It's not you, Toronto, it's me..

You know, people have been shaking their heads for weeks, trying to figure out how the Phillies landed Roy Halladay from the Blue Jays. The Mariners, who were the third part of the three-way deal, seem to have got away from the crime scene in the best shape, having given up basically nothing of consequence and getting Cliff Cy Young Lee in return. The big losers? The Blue Jays of course.

Maybe the good baseball fans of Toronto feel 2.5% better today after the venerable Halladay took out a big ad in a Toronto paper saying, well, goodbye, basically.



Interesting stuff. Many questions jump to mind. What kind of formatting demands putting one's own name, centered, at the top of a letter? And where can I find the "sincerely handwritten" font that he used? Is this something only available in certain packages of Microsoft Office?

So many questions and so little time. Did Roy's family send out Christmas cards with 'Happy Halladays' as the caption below the picture? When Vince Carter saw this ad, did he crumple it up and get injured when he tried to shoot it into the trashcan?

Of course, not everyone can leave with class and dignity. Let's have a look back at some letters to the public in newspapers that didn't generate much goodwill...

Dear Pittsburgh
**** you
Yours, the Pittsburgh Pirates

Dear Memphis Fans,
Um, so Memphis is in Kentucky, right? Yeah, right. So I loved Kentucky and what not. Definitely. Always liked your chicken the best. Um, let's see, Zach Randolph kicks ass at beer pong, so y'all should keep rooting for him and s***. Guy in the suit who's name I can't remember can kiss my ass though. What else... Oh yeah, that other dude's named Gay, and that's some funny s***.
Peace

Allen Iverson

Dear Atlanta
Thanks for the good times. Off to get b*** slapped around the Bronx again for another summer. Be back real soon!
Happy Christmas

Javier Vazquez

And finally, this from the Orlando Daily News.

Dear White Women of Orlando,
I am about to be single but am about to be worth only 820 million dollars. I hope that you will all still be willing to sleep with me. I look forward to hearing from all you.

Tiger Woods

Happy Christmas to all our loyal readers, and a very happy new year. Have fun and be good.



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The NFL and talking to you doctor about erectile dysfunction.

After watching two NFL games back to back on NFL Game Pass (where you see American advertisements) I was left in something of a dreamy, drug induced commercial daze.

In Ireland, the ads are so predictable and dreary, the networks have to resort to the ‘trick’ of increasing the volume on ad breaks, to literally make you sit up and pay attention. In the States, no such issues, the ads are so colourful, chaotic and crazy (not to mention frequent) that you end up dreaming about them after over exposure.

After last nights games I had a sudden urge to go to Subway in my brand new pick-up truck, order a $5 foot-long, play the game Avatar on my brand new Sony wide-screen TV, invest all my money in a really secure long term financial plan and switch my phone to a smarter calling plan. Most of all, I was absolutely dying to talk to my doctor about erectile dysfunction.

The barrage of advertisements, ordering you to make a change or be an idiot, would be enough to give anyone erectile dysfunction.

Meanwhile, has Dan Shaughnessy written his apology to Randy Moss as yet? Shaughnessy wrote an absolute hatchet job on Moss last week in the Globe, after a game where Moss didn’t play up to standard basically. That’s the way it goes these days. Massive, wild, over-reaction to any event in sports. Sweeping, eulogistic articles that call into question the character of people we really do not know that much about. Bob Ryan of the Globe also wrote a less sensationalist but equally damning piece on Moss.

Pretty shocked to see Ryan spew out a pretty baseless and ugly character assassination, Shaughnessy, totally expected behaviour, Ryan, not so much. Hopefully both of those gentlemen are preparing well written and sincere pieces where they apologise to the Patriots receiver, who destroyed the Bills secondary last night.

Not holding my breath, but, hopefully they do the right thing.

Randy Moss

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The NFL by the numbers. Some interesting stats so far.

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It's amazing what you can glean from one extended glance down through the numbers on a single page. Behold, some of the more interesting statistical stories so far in the NFL season.

When will Phillip Rivers, the Chargers QB, start to come into conversations alongside Brady, Brees and Manning? His ’09 stats so far? Just 3583 yds, 22 tds. Ho hum. With just 5 more completions on the season, Rivers has thrown for 600 yards more than the Broncos Kyle Orton. I’ll let you figure that (Noodle arm! Noodle arm!) one out for yourselves.

