Who needs tickets?

In case you didn’t realize it, the New York Knicks are bad. Like “9 week old milk in your fridge” bad. Last night was the pinnacle of it all with a 104-59 loss to the Celtics who were actually trying to take it easy on them in the second half. The Celtics benched Garnett midway through the third quarter and then sat Ray Allen and Paul Pierce for the fourth. Boston could have easily won this game by 50 or more, but deliberately did their best to make it less embarrassing. Still, Isiah and those Knicks can find a way to make themselves look foolish in ways that nobody else can. They’re putting in less effort than a possum hanging from a tree, so be thankful Knicks fans because it could have been a lot worse!

J.D. Drew should retire this year. In five years from now with his stats, he might have a shot at the Hall of Fame. It sounds crazy, and believe me, I’m totally joking. But in all seriousness, they will pretty much just allow anyone to be up for voting in this league. Let’s recap some of the new nominations on the HOF ballot…

Brady Anderson - 

One of my idols. His steroid-induced year of 50 homeruns was at the pinnacle of my baseball loving days, while living in Maryland. That summer I watched almost every O’s game either at Camden or on TV and remember two great instances. Him hitting the first pitch of the game for a homerun, and swinging at a 3-0 fastball with the bases loaded and crushing it over the right field wall.

 Granted, I don’t think he actually took steroids that year. His size didn’t change at all, but his swing did. He still managed 21 stolen bases that year, and an injury in the off-season dwindled his numbers for years to come. I was also a big fan of Beverly Hills 90210 (ok, so I had terrible TV taste as a child, I get it. I also watched the Wonder Years though, so I got that goin for me) back then, whom Brady drew many comparisons to cast members. He also ended up marrying a Bulgarian Playboy model (although most people thought he played for the other team). Gotta respect that I guess…

 So which of these guys will get in. Obviously none. Although with todays voters, character, and lack of steroid intake, has more to do with the game than actual statistics (see: McGwire). I think Shaun Dunston and Rob Nenn may also be up for the HOF, but honestly, I didn’t feel like wasting any more of the day to cover those two.

 Tim Raines -

Probably one of the better players in the history of the Expos, Raines ability to steal bases early in his career is what rose him to stardom. His terrific ability in the field both at second base and left field were also reasons he was voted to seven all-star games. Of course, in our eyes he’s remembered more for his twilight years on the White Sox and Yankees when he slowed down considerably and was known purely as a journeyman.

Another interesting statistic of Raines is that when signed by the White Sox in ‘91 he was given the fifth biggest salary in baseball at the time after not making an all-star team for three straight years and being 30 years old. Gotta love those Sox.

 Chuck Knoblauch -

  Won the ‘91 Rookie of the Year Award over such greats as Phil Plantier, Leo Gomez, and Brent Mayne (and oh yeah, Ivan Rodriguez). He was known as a decent second basemen/utility player and for having quick feet on the basepaths. His ‘97 season won him his only gold glove and he was voted to four all-star games.

  Probably best known for his three World Series titles with the Yankees from ‘98-’00, when he ended up batting .335 throughout those pivotal games. And for some reason I always thought of him as Mini-Steve Sax, although I’m not quite sure why.

Chuck, you hit my new Hyundai. That’ll be eight bucks.

 In our eyes though he’s most famous for his throwing troubles in the year 2000 and beyond. During this time, for some reason or another, he just couldn’t make the throw from second base to first base. Once he even overthrew the first basement by twenty feet into the stands and hit Keith Olberman’s mother in the head (some say he did this on purpose because Olberman had quit ESPN and Knoblauch really disliked his replacement Bob Ley).

 David Justice -

 Rookie of the year in ‘90, three time all-star, and two time World Series winner. How does this equate to a Hall of Famer? I have no freaking clue. The guy had 300 homeruns and a .275 career average. He was a decent player on one of the best teams of the decade. I used to use his ‘93 Fleer baseball card as a substitute for toilet paper during my younger years.

