The actual KU rival. Click on the link and start listening around the 7:00 mark.

2 Minutes from going home a failure… but soccer is boring right?

Photo From KC Star

33-2. 33-2 you ask? What is that? Are you giving pre-season wins to the Jayhawks or something? Nope, I’m telling you what the Jayhawks record is against that “rival” KSU since the founding of the Big 12. Think about that for a minute. 33-2. Seriously. Kansas State has beaten a team they ridiculously declare a “rival” twice, in the history of the league! K-State is falling all over themselves to fellatiate a coach with a winning percentage roughly equal to KU’s all time record. Again, think about that for a minute. Over more than 100 years KU has averaged what Frank Martin has done. Actually that’s being generous; Frank has won about 69% while KU has won 72%. Lets quit comparing numbers, it’s brutal.

But here’s the thing: If you were to ask any individual KSU fan about the historical slaughter they would claim, with a straight face, that KSU deserved to win every single one of those games! It’s like they live on a different planet where basketball is watched through an ignorance inducing purple prism. After each one of those losses, if by one point or 40, the angry, insecure, white, uneducated farm legions have risen up in protest.

“Can’t blame the cats. Tough to play 8-5.”
“Horrible out of bounds call by the officials. Looks like they finally remembered they’re supposed to help KU out.”
“Guess 5 steps isn’t a walk when it’s Sherron.”
“What foul?” (reference to the game saving strip at the end of regulation in Manhattan)

I’ve taken those 4 quotes directly from the Twitter feed of one of my good friends. In fact, he was the gentleman I had in mind a few weeks ago when I wrote that I knew there was at least one intelligent KSU fan. I can’t tell you why he went there, he’s not a farmer, but I will vouch for his intellect. But those quotes have come over the course of 3 games. One can make the assumption that he believes KU deserved to win none of the games. The point is, even the smartest K-State fan is helpless to do anything but complain. He wrote a post after KSU beat Nebraska explaining how KSU deserved a large foul shot discrepancy, but rest assured that exact theory could never be applied against the ‘Cats. As best I can tell it’s impossible for a correct call to ever go against the purple. If this is what the smartest 1% of KSU fans thinks, what can you expect from the rest? Take a look for yourself. Honestly, it’s sad. Uneducated Kansas State educated, and sad.

Never mind that K-State has one player good enough to start at KU. Never mind that K-State lost all 3 games this year, two somewhat handily, (and we all know how hard it is to beat a team three times in one year). Never mind that in Manhattan the term “coaching” apparently means screaming at your players and waving your arms. Rest assured that if KU won 99 games in a row, with an average scoring margin of 80, the entire wildcat fan base would be talking about how the refs have it out for them.

So again, here’s my advice (I like to help). Declare your rival to be Iowa State. That’s a more natural fit. ISU sucks too. I don’t think they have a rival. ISU is a second priority land grant school in a predominately AG based state. They probably have similarly homely women and too many dudes. You already have that “Farmageddon” thing going…

I think the Wildcats have a nice team (I sure don’t want to see them a fourth time). I think Frank Martin is a good coach. I wonder if he may be too good to stay in that Western Kansas hell hole, but you can enjoy him while he’s there. Get excited when that other farm team comes to town. Play “Let’s find the minority in the stands”. Celebrate ridiculous facial hair and make up stupid names for your arena. Sign off with ignorant chauvinistic acronyms. Claim you have tradition. Cite the facial hair, arena names, and acronyms as tradition even if they seem amateurish and unsupportive of your claim. Enjoy it. When ISU beats you, give them credit, but continue to hate them. But for god’s sake, please quit comparing yourself to KU. You don’t measure up. It makes you look terrible both on the court, and off.

Joe Posnanski used to be a columnist for the Kansas City Star until recently when he moved on to Sports Illustrated. He still writes for The Star occasionally but his blog regularly features pieces about the hometown teams. Since spring training has started and the first Cactus League game is tomorrow there is the usual amount of optimism surrounding the Royals. They will probably suck. They might suck comically. It’s possible they will embarrass themselves and the city. But this time of year there is always a chance. With that in mind, you should check out Joe:

I took the plunge and bought Royals season tickets. Well, check that, I only bought the 21-game pass — I mean, hey, I’m not CRAZY or anything — but that still does make our family official Royals season ticket holders.* This was punctuated by an email from the Royals stating that, as season ticket holders, we are entitled to buy more tickets, which I must admit does not seem like much of a perk.

