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  • 24 May

    Best Year Ever

    This week, Washington Post columnist John Kelly has been sharing stories of people with interesting life goals — like today’s piece about a guy who has visited every county in the United States.

    Seems like a good opportunity to at least partially take care of a blog topic that my brother can attest I’ve been meaning to tackle for more than a year.

    My crazy goal — which would require winning the lottery for both free time and funds — is to see every Major League Baseball, National Football League, National Hockey League and National Basketball Association team play a home game…all in the same year (or a 12-month period).  Plus see the championship-clinching game for each league and their respective all-star game.

    I think this would be the greatest year a person could possibly have.  I’d be going to games all the time, traveling to every major city in the country and gaining at least 700 pounds from eating delicious stadium food.  Logistically, obviously it would be quite a challenge, but in a way I think it would be really fun to figure out how to get all the games in.

    Certain sports would be easy.  Baseball teams play the most games and also have a block of the year all to themselves.  Plus with the way they play on back-to-back days, and at different times of the day, it’s not hard to imagine seeing the Mets play on a Saturday night, the Yankees at 1 p.m. Sunday and then the Phillies at 8 p.m. Sunday.  That’s a good chunk of the league in just 24 hours.

    Football is the real challenge.  Without taking the risk of trying to guess which teams I think would end up hosting a playoff game, geography would be my biggest friend in safely hitting my goal in the regular season.  I envision trying to hit 1 p.m. games nearest the city where the Sunday night game is being played — or at least in a city where there is an easy flight to that site.  But the NFL also seems to be making the schedule even easier, adding more Thursday night games and continuing to have Saturday games later in the year.  It’s like they know I’m coming.

    When my Mega Millions numbers hit, this is happening.

    [Some time I’ll actually do the long-awaited sports bucket list post featuring what I’d like to see at those games.]

    By cjhannas baseball basketball football hockey life plans Uncategorized
  • 27 Apr

    Charting My Fandom

    If you are a sports team, you do not want me as a fan.

    I mentioned in a post back in February that I collect the stubs to just about every event I attend, which means I can go back and look up the results of any games for which I still have the ticket.  The result — I know that the teams I wanted to win those games went 26-37-1 with me there.

    Of course there are many variables that go into that result, and it certainly didn’t help that I back a baseball team that has had a few atrocious years.  But in 64 games, I’ve never been to more than three in a row in which my team won.  In a stretch starting with Capitals-Devils on February 27, 2002 and ending with Nationals-White Sox on June 19, 2010, I saw my teams lose 10 out of 11 games.

    Beyond the nerdily interesting task of putting more of my life in an Excel spreadsheet, reading the recaps of games stretching back to 1993 was really fascinating.

    Some interesting notes:

    -Best pitching matchup: Greg Maddux and Mike Mussina at Camden Yards in 2000.

    -Attended same games as Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

    -Saw Orioles OF Larry Bigbie get traded during a game

    -Went to a Nats game on the wrong day, got a free ticket and saw Roy Halladay pitch a CG 2-hitter to record his 21st win of the season.

    -Watched Caps winger Alex Semin get in a fight.  The video of his effort shows why this is a momentous occasion.

    -Witnessed a Chicago Bears punter — on a fake field goal — throw a 27-yard touchdown pass to linebacker Brian Urlacher to beat the Washington Redskins.

    -This season I’ve been to three Nationals games — all extra-inning wins, including a 13-inning game that featured two runnings of the illustrious Presidents Race.  I saw that happen once last year, too.

    We’ll see what happens next time.  Stay tuned.

    [Note: I found some non-game-related items as well.  Covered in this post.]

    By cjhannas baseball basketball football hockey nerdness Uncategorized
  • 04 Apr

    Mad March

    With Kentucky’s unfortunate victory in Monday’s national championship game, the 2012 NCAA men’s basketball tournament came to a merciful end.

    To say that this was not a good year for my bracket would be a monumental understatement.  I’m pretty sure I could mathematically prove that a goldfish — a pretty dumb one — could have beaten me.

    What went wrong?  Just about everything, including losing three of my Final Four picks in the first round and the last one in the second round.  Check out all these red boxes of failure:

    I know, people say every year their bracket stunk, but most of those people are in the middle of the pack in their pool and sad they aren’t winning.  In a group with 23 family members, I came in dead last.

    Pay particular attention to that number on the far right, the 2.37.  That’s my percentile out of all the people who signed up to do a bracket on ESPN.com.  Put another way, I finished in 6,296,953rd place.

    But I wasn’t always this pathetic.

    In fact, just two years ago I had a miraculous run that had friends posting Facebook comments like, “St. Mary’s though? Who makes that pick?! Dammit!”

    Ahh, much better.  I’d like to thank the fine people at ESPN for preserving this super important data so I can relive the glory days.  Hopefully next year I can recapture the magic, or at least find a goldfish to pick for me.

    By cjhannas basketball family Uncategorized
  • 05 May

    Koyaanisportsi

    Part of my life is in total disarray right now.

    Professionally things are fine. I’m getting an adequate amount of sleep. The price of Cocoa Puffs remains at an acceptable level.

