Last Call: From a Land Down Under
Did you miss her?
A Last Call without Miranda just doesn’t seem right.
Links of Unimaginable Quality
On pick-up soccer. (Avoiding the Drop)
Future occupations for Roy Jones Jr. (Style Points)
FD takes on the future of sports media. (Das Pub)
The best jobs in college football. (Souvenir City)
Stuff We Wrote
Musical Accompaniment to Merriment
It’s technically a commercial. Who cares?
Alternate Lady
For those of you who don’t like Miranda Kerr, Christina Hendricks. Esquire labeled the URLs for their pictures with “Cleavage, breasts, ass, and sexy.” C’mon, Esquire. We just tag our posts.
Reminder
Email us about staff openings. We’ll get to you this weekend if you already have.
Wow I made it to one of these before everyone went home.
unfortunately I suppose that I’ll be gone before everyone gets here.
/hangs head
//lets self out door
Great commercial. Unfortunately I will never look at Ice Cube the same after Daddy Day Care. Hello no one.
Hey everyone,
I promise what I’m putting up tomorrow will be better than what was on today!
Hey miss that article got lots of convo going.
True, I just felt bad about not fact checking sexy pics. If you want to know the original plan, I was going to write it overly earnest and then force you to put sexy pics of lady’s in soccer-like outfits, but I was afraid that the joke would be lost on some people.
It was a good article Marissa. Don’t second guess yourself. I’m a typical white male american who could give a shit about soccer….but I still read it.
I enjoyed yours as well FD. Well written.
Thanks Mek
Oh thank you! I get all the points that the people made in the comments, but I am
A) Not patient
B) About to become an Auntie and want my nephew to grow up w/ the similar strong women ideal in sports.
I also couldn’t give a shit about soccer and read it.
One of my friends did a speech for class on why Soccer isn’t big in America and most of the class thought that it’s because there really aren’t any young marketable star (like Evan Longoria, Matt Ryan, and basically every NBA superstar under 25). I’m not gonna bother with what i think it is because like it did with Hockey it’d drive most people crazy.
Wrong. Jozy Altidore comes to mind first, but there are many. Hockey also has many marketable people. It’s a complex issue and writing about it at midnight wasn’t a smart idea.
I have no idea who that is. Certainly not on the LeBron/D-wade level or the Longoria level.
He’s young and marketable. I don’t know who Evan Longoria is so we’re even.
Marissa, it’s like what TwoYellows said on the podcast, the US needs a young, marketable star in the US. It’s harder to get behind a gatorade commercial telling you to watch Jozy play against Wigan at 7am on a Saturday than it is having them tell you to watch Jozy play the Galaxy at 7 pm on a Thursday night.
Though it is a double edged sword, as if Jozy was in the states his development would be stifled and he wouldn’t be able to develop into the world class player he can be. It’s gonna take another 10 years for anything like this to happen though as the MLS needs to improve talent wise (and Don Garber needs to not have a minimum set at $10k/yr)
He’s young, marketable, and not stupid. He just signed with Hull; he’ll be playing in the EPL.
True on both accounts. We do need more marketable people, and I believe that they are already in the league. They just don’t have proper representation.
LOL, yeah, you just need to learn to fact check (for example, the WPS is intentionally focusing locally, rather than nationally). It’s a learning process; no one is an Ernest Hemingway right out of the starter’s box. And FD’s right, it did get lots of people thinking and commenting, which is always a good thing. Don’t take me wrong girlie, it was a decent piece – we’ll make a journalist out of you by accident!
Even though it is focused locally (which I blame getting leagues mixed up on having to also update the RSVP list for the shower), they do deserve more attention than they’re getting. AND NO I WILL NEVER BE A JOURNALIST! I am only good for rants and erotic fanfic!
Hah. you wait and see, sister.
Someone needs to tell Crabtree to pick up his phone. Mike Williams is on line 1.
I think he will sign. But deep down…I hope he doesn’t. And I hope he falls to the 2nd or 3rd round next year. That would make me feel like god was on my side.
What is he bitching about? Who cares what DHB is getting? Larry Fitzgerald (by far the best wr in the league gets 4 yr/40 mil) and this fucker wants almost that much before he steps on a field.
see, this is exactly why there needs to be a base (minimum) salary for rookies/draftees, ie. $100,000 for the season. kick in some performance incentives, fine, but then at least there’s no “wah, i was drafted higher, why is HE paid more” shite. They BOTH get 100K, anything extra is earned through play and performance.
Will you please put you rational thinking back into the box it came in? Those kind of thoughts only make sense and are not encourage by any player union.
I…I’m sorry.
/sniffle sniffle
//kicks dirt, shuffles away
All kidding aside, you are right. But also for the fact that how many teams have overpaid for someone that has gone pro and then sucked. This works for both the team and the player. The team does not get saddled with a salary for a shitty player, and the player can then turn to the team and say, Pay me, I can preform at this level.
