I got yer "class" right here

by Tracer Bullet

Let's talk about class, shall we?

The sporting world has been abuzz with the word class lately. With Wisconsin laying a beatdown for the ages on Indiana, there were those who accused Wisconsin head coach Bret Bielema of lacking class because his team was still throwing the ball late with a 63 point lead.

Those accusations echoed earlier complaints because the Badgers attempted, and made, a two-point conversion against the hapless Minnesota Golden Gophers in a game that finished 41-23.

Philadelphia Eagles head coach Andy Reid faced similar catcalls because the Birds were still throwing the ball and blitzing the Washington Redskins late in a game that ended 59-28.

Every year, we get a certain number of blowouts and like clockwork, someone is accused of being classless.

Let me tell you what I think about "class," class go suck a, well, Shooter won't let me curse, so let me say that class can go suck a bag of over-warmed phalluses.

"Classless" is the cry of the loser, the whine of the defeated. "Stop punching me in the face." You want me to stop punching you? Put your damned hands up and fight back, damn you. Or admit defeat, surrender and take your beating like a man. A small, puny man with thin arms and little pride.

Now, as an Eagles fan, I'm used to being accused of being classless. In fact, I got into an argument about that very thing on one of my favorite Eagles blogs.

We were laughing at Manningface, one of the greatest gifts ever given NFL fans and a commentor said we should stop. "My friends accuse Eagles fans of being classless," he said. "They say we take pleasure in the suffering of others. Stooooooop."

Now, it seems the answer to this problem is obvious: Get new friends. The other almost as obvious answer is to tell your friends to perform an anatomically impossible act and then die in a fire. The least likely solution is to stop laughing at Manningface. I'd sooner stop laughing at children falling down than give up Manningface.

Should one strive to emulate fans in Los Angeles who arrive late to Dodger games and leave early? Or perhaps fans at the University of Michigan where they look askance at those who would cheer too loudly? Mayhap one should look to Atlanta where fans . . . are mostly theoretical.

No, if you root for the wrong team, I want you to suffer. I want to enjoy your suffering. You could have been an Eagles fan; you knowingly and willfully made poor life choices and I feel no pity for you. I will sup the tears of your infinite sadness, Scott Tenorman, and I will enjoy every second of it.

Picks filled with spite

Go to Shooter if you want a rational evaluation of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the playoff teams. I'm just here for the hate.

Eagles: My status as an adopted Philadelphian made this an obvious pick, but, frankly, Dallas can go to hell. The Cowboys are everything that's wrong with America. Tacky, loud, nouveau riche, possessed of a wholly undeserved sense of accomplishment and entitlement. When unwashed crazy men fall asleep in 20-degree caves outside of Fallujah, they're dreaming of blowing up Skeletor Jones' colossal monument to his own ego. The Cowboys embody every Ugly American stereotype. They're rude, stupid and loud. Their quarterback is Gomer Pyle, their no. 1 WR reacts to every six-yard completion as if he's discovered the secret to eternal youth is buried in Salma Hayek's ass. I don't want them to lose. I want them to defiled, destroyed and defenestrated. I want their children embarrassed to say their fathers played in Saturday's game. I hate, HAAAAAATE Dallas.

Jets: The Bengals will almost certainly win this game, but my brother is a Bengals fan and I never want him to ever experience joy.

Packers: Not only is Green Bay playing good football, the Cardinals deserve humiliation. They keep slipping into the playoffs by winning the worst division in football and if the 49ers had anything approaching competent quarterbacking, the Cardinals wouldn't even be able to claim that minimal level of success. Plus, the Bidwells are cheap and stupid, the worst owners this side of Jim Dolan. They cheated the Posttsville Maroons out of their right title and until they make it right, let their children know nothing but tears.

Ravens: I can't stand either of these teams. On one side you have a team lead by God's Own (diving on the pile 8-yards downfield) Linebacker and the son of a Bulgarian Customs inspector who still lives with his parents even though he's a millionaire at QB. On the other, you've got the Pride of White America. The fans of both teams are insufferable in victory and in defeat, but "The Wire" was better than "Spencer: For Hire" and the puling of Boston pukes complaining about how their beloved "Football Celtics" were cheated keeps me warm at night.

Over 100,000 Served

In utterly meaningless news that will serve only to depress me when I start to do the math of posts per visitors, this remarkably unpopular sports blog just had Visitor #100,000, at least according to the site traffic system I use.

In reality, there have been more than 100,000 separate visits; the site didn't have a traffic service for the first six ad-free months of operations, and there have been weekends when the moron who maintains this place messed up the tracking pixel. (That would be, well, me.) But arbitrary moments of accomplishment are like this, really.

Visitor #100,000 was from Trenton, NJ, on a Macintosh, using Firefox, viewed three pages and left in 99 seconds without leaving a comment. The visit happened today at 8:34 am... and I bet I know the person in question.

