January 05, 2005

Today in Sports

Congratulations to Ryne Sandberg for being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame today. Ryne was one of my favorite players before I gave up on Major League Baseball -- about the same time he did. His attempt at a comeback mirrored mine as well. I wonder if I can still care if the Cubs ever make it back to the World Series? Oh and congratulations to Wade Boggs as well. But Peter Gammons hyping of Jim Rice for the HoF is a little too much East Coast bias for me. You Yankee fans will enjoy this though. In other baseball news, some lucky team is going to win the Carlos Beltran sweepstakes, thereby allowing him and his agent Scott Boras to destroy their team over the next three or four years.

Congratulations to USC! Good thing we've had the BCS or we wouldn't have had Oklahoma blown out in the national championship game in consecutive years. Can we finally admit that the BCS is a miserable failure and go back to the old bowl series now?

How 'bout those Illini! Meanwhile the unstoppable hype for the ACC continues. Nice game you had in Champaign there Mr. Paul.

The NHL is still dead. The NBA is not, though you couldn't prove it by my viewing habits.

Which Mike is going to lose more sleep this week, Martz or Holmgren?

The Tillman Rangers won the IF(F)FL Fantasy League Bowl last weekend. This is my second consecutive league championship in the keeper league that I've been in now for thirteen years. Every year I select a new location and "mascot" for my team. This year I chose to honor Pat Tillman and his sacrifice with the Rangers from Tillman, SC. I hope I can go back to more mundane team names next year. In my twelve other leagues I won two more championships and finished second in six others. I learned this year that thirteen is way too many fantasy leagues to try and keep up with.

But if you really want to be up to date on sports commentary, start here.

And in case it slipped by you above, even non-Yankee fans will enjoy this.

DOWNDATE: I received this in an e-mail from ESPN:

Dear Fantasy Football League Champion,

Congratulations on winning your league. Don't be a gracious winner. The great thing about Fantasy Football is you get to rub it in. No friendly cliches to the media and no respecting your opponent. Now reward yourself with a visible title.

You can purchase a trophy that is yours forever or go for the league trophy, which can be back up for grabs next year. Make sure to brand it first with your team name. How big of a sore winner are you?

Nice people there running the ABC/Disney empire.

Posted by Charles Austin at January 5, 2005 04:24 PM
Comments

I'm living smack dab in the middle of ACC hype. There are some good teams that will be beating on each for the next two months. We'll see come tournament time how the leagues stack up. Don't forget you have Dickie Vitale on ESPN (as well as Jay Bilas) who could spend all day smooching on Coach K's and Roy William's heinie.

For all of us loyal Sine Qua Non fans, maybe a few less fantasy leagues could result in a few more posts. Maybe.

Posted by: MarcV at 04:40 PM

THIRTEEN?!?!?!?!?!

Here I bought all that schmaltzy baloney about family and work. Congrats (I guess? did you make any money?)

Posted by: Scott Chaffin at 01:30 PM

Chuck,
You have had a great 3 year run in the league. Congrats on the Rangers repeat championship, which is a first for the league. That makes 2 championships for you now. Only 1 more to tie me!

Like politics, folks' attention span in fantasy football is short. This works out well for you as I suspect you would rather not have folks remembering your first 11 years in the league. One winning season out of 11 doesn't give one much blogging material.

Oh, and it's been 14 years, not including the year there were only 6 of us.

Cheers,

Posted by: Jon at 09:53 AM