The NBA system seems to work fine. Baseball is even worse than the NFL. My thing with Crabtree is that he’s a WIDE RECEIVER. He’ll play til he’s 35. Look at Issac Bruce and Joey Galloway. It’s not like he’s a running back or qb where he’ll get 2 good contracts. Just be grateful and take the ridiculous amount of money their giving you. Sitting out can only cause disaster.
Good evening Last Callers… 3 hours until quitting time. Honestly, I’m really not a good person, yet I do good things. I’m an enigma. Oh, and no XM radio to get me through the night. What???
Which Mike Williams? The fat one that works the fry machine, or the fatter one that works the shake machine?
Not that fat ass that plays for Cincinnati. The one who thinks he’s above the rules.
You know… the soccer in the US debate is interesting, but I go back to what my friends and I agreed on many moons ago. Soccer will not be big in the US, because there are other things that are more established at a young age (little league, pop warner, etc). Then at the larger levels it’s overshadowed by the Big 3, the NHL, and regional biases like NASCAR or volleyball or boxing or UFC or wrestling or tennis or golf. It’s a niche sport in the US. It’s nice that people want to make it big here, but the thing that REALLY will kill that is the lack of a defined season where the top players in the US will play a defined season, because the best players can’t play all the MLS games because the USMNT will take them for whatever they’re playing, and if they’re REALLY any good, the money is EPL. (That’s right, I pay attention, I’m not REALLY a soccer rube).
I don’t know, youth soccer is really popular. But yeah, I think the US issue w/ soccer is that it’s seen as a foreigners sport, which is odd, considering the world influence basketball and baseball have.
Don’t forget the disconnect – kids grow up playing football, but that drops off in middle school/high school. With that big of a lapse between playing as a kid and college (pre-professional), we lose a lot of potential talent to other (more highly visible) sports. I think that if the culture changes, that football is seen as being as desirable a pro-sports career as NFL, or baseball, or basketball, you’d have the younger kids sticking it out, and therefore develop a fairly solid talent pool.
Good evening, all. Rumors of my demise have been wildly exaggerated.
Don’t you work over at Style Points. Blogging home for the elderly?
What did you say? Speak into my good ear, Sonny.
how the hell are ya? i’ve missed you!
Oh, you know, the wife’s been a real pain in the ass and Juniorhagendaaz needs braces, but I keep on a truckin’
oh, so you’ve been passed out drunk in the gutter again, huh?
This guy may have killed himself trying to get a Garrett Jones foul ball. He’s that good.
@RonArtest
I’m having severe reply fail at work… but RE: DHB vs Crabtree… this is the rare case that I agree with the “disgruntled” player. If you asked all 32 Owner/GM combinations right now who they’d rather have, Crabtree or DHB, only Al Davis is stupid enough to do what he did. MC shouldn’t be punished because Al Davis is a moron.
I agree that Crabtree is better too, the difference between 7-10 shouldn’t be that much. The crime is that DHB is getting paid like a #1 WR and the 7th pick, when in terms of talent, Crabtree was the 2-3rd best player and DHB is more like in the 20s.
@Marissa
Baseball has a world influence because MLB owners realized that it the Latin America countries were untapped areas to bring in talent. Ditto the NBA and Europe, then Asia, and MLB into the far east. But soccer can’t work that way. It’s a popular sport worldwide, but that doesn’t mean anything to advertisers, TV, products that are sold in the US. That being said, if basketball and baseball at the highest level had nothing to gain by going worldwide, they wouldn’t do it.
I agree that soccer is a huge youth sport, but it’s a stepping stone sport at most young ages (and this is what I saw first hand) because it was a sport that was “safe” at younger ages, until kids could “safely” play flag/tackle football, little league/youth baseball, organized basketball (which has NO youth league until middle school in WI), etc.
I agree with you on the safe sport and all that. I didn’t have the opportunity to play football at all as a kid, i couldn’t play basketball until 5th grade (when i was in 5th or 6th they started letting you play IM in 1st grade). So basically if you sucked at baseball at a young age then you played soccer since there wasn’t football or basketball. Then when kids could finally play basketball they switched or turned more attention towards baseball (since it gets more difficult as you get older). There is also a lot more opportunities for scholarships playing baseball, basketball or football.
Or you know, you played soccer because it was a good sport and you weren’t interested in baseball.
This is the same argument that people were having when I was a kid. The womens team was HUGE in the 90’s…but that had a lot more to do with the personalities that team had and the amount of work that they personally put into the marketing of the olympics and the world cup. And I’m not taking anything away from how good they were. They were an amazing team. But they were also a group of articulate women that knew how to promote their sport…not themselves.
Is anyone watching the Yanks/Sox game? I am at work and can only see the game cast. Is it as good a pitchers duel as it looks?
