Tag: sports

White Men Can’t Jump – the 2022 National Champions, Georgia Bulldogs

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s easy for me to say after the fact, but no matter how pessimistic I may have verbalized my predictions that Alabama had owned Georgia to the tune of never losing to them since like 2007, I kind of had this feeling that Georgia was finally going to win this one, even in spite of all the tragic history that had befallen the Dawgs over the last 13 years.

  • The game was not in Atlanta. The vast majority of these matchups have always happened in Atlanta, the home of the SEC championship, as well as one prior National Championship matchup a few years ago.  Even aside from Alabama, for whatever reason, Georgia just can’t not shit the bed in their home state, and I feel like there’s an added pressure of playing “at home” that Georgia just struggles with, that would not be in play, being in Indianapolis.
  • Georgia’s defense was truly otherworldly this year. I’m not a diehard Dawgs fan, but it’s impossible for a sports fan to not know what’s going on with them, just through natural sports fan osmosis.  I’ve witnessed every Georgia season come and go since I’ve lived here, and this Georgia defense was on a pedestal above them all, and as the old adage goes, defense wins championships.
  • Alabama beating Georgia twice in the same season just seemed too much ask anyone. Georgia and Alabama have never once, played each other twice in a single season.  Either one of them misses the playoff, or Alabama misses the SEC championship but gets in the playoff.  And with two teams as good as these, it didn’t seem likely one of them would win both games.
  • And of course, baby luck. Yes, it was still in play.  And weirdly, sports success tends to cluster together, regardless of the sports.  Boston had their renaissance period where the Red Sox, Celtics, Patriots and Bruins were winning championships.  When the Eagles won the Super Bowl, Villanova’s basketball won the National Championship shortly afterward.  Tampa Bay had both the Bucs and Lightning win championships just a year ago.  And with the Braves having broken the cycle of suck in Georgia, it seemed appropriate that the Bulldogs follow suite and finally win something themselves too.

And in spite of how poorly Georgia came out of the gate during the game, I had this sense that all was not lost.  Sure, the first half turned into a glorified soccer game, where kickers were the only contributors to the score, but the thing is, Georgia at no point was ever out of the game.  Their defense, as taxed as it was, bent but didn’t break, and held Alabama within striking distance the whole time.

Contrary to the narrative of most prior Georgia-Alabama games, the script of this game just felt different too.  Georgia wasn’t racing to an early lead, where they would then screw themselves up in the second half, collapse and fall victim to yet another Atlanta/Georgia sports team collapse.  They were instead screwing themselves up in the first half, with penalties and unfortunate calls against them, and I made a joke to mythical wife who gets to hear all my mansplaining of hunches and gut feelings, that they still have a chance.

And then with ten minutes to go in the fourth quarter, Georgia sprung to life, almost as if they were deliberately sharking Alabama for the prior 50 minutes of game time, and decided to hit the NOS and actually start playing football.  Stetson Bennett IV, whom I was making jokes about the whole game for having the whitest name in existence, suddenly stopped playing like a little bitch and in like 4 plays that covered like 81 yards, drives down for a touchdown, capped off by this bomb to the end zone, and I’m just like, where the fuck has this guy been for the first three quarters?

Basically, it’s like Georgia was Woody Harrelson from White Men Can’t Jump, where he was playing like a patsy for a little bit, but when it came time to actually play, Stetson Bennett IV turns his hat backwards, pumps up his Reeboks and starts delivering big plays for big scores.

And then the most astounding thing is that Georgia, only up by 8 points, was still in striking distance of a textbook Alabama heartbreaking-dagger-to-the-heart play to tie the game up and win in OT, they are the ones who stand strong for the first time in 13 years, and haul in a pick six, which was hilarious to watch as Kirby Smart is screaming get down get down, but Kelee Ringo’s just like lol fuck that, I’mma be on the cover of Sports Illustrated and next thing we know, when the confetti is falling, it’s not Nick Saban under it all for the 50th time, but finally, Georgia.

