Category: Sports

Sporty

Friday Feature, Movies, Sports

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had the great good fortune to watch a few sports movies, again.  (I’ve seen them all at least twice before, but I hadn’t watched many of them for well over a decade.  It was like saying hello to old friends, it was.)  Here they are, in no specific order:

Bull Durham — Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins.  I know the last two are ‘orrible Commies, but that doesn’t take away from the movie’s excellence.  Best part is that it’s pure comedy, unlike the realism of the ones that follow.

Trouble With The Curve — Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams.  Somehow, within the overall frame of the movie, Clinty managed to fit in three little sub-plots:  his relationship with his daughter, her budding relationship with her admirer, and the eternal struggle between the job you love and the successful career (in this case, also hers).  The main plot, that of Clinty struggling to keep his job while persisting in the old ways, is of course brilliant because Eastwood.

Moneyball — Brad Pitt.  Like Draft Day, throw in an actual plot with real characters, drop Brad’s excellent take on Billy Beane’s career with Oakland, and you have it all — without the happy happy joy joy denouement for Billy, just as it actually happened.

Thus spurred on by baseball, I turned to (American) football.

Draft Day — Kevin Costner (again).  Take a suspenseful plot, sprinkle it with realism (real NFL teams and some actual characters, e.g. Jim Brown and Bernie Kosar), throw in an unforgiving timeline, and you have a lovely sports movie that looks behind the scenes instead of on the field.  I have no idea how realistic it was, but that’s not important.

North Dallas Forty — Nick Nolte, Mac Davis.  After watching all the above, I dug into my DVD collection to watch this old warhorse again, and surprise surprise!  this gritty NFL story was pretty much as relevant today as it was back in the early 70s.  (And who would have thought C&W star Mac Davis could turn in such a clever performance?)

Any Given Sunday — Al Pacino.  I really love this movie, because even though it’s highly dramatized — it’s a movie, duh — I like the realism of the characters, all of them.  And for once, Pacino doesn’t chew up the scenery but is actually quite a sympathetic character.

Rudy — Quite possibly one of the greatest true sports stories ever put on film.  Absolutely brilliant, all the way through.

Everybody’s All-American — Dennis Quaid, Jessica Lange.  What happens to the college superstar after the spotlight has moved on to the next generation.  Quaid is perfect in the role, that shit-eating grin and past glories powering him through life’s disappointments, with the ex-homecoming queen at his side.

The Blind Side — Amy Adams  Sandra Bullock.  Another true story, only slightly dramatized for the movies.  Sandra just steals this movie and takes it home with her.  Even better is that it’s all mostly true.  Of course, the critics hated it because of all the usual reasons: a gun-toting pretty Christian mom doing the right thing by a poor Black kid, and succeeding.

Of course, this is by no means a comprehensive list — and yes I know there are dozens of others out there.  I just happened to hit on this lot, got hooked into watching them all, and enjoyed every single one of them.

You will, too.

Humor Games

Funny Stuff, Sports

They may have lost most of their empire, but you have to hand it to the Brits sometimes.  See this little bit of World Cup humor on the final match…

The Brits may have lost the World Cup (3rd), but they won the Humor Games in convincing fashion.

Constitutional Lesson

Rights, Sports

All those English people who came over here and swooned about the United States — the freedom, the politeness, the hospitality, Buc-ees (and did I mention the freedom?) had a somewhat rude awakening after their team got beaten by the Argies in the semi-finals.

Seems as though some things are not easily forgotten, among them being the Margaret Thatcher-era beating dished out to the Argies when the latter tried to invade the Falkland Islands (a.k.a. the Malvinas).

So after beating England at their own game last week, the Argie football team had a little celebration in their dressing room, waving a banner which said “Malvinas are Argentina” (or something like that).

Well, the response was an outburst of “How dare they?” from the UKgov:

“It prompted a fierce response in London as Business Secretary Peter Kyle demanded a FIFA investigation into the matter before (then-BritPM) Sir Keir Starmer publicly backed those calls.”
A FIFA spokesman said: “As is standard procedure, FIFA’s independent Disciplinary Committee is currently assessing the match reports and considering the relevant circumstances before deciding on potential further steps based on the FIFA Disciplinary Code.'”

Yeah, well fuck FIFA, their disciplinary code and the UKgov.

You see, this particular World Cup match was played in the United States of America, where we have a First Amendment — basically guaranteeing the right of the Argies to be as rude and disrespectful as they want.  (I should point out that the Brits still mock the Krauts for having lost the last pair of World Wars, so their peevishness is somewhat ironic.)

