Josh Q. Public:  Too much information.  Running through my brain.  Too much information.  Driving me insane.  -The Police

Public Service Announcement:  Ok, here we go!  Like the San Pedro Beach Bums always say, “Football, you bet.”  It’s everywhere.  It’s on Deadspin.  It’s on The Big Lead.  It’s on the World Wide Leader.  You just can’t shake it.  I gotta tell ya, I don’t like this.  I don’t like this bit.  I don’t like that I even know about this.  Oh, how I long for the good old days.  Boy the way Glen Miller played.  Songs that made the hit parade.  Guys like us we had it made.  Those were the days.  They certainly were.  I long for the days that this would never have even hit my radar.  In those days, unless it was on the local sports or George Michael’s Sports Machine or This Week in Baseball, it didn’t happen.  In those days, unless Don Gillis, who wrote the blueprint for local sports casting in Boston told me about it, I didn’t want to know about it.  He didn’t tell me about it.  Unless George Michael, the great grandaddy of the highlight show, showed it, I didn’t want to see it.  He didn’t show it.  Unless I got a “How about that?”, from Mel Allen it did not happen.  I liked it better that way.  A kinder gentler America.  A simpler America.  Now, with the Worldwide Leader and endless blogs throughout Al Gore’s internet we are subjected to this nonsense more and more.  Sure.  There were blips on the radar.  There was Pele, Franz Beckenbauer, Carlos Alberto, Giorgio Chinaglia and the Cosmos.  There was little Freddy Adu.  There was Beckham coming to Los Angeles.  At least that was American Soccer.  Now we have to endure European Soccer too?  Count me out.  I can’t take it anymore.  Mob mentality.  Hooliganism at its best.  No brains of their own.  As soon as the World Cup comes around, jackbooted fans everywhere, wrap themselves around their flag and commence to destroy everything in sight.  Ya ya, soccer is the most popular sport in the world.  So what?  Big Macs are more popular than prime rib.  Which one are you going to eat?  And not for nothing, that’s the only justification soccer apologists can come up with.  They never talk about the excitement.  How could they?  Where are the bone crushing hits?  Where are the three sixty slam bam thank you ma’am jams?  Where is the ever loving long ball?  What the Brazilians see as the “beautiful game” is painfully dull and boring.  Where’s the intensity?  Where’s the action, Jackson?  Every highlight I happen to catch on ESPN shows someone almost scoring a goal.  Almost.  That’s what happens in these games, a lot of almosts.  It’s almost a sport.  I’m not saying what those cats do with their feet and their heads isn’t remarkable.  Juggling four chain saws is pretty gosh darn remarkable too, I’m just saying.  Can’t we hear more about the Red Sox 20-5 record in friendly confines of Fenway Park?  Can’t we hear more about Joe Torre and the suicide squeeze?  Can’t we hear more about Penguins/Red Wings?  Celtics/Pistons?  Lakers/Spurs?  Do we have to hear about this?  It’s just un-American.

Public Spectacle:

Peace out homies.  Six two and Even!

Peace out homies. Six Two and Even!

Josh Q. Public:  I wish I was little bit taller, I wish I was a baller.  I wish I had a girl who looked good, I would call her.  -Skee-Lo

Public Service Announcement:  OK, here we go!  I know, I know, the Purple Eagles just played their way in.  How can I be writing this?  What about the brackets?  Are you insane?  Insane in the membrane.  Plenty insane, got no brain?  Blame March Madness.  Yup, they started it.  Blame Dickie V.  Blame Andy Katz.  Blame Selection Sunday.  Blame Bill Raftery.  Blame Mike Patrick.  Blame Jay Bilas.  Blame ESPN.  Blame CBS.  Blame all those guys.  Yo, I don’t hang out with those guys, man I ain’t got nothing to do with those dudes.  Man, I saw your female with them too, what’s up with her?  I hear that she’s been giving that stuff out to all them graffiti guys.  If it weren’t for those guys, I never would have heard of Tajuan Porter.  The Oregon Ducks’ Tajuan Porter.  I wouldn’t know about his colossal game against Portland State.  I wouldn’t know he scored thirty-eight points, including ten for twelve from three-point range against the Vikings.   I wouldn’t know  his ten three-point field goals shattered the Oregon record.  But most importantly, I wouldn’t know he was five foot six.  And you know that five foot six shizznit just set off all sorts of red flags.  Red balloons.  Ninety-nine red balloons.  Panic bells, it’s red alert.  There’s something here from somewhere else.  It got my one, two, three, four, five senses working overtime.  XTC style.  I got to thinking.  Got to drinking.  Got to thinking, got drinking and came up with this.  Little giants.  Little big men.  My favorite little guys in sports.