Much like seeing the Braves win the World Series, seeing Georgia actually win a National Championship was also up there on the list of things that I wondered if I’d ever witness in my life.  Not that I’m a huge fan of the Dawgs, but I live in Georgia, and I know the success of the team can really boost a lot of people here’s spirits, so I’m quite pleased.  I guess all that’s really left in the bucket of hopes and dreams is Virginia Tech (LOL) and maybe seeing some Korean national teams win something major in baseball or soccer, but they’ll be on their own.

Pretty sure with this, the baby luck is now exhausted, and I ain’t having no more kids.  But the Braves and Bulldogs, not bad for reinforcing my superstition.  You’re welcome, Georgians.

Undefeated, no longer

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

One of the many things I hate about very likely having COVID is whenever anyone insinuates that it’s remotely close to okay, because the infection numbers are so rampant that it’s almost inevitable that everyone will have caught a variant of it at some point.

My response to that is that a loss is a loss, and there’s no wiping a loss from your record, no matter how successful you are afterward.

Because I’m me, everything is an analogy to sports or wrestling, and the way I see it, everyone who has managed to evade COVID as long as I and my household had, was basically undefeated. 

Fewer things in competition are as hallowed as undefeated streaks, and there’s little more frequent narrative of a streak to inevitably break, with it growing more and more value the longer it goes unbroken. 

The ‘72 Dolphins. DiMaggio’s 56-game hit streak. Ripken’s 2,632 consecutive game streak.  The Oakland A’s 20-game win streak. The Cleveland Indians’ 22-game win streak. Goldberg’s 173-0 streak. Asuka’s 914-day undefeated streak. The Undertaker’s 21-0 Wrestlemania streak.

And in my head, every single person who has managed to go without COVID since it came into existence, y’all are also undefeated.  And up until a week ago, my wife was.  Up until more recently, so was I. 

But now, (very, very likely) not anymore. 

No, it isn’t the end of the world. My wife will recover. I will recover. We could thrive afterward. But it’s still a loss on our records, and that will never go away.  And I fucking hate it.

Back in like 1995, I was playing a season NBA Live ‘95. I wanted to have a season where the Orlando Magic went undefeated with my Penny Hardaway having 100% field goal percentage and averaging like 169 points a game and a triple-double.  I put a lot of time into it, but after about 30 games, the game apparently didn’t like such unrealistic conditions, and next thing I knew, I had a loss to the Seattle SuperSonics on my record and my Hardaway’s numbers were all tarnished. 

I quit the game.  That and-1 was a loss that I couldn’t expunge no matter if I won every single game afterward.  It ruined the ultimate goal.

Having the ‘Rona brought into my home and infecting my household makes me feel like the 2007 Patriots.  We were doing so well, only to be derailed and defeated by an unlikely party.  And the worst part is, I highly doubt the offending party realizes just how much they’ve fucked us.

Whereas they can go home to a childless environment with nobody but themselves to care to recover over, or any real demanding jobs to go to, mythical wife and I have two young kids to be mindful of, boatloads of duties that still have to get done no matter how addled we are; on top of our respective jobs.

Ask any parent how it feels to have to deny their kids an embrace that they want, and tell me that it’s still “fine” that “everyone’s going to get it eventually.”  Don’t try and calm me down with that bullshit reassurance that everyone will get it or that Omicron isn’t as lethal, because I will tell you to go fuck yourselves.

Life is already very difficult as it is right now, but to throw fucking coronavirus into our mix, sounds like a pretty crushing loss and way to end an undefeated streak in a terrible fashion.  I will always resent it, and unlike a video game, this loss on the record is permanent and there’s no turning off and quitting it.

