I’m Not Going to Do This Every Day

…&etc. Seriously, check out this, from the Times’ Play mag, by Sunday Game basketball player Chip Brown:

“Not to Get Too Mystical About It”

In honor of the baseball playoffs, we remind you of this fantastic video: Game 6 final inning of 1986 Series as re-enacted on Nintendo

This is an actual arthed from my college sports newspaper, from a story about Kansas football coach Mark Mangino talking about how his team has done well because they played a lot of weak teams early this season:

Still, when you’re 5-0, you deserve all the cupcakes you can eat…

(H/T P. Stack via Deadspin)

I kid the footballers, but, really, could you imagine doing Dunk of the Month?

My friend Tony Karon, who is to international geopolitical soccer analysis what KBR is to cost overruns, has a fab bit on the the Iraq soccer team and what their match today means; if you read one bit on this, make sure it’s this one.

UPDATE: Iraq wins the pennant! Iraq wins the pennant!

*After weekend in which Bon Jovi played a significant part (and I’m not sure how I feel about that), this seems appropriate. Best part:

Why are we looking for Bon Jovi? Why is he wanted, wanted dead or alive? A spree of face rocking. Estimates vary as to how many faces have been targeted—some say 800,000, some say 1.2 million—but it is accepted as a fact that he has rocked every single face he has seen. Every one of them. We’re not even clear on a motive for this mass face rocking, although there are reports of Bon Jovi complaining of faces that “are so cold.” Will he stop at a million faces? How many will be enough? We can’t afford to find out.

*The Tim Donaghy thing is distressing on so many levels (see, I knew the Suns were Robbed in Game 3 vs. the Spurs (I don’t care what this guy says, that ref clearly altered the outcome of the game) (and I really shouldn’t care—after all, it’s just a friggin’ basketball game, not Iraq or something. On the other hand, I’d like to think the the sport is at least somewhat on the level—this isn’t cycling, for Chrissakes—and my faith, not to mention my face, has been a little, um, rocked. It’s a question of ethics. It’s what separates us from the animals, beasts a burden, beasts a prey.) (And with that, the trailer from Miller’s Crossing, to remind us of a happier, more ethical time:

)) but I’m not sure this, which would require an OCD level of monitoring from NBA fans, is this answer.

*My friend Pat may have hit a new high with this post. Where do you stand on squirrel v. chipmunk?

*My friend Tony continues his fine work with this one.

Though it looks like the forces of rationality, or at least of, you know, boxing out, defending on every play and making your frickin’ free throws, are going to win out in the vastly entertaining Utah-Golden State series, we’ll always have this, which was Topic A at my Saturday game:

In the NBA playoffs, like in life, the best team almost always wins. Every team in the league is good enough to win at least one game in a series, but the better team will almost always win four out of seven. That’s why the league playoffs rarely have the magic of the NCAA mens basketball tournament; there are no George Masons here.

Not even, really, the Golden State Warriors. Their bandwagon is piled high right now, and everyone wants to portray them as the NBA’s miracle team, but really, this is a better team than its regular season record–the midseason trade that brought Al Harrington and Stephen Jackson made the Warriors quick, athletic and hard to defend; this is a tough matchup for Dallas. There’s also drama, both on and off the court, in the feud between our favorite blogging NBA team owner and his former coach, now with the Warriors.  And you have to like any team that can inspire writing like this.

A story from the Joan Crawford school of motivation:

An angry soccer mom who left her teenage daughter alongside an interstate was ticketed for neglect, Lincoln police said Tuesday. Police spokeswoman Katherine Finnell confirmed this account from police reports:

The 42-year-old Lincoln mom was miffed about her daughter’s poor play on Saturday.

On their drive home the girl flubbed the lines her mom had drilled into her on how to improve her game, so the mother slapped her daughter.

The girl told her mom to pull over. The mom did, near the downtown Lincoln exit off Interstate 80.

The mom yelled at the girl to get out. When she did, her mom drove off.

A teammate’s parent spotted the girl alongside the interstate, stopped to pick her up, then took her to their home and called police.

Clearly, the woman should have shown her daughter this:

Check out this video of James White (yeah, I didn’t know he was in the NBA either) of the San Antonio Spurs trying to touch the top of the backboard, about 13 feet up:

I have to say, I look at this and get even more skeptical about all those stories of 6′2″ New York playground legends who could pick a quarter off the top of the backboard. Not that I’m totally discounting them, but this guy is 6′7″ and he can’t do it.

[Thanks to True Hoop]