Done and Dusted: The end of an inglorious campaign
Posted by Devang Desai under EPL on May 19, 2013
The end of another year of Premier League football has come. We end where we started, with the two Manchester clubs at the top followed by three London sides that suffered through glaring stretches of futility before getting it together just in time. Chelsea are into the Champions League group stage thanks to Fernando Torres, the much maligned striker that has been fantastic the last few months.
Arsenal finish fourth, playing an uninspiring yet effective brand of football that has been a hallmark of their late run. Gareth Bale pushed Tottenham to victory, like he has so often, but that wasn’t enough for Spurs. They face a summer of endless will he or won’t he speculation. Sir Alex Ferguson’s last game as manager of Manchester United featured 10 goals and a remarkable comeback by West Brom and Paul Scholes, Michael Owen and Jamie Carragher played the last games of their distinguished careers. Before we go, some lasting images of the final day in the Prem.
The Bale goal
Report: Raptors Target Masai Ujiri
Posted by Joseph Casciaro under Bryan Colangelo, Tim Leiweke, Masai Ujiri on May 18, 2013
On Friday we learned from Doug Smith that the Raptors have until Monday to decide whether or not to pick up Bryan Colangelo’s option for next season. Smith also reported that Tim Leiweke and Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment have hired a search firm to narrow down a list of potential Colangelo successors. Two names mentioned in that report were Pacers General Manager Kevin Pritchard and Thunder Vice President and Assistant GM Troy Weaver.
Saturday morning, Adrian Wojnarowski hit us with something that most Raptors fans surely considered once or twice when news emerged that Colangelo’s days may be numbered, and that’s that Toronto is reportedly targeting Nuggets GM Masai Ujiri.
Ten (Not So) Stray Thoughts On A Friday
Posted by Dustin Parkes under TSTOAF on May 17, 2013
Typically, at this point in the day – at this point in the week – I’d introduce a column in which I offer ten thoughts on some of the newsier items around baseball. I like doing it because, well, I really like baseball, and I really like sharing what I think about baseball. In this sense, it’s not surprising that occasionally my thoughts will admittedly drift toward becoming self-indulgent.
In fact, the whole premise of offering up my thoughts as something that others NEED to read – and promoting it through social media as “my thoughts” – has always felt a little bit too suggestive of megalomania to me. My greatest fear is that someone reads through TSTOAF and counts the number of times I used “I think …” to start a sentence. Nonetheless, the response for the weekly feature is usually pretty good, and the conversations in the comments section tend to be opinionated in the good way – respectful of the perspectives of others, while still offering insight that causes points of view to be questioned.
This is what makes the column worthwhile to me.
Today, I’m going in the opposite direction of the one toward which I’d like to move. I’m going to be self-indulgent, and it’s probably going to seem as though I think my experiences are more important than they are. I don’t feel this way. In fact, my hope is that my experiences are common. That you’ll recognize your own experiences in mine, and that you’ll be able to walk away after reading this with the ability to express something that you felt but couldn’t articulate before, or that, like our comments section does to me, you’ll question your own perspective.
I’m going to write about the ten most influential moments in my own baseball fandom.
And now Rob Gronkowski has a back problem too
Posted by Sean Tomlinson under Injuries on May 17, 2013
Remember earlier this morning when I wrote about the great Rob Gronkowski problem of 2013? Now that his fourth forearm surgery is officially scheduled for next week, there was optimism that he’ll be fine for your fantasy drafts in August. Even though there’s still significant risk that comes with a Gronk pick, it’s balanced by the far more significant reward.
Yeah, about that.
Ep. 989: WC Finals, Scoops, Mascots
Posted by J.E. Skeets under TBJ Daily, The Overdose, 2013 NBA Playoffs on May 17, 2013
On Friday’s episode of “The Fix” x “The Overdose,” The Jones preview and predict the Western Conference Finals before discussing George Hill’s injury, Woodson finally playing Chris Copeland, guys that have boosted their free agency stocks, whether Paul Pierce has played his last game in a Celtics uniform, the Kings staying in Sacramento, and the NBA’s best and worst mascots.
All that, plus swirling winds, “The Office,” tiny “Baby Birdman,” and more on crepes.
*********
Subscribe to The Basketball Jones show on iTunes | Download the .mp3 directly
Golfer Ben Crane hires a new caddy via Twitter
Posted by Scott Johnson under Golf, Social Media, Twitter on May 17, 2013
It’s times like these when sports and social media come together to make something awesome happen. Pro Golfer, rapper and avid Twitter user Ben Crane is participating in the HP Byron Nelson Championship and decided to give his regular caddy a day off and look for a replacement on Twitter:
Thinking of giving my caddy @joelstock the day off tomorrow at the HP Byron Nelson Champ ProAm. Anyone want to carry my bag for the day?
— Ben Crane (@bencranegolf) May 14, 2013
He got some good responses, but in the end, Twitter user Morgan Johnson, a former ACU golfer who was celebrating his birthday won.
@bencranegolf former acu golfer. Just graduated from college and live in Rowlett. Oh and my birthday is tomorrow. #caddyforcrane
— Morgan Johnson (@MojoGolfNG360) May 14, 2013
The pic and the tweet to prove it.
New tagline for @twitter: “Instantly connect to what’s most important to you…& hire a ProAm caddy” @mojogolfng360 twitter.com/bencranegolf/s…
— Ben Crane (@bencranegolf) May 15, 2013
And Thus Concluded The Internet: Working For A Golf Company Is The Rad
Posted by Dustin Parkes under And Thus Concluded The Internet, Golf on May 16, 2013
During my summers off while I was in university, I had a range of horrible jobs: laborer at a gun factory, framer for a residential development, junior member of a concrete cutting crew. During breaks from the often exhausting and always demoralizing duties, I would sit around with the other workers, and together, we’d remind ourselves of the virtues of working with our hands and being able to work toward a visible accomplishment on a day-to-day basis.
While there is certainly some merit to believing such traits to be beneficial, we mostly elevated the glory of our menial tasks for the purpose of justifying our current state and forgetting the bad decisions that led us to physical labor as a livelihood. In addition to fooling ourselves in this manner, we’d mock office workers, imagining their professions to be less honorable than our own.
“How can they feel any measure of self-worth?” we’d ask ourselves.
Ten years later, as part of my job, I would embed a YouTube clip of a Callaway Golf executive putting a golf ball down two sets of staggered stairs and into a cup. If my former co-workers could only see me now.
A seat at the 19th hole for Shane Bacon of the Devil Ball golf blog.
