I realize that this is not exactly the right time to make this comparison, but…

Imagine that the Cards make the playoffs the next four to five years, but never win the World Series again. The Cardinals have consistently been in the playoffs over the past decade, but only now have one Series victory to show for it.

My question is this : Which team will be looked upon as being the bigger choker- the Braves or the Cardinals?

Just got this press release from the Hawks…

MARVIN WILLIAMS SUSTAINS LEFT HAND INJURY
Second-year forward expected to be out six-to-eight weeks

ATLANTA, GA —– Atlanta Hawks forward Marvin Williams has sustained a non-displaced fracture of the third metacarpal of his left hand, according to Hawks head athletic trainer Wally Blase.

The injury occurred during today’s workout on the Hawks practice court. He was examined this afternoon by Hawks team physician Dr. Michael Bernot, and placed in a protective cast. Williams is expected to be out of action for six-to-eight weeks, but none of his off-court conditioning activities will be limited, according to Blase.

Ismail, Janet and I went to the Hawks “Paint the Town Red” Event at Atlantic Station yesterday. All of the players made appearances at various stores where they “worked” for 30 minutes or so. Afterwords, they had an autograph session with all 17 players and 5 coaches. Zaza was first and before Ismail got his autograph, I told him that he had a bobblehead of Zaza. He told Zaza that and from that point on, Ismail asked if he had a bobblehead of each player so that he could tell them that he had one of them.

Herb Brown was really talkative and nice towards Ismail. Shelden was totally indifferent towards everyone; he didn’t even look at the fans as they came through. Marvin was really nice as well. We spoke to Estaban in Spanish; he was real friendly and asked where we were from and how I knew Spanish. I mentioned to Greg Ballard that I remember seeing him play with Golden State in the 1980s and for some reason, Woodson and a security guard started laughing at him. Not sure why; must’ve been an inside joke.

They had a Hawks climbing wall which Ismail played on for a while, but they didn’t have too many other things for kids. I was kind of surprised that they didn’t have more things set up, but I guess that’s the Hawks for ya- always giving the bare minimum.

I have pics of the event, but they won’t upload. I get this message ” The uploaded file could not be moved to .” . Not sure why…

This is a video of Anthony Reddick, the helmet-swinger in the Miami/FIU fight, apologizing for his involvement. Dude can barely talk. This thing is pretty awesome…

Todd and I have been debating this week about which is a worse loss- losing to Duke or losing to Vanderbilt. Obviously, you have to look at the history of the two programs when making a decision but I will say that Vandy won 5 games last year (when was the last time Duke won 5?) and, coming into the Georgia game, they had lost their three league games this year by a total of 12 points.

I know the overall picture dictates that Tech losing to Duke a few years ago and UGA losing to Vandy last week is simply a very bad loss but I think losing to Duke at the time Tech did was a much worse loss since Duke’s program hasn’t shown any signs of life over the last 10 years. What do you think?

Janet, Ismail and I went to the first preseason game of the season last Saturday. This was the first chance to see our new seat locations for the upcoming season. We moved up two rows (From the 4th Row) to the second row of the upper deck. Believe it or not, you can notice a difference.

This was the first time i’ve ever seen Shaq play live, so I was happy to see that he actually got a decent amount of playing time. However, D. Wade, Payton and Mourning did not play, so that was a bit of a letdown (at least in D. Wade’s case).

The Hawks looked pretty good for the preseason. JJ and Zaza played well. Josh Smith didn’t play for unknown reasons, but everyone else that was expected to play did. The biggest improvement from last year to this year was Marvin; he was really aggressive and took it STRONG to the hole. Last season, he just settled for jump shots or made half-hearted attempts to drive the lane. However, on this night, he had a couple of strong takes to the hole and a few slams with men on him. J-Chill didn’t look so good except for the latter stages of the 4th quarter. He took some ugly shots well outside of his range; the one thing I always respected about him last year is that he knew his limitations. I hope that this season he doesn’t plan on shooting more.

The worst looking player was definitely Shelden Williams. He had no clue what to do on the floor. At first, I thought he was a non-roster invitee by the way he was playing. He had terrible hands and must’ve lost the ball five times. He missed some sitters underneath the basket and badly missed some open looks from the 10-15 foot range. I guess like everyone else, it’ll take time to grow into the NBA game, but I was surprised by how nervous he played.

The Hawks won the game 91-81 and pretty much held the lead the whole 2nd half. I was pleased with how well the core group played under pressure in the 4th quarter; hopefully, this is a sign of things to come.

