2022 World Cup is Where?!?

Let me preface by saying that I can care less about all things soccer - amateur, college, pro, and women's.  I happened to be in Dallas for this past summer's World Cup.  That might have been the only time I've ever really taken in an entire soccer match.  And I'll admit, it wasn't as bad as I had imagined.

From what I have been told, we were in contention for hosting the 2022 World Cup.  Morgan Freeman, a great actor and activist, was sent to speak on our country's behalf.  So was Bill Clinton.  But take a gander at the mistake Morgan Freeman made right around the 7:00 mark.  (In his defense, it was pretty dark in that room).



Qatar actually got the bid, which I am not all that upset over.  They do have a 5-star airline.  But seriously, why do we need to host a sport that our country gets excited about once every four years?  The answer:  we don't and won't.

Qatar.  All 4,416 square miles of it - that's just a little smaller than the state of Connecticut (the third smallest state in the US).  From the pictures I've seen of the Qatar, it looks like a pretty neat place to be from, if you're into oil.

June and July are the months in which the World Cup are generally held - the average high temperature in Qatar during those months is 106° and 115°, respectively, with zero precipitation.  I hope they have a lot of water and ambulances on the sidelines, because people are going to be dropping like flies.  And I ain't talking about taking a dip in the Persian Gulf.  Professional athletes have rarely, if ever, been asked to perform regularly in temperatures exceeding 105°.  It's almost inhumane.

Their natural resources are petroleum, natural gas, and fish (cia.gov).
The terrain of Qatar is mostly flat and barren desert covered with loose sand and gravel (cia.gov).

Overall, it sounds like they really knocked this one out of the park.  SIKE!

(The 2018 World Cup is being held in Moscow, Russia - no qualms here.  Pack your vodka.)

Break Time

   First of all, LeBron James is a bag of expletives.  Go after a title on a team where you're the man, not one head of a three headed monster.  Way to wimp out.

   Now that the MLB season has reached the All-Star break, I want to take a look at some of the top stories, as far as I'm concerned, in the first half.

   1.  Friar Power.  The San Diego Padres are 14 games over .500 (they were 75-87 last year) and up by two games in the much-improved NL West.  I mean this is a pitchers dominated team - with the best ERA (3.25) and WHIP (1.23) in the MLB.  They're hitting a paltry .250 but are in first place - pitching wins.  Look at the pathetic KC Royals - they lead the majors in hitting (.282) and are 10 games under .500 and 10.5 GB of the 1st place White Sox.  Watch out for the hooded clergy, they're here for real, and I don't think their pitching will go out of style.  They have no pressure to succeed and their best pitcher has only 27 starts under his belt for his career (Mat Latos) and a journeyman John Garland is reverting back to old form (when he won 18 games back-to-back years with the White Sox).  The Padres are good man, but so is everyone else in the West.  It's gonna be exciting.

   2.  Abe Vigoda (aka Jamie Moyer).  How in the hell is this guy 9-8?  I watched him dominate the Yankees (8 IP, 3 H, 2 R) and get shellacked by the Red Sox the very next start (1 IP, 9 H, 9 R).  He's got a 4.51 ERA in over 107 innings pitched - better than A.J. Burnett (4.75), John Lackey (4.78), and Brandon Morrow (4.86) - all guys with far superior stuff.  I watch him pitch and it actually infuriates me.  How can this guy do this at the highest level?  He throws 83 mph!  Are you kidding me?  I have to move on, it's pissing me off even thinking about it.  Good for you Jamie, you old bastard.

   3.  Vuvuzelas at a baseball game?  Really Marlins?  Fire the PR guy instead of letting Fredi Gonzalez get the axe.  This was something that people bitched about at the World Cup 2010, and once the USA was eliminated, everyone bitched about everything related to the World Cup.  And the Marlins decide it's a good idea to hand out half-assed vuvuzelas to fans for a game versus in-state rival Tampa Bay?  Give it a rest.  That goes against everything a traditional baseball fan stands for.  At least give out cowbells or something like that, everyone needs to have more cowbell.  Vuvuzela Night?  Never going to a Marlins game, on principle alone.

   4.  Marco...Polo...Teixeira?  He's hitting an eye-popping .254, but surprisingly has 17 HR and 60 RBI.  He seems to be AL version of Adam Dunn - HR's and right around a .250 BA (Dunn is at 22 HR and .288 in 2010).  He went into the break on fire, hitting .419 in July.  I mean he did virtually nothing in April (.136, 2 HR, 9 RBI) and the Yankees still managed to go 15-7.  They have a two game lead over the Rays and a five game lead over the Red Sox and they haven't even had the best record in the AL East in any given month (TB - Apr., TOR - May, BOS - June, TB - July).  Not to mention the heading to this paragraph - Mark Teixeira is having a mediocre season at best.  If they played the White Sox, Twins, and Mariners every series, he'd be hitting .450 for the year (.545 vs. CWS, .400 vs. MIN, .448 vs. SEA).  If he can stay hot after the break, watch out baseball!  Good time to be a Yankee fan.