So here’s the lesson for the Brits:  freedom of speech sometimes means putting up with stuff that you find offensive.  I know that BritLaw seems to have overridden that simple precept recently — where people can get arrested just for posting naughty things on Teh Intarwebz — but there ya go.  Deal with it.

As for FIFA:  your little disciplinary code doesn’t supersede our laws, so if you don’t want stuff like this to happen during your precious tournaments, feel free to hold your future World Cups in countries that don’t have a First Amendment.

Good luck in North Korea.

Footnote:  The Argies lost the final to Spain (0-1), in the most boring football match ever played.

Keen Insight

Sports

I often watch a podcast show called “Stick To Football”, because I love football.  It’s hosted by Gary Neville (ex-Manchester United and England captain), who is arguably one of the best right backs ever to play the game.  It’s no understatement to say that without Neville at his back, David Beckham might not have been as successful as he was, in no small part because Beckham was always assured of having a rock-like and intelligent defender behind him, and someone who could always be counted on to lay an intelligent pass on to him so that Golden Balls could work his own magic in turn.

Alongside Neville are the dour, waspish midfielder Roy Keane (also ex-Man U, and Ireland) and the brilliant goalscorer Ian Wright (Tottenham and Newcastle United).  Between the three of them, they provide excellent coverage for their various guests, themselves all fine former footballers and football managers.

It’s a show, however, that would mostly be lost on Murkins because Murkins prefer to watch and talk about their own brand of “football” and not that boring FIFA rubbish, and mostly their discussions are about events that are well known to Brits and Euros, but in large part unknown Over Here.

Neville & Co. don’t always have footballers as guests, however;  Rory McIlroy has been on a couple of times, for example, as has snooker genius Ronnie O’Sullivan.  And what has happened is that the show is starting to evolve into a discussion and analysis of sporting greatness rather than just great footballers.  And in keeping with the current World Cup show Over Here, they’re interviewing Americans and not just Brits and Euros.

Which is why I have to recommend their latest show to y’all, because their guest is none other than superstar quarterback Tom Brady.

Now as any fule kno, NFL football is not my favorite sport, but as I enjoy most sports, I do know something of the game, and especially shall we say “highlights” of both the game and its players — so Tom Brady is not unknown to me.

What I did not know was how intelligent this guy is, and how much he devoted to making himself inarguably one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to play the game.  Seven Superbowl rings (one with a team not the New England Patriots) pretty much speaks for itself, because seven championships in any sport (e.g. Lewis Hamilton’s string in F1) has to be treated with respect for the rarity of such an achievement.

So take an hour and a half out of your busy lives and watch this episode of Stick to Football.  I think it’ll be worth your time.

Quote of the show (from Brady):  “The standard was perfection;  we settled for excellence.”

Switch Off

Eco-Crap, Sports

Every time I read something that begins “Environmentalists Warn”, I get an almost uncontrollable urge to either fall asleep or head to the range.  This one’s no exception:

Environmentalists Warn World Cup “Most Polluting Ever”…

Yeah, that’s really going to grab your attention, innit?  Because just about every mass spectator event could be similarly brushed.  But wait!

…as FIFA Boss Uses Private Jet to Hit Two Matches a Day

Ummm well, given that FIFA is the organizing body for the whole damn extravaganza, it kinda goes with the territory that they would be flitting from one venue to another, and we are not Qatar, where all the matches took place basically within walking distance of each other.  No;  this latest Big Sport Thing is happening in the United by gawd States, which is a yooge ginormous country and is the only country which, when tasked with providing the proper match facilities for some massive number of matches and hundreds of thousands of visiting spectators, looked at the list, spat some baccy into a cup and said, “Is that all you got?”  We didn’t have to build one single extra stadium, road, hotel or parking lot to handle the huge numbers of spectators.  Sure, the venues were somewhat far apart (by Rest Of The World standards, that is), but them’s the breaks.

If the enviros want to end that little bit of logistical city-hopping, they should hold all future World Cup competitions somewhere else, like Britishland.  Good luck with that.

Ain’t gonna happen, Watermelons, so go and suck it.

Incentive

Celebrities, Sports

I see that Lewis Hamilton won the Spanish F1 Grand Prix in his Ferrari yesterday, this after coming in second place a week ago in Monaco.  Also, he’s been bonking Kim Kardashian recently.

I’m sure the two events (improved GP results and bonking Kimmy) aren’t related, unless the entire Kardashian coven has been casting spells on his behalf (which wouldn’t surprise me).