Under the old two-team BCS format, the teams that lost the semifinal games — Alabama and Florida State — would likely have played each other in the championship game, while the two winners — Oregon and Ohio State — would likely have been voted out. Florida State, as the defending champs and only undefeated team, would have been in for sure, while Ohio State would have just as certainly been out. That leaves Alabama and Oregon. One would have had to be dropped and it probably would have been Oregon. Four teams is still not enough (see TCU’s 42-3 blowout of Mississippi State) to be able to say that none of the teams voted out was good enough to win it. Also: I am sick unto death of the goddamn Larry Culpepper commercials. Enough of that already. Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Sports
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of
People I Thought Were Dead
Al Kaline – baseball player, Detroit Tigers Wink Martindale – game show host Read more →
Mo’ne Davis: Female Athlete of the Year?
Little League World Series star Mo’ne Davis made a big impression on the sports landscape in 2014—enough to garner Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year honors. — Mo’ne Davis Named 2014 Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year | Bleacher Report I can’t decide if this is demeaning only to female athletes or to women in general. Reality check: Mo’ne Davis pitched two games for the Pennsylvania team in the 2014 Little League World Series — a 4-0 win and an 8-1 loss. Her team was knocked out in a semifinal game by the Nevada team, which went on to lose the final game to Illinois. Would the AP ever select a little league baseball player (or other 13-year-old boy) as Male Athlete of the Year? Would the AP ever select a Male Athlete of the Year who has not distinguished himself among his peers and has zero notable… Read more →
UC Berkeley Roller Hockey
Cal hasn’t fielded a roller hockey team since 2011 but the boys (and one girl), including our kid, got a team together this season, rejoined the Western Collegiate Roller Hockey League, and they’re playing their first tournament this weekend, with games against UC Santa Cruz, USC, UC Irvine and UC San Diego. No scholarships and you pay for your own unis and travel expenses. GO BEARS! Read more →
L’Affaire Winston
Florida State said Friday its athletic department compliance staff is reviewing the reported authenticated signatures by Jameis Winston, but has yet to find evidence that the star quarterback accepted payment for the autographs. ESPN reported Thursday that more than 2,000 authenticated signatures by Winston have been found on the James Spence Authentication website. — ESPN.com A couple of very surprising things about this: Jameis Winston can write his name. That may be a clue. Before I bought any signed Jameis Winston memorabilia, I’d insist on independent verification of his ability to write his name, lest someone be foisting some counterfeit goods on me. Caveat emptor. Florida State’s football coach — a grown man named Jimbo — believes (or claims to believe) that Winston signed 2,000 items without being paid for doing it. He signed 2,000 items for free. I wouldn’t sign 2,000 items for free, would you? How long would… Read more →
The Lowlight of My Weekend
I had lunch over the weekend with Robert Hass — Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, UC Berkeley professor and former Poet Laureate of the United States. When I say I had lunch with him, I mean he was one of five people seated at our table. I asked to take a photo with him, which he graciously consented to. I don’t have any photos of myself with Pulitzer Prize winners and still don’t because the photo didn’t come out at all. I completely botched it somehow. So that was probably the lowlight of my weekend, except for Cal getting blown out by Washington on the gridiron 31-7, while four Husky fans sat directly behind us screaming the whole game. Football at Cal unfortunately is like academics at Washington: not terribly distinguished. Read more →
Incan Gold
A couple of coworkers are playing a board game called Incan Gold. “What’s the objective of the game?” I ask. “To decimate an indigenous civilization and plunder its riches?” Evidently Incan Gold requires a lot of concentration because neither player answers my question. “Why is ‘Redskins’ a bad name for a football team but ‘Incan Gold’ is an acceptable name for a board game?” I ask. No response. “Is there a board game called ‘Aztec Genocide’?” No response. “How about ‘Mayan Massacre’?” Read more →
Are There Any Intelligent People Currently Living?
