September 15th Houston Sports FaF Smear

Song of the day: Kid ‘N’ Play – “Energy”

You know I'll keep you staring awhile, 'cause the Kid's more than hair and a smile.

Like any self-respecting, red-blooded American I watched the season premier of Monday Night Football last night. While The Random Guy inevitably cuddled up on the couch with The Random Wife to catch the first episode of Gossip Girl the rest of us kicked off the 2009 season in style with a double order of McDonald’s, a glass of Macallan and a head full of testosterone.

With two great games coming down to the wire, the lasting image was not one of the resurrection of Tom Brady or the deep ball from Jamarcus Russell to Louis Murphy or a sneaky draw play by the Chargers on the one-yard line. No, it was Johnny Lee Higgins’ retro high top fade that made me oooh and aaah. I even searched the interwebs and managed to find a picture for you from some tweeterer.

When Higgins got the piss knocked out of him coming across the middle by Eric Weddle causing him to roll around on the turf like a tasered seal, he had to doff his helmet for the trainers to make sure he still had all his teeth. My comment at the time still stands even with how inane it might seem: “Johnny Lee Higgins just had the Don King knocked out of his Kin ‘N’ Play.” Come on, tell me that if Don King and Kid had a homobaby together that it wouldn’t look like the above…

The outcomes of each game are mostly inconsequential because I really don’t give a fuck about any of the four teams playing. What I do care about is my fantasy football standings, and those got bent over and sodomized by the Norv Turner’s decision to win a game instead of shitting the bed in overtime. You see, in our “Fourth and Fifty Minus TRG” league I tied with that one guy in every FF league that cares about his team for the first four weeks then forgets it exists until the last four weeks. There shouldn’t be ties in football, let alone fantasy football. Ties aren’t like “kissing your sister.” Ties are like going down on your woman when she’s shedding placenta. It seems kind of like a novelty when you get your red-wings, but when it’s all said and done you wish it had never happened in the first place.

On to your Houston Sports updates:

August 21st Houston FaF Smear

He just doing his own thing. You know it getting pretty cold out by the jub jub swing.

Superman that hoooooooooooooooo!

Oh John. Why do you forsake every team you coach. You giveth and the NCAA taketh away… every time.

Do you have a Final Four appearance on your resume that is legitimate? The one at UMass – expunged. The one at Memphis – now expunged.

The Random Guy and I wrote our 1,400 word missive about Couch Cal when the accusations first came to light. The only thing that’s changed since then is that less people care. This is mostly disappointing. It’s great and everything that the NCAA has decided to punish Memphis for these infractions, but how are they making them pay. If kid is in school illegitimately and he’s breaking the ankles of kids that earned (presumably) the right to play in college it’s just wrong.

Let’s go back to the days of prominence of the Fab Five Michigan Wolverines. Their wins don’t count. Their Final Fours didn’t count. Does anyone remember that? No, they remember a phantom time-out by Chris Weber costing them a championship (that wouldn’t have counted had they won). Or, maybe I exaggerate and people do actually hold dear that their have one or two extra wins because of a team retroactively forfeiting games.

So, what happens now is a call to action. Either throw out this NBA rule that kids have to be a certain age or spend a certain amount of time in college before being eligible for the draft OR treat NCAA athletics for what they really are, a money making business and not a way for kids to get an education. SAT scores? No matter if you get a 730, you’re in kid. GPA? More like LOL!

July 22nd Houston FaF Smear (and UFL “news”)

But you still read. I must admit, I don’t believe in it, but I see why you get sucked in.

Yep, this is going to work out.

With the above visual representation you might think that former Bills quarterback, JP Losman is going to sign with the UFL instead of the NFL next season. But, you would be wrong. Actually, JP Losman is going to sign with the UFL instead of the NFL next season. Yeah, I know that’s the same sentence, but it’s hard enough to wrap my head around this situation as it is.

Never mind the fact that Losman probably earns enough money as a back-up in the NFL that he could potentially buy a majority stake in one of the UFL teams, he’s going to jump behind the helm of one. Respectability all around everyone! Nothing says “join us, Michael Vick” like having JP Losman on a roster.

Look, I’m all for more football. There’s a void in my life, my heart, my soul. The fooseball fills that emptiness. With the UFL my cup may very well floweth over. But, in reality, watching a second-rate product full of has-beens, wannabes and players that are too egotistical to keep a job as a back-up isn’t going to do the trick. The UFL is NFL Europe without the shiny mesh t-shirts and preponderance of hairy pitted women.

