The Masters

Day 1 of one of my favorite sporting events of the year took place today. Justin Rose and Trevor Immelman closed the round tied for the lead at 4 under. The entire field is pretty congested with everyone still basically in the hunt. Tiger played day 1 at the Masters like he usually does, kinda feeling out the course. He'll probably come out tomorrow and shoot a 10 under or something ridiculous. At this point I wouldn't be surprised.

Slamball

The return of what is quite possibly the best sport ever invented is the highlight of my year. Check out the video and tell me that that sport isn't the most badass thing ever.

All I know is that if I were locked in a room and had the choice of watching hockey or Slamball there would be absolutely no hesitation in choosing Slamball. Hmm a bunch of Canadians skating around not fighting, or a full contact basketball game with three trampolines in front of the basket.

The South

Although I've lived my entire life in the states I have never once been anywhere in the South. Well I got my chance this weekend as I have been in Shreveport, Louisiana the river boat capital of the US. The city's main(and probably only) attraction is gambling, their downtown highlighted by 5 huge casinos. In case you haven't seen a picture of a riverboat casino here you go.
All the people we have met here so far are typical southerners. Drawling accents, yall's, and hospitality are all prevalent. We went out to eat as a team and had in depth conversations with about 3 different people about where we were from and how we liked it here. In the end , it was basically every stereotype that it was hyped up to be.

3 Seldom Heard of People I Would Love to Meet

3. Kim Peek- You may also know him as the real Rain Man, after the movie made famous by Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. The man may be the most fascinating person on earth. He can read a page in 8 seconds and belts out around 8 books a day. The guy reads the left page with his left eye and the right page with his right eye and retains 98% of the information in them. He has memorized every tune he has ever heard and every book he has ever read. O ya, he also has savant autism. Check this out for more about him.

2. Brian Bannister- A pitcher for the Kansas City Royals and maybe one of the smartest and best prepared baseball players in the game. He uses seldom heard of stats such as BABIP(Batting Average on Balls In Play) to prepare for starts and has a down to earth approach to the game that many major leaguers lack. For a great interview with him go here.

1. Billy Beane: Has got to be one of the smartest people in all of sports. In a league built for huge salary cap teams the man finds a way to stay competitive EVERY year. He completely humiliates every other team in the draft and continues to bring perennial all-stars into the league. If A's fans would get off their asses and actually go to games maybe the team would actually keep the guys they draft. Here is a short list of players drafted by the A's that are now on other teams: Mark Mulder, Barry Zito, Nick Swisher, Mark Teahen, and Jeremy Bonderman.
If you put Billy Beane in Brian Cashmen's job you get a friggin unstoppable powerhouse 1990'2 Bulls style. They could just throw out their AAA team and mop up bums like the Royals. If you have never read the book "Moneyball" and want a glimpse into the mind of a genius.

Super Bowl Wrap-up

So the Giants won the Super Bowl in one of the best played games in recent memory with Eli Manning leading the G-Men to victory over a bunch of cheating, steroid abusing, meter-maid abusing losers. Watching the Patriots go undefeated the entire season was worth it just to see the look on Harrison's face at the end of the game. Go do some more HGH you joker.

The play of the game was definitely Eli Manning's scramble and toss to David Tyree who made an acrobatic behind the head catch. I didn't even know Eli Manning had the strength to escape one tackle let alone three. If you were to bet me $1,000 dollars that I couldn't tackle Eli Manning I would have taken that bet in a second.

I would talk about the catch Tyree made but I am still 90% sure that he is a member of Boyz-2-Men. Either way he did a pretty good rendition of a good receiver on that play. To go up and catch that ball and then somehow retain possession without having the ball hit the ground is simply stunning.

What a great end of the football season it was but more importantly...it is now baseball season. Pitchers and catchers now report in T-minus 10 days.

Gamblers Paradise

Well the game hasn't even started yet and two prop bets have already been settled. Jordin Sparks' rendition of the national anthem lasted right around 1 minute 50 seconds thereby securing the money of the thousands of people who bet over 1:42. The coin toss just came up tails, successfully losing millions of people money in what is quite possible the most expensive coin toss in the world.
In the most popular sporting even America, the actual playing of the game has been eclipsed by the hundreds of gambling possibilities. Every play has thousands of dollars hanging in the balance and every penalty holds the possibility of a new millionaire.
Ill be back later with more non sport super bowl related nonsense

Lets Play a Game

Called who is the worst MLB player to sign a ludicrous contract. Because I'm lazy I'll just list the top three and tell you why they are terrible, terrible contracts.

1. Barry Zito(7 years, $126 Million)- What kind of retarded franchise would give Barry Zito a contract you ask? The same team that would pay a 86 year old Ray Durham $7 million, and a 92 year old Omar Vizquel $5 million, the San Francisco Giants. Once again a franchise gets swept away by the fact that the guy won a Cy Young(which he didn't even deserve), and ignores the fact that the guy doesn't strike anybody out.

2. Carl Pavano- The Yankees gave Pavano a 40 million dollar contract and got exactly six wins, one lied about car accident, and two arm surgery's. Not quite the Cy Young candidate they hoped on getting.

3. Gary Matthews Jr.(5 years, $50 Million)- Make one miraculous play get a enormous deal, I guess. Coming off an extremely mediocre year the Angels signed Matthews to be their long term centerfielder but instead got an HGH using, .252 hitter. I guess they realized their mistake, because they signed Tori Hunter this off-season. Oh well, every team can use a 50 million dollar pinch hitter.

Johan to the Mets

The Mets announced today that they had finalized their deal with the Twins to acquire Johan Santana. Not that big of a surprise, as it was leaked yesterday that they were the leaders in the sweepstakes.
The real surprise came when it was revealed that the package the Twins got in return was one of the worst packages offered to them yet.

In return for Santana, the Twins would receive center fielder Carlos Gomez and pitchers Phil Humber, Kevin Mulvey and Deolis Guerra -- a package which some talent evaluators believe could be the fourth-best offer that Minnesota received during this process.

I have no idea why the Twins would except this deal over the ones offered to them by the Yanks and Sox. The Yankees offered a package of Phil Hughes, Robinson Cano, and Melky Cabrera while the Red Sox were willing to give up Jacoby Ellsbury and Jon Lester.
The only real reason the Twins would except this one is that Twin's general manager Bill Smith wanted to deal Santana no matter what, and the Yanks and Sox both withdrew their offers.
Nonetheless, both teams get what they wanted. The Mets get the best pitcher in baseball to go along with a healthy Pedro and an emerging John Maine, while the Twins get a quality, young replacement for Tori Hunter and three nice arms.