Oh, Lebron James is announcing where he's going next year this Thursday at 8pm central time. It will be part of an hour long special that, I'm guessing, will include pyrotechnics, dancing horses, Stuart Scott saying "Boo-yeah" to as many James highlights as possible, the Cleveland Tabernacle Choir, Patrick Kane, Lebron descending from the ceiling, and the finest in cross-promoting synergetic advertising ESPN/ABC/Disney can put together (Remember, Jimmy Kimmel Live-late night on your local ABC affiliate).
It is not known which team James will join or where the announcement will take place.
I can only assume this means it will happen at James' underground lair as he will acquire the Batcave as part of his max contract.
I might be a little David Haugh intensive lately, and Jim O'Donnell was let go by the Suntimes, and I've missed Frank Deford, so I decided to be kind of lazy and make fun of soccer. Bill Simmons did a Q&A on the World Cup trying to make a case that its soccer's coming out party. Article after the new Wolf Parade song. Enjoy.
Soccer is ready to capture our attention
By Bill Simmons
July 1, 2010
Via ESPN.com
Question No. 1: What's been the single best thing about the Cup so far?
I love the Cup because it stripped away all the things about professional sports that I've come to despise. No sideline reporters. No JumboTron. No TV timeouts. No onslaught of replays after every half-decent play. No gimmicky team names like the "Heat" or the "Thunder." (You know what the announcers call Germany? The Germans. I love this.)
So no things like being able to see the ball in the stadium, no replays to see how a play broke down. And no team names. Although Germany is kind of a well-known brand.
No announcers breathlessly overhyping everything or saying crazy things to get noticed.
GOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAL!!!! That's a bit of overhype. Although there are some announcers (Gus Johnson, Bill Rafferty) that get too carried away, so I agree with his point in theory.
The World Cup just bangs it out: Two cool national anthems, two 45-minute halves, a few minutes of extra time and usually we're done. Everything flies by. Everything means something.
(Hang onto this one for a later question).
Question No. 2: What's the second-best thing?
Never during the CEO's reign of early-morning terror have I watched anything decent other than morning "SportsCenters" as I waited for 20 ounces of coffee to kick in. This month? I had the second half of every 4:30 a.m. PT game in Round 1, followed by the 7 a.m. game a little bit later. No offense, Hannah Storm and Josh Elliott, but it was nice to spend a few mornings watching a real sporting event instead of highlights of things that had happened eight hours before. For that reason alone, the 2010 World Cup will always be near and dear to my heart.
You know, there's soccer packages available through Directv. You can watch soccer in the morning all the time.
Question No. 3: Why do we wait every four years to have the World Cup?
When I argued recently that the Cup should be every three years, readers flooded me with reasons it couldn't work: It's too expensive (apparently the Cup always loses money for whichever country gets it);
Wait, you want us to get excited for the World Cup when its a financial blackhole for the host country?
they'd have to do too much reconfiguring for smaller tournaments already in place (note: I don't get that argument; that's like saying you can't have the Oscars interfering with the SAG Awards or something); people like having it every four years because it's more meaningful that way (by that logic, you should have sex every four years, too); and most importantly, FIFA never wants to go head-to-head with the Summer Olympics.
So, instead of having smaller tournaments that might make money, you should push forward the World Cup to lose money? Its like not having the Oscars every year because the Oscars are too damn expensive. I don't get his argument here.
My counter for the last argument: Why not? So … we'd have MORE sports on? Wow, that sounds terrible! I'd hate to have all those exciting things to watch. And by the way, the Olympics should switch to every three years as well. I never understood the "No, it has to be every four years, that's the way they've always done it" argument. That's like saying "I'm not getting an HD plasma; I'm sticking with my old-school TV, that's the way I've always watched it." It's stupid. It's a loser's mentality.
Yeah, more sports. Sports that end in a tie! Didn't the U.S. team have a remarkable run and only win one game? That's excitement. And move the Olympics to every three years? Awesome, Greece would've gone bankrupt sooner and London could be that much closer.
Question No. 4: How many times did you regret not ditching your family, ditching the NBA Finals, ditching the Celtics and flying 20 hours to South Africa for the World Cup?
Four times and four times only...
Wait, this World Cup is the greatest thing and you, as a reporter, didn't head over?
Question No. 6: Was it good or bad for the World Cup that Italy and France got bounced in the group stage?
Keeping USA, Spain, Germany, England, Italy and France around as long as possible makes me think about the Boston Tea Party, the War of 1812, Neville Chamberlain, Napoleon getting overthrown, multiple wars, Thomas Jefferson throwing his genitals around France like a boomerang, Benedict Arnold switching sides, all the times France surrendered or withdrew, and basically everything good and bad that's ever happened between those six countries. It's like having four solid weeks of AP History flashbacks.
So there's a French surrendering joke, that's always a fan favorite. And I would've gone with Ben Franklin getting crazy and going all LiLo and/or Lady Gaga in France. What was the War of 1812 reference? A war that was fought, had battles after it ended and ended up doing nothing but defining the US-Canadian Border? Soccer flashed you back to a war with no point.
Question No. 7: You haven't handled Boston's Game 7 loss to the Lakers very well. What was the snarkiest e-mail or text you sent to a Boston friend after hearing that Kobe was attending the USA-Ghana game?
It was a tie between "Since Kobe is attending this game, does this mean we're gonna get all the calls?" and "Kobe watched only six of the first 24 minutes but was still named MVP of his luxury suite."
Okay, some shots at Kobe. He did at least go to the game...
Question No. 8: After a few legitimately horrendous World Cup officiating moments, as well as FIFA's bizarre refusal to incorporate instant replay haunting the Cup multiple times, do you feel better or worse about officiating and leadership in American professional sports?
I have slowly come to grips with the fact that officiating will probably be excruciating in whatever sport I happen to be watching. If it's better than "excruciating," it's a bonus. If it's better than "mediocre," you practically won the lottery. So the shaky officiating didn't change anything for me. FIFA's stance is that "we can't have instant replay in soccer, it's important that every FIFA-sanctioned game plays by the same rules, and we can't afford to have instant replay for every FIFA game, so instead, we won't have it at all, even though these World Cup games are 100 times more important than any other FIFA event."
So officiating always sucks, so that's okay. At least he didn't include "The Human Element"- the euphemism for "Referees fucking things up." And you don't want replay in soccer-- especially on plays that can easy be corrected-- like whether goals go in or not. Yeah, there's some pics of replayable things here.
The next few questions don't have much to them...
Question No. 13: If you could change anything about soccer, what would it be?
I hate how teams milk leads in the last 15-20 minutes by faking injuries and taking forever to sub players. When that Ghana player had to be carried off on a stretcher at the tail end of the America game, then hopped off like nothing ever happened as soon as the stretcher was out of bounds, I thought that was appalling. Actually, it made me want to go to war with Ghana. I wanted to invade them. I'm not even kidding. That's another great thing about the World Cup: Name another sport in which you genuinely want to invade other countries when you lose.
So, going back to question one, where you loved the speed and straight forwardness of the World Cup-- now you say you hate teams milking leads and flopping and then miraculously recovering? That sounds like the World Cup just banging things out. Everything flies by. Everything means something.
Question No. 14: What's been the strangest thing about the 2010 World Cup?
To hear Germany described in such likable, underdoggy tones. Who would have thought these young upstarts would jell this fast? It's like the announcers were talking about the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays or something … if the Tampa Bay Rays had started two world wars and nearly brought down Europe.
You realize Germany hasn't started any wars in about 70 years, right? I know they have a past but I think you can separate that from a soccer match. Have some schnitzel and enjoy. (The Germans demand it).
Skipping to Q#19...
Question No. 19: Thanks to last year's Confederations Cup and Donovan's extra-time goal last weekend, do you think soccer is finally taking off in America?
Put it this way …
When I was in the third grade (1978), people thought soccer was taking off in America.
When I was a freshman in college (1988), people thought soccer was taking off in America.
When I was a barely employed wannabe sportswriter in Boston whose life revolved around the O.J. Simpson trial and partying every night (1994), people thought soccer was taking off in America.
When I was living in Boston with my fiancée and writing for ESPN.com (2002), people thought soccer was taking off in America.
I am 40 years old. I live in Los Angeles. My hair is turning silvery white. I have a wife, two kids, a mortgage and that same ESPN column. Guess what? People think soccer is taking off in America. Only this time … I agree with them.
We'll see how that works. U.S. can build off the one historic win.
The Q#20 is one long winded answer defending his vision of the soccer revolution. Its about the world getting smaller and sports being more accessible.
Being all cynical, I'm just going to say that until you can easily bet on the low-scoring/tie laden world of the World Cup, it won't be as popular as The Super Bowl or fantasy baseball or other fun betting.
Bill Simmons: Welcome to bad sports thoughts and thanks for contradicting yourself several times in your Q & A
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