Tag: sports

There are probably way better analogies for Tarik Skubal’s WBC participation

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

But the first one that comes to mind is when Amazon announced the first-ever Prime Day, they were boasting that it was going to basically be the Brack Friday of the summer, that there were going to be all sorts of incredible deals, massive savings, and that it was going to be the greatest shopping event of the year outside of the holidays.  But when Prime Day began, it became quickly apparent that it really was Amazon’s cleverly-named attempt to clean out their warehouses, because for every one marquee item they had that sold out in two seconds, there were at least a million listings for dumb bullshit like USB cables, electrical outlet covers, dish towels, and all sorts of small, inane crap that nobody really needed.

Anyway, that’s kind of what it feels like to find out that reigning AL Cy Young winner and vocal proponent of USA Baseball, Tarik Skubal revealed that he was only planning on making one start in the World Baseball Classic, and then returning to Spring Training.

Skubal was one of the first players announced for Team USA, and an easy guy to hitch the wagon to, as someone whose incredible arm could easily carry the squad deep into the tournament, and most importantly, potentially neutralize the potent lineups of Japan, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic.

Considering the United States has only won the tournament they basically invented in order to pad their global athletic standing once out of five times, it’s got to be like a sour grape for USA Baseball, and something they always want to wash the taste out of their mouths, by winning again, and closing that lead held by Japan, who has won 3 of 5, and a guy like Skubal committing is a giant boon, especially since he was shortly followed by NL Cy Young winner, Paul Skenes, creating an incredibly unfair-sounding 1-2 pitching duo in a short tournament format.

But now Skubal reveals that he’s only planning to make a single start, against Great Britain of all teams in the tournament; unsurprising, once such intel was absorbed by baseball fans, it quickly turned into snarky vitriol towards the talented lefty, with people accusing him of unpatriotically going into body protect mode, since it’s clear that he’s going to be seeking out a gabillion dollar contract after the 2026 season, as he’s set to become an unrestricted free agent for the first time.

Like, in one hand, I get the importance of protecting one’s self, especially considering the last WBC saw closer Edwin Diaz blow out his knee in 2022 and miss an entire season, and injury is always on the backs of the minds of nearly every participating major leaguer.

But in the other hand, if Skubal knew that he wasn’t going to commit more than a single fucking start for Team USA, I feel like it probably would’ve been best had he just not committed to the team in the first place.  Free up the spot to someone who really wanted to put their balls on the line for the country, and is willing to make three starts if needed, which should encapsulate a group, knockout and potential final in a best-case scenario.

In a way, joining the squad but then only committing to a single appearance, against possibly the worst team in the entire tournament is tantamount to being a part of a group project in school, doing the very first assignment, but then not doing anything at all for the remainder of the project.

Look, I know my analogy game is terribly off right now, but the point is, Skubal’s shenanigans is like a shitty rug pull that gave US baseball hope, but then took it all back.  If anything, if Skubal was only going to commit to a single game, it would be best served if it were saved to be against Japan or any of the other expected powerhouses of the tournament, and save appearances against scrubs like Great Britain, Brazil or Italy for guys like the retired Clayton Kershaw or Logan Webb.

Obviously, I’d love to see Team USA win another WBC, because I don’t think Korea is going to make the runs they did like they did in 2006 and 2009 ever again, but it’s times like this where the greed and body-protect logic of professional athletes gets really fucking old.  There’s a reason why Japan has won three of the five WBCs, and there’s very little reason to believe that they’re not going to be knocking on the door of a fourth one in coming weeks.

Let’s talk about selling out

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Too many sources to count: many people are big mad about US-born freestyle skier Eileen Gu choosing to represent China instead of the United States during the 2026 Milan Winter Olympics, and even more so upon finding out that she was paid around $6.6M from China to do so

There was probably a time in my life in which I would have looked at these circumstances, and immediately went Eileen Gu is a turncoat sellout, fuck her, and I hope she fails epically on everything she does!!!

But these days, that’s not even the first thought that comes to my mind when hearing about the saga of Eileen Gu.  I’ve had numerous conversations with friends over the years on the topic of ‘selling out,’ which is something that people love to frivolously fling around whenever they hear of anyone who decides to make money at the expense of exchanging some sort of commodity, be it talent, goods or some other thing that they have that others are willing to pay real money for.

