Mario Balotelli: A Great Athlete or the Greatest Athlete?

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Some of you might not know who Mario Balotelli is and what he is about.  Heck, it’s likely that most of you don’t know him.  Rest assured, however, that your children, and your children’s children will know his name.  There will undoubtedly be philosophy classes in future years focused solely on the wisdom imparted on us by Mario Balotelli.  In a mere 21 years on this planet Mario Balotelli has done and said enough to fill volumes upon volumes of books.  Balotelli’s achievements have not been confined to the soccer pitch, although he has had success there with European giants Internazionale and Manchester City.  Here is just a sampling of what makes him not just the greatest athlete of all time, but the greatest mind of all time:

  • Balotelli became the face of a fireworks safety campaign in Britain after one of his friends set off fireworks in the bathroom of Balotelli’s mansion during a party, thereby setting fire to the mansion.
  • After scoring a brace in the Manchester Derby against crosstown rivals Manchester United, rolled around Manchester in his Bentley convertible, blaring music and high fiving City fans.
  • When asked about his post-match joyride, responded by saying  about City’s fans, “Even when I have had bad moments they have supported me.  But I don’t care what people say about me.  I am focused on my football, my manager, girlfriends and my family.”  Yeah, he just said girlfriends.  Mario Balotelli is playing the field and he doesn’t care if you, his manager, or even his multiple girlfriends know

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that all happened in one weekend.  In one weekend, Mario Balotelli has done more crazy stuff than most athletes do in their entire life.  Even Terrell Owens would be shocked at what Balotelli was able to accomplish in just three short days.
 
You might say, ”well, none of that sounds too crazy or awesome,” to which I would reply “hmmm,” because that is how I reply to most things people say to me.  In case you aren’t convinced that Balotelli is the craziest, most awesome thing to happen to sports since Wade Boggs drank 64 beers on a cross country flight, here is some other awesome stuff that Super Mario has done:  Keep reading…

The television channel that launched 1,000 conference realignments

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So much has happened in the world of college athletic conference realignment that ALDLAND’s coverage of the fluid, polycentric topic has all but fallen off, and it’s easy to forget what started all of this. Yes, last year, TCU had planned to jump to the Big East next year in order to secure that faltering conference‘s automatic BCS bid, and yes, Conference USA, the Big East, and the ACC had adjusted their jocks in recent years resulting in inconsequential shifts between Boston College, Miami, Louisville, and Cincinnati, and the Big Ten and Pacific 10 each had made minor additions, but it was Texas A & M’s move that represented the first falling domino on this American Fall that saw the Aggies loosed from the oppressive, yet apparently failing, bonds of the Big XII, the tumbling of the Big East‘s old basketball regime, TCU’s reversal of course, and about a billion other related stories. And the hand that pushed that first domino belonged to ESPN’s Longhorn Network.

As Deadspin reports, however, the catalytic network is fairly impotent when it comes to actual television broadcasting as, after launching two months ago, LHN still isn’t on anybody’s tv set:

It was two months ago today that we ran a sky-is-falling story on ESPN’s Longhorn Network going live without having lined up cable companies to actually broadcast the channel. We thought that was just last-minute posturing and ESPN’s muscle would get the deals done before long. But here we are, halfway through the season, and it’s still a channel without a home.

Awful Announcing has a good breakdown of the problems, which start with the one major cable provider in the fold not having much of a presence in Texas itself[:]

“The most glaring issue is outside of the Texas fan-base, there just isn’t a lot of interest in the channel and in fact the mere existence of the network has more than likely hurt the brand of Texas nationally more than it’s helped it. The idea that an entire network can be propped up by two shitty football games has cable providers holding the line knowing the implications of giving in.

“Also working against LHN is the fact that ESPN is their distribution partner. You’d think that this would only help adoption of the channel but my take is that ESPN has bullied the entire industry for quite awhile. This is really the only time where operators actually have leverage and can potentially keep it as an ace up their sleeve for future negotiations on other ESPN/Disney talks.”

