By the Dynamic Duo – The Straws that Stir the Drink
Wednesday, April 12th, 2006 – Volume I, Edition VI
Exclusive to Inside Pulse Sports
What’s up, my Gator loving Rey-Rey marks? Just like last Saturday, I remain Your very own Host with the Most, Steve Price, here for another wonderful trip into the world where inter-sports dating is not taboo! Like NASCAR and the NBA should be kept apart in the real world, eh?
Sorry for the delay, but with Easter Break and Finals rolling around at the wonderful world of Higher Education here in Charlotte, the column got put on hiatus for a week. Even today, you’re in for another “special” surprise, as a guest host takes over for most of your time on this here page. All you Price Haters out there, rejoice! Now shut up, let’s get on with it.
As per my WrestleMania Round Table appearance way back when… I forget if my picks there were the same as on Saturday (my last appearance here), but from Saturday’s picks I managed a mediocre 7-4 record, nailing a lot of the “foregone conclusion” matches but missing huge matches like both World Title defenses, Money in the Bank, and the Tag Titles match. I correctly picked the U.S. and Women’s Championship matches, along with HBK/Vince, the Pillow Fight, Booker/Sharmell vs. Boogeyman, Henry/Taker and Edge/Foley. I think a lot of the praise for the show is derived in the fact that no one expected WrestleMania to be worth a damn, and that it surpassed the (dismal) card’s lowly expectations boosted its image in the eyes of those who watched it.
WrestleMania 22 will most likely be remembered as a show of iconic “WrestleMania” moments, and for good reason. The flaming table bit, the HBK elbow off the ladder, and Mickie’s finger licking action are going to become imbedded in the memory of those who watched the show. If you didn’t, I suggest you wait until May 23rd, when you can pick up the DVD for cheap and skip through the useless filler. When you could debate whether WrestleMania XVII is worth $50.00 to buy on PPV, it’s not hard to see that WrestleMania 22 is definitely not worth paying $50.00 to see. But comparatively, WrestleMania 22 is one of those unique cards that will probably manage to age better than dogs like WrestleMania V.
Of course, the booking decisions are a bit asinine, but that’s a topic for another day. Eric Szulczewski stopped by last week on IPSR to talk about those very same plans. Besides, wrestling will now be left to the wrestling guys, since we’ve had our fifteen minutes in the spotlight. Speaking of things that Eric Szulczewski would On tap for today, a quick review of NASCAR’s Martinsville race and a preview of Sunday’s offering from Texas, an attempt at a preview for this weekend’s premier sporting event, the 70th Masters from Augusta (duh), and some thoughts on the forthcoming NFL Draft, vis-à-vis some comments made by Mike Greenberg this morning on ESPN Radio’s Mike & Mike in the Morning. We’ll lead off though by covering a sport that is criminally under-covered here at the Pulse. And I think we all know where this is going…
Or, maybe not. As you can see, I have no desire to discuss golf right now, or the NFL, or NASCAR. Eric covered about all that needs to be covered in his Tuesday offering. I’ll leave the Lefty Bashing to a pro, and hand off the column today to a special friend of mine. You may remember him from the “Voices from the Crowd” interview segment several months ago. If you read Ice This, that is… and shame on you if you haven’t, young padawans.
Ahoy there. I’m Eric, and I’m the newest entrant in the revolving door that is IP sports writing. Welcome to The Word Around The Campfire.
Last Tuesday I watched one hell of a football match, between AC Milan and Olympique Lyonnais. AC Milan, who lost last season in the Champion’s League finals to my Liverpool Reds, are poised to make another run for the European Cup. Milan managed to pull the match out, 3-1. despite not playing well early in the match. Andriy Shevchenko proved that he is a force to be reckoned with in Europe. With his goal, he put himself one goal behind Raul of Real Madrid for all-time Champion’s League/European Cup goals.
Also on Tuesday, Villarreal defeated Inter Milan to move on to the Champions League semi-finals. Unfortunately, I can’t comment on that match, because ESPN didn’t show it. Eric S likes to talk about East Coast bias. I think ESPN also has a European Powerhouse bias. That’s why I only get to watch teams like Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, AC Milan, or Juventus.
On Wednesday, Arsenal drew Juventus 0-0. However, the Gunners won the round on the aggregate. This means that Arsenal won the round, because they won their match at Highbury 2-0, in the first leg of the series. Although I don’t personally like Arsenal, I’m glad Highbury may close on with a win.
