View My Seats

At the Intersection of Sports and Culture

Photo Credit for Header: Alex Foucre-Stimes

Monday Morning Musings

by

A Quick Trip Around the Bases

1B – Memo to the Chicago Cubs pitching staff, with the game on the line don’t pitch to Albert Pujols. He will beat you silly and steal your lunch money. The more I think about it, Pujols is Mongo from Blazing Saddles. But instead of shooting him, better not hang a breaking ball or leave a fastball middle in because you’ll just make him mad.

2B – Can the Mets really trade Jose Reyes this summer? I know they CAN but should they is the question. True, he is having a tremendous year and the Mets probably can’t afford a Carl Crawford like ransom for him when he becomes a free agent at the end of the year but if you get rid of Reyes, and then Carlos Beltran after that, you might as well invite the entire Buffalo Bison Triple A team down to Citi Field. Talk about attendance issues, Queens is going to be a ghost town come August. There will be more people watching US Open tennis at neighboring Arthur Ashe Stadium than there will be at the baseball game.

3B – At some point, MLB should consider using a lottery to determine draft order because who wants to see the Pittsburgh Pirates picking 1st again this week? Top draft picks haven’t helped them over the last decade and a half so what’s to think it’s going to help this year. (In the sake of full disclosure, as a Baltimore Orioles fan the same should be said about my team too.)

HR – Non baseball musing of the morning, The Killing, what the heck was that? SPOILER ALERT!!! It’s episode 11 of 13 of a season long search for the killer of a teenage girl and you decide to spend the entire hour focusing on the missing son of one of the lead detectives? Now is not the time for character development. Please don’t tell me we are going to wait until season 2, if there is even going to be another season, to find out who killed Rosie Larson.

view from Busch Stadium courtesy of @Corinn_Dixon

Lunch Break Basketball with J.J. Barea

by

Not hard to imagine, seeing as how the diminutive Dallas backup point guard extraordinaire is often asked to show his credentials upon entering an NBA arena. Believe me, I’m not trying to pick on the 5’9″ Northeastern grad from Puerto Rico, the man has some serious “skeelz”, including showing no fear as he weaves his way through the giants sequoias en route to the basket. All I’m trying to say is that J.J., he of the fashionably metro beard from the little known land of Lilliput, could easily pass for a MD trying to fit in a quick game at the local Y between vasectomies at Columbia Presbyterian.

I’m sure Barea isn’t phased by all the confusion, at least I wouldn’t be if I were dating Miss Universe 2006. Last laugh’s on us I suppose.

Game 3 prediction: Mavs 92 Heat 88

view from American Airlines Center courtesy of @NBA

Rafael Nadal and The Majesty of Championship Wedgie Picking

by

As an athlete and champion, Rafael Nadal has many admirable qualities. His dogged determination and work ethic have enabled him to win 10 majors, including the 2011 French Open over Roger Federer. But one aspect of Rafa’s game that goes undiscussed, but certainly not unnoticed, is his willingness to overcome high riding negligee.

That’s right, Rafa Nadal, winner of now 6 French Open’s, loves to pick his wedgie. As a tennis fan, you don’t go into the French Open finals looking for this sort of thing, but in the case of Nadal and his wardrobe malfunctioning, it’s impossible not to notice. Before every service point. On the way to his chair during a changeover. Arguing a call. You name it he picks it. At this point in his career it is probably part of his routine sort of like serving, vollying, and winning.

Now we can all empathize with Rafa. Who hasn’t gone for a jog on a nice humid July afternoon and traveled only a half mile into the run before realizing that the unmentionables are creeping towards the nether regions. It happens and we should not begin to pass judgment on one of the 4 or 5 greatest tennis players of all time. If anything, we should be complimenting Nadal and making an art form of the wedgie pick.

Congrats Rafael Nadal on winning another French Open and proving that you too are a man uninhibited by television cameras and millions upon millions of onlookers.

view from Roland Garros courtesy of @rolandgarros

Wednesday Worries

by

I’m worried that…

Dirk Nowitzki can’t carry the Mavericks to a series victory. Last night, the shots Dirk was hitting vs OKC weren’t falling and down the stretch, the Jason’s, Terry and Kidd, went into early hibernation mode. Now reports out of South Beach have Nowitzki playing with a torn ligament in his finger. Already down a game to the Heat, let the excuses begin!

Scottie Pippen was right.

traveling is no longer part of a NBA officials vernacular. I understand LeBron is a once in a generation athlete but even Jim Thorpe took less than 7 steps when driving to the basket.

