08.31.10
Posted in Football, USA! USA!, We Aren't The World
at 4:07 pm
by GC
The USSF announced yesterday Bob Bradley’s contract had been extended a further 4 years, concluding with the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, thus ending the US Men’s National Team’s coach’s flirtation’s with England’s Premiership. American soccer’s gain, however, is most certainly British sports journalism’s loss, as the Guardian’s Simon Burton and Tom Lutz demonstrate the sort treatment Bradley (shown above, during the early 1970’s) might’ve received on a regular basis.
The Special Relationship is a fulfilling one for Great Britain. We get a cool friend whose taste in music, films, cars, food, fashion and misjudged military aggression we slavishly follow, while making snippy remarks behind their back about their inferior intellect. In return they once talked to us at the UN “ although they kept on calling us Brian rather than Britain “ and sometimes employ our actors to play baddies or misanthropes in finely crafted TV dramas. They even defer to us in all matters association football. Or at least they did until today.
For USA! USA!! USA!!! coach Bob Bradley has decided managing a team that could only draw with England at the World Cup is more glamorous than taking charge of Aston Villa, the eighth- or ninth- or 10th- or maybe 20th if Andy Carroll is playing against them-best team in the Best League In The World. Yup, he’s signed a new deal with the US Soccerball Federation, putting him out of the running to replace neurotic genius Martin O’Neill at Villa Park. The fact that Villa want someone with Premier League experience in charge may also be a factor but that’s by the by.
Permalink
Posted in Baseball, When Mascots Are Attacked
at 2:04 pm
by GC
Jack Bogaczyk of the Charleston Daily Mail reports the Sally League’s West Virginia Power are unveiling a new mascot tonight, thus kicking the club’s prior mascot quintet, Charlie, Hatchet, Windy, Firebug and Waterboy aka “The Five Pack” (above) to the curb.
The Power intends to use the new mascot and Street Team in a club initiative to tackle community issues, hoping to influence positive change.
The Power’s first target is childhood obesity, team president/GM Andy Milovich said.
As for the mascot, Milovich hinted Monday that the new furry friend is “more animal than anything, but not like a black bear or dog. It’s more on the lines of a Phillie Phanatic, a Muppet-type character.”
Milovich made it clear the club will have only one mascot, after the team found something of an identity crisis in sending the various “retiring” mascots out into the community.
“It seemed we could never fully establish an identity,” Milovich said. “And staffing five of them was very challenging, and replacing all five would have been very costly.”
Permalink
Posted in Gridiron, Sports Journalism, twitter twatter
at 11:03 am
by GC
Hey, I’m told Big Ben will get somewhere between 3 games and 300. My sources are what’s commonly known in journalistic circles as “imaginary friends” ; you’d figure a respected WaPo veteran columnist like Wise would have more of a legit inside track. Incredibly, it turns out Wise’s source doesn’t actually exist, a scenario Wise first tried to write off as “a test of social media accuracy”, then latter apologized for. In the wake of Wise being lambasted all over the blogosphere for a stunt allegedly designed to see how quickly the above Roethlisberger story would be retweeted, linked, etc. he’s been suspended by the Post for a month. Though I hear it could be for two months. Or 3 weeks.