Things a sports fan can care about until football season starts again

It's May. The yearly tease that is spring football has worn off, and the large number of Americans whose major sport of choice is football (or American Rules Football for all my international readers) are slowly starting to realize that it is a long four months until they get to see 22 men concuss each other for an hour a week again. But even if you do really only care about football, you still want to see some sports every once in a while, even if only to be able  to claim once again that if you only hadn't sprained your ankle sophomore year of high school, that that would be you out there. So I have thrown together some suggestions for temporary alternatives to football, that will still let you feed the burgeoning sports addiction that you and most other Americans have been afflicted with.

1. Basketball
Lebron James is out of the playoffs. Three of the remaining four teams left in the NBA playoffs are utterly hateable. The league is quite possibly rigged to get a big market team the championship every year. While all of these things are true, don't count out basketball yet as a sports possibility. The hope all lies in one man, Steve Nash. Even though the Suns are facing a 2-0 hole, they play great at home, so it's very possible you will see at least three more games of the great white hope. Nash is the greatest thing ever to happen to short white guys, because it makes us all feel like we have a chance to be atletic too. Hey, if some skinny ugly Canadian dude can do it, why cant we? (You can't because you probably haven't played basketball since junior high, but that's not the point) Also, as long as Nash is around, you have a free pass to make constant Canadian jokes, which is always fun. The other series offers its own intrigue. The Magic and Celtics have started getting pretty physical, so it is totally worth it to keep watching if only for the chance to see someone go full Bogut after a hard foul. And then after that you've got the NBA draft, which is dumb, but at least you might get to see John Wall shoot off some celebratory gunshots after being drafted by the Wizards, and you can see which team Evan Turner will lose on next year.

2. Hockey
Many of you may never have heard of this sport, or know that we have a team here in Columbus, but hockey is actually very popular, I hear, in certain desolate frozen wastelands of the world (Detroit). And for good reason, it's one of the manliest of sports. Burly bearded men attaching knives to their shoes to smash each other into walls sounds awesome enough as it is, and to top it all off there is even some sort of scoring thrown in there. And with the matchups as they are now, you can watch and cheer every time a dude from Philly smashes a French-Canadian into the boards.

3. Lacrosse
Lacrosse is a sport mostly for rich, preppy east-coasters, this is true. But grown men also get to hit each other with metal sticks. Even if you know nothing about it, for one weekend a year it is totally worth watching. On memorial day weekend every year, lacrosse games get 40,000+ person crowds to watch the final four, and there are usually some great games. Lacrosse can be boring on tv, but with a big crowd and the likelihood of some shaggy haired dude getting his clock cleaned every game, its worth throwin on. Also, at least three of the final 8 teams left have a central ohio product on your team, so you can root for them to overthrow the lacrosse establishment.

4. Soccer
Soccer? Yes, soccer. Even though it is boring, low-scoring, and full of skinny european dudes, this summer is the World Cup, the one soccer event that everyone should watch. Entire countries stake their reputation on these games, and there can be some unfortunate consequences for a poor showing. And even though soccer players writhe on the ground and embellish after every little tap they receive, it's actually a pretty dangerous sport, with 16 deaths since 1980. Also, soccer players have easily the hottest wives of any sport, and they will all be at the games at the world cup, so you can loo forward to seeing them on camera after their husbands score of the the two goals you'll see every game.

5. Baseball
The American pastime. Baseball may have lost some of its luster recently, but it is still great to flip on a day game during the summer and have a great nap time while watching a game. After watching a couple innings you'll for sure be in the mood to sleep go out and have a catch. Baseball is great because of its history, you've got the seventh-inning stretch, which is a collosal waste of time great tradition, horrible delicious Cracker Jack, and drunks great fans at the game. You really begin to love baseball when you see the excitement that the players have for the game. And, now, more than ever, baseball is a great sport to watch because you never know what you're going to see at a game.

The Most Hated Sports Cities (From an Ohioan's Perspective)

Given that there is really very little to actually do in the state of Ohio (the front page of our tourism website suggests Amish country and a science center as two of the top three choices for an Ohio vacation), we have to get really invested in our sports teams. But, in an indication that God must have a sick sense of humor, all Ohio sports fans must suffer through disappointment, mediocrity and overall embarrasing teams on a regular basis, while cities which have countless things to do other than watch your team lose have been rewarded with constant athletic success. Obviously, this leads to a little antagonism from the average Ohioan. This is a list of which cities a normal Ohioan hates the most, based on undeserved athletic accomplishments.

