Tag: sports

*Including rape, murder and infidelity

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This Tiger Woods ad cracks me up.  It embodies one of the biggest fallacies in sport, acknowledges Tiger’s own scandalous and debaucherous history that people did not approve of, and then flicks it off, takes a steaming pile of shit on top of them, and says “yeah, fuck you.”

As much as Nike wants you to believe it, winning does not take care of everything.  Just because Tiger Woods is good at hitting a small white ball great distances with a metal stick, and getting it to roll into a tiny hole with minimal swings does not take care of the fact that he’s a sex-addicted narcissist who ruined lives and his own marriage to indulge his sloth.  The same applies to Kobe Bryant, and that just because he scored 81 points and won another NBA championship does not rectify having raped a woman in Colorado.  The same applies to Ray Lewis, and that winning two Super Bowls does not absolve him of having stabbing a guy to death.

No, winning does not take care of all these things.  All it does is give the blatantly corrupt media machine something nice to say about an athlete to hide the fact that beneath their unsubstantial and unimportant sport-related achievements, they’re still worthless as human beings.

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snOwned

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The United States’ soccer victory over Costa Rica is the equivalent of the dastardly heel professional wrestler who just snuck a cheap shot in against their opponent without the referee noticing, and pointing to their head to emphasize their use of brains to get the upper hand.  Long story short, a World Cup qualifier between the US and Costa Rica was played in Colorado, a state that is known to get snow fairly regularly until about late-April.  Needless to say, it snowed pretty heavily during their match, but the game went on, and the Americans eventually ended up winning 1-0.

The Costa Ricans are crying foul over unfair playing conditions, to which frankly I don’t think they have any ground to complain.  An objection should have been made well in advance, once it was decided that Colorado in the month of March was going to be the site of such an important game.  It’s as well known that Colorado is a cold place in March as well as its known that Costa Rica is vastly tropical; the fact that snow could have been a threat and actually happened should not have been any surprise, and could have been addressed well in advance.

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Photos: The Spartan Race

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This year, I ran in my first-ever Spartan Race.  Zombie runs are tiresome and the chasing nature of them leads to take away from the physical challenge of obstacles, since it caused people like me to blow up before any obstacles.  And after the debacle of the Georgia Run For Your Lives event, I was actually a little eager to redeem myself from such an abysmal time, even if my group and I were screwing around the entire time, due to the fact that it was an uncontrollable mud pit.

As a whole, I really liked the Spartan Race.  Not being chased by overzealous fake zombies led me to concentrate on the task at hand, and manage my endurance to traverse four miles as well as numerous physical obstacles.  I realize what my strengths and weaknesses are in general; when it comes to running, I’m pretty comfortable and right at home, but when it comes to sheer upper-body strength, despite how much I workout, I’m absolutely terrible with stuff like monkey bars and having the sheer strength to lift myself over an eight-foot wall.

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The importance of storming the court

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

So while I watching the latest upset of Duke the other night, as the seconds and minutes ticked down, and Duke hadn’t made a barrage of three pointers and Mason Plumlee dunks to cut the gap and overtake the lead, all I could think of was if UVA was going to storm the court when they won. Considering the fact that NC State, Miami and Maryland had all stormed court after beating Duke, and that UVA hadn’t beaten Duke in like forever, so the answer was pretty obvious. Naturally when the final horn sounded, UVA stormed the court as everyone and their mother relished at the sight of Coach K and Duke walking off the court in failure and disappointment.

Seldom is there a Duke loss on the road that doesn’t involve the home fans storming the court. According to the WSJ, an astounding 80% of the home team fans have stormed the court following an upset over Duke over the span of the last ten years. In fact, the article is a little dated and doesn’t factor in the wins of Miami, Maryland and Virginia into the equation so it’s now a little bit more. Obviously, my favorite one is the one shown above, but it really doesn’t matter who it is in the end; everyone on the planet that did not go to Duke loves to see Duke’s men’s basketball team lose on the road and seeing their opponents’ fans storming the court in celebration. I’m pretty sure people would be okay if Duke lost to the Soviets in 1972 and Soviet fans stormed the court, to be perfectly honest.