 Most people harp on his marriage to superstar Halle Berry, but I’m more impressed with current marriage to Rebecca Villalobos. He also tried to get into acting, but was horrendous and almost ruined The Young and the Restless for me (it was an odd time of my life).

I demand JUSTICE!!! (couldnt find a pic of Rebecca Villalobos, sorry)

The Samurai and Konichiwa are back with their weekly haikus! While you foolish Americans were busy stuffing yourselves with turkey and yams, we were meditating on the meaning of life and were revealed secret truths about this week’s NFL games (Buddha is a BIG fan of the Chiefs. I know, random!). Please, use any predictions we make in these haikus for your personal gain, just cut us a little off the top.

Miami v. N.Y. Jets

Dolphins get first win

Ricky gets one hundred yards

From: Cam, To: Santa

Seattle v. Philadelphia

Feely looked okay

But know what A.J. stands for?

Ain’t no Jaworski

Cincinnati v. Pittsburgh

No longer Pittsburgh

The Steelers’ dirty new name

The Pigpen Steelers

Jacksonville v. Indianapolis

Garrard verse Peyton

Just doesn’t seem fair at all

Jags: Lock of the week!

Cleveland v. Arizona

Browns kicker is clutch

Rackers couldn’t kick a cold

I could beat up both

N.Y. Giants v. Chicago

Chicago’s offense

Is now just their special teams

I hope Rex can block

Green Bay v. Dallas

The game of the year

I’ll watch Grey’s Anatomy

NFL Network?!?

Minnesota v. Detroit

Kitna is Jesus

Peterson’s Purple Jesus

And I am confused

Tampa Bay v. New Orleans

Bucs are lookin’ tough

But I love Mardi Gras, so

Saints upset of week

New England v. Baltimore

Pats won a close one

So the line on this week’s game

Is only twenty

San Diego v. Kansas City

It is not Norv’s fault

That Rivers can’t throw the ball

And Shawne’s off the ‘roids

Last year’s team pic (top) and this year’s team pic (bottom)

Sean Taylor died tragically this morning and for us here at TOA, it feels more shocking and painful than all the others. Up until yesterday, his story was one of the good ones. He had gone from a trouble maker to a leader, a child to a man, and it was largely because of his newborn daughter. In a world that always seems to be looking for the negative story to reinforce our already pessimistic view, here was Sean Taylor - a good story - and that’s why the ending of it hurts so much. Our condolences are with the Taylor family and everyone that knew him well.

There’s nothing quite like Thanksgiving weekend.  Turkey, stuffing, yams, drunken relatives, and football.   If you’re a typical American like us, then you came limping into the office this morning because you tried to re-live your glory days on the gridiron over the weekend, only to be tackled repeatedly by a younger, more agile family member.  Still,  your performance was comparable to other, more esteemed athletes from this past week.  You were gunning the ball like Eli Manning, clutch like Gus Frerotte, as dominant as the Patriots against the Eagles, and you remain as undefeated as University of Kansas.  Hey, at least we have plenty of solid sports for you to watch this week.
Boston Celtics versus New York Knicks (Thursday, 8 p.m. EST)

Two franchises with dissatisfied fans.  The Knicks are in complete disarray with no hope for the future.  The Celtics haven’t won a championship 12 games into the season and that just won’t cut it in Boston anymore.  Sidenote: Starbury is threatening to go to the press with dirt on Isiah if he doesn’t play at least 52 minutes in this 48 minute game.

Division Championship Week in College Football (Saturday)

Missouri versus Oklahoma.  LSU versus Tennessee.  Virginia Tech versus Boston College.  West Virginia versus Pitt (not a championship, but still important). Coming off of “Rivalry Week”, these teams face a far more powerful enemy now - the BCS.  Good luck gentlemen, and may the possibly best but probably not teams earn that bid!

