The Sixth Cents - XI

Welcome to the regular return of Six Cents. In this week's edition we will dig further into the soccer world as I continue to wrap my entire life around the sport. Nash is probably glad he's moving out soon, in a few months I think it might be a little out of control. We will also discuss the opening of baseball season as the Indians begin their quest for their first World Series title since 1948. However, we will not discuss 24. I have updated my 24 thoughts entry from last week, so hopefully I won't get called out for not having 24 ACTUAL thoughts anymore. Also, Karen has her weekly report, which should do. I especially liked her line, "Guns don't kill people, Jack Bauer kills people." Classic. On with the post...
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1. Time to update the NCAA list

After one of the most exciting first four rounds in NCAA Tournament history, the Final Four and Championship games were complete duds. So boring. I suppose to a Gators fan, this is probably not the case. As I found out from one of my lurkers that spoke up this afternoon, people actually TIVOed this thing and watched it again the same night!

Now, I did this when Ohio State won the Fiesta Bowl over Miami back in January of 2003, but that was also the first championship any team I support has ever won in my lifetime. Plus, by all accounts, it was one of the most exciting National Championship games ever played.

Last night? I was busy watching 24 and then flipped over to watch Law & Order. I only came back during the commercials to see the score and from what I saw it was pretty much the least exciting game of the tournament.

However, the Florida Gators have officially become the 9th school to win a championship in both football and basketball, joining Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, UCLA, Stanford, Arkansas, Maryland and Syracuse. They came just short of completing the holy trinity of college sports too, losing the College World Series to Texas last spring. Congrats Gators, but MAN is that Noah kid UGLY!
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2. The Tribe, Indians, This is My Team!

After getting railroaded by the thunderstorms that shook Chicago, and those pesky White Sox, in Sunday's Opening Night game, the wig-wamers put the screws to Freddy Garcia this afternoon at U.S. Comiskullar Field, 8-2. Jake Westbrook looked good and the bullpen was much better than they were in Sunday's loss. Rafael Betancourt was solid over 1.2 IP and the big question mark from the off season moves, Guillermo Mota, put the Sox away quietly in the ninth.

Offensively, it's nice to see that two of the boys that really struggled all of last season are getting off to better starts in 2006. Aaron Bleeping Boone went 4-5 with a 2B, HR, 2 runs scored and 4 RBI. Casey Blake went 2-2 with 3 walks, a run scored and an RBI. He is currently on pace to league the entire major leagues with 324 walks. Of course, it's still early.

On the flip side, it looks like Jim Thome is healthy and still at the top of his game. Too bad we weren't able to bring him back to Cleveland this winter. He has gone deep off of Tribe pitching for the second straight game.
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3. Newest of the New

The New Jersey Devils signed Miami University Redhawks senior defenseman Andy Greene to a free agent contract today. He was able to avoid the draft because in the NHL you have to be drafted by the age of 19. If you aren't, then you are free to sign on with any team that will negotiate with you when you are good and ready.
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4. The Globe Pub FC

Before we get into the weekend of the actual Chicago Fire soccer team, our office/The Globe Pub played our second match in our co-ed league on Sunday afternoon. Of course, for me this was following two hours of practice with my club team, Arsenal, so I was pretty drained. I didn't feel it in my lungs, which is a nice change of pace, but my legs were pretty heavy after some conditioning drills with the boys.

Plus, I was forced to play out of position again, although this time I slid into the center midfield roll and did fairly well. Of course, the team we played against, "Meanies," were actually a bunch of punkers complete with piercings, tattoos and all black uniforms including long cargo shorts. They weren't highly skilled, save for the one "normal looking" Mexican playing defense for them. They were very scary and we were short on girls so we had to play the entire game down one player.

After falling behind 1-0 we managed to claw back for a 2-1 victory. Our record stands at 1-0-1 after a nil-nil draw with an Irish bar the week before. Our team is comprised of mostly old drunk Brits, so I'll be surprised if we can run the table without the help of the folks in our office. Only two of us showed up this week, Kristen and myself. This week's game is also after a practice with Arsenal, so we'll see how I fare. I recovered much better this week, which means I'm getting back into proper fitness.

You know what that means...Hutch's stronghold on the Triathlon Poll might be coming apart.
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5. The club formerly known as the Burn

FC Dallas took down our boys on Saturday in the first game since I joined the club. We actually led 1-0 and 2-1 before the defense completely caved in and blew the game. So, as it stands, we now trail in the annual Brimstone Cup race, which is awarded to the team that wins the season series between FC Dallas and Chicago Fire Soccer. It's called the Brimstone Cup because originally Dallas was designated as our "rival" and they were called the Dallas Burn. Now we are in different divisions and they dropped the "Burn" so it doesn't make any damn sense. Traditions never die though. Our fans still hate Dallas more than anyone, it's quite amusing. Below is the new logo, along with a scarf that our supporters, Section 8, have for sale on their website. Good stuff.













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6. We had ourselves a nice little Saturday...

Amy and I headed to The Globe Pub for the game on Saturday after I got back from refereeing High School Girls Soccer in Buffalo Grove. (We get older, they stay the same age...) We walked in and the place was a mad house. The front room looked to be all off-duty cab drivers watching the Barcelona-Real Madrid match. The back room was packed with Chicago Fire supporters. Insane. After a couple of beers, some tasty burgers, and a near brawl between one of our staff members and an asshole "fan," we headed out of there.

BUT, after making her sit through her first soccer hooligan ordeal, and the first of two final four games, I agreed to go see a movie with her instead of watching the LSU-UCLA game with the guys up at Gongolapad. We went downtown to see "Failure to Launch" at the River East AMC 21. We also drove. Two monumental mistakes as we would later discover. First of all, it was $19 for tickets...ridiculous! Plus, we figured since they validate that it would be cheaper than us both taking the train or a cab. Wrong. It was $10 for parking AFTER validating. Absurd.

When the movie was over, Amy just looked at me and said, "I'm sorry." Just so I'm on record here, do NOT go see this movie. Terrible. At least it was over and we could go home now. Not so much.

We went down the huge escalator and stood in line for the machine to pay for parking, only it wouldn't read our ticket. Neither would the next one. Aww hell, none of them would read our ticket. Annoyed, I went back upstairs to the box office to ask what I should do. They sent me up two floors to guest services. Guest services was not the place to go, as they quickly said to go in the elevator all the way down to L1 and talk to the people in the parking office. When we stepped out onto L1, there was no parking office. We had to search for it. Finally, after being sent all over creation and wandering aimlessly through a parking garage for over a half hour, we were "allowed" to pay our $10 so we could leave. No apologies, no discount for their absurdity and our inconvenience, nothing.

Needless to say, Amy was getting her first real experience dealing with "Completely Annoyed Cap," which is a close relative to "Angry Cap." She tried to call me down by being all cute while we were waiting for the elevator so we could go back up to the floor that our car was on. Anyone who really knows me could tell you that these things don't really work with me. I just need to walk away, be pissed for 10 minutes, and then I'm fine. I would have been fine, but then the little intercom in the elevator lobby started making noises and I jokingly said something to the effect of, "suck it."

Within nanoseconds, the intercom spoke up, "Excuse me, sir?"

"Uh, yeah?"

"Can I help you with something?"

"Nope. You people have helped me out enough tonight, thanks."

At this point, Amy got annoyed with me and we had our first real disagreement. All is well now though, she came over last night to watch Jack Bauer kill people.