Hole Punch Sports

This afternoon I was awoken from a glorious slumber by a phone call I barely remember, and then I called back my friend David, who had also called during my nap. He told me he was heading home to watch the gold-medal Olympic hockey game and the Nuggets-Lakers game. Holy crap, how did I not know? So I switched on the TV and this is what I saw. I picked up the hockey match early in the third period, with the U.S. down 2-1 and not really charging. I was alternately shocked how many names I did and didn’t recognize. Scott Niedermayer’s still playing? Whenever Jack Johnson’s name was called, I started to sing, “it seems to me that maybe…”, and likewise when Mike Richards was on the ice I began to reminisce out loud about what I would have done to him with a fork fifty years ago. This is particularly charming when you realize I was watching the game alone. Meanwhile the Nuggets were taking care of business in L.A., up by eight or so. The U.S. was getting occasional chances on goal, sli...

Everyone’s been asking me the last few weeks who I wanted to win the Super Bowl, and the answer was easy: the New Orleans Saints. Why? Because I hate Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, I’d say, even though everyone says he’s the greatest player in the universe. As I was explaining this over and over, I realized how weird it is to say I am rooting against a team because I hate someone. Thing is, I don’t have any reason to hate Manning. He’s a good guy or whatever. Or maybe he’s not, but he doesn’t seem to be that bad of a guy, either. And he’s very good at football. But he’s wildly overrated in any discussion of his talents as a quarterback. It’s just off the charts how much more highly people think of him than his actual ability merits. Just look at his record in big games, or the way he started going off-target in the fourth quarter tonight. Enough about Peyton Manning, though. Tonight’s all about the Saints and Drew Brees, who cemented what should have been an MVP year with a mas...

Somehow I’ve never written about George Gore, the only Gore ever to play major league baseball. Though you’ve probably never heard of him, Gore was pretty sweet: an outfielder who could flat-out rake, run the bases, and had some skills on defense. He was probably a five-tool player, especially early in his career, though the standards were a little different back then. Gore played his first eight seasons (1879-1886) for the Chicago White Stockings, the team that would become today’s…wait for it…Chicago Cubs (yes, seriously). In 1880, Gore won his only batting title, hitting .360, with league-leading on-base (.399) and slugging (.463) percentages, too. According to Wikipedia , his last two White Stockings teams won the National League pennant, then faced the St. Louis Brown Stockings, champions of the American Association, in what then passed for a World Series. The clubs tied in 1885 and St. Louis won outright in 1886; this was the foundation of today’s Cubs-Cardinals rivalry. Go...