Sprots! [NOT 11/3/23]

10/3/23 blue dogcollar 42
Children playing badminton
Detail from "Always Happy" / Brett Lithographing Co. / ca. 1882 / source: https://www.loc.gov/item/2013646737

Let’s Talk Balls and Points and Pucks and Stuff

Here at the Deadsplinter the Splinter side of things gets plenty of coverage, but not so much the Dead side. So to make up for that, let’s talk sprots!

Bowling Alley # 191 / ca. 1894 / source: https://www.loc.gov/item/2003656415

Got anything you’re following right now? Pitchers and catchers have reported, but let’s be honest, spring training games are pretty boring. The NFL is quiet until the draft. But the NBA and NHL regular seasons are wrapping up before the playoffs begin. And the draw for the NCAA basketball tournament is Sunday.

Cricket / Harris and Ewing, photographers / ca. 1920 / source:https://www.loc.gov/item/2016890733

What’s more, there are a ton of other sports big and small going on. Who are you cheering for?

Tennis is in a bit of lull right now until the French Open, but there are still smaller tournaments going on. Soccer is in full swing, as Arsenal has a five point lead over Manchester City in the Premier League and nobody else apparently in position to catch them. Meanwhile anyone in the table from 12-20 has a serious chance of relegation.

FIM Motocross is about to kick off. US college gymnastics are in the final stage. It’s two months until the Cheese Rolling competition at Gloucester begins, but no doubt contestants are training now. The North American Reptile Breeders Conference Tinley Park show is coming up. And the Pro Bowlers Association Tournament of Champions Round 1 starts on St. Patrick’s Day.

Share with your Deadsplinterwinners what you’re watching, or playing, or following. No sport is too big or too small.

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42 Comments

  1. My Lakers are finally looking like a good team, even without LeBron playing.  If he can come back healthy for the end of the season, and AD doesn’t get hurt, we have a good a chance as anyone.  Big if!  NCAA is all about the Zags!  They don’t have the future NBA future stars they usually have but still have #1 offense in the country.  They could go pretty far with favorable match ups.  It is Timmie time!

    https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/hes-just-a-zag-man-the-untold-stories-of-drew-timmes-singular-legendary-gonzaga-career/

  2. motogp and f1 at mo…..tho i have got a nascar race i need to watch soon

    i mean…kimi is racing at cota…the last venue hes ever won at…

    dudes not gotten any slower..so it should be fun to see where he ends up if he isnt taken out

    but yeah….. i fucking love me some me motorsports

    its a space i understand

    i do wonder what kind of qualifications you need to be f1/nascar pit crew….not the kind of job you see coming up everyday

      • The pit crew opinions make me giggle, because *that* was always the part that appealed to me, growing up around stock-car racing!😉😆🤣💖

        The folks I grew up around ran Late Model, Modified, and Street Stocks, and I’ve had plenty of family who helped pit over the years…

        but, at *that* level of racing (Wissota), Pit Road is waaaaaay different than running in the big NASCAR races, and a LOT less dangerous, overall, since most of the time, they ran at Dirt Tracks.

        The *precision* and “racing against yourself” aspect of it, was why I always thought being part of the Pit Crew would be a blast–knowing that *everyone* has “their part” to do, and that you need to be focused & on top of your game, was just cool….

        it’s probably why working Wardrobe Crew in theater was so appealing & as much fun as it was, to me… it’s a *similar* adrenaline rush, focus, and precision task.

        If you do it *right*? NO ONE NOTICES, and folks don’t even necessarily notice you’re there!😉😁💖

        But, if you do it *wrong*?!?

        EVERYONE notices it!🤣

          • Daaaaaaaayum!!!! @Farscythe, the fact that *most* of those were held by the same pit team is AMAZING!!!!

            😃🤯😁

            Also? Is there just *one* singular lug nut/”wheel-holder-onner” in F1 wheel design?!?

            • red bull really knows how to pit stop

              and ayup…. centre lock single lug wheels

              i think nascar is getting them too soon

              its a fantaboulously quick system…..till that one lug you have fails…..then you are race over….

              • And THAT’s why they make the roll cages!

