Home Field Advantage: News and Notes

The Mid-Summer Classic belonged to the National League for a second year in a row, powered behind game MVP Prince Fielder's 3 run blast. The American League did not have all of it's stars at it's disposal, especially in the pitching department, and this led to a convincing 5-1 victory for the NL All Stars.

Of course this means that the Phillies, I mean whoever wins the NL, will have home field advantage in the World Series. This is what makes the baseball all star game unique among all other professional exhibitions: it means something. Now, people can debate whether or not it is good for an exhibition to determine an advantage for another league, but you can't deny the intrigue. Rumor is that most of the players don't like it and would rather the MLB adopt the old way of doing things, which is to give home field advantage during the World Series to the team with the best overall record.

As I fan, I like my all star games to have a little extra drama. On to the news:

-The biggest news coming out of the University of Kentucky is a smack down between CBS Sports writer Gary Parrish and UK athletics employee DeWayne Peevy. Parrish wrote an article that resurrected the old story of Anthony Davis' father demanding $200,000 for his son's services to play basketball. The original story came from the Chicago Sun Times and was immediately tagged as BS and unsubstantiated. For whatever reason (clicks on his link. no, that isn't a sexual inuendo, you pervert), Parrish decided to bring it up again despite the fact that he ripped the report when it came out as "sloppy and embarrassing". Parrish knows that any article involving the combined themes of "John Calipari" and "scandal" means an automatic 100,000 hits. DeWayne Peevy threatened on Twitter to revoke Parrish's media credentials at Rupp this season for writing such a ridiculous article in order to draw readers. I disagree with Sarah Palin on 99% of her "issues". But the 1% I can agree with her on is her assessment on the "lamestream" media. I feel dirty for saying that.

-University of Louisville football poster boy Willie Williams has been arrested for the thirteenth time. Williams was booked in Northern Kentucky on burglary charges. Williams was one of the first nationally sought after recruits that UofL landed. He initially committed to Miami, then he went JuCo, then he went to UofL, then he ended his career playing at Union College in Kentucky. Many consider Williams as the pioneer of Cardinal football criminality. That rich tradition is still carried on today, despite the "changing of the guard" at head coach.

-PETA hates KFC. KFC wants DeWayne Wade as an honarary drive through captain for $250,000 for charity. PETA told DeWayne he better not do that. The Cardinals play in a basketball facility named the KFC YUM! Center, which is nicknamed "The Bucket" and the fans wear chicken buckets on their heads during games, which PETA considers "chicken coffins". Louisville fans love animal cruelty. PETA hates Louisville fans. I hope you followed my logic on that.

-Eric Crawford from the Courier-Journal doesn't hide the fact that he is ultra critical of UK. He also isn't a fan of LeBron James. Since LeBron is sponsoring UK's shoes and uniforms for next year's season, Crawford felt the need to write this little blog. Touche, Mr. Crawford.

-John Calipari continues his insane pace during the high school evaluation period today by being in three states at different times during the day to make his presence felt to the young high school players. His main targets today will be DeJuan Coleman, Archie Goodwin, Ricky Ledo and Anthony Bennett. Coleman will visit UK September, the rest of the prospects are still up in the air. Expect Coleman and his neck tattoo to be a member of the Cats around December.

That is all for now. Stay tuned for more later and hopefully Monster Mash can do two articles in two days. We can all wish upon a star...

Cajones and Sully...

Coming off an Elite 8 upset in the spring against the #1 seeded Ohio State, a Kentucky fan was spotted on OSU's campus earlier this week and Jarrod Sullinger spotted him... with his UK shirt and well, some balls.

I mean, it's not like the guy is a Sunni in Iraq, Christian in China, Liberal in Mississippi, or Louisville fan in Lexington... it's Ohio State and they're already focused on football season...but it takes a certain personality and some cajones.

God Smites The Ville Again: News and Notes

When nobody gets hurt it is ok to joke about natural disasters and not so natural disasters, right?

As we all remember, the University of Louisville's campus and the area around Papa John's Cardinal Stadium, as well as the stadium itself, was beat up by a string of freak tornadoes about a month ago. Power lines were torn down and a goal post in PJCS were harmed as well. All of the UK fans laughed as Little Brother's facilities were roughed up.

The hits kept coming again last night as a major water main broke and flooded almost the exact same area that was harmed by the tornadoes. This time instead of a tornado, the Lord decided to try to smite UofL with water. I can only imagine that fire is next, followed by a devastating earthquake that will swallow PJCS into the earth.

I'm not sure what the Cardinals did to peeve the Supreme Being off so much, but I have an entire list of things they have done to insight my wrath. And the list starts off with a douchey fan base.