Rivers - figuring it all out

In 78 less pass attempts, Tampa Bay’s rookie Josh Freeman, has thrown one less Touchdown (7) than Carolina’s Jake Delhomme (8).

Rashard Mendenhall of the Steelers has pretty quietly gobbled up 940 yards in only 194 carries. Pretty close to 5 yards a carry (4.8). He’s a rookie. He was also benched for part of the early section of the season.

Top ten round one picks in Fantasy Football in ’10?

For all his guff, Ochocinco is having a pretty solid season, to say the least. 65 rec, 937 yds, 7 tds

Matt Forte is rushing for 3.4 yards a carry. Ouch. Ray Rice, Baltimore’s classy rookie? Just 5.3 yards a carry.

Stephen Jackson of the woefully inept Rams has produced a minor miracle by rushing for 1237 yards, but still has only 4 trips to the end zone to show for his efforts.

Tom Brady will break 4,000 yards this season (3830 so far)

4k

Rocking on out with the Foos



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The Boston factor versues the lazy journalist factor

Thought this paragraph in a piece by ESPNs Howard Bryant, about Randy Moss, was very interesting.

And then, there is the Boston factor. Moss has been in New England just long enough for his monument to begin to show some signs of wear. He doesn't play the hero game management likes to play with its players or the public-relations game with the press. He does not often speak to the media, in victory or defeat, which puts him in vulnerable territory the millisecond his skills show even the slightest erosion, as Jim Rice, Ramirez and every other emotionally distant star -- in Boston or otherwise -- eventually found out. That makes him the player to watch on the Patriots because of his oversized impact on the team's success.

In it, Bryant opens the paragraph with a dramatic statement;
‘’ And then, there is the Boston factor.’’

This clearly implies he is about to drop some sort of dramatic evidence regarding Boston, possibly drag up some sort of article of interest regarding the City and its athletes. In particular the City and its athletes of colour. Instead, the paragraph just meanders along to a completely indecisive conclusion, shipwrecking itself on this complete non-entity of a statement;
‘’… Ramirez and every other emotionally distant star -- in Boston or otherwise -- eventually found out.’’

Wait a second Howard, weren’t you going to drop some serious slant on playing in Boston on us? Your opening statement sure seems to imply that; ‘’ And then, there is the Boston factor.’’?! And yet, nothing. You big tease you! Instead you leave us with ‘’ in Boston or otherwise’’.

So why start the paragraph with the dramatic ‘’ And then, there is the Boston factor.’’ Howard? Is there something you want to say, but for some reason you won’t just come out and say it?

Bryant then finishes up his piece, which tells us absolutely nothing new about the whole Randy Moss situation, with this;

‘’Boston can be rough on a player, especially one it becomes convinced has stopped caring. But Moss has not publicly embarrassed himself or the organization. He alone is not the problem with the Patriots.’’

Boston can be rough on a player? Really? Dustin Pedroia looks like he is having a terrible time. Paul Pierce can hardly wait to get out of the place – oh no, wait, Pierce has become a part of the City since his rookie season in ’99. David Ortiz looks pretty much at home in Boston. Wes Welker doesn’t seem to absolutely hate playing in Boston.

Bryant has twice, in the same piece, taken a very thinly veiled jab at the city of Boston, and both times offered no evidence or anything of substance to back up his ugly, lazy suggestions.

You stay Classy, Howard Bryant.




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ALMOST intercepted!

It has to be one of the most under-rated clichés in sports. Under-rated in that no one really calls it to task, but it happens during every NFL game, every weekend, without fail.

You know the scenario. A quarterback drops back, scans the field, rushes a throw into coverage. A defensive back or safety gets a glove on the ball, which then slams to the turf. The commentator yelps excitedly, ‘Almost intercepted, almost!’

almost...

It doesn’t matter if it actually was close or not. Sometimes the errant throw into coverage can hit off the back off the defensive backs head, or off his backside, as he is turned trying to cover the receiver. In last nights Chargers/Cowboys game the situation arose twice. Once the ball zipped between three defenders and a lone receiver, realistically nobody had a chance to catch it, however the gormless commentator squealed ‘NEARLY intercepted!’

