Category Archives: sports

Three Hits, Three Misses: Super Bowl XLVII

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Three Hits:

+ Jacoby Jones’ 108 yard return.  A fantastic moment which more or less should have put the game out of reach.  In a season where a vast majority of kickoffs have resulted in boring touchbacks, it was a breath of fresh air to see Jones bring the ball out near the back of the end zone.  The score made it 28-6 at the time and as you know, wasn’t enough.

++ Baltimore’s intentional safety.  With 11 seconds on the clock, the score 34-29 and in punt formation, the Ravens snapped the ball to punter Sam Koch.  Instead of kicking, he ran around the back of the end zone and eventually out of bounds to take valuable time off the clock. The result was a safety, the score became 34-31 and there were only four seconds remaining.

Sam Koch Ravens

Ravens punter Sam Koch kills the clock by taking an intentional safety.

There were several blatant holds that probably should have been called against the Ravens, but those would have been completely irrelevant had they been flagged because the result of an offensive penalty in the end zone is of course a safety.  What an intelligent play call by Baltimore.

+++ Making a game of it.  While San Francisco started extremely slow, possibly the understatement of the season, they fought back midway through the third quarter and were in position to tie late.  The foundation the Niners have built is very strong and I fully expect another NFC Championship at least once over the next three years.

Three Misses:

- Beyonce’s half time performance.  Her set is generally getting mixed to positive reviews based on a quick internet search.  The Super Bowl is the most watched television program annually and it is not even close.  While she is very easy on the eyes, I can’t help but feel she was underdressed (save the jokes here).  The message being sent based on wardrobe is probably not the best.

It was a nice touch to reunite Beyonce with Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams, former mates of the group Destiny’s Child.  They put out a couple short versions of songs and even helped Beyonce with her hits “Single Ladies” and “Crazy in Love”.

Fact is though, I think it is time for the half time show to feature something other than mainstream music.  There are a plethora of options.  How about a variety show, comedian, a world record attempt…Mix it up a bit.  Think about what the first thing that happens when the half time entertainment is announced.  Everyone usually cringes and wonders why they chose [insert singer/band here].

- – San Francisco’s first half.  This was the definition of uninspired football.  While Joe Flacco and company were making big offensive plays, the 49ers managed just six points through 30 minutes.  LaMichael James’ fumble contributed to the massive deflation of the team and they would never fully recover until…J

- – -The blackout.  A 34 minute delay occurred midway through the 3rd quarter when a power failure at the Superdome killed most of the lights.  This seemed to spark the 49ers and they stormed back to pull within two of the Ravens.  It also resulted in a even later than usual night for many viewers who may have had to get up early for work. Certainly compelling television, but not something I wanted to wait out.

LeBron James, Time to Forgive?

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I’ve made it clear on multiple occasions that I do not watch the NBA.  It is simply uninteresting, not exciting and not a watchable sport.  College Basketball is where it is at for me.

On the flip side, the NBA is full of fun, interesting and compelling stories.  In fact, it may be the most dramatic in that department when it comes to all sports.  So when LeBron James made headlines again, I simply rolled my eyes.

I’m far from the only person who was completely disgusted with his bolting of Cleveland for Miami.  To be clear, it isn’t because he made the move, it was the manner in which he arrogantly televised his decision.  Someone making themselves bigger than the game is unacceptable.

Since his championship last year, I feel like James has toned his bad boy image down significantly, if not altogether.  He is happy all the time, extremely outgoing and clearly enjoying himself….similar to how he was in Cleveland, no?

Last week, a fan in Miami made an amazing half court shot, a hook shot mind you, to win $75,000.  LeBron James is part of a foundation that also awards money to a youth club if the shot goes in.  As the shot went in, James came over and tackled the shooter in celebration.  It was a fantastic moment for everyone, and aside from the cash, something that fan will never forget.

Seeing the joy on the face of James is not something you would have seen before his championship in Miami.  It looked like the kid I watched on ESPN in high school with the giant grin.  It was the guy putting the Cavaliers on his back and leading a playoff run.

