Sports
March 21st, 2011
Indianapolis 2011
For the second consecutive year, I went to Indianapolis for the Bulls game at Conseco Fieldhouse, the best basketball stadium I’ve seen since Chicago Stadium died. This time, rather than rush back after the game, I stayed overnight. There were a few benefits of that: I wasn’t exhausted when I got home, I got to explore Indy’s night life a little, and I got to eat a lot more.
First, a story about the tickets. As all three readers know, I usually prefer to buy tickets on the street outside of whatever sporting event I attend. The tickets are cheaper that way and the haggling is fun. But after my trip to Milwaukee for the Bulls game a couple weeks ago where having tickets ahead of time was relaxing, I decided to poke around on eBay and Stubhub a few weeks ago. And on the former, I found an auction that was designed for me.
A young fellow named Brandon lives in Missouri where he grew up in the same town as Tyler “Psycho T” Hansbrough, a player on the Indiana Pacers. Friday night was Tyler Hansbrough bobblhead night. Unlike most bobblehead giveaways, wherein the first certain number of fans who enter the stadium get a doll, the Pacers actually sell certain tickets with coupons to pick up a bobblhead on certain nights. Young Brandon bought tickets with plans on traveling from Springfield, Missouri to Indianapolis to see his hero play and get a bobblehead. But plans changed and Brandon would not be making the trip.
He turned to eBay where he put up an interesting listing. For a mere $5.50, Brandon would sell his two tickets, face value of about $70 after Ticketmaster fees, if the buyer would pick up the two bobbleheads and ship them to Missouri. Amazingly, the auction was up on eBay for over five full days without a buyer when I stumbled across it. The purchase was a no-brainer.
Tickets in hand, Psycho P picked me up at 8:00 AM on Friday and we headed towards Indiana. First stop breakfast at Old Fashioned Donuts. We arrived just in time as there was just one apple fritter left.
With most of the fritter and a couple of donuts behind it, we were sufficiently satiated to cross state lines and head to Indiana. Some of you may remember Psycho P from Burger Day 2.0. Given the importance of that food category to our relationship, our first stop in Indiana was at Schoop’s. I covered Schoop’s last year for A Hamburger Today. The place has won raves all over the place, but other than the milkshake, my meal there was shit. I gave it another try on Friday and was very glad I did.
Honestly, this was about as good as fast food burgers get. I did take off some of the lettuce and mayo because there was just too much for a single patty to handle, but everything else was flawless. Schoop’s is famous largely due to the cooking style: Smashed burgers! The textural benefit of the style are the crisp edges that form around the burger. Last time, there was nothing crisp about the oil-soaked patty. This time, it was cooked to perfection.
After leaving Schoop’s in Merrillville, we went ahead and finished up the boring drive to Indianapolis. Well, boring except for this sign:
There are certain places in most cities that I consider mandatory stops when I visit. I wouldn’t visit Milwaukee without going to Kopp’s, Los Angeles without going to Stan’s Donuts, or to Cincinnati without going to Graeter’s Ice Cream. In Indianapolis, my must-visit is actually a savory choice: Shapiro’s Deli.
More to come sooner enough on Serious Eats about this magnificent sandwich, but for now I will simply say this is outstanding corned beef on the best rye bread I have ever eaten. I miss it already.
Shapiro’s has been pleasing Jews in Indianapolis for over a century. I decided to honor my roots with my first can of Cel-Ray in years. For those unaware, this is a kind of pop only enjoyed by old Jewish men. And it sucks. I had two sips, and the second was only because I was really thirsty and out of water.
Shapiro’s also has a fine baked goods section and we tried a macaroon and a peanut butter whoopie pie. The latter was good but not great. The coconut macaroon was, by a wide margin, the best I’ve ever had.
After finishing up at Shapiro’s, we checked into the Embassy Suites in downtown Indianapolis. After a short rest in the room, we decided to balance out our two days of gluttony with a quick trip to the gym where I ran for the first time in months. I ran longer and faster than I planned and my foot still hurts as I write this 3 days later. Sweet.
After the gym, we quickly showered and drove over to Napolese, a relatively new pizzeria that sells Neapolitan pies. More coming on Slice next week, but they were pretty good. The flavors were very good, but undercooked crusts were a problem. We wolfed down the pizza and then headed back to the hotel to take advantage of the free drinks before the game. Note to self: when getting free booze from the Embassy Suites, choose mixed drinks over straight alcohol; they’re not using the good stuff.