Freddy Patek:  Little Freddie. The Flea.  Moochie.  I remember him as Royal.  Played for the Pirates.  Played for the Angels.  I picture him those baby blues.  Had a glove like Crazy Glue.  Catchy as the Asian flu.  Patek was a three-time All-Star.  Patek led the league in triples.  Get the papers, get the papers, get the papers.  Patek led the league in stolen bases.  He became the second shortstop, after Mr. Baseball himself, to hit three home runs in a single game.  Whitey Herzog called Freddy the best artificial turf shortstop he ever managed.  Ranked him even higher than the Wizard of Oz.  Wow!  Better than Ozzie Smith!  Now that’s saying something.  That’s saying a lot.  That’s saying a mouthful.  Freddy had an arm.  A big arm.  A giant arm.  Freddy could throw across the diamond from the hole at a velocity of around 95 mph.  Yowza!  I’ll forever remember Patek making his famous, often imitated, never duplicated, patented, bare-handed double plays.  Talent, pure unadulterated talent. 

New England Patriot Running Back, Mini Mac Herron:  5-51/2.  But he packed 150 pounds of muscle and twenty pounds of sideburns into that frame.  Because of his height, he wasn’t recruited heavily.  Instead, he played for the Hutchinson (Kan.) Junior College Blue Dragons.  There, he won the national juco 100-yard dash title.  Fast.  Lightning fast.  A sonic blast.  Unsurpassed.  Then, he began to come into his own at Kansas State.  Mama, I’m a big boy now.  He rushed for 506 yards is junior year while topping the Big Eight in receiving with fifty-two catches.  Mini Mac was the nation’s second leading college scorer behind Oklahoma’s and the Detroit Lions’ Steve Owens.  Mini Mac got drafted by the Falcons.  Norm Van Brocklin hated him.  Two snaps in a circle.  Toiled in Canada.  While playing for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, he won the Eddie James Memorial Trophy for being the leading rusher in the CFL’s West Division.  Then the Patriots found him.  In two seasons Herron became one of the country’s best all around football players.  He broke Gale Sayers’ total offense record.  You break a Gale Sayers single season record, you’re playing some football.  He’s wasn’t just the best of the little men, he was the best all around player in the game.  In a sport of giants, Mack Herron has held his ground.  Unfortunately, Mac found drugs.  The running gag was “Mini Mac Heroin.”  Truly a shame.

Nate Archibald:  How can a guy named Tiny not be in this.  Penetration.  Best in the Nation.  Taking over the entire National Basketball Association.  Taking it by storm.  Tiny was quick.  Tiny could go to the hole.  Tiny could pass.  Tiny could shoot.  Triple threat.  Triple Trouble.  Mesmerizing.  Tantalizing.  Captivating.  Devastating.  Archibald led the NBA in scoring and assists in the same season.  Yup both.  The first and only player ever to win the titles in both categories in the same year.  Get the papers, get the papers.  The original playground king.  Rucker Park.  Before the Goat.  Before the Helicopter.  Before Skip to My Loo.  Before Swee’ Pea.  Before the Destroyer.  Before the Grim Reaper.  Before all of them.  Before all of them, there was Tiny.  DeWitt Clinton.  UTEP.  Cincinnati Royals.  Boston Celtics.  Championship.  Hall of Fame.

Martin St. Louis:  I know.  You wanted the Pocket Rocket.  You wanted Henri Richard.  I never saw him play.  I’ve seen St. Louis play.  I saw him play for the University of Vermont Catamounts where he was an NCAA all-star.  I saw him  play for the Tampa Bay Lightning.  I saw him score an overtime goal in Game Six of the Stanley Cup Finals.  I saw that goal help the Lightning beat the Calgary Flames for the Cup.  The Stanley Cup.  The Holy Grail.   Lord Stanley’s Mug.   I saw him win the Hart Memorial Trophy as the MVP.  MVP!  MVP!  MVP!  I saw him win the Lester B. Pearson Award as league MVP voted by his peers.  I saw him become became the first player since Wayne Gretzky, only the eighth in NHL history, to win the Art Ross Trophy, the Stanley Cup, and the Hart Memorial Trophy all in one season.  No one was interested in St. Louis on draft day.  No one was interested because he was listed at 5-9 and 185 pounds, but is more likely closer to 5-7 and 175.  Think they’re interested in him now? 

