Redstate Sports

Posted at 4:00pm on Aug. 19, 2008 What Happened to the Game I Once Loved?

By GaryCook

At age 12, I found myself totally addicted to baseball. That was in 1957.

Mickey Mantle was my boyhood idol, and I was a St. Louis Cardinal fan through my teen years and beyond. I recall with fondness hearing Harry Cary’s “holy cow!” when Ken Boyer would make a diving stop of a sizzling grounder, or when Lou Brock stole another base.

Back in those days, I knew virtually every player on every team because trades were rarer than they are today. Mantle was always a Yankee; Stan “The Man” Musial a Cardinal, Ernie banks a Cub, and Eddie Matthews a Brave. The sports page headlines were about the Mick’s mammoth home run that came within inches of leaving Yankee Stadium, Musial’s five home runs in a Sunday double header, and the Yankee “M & M” squad’s historic chase for Ruth’s record.

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Posted at 4:02pm on Aug. 11, 2008 France, meet Americas backhand

By Alberta

Dont accuse me of that fancy, 100 dollar word jingoism. Im not even American.

It would be impossible, however, not to revel in the victory of team USA! USA! USA! over the little respected, once great, but now pitiful nation that is France. The French, you see, had some pretty high hopes going into this years Olympics. Win a gold medal? I guess. According to Alain Bernard, the French swimming teams goal was, well, Ill let him say it: “The Americans? We will smash them. That's what we came here for.”

Forget that the last time the French smashed anything of significance, an artillery officer from Corsica was running the place. Monsieur Bernard and his fellow countrymen, competing in the 4 x 100 relay, came to China to win. Who cares that the best swimmer on the flat face of the earth swims for America?

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Posted at 12:56am on Aug. 10, 2008 Cowboys may surprise...

By dbecraft

Looks like those of you who despise the Cowboys may be in for a disappointment this year (There were many last year - also many who failed to take my Giants warning seriously). The Offense is looking good, and the defense is reasonable. So... I give you fair warning, I will continue to flag their accomplishments and flag their deficiencies, so at least, you will know the standings (Just in case you betting with Vegas). So the smart folks will follow my comments with a bit of expectation, the rest of you that only follow your favorites, lose at will... Me, I will bet on the winners (Money or otherwise)...heh.

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Posted at 1:21pm on Aug. 7, 2008 Green Bay Packers trade Brett Favre to New York Jets

By Finrod

Since no one else here has posted about this yet, let me insert my $0.03.

Being a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, I don't have as much to say about this whole fustercluck between Brett Favre and Green Bay as some. Yet, from afar (well, the AFC), I've always admired both Green Bay and Brett Favre. Very few players play the game as hard or have as much fun on the field as Favre; as such it's difficult to find anything negative to say about him. Similarly with Green Bay-- they're the only franchise owned by the town and the people of its town, and I've always found that to be an uncommon bright spot in this world of teams switching cities. Yet I find myself taking Favre's side in this kerfluffle. I had wondered back in March why he chose then to retire-- unfortunately, it ended up being pressure from Green Bay to decide that pushed him into making that bad decision then. It's very sad to see a quarterback with as many consecutive starts as Favre has had for Green Bay being shuttled off to another team-- in 10 years, whoever Green Bay chooses in the draft pick they get from the Jets is going to be the answer to a trivia question in the category 'Most Bone-headed Trades Of All Time'.

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Posted at 7:57pm on Aug. 5, 2008 Gamecock's tribute to Braves' Skip Caray (1939-2008)

By gamecock

I love the Atlanta Braves more than any team in any sport, and have since before my Dad drove the family down I-85 from Spartanburg to Fulton County Stadium. I was 9. Hank Aaron would pass The Babe a few years later with Milo Hamilton and Ernie Johnson broadcasting the game.

Skip Carey arrived a year or so later. He made the meager years that followed tolerable with his sarcastic wit and knowledge of the game.

Its hard to fathom Braves baseball without him. I often say that my brother and I were raised on sarcasm, given my father's sarcastic wit. He and Skip were kindred spirits.

Legendary AJC columnist Furman Bishop and Dave O'Brien comment.

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Posted at 6:00pm on Jul. 25, 2008 Can a Man Will Himself Into the Hall of Fame?

By Darin H

He was arguably the hardest working man in the NFL during his playing days. He wasn't drafted and had to work on the practice squad and special teams for the better part of 2 years before he saw meaningful playing time. He never missed an off season workout in 12 years, not a single one. He wasn't showy. He wasn't a me-first player. He played his last few years with serious hip pain (which eventually caused his retirement). He just went out and did his job and did it well. As long as the team was winning, he was happy.

Rod Smith is exactly the kind of football player that deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. He has the stats, but he also has the intangibles that should not be overlooked.

read on

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Posted at 1:04pm on Jul. 18, 2008 The only time in my life I'll ever announce 100% agreement with Fidel Castro...

By drothgery

Baseball (and softball) should not be eliminated from the Olympics after 2008, and it's largely being canned at the behest of anti-American Europeans who don't think the game is played outside of the US.