A 2021 year-end post

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Looking back at all my old posts on a near-daily basis through the On This Day plug-in I use, I realize that I’ve written a whole lot of year-end posts throughout the years, which makes me feel somewhat obligated to write one for this year as well.  Initially, my thought was “fuck, ain’t nobody got time for this shit,” but then I stopped to actually think about the year 2021 as a whole, and realized that making one, really shouldn’t be that difficult.

Seeing as how in my double dad duty life, I’m typically always in search of the path of least resistance, “shouldn’t be that difficult,” pleases me.

Although plenty of things happened both in my own little bubble, as well as the rest of the world, for me, the year really can be summed up pretty succinctly as a tale of two halves.  The first half of the year was spent preparing for the birth of #2, where my job made me miserable and was sucking the life out of me.  And then literally halfway through the year, #2 arrived, embarking on the second half of the year where my job still made me miserable, but it was compounded by the ever-living difficulty of parenting two under two with insufficient help.

All while the coronavirus pandemic that plagued most of 2020, still raged on throughout the entire 2021, regardless of how stupid, arrogant and ignorant the rest of the world seemed to become because we’re all a bunch of selfish fucks who can’t understand the importance of quarantine and distancing, and have to be out in public events and crowded restaurants.  Vaccinations came into fruition, and smart people got them, but it didn’t make everyone suddenly invincible, as much as it dulled the fatality capabilities of coronavirus.  But that was good enough for everyone, and I stopped pondering which was worse between the unvaccinated and the vaccinated who thought they were bulletproof.

On that description alone, it sounds like 2021 may have sucked, and I’d be the first to admit that I did have a tremendous amount of time with dark clouds over me and inside my head.  But none of it has any bearing for the love I have for my children, no matter how hard they’ve made my life in this current juncture, and no matter how much I bitch and write pissy brog posts, they are still my happiness and the greatest things to have happened to my life along with mythical wife.

This isn’t to say that the year was entirely a wash.  It’s just pretty easy to sum up in very broad strokes, that make it sound negative.  Aside from the birth of my second child, she brought baby luck into play, and despite thinking I wouldn’t ever see it in my lifetime, the Atlanta Braves won the World Series.  I mean if that isn’t the very embodiment of baby luck, I don’t know what was, the Braves had 88 wins and had no business making the playoffs, but they did, got hot, and rode the momentum all the way to the Commissioner’s Trophy.

I also got the NXT UK Tag Team replica blet, that I’ve been waiting to come into existence for three years.  That pleased me greatly and was a good way to wind down the year.

Oh, and the new job I secured with the year winding down.  A substantial raise, elevated job title, and for the inevitable future where I have to report back into an office, a shorter commute.  Plus, it gave me the long-awaited departure from my toxic current boss, and I can’t wait to get the fuck away from her.  That shit is really fantastic news too.

But because I’m a nerd that takes general notes on the happenings that interest me, the following things also occurred in 2021:

  • Baked potato worshippers basically tried to throw a coup and invade the Capitol in Washington DC in defiance of the failed 2020 election
  • I took a UX course to try and pivot my career path
  • Got vaccinated, had it kick my ass. Got a booster later in the year, which kicked my ass again
  • Tried the Dr. Now diet from My 600 Lb. Life of eating 1,200 calories a day; I lasted a week before throwing in the towel, but still lost 3.1 lbs.
  • The housing market in America went completely bonkers, and I capitalized on it by refinancing on my house to help ourselves financially
  • Alabama won its 52nd National Championship
  • Tom Brady won his 43rd Super Bowl; but first with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
  • The Milwaukee Bucks, yes Milwaukee Bucks, won the NBA Finals
  • My upstairs HVAC died in the middle of summer and had to be replaced, causing a very uncomfortable week in August
  • And finally, speaking of deaths, notable passings in my world included: Hank Aaron, Larry King, Screech from Saved by the Bell, Jessica Walter, New Jack, Norm Macdonald, John Madden, Betty White, and most tragically, Sonny Chiba. 

