Ugly Maryland Football Uniforms Are Ugly

As a Philadelphia Eagles fan, this is quite possibly the greatest night of my life.

So Qatar'd: Qatar Wins 2022 FIFA World Cup Bid

See that little thumb that's circled? 
It's the country hosting the 2022 World Cup.  Really.

As someone who is currently taking multiple courses on the Middle East and the Muslim World, I am less than giddy about FIFA's decision. Surprised about this decision? No. I saw this coming a mile away (don't believe me? I correctly called both bids last night on Twitter). Am I happy about this decision? Absolutely not. Qatar is far from an ideal country to host the World Cup.

Not that this will come to many people as a surprise, but it is truly amazing what can happen to those who pad the pockets of Sepp Blatter the most.

On the outside, it does seem like a progressive decision, but really, it's not. I wonder if FIFA has ever considered the problem that alcohol is an item that will be greatly consumed during World Cup games, but is also an item that is deeply frowned upon in Qatar. There will be some awkward moments for sure. Not to fear though. You can expect designated drinking zones during the World Cup time. Yay progressivism!

Also, what happens if Israel qualifies for the World Cup? Qatar has a terrible relationship with Israel. There is a chance that Israel could be played be forced to play their games in the deserts of Oman.

Aspeaking of the venues, this is no joke. Of the few stadiums that are currently erect in Qatar, all of them will be expanded. Of those that are not built, well, they will need building. And the cities. Currently, 5 of the 10 venues scheduled to host World Cup games are in Qatar's capital and largest city, Doha, a city which, by the way, has a population of less than a million. Qatar plans to put air conditioning in all the stadiums to prevent players from playing in the 111 degree heat of their summer time. For the sake of health of the players, I hope those air conditioners don't malfunction at any time.

The country is roughly the same size of Connecticut; how on earth do they have the capacity to accommodate the massive influx of people they will see in 2022.

I want to be happy for this Middle Eastern country, but really, there is too much working against it for me to be happy. Sepp Blatter has an agenda that most likely include rewarding people who make his pockets fatter immediately and winning a Nobel Peace Prize, both of which this could accomplish. What if the plans to build these facilities fall through?

And lastly (and my personal favorite), homosexuality is illegal in Qatar, punishable by a prison sentence of up to five years.

So, uh, congrats to FIFA on this very progressive decision?

The Egregious Officiating Blunder That Cost The Flyers An OT Game-winning Goal (A Complete Breakdown)

(Originally posted at Broad Street Hockey)

Let's get one thing straight: The Flyers did not deserve to beat the Flames today. They were outplayed and outworked by an inferior hockey team who is ranked 26th in the league in the overall standings.

Let's get another thing straight: The Flyers would have stolen a 2nd point from Calgary anyway, had the officials not made one of their biggest blunders of the season.

When Sean Avery instigated what is now known as the "Avery Rule" back in the 2008 playoffs, did anyone really think we would see it come up again? Maybe the lack of occurrence of the penalty caused the referees to forget what the penalty is for. It certainly is an explanation for calling it when they did.

Follow along with the jump for a complete breakdown of everything regarding this rule and this play.

Dodger Fans Let Silly No-Hit Bid Interrupt Much More Interesting Beach Ball Game

Last night, Hiroki Kuroda took a no-hitter into the 8th inning. An at best middle of the rotation starter was on the verge of history when, all of a sudden, a beach ball lands on the field out of nowhere. Nice timing, Dodgers fans. Vin Scully is not amused by your classlessness.



Perhaps it is not a coincidence that it was later in the 8th inning that Shane Victorino hit a single to right field to break up the no-hitter. Good. Dodgers fans and their lackadaisical attitude did not deserve to see that no-hitter completed last night. Really? Throwing a beach ball on the field while you're own pitcher is throwing a no-hitter in the 8th inning? How classless can you get?

