The Sports Dungeon

I have been thinking about the mishaps of the MLB All Star Voting system, which got me also questioning other sports. Each has their flaws. This is the beginning of a series to name the best (or most well known) players to never make the All Star game in each sport. We will start with the Pro Bowl, the least watched game of stars. This is generally the easiest to make since many players claim an injury will hold them out of the game, although most are well enough to still take the trip to Hawaii.

William Perry - Most well known for being part of the ‘85 Bears defense, stealing a Super Bowl touchdown from the late, great Walter Payton, celebrity boxing, and a gap in his teeth wider than Strahan’s. Before he ate too much, he was a very dominant, agile defensive tackle.

London Fletcher - 8 straight seasons with at least 100 tackles, started for Super Bowl Champion St. Louis Rams.

Kerry Rhodes - one of the best safeties in the game, has received All Pro from SI & ESPN, financially rewarded only behind Bob Sanders for safety contracts. Continue Reading »

They said she couldn’t do it, but she did- Candace Parker has finally made the WNBA relevant! Not by scoring 25 a night (although, from what I understand she is a phenomenal talent relative to her league and regularly puts up scores in the 20s), not by dunking twice (I heard this through the grapevine, I’m usually too busy washing my hair to watch women’s basketball), but instead by brawling in the Palace of Auburn Hills. Congratulations Candace, you are now the Jermaine O’Neal of the WNBA (I feel like Lisa Leslie makes an appropriate Stephen Jackson and that girl- Pearson?- who started the fight is definitely Artest). Continue Reading »

Does anyone else wonder as much as I do where ESPN went wrong?  I know the contributors to The Sports Dungeon enjoy taking their shots at the “Worldwide Leader.”  The fact that we care about sports enough to spend our free time writing about it means we are true sports fans, therefore we can not be the only “real” sports fans in the country to think that ESPN has jumped the shark.

I wonder if people remember when SportsCenter showed highlights of every game and did not have the obligatory daily interview with the non-sports celebrity or the summer time filler such as “Who’s Now“ and “TitleTown USA?”  I wonder if they remember the time when the broadcasters kept their favorite teams under wraps, much like the old school news guys, like Peter Jennings, kept their political ideals hidden. Each day that I tune into Baseball Tonight, (which is more rare everyday), I have to hear the revolving door of hosts pledging his love to the Red Sox, Yankees, Mets or Phillies.  A telling quote I remembered from John Kruk (and he was being totally serious when he said this) during a Spring Training edition of BT early this year, “A lot of people think everyone is just a Yankees’ fan here at ESPN.   That’s not true. its about 50/50 with Yankees’ and Red Sox fans, with some Mets’ fans thrown in there.”  Spoken like a true Phillie.  Continue Reading »

I feel compelled to share this juicy tidbit with you, especially since Mr. Walters introduced us to the Indy Car catfight. Here we have a bit of an “altercation” in the July 22 Detroit v. Los Angeles WNBA game.

I’m surprised… I guess people care more about the WNBA than I thought. Yes, it’s a little ridiculous that they’re getting this fired up about a game that about 50 people are watching. But then again, I used to throw helmets and bats in Little League, and I’m pretty sure no one cared about the outcome of that game except my dad.

Maybe it wasn’t about basketball at all. Maybe someone was seen canoodling with someone else’s boyfriend or caught talking behind someone’s back in the ladies room.

Oh no she di-int!

Here’s a quick story that all this girl-on-girl action is conjuring up…

My best friend and I in seventh grade almost got beat up in an Ames parking lot because, while we were buying tubs of glitter to wear to the mall and the roller rink, we apparently gave another girl dirty looks.  Her 15-year-old, pregnant sister then cornered us outside the store, which was surprisingly directly across the street from a trailer park.

I have to admit, I respect these WNBA gals. I wasn’t lady enough to stand up and fight back. My friend gave the pregnant chick $10 and they went away. We cried the whole way home.

Barely a month away, this year’s college football season is shaping up to be another great one. No sporting event in the world compares to the pageantry of a Saturday afternoon college football game. Let’s talk some college football!

1. The SEC is coming off 2 straight national championships by the Florida Gators and LSU Tigers. Lots of pundits have the Georgia Bulldogs as an early favorite too, but their schedule is really tough. They have road games at LSU and Auburn, not to mention Arizona State, and they always have to battle Florida, Tennessee and South Carolina in the SEC East. If they get there, they will have earned it.

2. Speaking of LSU and Tennessee, who will be their quarterbacks this year? Ryan Perilloux and Erik Ainge are gone. Tennessee’s website lists 6 QB’s on the depth chart. Six! LSU has no one with any significant playing time.

3. Oklahoma is 1-4 in their last 5 bowl games. I wouldn’t count on that trend continuing.

4. The ACC, fresh off expansion to include Miami, is struggling for respect. They are an unbelievable 1-9 in BCS games. The lone victory was all the way back in 1999 (FSU).

