Scrumtralescence

A Week's Worth of Material in One Entry: Redick, Capri Pants, Racism, and Poopy McGee

The past week or so has mostly been me working and being tired, so I've ignored this blog. Although I have checked in occasionally to see how many people are checking this site out, and surprisingly enough, it is way more people than had been visiting when this blog was a class requirement and the topic was commercial banking. Hmm...whowouldathought? The world cup and pop culture references are more popular than commercial banking discussions...I am so naive.

J.J. Redick will still be drafted in the top 20, maybe a lottery pick, but is anyone else getting ready for a Trajan Langdon like career? Although J.J.'s shooting abilities and motor (thanks to Bill Simmons for pointing out one of the many draft's overused buzzwords) give him a huge advantage over Langdon, I still don't see J.J. being much more than a higher energy Steve Kerr. Not that I'm rooting against him; he's got enough of the country on the Duke-hating bandwagon to have that covered. But I must say, I did lose some respect for him after he produced another example of idiotic athlete behavior after being arrested while driving under the influence. The timing couldn't have been more perfect with Roethlisberger's accident being just a few days earlier. Yet I'm sure "character" issues are not going to be brought up during the draft without the phrase "he does not have any" immediately preceeding it.

Which brings me to my next topic: the bullshit of necessary public apologies after celebrities say or do something stupid. Whether it's drive drunk, use a racial slur, belittle women, or make fun of gays, a day later the orchestrated and heartless apology always manages to piss me off way more than the actual act that caused the apology. Sure people make mistakes, and they say stupid things, but you know what, some people are racists or homophobes or drive drunk all the time and do stupid shit that the rest of society does not agree with. And they should be made to see the error of their ways; but issuing a public apology that's insincere and meaningless does nothing. Does anyone say, "oh, he's sorry, well than it's fine that he called that player a black piece of shit" (this occurence is true except for the fact that the person who said it did not apologize. it was the spanish world cup coach, Luis Aragones, yelling at one of his players and referencing Thierry Henry, a black player with France. He says he's not a racist and was joking around to motivate his player. Irony: Spain vs. France in the round of 16. I'm going to be rooting for France and Thierry Henry to have a hat trick.)

Now on to something delightful: British slang. I freaking love it. The best example of word usage that seems completely random yet I wished we used it in the States: pants. I picked this up from Michael Davies' blog on the World Cup for ESPN Page 2. Pants=bad in England. If someone is pantless, they are good. If someone is the pants, they are bad. It's bloody brilliant. He's gone through the English soccer team after each game, analyzing the players based on their pants-iness. (I doubt that is correct usage. My apologies.) Ranging from completely pantsless to "those girly capri pants that you sometimes see guys wearing" to pants and absolute pants. Can I begin using this on my own hoping to start the trend here in America? Although I imagine I will run into trouble during the first Colts game of the season when I call Peyton Manning absolutely pantsless. Whatever, I'm doing it...who's comin with me?....

After watching the World Cup and NBA Finals simultaneously the last few weeks I have come upon an earthshattering revelation: Ronaldo is the Shaq of the soccer world. Think about the following parallels:

1. In 2002, was either player more dominant for their respective sports? Shaq: finishing up his third straight title with the Lakers, sweeping the Nets. Sure he had Kobe, but he had taken over the league as the dominant bigman and dominant player. Ronaldo: led Brazil to the World Cup title with 8 goals along the way. Sure he had young up and comer Ronaldinho along with the best supporting cast in the world, but he was arguably the best player in the world at that point, and even if he wasn't, he had the aura about him that he was.

2. Weight issues and occasional dominance: Both have ballooned over the past few years, helping to lead to their respective falls from dominance. Sure, Shaq is still dominant, when he has the energy and will to be dominant. Same with Ronaldo, as the Japan game proved. The announcer at the end of the game called it a decent performance from Ronaldo, yet he had 2 goals, and should have had a third. He doesn't have the energy to run the way he used to, as evidenced by one of his runs on the defensive end where he was embarassingly left behind trying to help out. But it doesn't matter, because he still has the ability to dominate on certain occasions. Just like Shaq's game 6 against the Pistons (28 and 16), there is that performance everyone once in a while that reminds you of how great they were, and how quickly they fell from the best of the best. Sure, Ronaldo's maybe gotten a little lazy and picked up a few pounds, but maybe he's still good enough to do his part in helping Brazil win it again.

3. Passing the torch: Shaq to D-Wade, Ronaldo to Ronaldinho. Moving from the best to playing with a teammate who's the best has to be difficult to players of this stature, but it happened, and it hasn't been graceless. As Bill Simmons wrote after the Finals wrapped up (Alpha Dogs), it was absolutely fascinating to watch. And just as Shaq won a title as second fiddle, it's not difficult to picture Brazil with the Cup again. And Kaka (Poopy Mcgee, credit to DJ Gallo for that one), Roberto Carlos, Cafu, Juninho, and Ze Roberto are a better supporting cast than Jason Williams, Haslem, and Gary Payton.

Final note: U.S. lost to Ghana, out of the World Cup. High expectations, unrealistically high after a great 2002, an inflated FIFA ranking, a group of death and piss poor playing in the Czech game and piss poor refereeing in the Italy game all add up to a deflated feeling following their bounce from the tourney. But as consolation, John Stewart and the Daily Show writers came up with this gem to make it all better: "Certainly there's no shame in losing to one of southwest Africa's least malnourished countries." Well, maybe there's a little....see you in South Africa in 2010.

Wow, I hope the World Cup never ends cos than I'm going to have to come up with some original material.