                (And have upped the safety, neck-bracing, and restraint systems incredibly well, over the last few decades!😉💖)

                • actually…if the lug fails the cars usually dont make it out of their warm up lap…if they make it out of pit lane…

                  the safety of it all nowadays means this guy walked away tho

                  you know…… i cant shake the 80s and 90s..where a crash like that most likely meant a death or career ending injury

                  and thats still better than the before years

                  • That was a WILD crash!!!😳😳😳

                    Allllll sorts of bits *everywhere* and sparks!😲😬🤯

                    And the fact that he walked away, was AWESOME!!!😃😁🤗💖💫

                    Tbh, the crashes (Crash-survivability, really!) in Stock Car racing was why I always liked *it* a lot better growing up, than I did Formula 1 stuff…

                    The guys I grew up around were small-time racers, who were only able to afford one motor a year, and the younger brother was the mechanic & car-builder, so the roll frame was vital to having a good season, and since they primarily ran dirt-track, safety was the top priority–even over speed.

                    Because of that, i don’t *like* watching dangerous crashes (especially involving those massively unprotected old-school cockpits like they had in F1 & Indycar racing)–but I do love the science-y ones, where they get all the safety aspects & the physics *right*, and the vehicle goes *poof* while the driver then able to walk away with just a couple scratches or bruises!😉

  6. Loosely following MLS for us now that we got our own team, STL City SC.

    However, apparently it’s only streaming on Apple TV and you have to pay for an extra MLS league pass sort of thing to watch it. So it’s more like I check scores online during the games and hope it turns out well.

      • They’ve been using the clock in the minors for a while.  It’s like watching baseball where Mark Buehrle is pitching every game.  It’s bang bang bang.

        Very pleasant, actually, though it’s not as good when you just want to nap through some mid-season Rockies vs Diamondbacks game that you don’t care about.

  8. Welll…where do i begin?

    the peterborough petes went all in at the trade deadline and they have yet to prove they’re figuring out how to play all that well but i’m still excited…i watch every game i can…they lost to kingston 5-4 last night but are currently winning against kingston 3-1. i’m hopeful they’ll be ready for the playoffs…and, hopefully, the memorial cup? it’ll probably be ottawa, though.

    i was excited about the leafs trade deadline…until the last trade that was needed never got made…so, we’ll see?

    i can’t wait for the baseball season to begin. kikuchi SUCKED last year but is having a very strong spring training…so hopefully that carries into the regular season because i don’t want a bullpen round-about as the fifth starter when we have such a good team on paper. the new outfield walls are going to cause a whole lot of weird bounces what with all the weird corners and even a bit of a rounded wall. springer moving to right field will take a lot of weight off of him so hopefully it helps him stay healthy…which he FINALLY is.

    i hope the spurs get the first pick in the nba draft. like, i REALLY hope they do…it’d be the first time since the admiral got hurt and they got the best player of all time, tim duncan. (sorry @loveshaq but it’s true…and they still have the same hack-a-shaq coach)

    arizona was ranked by ap number one for one week this year…and after their penalties being served as a team, i think they might actually be in the race this year for mm. but mm is such a toss up every year and as @brightersideoflife and @hannibal pointed out, there is so much fucked up shit going on that it’s impossible to even hazard a guess. doing brackets this year, i think, will be the hardest since kansas won in 2008?

    it’s now 4-2 for the petes….anyway…

    as a chelsea fan…i think more rules are going to be made as a result of what they did in the january transfer window…for certain. but i am happy with the moves they made…and even happier that it wasn’t a russian oligarch making them…or, at least, owning them? i wasn’t expecting them to beat borussia dortmund in cl but despite their location in the epl table the new acquisitions do seem to be getting more acclimated. so, who knows? they might pull off another upset like 2012 and a couple years ago?

    back to baseball…and @lemmykilmister might find a bit of solace in this considering the pain they’ve been going through for a considerable amount of time…i’m worried about the orioles. the al east is going to be insane this year. tampa-always good, yankees and red sox are what they are, and the orioles, imo, are going to be a lot more “for real” than the sports pundits are giving credit? i’m looking forward to it.

    the projected first overall pick in the nfl draft is no longer the first number one pick in the draft and idc enough to get into the drama so the bears just traded their first overall pick to the panthers…who need a qb…but how strong is the qb pool this year? idk or care because my favourite team is no longer my favourite team because the owner is crap and their new handle and uniforms are also crap. i hope snyderis forced to sell the team and they go back to their original uniforms and back to washington fc. that said, i’m glad that one dude copyrighted every possible team name since 2001 when snyder first defended its racist team name…and then when it became clear to snyder that he was going to have to change it the dude copyrighted the last possible one A MONTH BEFORE. fuck the commanders!

    i was reluctantly going for the “local” bills this year but i’m still not over their widely lauded qb’s racist comments on social media he posted as a teen. fuck him…people like that don’t change. i’m teamless as it pertains to football.

    all that said…i am not editing this comment for typos or grammar so deal with it…like i’ve had to deal with snyder for way too much of my life.