That’s the variation, ‘nearly’ intercepted.

Next time you are watching an NFL game, watch for a play where a pass goes closer to the defensive back than the receiver. We here at Boston Irish will bet you dollars for donuts at least one member of the commentary team excitedly reports that the pass was either ‘almost’ or ‘nearly’ intercepted.

We will be conducting a scientific report on the next few games we watch, tabulating the number of times a commentator clownishly squeals ‘ALMOST intercepted!’ against the number of times the ball was actually catchable, by anyone.

Next time you hear it, have a think to yourself, was there actually any possibility of anyone, receiver or defender, actually catching that ball?

Oh you lazy commentary teams, get a new cliché! That ball was not almost picked off!!




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Trade Mike Lowell? This both sucks and blows.

Good friend of mine called me today and said ‘what do you make of the (potential) Mike Lowell deal?’. The conversation took about five seconds, or as long as it took me to reply ‘(expletive deleted) hate it’.

We're trading this guy? For real?

For those of you not tapped into the baseball winter meetings and trade rumour mill, Lowell is reportedly going to the Rangers for a young backup catcher. The Sox will be paying most of Lowell’s salary as part of the deal.

This ‘deal’ is an absolute horror show on a number of levels. The Sox are going to dump a quality guy for, effectively, very little, and continue to pay his salary, so you can’t even call it a salary dump. They are losing a brilliant clubhouse presence. They are picking up a catcher when, last I checked, we already have a superb starter and a brilliant back-up at that position. Finally, this leaves a mammoth hole at third base, both offensively and defensively, that right now the Sox are looking at filling with Adrian Beltre.

What, Milton Bradley wasn’t available?

This deal stinks like a soaking wet pair of seven year old sneakers in a kit bag that hasn’t been opened for four months.

Lowell is a steady 20 home run 80 rbi guy with an absolutely superb third base glove. He has played some of the finest third base seen at Fenway in many a year. People are so fast to forget – Lowell finished an incredibly fifth in the MVP voting in as recently as 2007, a year in which he batted a wild .350 in the seasons second half.

2007 World Series MVP

The further you read into this, the more inane a move this looks. We’re giving up the 2007 World Series MVP and paying the majority of his salary, for a young backup catcher, really? Apparently I missed the memo that the Sox are raising a white flag on the ’10 season a little early.

Interesting to see the Globe lay the potential deal out in very stark detail;

‘’ Lowell hit .290 with 17 HRs and 75 RBIs in 119 games 2009. The reported deal would send Lowell to the Rangers for catching prospect Max Ramirez, who hit .217 with 2 HRs and 9 RBIs in 17 games in the majors last season.’’

They left out the part that Boston would still pay the majority of Mike Lowell’s salary, but you still get the basics.

You know, if you watch baseball, if you actually watch the games, and don’t make your decisions based on a stack of statistics, how can you justify this potential trade? Lowell is a ‘glue’ type player, he is one of the guys that holds the Red Sox together. Lose him, and the Red Sox lose a very important piece of the puzzle.

Seriously, Adrian Beltre? Why not just get Kanye West into a baseball uniform, throw him into the clubhouse after a bad loss and see what happens?

So while the Yankees manage to land a superb young franchise type center fielder from Detroit, for a pack of crisps and a half used tube of toothpaste, the Sox are about to jettison a superb defensive, clutch hitting, A+ clubhouse veteran, and even pay his wages in the process!

As Beavis would so often comment sardonically, this both sucks and blows.


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Do not, under any circumstances, accept a job endorsing Gillette

Also, possibly, do not name your stadium after Gillette, either. The jury is out on that last one, deliberating slowly, let's face it the Patriots have had a pretty decent run up to their recent down-turn, so you can't really say Gillette Stadium is cursed. You can certainly wonder, however, did the name and everything associated with it become cursed after a certain point.

Tiger.
Tiger.
Tiger.

What. Were. You. Thinking.

By the time you are finished reading this sentence another blonde bombshell will have claimed to have had sexual relations with Tiger Woods. Is Roger Federer hiding in a panic room somewhere, chewing nervously on Oreo cookies wishing he had never met the guys from the advertising department in Gillette? First Thierry Henry, then Woods, and we all know Roger is next.