We got to the stadium, picked up the bobbleheads, and headed to our seats. The first three quarters sucked. The Pacers are not very good and the Bulls played like crap. Derrick Rose took over in the fourth quarter and pretty much single-handedly brought the Bulls back from a double-digit deficit. With less than 2 seconds to go and the Bulls down 3, Rose drew a foul while shooting a 3-pointer. The man who could not make a free throw in the NCAA Championship game a few years ago showed how much he’s grown a a player when he calmly drained all three to force overtime. Unfortunately, that’s where the good times ended. The Bulls were terrible in overtime and lost the game. On the bright side, I have adopted Keith Bogans as my choice for the most counterproductive pile of steaming shit to don a Bulls uniform since Kirk Hinrich left.
After the game, we dropped off the bobbleheads and headed to Ball & Biscuit, a craft cocktail spot in downtown Indy. I counted 3 douchebags and no hipsters in the laid back bar. I don’t know booze well enough to comment intelligently, but my Pimm’s Cup and the other 2 drinks were all excellent. In each drink, the bartender took some liberties with what was printed on the menu, and every twist was successful.
On Saturday, we got up and made two decisions. First, our planned return to the gym was not going to happen. Second, even though we had two more eating stops planned on our way out of town, we would not miss out on the free breakfast at the hotel. I took two bites of my crappy omelet (Egg Beaters suck), but I did enjoy a couple of yogurts. After breakfast, we checked out and headed to the post office to ship some bobbleheads before making our way to the glorious wealthy suburb of Carmel.
It was an absolutely gorgeous day, so we didn’t mind the half hour wait at Bub’s, a burger joint in downtown Carmel. More to come on this place on A Hamburger Today, but these were some outstanding basic burgers.
Our final stop of the trip was at Pizzology, which was Indianapolis’s first foray into a pizza scene that includes little things like caring deeply about the ingredients. The review has been written and will appear on Slice on Wednesday.
After Pizzology, the sad moment was upon us when all that was left was to drive home. The uneventful ride was highlighted with this message of truth:
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March 7th, 2011
Professional Bull Riding Comes to Chicago
It’s been a while since I took another step in my lifelong quest to attend every possible type of sporting event. On Saturday night, I hopped back in the saddle and headed over to the United Center for the Professional Bull Riders aka The Toughest Sport on Earth.
All I knew about bull riding before I went is that the goal is to stay on for 8 seconds. After spending about an hour and a half there on Saturday, I don’t know much more. There were about 8,000 people there for Saturday’s action, the first time the PBR (founded in 1996) has ever been to Chicago. Day 2 of the event was on Sunday.
You can read the recap here.
March 3rd, 2011
Milwaukeeeeeeeee
On Saturday, I headed to Milwaukee to see the Bulls take on the Bucks. And since we were making the trip, we decided to tack on a full day of eating.
I’ve been to Milwaukee about a dozen times and I’m pretty sure that every time but once I’ve stopped at Kopp’s at some point. This trip was no exception.
Kopp’s always offers four flavors: chocolate, vanilla and two flavors of the day. The three of us split a vanilla, a grasshopper fudge and a heath bar. All were delicious. The difference between custard and ice cream is pretty simple: custard is ice cream that is made with at least 10% milkfat and 1.4% egg yolk. What that basically means is that custard is necessarily creamier like gelato. Also like gelato, there is far less air in custard than in traditional ice cream. The result is a particularly rich and creamy treat. Want to see a close up?
And because we were there and we were hungry and Kopp’s butter burgers are awesome, we went ahead and split one of those too.
Because I’m so devoted to Kopp’s, I’d never once tried out another custard shop in Milwaukee even though there are a number of local favorites. I decided to take advantage of the day of eating and directed us over to Leon’s to see how it stacked up. There are plenty of Milwaukeeans who think Leon’s is better than Kopp’s. I’m here to tell you that every last one of those people are idiots. We tried the vanilla, butter pecan and raspberry.
The vanilla and butter pecan were fine, though neither was as creamy or as flavorful as Kopp’s. The raspberry was simply atrocious; it tasted like cold wax. Leon’s has no room inside and since it was cold out we ate in the car. If I had been outside, I would have spat out the raspberry. I am officially a permanent devotee of Kopp’s.
After the custard, we moved along to an old school sausage shop: Eastern European Sausage. This place, which was open for decades, closed up shop a couple of years ago, and reopened a few months later after customers kept nagging. I learned about the place on LTH and it was a cool little shop, but there’s better stuff to be had at Gene’s and Paulina right here in Chicago.