But in all seriousness nobody has been injured in either scenario. On to the News:

• I love the Home Run Derby more than any other professional All-Star skills competition. Some may argue in favor of the dunk contest in the NBA, but that has devolved into a gimmick with props, stupid music and non-super star caliber players. The Home Run Derby is still true to it's roots and the best sluggers in the game rarely pass up the chance to do it. Last night we were treated to the Red Sox vs. the Yankees as Adrian Gonzalez faced off against Robinson Cano. Both were tied with 20(!) home runs from the first two rounds as they entered the finals. A-Gon tied the single round record of 11 homers in the final round. But Cano broke the record with 12 and took the title. It was a blast to watch.







• Joh Calipari continues to be the man in recruiting and thumbing his nose at Rick Pitino. Cal offered 2013 point guard Kasey Hill and 2013 6-8 power forward Malik-Price Martin scholarships. Both of these guys were big time Louisville targets and now the Cats seem to have the upper hand.







• And if that couldn't get any better, T.J. Warren, a 4 star small forward from the class of 2013, has also been offered a scholarship from the Cats. Guess who was recruiting him as well? You guessed it! Rick Pitino, you just need to quit. When you are recruiting against Calipari you are bringing a knife to a gun fight.







• Eloy Vargas tweeted out the quote of the day dealing with the heat wave that spread across Kentucky: "It doesn't look that hot outside, but soon as I walked out there it felt like Satan farted in my face..."





• New Kentucky defensive coordinator Rick Minter put together summer videos of defensive schemes and games with his voice overs that are required viewing by the UK defense. I can already say the this year's defense will be much, much better.





• Boogie has a little brother. And by little I mean 6-10, 235 pounds. Little Boogie's name is Jaleel. Little Boogie needs a scholarship to UK.

That's all for now! I'll be back later with any new news or interesting observations. Stay Classy.

Joker Phillips 2.0: The Upgrade

Let's hope Joker was listening to some winning advice here.

Despite what happens with the NFL lockout (it will be resolved, it's a billion dollar industry) the NCAA college football season will go on without a hitch. Training camp is right around the corner and that means that Joker Phillips will be getting the Football Boys in Blue ready for his second year as the head man in charge.

Joker kicked off his tenure with the title "Operation Win". Operation Win turned into Operation Same Ole, Same Ole. The Cats went a familiar 6-6 in the regular season and then lost a third tier bowl game to a third tier coachless Big (L)East team. They ran through the non-conference schedule unscathed only to go 2-6 in the SEC.

The two wins were against then #10 South Carolina and whipping boy Vanderbilt. There were a couple of head scratching losses to teams that UK seemed to be superior to against Ole Miss, Mississippi State and Tennessee. The Cats even went down to the wire with eventual national champion Auburn, only losing by 3, showing that at times they could be better than their final record indicated.

This year Joker Phillips faces the challenge of taking the Cats to "the next level", soemthing that I have been waiting for since Andre Woodson and company wowed us 4 seasons ago. The next level for the Cats is to win 8 regular season games and then win a prestigious bowl game on top of that. As it is every year, this is a tall order to fill. The Cats will face their usual SEC East foes as well as LSU, Ole Miss and Mississippi State during conference play. Never an easy task. The cake non-con schedule (including Louisville) will give the Cats 4 wins, leaving them with the task of getting 4 wins in the SEC.

For Joker to get comfy in his coaching chair his team has to produce this year. If not, then you can count on year 3 being the deciding year. The decision will be whether or not Joker is allowed to come back for a fourth year at the helm.

Joker needs to upgrade this year and has to be, in my opinion, two games better to secure his job status. I, along with other football fans, have had our fill of Music City, Compass and Liberty Bowls. We want a biggie. Like Peach or Gator Bowl big. I'm not going BCS big. That's just too much to ask right now.

Hope Solo's News and Notes

I'm not a soccer fan in the least bit. I don't even follow it causally. I couldn't name all the teams in MLS, I don't even think I can name 5 of them. And I for sure don't follow the leagues over in Europe that soccer fans claim are better than the NFL, the NBA, MLB, college football, and college basketball all rolled into one.

But I do follow the USA when the World Cup comes around and yesterday was one of the most amazing thins that I have ever witnessed in sports. The U.S. was down one player due to a red card ejection against Brazil and beat the Brazilians in penalty kicks, 5-3. The Americans being down a player was not even the most dramatic part of the whole story. They were down 2-1 in overtime when a goal was scored in almost the last second of the match, forcing the dramatic sudden death kicks.

