Post Game Show: Blogiversary Edition

I'm not going to lie, I fell asleep during that live blog last night (I guess that would make it more of a dead blog, since no one showed up either *rim shot) but every so often, I keep getting woken up with announcers yelling "What a shot!" Turns out Taylor was going for 118 and I was sleeping through the whole thing (it was 65-2 when I went to bed) but in the end it turned out again that his effort was for not, because Bangladesh got some hot batting and ended up winning by scoring 222.

I would like to thank everyone who has read this little corner of the internet for the past year, whatever your reason, it's your eyes that keep me typing on this page, I know I've failed you lately in being timely, and probably even being good at writing, so if you're still around, it'd be nice to know, and hopefully this winter will be a time to improve my writing and maybe turn a few fans onto this game that I've fallen in love with myself.

No More Heroes

We have become the softest bunch of people in the world. People are railing on this woman for getting upset because she got screwed over on a bad call. I'm sorry I didn't realize that she was supposed to take bullshit lying down. CBS is who gets off the worst on this, because, they're the ones who the day before during the rain delay were showing a old Jimmy Connors match where Connors was telling the umpire he "needed to get his ass out of that chair" and what happens then, the crowd whistles and cheers wildly, really it's become a joke.

I think the most ridicilious part is the argument that she shouldn't do that because she's a "role model". Why do we even tell kids to try to live like someone else? They should be their own damn person, not follow in someone else's path, no one is perfect, and it's disgraceful if we hold it against someone.

This Blog, and My Love of Sports Explained

Do you know what happens when you tell someone you write a blog about cricket? They usually ask you why cricket. Well why not cricket? Why should I cover baseball or football or basketball, hell there are thousands upon thousands of people already covering those sports (I left out hockey, because it is something that is occsionally touched upon around here). Anyways , I never had a solid answer, although I am a Boston sports fan (loosely, which will be explained later) I've lately found myself drawn deeper into more "obscure" sports, for which I often receive ribbings about (it's been called "My Canadian Football League on more than one occusion). I wondered what it was that made me enjoy stuff like Cricket, and the CFL, and Rugby. And then I came upon this letter to the editor. But before I print it, a little background:

For some inexplicable reason, there has been debate in the letters to the editor section of my local daily paper (The Providence Journal Bulletin) about whether or not Dennis Eckersley is a good color commentator for Boston Red Sox home games (how this ended up next to the Republican hate speech du jour, I do not know). Anyways, the clearest insight, and probably part of the deeper explanation of my love of sports, came from a name named Leon Urban, who I will now let take it away:


In their evaluation of Dennis Eckersley’s baseball announcing, Fred and Trish DeWolfe hit the nail on the head by noting that “it’s not all about him” (“Dennis is a delight,” letter, July 5).
Having a captive audience, few sports announcers can resist self-promoting (staged?) gimmicks, such as “We Love You” signs, and so on. Incidentally, in its wisdom, the Los Angeles Angels [Of Anaheim] do not permit such signs in the stands.
Self-promotion is rampant in the media. Clueless news readers have bloviated themselves into huge multimillion-dollar salaries they fear to lose, and too often become the news themselves.
Dennis Eckersley promoted baseball — the game, not just the NESN home-team propaganda. Very refreshing. He reminded viewers that there are other good teams and players in the American League, as there are in the National League.
Many of the guys I grew up with knew every starting lineup in both the American and National leagues. True, they were only eight-team leagues. Radio and TV announcers made this learning easy by relating pertinent information, nearly every inning, from around the two leagues: scores, homers, winning pitchers, etc. And such information was given in a tone meant to promote the game, not to incite fans to behave like fools in the stands or in bars or in living rooms.

That second paragraph is what really stands out in my mind, I live in the middle of "Red Sox Nation" I'm supposed to live and die by this team, but often I don't care. The joy of being a fan has been sucked away by this expectation that the team will always do well, and the team does well on behalf of the fans, and if the team sucks, then they are personally failing many of the people who "root" for them. But when I'm watching Cricket, that isn't there, I'm learning little things about every man who steps out onto that pitch, there are 22 people who after that day has ended, I will probably know a little more about, and in between I'll watch an exciting sporting event where men aren't out to promote themselves, but they do it for love of country, or for team pride (yeah some of them do it for money, but that's how society is, and you have to ignore it) I don't get announcers with agendas, I get announcers that are trying to teach me something, or tell me the story of the match, and it's that, that true understanding that sees me the fan as more than a dollar sign, that makes me love cricket, and want to share that experience with everyone who reads this.

The Canadian National Rock Championships Part 1

This was not the big surprise I had in mind. Instead, I was starting to get the idea of a Rock N' Roll Olympics. Then I came to Canada, and quite frankly Canada knows how to rock. So I am running in a new direction instead, I'm gonna leave it up to you guys to help me decide what basically amounts to the best rock band of Canada that we've heard of. So far, I found 12 bands I think are worthy of vying for this honor, but I am open to other ideas, so here's what I want to do, I am going to post the 12 bands as I have seeded them, you will have until Wednesday at noon to either

A) Argue for a band to be moved up or down (but, it would also help if you made an argument for why the band that is being punished (or rewarded) is doing so.

B) Adding a seed that you believe I left off the list (excluding the two exceptions I will explain at the end, although I will let you try and talk me out of those exceptions if you are good enough)

C) Instead of just adding a seed, taking a band that is not seeded, and changing places with a band that is seeded (again, I would prefer arguments for both sides, not just for the band that you want to be added)

With all that said, here are the 12 nominees I have for Canadian National Championship of Rock n' Roll:

1) The Guess Who
2) Rush
3) Our Lady Peace
4) Theory of a Deadman
5) Arcade Fire
6) BTO
7) Steppenwolf
8) Loverboy
9) Gordon Lightfoot
10) Three Days Grace
11) Arcade Fire
12) The Tragically Hip*

As you can obviously see, the Bare Naked Ladies, and Nickelback were left off of this list. It is my opinion that BNL are more of a folk rock band, than a traditional mainstream rock band. I would also argue that Nickelback is pop rock and that wasn't what I was going for (otherwise, you're gonna have to include Avril Levigene and Sum 41, and I had no intention of doing that).