1. New York
With a market that gives its teams an unlimited budget, and a fan base that expects championships, instead of just hoping for them, New York is really the anti-Ohio. While the Yankees fired their manager and nearly their general manager after not winning the World Series for 7 years, Indians fans have been waiting on a championship for over sixty years and the Reds haven't been a championship team since right around the time that Pete Rose was totally not betting on baseball. New York treats Ohio like a farm system, letting the players toil on mediocre teams until they snatch them up when they are ready to win a championship (see: Sabbathia, CC, Edwards, Braylon, Boone, Aaron, and possible James, Lebron). New York is also nice enough to send Ohio its former effective players after they are good and washed up (see: Boone, Aaron again, Peca, Michael). New York is exactly what every Ohio city wished it was, a place that athletes want to come to, instead of a place they are dying to leave.

2. Boston
The complete opposite of the die-hard, down on their luck fans in Ohio, Boston has seen a revolving door of championship trophies, from every major sport, and their fans have bandwaggoned accordingly. Ever since the Red Sox bought Curt Schilling and he cut his ankle open to have his gay bloody sock, Red Sox fans have come out of the woodwork. While most people who you will see in a Sox jersey probably do not know that Roger Clemens ever pitched for the Red Sox, or have any idea who Carlton Fisk is, they will all swear they are diehard fans. The same can be said of the pre-Tom Brady Patriots. If you asked a Pats fan what they thought of the Pete Carroll era, they would probably stare blankly at you and say "No, im pretty sure we went straight from Parcells' Super Bowl season into the Belichick administration." Their bandwaggoning was even apparent on a daily basis over the last two weeks, as the team Boston was totally pumped about alternated between the Celtics and Bruins, based on who had won most recently. When the Bruins went up 3-0 and the Celtics got blown-out at home, it was Bruins fever, not that the Bruins have lost three in a row and the Celtics sent the Cavs packing, everyone has always been a Celtic fan. Boston has been home to some of the most hateable sports figures in recent history. Curt Schilling, Josh Beckett and idiot turned champion Manny Ramirez, Tom Brady and Randy Moss, Paul Pierce and Rasheed Wallace, and crappy coach of Ohio team turned genius Bill Belichick all make Boston all the more hated.

3. Los Angeles
Los Angeles is totally hateable because it has many things Ohio doesn't: good weather, more beautiful women than they know what to do with, and championships. If any city should have to deal with the deal of constant failure, its LA, because they have plenty to fall back on. In the last decade, LA has seen USC, the Lakers, the Ducks and the Angels all win championships. Even when the Rams and Raiders left LA, it didnt cut nearly as deep as the Browns leaving Cleveland, because those teams weren't their only hopes for success. Ohioans also hate LA teams for the Hollywood culture. LA can fill its front rows with celebrities that come just to be seen, while Ohio fills its own with drunk business people using their company's season tickets. Ohio fans use that as ammunition that their fans aren't dedicated, but really it's jealousy that we can't do the same thing.

4. Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh is hateable because it is bizarro Ohio. Pittsburgh has the same fat, stupid, factory-working fans as Ohio does, but they win. Pittsburgh is a market no bigger than any Ohio city, which gives players no reason to want to play there, but for some reason they find ways to bring back championships. It's also horribly irritating for Ohio sports fans that in every Ohio city there are a bunch of people who claim to be die-hard Steelers fans, but don't seem to care at all what the Pirates or Penguins do. Speaking of, Pittburgh is the one city on this list that gives Ohio fans a silver lining, at least we don't have to root for the Pirates.

5. Whatever city's teams you root for
At teh root of Ohio fandom is an undying hatred for your own teams. When you root for your team for year after year and your organization seems completely unconcerned with obtaining any tangible success, one develops a little bit of anger. A hallmark of Ohio fans is to believe your team has what it takes to contend up until the season starts, and then go back to booing them after watching them play for two weeks. If you ask pretty much any Ohio sports fan what they think about their team, they will most likely respond that they are coached by idiots, have an idiot owner and have a front office full of idiots. And somehow, even though there are 6 different professional sports teams in the state, that seems to be true for all of them. When any team sniffs a little success, it seems to be a cosmic inevitability that that glimmer of hope will be extinguished ASAP.

