Sporting Rants

[Charles Evans 25]

I feel a thread is required where frustration can be vented regarding the inadequacies of sports-teams/managers/referees/those who make the rules or equipment for various games... I'm starting to feel somewhat guilty about posting regarding such matters on the Things in Life That Suck or general rant thread.

So, to kick things off: A team of a dozen clowns masquerading as the England cricket team were spotted in St. Johns Wood this afternoon. Their pratfalls were astonishing. All it needed to put a cap on the bungling performance by both selectors and the team as a whole were a couple of buckets of whitewash and a car that fell to bits.

Edit:
NB
All credit to a good Australian side for handing them the beating that they frankly deserved.

[Sublimity]

So what exactly are you upset with? The team? the Refs?

I've long been interested in learning a bit about Cricket, but, unfortunately, we don't get much coverage of the sport here in the States.

I vaguely remember Sports Night (a show that aired around the Millennium) making a reference to the scoring and to something known as a "sticky wicket".

I also remember an episode of My Hero where George was hitting a ball with a flat paddle, but other than the various sight gags of people and things being impaled by the ball, it was difficult to tell what the game was doing.

To continue a rant. . .

I'm still angry (almost ten years later) that American Football doesn't start on Labor Day Weekend anymore. It was always a nice way to say goodbye to the summer, and a way of ameliorating the sadness about a new school year.

[Charles Evans 25]

Hmm. I suppose I'm upset that the England selectors seem to currently pick teams based on who their current favourite county players are, rather than on actual ability to perform, and that said players end up performing like rabbits caught in the headlights of the Australian sporting juggernaut, throwing away matches better (unselected) players might actually win....

[houstonderek]

Drayton McClain, owner of the Houston Astros (baseball team for you non-baseball country peeps) needs to sell the team. He is a clown who couldn't make a good decision, hire a good GM or keep a decent manager to save his life. He depleted our farm system for two players he "rented" for three months each (Randy Johnson in '99, Carlos Beltran in '04), got rid of the manager who took us to the World Series after the GM completely ruined the team and left the poor manager with nothing to work with, traded some of our best young talent for a washed up steroid user, signed an injury prone washed up second baseman, constantly allows our pitching depth leave via free agency, and...

Anyway, dude needs to go.

[Charles Evans 25]

Aaaaand again Ravi Bopara is heavily involved in a disasterous England batting meltdown against Australia, this time in the last one day international, up on the Riverside ground at Durham. I suspect that if the Australian bowlers had been slightly less generous with the extras, England would have failed to crawl over the finishing line, and would have just lost the series in a spectacular 0-7 whitewash.
Bleh.
Whether he can play test cricket or not, apparently Bopara cannot play one day internationals.

[Charles Evans 25]

Hmm. I wonder if my posts on the subject of cricket are scaring other people off, or if other posters are just generally satisfied with the way that their favoured sporting sides perform?
Anyway, in the champions trophy currently taking place down in South Africa, the England men seem to be trying to define new terms with the inadequate incompetency of their batting line up in any version of the one day format of the game. 'Spectacularly' seems inadequate to describe the way in which most of the supposed batsmen flopped today. I'm starting to suspect that at least one of the South Africa and Sri Lanka believed that they would win against New Zealand, and so deliberately 'threw' their match against England as part of some betting scam, assuming that they would go through anyway.
I'm not sure why England were even apparently judged in the top eight teams in the men's fifty over format to qualify for this contest? Based on current performances Bangladesh must surely be better than this lot, in at least the one day game.

[CourtFool]

Jerry Jones.

