That One Sports Show

Baseball, basketball and another fight about who’s better: Michael Jordan or LeBron James. The two have new teams to sport their jerseys in a weird basketball to football crossover, but only one can be victorious and that one is Nike. Baseball is heating up and here at the end of the season anything goes. Big Papi says hello, A-Rod says goodbye, it’s a mixed bag of emotion and sports info. #56.1 – PapelGone, Jordan vs. Lebron and Clothes #56.2 – Browns, Vikings and the NFL’s Power Problem #56.3 – The History of Umpires in Baseball #56.4 – Lochte’d and Loaded, Olympic Sports Replacements

It’s the story of a young man destined for glory, but not by the standards of those around him. C-Dub (Jimmy Tsai) plays by his own rules and rolls to the beat of his own hip-hop drum, but can he clear his name and save the family business? Ping Pong Playa starts off with the standard setup. Loser brother screws up and hurts the Golden Boy brother (Roger Fan), putting the family business in jeopardy. C-Dub now must take on the role of coach to a rag-tag group of kids which C-Dub even calls out saying “I ain’t trying to coach no bad news bears.” Among them is F-bomb (Andrew Vo), the boy that wants to be just like C-Dub. Free Willy (Kevin Chung) is a larger kid that eventually loses 15 pounds due to the training from C-Dub. Then there’s Prabakar (Javin Reid), the genius with an amazing grasp on how things should be mathematically, but physically is slower than a sloth in molasses. What should have been a few laughable moments with Prabakar ended up feeling overly awkward and a bit painful as he tried explaining the physics of how he was supposed to play and physically couldn’t have hit the ball if it was already stuck to his paddle. We haven’t even discussed the antagonist, Gerald Harcourt (Peter Paige), the British (?) American that wears high shorts, has terrible form, and is an overall gross character. While C-Dub is coaching the kids (by taking their allowance and gambling against other competitors) Harcourt decides he’s seen enough and wants to open his own gym and tries to steal the kids away from the Ping Pong Palace. The thing that is idiotic about this is that Harcourt has been practicing at the Ping Pong Palace for what seems like no money at all and is now going to open his own gym? Yeah, doesn’t quite hold water. It was hard to hate this antagonist because his ping pong skills were garbage. These robots have more skill and personality than Gerald Harcourt That reminds me, ping pong action gets a fat 0/5 from me. C-Dub has clearly played in real life, but everyone else looks like it’s their first time at the table. Harcourt puffs his chest out whenever he hits the ball and I found myself grinding my teeth in disgust. One of the better pieces of the movie is the best friend, JP Money, who has been taking Chinese for three years and is still getting a handle on the language. The friendship is genuine and the two friends support each other in their endeavors. This was a good pairing and JP Money’s minibike was dope. The ending was a decent payoff, but I’ll let you get to that yourself, if you can make it that far. I’ve definitely seen worse (Geoff says he has not), but Balls of Fury stacks up better, and is more fun, than this Jessica Yu-directed table tennis flick. The only thing Ping Pong Playa has over Balls of Fury is that they are actually playing ping pong (except a few times toward the end). John’s Overall: 2/5 Geoff’s Overall: 1/5 – “Worse than Play it to the Bone” Ping Pong Action: 0/5

Love me some green water. We catch up with Rugby, table tennis, basketball and swimming in this Olympic recap. Check us out on Facebook and be sure to subscribe on iTunes! #55.1 – A-Rod Done, Prince Retires, Ichiro Hits a Lot of Balls #55.2 – Hall of Shame Game, Some Beef, and Basketball #55.3 – The History of the Eephus Pitch #55.4 – Green Water, Finger Wags and an Olympic Recap

