The Spanish Pistol Pete

With the 2008 NBA Draft now a couple of weeks behind us, its time to look forward to next years draft and one man, Ricky Rubio. In Spain, he is know as the Spanish Pistol Pete and come next June he might be know as the number 1 draft pick in the NBA Draft. The world will learn about him during the Olympics.

Scouts love his ability to create his own shot and his passing ability.

Spanish feature on him.

Could Rubio be the best player ever to come on Spain, it might just happen.

Rutgers Football Newest Fan!

The Rutgers Football has a new fan and it's no other then Manchester United own Wayne Rooney. Who would have ever thought that the soccer star would be spotted walking around the Manchester area with a Rutgers hat on top of his ginger head (below).
When Greg Schiano took over Rutgers in 2001 little did he know that the "State of Rutgers" would include the greatest soccer team in the world. I guess Rutgers is starting to go world wide.

What I did on my summer vacation

After the end of the season, many United Players that were not involved in Euro 2008, mostly the English players, went on holiday and they spent it in many different ways.

Rio Ferdinand spent part of his summer in Africa learning about the cultural and dress.

After finishing up what was a disappointing Euro 2008, Ronaldo and all of his Real Madrid rumors spent sometime on the beach and in the water. Check out his classic form getting on this float.

While The Rooney got married and hung out with such stars as LeBron James.

The first day back at Carrington Training Centre, Monday, must have been a blast for the players as they swapped stories about what they did over the summer.

Things are bad when a Guzman is your only All Star

Major League Baseball recently announced its 2008 All Star selection and you know your team, the Washington Nationals, are terrible when your only representatives is Christian Guzman, yes the same Guzman that the Twins did not want a couple of years ago and we overpaid for.

This is how bad the Nationals are at this point, our only representatives is a defense first short stop with a terrible contract, four years 16 million signed in 2005.

I know that he is a having a good year, .316 average with five home runs and 29 RBI, but guess what is career average is: a very respectable .268, yes .268. Last year Guzman was so bad that some Nationals fans were even thinking maybe the Nationals should just buy out his contract and yes he is our representative for the All Star Game this year. Wow I am proud, can you feel my happiness.

As a Nationals fan there is really nowhere to turn at this point, maybe beer, but I turn to that enough. The major league team is an embarrassment and all though I like what they have done over in the last couple of drafts, hope is at least a couple of years away.

Things are so bad this year that we are paying Jose Vidro $ 2.5 million and Rob Mackowiak $1.5 million, yes the same Mackowiak that has a career average of .259.

At least someone gets it

Sometimes American sportswriters do not get it, but at least one of them does: PTI co-host Mike Wilbon

During Monday shows Wilbon and co-host Bob Ryan were talking about their top five moments in sports during the last year. All of the regular moments were talked about including the Super Bowl, Final Four, and the events Sunday at The All England Club.

But Wilbon shocked many watching by saying how one of his moments came from the drama of Euro 2008. Wilbon talked about how the Turks scoring 3 goals in 15 minutes to defeat Czech Republic in Euro 2008 was one of his favorites of the year.

It's great to see an American writer finally talk about the positives of the beautiful game, well done Mike.

It's good to be Spanish

Last Sunday Spain celebrated its win in Euro 2008 and yesterday they celebrated as their favorite tennis player Rafael Nadal beat five time Wimbledon Champion Roger Federer in an epic five set battle.

Here is how the papers around Europe covered the action at All England Club.

The Daily Telegraph (UK)

El Mundo (Spain)

Granada Hoy (Spain)

Families should just shut up

Sometimes athletes keep their families to close to them and with the two biggest sports stories of the summer season that is no different. During the last couple of weeks the families of former Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre and Manchester United's Ronaldo have kept their gums from flapping about both players situations.

Rumors have come out during the last week or so that Favre wants to come back to lead the Packers, while Ronaldo has been rumored to leave the European Champions and want a move to Real Madrid, since the start of the summer.

And during the course of the last couple of days family members of each have had their say.

Scott Favre, Brett's brother, told a local TV station that his brother is ready to return.

"There's no doubt he can play," Scott Favre told WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee. "He's in good shape, he's working out, we know he can still play, he's healthy, so, if he did, it wouldn't surprise me."

Then it was Brett's mother chance to voices her opinion on her son's relationship with his former team.

"He's felt like that for the last couple of years, that the Packers didn't really want him back," Bonita Favre told WITI. "But nothing's been said. You know it's just been bits and pieces throughout the last couple of years, things that would come up, and it just didn't seem like they went out of their way to keep him. It was kind of like, 'You're done.'"

On the other side of the pond, Ronaldo family is also making their voices heard on his possible move to Real Madrid.

