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At the Intersection of Sports and Culture

Photo Credit for Header: Alex Foucre-Stimes

The Most Important MRI in Chicago Sports History

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Green Bay Packers 21 Chicago Bears 14: My favorite byproduct of the whole Jay Cutler “phantom” knee injury thing was all the war stories that fans and former players felt that they just had to share.  For instance, there was this classic reaction from Maurice Jones-Drew followed by a scathing assessment from former NFL lineman Mark Schlereth.

But, by far, my favorite reactions came from friends and family. For example, my brother in law: “You (Cutler) gotta play through the injury. I had terrible shin splints last year and all I did was get myself a new pair of shoes”.

From my friend J: “MCL’s are overrated. They don’t even surgically repair them anymore. You can play through the pain as long as you run straight ahead and avoid making any sudden movements”.

My favorite reaction came from my Dad: “You know back in my day, we didn’t even use to get water breaks.  Coaches would come around and give us salt tablets that were thought to keep us hydrated. The only reason I stopped playing football was because I couldn’t find a comfortable pair of contact lenses”.

So there you have it.  The votes have been tallied. Jay Cutler should have finished the game for the Chicago Bears. Now it could turn out that he will need major knee surgery this offseason, which I hope is not the case.  Regardless, it was really fascinating to watch the public turn on Cutler so quickly. Which reminds me, did you catch him trying to stay loose on the exercise bike? That’s exactly what I look like when my somebody asks me to do something that I have no interest in doing. Cutler didn’t exactly look like someone who was dying to get back in the game.  In this case, perception is everything.

view of Soldier Field courtesy of @reschcenter

Pittsburgh Steelers 24 New York Jets 19: Did you catch the Rex Ryan headset toss at the end of the game? He looked just like Clark Griswold when the 25000 imported Italian twinkle lights wouldn’t work properly.

I gotta tell you, and as I Patriots fan I can’t believe I’m saying this, I kind of like Rex Ryan’s confidence during the post game press conference.  Sure the Jets just lost the AFC Championship game for the second year in a row but, to his credit, he stood up to the podium and boldly predicted that his team was going to make it all the way to the Super Bowl next year.  Jets fans probably won’t take much solace in his pronouncement this morning but still, the guy doesn’t waiver from his message.

Now we prepare for two straight weeks of hypotheticals. If Ben Roethlisberger wins his third Super Bowl at the age of 28 is he as good a QB as Tom Brady? If Aaron Rodgers leads the Packers to victory in Dallas do the fine folks of Green Bay finally forget about the man named Favre? If Jay Cutler is on crutches will he still be allowed to crash the MTV Super Bowl bash?

Lots to think about and with two weeks to go until Super Bowl XLV, plenty of time to figure it all out.

view of Heinz Field courtesy of @RedBullNASCAR

Punching Tickets To Arlington Texas

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CHICAGO (+3.5) over Green Bay: My cousin Bert is a Chicago native, currently enjoying his junior year at the University of Wisconsin. For Sunday’s NFC Championship game, he has chosen to return home to Chicago. Reason being, Madison, between all of the Leinenkugel and cheese curds, is going to be a very difficult place for any Bears fan to watch the game. My question to Bert, aren’t there an equal number of Chicago and Green Bay fans on the UDub campus? Gotta be close right? Madison is full of “flatlanders” and “coasties”. In fact, if you were to take an informal poll, which NFL jersey is most represented on the Wisconsin campus: Aaron Rodgers, Brian Urlacher, or Ron Dayne?

I like the Bears in this game because I respect the way they went out and played the Packers hard in Week 17, even after they had already locked up the #2 seed and a first round bye. Of course, Aaron Rodgers is currently playing quarterback like Neo “knowing” Kung Fu, so there’s a pretty good chance the Packers win by double digits.

PITTSBURGH (-3.5) over NY Jets: It has been awfully quiet in Florham Park, NJ this week.  I don’t care how much they “respect” the Steelers, I think the Jets are a better, albeit more unbearable, football team when they talk.  I have no statistical evidence to support this claim but it seems to me that their roster – Bart Scott, Antonio Cromartie, Rex Ryan – is full of players/coaches that feed off media attention.