Feel free, if you believe yourself to be our lucky Six Figure Visitor, to post in the comments. Your prize will be the entire day's ad revenue, which is to say, not enough money to buy gum.

And if you didn't win, take heart. We'll be doing this again when we get to visitor #200,000, which is currently projected to happen in the middle of 2010. Maybe.

I Am Not A Blogroll, I Am A Free Man

Oh, rich children of sports owners. When will you stop having your hair set on fire by your abusive lesbian girlfriends? H/t to the great Pacman Jonesin' blog on this one. But on the plus side, it's making me feel self-righteous about my own parenting. Sure, the J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS owner may be able to buy and sell me hundreds of times over, but unlike him, my daughters haven't been set on fire. So there! (Oh, and a quick Google search of the name of the ex shows that she's the daughter of some rich Yahoo guy. So Woody's little girl is the gold digger in this coupling, and deserves what she gets. I feel dirty now.)

On the off chance that my NFL playoff picks aren't good enough for you, you ungrateful bastards, the nice people over at Doc Sports are also offering up some NFL Picks, along with the NFL Line and the NFL Playoff Brackets. Such a public service!

Awful Announcing, your go-to site for, well, what it's called, examines the indefensible TNT move to replace Charles Barkley with a short and mostly sane white man. I'm thinking the visitors will notice the difference.



Global Sports Fraternity makes with more funny, though your average degenerate fantasy football player wouldn't last a night on the streets. He'd be selling his body for outdated annuals in hours.

Number 6, 80 years of age, finally escapes for good. Be seeing you. And let's close with my favorite car and television series in the world, because if you, Dear Reader, just show up here enough and all tell 1000 of your friends, the banner ads will get me my Lotus Super Seven in just a few decades...

Your tears are the sweetest of nectars

Because I'm something of a hateful prick, one of my favorite post-game pastimes is surfing the blogs of whatever NFL team that lost to the Eagles. As you might imagine, that Week 17 game against the Cowboys provided at least a year's worth of solid stroke-fuel.

The Vikings, with their Midwestern stoicism, didn't give me much, but the Giants, oh, sweet, sweet, Giants. They have provided me with so much delicious pain. So irrational. So illogical. So, so beautiful. Join me, won't you, as we traipse through the mental and emotional collapse of a fanbase. (All misspellings, curious grammatical innovations and general stupidity original.)

From Big Blue 101: I'm too pissed for stats or analysis right now. When I wake from my drunken stupor in a few days I'll come back and talk about what this means for the Giants. But for now, I retreat to my basement with a bottle of Jack Daniels to soothe things over. Cause at least Jack Daniels doesn't disappoint me by blowing two fourth and short conversions in an important playoff game.

From the comments at ULTIMATENYG:I wish in football it would not be such a big deal to change QBs if one does not "have it." Clearly, Eli, our starting pitcher, did not have it, so bring in a reliever. Carr has zip and confidence. [David Carr's career stats: 59.7% completion percentage, 62 TDs, 70 INTs and a QB rating of 70.2 not including his grossly inflated numbers from this year.]

From the game thread at Big Blue Review: We played Philly because of a zip code instead of a record. San Diego made the playoffs because of a zip code instead of a record. Indy had to play a team on the road that they were 4 games better than because of a Zip Code. Atlanta had to go on the road against a team two games worse because of a zip code. The #1 seed in both conferences played harder opponents with better records because of zip codes.

I come from this little place called logic…and while living here, I’ve determined that a team with a better f---ing record deserves more than a team with a worse f---ing record…not for that team to be cheated because their taxpaying fan base happens to reside in a location further located east or west or north or south. It’s called bulls--t. I tried explaining why the NFL does the playoff system that they do to my non-football watching girlfriend, and she couldn’t understand for the life of her why the system would be so dumb…and I told her I don’t know either. [Dude, you had a bye week and a home playoff game. What else do you want? The Eagles to play with nine men on defense? They have to start A. J. Feely? Quit whining like a bitch.]

From the comments at The Blue Screen: So far, Eli Manning has had 1 good Quarter as a NY Giant. Last year in the superbowl. Other than that, he is the largest choke artist that ever donned a Giants Jersey. A complete waste of cash, continually looks like a dejected 6 year old while playing the game, has no heart at all, completely indecisive during every call at the line. Here's an idea, draft a quarterback with a pair, enough with the choir boy, send him packing!!!

From GMENHQ (Who said prior to the game, "The Eagles couldn't make the playoffs without the failures of others this season. Team of destiny? Absolutely not. Team of luck? Definitely."): Notice how I didn’t title this post “Eagles win,” or anything to do with the Eagles winning. Because for anyone who watched this game, it was clear that the New York Giants pulled a Plaxico Burress by shooting themselves in the foot (rather than the leg) all day long.

Actually, I'm pretty sure it was Donovan and the Birds shooting the Giants in the ass, but Giants fans should go ahead and believe whatever they like. They've got plenty of time to lie to themselves now.