(Video courtesy of Awful Announcing)

Scott Barry Has Pulled This Stunt Before

I don't know when, but sometime during the year, Scott Barry was called up from the minor leagues to umpire MLB games. In the last 5 days, he has succeeded in being on the "hate list" of not just one NL East team, but 2 NL East teams. On August 19, 2010, when playing the Atlanta Braves, the Nationals had their own encounter with Scott Barry. From MLB.com's official write up of the incident.

Nationals third baseman Ryan Zimmerman and manager Jim Riggleman were ejected during the team's 3-2 loss to the Braves on Wednesday night.

The incident occurred in the eighth inning with the game tied at 2. After he struck out swinging to end the top of the eighth, Zimmerman threw his bat and helmet in disgust. He didn't say anything, but home-plate umpire Scott Barry ejected Zimmerman.

It marked the first time in his career that Zimmerman was tossed from a game. Riggleman then argued with Barry for about a minute before being tossed out himself.

[...]

According to Riggleman and Zimmerman, Barry believed the bat and helmet tossing from Zimmerman was directed at the umpire, but that wasn't the case. Zimmerman said he was simply frustrated at himself for striking out.

Let's see, player mad himself....lets frustration with self out externally....ejected by Scott Barry........Where have we seen this story before?

I mentioned above that Scott Barry was a minor league call up earlier in the year. Call me totally nutty, but I have a feeling that he is going to end up back in the minors in no time if this lunacy keeps up.

(Hat tip to The Fightins and Fightins commenter Phils Phan)

Kenny Albert Knows Dedication

Speaking from experience, I can say that pulling an all-nighter and not getting any sleep at all is better than only 2 hours of sleep. Hopefully for Kenny's sake, he was able to sneak in a nap or 2 before this afternoon's game otherwise he might find himself confused as to why Derrek Lee is playing for the Atlanta Braves.

LOL Fox Sports

What happens when you take this:

and then add this?

If you guessed possibly the worst NFL announcing trio of all time—you win! It’s too bad there aren’t Pammy awards for NFL announcers. But it should make for some very entertaining live blog moments this fall.

Thanks for nothing Fox.

Follow me on Twitter @kt1000

Bill Leavy returns to Seattle, no one slashes his tires

With all of the controversy swirling the last few months in pro sports because of poor officiating (NBA referees, Jim Joyce, Bob Davidson), controversies of the past tend to get swept under the rug, except, of course, in the cities that feel they were victimized by the stripes(Richie Garcia I’m looking at you). One of those controversies was revived Friday in Seattle, 1,644 days after Super Bowl 40, because NFL referee Bill Leavy made a (not so) triumphant return to Seahawks training camp!

And what did Leavy say about the game that night in Detroit?

"It was a tough thing for me. I kicked two calls in the fourth quarter and I impacted the game, and as an official you never want to do that," said the veteran of 15 NFL seasons and two Super Bowls.

"It left me with a lot of sleepless nights, and I think about it constantly," Leavy said of the game in February 2006. "I'll go to my grave wishing that I'd been better."

Look, if you’ve followed my comments on this blog, you know that I’m no fan of the Steelers. But even John Madden had to concede that the holding call on Sean Locklear was terrible. "I didn't see holding," Madden said after seeing the replay. "There may have been holding, but it wasn't in that picture." And I’m still trying to figure out how a chop block can be called on a QB after he throws an interception. Just 2 of several mystery calls that helped the Steelers win their 5^th Super Bowl.

Still, this is a good reminder the officials are human, and that Leavy acutely felt the pain of having made bad calls for months after that night. I’m just not expecting diehard Seahawks fans to be sending him cookies and holiday cards anytime soon.

The "Foul" That Cost The U.S. The Win Against Slovenia

You can see Carlos Bocanegra on the left part of the picture ever so slightly putting his arm around Nejc Pečnik. Never mind that Michael Bradley was practically humped to the ground or the other far worse infringements committed by Slovenia on the controversial free kick by Landon Donovan. That is (surely) what referee Koman Coulibaly saw. The whistle was blown before Maurice Edu got his foot on the ball, and while you can't see Donovan in this shot, the contact here was either right before or immediately after Donovan struck the ball, thus giving the referee enough time before blowing the whistle. And if I am wrong and this is not what Coulibaly saw, then the call is far worse than it already is if this is what he saw.

