Favorites

So, it's the time of year when professional and collegiate sports abound and everyone can follow their favorite teams.  I've recently been thinking about what my favorite teams are in each of the sports I follow... and conversely, which teams are my least favorite.  Here are a few lists of my top 5 favorite and most despised teams in each of the 4 sports leagues I enjoy watching most.

NCAA Football
Favorite
1. BYU Cougars
2. Whoever's playing SpUtah
3. Oregon State Beavers
4. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
5. Air Force Falcons

Least Favorite
1. SpUtah SpUtes
2. Another Ohio State Buckeyes
3. University of Spoiled Children (USC) Trojans
4. Texas (not so) Christian Horned Frogs
5. Florida Gators

Major League Baseball
Favorite
1. Colorado Rockies
2. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
3. Houston Astros
4. Texas Rangers
5. Toronto Blue Jays

Least Favorite
1. Arizona D-bags
1. Los Angeles Dodgers
1. San Francisco Giants
4. Atlanta Braves
5. New York Yankees
5. Boston Red Sox

NFL Football
Favorite
1. Denver Broncos
2. Baltimore Ravens
3. Houston Texans
4. Atlanta Falcons
5. Arizona Cardinals

Least Favorite
1. Oakland Raiders
2. New England Patriots
3. Green Bay (Fudge) Packers
4. Kansas City Chefs    (Yes, I misspelled that on purpose)
5. Pittsburgh Steelers

NHL Hockey
Favorite
1. Colorado Avalanche
2. Montreal Canadiens
3. St. Louis Blues
4. Winnipeg Jets
5. New York Rangers

Least Favorite
1. Detroit Red Wings
2. Vancouver Canucks
3. Anaheim Ducks
4. Calgary Flames
5. Minnesota Wild

Some of these have interesting stories behind them, but I'm not going to go into detail.  If you're curious about any of my selections, I'll be glad to reveal my reasoning.  It's also noteworthy that there are a couple of cities with which I have a very ambivalent sports relationship, namely LA and Atlanta.

A Child's Game

When people first meet me, they are often led to the conclusion that my favorite sport is football.  During the fall, I eat, sleep and breathe college football and my emotions for the next weeks are directly impacted by the results of the BYU Cougars football game the previous weekend.  I can also throw and catch a football like nobody's business and at 6'2" and a hair over 250 lbs, I look the part.

However, football is not the sport with which I feel the strongest connection, though it's a close second.  That distinction belongs to the quintessential American child's game, baseball.  Though most people find it boring and there's something of a lack of athletic prowess to the game, it's captivated my heart since I was very young.

I still remember the first professional baseball game that I ever went to.  Our neighbors had come across several tickets to a game between the Colorado Rockies and the visiting Kansas City Royals.  They weren't going to be able to go, so they gave them to my dad, who accepted and took me down to downtown Denver to see the game.  I don't remember many of the circumstances of the game, but I remember that I got to see Larry Walker and that the Rockies won 13-3.  Clearly they hit well and pitched decently... which is pretty much their M.O. most of the time.  Since then, I've been to many more games and have seen the Rockies win the majority of them.

Many of my fondest birthday memories were in Coors Field watching the Rockies take on various opponents.  I've been to numerous games either on my birthday or in close temporal proximity to it.  Last year, my mom even spotted me and one of my best friends tickets to the MLB All Star game in Arizona, which was the day after my birthday.  I feel fairly confident that this will remain one of my most cherished birthday memories throughout my life. Let's just say it'll take a lot to unseat it from the #1 slot.

One of the biggest reasons I like baseball more than any other sport is that I played it for several years.  I still remember Mrs. McGriff handing out flyers for Northern Lights Little League to her 3rd grade class.  It took a little bit of persuasion to get my mother on board, but she eventually came around.  Sometimes I played better than others... and I was in right field more than a few times, but I see the whole as a positive experience.

Though I'm a big fan of football, hockey, rugby, and lacrosse, there will always be an extra-special place in my heart for the sport of baseball.  I love watching the game and I probably love playing it even more. It captivated me when I was young and it will continue to captivate me well into the future. 

Go Rockies!  :)

It Must Be My Birthday!

Over the last 3 days, my homie, Tyler, and I have been in Phoenix (in the middle of July, and yes it is hot) at the MLB All Star Game. Since it was the day after my birthday, my mom got us a pair of tickets on the 3rd base line. We flew out on Monday, saw the game on Tuesday, and now we're back in the Phoenix airport awaiting our returning flight to Denver. It's been a great time.

The only Colorado Rockie elected to the ASG this year was Troy Tulowitzki. We saw him walking in on the red carpet, when they introduced him, and in the game and took a ridiculous quantity of pictures. Also while we were there, I picked up a Troy Tulowitzki NL All Star jersey, which I am currently wearing. It was quite a bit of money ($125), but for an authentic jersey that's actually not too bad. Other souvenirs that I obtained include: an event program, a pair of pins, and a lanyard. I thought about getting a gold-infused Home Run Derby ball, but for $46, I decided to pass on that one.

And the NL won; 5-1. Self, great day(s).

2 things

Thing #1:

If you, from henceforth, hear me say that I've never won anything in my life, I want you to punch me in the mouth, because now I have. :) Last Friday (July 10th for anyone who's keeping track), my mother had a doctor's appointment on which I accompanied her. While she was doing her thing in the back room, I picked up a copy of the day's Denver Post Sports Section and read it from front page to back, seeing as there was not anything else to do. In the course of reading this paper, I found a small ad in the bottom right corner of a page that said, "Text 'ROCKIES' and you zip code to (number) to win a family four pack of tickets to the Rockies game on July 11th." And yes, July 11th is my birthday for anyone who's keeping track. I thought I might have a good chance to win because, seriously, how many people who read hard copies of newspapers actually text as well? Apparently the odds were pretty good because I won 4 tickets to the Rockies game on my birthday against the Atlanta Braves.

