Poll of the Day > Sports Discussion Topic #178: Simon Belmont Stakes

(+) Yeah! (+)

I can respect the Warriors because they're a group of unselfish guys who play perfectly together as a team. That's something I'm not sure any other collection of superstars will be able to accomplish on that high of a level.

That said, basketball is going to continue to be boring for years, since there's one amazing team that's obviously going to win and a handful of other teams that might be fun to watch if you're a fan of one of them. Too bad for everyone else.

I'm seeing a ton of salty fans in the ESPN comments

"I hope their plane crashes"

"I'm going to Oracle with some C4"
^ That guy is probably being monitored now so good for him

Basically no one offered Boogie any better so I'm not gonna be mad at him for doing what's best for him. I'm putting the blame on the Pels for the time being.
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Free agency barely started. There has to be a team out there that would have (or already did) offer more than $5 million. Perhaps more likely is that nobody wanted to commit more than a year, and in a "prove it" year coming off an injury I guess it makes sense to hitch a ride to a free ring. Win now, get paid later.

I mean, barely anyone wanted him from SAC a few years back. Knowing he's a net-negative locker room presence and he's coming off an injury that typically doesn't bode well for NBA players, I doubt there were more than a handful of teams that would give him what he wants. NO certainly offered him more than 5 mil but it was so little that he didn't even consider it a serious offer. Considering how dedicated he was to Sacramento and they still burned him with the trade, I'm not shocked he left before another team could burn him as bad. Now there's no pressure on him to come back early and help a team get a good playoff seeding since GS will be #1 with or without him. He gets to rehab, still make some money and maybe prove himself in the late season/playoffs.

Zach Lowe illuminates a lot about the situation and he's one of the most trustworthy NBA writers out there.
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/23979341/zach-lowe-demarcus-cousins-golden-state-warriors-nba
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Turning to baseball... there are four teams in the AL on pace to win over 100 games, what the fuck! I know that won't actually happen but it's crazy. I don't know how the Mariners have such a good record.

As of now there's pretty much no competition for playoff spots in the AL. The West and East titles are up for grabs but whoever gets second in those divisions has a huge lead on the WC spots. Obviously the Indians will easily win the Central again

The M's are ridiculous so far. But their run differential is only slightly above average, so they'll probably play closer to .500 going forward. Still, they've already won 54 games, so even if they played exactly .500 going forward they'd still be over 90 wins and an easy WC spot. Unless the A's or Rays (or Angels, har har) make a push. It would be classic Mariners to somehow lsoe that spot to the A's.

It seems the Mariners are always kind of decent/in the hunt for the first half of the season, then they predictably crash in the second half and easily miss the playoffs. But they have such a huge lead this time that they could just back into the playoffs even if they come back to earth, like you said. Then I'm pretty sure they have no chance in the WC game against the Sox or Yankees

The play in game is a coin toss but I 100% agree that they will lose that game

I will laugh for a decent amount of time when the Mariners miss the playoffs.

Mariners have something like 24 wins by one run, so they're getting pretty lucky so far.

Nolan Arenado has the NL WAR and home run lead oops I just jinxed him by saying this

Ultima_Dragoon posted...

Mariners have something like 24 wins by one run, so they're getting pretty lucky so far.

Yeah they're playing like the 2012 Orioles. (29-9 in one-run games)

Joe Saunders beating the Rangers in the WC game was the greatest moment

The player I remember most from that random 2012 O's squad was Nate McLouth. I don't even know if he was good for them, I just remember him in an Orioles uniform in the playoffs.

Of course, the main thing I remember about them was that playoff game where Raul Ibanez severely owned them. I wanna say he hit a game-tying homer in the 8th or 9th and then a walkoff in extra innings. Shit is crazy.

And speaking of extra innings, the Rays and Marlins played a 16 inning game in front of 6000 people last night.

Uh, now apparently it's come out that the Lakers could've had Cousins for a similar deal to what he got with Golden State

LOL imagine leaving Cleveland so you can go to a team that's just as dumb

It's July 4th and the Washington Nationals are below .500 after getting shut out at home today in their special america focused early game. Great job everyone!

This made me look up how the Cardinals are doing as well (I follow the standings basically I guess though I knew they were hovering around 3-4 games above .500) and at 43-41 I have come to the inescapable conclusion that they are once again going to handily miss the playoffs. They're not going to finish ahead of some six team combination of the Dodgers, Giants, Cubs, Brewers, Diamondbacks, Braves, Nationals, Rockies, and Phillies because folks, they just aren't good enough. They're probably better than one or two of those teams at this point and that's it. Kind of annoying. I've seen them win it all twice but the Matheny era has been a bit of a trainwreck despite multiple postseason appearances. With competent management they would have made the playoffs in 2016 at least and possibly last year as well, plus they'd have probably won 1-2 more championships at least. OH WELL!

The Rockies have climbed back up to .500 but unfortunately the top teams in the NL West aren't floating near .500 anymore like they were for a relatively lengthy portion of the early season. They'd probably still have a better shot at the division than a WC spot at this point since at least they can make up that ground directly, not that I think they will. But for the WC, the Phillies are already 9 games above .500 in the WC2; the Rockies last year who were better than this year's team got the spot finishing only 8 games over .500.

CaptainHammer posted...

It's July 4th

it's your birthday. We get it. Happy birthday @CaptainHammer @STLCards1991 @MamaOfCaptainHammerandSTLCards1991

Thank you. Good to know who my real online friends are.

Congrats on the birth

Thank you.