I spotted this by pure luck, and now that I have spotted it, I really wish that I didn't. Terrible, terrible call by Coulibaly. And while the U.S. should be completely giddy that they got a draw after such a piss poor first half, hopefully this blown call that cost the U.S. a steal of a win does not comeback to haunt them later down the road.

Update: The Searching Cross hypothesizes an explanation for why Koman Coulibaly decided to blow the whistle so soon and call a foul. If this is true, then this referee really should never referee another soccer game anywhere again.

Most media sources have largely chalked this one up to gross incompetence, but some have started to realize that we've been robbed much worse than we knew. I noticed this via a revelatory tweet, as Twitter user paddytim wrote to WhitlockJason:

"bs call was a make up call for a bad call on awarding free kick to US. Ref blew whistle before play even started. US guy dove"

Upon further review, this is exactly what Coulibaly was thinking. Here's how the play happened by his reasoning. (Click link for full video.) Jozy falls under contact to the neck from a Slovenian defender. Coulibaly blows his whistle for the free kick. He quickly doubts his decision, and this doubt is reinforced when he notices the linesman doesn't raise his flag. When the free-kick is struck, Coulibaly already has his whistle in his mouth and blows the play dead, without hesitation or any particular reaction to what's in front of him. In other words, he was resigned to whistling a makeup call from the moment he doubted his original call.

I barely even know where to begin with this logic. I guess let's start from the beginning: the play leading to the free kick was absolutely a foul. Jozy certainly embellished the contact, but it doesn't change the fact that the Slovenian defender put a hand to his neck. That's a foul and a free kick in any circumstance. It's comparable to Nigeria's red card against Greece: Torosidis rolled around like he was shot, but Kaita had still tried to spike a dude in the thigh. That's a red card no matter what, and a hand to Jozy's neck is a foul, no matter what.

Into the real issue: the make-up call. Let's even put aside that make-up calls are explicitly outlawed by FIFA. Simply put, it is still an unacceptable justification. Think about it, where does that thinking lead to? If he thinks he mistakenly awarded a penalty, does he give another one later? (What if that guy misses, how do those mistakes cancel out?) If he didn't realize he was giving a second yellow to a player, does he send off someone from the other team? A referee should never play karma by retrospectively evening out his own mistakes, because these decisions have ripple effects.

Wow. Just wow. I hope that this theory is false, but everything he theorizes fits into what happened. And he is absolutely right about the Altidore foul. Just because a player exaggerates contact, does not mean the player was not fouled at all. Talk about a moment of officiating incompetence that makes Jim Joyce look like a saint.

(Hat tip to kt1000 for sending me the link to this karma theory)

When A Local FSN Affiliate Actually Tries To Help Their Team

This may be one of the most incredible things that I have ever seen.

In case you have not seen it yet or heard about it, here is the controversial goal in question scored by Simon Gagne.



Before you blame this one on the NHL for blowing it, they are not totally to blame for it. Au contraire, the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of FSN Pitt for not giving the NHL the proper angles they needed. In other words, that last angle, that clearly showed the puck in the net, was never seen by the NHL! Why didn't they see it? Because FSN Pitt never sent it to them! From the Philadelphia Inquirer's Sam Carchidi

An NHL executive said last night that replay officials in Toronto were not given the proper replays by Fox Sports in Pittsburgh on Thursday, when they ruled that Simon Gagne's goal did not count against the host Penguins.

Gagne swatted a second-period rebound that Penguins goalie Brent Johnson smothered and appeared to carry into the net. It was not ruled a goal on the ice, and when replay officials in Toronto viewed the replays, they said the evidence was "inconclusive" and did not count the goal.

A few minutes after the ruling, another replay was shown in the press box, showing the puck past the goal line.

Fox did not send that replay to Toronto officials until after the puck was dropped following the ruling.

"At that point, the ruling was permanent," said John Dellapina, an NHL executive.

