Monday, August 07, 2006

Seeing the Beatles in Person...Almost




I am a lucky man. I have seen Jordan many times. I have seen Tiger Woods many times. I have seen Gretzky many times. I have seen Favre many times (ok. Maybe you don’t think he is in that same class, but may I remind you who owns this blog?). I saw MJ score 50. I saw Mike Tyson in the ring. I saw Dale Earnhardt win a race. I saw David Beckham score a goal. I saw Barry Bonds hit a home run. And I saw Brett Hull score a goal to win a Stanley Cup. All of these I have seen in person. Seeing the best sports has to offer with your own two eyeballs is one thing that we all enjoy about being a fan. I have been very lucky and have made quite a list.

And this morning, I am proud to report that I can add to that list.

I have seen Ronaldinho with my own two eyes. And he is amazing.

It is safe to assume that many who read this will have no idea who I am speaking of. I wish you could have joined me last night. It was like seeing Jordan for the first time. 92,000 humans were there to see one man. And he knew it. He put on a show and demonstrated why many consider him the best soccer player on the planet.

All Hail, Ronaldinho!

LA Times Report ….



Their name and their fame preceded them to Los Angeles, none more so than Ronaldinho, who caused camera flashes to sparkle like gold dust in the Coliseum twilight Sunday evening.

For months, soccer fans in the area had talked about the summer visit of FC Barcelona, the defending European and Spanish champion, and its game against Mexican power Chivas de Guadalajara.

A more mouth-watering clash of club teams could hardly be imagined, which is why a sellout crowd of 92,650 showed up at the Coliseum.

That number set two records. It was the largest crowd to watch a club match in the U.S. and the largest soccer crowd ever at the Coliseum, surpassing the 91,585 who turned out to see Mexico play Argentina in 1999.

The game didn't quite live up to the billing, but both coaches pronounced themselves satisfied with the 1-1 tie.


Press Telegram’s Report



Yet for 45 minutes it felt precisely like the exhibition that it was. Barcelona forward Samuel Eto'o created some dangerous chances, but little else interested the crowd.

Then Ronaldinho entered to a standing ovation and a sea of flashbulbs.

"I don't think the atmosphere could have gotten any better," Guadalajara coach Jose Manuel de la Torre said.

Almost immediately the tenor the game changed, with Barcelona creating myriad chances often with Ronaldinho at the center of them.

Midway through the second half, a cross landed at Ronaldinho's feet, but his shot was knocked down by goalkeeper Alfredo Talavera.

"It was great to play in the United States," said Ronaldinho, who exchanged phone numbers with Kobe Bryant when they met Saturday. "The reception from the crowd was exceptional."




And yet one more report that properly captures the entrance of the great one …


Ronaldinho, the Brazilian offensive phenomenon, set up FC Barcelona's only goal in a 1-1 tie against Chivas de Guadalajara in front of 92,650 at the Coliseum. It was the largest crowd to watch club soccer in the United States.

Ronaldinho, the two-time FIFA player of the year, made a dramatic entrance after he spent the first half on the bench in a team polo shirt, shorts and sandals before trotting to the locker room one minute before halftime.

When he trotted onto the field in full uniform for the start of the second half, Ronaldinho received a loud ovation amid the popping of thousands of camera flashes.


The following is amazing. So, back in January, on texags.com, a poster knew about Rhett Bomar’s issue at the car dealership. Of course, he was doubted at the time, but now “Aggiegrant06” is the man at The messageboard for his work



aggiegrant06
posted 1:30a, 1/30/2006

I ill try to be as discrete as possible, because i din't want to implicate someone and then get sued. My girlfriend works in the office of a large dealership where we live. She has only been there about a month, and she was dealing with handing out payroll checks. She didn't recognize several of the names, and asked her boss. Her boos told her that she would take care of them, and that it was no big deal. She thought it was fishy and asked me....the checks were made out to football players of the local University, and even though they had never actually been to work there, they were recieving HUGE!!!! pay checks. On top of this a player was in buying a car recently, and when she say the finance stuff, he had only paid about 1/100th of the sticker price. Is this legal?

---

ColleyvilleAg06
posted 1:44a, 1/30/2006

dude go away.

i hope your ip address gets banned.

Let me get this straight she didnt recognize the names but knew they were football players....riggggggght. Wouldnt you think it would be better for a paper trail to not give out a regular check and perhaps just pay cash?? idiot.