So is it time to put behind us the disgusting past of James?  In short, maybe.  Think about this, what else has James really done to make you mad at him?  It was inevitable he was going to leave Cleveland so I can’t really blame him for doing it.  In fact, if he had stayed, it would have been the biggest sports story of the year and been a massive shock to just about everyone.

Everyone likes to hate a winner without just cause.  He’s not a trouble maker, not linked to any kind of PED’s, and he promotes the game more than most players do.  If he had never been involved in “The Decision”, would you still feel the same about him?  I can’t imagine I would. The Heat franchise probably didn’t help either with their over the top unveiling of the trio of Chris Bosh, Dwayne Wade and James, but that’s not really his fault.

I’m willing to cut the guy a lot of slack for his obvious efforts to win back his fans.  ”The Decision” will never be forgotten, but you can’t change the past right?  All anyone can do is work to improve their future, and it is hard to argue what James has attempted.

Dear NHLPA…

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I’m a huge fan of the National Hockey League.  More specifically, I cheer for the Columbus Blue Jackets.  My wife and I go to up to ten games a season through a team ticket package.  We also drive three hours to get to Nationwide Arena.

I cannot tell you how much CBJ apparel we own.  From little things like a pen with the Jackets’ insignia to multiple jerseys.  In fact, we planned on buying a couple new jerseys this season as well since a certain Rick Nash no longer plays for the team (that would just be awkward).

On our trips to the Arena District, we pay to park.  We also frequent the establishments in the area for food and beverage prior to game time.  Inside we cheer loud, buy a drink to keep our throat wet and then cheer some more.  We may stop for food on the way home as well.

For the other 72 games we subscribe to DirecTV’s NHL Center Ice.  On top of that, the All-Star Game is in Columbus this season and we already have tickets to see it…those weren’t cheap.

When the lockout hit, I was floored.  I kind of assumed you’d reach a deal relatively quickly since you’ve already had a full season lockout just eight years ago.  I mean you’d have to be completely stupid to do it again, right?  RIGHT?

I stopped wearing anything with an NHL or CBJ logo, making my attire a bit more limited.  When my ticket agent called to offer 4% interest on my Blue Jackets account if I kept the money with the team, I said no and I want a refund.

A preseason game and opening night, two games we had tickets for, came and went.  I shrugged it off almost knowing I’d never see a game this season.

The NHLPA and the NHL owners were essentially refusing to talk to each other as if they were children.

Then, on October 16, the National Hockey League came out with a proposal.  It was a proposal that I never thought I’d see from the owners.  A 50/50 revenue sharing split.  This was significantly less than anything I thought the owners would ask for.  When terms of the deal were announced, it said that even current contracts would go untouched.  In other words, a majority of players would keep their full salary for this season and future seasons to come.

Donald Fehr said he wasn’t sure if this was a real effort by the NHL or not.  David Backes made an asinine statement that basically said it is like a person who makes $50,000 a year  getting dropping to $40,000 a year, even though their company is doing great.  Backes makes millions while the people that pay that salary, make nowhere near that.

The current face of stupidity when it comes to the NHL Players Association.  

So, NHLPA, here are some questions for you:

- What will it be like when you make next to nothing this season?
- How long until you get that money back?
- What feelings will you have knowing you are collectively destroying a great sport in the United States?
- Remember when everyone was saying you “just want to play”?  Why aren’t you playing?
- My life will go on just fine without the NHL, but what about the merchandiser who sold me the clothes and jerseys?   What about the employees of the restaurants in the Arena District who rely on the 41+ nights a year for big crowds?  What about the parking attendants who will work fewer events?  The arena employees, the vendors, the ticket sellers?  Do you ever think of anyone but yourselves?
- To those playing in other professional leagues, how do you feel about taking the job of someone who is barely getting by playing hockey?
- How much money is enough money when you have millions in the bank?