[Charles Evans 25]

Blech. Back posting on this thread.
Having somehow managed to win the second one day 50 over cricket match of the current series against South Africa, the England (men's) side apparently decided that it was impolite to beat their hosts, and under the pretence of 'strengthening' the side, they broke up the attack which had restricted the South Africans to 250 at Centurion and assembled a bowling attack which has conceded more than a hunded more runs, off the same number of overs, at Newlands. As I post this the England batting line up is subsiding into oblivion, overwhelmed by the massive target which they were set to win.
At this point the only likely interest from an England point of view looks to come from the question of whether Pietersen will make a century.
After a tantalising start to the tour, the England men's side have resumed normal service, unfortunately.

[Crimson Jester]

Charles Evans 25 wrote:

Blech. Back posting on this thread.

Having somehow managed to win the second one day 50 over cricket match of the current series against South Africa, the England (men's) side apparently decided that it was impolite to beat their hosts, and under the pretence of 'strengthening' the side, they broke up the attack which had restricted the South Africans to 250 at Centurion and assembled a bowling attack which has conceded more than a hunded more runs, off the same number of overs, at Newlands. As I post this the England batting line up is subsiding into oblivion, overwhelmed by the massive target which they were set to win.
At this point the only likely interest from an England point of view looks to come from the question of whether Pietersen will make a century.
After a tantalising start to the tour, the England men's side have resumed normal service, unfortunately.

Charles if it ok if I don't understand a single thing you are saying.

[Charles Evans 25]

Perfectly okay. (Sorry for the delay in response.) ;)

Annnnd, once again it has been time to crank up the circus music, as the England batting line up have been tripping and flopping themselves silly into oblivion at Trent Bridge twice in the past couple of days. The magnificent Pakistan bowling attack has made them (with the honourable exception of sort-of-British player Eoin Morgan, who does have pride, talent, and desire to achieve) look every inch a bunch of incompetents and washouts. Right now firing a few more of the top order, and bringing more players in from across the Irish Sea would probably be an improvement.
How the England bowlers are supposed to cope when the batsmen keep failing so spectacularly to provide them totals that allow them a chance of getting their jobs done properly, I don't know.

Oh, and it looks like another 0-5 whitewash by Australia this coming winter, unless they can find some more batsmen in a hurry.

[CourtFool]

Whoa. I did not even realize I had posted in this.

Um…let's see…frackin' Pac 10, frackin' Nebraska and frackin' Colorado.

Oh and Jerry Jones.

[houstonderek]

CourtFool wrote:

Whoa. I did not even realize I had posted in this.

Um…let's see…frackin' Pac 10, frackin' Nebraska and frackin' Colorado.

Oh and Jerry Jones.

Losing Colorado is like losing a pustular rash, no big deal. Nebraska kind of hurt, but they weren't capable of recruiting well in a conference that had both Texas and Oklahoma. When they only had to deal with Oklahoma in the Big Eight, they could compete. So that's more of a "don't let the door hit you" kind of deal. Plus, the whole situation allows the Big XII to eventually get stronger if they can poach UofH and TCU from their respective conferences. TCU is a very strong program that could only get better with BCS conference recruiting clout, and UofH is improving yearly and also would benefit form more ability to keep local (Houston) talent in town.

[Mac Boyce]

CourtFool wrote:

Whoa. I did not even realize I had posted in this.

Um…let's see…frackin' Pac 10, frackin' Nebraska and frackin' Colorado.

Oh and Jerry Jones.

I'll do you one better.

Detroit Lions. ;)

[Crimson Jester]

Oh about the aaa ball team manager making such an ass of himself he is on ESPN as he worst tantrum of the month. Yeah a small town team manager. He doesn't have the decency to wait until he has a real team to get on national television for showing his arm pit to the ref.

[Valegrim]

Detroit Lions; worst record in football ever; consistantly horrible year after year after year after year after year after year; and so on.

How is it possible that a team can be so consistantly bad? must be a conspiracy or something; statistically it is extremely improbable; heck even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while; but not my Lions.

[Mac Boyce]

Valegrim wrote:

Detroit Lions; worst record in football ever; consistantly horrible year after year after year after year after year after year; and so on.

