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Tuesday, December 09, 2008

The Broadstreet Bullies v. The Red Army

While researching The Miracle On Ice I found the story about the Philadelphia Flyers versus the HC CSKA Moscow. The game is also known as The Broadstreet Bullies v. The Red Army.

For Philadelphia sports fans, this is one of the moments that separate the real fans from the posers. The real fans have heard about this game. I am not old enough to remember this game, I was only three years at the time. I have heard story of this game since I was a little kid.

There is something about sports and the cold war. I do not think international sports will ever have this feeling again for the US. The American professional sports all have international players in them. Sports is so much about money now, they do not have that same nationalism feel. These days are gone forever.

Related Links.
Summit Series Game 6
CBC Archives

Labels: Flyers, hockey, philadelphia, sports, Wikipedia

- Rich, 6:18 PM

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

The second division

Yahoo! Sports did a list of the worst Cities to be a sports fan. I am happy to hear that Philadelphia did not show up on this list. In fact Philadelphia teams have done well this decade. Yes, no titles, but lots of playoff appearances. I am happy to say that Philadelphia is not playing big bucks to watching losing teams. They are paying big bucks to see teams that cannot get it don in the playoffs.

Labels: flickrpost, philadelphia, pro sports, sports, yahoo

- Rich, 7:02 AM

Friday, August 22, 2008

10 Favorite American Gold Medalist of my life

Photo by Jarod_Uses_Film


I have been watching a lot of Olympics lately. Of course I have been watching a lot because in a couple weeks the whole thing is over. At that point I will have to wait for more year to watch it again. This has made me think of my favorite Gold Metal Winners.

Honorable Mention

Andre Ward
Mariel Zagunis
Cael Sanderson
Summer Sanders
Janet Evans
Bruce Baumgartner
Dave Schultz

Top 10

10. Dan O'Brian - Dan O'Brian is the kind of story that I love. Lots of people would have been crushed by what happened in 1992. It was his own fault he did not make the Olympics. He was able to keep himself on track to win the Decathlon in 1996. That is one of the things that make the Olympics great.

9. Karch Kiraly - One of the best players ever Volleyball. He is the King both indoor and on the beach. He won three gold metals in all. He has a cool name, gold metals, and he is a great TV announcer. I think every jock in my high school wanted to be Karch Kiraly.

8. Michael Phelps - Right now I feel like I have Michael Phelps overload. In a few years I will remember seeing every one of his races this year. I will remember seeing the Olympics he made his own. He won every way he could.

7. Mary Lou Retton - Every American gymnastics gold metal since 1984 should give an assist to Mary Lou Retton. She is the face that launched a thousand careers. Everyone loved Mary Lou Retton and every little girl wanted to be her. She is an icon.

6. Kerri Strug - I know the story is cheezy. She had a broken foot and made the vault that won the gold metal. She stuck the landing with a broken foot. This is just amazing to me. I was at a bar when this happened and strangers where hugging each other after this.

5. Carl Lewis - Four Olympics, Nine Gold Metals, Jesse Owens' feat of winning four gold medals at a single Olympic Game, what more do you want? At Atlanta everyone talked about him, wondering if he could win another gold at the Long Jump and he did. On the track, he was electric. That is all you need to say.

4. Joan Benoit - There is something special about winning the first Marathon. She did it at her home country by more than a minute. That is winning when it counts.


3. Bruce Jenner - The Decathlon is the greatest athletic event in the world. The Decathlon Champion is the greatest Athlete in the world. I remember running around my living room yelling, "I Am Bruce Jenner!" As a 4 year old he looked bigger than life.

2. Eric Heiden - I remember rushing to the TV to watch his races. He really caught my imagination as an 8 year old. The feat just seemed amazing to me. He had 5 individual metals. We talked about it forever when I was growing up.

1. Kurt Angle - I have only seen one Gold Metal one live. I will say that watching Kurt Angle win his gold metal live is the best sporting event I have ever seen live. It is the only time that I ever felt my cheering was having a direct impact on the outcome. It is the best ever.

Labels: athlete, kurt Angle, list, olympics, sports, tag overload

- Rich, 12:32 AM

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Sports Heartbreaks

I hear about a Sports Illustrated Article about the 100 seasons without a title in Philadelphia. I know this heart break well. I was born just before the golden age of Philadelphia Sports. From 1974 to 1983 Philadelphia was a great sports town. They won 4 titles and made bunch of trips to the finals. when I was young I thought it would always be that way. Little did I know that those four titles were more than half the pro sports titles the city had in 100 years of pro sports. Now with another 25 years passing we have not added any titles. I only count the four major sports leagues. Those Indoor lacrosse, arena football, and Minor league hockey titles don't mean anything to me.