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Posted at 10:49am on Jul. 18, 2008 Clayborn Counsil - Morton Blackwell: Long Lost Brothers???

By Younce

I watching the Home Run Derby on Monday night as I usually do. While Josh Hamilton was giving us the show he did in the first round, there were several mentions of his pitcher, 71-year old American Legion coach Clay Counsil.

When the camera flashed to Counsil, I couldn't believe what I saw. Counsil is a spitting image of my former boss, conservative icon Morton Blackwell. Below is a side by side picture of the two of them.

Clay Counsil & Morton Blackwell

Crossposted at chrisyounce.com

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Posted at 12:03pm on Jul. 9, 2008 Welcome Back Mark

By Alberta

So the brew crew goes out and gets a DE named Captian Crunch. Cute. I heard he pitched a whole 6 innings in his debut, then proceeded to eat every hot dog available in the ball park. Good pickup!

Have the beer swilling bombers gone insane? Such a move was sure to prompt a response from the big boys of the central, my Cubbies, and what a response it was. We got Mark Prior back!

Ok, ok, so Rich Harden isnt as durable as the Pry Guy, but he does come with a 2.34 ERA, and (get ready for it Volpe) 92 Ks in 77 innings. And you know what else we got? Chad Gaudin! Yah, the guy who had to run far, far away from the AL East just so the nightmares would go away. Lets sum this up. The Cubs just traded for 2/5's of a rotation halfway through the season, and they were already in 1st place! I cant say this enough. We were in 1st place with a rotation of Zambs, Dempster, Lilly, and a bunch of long relievers. Now we got some legit pitchers. Goose bumps, people, goose bumps.

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Posted at 9:19pm on Jun. 18, 2008 Granted, I Know Rather Little About Golf

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

But I have to think that Tiger Woods is nothing short of superhuman after having read this:

Tiger Woods has decided to have surgery on his left knee, which will end his 2008 season.

Woods said on his Web site that he will have surgery on his anterior cruciate ligament. He also wrote that he needs time to rehabilitate a double stress fracture of his left tibia, which he said was discovered just before the Memorial Tournament in late May.

And he revealed that he originally ruptured the ACL in 2007 while running at his home in Orlando after the British Open. He said he decided not to have surgery at that point, and he went on to win five of the next six events he entered (through his Target World Challenge in December).

"He's been playing way less than 100 percent for a long, long, time," his swing coach, Hank Haney, said. "It has limited him a lot in practice. He's going to come back better than he's ever been."

Considering what Woods has been able to achieve while injured, Haney's comments have to be terrifying for other players on the professional tour.

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Posted at 7:58pm on May 24, 2008 Eric Gagne and the Lessons of Cheating

By mike volpe

Eric Gagne was a struggling marginal pitcher when he burst on the scene in 2002 in his new role as closer for the Dodgers. For the next three years, he dominated in ways never seen before. He still holds the all time record for consecutive saves with the herculean total of 84. In 2003, he won the Cy Young award with 55 saves and a 1.20 ERA. I happened to catch Gagne pitch once in 2003. He finished the ninth against then Cub, Eric Karros. He started Karros off with a fastball that the stadium gun clocked at 99 MPH. His next two pitches were both change ups. One change up was clocked at 74 and the next at 72 MPH respectively. I still remember the ridiculous amount of drop that his last change up had. He made Karros look silly and it redefined the term "pull the string" normally associated with change ups. Karros career sputtered through a series of injuries and lack of production following the 2004 season and he continues to be a struggling, if not well paid, closer today.

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Posted at 5:47pm on May 23, 2008 That sucked. That sucked hard.

By Alberta

Oy vey, how can anybody watch that garbage they had on the TV the other day. You know what Im talking about, that soccer game they played in the USSR. Talk about a sleep aid. And you see how it ended? Penalty kicks? I just watched the most boring sport ever devised (go ahead, include darts and bowling, the statement still stands) and it is ended with some guy standing 3 feet from a 300 foot wide net firing the ball at some hapless sucker they stuck in goal? I mean, nobody had a coin to flip, or what?
Some kid from Calgary had to man up and end it. Ive played golf with the guy, his girls a dime.

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Posted at 5:47pm on May 23, 2008 That sucked. That sucked hard.

By Alberta

Oy vey, how can anybody watch that garbage they had on the TV the other day. You know what Im talking about, that soccer game they played in the USSR. Talk about a sleep aid. And you see how it ended? Penalty kicks? I just watched the most boring sport ever devised (go ahead, include darts and bowling, the statement still stands) and it is ended with some guy standing 3 feet from a 300 foot wide net firing the ball at some hapless sucker they stuck in goal? I mean, nobody had a coin to flip, or what?
Some kid from Calgary had to man up and end it. Ive played golf with the guy, his girls a dime.

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Posted at 8:37pm on May 22, 2008 Just for Dan

By Darin H

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Posted at 12:12am on May 22, 2008 In Which Pejman Goes Over To The Dark Side Of The Force

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

I hate Manchester United.

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