Rachel Uchitel - involved in the Gillette curse somehow

Some would say the tennis star is already on the slippery slope. The Gillette ad campaign featuring the three super studs first aired in 2008. In that time Federer went from averaging double digit titles a year before the campaign, to totaling eight wins in the two years since. Eerie, no?

The famous threesome aren't the only ones to be affected by the Gillette curse. The New England Patriots, David Beckham and Sergio Garcia have all seen a down turn in the respective fields since accepting Gillette into their lives.

The Patriots can not seem to stop themselves from tripping over their own feet lately. Did something specific happen, or is having the name 'Gillette Stadium' emblazoned on their stadium simply an enormous cosmic tractor-beam of ill will since individual Gillette endorsements started going down the tubes? David Beckham? Can it be a coincidence he lost the MLS Cup Final as a direct result of his association with Gillette? Clearly, it can not. How about Sergio Garcia? Since El Nino won the Players Championship and subsequently cosied up to Gillette through the medium of a flashy advertisement, he is 0 for 27 on the PGA Tour.

The evidence is clear and damning. Take on a Gillette endorsement at your own peril, sporting types! We can only hope this curse extends to Derek Jeter, who so far appears to have escaped the clammy paws of fate on this one. We at Boston Irish look forward to the soon to come, explosive news that Jeter is all roided up, really into Depeche Mode and Broadway plays, or just a flat out, real-deal extra terrestrial.

Stay tuned.



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Let's go Liberty - clap, clap - clap, clap, clap...

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Okay I am buying into this New York Liberty taking on a NBA team (according to an Irish bookmakers) tonight in the States. Literally.

My thinking is, any time you can back a Women's NBA team against one of the better up and coming actual NBA teams in a game, you have to pull the trigger, right? Am I right?


Doesn't approximately 6-1 seem a little, well, 'tight' on this one? What would you really give on this, you know, if you were an Irish bookmaker? I suppose you have to answer this question, in a serious game between a women's NBA team and a real NBA team, what hope would the women's team have, seriously? 10-1? 20-1? Being totally emotionless and just putting a figure on it, would 33-1 sound about right?

Still, I am going to take the 13-2 and have a bit of a laugh with the inevitable e-mail to BoyleSports asking them are they really not going to void a NBA game with a women's team versus the Atlanta Hawks.

This will probably end in tears.

All I know is, Shaq is a funny motha...



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Liberty v Cavaliers

Sometimes, sometimes, when it comes to US sports the Irish bookmakers get things comically wrong...

World Cup Draw - Gosh, shocker, England get a ridiculously easy group.

Well goodness gracious me. What a total shocker! Blighty cop themselves an easy World Cup group for next years tournament in South Africa. You know what, why do FIFA bother with the formality of a first round, as they are so obviously trying to bludgeon the big market teams forcibly into the later rounds. Seriously, could England, Germany, Italy and Spain have been given easier paths to the knock-out rounds? Even France, how dubious is that? They get drawn as a second tier team and still end up in a group where they will surely qualify with ease.

Group A: South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay, France
Group B: Argentina, Nigeria, Korea Republic, Greece
Group C: England, USA, Algeria, Slovenia
Group D: Germany, Australia, Serbia, Ghana,
Group E: Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, Cameroon
Group F: Italy, Paraguay, New Zealand, Slovakia
Group G: Brazil, Korea DPR, Côte d'Ivoire, Portugal
Group H: Spain, Switzerland, Honduras, Chile

Basically, when you cut through all the red tape and noise, FIFA has made it pretty easy for France, Germany, Italy, England and Spain to get into the knock-out rounds.

The only good thing is, FIFA can't play the games themselves, and there will be a shock or two in there. Here's hoping it's in group C. Maybe the States can do another 1951 and get something from their game against the Brits.

Meanwhile, Brazil, goodness, what did they do to piss the big wigs at FIFA off? Horrific group. Portugal and the Ivory Coast will both be tricky fixtures.

I guess that's the group of death so eh, group G?


Coming soon, your World Cup cheat-sheet for American readers.

You know you want it.


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A new breed of hero: Ron Artest

We at Boston Irish really appreciate a good anti hero. The media often comes down so hard on those types, deliriously lampooning or harpooning them, whichever suits at the time. Every now and then one of those previously put-upon anti-heroes explodes out of his or her shell and enters a whole new level, a different stratosphere entirely.

