The University of Washington Huskies Basketball Bonanza

Today, as was speculated but not entirely expected, Terrence Jones signed with the University of Washington. After an offseason filled with the loss of an alltime great like Quincy Pondexter (something I never expected to say a year and a half ago) and the transfer of some promising young players, it's great to see UW end the recruiting season strong.

For the record, this gives UW the 13th ranked player in the class who has an eerily similar skill set to Quincy, two highly-thought-of four star recruits in Terrence Ross and the behemoth that is Aziz N'Diaye, and a nice guard prospect who is probably the exact same person as Scott Suggs in Desmond Simmons. All this on top of C.J. Wilcox coming off his redshirt year and being hyped as the best shooter on the club.

I know I say this to anyone within ten feet of me, but Lorenzo Romar is amazing. The man has taken a program which hadn't had any sustained success in an area just beginning to blossom with basketball talent and has turned it into a perennial Sweet Sixteen club. The fact that I can be a little annoyed that UW hasn't made it to the Elite Eight or higher yet is a testament to just how great Romar has done.

Certainly, Romar has his problems, as does any coach. Yes, the graduation rate the last few years at UW has been embarassing to say the least, though much of this can be attributed to transfers and Spencer Hawes' dumb ass. Indeed, some players have come back after their eligibility expired and gotten their degrees, something else not noted in the pure numbers of it all.

Romar has been the perfect man for the Huskies, not just in his coaching but in his active role in the community and mentorship with the young men not only on his team but throughout Seattle basketball. While I originally intended this post to be all about Terrence Jones, I can't help but reflect on just what UW has become and how Romar has done it. Kudos to a magnificent coach on another fine offseason.

El Hombre and The Flying Hawaiian Vs Those Other Guys

In professional sports fans often express their admiration of a player by christening them with a nickname. In the case of great players or really awesome nicknames, the moniker takes on a power of its own. It becomes so interchangeable; the player’s real given name doesn’t even have to be mentioned for everyone to know exactly who is being discussed. Take for instants these historical nicknames, The Great Bambino, Pistol Pete and Broadway Joe. If you are a sports fan and even if you are not, you probably know exactly who I am referring to.

The current arena of nicknames has become unfortunately bland. The quality of nicknames is unevenly distributed, with one of the major sports leagues being far superior to the others. Both the NBA’s and the NFL’s nicknames have become stale or non-existent. The most common nickname style in the NBA is the simple and boring first initial last initial combo. AI, KG, and KD are some examples. Another common twist on this is the first initial part of last name. Take for example D-wade, T-mac, and J-kidd. While in the NFL nicknames have gone the way of the Oilers.

As you might have guessed that leaves MLB as the one sports league that I know enough about to consider in this post (sorry hockey but the only nickname I know is The Great One and he retired). This declaration that MLB has the best nicknames might come as a surprise to those of you that only watch FSN and the Mariner’s Broadcast team as you probably thought every player’s nickname was simply their last name with a Y at the end. However, the rest of baseball is full of great nicknames. So to honor America’s past times creative powers I have composed a list of my favorite.

Alexei “The Cuban Missile” Ramirez
Joakim “The Mexicutioner” Soria
Franklin “Death to Flying Things” Gutierrez
Vladimir “Vlad the Impaler” Guerrero
Shane “The Flyin' Hawaiian” Victorino

Sources: Statmaster.com

Walter Jones

Walter Jones is expected to announce his retirement today, something that comes as a surprise to nobody at all. Unfortunately, this is the end of the career of the greatest Seahawk in the history of the franchise, Steve Largent included. For a wonderful story on Jones, check out Yahoo! Sports' NFL blog, where Doug Farrar really puts it better than I ever could.

Jones really taught me the importance of line play in the NFL and nothing made it more apparent how good he truly was in his prime as when he started getting serious injuries, resulting in Shaun Alexander immediately going from MVP running back to worthless sack of shit.

Jones with be missed, though perhaps without the fanfare of other Seattle greats. As an offensive tackle, I'm sure he's used to it.

