Numero Tres

I warned you at the end of my last post that soccer talk was coming. And here it is. Little did I–or anyone except the US Justice Department–know then, however, that FIFA was going to command a good deal of everyone’s newsfeed between then and now. But now you’re here and I’m here and we’re gonna do soccer together. So let’s get a two-man wall together, cover up our nether regions, and hope we don’t take this one to the face.

Numero Tres – The Arsenal is Good, The FIFA is Bad, and The Chelsea is Ugly

Before I dive into some Arsenal end-of-season thoughts and what not–which is what I had intended to do–it seems silly to not open up this whole FIFA thing a bit.

To begin, I think we all need to come back down to earth somewhat. Just because FIFA is under all sorts of fire and Sepp Blatter is resigning, I think for anyone to expect an overhaul of one of the most corrupt organizations in our history would be naive. Is it good that this is happening? Of course. But FIFA is a worldwide organization bigger than the UN. And all the countries that feed into FIFA, no matter how small they are, get the same number of votes as their bigger counterparts. I don’t know if any of you watch Last Week Tonight, but they did a wonderful job laying out how difficult the taking on and enacting change within FIFA really is. To me, the biggest obstacle is this: the smallest country receives the same money that the biggest does. That means that countries like San Marino, with its population of a whopping 32,000, receive the same payout as the US, England, Germany, and you get the idea.

In addition to the financials, the FIFA government is flawed in a way that is difficult to correct. Imagine the US Senate and House of Representatives. FIFA’s governing body is like the Senate, meaning every country that feeds into it has the same voting power. This voting equality sounds good in theory, and perhaps in some sort of utopia, it would be. Unfortunately, however, it doesn’t really serve the soccer world’s best interests because the power that these small countries can wield together is the power that keeps bribe-taking, arrogant sons of bitches like Sepp Blatter running the show. This is why I have my doubts that any lasting good is really on its way. My depressing and deflating prediction is that another Sepp will step in and keep the corrupt FIFA status quo. This is because as long as small countries keep greasing those money wheels, why would FIFA change a thing? They’re the most profitable non-profit ever. What a racket.

Despite my thoughts on this, what is happening is good. What the US Justice Department is doing is good. We should always try and reduce the bad in the world, even if we can’t completely eradicate it. I get that if you want to kill it, you’ve got to cut the head off the snake, but sometimes if you can’t reach the head, it’s better to take what you can than nothing at all. Besides, maybe I’m wrong and this movement is exactly what FIFA needed to get its shit together and become the governing body that the world’s favorite–and greatest, just deal with it *insert any other sport* fans–sport deserves.

Transition to Arsenal

Oh Arsenal. I just don’t know what to think anymore. Obviously I’m thrilled that we won the FA Cup for the second year running and that we qualified for the Champions League again, but isn’t this kinda just more of the same? I love Arsenal, truly I do. But years of dashed Premier League title hopes have left me a little bit jaded and hollow inside. I just don’t think I can really increase my excitement level any more until that happens. Was this year a step in the right direction? I think so, but I have thought that for a few years too so it doesn’t look like we’re taking particularly large steps. And I also think that for at least a few years now, Arsenal has had the talent necessary to win that elusive title, but lacked the consistency to make it happen. In these more recent seasons especially we’ve seen some stretches of seemingly flawless soccer, only to be interrupted by some god-ugly ones. And maybe in the past, the cause may have been a personnel problem (e.g. lack of talent or injury), but that isn’t the case anymore. In fact this summer, we’re actually in a position where, if we want to add talent, we’re going to have to let some go. There’s too many players on this roster that think and are starting caliber players to add others. So it’s a coaching issue then? Piers Morgan, professional blowhard and perhaps Arsenal’s biggest fan, would say, “Yes, Wenger out.” I’m a maybe. These days I lean more towards the idea that this is just what we are: capable of trophies and brilliant soccer in spurts and incapable of the trophy we want and consistent brilliant soccer to win it. What can I say, I’m a cynic.

Transition to Chelsea

F those guys. They’re the worst.

Well, I suppose this concludes our nut kick soccer post. I’ll try and keep them relatively few and far between, but they’re gonna happen. And you guys are just gonna have to deal with it. My blog. My passions. My posts. Don’t want soccer? Start a new blog and copy and paste all of my non-soccer posts into it. Still having fun with this. Hope the four of you that read it are enjoying it as well. See you next time.

– Ryan Johnson

@CRyanJohnson on twitter and instagram

Number 2

Let me begin this entry with a few key points.

