more. Where better to put the two retarded little brothers of baseball who while steeped in history have accounted for one championship in 90 years than in one of the largest cities in the world that matters the least to anybody?

11) LeBron James vs. the City of Cleveland

Sometimes, you really have to wonder if we have completely succeeded in this country in growing a generation of complete morons we’ve put on pedestals. Nobody in the world would have blamed LeBron James for leaving Cleveland; nobody wants to be in Cleveland.  It’s little more than a “Mini-Me” to Chicago; a rust-belt, blue-collar city that nobody wants to be in; Cleveland’s population has been dropping steadily for 80 years. All he had to do was not be a douche-bag about it.  It really leaves you in a situation where you can’t figure out who is dumber, LeBron for screwing up a move millions of Clevelanders have made themselves or those same Clevelanders for managing collectively to sound like a bitter ex-wife.

10) Montreal Canadiens vs. Toronto Maple Leafs

Hate is actually too strong a term for this. The problem is the “Rhett Butler” approach is too weak, but it is closer to accurate.  Let’s face it;  I don’t really give a damn. I spent big chunks of my childhood in Southern California, which isn’t exactly where you develop strong feelings about Canadian hockey teams, and even though I loved the old-school Los Angeles Kings (seriously, we are talking about the pre-Gretzky Kings with the purple and gold uniforms that clothed an NHL retirement home; the Kings of my childhood featured such past-their-prime legends like Butch Goring and Marcel Dionne), you couldn’t watch the 12-team NHL of the 1970′s without knowing these two teams hated each other.  All I cared about in those days is that both of these teams arrived at the L.A. Forum with a boatload of Canadians who weren’t past their prime and put as ass-whipping on the Kings.  Even to this day, all I can say is “screw both of them; Canada sucks.”

9) Manchester United vs. Manchester City

For those of you not familiar with the English Premier League, picture this rivalry with the Red Devils of Manchester United as the New York Yankees with Manchester City as the old Brooklyn Dodgers. You perhaps didn’t really like the Dodgers, but they made a perfect underdog foil to those goddamn Yankees. But then the Dodgers went Hollywood, started winning and blew their lovability in the process, much like the Los Angeles Dodgers. 15 years ago, Man City was lovable in their feebleness, but then new ownership pumped that team full of money, and now they are every bit as douche-tastic as their cross-town rivals.

8 ) Dallas Cowboys vs. Washington Redskins

As a Philadelphia Eagle fan, this one is really a no-brainer. There’s an old saying that culture in an organization comes from the top down, and Jerry Jones and Daniel Snyder are a marvelous reflection of that. While we here at Dubsism have postulated that Al Davis makes the Oakland Raiders the “North Korea of the NFL,” Jones and Snyder are both in line to ascend to the NFL’s “Crazy Old Man Owner” throne. Thankfully, their leadership (or lack thereof) has made these two franchises combine for a grand total of three playoff wins in the past 15 years.

7) Oklahoma Sooners vs. Texas Longhorns

Our Proposed Logo for the "Red River Rivalry"

The way these two preen over that silly Saturday in October…well, it really is sad to think either of these two believe anybody gives a shit about them or their “make-believe” rivalry.  It’s really sad that a couple of goofy-ass schools like Nebraska and Colorado are the ones who figured out the Big 12 is a repository for football nobody cares about.

6) Green Bay Packers vs. Minnesota Vikings vs. Chicago Bears

This is much like the “love triangle” situation outline in the 1980 J. Geils’ Band hit “Love Stinks.” The Vikings think the Packers are their main rival, The Packers think the Bears are their main rival, and neither the Packers or the Bears even know who the Vikings are.

5) Arsenal vs. Chelsea

More from the English Premier League, so I will make another baseball reference…Earlier I compared Manchester United to the Yankees. Continuing on this theme, Arsenal would be the Red Sox and Chelsea would be the Mets, only if the Mets didn’t suck. They are two of the biggest clubs in the league, and they can buy pretty much any player they want. Whenever these two get together, it is an exercise in dysfunction that somehow manages to be successful, like a photo negative of the Dallas Cowboys.

4) Auburn vs. Alabama

When these two compete in the annual “Iron Bowl,” they are battling for the bragging right for the entire state of Alabama. This is like two bums fighting over the least piss-stained raincoat at Goodwill. Do you know what the best thing that ever came out of the state of Alabama was? An empty bus.  Alabama is just a collection of bimbos whose boyfriends still think Bear Bryant is alive, and Auburn thinks it is a real university.

3) Duke vs. North Carolina

What can we say about Duke that we haven’t said before? No matter their record, no matter their talent, no matter anything, Duke sucks.  As much as we have beat on Mike Krzyzewski for being a pompous ass-hat, North Carolina’s Roy Williams is in the same league, and not just figuratively. My favorite was last spring when Williams compared having a losing ACC record to the earthquake in Haiti.

“Our massage therapist told me, ‘You know, coach, what happened in Haiti is a catastrophe. What you’re having is a disappointment,’ ” said Williams. “I told her that depends on what chair you’re sitting in. It does feel like a catastrophe to me, because it is my life.”

I’m not sure what the state of North Carolina did to deserve such a pair of pure, uncut assholes, but better them than the rest of us.

2) Boston Red Sox vs. New York Yankees

The Yankees – Red Sox rivalry is one of the oldest, most famous and fiercest rivalries in North American professional sports.  For over 100 years, Major League Baseball’s Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees of the American League have been intense rivals.  For nearly as long, fans of both teams have thoroughly annoyed the living shit out of the rest of us.

The rivalry is sometimes so polarizing that it is often a heated subject, like religion or politics, in the Northeastern United States.  In fact, since ESPN is also based in the Northeastern US, they believe the Yankees and the Red Sox are the only two teams in Major League Baseball, judging by their broadcast schedule.

1) Michigan Wolverines vs. Ohio State Buckeyes

College football gives us the twelve greatest Saturdays of the year, and it also give us the two greatest evils in sports. Ohio State and Michigan both represent all that is wrong with college football, and every evil that it contains.  Recent events have shown that Jim Tressel, a.k.a. Cheatypants McSweatervest is a disingenuous, lying prick, and the Michigan fan base just hasn’t come to terms with the fact they are not an elite program anymore. I can only hope and pray that the NCAA grows the balls to make an example out of Ohio State, but they likely won’t, and I hope it takes Michigan at least three more head coaches before they figure out that “elite” programs don’t get man-handled by Purdue.

The Dubsism Top Fifteen Sports Events of 2010

Let’s just cut to the chase here…everybody else does some sort of “Year End” list, here’s our obligatory ramble on what we consider to be the 15 most significant sporting occurrances in 2010.

Honorable mention: The Vuvuzela

What began as a seemingly harmless noisemaker instead became a symbol of what happens when you hold a world-class sporting event in some third-world toilet. I don’t care if it isn’t “politically correct” to say it, but the fact is  South Africa is a crime-ridden shithole and holding the Wold Cup there was a complete disaster. Not only is the country a blight by even “poor nation” standards, but it is a ten-hour flight away from the nearest civilized place. Lets’ be even more honest; the reason why South Africa sucks is because it is inhabited by a bunch of low-rent trashballs ; its like every other country on earth rounded up their “Cousin Eddies” and dropped them in South Africa. This is why they had no problem at all ruining every World Cup telecast with the Vuvuzela, a two-dollar plastic horn which when pressed to the lips of a South African emits a droning cacophony similar to a cat stuffed in a bagpipe caught in a washing machine.  It speaks volumes about a country that can make one of the world’s great sporting events almost completely unwatchable.

15) All The (Vi)King’s Men Couldn’t Put The HumptyDome Together Again

What else can you say? Combine a stadium built on the cheap, go even cheaper on the maintenance, and add three decades of Minnesota winters, and who could be surprised when this happens? Just be prepared to see this collapse as a precursor to your new Los Angeles Vikings.

14) Connecticut Almost Convinces Us Women’s Basketball Is A Real Sport

But only almost…thankfully, that winning streak finally ended at 90 games last night.  Granted, winning that many games in a row in anything is impressive, even if the sport isn’t particularly so.  Think anybody cares about women’s basketball? Then tell me how you did in your women’s basketball bracket at the office last year?

13) The World Shuns America At Its Own Expense

It seems nobody wants to play here, given the failure of US World Cup and Olympic Bids. Honestly, I get the Olympic failure since Obama made himself the face of the Chicago bid, and since nobody internationally has nay respect for him and since Chicago is America’s answer to that third-world shithole known as South Africa.  But putting the World Cup in Qatar? Seriously?

So, we’d rather have matches played in an atmosphere of possible sudden-death political instability and 200-degree temperatures rather than to be in a country that would pony up top-dollar for this event? I understand there is some sort of Euro-Chic in hating on Uncle Sam now, but before you get to involved in such behavior, you may want to stop to check how many of those hated American dollars flow into such events, then imagine what those events might look like without any American investment.

12) The So-Called Demise of Tiger Woods

I really have a hard time with calling what happened to Tiger Woods a “demise,” which places me in direct contrast with “mainstream sports media.” I understand the guy went through a huge personal drama, and likely got majorly skinned in his divorce, but calling his drop from the #1 golfer in the world to #2 a “demise” is ludicrous.  From Merriam-Webster:

Demise: intransitive verb

1: die, decease

2: to pass by descent or bequest <the property has demised to the king’s heirs>

So, Tiger Woods didn’t win a tournament this year. Boo-fucking-hoo. Phil Mickelson has made a career out of not winning tournaments. How do I become so “dead” that I still earn $1.3 million dollars? How do I become so “dead” that I likely will be the top golfer in the world again within 1 year?

11) Brett Favre Pisses Away His Legacy

How appropriate is it that the last image of King Brett I as a football player we will have is him splayed out on the deck, knocked cold slap 0ut?  As sports fans, we may not have seen such a mythic figure bow out so disgracefully since Muhammad Ali…except “The Greatest of All-Time” didn’t sully his reputation with allegations of texting pictures of his weiner to some bimbo. However, in terms of a great athlete just not knowing when to go away, Favre’s huge career, his  folk status, and a big chunk of his legacy with a purple arm and pictures of his “purple-headed warrior” all gets flushed simply because he couldn’t realize when the party was over.

10) A Figure Skater Saves the Olympics for Canada

Sure the Canadian hockey team won Gold; if they hadn’t, all of the Great White North may have collectively taken their final luge run. Face it, you really couldn’t have a much worse start to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Hours before the Opening Ceremonies, Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili died after crashing during a training run. The lack of padding and protection on the dangerously fast Whistler sliding track was just the most consequential of problems plaguing these games; a mechanical torch malfunctioned during the opening ceremonies, an ice-resurfacing machine broke down at the speedskating venue, and snow had to flown in for the freestyle skiing and snowboarding events.

But once the media stopped fixating on what some dubbed the “Glitch Games,” there was some real drama.  Canadian figure skater Joannie Rochette used her long program to clinch a bronze medal.  What could be more dramatic than rallying from behind to save the dignity of a nation? Rallying from behind to save the dignity of a nation AND have a freshly-dead mother. ?Two days before the start of the short program, Rochette’s immediate female antecedent suffered a fatal heart attack. Rochette decided to compete anyway, uttering  the nearly-standard dead-parent cliche “I know what it’s what my (insert parental reference here) would have wanted me to do.” After skating through her visible grief in the short program, the Canadian fans gave her a rousing ovation.

Why does such syrupy, cliche, quasi-bullshit make the list of such a hard-edged blog like Dubsism? Because after the emotional competition, Rochette pumped 21 words worth of pure truth into the moment when she endearingly eulogized her mother with the quip  “even though she is not here any more, I’m not afraid to say sometimes she was a pain in the ass.”

9) Graeme McDowell Defines “Clutch”

America’s chances for a repeat win in the Ryder Cup looked slimmer than an Ethiopian on P90X, as the Yanks trailed by by three points going into the last day of this year’s prestigious team golf event. But during the singles matches, the Americans mounted a furious comeback against the Europeans. Even Tiger Woods, who was awful iafter his “demise,” throttled his Euro-pponent. The U.S. tied the tournament at 13 ½, with only American Hunter Mahan and Graeme McDowell left on the course. On the 16th hole McDowell was up 1 hole on Mahan.  McDowell only needed to cup  a 15-foot birdie putt to prevent an epic European collapse. He drained it, and Mahan blew the next hole, which forced him to concede the match.

8 ) The New Orleans Saints Win

Let’s not lie about anything here, if you wanted to define “shitty” in the history of a  sports franchise, the New Orleans Saints would be in that conversation. However, they took a step away from that legacy last February’s Super Bowl XLIV.  Funny to think how one gamble could payoff so big for a city that really doesn’t deserve it.