The point of the UFL in my mind is to be a type of training ground, a stepping stone to the NFL. It’s not going to be a competitor for ratings. It should not be a competitor for talent.

JP Losman, you disgusted me years ago when I fell for you one good game and picked you up off my fantasy football waiver wire. Now you’ve gone and done did it again. Damn you.

On to your Houston sports updates:

July 21st Houston FaF Smear (and NBA Trade Fodder)

I lit a cigarette on a parking meter. Corner boys told her how I was dying to meet her.

ummmm yeah

As we approach noon on this sunny Houston Tuesday, I’ve become aware of the fact that I have a “real job” and not just paid to write a blog from a cramped LaPorte office. The man (the one that TRG always imagines) is holding me down. Some might even contend that I’m being perpetually tea-bagged by this invisible force. I am here to perform like a filipino circus monkey. This fundamentally defines my existence, but I think I might have it a little better than Quentin Richardson.

Q-Rich is making his way to a 4th city in less than as many months since the season ended. He’s become nothing more than trade fodder for the NBA. Today he’s a Minnesota Timberwolf. Tomorrow he might get traded to the Indiana Pacers for corn futures. There is no ceiling (or basement, for that matter) that is out of question here.

Q ended the 2008-2009 campaign as part of the lowly New York Knickerbockers. From there he got dished to the equally as pathetic Memphis Grizzlies for the enormous failure Darko Milicic.  Then came the Clippers and finally the T-Wolves. At this rate he could potentially own a jersey from each of the bottom dozen teams in the league by the time August rolls around.

What do you say Sacramento? Washington? Any expiring contracts you want to trade? Throw in a pack of Bazooka gum and we might have a deal.

Good luck, Richardson. It’s hard to feel bad for you even though you’re about to bank $9.3 million this year, but somehow your plight just made my burden of spreadsheets and smoke breaks seem a little better.

On to your Houston sports updates:

June 30th Houston Sports FaF Smear

She ran away to Texas to keep away the excess.

Yes, I found an excuse to use this picture again.

No matter what, everybody’s always in it for the money.  I don’t want to hear your points that differ.  They matter not.  In my world anything that happens without my first-hand knowledge doesn’t exist.  How does the saying go?  Ignorance is bliss?

We don’t write this sports blog “for free.”  Sure, Fourth and Fifty is kind of a public trust, but I give the authors Monopoly money and coupons that I swipe from those annoying automatic dispensers in Kroger as a kind of compensation.  That ain’t free, my friend.  Somebody paid for that somewhere down the line.  Pipez, TRG, Reginald Blackstone and Wanks contribute to this mighty publication at the expense of the Trix Rabbit’s wealthy image.

The road of the NFL’s somehow “legal” antitrust (come on UFL, we’re all hoping you can make it) may be in for it’s first major pothole.  Apparently, the DirectTV contract for NFL Ticket couldn’t bring down the fat cat owners, but beanies may be their undoing.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of American Needle Inc v. NFL for agreeing to an exclusivity agreement to provide the NFL players with clean hypodermic needles for their everyday steroid use contract with Reebok for licensing rights for hats and other headgear.  ANI (I’m lazy, please accept my initialism acronym) claims that through the NFL/Reebok agreement violates monopoly laws by “unlawful restraint of trade and monopolizing the team products licensing, manufacturing and wholesale markets by violating antitrust laws by working too closely together” [NYTimes].

I guess the NFL agrees with orphaned manufacturer ANI because they are urging the Court (capitalized to show importance of highest court) to hear the case.  Oh, wait… They’re just trying to make an example of out of them.  This could end badly.  The NFL are literally setting up ANI to split the seams of the antitrust case.  But, if ANI does succeed, consider the floodgates opened and each major sporting league to be the subject of such lawsuits.

On to you Houston sports updates:

Daily FaF Smear (2/20/09)

The one where we exchange fluids.

Who? Me?!

All aboard the Rockets Express: a one-way ticket to the Lottery.  Houston really wanted to make a deal for some reason.  After T-Mac ruined those plans by getting all injured and stuff they turned to the nearest innocent and plopped them on the trading block.  Good to know the Rockets picked a quality back-up point guard (do we know what sarcasm is?) in replace of their precious starter.  Give me a break here people.  Trades are fun and everything, but at this point I would have traded for a conditional pick in 2012 just like the Celtics.  Who cares anyway?  That’s when the Mayans say the world is going to end.  If it does nobody’s going to remember this trade.  It’s a win-win.

Up ahead are the rest of your Houston updates: