The Yellow Card

Rec Soccer: The most intense Saturdays of my life.

As an 8 year old, your responsibilities in life are pretty small. Getting homework done, watching cartoons, and playing sports were three of the primary activities that consumed a lot of my childhood. In particular, I really loved playing soccer as a kid. From my ten years of playing, I have a lot of great memories. However, I don’t think there was a more innocent time in my life than my early days of playing.

Sports Rivalries: Stay Classy Everyone

Ravens Fan: God you suck. I’m gonna rip your head off douche. RAVENS 4 LYFE!
Steelers Fan: Hey, why don’t you kiss my ass, bitch. STEELER CURTAIN NATION!

I hate the Pittsburgh Steelers
I hate the New York Yankees
I hate the South Carolina Gamecocks

In case you haven’t guessed, I am a Ravens, Orioles, and Clemson Tigers fan. For those of you could tell just by looking at the above animosity, congratulations! You have entered the world of sports rivalries.

It’s a confusing way of thinking, no doubt about it. Just seeing certain colors (black and gold in my case), hearing certain cheers (U-S-C! Gooooo Cocks!), or just seeing an obnoxious fan in a jersey (pinstripes), can cause my blood to boil a bit. But in this ever increasing competitive climate of athletics, sports rivalries from a fan perspective have gotten completely out of control. And in particular, with the advent of social media, this nonsense has spread to more people than ever before.

For example, almost any time two rivalry teams play that my Facebook friends cheer for, I see numerous statuses and petty arguments that dissolve into pointless name calling and idiocy. Check out these little nuggets that I’ve seen over the past year.

Sports Media Scrutiny at an All Time High

With a face like this, who needs enemies?

(Repost from 2012)

It’s funny to me. After years of watching my beloved Baltimore Orioles flounder with failed prospects (Hayden Penn, Adam Loewen, etc…) and overpriced free agent signings (Kevin Gregg…), we are finally having a good year. More importantly, we are playing meaningful baseball, and it’s almost August. While yes I have been a little frustrated at our starting pitcher carousel and our offensive ineptitude, the fact remains; we are a winning baseball team. And I’m glad that when they do play poorly, I actually care. Every September, as we chug along toward another losing season, we seem to bring up players that have lurked in the depths of minor league baseball. At that point, you might as well wave the white flag because Chris Waters isn’t going to win you many ballgames.

But as I read any kind of Orioles article, it’s all negativity. The run differential is one of the worst in the majors. We shouldn’t trade anybody because we’re going to wind up under .500 anyway. Hell yesterday, I read someone actually advocating trading Matt Wieters, who has struggled at the plate lately but still remains the best defensive catcher in baseball. Can’t people, who are being paid to write about the thing they love, be a little more positive? I can think of two more examples just this week of overblown scrutiny.

Obscenely Early NFL Playoff Predictions: 6-6-6 Edition

Jay Cutler’s reaction upon reading this blog

Almost three weeks in to the NFL preseason, and the injuries are starting to mount for some teams and certain players. I wanted to get this post up before the preseason started to avoid injuries affecting my choices, but alas, I waited until now to get it going. I’ll give you my 4 division winners and 2 wildcard choices from each conference. Plus, just to have fun, I’ll give you an AFC and NFC champion and a Super Bowl.

For the record, I will abide by the 6-6-6 rule for the NFL playoffs. On average, 6 new teams will get to the playoffs that weren’t in last year, 6 will drop out, and 6 will stay in.

The Top Five Characters in Baseball Today

If there’s one thing about professional baseball that I truly enjoy, it’s the cast of characters involved. Really, anything from a crazy wind-up to a dashing mustache can create a character for a player.

In the game today however, there seems to be a distant lack of characters (I call it Vince Vaughn Syndrome). Gone are the days of the “The Big Hurt” Frank Thomas, “The Ironman” Cal Ripken, “The Big Unit” Randy Johnson, and Mike “Moose” Mussina. However, despite the quantity of characters diminishing, there are still some great individuals left. Here are the top 5 at this point in time:

Brian Roberts and Hope for the O’s

Easy with that pie, Adam.

Over the years, I’ve had the utter displeasure of watching my hometown Baltimore Orioles suffer losing season after losing season with nothing to show except a glimmer of hope that we won’t be as bad next year.

As every Opening Day rolls around, I still get that giddy feeling this could be a magical year. I may or may not have read, said, or thought any of the following things:

Awkward Hide and Seek with the Verizon FIOS Guy

Tonight, the NBA Finals commence and the epic struggle for league supremacy between King James and the Miami Heat and Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder comes to a head. I’ve been anxiously waiting for and watching almost every game of these NBA playoffs, and I have to say, my expectations have been met. A few injuries derailed some teams (Rose, Howard, Avery Bradley?), but I honestly feel that these two teams are the best from their respective conferences.

Unfortunately, I do not have cable for the majority of this week due to my FIOS installation being delayed until this Saturday after moving in this previous Saturday. Most likely, I will be cheering (probably for the Heat) at a local bar where hopefully I’m not ostracized for my choice.