1. Domestic abuse is bad.

2. Drug abuse is bad.

3. Both of the above things are without question bad and I do not condone them.

These 3 things are important for you to know up front because today’s excuse for a sports op-ed piece is

Post Two – Athletes That Do Bad Things Should Never Be Able To Play Sports Again

The metroplex has been kind enough to offer 3 of the worst people ever to play sports for their local teams. The Cowboys signed two of them. The Rangers one. One of them is probably an actual bad human being. One of them I actually really dislike. And one of them really doesn’t deserve to be looped in with the other two but is on account of maybe not being too bright, a trait shared amongst the three. You will know these men as Greg Hardy, the much maligned domestic abuser and newly acquired defensive-end for the Dallas Cowboys (he’s the one that probably is in fact a bad person), Josh Hamilton, the unlikeable Ranger left-fielder and drug abuser who likes to hide behind I Am Second campaigns when he’s not raw-dogging waitresses at Sherlock’s or refusing to apologize for stupid comments made about the city he plays in or not hitting home runs or catching fly balls (he’s the one I don’t like much), and Randy Gregory, the Dallas Cowboys’s other newly acquired defensive end who seems to really and I mean really enjoy smoking pot (he’s the one that probably doesn’t belong here). No doubt you are familiar with all three of these not quite so upstanding gentlemen and no doubt you have at least some sort of opinion on them as people and how them playing for the team you cheer for makes you feel.

From what I can tell, there are three main categories fans fall under in regards to these three guys: the group of people who believe these individuals and others like them should never be able to play sports again, the group that’s like, “Sure, they can play, I just don’t want them playing for my team,” and lastly the group–which I subscribe to–that thinks the other two groups are somewhere between kind of and really obnoxious for having such opinions and don’t really care whether these guys play or not or who they play for.

Once again, I don’t condone domestic or drug abuse, I think they are both very bad things that no one should do, but I find it really silly of the people who suggest that the Cowboys should not have taken a first round talent late in the second round because the guy has flaws. Those flaws are the reason he’s available for you to take in the second round. And if you’re a Norm P1, you’ll know that his crazy claim was that he wouldn’t have drafted him in any round and that he knew lots of other NFL guys and teams that had completely taken Gregory off of their board. To this I say, such an opinion is stupey and dumb and needs to go away. There is always a point where the juice is worth the squeeze and I think the Cowboys got Gregory right in that sweet spot. Gregory is also, I think pretty clearly, the least guilty of wrong doing between our 3 examples. Yes, he has a history of failed drug tests throughout his Nebraska career and one prior to the combine, but from all accounts he’s also a pretty bright, kind-hearted, and good-natured individual. That’s something that isn’t quite so prevalent in the resumés of Josh or Greg.

For the Josh case, I have trouble thinking of a more maddening individual. There are times when I have even hated him. I think he’s really dumb. I think he’s way more naive that any person in his position and at his age ought to be. And I think he is a truly troubled individual. And even with all that, the Rangers without question made the right call in bringing him back. He should absolutely still be playing baseball and if he’s gonna play baseball, why not for the Rangers for basically nothing. The Junes (if you got the Norm reference you’ll get this one) said that he doesn’t care if Josh makes a comeback or not, he just doesn’t want him doing it here. And I get that, but I think the extremely subjective juice squeezing exercise applies here as well. And I think it passes. 

Finally, let’s look at Greg Hardy. You won’t catch me suggesting to anyone that I would like him to be doing any of the cliché examples we like to throw out there. No, if I had kids, I would not want him watching them. No, I wouldn’t be too keen on the idea of him and my wife shopping together (that’s not a cliché example, I just made that weird one up). But you know what, I wouldn’t really want any stranger watching my kids or shopping with my wife. That would be really odd I think. So with Greg, I concede the people who believe he should be out of the league altogether and certainly shouldn’t be playing for the Cowboys may have some ground to stand on. But, despite quite a large amount of evidence against him, he wasn’t found guilty in a court of law and he has been punished by the league for his actions. So the Cowboys, in my opinion, had every right to go out and sign him and should totally keep him on the roster because when it’s all said and done, when he’s getting to the quarterback on a regular basis come Week 12 or Week Whatever, no one is gonna care. We’re all gonna be jumping out of our seats, high-fiving, and fist pumping like champions. And since he’s been signed, everything we’ve seen and heard from him and about him points to exactly what we already think about him. He’s not a super human-being, he’s really weird, he’s kinda dumb, and he’s an absolute badass on the field.

Before I call it quits on another rambling excuse for sportsy-writing, I’d like to tackle one other point that the people in the get them out of the league camp sit in. The whole “I don’t want my kids looking up them” concept is idiocy. Good parents will make sure their children know that being good at football or baseball or soccer or whatever doesn’t make you a good person, and the kids that don’t know anything about a guy other than he beats the hell out of the other teams QB on a regular basis aren’t going to be worse off for cheering for him. That argument is silly.

