Baseball’s Big Market Slight of Hand

Great article by Joe Posnanski regarding the New York Yankees and the big market inequities in baseball.

An “Any Given Sunday” Adjustment

Raheem Morris's "Any Given Sunday" came this weekend

“Any Given Sunday…”

The phrase is so well known among NFL fans that it’s been reduced to those three words. In full, it’s something like…

“On any given sunday, any team can beat any other team…”

Well, while technically that’s true (in terms of one team winning a game against a team they probably shouldn’t), the truth is in today’s NFL it should probably read more like this:

“On any given Sunday, any team (besides apparently the New Orleans Saints) is capable of beating itself, even against the worst teams in the league.”

There is no better example of that than what happened this weekend in south Florida.  That’s where the 4-3 Green Bay Packers traveled to play the NFL’s only winless team, the woeful, awful Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  The Packers are like the majority of NFL teams out there, good enough to beat up on the handful of really bad teams, not good enough to take down the NFL’s elite.  Their success this season or lack thereof will be determined by how they perform in games against those other middle-of-the-road teams… and by their ability to not stub their toe against the awful teams.

Oops.

This Sunday the Packers turned in a recipe for “How to lose to a horrible, awful team.”  Take a look.  In this game the Packers:

• Had a punt blocked and returned for a touchdown
• Had a pass intercepted and returned for a touchdown
• Had another pass intercepted and returned to their own 8-yard-line (which immediately led to a touchdown)
• Gave up an 83-yard kickoff return (which immediately led to a touchdown)

Or, to look at it in another way, the Packers gift-wrapped 28 POINTS to the worst team in the league.  In fact, in giving up those 28 points they actually only gave up 25 offensive yards!!  The Buccaneers 279 total yards was the 3rd lowest total in the NFL this weekend… and the fact that they still needed a late 4th-down conversion and another defensive stop to ice the game after all of this highlights how far they still have to go.  Nevertheless yesterday they got to celebrate winning their first game of the season.. although it’s probably much better defined as a Packer LOSS.

But you know how it goes, any given sunday…

WSOP Final Table Begins!

The World Series of Poker final table is finally underway… I’ve got a bit of money on Eric Buchman who starts the day second in chips… 

I’m guessing this thing won’t be down to two until early tomorrow morning.

R.I.P. AJ (1987 – 2009)

Alex Coleman, a.k.a. AJ died Thursday morning

People talk a lot about how the internet has made the world a much smaller place.  We’re all so in touch now with things happening all over the world and many of us find ourselves with friends in all corners of the globe, many of whom we’ve never actually met face-to-face.

I’m a member of an online poker forum called “67 suited”… at least, poker is the common thread that brought all of us there.  Now it’s more of a social club, a place where we discuss everything in our lives.  This morning we all learned that one of the site’s original members and co-founders Alex Coleman, better known to all of us as AJ, had passed away at the woefully young age of 21.  AJ had been dealt a tough hand in life health-wise, having had two heart transplants as a kid, and his heart finally gave in early Thursday morning.

I never met AJ face-to-face, he lived in England.  And honestly, he and I weren’t overly tight on 67 either, having only chatted a touch, although he had agreed at one point to become my poker coach when I began to play NLHE cash games.  Nevertheless it was a bit of a blow hearing it this morning.  I think when you become older and have kids and start to treasure life a bit more, you really begin to empathize with the loss others feel.

My heart goes out to AJ’s girlfriend Sam and his family.  God Bless You, AJ.

Now THIS is aggressive soccer!

Sometimes the girls on my soccer team could play pretty aggressively… Sidra herself got called for a few fouls… but nothing like this!

New Mexico player’s rough tactics lead to ban

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The Return of P2’s World!

Okay, sometimes I’m just awful at this blogging stuff.  I really enjoy doing it but my ability to do it on a daily basis can sometimes be hit and miss at best.  So for that I apologize.  Anyway, it’s been an amazing 14 months since I updated this blog… but I’m feeling the need to get back into it.  I’m going to spend sometime updating it (doing the best I can to approximate when these things actually happened) and see if I can’t get into it again.  Happy reading!

The Crazyheads Go For the Championship!

Sidra chasing down the loose ball

Besty controls against a defender

Sidra attacks ex-teammate Angelina

Sophie shows off the Trophy

Crazyheads are #1!

Crazyhead Champs!

Let’s just fast forward because I don’t have the energy to TR the entire day…

Saturday was the end-of-the-season tournament for Sidra’s soccer team (which I coach) and we didn’t play very well at all in our first two games. In part because our leading scorer (Farrah) missed the first game and barely played in game two because she was sick.  In part because the field was not in good shape after a lot of rain and our biggest strength is moving the ball on the ground. And in part because the games were 40% shorter for the tournament, meaning we had less time to assert ourselves.