Music bands, professional athletes, content creators of various forms; whenever anyone exchanges their commodities for large sums of money, people all over the internet tend to immediately go hostile and brand them as sellouts, and basically declare them pieces of shit that they immediately want to see fail and immediately not succeed for no other reason than that they’re getting a lot of money and those who react are not.

I should know, because I’ve definitely declared many groups and individuals sellouts in my lifetime because their success turned me into a jealous fatty who didn’t like that they were becoming rich and I remained an schmuck with a brog that nobody reads.

But my mindset has kind of changed throughout the years, and yeah, I can’t say that I’m really at all that keen when an entity might sell out, especially if it means the cease or possibility of reduction of the creation of content that I like, but at the same time I’ve developed a more pragmatic understanding that people are trying their best in order to survive in the world, and for lots of us, that requires money, a great deal of it, and the more that some people can amass, the greater quality of life that can be had, if utilized properly.

More importantly, I’ve been open about the notion that if I were ever to have some sort of talent, creation, service or some sort of commodity that people were willing to pay me egregious amounts of money for, I would probably do it in two fucking seconds.  I’d sell the absolute fuck out, if it meant that I could secure wealth and financial freedom for my family, even quicker if said wealth were generational, and I could ensure that my girls’ future families would be wealthy and comfortable.

I’d be more than willing to endure being called a sellout and have people rooting against my success, if it meant the aforementioned lifestyle could be attained, and frankly I don’t have to like it when those I favor sell out, because I’m sure that when the day is over, they probably feel similarly too.

So getting back to Eileen Gu, yeah, it doesn’t make me feel particularly positive that she’s repping China ahead of the United States, but in all fairness, her mom is Chinese; Eileen has every right to rep China, and it’s very much allowed in the rules of most international competition, that people are allowed to represent their parents’ and in some cases, grandparents’ heritages, and for some lower-tier class athletes, it’s the only way they can get into the Olympics in the first place.

Furthermore, she’s already won medals for the United States, two golds and a silver back in 2022, which by the way was in fucking Beijing, so the people of China had to see an American with a Chinese last name, dunking on them in their own homeland.  She owes America nothing, as far as I’m concerned, and aside from the $6M simoleons, she’s getting to rep her mother’s heritage, which nobody is at all entitled to criticize.

I get that China isn’t popular with Americans these days, and a lot of news that I’m reading these days love to cite the human rights violations and atrocities that are going on in that country, but all these American finger pointers also need to look at our own fucking country.  America isn’t much better, and we got ICE murdering civilians on the streets, and the Epstein Files are unearthing all sorts of major figures, including the guy voted to the highest office in the country and everyone who has the power to do something about it are are turning blind eyes left and right, so it’s not like America has any moral high ground over fucking China to where Eileen Gu should be getting any criticism in regards to representing the more righteous nation.

Of course, the money is a flag that many are proclaiming to be the devil in this arrangement, but the way I see it, whether or not it was the driving factor in Gu’s choice to go with China, girl knows her worth, and has found a way to monetize her talents in order to make actual, life-changing money.  Not all Olympians have to be in the trades and Home Depot employees in their day jobs, and if someone is willing to pay them big money, they have every right to accept it as long as it’s not illegal.

Honest question here, what kind of career does a skier even have, past the Olympics?  Coaching?  It’s not like there’s an MLB/NBA/NHL/NFL of skiing, and I don’t even know if participating in the X-Games even makes money.  Skiers might get some endorsements here and there, but by and large, I have to assume that once the Olympics are off the table, there’s not a whole lot of earning capabilities for a world-class skier, no disrespect to the sport.

That being said, I don’t blame or fault Eileen Gu at all for taking a massive payday and repping her mother’s birth country instead of her own.  She’s already done it for America before, and now she gets to do it for her mom’s country, and get paid handsomely for it.

And the best part is that people have shorter attention spans than ever before these days.  Once the Olympics are over, people will more likely than not, forget about the existence of Eileen Gu, and she can get back to enjoying out the rest of her life, six million dollars richer.

No judgment for taking the bag, even if it means a bunch of shithead Americans are salty over it.  They’ll get over it, if they even remember that this even happened, in two weeks.

Mina Kimes destroyed Dan Orlovsky like Sting vs. The Demon

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This would have been a little bit better had Drake Maye not shit the bed so badly, and the New England Patriots actually won the Super Bowl, but I don’t really want this to go unmentioned, because it was truly a masterclass in pwning a noob.