* The Tragically Hip have gotten themselves intentionally buried by me, because I don't really like the band, and I also don't really like the fact that their fans think me sub-human for my opinion, so therefore, they start in the basement, and it will take some damn good arguments (and probably youtube videos) to get me to move them up that list.

So there you go, have fun with it, and I'll be back with my decisions on Wednesday.

Be Afridi, be very Afridi

Copyright AP

That's Shahid Afridi in the middle of the picture. Come Sunday, you might want to remember that name. You might also want to remember the numbers he put up against a South African team that was 5-0 in this tournament, and had been making teams look very very bad for the past two weeks:

51 runs off 34 balls (8 x 4, 0 x 6)

4 overs bowled, 16 runs allowed, 2 wickets.

Afridi does not really need me to sing his praises (he's got his unoffical Youtube fan club for that). But whoever wins today between Sri Lanka and the West Indies had better come full force on the 21st if they want to put up any serious contention against the man who knows this title is his for the taking.

I'll have my thoughts on WI-SL after it's over, but we all know to say Go Windies!

and since I don't have anywhere else to put it, here's a great song to get you amped up for the game:

You Can't Be Me I'm A Guest Star..

...however I am not riding on the top of a cop car. Anyways "Dave Schultz" (quotes are part of the copywrite they tell me) has a new post up, most of which was written by yours truly. No I was not the one who erased question 25, yes I was on the one who forgot to close my parenthesis, and Sara Decosta is a story you had to be there to understand (although they are up for the hockey hall of fame as I was taught by Facebook, and I encourge you to fan them) so here you go, learn something about me, and nothing about cricket.

http://hammerrules.blogspot.com/2009/05/readers-challenge-next-episode.html

A Small Rant and a Big Surprise.

There isn't much to talk about in terms of cricket for the past weekend, England Obliterated the West Indies to finish a 2-0 test series sweep, and play goes on in the Indian Premier League, so I have a small rant for you instead:

With about 2:30 minutes to go in last nights game seven between Boston and Orlando, it was really nice to see all those "die hard" fans check out on a team that had been pouring out heart and soul all season, and making do with a lot of missing pieces. I'm not making excuses for them by any stretch, and I won't say I personally expected them to win the title, but this team was 2 games removed from a 14-2 that put them up 3-2, and 3 games removed from a thrilling buzzer beater that tied the series at 2. Why are you walking out? Why are you quiting on them? That was a disgusting display on your part, and I hope to hell you burned your contract for season tickets cause you don't deserve them, get the fuck off my bandwagon.

Anyways, now that I got that off my chest, it's time for the surprise, which is to keep your eyes peeled around here between June 23rd and July 1st for something exciting and new!

The Fundamentals of Blogging are strong...no they're not...

Before I start, let's go to the video footage:



I have a gold standard when I talk about hockey, it's when I'm talking to my friend Marylou. Do you dear readers know what that gold standard includes, we talk about the games, we talk about the players, we talk about upcoming games, we talk about coaches decisions. We occsionally talk about funny stories that happened while at the game (cause those are inevitable, like that guy who fell into the safety netting at a Yankees game, it was a major distraction, of course you're gonna talk about it even though it has nothing to do with the game). Do you know what we don't talk about? We don't talk about who was seen at the game, we don't talk about how she likes to look at the players at the game, and how "cute" they are, and for goodness sakes we don't talk about how we might have effected the game! (jinxes aside, but come on, everyone is supersitious) Oh yeah, we sure as fuck don't talk about fingernails. (see http://hammerrules.blogspot.com/2009/04/facedesk.html for details, because I refuse to give that story any more legs than I already gave it)

Do we really know why people read our blogs? sometimes I'm not so sure, hell I'm not even sure if anyone reads this blog at all anymore, but just look at that video above again. How would people take it if that was all I wrote about? How would you like it if I talked about how hot the women the camera guys panned to are? Because that's how it works, Cricket is a slow sport, and there has to be some way to fill the time, so they often just go to the crowd, and what do know you? You get a bunch of hot women dancing to the music (espcially in the West Indies) Now I don't know about you, but I have no intention of making my blog about anything other than cricket and the news that effects cricket. But sometimes I wonder if we take a look in the mirror and see if we're writing about what we really want to be writing about. I know as a reader, I turn to blogs because they're often the best source of information for either an obscure team (from my perspective) or the best general info source, and really I would hope that that's what people strive for, because, I think it's the best service we can offer to our readership. It probably won't make a difference, but it's what I've got to say.

I'm still alive...

...I'm just having a long bad week, I'll have something up by the end of the week.

We're gonna step off to the side for a minute.

I know, I promised this would be a circket blog, and it will continue to be a cricket blog, but honestly, Sean Avery made the world very clear to me. In a certain sense, I do think it's hilarious that he called her sloppy seconds, and the suspension is because that's apparently too offenseive for a newspaper (the Boston Globe edited it to [other girlfriends] which doesn't even really make any sense but I digress).

The question I want to ask of you dear reader (because as far as I can think of I have a mostly female readership) is I wonder how you would feel if you let someone get so close to you, and become such a part of your life, and let them get so close to you as an individual, walked away from you for some glorious moment and left you out in the cold and dark and gave you no answers and no satisfaction because something super-wonderful had come along. Me? I'd quite frankly be as super pissed as Sean Avery.