The time has come to show you aren’t a bunch of money hungry athletes.  The time has come to prove to the fans that you want to play hockey.  Are you man enough to take a small cut in pay while still being of the top paid professions by a long shot?

Man up and sign this deal because you are lucky the NHL is offering this much to you.  When you saw this, any reaction other than high-fiving one another is an insult to NHL fans.

Sincerely,

Your fan base that is decreasing daily.

EA Sports Drops NCAA Exclusivity

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On a day when the NCAA handed down one of the most unprecedented punishments to Penn State University, I’m surprisingly not going to weigh in with my thoughts.  SImply put, it is disgusting and no matter what the NCAA ruled, it wasn’t enough.  Nothing could be enough.

In news that doesn’t make my blood boil, EA Sports has announced it will not extend the NCAA Football franchise’s exclusive rights when it expires in 2014.  This means that anyone else would be allowed to create an NCAA football game if they acquire the license to make it.

This comes in conjunction with a long standing lawsuit from consumers over the legality of exclusive deals with Madden and the NCAA.  The settlement will pay out a few bucks to those who purchased football games since 2006.  It also means EA Sports cannot sign an exclusive agreement with the Arena Football League, which most people probably weren’t even aware still existed anyway.

The better news for consumers is that the possibility of multiple NCAA Football games will soon exist.  It doesn’t mean EA Sports will discontinue the franchise.  In fact, it is entirely possible they still don’t have competition.  It opens the door for 2K Sports to get back into football however.  It is widely debated that NFL 2k5 remains the greatest football game ever.  In fact, it is said that NFL 2k5 (and its $20 price tag at the time) was the reason EA Sports signed the deal with the NFL.

This game actually existed…and could again.

 

As a longtime NCAA Football fan, this is great news to me.  The game has grown terribly stale.  Defense is still deplorable (and identical to the past five iterations), the AI can’t run or defend the option properly and bugs continue to plague the series at launch each year.  In fact, NCAA 12 was NEVER fixed despite several patches.

NCAA 13 was released recently to a mostly negative reaction from reviewers and fan forums.  Madden has made minor positive strides after a few extremely lackluster years and NCAA fans appear to be fed up with it.  The most enjoyable NCAA I can remember is still on the last generation Xbox.

Knowing the option for improved and alternate NCAA Football games in a couple years is a great feeling.  Now if only SOMEONE would put an NCAA Basketball game on the market.

Devils v. Rangers Game 1…LIVE BLOG!

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I’ll be live blogging game one of the NHL’s Eastern Conference Final between the New Jersey Devils and the New York Rangers.  Check back at 8pm and join in.

Random Thoughts: 3-29-12

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Excuse me for my absence from JK Gaming and Sports this week.  Wife is out of town, I’m shuttling kids to school and my Little League team began practicing this week.

-  In the minimal free time I’ve had recently, I sat down to try out the Tiger Woods ’13 demo.  In short, I mostly enjoyed it.  The difficulty has been improved tremendously and it feels like you actually earn every shot you succeed at, something that wasn’t true of any previous iteration.

-  I’ll no longer be PS3-less next week.

-  I can’t possibly be the only one who didn’t know that MLB played regular season games in Tokyo right?  I’m super thrilled for all the great opening games next week, but it seems like no one told me that Seattle and Oakland were playing a pair.  Then again, it is Seattle and Oakland….so….

-  The NHL playoffs are less than 2 weeks away and I cannot wait to break down all of the match ups, stay tuned.

-  The NFL made minor rule changes but the most significant is that regular season overtimes will now use the 2 year old playoff overtime rule.  No longer can you kick a field goal on the first possession of OT and win.  Now if we can just eliminate ties in the NFL.  It’s funny that the NHL, a league that was notorious for having ties, eliminated them but the NFL still has them on occasion.

-  Finally, it is Final Four weekend.  Enough said.