I think tonight is the one game in their series that isn’t on national tv. I’m watching the pirates so i would say whatever you’re looking at is probably right.
Last I checked the game was still 0-0 in the 8th. The Bears are winning.
Hey, hey, douchegators, what it be?
Lessee, Crabtree’s out of his mind, AFL’s outta cash, and Giambi and Smoltzie are just plain out. What else is the haps?
Whoops, almost forgot about LeBron too. Sorry (again) C-town fans, looking like the writing’s on the wall.
Nobody wants to listen to me around these parts. Everyone is still walking around with rose colored glasses. Oh he won’t leave, this is home….he wants to finish his career here. Bullshit. He is gone. And if he doesnt win us a championship i will boo him to the day i die.
I feel your pain as a fan, but c’mon, I don’t see how that’s HIS fault that they haven’t won already. He did all anyone could’ve expected of him and they couldn’t even beat the Stan Van Gundies.
Maybe they’ll work it out last minute (like Kobe or even Jordan did back in the day). And I hate to get all John Hughes on you, but how can you can you blame him for feeling like that well-adjusted, intelligent kid who feels like if he doesn’t break out of his podunk hometown he’ll be stuck forever? Aside from $$$ considerations, I really think that’s how he’s feeling now.
I love soccer to the point that I may have literally shat my pants during the Confed Cup and have bugged the hell out of people to turn on the games featuring Barca and Madrid this week, and one of the biggest issues that I see (and this is certainly not a new theory) is that the MLS, well, sucks. Most soccer fans I know will pay to get Fox Soccer Channel just to avoid watching the free MLS games on ESPN, and showcasing a second- to third-tier league probably isn’t going to expand the fanbase too much. People don’t learn to love basketball from watching the D-League. Heck, USMNT games pull really good TV numbers (even if it is thanks to Setenta), as long as the product on the field is top-noch more people will watch. Which is why ESPN getting the La Liga and EPL rights is uber-exciting, if only so I can watch my beloved FC Barcelona on a more regular basis.
Agreed. I have no idea what the problem is w/ MLS, but the games are not as entertaining to watch as other leagues.
Agreed, just can not bring myself to watch a game. Gave it a chance, but it’s not nearly as fun as La Liga or the Prem.
I think all the American leagues need a major overhaul in order to bring fans in. I’m not sure what exactly, but things need to change.
So, just to clarify on what I’ve read earlier (and again, forgive my ignorance) but is basically just that old catch-22 of the money people not shelling out the cash/making the minimum too low because people aren’t supporting the teams, while at the same time all the talent leaves the US because of more lucrative leagues elsewhere, leaving you stateside fans in the lurch or what?
I was just wondering because the last few years, folks in this DA BEARS DA BULLS DA SOX town (okay, and that other team) were damn near filling up Soldier Field to watch the Fire. Seems to me folks would be willing support a winning product if the owners were willing to open the goddamn purse strings already (see also “Hawks, Black.”)
I ask honestly as an outsider: is that a reasonable assesment of this mess, or just a too-simplistic old saw?
Yes, that has a lot to do with it. The issues w/ American soccer is a vicious cycle, with issues on all parts. We need to keep American talent (sorry Becks) here, publicize the teams more, and lose the stuck up attitude as Americans that soccer isn’t a competitive sport. Obviously the last one only has a chance of changing if the other two things occur.
Well and here’s the thing, most of these MLS teams sell really well for live games, but then most of the people that care…are there already. The die-hards are filling ‘em up, but what they need is the casual fan to get hooked and expand the fan base outside of the already rabid faithful.
Ahh, now I see.
From what I’ve been hearing, this was just some sort of d-league if you will with no following whatsoever. I knew that wasn’t true a few years ago when I saw this city get so, um, pumped up?
/what? i stopped myself!
//okay fine sad trombone
Damn.
Billy Mays Cocaine Surplus? Although I guess it isn’t TOTALLY shocking…
Honestly, how do you think he managed to simultaneously stay so loud and so frakking hyper?
I thought it was a small amount…
Small amount in system (at the time), but there’s no way to know how much he used, or how often he used it.
Yeah, I’d think no one is just a “recreational” coke user.
Berthuime’s on fire tonight.
Literally, or figuratively?
Barbaro at 76 percent!
ALL REJOICE
Boooooo.
That made my night, kind of pathetic that it did, but it did.
Oh FUCK you Ump. Balk, my ass!
I must say, I hate both the Yankees and the Red Sox, but I still can’t change the channel. I love me some 0-0 baseball.
If Jeter wins this I might throw up in my mouth.
One positive is it’s baseball, so someone will win eventually.
Not necessarily, one of the most unique aspects of baseball is that it has no provision preventing a game to go on forever (other than Bud Selig), technically it never HAS to end.