Here’s a few sausages I picked up:
The shop did have a cold cut that might not exist in Chicago:
That there is “Blood ‘n Tongue,” part blood sausage and part tongue. This one did nothing for me; I ate one slice and tossed the rest. Fortunately, like all of the food at this place, the prices were low.
It was a snowy day in Milwaukee but kitty-corner from the sausage shop was a little taco stand. We asked the people in the sausage shop and they said they’d never tried it but there was a line at the stand every day. That was all we need to hear; it was time for an unscheduled stop on our eating tour.
The taco didn’t rock my world, but it was damn good. The lady running the stand made the tortillas to order. I don’t mean she took tortillas out of a package and tossed them on the griddle. I mean she took some dough out of a bowl, pressed it, and then cooked it. It was 20 degrees out and snowing and I got a homemade tortilla cooked to order. I opted for the barbacoa and the dude there helping out had to go inside to get the meat. It was tender and flavorful, but there was no question it could have been fresher. Still, at $1.50, I was very happy I made the stop.
From there it was on to the stop I was most looking forward to: Jake’s Deli. Jake’s is a Milwaukee institution but the two times I’ve been to Milwaukee since I heard of it were both on Sunday and this Jewish deli closes on the Lord’s son’s day.
Let me cut to the chase here: This was the best corned beef I’ve ever had. This thick hand-cut mouth-watering, jaw-droppingly tender meat was just extraordinary. There’s a lean version available, but there is simply no good reason to pass on any chance to get this perfect meat.
I split the corned beef and a pastrami sandwich so I could try both. The pastrami was awesome and every bit as tender as the corned beef. I would have liked more seasoning on it, but that’s not a major complaint.
I also got to try the medium salami and was very impressed. It paled in comparison to the corned beef and pastrami because, well, it’s salami. But on the salami sandwich scale, this one knows few peers.
From Jake’s it was on to the part of the trip I played no role in planning: the Milwaukee Art Museum. It was a museum and it had art. Want to see some pictures?
That’s right boys and girls, finger paint!
This piece was dedicated to the person who thought it belonged in an art museum. Soon to be displayed is my upcoming masterpiece, which will spell out DUMBASS in a counterclockwise circle.
Okay, this one I liked. There was also a Frank Lloyd Wright special exhibit that was good. I learned that as cool as his buildings are, the ones he designed that never got built were even better.
The real highlight of the museum is the new building itself, designed by Santiago Calatrava, the man behind the never-to-be-built Spire in Chicago. You can see the exterior above. And here ‘s a picture of the inside ceiling featuring my traveling companions the Hip Hipster and Zeus.
We weren’t hungry but we had a couple of hours to kill before the game so we headed over to the Milwaukee Public Market. After some coffee and browsing, we settled in at the St. Paul Fish Company.
I had a grouper sandwich that I was very happy with. Nice crisp batter around a well cooked fresh slab of flaky fish.
We also snuck in some cheese curds from the cheese shop. Like all fried cheese, these were excellent. And after dinner, it was time for the main event of the evening.
We bought our seats a few weeks ago and got three of the cheapest in the house – $10 without Ticketmaster fees, $17 or so with them. At the time we bought them, there were a ton of empty seats and our plan was to find some unsold seats when we got there to move into. Unfortunately, a shit ton of Bulls fans decided to follow us to Milwaukee and the game was pretty much sold out. We spent the first quarter in our seats.
Thanks to my trusty binoculars, we found a sweet set of five seats to move into for the second quarter. About halfway through the quarter, some douchebag and his four kids from Chicago showed up. We were ready for that and moved into the three seats one row up. With about three minutes to go in the quarter, three more Chicago douchebags strolled into the stadium and we had to move.
We moved over a couple of sections for the rest of the half and I spotted some seats across the way pretty much at center court that were open. A lot of seats actually – pretty much two empty rows. At halftime we went over there to discover a bunch of coats on the seats – apparently some high school cross country team was sitting there so we headed back to our lovely corner for the third quarter.
Found some sweet seats on the other side of the stadium for the fourth quarter. So at the end of the night, we saw a Bulls win and got to enjoy a variety of views from the upper deck. All in all, an excellent time at the Bradley Center. The only way it could have been better is if Brian Scalabrine had gotten into the game, something that seemed likely until that midget Earl Boykins had the quarter of his life and brought the Bucks a bit too close for Scalabrine time.