Being an Ohio fan is a very taxing process, an emotional roller coaster that is much more down than up. But being an Ohio fan does give us the opportunity to do something that all Ohioans love...hating other people who are better than us.

The Boston Celtics: Possibly the ugliest team in sports

I am not going to discuss the travesty of last night and totally Cleveland-tastic performance of the Cavs, because if I do I might start crying for the first time since last Sunday when I watched "Ohio State-Michigan:The Rivalry" again on HBO (I always cry during the part with the old guy saying "Go Blue" because it's sad to think that he will die without ever seeing a Michigan winning season again, hell, even I might die before that happens). But I will discuss a topic that comes up often in my apartment: that the celtics players are just a hideous collection of human beings.

Celtics management has, in a move I can only assume to be on purpose, assembled a basketball team that is just horribly ugly, from top to bottom. Starters, bench players, even the scrubs, just eye-gougingly ugly. Most teams have a few players who aren't lookers, but with the Celtics it's like they signed these players with the goal of distracting the other team by way of their irksome visages.

Let me start with the starters. These players run the gamut of ugliness, and make me wonder how Ray Allen's Spike-Lee-Joint-worthy face got tangled up with this group of miscreants. The new star of the team is the young point guard, Rajon Rondo. Rondo has a combination of a disproportionately-long, alien-like head with skin that is so incomprehensibly smooth I don't think it is legal to be had by a man in any state south of Tennessee. Rondo would certainly fit in on RuPaul's Drag Race because if you put a wig and makeup on him, he would make for a very passable, yet still very ugly, woman. (http://thebostonsportsnetwork.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/rajonrondo01_45957.jpg vs. http://ll-media.tmz.com/2008/04/23/0423_rupaul_reveal_getty.jpg)

Paul Pierce is the next best player on the Celts, and boy is he ugly. For some reason, it seems as if Paul Pierce's sideburns are allergic to shaving, while the rest of his face accepts it. The oval-shaped, unattached, pseudo-mutton chops that grace his face look like he fell asleep earliest at an 8th grade sleep over and someone glued some pubes to the side of his face. Pierce also often sports an intense game-face during crucial points in games that look less intimidating and more like he could really use a couple spoonfulls of Activia. (http://www.layoutlocator.com/graphics/dldimg/905037a76a48d9af31f33177eb16f419_pierce3083107023716.gif) During this face he also often sports an underbite that makes one wish for the simpler days of Bubba from Forrest Gump.

The starting center for the Celtics is Kendrick Perkins, a player who came to the NBA straight from high school, presumably because colleges just assumed he was retarded. Kendrick's face shows no signs of human emotion. As I looked for pictures of him, I found examples of his hands and mouth moving, suggesting he was feeling something, but the expression on his face never changed (but there are reports that he will become sentient within the next year). (Happy: http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2007/08/18/1187482212_0612.jpg Sad: http://www.nba.com/media/celtics/profile_posed_kendrick_perkins220300.jpg) His eyes are also sunk like 4 inches into his face, which you would think would make him see about as well as a horse with blinders on, but he seems to manage. He is also one of those people that, for a reason I don't understand, does not have any "whites of his eyes," but "gross, yellowish tinted, cream colored...of his eyes."

When you move to the Celtics bench, things do not get much better. Shelden Williams looks just like Ken Griffey in that one episode of the Simpsons when Mr. Burns hires major league players to be ringers for a softball league, and Griffey gets gigantism. (http://www.nbadraft.net/files/players/shelden-williams-hd_0.jpg vs. http://weblogs.wpix.com/sports/thehuddle/44griffey.jpg ...omg they even have the same mustache) They've also got Marquis Daniels, who the Celtics are paying $2 million this year to bring down their team shotting percentage and bring up their teams ugly percentage.

Even among towel-waving, bench-filling, white guys, the Celtics have by far the ugliest in Brian Scalabrine. Scalabrine looks like he could not possibly be a professional athlete, and instead of protein shakes after workouts, that he drinks actual milkshakes. (http://www.celticsclub.com/players/players/photos346.jpg) But his terryfyingly red hair and his amorphous blob physique probably do make him fit in really well on the Boston streets.

