Wild horses at a meat-packing plant Monday

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The NFL conference championship round is set, after Tom Brady’s Patriots and Eli Manning’s Giants brought harsh and decisive ends to special seasons for the Denver Tebows and Green Bay Packers, respectively. In its first home playoff game of the Harbaugh era, the Ravens won a close victory over the Texans thanks, as usual, to their defense, but it was the other Harbaugh whose team played the game of the weekend at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, defeating the Saints in a game that saw twenty-eight points scored in the final four minutes alone, when each touchdown also was a lead-change. While fan favorites and media darlings Green Bay and Denver are out, along with popular championship pick New Orleans, the final four teams offer a lot of excitement. The NFC championship features two teams (SF and NYG) that are peaking right now, and the AFC features a traditional, compelling offense vs. defense matchup (NE and BAL).

The college basketball national picture remains mixed, with Northwestern taking Michigan to overtime and then ending Michigan State’s fifteen-game win streak. Duke, Kentucky, and Georgetown all have shown weaknesses, while Syracuse has maintained a perfect record atop the Big East (ditto for Baylor in the Big XII). Vanderbilt, a top team in preseason rankings, appears to have found its way after falling out of the top 25, although a backloaded schedule means its toughest tests are yet to come.

Extremely late-breaking Friday textual jam about a musical jam about which I have had many questions

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Or just one, really, which I have put on the tweeter on multiple occasions. Roughly recalled, that question is, why in 2011-2012 did a song released in 2003 become such a ubiquitous chant among fans at sporting events? Deadspin is the online publication of the people, and they have the people’s answer:

How The Song “Seven Nation Army” Conquered The Sports World

Back into the music next week. Happy belated birthday, Alexander Hamilton.

Cinco de Mayweather

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Last Friday, Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Melissa Saragosa agreed to delay the 90-day jail term Floyd Mayweather must serve due to his conviction on domestic battery charges until June 1 because Mayweather’s attorney convinced her that the fight Mayweather had scheduled for May 5 would be too difficult to change and will be worth “more than $100 million” for the Las Vegas community. Everyone’s assumption is that Mayweather’s opponent on that night will be Manny Pacquiao– almost everyone, anyway.

Keep reading…

How bad are the Detroit Pistons?

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Nevermind the score or the number of empty seats at The Palace, it’s the occupied seats that were of note in last night’s Mavericks-Pistons game; specifically, two seats on the Dallas bench. I have yet to read any explanation of who these guys are, but apparently professional basketball in Southeast Michigan has become such a joke that two guys who look like Jersey Shore hobos can sit in the middle of the visitors’ bench without a second look from former Detroit coach/current Dallas coach/current Jim Carey lookalike Rick Carlisle. On the other hand, maybe it’s part of some sort of fan-player reintegration following the 2004 brawl with the Pacers. The Pistons should be demoted to the And1 Mixtape Tour and exchanged for a starting five of Half Man Half Amazing, Skip 2 My Lou, The Professor, Escalade, and Sik Wit It, with player-coach Main Event coming off the bench.

(HT: Deadspin)

(UPDATE: Deadspin has identified the jabronies as a suburban Detroit “fashion entrepreneur” and his friend.)

Kobe Bryant and PEDs

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The Orange County Register reports:

These days, over Bryant’s right wrist also rests a fat postgame ice wrap roughly the size of rookie guard Andrew Goudelock, Bryant trying in vain to minimize swelling after acting on the court as if there isn’t a torn ligament in there.

Bryant has been taking a numbing injection to that wrist before every game in hopes of performing normally. Yes, it’s that bad.

He does not want to publicize all the details of his wrist, which is usable only because the bones were not moved permanently out of alignment without the ligament to hold them in place. But it’s now clear just how problematic the wrist is, and it’s fair to wonder where all this will take Bryant.

Bryant walked out of Staples Center on Tuesday night with something that looked like an oven mitten over his right hand and wrist. He wears an immobilizing brace over the wrist when off the court, meaning take-for-granted parts of life such as texting on his phone or zipping his fly become rather challenging.

I’m not sure if the fly-zipping example was a reference to the alleged infidelities that allegedly led to his recent, actual divorce proceedings, and I also am not here to offer any speculation on what’s going on with the German doctor who treated Bryant and Alex Rodriguez.

My question has to do with the wrist injections, referenced above, that “numb the pain and allow Bryant to perform normal tasks, such as ball handling and shooting“: why isn’t this injected substance a performance-enhancing drug?

Keep reading…

Play me some old Alabama

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The Alabama Crimson Tide Elephants rolled and stomped all over LSU in the real national championship game last night, piecing together a 21-0 shutdown of the Tigers on their way to an unassailable claim to the championship. Although we were reminded innumerable times over the past week about the short distance between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, LSU’s offense missed the bus ride down. From the first play, Jordan Jefferson looked shell-shocked, and he never snapped out of it. While senior Jerrett Lee may have a tendency to throw interceptions against Alabama, Jefferson was such a non factor that the decision to stick with him and keep Lee on the sidelines was indefensible. I don’t care if Bill Barnwell proves that Lee on the sidelines is worth 8.79 potential points for LSU, because the Tigers had no actual points. Having given up five scores by the third quarter, but only down by two (15-0), the game was extremely salvageable. Down 21-0 in the fourth, why not give Lee a chance to at least put some points on the board, or at the very least get some playing time in his final game? What’s the worst that could happen? Wasn’t that already happening?

In previewing this game, I predicted that LSU would win a low-scoring affair. While you might say that I was wrong on both counts (twenty-one points, including a !touchdown!, has to be considered high-scoring for this pairing), I at least was correct that LSU would post a low score.

Finally, having already expounded upon Brad Paisley’s new retrospective, “Old Alabama,” and what it means for the national status of country music, I offer the following classic anthem with which to observe the Tide’s BCS championship:

The de jure national championship preview

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Nick Saban* and Les Miles

The New Orleans Superdome has hosted a series of big football games over the past few days, including the Sugar Bowl, a Saints playoff game, and now the BCS national championship game tonight.

Keep reading…

Windy City recap: Red Wings fall to Blackhawks 3-2

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I started my New Year’s sports roadtrip in Chicago, where the Blackhawks beat the Red Wings 3-2 at the United Center. The game was exciting, with five goals and lead changes spread out across the three periods, and some brawling by Todd Bertuzzi. Although the game was tight and balanced, Chicago stayed slightly better throughout the night.

This was my first visit to the United Center, and it’s an impressive, fun place to watch a game. It feels both large and consuming at the same time, and from the start of the National Anthem, the fans keep it loud.  Keep reading…

Wildcard Monday

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The wildcard round of the NFL playoffs is complete. The Lions, in their first playoff game since 1999, fell to the apparently unstoppable Saints in New Orleans Saturday night. Detroit was in command of the game throughout the first half, but by the fourth quarter, the home team had decidedly overwhelmed them. An errant whistle cost Detroit a touchdown, but there were too many missed opportunities on offense and too much softness against the run on defense for the visitors to finish the upset. Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson had good games, but it wasn’t enough. Still, the Lions have to feel ok about a 10-win season that included a competitive playoff game after going 0-16 three years ago. Keep reading…

Global Friday Visual Jam

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A musical selection for this space usually comes to me comfortably in advance of a Friday, but when that’s not the case, I don’t see much point in stretching and possibly further damaging my musical credibility. I’d rather take the week off, go with a textual jam, or drop a visual jam, which we have today courtesy of NASA and the International Space Station:

If you really want a dash of space funk to go along with the visualizations, play this in a parallel window-universe.