Also on Wednesday was the final match to determine who would be the final entrant into the semi-finals. The match was the number 1 team in Europe, Barcelona, who defeated the defending champion Liverpool. Barcelona won the final spot in the semi-finals by defeating Benfica 2-0. To prove just how good this Barcelona team is, to be able to face Benfica, they had to go through English champions Chelsea. They won 3-2 on the aggregate, by the way.
Seeing as how UEFA hasn’t been nice enough to put the next round of Champions League match-ups up, I’m going to take a guess at who will be playing who, and who will make it to the finals.
UEFA Champions League Semi-Finals
Barcelona vs. AC Milan
Milan wins 2-1 on aggregate.
Arsenal vs. Villarreal
Arsenal wins 3-0 on aggregate.
UEFA Champions League Finals
Arsenal vs. AC Milan
Arsenal wins 2-1 in penalty kicks.
With Arsenal’s passage into the semi-finals, it conjures up memories of this past season with Liverpool. Currently, the gunners are sitting out of the top 4 positions in the Premiership, thus they wouldn’t qualify for next season’s Champions League competition. I’d be more than to guess that UEFA isn’t looking forward to the possibility of a repeat of the fiasco they had to resolve last summer. My feeling, however, is that if you win the competition, regardless of where you finish in your national league; there’s an obligation to defend your crown. If Arsenal wins the Champions League trophy, let them defend it. If they don’t win it, forget I ever mentioned this.
There was one other thing worth mentioning this past week. The NCAA Frozen Four took place in Wisconsin. The semi-finals saw the Wisconsin defeat the Maine on one side, while on the other side of the bracket, Boston College defeating North Dakota. The final was a gritty match that was rivaled in intensity by my disdain for some Russian guy at the restaurant I was watching the game at. On another TV at the bar of this restaurant they were showing the Detroit/Columbus hockey game. I was bouncing my attention between the two games, because I had vested interest in both. Well, this Russian guy criticized me for cheering after Brendan Shanahan scored. He told me that I was wearing the wrong jersey to be cheering for Detroit. Keep in mind that I was wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey. So, I asked him who he was cheering for. He said that he is a Detroit fan, but he was cheering for Columbus because Sergei Fedorov play for them. I asked him if he liked cheering for bitches, seeing as how Fedorov earned that title with his little stunt in 1998. He did his best to try to back out of the corner he managed to push himself into, but it led to me asking him if he liked Alexei Yashin. Guess what? He did. After that, I just ignored the guy, seeing as how he threw his credibility, as a Red Wings fan, out the window.
Memo to any hockey fans with sense (yes, all 5 of you): Don’t cheer for Yashin or Fedorov!
Voices From The Crowd (Featuring the esteemed Steve Price):
This portion of the show is based upon a repeated series of conversations that were shared between Steve and myself since last fall. We thought it would be a good idea for something different.
Eric: I was watching this thing on the news earlier, about how some fan in San Diego threw a syringe (lacking the needle) at Barry Bonds during the game last night
Steve Price: As hostile as that crowd was, he’s lucky that they didn’t throw just the needle at him.
Eric: Did you see the film of him holding it? It appeared as though he was ready to wag his fingers at baseball fans, in general.
Steve Price: No, I didn’t. I tend not to make eye contact with Bonds, or listen to him when he’s not at the plate, hitting.
Eric: This is the same man who wouldn’t let EA use his likeness in their MVP baseball series
Steve Price: He’s a brooding figure, no doubt about that. I just wonder if a part of his character was created by all of this steroid hoopla.
Eric: But, then again, consider that he has had, at best, a strained relationship with the fans and media throughout his career
Steve Price: Yeah, a lot of that can be credited to his rather violent split from Pittsburgh. He kind of took the rep earned from that with him to San Francisco. Even before, Barry has always held a coldness about him.
Eric: It’s because he wanted a way out of his dad’s shadow
Steve Price: Well, he’s out of dad’s shadow now, for better or for worse. Unfortunately for Bonds, he’s in an even bigger shadow, now.
Eric: This is true. We’re talking about the guy who makes Pete Rose look like a saint
Steve Price: Pete Rose would take a look at Bonds today and go, “Damn, that guy is controversial.”
Eric: Then he’d place a bet on whether Bonds gets indicted.
Steve Price: – And then he would make sure to secure the novelty shop across from the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, just in case the shit hits the fan for Barry and he ends up signing his book, “My Prison Without Needles”.