Sorry for the delay in getting the write-ups for the Tech games. I’ll try to get them out all at once. The Virginia game was Tech’s annual Thursday night game. The tailgate was pretty rushed as they usually are for weekday games, but we still had a good crowd. The Elder Goodsons were there as well as my Sister from Greece and her husband. We made our way to BDS@HGF a little late and missed the first half of the first quarter. Tech added a wrinkle to this year’s Thursday game with their Throwback Thursday. The team wore uniforms from ‘69: mustard-gold jerseys with white pants, white helmets, and black shoes. They looked great and were much less vandy-like than their current unis. Tech’s D dominated the game. Virginia is a bad team and they never had a chance in this game. Tech’s O didn’t do enough, only scoring 24 points, and left us with a bad feeling going into the Va Tech game.
Dave and I went to last year’s game in Blacksburg, and it wasn’t pretty. Tech was dominated in every phase of the game from start to finish. The final was 51-7 Va Tech. Because of some quirks with expansion, Tech had to go to Blacksburg two years in a row. When Dave suggested we go back this year, I was hesitant, but, other than the game, it was a good trip, so I agreed to go along. Just like last year, we met Mr. Goodson and his buddies…always a fun crew. Dave had made some of his famous turkey chili which we enjoyed before the game. We made our way across the campus, which is quite large, passing by some of the dorms. The VT students were pumped up as usual. Everyone was wearing orange or maroon and making a lot of noise. We got to Lane Stadium in time for kickoff.
What followed was the most exciting 7.5 minutes off Tech football I’ve ever witnessed. On the first play from scrimmage, Ball hid James Johnson, who was somehow behind the Va Tech secondary, for a 57 yd play. A few plays later, Va Tech decided to cover Calvin one-on-one in the end zone…fade…TD…7-0 Tech. The D held the hokies to 3 and out on their first poccession, and their punter shanked the kick. On the ensuing drive, Tech was facing their first 3rd down of the game, all the Va Tech fans pulled out their keys and started shaking them. It’s some tradition they have when their D is facing a 3rd down. Whatever it’s supposed to do, it didn’t work…Ball hit Calvin standing still. Calvin turned and outran the entire Hokie Defense for his second TD…14-0 Tech. After the TD, I whiped out my keys and started shaking them. Dave reminded me to show some class. Tech D held the hokies to 3 and out again. Tech was then able to partially block the punt. I jumped up and yelled “Beamer-Ball.” Dave again reminded me to show some class. Tech quickly drove down the field and Tashard scored his first of two TDs on the day…21-0 Tech. Absolutely incredible. The Hokie crowd was stunned. Tech was doing to them what they are supposed to do to us. How many times have we gotten to games late? If we had decided to have another bowl of chili, we could have easily missed all this. Va Tech tried to make a comeback, but Tech’s D held them to 13 points in the first half despite two horrible pics thrown by Ball. By halftime, the score was 24-13. The Hokies got the ball first in the second half. The crowd was back in it thanks to their partial comeback in the 2nd quarter. Va Tech was driving the ball at midfield when Wheeler made the defensive play of game. He stripped the ball from the QB and Tech LB, Gary Guyton, picked it up and ran it back for a TD…31-13 Tech. It was over at that point. The Hokies made a spirited comeback, and were helped by some horrible PI calls against Tech, but it was too little, too late. Tech won 38-27. Most of the Hokie fans, to their credit, stayed for the whole game. After staying in the stands for a few minutes to celebrate, we made our way back across a much-subdued campus. Tech was now 2-0 in conference, with control of the Coastal Division.

The Tailgate for the Maryland game was very low-key. It was a small crowd by our standards with only the Oliver clan, Dave, Christina, and I there most of the time. We were all excited about the game, but everyone was nervous about a let-down after Va Tech. We got the BDS@HGF in time to see Tech score on their opening drive (fade to Calvin of course). Maryland Then took the kickoff all the way back to tie the game. I can’t say Maryland was dominant after that, but they were definitely playing well while Tech never could get things together. I believe they missed 3 field goal oppotunities. One flat out missed, one blocked, and one where we tried a fake, but the pass from Bell went through the holders hands. I can’t complain too much about the fake. It’s a departure from Chan’s conservative approach, and if the holder had pulled it in, it would have been a great call. Overall though, the special teams looked like crap, which is disappointing after the game against the Hokies. The Defense was playing well. They only gave up one TD after Calvin…Calvin!…fumbled on like Tech’s 8 yardline. Other than that and the kick return, Maryland only managed 3 FGs. Not a bad day for the D.