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Imagine eSports playing sports games

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Yeah, I know I take a lot of time and use a lot of words to criticize professional gaming, but really it is very silly to me, and I have a hard time grasping that it’s become so big.  It’s watching people, playing video games; sure it takes talent, but I could watch people playing video games in lots of places.  And based on the frequency in which I see ads for “whatever regional world championship tournament” when I’m playing LoL, it’s hard to imagine that any one particular title has any meaning.

But the funniest thing for me is when I see pictures of the tournaments, and they’ve got these pretty grandiose graphic treatments, and they try to present the matches as if they were like an actual sport.  Out of all of the live graphics that they use, none of them stands out more to me than when a LoL tournament goes to the effort to present a startling lineup card, much like it would be in an NBA or an NCAA game, since it’s five starters.

And then it got me thinking about how LoL positions would compare to basketball positions.  I would use the analogies as such:

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Why can’t NBA players make free throws?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I watched an NBA game while I was eating lunch the other day, because for whatever reason, Moloch Day seemed like an appropriate time to have afternoon specials of NBA basketball. Either way, it was the fourth quarter of a fairly close game between the Pacers and the Grizzlies, where anywhere every single field goal seemed essential. That being said, there was about a four minute stretch where neither team scored.

It had nothing to do with guys getting any bad luck with open shots, or layups rimming out unluckily, it was just a bunch of overpaid primadonnas throwing up brick after brick, with teammates open, while being defended, or opting for ill-advised fadeaways. But the best part about this four minute stretch was that during this time, five free throws were attempted between the two team with the Pacers shooting two, and the Grizzlies shooting two, and one technical shot being taken by the Pacers. All five of the free throws were misses, including the completely uncontested technical.

This seemingly endless slope of degrading free throw shooting throughout the course of the NBA never fails to baffle me how something so easy is so difficult to do, for the supposed greatest basketball players on the planet. I mean, free throws are completely uncontested shots; no defender trying to bump you, reaching up to block the ball, or even put a hand in your face. It’s just the player, 15 feet away from the hoop, with ten seconds to concentrate and shoot a completely unopposed shot; the fact that it’s called a free throw indicates to just how easy it really should be.

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Man, What A Stupid Commercial #003

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ll be honest; the message in this commercial is a good one, and I will agree that the world could use some more positive messages. But the scenario used in the commercial couldn’t be any more further from any fathomable truth that could potentially happen in this little place we all live in, called the real fucking world. And for that reason, this commercial definitely warrants the designation as certainly being a stupid commercial.

It’s the championship game, and tensions are high. The protagonist, Alex’s team is down in the waning seconds, but a late score closes the gap to one. On the ensuing play, Alex’s team employs the full court press, and they successfully harass an opposing player into flinging a haphazard pass, which is supposedly touched by the guy that Alex was guarding. The referee awards the ball to Alex’s team, and his teammates and the crowd are going nuts because now they have a chance to win the game. Alex’s team calls timeout, so they can put together a play to try and win the game. And this is where the unbelievable fiction comes into play.

Alex becomes overwhelmed by his conscience, and he admits to having being the one who correctly tipped the ball out of bounds, and that the ref had made a mistake, clearly. As he fesses up to his teammates, his teammates give him the WTF treatment, and essentially tell him to shut the fuck up. The coach caves into Alex’s moral dilemma, and tells his team to prepare to play defense, and for Alex to go correct the ref. As the team disperses, the teammates all incredulously mock thank Alex for throwing the game, making Alex rightfully feel like a shithead. The coach, repressing his own feelings off being a dickface, shows pity on Alex and tells him that he did the right thing, making Alex feeling all warm and fuzzy, but still a shithead.

“Sportsmanship”. Yeah, my ass.

Here’s what would happen in the real world.

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