This situation can’t continue indefinitely. The Big Ten Network suffered through the same growing pains, with most cable companies only agreeing to carry it in its second year of existence, but that was amid public demand. With no one clamoring for the Longhorn Network in their home, it’s still likely that by next year the network’s footprint will be national: but not at the price ESPN wants to charge to carry it.

From the beginning, it felt like the Worldwide Leader had bit off a bigger bite of Texas rawhide than it could chew, but LHN is starting to look like a Tejas-sized broadcast failure that no one will notice because no one’s ever seen it and ESPN won’t report on it.

Big Monday

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Today really isn’t a big day, and most of the weekend’s football games were duds, but there were a couple notable exceptions.

Saturday day was pretty slow around the college football world, but things picked up Saturday night, when two unbeaten teams, Wisconsin and Oklahoma, put their perfect records to the test and failed to preserve them. In East Lansing, Michigan State made it two in a row against the Badgers. Wisconsin dominated early, but the Spartans seized the momentum and the lead, which they held for most of the game. In typical MSU fashion, though, their attention lapsed and Wisconsin was able to tie the game at 31. With no time on the clock, QB Kirk Cousins threw a Hail Mary (or “Rocket” pass in Dantonio terminology– we always seem to learn the names of his game-winning plays) to the endzone that bounced off B.J. Cunningham’s face and into the waiting hands of Keith Nichol, who muscled it across the goal line for the walk-off score:

That game finished in time to watch Texas Tech complete its victory over Oklahoma, a game the Red Raiders mostly dominated, although the Sooners threatened to make it interesting late, after most of their fans had left. (Vanderbilt wrapped up a homecoming win against Army before both of these games.)

All of which caused me to miss a dominant performance by Albert Pujols in Game 3 of the World Series.

On Sunday, the Lions dropped their second straight game and looked a lot like their old selves. Speaking of which, I saw former Lion QB Dan Orlovsky on the sidelines in Indianapolis during their loss in New Orleans, which made me think that, of the three defeated NFL teams– Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Miami– the Colts may actually be trying to lose all their games. Orlovsky has to be a better option than Curtis Painter. He certainly was a serviceable player for the Lions last year, and Painter is not that. The Rams are suffering from critical injuries at QB and RB, and the Dolphins, who need Andrew Luck most of these three, really just are that bad. But Jim Caldwell’s decision to go with Painter over Orlovsky supports the notion that Indy is tanking this, although they really are pretty bad all on their own too. On the topic of rookie quarterbacks, Cam Newton turned his record-breaking stat parade into a win for Carolina, and Tim Tebow did what Tim Tebow now does, apparently, in his first start for Denver, coming from behind to beat the aforementioned and still hapless Dolphins in Miami.

In hockey, the Washington Capitals dealt the Detroit Red Wings their first loss of the year in a 7-1 Capitals home win.

In South Carolina, there are many tall pines

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And there used to be three men known as Marcus Lattimore, Steve Spurrier, and Stephen Garcia.

Within the last week or so, though, all that has changed. First, quarterback Garcia, who’d shown flashes of brilliance on and off the field, but not nearly as much of the former as the latter, got himself kicked of the team for failing a drug test.

In their first game without Garcia, young backup Connor Shaw helped lead the team to a gutty two-point victory over Mississippi State last Saturday, but the Gamecocks lost Heisman-caliber running back Lattimore to a season-ending knee injury. For many, this team was the favorite to win a weak SEC East, but without Lattimore, it’s tough to see much success left for SC this season.

And that brings us to the OBC. In seven years in Columbia, Spurrier has a 50-34 record, which stands in marked contrast to his overall NCAA coaching record (186-73-2), to say nothing of his record at Florida (122-27-1). Known as a quarterback specialist (due in no small part to winning a Heisman Trophy himself as a Gator QB), he’s struggled to develop quarterback talent for SC, where he’s given his starters (and some reporters) very short leashes.