    GO PETES!

    GO LEAFS!

    GO JAYS!

    DON’T GO, SPURS!

     

    • It looks exceedingly unlikely, but if OK City won the lottery we’d see a frontcourt with Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren, and I think that would basically break the NBA.

      I want to be skeptical about Wembanyama, but every time I see video it seems hard not to believe he’ll have the same impact as someone like Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

      And speaking of the Petes, what’s it like going to live Canadian minor league hockey games? I have to think it’s a blast, most of the time at least.

        • Also, not only are the Petes the most storied and oldest minor hockey team in the world…they’ve also sent more players, and by far, to the NHL than any other minor league team.

          They have Scottie Bowman, Stevie Y, Wayne Gretzky (who only played 3 games but the Petes were the first team to give him a chance), and Roger neilson on their resume. Chris Pronger, Eric & Jordan Staal…the list goes on. Next game I go to I’ll take a picture of the banners of people on the top side walls.

      • For the sake of whichever team gets him, I hope that Wembanyama is much more a Kareem, than a Kandi-man, in the draft!!!

         

        (Just grumbling about useless goddamn 7-foot+ tennis players who’ve never played basketball ’til college, then get drafted only to half-ass it on an NBA court for their entire damn career….dragging down the teams they play on, like a goddamn anchor…. frickin’ Owlowokandi!!!!😠😡🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬)😉🤣

    • @Mypoicprophet, regarding this, “i’m teamless as it pertains to football,”

      Why not the Lions?

      They’re the underdogs who could always use a few more good fans!😁💖

      And besides, unlike *most* of the NFL, their fans are also incredibly nice! (Or at least the group on dudes girl-roommie and I met, who travel to allll the games were! (But, fwiw, it seems to be a near-universal experience, according to almost everyone I know, who’s ever met a Lions fan in the wild!😉)

      As for our stadium?

      You’re 100% right!!! It kills birbs! But they *can* become Eagle feed that way? (The cheaping-oit on the glass was just being talked about, the other day!).

      Also, KG was better, and if he’d had the sort of decent coaching & adequate teams around him, while he was here–as opposed to McFail running that accursed front office (AND benching him for those last few games of the ’05-’06 season, so he wouldn’t *beat* Bird’s 20-10-5 record!😒🤬👿), I really do think more folks would find the “Timmy D was the best Power Forward!” argument a lot more debatable😉😈🤣

      After all, KG didn’t just have to carry his teammates–or even our whole, sorry, state… he had the whole *world* to carry😂💖

      Also, and unrelated, these are two of the best NBA commercials😁

       

       

       

      • @emmerdoesnotrepresentme i am completely and utterly unwilling to get into a td/kg debate with you again. you dance around me last time and it will not happen again.

        td better though.

        anywho…the lions? you might win a td/kg debate with me but i’ll slaughter you in a barry sanders is/was/and always will be the best football player of all time debate. fight me! i dare you! but…the lions’ ownership doesn’t deserve fans. snyder might be the worst owner, and by far, the lion’s ownership is and has been the most inept. i’m offended that you’re suggesting a leaf fan subject himself to the same pain, on purpose, by choosing to become a lions fan. WHERE DO YOU GET OFF? lol

         

        • “the lions’ ownership doesn’t deserve fans”

          They really DON’T, the Lions fans ARE awesome!!!

          But, sorry, I forgot about the Leafs bit, and I definitely wouldn’t want to compound the misery!

           

          Maybe the Cubbies?

          The curse does seem to be lifted nowadays, and they are the only *proper* Chicago team to root for😉😆💖

        • Sorry, @Mypoicprophet, I somehow managed to forget that Leafs bit (my apologies!), and wouldn’t want to add to the heartache–it’s just that the Lions as a *team* are one of the few un-assholey & unhated ones i could think of (yeah the ownership suuuucks, but it could reasonably be argued that *most* NFL owners are awful!).

           

          And I hear you on thinking Barry Sanders was/is the best…..

          But have you heard of Alan Page?

          I have a hard time believing even the great Barry Sanders was a State Supreme Court justice.

