This is to note that once again, I’ve bet Lawrence $5 even money that the Cubs will win the World Series this year.
Also, my bet with Lawrence on Gonzaga has been paid.
Archive for the ‘Sports’ Category
Obligatory opening day post.
Thursday, March 31st, 2011¿Dónde está el dinero?
Tuesday, March 29th, 2011The NYT has an interesting investigative story on the Fiesta Bowl. Or, rather, on the Fiesta Bowl’s money.
The Fiesta Bowl management and staff have apparently been spending the money taken in by the Fiesta Bowl’s 501(c)3 on some questionable items. And when I say questionable, I mean “jail time is a possibility” items: campaign contributions, strip clubs (of course. It always has to be strip clubs.), a $30,000 birthday party (how do you spend $30,000 on a birthday party for an adult human? Unless that birthday party is at a strip club. Or, apparently, Pebble Beach.), airfare and hotel for an employee’s honeymoon (plus airfare for Fiesta Bowl employees to attend the wedding). Those are the high points.
The item that really leaps out at me is $75 for flowers. The flowers were for someone at the University of Texas, and were apparently sent in an attempt to influence that person into accepting the CEO’s daughter into “a honors program” (Plan II?). $75 is such a penny-ante amount; surely the CEO could have come up with $75 out of his own pocket. And why send flowers at all? A phone call would have done just as well. “Nice football team you have there. It’d be a shame if you didn’t get a bowl bid this year because my daughter didn’t get accepted into Plan II.”
The best thing about this? It could cost the Fiesta Bowl both tax-exempt status and BCS bowl status. As a matter of fact, it appears some of the impetus for this investigation came from an anti-BCS group. I wonder what other skeletons are going to turn up in the Orange and Sugar Bowl closets. I also wonder if this is the first hammer blow at the Berlin Wall of the BCS.
Edited to add: For those who don’t want to deal with the NYT, here’s a HouChron story on the firing of bowl CEO John Junker, which covers some of what was in the NYT report. Here’s a direct link to the public release version of the special committee report (which has some information redacted due to “contractual confidentiality provisions”).
Obit watch: March 22, 2011.
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011Blues musician Pinetop Perkins. (NYT.)
Drew Hill, former Houston Oiler.
The carnage begins.
Monday, March 21st, 2011We haven’t even gotten to the Final Four yet, and the firings have already started:
Reports indicate Bruce Pearl is out at Tennessee.
(Link goes to the HouChron, as their AP wire service story seems more comprehensive than the local newspaper’s current reporting.)
I would argue that he deserves to be fired for that yellow jacket and tie combination alone. In this case, it looks like the issue isn’t his sartorial choices, or his record (145-61 over six seasons) but problems with the NCAA and unauthorized bratwurst.
Zaged when I should have Ziged.
Sunday, March 20th, 2011Once again, Gonzaga lets me down, and once again, I owe Lawrence $5.
Oh, well. There’s always the Cubs.
Random notes: March 18, 2011.
Friday, March 18th, 2011Obit watch: Ferlin Husky.
Shocked, shocked I am:
In other news, I have not been able to find a current execution date for Antoinette Frank.
Keeping with our trend this morning of depressing our readers:
Here is the Charity Navigator page for the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation. Note the rating.
Gonzaga!
Monday, March 14th, 2011
Gonzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaga!
Now that the bracket is out, I’m once again picking Gonzaga to go all the way.
How can you not, really? Doesn’t the sound of the name stir something in your heart? Say it with me: “Gonzaga!”
Guns up!
Tuesday, March 8th, 2011Missed this one until I saw a link on FARK, but FARK’s link was to the USAToday story.
Pat Knight fired as Texas Tech basketball coach.
This does not seem to have been unexpected, with a 13-18 record (5-11 in conference).
(And, once again, someone told a local newspaper that auto-play videos are A-OK.)
Y’all say what?
Friday, March 4th, 2011The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is getting underway again this year.
