Scary **** LKJ, glad to hear you're ok.

Mariners - real deal or setting you up for heartbreak?

1. Thanks. On the bright side, I’ve collected “shot at” cred while probably not facing live lead bullets.

2. Probably the latter, but having fun with the journey before that happens.

I recently watched The Wind That Shakes The Barley and it was good. Recommended.

The fact that they started crushing even harder since this point is super weird. This finally being the year to break the playoff drought would be incredible.

Granted that I'm still not optimistic about how things will go in the upcoming Boston/NY series, but at some point I'll have to let myself believe.

I believe Bill Simmons refers to this as the Ewing Effect. Sometimes teams get better when their best player is lost for a length of time

Baseball just seems like the least likely sport for that to happen. It was a lot more understandable to see how the Knicks could see greater success when they didn't feel the need to run their whole offense through the big man.

That said, I'll take it. Completing a sweep of the Angels today would go a long, long way even if we go a bit below .500 during the Boston/NY stretch.

Obviously, thanks to the Ewing Effect, the Tigers are bound for the World Series!

(I'll settle for that #1 draft pick again. We have some stiff competition in the division, but I think this makes us favorites.)

I hate to admit it because baseball has been my favorite sport my entire life, but I've kind of fallen out of love with it. Jeter buying the team and gutting it yet again was the final straw. I can understand Stanton due to the contract but Yelich and Ozuna were young, talented players on great contracts that still had multiple years left.


I've tried to switch to a Rangers fan but it's just not the same. I end up just checking scores now and again. I don't keep up to date with the full roster, farm system, potential trades, etc like I did with Miami.


It's very weird watching a sport when you don't have a team.

Im in the same spot when it comes to the NHL.

Marty was the Devils for me. With him gone, I find it tough to follow them at all.

Its a bit freeing, actually. Especially when it comes to the playoffs. I can decide who I like in each match, root for them, and then do it all again in the next round. There's less heartbreak that way too.

I don't have time to watch 82 games at 3 hours a piece anyway.

Less heartbreak is a good positive. Then again, being a Miami sports fan prevented me from having heartache anyways.

When the Sonics were stolen I vowed that I was done with the NBA until and unless two conditions were met: (1) the Sonics exist again; and (2) David Stern is retired and/or dead. **** that guy.

Happily, the second condition has been met, and I suspect we'll see the Sonics again in 2020 or 2021, but in the interim I barely see any NBA.

I once went to a playoff Magic game against the 76ers. My friend and I got AWESOME seats mid court about 4 rows up. Sat down and David Stern had the seat behind me (had an interview at some point where the cameraman blocked my view for like 5 minutes which sucked). Our pregame conversation included this exchange:

"Hello Mr Stern. Can I get a picture? (he had taken like 10 already with random people)"
"As long as you're not gonna boo the officials"


What a buffoon

When Stern called a press conference to essentially announce that he was blocking a Sonics return back in 2012, he opened the presser by saying, "I'll keep this brief. I have a playoff game in Oklahoma City to get to." He later claimed, obviously disingenuously, that he wasn't intentionally trolling with that line. ****ing prick.

Damn I never heard that one. That's cold.

Dude was just a straight-up mafia leader. That time that he sat in the crowd and gave a live TV interview where he threatened Jeff Van Gundy's career while Van Gundy was coaching in the ongoing game was something to behold.

http://articles.latimes.com/2005/may.../sp-nbareport3

They played in 2000-2001 if I remember correctly. Magic were a 3’aeed and lost that series to the Sixers. This was the year prior to them playing the Lakers in the finals

Am I strange for just watching sports without really having "a team" in any sport?

I'll certainly have rooting interest most of the time for most events, but I don't really say "that's my team" ever.

Maybe it's just because I live in an area with no pro sports and went to a D3 school where no one cared about sports.

Sounds like a muted experience to me. I mean, obviously those of us who root for teams who have done a lot more losing than winning have the experience where our team is eliminated but we still watch the playoffs, so it's not as though I'm only watching football if the Seahawks are on. That said, the thought of not focusing my energy into my one team in each sport is difficult to get my head around. Sports are entertaining on their own merits of course, but the chase for my own team's success is where the real highs and lows come from, the likes of which I just can't see a neutral watcher being able to experience.

It's understandable given your geography of course, and really I think it's difficult to just decide to adopt a team once you're into your adult years, but I'd just take far less of an interest without a dog in the fight (as indicated by my dropping of the NBA).

Speaking of adopting a team:

For the upcoming World Cup, this 538 quiz will help you decide who to root for:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/world-cup-quiz/

I got Costa Rica.

I got Sweden. As a descendant of idiots from Northern Europe, seems like a fine result.

Peru for me - need to find a bar with a Peruvian flute band playing during commercials

Japan here. (The second choice it gave was Iceland.). I can live with that.

I was not aware that Iceland was in. That being the majority of my heritage, I'll root for them (even though I've never set foot there).

Yup, they’re in Argentina’s group, and have a decent shot of advancing from the group stage (don’t worry, I had to look it up too).

Dude. Go.

They're in a brutal group. Most oddsmakers have them finishing 4th.