The rest of the four sport cities have one a title since we have. You can checkout The other four sport cities

The story has a list of Philadelphia Sports events that have happened in those 100 seasons.


61. This is the worst free agent signing in the history of sports.
26. Wondered what the NFL was thinking by letting this game be played.
24. Knew 2005 would not be the Eagles year
9. Knew that they were not going to win with Barkley and hoped he would get a title with the Suns
8. Gave up on the Eagles Season
6. Drank silly with my friends Eric and Darcey
5. My heart sank as I knew the Sixers were not going to win.
4. I saw for 15 minutes in a room with 30 eagles fans and no one made a sound. At that end of those 15 minutes I had to keep a man from beating up a person who made fun of us for sitting in the dark.
2. I Cried in my car as I watched in through a bay window and listened on the radio
1. I broke a deck furniture with a friend

With all these heart breaks, you might wonder why I stay loyal to my teams. You might ask why I would keep watching if they are going to break my heart. There are a lot of reasons. One of the reasons is because the good moments are so go, it makes easy to put up with the bad moments.

One of the moments that gives me home is the Willie Burton 53 point game for the Sixers. There is a great write up about the game on the Don't Ever Give Up Basketball blog, You need so scroll down to the bottom. This guy who could kindly be described as a journeyman did something that is reserved for NBA royalty. A guy who is a footnote in NBA history holds the single game scoring record for the Spectrum, a record he took from Michael Jordan. That is one of those moments that keeps me believing.

Labels: 76ers, championship, Eagles, fan, list, philadelphia, Phillies, pro sports, sports, tag overload, Willie Burton

- Rich, 3:57 PM

Saturday, December 22, 2007

No more Greatest of All Time

These might be bars someday
Originally uploaded by earthdog.

I have been thinking about Baseball, The Mitchell Report, Barry Bonds, and Roger Clemens. All I can say is lets retire the phrase "Greatest of All Time."

I have been one of the fans that really got down on the steroids era. I see everyone that did steroids as cheating. Even if baseball was not testing for steroids, they were against the rules since 1991.

They are cheaters, but they do not own the fault, not even most of the fault. The League, the office of the commissioner, and the union all have more fault that the individual players. They did not protect the players. In fact they went the other direction and enabled and encouraged this behavior.

I also blame the media. I am not sure why reporters did not dig into this earlier. The word was going around the clubhouse. No one was on the record, but a good reporter could have found some of the truth. It is like the news media thought it was better to keep the clubhouse code of silence.

I do not have a footnote for this story, I remember when Lenny Dykstra, came back from his plagued seasons of 1991 and 1992. In a clubhouse interview he made a comment about eating his vitamins as a joke. Everyone who heard that that clip knew that Dykstra was talking about steroids. Since there was no testing at that time no one did anything. Gary Cobb did a whole show on WIP in Philadelphia about steroids. I wonder why no one covering baseball full time picked up on this.

In light of how many players took steroids, it is truly a whole generation of players who took part of this. The report was full of All Star players. It was at the heart of the game. I am starting to soften on the idea that these players do not deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. I have gone from no not any them to kind of no.

What I would ask of the media and of sports fans, lets retire the title of "Greatest of All Time." I am not saying that we cannot call a player great or amazing. Lets just not crown them the Greatest of all time in any category. Not the greatest hitter, the greatest pitcher, and not the greatest player. I do not care how many stats they rack up, how any MVPs or Cy Young awards they win. No longer can a new player or a player in the game right now be the greatest of all time.

I am not sure what Tim Kurchin is going to do on baseball tonight if he can no longer say a player is the greatest of all time. He might not know what do with himself, but he will find another way to say a player is great.

From here on out I think Willie Mays is the greatest player of all time. He was the best player in the best era of baseball. Lets leave it at that.

Labels: Barry Bonds, baseball, gary cobb, media, mitchell report, sports, steroids, tag overload

- Rich, 5:05 PM

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Hearing through headphones

I read this story in the Mercury News how High School Sports teams need to make rules about iPods. It would be sad to me to see a high school cross country race to see everyone wearing headphones. I understand that headphones are part of running culture. In a marathon lots of people wear headphones, but it would be sad to see that in the Olympics. I know that it is not about the pure nature of the sport, but there is still something to be said about not were headphones everywhere. There should be some part of culture that is immune to the MP3 player.

Labels: headphones, high school, ipod, sports

- Rich, 8:56 PM

Monday, February 12, 2007

Bloggin Baseball

Phillies v. Giants: Pitching
Originally uploaded by earthdog.