But let’s not end this post talking about deaths.  As droll and depressing some of the tone of this post might’ve read, there is absolutely no reason for me to not be optimistic about 2022.  I have a new job that pays better and gets me away from the toxic situation that shit all over my 2021, and as my girls grow and develop, life should become a little simpler, and pave the way for me to get bits of my own life back, gradually, little by little.

Those things alone carry great weight, and as long as those things can progress positively, not even the dismal state of the world’s handling of coronavirus can drag me down.  And with that, I close the brog book on 2021, and hope for nothing but the best going into year 22 of fairly consistent brogging.

How the transfer portal can break college football

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the weekend, my father-in-law was giddy with excitement over the news of Oklahoma quarterback, Spencer Rattler, transferring to South Carolina, via the seemingly most common words at the end of every college football season, the transfer portal.

Firstly, I can’t not hear that phrase and not imagine that the transfer portal is portal stage from Mortal Kombat II, where college ballplayers all show up and mingle around, with hopes that they’ll land at another school where they can either play for a contender, start, or go anywhere where they can hedge their bets and put up gaudy numbers in preparation for a future NFL draft.

Secondly, when the transfer portal really began becoming a thing within the last 4-5 years, I actually hated the idea of it.  It basically turned into the equivalent of free agency for college athletes, and further fed the narrative that these athletic ringers all give no shits about education at all, if it already wasn’t clear enough but purists and romantics like me can hope.

But it really began picking up steam when the most notable cases were players who were just seemingly looking to gravy train their way to powerhouse programs, and were just kind of this rich getting richer circle jerk among notable contending teams.  But then it seemed like every Tom, Dick and Harry players were jumping into the portal to try to land somewhere else, regardless of if it made sense or not.

Like Justin Fields who went from Georgia to Ohio State; that made sense.  Fields was blocked by Jake Fromm, and he was a phenomenal talent that needed to go somewhere where he could flourish.  Jalen Hurts and Kelly Bryant transferring out of Alabama and Clemson respectively made sense, since both of their schools had benched them for the hot new freshmen.  But then you have cases like Josh Jackson, who was mediocre at best, transferring from Virginia Tech to go to Maryland where he vanished into obscurity.

The point is, commitments from players have all but become meaningless in the grand spectrum of college ball, because over the last few years, there’s been little reason why anyone would stay anywhere for more than two years, for any reason.  As far as I was concerned, the transfer portal wasn’t really something that was healthy for the game, in general.

All the same, with Rattler joining the Gamecocks, it does open the door for some intriguing storylines next season.  I haven’t really paid any attention to any sports over the last year or so, but from what I can interpret, a large part of him choosing South Carolina had much to do with Shane Beamer, a former coach at Oklahoma, being there, and him wanting to play for him again.

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R.I.P. Braves Minor Leagues

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Source: Endeavor Group Holdings purchases nine minor league baseball teams, among them the Atlanta Braves’ AAA, AA and High-A minor league affiliates in Georgia and Mississippi

Since few people other than me really gives two shits about Minor League Baseball, how it works is that scattered all across the country are minor league baseball teams, with wacky names, goofy promotions, and smaller ballparks, who affiliate themselves with the 30 Major League Baseball organizations, where the baseball players of tomorrow work on their game and hopefully grow into useful players for the parent Major League club.

However, in a number of exceptions, there are occasionally some minor league teams, that are outright owned by their parent clubs.  The Yankees, Cubs, Cardinals, Giants are examples of teams that one one or more of their affiliates.  The Braves, own four of their affiliates: Danville (rookie), Rome (High-A), Mississippi (AA) and Gwinnett (AAA).  Presumably, ownership of affiliates grants higher control and micromanagement of these clubs, and probably among the highest of priority is geographical lockdown of clubs, so that they never have to play musical chairs with their minor league clubs for when affiliation contracts expire.