At the start of the second half, the New Orleans Saints trailed the Indianapolis Colts 10-6, and the Colts were set to receive the ball to begin the 2nd half. were set to kick-off.  But the Saints pulled off an on-side kick; a maneuver that had it back-fired would have given the Colts excellent field position and a chance to put the game out of reach. However, the gamble paid off, the Saints recovered the kick, and the game’s momentum shifted in an instant. New Orleans marched 58 yards downfield for a touchdown, and went on to win the game 31-17.

“Four years ago who ever thought this would be happening when 85 percent of the city was under water from (Hurricane) Katrina,” said New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees, the game’s MVP, who completed 32 of 39 passes, for 289 yards, and threw two touchdown passes for a team that had been a perennial loser for most of its 43 seasons in the league. “Most people not knowing if New Orleans would ever come back or if the organization and the team would come back. … This is the culmination of that belief and that faith.”

Fuck all that Katrina shit. Fuck it with a nuclear-powered, reciprocating fuck stick.  I’m so tired of hearing about what a tragedy Katrina was.  The real tragedy of Katrina was that there was anything left of that absolute shithole afterward. New Orleans is the rectum of North America, and anybody who says they love that city should be forced to live there. When I was a kid, my dad’s job got transferred to the “Big Shitty” and it took no time at all for him to want to get out of that sleaze pit. The average mope who shows up to get drunk in the French Quarter for a weekend would recoil in horror of their surrounding if they had to get their mail there; most of them would be gone within six months.

If you doubt that, ask yourself a question. Look at all the sports franchises that have relocated in the past 40 years and ask yourself why nobody except for the NBA went to New Orleans. Granted, the NFL was already there. But baseball never went to New Orleans; baseball never even considered the “Big Shitty.” When hockey teams flooded the south, nobody went to New Orleans. Even the aforementioned NBA deserted the city in 1979 when the Jazz decided five years was enough, and the current Hornets franchise has taken seven years to end up being owned by the league and destined to relocate. Not to mention the Saints had to be given a deal to keep from leaving until 2025, although that deal is rumored to be chock full of escape clauses which make it entirely possible they depart for another city in the next five years.

7) Ghana’s World Cup Choke

The most memorable moment of the World Cup tournament came from the Uruguay/Ghana match.  Near the end of extra time in their quarterfinal match with the game tied 1-1, the safe bet was the teams were headed for penalty kicks. Yet Ghana had one last chance to score, on a free kick, and the set piece was a beauty. The ball was delivered towards the goal box, then headed across four Uruguay defenders before the Uruguay keeper batted it down. On the rebound, a Ghanian  had a clear shot at the goal, but Uruguay forward Luis Suarez positioned himself perfectly in front of the net to knock this flick off his leg. This rebound floated to the head of Ghana’s Dominic Adiyiah, who quickly batted it back towards the net. This time, Suarez had no defense but his hand. This intentional foul gave Ghana a penalty kick, and what looked like an improbable win. A World Cup’s worth of suspense and improbability unfolded over these ten seconds in South Africa.

Then things got even more unreal. Ghana’s best player, Asamoah Gyan, shanked the penalty kick that would have sent an African nation to its first World Cup semifinal, breaking a continent’s heart. Uruguay eventually won on penalty kicks, turning Gyan into the World Cup equivalent of Scott Norwood.

6) The Perfect Game That Wasn’t

The only, and I mean only reason this gets on this list is timing. Blown calls happen all the time, but this one happened to be out #27 of what should have been a perfect game.  When Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga crossed first base with the ball in his glove in the top of the ninth against the Cleveland Indians on June 2 everyone  knew he had just completed a perfect game. Everyone, that is, except the umpire.

To the amazement of everyone watching, Jim Joyce ruled that Cleveland’s Jason Donald had actually just beaten Galarraga to the bag after hitting a grounder to the right of Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera. You didn’t need the replay except as validation, it was simply a blown call made at the end of a game. How many perfect games got snuffed by a bad call in the third inning? Nobody knows because nobody pays attention to such an event until the seventh.

5) Cinderella Almost Busts Everybodys Balls

Rarely has a half-court heave carried the vanquished hopes of so many underdogs. With 3.6 seconds left in the men’s college basketball championship between perennial power and heavy favorite Duke, and small-school underdog Butler playing in front of hometown fans in Indianapolis — it was a script straight out of the movie Hoosiers — Duke clung to a two-point lead. On a second free throw, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski ordered Brian Zoubek to miss , since Butler had no timeouts left, and thus wouldn’t be able to set up a last second-play.