---

agg98
posted 2:04a, 1/30/2006

1) you didnt name the school

2) your story is 99.9% bull****

---
aggiegrant06
posted 2:27a, 1/30/2006

I am not lying, and I am not bull****ting. The school is OU, and the specific player is Bomar.



Wow. Surely if you are going to get paid by a car dealership there is another way to pay you without leaving a pay-stub paper trail, right?

Meanwhile, Just when our hopes were up, The Rangers tank in amazing fashion over the weekend


There probably have been worse ways to end the first week of the pennant race.
But if not the all-timer, Sunday's 9-1 loss to Los Angeles certainly will be in the photo finish.

The Rangers lost starter Adam Eaton just 18 pitches into the game. One pitch after Garret Anderson blasted a three-run homer, Eaton threw a fastball behind Juan Rivera, earning an ejection from home plate umpire Rob Drake without so much as a warning.

"It was a comedy of errors," Eaton said. "It was just a situation where a lot of things happened to come together in a bad way."

Eaton was talking just about the game. He offered a pretty good summation of the Rangers' last 24 hours and even their week.

The Rangers lost today's starter before the game was over. Kip Wells is headed back to Dallas to have an achy shoulder examined.

Oh, and the Rangers somehow managed to lose ground in the AL West race despite carving out a 4-3 record for the week while playing at the two teams that share the league's best record since July 1. The Rangers trail division leader Oakland, the next stop on the Masochism 2006 Road Trip, by 4 ½ games. It's the biggest deficit the Rangers have faced all season.


The Mavericks are pleased with their summer


Not everything came together like the Mavericks planned.

Top free-agent target Mike James spurned similar offers from the Mavericks and Houston to go to Minnesota.

But Anthony Johnson, brought to Dallas in a three-for-one trade with Indiana, is a tough-minded complementary point guard with enough talent to score 40 points in a playoff game last season.

Free agents Greg Buckner, once the Mavericks' defensive conscience, and Devean George, who has been to four Finals, were acquired under the $5.2 million mid-level exception. As a bonus, first-round pick Maurice Ager showed he has an NBA future in the Las Vegas summer league.

Backup power forward Austin Croshere, obtained for enigmatic Marquis Daniels, could be at least as productive as Keith Van Horn. Undrafted rookie Pops Mensah-Bonsu is a 6-9 athlete who will be given time to develop.

The lingering question: Do the Mavericks believe the team they have now is better than the team that finished the playoffs?

"I do," owner Mark Cuban wrote in an e-mail. "We have more depth and athleticism, and we have a lot more flexibility. I think our free-agent signings were the steal of the summer. We never expected we could get both Buck and Devean with our mid-level. We thought both were at least full mid-level, if not higher, players."


Finally, After Aggie and Longhorn both got to celebrate their school’s big hits in this space last week, Red Raider has complained. So, apologies to Tech and Here is Slay killing a poor QB from Kansas State. Poor Quality video, Tech Fan.



I assume you know that Troy and Rayfield were inducted over the weekend, right?
Good. Because I don't have more time to post it.

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

First!!

I'm gay....

Anonymous said...

Get ye'r guns up!!! (we don't whine THAT much)

Seriously Bob, you gonna go around the State to make everybody happy? Is UNT's highlight hit next? Abilene Christians? How about a little Wildcat love.

Also, since it's August, isn't it time for Bob's preseason Top 25?

Soccer....ugh....I know it's your blog but I can't even figure what combination of two people he looks like: Janet Jackson and Sam Cassell?

Anonymous said...

Nice job by Aggy board man. Looks like the NCAA needs to subpoena ALL of the employment and sales records of Big Red Autos. No telling what else they'll find out went on there. I'm sure Bomar and Quinn are just the tip of the iceberg.

Anonymous said...

Merkin!

Anonymous said...

how can you describe the Rangers? they are in such a vortex of suckness, getting sucked further down by the minute. it's so sad. i really am a fan and it's just too much suck for one guy to take. i knew this year would be bad from the start and it's even worse than i imagined. the only positive was the Lee trad, but he's gonna bolt after '06. no way in hell he sticks around for this "S" to get straightened out.

Players That Don't Suck:
M. Young, C. Lee, I. Kinsler, G. Matthews, K. Millwood, G. Laird, A Otsuka

Everyone else can go. and that includes Blalock and Big Tex-spar-a. don't give those guys big bucks.

there's always next century....

Arthur

Anonymous said...