Green Bay Packers versus Dallas Cowboys (Thursday, 8:15 p.m. EST)

The matchup everyone has been waiting for.  Two great quarterbacks with similar styles of play - one that’s been to the Super Bowl and one that aspires to someday get there.  The wily old veteran against the up-and-coming kid.  If the starters get hurt, we could finally see these guys go head-to-head - Brad Johnson and Aaron Rodgers. Think about it.

Missouri versus Arkansas (Wednesday, 8:05 p.m. EST)

What a matchup this would be!…..if it were football.  Unfortunately, it’s basketball and neither of these teams are all that good this year. But hey, it’s Wednesday and there’s not much else on.

Shrek the Halls (Tuesday, 8 p.m. EST)

The first Christmas special of the year features the big green ogre that hasn’t been funny since the first installment over four years ago.  Just missing the cut was “Saved by the Jingle Bell”, “Prancing with the Stars”, and “The Miss-tletoe America Pageant”.

Tony Romo, star quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, is obviously one hell of a football player. The guy has a precision arm, mobile legs, and unique improvisational skills. He also happens to date Jessica Simpson so is there any knock on this guy? Sure, he’s had a few games with bad decisions that have led to multiple turnovers, but so have all the other football greats.

Basically, the one thing he’s done wrong in his career is botch the snap of a field goal. It just so happens that this field goal was during the final minutes of a playoff game with the Seahawks last year. Granted, that’s been his only playoff experience, where there is sure to be more, but it still bears the question…Is Tony Romo not clutch? Does he remind you of another star athlete?

Alex Rodriguez has never delivered in the playoffs.

Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees epitamizes everything good about baseball right now. He’s not dipped into the steroid controversy, he is the reigning MVP, and he plays for the biggest market in the history of sports. But when it comes down to October, he just can’t seem to make that leap into stardom. He refuses to wait for pitches leading to constant 0-2 and 1-2 counts which force him into a hole. With runners on base his only instinct seems to be to hit the ball out of the park, which has led to a .158 batting average in the playoffs for his career.

Now it is still way to early to tell if Romo will have the same troubles come December as A-Rod typically has, but if last year was any indication, he could be headed down the same slippery slope.

The BCS is about to be a disaster. Kansas is going to beat Missouri, then lose to Oklahoma. LSU isn’t guaranteed to win out, so they might drop off again as well. Basically, there are about 6 to 8 teams this year that are all kind of even, which means that a single game simply cannot clearly define who is the college football champion this year. Now we all want to see a tournament played, but we also all know that this is never going to happen. So I’m here today to offer you some alternative methods to define which team is college football’s best.

1. The Globe Spin - Spin a globe around and then quickly stick a pin in a random spot. Whichever university is closest to the pin is your winner. Sadly, this is still more logical than the BCS system. (Sidenote: I just tried it and the winner was University of Baghdad.)

2. Who’s Now? - Since ESPN has decided to control the sports world, how about we just let them decide the winners too? That’s right, a “Who’s Now?” of college football!!!! Stuart Scott is so excited for this, his eyes are poppin’ out of his head! And don’t forget the celebrity picks. I can’t wait to see who Mark Wahlberg and Jessica Biel believe is the nation’s top team!

3. College Football Idol - College football should be about more than just football - it should be about which team has the chance to be the next American idol!!! You’re sure to laugh when LSU defensive tackle Glenn Dorsey tries to sing a Coldplay song and Simon just rips him apart, but Dorsey decides to pancake him afterwards. Oh, and Paula Abdul will be thrilled to party with the college football teams….

Paula Abdul (above) parties with the mascot for the NC State Wolfpack

4. Mascot Royal Rumble - You thought that fight between the Washington State Cougar and Oregon Duck was cool? Just wait until there’s 128 mascots in a wrestling ring fighting to the death. My money is on Otto the Orange! Go ‘Cuse!

5. The International Orange Tostitos Fiesta Bowl with Sugar on top - That’s right, we are combining 4 bowls into one MEGA BOWL! Eight teams playing each other at once to decide the #1 ranked team. I have no idea how this would work, but man would that be fun to watch!

