Hole Punch Sports

At the risk of revealing myself as the idiot I am, I did something stupid this weekend and now wish to brag. So Saturday I moved in to a new apartment. Nice little setup, comes with a detached garage. I've never parked in a garage before, at least not regularly. Anyway, Saturday night I got my car, grabbed the garage door opener, and pulled in. There's no clip on the back of the opener, I noticed, but figured I could just leave it in the car somewhere, so I did. On the way out, I pushed the button on the garage itself (not on the opener) to close it up, and carefully avoid tripping that sensor which would have made me start all over. (As long as we're telling dumb garage stories, when I was a kid and before my parents had that safety sensor, I used to push the garage door button, which was located by the door into the house, then race out, touch one of the lines on the driveway, and try to dive or roll back under the door before the thing crushed me. I now realize this cour...

With so much going on in the world, it's refreshing to see college sports have retained their unique mixture of discipline and fair-mindedness. First up is Adrian Peterson, star tailback for the Oklahoma Sooners. A devastating runner with breakaway ability, Peterson should have won the Heisman last year over the weak-armed Matt Leinart-except we all know million-dollar talent that translates to the pro level automatically excludes one from Hesiman consideration. Anyway, Peterson up and got himself suspended from practice Monday and Tuesday for skipping class. According to university policy, Peterson would have had to have racked up four unexcused absences to get that kind of suspension. Now I know the guy's a football player and academics are clearly in the backseat of his automobile of priorities (yes, thank you, thank you), but being an athlete means he also knows the policy. It seems a little early in the semester to be ditching that often, but what do I know? What I absolu...

Some fans are crazy. I mean, I thought I was excited for the NFL to come back. My roommate shattered this illusion yesterday night. You may recall him from previous posts as a big-time Nets, Angels, and Raiders fan. When he walked in to the house an hour or so before the game, he couldn't hold back a "Woo!" and other random expressions of glee. Amen. The NFL is back! If you weren't a little excited, I'm sure Alex Sudreth would be happy to help you find your way back to your home country. Anyway, he was bouncing around the house, making phone calls, pacing from room to room, and shouting "Woo!" every few minutes. Not during the game, but for the entire hour leading up to it. It was odd. And then the game started. He'd had a phone call last through the start of the kickoff, which he then resumed by calling his friend back after the second play from scrimmage. And he only increased in enthusiasm as the game got underway. I don't know how I could liv...

One grating aspect of sports coverage is when leagues discuss rule changes and the experts come out of the woodwork. You know who I'm talking about-the wiseguys who pump out columns with rule changes so sensible, you almost forget they're either pointless or completely unrealistic. So often the proposed changes would only slightly improve the experience for fans, rather than drawing in any new viewers. Writers say things like: "If baseball really wanted to be more successful, they'd do something about all that standing around." Granted, there are too many moments in any game when a pitcher's attempting his fifteenth straight pickoff throw, but there's no way that an arbitrary limit to the number of pickoff throws, for example, is really going to change people's mind about the sport in general. What really gets me is that it's one of the most popular sports that has all the problems. That's college football. Fun to watch it may be, but it also u...

In this in-between time at the start of football and late-but-not-that-late in the everlasting baseball season, there's not any one topic that stands out, so I thought I'd give you my well thought out opinions on five things in sports (originally ten, but I let No. 3 run so long that I thought I'd cut it short (having now finished this, I realize the word short is out of place here)). This probably means I'll have nothing to write about for weeks, so enjoy. Keep in mind that a) I came up with this list at 2 a.m. this morning (I couldn't sleep and I'm not kidding; you have no idea the kind of pressure that comes with running this website) and b) I'm still not making any money off this, so if it makes no sense, blame yourself (which, interestingly enough, also makes no sense). And we're off! 1) Maurice Clarett vs. Ohio State: Before you skip down to No. 2, which I would certainly do in your position, hear me out. There is actually a little timeliness to t...

Now that we're a week into Broncos training camp, it's time for me to run the standard "Five Questions the Broncos Must Answer in Camp" feature, though they're really more related to the regular season than the camp itself. Today Sports Illustrated's website ran a similar article , except it was five statements, not questions. See, pretending someone actually asked me these questions allows mfor responses heavy on opinion and light on facts. 1. Who will start at running back? As Marvelous nee Pugs recently pointed out, the Post just ran an article saying how well Ron Dayne's running style meshes with Denver's zone-blocking/break-their-knees scheme. That's a joke, right? Even when Ron Dayne was "good", he wasn't that good. He's finished each of his professional seasons with a 3.4 yards per carry average, except in 2001, when he notched a career-best 3.8. Still, the Giants managed to find room in their offense to hand him the ball ...

Rockies : The biggest news is the trade of Shawn Chacon to the New York Yankees. The Rockies got a pair of double-A pitchers out of the deal. The question the article I linked to posed was, doesn't this contradict our build-from-within philosophy? Let me be the first to say: what a stupid question. Who cares? Dan O'Dowd's response was that it strengthens our youth movement. Is that going to be the explanation for every Rockies move, and for how much longer? Not that I've lost patience in this specific plan, any more than that I never believed in it, but younger is not always the same as better. I mean, Chacon's 27, so he ought to have some decent years left. How far in the future are we building for? More to the point, how far out of his prime will Todd Helton be by the time these guys are ready to contribute? I think he'll be the last superstar we have for a while at this rate, so we ought to make use of him. It'll be at least a few years before these guys...