But prior to the actual Super Bowl, ESPN analyst Mina Kimes absolutely unleashed a massive pwning onto fellow analyst, former NFL quarterback Dan Orlovsky, on the subject of why Drake Maye received her MVP vote over Matthew Stafford.  I admit that I have a lot of reasons why I’m fond of Mina Kimes, from the Korean heritage, that she shares a name with one of my kids, is a pretty girl that likes and knows sports, the fact that mythical wife and I met her before she really broke through covering a League of Legends event, but biases aside, this was truly a demonstration of a person completely dominating another person in a debate.

It was like when the KiSS Demon had a 1v1 against Sting in WCW, one of my friends then whom was watching the event with us, was talking about how this was the night, this was when The Demon was going to break through, he was going to upset the legendary Sting, etc, etc.

They brawled for about a minute outside of the ring, but once they got into the ring, Sting dropped the Demon in like 43 seconds, after some quick Stinger Splashes and a Scorpion Death Drop.

Kimes vs. Orlovsky was kind of similar, but in reverse, where Kimes just buzzsaws the shit out of Orlovsky in about a minute first, and ol’ Dan sputtering and futilely swinging wildly, trying to salvage any sort of face at getting completely wrecked, but basically getting shut down repeatedly.  Honestly, he would’ve looked better and cooler had he just sat there silent after Kimes’ onslaught and just said that he had no rebuttal.

Honestly though, this doesn’t make the brog had it not been for Kimes’ absolutely brutal and personal approach.  People get owned on television and on the internet countless times every day, but seldom is it so surgical, so precise and so targeted as Kimes carved into Orlovsky.  And it was this specific line in which she started her vicious assault that I loved the most:

I’m a voter, and I voted for Drake Maye. And I’m right. And I’m going to explain to Dan Orlovsky why he’s wrong,”

It doesn’t even matter that she rattled off like 17 reasons that validate her claim.  It’s the fact that she anticipated all of Orlovsky’s or any detractor’s possible rebuttal points and preemptively shuts them down with tangible evidence and statistics and puts her opponent into a checkmate position before he can even make his own opening move. 

It’s like when I’m playing Aether Keeps in Fire Emblem Heroes, where the carefully curated enemy team from some player in Taiwan kills five out of seven units before I can even make a first move, but unlike Orlovsky, I just stare at the screen for a second and then just surrender the match without wasting anymore time.

Instead, Orlovsky tries his best to rebut anything, and even adds a little anecdote:

This is my biggest pushback to you, and this is where you lose it.

Except what he says next was something that Kimes had already anticipated, already got in front of it and shut it down, and had to remind him that she had done so, leaving Orlovsky to just sit there looking like he had shit his pants.  It’s very, very, very apparent that Mina Kimes knows what the fuck she’s talking about, especially when it comes to football, but regardless of just how bright she is, she’ll never not have the gender bias from her peers and most ESPN viewers that assume she’s wrong solely because she’s not just a woman, but isn’t a former player or team personnel.

But if those passive slights are what is fueling such surgical brutality from Mina Kimes to all her naysayers, I’ll be waiting with popcorn for the next time she murders someone on the stick.

Ain’t nobody ready, for Mina Kimes.

Suck it, Frogs

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Pasticceria Internazionale: Korea wins the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie, defeating France

A long time ago, my dad told me that if you train a Korean in something, they are more than capable of becoming the best in the world at it.  Okay, maybe it wasn’t in such phrasing, but he basically did tell me that Koreans are basically good at everything they put their minds and hearts into, and such a notion was proven correct as Koreans won the Baking World Cup in France, defeating not just the French, but also Taiwan, whom placed third and second behind them.

Honestly, it really isn’t that much of a surprise, considering the general nature of Koreans is that they’re very detail oriented and more than competent when it comes to intricate processes like machinery, or baking.  And as far as my experiences in America as well as Korea are concerned, if you see a bakery with a name that’s remotely French, there’s a very high chance that it’s being operated by Koreans.  They’ve taken to French Baking like a fish to water, and all you have to do is watch any episode of Culinary Class Wars to see just how many Koreans are adept at French cuisine in general.

With the win, Korea joins the United States and Japan as the only countries to now have multiple Baking World Cup wins, since the whole competition was started 24 years ago.  It’s funny how it was started obviously by the French, and they’ve basically already been outclassed by everyone else in an arena that they basically invented.  Then again, the United States has only won one World Baseball Classic, and Team USA basketball now requires Herculean performances in order to stop getting pwned by the rest of the world in hoops.