Nevertheless, we managed to advance to the championship game against the only team who beat us during the season.

In the title game, I wanted to get a jump on them early, especially because the game is so short… goals are at a premium and the team that jumps out to a 1-0 lead is going to have a huge advantage. Fortunately, we were the team as Farrah, who basically sat around cherry picking because she had no energy, made a big run down the left wing and made one move towards the middle before sliding a shot far-post past the goalie to give us a 1-0 lead!

The first half ended 1-0 and when the girls went out for the 2nd half, I walked around to each one of them, patted them on the head and said “gimme everything you got for one last half and you’re a champion…” There wasn’t a single one of them that looked at me like I was weird or like I was being corny. I’m happy to say they all wanted this pretty bad.

So the second half was just an awesome half of soccer. Both teams had chances and Emily, our goalie, just freaking sacrificed herself multiple times for the team. She made one diving save and another time beat an opponent to the ball in the box for which she got promptly kicked in the hand. About midway through the second half she made her biggest play of the game on a 50/50 ball in the box in which she shot off her line and absolutely roll blocked the opposing forward, getting to the ball a split second before the forward did.

One of the things I worked on for literally 30 minutes a practice was our play out of the corners. Both Farrah and Sophie have big legs but unfortunately that caused them to try some crazy long, angled shots from the corner instead of crossing the ball or passing to an open player in the box. We worked and worked and worked on quick switches from one side to the other in those situations and while by the end of practice they’d get it, they rarely executed it very well during the game, mostly because Farrah/Sophie would usually just try taking the crazy angled shot through three defenders.

With about 5 minutes left in the game and still clinging to a 1-0 lead, Marina (our sweeper) made a huge clear to the left corner and Sophie tracked it down. Sophie made one move and then rather than taking a shot over/through two defenders she pushed a past to to the top of the box to Sidra. Sidra trapped and immediately pushed it further along the line to a wide open Farrah on the right side.

A 100% healthy Farrah slams that ball into the back of the net… but Farrah was not 100% healthy. Instead she got a decent shot off, but just a touch to the left of the goalie who was already sliding in that direction. The goalie shot a hand out and deflected it out in front of the net.

The rest of this play was like one of those bizarre dreams where everything’s in slow motion. The three closest people to the ball at this point were the goalie and two defenders. But impossibly, Sophie, who had started the whole play from the corner, beat all three to the ball and slammed it into the back of the net! 2-0!!!!

When we scored our first goal there was celebration, but when the second one went in, all hell broke loose. The girls mobbed Sophie and it took a bit for us to get back into place. From there our defense just took over. I don’t think they even got another chance, much less a legitimate shot on goal… and minutes later the final whistle blew!

My favorite part of the whole day was how the girls reacted. Complete mob scene. Hugging each other and dancing around, there were a few tears. Awesome stuff. So proud of them… BOOM!

Morning Work-Out Update

So far so good… the nice thing about these a.m. workouts is my body clock is totally adjusting, I barely even need my alarm anymore. The bad news? Baron’s body clock has also adjusted and now he thoroughly expects to go out every morning at 5:30 a.m.

Good Morning… Let’s Work Out!

Well, I decided yesterday that beginning today I’m going to start getting up at 5:30 a.m. and hit the elliptical.   It’s just the best way to get a work-out of some kind in each day.

It actually works out nicely… I get up, take Baron out and then watch Mike & Mike in the Morning while I work out.  I’m hoping I can keep this going indefinitely and eventually add some other stuff (which I guess might also mean getting up even earlier.)

Quick Start for the “Crazyheads”

it’s going to be a looooong, looooong season… FOR THE REST OF THE LEAGUE.

4-1 beatdown today of the team I think is probably the 2nd best team in the league.

Funniest part:

It’s 2-0 at the half and I’m talking to my team and look down to see this little, pony-tailed girl sitting in the middle of everyone.

Me: “Oh you must be Farrah, huh??”

Farrah is playing in two soccer leagues this year and she just happens to have practice for the other one on the same night I hold practice so we’re working out a schedule but she missed the first two practices and so I’m literally meeting her for the first time.

So I put her in as a forward to start the second half and, well, she’s stupid good. She scores both our goals in the second half and nearly adds a third on a shot from outside the box that just glances off the goalpost wide… I thought WITHOUT her we had a pretty good team… with her I’m not sure we’re beatable.