Enter Ron Artest, previously known as the head-case who went into the stands after a fan at an NBA game

"I used to drink Hennessy … at halftime. I (kept it) in my locker. I'd just walk to the liquor store (near the stadium) and get it."

Oh, Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie. I suppose we should have guessed as much? Who knew Ron Artest and Kevin Millar, who famously downed a shot or two during the course of the ’04 ALCS, had this much in common? Is this going to lead to a new line of Ron Artest clothing, including t-shirts emblazoned with ‘He's not as think as you dunk he is’ on them? It’s pretty funny how Ronnie thinks the interesting parts of the story are where he kept the liquor and where he bought it. And not, you know, the fact that he was drinking during a game.

We can only look forward to part 2 of the interview: where he recycled the empties.

A new breed of slighty innebriated super hero

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Waking up with a sporting hangover; where is Boston sports going?

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You know the feeling where you wake up, and for the first few seconds everything is cool, everything is shiny, and then, pow, right to the kisser, you remember the night before?

As a Boston sports fan, you have to wonder, is this something of a cross roads we are at? This isn’t another one of those anguished, soul searching pieces, asking ‘why us?!’ that have been flooding the Internet since Boston stopped winning trophies. It’s a genuine question. Is this a big cross road for Boston sports collectively as we exit the first decade of the new millennium?

Are 2001-2008 going to go down as the glory years? In years to come will Boston sports fans look back on that era as the best sporting years of their lives? Can the Boston teams produce any kind of winning streak in the next few years?

Yes, yes and maybe one of them, basically.

First off, you have to say, ’01 to ’08 was pretty special. The Patriots, Red Sox and Celtics enjoyed a stretch of success that may never be matched by a City ever again.

• The New England Patriots ’01, ’03 and ‘04
• The Boston Red Sox ’04 and ’07 titles
• Boston Celtics ’07-’08 title

Can that ever be recreated? The potentially depressing answer is, not in the short term anyway.

In terms of the Patriots, the parity that exists in the NFL will always be a major hurdle for any team trying to pull of a prolonged run of success. When I first started watching the NFL, the San Francisco 49ers were considered almost unbeatable in certain stages. Look how far they fell in the 90’s and early 00’s, before finally finding some success recently, and slowly growing a decent side again. When I was a young ‘un, almost everyone hated the 49ers. They were simply too good. You rooted for whoever they were playing and hoped for an upset. Sound like anyone we currently know in today’s NFL? It’s so cyclical it’s scary. The Patriots have had an admirable run, however perhaps now it’s coming close to the stage where they have to rebuild, re-tool. Their gut wrenching losses to the Colts (twice), the Giants and last night to the Saints might be the final nails in the coffin.

The only saving grace is the Patriots are run in an extremely professional manager from owner Bob Kraft down, so perhaps this will lessen the rebuilding period, and perhaps they won’t spend years in the NFL wilderness like the 49ers did.



The fact of the matter is, with teams like the Saints, Viking and Colts very much on the upswing, it is very hard to see the Patriots winning the Superbowl in the next few years. And that coming from Mr. Glass Half Full 2009.

The Celtics?


The Celtics are a gritty bunch of veterans who might find it in themselves to make one last title run this year or maybe even next season, however, long term, this team will eventually hit a brick wall. Garnett and Allen are on their last legs, or in Garnett’s case, last knees. Pierce has just a few years of his prime left. Age is one issue. The other is that there are several teams loaded with talent who will clog up the latter stages of the NBA playoffs for years to come. The Celtics are not one of those teams. Imagine the state this squad will be in say just two years from now? Not a pretty picture.

For The Red Sox, the future is infinitely brighter than the other big two Boston teams.

100 mph worth of reasons to be hopeful

Picture credit belongs to katken.

There’s no doubt the World Series is probably the toughest title to win of the big three, however Boston is tooled to make several runs at the title over the next few seasons. They have the financial backing, but most importantly they have an indcredible array of young talent assembled that no other team can match. The closest possibly being Tampa, however they will lose some of their pieces to free agency, whilst Boston can figure out a way to keep them. The Yankees, fresh off their ‘bought’ World Series, can only dream of having this group of twenty something studs; Daniel Bard, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jonathon Papelbon, Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia, Michael Bowden, Jon lester, Jed Lowrie, Manny Delcarmen and Clay Buchholz.