And so a completely fulfilling trip to Milwaukee came to a close. Good times.
January 17th, 2011
On the Bears and the Thrills of Fandom
While I was more down on the Bears at the start of the season than most fans, nobody who took a realistic look at the season thought they were going to be good. Peter King of Sports Illustrated pegged them 25th out of the 32 teams; ESPN’s football writers collectively ranked the Bears 21st; and Vegas had the odds at 30-1 for them to win the Super Bowl.
Here’s how the season progressed:
Week 1: Won v. the Lions at home thanks to a ridiculous rule. Lucky Win #1
Week 2: Won @ Cowboys, who were thought to be good but turned out to be an absolute shit team
Week 3: Won v. Green Bay at home in game the Packers effectively gave away. Lucky Win #2
Week 4: Lost @ Giants
Week 5: Won @ Carolina over backup quarterback (though Cutler also sat that game)
Week 6: Lost at home to crappy Seahawks
Week 7: Lost at home to crappy Redskins
Week 8: BYE
Week 9: Won @ crappy Buffalo at game in Toronto which was more like Bears home game
Week 10: Won at home v. crappy Vikings
Week 11: Won @ Miami, who was starting their third-string QB
Week 12: Won v. Eagles at home; defense was impressive but offense less so in beating depleted Philly D
Week 13: Won @ crappy Lions (backup QB) in decidedly unimpressive fashion
Week 14: Absolutely destroyed at home v. Patriots
Week 15: Won @ crappy Vikings (3rd string QB)
Week 16: Won v. Jets in most impressive performance of the season
Week 17: Lost @ Packers
So the Bears finished 11-5 thanks to two unquestionably lucky wins, effectively an extra home game, and the joy of playing 4 times against teams led by quarterbacks who should not have been starting. Depending on your perspective, they were impressive as a team anywhere from 1 to 3 times. Anyone who was impressed more than 3 times is so driven by blind loyalty that they cannot honestly engage in serious discussion about the Bears.
The Bears good luck continued with the Packers losing @ Detroit and the Eagles losing at home to the Vikings, handing them a bye in the first round of the playoffs. Their good fortune peaked with the Seahawks beating the Saints last week, effectively handing the Bears a place in the NFC Championship.
So now the Bears are a game away from the Super Bowl. And the way this team’s luck has gone this year, I won’t be surprised if Aaron Rodgers gets hurt in the first quarter next week and the Bears go to the Super Bowl. And then, who knows, that whole Any Given Sunday thing could easily come into play and we could see them win the Super Bowl.
The Bears are a good team. You don’t get to this point without substantial talent. But they are not a great team and I want greatness from champions. And this gets to the questions I’ve thought about more than I should have over the past several weeks. If the Bears, a team I’ve supported since I outgrew a strange Redskins fetish when I was around 8, win the Super Bowl, how happy can I really be? As a fan, is it more important that my team be the best or that they win?
For me, so much of the joy in sports is that there is a basic fairness to it all that is rarely found in the rest of society; it is as close to a pure meritocracy as exists in America. Fans, so easily parodied as irrational, can generally find security in the fact that, at the end of each season, a champion will be crowned that is at least in the conversation as the greatest team that year.
But if the Bears manage to win the Super Bowl this year, good luck will have conquered greatness. And while I certainly will enjoy the ride, I recognize that it would be a victory that had no business taking place. And a victory like that is somewhat antithetical to what sports is supposed to be about.
Up next week if the Bears beat a full-strength Packers team: If a mediocre team becomes a great one at the last possible minute and wins a title, is that enough greatness?
January 5th, 2011
Before Bartman, There Was Bundy
Steve Bartman did not cost the Cubs a damned thing in 2003. With that disclaimer out of the way, check out this clip that was part of a 1987 episode ofMarried…With Children. Apparently, this did not make it into syndication but it’s in the box set.
January 3rd, 2011
The Greatest Move in the History of Mixed Martial Arts
If you don’t want to sit through a half hour fight, just skip ahead to 27:30. But you do not want to miss this action.
December 31st, 2010
Detroit, Day 2
It should surprise absolutely nobody who knows me that in a weekend trip designed around attending a sporting event, I arrived in Detroit without tickets to the game in question, the Packers at the Lions. I had no fears at all about getting tickets for less than face price and when I woke up Sunday morning, I was even more confident. See, it started snowing at some point the night before, it was still snowing, and the weather report predicted snow all day. Even though Ford Field has a roof, snow would keep people from leaving their homes. The Lions sucked, the Packers were without Aaron Rodgers, and a day full of snow meant it would be a buyer’s market.

