bullets13

bump. i might not put these in the sticky comments anymore. this has gotten a lot more votes this way.

thanks for the hinfo

I heard the whole pier was gone. anyone know? i like to go out there from time to time.

don't misunderstand me... there are tons of all-around athletes in the various sports, and those guys dominate their sports. i have plenty of respect for those guys. here's the point i'm making: In football, you can make a successful career out of being simply: unnaturally Big (linemen) or unnaturally fast (wideouts). In baseball, you can make a successful career and not even be particularly athletic by throwing hard (David Wells) or being huge and hitting the ball a mile (i realize this takes skill, but i wonder how long Cecil Fielder could run before he'd have a heart attack) In basketball, you can make a successful career of simply being 7 feet tall (Sean Bradley, Minut Bol, George Mhurasan, etc, etc) In soccer, if you are not: very talented, at least fairly fast, and have incredible endurance, there's no way you'll be successful on even a division one college level.

this perception that people who do not play soccer have about the quality of athletes that play soccer frustrates me to no end. we've had this debate on another thread already, but: a soccer player goes for 90 minutes. each team gets three subs, and that's it. once you've been subbed, you may not return to the field. 8 players from each team NEVER come off the field. a soccer player often runs over 5 miles in a 90 minute game, mostly in sprints. soccer is a much more physical sport than people give it credit for being. soccer takes more skill than any of the big three sports. try to go out and use your feet to accurately kick a soccer ball 40 yards. i know a lot of non-athletic, non-basketball players who can hit a three, or non-football players who can catch a pass, or non-baseball players that can make contact with a decent fastball. unlike the big three sports, soccer cannot be dominated by someone simply because they are fast, or tall, or big. in certain cases those attributes help, but being a good athlete and having actual talent are much more important. while the most talented players prevail in these other sports, there are always roles for incomplete players based simply on a single attribute.

as far as i know, all of them were born in America. it's possible that Onyewu or Edu weren't, though.

did you play soccer? i'm not saying this condescendingly, i'm just asking. the fact of the matter is, if one team is having to run twice as much, it's not going to take long before the team who's chasing is going to begin getting beaten one on one, outjumped for headers, etc. If you take the same two sets of athletes, and switch the roles, with the US working the ball perfectly and Brazil chasing, you would see the same results, but with Brazil losing one on ones and headers. also, we have a BIG team when it comes to soccer. Altidore, Jozy F 6-1 175 Bocanegra, Carlos D 6-0 170 Bradley, Michael M 6-2 175 Dempsey, Clint F 6-1 170 Edu, Maurice M 6-0 170 Howard, Tim GK 6-3 210 Onyewu, Oguchi D 6-4 210 Spector, Jonathan D 6-0 180 Guzan, Brad GK 6-4 210 I can only think of about five players throughout the world who have achieved any notable success as soccer players who were taller than 6'5'', so size is not that important, and our team is plenty quick.

it had nothing to do with bigger, faster, stronger. it had everything to do with the gap in class. they won balls because they were fresh, and perfectly positioned. all of the 50/50 balls were us desperately clearing the ball, our forwards trying to run onto it, and their defense standing stationary waiting on it. advantage, defense. they weren't open because they were faster, but because they would string 10 perfect passes together until somebody ended up with the ball in space. this led to us chasing the entire game, which in the end wore us out, and THEN we were slower. that had EVERYTHING to do with the fact that our guys had to run twice as much as they did throughout the game. their advantage was nothing to do with athleticism, and everything to do with skill.

No offense taken. I didn't mean third rate or that they are not good athletes. The point is they are not the best athletes in the USA. I am not a soccer fan. But I watched that match today and it was obvious to me that the Brazilians were stronger and faster than our guys. If our strongest and fastest athletes grew up playing soccer like the rest of the world we would dominate the sport. it has nothing to do with the quality of athletes on the field. the difference is that maybe 10% of kids in the US play more than a year or two of soccer growing up (at least those that are now old enough to play for our national team), while in brazil it's probably more like 85%. that doesn't mean that the athletes are any better, but it definitely gives them an advantage when they have infinitely more players to choose from to find the most talented. also, the massive popularity of the sport in brazil ensures that every child growing up who plays is going to be playing in a much more competitive atmosphere. i'd wager that their youth soccer leagues are infinitely more advanced than the leagues that the vast majority of our kids grow up playing in. on the flip side, our youth basketball leagues are far more advanced from theirs, and we would pound them at any level if we played them. that being said, we're slowly catching up. the young players that are coming up are for the most part considerably more talented than the players we had 10-15 years ago. a 2-0 win over spain to make it to a FIFA tourney final is a pretty clear indication of this.

this one was a heartbreaker... the goal 38 seconds into the 2nd half killed us! still, a 3-2 loss to a full brazil squad is a VERY respectable result, even if we blew that lead.

I don't know of any but I would love to have a Bullmastiff. i've wanted one since i was a little kid. once we move out to our land, it's the first purchase i plan to make (after the riding lawnmower)

speaking of dogs, if anyone knows of a local breeder of mastiffs, please let me know.

after struggling for awhile and losing their lead in the division, the rangers appear to be turning it around. they've won 3 in a row, and they've scored 21 runs in their last two games.

it pisses me off when athletes who are facing millions of dollars in salary refuse to play for the team that drafts them. why not just skip the draft and let players pick which teams they want to play for (you listening, Eli?)... I say let him go back to Spain and never allow him to become eligble for play in the NBA again.

It's pretty clear that he doesn't want to play for Minnesota. He's talking about returning to Spain for a couple of more seasons. What do you guys think about that?

that's a lot of dingers!!!

one of the best hitters of all time...

nah, no camera trick, he's a soccer player. that's a somewhat common way to throw the ball in if the player can pull it off. you can throw it a long way like that. the length of the court would be nothing. of course, there's no telling how many tries it took him to make it.

i gotta agree with Bon on this one. We had a game plan that nullified the space to a large degree. If we try to man up on these guys, they would've just destroyed us one on one, and then you want to talk about space!!! with a team that talented, i think the contain approach was proper, and it payed off well.

agreed... losing Lee might hurt them some in the long run, though. He has a TON of potential. Alston won't really hurt much since they have Jameer Nelson coming back from injury.

my mother in law's house. dang, gabe, just scrolled back and saw that you had already made a post on this train of thought... i'm not trying to steal your thunder.

The New Jersey Nets have traded Vince Carter and Ryan Anderson to the Orlando Magic for Rafer Alston, Tony Battie and Courtney Lee. [Hidden Content]

i don't think hejduk or marvelous are better. i DO think Spector is notably better, and i'd prefer Bornstein on the field as well. those two, Gooch, Bocenegra, and even DeMerit are better than stevie. i'd rather one of those play out of position if need be than see Cherundolo on the field.

Just know bullets, my hands were on my sides. It was like he thought I was Erin Andrews. He ruined my favorite blue jeans and blamed it on the dog. :D :D :D now that's pretty sick. i'd feel bad for you if i didn't already have a drawer full of ruined pants thanks to him.