The dipsy doodle, the dead fish, the moon ball, LaLob, the blooper ball, all names for a rare pitch in baseball called “the eephus”. From the New Dickson Baseball dictionary the eephus pitch is “A high-arcing pitch likely to reach an apex of 25 feet above the ground between the mound and the plate. The ball is thrown overhand and aimed upwards in the hope that it will, at its most effective, drop from the top to the bottom of the strike zone as it crosses the plate.” There is much speculation about how it was named the “eephus” but some believe it is derived from the Hebrew word “efes” which means “nothing” which points to the idea that it’s a “nothing” pitch because it’s so unusual and unorthodox. Originating around the 1940s (some say 1941, but most say 1943) the eephus was first perfected by Braves pitcher Truett Banks “Rip” Sewell. Sewell had been a pitcher since 1932 and during the offseason in the 40s had accidentally shot himself in the foot in a hunting accident. With his foot in rehab, he wasn’t able to pivot as he had previously when pitching. His fastball lost the zip, his curveball lost the dip and the eephus was born. The pitch itself is a rarity due to its bizarre nature. Coming in at under 50mph with an arc between 5 and 25 feet, batters become flumoxed and in general aren’t quite sure how to handle it. Take this at-bat from Jeyson Werth, facing Carlos Villanueva. Your browser does not support iframes. The man has no idea what to do, so he freezes. The pitches are coming in at 80 to 100mph and then there’s the “folly floater”. Rip Sewell ended being a fairly productive pitcher with the eephus pitch as a regular part of his arsenal, winning 17 games in 1943 and 21 in 1944. His uniqueness pushed him into the All-Star game 4 years in a row between 1943 and 1946, the 1946 game being the most famous. Ever heard of Ted Williams? You know the guy sometimes regarded as the best hitter to play the game? Well, in this all-star game he faced the eephus pitch and came out victorious. The only homerun ever given up by Sewell was to Williams at the ’46 all-star game. Williams took a couple of Happy Gilmore hops and, even though he was out of the batters box, leveraged the eephus over the wall. It was lopsided and exciting, so no one bothered with the actual rule of being outside the batters box. See the video below for reference: Other practitioners of this pitch include Pedro Borbon, Casey Fossum (the Fossum flip), Steve Hamilton (the folly floater), Livan Hernandez, Orlando Hernandez, Dave LaRoche (LaLob), Bill Lee, Phil Niekro, Vicente Padilla (the soap bubble), Satchel Paige, Pascual Perez (the Pascual pitch), Dave Stieb (the dead fish), Kazuhito Tadano and Bob Tewksbury. Teammates of the originator dubbed it ‘Skyscraper,’ ‘Dodo’ and ‘Dewdrop.’ Had both legs amputated in 1972 due to circulation issues after his hunting accident Not everyone has had success with the eephus pitch like Sewell. In 1975, in game 7 of the World Series, the Boston Red Sox were leading when Bill “spaceman” Lee decided to throw his moon ball a few too many times to Tony Perez. The Red Sox were leading when Perez sent a moon ball skyward and out of the park. The Red Sox went on to lose that game and that World Series. There was a great rivalry between Stormin’ Gorman Thomas of the Brewers and eephus pitcher Dave LaRoche. LaRoche had renamed the eephus pitch “LaLob” and threw several to Thomas, who was a big hitter in the 80s. Thomas ended up being struck out by the pitch and made it his mission in life to get a hit off LaLob. After several attempts across a few seasons, he finally managed to do so and received a standing ovation from the Brewers fans.

