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Quick Hitters

Thursday, March 13th, 2008

By Jeffrey Petts

We haven’t done this is a while. Let’s go back to the well for a quickie.

Bode Miller wins his second World Cup skiing title in four years.
Bode who? Is it 2010 yet? Is this the winter Olympics? No? Well, then America really doesn’t care. Check back with us in a couple years.

Billy Crystal batted leadoff for the Yankees.
I would pitch inside and hard just because this guy lost his ability to hit anything but a softball more than a decade ago.

(And by “softball” I mean he stopped being funny around 1989. Outside of Monsters, Inc, which was aimed at toddlers, ol’ Billy hasn’t produced anything worth watching since When Harry Met Sally, and I give Reiner the credit for that one. Disagree? criticize Daly here but it was Happy Hour and the beer carts run slow on the Bay Hill Club & Lodge. What’s a professional golfer (athlete, HA!) supposed to do?

Joey Harrington gets another NFL contract.
It’s sad when the Atlanta Falcons will do anything to distract fans from the Michael Vick fiasco.

Shelley Duncan doesn’t know why his slide caused a brawl on the field.
Uh, I dunno, Shell. Maybe because nobody has come in with spikes up in the air that obviously since Ty Cobb.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWc77ELoz0M[/youtube]

Alex Ovechkin continues to light up the NHL.
It’s too bad it’s only like me and three other NHL fans that appreciate Alexander the Great’s feats of prowess. Forget kid Crosby, Alex truly is the iceman cometh.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eorWhtV9Aqk[/youtube]

Pundits say the Cubs might be too good to miss the postseason.
Ha! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! 1996 was the happiest spring of my life. Mind you, I was single, unemployed and broke. Thank the lord for Harry Caray and WGN.

=

I’ve got a beer to finish and a family to attend to. Expect an article from Joe tomorrow. Otherwise, continue to check in on Canon Fodder and our regular contributions from Joe and Craig along with our bevy of guest writers. Tell your family, friends, yada, yada, yada.

Posted in Canon Fodder, Golf, Jeffrey Petts, MLB, NFL, NHL, Snow Sports | No Comments »

Quick Hitters

Friday, October 12th, 2007

By Jeffrey Petts

I’m back.

Finding time to write continues to be an ongoing issue and Canon Fodder readers (both of you) have suffered accordingly. If I didn’t manage to crank out a Friday article – even a meager Quick Hitters – friends and family might begin to think something nefarious had happened to me. Let’s see if I can throw one together before turning in for the night.

The Cleveland Indians eliminated the New York Yankees from the baseball playoffs.
Hahahahahahahahaaaaaaa… hahahaha.

A couple of thoughts on this…

Alex Rodriguez – I think he opts out and heads for Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in Southern California on the West Coast (or whatever they’re calling themselves now). Artie Moreno has been courting A-Rod (unofficially, of course) since 2006 and I’ll bet the slugger is in SoCal by Christmas. I don’t buy rumors of him becoming a Cub mostly because I don’t believe there will be new ownership in place fast enough to get a deal done. The one dark horse in this is the San Francisco Giants. Sans Barry the Bobblehead, the Giants could use a big name to keep the seats occupied while the team retools and Bonds being off the payroll means the Giants have some extra ducats to throw around.

Joe Torre – I have a difficult time believing Torre could be out while Brian Cashman continues to draw a paycheck from the Yankees. Though I’m fairly sure the Yankee bat boy could manage a $200 million payroll to the post-season, I still can’t find fault with Torre for the Yankees’ post-season demise. (A certain player bearing the captain’s ‘C’ hitting into three double plays in two games probably had a bigger impact though the NY media will probably avoid discussing such an unpleasant topic.) The team looked old and the pitching was dreadful for most of the season. Torre deserves some credit for keeping the team focused as they struggled through the first half but I think his leadership skills are greatly over exaggerated. (Nearly $1 billion in payroll since their last world championship buys a lot of wins.) When all is said and done, if Torre keeps his job then the conspiracy theorist in me suspects this was all a ploy to turn attention away from the Yankees’ disappointing finish, the glaring weaknesses of their roster and the lackluster play of the team captain/golden boy.

Miami Dolphin quarterback Trent Green knocked himself out attempting to block an opponent.
Travis Johnson lists at 305 lbs.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=zlo4hdSzXQE[/youtube]

A word to the wise; let the 300-pounder run wherever he likes.