The Flyers' telecast was using the Pittsburgh video feed and did not have any video to send to Toronto.

Somone should be fined or suspended over that.

Luckily for that somebody, the Flyers won that game easily, 7-4, and the controversy is moot as far as affecting the game goes, but it does call into question the integrity of some network affiliates as surely it can't be a coincidence that the only replay that clearly showed it was a goal was the only replay that the NHL never saw?

Dennis Eckersly Really Should Not Try To Read Lips On-Air

Sometimes in the spur of the moment, when something happens we tend to read people's lips and we instantaneously repeat what we said. This is not a novel concept that we are dealing with here. But when such an occurance happens on air and the word uttered by Youk who just got hit with a pitch is "shit!" and Dennis Eckersly instantaneously repeats that on the air on NESN, the result is pure awkward hilarity!



Absolutely hilarious! It was not necessarily the fact that Eck said "shit" that made that video (although it was hilarious) it's the complete 25 seconds of awkwardness that followed where they did everything but say, "Oh shit! We're so screwed!". Too funny!

(Hat tip to mandb97 for pointing this out in the comments section at AA)

The Case Of The Missing Football Players

You would think that 6 inches of snow last night would really do a lot to brighten up the mood around things, but alas that has not happened. Not the least of which is a story emerging out of the NFL of the three missing people off the coast of Florida, two of whom are NFL players. Here's the latest scoop from NFL.com

The Coast Guard found a person clinging to an overturned boat off Florida's Gulf Coast on Monday, but couldn't immediately confirm whether it is the same boat that went missing with two NFL players aboard over the weekend.

The St. Petersburg Times reported that the Coast Guard did find the missing boat and that former University of South Florida player Nick Schuyler is the survivor.

Corey Smith, a free-agent defensive end who played for the Detroit Lions last season, and Marquis Cooper, an Oakland Raiders linebacker, as well as Schuyler and former USF teammate Will Bleakley left on a fishing trip early Saturday. Weather conditions worsened through the day, and the men didn't return as expected in the evening.

The men were reported missing Sunday, and the Coast Guard had searched about 16,000 square miles of ocean for the 21-foot Everglades-manufactured boat by Monday morning.

Everglades boats are built with compressed foam encased in Fiberglas, which makes them difficult or impossible to sink.

Petty Officer Sondra-Kay Kneen confirmed that searchers located a boat. No further details were available.

Unless there is some miracle, it appears as if Smith, Cooper, and Bleakley may never return. Hopefully I am wrong and that by some miracle they show up again, even if it is 20-years from now on the coast of some deserted island.

Week 12 Eagles Recap

Normally I'd get this up earlier in the day but because of my busy schedule, this is just now the first time I have had ample time to collect my thoughts on the game and write them down in a nice paragraph form without every word being preceeded by profanity.

Well now it's over, and that was bad. I can describe that game in 6 words. We suck. We suck. We suck.

Well, most of the Eagles suck at least. The Eagles' defense once again played a very good game, but they received absolutely no help from the offense with all of their turnovers. There is no rational way you can blame the defense for last night's clusterfuck. Heck, even our special teams showed up. Kickoff return for a TD, but what does that get you when Ed Reed returns a poorly thrown Kolb pass 108-yards for a TD. Yeah, exactly.

And now the Eagles' controversy du jour. Should the Eagles have benched Donovan McNabb? I say no. It was a three point game at the time, at the end of the half, McNabb looked like he was finally getting into a rhythm. And when Kolb came in you could just tell that the Eagles' morale was so low. It was something that they could not overcome and it showed.

The Eagles next game is Thursday and Donovan McNabb will in fact be the starter against the Arizona Cardinals on Thanksgiving. If you're a Philly fan in Philly who still wants to see the Eagles but don't get the NFL Network, the game will be simulcast on 6ABC. I'll have more on this and a full preview of this game Wednesday afternoon and a recap on Friday but (tragically) there will be no live blog. Thanksgiving is a day that should be spent with friends and family, not alone in front of computers typing up play-by-play of an Eagles game.