Eric: Bonds may be the only way Pete Rose and Joe Jackson find their way in to the Hall of Fame
Steve Price: It brings up an interesting point, though. If Barry either A – tests positive for steroids in the future, or B – gets suspended in the wake of this investigation, what does it do for his Hall of Fame chances?
Eric: If the writers have any conscience, they’ll ban him, and asterisk his records
Steve Price: Do journalists have consciences to begin with? Guys like Jay Mariotti look like Slimer in Ghostbusters.
Eric: If they were Bob Costas, maybe.
Steve Price: I like Costas, for inexplicable reasons. Maybe he reminds me of Tony Schiavone in a way, though that I also cannot explain.
Eric: I was leaning toward Gordon Solie. Obviously, the baseball writers, for the majority lack a conscience. That’s the only justification of Buck O’Neill being denied entry into the Hall of Fame.
Steve Price: – and the only explanation why professional baseball continues to exist in St. Petersburg, Florida
Eric: No, the only explanation for that is that certain baseball wives (see the former: Benson, Anna) want time to work on their tan during August.
Steve Price: I can speak from personal experience; if you like going from an air conditioned 72 degree dome atmosphere out into 110 degree heat (with 93.59 % Humidity), “then the Trop” is for you! Although they do have nice palm trees…
Eric: As well as scantily clad persons all around.
Steve Price: And a pub inside the stadium… so it’s not a total write off. Just the baseball team, ownership…things like that.
Eric: It’s no worse than hockey being in Texas, Florida, and Arizona. However, it does bring up the point of Major League Baseball contraction.
Steve Price: Contraction is a necessary evil, I’m afraid.
Eric: There really isn’t a necessity for teams like the Cubs (Sorry Dr. Breadstix) or the Wankees
Steve Price: Well, as much as I hate the Wankers, I can see the need to keep them around. Where else would we get our kicks? After all, Captain Syphilis only plays for one team, and that team is the New York Yankees.
Eric: It’s not just that, but they are a necessary evil, like Triple H. The Cubs are a necessary evil too. They’re the best damned farm team that my St. Louis Cardinals ever had!
Steve Price: Now that’s just plain mean. Those poor North Siders haven’t been graced with a World Series appearance since a goat was denied entry into Wrigley.
Eric: I’m sure the Wankees would say the same about your beloved Sawks – I believe they lost to the Wankees in ’32…and that was the last time they made it to the series.
Steve Price: You know, the Yankees collectively are like VD.
Eric: At least they’re respectable, and have a tradition that warrants the venom we spew at them
Steve Price: True: they buy every player available, give them over inflated contracts, then fire every jerk wad in the front office as a result of their failure. It’s the American Dream!
Eric: Yeah, but look at someone like Mattingly. He was stuck in New York during their down years
Steve Price: I will be the first to admit; Mattingly sucks less than guys like Whore-Hey Posada and Gary “Mr. Sunshine” Sheffield.
Eric: Greg Vaughn’s nephew?
Steve Price: Right…
Eric: Mattingly was from around here, too. Speaking of this area, the Derby is coming up in a month
Steve Price: The Derby, an American tradition. A sporting event not unlike the Masters or Wimbledon in magnitude.
Eric: An excuse for rich people to drink themselves stupid, and gorge themselves on hot browns.
Steve Price: It’s also an excuse for college students to go out and get bloody wasted. Then again, not scratching one’s scrotum for an hour is good enough reason to go chugging “’round the bend”.
Eric: I realize it’s the oldest, annual, sporting event
Eric: You’ve heard about the Infield, right?
Steve Price: The only infield I’m aware of is the one where they change the tires on those stock cars that take left turns all day.
Eric: The disparity between the Infield, and the Grandstands, at Churchill Downs is why Hunter S. Thompson said that the Derby was Decadent and Depraved
Steve Price: Really? And it wasn’t the fact that its tiny men riding on horses that gave him the idea?
Eric: The Infield at Churchill Downs is basically like being on South Padre during Spring Break, with alcohol flowing like wine, and boobs flashing Christmas lights
Eric: Tiny men riding on horses isn’t where the glamour is. It’s in the “people watching”
Steve Price: And I suddenly have the urge to take back my foolish and disrespectful comments.
