Three Is A Magic Number

The start of a perfect sports weekend

This was the perfect sports weekend for fans of Arsenal and the New York Mets. To use a horse racing term it was a winning trifecta of results. Friday night saw the Yankees manhandled by the Texas Rangers and bounced from the playoffs mercifully shutting the mouths of obnoxious entitled Yankees fans everywhere. Making it even sweeter was watching A-Fraud strike out looking to end the game. In Yankee land its win the World Series or else it's a failure. So, according to the team's standards, the Yankees' season was a failure.

Saturday night it was Ryan Howard and the Phillies' turn to limp out of the playoffs. Howard did his best Carlos Beltran impersonation as he struck out looking with the tying and winning runs on base. Having attended several Mets games at Citizen's Bank Park where I was lucky to leave with my life and dignity, I can honestly say seeing the Phillies’ fans stunned and silent was brilliant. (To further rub salt in the Philly wounds, the Eagles lost today as well). So, congrats Texas Rangers and San Francisco Giants and congrats to fans of the other 28 teams in baseball.

Today was the icing on the cake, the cherry on top, the crème de la crème. Manchester City and their collection of trophy pieces purchased by their sugar daddy sheik hosted Arsenal. In the same fixture last year, former Arsenal mercenary Emmanuel Adebayor proved how classless he is when he ran the length of the pitch to celebrate a goal in front of the travelling Arsenal supporters. Arsenal lost that day 4-2. This time, the Gunners looked poised and owned the game.

Captain and true leader, Cesc Fabregas controlled the game with outstanding efforts from Nasri and Song who scored the first two Arsenal goals. Manchester City was forced to play 85 minutes of the game with only ten men as Dedryck Boyata received a deserved straight red card for bringing down Chamakh just outside the box. Proving that three is the magic number this weekend, Nicklas Bendtner came off the bench late in the game to seal the victory for Arsenal with their third goal of the game. 3-0 was the final and the blue side of Manchester has been put back in their place.

The end of a perfect sports weekend

Yankees Suck...and so do Manchester United, Chelsea, Tottenham and a few others...

Hey Yankees, who's your Daddy?

While October 2nd marked the end of the baseball season for the Mets, it was just the beginning of what seems like my annual post season ritual of rooting for whomever the Yankees are playing.  While Minnesota wasn't up to the task, Texas so far is looking good.  As I write this the "fans" of the Yankees are streaming out of the ballpark in the top of the 9th as their team are being owned by Cliff Lee and the Texas Rangers.  It's aswesome to watch.  Tonight's starting rightfielder for the Rangers Jeff Francouer began the season as a New York Met.  So using the 6 degrees of seperation theory the Mets are getting one over on the Yankees.  (Yes that's stretching it but it's true),

As for Arsenal, they got back on track with a 2-1 win over Birmingham City.  It was an ugly win, but in truth that is what the team needed.  They've played too many beautiful games where they didn't get the results.  The weekend was also beneficial as both Chelski and Manchester United were held to draws.  Also making me laugh is the news that Wayne Rooney and Alex Ferguson have had a falling out and that Rooney wants out of United.  Anything that makes United weaker is better for Arsenal and therefore a good thing.

I know that I should concentrate on my own teams and not feel joy at watching the failings of competitors, but this is sports and this is a blog so throw all that goodness out the window. 

Shrek wants out of Man. U.

                                                       

YES Nets Deal For Arsenal Soccer Coverage

YES Nets Deal For Arsenal Soccer Coverage: "The YES Network will kick off coverage of one the English Premier League's ..."

I received this news today and on one hand thought awesome, Arsenal are getting some love and recognition here in the old US of A. But then I looked closer and saw those dreaded three letters...YES...Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network. Oh the horror, the evil empire, the team that I hate even more than Chelsea and Manchester United...the f'ing Yankees have got their claws in to Arsenal. The more I think about it, it's a good thing. The Yankees' motto is "if at first you don't succeed, buy, buy again". As we all know, "Greed is good". If it helps Arsenal, then I'm all for using the evil empire to further the Arsenal cause.

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Sunday, October 2nd was just another one of those days that makes you wonder why you follow sports at all. You love your teams so much that losses can basically ruin your entire day. Of course you always go back, but when those wounds are first inflicted it leaves you gutted. (I stole that word from the Brits, it sounds more dramatic than depressed or bummed).

First up was the encounter between Arsenal and Chelsea (Chelski) at Stamford Bridge in the posh section of London. When I first began following Arsenal, Chelsea were a tough opponent but Arsenal always had their number. Unfortunately, things have changed since Roman Abramovich came along and pumped his oil money in to Chelsea. These days, Arsenal play the role of whipping boys and sadly this day turned out to be the same.

Arsenal looked solid, played well had a lot of possession but in the end we all had to sit there and take it when the
egotistical Didier Drogba scored. Still it was 1-0 so there was hope. But, that was dashed as a free kick resulted in an amazing strike from Alex and it was done and dusted. The only solace Arsenal fans had was that at least we looked good while losing.

As for the Mets? As I sit here writing this I am watching the Yankees in the playoffs (rooting for the Twins of course) and still laughing at the way the Mets finished their horrible season. While meaningless in terms of making the playoffs, it would have been nice to see the Mets put in an amazing effort to close out the year. No, instead they wasted an excellent pitching performance by Mike Pelfrey by scoring one measley run and allowing the game to go in to extra innings. Just losing the game would have been enough, but not our Mets. They had to do it in true pathetic fashion. Who should come in to the game in the 14th inning, but the human disaster that is Oliver Perez. Scorned and shunned all season, Ollie had the chance for redemption. But remember, this is the Mets. Instead Ollie hit one batter and walked three allowing the winning run to score! (Keep in mind this guy is making 12 million dollars a year). Game over, season over. The next day the GM and Manager were dismissed. Just another day in Metsland. I'm actually happy that the Mets' season is over. I couldn't take any more.

On the bright side, the Jets actually look good this year!