Articles about Sports
Rating Super Bowl Ads With Dallas-Fort Worth Locals: Words With Friends and Double the Deion
Here’s a breakdown of how North Texas residents fared in their Super Bowl commercial appearances. We’re rating their contributions only, not the entire ad. Starting with the cream of the crop:
The guys who came up with the greatest time-waster known to man, Words With Friends, had the best moment in this Best Buy ad, tweaking the recent Alec Baldwin-American Airlines brouhaha over playing the game on the plane. They show up at about the 30-second mark. Rating: 9 out of 10
Josh Hamilton on Alcohol Relapse: ‘I Can Be Very Deceptive, Very Sneaky in a Lot of Ways’
During the press conference he held just now, Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers comes across as a humbled, contrite man who continues to deal with an addiction that can seize hold of him in moments of weakness. He called Monday night a “weak moment.”
“It never gets easy,” he said.
Based on his account of the evening, it was far more than just a drink or two. He said he had 3 or 4 drinks with his dinner (after a difficult personal family matter drove him to be at a restaurant by himself.) Then he called teammate Ian Kinsler for company. Kinsler stayed with him for awhile, and they moved to another place after the first place they visited closed. Later, Kinsler went home, and Hamilton promised him he was not going to go out again on his own.
But he did. He went back to the place they’d just left and had more alcoholic beverages. No one saw him drinking, he said, since he has a way to keep people from seeing him do it.
“Once I do drink, I can be very deceptive, very sneaky in a lot of ways,” he said.
The extra danger for Hamilton is his history with other drugs, and there’s no telling, once he starts drinking, when the “switch will flip” and he might be led to those other vices. He said he didn’t use anything else that night and has been tested twice for drugs since then.
He thanked the Rangers for their support and didn’t field any questions.
Tony Dorsett Is Suing the Cowboys
The Hall of Fame running back is the biggest name to join a large lawsuit filed against the NFL for what essentially amounts to a decades-long cultural indifference to the long-term health of employees (the players). The Associated Press has a lengthy feature about it, in which Dorsett describes games in which he was knocked out cold, then returned to take more pounding, only to find himself running the wrong way. Now 57, he says he’s paying dearly for it. The NFL, for it’s part, is taking out a commercial during the Super Bowl to explain all the things the league has done to fight concussions.
Reviewing the New Mavericks, So Far
As everyone knows, there was quite a bit of turnover from last year’s NBA Champions to this year’s still-doing-pretty-swell Mavericks. How are the new fellas doing? Let’s see.
Frito Pie, Plano, the Super Bowl, and the ‘Rise of Mesoamerican Civilization’
What? You're not using venison on your Super Bowl Frito Pie, like this version at Tillman's Roadhouse? Photo by Kevin Marple
While the organizers of last year’s North Texas Super Bowl are wondering why the football gods couldn’t have delivered us the weather we’re having this week in 2011 — instead of the Snow-and-Ice-Mageddon we got — Smithsonian.com reflects upon another Texas contribution to our country’s annual orgy on football and new television commercial campaigns: the Frito.
Those little fried corn chips were given birth in San Antonio in the 1930s, and they remain a cornerstone of business for the Plano-based Frito Lay company, which owns the trademark for the “Frito Chili Pie”: officially a “packaged meal combination consisting primarily of chili or snack food dips containing meat or cheese corn-based snack foods, namely, corn chips.”
But Smithsonian traces the true roots of Fritos much further back in the history of the Americas:
As much scorn and derision as today’s leading nutritional gurus heap onto processed foods, it’s worth noting that Fritos arrived here by way of a Mesoamerican staple and their invention and flavor owes a debt to one of the greatest food processing technologies ever invented: nixtamalization. The 3,000-year-old tradition adding calcium hydroxide—wood ash or lime—so greatly enriches the available amino acids in masa corn that Sophie Coe writes in America’s First Cuisines that the process underlies “the rise of Mesoamerican civilization.” Lacking this technology, early Europeans and Americans (who considered corn fit for slaves and swine) learned that eating a diet exclusively based on unprocessed corn led to pellagra, a debilitating niacin deficiency causing dermatitis, diarrhea, dementia and death.
Just a little something to think about as you’re dipping your chips this Sunday.
Another Awesome Mavericks Video, Because They Are Awesome At Making Awesome Videos
Somehow, I’ve neglected to put this up for, like, 18 days. I regret the error. Oh, what’s my favorite part? I guess I’d have to say: YES.