5. Speaking of the ACC, Georgia Tech has a new coach in Paul Johnson. He’s an experienced leader who ran smaller programs at Navy and Georgia Southern. But Johnson runs a glorified high school offense, the Triple Option. Let’s see…option 1., lose yards; option 2., gain no yards; and option 3., turnover the ball. It’s going to be a long year for Georgia Tech.

Disclaimer: I in no way condone stereotyping. Well, except if it’s funny.

A few months ago, my friends and I were obsessed with My New Haircut, the viral Youtube video that perfectly encapsulates “those guys.” You know who I’m talking about… the guys that blow out their hair, expose their shaved chests at bars, and wear sunglasses indoors. They are most often found on Long Island or in Jersey.

After visiting Jersey myself, I was confident that not even National Geographic could more perfectly capture a stereotype.

That is, until I was introduced to My New Sawks Jersey. This growing Youtube hit used My New Haircut as inspiration to mock another “that guy”: The obnoxious Red Sox fan. Living in Boston, I know this breed well. I am a diehard fan, but these toolish, drunken and often bandwagon fans are an embarassment to the entire Red Sox Nation. Especially when they take their hooligan-ism on the road.

So I’d like to know… after watching both videos, which do you think is funniest? Which gives the most accurate portrayal? Which breed of “that guy” do you find most insufferable? Educate me… do other regions have their own species of “that guy”?

It was a Monday that started with the ladies of “The View” discussing NFL (and other sports) Personal Seat Licenses and lamenting the cultural transition of sporting events from family outings to corporate junkets. It wasn’t just the injustice of the NFL; they also noted that an evening at the theater runs upwards of $500. Staunch Republican Elisabeth Hasselbeck defended the NFL’s right to engage in free-market capitalism and may have helped her husband get a job this fall.

While not rising to the level of a Whoopi Goldberg rant in terms of meaning or excitement, NFL teams did spring into action. The amount and significance of the activity was unusual for the week that many training camps are slated to start.

The defending Super Bowl champion New York Football Giants got the ball rolling by trading four-time Pro Bowl tight end Jeremy Shockey to the New Orleans Saints. This trade had been rumored to be in the works since before the draft and the second-guessing began immediately after the trade was announced. Shockey went to the Saints for a second-round and a fifth-round pick in the 2009 draft; the Giants could have had at least the second and maybe both in the 2008 draft, enabling them to select someone like USC tight end Fred Davis as a replacement. Kevin Boss, who played well in the Super Bowl, will be the starting tight end for the Gints for the foreseeable future. Continue Reading »

David Stern has a problem that may have started small but has the chance to quickly escalate. The transition and success of International players joining the best basketball league in the world has been a great addition to the NBA. It started years ago with the real “Dream Team“. They (and I mean Michael Jordan) made basketball a global treasure. Fans gushed over them. Hell, foreign players gushed over them. Getting autographs and pictures with the Dream Team was nearly bigger than the game. Then, we saw players like Petrovic, Marciulionis, Divac, Schrempf, Kukoc, Nowitzki, and the first #1 pick Yao Ming not only succeed but become superstars.

The game had truly gone global, and it was an improvement. Now, the NBA faces the same problem many companies do. The American dollar is weak. The Euro is very strong. Salary caps have made free agency dollars tight. Lesser players wait for the top names to get their deals and hope they get picked off the leftover scraps. To top it off, they do not have to pay taxes overseas Continue Reading »

I just finished watching the ESPYs and these are some of the things that crossed my mind.

During the pre-show red carpet interviews, disappointment was written all over the faces of the male guests who were forced to speak with Chris Connely and not Erin Andrews. That would be like being promised a steak and being handed a hot dog.  Tim Tebow did manage to score a few minutes with the stunning former Gator and they did seem pretty cozy. Cue the rumor mill.

Braylon Edwards had a breakout season in Cleveland season last year but even his huge numbers could not justify what he was wearing.  Not to get all Joan Rivers on you, but he looked like his stylist confused the BET Awards with the ESPYs.

There is game shape, there is off season shape, there is out of shape, and then there is Jerome Bettis retirement shape.   There is no way GNC is still endorsing him is there? Continue Reading »

Yes, I do understand that an awards show hosted by Justin Timberlake (complete with showtunes and muffed prewritten punchlines) is not intended in anyway to be just or based in actual sports truth; nevertheless, last night’s ESPY Awards bothered me for a few reasons (all New England Patriots related). First, and least offensive, was the decision by the general public to give “Male Athlete of the Year” honors to Tiger Woods over Pats quarterback Tom Brady. I get it, Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer to ever get up early on a Sunday morning and walk 18: and, at his peak, he is dominating his sport in a way that almost nobody has in the existence of Pro Sports. Continue Reading »