Being a Sooner alumn, I am distraught at the possibility that this thing goes a lot further than has been revealed. I am hoping that this went only as far as the two boneheads that got kicked off, but I doubt it.

Anonymous said...

P1 Eric, it was reported that 20-25 OU players worked at Big Red in the last year before they changed ownership. This is also the same place that let Adrian Peterson "test drive" a Lexus for 8 weeks before returning it and not paying a dime(which of course OU said didn't constitute an 'extra benefit'). Rumor has it Wolfe's name(and your starting kicker's name) is coming up in the investigations a lot as well, though that's still unconfirmed. Big Red may just be the destruction of Stoops' tenure on campus when all is said and done. Hope you guys still have John Blake's number handy.

-JB

Anonymous said...

I think the last thing the NCAA wants to do is REALLY find out what is going on. If they did, there would be no more NCAA as we know it. Personally, I would love to see it, but anything with this kind of money behind it is likley corrupt to the core.

Anonymous said...

I always thought that Bomar always seemed like a pompous @sshole who thought the rules didn't apply to him.

Was I right or is there any way in the world he can spin this to be the victim?

Anonymous said...

" I assume you know that Troy and Rayfield were inducted over the weekend, right? Good. Because I don't have more time to post it."

Come on Bob, what's next? I assume you saw the Superbowl... Good, because I have some hockey to cover...

Anonymous said...

"Come on Bob, what's next? I assume you saw the Superbowl... Good, because I have some hockey to cover..."


Amen to that. F football. (forget)
Bring on hockey and basketball.

Stars preseason starts in 42 days!!!

Anonymous said...

Soccer talk, 100 degree days... what's next? A kick in the nuts?

Anonymous said...

I guess the NFL wasn't impressed.

Slay signed as a free agent with the Bears...

Anonymous said...

JB-

Where did you see it reported re: the 20-25 OU players worked at Big Red Auto?

Anonymous said...

Anon, it was posted on the Sooners board on scout.com. If work isn't busy today and I find a link to a specific source, I'll post it up here.

-JB

Anonymous said...

Yes Bob, but have you seen the promised land?

Anonymous said...

Antoine "stinkin" Walker and Jason "spare-me-to-death" Williams have an NBA title to thier name, and Dirk "irk,no d" and Mark "frankenstein" cuban are left to wonder why the Mavs folded faster than superman on laundry day in the finals. Now they went out and got more spares and a rookie,and tell us now this team will be back in the finals. How do they plan on everything being aligned just right, such as home court advantage, a bone headed foul by a spare argentinian, a tired MVP with out his best player, and home court advantage in the finals? If the Heat or Mavs dont win in 07, this means the Mavs got beat by a one year wonder in 06, and Avery will win a title, but it prolly wont be here in Dallas. Winning a west conf title is good, but that is not what they are aiming for. I think that monumental, history making meltdown does not bode well for the Mavs if they dont win it all in 07. If they dont win the title in 07, they probably never will.

Anonymous said...

"Everyone else can go. and that includes Blalock and Big Tex-spar-a. don't give those guys big bucks."

in what world is Teixiera a spare? Slow start to '06, yes. But a gold glove first baseman that will usually hit 40+ homers and is a good clubhouse guy? Retarded.

Unknown said...

voquez starting tonight? is this sign #1 the rangers are packing it in and calling it a season?

Anonymous said...

Yeah, Rick, but Tex can't take a good old fashioned divorce joke--and that's what really matters.

Anonymous said...

Well, I think Dan should revisit that subject with Tex, now that he's been married for a while. He's probably changed his mind, like everyone else who's tied the knot. If he were single, he'd be knocking the bottom out of every above-mediocre piece of tail in the Metroplex.

Anonymous said...

"Maybe he doesn't want a divorce."
"Everybody wants a divorce."
Danny Balis and Corby Davidson, 2002

Anonymous said...

in what world is Teixiera a spare? Slow start to '06, yes. But a gold glove first baseman that will usually hit 40+ homers and is a good clubhouse guy? Retarded.

before this year, i always had a feeling that he was a fraud. when he was hitting all those homers i just had a feeling that he would do just enough to get the Rangers to sink a bunch of cash in him, then he'd flame out. now this year his isn't hitting for sh**. slow start? IT'S FREAKING AUGUST!!!! i guar-on-T, he was some type of 'roider. don't like the guy. never have and never will.

Arthur

Anonymous said...

one last thing. Tex is more Ben Greive than he is Jim Thome.

Art.............