Coach K is a bonafide Hall of Famer, but that strategy was atrocious. The intentional miss gave Butler a chance to win, and the Bulldogs took full advantage. Butler’s Gordon Hayward pulled down the rebound, and dribbled toward half-court: teammate Matt Howard delivered a brutal screen on Duke’s Kyle Singler, giving Hayward a clean look at the hoop. Hayward’s running half-court shot seemed to hang in the air forever. When it finally came down, right on line, many a fan’s gut feeling had it going in.  But it bounced off the backboard, and jetted past the rim, and Kryzyzewski won his fourth national title on one of the worst decision is his career.

4) The NFL Eschews Violence

This is an issue that defines the term “double-edged sword.”  On one side, you have a definite need to protect players in an era where we are discovering the long-term physical and mental damage caused by football violence. On the other, you have a sports that actively markets such violence. Rather than continue to walk the tightrope, the NFL acted aggressively, telling players that the league would increase fines and issue suspensions for those who violated safety rules which have actually been in place for several years. The problem is that in the process, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell showed himself to be both a hypocrite and an authoritarian, autocratic leader. This change was brought about by complete executive fiat; there was no warning, there was no consideration of the impact, there was just “do it or else.”  This led to a lot of cry-babyism from defensive players, however the larger issue is this has proven to be a wedge issue between the players and the league at a time when the league finds itself perilously close to a work stoppage. Making the matter even worse is that these punishments are being levied in the name of player safety, a claim that rings hollow with players as the league threateend to eliminate health coverage for player as part of the new collective bargaining agreement.

3) The Most Awesome Piece Of Sports History Americans Won’t Understand

Certain sports milestones seem simply unreachable; Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak, or Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game. In cricket, it’s the one-day double-hundred;  no man had ever produced 200 runs for his team during a one-day international match. However, in February, India’s Sachin Tendulkar hit the magic milestone against a powerful South African squad. Tendulkar smacked three “sixes” — the cricket equivalent of a home run — during his epic performance.  When he reached 199, the home crowd in Gwalior waved Indian flags, and roared, knowing they were about to witness history. The diminutive Tendulkar, dubbed “The Little Master,” slapped a single past the South African fielders. The world’s 1.5 billion cricket fans had a moment they’d never forget. Tendulkar removed his helmet and raised his arms toward the sky. “Take a bow, master,” said television commentator Ravi Shastri, himself a former cricket star for India. “Aw, you little champion,” his partner, former New Zealand cricketeer Danny Morrison chimed in. “If there was ever one deserving to break this milestone, this Everest, it is certainly Sachin Tendulkar.”

2) The Three-Day Duel

You’ll never a tennis score like it again: 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (3), 70-68. At Wimbledon this June, American John Isner and Nicholas Mahut of France played a fifth set headed for infinity, thanks to Wimbledon’s shunning of fifth-set tiebreakers. In all, their historic first-round match lasted a record 11 hours and five minutes, and had to be played over the course of three days.  It was the longest match in tennis history, and  during the 138th game of the fifth set, Isner stroked a backhand winner down the line to finally break Mahut’s serve, ending the match.

1) LeBron’s Bad Decision

It says something about Americans’ priorities that one evening in July, some 10 million people tuned into ESPN, dying to know what color uniform a guy would wear next year. As absurd as the spectacle seemed, it was simply the culmination of a year in which the NBA buzzed loudest off the court, as the summer free-agent frenzy sparked endless speculation about where stars like LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and Amar’e Stoudemire would land. The homegrown Cleveland Cavalier superstar chose to announce his intention to join buddies Wade and Bosh in Miami on a nationally-televised ESPN special, pompously dubbed “The Decision.” James said he was doing the cable special for charity, donating the show’s advertising revenue to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

But after James dumped the Cavs on national television in front of an in-studio audience of kids from the Greenwich, CT Boys and Girls Club, with the now-infamous words “I’m going to take my talents to South Beach,” his popularity took a hefty hit. The backlash was quite stunning, especially since James had made few, if any, public relations errors in his wildly successful career. He did, however, win some sympathy when Cleveland owner Dan Gilbert, within hours of James’ announcement that he was signing with the Heat, released an invective-filled letter to Cavs fans (some of whom were burning LeBron jerseys in the streets), in which he called James “narcissistic” and accused him of “cowardly betrayal.”