But there’s been a change: the rodeo is no longer a Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association sanctioned rodeo. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a professional rodeo, or that there’s not money on the table ($1.75 million, according to the HouChron), just that winnings in the Houston rodeo aren’t officially counted by the PRCA, and don’t impact PRCA standings.
If I understand the story correctly, this doesn’t make Houston unique; some of the larger Canadian rodeos aren’t PRCA sanctioned, either, and it sounds like Houston may be trying to start up a competing rodeo circuit:
The goal is to become the top international invitational championship in the world.
It isn’t that I’m a huge rodeo fan (I’m not), but the situation is interesting. Lawrence made a good analogy to the whole CART/Indycar situation, which (as I see it) seriously damaged open wheel racing in the United States.
Random notes: March 3, 2011.
Thursday, March 3rd, 2011I went to the fights last night, and a case of chronic traumatic encephalopathy broke out.
Sirhan Sirhan has been turned down for parole for the 13th time. What’s interesting about this article is that it focuses almost as much on Sirhan’s lawyer, William F. Pepper, and Pepper’s previous efforts:
This gives me an excuse to plug Hampton Sides’ excellent (and Edgar-nominated) book Hellhound on His Trail: The Electrifying Account of the Largest Manhunt In American History
I’m not going to say it deserves the Edgar; I haven’t read any of the other nominated books (I did pick up The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science
This is not a strategy I had considered for driving up page views, but good for the Austin Bulldog.
Edited to add: This is the closest thing I’ve found to a discussion of food items at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo this year. No photos. I’d apologize, but I don’t want a photo of the “Pulled Pork Sundae”, which frankly sounds disgusting.
TMQ watch: February 15, 2011.
Wednesday, February 16th, 2011And so we’ve come to the end of our first season doing the TMQ Watch, with the final TMQ of this season: the annual bad predictions review.
No, we said the bad predictions review. After the jump…
Loser note.
Wednesday, February 16th, 2011I’ve not been covering the Cleveland Cavaliers for several reasons. One, I don’t much like basketball. Two, the Cavaliers fall is kind of painful for me. (I have family in the Cleveland area.) Three, I don’t much like basketball. Four, I’ve been kind of distracted by other things.
However, Lawrence pointed out this interesting SI article on the worst season-to-season declines in sports history, which covers not just the NBA, but also the NFL, MLB, and the NHL. There’s some surprising stuff in there; I didn’t realize the Houston Oilers dropped that much from 1993 to 1994, but I also really don’t remember the Cody Carlson/Billy Joe Tolliver era.
Failure analysis.
Monday, February 14th, 2011I have previously written about my interest in failure and failure analysis, so I feel compelled to link to this fine example of failure analysis:
Kirk Bohls and Randy Riggs on why the Texas Longhorns went 5-7 last season.
Some key points of failure:
- the team was consumed with a sense of entitlement.
- they lacked talent (or “on-field competence” as the Statesman puts it), and over-estimated the talent of the players they’d brought in.
- divisions within the coaching ranks.
- a head coach who withdrew from daily coaching.
(Speaking of bad Longhorn seasons, the question came up over the weekend: “What’s John Mackovic doing these days?” The answer to that is…weird, and kind of contradictory. His Wikipedia entry says he’s the head coach of “United States national American football team”, which apparently competes in something called the “American Football World Cup”. However, the Wikipedia entry for the “United States national American football team” shows Mackovic as the head coach for the 2007 team, and Mel Tjeerdsma as the coach for the 2011 team.)
Obit watch: February 10, 2011.
Thursday, February 10th, 2011Emory Bellard, former Texas, Texas A&M, and Spring Westfield football coach.
There’s nothing wrong with breast cancer awareness, but where are the colored mugs and other tchotkes for ALS?
TMQ watch: February 8, 2011.
Tuesday, February 8th, 2011Mystery! Suspense! Pathos! None of those are present in this week’s “Tuesday Morning Quarterback“, but that doesn’t stop us from blogging it anyway. After the jump…