How is it possible that a team can be so consistantly bad? must be a conspiracy or something; statistically it is extremely improbable; heck even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while; but not my Lions.

It was due to the curse of so and so....

The Ford Family is cheap....

Matt Millen was an idiot....

The list goes on and on.

I do have a TINY shread of hope this year. Come on 5-11!

[houstonderek]

Valegrim wrote:

Detroit Lions; worst record in football ever; consistantly horrible year after year after year after year after year after year; and so on.

How is it possible that a team can be so consistantly bad? must be a conspiracy or something; statistically it is extremely improbable; heck even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while; but not my Lions.

1) Firing Wayne Fontes was a huge mistake.

1a) (edit) Hiring Bobby Ross and pissing off Barry Sanders was a HUGE mistake. Possibly the biggest the franchise has ever made.

2) Hiring Matt Millen was a huge mistake.

3) Taking WRs with first round picks three years in a row was a huge mistake

But, if it makes you feel better, I think things are looking up a bit. Y'all might just win seven this season, and with a decent draft, y'all will have a good young team for the foreseeable future. Chicago is on the decline and if Favre doesn't come back, Minnesota is going to have trouble for a few years at the QB position.

[Bryan]

Mac Boyce wrote:

Valegrim wrote:

Detroit Lions; worst record in football ever; consistantly horrible year after year after year after year after year after year; and so on.

How is it possible that a team can be so consistantly bad? must be a conspiracy or something; statistically it is extremely improbable; heck even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while; but not my Lions.

It was due to the curse of so and so....

The Ford Family is cheap....

Matt Millen was an idiot....

The list goes on and on.

I do have a TINY shread of hope this year. Come on 5-11!

I don't know, I think we have more to rant about with the Tigers. We KNOW the Lions are bad and have been for a decade. With the Tigers, there was a good possibility at the beginning of the season we'd be in the chase all year. Now I think we'll be lucky to finish ahead of KC and Cleveland.

And to solve all the problems with pitching and injuries, the genius that is Dombrowski gives us ... Johnny Peralta? That's it?

[Kajehase]

Am I weird for actually having a slightly better idea of what Charles is talking about than I do the other posts? Guess having Indian neighbours has its advantages.

And expect a rant or two about IFK Göteborg this fall - things are not looking peachy.

[The 8th Dwarf]

Charles I understand being an Australian, hell I would personally hand you the Ashes if you could go back in time and Kneecap Johnny Blood Wilkinson before that heart breaking kick in the Rugby (real football) World Cup.

Arrgh the Wallabies - where are the Ella brothers, Nick Farr-Jones, and Tim Horan when you need them.

[Charles Evans 25]

Baah! The pathetic England batting performance resumes at Edgbaston. Right now the England batting line up seem about as competent as their Pakistan counterparts, with the difference between the sides being that the England top order are scoring more runs because the opposition are failing to take catches when England are at the crease. Pietersen fluked his way to 80 before finally being out, which will no doubt be taken as indication that 'he's getting it together' and being retained for the rest of the series and into the Ashes...

Edit:
Ah. Pakistan have started holding catches at last, resulting in a predictable and appropriate demolition of the England middle order. A shame they couldn't manage it earlier and spared us six more months of Pietersen being automatically regarded as a player too valuable to omit from future teams.

[Charles Evans 25]

And, after a winter tour and summer of halfway decent performances against opponents in disarray due to personnel changes and/or injured players, the clowns are back in pyjamas for English cricket.
England's men (themselves on the short-end of an injury for once in the shape of the absent Eoin Morgan) have just lost their heads and a twenty/20 match to the West Indies with four batsmen run out as a run chase descended into farce.

If this is the future of England's side for the shorter form of the game, a lot more thrashings look likely this coming winter when they meet Sri Lanka on the sub-continent.

Ah well. Normal service is (at least for the non test squad) about to resume. It was nice to pretend for a while that the England men were nearly good at this sort of cricket.