Obscure West Coast-based radio host Harold Camping was the nation's primary topic of conversation for the first, and perhaps the last, time of his 89+ years on this earth if only because of the fact that he convinced a bunch of people that yesterday, May 21, 2011 was going to be Judgment Day, the day when the believers were separated for all eternity from the sinners to live in God's eternal graces.
All of this, according to Camping's impeccable calculations, was supposed to take place at 6 in the evening local time around the globe.
Of course, the fact that you're still reading this in the relative comfort of your own homes indicates that Camping was in fact, wrong, or a the very least that his mathematical calculations were off.
But while the Rapture did not happen today, there were plenty of sporting events scheduled for this, the 21st day of May 2011. So what exactly DID happen? Click Read More to continue
Two men, two very different professions...and one very cool shared-ish nickname among them.
The man on the left will satisfy all of your office paper needs with a smile on his face. Andy "Nard Dog" Bernard serves as Dunder-Mifflin's loveable office idiot, a sort of human puppy dog who'll wag his tail and lick your face even after he pees on the rug simply because he doesn't know any better.
The man on the right, Brewers' LHP Chris Narveson, won't sell you any paper but he'll serve all your left-handed pitching needs. And he's got the best new-ish nickname in professional baseball this season.
There's really nothing quite like first couple weeks of the baseball season.
Cold weather towns are starting to awaken from their winter hibernation of huddling by the fire and playing Party Poker and hope springs eternal for fans from Boston to San Diego that maybe this year their team can catch lightning in a bottle and ride on into the postseason.
Of course along with all that hope comes a healthy dose of panic.
Overreacting to the season's opening weekend is a pastime as old as baseball itself.
After months of living without the game, those that care most about it tend to hold everything under the tiniest microscope, hoping to draw out any long-term conclusions possible from a small sample.
It's rare that you see an indoor football team that shares a market with an NFL team taking shots at the big boys.
You'll never for instance dare see the Indoor Football League's Green BayBlizzard taking shots at the Packers or the Arena Football League's PhiladelphiaSoulenjoying some public schadenfreude at the Eagles' expense.
The Continental Indoor Football League's Cincinnati Commandos on the other hand didn't feel such an obligation to the Bengals. And as you can see in the video above, the end result is actually kind of funny.
The photo you see above is of former Major League journeyman Todd Zeile doing something that Charlie Sheen says he does quite often -- winning.
I, like many baseball fans, hadn't thought much about Zeile since he retired several years ago. That all changed in the midst of the live, rambling, hour long fiasco that was Charlie Sheen's Saturday night webcast.
It's rare that you're able to watch a train wreck as it occurs in real time. Then again, in the social media era where virtually nothing is secret or sacred anymore, few celebrities have been seemingly as eager to broadcast their meltdowns as Charlie Sheen. And if you're one of the more than 100,000 (!) who tuned into Sheen's live videocast on UStream.tv, you likely heard Zeile's name enter the conversation about twenty minutes in, sending roughly 99.9999% of those watching scrambling to Google to find out just who the hell Todd Zeile is.
Lucky for them, Sheen would have an answer. And it would be baffling.
Some flavor combinations are just not meant to go together.
Mayonnaise and chocolate, cola and vodka, garlic and marshmallows.
And as I learned first-hand early last month, two American favorites -- peanut butter, jelly and bratwurst -- also fall into that category. Kids, I would not recommend trying this at home. So why did I?
ESPN's Buster Olney and Jerry Crasnick have confirmed the initial reports. Zack Greinke has been traded to the Milwaukee Brewers along with another unidentified Major League player in exchange for Lorenzo Cain and Alcides Escobar along with pitching prospects Jake Odorizzi and Jeremy Jeffress. The picture you see above isn't the Brewers clubhouse responding to news of the deal, but it certainly sums up how most fans are feeling right now judging by the reactionary Tweets I've been seeing.
Big congratulations going out to Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel blogger Jim Breen, who as I wrote in my last post broke news of the Greinke deal on the Bernie's Crew blog. Breen deserves a ton of credit for trusting his gut and his sources, breaking the story when he did and enduring a healthy heaping of public skepticism in the wee hours of the night. As I Tweeted last night, this story was either going to get him a ton of public praise or ruin his credibility. I'm very happy that right now, in the Twitterverse and elsewhere, it's all positive news for both him and for Brewers fans.
Never in my life did I think I'd find myself heading to Wrigley Field in the middle of November to cover a sporting event of any kind, let alone a college football game.
But late Friday afternoon, I learned I'd be doing just that. Illinois and Northwestern had turned Wrigley from beloved baseball stadium into the sight you see above, a football field squeezed into a shoebox. It was a spectacle worthy of the venue it was unfolding in because it featured everything that Wrigley features during baseball season. Fans were literally on top of the action, the hand-operated scoreboard kept everyone abreast of the game's goings on, and of course most famously, there were unusual ground rules in place.
Only instead of having to adjust to the possibility of a ball getting stuck in the ivy, officials decided that because of space constraints, the east end zone would not be used for offensive possessions. Instead, all offensive possessions would go toward the west end zone, with officials moving the ball to the other side of the field on turnovers.
It was, as my friend and colleague Paul Banks of thesportsbank.net called it, Chicago's bowl game, with any number of local and national media all-stars on hand to document the proceedings. Illinois' historic 48-27 victory in the first college football game to be played at Clark and Addison in more than 70 years was memorable for any number of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that regardless of how many sporting events we had seen or covered, none of us had ever seen anything quite like this.
Ryne Sandberg may have been the more glamorous choice to be the next Cubs manager. But at the end of the day, he's going to have to settle for the same position that earned him a spot in the Hall of Fame.
Second.
In the end, the race to be the Cubs manager turned out to be more like the tortoise (Mike Quade) and the hare (Sandberg) than say David vs. Goliath, with the tortoise proving that sometimes slow and steady does in fact win the race. Cubs GM Jim Hendry announcing today that he had removed the interim tag from manager Mike Quade's job title, choosing longtime minor league manager over Sandberg, the Cubs legend who has spent the past four years rising through the ranks as a Cubs minor league manager..
And in this case, while Quade's name doesn't pack the same oomph that Sandberg's does, his hiring is absolutely the right decision for this club right now.
One team was supposed to be here. The other quite frankly was not.
The NLCS starts tonight pitting the two-time defending National League champion Phillies against the Giants, a team that has been overachieving all season long thanks to strong starting pitching and solid defense. Philadelphia comes in to this as one of the hottest teams in the Major Leagues. Their first round series against Cincinnati was little more than a warm up for the LCS and eventually the World Series.
As for their foe, it's easy to argue that a big reason why they're here is because of Atlanta's poor Brooks Conrad, who's surprise defensive breakdown in the pivotal game three helped the Giants to a 2-1 series lead and eventually the win. Of course, doing that would be of a huge disservice to the offense which has done just enough to win games this season and a defense that has played exceptionally well.
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Intelligent writing from the fan's perspective. Ground Rule Triple was started in July 2010 by ESPN.com and MLB.com contributor Matt Lindner as an outlet for feature stories and analysis going way beyond the day's game summaries. A baseball blog in name only, GRT will be covering any and all of the day's sports news on a regular basis. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer alone and not of the entities by which they are employed. Matt and his team of writers will provide you with a unique angle on stories that you may not have initially seen on the surface. Our goal is simple - to keep things fresh and entertaining so that you keep coming back for more.
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