Mariners vs Red Sox vs Dave Sims

Bottom of the 13th, tie game, pop fly to left.
"And that ones going to be troubleeee...no its not. Raul's got it" - Dave Sims

FIFA Law 11 - A player is in an offside position if he is nearer to this opponents goal line than both the ball and the second last opponent.

Although I didnt always, I now understand the technical definition of the offsides rule. That is to say I understand when a player is offsides and when he is not. After watching several world cup, international and MLS matches, I even understand why it is a rule. Again I didnt always understand this. It seemed like by simply removing this restrictive rule the sport could increase scoring and bring in more American fans. But even with all this soccer growth and enlightment, man it can be infuriating.

Did you watch the video? If not watch it. On Sunday during a tightly contested match against Chivas USA, the Sounders Brad Evans shot and appear to score a goal that would have put his team up by 2 with 24 minutes to play. This would have basically wrapped up the game. Instead Evan's goal was negated because he was slightly offsides. When I say slightly I mean slightly. He couldn't have been more than two feet forward of "the second to last opponent."

It seems to me that in times like this when the offensive player is clearly not cherry picking, the offsides rule shouldn't apply. MLS should consider changing the rule so that it only applies to outside the goal box. This would be similar to the offsides rule in hockey. It would let plays like Evan's almost goal count. It would make soccer way more exciting.

Idiocy and Team Building

As someone who technically writes for this blog but hasn't in several months, it may seem quite silly for my first post to be about an NBA team literally no one cares about.  The very existence of this article follows none of the normal subject matter for this blog, and really doesn't make a lick of sense.  Why anyone would bother to devote time to purposefully creating such a terrible product is beyond most reasonable people, and yet here lies that article.

The Milwaukee Bucks are this article.

Absolutely nothing about the Bucks makes any sense whatsoever, even to the most casual of observers.  Last season, they were among the worst teams in all of basketball, in that they were neither bad enough to pick up any truly worthwhile talent in the draft nor good enough to make the playoffs as anything other than an afterthought eight seed awaiting destruction by the eventual champions.  Outside of Brandon Jennings' regrettable comments (a yearly tradition, along with his steadily degrading play), there really wasn't any reason to pay attention to the Bucks this year.  Going forward, the only person on the roster that is even a little exciting is LARRY SANDERS!, who is as ridiculous as any player in the league, both in his ability to create highlight blocks and his ability to be hilariously stupid on the court.  If there was ever to be a second JaVale McGee, he is it.

You Can't Escape Justice, Only Avoid it for a Time

Yesterday, Ryan Braun accepted a 65 game suspension (the rest of the season) for violating the league's PED rules. Braun's suspension comes as part of the fallout from the Biogenesis scandal. He is probably baseball's biggest name to get busted for PED, while at the height of his career.  His involvement in a PED scandal is especially damning and especially intriguing because of his previously failed, and than overturned, drug test.

Back during the 2011, MLB announced that Braun had failed a drug test. The story dominated the headlines during the season. During that period Braun vehemently denied the accusations. He lambasted everyone involved in case. The outfielder battled the allegations that he took PED and eventually overturned MLB ruling, on a technicality, during the appeal process.

After the appeal overturned his suspension, the sports writers awarded him with the 2011 MVP award. Braun than played the entire 2012 season and produced what is arguably, an even better season than his MVP campaign. His 2012 wRC+ was 161. It appeared that the whole PED thing was behind him. Than, the Biogenesis list leaked and those of us that never believed his story about tainted pee cups or prolonged exposure got to see the star fall.

Here is the thing, I wasn't rooting for Ryan Braun to fall because he took PEDs. Honestly, I couldn't care less if he doped. I was rooting for Ryan Braun to fall because he was a smug, insolent, asshole about whole thing. The guy obviously caught a huge break when the test taker just so happened to not follow the exact written procedure. 

So what did he do? He didn't count his lucky stars and quietly go back to his successful career as a major leaguer. No, he decided to take the low road. After being cleared of wrong doing, Braun continued his crusade to clear his name and villianized anyone involved in the case to suspend him. He questioned the urine sampler, the testing agency and baseball about their integrity. He basically took the least graceful path possible.

The main point I'm taking from this whole Ryan Braun cheating scandal is if you lie, cheat and steal your way to the top, you will eventually get your comeuppances. It might not be immediately or even in the short term, but some day you will pay a debt for being an asshole. I like to think that this is true everywhere in the world, but, even if it isnt, it is nice to know, that in the isolated world of Major League Baseball, eventually it all comes back around.

Gilbert Arenas...Superstar Pay

Gilbert Arenas was once a force to be reckoned with in the NBA. In the 2006 and 2007 seasons he averaged almost 30ppg. However a slew of injuries diminished his talent to the point where he now plays in China. So, imagine my surprise when I saw him listed on the ESPN Magazine list of top paid athletes in 2012. According to ESPN Magazine, Mr. Arenas made $20,807,922 last year from the Wizards. Seriously, he was the third highest paid NBA player and he didn't even play a game. Wow, just wow.

You Make Americans Hate Soccer

On Wednesday I went to the Sounders vs DC United match at Century Link Field. The match in general was fun because the Sounders won 2-0, but very frustrating as they looked bad in their victory. However, I am not enough of a soccer expert to write about the failing of the Sounders offense during this game. Instead I want to concentrate on something else, or more specifically someone else, that caught my eye during the game, DC United Midfielder Sainey Nyassi.

This Guy...This Freaking Guy

To my untrained eye Nyassi embodies every reason why many American fans struggle to get into soccer. During the first half of the game he split his time evenly between playing soccer, rolling around on the ground and complaining to the referee. Of all those times he hit the turf, maybe one was a legitimate foul. At least once he fell completely on his own according with no Sounder player anywhere near him. His response to this embarrassment was to roll around on the ground, pop up and sprint over the the ref to plead his case for a foul.

Flopping repeatedly during a soccer match is super annoying. Sure players flop in other sports (basketball, hockey, etc) but in none of those sports is it quite so brazen. Americans hate it. We hate it more then we hate the low scoring or the lack of stats to judge players on. We hate it so much that it often blinds us to all the other good things about the sport. On Wednesday, Nyassi took flopping to a whole new level and he personally emobodied everything Americans hate about soccer. I don’t know if Nyassi always plays this way or if I just caught him on a bad day, but boy was it annoying. Enough so that Nyassi has now join the list of athletes I root against (including guys like Brett Favre and Carmelo Anthony).