I’m not paying enough attention to the Stanley Cup Finals between the Vancouver Canucks and the Boston Bruins. Two hockey hot cities longing for a championship. Unfortunately for the NHL, it’s June and the only ice I want to cozy up to is resting comfortably at the bottom of my mojita.

view from American Airlines Arena courtesy of @ngobrolNBA

 

 

Plodding the Previews: X-Men: First Class

by

Some folks boast a photographic memory while others claim to count cards. Me, I have a strange telekinetic ability to predict the plot of a movie based solely on the coming attraction. I will channel these talents every week in an effort to breakdown the latest summer blockbuster. With a little luck, and patience, I’ll also attempt to connect the movie to a current sports story.

X-Men: First Class.

In the beginning…

I won’t claim to know the first thing about the comic book genealogy of either Professor Xavier, Magneto, or any other X-Men/X-Women. I come into First Class completely ignorant and blissfully unaware of what is “supposed” to happen. Therefore trust my impartiality and enjoy the honesty which is about to ensue. (Check out the X-Men: First Class preview here.)

And now, for a second by second recap

:15 sec mark – James McAvoy is Professor X but at this point we can call him “Charles”. Frankly, I question the choice of actor. McAvoy looks nothing like a young Patrick Stewart. Furthermore, he doesn’t come close to possessing nearly the same gravitas as the former captain of the USS Enterprise. McAvoy should stick to 19th century English period dramas where he falls in love with an married aristocratic woman played by either Keira Knightley or Angelina Jolie.

:20 – Lt. Archie Hickox will be playing Magneto. Michael Fassbender* was sort of a non entity until his star turning role in Inglorious Basterds. Two great scenes from Tarantino’s most original film since Pulp Fiction: 1) The opening sequence in the farm house. Christoph Waltz may have danced away with the Best Supporting Actor Oscar right there. Thanks to this scene I no longer accept Nazi interrogators looking for a glass of fresh milk into our house. 2) The shootout in the bar. Who knew Germans had a different way of signaling for “three”. I’ll be much more careful next time I grab a few steins at the Hofbrauhaus.

*I resisted the urge to look up “fassbender” on urban dictionary for fear it doesn’t mean what I had envisioned. In my mind, “fassbender”, pronounced “phaust – beendur” is a Bavarian boomerang used by Indiana Jones as he stole the Ark of the Covenant from the Nazis for the 3rd time.

1:12 – Is that the girl from Winter’s Bone? Is she naked? Wait, why is she turning blue? There are going to be a lot of disappointed fan boys out there if every time Jennifer Lawrence comes close to getting naked she goes all “rogue” on us and turns into some sort of scaly blue mutant. On second thought, probably not the best idea to try and play armchair psychologist to the millions of 35 year old men still living in their parents basement. For all we know, Rogue is like their version of Bar Refaeli.

1:20 – Whoa, Kevin Bacon! Playing either a politician or an evil industrialist. I figured he was done with major motion pictures after his star turning role in those Logitech ads.

1:23- Holy Cuban Missile Crisis! SPOILER ALERT!!! My prediction, it wasn’t RFK and the naval blockade that preserved peace after those Thirteen Days in October of 1962 but rather Magneto and his mutant ability to prevent nuclear weapons from detonating. I feel so misled. Here I was, for all these years, believing that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev experienced an 11th hour change of heart and called off the Russia warships headed to Cuba when really the planet was saved by a Holocaust survivor with giant magnets for hands.

1:35 – Seeds of future animosity are brewing between best friends Charles and Eric. I think I know where this one is headed. Charles understands the positive impact the mutant race can have on human civilization and decides to build a school in upstate New York where younger mutants can come and learn how to channel their considerable powers and use them for the better good while Eric starts to brood and lose himself in self loathing. This can only lead to one thing…..the end of a friendship and the world!!!!

2:20 – Magneto and his helmet/cape combo are revealed along with this pivotal piece of dialogue:

Chuck X: “Listen my friend, killing will not bring you peace.”

Magnet Man: “Peace was never an option.”

Ohhhh, it is so on! This melodrama is followed by some Soviet rockets being fired from an aircraft carrier as still not evil Magneto stands in the middle of the Bay of Pigs with the fate of the world resting in his soon to be sinister hands. But, is he really evil or just misunderstood? I’m guessing there’s some ambiguity to the conclusion.

What does this all mean?

Since X-Men: First Class is a prequel we all pretty much know where the story is headed. But, I’ll give the film credit for an interesting cast and for adding an element of Cold War history. I just hope rising high school juniors don’t take this movie literally and head back to school in the fall believing that Magneto and Professor Xavier brought about the end of the Cold War. I don’t think our country could ever recover.

Connect the Dots

Look no further than Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the Dallas Mavericks and Miami Heat. Both Dirk Nowitzki and LeBron James have played like mutants these past few weeks. Will LBJ’s Magneto outlast Dirk’s Professor X? Probably would have been just as easy for me to call Dirk Magneto and Lebron Professor X but I’m facing a tremendous amount of pressure from the city of Cleveland to leave it as is. As far as predictions go, Mavs in 6. Nowitzki wins his first NBA championship and Germany celebrates by giving him his very own “phaust-beendur”.