Blogrolling: You Blog To Lose The Coach

Adam Best from Arrowhead Addict does the honors for the giving man and coach, Herm Edwards. To Eagle Fan of a certain age, he'll always be the guy picking up Joe Pisarcik's gift at the Meadowlands. (Eagle Fan, by the way, is the only town where Herm spent real time and has a fond memory of the guy...

Laker Fan hates on the Spurs in list form. See, other people write these!


Neate from Out of Left Field, your go-to site for Canadian action, produces the all-time Canadians team for Habs Haters. You always have to love when second and third generation guys stink.

Josh Q Public with the most recent goings-on from Old Friend John Rocker. It's a heart-warming story, provided that your heart is warmed by public drunken racism.

One For The Other Thumb, a Steeler blog with a very prophetic name, with the knowledge that Walrus Holmgren will be joining the Calvacade of Whimsy that is the NBC analysis tank at the Super Bowl. Seriously, suits? Tie this into your once-a-year greenwashing nonsense and have all of these blow holes in a clown car. You wouldn't have to heat anything, and if we're lucky, they'd eat each other. (Oh, and the sound that you heard was Steeler Fan with the pre-emptive gnashing of teeth, as the Walrus readies his "They're getting the calls from the refs, just like they did against us" bleat.)

The Gray Lady weights in on the recent hockey fight tragedy, and honestly, I know that Hockey Fan doesn't want to hear this, but... for decades now, the sports has been more or less disparaged for the sideshow. (And yes, yes, I know that the kid's death had more to do with a fluke equipment failure than the fight. But when you lie down with the bad practice and gets mixed with bad luck, you can not win about the fleas.)

No other major league sport mixes an amateur athletic element into its fully professional one, just as no one decides to stop watching the playoffs because they don't fight there. In my years of playing street hockey as a young'un, I also never saw guys drop the gloves and go at it, probably because (a) when your feet are on solid ground, you can honestly hurt someone, and (b) for heaven's sake, fighting in the middle of a hockey game is Big Stupid.

Now that there's been a death, Big Stupid has gone to Horrific Stupid.

In baseball, when there is a fatality, change happens. Ray Chapman in 1919 remains the only time that an MLB player has died on the field from a thrown pitch; it led to batting helmets, fresh baseballs in play more often, and 15 years later, lights. On some level, the MLB death produced Babe Ruth and changed the sport forever.

Given that the team that suffered the fatality has already dropped the gloves since, to the same effect from the fans... well, Hockey Fan, I get that you don't really care anymore about mainstream acceptance. That's good.