6. EA Sports College Football ‘08 - The coaches of the top two teams play each other in this video game, but they play as the other team. And put the settings at snow game, no injuries or penalties. This will truly decide who is the better coach.

Before we begin our haikus, we would like to take a moment to reveal to you that D.Rob and his ridiculous alias (Samurai) have not been writing all these poems by himself.  He has had help from Pettey, who has come up with his own stupid nickname - “Konichiwa”.  In reality, the two of them should be referred to as “Milli” and “Vanilli”, but unfortunately we couldn’t get the hairstyle right.  We apologize for this inconvenience and hope that you enjoy your weekly haikus.
(On a sidenote, I would like to say that last week, the great Samurai made 2 picks in his haikus - the lock of the week and the upset of the week.  The lock was the Steelers and the upset was the Chargers.  For those scoring at home, that’s 2 for 2.  Maybe you guys should pay closer attention to me.)

Pittsburgh v. N.Y. Jets

Big Ben runs wild!

Its just as dangerous as

When he drives wild!

Oakland v. Minnesota
Peterson is out

I guess if he is Jesus

Chester is Judas?

Chicago v. Seattle
Rex in, Griese out

What does this mean for the Bears?

Pretty much nothing

St. Louis v. San Francisco
Bye weeks are all done

Maybe thats not a good thing

Who wants to watch this?

Tampa v. Atlanta

No talent on Bucs

But talent is in the stands

Garcia’s wife’s hot!

Buffalo v. New England

Buffalo is tough

Especially when its cold

As Belichick’s heart

Arizona v. Cincinatti

U.S.C. QB’s

Back on the same field again

Now get paid legit

Carolina v. Green Bay

Someone should warn Favre

That I’m picking the Panthers

And I’m never wrong

N.Y. Giants v. Detroit

In last week’s matchup

Roy Williams dropped 5 catches

Don’t quit your day job

Washington v. Dallas

Best rivalry in sports?

Well certainly not this year

Cowboys lock of week

Cleveland v. Baltimore

Baltimore stole Browns

New Browns stole Jamaal Lewis

Let’s call it even

I was on a mission this morning to find out if the NBA season was underway yet or not. I had to do a great deal of digging, hours at the library, flipping through some files, researching on the world wide web. It’s not obvious that the NBA season started, but it did - like 2 weeks ago. It was especially tough to figure out because no giant brawls have happened yet to fill the media’s time. But there were a few things that helped me figure out that the NBA was already a few games into the regular season….
10. The players are putting in about 10% more effort than they were in preseason. It’s not an easy thing to decipher, but if you look real closely, you will occasionally see someone diving for a loose ball or taking a charge. That stuff would never happen in the preseason.

9. All the hype around the NBA has stopped. The most interesting part of the NBA season is the off-season. Ironically, we know that the NBA must have started because no one is talking about it anymore.

8. The Houston Rockets are being hyped as contenders. There is no way anyone would consider this ridiculous notion unless the Rockets had won a few games to start the year and the media was jumping the gun. Houston now has 6 wins and 1 loss. CHAMPIONSHIP!

7. I keep hearing these really annoying voices. Oh that’s right, it’s Bill Walton and Stephen A. Smith.

6. They stopped showing really bad NHL regular season highlights on Sportscenter and replaced them with really bad NBA regular season highlights.

5. The Eastern Conference is already terrible again. Three of the top six contenders in the East - Washington, Miami, and Chicago - are a combined 3-15.

4. I’m in last place in my rotisserie fantasy basketball league. What do you expect after missing the first two weeks of the season? I should probably take Greg Oden and Adam Morrison out of my starting lineup now. Oh, and I’m gonna drop Allan Houston and Reggie Miller…

3. People are trying to give me 76ers tickets for free. I live in Philly and yesterday, the bag boy at my grocery store asked me if I wanted paper, plastic, or upper bowl seats to a Sixers game. I went with plastic. (caption for the photo below: Four lucky fans were selected to play for the Philadelphia 76ers this year)

2. My daily dose of “Everybody Loves Raymond” is being reduced. I usually try to catch the 6:00 and 6:30 showing on Fox followed by the 7:00 episode on TNT, but lately there’s been a lot more Charles Barkley and a lot less Ray Romano.