I was at LA Fitness this morning . . . one of the TVs was showing an interview with Jameis Winston on ESPN. Winston is borderline retarded but thinks he’s articulate — a deadly combination. He’s a very talented athlete. Just show clips of his athletic accomplishments. They’re impressive and fun to watch. Why would anyone want to talk to him or listen to him talk? The interviewer is paid to endure it, I get that, but why foist it on the viewing public? Maybe it’s the train wreck element. It was very painful to watch and yet I couldn’t look away! Rarely is one person gifted in multiple ways. Some people are great athletes, some people are intelligent and interesting . . . the overlap between the two groups is very small. Listening to Jameis Winston talk is like watching Milton Friedman take batting practice or Albert Einstein work… Read more →
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of: Dr. Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou received quite a few honorary doctoral degrees in her lifetime and elected for some reason to refer to herself as Dr. Maya Angelou, despite not having an earned doctoral degree and despite, to my knowledge, never attending college at all. Many famous people are given honorary doctorates by universities but thank god they don’t all go around referring to themselves as, say, Dr. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dr. Mike Tyson, Dr. Glenn Beck, etc., etc., etc. I’m also sick unto death of people who quote insipid thoughts from Maya Angelou as profundities, particularly if they refer to her as Dr. Maya Angelou when doing so. Read more →
You Could Be Someone Special
Thanks for pushing me and always preaching to me, “You could be someone special, if you really work at it.” I took that to heart, pops, and look at us today. — Frank Thomas, induction speech at the Baseball Hall of Fame Read more →
The Softball Waivers
Our company’s having an in-house softball game tonight, hosted at a field across the street at UC Irvine . . . That’s not our actual team in the picture, the difference being that the players in the picture look like they may have been athletes at one time. I’m not playing because I have a piano lesson tonight. (Actually, I wouldn’t have played anyway because I can no longer do things like run and see that used to serve me so well on the diamond all those years ago. But the piano lesson is a convenient excuse.) Everyone who is playing had to sign a waiver provided by UCI. Good move. Company softball games are rife with injuries. I picture a scenario like this: Dear UCI Parents, We regret that your students are not able to graduate on time, but as you know, we’ve had to cut back drastically on… Read more →
One Thing I Can’t Tolerate is Intolerance: Tony Dungy Edition
“What’s your beef with Tony Dungy?” “He said he wouldn’t draft Michael Sam. He’s not showing the requisite level of tolerance and inclusiveness toward people who are different than he is.” “Isn’t Dungy himself entitled to tolerance and inclusiveness?” “Oh, no. No. Absolutely not. Because he’s being different in a way that’s totally unacceptable.” “So you’re not against intolerance as a matter of principle, so long as the ‘right’ people and groups get ostracized.” “Right.” “I don’t remember anyone until fairly recently saying that having openly gay players in the NFL is a good idea. Now that we’ve reached a point in history where everyone in America has a breezy indifference to homosexuality . . . everyone knows people, works with people, has people in their family who are openly gay . . . every single TV show and movie has at least one gay character — NOW people like… Read more →
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of: Stuart Scott
I’m hearing on the radio this morning that Stuart Scott received something called the Jimmy V Perseverance Award at the ESPYs last night . . . Who knew you could get an award for having cancer? I am exhausted by sports people, media people, entertainment people, sports media entertainment people sucking each other’s dicks. Stuart Scott and people like Stuart Scott have killed my enjoyment of sports with their endless self-promotional bullshit while I’m trying to watch highlights. I hate sports and it’s all because of Stuart Scott. And now he gets an award for having cancer. Everyone unfortunately has family members and/or friends who get cancer and battle it to the best of their abilities without receiving a goddamn award. It’s insulting to all of those people to give someone an award for having cancer and it’s doubly insulting to accept an award for having cancer. I have come… Read more →
People Who Don’t Want Me to Know Things
What I want to know is why there are so many people who don’t want me to know things . . . What the 1% Don’t Want Us to Know Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You to Know About 20 Terrifying Facts Food Companies Don’t Want You to Know 11 things the Koch brothers don’t want you to know What hospitals don’t want you to know about C-sections 5 Things Hackers Don’t Want You to Know The Sad Secret Successful People Don’t Want You To Know 7 Rip-Offs Corporations and the Wealthy Don’t Want You to Know About Something Most Christians Don’t Want You to Know 11 Secrets Supermarkets Don’t Want You to Know Conspiracies: Five things they don’t want you to know The 25 Shadiest Things Drug Companies Don’t Want You To Know 11 Secrets Pilots Don’t Want You To Know Bottled Water: 10 Shockers “They” Don’t Want You… Read more →
Futility
We saw BODIES: The Exhibition at the Luxor in Las Vegas. You’ve probably heard about this . . . dissected bodies are preserved and displayed for educational purposes. Most of the bodies are displayed in athletic poses with props: baseball, basketball, tennis racket, etc. One of the bodies is aiming a dart with his right hand while holding a second dart in his left hand. Of course he’s never going to need that second dart because he’s never going to throw the first dart. Because he’s dead. It creates a sad effect in my opinion . . . plans, unbeknownst to the planner, that will never come to fruition. Futility doesn’t always end with death. Meanwhile . . . I overheard a young woman telling her girlfriend that one of the cadavers had “a nice butt.” Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse. Read more →
Infographic of Soccer Players, Fish and Gunshot Victims
Infographic idea: A multivariate analysis of who spends more time flopping around: soccer players, fish on a boat deck or people who’ve just been shot. Read more →
Random Thoughts on Paying College Athletes
Where is the money going to come from? Most people seem to think that college athletic programs are big money makers. They aren’t. Despite the big revenue dollars associated with two sports — football and men’s basketball — 90 percent of Division I athletic programs, because of the much larger number of non-revenue sports, operate at a loss. They’re subsidized by the general fund of the university. Paying athletes would require additional dollars to be directed away from academic endeavors: hiring and paying professors, funding research, offering financial aid to non-athletes, etc. Title IX requires gender equity. You couldn’t just pay football players and men’s basketball players. Everyone would need to be paid equally in some sense, even in non-revenue sports. How much money are we talking about? Let’s say at a medium to large school, we have 500 to 1,000 student athletes and we’re going to pay… Read more →
See You in Hell, Carl Douglas
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] “It put a smile on my face that finally [Donald Sterling] would be unable to deny the racist allegations against him,” said Carl Douglas, a lawyer who represented former Clippers general manager Elgin Baylor in a lawsuit against Sterling. — FOX Sports Carl Douglas is best known as a member of the O.J. Simpson defense team. O.J. Simpson has done some regrettable things, like murdering a couple of white people, but at least he’s never made negative remarks about Magic Johnson photos on Instagram. See you in Hell . . . P.S. Carl Douglas the lawyer should not be confused with Carl Douglas the “Kung Fu Fighting” singer. Him, I like. Read more →
See You in Hell
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] Congratulations, Americans! Your lives have become so trivialized that you think the most important issue facing your country is how many Magic Johnson photos get posted to Instagram. See you in Hell . . . Read more →