We were all ready for some football on Sunday, but some geniuses over at the Canton Hall of Fame had the ingenious idea to blowtorch some paint and turn the field into a concrete-y mess. Players and officials noted painted spots on the field were incredibly hard, to the point where it would be dangerous to play. Troy Vincent came out and took all the blame, but then proceeded to also blame the rest of the crew that had helped out in the error. The NFL should have to compensate the fans that traveled all the way to Canton just for this game. It was two out of town teams (Indianapolis and Green Bay), so these were not short distances to travel. Money was spent that would not have been spent had this game never been scheduled and the folks that were trying to pay to have a good time should not be punished because the NFL screwed up. The cost doesn’t even factor in how much money advertisers lost because the game didn’t happen. Sad day for football fans. Terelle Pryor took no issue with Vikings lineman Alex Boone saying that at 18 Pryor was difficult to work with due to his arrogance. Pryor, a quarterback at the time says that he has matured and did not seem to take issue with the shade Alex Boone was throwing his way. Sooooo much beef. Lebron James will be staying in Cleveland for at least 3 more years (and hopefully three more championships) after sigining a $100-million deal. The NBA released their 2016-2017 schedule and people were losing their minds with excitement, including Geoff. The Atlanta Hawks even went so far as to post the total schedule as emojis. Overkill if you ask me, but hey, who am I to judge. USA Men’s Basketball is rolling through the Olympics and looks to easily take another gold medal even though they “had trouble” with Australia, winning 98-88. #55.1 – A-Rod Done, Prince Retires, Ichiro Hits a Lot of Balls #55.2 – Hall of Shame Game, Some Beef, and Basketball #55.3 – The History of the Eephus Pitch #55.4 – Green Water, Finger Wags and an Olympic Recap

Alex Rodriguez was king of Seattle, and then a hero in Texas, but his roid days are over and the 50 homerun seasons are a thing of the past. A-Rod was a player I admired, but a player that ultimately let me down, like so many of the stars from the steroid era. He rounds out his career with 696 homeruns, but the biggest question will be how much playing time will he get in his final game? Will Joe Girardi let him finish his career at his home on third base? In other retirement news, the loveable Prince Fielder has retired after a series of neck and back injuries. This is a man who could occupy a lot of space at first base and could change the game with a swing. From the Tigers to the Rangers, Fielder was great for teams both on and off the field. After falling below a .200 average this year he knew something was up, got himself checked out and doctors told him he needed to hang up the cleats for good. Prince Fielder ends his career with the same number of homeruns as his father, Cecil Fielder, at 319. Another former Mariner is back in the news after eclipsing the legendary 3,000 hit mark. That’s right, notorious slap hitter Ichiro Suzuki has completed the last big task in the MLB and all while playing for the miserable Miami Marlins and batting over .300 (not so bad for a guy over 40). There was a lot of chatter about who the real hit king was when Ichiro broke Pete Rose’s total hits record, which included his time in Japan. Now there’s no question that Ichiro is at least some form of hit king as he has joined an exclusive club. Tim Tebow made waves this week after announcing he was seriously considering a career in the MLB. Is this for publicity? Is it a cry for help? Who does this hurt or help and can he even play ball at a minor league level. I’m sure someone will pick him up and Geoff sides with the Mike’s thinking that it’s bad for a team. I’m not so sure, but there have been very few athletes that were successful in more than one sport, Jim Thorpe, Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders being the rarities. #55.1 – A-Rod Done, Prince Retires, Ichiro Hits a Lot of Balls #55.2 – Hall of Shame Game, Some Beef, and Basketball #55.3 – The History of the Eephus Pitch #55.4 – Green Water, Finger Wags and an Olympic Recap

This week we watched Top Spin, a harrowing tale of three young athletes training for the 2012 London Olympics. The story follows Ariel Hsing, 16, Lily Zhang, 15, and Michael Landers, 17. Each has their own unique skill set, style of play, training regimen, support system and schooling. That to me was one of the coolest parts. They’re all training for the same thing, but the paths to get there are totally unique. A few things we forgot to mention Lily is the lone veteran on the US table tennis team this year at the 2016 Rio Olympics. She won in the first round at Rio in 4 straight games and in the second round she swept an athlete from Portugal in 4 games. Zhang enters round 3 having won 8 straight games and will take on Hyowon Suh today at 9:00AM (8/8). We didn’t even touch on the table tennis night club that Michael frequents. In New York, he heads to a club called SPiN that is part club and part table tennis exhibition arena. Athletes compete as onlookers imbibe and take in the sport. A bit bizarre, but overall a really cool way for Michael to work on his craft. The US is not really known at all for their table tennis. The media propaganda train would have you believe that, because of Forrest Gump, we must be amazing, but across the world we are not known at all for this. In fact, the United States has never medaled in table tennis. Take a look at this chart from Wikipedia. Yeah, China is pretty good. Rewatchability: Yes, but would be even better as a continuation. Table Tennis Action: 4.5/5 – Some of this is shot beautifully and the slow-motion of serves to see the spins was awesome. John Overall: 4/5 Shnozzolas Geoff Overall: 3.5/5 Shnozzolas