*I’m not all that crazy about parents who go around saying “Oh, our child said the cutest thing today,” but I must share with you our 5 year old Katie’s reaction when we told her that we bought Royals season tickets. She said, and I quote: “I’d rather go to Hawaii.”

The rest is here.

So today I heard that there was this game called “hockey” that looks like a chaotic and random version of soccer. Apparently it matters to Canadians and some scattered pockets of people in Russia and the Northeastern US. I thought I’d see if I can figure out what all the fuss was about. During the pre-game the announcer declared this the, “… most important game ever.” Wow, now I’m interested. Apparently the Canadians have a guy named Crosby who is good. The Americans have a goalie who is good. I’ll be watching them.

So after watching the first of three halves (?!?) I decided that it was impossible to find this Crosby guy (or any other non-goalie) because people are randomly entering and leaving the game constantly. I’m pretty sure each player was 6 foot tall, 195 lbs, and white anyway. Goals seem to be mostly a collection of good timing and random luck. Occasionally a shot will result in a rebound and occasionally that rebound will bounce to the right part of the scrum in front of the goal. That rebound occasionally finds its way past the goalie when someone in the scrum hits it, kicks it, or accidentally redirects it. Usually you can’t see what actually happened until the slow motion replay.

I got bored and went outside to shoot my bow. If the Canadians care about hockey I’m happy to let them have it.

I won’t say anything bad about KSU today. I probably should. I definitely could. But somehow it seems cheap after such a great game. Props to Kansas State and Kansas on a great game, great environment, and gut wrenching final 10 minutes.

I’ve mentioned before that the owner and semi-regular author of Fountain Shots is a friend and fellow attorney. He covers midwestern sports with an emphasis on the Royals and K-State. Both suck a great deal or maybe he’d post more often? Anyway, he’s set up his first podcast here. It’s geared towards the Big 12 football race. He’s obviously put a great deal of time into the production value and it’s worth a listen.

What can be better than a track and field controversy? A dental visit? 8:30 in-custody criminal docket call? Mowing in the rain? The first problem is that T&F is nearly unbearable to watch, the second is that no one cares who wins. Think NASCAR without the marketing department… And then just when someone comes along and starts to dominate they get popped for some type of doping, sometimes involving horse drugs(!?!)…

So why are we even talking about it? Because when the controversy is over the gender of the winner we’re interested. Caster Semenya is competing and dominating as a woman but there may be some doubt… Take a look:

Photo courtesy of Olivier Morin, AFP/Getty Images

It appears that officials from the IAFF are concerned as well. Spokesman Nick Davies claimed it was a, “medical issue, not an issue of cheating”. Apparently the testing is complicated and could take some time.

His/her coach Michael Seme uncorked this gem:

We understand that people will ask questions because she looks like a man. It’s a natural reaction and it’s only human to be curious. People probably have the right to ask such questions if they are in doubt. But I can give you the telephone numbers of her room-mates in Berlin. They have already seen her naked in the showers and she has nothing to hide.

Well now I’m convinced…

I know, two sports posts in two days… but this was just too good not to post:

The Trey Hillmans and Dayton Moores of the world always tell us about the magical and mystical world of baseball. They describe it as a game played in a kind of manly tableau of romance, a strange concoction of male heroism — you have to look into a guy’s eyes now and then — and a well-wrought detective novel. Little things, things that don’t show up in the boxscore, are of course, supremely important. And it makes them feel intelligent, although they are at root anti-intellectual, to adhere to this sort of gnosticism. Not everybody really knows the game, like those who really know the game. Scouts, it goes without saying, are part of the initiated, the wizard sleuths who know what to notice and how to interpret the signs. The oracles of this creed speak as all oracles do, in circles designed to confuse outsiders. Thus, we are sometimes told things seemingly empty: he’s a ballplayer, he plays the game the right way, and so on.

It is, fundamentally, a world enchanted by magic. A mythical world. Symbols and signs abound. Beginnings and endings, naturally, are of the utmost importance. How the first inning of the game starts, for the offense, is most important. Proper supplications must be made. If a good “bat-handler” can be found to bat second, much good fortune will be generated. His groundouts to second will be recorded by the spirit world approvingly. A dirty uniform, even if dirtied in missing a flyball or in being thrown out in a steal attempt, is both a sign of piety and a talisman of good tidings.

The rest here.