The NCAA Tournament, First Week

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It’s my favorite tournament in any sport.  I’ll take it over anything and everything and I won’t hesitate to defend it.  The NCAA basketball tournament reigns supreme and while it has its off years, it never disappoints.

Here are just a few of the moments that stood out for me:

-  The “First Four”…I’m begging the NCAA to stop this nonsense.  Not necessarily the games itself, but pretending that these games are just as important as when the field hits 64 teams.  It is impossible to argue that the two games played on Tuesday night in Dayton were surprisingly awesome.  Western Kentucky overcame a 16 point deficit with just 5 minutes to go.  BYU trailed Iona by 25 points and rallied to win.

I still don’t know what this thing is, but I love it.

While these two games can be considered a couple of the best that the tournament had to offer, they still aren’t real games in the eyes of many.  For the committee to do this right, I think you really need to have ALL the teams who play Tuesday/Wednesday to be the final 8 at-large teams.  It’s still not fair to conference champions to play extra games.   Make the 8 at-large teams all 16 seeds and let the winners play UNC, Kentucky, Michigan State, and Syracuse.  Seeding is overrated anyway…that’s why so many good seeded teams go down.

-  UNC-Ashville vs. Syracuse.  The officiating was absolutely brutal in this game.  If not for the referees, I really believe we would have seen the first #1 seed lose in the round of 64.  UNC-A’s J.P. Primm was called for a huge lane violation, which was questionable at best.  It occurred on a crucial free throw attempt for Syracuse which resulted in two additional shots being made.

With just 35 seconds left, Syracuse was inbounding the ball up 3.  Syracuse’s Brandon Triche misplayed the ball and it clearly went out of bounds off him.  Officials signaled otherwise.  Whether or not a foul should have been called is irrelevant, the ball went off Triche and that was obvious.

-  VCU over Wichita State.  If you didn’t see this coming, you are not paying attention.  VCU’s head coach Shaka Smart became a household name at the NCAA tournament last year.  He took his Rams to the Final Four and showed no sign of stopping in their first game this year.  Expect Smart to get a more recognizable coaching job in the near future.

-  15 seeds.  My favorite moment in NCAA Tournament history is when 15th seeded Hampton shocked Iowa State in 2001.  I’ve never seen such genuine joy from a coach than what I saw in Steve Merfeld.  After Iowa State’s Jamaal Tinsley missed a shot with 1.2 seconds on the clock, Hampton’s David Johnson carried Merfeld across the court.  Merfeld was pumping his fists and kicking while being held.  It was such a cool moment.

My favorite NCAA Tournament moment, from 2001.

Friday saw the first 15 seed to win since that moment.  Norfolk State seemingly matched Missouri bucket for bucket as the game progressed.  They wouldn’t go away and they ultimately defeated the 2 seed Missouri 86-84.

Fast forward just a couple hours and Lehigh, also a 15 seed, would shoot down the almighty Duke Blue Devils. It was unreal and almost unfathomable.  The parity of college basketball is improving every year and it is great to see.

- Indiana defeats VCU.  The round of 32 saw my favorite team, the Indiana Hoosiers against Smart’s VCU Rams.  VCU controlled a good portion of the game but Indiana was resilient late in the game.

IU’s Will Sheehey helped take IU to the round of 16.

Will Sheehey’s shot with 12 seconds left had me jumping for joy and was a 2nd reminder that IU basketball is back.  The first of course, was the Kentucky game at Assembly Hall…….rematch on Friday by the way!

-  St. Louis and Purdue’s almosts.  These teams almost pulled off major upsets but came up just short.  Purdue had a chance to put Kansas away but still pulled off a valiant effort.  St. Louis meanwhile hung with Michigan State to the very end, but to no avail.

With 16 teams remaining, it will be interesting to see what develops now.  Obviously everyone will be talking about the Kentucky/IU rematch, but how far can teams like Florida, Xavier, Ohio, and NC State really go?

MLB 12: The Show 2nd Impressions

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As I fall more and more into routine with this game, it has become extremely familiar to it’s predecessors.  I’m also loving it more and more.

