Favre's Newfound Legacy

Surely you’ve heard by now: Brett Favre has beaten every NFL team in existence during his hall-of-fame career, an accomplishment only he can claim, and a feat only complete after his two acts of vengeance over the Green Bay Packers in the last five weeks.

It’s obvious now this accomplishment never should’ve happened, and things should’ve never been this way. Favre should’ve never retired/been let go/forced out/asked to leave/left/whatever Green Bay the first time he “retired” in 2007. It’s now painfully clear that when Favre was waffling with his off-season decisions and wavering at his coming commitments towards the end of his Packer career, he wasn’t doubting whether or not he could still do the damn thing or wondering if he still wanted to.

He was simply contemplating whether or not he should still be doing it in Green Bay.

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Where to Go When You Don't Go Pro

Kids, I want you to stay in school.

Play an instrument, learn a trade, go to college, join the family business, start your own business, join the Peace Corps (not the Marine Corps), do whatever you can to diversify and maximize your youth.

Discover as many ways as you can to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Do something productive and positive with your life and try to make a living doing something you love, ‘cuz you ain’t going pro in sports.

Haven’t you seen that commercial during every college football game? “There are over 400,000 NCAA student-athletes, and almost all of us will be going pro in something other than sports.”

That commercial ain’t lyin’. Your odds of going pro are a little over 500,000 to 1, and unless you’re 6-foot-3, 215 with a 4.5 forty or a 40-inch vertical or a 60-percent jumper or a 95-mph fastball, you’re not that 1.

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Football's State of the Union

With both the NFL and college football seasons a quarter of the way done (or more), there are some interesting and inverted trends developing in 2009.

In the college game, anybody can beat anyone else anywhere at any given time. BYU beat Oklahoma, who lost to Miami, who beat Florida State, who beat BYU badly in Provo. That’s parity.

In the NFL, there are about a half-dozen teams who’re clearly better than the rest, and the players on the league’s lesser teams have a better chance of beating their wives after a 38-14 loss than beating any of the division leaders. There are five undefeateds and an astonishing six winless teams in the NFL right now, and half of last year’s playoff teams are a combined 6-16 at the NFL quarter pole. The Bengals should be undefeated, while the Patriots should be 1-3. That’s disparity.

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Greinke and Impotent Royals

Playing in front of a national TV audience against the playoff contending Minnesota Twins Saturday in Minneapolis, the Kansas City Royals showed you why Zack Greinke is the American League Cy Young award winner for 2009.

Greinke himself didn't necessarily show you why he's the best pitcher in the AL, however, and one bad inning (the bottom of the sixth) may have cost Kansas City's ace the Cy Young in question. Twins starter Nick Blackburn took a perfect game into the fifth against the impotent Royal offense, but Mike Jacobs and Alberto Callaspo led off the fifth with consecutive singles. Any legitimate major-league lineup would score at least those two runs in a similar situation, but KC has no legitimate major-league lineup.

Mark Teahen bunted the runners over to second and third like a true pro, but Miguel Olivo grounded Blackburn's first pitch -- a fastball in front of his neck -- weakly to shortstop for out number two. Blackburn -- who yields a .323 batting average with the bases empty yet .234 with runners in scoring position -- coaxed an inning-ending pop-up out of Alex Gordon to preserve the scoreless tie.

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Greinke for President

KANSAS CITY--Zack Greinke made his final home start of the 2009 season Sunday at Kauffman Stadium, and it has been quite some time since sports fans in Kansas City have rallied around a cause like this.

The Chiefs have made just two playoff appearances in the last decade (and lost in the first round both times), while the Royals have just two winning seasons in the last 17. There are no NBA or NHL teams for the small-market Kansas Citian to pass the rest of his or her time with.

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This Is Why I Love Sports

It's fall, and fall is when I fall in love with sports all over again. Some people don’t understand why I love sports the way I do. They just can’t fathom calling in sick to watch game seven. They can’t empathize with a fan spending his entire vacation and most of his savings to follow his alma mater to the College World Series. They can’t believe I schedule my entire Saturday around Miami Hurricane games throughout the fall. They can’t relate to a person whose wardrobe allows him to go half the year without wearing the same jersey twice. They would never be able to justify the cost of season tickets. Sure, real life is more important than sports, but they were dumbfounded when I found that dumb. They could never rationalize spending an entire Thanksgiving on the couch in front of a TV, and they can’t comprehend someone making $25,000 as a sports writer instead of $50,000 as a sheep.

When faced with the obligation of such a complex explanation, I often resort to poetry, and that’s when they know it’s me … that’s when they notice me. Sports may not make cents to them; sports might not mean much to them; sports isn’t school, church or work to them, but sports are to me what all those are to them. I study sports in lessons, I work within sports for little or no wealth, I have few favorite teams but I worship the game itself. When you have an athlete in your blood and a fan in your heart, sports are your life, and ‘til death do you part.

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Hurricane Warning Has Been Issued

I'll preface this post by admitting I'm a lifelong Miami Hurricane fan, and for those who aren't, the Canes, the U, Miami (Fla.) is back. They might not be back where they used to be, but they are indeed back as far as college football is concerned, and college football is a better place (and product) because of it.

The brash, braggadocios, ultra talented, unbeatable, unapologetic Miami teams of the 1980's and 90's helped make college football what it is (and is not) today, and whether you love them or hate them, the sport itself needs the Canes. If you love them like I do, then you need that anti-establishment, dark-side-of-the-force, indomitable athletic powerhouse to pull for every weekend throughout the fall. The modern college football game has become bogged down by a suppressive, stifling, unimaginative, politically correct rulebook and its subsequent status-quo officiating. The modern college football culture is mired in BCS corruption and plantation hypocrisy left over from the good ol' boy networks of the deep south.

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Why Football Matters

As is the case with Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, football has always been – and will always be – a big part of life in Pittsburg, Kansas. Unlike its more metropolitan namesake, Pittsburg, Kansas, has no ‘H’ at the end, and this town of just under 20,000 is located northwest of Joplin, Missouri, across the state line in southeast Kansas.

Pittsburg sits off the northwest corner of the Ozark Plateau, and the area is heavily wooded – even swampy in some parts – with another organic feature similar to western Pennsylvania: coal mines. These mines once dense and rich throughout southeast Kansas offered employment for European immigrants coming to America around the turn of the 20th century, and many Italians, Austrians and other Balkan refugees found their piece of the American dream in the middle of the Midwest.

They poured into southeast Kansas (commonly known as SEK) from Ellis Island by the hundreds leading up to World War I, giving Pittsburg its strong ethnic identity and a heritage that still lingers today.

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College Football State of the Union

So what did we learn from the first week of college football action in 2009?

BYU proved that Hawaiians and 26-year old white men can still comprise a quality college athletic program, and Boise State now has company at the front of the line to crash the B(C)S party. Casual observers will cite the injury to Oklahoma's Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Sam Bradford as the reason for BYU's 14-13 upset Saturday, but the Mormons were already giving the defending national runner-up plenty of trouble before Bradford went down in the second quarter. BYU turnovers were all that kept the Sooners in the game in the first half, with a fumbled punt inside the Cougar 10 setting up Oklahoma's first TD and a fumble inside the Sooner 10 sabotaging a certain BYU scoring drive.

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