Diego Maradona:  To millions of crazed, hooligan soccer fans all around this nutty world of ours, Diego Maradona is considered one the greatest players of all time.  Now, soccer doesn’t usually make me rhyme.  But this cat was so sublime.  So sublime, that I have nothin’ but love for this guy.  I know he has lots a jewels and stuff.  Backyards with swimming pools, bar with stools and stuff.  But, lovin’, is what I got, I said remember that.  I cannot think of any other soccer player who dominated the game like this cat done did.  He single handedly made Argentina champions in 1986.  He single handedly took Italian Club Napoli to the top of the Eye-talian football and European Football leagues.  I never really got to see Pele, but this little fella was something else.

Honorable Mentions:  Spud Webb, Joe Morris, The Denver Broncos O-line, Earl Boykins, Doug Flutie-Midget Moses, Mugsy Bogues, Henri Richard, Brian Gionta, Willie Pepp, Steve Smith, Jamie Carroll, David Eckstien,  Greg Jennings, Troy Brown, The Answer

Peace out homies.  Six Two and Even.

Josh Q. Public:  We shall not we shall not be moved; just like a team that’s going to win the football league again; we shall not be moved! -Manchester United Fight Song

Public Service Announcement:  OK, here we go!  Here comes the king, here comes the big number one.  Bending it soon in a soccer stadium near you.  Becks, DB7, Golden Balls.  The Soccer Messiah.  David Beckham.  I’m not biting.  Haven’t we heard this before?  Didn’t this “Once in a Lifetime” event already take place?  I could have sworn Pele, Franz Beckenbauer, Carlos Alberto, Giorgio Chinaglia and the Cosmos already saved soccer.  They already saved the North American Soccer League.  The now defunct North American Soccer League.  Soccer needs saving again?  I though little Freddy Adu already saved soccer?  Freddy Adu, the youngest professional athlete in modern American team sports history.  Too little, too late.  Jojo style.  The Cosmos couldn’t do it.  Freddy Adon’t didn’t do it.  Bend It won’t do it.

Bend It can’t save soccer, because it’s not worth saving.  I’ve written this before, I’m going to write it again.   Let me start this rant to combat all those who say “Soccer is the most popular sport in the world.”  So what?  Big Macs are more popular than lobster.  Which one are you going to eat?  The Nielson Ratings had American Idol on top.  See where I’m going with this?  So that argument is bupkus.  And not for nothing, that’s the only justification soccer apologists can come up with.  They never talk about the excitement.  How could they?  Where are the bone crushing hits? Where are the three sixty slam bam thank you ma’am jams? Where is the ever loving long ball? What the Brazilians see as the “beautiful game” is painfully dull and boring.  Where’s the intensity?  Where’s the action?    Duller than golf.  Duller than molasses races.  I can’t bear to watch these guys running up and down field, time and time again. Nothing happening, time and time again. Dullsville baby, dullsville.  The chances of scoring are infintesimal.  Nil-nil?  Gross.  We like scoring.  We like scoring a lot.  We like a lot of scoring. We like Michael Jordan.  We like LaDainian Tomlinson.  That’s how we measure sport.  Who scores the most?  Some may say, soccer players run 4 miles a game.  Great.  Good for them.  That means they’re running less than 3 miles an hour.  My fat Aunt Tilly runs faster.  55% of soccer games end in a tie.  Keep making out with your sisters.  See if I care.  And to break these ? Penalty kicks.  You’ve got to be joking, right?  A penalty kick?  You are determining a winner by an artificial action that has absolutely no bearing on the regular game.  At least hockey has the good sense to abolish this inane practice during the playoffs.  Do I need to go on?  Yes, I do.  Every highlight I happen to catch by accident on ESPN shows someone almost scoring a goal.  Almost.  That’s what happens in these games, a lot of almosts.  It’s almost a sport.  I’m not a big fan of the feet thing either.  It makes no sense.  Unless you’re name is Christy Brown, use your hands for goodness sakes.  I’m not saying what those cats do with their feet and their heads isn’t remarkable.  Juggling four chain saws is pretty gosh darn remarkable too, I’m just saying.   Oh there’s more.  The off-sides rule?  Stupid.  How can you not let attacking players stand any closer to the opposing goal than the other team’s last defender.  It’s like you don’t want to score goals.  It’s like you don’t enjoy fun.  It’s like you want the sport to be as dull as possible.  Attack I say.  Score goals I say.  People complain about the fans at basketball games.  What about soccer fans?  Mob mentality.  Hooliganism at its best.  No brains of their own.  As soon as the World Cup comes around, jackbooted fans everywhere, wrap themselves around their flag and commence to destroy everything in sight.  Brilliant.  David Beckham cannot save soccer because it doesn’t deserve saving.  There, I said it.  Happy now?    

Peace out homies.  Six two and Even!