Before the game, we had to eat. We weren’t going to top In the previous day but we had a decent line-up of eateries to get through. We started in the downtown neighborhood of Greektown at Niki’s, another Detroit style pizzeria that was hyped in Alan Richman’s GQ article. You’ll have to wait for my forthcoming review on Serious Eats or just be happy with the conclusion: good, but not great, and certainly not nearly as good as Buddy’s or Loui’s. After our pizza brunch, with time to kill before the scalpers would be sufficiently desperate, we went to the Greektown Casino to rock the nickle slots for a bit.

$2 or $3 later, we braved the snow for our walk to the stadium and it quickly became clear that we were getting into this game for $20/ticket. After a little dancing around with scalpers, we found some non-scalpers with extra tickets they were about to eat and took them off their hands for $20.

We didn’t really care where the seats were as we planned on finding seats in what we rightly suspected was going to be a stadium with plenty of empty ones, but we actually got a pair around the 20 yard line in a low row in the upper deck. We were happy enough with our seats that we stayed in them for the whole game.

The game was pretty boring. No points were scored in the first half, the Packers kicked a field goal in the third quarter and the Lions scored a touchdown midway through the fourth quarter. On the last drive of the game, the Packers threatened to score but an incomplete pass to the end zone on 4th down with seconds to go sealed the Lions first win against a division opponent since 2007.

After the game, it was still snowing and now it was really starting to stick when landing. Detroit’s budget troubles have apparently affected the city’s ability to get an adequate fleet of snow plows, but we pushed ahead and made our way to Motor City Brewing Works to have some drinks, eat some pizza and watch some late afternoon football.

Unfortunately, this was apparently the only brew pub in America without a television. So after a round of drinks and a couple of good and fairly unique pizzas (forthcoming on Slice), we headed out to find another venue where we could watch the games. Driving through the snowy streets of Detroit, it was apparent we were in a part of town that was lacking a comfortable football-watching establishment, so we got on the highway and headed towards our next suburban eating destination.

After a quick stop to watch some late afternoon football at a brew pub chain whose name I can’t remember, we arrived at Tomatoes Apizza, the fourth pizzeria we visited that Alan Richman named to America’s 25 best pizzerias and the sixth place we tried pizza at in two days in Detroit.

We started with a pepperoni pizza for a couple of reasons. First, Richman identified it as the best pepperoni he’d ever had on pizza. And second, pepperoni is clearly the king of toppings in Detroit. All three classic Detroit-style pizzerias featured pepperoni the way old school Chicago places do sausage. Ordering this pizza turned out to be a very good idea as the pepperoni, which was a little thicker cut than is typical, was delicious, fatty, crisp and chewy.

Bonus Picture
This really was an exceptional pizza all the way around. Cooked in a coal oven, the New Haven style pies are very thin but still maintained some crispness.

Cooking in a coal or wood-burning oven is clearly a major challenge. When dealing with high heat that routinely exceeds 800 degrees, it’s easy for pizza-makers to cross the line from charred to burned. On other other hand, there are people so scared of burning (or worn down by complaints from idiot customers who think any black at all means burned) that they consistently undercook the pizzas. Take a look at the picture above; that’s perfection.

I wouldn’t say we were still hungry at this point, but this pizza was so damned good that we went ahead and got a second one, this time a Magherita with buffalo mozzarella. It was missing a little something known as meat, but this was one sensational pizza.

We were well past full at that point, but on the way back to the hotel, we stopped at two more places known for putting out top quality sliders. The one above is from Bates.