    But when it comes to sports, things are getting a bit crazy.

    I understand that many of you don’t care the least thing about sports and want to stop reading. For you, I offer the following video featuring Elmo making an appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon:

    In the sports world, things aren’t as funny. Today I learned that Gary Williams, the head men’s basketball coach at (one of) my alma mater(s) the University of Maryland, is retiring. Gary certainly has his critics, but I have always been a fan and will be sad to see him go.

    Then, on the same day, this news that CBS announcer Gus Johnson is reportedly parting ways with the network. That means the best play-by-play guy in college basketball will no longer be involved with March Madness. The Los Angeles Times says he’s in talks with Fox to do Pac-12 college football, which means I will never hear him announce a game.

    All of that comes on the heels of another epic playoff collapse by my beloved Washington Capitals, who were just swept in the second round by the Tampa Bay Lightning.

    Did I mention the NFL season is in jeopardy?

    What I’m left with is the Washington Nationals, and following their quest to remain near the .500 mark. It could be worse I guess. I could be a Mets fan.

    (P.S. I hope at least some people get the veiled references I often put in the titles of these posts. This one, for example, is a play on the film “Koyaanisqatsi” — titled after a Hopi word meaning something like “life out of balance.”)

    By cjhannas baseball basketball hockey Uncategorized
  • 29 Mar

    I Do Declare

    For a long time I have wanted to enter a professional sports draft.

    I have played a lot of sports in my life and consider myself to be pretty athletic, but I definitely don’t have the ability to be legitimately selected by any self-respecting team.

    My hope was that once in the draft, some team would get lazy and just look at a list of names and say, “What the heck, let’s take this Hannas kid.”

    Last fall, I put this plan into motion. I emailed each of the major U.S. sports leagues (NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL) and asked how to enter their respective drafts.

    I only heard back from the NBA, which responded the next day. They asked me to send my answers to certain questions about my background to this person at their league office in New York. So, in September, I did just that.

    As the months passed, I assumed they had either misplaced my letter or, more likely, figured out that I had no business being in their draft. I had even started to formulate some theories about who may have sent them a tape of my miserable shooting performance on the court behind our house.

    But yesterday I opened the mailbox to find among credit card applications and a Netflix movie a letter from the NBA. It’s been a long time since I’ve been so excited to open a piece of mail. Here’s what they said:

    At first I thought they were wrong about my lack of collegiate eligibility. I played exactly zero combined years at Susquehanna University and the University of Maryland, and thus thought I was still NCAA eligible. I even carefully worded my response to the NBA question about where I had played, saying explicitly only that I had “attended” those schools.

    But after further research, it turns out the rule is you have five years from the time you first enroll at a college or university in which to use up your eligibility.

    While I was hoping to get invited to the draft in New York in June — and yes, I would have gone — it’s nice to know I don’t have to wait that long to chase my NBA dreams.

    Surely some team needs a newly eligible free agent to help finish out their season.

    By cjhannas basketball life plans Uncategorized
  • 24 Mar

    Feeling Lucky, Punk?

    There are times in life where you just have to take a step back and say things like, “Is this really happening?” and “How long could this possibly last?”

    I have been on a pretty good winning streak lately, much of it involving sports but also regarding life in general. It’s definitely one of those runs where you start to think something incredibly bad has to come soon in order to balance out the universe, so I’m on the lookout for thunderstorms that may try to strike me down with their treacherous lightning.

    I posted recently about a string of prognostications about Olympic events, snowfall amounts and hockey games played by small children. If you missed that one, I came up on the winning side many more times than my roommate.

    Now that streak has extended to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, where teams like St. Mary’s, Xavier and Cornell have propelled my bracket to ridiculous heights in several pools. Before Thursday’s third round, I am in the 100th percentile on ESPN.com. When people are posting things on your Facebook page like, “st. mary’s though? who makes that pick?! dammit!” you know there’s a certain amount of luck on your side.

    Since the end of the college football season I have also been taunting my brother (a Redskins fan) about the prospects of former Florida quarterback Tim Tebow being drafted by his favorite team. As a fan of the rival Giants, and not a fan of Tebow, nothing would make me happier than seeing him in a Washington uniform. While watching my NCAA basketball picks come through last weekend my brother sent me a text message that said the Redskins were giving Tebow serious consideration.

    ESPN also has a contest of sorts where you try to string together streaks of correct picks about sporting events called Streak for the Cash. It’s maddeningly entertaining. Sometimes you lose six games in a row, but sometimes the luck kicks in and you run off a streak of 10-straight correct picks. Of course when you get to 10 (as I did yesterday) it’s only a matter of time before you get a little ahead of yourself and make a dumb pick. Unfortunately UNC beat UAB last night and my streak is no more.

    Hopefully that will be enough of a lightning bolt for now and my bracket picks can continue their run.

    Though maybe I should be trying to raise the stakes a bit–cold call Bill Gates and ask him for a few million dollars, see if the Nationals will let me pitch on opening day, try to get a Taco Bell Express built in place of a neighbor’s house, find out if Mila Kunis wants to have dinner at that Taco Bell Express–you know, get while the gettin’s good.

