- 11:40 AM
- 11/21/09
| Name: | Rodger Donaldson |
|---|---|
| Homepage URL: | http://diaspora.gen.nz/~rodgerd/ |
| Location: | Wellington, New Zealand |
| Member since: | July 23, 2003 |
| Last visit: | November 20, 2009 |
rodgerd has posted 14 links and 271 comments to SportsFilter and 0 links and 1 comment to the Locker Room.
NFL Union Screwing Players?: The folks over at ArsTechnica have focused on an interesting story: claims that the NFLPA and Players Inc. unilaterally made a decision to take $8 million dollars of the gross licensing revenue that should have been shared with retired players and reallocate it to the administration of the NFLPA and Players Inc.", while negotiating ridiculous royalities for older players.
posted by rodgerd to football at 11:04 PM on October 08 - 9 comments
Wake up, you're off!: To quote the New Zealand Herald: Ah, the irony. Welsh lock Huw Richards was having a pat-a-cake struggle with Gary Whetton during the 1987 World Cup semi in Brisbane [...] Richards was revived by the side of the pitch just so he could be shown the red card for giving Whetton a few handbags before Shelford arrived with his peacemaker.
posted by rodgerd to other at 01:55 PM on November 22 - 3 comments
Novel excuses for losing: Well, I've heard a few, but how about "Town was too boring"? That's right: after a hiding in Hamilton, the Queensland Reds have blamed the city for being so boring as to put the players into a snooze before the big game. But how boring is Hamilton, really? After all, Waikato and All Black half-back Byron Kelleher seems to keep himself amused.
posted by rodgerd to other at 04:26 PM on March 06 - 7 comments
The end of an era.: Australia's rugby leage team have not been beaten in an international series in more than twenty years; New Zealand has not prevailed over their neighbour in over fifty. That ended this past weekend with a crushing victory in the Tri-Nations final in England. Aussie players are embarrased, Kiwis delirious with joy.
posted by rodgerd to other at 06:28 PM on November 28 - 4 comments
"Hacking at my tackle": When devotion becomes insanity,
posted by rodgerd to other at 05:36 PM on November 15 - 28 comments
And the FIA will sue...
Yeah, I can see that will work well. Attract other teams and everything.
Good riddance to the manufacturers.
All F1 racers are manufacturers to some degree or another. I see you make an exception for Ferrari (quelle surprise!). Do you hate people using Ford engines, too?
The more interesting story is Bridgestone. After signing up as the exclusive tyre supplier, they're leaving. Who will replace them? Michelin won't as they were pissed off and felt they were being punished for the Indy debacle.
Indeed. It's quite a surprising move to me, given how hard they must have worked to get the exclusive deal.
posted by rodgerd at 04:51 PM on November 05
Perhaps the New Zealand team should apologise for interrupting the old boys' club's divine right tto dominate. Maybe if we just removed everyone except Australia, England, and perhaps India from the tournament we could get the "right" final.
posted by rodgerd at 05:56 AM on October 04
It's like a perfect shitstorm of ugly American xenophobia and teabaggery in here.
posted by rodgerd at 08:42 PM on October 02
He can get Piquet and go start his own Cheaters F1 Team.
It does seem a little odd that Piquet junior isn't banned for life along with the others. Or picked up any punishment, really.
If you think Michael Schumacher is a cheater, I guarantee you have never been to a Formula One race or been in parc ferme or a garage- or a test rack at Fiorano (as I have on all counts). If he's a "cheater" then who's not a cheater? lol
Anyone who doesn't crash into other drivers to get the results they want?
posted by rodgerd at 09:38 PM on September 30
Seems to me that hard hits are part of normal play in football: they're not just incidental, they're what happens when everything goes right. I don't think you can really point to another youth sport, except maybe hockey and maybe boys' lacrosse, where that's the case.
Rugby (league and union) and Aussie Rules both spring to mind as high-contact sports, and Union especially can have players of quite disparate sizes coming into contact. Union scrums are also extremely technical, high-risk affairs; the substitution rules have provisions for replacing front-row forwards precisely because playing at prop or hooker without understinding what you're doing, and the muscle to protect your neck, is a great way to end up with a spinal injury.