Baseball is only a few weeks away. I always look forward to baseball. Baseball is my favorite sport. I enjoy being able to check the scores everyday to see what is happening. I enjoy watching baseball tonight and sports center. I enjoy those games where it feels like nothing is happening, but you cannot turn away.

I was surprised how much of a baseball town San Francisco is. Most people would expect it to be a Football town with the 49ers and the Raiders. Sports fans seem to get more excited about the Giants and the A's. It might be because the 49ers will never be as great as they were in the 80s ever again. It is not their fault, no team will be that great again.

Maybe it is the transport nature of the area. Baseball fans from all over seem to get along better than football fans from all over the place. I will go to a Giants or A's game to see anyone play. For football I would rather stay home and watch the Eagles than go to a 49ers game.

Baseball season will be here before I know it. That is a good feeling about time flying.

Labels: 49ers, A, baseball, Bay Area, Giants, Phillies, Raiders, San Francisco, sports

- Rich, 7:44 PM

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Do Your Job

As people know pro wrestling is one of my guilty pleasures. I always love when little bits of pro-wresling language gets into regular language. Every once in a while I will hear Jim Rome use a pro wresting term to refer to other sports.

One of my favorite terms Job. I think there are lots of time in life when people need to do their job and put other people over. I would like to see this term used more in the real world.

Labels: Jim Rome, language, pro wrestling, slang, sports, Wikipedia

- Rich, 7:17 PM

Saturday, May 20, 2006

Worst of all Time

I found this list of the Worst Baseball Teams of All time. I am happy to see that there are no Phillies teams on this list. I am unhappy to see that all of the Honorable Mention teams are Phillies teams.

Thinking about it for a few minutes, this might be worse. These Phillies teams were bad enough to stink, but not bad enough to be the worst. I always think that third place is the worst place for a baseball team. Good enough to tease you all season long, not good enough to really be in the pennant race.

This makes me think I need to dust off my old "My Least Favorite Phillies of All-Time" team. I have worked on it before, but I have never posted it on my blog.

Labels: baseball, Phillies, sports, worst of all time

- Rich, 4:01 PM

Monday, November 19, 2001

Watching Boxing

On Saturday night I watched the fight between Lennox Lewis and Hasim Rahman. There were two things that I realized watching this fight.

1. I know very little about boxing.

I consider myself to have a good level of knowledge about popular sports. I know a lot about sports like baseball and football. I can talk about techniques involved in Hockey and Basketball. I understand the strategy and nuance in auto racing and tennis. I understand the finer points about most popular sports played in America. With all that boxing is a total mystery to me.

Not many of my sports fans friends are boxing fans. The people who I talk sports with do not like boxing. There is this huge divide there. I am old enough to remember Mohammed Ali's last fights. He was not a great fighter when I saw him, but people still talked about him like he was the greatest of all time. As a boy I knew there was some magic there.

In High School it was the Heyday of Mike Tyson. He was the baddest man on the planet. He was a heavy weight champ that would just destroy people. People would talk about his fights, but they would not talk about boxing. He was the only person people were really interesting in. People loved to see Tyson fight, buy that was about all.

I watched these guys fight and I realize that I have a hard time telling who is winning. I could not tell if the fighters had a plan. I could not see the things that I usually like about sports. I could not see the athletes working a plan. They either look like they are tired or they are lazy. I do not see the science part of the Sweet Science.

2. $49.95 is a lot of money to pay to watch something on TV.

I watched the fight in a neighbors apartment. I did not pay to see the fight. We watched a couple of the fights before the main event. We did not pay much attention to the female boxers. You can call me sexist, but I do not enjoy watching female box. This is an idea for another time. The under card fights were okay, but they were nothing to get excited about. They are not as good fights as I have seen in the past.

We watched the fight. It ended in the 4th Round. The fight was not dramatic. They were no real mystery to it. From the time the fight started it seemed that Lewis was in control. Neither fighter was really making a show of it. I would have love to see Lewis beat Rahman into the mat. It would have been great to see Rahman frustrate Lewis. Neither of those thing happened. No matter how you cut it, it was not worth that much money.

I know why fights are $50 a pop. I know that most people have fight parties. They expect people to split the cost between them. Even with these facts it is a lot of money to watch something on television. Think about all the other ways you can spend $50 on entertainment, 3 CDs, 2 DVDs, Diner and a Movie for two (no popcorn), a month of digital cable. One fight does not seem worth the price. I think that boxing might find this out a little too late.

Labels: boxing, cost, Hasim Rahman, knowledge, Lennox Lewis, list, Mike Tyson, Mohammed Ali, Money, sports, television

- Rich, 11:09 PM

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