    This is totally unrelated, but too neat not to pass along: A story about an artist who turns people into a canvas…of themselves.

    By cjhannas basketball Taco Bell Uncategorized
  • 13 Mar

    Forced Sportsmanship

    Ahh, March Madness. It’s a wonderful time of year when we can focus on college athletes competing at the highest level, and can enjoy their spirited fans as well.

    There’s nothing like a college crowd to come up with clever ways to get under an opponent’s skin. Even simple stuff like yelling the guy’s name every time he touches the ball can add great enjoyment for fans at any game. Having never been that athlete, I can’t say for sure how it affects them.

    I am pretty sure, however, that it doesn’t scar them for life and is within the spirit of the game. A Wisconsin school district thinks even those simple taunts–including “airball,” “over-rated” and “what’s the score?”–are too much for kids to take. Those extremely hurtful attacks are now banned.

    Good thing the administrators are protecting those kids. I wonder what sort of things are said in the hallways of those schools. “Hello sir, how did you enjoy today’s math test?” “My your sweater and jeans combination is simply strapping today!” “Sir I respectfully disagree with your assessment that Britney Spears is an upstanding citizen!”

    Give me a break. This is the latest in over-reactions to benign actions of fans that don’t bother players two seconds after they are said.

    It brings to mind a string of incidents at Susquehanna basketball games when I covered our men’s basketball team. A few of our fans yelled out a guy’s name whenever he got the ball, or when they committed a turnover said “Hey, we worked on that in practice!” I bet the players were just fine after those incredibly hurtful taunts.

    But our athletic director had campus security go sit with the five or six guys and eventually they were asked to leave. Here’s an editorial I wrote back in Dec. 2004.

    The best part of that article was the day after it was published. We had a home game, and I was seated just behind the sports information director who was keeping score of the game. He had the paper on the desk as well, open to my editorial. During halftime, the athletic director came over to the SID. She picked up the paper and looked at it like it was completely made up and out of nowhere.

    Even better, I was still sitting three feet away. We had spoken on the phone during my time as the sports editor, but I’m fairly certain we had never spoken in person. So as she questioned my premise, I was able to hear all of her comments with complete anonymity. After she left, the SID turned around and I commended him on his ability to keep a straight face knowing exactly what was going on. Good times.

    By cjhannas basketball Susquehanna Uncategorized
  • 14 Feb

    Money Management

    I’m not going to pretend to be an economic expert. I have never taken any classes in economics, personal finance or in contract law. But I feel like I have a grasp on at least a small sense of reality and a basic ability to crunch some numbers.

    That’s why this story about Latrell Sprewell had me scratching my head. Years ago when Spree complained about not being able to support his family with a 3 year, $21 million contract I just thought he was crazy. Apparently, he’s so bad at money management that $21 million is nowhere close to what he needs to scrape by.

    Take this latest news. He sells is $1.5 million yacht and his house is in danger of foreclosure. Read further and you see that he’s only paid $200,000 on the yacht. Then there’s the $110,000 he’s paid on a $405,000 house.

    To recap, on what are probably two of the biggest purchases in his life, Spree has paid $310,000 of close to $2 million that he owes.

    That’s from a man who made $14 million in the same year he turned down that $21 million deal.

    $14 million in one year. He has played 13 seasons in the NBA. Even at the NBA’s minimum salary, Sprewell should have plenty to cover those costs. Or maybe buying a $1.5 million yacht isn’t the best idea to begin with.

    But that brings up the question of just where all of that cash went. I don’t know the man or anyone who does. Frankly, I don’t feel like taking some time on Google to find out more about his habits. I’d much rather speculate on what Spree is buying.

    I bet he has at least one llama. Maybe even a few alpacas. They’re fun and seem like the kind of thing a rich guy would buy just because he had a $14 million contract. I know I would.

    What about pop rocks? I bet Spree has an entire closet full of pop rocks in all kinds of flavors. Maybe there’s that one flavor he doesn’t like, so if you’re hanging out at his house and love sour apple you’re SOL.

    158 LCD monitors in his vehicle. He can only watch one of them at a time, and really there’s no need for even that. But he’s the only guy he knows with 158 of them. That’s how he rolls.

    What better to watch on your 158 LCD screens in your car than every Land Before Time DVD. I think there are about 34839 of them buy now. Then throw in that he probably has one copy for the car and a separate copy of each one at home for the kids, and that’s a lot of scratch down the drain.

    No ridiculous waste of money collection is complete without your very own carousel, especially one that utilizes live horses. Sure, it seems like a cool idea at first. But then they start wanting food and to be cared for. Suddenly a small investment turns into a huge money pit.

    So sorry Spree. I guess I didn’t think it through when I started to criticize your money management skills. I realize now you had a lot of expensive necessities to take care of.

    Say hi to the alpacas for me.

    Another quick money note. Reports have Hillary Clinton loaning $5 million to her campaign. In a CNN.com story I learned it’s not exactly a new thing. John Kerry did the same in 2004. But what was enlightening was that you are allowed under campaign finance laws to charge interest to your own campaign when you are reimbursed.

    Maybe Spree should have run for president.

    By cjhannas basketball Uncategorized
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