Monday, January 27, 2014

Sports (sort of) Journal 1-26-14

Wow!  I’m out of practice at this.  Forgive me if this rambles worse than usual.  No, I don’t feel like talking about the Superbowl or Richard Sherman.  My baseball viewing may be severely limited this year, so my sports blogging may be limited along with it.  Frankly, I’m not sure what I’m going to be doing after I finish posting the rest of Cyber-Pulp. 

Okay, a little football.  What do you all think of getting rid of the Point After Attempt?  The NFL has floated this trial balloon in front of the big game.  Either take 7 points with a touchdown or take 6 and then go for 2.  I’m ambivalent.  I’m sure fantasy footballers are more vocal and will have the final say.  In my opinion, you could also get rid of kick-offs too.  After the last kick-off rules change, most of them just fly into the endzone anyway.  Start the ball on the 20 after a score.  I think they were doing something like this in the Pro Bowl, not that I could really bear to watch it.  If a team wants to retain possession after a score, put the ball on their own 40 and give them 1 down to make 20 yards.  If they don’t make it, then the opposing team gets the ball on the other team’s 40.  None of this makes any difference as long as the game is blatantly being fixed, but that’s another post.  (Don’t hold your breath waiting for it.)

May as well continue rambling.  I’d like to thank 5 Guys hamburgers for an excellent pre-race meal.  They just opened their Las Cruces location the day before right next to me.  There’s been a palatable buzz surrounding this place for months.  I walked over with my dad (who lives down the street from me) on Saturday, and we got there about five minutes before they opened.  The owner came out and greeted us and chatted amiably until the doors opened.  Of course, he was an ex-pat New Yorker.  What would this country be without these people?

We took the burgers to my apartment (small, bacon-cheeseburgers).  One bite into the meal, we were both unbelievably impressed.  We ate slowly, savoring each bite.  I didn’t want to finish it.  I didn’t want it to end.  Afterward I said, “I wanna go back over there and hug the owner.”  More pragmatically, Dad said, “I wanna go back over there and get another.”  I realize this has nothing to do with sports, but I think this may have been the best hamburger I’ve ever had, and I feel compelled to tell everyone about it.

I’ve got an ugly-looking, hand-written page of notes here.  Little wonder I’m having trouble starting this.  Even though it’s January, there’s been some car-related action over the last two weeks.  Fox broadcast the Barrett-Jackson auction last weekend.  Rick Hendricks and Jeff Gordon were there in the front row.  The biggest ticket item I saw was a $4.6 million hammer on a classic Corvette. 

NBC broadcast highlights from the Detroit Auto Show on Saturday.  They starting doing this when they were doing NASCAR races and have kept doing it ever since.  I was impressed by the amount of technology that’s working its way into average cars.  Even F1 cars seem a bit low-tech by comparison.  NASCAR is positively primitive.  It’s hard to technology transfer between race and street when the cars are so different.  Competition or technology?  The eternal question in racing for car companies and racing series.

NBC also showed the Mecum car auction on Sunday, after the hockey game at Yankee Stadium.  (I love hockey, but don’t follow it enough to comment on it.)  The star item in truncated coverage (as the game was delayed by an hour) was a 1956 racing Corvette, “The Real McCoy,” that went for $2.3 million.  Nah, actually it was Kelli Stavast’s sudden appearance as a reporter there.  It warmed my little heart to see her, especially after my disappointment the day before with the race coverage.

Eject!  Eject!


Okay, let’s start over on this tomorrow with actual coverage of the 24 Hours of Daytona.

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