Koreans can’t seem to win at anything on their home soil, except for the occasional League of Legends Worlds, and if the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie were to be held in Seoul, they would undoubtedly not place.  But I can kind of get it, as far as competition goes, I’ve personally always felt more at ease when I’m the one on the road, and not feeling any sort of hometown pressure.

Regardless, I’m tickled to even learn that something like the Baking World Cup was even a thing, but I never want to any time Koreans flex their dominance against the rest of the world in any way, shape or form.  Of course Korea are the best bakers in the world, even better than the Frogs that invented the arena.  It’s like that SNL skit where fake Celine Dion keeps hijacking other singers’ songs and proclaiming to be better than them at their own songs, except Korea dominating France very much happened.

Xaivian Lee’s parents must be so disappointed

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

SI: Xaivian Lee’s late three-pointer secure’s Florida’s upset against #10 Vanderbilt

In other news, I learned of Xaivian Lee’s existence and upon a cursory fact check, yes he is Korean.  Which means that there is a Korean hooper out there outside of Korea, that is actively playing for a North American D-I program.

Color me surprised and fascinated.

Granted, according to his wiki, boy is from Toronto, and is about as white-washed as I am, especially based on the fact that his name is “Xaivian,” and based on his general physical appearance and the fact that he cleared 6’0, I’d really be curious to what his 23 and Me looks like, but for all intents and purposes, he’s of enough Korean descent for this post to manifest.

My knee-jerk reaction to seeing that he had transferred out of Princeton to go to UF was that his parents must have been apoplectic at the notion of him leaving an Ivy to go to an SEC school, but I saw that he was at Princeton for four years, which leads to the assumption that he had to have graduated, which is the absolute bare minimum of acceptance for Korean parents.  I’d guess that they let him chase his dream of moar hooping contingent of graduation from an Ivy League school although they probably would have preferred if he went to Harvard or Yale instead of Princeton.

Initially, I was ready to make all the bad jokes in the world about own disappointed his parents must’ve been that he went from Princeton to Florida.  But the more I read and learn about his general bio, the more my thoughts and opinions alter, since I’m kind of writing this off the cuff and learning while I write as opposed to doing my research in advance and coming up with a general basis before writing out.

Seeing as how ol’ Xaivian finished his time at Princeton, and his numbers scream out, nowhere close to good enough for the NBA much less should he even want to go considering the absolute racist gate he would be inevitable to slam into, he’s a perfect case for the college player to bilk as much eligibility and NIL money as humanly possible, and a move to UF was probably a great idea. 

And therein lies some of the effects of the NIL pendulum swung so hard to the opposite end of the spectrum, where fringe and no-chance-at-pro caliber players are clinging to dear life at college eligibility and are looking like a bunch of Van Wilders staying at school at 24+ years of age.  But for every Asian athlete that literally has no shot at North American pros, there are probably like 3-4 non-Asians who might be, but know they can still bilk more from NIL versus being a practice squad or development prospect at the pro level, and these guys can eat dicks and gtfo out of the NCAA.

I saw some shit recently about how there were like over 3,000 players currently in the transfer portal currently; that’s almost like 60-70 entire teams’ worth of players.  This is what’s making college sports so crazy right now, is that the entire collegiate level is jam packed full of all these kids bouncing around all over the place trying to sniff out as much NIL money as they can.  And among them are all these 23+ year old graduates enrolling in patsy graduate programs in order to keep playing college sports against other Van Wilders or literal teenagers.

But I’m straying off topic here, the point of this post was to acknowledge the existence of Xaivian Lee, an actual Korean hooper playing for a noteworthy NCAA program, and being good enough to be hitting game winning threes and getting a little bit of spotlight from North American sport media.  He may have already graduated from Princeton and is doing a little bit of Van Wilder-ing because he knows he has no shot at the NBA, but there’s no doubt in my mind that his parents are probably still disappointed in him, even if he is pulling in a million bucks in NIL.  They probably think he could’ve already been making four times that had he traded up to Harvard or Yale and become a doctor or lawyer instead.

Akron is probably the only honest school in the nation

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

ASM Sports: University of Akron ruled the only school ineligible for bowl participation due to poor academics

In unrelated news, the University of Akron is probably the only honest school in the nation.  Reporting completely honestly in regards to the academics of their student athletes, whom, unsurprisingly are probably as collectively intelligent as a nursery school, instead of boasting falsely inflated graduation rates, and the flagrantly high GPAs of all the guys they have playing sports who are there are probably majoring in African-American studies, sports management, physical education, or any other patsy program that is a red flag for a student ringer.