For a guy looking to win a championship or two, bailing on the Cavs was probably smart. But LeBron’s “Decision” was a public-relations disaster.

Finally, Somebody Has Stopped The Insanity

Since we are a month past the end of the World Cup, Americans and their notoriously short attention spans have likely forgotten the insanity that was the vuvuzela. Since I want to test that short American span, I want you to remember who was stopping the insanity close to twenty years ago.

If you are fortunate enough not to remember who this spiky-headed slice of craziness was, I’m about to share my memory misery with you. Her name is Susan Powter, and she was the “Stop The Insanity” infomercial queen in the early 1990′s.

Granted, while there is nobility in helping battleship-sized women regain their humanity, there is something to be said for introducing a level of nuttiness that obviates any good you might be accomplishing. This was the position of Sepp Blatter, the FIFA president who refused to ban the patently-annoying noisemakers during the World Cup. His argument was that the cheap, annoying plastic horns were “uniquely South African,” and therefore wouldn’t be banned.

Of course, that was a complete load of bullshit. This is also where the Southeastern Conference (SEC) has shown a wonderful bit of being proactive; playing the Powter role by stopping the insanity.

As far as the SEC is concerned, the vuvuzela is noisemaker non grata. After watching how that 2-dollar plastic horn contributed to the World Cup being a disaster, the league clarified its stance on the noisemaker and it’s incessant, brain-melting buzz. See, there was some confusion about which noisemaking devices are allowed at SEC games because of the conference’s decision to allow cowbells at Mississippi State games. This lead some people to believe the patently annoying cowbells paved the way for the uber-annoying vuvuzela. SEC associate commissioner Charles Bloom would beg to differ.

“Our policy allows for ‘traditional’ artificial noisemakers to be allowed in stadiums and played during specific times. Other forms of artificial noisemakers are not allowed. I do not believe a vuvuzela is tied traditionally into one of our institutions.”

“Vuvuzelas cannot be brought into the game per policy. Cowbells, since it is traditionally tied into one of our schools, can be brought in at that school.”

See, Bloom gets what Blatter does not. A vuvuzela by definition can’t be in anybody’s tradition, because traditions are based on history. Anything that was made out of plastic 20 minutes ago has no history.

Which, oddly enough, is how most Americans feel about soccer.

Guest Column: Joe McGrath on the World Cup

Editor’s Note: Mr. McGrath has long and storied history in the management of professional sports franchises, most notably as the general manager of the Charlestown Chiefs of the now-defunct Federal League. Oh, and this is probably a good time to mention that Mr. McGrath’s views are his own, and do not necessarily reflect those of Dubsism, our staff, or anybody else whose house you might want to burn to the ground.

I suppose you were expecting an old-time hockey guy to say something about the Chicago Blackhawks finally winning the  Stanley Cup for the first time in damn near 50 years. Well, screw the Blackhawks. I remember one time when I was coaching in Omaha in the ’50s and I had a chance to get Bobby Hull, but those damn Blackhawks took him to Chicago, got him a $20 whore, and the rest is history.

Screw all of Chicago for that matter. That is a city that has been run by people who let it go to complete shit. They must all have been terrible masturbators.  That is also why I can’t figure out why the hell they are having this World Cup thing in South Africa. Just like Chicago, it is also a crime-ridden rat-hole, but at least Chicago isn’t 5,000 miles away from the closest civilized country.

I mean, it’s one thing to have a sporting event in a shitpile; lord knows Charlestown wasn’t exactly the French fuckin’ Riviera, but at least we didn’t have to get on a plane for 43 goddamn hours to get to Peterborough.  See, the whole point is to get people to show up, and you have to do these things where the fans will travel to. Nobody wants to travel halfway around the damn world just to get raped by a water buffalo or robbed by a guy with a bone in his nose. That’s why they couldn’t sell any damn tickets; they are still trying to sell them at give-away prices.

As far as the game goes, I don’t really understand this soccer game, but it seems enough like hockey that I can follow it. There’s a goal, there’s lines, and offsides. What else do you really need? But what I really don’t understand is the Mexican team. I mean, where the hell did they find 11 Mexicans who can run who didn’t already run across the damn border?