   That's all I have time for.  Gotta go work on a few things.  We just got a new GTee in, may go take a few hacks off that, get some frustration out.

   HR Derby tonight at 8 pm Eastern (5 pm Pacific) - Swisher looking to bring the trophy back to the Bronx with him.

   Be well people.

World Cup 2010 - USA advances

We're talking World Cup again - watching the USA struggle through this game with Algeria.  It is really tough to watch.  They got another goal called back (second time in three games.)  It's a conspiracy.

Landon Donovan, the best US-born soccer player ever, just scored in stoppage time - they will be moving on.  1-0 over Algeria.  Algeria went through the group stage without scoring a goal - and we stuggled to get by them.

I actually clapped - it's a sign of my patriotism, not my devotion towards soccer.  I love my country, but this USA team is severely overrated.

People in the stands are crying.  I never see people cry when the Yankees win the World Series!?!

USA! USA! USA!  The rest of the world probably hates us, but who cares.

All things offensive

1. The Yankees offense is offensive.  After getting owned by Takahashi Okanashi or whatever his name is last night, the Mets took game one, 4-0.  The Yankees have scored a measly FOUR runs in the past three games after lighting up Roy Halladay. 

Those starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 4.21 this season.  I mean that is pretty average by MLB standards.  It's not like they faced three big names either - Jamie (Abe Vigoda) Moyer, Kyle (Don't Call me Howie) Kendrick, and Hisanori Takahashi.  Had it been Cole Hamels, Johan Santana, and Mike Pelfrey, maybe, but those three stooges? 

I guess it really goes to show you how good these guys really are.  Even the guys who you think belong on a club team can beat anyone on any given day.  Rings true with the Yankees.  They get to hit against Mike Pelfrey today, so things aren't getting any easier.  They counter with Phil Hughes, who is having just as good a year as Pelfrey. (Both are 9-1 with a 2.39 and 3.11 ERA, respectively)

Trying to avoid dropping four straight today, and fourth straight to the Mutts.

2. USA World Cup Soccer Team.  This is supposed to be the 14th ranked team in the world, and all they can manage is a 2-2 draw with Slovenia (25th)?  I mean it seems to me that every time there's a World Cup, the US media tries to pump it up and make it a big deal, but the results are always the same.  As my buddy Ralph said to me on Facebook, "what a joke. Every four years its the same over-blown hype about nothing. why do they even bother playing this sport anymore?"

I suppose the USA is fortunate their remaining game in Group C is against Algeria (30th), but they need a point.  Their best match was against the best team they've played, England (8th). 

Truth be told, soccer is an international sport.  Not a national one.  We have our national pastime, BASEBALL.  And if you're looking for "America's Team", that'd be the Dallas Cowboys of the National FOOTBALL League.

3. The oppressively hot temperature in our apartment.  It's only 10:00 am and it's already starting to feel like a sauna in here.  Nathan is moping around because he's so damn hot in here.  Time to crank up the box fan - no we aren't poor, we have an air conditioner in the bedroom.  Immediate relief, although Nathan seems to think it's a good idea to sit behind the fan.  He's not the brightest dog.

The windows in this place allow cold air to pump in during winter, and don't keep the place cool in in the summer.  They might as well be made of clear cellophane.  I am not going to let the curtains and drapes block the windows, because then we'd get less of a breeze than we already get. 

I hate it here.

4. Wayne Knight's role in FOX's new show, The Good Guys.  Rumor has it, he is only going to be in one episode.  What?  Maybe he wanted it that way.  I ran in to him recently in Dallas in a CVS on Main St.  He even took his headphones out of his ears and had a little conversation with me.  Seemed like a really good dude.  I will post the picture in it's own post.

According to givememyremote.com, he plays a low-level clerk at the County Records office.  Read it yourself, I'm not plagiarizing.

Time to get in touch with my brother.  He answers his phone somewhere between very rarely and never.  I hope it's very rarely.

World Cup Fever

I have no ties to the New Zealand or Slovakia.  However, I found myself cheering when "the kiwi's" scored the match-tying goal two minutes into stoppage time to earn a draw with Slovakia. 

Winston Reid scored on a header and I actually gave a fist pump.  Weird.

These guys all have pretty cool names out there - Winston Reid, Rory Fallon, Vladimir Weiss.  Not many Robert's or Mike's.

Good for the little hairy fruits.