1. Gilbert Arenas says the season started on his blog. If Gilbert says it happened, then it must be true.

One of the most exciting plays in all of sports is the punt/kick return in football. From Pop Warner to the NFL, this play will always be smash mouth and can have a critical influence on not only the score but the momentum of the game. And even though it’s not extremely common to see a kick returned for a touchdown, there is always a legitimate chance of the runner ‘taking it to the house’ as they say (unless of course you play for the Arizona Cardinals, who in the history of their franchise have never returned a kickoff for a touchdown).

Last nights matchup between the Colts and Chargers substantially proved this theory. Darren “Hobbit” Sproles returned both a punt and kickoff for six points, by far the defining point for the Chargers victory. By looking back on these specific returns, however, there is something else going on entirely in special teams play that should no longer be ignored. Kickers are terrible at tackling. It’s not even that they’re bad, they are actually worthless. Usually their tackling style consists of biting on a fake from the returner when he’s fifteen yards away which throws the kickers entire body to one side. Then he will reach both hands the other direction in the hopes that his fingertips glancing the upper leg of the returner will somehow bring him down. This rarely works.

The problem with this strategy is that the kicker is most likely going to be the last line of defense for the special teams, and the only thing preventing six points from being flashed on the scoreboard. You don’t HAVE to tackle the guy, just slow the runner up so your buddies that are racing behind him have a chance to catch up and make a play. But noooooo, this manages to be way too hard a task for a professional athlete. Thus, I have some advice to you soccer players that may assist in bringing down the fastest playmakers in all of sports.

1) Just bring the guy down - It doesn’t matter how you have to do it, just don’t let him score. Who cares if you’re assessed a 15 yard penalty as long as he doesn’t get to simply jog into the endzone. Here are some illegal ideas…

        - Throw your helmet at his ankles.

        - Lay across the ground acting as a human speed bump in the hopes that he doesn’t see you.

        - Kick him (you are a kicker for godsakes, use your strengths as an asset).

        - Clothesline him (see video).

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYJddST2Qbg[/youtube]

 2) Slow him up - If the returner has to make any kind of juke/spin/jump/stiff-arm, his overall speed will be diminished and he will have to begin accelerating again. This will give ample time for your buddies to catch up. Some thoughts…

         - Scare him by throwing your arms in the air and yelling something along the lines of “boogie boogie”. He probably won’t be scared since you are only 5′6 and 120 pounds, but he’ll certainly be confused.

         - Douse yourself in gasoline, light yourself on fire, and run around screaming. This actually may backfire since the returner will most likely run away from you even faster due to the whole fire thing. But at least you will be proving to your teammates that you’re hardcore and willing to do anything to win.

         - Find out the specific interests/hobby’s of each kick returner and bring said interest out on the field with you. When he breaks free start playing and hope he takes his eye off the prize for a split second to check out what you’re doing. I know if I was on the way to the endzone and saw the kicker playing Mouse Trap I would definitely slow down to see if he set the game up correctly (which he probably didnt, since most people don’t have the attention span to truly understand the concept of setting up the trap the right way).

3) In all honesty, just learn how to tackle properly. It won’t be easy taking down a shifty, fast professional athlete while he’s running full speed, but it is still possible. Stand your ground and don’t bite on the first move, then throw your shoulder into the lower part of his body in an attempt to trip him up. And when all is said and done, just try to not look like an idiot. The chances are that the runner will get by you, just make some sort of solid attempt so the other guys on the team won’t make fun of you behind your back in the locker room (which they will probably do anyway, since you know, you are a kicker).