That pool of MLB ready talent is already producing results at the highest level. Give those players another season or two and Boston could be on the brink of a 3-5 year stretch of dominance the likes of which MLB teams only dream of. The future is so bright, Theo Epstein has to wear shades.

So that’s it in a nutshell really, hard to see the Celtics or Patriots winning anything in the next few years. However, it is very plausible to see the Red Sox ripping off a streak of World Series titles, with a stable of young studs and the financial backing to add the parts around those players to bring the shiny trophies home.




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Notes from a busy sports weekend

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Five hundred and fourty seven sports related text messages, several beers, wines and copious amounts of snacks later...

Saturday 2:30 pm Irish time
Rugby test match
Ireland v South Africa
So it’s official. Ireland is now the greatest rugby team in the world! Taking a step back, it’s dangerous to run away with hyperbole, but you can not understate the terrific Irish weekend win over the World and Tri-Nations champions, South Africa. Whatever about the fact they are world champions, perhaps more in context, the South Africans spent the summer just passed beating New Zealand and Australia to win the prestigious Tri-Nations. So with Ireland beating them Saturday, that makes us the greatest Rugby team in the world right now, correct?

Saturday 3pm Irish time
English Premiership
Sunderland @ Wigan
This ‘09/’10 Sunderland side are proving to be an odd little enigma of a team. They have gone to Old Trafford and earned a 2-2 draw. They have beaten both Liverpool and Arsenal. They are 8th in the Premiership and a good run away from possible European competition placings at seasons end. And yet, they are still losing very unusual games. Perhaps Wigan were always going to be playing out of their skins to make up for losing 9-1 to Spurs last week, but this is still a game Sunderland should have won. Very disappointing result. Perhaps the Wigan players were also trying that extra bit harder as it was their ex boss, Steve Bruce, standing in front of the Sunderland bench? You can make a few excuses, but at the end of the day, vastly superior Sunderland squad beaten by a team that’s going to be fighting relegation at seasons end. Kind of mystifying.

Saturday 5pm Irish time
College Football
Clemson @ South Carolina
Have you played ESPN’s streak for the cash as yet? What’s amazing is how often over 90% of those picking a certain game get it totally wrong. This was one of those situations. Clemson, ranked in the top twenty, were chosen b an amazing 96% of those picking on the game, and yet South Carolina absolutely walloped them. I assume people playing ‘streak’ are just too lazy to investigate the games they are picking on and instead just go with the flow? The flow, as those rich bookies would testify to, is very often wrong. 96%! That’s a whole lot of streaks busted!

Saturday 745 pm Irish time
Rugby test match
France v New Zealand
Sports can twist your brain around sometimes. France recently beat South Africa who spent the summer whipping New Zealand all around the place, so, naturally, New Zealand stroll into France and wallop their hosts. Where’s the logic in that?

At least we were treated to the uplifting French national anthem and the brilliant Haka pr-match.



Sunday 4pm Irish time
English Premiership
Arsenal v Chelsea
Another odd result from a topsy-turvy weekend. Yes, Chelsea have assembled an impressive array of free agents. They have no doubt cobbled together an expensive array of physical talent. However, who could have seen Arsenal get turned over so heavily on their own patch? In a derby game no less. The separating factor was Didier Drogba, who proved that when he is focused, he is one of the greatest goal-poachers in the world. Arsenal missed Van Persie badly, you could even say they missed Bendtner too. All in all, who, apart from the most blinkered of Chelsea fans, could have predicted 3-0 to the blues?

Sunday 6pm Irish time
Spanish La Liga
El Classico (Barcelona v Real Madrid)
For all their billions of euros spent in the last few seasons, what exactly is the point of Real Madrid? They aren’t going to win anything in ’09. They are certainly not very entertaining. What’s the point? At least previous incarnations of the ‘Galacticos’ were wildly fun to watch, Zidane, Backham and (the real) Ronaldo were a joy to behold. This time round the Galacticos have a distinctly stale look to them. Kaka has lost his pace and will to win at an alarmingly speedy rate. Ronaldo (the new, less enjoyable one) looks completely lost. Barcelona were reduced to 10 men with the softest red card you would care to see, and still bossed the game to the end.

