Chump Extraordinaire

Bears fans grew to loathe Cedric Benson and his lackluster performance after being drafted fourth overall ahead of excellent players like DeMarcus Ware and Aaron Rodgers. After being charged with 2 DUIs in less than a month's time, we were happy that Bears management saw fit to cut his lame ass.
Since then, some Bears fans have been having pangs of regret as Benson has been able to fall forward for a few yards this season after catching on with the Bengals after Chris Perry's injury.
Fear not Bears fans. Even though Cedric escaped punishment for his drunken Escalade escapades with the help of Joe Turner, who has gotten numerous Texas exes out of trouble, as well as sundry douchebags, he remains a chump. I am convinced that this in combination with the generally inhospitable climate in Cinci will add up to a midseason flameout.
My biggest beef with Benson is how he handled things in Austin. When he got in trouble he promised to give Austin kids winter coats as an act of contrition. After Turner got him off the hook and Perry got hurt, Benson fled the Live Music Capital and never looked back. And never gave the kids the coats. I know this first hand, as one of those kids comes to my house everyday after school.
When I was in fifth grade, and had Sweetness done this, I would have been heartbroken. I doubt that I would be the football fan I am today. I know for sure I will never be a Cedric Benson fan.

A record that will never be broken

Here's some video of Eddie Gaven setting the MLS record for the youngest player to score a goal. Gaven goes in as a keeper, making him the youngest goalkeeper in MLS history. He then switches jerseys and quickly scores.


The league, pressured by complaining soccer folk, (Soccer folk complaining? Say it ain't so.) changed the substitution rule for keepers. This likely means that Gaven's record may stand forever.
At the time, Eddie Gaven was the ballyhooed star on a hapless New York Metro Stars team. The team sold jerseys and posters emblazoned with Gaven's name. At the time he was the youngest player named to the All-Star team. He's since been traded to the Columbus Crew, who won last years MLS Cup and are poised to repeat. Gaven plays a supporting role. This begs the age old question: would you rather be the best player on a bad team, or an ordinary player on the best team?
Adding insult to injury, a lot of us believe Gaven is blocked from any World Cup action by the coach's son who plays his same position. Or maybe we should say adding incentive to injury.

betzy

How do you follow perfection? First keep it up there all summer. How's that for an excuse for not blogging all summer? Then follow with pictures of beautiful women. Betzy Jiminez trains near where I work and has been spotted recently, so it must be cross country season. Watching her run is a treat that everyone should get to enjoy but few do because of the obscurity of cross country. There are a few other Texas women athletes who will be stars, but others will write about them.
Betzy may never get the recognition she deserves, but she is the real deal. She's a natural. Originally a volleyball player, she's only been running for a few years and is already a top NCAA athlete.
I truly believe that Title IX has everything to do with her ability to compete and go to school and most importantly, break up the day, and inject a bit of joy into the robotic machinations of this working stiff. Title IX also helps women where other programs fail.
Please do not read perhaps the most chauvinistic article ever written in opposition to Title IX. If this article had any evidential merit, I might argue with is idiot, but someone might be listening. Did Clay's sisters used to beat him up everyday? What kind of an ass would object to the positive contributions Title IX has made to our sports world? What kind of misogynist doesn't like the beauty and grace that women have added to sports that if nothing else at least offsets the ugliness and corruption that permeates men's sports? A guy who thinks MIT has one of the biggest sports programs I guess.
I can't explain or defend this douchebag, but I will say that a lot of us feel quite the opposite.

Gaven Perfects Superstition

Astros pitcher Dan Gaven, of Arlington, Virginia, whose Dominican birth certificate says is 11, needed only 75 pitches last Monday to strike out 13 Cubs and record only the second known perfect game in at least three decades according to Scott Ginsberg, an Arlington Little league veteran of nearly 30 years. Noted historian, Ricky Roellke, also the Astros first baseman said, "the last time this astounding feat happened in Arlington Little League was back in the 70's or 60's."

"I use my single windup, my double windup, my triple windup, my hesitation windup, my no windup. I also use my step-n-pitch-it, my submariner, my sidearmer and my bat dodger. Man's got to do what he's got to do."
-Leroy "Satchel" Paige


Gaven, shown here training an orphaned parrot to throw the high heat, had the added pressure of powerful superstition. An exuberant Roelke tempted fate by talking about the no-hitter in defiance of the most famous superstition in baseball when he mentioned it to Danny after he retired the first two batters that he had a perfect game going. Seventy-some pitches later he realized that it could actually happen. Roelke, ever the optimist, coincidentally set the record for "earliest talking about the no-hitter."
Gaven divined the spirits of both Don Larsen, and the great Satchel Paige saying, "I was just trying to get guys out and throw strikes. I am just happy that we won,"demurring " I had awesome defense behind me too.”
Cathy Gaven, the hurler's mom, normally subdued, acknowledged Gaven's mound mastery saying the perfect game was "a big feat, [it's] even bigger since they instituted a pitch count."
Superstition black belt, and team manager, Matt Kasztenja almost made the no-no superstition a self-fulfilling prophecy admitting "I almost pulled him in the fourth to save him for the next game," instead opting to let Gaven continue his unlikely pursuit of perfection. Gaven went perfect and the Cubs lost yet again.
When news reached Kenya earlier today the locals are reported to have exclaimed, "that's so cool" and"absolutely adorable!"

Bam Bam from 48.....It's Goooood!

Steve McMichael made it to the hall! Not THE hall, but close. He will be in the College Football Hall of Fame class of 2009.
Mongo joins others in this hall which seems to represent greats who may never make the real hall. In many ways it is fitting for a great player that thrilled Bears and Longhorn fans for years. He actually holds the games played record for the Bears, which is noteworthy considering the teams long history and the brutal position he played. He was a working man's player who showed up every day and kicked ass from the shadows of Dent and Hampton. He had more sacks than Hampton.
Known as Bam Bam at UT, he said his greatest thrill was kicking a 48 yard field goal! A guy like this never wants to come off the field. Bam Bam was 6 of 7 kicking and backed up perhaps the greatest Longhorn kicker and world's worst currency trader, Russell Erxleben.
Mongo went on to entertain us in pro wrestling and maybe the most famous singing of TMOTTB, except maybe Jim Belushi. Or this one, or this one.
Mongo also gives a shit about the worker as evidenced by this video, and that's why he's in my personal hall of fame. That and I saw him one time at a Bobcat Goldthwaite show.