Don’t forget last years World Series as well. We don’t have to see an end tonight.
Eventually it will end and there will be a winner and loser.
@Chicago Sometimes
“the money people not shelling out the cash/making the minimum too low because people aren’t supporting the teams, while at the same time all the talent leaves the US because of more lucrative leagues elsewhere, leaving you stateside fans in the lurch or what?”
Basically. Without getting too indepth into the issue the MLS Salary cap is something like $2 million dollars a year, Designated players (beckham, etc) cost $400,000 towards the cap but can be payed whatever. The MINIMUM salary in the MLS is $12,000. A lot of those guys have to work part time in the winters and I even heard of one guy going to USL (second tier soccer in the US) because he didn’t want to work at starbucks in the offseason.
MLS has protected themselves from getting too out of control and blowing too much money and actually a teams salary (except for the excess designated player salary) is paid out by the league. What they need to do is institute a bigger cap (I’d say about 5 million), they’ll be able to give lower players better salaries and bring in better talent overall. Kenny Cooper from Dallas’ team, who was one of their better players, left for the german 2nd division last week because he’s paid a lot more there and he’s not even a superstar level player. It’d be like Reggie Bush leaving for the Arena League.
The top US players aren’t here because the league sucks, because of the low cap. Currently the MLS seems more concerned with making money from franchise fees and selling its better players off for profit to Europe, which is an incredibly short sighted way to make money as it does the exact opposite of growing the league.
I just spent the last hour writing my Packers preview for SP. And it’s still not done.
Have I put too much into this already? Please tell me yes.
No, I spent about that much time on my broncos preview last night and I’m not done.
*gets back to work*
Having written a Packers preview that took about two hours this week, you’re fine.
Yeah, I read that. I’m trying to keep it fresh, which makes it even harder.
Fucking gem being put on tonight though, and I hate the damn Yanks.
Get Simmons a condom to blow that Papelboner into! What a pitch!
So I’m going to the Sox-Yankees game tomorrow, and we get this gem tonight? Life ain’t fair.
Where is John Smoltz? He would end it.
I’m seriously considering turning the Braves off and switching to it…
Evening all. So Lebron is gone already? I thought he had another season to play before that happened.
Patience, friend. Just wait until you see how the Shaqxperiment ends, it’s gonna make your av look like a pilot light or some shit.
/sorry but that dude leaves nowhere quietly or gracefully
//still loving the av though
///oh the shaqmanity
This game is still going on? Jesus tap-dancing Christ.
The Braves just got screwed out of not 1, but 2 outs on the same play. We better not lose this game…
Why? We’re going to be third in the division anyway.
/fatalistic
Yeah i’m starting to realize that. As great as the pitching is they can’t put it all together. I’m just waiting for Heyward.
I saw his stat line when Ken Trem tweeted it. Oh, my.
I’d like to they that eventually we’ll benefit from having the #1 overall prospect two years in a row. Heyward’s hitting like .430 in AA. Hanson hasn’t begun to pitch yet. I can’t wait until it all comes together.
We’ve gone from being the Yankees/Red Sox to being the Rays. I like that, especially since we’re being patient (no flipping Javy for a bat) and doing it the right(ish) way.
Just have to stay patient.
Hey all!
This is the game that never ends…
story of inches. heard that before
I’m not saying the Sox shouldn’t have gone after Victor Martinez, but they could sure use some long relief from Justin Masterson right now.
Aceves earned his keep tonight, too.
and we’re done. and it was a-rod. yay?
fucksticks. that SUCKED.
you could be a jays fan…or a royals..
Thats almost better, you have low expectations and get the disappointment out of the way early in the season. I will now stare at a 04 World Series poster until I fall asleep.
except for the Jays this year with their 21-12 start. Stupid raised expectations
I’m actually technically a Tribe fan (but also a latent Boston fan). So either way (1) I’m used to disappointment and (2)I LOATHE the Yankees.
My friend gave me Yankees shirt for some random reason once. I occasionally wear it to bother people.
That sounds like the first two requirements to becoming a Royals fan.
The third being, you must have, at some point in your life, pronounced the word “creek” as “crik”.
/Kansas farmboy
good evening, all. who needs earned runs when the Giants feel like blowing a game to an inferior team? Hal McCoy would have less than five errors out there
QUITE FRANKLY, I ONLY JUST WENT THROUGH THE STEPHEN A. SMITH HECKLING SOCIETY VIDEO LIBRARY THIS EVENING, HOWEVA, IT WAS EXCELLENT AND I SHALL TYPE LIKE STEPHEN A. WOULD FROM NOW ON.
Anyone still alive?
I was deceased – HOWEVA, YOUR ENTHUSIASTIC TYPING BROUGHT ME BACK FROM THE GREAT BEYOND.
When will the Broncos preview come out, so I know precisely how much disappointment I need to prepare myself for this season?