Ri-God-Damn-Diculous!

Is the USA Ryder Cup Team Better Without Tiger?

With the recent well-publicized decision by Tiger Woods to not attend or even really care to discuss the Ryder Cup, and the even more well-publicized United States romp to the title this past weekend, I’ve heard some rumblings about the value of Tiger Woods to America’s Ryder Cup team. Is he more of a distraction than force while drawing most of the attention? Is he too focused and competitive to let his guard down for a team event? Perhaps he just isn’t as concerned with winning a Ryder Cup as he is with winning majors? The knee-jerk reaction of myself and I imagine most others is… “hell no”. Tiger is one of two people in the history of golf that deserves to be in the ‘Greatest of All Time’ discussion. How on earth can a team based on golf abilities be better sans the player so far ahead of anyone else in his sport? Well, thinking deeper about the question yields some possible explanations to Tiger’s subpar Ryder Cup record.

Winner of the Week

I’m just going to come out and say it, no surprises this week, U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! That’s right, the Ryder Cup is back on the proper side of the Atlantic and Team USA is Second Jumpability’s runaway Winner of the Week. There were, however, some other solid candidates. Chase Daniel is doing his best to prove he is a machine at quarterback, the Atlanta Falcons won their 2nd game in the first three weeks of a season that included rumblings of a possible zero win team, Ronnie Brown turned in a ridiculously monstrous upset performance with five total touchdowns as the Miami Dolphins demolished the Pats, and the Tampa Bay Rays clinched a playoff birth for the first time in their history, giving a huge middle finger to the spend-happy Yankees and Red Sox in the process. But in the end, it was AK, Boo, JB, Hunter, Kenny, and the rest of Zinger’s rag-tag crew that stuck it to the favored Euros.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner-Week 3

[Note-completed before Week 3 but I forgot to publish them.  Besides, if I were going to cheat, I would have given myself a better record than sub-500 going into tonight].  Going into this week, we have accumulated a 14-15-1 which when you consider that we are betting on every single game, is not bad.  But in SJ’s endless pursuit for perfection, we’re looking to get back to our winning ways this week.

Pick Your Knows (Week 3)

Each week I’ll be making some game picks. Not every game, just 5 or so random games each week (some close spreads, some medium, one or two large). I’ll pick the outright winner, the winner ATS (against the spread) and the O/U (over/under), and keep track of my record.

Week 2 went mostly as planned, and without an injury to Damon Huard I could have very well put up a 12-1 week. I ended up going 4-1 on winners, 4-1 against the spread, and 2-1 on over/under (two predictions where exactly on Vegas line). All in all, 10-3 for the week, now let’s try and do even better in week 3.

Winner of the Week

It was a pretty ho hum week for this columns sake. There were no major upsets in college football or the NFL and no major shakeups in the MLB playoff picture. Matt Cassel deserves mention for winning his first game as a starter since, well, high school, but his performance wasn’t heroic by any means and the Pats’ defense gets a lot of the credit for the win. Ryan Howard has been straight up raking for the Phils to the point of dragging them into first place in the NL East, past the again-collapsing Mets. I was completely prepared to crown Carlos Zambrano this past week’s Winner for his epic one walk shy of a perfect game performance, but despite semi-ridiculing the praise of the following record breaker, Francisco Rodriguez’s accomplishment of breaking the 18 year old saves record for a season is still a Second Jumpability Winner of the Week moment.

Loser of the Week

Remember when the Big-10 was a monster of a football conference?  Remember when Michigan and Ohio State were the Bebop and Rocksteady of the football world?  Well this last week, Big-10 (or Big-11 if you know how to count) fans got a rude awakening and a realization that football no longer is born in the Midwest.  Michigan looked like the cheerleaders, not the players, suited up and got beaten by Notre Dame badly.  But then Ohio State took the cake, putting up a lame duck effort on national television.  While Charlie Weis challenged the Buckeyes for Loser of the Week status after blowing out his knee as a coach and being fatter than an African Bull Elephant, but we couldn’t help but think that Ohio State was a more worthy award winner.

Astros Fans Enter the George Costanza Zone

In one of my all-time favorite episodes of Seinfeld, a suicide jumper lands on George’s car when he is parked at a hospital.  The car is completely ruined, leaving Mr. Costanza with quite the predicament.  One of the one hand, it’s really not fair that his car is totaled and that he should have to pay for it, but on the other hand, a much worse event occurred (the death of a human being) so if he says anything, he is bound to be seen as a horrible human being, debunk of all emotion and feeling.  In the end, George speaks up to the hospital manager and gets the boot.  Right when I heard about what Bud Selig was doing with the Astros-Cubs series, I knew that the Astros fans could relate to George.

Is My Favorite Canadian in Line for Another MVP?