But the Ol’ Ball Coach, bowling his headset like a dilapidated yo-yo seemingly with even greater frequency of late, definitely has looked ol'(d). A coach only is as good as his players. With an inexperienced quarterback and without his star running back, things very suddenly are looking very bleak in Columbia.

Friday night

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Friday day has arrived, although here in the Upper Midwest at this time of year, Friday day already looks like Friday night, so here comes your Friday jam, with a video that features a woman who looks like Mick Jagger, doppelgänger Carrie Fisher and Bobby Weir, a woman who looks like Sly Stone, and someone who may or may not be me:

Have a great daynight.

Who are we?

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After more than two months and aboutover 2,000 hits, it seemed like time to introduce ourselves. Navigate over to the Contributors page to find out who’s been writing this muckety muck. (Clicking on the pictures will take you to all of that person’s posts.)

If you’re interested in writing here, send us an email: aldland[dot]com[at]gmail[dot]com.

That’s Just The Way It Is: Bruce Hornsby’s Kid Can Get Up (via rush the court)

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All-world junior may not be pulling up from downtown, but he is capable of going with a windmill reverse jam off the bounce.  Check out Keith Hornsby, a freshman guard at UNC Asheville, who also happens to be the basketball-playing child of the three-time Grammy winner.

At UNCA’s Midnight Madness event on Friday night, the Oak Hill product wowed his teammates and the small assembled crowd with his hops, no doubt honed through years of shooting hoops and running drills in the Tidewater gyms with dad (a fairly accomplished area baller when not touring with the Grateful Dead or selling millions of jazz albums).  Keith’s favorite player is Stephen Curry, another son of a famous father, but he’s already got the former Davidson star in the jumping category.  His game consists of a strong jumper and is modeled after another former Virginian star, Duke’s JJ Redick.

Keith’s brother, Russell, matriculated at Oregon this fall as an elite middle-distance runner.  According to this article from The Roanoke Times, Bruce is proud of where his progeny have ended up: “We’ve got both our kids going to two of the great hippie towns in America. They can let their freak flag fly in Asheville and Eugene. All the Deadheads in Asheville and Eugene can come and root for the son of the guy who played with Jerry.”  Spoken like a true rock superstar. … Read More (video embedded)

(via rush the court)

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More Bruce Hornsby content here.
The above article references Hornsby’s The Old Playground, but he had another, more popular song I always thought was about basketball too. Here’s a short clip of that tune by his Noisemakers, featuring Bonnie Raitt:

Nashville recap: Georgia escapes, 33-28

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I made it into town on Friday night in time for a ceremonial pregame dinner at Music City’s finest anti-internet fried chicken establishment and a chance meeting with Taylor Hicks, and I was up the next morning to watch the early games (11:00 am Central) at Nashville’s newest sports bar. After victories by our party’s favored teams, Michigan State and South Carolina, we made our way to our usual tailgate spot, the sunny, low-70s weather being perfect for the activity.

Like most of Vanderbilt’s conference foes, Georgia is on the winning side of a lopsided record that stretches back to 1893. Saturday’s game followed suit, omitting the adjectives. Georgia won, but not handily (much to commodawg’s chagrin), as Vanderbilt missed three game-winning opportunities in the final seconds. Milking a five-point lead, the Dawgs tried to run out the clock, but defense and Vandy’s use of its two remaining timeouts forced a Georgia punt that Vanderbilt blocked. With nothing between them and the endzone but a loose ball, the Vanderbilt defenders were unable to scoop it up and run it in, falling on the bouncing ball instead. With eight seconds left in the game, QB Jordan Rodgers took two strikes at the endzone from about twenty-five yards out, but the Commodores were unable to convert.

Our seats were good for watching the game, but they didn’t allow us to gain any particular insights on the postgame scuffle between Vanderbilt head coach James Franklin and a Georgia assistant coach or the alleged dirty play on Georgia’s part that may have instigated it. Keep reading…