Texas Rangers Manager Ron Washington Gets Two-Year Contract Extension
Seems about right. Take your team to the World Series two years in a row, even if your managerial decisions may have allowed for a heartbreaking Game 6 collapse, and you’ve earned two more years on the job. He should be in the dugout in Arlington through 2014 at least.
Congratulations, Wash.
We’re looking forward to more of this:
(Via Baseball Nation)
Inspired by the Dallas Opera, Texas Motor Speedway Bringing NASCAR to Park Cities
Vowing not to be outdone by the Dallas Opera’s move to screen The Magic Flute at Cowboys Stadium, Texas Motor Speedway says it’s decided to run its April 13-14 NASCAR Sprint Cup race through the streets of the Park Cities. The unusual plan was announced this morning by TMS CEO Eddie Gossage and the mayors of Highland Park and University Park. “We want to get NASCAR out of the speedway, and bring it to a whole new audience,” Gossage said. “So we gonna do it up right.”
Under the plan, stocks cars competing in April’s Samsung Mobile 500 will follow a circular route bounded roughly by University Boulevard on the north, Preston Road to the west, Armstrong Parkway/Byron Avenue on the south and Hillcrest Avenue to the east. Those streets will be blocked off to usual traffic, and the cities will waive some noise ordinances, open-container laws, and restrictions against RV parking for the weekend event.
As a result of the latter, tailgating by NASCAR fans will be allowed during the weekend at Highland Park Village, on the grounds of some gated mansions along Preston Road, and on the golf-course fairways at the Dallas Country Club. Food trucks from Denny’s, KFC and other restaurants will cater the event. Tailgaters with special permits also will be allowed to relieve themselves in Turtle Creek during the weekend, the officials said.
Just How Unpopular is Craig James?
Yesterday we talked about how, needing a serious boost in the polls, Craig James released his tax returns. That boost he needs is even more serious than previously expected. Like, he needs a 28-point jump if he’d like to see the other side of 30 percent. But because he’s running against several opponents, those numbers make it tough to gauge exactly how popular — or unpopular — James might be. But this story, from The Post Game, is much less ambiguous. The headline: “Craig James: The Most Hated Man in West Texas.” There’s even mention of how James is less popular in West Texas than Barack Obama.
Fox 4 Knew About Joe Paterno’s Death Ahead of Time
During halftime of last night’s playoff game, Fox 4 had a heartfelt report about the death of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. Here is a screenshot.
There are at least two things wrong with this picture.
1) Joe Paterno was born in 1926.
2) Joe Paterno died in 2012.
Terrell Owens: “I’m in Hell”
When T.O. announced last week his intention to play for — and partially own — the Allen Wranglers of the Indoor Football League, plenty of people, myself included, wondered whether the decision was financially motivated or, well, just zany. Well GQ came along with an answer. In this well-written profile of the embattled wide receiver by Nancy Hess, Owens discusses the hell his exile from the NFL has been: most of his friends are too busy for him now, no team will even return his calls, and the $80 million he made playing is mostly gone thanks to incredibly bad investments, poor real estate decisions, and the $44k per month he’s supposed to pay in child support for his four children (the youngest of which is 5 and has never met Owens).
Some delightful T.O. quotes after the jump.
Tim Cowlishaw Makes a Big Mistake On Camera
What DMN sports columnist and Around the Horn regular Tim Cowlishaw said before today’s show provoked Jackie MacMullan (the only female sportswriter in the Basketball Hall of Fame) to call him a “little bastard.” Actually, that was just the beginning of what she said about him. Cowlishaw’s slip comes around the 0:15 mark. Then her retort.
Terrell Owens to Play for, Own the Allen Wranglers
Whatever you think of T.O., he’s anything but boring. He announced late last night via his Twitter and this short video his intent to play for and partially own our local Indoor League Football team. Whether this is an attempt to break back into the NFL, or a purely entrepreneurial endeavor, or some sort of boxer-past-his-prime way of dealing with not being able to stop doing the only thing he’s done for 20 years, time will tell. But all of a sudden, I’m much more interested in the Allen Wranglers.
Yu Darvish Signs for 6 Years, $60 Million. ESPN Wins Headline-Writing Sweepstakes
The Texas Rangers have confirmed that they’ve signed Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish. The deal is for 6 years, $60 million. After having paid $51.7 million just to be able to negotiate with him, that’s $110.7 million the team is committing to a player who has never thrown a pitch in Major League Baseball.
Unfortunately, the headline writing on news articles about the event so far is mostly middle-of-the-road dull. Except for ESPN, which managed to double-dip on their puns (see below) and avoid stealing from Zac.
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