I’ll start with ball physics that are making things happen that I didn’t see in previous iterations.  Balls in the dirt bounce much more unpredictably when the catcher attempts to block them.  No longer are we forced to endure the ball going completely to the backstop or bounce right in front of the catcher.  I’ve seen the ball go to several different spots from in front of the catcher, to the side, straight up, and half way back.  It’s a great variety with runners on base as it makes you decide whether to advance or not…a decision that was obvious last season.

Off the bat, the ball continues to amaze me as well.  The back spin on the ball is incredible when it hits the ground.  It’s also good on come-backers to the pitcher.  I had the bases loaded with 1 out and hit a one hopper back to the mound.  It hit the pitcher and bounced to his left where the first baseman picked it up and tossed it to the plate for the force out.  Very cool if you ask me.

I’ve continued to play Diamond Dynasty and am disliking it more and more.  It’s an overwhelming mess when it comes to the setup.  There seems to be no organization to the mode.  It is such a hassle to put players into your lineup, move them to and from reserves, and manage your Major Leaguers.   It’s also ridiculous that your starting pitchers lose a game played when they aren’t starting, thus making rotations meaningless.

I tried an online DD game for the first time and it was horrid.  While the lag honestly wasn’t bad at all, there is a massive delay in the timing when it comes to swinging.  This is completely unacceptable.  Anything shy of offline timing isn’t good enough.  How can you play baseball like this?  If you aren’t swinging before you know where the pitch is, you’ll be late and miss.  This leads to the pitcher throwing nothing but pitches way out of the zone because they know you’ll have to swing if you want to make contact.  By the 3rd inning, it’s simply a random guessing game with no skill involved.  The Show’s weakest spot has always been online play and this year appears to be no different.  What a shame.

I think it’s great that the classic stadium pack continues to be unlocked for those who paid for it in previous games.  I bought it in MLB 10 and they were unlocked last year and this year as well.  Why can’t other companies follow suit….I’m looking at you EA Sports’ Tiger Woods PGA.

I jumped into a play now game (I won’t start a franchise until Operationsports.com’s full minors rosters are released in a few weeks).  I played Oakland at Chicago Cubs with me controlling the Cubbies.  I used analog pitching, analog + zone hitting, and everything on All-Star.  I also lowered a few sliders one click, mostly everything that has to do with speed.

I got destroyed 5-0 but I left a lot of runners on base.  I was also trying out a few things that I wouldn’t have done in a franchise game.  Unlike a lot of gamers, I want the game to be as difficult as possible and present the biggest challenge without feeling like I was cheated.  Winning 120 franchise games means the difficulty is not hard enough.

As before, you can save the game highlight reel to your PS3 dashboard and upload to youtube.  Check it out:

I still have yet to play a co-op game, but the remainder of time before I start my franchise will be dedicated to finding the perfect sliders and trying to endure Road to the Show games.  I’ll also try to improve my Challenge of the Week status.

So far so good when it comes to MLB 12.  This game continues to get better and better and is showing why it is the premiere baseball game every single year.

Random Thoughts 03-05-12

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Sometimes instead of a well thought out blog post, I just want to jot down some quick thoughts with little to no elaboration.

-  MLB 12: The Show is released tomorrow on the Playstation 3.  I cannot begin to explain my level of excitement for this.

-  I’m not afraid to admit that I am not a fan of Mass Effect.  ME3 is released tomorrow as well.

-  As written previously, this is the time of year I badly wish for a College Hoops game.  Please someone, make College Hoops 2k13.

-  Speaking of College Basketball, all of the major conference tournaments get underway this week.  I’m especially looking forward to the Big Ten Tournament.

-  Rory McIlroy became the world’s number one golfer over the weekend.  I’ve followed him rather closely the last few years and he could very well hold this spot for a long time.

-  With Peyton Manning’s contract about to take a huge turn, expect some big news over the next few days.