One of the things I dislike in Union and League is the enthusiasm for off-the-ball violence. It's one thing to go out expecting to hit and get hit in the tackle, for example; the tolerance many fans and players have for throwing punches (for example) leaves me unimpressed. If I threw a punch when doing Judo... well, I don't actually know what happens because I've never seen it at a tournament. I'm sure it has, but those sort of rule breaches aren't even really discussed, since it's so rare. I'm pretty sure my club would tell me not to bother coming back if I cut loose in a fight and started punching people, though.
posted by rodgerd at 05:37 PM on September 30
I kind of like Rio vs Chicago (where a promising student was killed recently in gang-related violence at his school. He was an innocent bystander trying to help a friend)
I hate to break it to you, but going to Rio to avoid violence is like going to Scotland to avoid whisky.
posted by rodgerd at 05:29 PM on September 30
MMA, boxing, racing all have deadly risks associated with their sports at almost every level of competition.
What was the average lifespan of professional level line of scrimmage players? 56? I think the average MMA or race driver manages a bit more than that.
posted by rodgerd at 10:56 PM on September 29
There are countless stories of lottery winners, athletes, and the like who have hit it big but are broke within a few years. Sad!
Rock stars, too. All it takes is limited financial literacy and trust in the wrong manager/accountant/whatever.
Hell, Leonard Cohen isn't a dumb guy, but he ended up with, what, $150k left after a lifetime of earnings because his accountant was screwing him.
posted by rodgerd at 09:21 PM on September 27
You know, if I was fronting a guy that much bigger than me, I think I'd be a little more circumspect.
posted by rodgerd at 09:18 PM on September 27
Sorry, this is a sports site. You clearly meant to go elsewhere.
Perhaps you should also address to stalnakerz and others - or are you only offended by certain views on that particular debate?
posted by rodgerd at 12:41 AM on September 22
"The NBA has repeatedly stated that their goal this year is to bring the referees compensation and benefits more in line with the rest of the NBA office employees and its administrative staff. But referees are not office and administrative staff."
Well, for one things, administrative staff don't stand in front of a bunch of drunken abusive arseholes while trying to manage a bunch of agressive swelled egos every week, all the while having a bunch of jockstrap-sniffers on TV and radio whip up frenzied campaigns against any decision they don't like.
posted by rodgerd at 05:38 PM on September 21
Absolutely despicable. An absolute joke of a punishment. Well, you can't call it a punishment. Renault engaged in the most despicable, reprehensible incident F1 has ever known, and have gotten away with it.
What, you mean more despicable than the times Senna and Schumacher have cause crashes to win?
Don't get me wrong; I consider Renault's behaviour reprehensible. Putting the lives of drivers, track staff, and spectators at risk by engineering deliberate crashes should be abhorrent to anyone who cares about the sport. But drivers have done it before and escaped scot-free, so it's a little hysterical to claim it is without precedent.
posted by rodgerd at 05:33 PM on September 21
Imagine what would happen if every time a player had a call go against them they demanded that the official be removed. We'd run out of officials pretty quickly.
Imagine what would happen if players were removed from the sport for making mistakes!
Apparently the officials must be flawless, but a moment's honest reflection for Ms Williams would make it clear that she lost because she had a shit game and lost her self-control.
posted by rodgerd at 02:53 AM on September 14
I don't see how the chair had any choice but to award a penalty point. Serena didn't just mutter a few remarks -- she marched up to the line judge twice, was clearly profane, and made threatening gestures with her hands and the racket. The whole place knew she was out of line.
If only more sports awarded penalties for abusing officials. I imagine footballers would suddenly discover new powers of self-control if the penalty for mobbing the referee was a penalty or a goal awarded.
posted by rodgerd at 07:00 PM on September 13
German MNT keeper Enke in apparent suicide
Blaming someone with depression for killing themselves is like blaming someone with cancer for dying.
Attitudes like Drood are a huge part of the reason depressives kill themselves. Your hate and contempt for the mentally aren't part of the solution, moron, they're part of the problem.