Tag: sports

This “gamers as athletes” is going a bit too far now

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The guy on the left is Shin-Soo Choo.  Shin-Soo Choo is a Major League Baseball player, and an extremely talented one at that.  Aside from that, Shin-Soo Choo is something of an international hero, as he has been a chief member of the Korean National Baseball team that enjoyed moderate successes in tournaments such as the World Baseball Classic as well as the Asian Games.  Shin-Soo Choo is considered a genuine five-tool player; he hits very well, he hits with power (read: home runs), plays excellent defense, has a great throwing arm, and runs very effectively.  It is safe to say that Shin-Soo Choo is the most talented and successful Korean-born Major League Baseball player in history.

The guy on the right is Dong-Hwan Kim.  Dong-Hwan Kim plays Starcraft for a living.  He sits at a computer for a living, staring into a monitor, playing a video game.  The only physical thing he really demonstrates is dexterity with his fingers, or as those in such a scene like to refer to as “Actions per minute (APM)” which is basically just how good a guy is at repeatedly clicking a mouse and a few keys on the keyboard.

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The Big 10’s logo sucks

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The Big 10 is a pretty big deal in the world of collegiate sports; it’s no secret that amongst all college sports, football and basketball reign supreme in terms of popularity, and the Big 10 represents strongly in both.

But when the day is over, I can’t take the Big 10 conference seriously. It has nothing to do with the fact that it’s been over ten years since any sort of National Championship has been brought to the Big 10, or that Ohio State has turned into the Buffalo Bills of college sports, or sour grapes at Michigan for getting a referee-aided victory over Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl.

No, I can’t take the Big 10 conference seriously, because their logo is absolute rubbish.

I mean seriously, look at it – it sucks.

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Isn’t this a crazy story?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Long story short: student multi-sport athlete has one too many concussions, is hospitalized and told to give up contact sports. After recovering, it’s revealed that he’s now a musical savant and can pretty much play any instrument.

You know something, in a way, this is almost not fair. Injury and concussions are sort of supposed to ruin lives, not keep them on the same track, or possibly make them better. I speak partially in jest, because obviously I don’t want to necessarily hear of people I don’t know lives getting ruined by injury, but the other part of me would be lying if I didn’t say that I was jealous of this kid’s fortuitous “brain re-wiring.”

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Some men just want to watch the (sports) world burn

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I had a conversation with the one guy at the gym I actually speak with occasionally, about the current state of ACC football, namely the Coastal division that we’ve both got vested interest in, as I’m a Virginia Tech fan, and he’s a Miami fan.  Naturally, I had to rub in his face about how bad the Hokies decimated the Hurricanes last Saturday, but to diffuse the taunting, since he is pretty much a body double for Michael Clarke Duncan and could probably literally throw me head first into the ceiling like a dart, we got to talking about the current ACC Coastal standings.

At the time I’m writing this, the scrubs from Georgia Tech are leading the Coastal with a 5-2 division record, despite the fact that earlier in the year, they jobbed to Virginia Tech as if they were the Honky Tonk Man jobbing to the Ultimate Warrior.  But division wins count more than overall wins, and they didn’t lose to fucking Duke.  But speaking of Duke, they’re tied for third with Miami, both of them behind Virginia Tech.  This is something notable, because we’re talking about football and not basketball, and Duke is very much alive in the bowl selection picture.  And it’s Duke’s unexpected presence in the football scene this season that sparked this train of thought, and it all boils down to the fact that thanks to the ACC Coastal division, the remainder of this season has the potential to be one gigantic chaotic mess; this is typically no different in the overall college ranking systems, but the fact that several bowls can be potentially impacted by the outcomes of two weeks’ worth of games from one division in one conference is pretty interesting.

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Virginia Tech, Miami and the mass exodus

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Whenever one of my teams wins, the rest of the day is pretty much a good one.  Every game watched afterward becomes a little bit more tolerable, and it’s easier to enjoy and appreciate the little things about a game, whether it’s watching an offensive line setting a nice screen, when a pitcher nips the outside corner with an unhittable curveball, or when a basketball player actually makes two consecutive free throws.  It doesn’t matter the sport, whenever a team I favor gets a W, everything else is just a little bit better.

Earlier, Virginia Tech slaughtered Miami, in Miami.  Once #14 now unranked VT marches into what I used to refer to as “SunLiphinSharkRobbiePlayer Stadium,” based on how many times the venue had changed corporate sponsorship but is currently the home to the NFL Dolphins and University of Miami, and slaughters the #11 ranked Hurricanes on their home field.  Whether or not this puts Tech back into the Top-25 is irrelevant, since it’s obvious they’re really not supposed to be anything more than a team in transition, but it’s always a pleasure to see them actually get a win.

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We all know the NBA is racist, but come on

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I admit, I hardly pay any attention to the NBA these days, save for a few days in June, if the Spurs are knocking on the door of championship. But it doesn’t really take more than a casual basketball observer to see what’s going on in this situation, when apparently all of the NBA teams’ general managers got together and conducted a little survey about their respective league and its players, and happened to have one particular query called:

Which player makes the most of limited natural ability?

With an overwhelming majority of 24% of the vote, Kevin Love was voted the guy who made the most of “limited natural ability.” Think about that phrase for a second; it’s almost like saying the “fastest paraplegic runner with no legs” or “most capable clinically dead person.” Okay, so maybe those are some exaggerated examples, but there’s no denying the fact that it’s a very backhanded compliment of an “achievement” for NBA general managers to slap onto a guy.

The thing is, I know who Kevin Love is, because in spite of his apparent ability to maximize his limited natural abilities, he’s actually a pretty popular basketball player. Partially due to his propensity to hit some buzzer beaters from time to time and that he’s a pretty good rebounder, but mostly because the obvious fact that Kevin Love is white. He’s a white guy in the NBA, and has a pretty colorful personality to boot, as humorously evident in his candor in blurting out the very obvious as it pertains to his “win” as the guy to best utilize his limited natural abilities.

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Obligatory

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

If the Hokies go 0-8 for the rest of the year, it doesn’t matter to me.  I know to most other Tech fans, the game against Virginia is the biggest rivalry of the season, which I can understand because most of them are still living in Virginia.  But I live in Atlanta, and work in Georgia Tech territory, so to me, this is the most important game of the season.  I have to look at Georgia Tech and their flawed logo on a daily basis, and it’s nice to see them put in their place.

So it brings me great joy that Virginia Tech has once again toppled Georgia Tech, and in their house no less.  No matter what happens throughout the rest of the season, even if they go on to have a great season, they still have to live with the fact that they lost to my team.