The big star to emerge from the Women's American team seems to be Hope Solo. She had big save after big save yesterday, and embodied the intensity and will to win the US seemed to have adopted when they were backed up against the wall. And it doesn't hurt that Hope isn't too bad on the eyes.

Onto the News:

• College basketball coaches have turned their attentions to recruiting as the July summer camps are in full effect. John Calipari has shifted his focus onto two major players, the #1 high school player Shabazz Muhammad and Perry Ellis. Cal watched Ellis play a total of 6 times. So far, these seem to be the jewels of Cal's 2012 class. Cal usually gets what Cal wants. Calipari has been travelling from Indianapolis, to Chicago, to Lexington and wherever else the talent is. He decided to make a game out of it by letting fans guess his next destination on his Twitter account.




• Rick Pitino has also hit the recruiting trail but not as hard as Cal or the other premier basketball coaches. According to Jody Demling's Twitter, Pitino decided to take the day off Saturday and not recruit. Saturday was one of the bigger days of the camps and Ricky 3 Stacks felt it necessary to not participate. "Louisville First, Talent Second".




• Pacman Jones decided to go all Pacman Jones in a bar this weekend by getting busted by the 5-0 in Cincinatti for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Some guys need professional help. And then there are guys like Pacman Jones that need to be banished to Siberia. Just a thought.




• Derek Jeeter had his 3,000th hit this weekend and the 23 year old fan that caught the 3,000th hit, which was a home run, gave it back to Jeeter for...season tickets for the rest of this season and this season only. To me this is beyond stupid. A). Catching that ball was like winning the lottery. He was one guy out of 50,000 other people that was lucky enough to come up with the historic ball. B). It's not like Jeeter or the Yankees don't have the money to pay this guy. C). Fans catching home runs is part of the game. A ball goes out, a fan gets catches the ball, the ball now belongs to that fan. The idea that Jeeter holds any claim to that ball is absurd. Finders Keepers.

And fianlly, the other big talk this weekend was of the first ever NASCAR Sprint Cup Race at Kentucky Speedway. I hate NASCAR and I watch it less than I watch soccer, so I had no interest in going and I could have cared less who won. What I do care about is the total screw up that the traffic turned out to be.

I had a personal friend of mine leave his home in Henryville, Indiana at 3 p.m. and he didn't make it to the track until 9 p.m. That's not the worst part. He was turned away and told to go home at the gate because they ran out of parking. A lot of fans got screwed out of their money and their sporting experience due to the greed and ineptitude of the people at the Kentucky Speedway.

Back in the Saddle Again

What's up, Sportsthat? It's been a while.

As my cohort pointed out on this site about a month ago, I dabbled in the world of KSR for a little while and I enjoyed it very much. I got a sneak peek into the world of sports journalism. I met Matt Jones of KSR a few times and had some phone conversations with him. It was a very pleasant experience and I am glad I did it.

Though I came up short in the end, I can say that I did take some positives away from my short lived TV career. Here they are in no particular order:

• I got to meet a lot of very cool people




• I enjoyed the 15 minutes of fame and the random people stopping me in the streets to tell me they saw me on television




• I have a great deal of family and friends that encouraged me in following my dream




• I have a second wind in my desire to work in the world of sports journalism, UK athletics in particular




• I have a renewed confidence in my talents and abilities

So that all brings me back to what started me on this road: blogging for Sportsthat. We have had some great successes on our little blog in the past (Free Enes, interviews from other legit news sources, an ESPN.com article, a decent number of readers and fans, a small amount of money from Google) and we have let it fall to the wayside.

I only have myself and Monster Mash to blame. We have had a revolving door of bloggers on this site that have come and gone, but the two of us have been the constant caretakers of our little blog. It's up to us to resurrect it and make it better than before.

I also have decided to drop the moniker "Boogiewoogie". I am proud of what I do on this site and most of the people that read it know who I am anyway. If I start a new trend or catch someones eye, I would like my real name to be attached to it.

No matter if anything substantial happens with this site or not, I know that I have fun doing it. It's a hobby and you need hobbies to keep life interesting. Since I am older, out of shape and breaking down, I can no longer play sports effectively, so I write about them. It's my outlet and a way for me to blow off steam.

Thanks for reading and hopefully we can restore this to it's former glory and maybe even take it a step further.

Play us out, Aerosmith:

Boogiewoogie is making his move!

Well, our boy Boogiewoogie has been looking to move into greener pastures and this week he has taken a step further. After refining his craft on the blogosphere, he is currently trying to take his face made for radio (and blogging) to Television.


This weekend he audtitioned for KSTV and out of the 200 participants, he has made it into the final 20! We are crossing our fingers that everything works out and that being called Jason is the worst of the wrong doings c/o Matt Jones.