Speaking of unnecessary media attention, if I have to hear one more time about how the Empire State Building is currently lit up in green and white lights to show support for the Jets I am going to throw up in my mouth.  We get it, New York is behind their football team.  Even more infuriating, did you hear about the story where the Jets charter plane was given permission to “fly by” the Empire State Building on their return trip home from Foxboro last Sunday? How is this legal? Mayor Bloomberg, when you are finished digging out Astoria, Queens from all that snow we had in late December, how about you investigate the flight controllers who allowed the Jets plane to buzz Manhattan? (Note: I’m not still bitter about the Patriots losing last weekend. Not bothered at all.)

view from outside Heinz Field courtesy of @albyoxenreiter

American Eyes Weep for Padraig Harrington

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Breaking news out of Abu Dhabi. Three time major golf champion Padraig Harrington has been disqualified from the HSBC golf championship.  This is the second time in the last three weeks, Camilo Villegas in Hawaii, that a professional golfer has been DQ’d for a rules violation.  And here’s the kicker, in both cases the players themselves did not realize that they had committed the infraction but were rather “tattled on” by a television viewer.

Obviously, we could argue for days about whether it is a fair system that allows for fans at home to call/email officials and alert them to apparent rules violations. But I have a slightly different approach to this issue. For starters, how exactly does one go about getting in touch with a golf official during a tour event?  Is there a a published “tips hotline” that you can call anytime?  Wouldn’t this lead to more pranks than actual useful intel?  And who is answering these emails and phone messages? Do the PGA and European Tours both employ referees whose sole responsibility is to wait for viewers to call in with information?

Secondly, what if other major sports conducted their officiating in a similar manner?  Could you imagine what the NFL switchboard would look like on any given Sunday? Fans would be lining up to call in and point out that Hines Ward did not maintain control of the ball as he fell out of bounds.  Or, picture the NBA accepting emails from fans indicating that Dwight Howard just committed another 3 second violation. Would the league office go to the video, confirm the infraction and alert the officiating crew that a change needed to be made?

Maybe it’s just a golf thing. When you think about it, what sort of person has the time to call/email a tour official and tell them that a professional golfer made a mistake? In the words of Judge Smails, “Don’t you people have homes?”.

view of the Bob Hope Classic courtesy of @BobHopeClassic

Just A Simple Game of Shirts and Skins

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I’m all in on the NHL All Star teams being determined by the two captains, Niklas Lidstrom and Eric Staahl. I think it’s a fantastic idea on multiple fronts. For starters, it’s a fresh, new concept that will help keep the NHL in the headlines after the tremendous momentum gained from HBO Sports’ “24/7: Road to the Winter Classic”. People are talking about hockey again, especially the younger generation of kids who are the present, and future, market for economic growth and expansion.

Next, by allowing captains to pick their teams, the 2011 NHL All Star game has the look and feel of playground basketball. Just about every single North American citizen can relate to the agony and ecstasy that goes along with waiting to be selected for a simple game of “pickup”. The process is both exhilarating and demoralizing. It’s as transparent and democratic an idea as we have in all of sports and competition. Entire athletic careers are determined by the order in which a young kid is selected to a team.

Personally, I will never forget what a validating feeling it was to be one of the first people selected to a team.  At the time, it justified my entire athletic existence. Many of you will probably recall how devastating it was to be one of the last, lonely souls selected. (I choose to block these memories from my consciousness.)

With the decision to have captains pick the All Star teams, the NHL has positioned its players as a group of people we can all relate to. Our empathy will help drive the sport of hockey back into the conversation this Winter.

view of MSG courtesy of @RyanBlair

Guess the View: The PGA Championship of Tennis

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Tennis always seems to be one of those sports that is only on TV at odd hours.  Take the Australian Open for example.  Live coverage of tennis’ first major starts at 7pm EST and, depending on the pace of play, isn’t scheduled to end until 7am EST the following morning.  If my calculations are correct, that’s 12 straight hours of live tennis.  In the immortal words of Winston Zeddomore, “That’s a big twinkie”.

I am much more prone to watch the Australian Open between 6-7AM, as I prepare to go to work, than I am any of the primetime coverage.  Same thing with English Premier League soccer. I would be really interested to compare the television ratings of primetime to early am tennis.  Is there a significant difference at all?

Like most casual tennis fans, things won’t get interesting in Melbourne for me until some of the marquee players start squaring off against one another.  We will have to wait few more days for those matchups to transpire. Until then, grab a cup of coffee and enjoying a healthy serving of morning tennis.

view courtesy of @rbain21