So lets get into some Cup talk, with just some thoughts and musings. My, my, my, what has happened to the supposed dedication to proper officiating? It seems like every couple of games or heck every game has at least one instance, if not more, of an official making a call that takes a goal away or takes away a goal-scoring opportunity. I guess this type of thing should be expected. Any league or organization that has to train and continue the education of its officials on a weekly basis isn't doing something right. I understand that the idea is to makes sure that the minor calls that are made are properly looked at but in a tournament officials must be at their very best. If that's the best FIFA has to offer then I guess I prematurely jumped on this bandwagon.
All unintended rants aside, this is still a very enticing time in South Africa. The Japanese nearly send it to an extra set of PKs, Spain and Portugal locked horns in what I thought could've been the most intriguing game in the entire World Cup 2010 saga, Argentina, Brazil, Germany win in very decided matches and the U.S. leaves in memorable fashion. So its Argentina/ Germany, Paraguay/ Spain, Netherlands/ Brazil and Uruguay/ Ghana in the quarters and no matter how it turns out at this point it will be excellent soccer. Its all just so exciting, so sit back and enjoy the ride.
Moving on, your Texas Rangers are in first place, ladies and gentlemen! They are playing some of the best collective baseball that they've managed since the years that they went to the post-season. That series with the Halo's (1-2) doesn't mean as much as it would seem. They've been on a massive tear this past month and they're doing it against the teams they're supposed to be. While we would like to say that this series defines whether they're actually that good, playing the game of baseball no matter how easy-going it might be, it still takes its toll. If this series had been in the middle of this June and they'd dropped all three or gone 1-2, then picked right back up on their rampage of a bad Astros team and a, pause to prepare for a very bad pirate joke, arrrrrrrrrguably bad Pirates team (they've got some serviceable to good young talent, they just can't put it together), then deem the Rangers as still lacking. Then they would definitely need the sale to go through before the trade deadline. However as the team stands right now, unless Cliff Lee or Roy Oswalt return their calls, I suggest no movement at the deadline. Yet they seem to be mentally affected by the Anaheim series because they simply can't swing a bat to make contact that's meaningful in the way of scoring runs (we did get to witness instant replay, but it denied Nellie a HR, I could've sworn it hit the pole but alas). I guess we'll just have to see what having 5 Rangers on the All-Star team does to this thing after the break.
Alright and now for the moment you've all been waiting for, me going off on something that doesn't mean a thing to anyone else. The subject: professional sports championships and the teams that win them. Specifically that I have a hard time with a team or teams having 10 or more championships. With the culmination of the NBA Finals I began to ponder why I was going to be less upset with a Lakers win than I would if the Celtics won it all. Lets get one thing straight here, I hate the Lakers and the Celtics because to me they represent "monopolies" on winning their league's championship. The Celtics and Lakers have won a combined 33 championships, with MJ's Bulls at number two with, in comparison, a measly 6 wins. That is absolutely preposterous. How does that happen? Well in the NBA when you win it all, you manage to keep a lot of momentum through the following 5 or 6 seasons. It also has a little to do with the way free agency is set up. I don't understand it for the most part but what I can gather is that its unlike any other system in American professional sports.
What of the other sports though? Baseball and Hockey have far better examples of one team dominating their respective sport. Obviously the Yankees are the team of note in baseball with their 27 championships. A seemingly viable defense is that the World Series has been played since 1903 so it would make sense that one or more teams would have 10 or more championships, except that the Yankees have nearly triple the next most crowned team the St. Louis Cardinals (10). The 'Cards and the A's (9) are neck and neck with small drop-offs in the spread for the next most successful teams. I mostly attribute this phenomenon in baseball to the lack of a salary cap which most then infer and assume that teams can "buy" a ring. While the team still has to play the games if you can assemble the best 25 man roster humanly possible then wouldn't it make sense to do so and just put all of your eggs in that one basket? Of course it would, just like whatever Hitler was doing made sense in his head. Just because the idea can be carried out that doesn't necessarily make it right. Now in no way am I trying to equivocate MLB with being Hitler, but the Yankees at least follow Hitler on Twitter.
Hockey has its best example in the Montreal Canadiens who've won 24 NHL Stanley Cup's. The Red Wings and Maple Leaves are at 11 and 13 respectively. My issue here is that I can't find any kind of explanation for Montreal's success. Detroit and Toronto are acceptable simply because they are close to each other and not too far into double digits considering the Stanley Cup has nearly 100 years of "modern era" teams vying for possession of it. So maybe this is an instance of an exception to a rule. Well then whoopty freaking doo. Moving on.
That leaves us with only one other major sport in America, football. The Pittsburgh (hereby known as the Pitts) Steelers are atop this sport at 6 total Lombardi trophies. The Cowboys and 49ers are a close second at 5 a piece. Why then am I not as upset with football as I am with the others, and its mostly attributed to the fact that it doesn't meet my requirement of double digit modern league championships. This is the youngest modern era championship (being played for less than 50 years) and therefor is equivalent to a 100 year sport. But here's the thing retention of players in football is vastly different from other sports based simply on the amount of games played in a season. At, currently anyways, 19 games from season start to Super Bowl players injuries last the same amount of time, but have two major differences in how the amount of time out affects the team's outlook on the season. In football missing four games in football is a month gone yes, but is a loss of a quarter of th season. Missing time means less games missed BUT menas more percentage of the season lost. Having a 5 year Super Bowl winning QB out being replaced by a back-up who's never seen time except in the preseason for 4 games in all probability means 4 losses. Also the amount of time a player spends with a team is different. The same idea of same time equals less percentage time. The face of a Super Bowl winning team stays mostly if not wholly unchanged year to year until contracts begin to expire. The length of seasons in other sports allows for more integral team players to be used as trade bait. I'm not saying that this unequivocally makes football the best sport in the world but it does help me to rationalize why I like it so damn much. Finally, I can take a breath in.
Alrighty then I feel much better. Now its time to sit and watch a new champion crowned in the World Cup. Maybe it'll be a brand new champ or an old favorite but either it should be fun.
Oh and if you're thinking that I'm going to do a NBA free-agency post well then you'd be wrong. I just don't understand enough of how it works and I hate speculating on speculation. Although I am pretty sure about who A'mare is gonna sign with.
Also you might be asking yourself if I'm going to keep being lazy and not update this very often and the answer is no, well probably not.
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