We went to the game, and the luxury suite in which we got to sit was pimpin'. They had all sorts of ballpark food, drinks and a sweet bar-style table off of which I ate while watching the game. It would have been just about perfect if Jason Marquis (Rockies' starting pitcher) had had a better night. He gave up 3 runs pretty quickly, and the Rockies ended up losing 4-3. Despite the loss, I still look back on it fondly as the only thing I've ever won... and on my birthday too.

Thing #2:

So, recently I've been looking into acquiring for myself a handgun, seeing as my 21st birthday has recently passed. I've always had quite an affinity for Glocks, and had it narrowed down to either the model 17 (full-size) or model 19 (compact) 9mm handguns. I perused galleryofguns.com 's "Gun Genie" and found that they had in excess of 100 model 17s available and a few model 19s. Upon further inspection, I found that the model 19s were all faggy California models which held only 10 rounds plus 1. At that point, the decision was made and tonight, I put down a deposit on a brand new Glock model 17, and within a week, I should be holding it in my hands.

Let's review some of the reasons that I have such an affinity for this sort of firearm. The first reason is that it's just plain sexy. When I think of handguns, the Glock models are just what come to mind. This is just the way that a pistol should look. A squarish slide, internal hammer, barrel flush with the slide at the front, a perfect balance of ergonomics and flash, and a picatanny rail on the front end of the frame are just a few of these guns' schmexy features. Additionally, let talk about safeties. In my years of shooting, I've developed quite a dislike for most safeties. Most of them are just inadequate pieces of $h*7 that just get in the way of the trigger and keep it from being pulled. They don't work when you want them to, and work flawlessly when you're trying to take the shot of a lifetime. The bottom line: Most active safeties blow. The Glock, on the other hand has 3, count them three, T-H-R-E-E, 3 PASSIVE... let me say it again, passive safeties, which means that I can reap all the benefits of an active safety, more reliably and without even thinking about it.

At this point I might just sound like a walking Glock commercial, but dang, I am so freakin' excited to get my hands on this pistol. It's gonna be a blast. :)

The Lead Cox and the Skankees

Since my departure from the land of Provo to a place that can (at least a little bit) appreciate baseball, I've found myself thinking about the knuckleball more and more. It's a magnificent pitch that, when thrown correctly can keep hitters bent over like Paris Hilton at her 18th birthday party. It's also a great pitch for guys like me with little to no arm strength over long periods of throwing.

My thoughts on the knuckleball naturally lead me to the greatest knuckleballer of our generation, if not of all time, Tim Wakefield (which is a great name for a knuckleballer, by the way). Like any pitcher, he has his good outings and his bad, but he has consistently won ball-games into and through his 40s and probably still has a few good years left.

This got me to thinking: "Wow, I'd really like Wakefield a lot more if he didn't play for the soulless Lead Cox." (Red Sox, for those less baseball inclined.) I've found over the years that my propensity to hate the Red Sox has grown exponentially over the past few years. In the late '90s and early 2000s I was a Red Sox fan by default because of my undying hatred for the New York Yankees. By the time 2004 rolled around I found myself as a sympathizer for a team that had not won a World Series in over 90 years. By 2007, I was more or less neutral on the topic, seeing as the Red Sox had won a championship about 3 years before and the Yankees hadn't won one since 2000. It wasn't until October of 2007 that I found myself in any real conflict. With my Colorado Rockies in the World Series facing off against the Red Sox, it was necessary to root against them, but I found no real necessity for hatred.

And them my eyes were opened. After the 2007 World Series, I found myself in reflection on my position concerning the Red Sox. It was at that point that I realized that the Boston Red Sox of the late 2000s were the exact same Yankees team that I had hated about 10 years earlier. I'm sure that if I went into downtown Boston and said that the Red Sox were exactly like the Yankees, there would be a mob ready to crucify me; and to those people I say, "Eph you raw!" The phrase, "This team is a maniacal baseball baron that throws obscene quantities of money at high-dollar free-agents in order to worship the idol gods of championship rings and World Series trophies with absolutely no regards to morals or the spirit of the game," could be easily applied to either team interchangeably.

This is not to say that I will now go out and buy Yankees apparel and throw up an A-Rod Fathead in my room. I still hate the Yankees with a fiery, burning passion from deep within my soul. They are still the same team as they were 10 years ago, just with less firepower. George Steinbrenner got senile for a year or two there before handing over the team to his sons. In a few years, they'll return, more or less, to their maniacal, idol-worshiping ways.

The bottom line? I hate both of these teams, and wish that both of them would go 0-162. Sadly, this isn't possible considering that they play one another 18 times a year. I guess I'll just have to settle for 9-153 apiece.

New Baseball Concept

So recently I've been able to view lots of baseball over the past few weeks, and have thought of a new and extraordinarily offensive new idea. Four strikeouts in a single game has come to be know as a "Golden Sombrero"... along with other variations like the "Bronze Sombrero" for three strikeouts and "Platinum Sombrero" for five strikeouts in a single game.

Now this new idea requires a little bit of background information for those who are not entirely familiar with the game. When a player strikes out, the symbol "K" is used on the scorecard to denote such. My new and revolutionary baseball lingo idea is to call three strikeouts in a row a "White Hood." Why you ask? This is where the offensive part comes in (especially when you consider my last post.) Since a strikeout is denoted by the letter K three strikeouts in a row would result in "KKK" being emblazoned on that players slot on the scorecard. Thus three strikeouts in a row would be called a "White Hood." :D