This Week, My Friends Will Call Me a Traitor

It rolls around every four years. It's a time when I choose my favorite team over the hometown team and get a lot of trash talk from my friends. It's time for the Steelers to play the Rams. And even though the Steelers winning the game would serve both teams best, the Steelers for playoff position and the Rams for draft position, it will still look like a betrayal to many of my friends.

When watching your team, even if it would be better for your team to lose, it's still difficult not to get caught up in the game and find yourself cheering for your team. It happened to me, just last week. I attended the Rams/Bengals tilt with my friends Sam, Matt, and their friend Craig. Going into the game, I certainly was hoping for a Rams loss. Winning could do the Rams no good and I was hoping for Cincinnati to get on a roll heading into their Week 17 match up with the Ravens. But after being in the Ed Jones Dome with thousands of Bengals fans and witnessing the Rams getting hosed by the refs on one of the Bengals' two touchdown drives, it still ticked me off to watch the Rams lose to them. So while it's all well and good for my friends to say they don't care about this week's game, I'm certain that if the Rams were to somehow pull ahead, I'd receive a drove of text messages about it. As for the Rams, I don't expect them to produce much on the field, but maybe we'll get another gem from Harvey Dahl (video below).

The Rams game was excruciating aside from Dahl's choice words, which livened up the stadium. The bright side was, I still had my favorite team, the Steelers, for a fall back. I wore my Pittsburgh cap to the game and didn't get a word of smack talk from any Bengals fans. It's good to have a back up.

I hope the Steelers realize that this week and decide to sit Ben Roethlisberger. He looked awful on Monday night against the 49ers and let's face it, the Steelers' defense alone should be enough to defeat this year's pitiful version of the Rams. Stick Charlie Batch in there. Have him hand of the ball to a solid running back in Rashard Mendenhall and just run it down the throat of the Rams, who have the worst rushing defense in the league (It's worse than the Raptors' new alternate uniforms). The Steelers can probably knock off the Browns in Week 17 with Batch in there too, but I'm fine with Big Ben playing again if he looks better. I just don't think it's worth risking your starting quarterback when in all likelihood, you can win without him, because in the playoffs, they won't win without him.

A quick side note for hockey fans: if you haven't been following HBO's show, 24/7, which follows the two clubs on the way to the Winter Classic (the Rangers and Flyers this year), you probably missed this clip of Flyers goalie Ilya Bryzgalov. I was on the floor the first time I watched it and it literally had me rolling. It's definitely a show worth watching if you have HBO (Or I could just be realistic and say the internet, as I'm sure it's floating around somewhere). Enjoy, eh?!

Blues Streak Heads to Music City

The Blues are certainly showing this season the true meaning of home-ice advantage. They're off to a 12-3-1 start at Scottrade Center, which ranks second in the NHL, trailing only Detroit for the best home record in the league, based on points obtained out of points possible.

The Blues haven't gone to Motown yet this season, but they are off to a 2-0 start against the Red Wings and have won three straight against them, including the magical 10-3 win I witnessed last season at Joe Louis Arena with my friends Dave, Tyler, Dan, and Julie. So while the Blues did that against the Red Wings' backup's backup's backup due to a rash of goalie injuries, it was impressive nonetheless. And looking again at the current season, I can't remember the last time that the Blues started out a year 2-0 against the Wings, even with both games being at home. I still think they the Wings will take a step back once Nicklas Lidstrom finally retires and I still think that Jimmy Howard is not a good goalie for a number one, but for the time being, the Red Wings are still a force to be reckoned with, as much as I hate to admit it. After all, look at what Detroit did with another mediocre goaltender in Chris Osgood for years?

The Blues are now 12-2-3 since they put Ken Hitchcock (happy birthday to Hitch, btw)  in charge and with the way the team is playing under him, there's no reason to believe that they can't compete for the division title. The way the conference is shaping up so far, it looks like the Central Division winner will get either the one or two seed, as the Pacific Division is struggling and could possibly only send their division champion to the playoffs. It's still early and that could change, but it doesn't look like Minnesota, Detroit, Chicago, defending conference champ Vancouver, or the Blues are going away any time soon. The Blues have a big test tonight in Nashville. The Predators, like the Blues, are on a four-game winning streak and are just coming off a third period comeback win over Detroit on Thursday. If the Blues go hard in the first, perhaps they'll catch the Preds in a bit of a let down. Not that the Blues have needed any help lately, though.

Adios, El Hombre!

I don't know why I seem to write more when I'm angry. My friends and family will tell you that I'm not an angry person. Aside from yelling at sporting events or when they're on tv, most people have never and probably will never hear me yell.

My friends and family will also (some of them begrudgingly) tell that I'm fairly liberal and usually take changes in stride. But when I heard that a part of my life that has been the same since I was a sophomore in high school was going to be different, it pissed me off. Albert Pujols will no longer play for the St. Louis Cardinals. I dropped an F-bomb as soon as I looked at my phone, especially since I expected my phone to tell me we had resigned him. As soon as the Marlins were out of the bidding, I felt secure that we would bring him back, probably for a stupid amount of money and years, but we'd bring him back just the same. And it wasn't my money, so I was somewhat okay with it. Especially since it would simply be Bill DeWitt Jr. paying for his mistake (not locking him up two or three years ago and not getting into this mess in the first place). But no, DeWitt decided it would be a better idea to let Alex Rodriguez sign a second insane contract. He decided to let Ryan Howard, a clearly inferior player on both offense and defense, a huge five-year deal. And he decided to let the Nationals sign an average (at best) player in Jayson Werth to a  mega-contract. (He looks great on giant posters, though!)

So while I dont' disagree with the Cardinals not matching the offer that the Angels made to Pujols, I'm still furious with them for allowing the situation to arise. And as John Hammond from Jurassic Park would say,"I don't blame people for their mistakes, but I do ask that they pay for them." Unfortunately, I can't count on DeWitt being eaten by a Dilophosaurus later on.

Dilophosaurus Attack by


Instead, I simply plan to not attend any Cardinals games in 2012. I'll still cheer for them. However, I've been saying since they failed to sign him before spring training, that if they messed up and didn't get Pujols to stay with the team, that I would not be attending any games the following season. I plan on sticking to my guns, just like the front office did on waiting to sign him until he was on the open market.

As for the Angels, they simply fall into a long list of teams that I hate: The Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Phillies, Brewers, Reds, Braves, and Mets. And now the Angels. At least it'll give my brother-in-law, Taylor, something to bond about. We didn't bond much during the World Series. Taylor's a Rangers fan.