Stanford upset second-ranked USC Trojans.
I don’t care how many people attempt to prop this up as the year’s biggest upset, it’s still dwarfed by Appalachian State over Michigan in the Big House. Twenty years from now this will still be the best thing to happen to folks in Boone, North Carolina.

(Granted, the “best” bar is pretty low in Boone, North Carolina.)

The NHL is back in action.
Being an avid hockey fan, it hurts to watch – or in the case of the NHL’s current television deal, not watch – the league’s opening week receive so little fanfare. Maybe holding the season-opening games in London, England wasn’t such a good idea. And if the NHL is having trouble drawing fans in Hockeytown, the league’s in more trouble than they realize. Expansion to Vegas or Kansas City should be the last thing on the table.

Legendary Notre Dame player George Gipp was exhumed for a DNA sample.
Unfortunately there’s absolutely no truth to the rumor “genius” coach Charlie Weis had found a way to use the DNA to clone new Golden Domers to play in front of the partially-obstructed Touchdown Jesus.

On a related note, The New Gold Standard: Charlie Weis and Notre Dame’s Rise to Glory is on sale at Amazon! Get your copy while they last.

Keep checking in on Canon Fodder. I’ll be picking up the writing schedule a bit. (At this point, two articles in the same week would make me feel prolific.)

Posted in Canon Fodder, College Football, Jeffrey Petts, MLB, NFL, NHL | 1 Comment »

The More Things Change…

Monday, September 17th, 2007

Let me tell you how hard it is to crank out an article or two when you’re entertaining a father-in-law for a month. My wife’s father is visiting from New Zealand and in the last two weeks we’ve been to a grand prix, two major league baseball games, two museums and a trip to Frankenmuth. The poor man has been inundated with Americana. I even lined up a couple of articles loosely titled “Extrava-Dad-Za” but too many familial factors conspired to keep me from my beloved Canon Fodder.

But now I’m back. Well, sort of. The father-in-law leaves town Thursday so we’ll return to normalcy soon after. In the meantime, I’ll throw a tidbit to the masses in hopes that it satiates the appetite.

Taking a quick glance at the sports world this week, I realized the more things change, the more they stay the same. Don’t think so? Let’s take a look…

Joey Harrington is the starting quarterback in Atlanta.
In a related story, fans in Detroit and Miami are being blamed for crashing every gambling website in their zeal to wager against the Falcons.

Under the scrutiny of an HGH scandal, Rick Ankiel and the Cardinals are slumping.
As the only living human being that didn’t jump on the ‘feel-good comeback’ bandwagon, I just want to say, “Told you so.” (Second headline.)

And while I’m tooting my own horn of prognostication, remember this article from back in March? Let’s give it a quick once-over to see how I came through on my haiku predictions.

I hit a few on the nose:

Strong start in April.
Seattle fans given hope,
then Mariners fade.

Upgrade with Sheffield.
Motown kitties still learning.
This year a setback.

Schmidt carried Giants.
Years of overuse catch up.
Dodger dog on mound.

Then again, I missed big time on a pair too.

Humbled by last year
Guillen rekindles pale hose.
ChiSox win pennant.

Ninety-nine year drought.
Goat curse continues its streak.
The lovable Cubs.

The fact I have both Chicago teams predicted exactly backwards means I was either off by just a fraction (AL versus NL) or by as much as one could be and nothing in-between. And what did I learn? Making predictions is not only a tedious endeavor; you get the added bonus of looking like an idiot six month afterwards.

First overall pick Greg Oden will miss the entire NBA season to microfracture surgery.
Just in-case you thought the Blazers were finally going to put that Bowie-before-Jordan debacle behind them, Oden-over-Durant rings eerily similar. Not good times in Portland.

WNBA outdraws MLB in 2007!
Okay, I fibbed just a bit. Technically speaking, there was a Major League Baseball game with only a few hundred in the stands and it did draw less than a WNBA Finals game, but who are we really kidding here?

Winless Notre Dame travels to the Big House to play a winless Michigan on Saturday.
So what’s the same about this game? It’s yet one more historic match-up in the long history of these two teams. How so? Never have these two met and both been 0-2.

(In all honesty, I’m just grasping at straws to justify why I’ll be battling traffic all the way to Ann Arbor so I can witness this epic battle of ineptitude.)

Keep checking Canon Fodder as I’ll hopefully be back to a normal writing schedule next week. Until then, pass around our address and sending in those e-mails to jeff@canon-fodder.com.

Posted in Canon Fodder, College Football, Jeffrey Petts, MLB, NBA, NFL, WNBA | No Comments »

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