Seriously though, anyone who’s ever heard a college student athlete ringer speak can tell right away that they’re not attending their schools in order to get an education.  There have been numerous published stories and documentaries about how flagrant this whole issue is, it’s just that as long as college sports keeps raking in the money as it does, there is no end to the amount of cheeks that will be turned to ignore the truth.

Not sure who’s the captain of the ship at the University of Akron, but they seriously haven’t been paying attention at the NCAA money making game, and should probably feel pretty embarrassed being the only school in FBS that has this distinction.  Lord only knows how many other schools, from low-tier FCS programs all the way to the royals in the Power-4 are actually as equally academically inept as Akron was, but are being run by smart enough people to be able to work around that and lie through their teeth in order to remain bowl eligible, but mostly important eligible to keep making that bonus money that comes from participating in bowl games.

This is entirely one of those situations where Akron shouldn’t be ashamed of being the dumbest school in the nation because of their poor academics, they should be ashamed of being the dumbest school in the nation because they’re the only ones who got caught being dumb, since every single other FBS school is probably lying their faces blue in regards to their academics.  If every school reported their academics honestly, the entire NCAA would probably be like, Stanford, Army and Navy vying for every single championship, because every single other school in the country has more athletic ringers that are illiterate than they have people that can pass econ 101.

Either way, kind of good on Akron for just trying to be honest, but in a field as crooked as the NCAA, they’re only shooting themselves in the feet at hamstringing their earning potential by doing such.  I get wanting to have integrity and honor and all that jazz, but at some point it’s just fucking embarrassing being the only ones in the entire division that didn’t get the memo, especially in a state that has six other FBS schools that they could have copied their homework off of.

Wouldn’t be surprised if next year, Akron is miraculously bowl eligible again, and academics across the board somehow are suddenly genius level.

Must suck for all the career photographers out there

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Recently, I saw some content on the scroll of famed gymnast, Simone Biles, taking photographs on the sidelines of a Sunday Night Football game.  I didn’t really care to dig deeper beyond the surface of the post that I saw, but apparently she was quoted saying something along the lines of how it was a fun little side-gig for her.

Over the last few years, I’ve seen stories about how other retired professional athletes have gotten into photography as well; Ken Griffey, Jr. and Randy Johnson come to mind immediately.  And presumably because of who they are, they’ve been typically easily able to get onto the sidelines of countless major sporting events, and there have been quite a number of cheeky coincidences and posts about them doing photography at these things.

Like how Ken Griffey, Jr. doing photography at a home run derby, and how many participants and spectators have no idea that one of the greatest derby performers was on the field the whole time.  Randy Johnson has parlayed one of his most infamous moments in history into his personal logo, eliciting some chuckles among those, whom IYKYK.

In all fairness, the photography of all of these former athletes aren’t necessarily always bad, but at the same time, when retired professional athletes with basically unlimited money are capable of acquiring the best gear possible, with money not being an obstacle, they absolutely should be capable of producing high-quality photography, since their equipment would be capable of overcoming any of the numerous shortcomings they’d have as relatively novice photographers.

However, the thing is, going back to the title of this post, it must really suck for all the lifetime career photographers out there that don’t get the major gigs out there whenever a retired professional athlete with a side hobby, top-tier gear and connections solely because of their name gets them instead.  It’s really not fair when the Super Bowl rolls around, and photographers with decades of experience, who have been hustling their whole careers, and have been kicking and scratching for every connection and networking opportunity, gets pushed aside because Simone Biles or Randy Johnson are available, and it would be a fun story for their own social feeds to have these legends doing the photography for their event instead of people whom might really need the gig, its paycheck, and its potential to boost their own portfolios and perpetuate the cycle in a positive direction.

It’s classic rich getting richer, and those in control being too shortsighted to realize that their desperation for relevance and validation is really fucking people who really need the work and wages more than a bunch of bored rich retired professional athletes who think it’s a fun hobby to take pictures.  I smirk and take a modicum of enjoyment of seeing legends having fun in retirement, but it doesn’t take long for me to also realize that their retirement hobbies are also putting the screws to career working professionals out there, that need the work way more than they do, and that, really isn’t that cool.