It looked as if Carlos Quentin was on his way to one of the most unlikely MVP seasons in recent memory. The relative unknown was acquired by the White Sox (damnit) and exploded in his 3rd season, already with 36 HR and 100 RBI. But a wrist injury and the resulting surgery have ruled him largely out for the regular season. With the White Sox currently in a dog fight with the Minnesota Twins for the AL Central title, a race that could likely be decided by the penultimate face-to-face series for the two clubs in Minnesota, it seems that Quentin might no longer be the favorite. After all, if the White Sox pull out a division title, the most crucial stretch would’ve come without Quentin. And if the 2008 Twins, expected to finish 4th in the division this year, somehow pull it off, they have their own slugger that suddenly dwarfs Quentin in MVP consideration. But this race will not be the only deciding factor in the AL MVP race. There is a little scrapper and a rugged slugger up in Boston, a record breaking relieve on the West Coast, and a couple other wild cards that could play into the race. But when it’s all said and done, you better believe that I am desperately hoping Justin Morneau adds a 2nd AL MVP to his mantle.

He Can Have the Record, Please Don’t Give Him the Award

Let’s get all the pleasantries out of the way first. Francisco Rodriguez is a tremendous, imposing, intimidating closer that burst onto the scene in the 2002 World Series (sorry Giants fans). He was given full closing duties in 2004, and as they say (fitting now) the rest is history. Ahhh yes, history. It’s a great thing. Without a hankering to remember the past, Babe Ruth, Sandy Koufax, Josh Gibson, Jackie Robinson, Shoeless Joe, Joe, Ted, and Ty would simply be names and not much else. But we love history. We love records. And despite the impossibility in ever achieving a consensus, we love comparing different historical eras. Well, last night history was tied, and will inevitably be broken, by the aforementioned Francisco Rodriguez. But I deathly hope that his record is celebrated as a record, and nothing more. Please, please, please, do not let this record confuse the voters into giving this man the AL Cy Young Award.

Pick Your Knows (Week 2)

Each week I’ll be making some game picks. Not every game, just 5 or so random games each week (some close spreads, some medium, one or two large). I’ll pick the outright winner, the winner ATS (against the spread) and the O/U (over/under), and keep track of my record.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner-Week 2

In our first week we went 8-7, certainly respectable when trying to bet every game ATS, but not what we ideally want.  This week, we’re looking to go at least 9-6 and I think we can.  So on to the picks:

Sorry Pats Fans! Actually, I’m not

I feel really badly for Tom Brady.  I really do.  I will be the first to admit that I don’t like the Patriots.  I think Bill Bellichick might be the biggest asshole in the world, I think they are a pretty classless organization (all those FU touchdowns last year were ridiculous), and I think their fans are usually fairly obnoxious and egotistical (hey, news flash, it wasn’t you guys winning those superbowls).  But I actually really do like Tom Brady.  He goes about his business and gets the job done.  He often did it with inferior offensive weapons and he never whined or complained about it.  So I’m bummed to see Tom Brady go down in what will without a doubt affect him for the rest of his career (ask Carson Palmer if you ever become fully functional again after an ACL tear).  But if there is anyone I do not feel sorry for, it is the Patriots organization and their fans.

Winner of the Week

Sports is starting to pick up! Finally! Thank you college football and the NFL! The MLB playoffs are fast approaching, we just had a great tennis grand slam, Fed-Ex Cup 2.0 is well underway, the Ryder and Davis Cups are on the horizon, and even the NBA is only a couple short months away from training camps and preseason. So who stood above the rest in the past week of sports? Serena Williams won another grand slam (her 9th) and reached the pinnacle of women’s tennis once again. Andy Murray broke through in the men’s bracket and lasted all the way until the finals, before a rejuvenated Roger Federer emphatically shut up the naysayers. The AFC East and AFC in general achieved a huge boost from the unfortunate injury to Tom Brady. Fantasy owners everywhere reveled in the performances of 3rd round or later RBs Michael Turner and Willie Parker. And San Diego State came off their upsetting lose to California Polytechnic University – San Luis Obispo (I lived 8 minutes from that school for 18 years of my life… gotta drag out that win as long as possible) by making Notre Dame look like a bunch of fools and taking them somewhat to the wire. But who was the ultimate Second Jumpability Winner of the Week?

Loser of the Week

Athletes are idiots.  Not all athletes, mind you, but a lot are.  When we first started writing this segment of Second Jumpability, I would worry we would have some weeks where we were short on material.  Apparently, I was wrong because the options were limitless this week.  We had the Colts getting smoked by the Bears, Chad Johnson changing his name to Chad Ocho Cinco, and the Pats losing their prized quarterback for the year.  But one, or should I say two, names stood about the rest.  Congratulations to Mario Chalmers and Darrell Arthur on winning our Loser(s) of the Week award!