Hockey's Southern Experiment

A lot of talk has been made, mostly by me to people who have no interest in the subject, about the ridiculousness of hockey in cities like Phoenix or Nashville. All this has made me think about cities that would be better suited for hockey, as I've often spent my precious time dreaming of seeing hockey teams in towns that actually support them. Of course, these dreasm have been crushed a la Freddy Kreuger by the evils of Gary Bettman, but that's not the point. Even so, I've constructed arguments for several cities in the hopes that Darth Bettman reads this blog, as I'm sure he does, and takes my adivce, which I'm sure he would.
Winnipeg: Sure it's a smaller town than any of the major Southern cities with hockey teams, but it's really all about ticket sales and a ssuch, any midsized Canadian city, be it Winnipeg, Hamilton, or Quebec City, would certainly pack the house every night, even for a bad team. Even if they don't exactly sell out, Canadians will support a terrible hockey team in a way no Southern city ever would (see Maple Leafs, Toronto).
Yellowknife: Hell it can't be worse than Phoenix, and almost 100% of the population would attend the games. Sure, that's only around eighteen thousand, but still...
Hartford: Again, the argument basically boils down to that, while Hartford didn't draw great its last couple years, the main reason for this probably was the fact that the Whalers were consistently terrible for their entire history. However, Hartford provides a knowledgeable fan base who would probably sell out most games for an average to good team, something Tampa Bay can only wish for. Plus, the history is already there and there are quite a few fans from the old Whalers days praying to see some hockey again.
Toronto: Basically, the Maple Leafs are the Yankees of hockey, except without any success. At all. Like, its embarassing guys, come on. Toronto is a big enough market to have a second team, and competition that close would give the Maple Leafs a bit of motivation to actually win once in awhile. Plus, if the second team turns out to be the Mets in this analogy, the Maple Leafs can always point to them and tell their fans that it could be worse, they could have Oliver Perez in net, who honestly would probably be better than Vesa Toskala at this point.
ESPN Studios in Bristol: This way, ESPN would have to be allowed to actually air some games and maybe, just maybe, somebody other than I will watch hockey and actually be able to say something intelligent beyond "boy, that Sidney Crosby sure is good."
Anchorage: Hear me out, but I think Anchorage could support a team at least a little better than some of the cities now. Certainly, travel costs would be ridiculous and possibly cancel out any advantages. However, they'd be the only pro game in town, which certainly helps galvanize a fan base (just look at the Trailblazers). Alaskans are generally fans of hockey and at the very least most all of them understand the game, which is a plus rarely enjoyed in many other cities.
Stockholm: Hey the NBA wants a European division, and Bettman's only a little stupider than David Stern. At least they'd draw well?
Seattle: I can dream, can't I? Seriously though, Seattle fans have taken to soccer like no other despite knowing nothing about it for the first year or so. Seattle is desperate to prove it's a major sports city, a need grown not only from their hatred of the East Coast bias prevalent in sports, but also from the recent loss of the Sonics. Plus, if fans are willing to sell out soccer games, then they certainly would watch hockey.
Las Vegas: Well, they'll gamble on it at least, so there's that revenue.
Dallas: It sounds ridiculous when you hear it, doesn't it?

Playoff Beard Update

Well, the playoff beard has reached its thirteenth day for me, and nothing is quite as hard as maintaining one without any specific rules for it. In the past, i've always had a beard that would grow just enough to be annoying by the time the Canucks got killed in the second round, but hopefully that won't matter this year.

Regardless, the Canucks advanced today and hopefully this means my playoff beard will continue all the way until the Cup finals. As such, I've decided to jot down a few rules for the playoff beard so you, the viewer, can follow along at home and grow facial hair no woman will ever love.

1. No shaving your entire face.
2. Moustaches are not required and can be shaved.
3. Avoid the playoff beard if you end up looking like Adam Morrison.
4. Trimming is permitted only to even everything out, not to shorten the beard.
5. Playoff beards need only go as long as your team remains active.
6. No shaving between rounds.
7. Mocking those with lesser beards is completely acceptable.
8. Haircuts are allowed, as long as they do not affect the beard.
9. Pre-existing beards don't count, shave beforehand.
10. Any beard already grown for religious purposes totally counts.

Fantasy Sports

As a man willing to blog about sports, I think its fairly obvious that I also play fantasy sports. Indeed, fantasy sports have permeated our society over the last decade in a way almost nobody expected.

However, I'm not here to talk about how fantasy sports grew to what it is or anything so trivial. That's all been done before by places with similar credentials to my own, like Sports Illustrated. Fantasy sports has created a serious problem, especially for me, and I'd much rather discuss that today in this inaugural blog post.

This year, I've made the conscious decision to try much harder in my fantasy baseball league. As such, and thanks to Western Oregon University's decision to give students MLBtv, I've watched much more baseball so far this season than I ever had before. Despite this, I couldn't tell you just how many teams are doing, and therein lies the problem I'm having with fantasy sports: I know longer care about the outcome of many a game and rather only care about certain players.

Indeed, this problem has been much worse than I ever anticipated it would be, as I've gotten to the point that I'll root against teams I love at some times simply because I want my pitcher to rack up strikeouts. I've become the proverbial Antoine Walker of fantasy baseball; I don't give a damn how the team does, as long as I get my stats.

The only solution I see to this, other than to have a less sociopathic obsession with sports, is to avoid adding players from teams I like. For instance, I've began openly avoiding using pitchers that are matched up against the Mariners simply because I want to enjoy the game and not bother with how many times Dallas Braden can strikeout Milton Bradley (which I believe is at least seven times a game).

And so, this all leads to my plea to you, the reader (which at some point I hope grows to readers): don't let fantasy sports ruin real sports. Instead, try to avoid playing with players on "your" team. Try a NL-only league if you're a Oakland fan. Better yet, go to hell if you're an Oakland fan, but I digress. Try out a fantasy hockey league maybe; you'll gain an appreciation for a wonderful sport and won't give a damn when Steve Bernier misses another open net (seriously, that guy can't hit the net if he was inside it). If that all fails; well, you've got a lot worse problem than me, get some counseling my friend.