This list certainly leaves off some players, but I think you all get the point. If you want to see some more gross-looking, tall, rich dudes, and haven't eaten recently, just check out the rest of their roster. I thought about suggesting that they trade for Joakin Noah, Adam Morrison and Chris Kaman to round out their roster, but I decided against it, since those players all on the court together would probably induce more vomiting than a Pi Phi party at Miami.

(I just remembered that I somehow left off Rasheed Wallace, so I will leave you with these things to think about...looks homeless, that disgusting bald spot...http://blacksportsonline.com/index/2009/07/05/rasheed_wallace.jpg...holy shit)

The Premiere of the world's greatest sports blog

(A shout out to Bryan Rogers and the "blog of brog" for making me feel like doing this)

The first entry in this blog that I hope to be interesting and somewhat funny is entitled:
"How the Cavs can beat the Celtics"

I came into this series (and the entire postseason) thinking that the Cavs were on too much of a mission to be stopped, especially by a team that has obviously lost a step. But the Cavs have played so inconsistently, and the supporting cast has lookes so much exactly like they did the past two postseasons that I am worried that they may end up blowing their title chances before they even get to the conference finals.

Anyone who has watched even a quarter in the Cavs-Celts series knows that this series has been about two players, Lebron and Rajon Rondo. The scary thing about it, though, is that Rondo has really looked better than even Lebron. While Lebron has had to use all his strength and athleticism to free himself from the Celtic defense, Rondo has looked completely unguardable. Rondo gets in the lane at will, finds teammates who seem to always be open and has made the once-stout Cavs defense look foolish many times. Anthony Parker has a deer in the headlights look on his face every time the Celts clear out for Rondo, and it seems to be for good reason because that often leads to an easy layup for Rajon. If Rondo could hit a 15 foot jumper consistently, he would score thirty a game in this series because all the Cavs defenders are doing when he isos is back up and try to stop him from laying it in.

The only solution that I can see to stop Rondo is to put Lebron on him, which appartenly he wants to do himself.(http://http://sports.espn.go.com/boston/nba/columns/story?columnist=may_peter&id=5176274) No one on the Celtics other than Rondo has been a consistent offensive threat. Paul Pierce looks slow and perfectly content to ride Rondo, he doesn't call for the ball and is much more hesitant with the pull-up 18 footers than he was two years ago. Ray Allen is a great player but only puts up great numbers when he can get free and spot up to shoot. Anthony Parker would be much better on either of these two than on Rondo, because he would not have to guard them off the dribble. Lebron has thoroughly shut Pierce down and Pierce looks so off of his rhythm that a secondary defender could handle him for the next three games. I think Lebron could match Rondo's atleticism, take him off his game and force the Celtics offense to run through Pierce again, who hasn't scored more than 14 in the series and is shooting 32% against the Cavs this year.

The other major problem for Cavs in the series has been the play of the big men. Shaq has looked atrocious offensively. A career 58% shooter, he has shot 47% in the series, including a 4-12 performance in game one. He has looked better the past two games, including 17 last night, but the Cavs game plan of pounding the ball to him for the entire first quarter seems to get them a little off rhythm. JJ Hickson has been the really only high point of the Cavs inside scoring, because his youth and athleticism have let him get a lot of open looks against Garnett and Perkins.
The defensive inside play has been equally frustrating because even though Perkins has been thoroughly shut down (6 points a game in the series including 0 in game 4), the Cavs have had no answer for Kevin Garnett, who is scoring 18 a game, up from 14 in the regular season. I think the best way to stop him is to go big, move Jamison to the 3 and put Hickson or Varejao on him. Garnett seems to hate high-energy players, and a lean lineup with Shaq off the floor can get the Cavs running, so Garnett and Pierce might tire out on both ends.

The Cavs are the better team in this series and they had a better record for a reason. The Celtics can beat the best on any given day but they can also get beat by anyone when they're off (with bad losses to the Nets, Pacers and Knicks on the season). The Cavs have let Rondo do whatever he wants, with Mike Brown making no major changes to stop him even though he is getting better every game, and they have done nothing to show the age of the Celtics. If the Cavs push the tempo, find Shaq his spots and sit him when he's off, and can get Rondo off his game even a little, they should coast. If not, Tuesday night I might be writing my next entry: "What (I think) losing this series will do to the Cavs"