I'm gonna sound like a fussy old man on this one but I have to speak my truth: every year Joey Chestnut wins the hot dog thing, and every year sportswriters tweet about how the amount of hot dogs he eats is equivalent to like a 130 homer season or whatever. But it's not equivalent, because eating food is not a sport. And also, Joey Chestnut is too good at it and ruined whatever appeal it may have had in the past. At least we will always have that time Kobayashi puked into his hands and then ate it.

Thank you !!!

Best of birthdays to our twins, Brian and Kevin!
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Yes yes, happy happy birthday birthday

Thank you fellas. Anybody doing anything tonight? We celebrated last night so I don't feel like a loser for spending the day off just #gamin

Yeah, the hot dog contest is dumb. It was kind of interesting years ago when you first heard about it and might have been like "Wow, I didn't know somebody could eat so many hot dogs", but now it's like "Okay I get it these dudes eat insane amount of hot dogs." Plus it sounds totally unappealing to actually watch, and the same guy wins every time.

Being a competitive eater also sounds terrible. Are these people even able to eat like a normal person in their daily lives? Will they end up with some horrible gastrointestinal disorders?

I think they're pretty much training for it year round, so they probably go through periods where they're eating like crazy even though they're not in competition yet. But I don't know that for sure. It's so much work for absolutely no payoff. The only one regular people have even heard of is the hot dog contest, and the same guy wins every year, so everyone else is wasting their time.

Oh btw, I received Mario Tennis Aces from my mom for my birthday today so if any of you Switch owners have it and/or get it, we could play together. Also, my niece helped me open it and when she saw it she said "it's a kid movie!" Extremely roasted.

video games and taking care of some things. I'm also comforting my dog who is afraid of noise

STLCards1991 posted...

Also, my niece helped me open it and when she saw it she said "it's a kid movie!" Extremely roasted.

Damn!

Happy 8th Birthday to America's favorite sons, STLCards1991 and the artist formerly known as Squall7491

I was going to make a joke about how I forgot it was their birthday without the 7491 to remind me, but that would totally be opening myself up for jokes about using ten different gfaqs accounts

Thanks to the people who said happy birthday since I said thanks the first time. I can't believe how old I am on this site

Jfc Mario tennis is insanely fucking hard

damn I really wanna play Mario Tennis now

Also, this Jordan Hicks fellow throws pretty damn hard. He's gonna blow his arm out

There are too many goddamn games, I'm already falling behind on getting the stuff I want for Switch.

Right now I'm in that post-game blues where I just beat a game and don't know what to play next so I kind of just stare at/mentally browse through my collection and end up not chewsing anything

I know what you mean. I've done that for the last few games I've played, but then I just picked something and played it even though I wasn't really feeling it.

SpeeDLeemon posted...

damn I really wanna play Mario Tennis now

Also, this Jordan Hicks fellow throws pretty damn hard. He's gonna blow his arm out

I think for a while he was actually throwing too hard. He used to pretty much sit 103 but now he's dialed it back to 100 and he's been a thousand times better and more accurate

I love gaming, I do it constantly, but yes it's often hard to pick up the next game even though you know you'll like it. One of these days I will pop in Yakuza 6, and I know it'll be great, but it's been hard to muster the energy to start something that big.

Re: Mario Tennis, I played it last night and it's definitely a good game but not necessarily an essential addition to your collection. It's very short on modes and it seems like it might be kind of terribly unbalanced. I think it will be a game where most people play the same few characters, unfortunately. Koopa Troopa is ridiculously fast, Waluigi's horizontal coverage is obscene, etc. But that aside the underlying mechanics are very very well executed, and IF someone here was to buy it I would definitely play with them, but I just want you to know what you're getting into.

I could be playing my NES Classic I just bought, but eh, I don't really know that there's anything I want to play. I've already played the major classics like Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Mega Man and Castlevania, and then everything else seems like it's a tier or more below.

@SkynyrdRocker are you playing yours? Have you played much of these games before? I don't really know what your NES history is.

Final Fantasy!

FF1 is pretty meh imo. I'm sure it was a great game for its time, but it didn't age very well, unlike some of late ff games

I want to play that but RPGs especially take me a long time to work up the desire to play. I also just played one so I need at least one shorter game between.

MNTwins1991 posted...

FF1 is pretty meh imo. I'm sure it was a great game for its time, but it didn't age very well, unlike some of late ff games

It's still cool though because you get to make a party and pick classes and stuff.

Plus it has that weird secret tile sliding game that serves no purpose

I don't remember that... it's been a while.

FF5 has probably the best name for a villain ever... X-DEATH

Sin is pretty good too.

Not that it matters but FFI is pretty short IIRC. I'd say it's worth at least giving it a shot until you've defeated Garland which will be like half an hour or something, just to get a feel for it and to say that you've done it. You might like it or at least be intrigued enough to keep going because it's kind of odd.

Also Garland has the best villain quote. "I, Garland, will knock you all down!" Followed closely by FF4's Zeromus: "We are Zeromus! We Loathe all!"

Chewster posted...

I could be playing my NES Classic I just bought, but eh, I don't really know that there's anything I want to play. I've already played the major classics like Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Mega Man and Castlevania, and then everything else seems like it's a tier or more below.

@SkynyrdRocker are you playing yours? Have you played much of these games before? I don't really know what your NES history is.

I also just got one recently. I have played many of the games before and played a bit from each game now. Even though I've beaten several of these many times I find myself playing Punch-Out and Tecmo Bowl most since getting the classic.
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Also Kirby's Adventure is the only Kirby game I've played that is legitimately really good.