The Olympic opening ceremonies are coming up and we’ve got the final rundown of the sports we missed along the way. Enjoy! 54.1 – Minor League Football, College Football AP Polls 54.2 – Hodge Podge of baseball, golf and an NBA Member 54.3 – The History and Current State of Battlebots 54.4 – The Olympics are finally here!

A long time ago social media wasn’t a thing and celebrities didn’t have the ability to accidentally tweet or post lewd pictures of themselves, but we now live in a time where everyone is “one click away” from airing their privates to the world. What a time to be alive! The latest member in member-showing is the one, the only Draymond Green who set the best smokescreen of all with an “errant” Snapchat this last week. Don’t worry about that assault encounter in Michigan, look at my lil’ Draymond instead! In golf, a man named Jimmy Walker walked away with the PGA Championship and Yasiel Puig is headed to the minors. What a day. 54.1 – Minor League Football, College Football AP Polls 54.2 – Hodge Podge of baseball, golf and an NBA Member 54.3 – The History and Current State of Battlebots 54.4 – The Olympics are finally here!

The best college team in the nation over the course of the history of the AP Polls (so roughly 1936) was revealed this week and who was at the top? None other than Ohio State. Following in the top 10 were more teams that were into the NCAA before 1940, so history equals greatness in this case we guess. Adrian Peterson lost an appeal so he will still lose some more game checks for the debacle two years ago, meaning not only will he have been suspended for almost an entire year, but he will have lost over two million dollars in the process. John and Geoff go on about how much power Roger Goodell does and should have and neither thinks Tom Brady should be serving a suspension, a rare thing, because both hate Brady and the Patriots. With the Big Four sports in the United States touting minor league teams, why doesn’t the NFL? If baseball has a 25-man active roster (half the size of a football team) and can have three levels of minor league, it seems like there would be room for a MNFL or something along those lines. Geoff says no, but John is sure that letting states split minor league teams would help the case and would allow for more development through the rankings. For some perspective: Baseball average salary: $4 Million Minor league: $2400/month NBA average salary: $4.9 mil D League: $25k/season NHL average salary: $2.4 mil NHL minor: $42,375 per year NFL average: $1.9 mil Arena: $40k-ish CFL: $80k NFL Practice Squad: $88,400 per season (10 players per team) Geoff also gave a run-down of some creative ways to choose the order of your next Fantasy Football draft: – Mario Kart races (all managers randomly assigned a character, let computer do a race) – Olympics x2 (all managers assigned a country, medal count determines order) – PGA Championship (all managers assigned a golfer, placing determines order) – World Cup (Same as Olympics) – Beer Pong (all take turns shooting at cups with number on the bottom for draft position) More on the way with the next three segments: 54.1 – Minor League Football, College Football AP Polls 54.2 – Hodge Podge of baseball, golf and an NBA Member 54.3 – The History and Current State of Battlebots 54.4 – The Olympics are finally here!