Eric: Why? We played host to Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson a few years ago, before she decided it wasn’t cool to support horse-racing, or the state that begat Kentucky Fried Chicken
Steve Price: Yeah, but you could do the dirty dirty with Pamela Anderson. Kid Rock, not so much. It would take more liquor than a private stash in Courtney Love’s personal jail cell to get Kid Rock looking acceptable.
Eric: I’d rather not do the dirty dirty with Pam. Apparently it’s like throwing a hot dog down a hallway, after Tommy
Steve Price: Speaking of visuals that I don’t need at such a late hour, one particular image that I keep picturing is the 2006 AL Pennant hanging behind Monument Park in Yankee Stadium. The rest of the free world have made their picks, so what are yours?
Eric: My heart says St. Louis continues their dominance of the NL. In the AL, I think it may come down to the Chi-Sox, and the Wankees.
Steve Price: For the sake of my sanity, may New York get swept in three games by the Oakland Athletics.
Eric: With Frank Thomas getting the MVP of the series, too.
Steve Price: Let it be quick and painless for my Sox, let it be quick and agonizing for the Yankees. I also like St. Louis in the National League, and the Chicago White Sox in the American League. The White Sox repeat as Champions of the Baseball world, I think in 2006.
Eric: Maybe Cano will come through for you again
Steve Price: Personally, I’m hoping that Lipstick Boy tears his raisin-sized jewels up like Nomar did last year, but you take what you can get, I guess.
Eric: Maybe there will be a scandal with the entire Wankees roster running a train on Mariah Carey
Steve Price: I don’t know who I would feel worse for though – the Yankees, or Mariah Carey… My sadistic tendencies only go so far, you know.
Eric: I’d feel bad for MTV for having to report it
Steve Price: Then again, they put Andy Milonakis on the air, so they kind of deserve it.
Eric: How do you feel about Billy Donovan finally stepping out from under Slick Rick Pitino’s shadow?
Steve Price: I don’t know; the NCAA Tournament sucked so much this year, I thought I was watching The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy again.
Eric: So long and thanks for all the fish indeed
Steve Price: Exactly.
Eric: I’m pretty sure Pitino’s pissed that one of his prodigies did better than his team this year
Steve Price: Yeah, but that anger is surely tempered by the fact that his biggest in-state coaching rival is heading onto Tobacco Road. I didn’t think Tubby Smith would leave Kentucky so soon, let alone leave it (and Ashley Judd) for North Carolina State.
Eric: I wouldn’t leave Ashley Judd for NC. No matter how much I love Ric Flair
Steve Price: That, my friend, is why God gave us the internet.
Eric: Steve, as always, my friend, it’s been a pleasure
Steve Price: The pleasure is all mine. Thanks for the space.
–
Next week I’ll find the actual Champions League matches and see how far off I am. I’ll also throw in some thoughts about the English Premier League. Then, I may throw in thoughts on the NHL as they gear up for the Stanley Cup playoffs.
I want to thank Steve Price for the countless hours upon hours of random conversation about subjects ranging from hockey to Descartes. If it weren’t for those, I don’t think this would be possible.
Until then, to borrow a line from Keith Olbermann…
Keep your knees loose.
This is Eric.
Quick Shots (From Last Week / Two Weeks Ago)
– #11 George Mason vs. #3 Florida, tip-off at 6:07 PM EST on CBS
– #4 LSU vs. #2 UCLA, tip-off at 8:47 PM EST on CBS
– Bret Favre announces today that he’ll return to Green Bay for one more season if the Packers commit to “building a winner.”
– Duke G J.J. Redick is named the AP Player of the Year.
– WR Nate Burleson signs a deal with the NFC Champion Seattle Seahawks, reportedly worth $49 Million over seven seasons.
– White Sox starting pitcher Jose Contreras is signed to a three year, $29 Million extension.
– Svetlana Kuznetsova def. Maria Sharapova to win the Nasdaq-100 Championship.
– Cleveland Indians at Chicago White Sox, Sunday night on ESPN (MLB Season Opener)
– Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig announces that a full investigation is being launched to examine rampant steroid allegations against current baseball players, with a key interest obviously focusing on Giants OF Barry Bonds. The investigation will be headed up by Disney guru George Mitchell.
Last Call
A special thanks to Eric for doing all the work this week. Eric will be back next week for another edition of “Around the Camp Fire,” and I’ll return to normalcy in time for a bonafide heapin’ helpin of that southern pie of choice, known to you all as Happy Hour! That was Eric, this is Steve Price, you are terminated.
Peace.