The crowd was tense. We’ve seen this all too often with Chan…losing a game we shouldn’t after winning a big one on the road. We were down 14-23 in the 4th when Tech put together a scoring drive capped off with a run from Ball for the TD. At that point, I really needed to take a leak. Everyone was standing after the Kickoff, so I took the opportunity to run down the row. By the time I got to the ailse, I was able to see the D make the play of the game when they recovered a fumble on the Maryland 7. I ran to the restroom for what seemed like an eternity (I had consumed quite a bit of Jack & Coke by then). I came out of the tunnel just in time to see Tashard score the go ahead TD. The crowd came alive at that point. We had finally exorcised our deamons…or had we? With less than two minutes left to play, Maryland had the ball deep in their territory when they completed a short pass play. Tech CB fell leaving the Maryland receiver free to sprint down the sideline. There was nothing between him and the endzone, but someone, I believe it was Avery Roberson, came across the field to Tackle him at Tech’s 7. My first thought was, “Crap! Now they can run more time off the clock before they score. We should have let him run it in.” Good thing I don’t play D for the Jackets. Maryland netted 2 yds rushing the next two plays. On 3rd and goal from the 5, Michael Johnson tackled the QB on the 14. As he was going down, he tried to pass the ball but it went straight into ground. The refs gathered for a rediculous amount of time before throwing the flag for intentional grounding. I didn’t know about this, but there is a rule if you try to gain a time advantage by intentional grounding, they add five yds to the penalty. So instead of 4th and goal from the 14, it’s 4th and goal from the 19. On the next play, Michael Johnson again comes up big, sacking the QB. This time he didn’t even have a chance to try to get rid of the ball. 2 Sacks to end the game and Tech has another big Johnson. After the 2nd Sack the crowd erupted. It’s as big and loud a celebration as I’ve ever experienced at a Tech game. Is Tech finally learning how to handle success and take care of business even when they don’t play well? We’ll see. Right now, Tech sits atop the Coastal division as the only undefeated team in the ACC. We will almost certainly be favored in every ACC game but Clemson. We may even be favored in Athens. Through the first half of the season, the only real complaint you can make is: we should have gotten the ball to Calvin more against Notre Dame. We could easily be 6-0 right now.

After the game, I went to Atkins Park in Smyrna to watch the UGA/Tenn game with a couple of Christina’s friends. Watching football with 3 hot chicks after a Tech win…life is good.

Where to begin with this gem. Well, Kim and I headed for Athens around 11 am on gameday with the idea of walking around the downtown area and then heading over to tailgate for a little while before the game. We got to Athens around 12:30 and did some shopping until about 3 pm. There was a lot of excitement before the game and plenty of people going hunting as well. At least I think that’s where they were headed. There couldn’t be any other reason to wear that hideous orange.

After lunching at the Varsity (Kim loves that place), we drove over to the Driftmeier building to our usual spot for tailgating. The only problem was the lot was full. I suggested we park along the yellow line but was told to ask the tailgaters if they thought we would get towed. One of the gentlemen I asked said, in a heavily accented voice, “Now I see you have a Georgia shirt on so you should be okay but the license plate is Tennessee so I’m not so sure.” I told him Kim was too scared to ask herself so she made me. Once again, I made a mistake and let Kim mix the way too strong drinks but it did dull the pain of the four mosquito bites I accrued.

The game was great for a half. Georgia’s offense looked either good or lucky as they kept converting long third down plays in the first half. Mikey Henderson returned a punt for a TD, which was really exciting. Momentum seemed to turn when UT scored right before the half making it 24-14. “Legacy” then came out tossing INTs in the second and Georgia was doomed. He gave UT a short field twice and Ainge picked us apart like he was his uncle shooting threes. UGA also had a punt blocked. While everyone is down on Georgia’s defense, there were bigger problems with the offense as they needed a kickoff return for a TD to keep them in the game.

Kim got pissed when we left after Georgia turned it over down by 11. She felt the Georgia fans were giving up too early. By the time we got to the car, UT was up by 18 and we beat traffic so it seems like it was a good decision to me. All in all, it was fun but it was crazy how the energy disappeared from the stadium when Joe T. came back to earth after the first half.

Ismail and I went to our first Thrashers game of the season on Saturday night. We’ve been eagerly anticipating the season for about a month now and the game didn’t disappoint. They gave out Magnet Schedules, but this didn’t really attract much of a huge crowd; the actual attendance was much less than the 14,500 announced. I think that the Tech game and the UGA-Tenn game hurt the attendance quite a bit.

The Thrashers scored two goals a period and Kari Lehtonen had 22 saves in the 6-0 Thrashers victory. The game was essentially over by the halfway point of the 2nd period. Ed Belfour got destroyed and was pulled out after the scoreline reached 4-0. I always find joy in seeing him fail; he’s a total bastard-when he left the Blackhawks back in the mid-1990s, he had some really shitty comments about Chicago, the fans and the team. The inside word on him in Chicago is that he’s a total moron and has a loser attitude.

The shutout was Kari’s 4th of his career and the second one i’ve seen live. I really believe that if he stays healthy, we’re going to make the playoffs for the first time. At least this year, we strong backups in Braithwaite and Hedberg.