Thursday, June 19, 2008

Euro 2008: Team of the Group Stage

With the Euro group stages ended, here is a look at the team of the group stages:

Goalie: Giggi Buffon, Italy
Defenders: Sergio Ramos, Spain
Defenders: Pepe, Portugal
Defenders: Vedran Corluka, Croatia
Defenders: Gio Van Bronkhorst, Dutch
Midfielders: Wesley Sneijder (right), Dutch
Midfielders: Arda Turan, Turkey
Midfielders: Luka Modric, Croatia
Midfielders: Deco, Portugal
Strikers:: David Villa, Spain
Striker: Nihat Kahveci, Turkey

Subs:
Ronaldo, Portugal
Rafeel van der Vaart, Dutch
Orlando Engelaar, Dutch
Lukas Podolski, Germany
Marco Senna, Spain
Roman Pavlyuenko, Russia

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

The Mets do it again

By Endy in the Outfield
The tension went on "far too long" according to Omar not even a day after showing the door to Willie, Rick Peterson, and Tom Nieto.

Omar also went on to say how it was hard to fire a friend. So hard that he made it extra hard on Randolph by dragging him out to Anaheim the day after a father's day double header in which they nearly came back and won the first and managed to win the 2nd game. Then makes him fly cross country to sunny Anaheim,has him manage a game that the Mets actually win that started at 10 PM ET (7PT). Still Omar waits until his good friend Willie is out of his uniform and dressed because "it's disrespectful to fire a manager while still in his uniform."

Then of course he calls Willie to his Hotel room along with the Jacket and Notorious Nieto and all are fired the respectful way at 3:15 AM ET after flying 3000 miles and winning the ballgame they just participated in. Like most Mets fans the firing didn't upset me or surprise me, it's the respectful manner in which the Big O went about it.

Willie (right) was never one of US. He was drafted by the Yanks in '72 and made his MLB debut in '75 at 21 years old and went on to make six all star appearances as a Yank, win 2 World Series, and the Silver Slugger award in 1988. After making brief but successful appearances in LA (Dodgers), Oakland, and Milwaukee he finally came to the Mets as the 8th oldest player in the NL. Like his managing for the Mets his playing didn't fare so well. He had the 2nd worst avg. of his career .252, the worst RBIs in a season for his career and one of the 3 worst seasons of OPB% and SL%. When his career was over and he became a bench coach for the Yankees, he once again had tremendous success winning 4 world series and was a part in the great 1998 NYY World Series season. Then, of course, he came to the Mets.

After finishing in 3rd in the division in the "Wait Til Next Year Season", next year finally came and Willie finally helped end the Braves run atop the division and finished first for the first time well over a decade. The time appeared to be now after the Mets went to the NLCS and lost game 7 but started the 07 season hot, but since it's Willie as a Met the season tanked as the Mets blew the division in the last month of the season.

Did I mention Willie has NEVER been a Met?

And the Jacket, oh how we loathe the jacket. Hey Rick (right) baseball is played in the summer, in hot temperatures. Take off the fuckin jacket. We all know that your reasoning for wearing the jacket is for all its useful pockets. Well obviously you have nothing useful in those pockets, nothing that could fix Victor Zambrano in 15 minutes, nothing that could reason with Heath Bell, nothing that could get his starting pitchers to throw more than 6 innings, ABSOLUTELY FUCKIN NOTHING IN THOSE POCKETS. Unless hes smuggling drugs in there or something, if that's the case I don't blame him. Gotta smuggle them into that side show somehow.

And of course the most controversial and most talked about of the three firings, Tom Nieto (left). Nieto played six season in the majors from 84 til, well, when who actually gives a fuk, it's Tom Nieto. The only reason he got canned is now it'll be easier to fill another managerial spot with another latino to make the Mets Latino staff quota.

Now Jerry Manuel, this is your time, a former manager of the year for the White Sox with a .515 career winning avg as a manager is ready for the job I'm sure. All the players should respect a man of his caliber and I'm sure none of them would ever show him up on the field in the first inning of his first game as Mets manager.

Shame on you Jose.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Number 1 with a bullet

With the college basketball season some four months away, the national champion may have already been crowd. Yesterday the trio of Lawson, Green and Ellington gave Roy Williams the best summer gift that he could ever have, they all decided to spent another year in Carolina Blue.

The starting five at Carolina is second to none in America: Psycho-T, Lawson, Green, Ellington, Deon Thompson. There is no team that is even close, not even Kansas or Memphis or even Duke.

So it might be too early to print the 2008-2009 National Championship shirts, but come the Final Four at Ford Field, the Heels should be holding the trophy and painting Detroit a shade of Carolina Blue.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Fixture List Time

It's never too early to look forward to the new EPL season, the league released its 2008-2009 schedule this morning.
The champion, Manchester United, open up at home with the Toon, while Liverpool open up at Sunderland. Thanks to the Daily Mail for graph.

What a Day!

All I can say is what a day. Sunday might go down as one of the best days of sports in a very long time from Tigers dramatic putt on the 18th to force a playoff at the US Open, to the Lakers holding on to beat the Celtics in the NBA Finals to force a game six in Boston, to the Turks dramatic win over the Czechs in Euro 2008 at the end of the day all I could say was Wow!

Here is how the front pages covered the drama from all over the globe:

San Diego Tribune covers all of the drama at Torrey Pines Cape Cod Times (Ma) covers the NBA Finals
OLAY (Turkey) covers the Turks dramatic win over the Czech Republic at Euro 2008.