"Cristiano wants to keep playing at Manchester United," Ronaldo's sister, Elma Aveiro (pictured right with her brother), told the Sun. "Real Madrid keep making very strong advances for him. There is a lot of speculation in the newspapers all the time about where he will go and what he is doing but we know who he really is and what he is really up to. He wants to stay at United."

It's good to be part of a close family but sometimes families should really just keep their mouths shuts.

2008 -2009 in Jerseys: Manchester United

With Manchester United getting ready to report for preseason training in a couple of days, United have released their kits for the upcoming season. The home one will be a traditional red, which will number change. All of the jerseys will have the EPL winners patch on it.

The away one will be white with blue outlines (below).

United have also introduced a blue third shirt that will honor their win in the Champions League in 1968. Around the club badge it says, “May 29th 1968″ and “40th Anniversary” which commemorates the 1968 European cup win over Benfica.
Overall I think that both new jerseys are not that bad and better then some other premier league jerseys.

UEFA makes another mistakes

While one of the greatest European Championships just wrapped up, UEFA is doing their best to make sure the next couples are a disaster. The executive committees of soccer’s European governing body have decided to expand the field from 16 to 24 teams by the 2018 event. By doing this UEFA is going to water down the tournament. The things that make the tournament great is that there are no lite weights, every game counts. Most of the games in the tournament are between top 10 teams in the world, which is something that the World Cup can not even say.

By increasing the number of teams it will devalue the group stages. No more groups of death like Group C this years and lesser teams that should not be at the big show will be there, like most notably England.

Part of the joy of tournaments like the Euros and the World Cup is the qualification process, during every major tournament there is a major country that does not qualify and by increasing the teams you are limiting that chance. So please Mr. Frog do not increase the teams.

Mascot Madness: Those Crazy Italians

Serie A is a great league, but it might have one of the worst collections of mascots in the world. Just check out the girl one.

Finally, Finally

After spending a week on Holiday in Curacao, it's time to get back to work.

The Spanish showed their true class in their finals win over Germany in Euro 2008. Could this be the win that final gets the red and yellow rolling for good. Believe me they were the best team during the month long tournament.

Here is how the newspapers covered the event.

Diario de Burgos (Spain)

La Vanguardia (Spain)

Malaga Hoy (Spain)

Neue Westfalische (Germany)

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

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.

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.

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.

Tale of the Tape: Gray vs. Smyth

It's only a matter of time before Andy Gray and Tommy Smyth throw down during ESPN 's coverage of Euro 2008. During each day, the two of them throw zingers at each other and it has become one of the best things about watching the their coverage of the tournament.

If a fight would happen here is a tale of the tape:

Accomplishments in soccer:
Gray (right): Won PFA Player of the Year and PFA Young Player of the Year with Aston Villa for the 1976/1977 season.
Smyth (left): moved to the United States in 1963 following a brief football career with a local Scottish team. In America, he played with the Shamrock Club in the German American Soccer League.

TV claim to fame:
Gray: Voice of EA Sports FIFA series.
Smyth: One of the first recognized voice in America for soccer.

Classic catch phrases:
Gray: "Top drawer!", "Take a bow, son", "You don't save those!", "I'll tell you what the best do, they take their chances," "If you don't buy a ticket you don't win the raffle," and "Easy height for the keeper."
Smyth: ""In the back of the ole onion bag,'' and "a bulge in the auld onion bag.''

Great non-soccer highlight:
Gray: fathered five children, by four different women - his two ex-wives and former girlfriends Sara Matthews and Janet Trigg
Smyth: Smyth was the 2008 Grand Marshal of the 247th St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York City. He is also the co-host for WNBC coverage of the New York City's St. Patrick's Day Parade from 1998-Present.

When you break it down, Gray's list of accomplishment far out way our boy Tommy Smyth. We call all hope that Smyth and Gray throw down on the set and my money is on Gray in a first round knockout.

Big Phil and the Turks

Chelski name a new coach, Ronaldo shines and the Turk's get an injury time winner to knock out one of the co-host in another dramatic day in the Euros.

Here is how some of the papers in Europe covered it:

Journal de Noticias (Portugal)

Publico (Portugal)

SABAH (Turkey)

Neuve Vorarlberger Tageszeitung (Austria)

After yesterday's games lets hope the tournament continues to grow, I have this feeling that we are in for something special.

We all miss England

The English are not at the Euros for the first time since 1966 and this video sums up the pain that everyone is feeling. This video is based on the ESPN commercials that feature Portugal, Spain, Italy and Germany.

With them not being there, at least they will not go out on penalties this year.

The Worst Mascots Ever

Can someone please put the mascots for Euro 2008 out of their misery. They might be one of the worst collections of mascots ever. This video will make you hate them more and more, please UEFA stop with the mascots.