But over the last two years, and most definitely not at all helped by the pandemic, minor league baseball has been in somewhat trouble, as far as its future is concerned.  Even before the pandemic, there was lots of discussion of cutting large swaths of teams from MLB affiliation, and even rejiggering the whole holistic organization of minor league systems.  If I had to guess, money is at the root of all this, considering the mass whistleblowing that had been occurring about how minor league players and personnel make less money than your average McDonald’s worker, and how cogs in a machine that earns billions annually, can allow this to happen. 

All the same though, it appears that the Braves and several other franchises have decided to cut their obligations, even at the potential expense of control, and sell off their minor league affiliates.  Make no mistake, these are entirely financial moves, and if I had to guess, the teams who have sold franchises probably all feel that the future of minor league baseball is too murky and uncertain for them to want to risk carrying the financial obligations of having their own minor league organizations.  By selling them off now, they are basically betting that these teams will more likely suffer mediocre earnings if not outright fail in business, than becoming the next Dayton Dragons and sell out every game for 18 straight years.

The perception is definitely cold and callous, and to a degree sad for baseball fans and purists alike.  No matter what, money controls everything in baseball as it unfortunately influences most everything else in everyday ordinary life.

However, there is very bright and silver lining to this.  I don’t know who Endeavor Group or their slave companies who will ultimately operate these teams are, but now that these minor league franchises are all cut free from their parent organizations, the world is now their oyster when it comes to promoting these squads.

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That’s an NBA Jam score

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Well, that’s one way to gain some retribution: Memphis Grizzlies blow out the Oklahoma City Thunder by an NBA historic high margin of 73 points

Back in 2018, the Grizzlies got blown out by the Charlotte Hornets by 61 points.  Now I’m too lazy to check, but I’m sure that that 61-point margin was the all-time biggest blowout in league history.

No better way to rectify being on the losing end of the worst blowout in history, than being on the winning end of the score that breaks it, and when the Grizz put up 152 points, while holding the Thunder to 79 (which was ironically what the Grizz scored in 2018), I think most people not me, will have forgotten about that woeful night in 2018.

Seriously though, 152 points?  That’s never going to not be incredible for me, who grew up in the 90s as a Pat Riley Knicks fan who’s teams routinely scored 88 points a game, while holding opponents to, well 79.  I know the NBA has tweaked rules throughout the years to boost offense, and players have learned how to ignore defense through the passage of time, but 152 points will never not look crazy to me, no matter what.

Finally, let’s talk about the World Series Champion Atlanta Braves

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Firstly, baby luck is real, boys.  If you want to see your team win a championship, go have a kid.  I’ve seen it work for the Cubs.  I’ve seen it work with the Nationals.  Both those teams were laughing stocks not very long ago, and good friends of mine with their then-new children, got to witness the pinnacle of baseball fandom. 

Despite the fact that the Braves lost megastar Ronald Acuña, Jr. to a blown ACL, Mike Soroka blowing out his arm, and Marcell Ozuna getting suspended indefinitely for a domestic abuse incident and were sitting as low as fourth place in the division at one point, #2 was born, the Braves stopped sucking just enough to win a horrid division, and then got hot at the very right moment, and rode the momentum all the way to the top.

And now baby luck has worked for me, finally getting to witness a reality where the Atlanta Braves are World Series champions.  How can anyone not love baseball when an 88-win team that had no business making the playoffs ends up winning the whole thing?

Honestly, I never thought I’d see this in my life.  Between the Braves, Virginia Tech football, Korean national teams in, anything other than video games, I don’t have a lot of world championship potential, so y’all will have to excuse me if I’m still in a little bit of disbelief at the fact that the Braves are actually champions.

I wasn’t a Braves fan in 1995, when they won the World Series previously.  Growing up where I did, the team to root for was Cal Ripken, Jr. and the Baltimore Orioles, and the O’s got bounced by the same Cleveland Indians who went on to lose to the Braves in that World Series, but I make no claim to that championship.  So 2021’s World Series, really is for me, as it is for all Braves fans who have waited over 20 years for another championship.

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