One final thought on that one, Lionel Messi is the single greatest player in world football as we speak. Well, other than Andy Reid, of course.

Sunday 6pm Irish time
NFL
Indianapolis @ Houston
How wafer thin are Houston? How many years are we going to have to put up with them being labeled dark horses only for them to fall flat on their faces? It’s one thing to lose a big lead, but at home, in a crucial game for your season, to throw that lead away was just pathetic. On the flip side, the Colts just keep on winning. Anyone remember the start of the season when pundits were writing them off left right and center?

Sunday 9pm Irish time
NFL
Chicago @ Minnesota
After watching 76,978 hours of sports on a given weekend, the last few games can turn into a bit of a jumbled mess of memories. One thing stood out here though. Whatever you want to say about the guy, Brett Favre is a pretty impressive individual. He throws the football harder than most if not all quarterbacks in the NFL and is leading the Vikings on a seriously focussed looking playoff drive. Vikings/Saints NFC showdown? Yes please! Now that would be dramatic.

Anyway, if you enjoy good sports, good theatre and what not, you kind of have to admit, it’s a good thing Favre didn’t retire, right?

Yay, Brett!

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Happy Turkey day, baby. (He mate me)

Normally on this date annually Boston Irish prints its annual Buzzkill piece on how the only real Americans were the victims of Genocide over the last few hundred years, and you should all feel guilty (yes, including me) for watching the Lions shock the Packers 38-36 (you heard it here first!) when no one is acknowledging the plain and simple fact that a massive genocide was perpetrated over the course of four hundred years.

Fun times for all!

Previous Buzzkill Thanksgiving entries;
2008
2007

Naturally, people really don’t much care for that, and the torrents of abuse are always plentiful, varied and vitriolic.

This year, Boston Irish doesn't have the energy for the inevitable abuse, so will be just saying 'Happy Thanksgiving', eating some delicious home made pumpkin pie and enjoying the football in good company.

You know what is amazing though? The sheer level of hatred and anger out there in the vast cluster-fudge that is the Internet. It’s not just the Turkey day piece. No way, José. Sports, believe it or not, is an incredibly divisive subject. I would chance a guess that of all the e-mail Boston Irish has drawn since its inception in 2006, the vast majority has been argumentative, hateful anti-fan mail.

Hey, let’s have a look at the highlights, why not, in the spirit of Genocide day.

Death threats
Naturally top of the bill was a death threat, that came in late 2007. It had to be the most poorly thought out death threat of all time. It was anonymous, poorly spelt and quite unspecific in nature. It took me a while to figure out why the e-mailer was so angry. Goodness me though, it was expletive laden and very hateful. The funny thing was, it was so poorly spelt it never really got under my skin. It was almost as if an angry Orangutan had taken the time and spent the effort to become proficient in typing but slacked off on the whole spelling side of things. Still, you haven’t lived unless you have had at least one death threat in your life, so, we can check that box off at least.

Jets fans
Oh those poor little Jets fans. They get so wound up, angry and frustrated. In many, many ways, Rex Ryan is the perfect coach for the J-E-T-S, as he mirrors much of their fan base. Fat, unruly, seemingly pretty uneducated, Ryan has been blazing a trail of trash-talking glory this NFL season, all with very little impact on the standings in the AFC East. The Jets had their day in the sun early in the year when they won their Superbowl (as they called it) and are now reduced to side notes with a generally humorous slant. Rex Ryan crying in the locker room. Rex Ryan eating twelve cheeseburgers at one sitting. Rex Ryan’s pants ripping during a team meeting. The Jets, their coach and their fans are a side-note in ’09, and goodness me, their fan base is angry. Boston Irish has received a slew of poorly written, hard to decipher ‘hate mail’ from Jets fans over the years, none more so than in ’09. The following three emails are from angry little Jets fans, all received in the last three months, all from different IP addresses.

Now that's a beer belly

Subject: ‘You can suck off and die in hell’.
Highlights: ‘You think you are all that patriots fans but yu (sic) are not all that patriots suck jets rule JETS JETS’

I like to picture someone from Holland saying the above, in a really bad Euro-English accent. Try it, it’s fun.

