The test results are back, and no, turns out nice guys can't finish first...
- Barry Bonds pulls within two homers of tying Henry Aaron. He could match or set the home run record this weekend in Milwaukee -- commissioner Bud Selig's town -- and Aaron's for 14 of his 23 seasons. That bites for Henry Aaron, but it's a potentially wicked burn on Selig and the other major-league owners for burying their heads in the sand during the Steroid Era.
- UFC combatants test positive for 'roids. Tell us all again how mixed martial arts is such a breath of fresh air compared to the corrupted major sports?
- FIFA U-20 semi-final: Argentina 3, Chile 0. ... but the other, more important tally was Toronto Cops 6, Chile nil ... in hindsight, Dale Mitchell should have equipped Canada's strikers with pepper spray.
In the actual match, Argentina lost their captain Matias Cahais for Sunday's final vs. the Czechs due to a yellow card, his second of the elimination round. - CFL: Lions 22, Tigers-Cats 18. The fallout over Charlie Taaffe's sudden case of "Hamilton math"* -- going for a fat-chance two-point convert in the final 30 seconds instead of kicking the extra point to pull within a field goal of forcing overtime like 99.9 per cent of coaches and Madden addicts in North America would have -- will overshadow the creeping feeling that the Jesse Lumsden Paradox has come over the Ticats.
Good as Lumsden is, the more he's the focal point of an offence, the worse off his team (see, Marauders, McMaster, 2004). He is good, though... the Ticats averaged 14 yards per play last night when he touched the ball and four when he didn't, hence the Jesse Lumsden Paradox. Don't question it. It's not supposed to make sense.
Blue Bombers 20, Alouettes 18. Admit it. You wanted to see the Bombers fake a kneeldown in the final seconds and pass to Milt Stegall so he could set the touchdown record. The chance to break a record via a totally dick move doesn't come along every day.
* (Easy, Hammerites. One of us has a sister and brother-in-law list Stoney Creek as their place of residence, so we're allowed.)
That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.
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6 comments:
The Tiger Cats are showing signs of life -- they certainly made the Lions pay a high physical price for that win last night.
As for the Lumsden phenomenon, that just comes from playing on a lot of mediocre teams who have to feed him the ball a lot. This fits into what I had said previously about the 8 year old wonderboy playing football in the States -- often those teams DON'T win the championship, because they don't develop other weapons. Once the Ti-Cats develop some different weapons, and finally get smart enough to start Timmy Chang at QB full time, they'll be a lot better off.
As for the Hamilton math, one can only hope that someone sends Charlie Taaffe "the chart" sometime soon.
http://www.normhitzges.com/thechart.htm
Every coach has seen this, and should have a copy of it with him on game day in case his brain freezes, as Taaffe's did last night.
Dennis, you're the coach here... what I can't understand about Taaffe's call was why, in a comeback situation, would you make it harder on yourself? It
just didn't make sense.
Not being tongue-in-cheek for a moment, Hamilton did show some promise. Montreal's now 1-3 so it's not like the last Eastern playoff spot is out of reach for an 0-4 team... especially if they get Tim Chang ready!
No one I have spoken to understands what he was doing -- it defies all logic. Taaffe is a smart, experienced coach, so the only thing I can think of is that he had a temporary brain freeze. This is why every successful head coach needs to have one assistant with whom he has a good enough relationship that the assistant can say to him on occasion, "Coach, what the @#$# are you thinking?" Too often, I've seen coaching staffs frozen in horror as the head guy leads them off a cliff with a horrendous coaching gaffe, like last night's.
Talman Gardner (No. 83) seems to be a nice receiver.... runs easy, catches easy, has some giddyup on the deep crossing routes that every CFL team needs to be able to hit. I was really impressed by him the last two weeks.
The all-time brain freeze was a SEC coach a few years ago (either Arkansas or Mississippi). They were on the 3 and the wideout made a diving catch in the endzone for a touchdown. Somehow everyone — sideline, spotters — missed the ref signalling the TD. So when they saw the ball being spotted on the 3 for the convert, they called a regular play — and got stuffed.
How could those UFC guys do it WITHOUT 'roids?
Well, we probably all knew they couldn't.... you'd just never hear it from everyone who's been swigging the MMA Kool-Aid about the sport's "purity."
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