At the end of the day, I’d also like to say that I wish nothing but the best for these 3 guys, even Josh. I hope they learn from their mistakes and come away better and stronger because of them.

Well, this has been fun guys and gals. This all might have been more pertinent if written a bit sooner, but I didn’t start doing this shenanigan until like a week ago so just deal with it. Thanks for reading if you did. If you didn’t, I’m not surprised, typical you. I think I’m gonna go all soccer on you with the next post, so you 3 or 4 readers, brace yourself for that nut kick.

– Ryan Johnson

@CRyanJohnson on the Twitter and on the Instagram

Post one.

Hey all. So this is a little something we’re going to try. Some things will get written and then those things will be read and then we’ll go from there. The idea is for this to be a predominantly sports-oriented space, but it won’t be sports exclusively because I don’t have enough opinions for that and this thing would be even more obnoxious than it no doubt already seems to you. Now that’s out of the way, without absolutely any more ado, let’s jump into

Post One – Baseball Kinda Sucks: The Grind.

According to the statistics that I just made up, it is customary in writing outlets such as this for me, the author, to alienate what few readers I may have as quickly as possible. Given that knowledge, I must begin saying that America’s pastime, known to the layman as baseball, is such. a. beating. I’m sorry. I wish it weren’t the case, but it is. It’s all that we have going on in the summer making the best season of the year the worst part of the entire sports calendar. This is not to say that baseball does not have merits–because it certainly does–but they are not enough to overcome the mountain of meh that it drags along with it.

And yes, this author gets that the NBA and NHL playoffs are ongoing, but it’s almost June, and so they’re all but done. The Conference finals might as well be anyways. I’ll save you the trouble of watching. Cavs will come from the East and Warriors from the West in the NBA and two hockey teams will play each other in the Stanley Cup finals. Woohoo. 

As a show of good faith and of at least some level-headed deliberation, I’ll first give credit where credit is due. Baseball does have history on its side, and there is something romantic about that. It is also not quite so inclined to the rule-changing and adapting to “the times” as the NFLs of this world are and instead stays true to its heritage and there is something very respectable about that kind of stubborness. Of the major American sports, it also does the very best in ensuring that the best team in any given year wins that year’s championship. This is so we don’t have to worry so much about some mediocre New York Giants team winning the Superbowl despite underwhelming the world at every turn prior to the playoffs. There’s a fair amount of injustice in such events, and baseball does the best job of eliminating it. 

Baseball does this through what we refer to as “the grind.” The grind exists in all sports. It is that point where the sport is much less the game the athletes participating love to play and much more the 8-6 job that middle-management Mike works doing data-entry or the even shittier hours job that your brother-in-law Fred works in quality control down at the warehouse you drive by everyday that even driving by makes you uneasy. It isn’t fun. It’s not a pleasant experience, and when it happens, it’s usually not too fun to watch. The grind applies to player and fan alike, and all sports endure the grind at one time and on some level or another, but the grind found in the 162-game major league baseball season is the grind of grinds. And it is why I can’t take it. 

It is unfortunate that what makes baseball great is what makes it terrible and that what makes it terrible is so great that it just swallows the greatness whole. Sure ESPN can give you last night’s top 10 and baseball is suddenly super kick-ass with diving catches and cleared dug-outs and home runs into rivers behind stadiums, but those moments aren’t baseball. Those moments are just moments, individual parts of a whole that look great in ten second increments, but are hardly ever enough to make the rest of the at least 2 and 1/2 hour endeavor worth watching. Sad, but in this arrogant writer’s opinion, pretty clearly true. I’m sorry.

 On a local level, I’d like to point out that in my experience, good teams and bad teams don’t affect the grind of watching baseball. Watching baseball affects the grind of watching baseball. So if you want to be a happy casual fan like me (even in this season of baseballball blah), don’t torture yourself into watching every single Rangers game. It isn’t worth it. Even when they’re good, it isn’t worth it.

Watching 2-3 hours of baseball 5 nights a week can and will suck the life-force right out of you, and that’s just the way it is. It will unfortunately remain that way into perpetuity, even when Gallo gets called up next season and is hitting the cover off the ball every night and Yu is C Younging his way through every lineup and Joshy is crushing it at both the Ballpark and Sherlock’s and the Dutch Oven fixes his cranial rectal inversion (gets head out of own ass). Just kidding Derek, much love for you and all your bits. More you, and less Steve Busby. 

That’s all I got for this maiden SportsPants voyage, sorry if it was incoherent, uninteresting, or whatever it was that left you wanting more. Better luck next time I guess. We’ll get better as we go along. Me with writing, and maybe even you with reading.

– Ryan 

@CRyanJohnson on the twitter and instagram