Subject: ‘The Patriots suck and so do you’
Highlights: ‘Mark MY words the Patriots WILL get beaten by the Jets in round two and the Patriots WILL finish behind the Jets. Tom Brady can watch while Mark Sanchez leads the Jets to the Superbowl just like Brady did the Patriots in 01’

Jets fans seem to really like the word ‘suck’. Is there some deep underlying meaning behind this? Sadly this fan WAS wrong ABOUT the GAME last SUNDAY (Capitals rule!).

Subject: ‘Why do you bother?’
Highlights: ‘In five years time Mark Sanchez will be on the cover of every magazine and Tom Brady will be a nobody’

Odd one this, unsure as to why this Jets fan took the time to send me this email, was this scary premonition meant to upset me in some shape or form? You know, the Internet is such a crazy place really, it’s funny to think someone took the time to sit down and write a long, boring (believe me, the above was the only interesting part) email to someone they don’t know based on an amateur article on sports.

Then again, that’s the entire reason we keep this blog, communication, therefore you have to reason you take the bad with the good. Plus, those Jets fans are kind of funny in an angry-ant kind of way. Quite angry, but essentially harmless.

NASCAR fans
For people that spend an inordinate amount of time watching cars go round and round in circles, NASCAR fans can sure generate volumes of angry emails. Tip to all aspiring writers, don’t ever take on NASCAR, the retribution will be massive, aggressive and very, very poorly spelt.

Yankees fans
You would think, with the heavily Boston slanted content of this blog, the majority of abuse would emanate from the keyboard of Yankee fans. Far from it. There has been much more e-mail from those angry little Jets fans over the years. Instead, there have been basically two Yankee fans who launched long propaganda campaigns over the course of weeks, starting out aggressive, angry and bitter, eventually becoming dull and boring. Snap judgment, from a small cross-section, Yankees fans appear much better at basic manipulation of the English language than, for example, Jets fans. Is this thinly veiled comment on New Jersey and it’s populace?

Of course, no Yankee fan will ever be as angry as this guy.



English people
Saving the best for last. You really never know you have been verbally abused by an English person until about seven hours after it actually happens. You know that Simpsons where Homer meets Ricky Gervais, and he listens to him waffle on for ages before finally exclaiming, ‘You take FOREVER to say NOTHING!’ People who read this, I give you English people! Taking a step back, where do all these angry English e-mails come from? Simple. My father, brother and I have always taken great pleasure in the demise of any English sports team. Soccer, cricket, Rugby or whatever, it doesn’t matter. It is funny when England loses. It’s funny when the English cricket team loses to a minor cricket nation and the English press screams headlines akin to ‘England’s failures may be because they are hopeless’. It is funny when England get knocked out of the World Cup.


Why is it so funny? That’s simple. If you lived in Ireland in the 80s you were suffocated by British sports on TV. The Charlton and golden Irish rugby eras had yet to begin, and Sky Sports was just a pipe dream. Instead we had to suffer arrogant British sports commentators on the BBC or UTV. You know the drill, a British athlete in a 20 person field in a track event? Even if the British athlete finished fifth, theirs is the name you would hear most. Soccer? Don’t even get me started. British sports pundits, who we had rammed down our throats for decades before the sports media explosion, were always convinced they would win whatever tournament they were playing in.

So it is easy to see why any British sporting demise is greeted with glee in my family household.

Thing is, they don’t take it very well, the Brits. Cue reams, stacks, truck-loads of angry emails whenever Boston Irish says anything bad about the UK.

Well, chin up, limey. Just wait until the World Cup next year! We can have a good go at each other then.

In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving.


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Be Thierry Henry for a day!

If you are reading this on Facebook, click here to read the fully formatted, extra sexafied version (videos/pics etc on this post won't show on facebook).

Now is your chance to be like Thierry, and put Ireland out of the World Cup with your thieving, sweaty little palm. You don't even need help from William Gallas, cut out the middle man, just slap the ball into the net yourself! Mon dieu, what fun!!

Hours of fun on the horizon, we at Boston Irish managed 75 as out best score as yet. Beat that, Thierry! Once you are finished, you can compose your own completely hollow apology to the Irish nation! Va-Va Voom!!

Thierry considers using his hand, again!

Play the Thierry Henry hand-ball game

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