And this one is from Greene’s. All sliders will appear in a post on A Hamburger Today once I’m able to figure out something interesting to say about them. They all use the same buns and use steam to make low grade beef delicious.
Anyhow, that was the end of a food-filled football trip to Detroit. Perhaps two of the most productive days ever spent in Detroit by tourists who did not set foot in a government building, a museum, or a automobile company headquarters. Good times!
Food, Sports, Travel | No Comments
December 27th, 2010
The Bears Are Not Who I Thought They Were
When it comes to Chicago sports teams, the Bears are unquestionably my second favorite. A distant second, mind you, but still second. Even as I watched the current regime make bad decision after bad decision, particularly when it came to running the draft, my loyalty remained.
Then before last season, the Bears traded for Jay Cutler. As a general rule, I don’t care about athletes’ personalities. In fact, some of my favorites (Sosa, Bonds, LeBron) are almost definitely giant pricks. But my problem with Cutler is that he violates the cardinal rule of athletes: he thinks he’s better than he is. The guy has always been an immense talent, but his Favre-like self-confidence was belied by an inability to lead a team and innumerable horrible decisions on the field.
What made the idea of Cutler so bad was that the Bears were built as a team that relied far more on defense, special teams and an effective running game. A good game manager, which they had in Kyle Orton, was all they needed. Hell, they made it to the Super Bowl with a mediocre game manager in Rex Grossman just a few years ago. And it wasn’t just that the Bears traded away a perfectly serviceable quarterback for Cutler, it was also that they gave up two first round draft picks.
See, Jerry Angelo was on the hot seat and he’s long been shit at evaluating young talent, so the potential high upside in Cutler, limited though it may be, was worth it for him because if the Bears didn’t get better, he wasn’t going to be around to make those future picks anyhow.
The Cutler trade generated a ton of goodwill amongst Bears fans, most of whom had never seen a Bears quarterback with the kind of physical gifts that Cutler has. But three things happened last year. 1) Cutler was shit. 2) Brian Urlacher got hurt. 3) The Bears decided to stop using Devin Hester on kick returns despite the fact that he’s the best in history. 4) Matt Forte flopped.
Going into this season, Angelo saw the writing on the wall for his career as the head of a professional football team. He had one last Hail Mary. The Bears had a ton of salary cap room, but rather than beef up their offensive line of get a big-time wide receiver, Angelo mortgaged the Bears future to pick up a backup running back in Chester Taylor, a tight end in Brandon Manumaleuna, and Julius Peppers.
So here’s what I saw coming into the season: a running game that would be decent at best, no real receiving threats, a never-the-same-again Urlacher coming off a neck injury, an overrated Julius Peppers, and a shit quarterback with a massive ego. I actually thought it was possible the Bears would finish the season 1-15.
Here’s where I was grossly wrong: 1) Urlacher has not lost a step. 2) Peppers is every bit as good as advertised. 3) Hester was allowed to return kicks again. 4) Forte is actually close to as good as he was two years ago. 5) Jay Cutler showed signs of a brain.
On that last point, I need to be clear. The guy continues to make colossally stupid mistakes, but as the season has progressed, he’s become much less focused on only making big plays and he’s been a much better quarterback because of it. He reached his low point with the team with the loss to Washington in which he threw four interceptions to the same defender and then smugly proclaimed after the game that he’d go after Hall again. I expected that to be the beginning of the end of the season, but that turned out to be very wrong.
After yesterday’s win over the Jets, the Bears are now 11-4 and will either be the number 2 or number 3 seed in the NFC for the playoffs. More importantly for me, I’ve actually grown sufficiently enamored of Hester and this defense that my hatred of Cutler seems to be dwindling a little bit.
Let me be clear: I don’t think this team is nearly as good as I’d expect an 11-4 team to be. Cutler made a few stupid passes yesterday, one of which was returned for a touchdown and one of which should should have been. But he also had a few beautiful passes that showed why the hopes for him have always been somewhat rooted in reality. The defense gave up 34 points to an offense that nobody would call high-powered, but it made a number of big plays, particularly towards the end of the game. Hester is still a freaking stud who can single-handedly turn around any game.
I don’t have high expectations for this team in the playoffs particularly because I expect that Cutler will fail miserably on a big stage, but despite that and all the rest my brain sees wrong with the Bears, I still have hope that they could pull off something special. And I suppose that’s big part of what being a fan is all about.
November 1st, 2010
I No Longer Survive
So there were a lot of close matchups this week, at least when it came to teams that I hadn’t already picked in my survivor league. My choice came down to Kansas City over Buffalo and the Jets over the Packers. I mean, there were other choices, but those were the two teams with the biggest point spreads that I was still eligible to pick. After Buffalo almost beat Baltimore last week, I was wary of them. I went with the Jets to beat Green Bay.
But thanks to Jets receivers’ inability to hold onto the ball, they lost and ended my season with it. I hoped for a small measure of redemption that would be in store if Buffalo won. But while the Bills were able to force the game to overtime, the Chiefs still won the game.
No iPad for me. How very sad.
November 1st, 2010
Randy Moss, Still Awesome
I think there is no doubt that his questions would be vastly more interesting.





