          Or a world-renowned Sousaphone player!😉😂🤣💖

          Could we perhaps agree that they are the co-equal best Offensive *and* Defensive players, to have ever NFL’ed?🤗

      • I never realized, before running across that commercial tonight, that Vlade was actually young-looking, once!😉😆🤣💖

        I was SO used to seeing him as “The Elder, Flopping, Statesman!” in the years I really paid attention, back when he played, that I never realized he was so incredibly young-looking, when he joined the league!🤗

        Also, I miss the good old days of *Sprotz Scandals!*(TM)

        Like the Buffaslug!

        And the old multi-faceted ‘Spin, places like FreeDarko.com and the Mad Dog blog… places like *here* where you could be a geek about your favorite things (or read the ramblings of real un-PR-team-approved NBA & NFL players!😉😂🤣💖), and have lots of folks to chat with (or hold communal grudges against random outsiders with, too… I mean Herb *will* alllllways be a Herb!😉😆🤣💖)

         

    • Tim Duncan?  I could see if you said Tim Horton being a Canadian & all.  Tim Duncan was the white bread of NBA all stars.  Great but boring.  Not in the top 25 of all time by any stretch but I appreciate your acknowledgment of NBA.

  9. Since I live in MN, and am aware of the fact that we are somehow apparently cursed nearly all our “Men’s Professional Sprotz!” i’m an incredibly casual fan…

    I know the cycle, I was subjected to it for years of my life as a child, and *especially* after the 2007 KG trade (i TOLD people he was gonna win that fucking championship!), I’ve mostly just given up entirely on my home stare teams, aside from the Lynx.

    We’ve got too many people who make money off mediocrity here, and they don’t seem to care/really want to win.

    And ngl, the tinfoil-hat side of my brain leans “conspiracy-theory-ish” enough, that I’ve noticed the teams who get new Football stadiums end up cruising to a league championship most times during the last couple decades… so it *feels* like the NFL–and to some extent the NBA are *somewhat* rigged😉

    Heck, back in 2005-6, after the aftermath of Katrina died down, and there was talk of a new stadium being built in New Orleans, I knew they were going to be Superb-Owl champs within 5 years…

    Knew as soon as Lucas Oil stadium was announced, the Colts were going to be heading to the Owl (granted, Peyton WAS also the best QB of *our* generation, so it was pretty obvious they were going to be getting there a few times, too!)…

    Honestly?

    It’s probably more the fact that when a new stadium deal is announced, team owners start pouring more money into a good/successful team, than anything!!!

    But the fact that the Vikes fiiiinally made it back to *nearly* the top of the NFC within a year of US Bank stadium opening, the Cowboys doing the same down in Dallas, that Drew Brees-led Saints team winning *the whole shebang,* the Bears winning the NFC North title within 3 years of *their* stadium refurbishment, and *that* sort of thing happening so often, makes my brain see stupid patterns where there very well may be none!😉

    • Your stadium kills birds.

      I went to a basketball game in MN and they were playing the Kings. I trolled everyone in my section that their basketball team had too many Canadians and their hockey team had too many Americans (this was when they made the trade with wannabe GM LeBron for Bennett and Wiggins and the wild signed Parise and Suter to lucrative contracts). I had the time of my life, though. I also went to the Leafs game on 2/1/15 trolling the same thing…but the Leafs lost.

      Good times.

  10. speaking of the ohl…when i lived in belleville i had season tickets to the bulls. the person i often went with complained to me about the bulls’ 1st overall pick which was john hughes. the second pick was saginaw who chose matt corrente (who played a total of 36 games in the nhl). john hughes played zero. he couldn’t believe, after everything eric staal became for the petes, that the bulls (or saginaw) didn’t pick jordan staal who the petes picked third.

    after one year (after being picked by pittsburgh second overall in the nhl draft) playing for pittsburgh in his rookie season, jordan was offered a role as assistant captain. on the third shutdown line, with maxime talbot, he was responsible for shutting down detroit’s datsyk line in the stanley cup finals. they lost. the next year, they won the stanley cup…but crosby gets all the credit when it was, in fact, jordan and maxime’s line that shut down the datsyk line who actually deserve the credit for winning that cup in 2009…and if you don’t believe me, look up the only person to score in that game 7 for pittsburgh (twice).

    anyway…out of that 2004 ohl draft…john hughes played zero nhl games, matt corrente played a total of 36. jordan staal did what he did in pittsburgh and has now captained the canes for years.

    the geniuses that the hunters are…want to know who they picked in round 5, for the london knights, in that draft?

    patrick kane.

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