BattleBots is mid-way through its second season and has narrowed the playing field down to 16 competitors. The question is, where did this show come from. John took a look at the sports humble beginnings. History of battlebots First was a straight up robot combat competition, started by a LucasArts designer in 1994 in California, Marc Thorpe (1994-97) The first incarnation of the show came a year later when the US production company partnering with Thorpe teamed up with a British company The British show Robot Wars was born (1998) Proves again we steal all good shows from Britain Little known fact, Breaking Bad is from a British show about a biology teacher who gets a bad cold and starts making his own tea bags The first season was hosted by Jeremy Clarkson, of Top Gear fame Wish he’d come back, was sarcastic and sometimes cruel when talking about the bots https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib_7Kb_ddjk Had offshoots that weren’t tournament style House bots – Sergeant Bash was the best, had a huge flamethrower Different format 6 bots to 4, weeded out through a maze, the Gauntlet and the Arena For five seasons, BattleBots aired on the American Comedy Central 2000-2002 Kept the idea of House Robots In season 3 was more popular than South Park and Jay Leno Leno had a bot commissioned to fight named Chin-Killa Bill Nye was the technical expert Robot Combat League was similar to Real Steel the movie and had the potential to be amazing – 2013 on Syfy Similar as well to Robot Jox (1990 film flop) All robots created by one dude Now we get back to 2015 where BattleBots is rejuvenated by ABC and now Robot Wars is back on British television. One of the big issues from the CC battlebots was that the robots turned into the same 3 over and over Wedge, spinner, lifter Current battlebots (from the bracket of 32) Front-horizontal-spinner: Tombstone, Cobalt 1 Double-horizontal-spinner: Chrome Fly Lifters: Escape Velocity, Stinger, Lucky, Complete Control 1 Top-spinner: Icewave, Son of Wyachi, Ghost Raptor Vertical-spinner: Brutus, Nightmare, Bite Force, Witch Doctor 2 Grabber/Pincher: Lock-jaw, Overhaul, Razorback 1 Hammers/Spikers: BETA, Chomp, Bombshell, blacksmith 3 Full Spinner: The Ringmaster, Captain Shredderator Front Drum – Mega Tento, Yeti, HyperShock, Poison Arrow, Minotaur 6 Mega-hybrid – Warrior Clan (flamer, lifter, spinner), Red Devil (saw, grabber, flipper), Warhead (grabber, drum, T-Rex head) 2 Down to the Sweet Sixteen 54.1 – Minor League Football, College Football AP Polls 54.2 – Hodge Podge of baseball, golf and an NBA Member 54.3 – The History and Current State of Battlebots 54.4 – The Olympics are finally here!

John screwed up the initial recording but the show must go on! This week we watched Play It to the Bone and boy…it was, not good. Hear our thoughts in this week’s minisode Monday. Synopsis: “Woody Harrelson and Antonio Banderas star as best friends and professional boxing rivals Vince Boudreau and Caesar Dominguez, both of whom haven’t worked in years. Finally, from out of the blue, they get the chance of a lifetime: an assignment to work together in Vegas. The job promises big money, but there’s a hitch: They have to be there now.” John: 1/5 Shnozzolas Geoff: 1.5/5 Shnozzolas Boxing Action: 1/5 Shnozzolas Awkward Lucy Liu Sex Scenes: 1/1 Discussion About Waffles: 2.5/5 Music: “Josimar” by Eaters

Fan-submitted Sport of the Week Gaelic Football and half of the rest of the Olympic sports since they begin shortly. 1. Football – Josh Gordon, broken quarterbacks and zero tolerance policies 2. Basketball – Geoff gets sad about Amar’e Stoudemire and cries on air 3. Baseball – We have a heated discussion about Chris Sale and whether his knife-wielding antics were justified

Baseball time! We go into Chris Sale and things get a little heated. John thinks he’s justified, Geoff thinks he’s an idiot. Also, how are things going to play out the rest of the season? Who knows! 1. Football – Josh Gordon, broken quarterbacks and zero tolerance policies 2. Basketball – Geoff gets sad about Amar’e Stoudemire and cries on air 4. Sport of the Week – Gaelic football (h/t Mike Wright) and most of the rest of the Olympic sports

Geoff is not happy about Amar’e Stoudemire retiring with the Knicks and does not hold back. We also take a look at the Olympic basketball team for the US headed to Rio, and John touches briefly on a weird documentary. 1. Football – Josh Gordon, broken quarterbacks and zero tolerance policies 3. Baseball – We have a heated discussion about Chris Sale and whether his knife-wielding antics were justified 4. Sport of the Week – Gaelic football (h/t Mike Wright) and most of the rest of the Olympic sports