Happy Anniversary

Today marks the one-year anniversary of Running The Point — formerly known as Dan's Ramblings. It's been a great experience to write (almost) everyday here and voice my opinions no matter how smart, dumb, funny or irrational they have been. The start up of this site even helped get me a job at an award-winning daily newspaper's sports section. At least I like to think that about this pet-project.

Since the beginning of this humble site there has been literal tons of subjects to write about. From scandals to amazing performances and even scandals within amazing performances (looking your way Patriots), a lot has piqued my interest daily.

If I had to narrow down my favourite stories since this site's inception, they'd probably be broken down something like this:

3. The Beckham-to-LA saga.
I know that it didn't play out like the MLS probably wanted since he didn't make the biggest impact that he probably could've, but reading stories everyday about the English midfielder and icon was always fun. It may not be have been as big or newsy as some of the other happenings this past year (see honourable mentions below) but this is my list.

2. The undefeated, cheating Patriots.
I knew going into the season that New England was going to be good. But this good? Undefeated good? No way. But more interesting to me than their undefeated season was Spygate and what followed it. If the Patriots — especially Belichick and Brady — not acted like complete assholes by running up the score of games in F U fashion, they might not be as hated as they are now. I still, to this moment, have no idea why such a good team would be reduced to cheating like that.

1. The rise (and brief fall) of Tony Romo.
Sure, it's a biased choice since I'm a huge Cowboys fan but how many people laughed in the pre-season of 2006 when Romo was outplaying Drew Bledsoe and the Cowboys' season looked doomed? Romo has came all the way from being an undrafted free agent signee out of East Illinois to a two-time pro bowler leading arguably the best team in the NFC. If not for his botched snap gaffe in Seattle last playoffs, who knows what could've happened.

Honourable mentions: Michael Vick's dogfighting scandal, Barry Bonds vs. everyone, the NHL's slide into obscurity, baseball vs. steroids, LeBron continually stepping it up and ruling the NBA.

As for the upcoming year, this site will continue to grow and expand in several ways. A redesign is coming soon to make RTP more appealing to the eyes than this bland blogspot template. Getting some more out of the extremely lazy intern would also be nice and yes, he still does want to write apparently. Also, some more all-around improvements will come over time; perhaps even my writing will get better. There is still a lot to come here and sports never stop so neither will my writing.

And, of course, I'd be remiss to not give a big thank you to all of RTP's readers and fans for their support.

A few quick thoughts

Honestly, I’ve been busy preparing an NBA training camp preview for the paper I work for so today’s post is just a few quick hits. But never you worry, tomorrow should be the NFL picks for week three.

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has left the team after a disappointingly average start. Mourinho had been butting heads with team owner / alleged Russian mob boss Roman Abramovich. Should Mourinho wind up dead in an alley sometime soon, we may be able to remove that “alleged” for Abramovich’s title.

My boys, Blackburn have gotten off to a great start and are one of three teams that are yet to lose a game in the premiership. The other two are Arsenal and Liverpool, which are two of the “big four” in England. It’s not like the Rovers have had an easy schedule either, they’ve recently tied Chelsea 0-0 and defeated Manchester City, who are currently second in the standings.

The new jerseys in the NHL look awful. Just when I was running out of reasons to dislike this shoddily run league, they allow teams to roll out uniforms that are fit for practices at best. Toronto’s jerseys look especially pajama-like; all because they removed the two white strips at the bottom of their shirts. Vancouver and Dallas have both put their city names in bland writing on the fronts of the jerseys which looks straight-up awful as well. This is a great start for the NHL’s 2007-08 season.

Can the Yankees catch the Red Sox for the AL East division title? Honestly, I don’t care. Both teams are pretty much in the playoffs as the east winner while second place takes the wild card. Detroit has looked awful against Cleveland this series and don’t deserve to make the post-season.

Soccer has returned!

And it’s not even the shoddy North American type. That’s right; the Premiership of England launched over the weekend much to my delight. Finally, there are more options than the MLS and U-18 stuff that have been going on since Man U captured the title last spring.

Week one had one shocker I managed to witness in spite of the fact all the games are broadcast at times that aren’t really conducive for those who stay up late (work related, trust me) on weekends.

The shocker I speak of is that Reading was able to keep the defending champs at bay and hold them to a nil-nil draw; at Old Trafford no less. Even more shocking was that Wayne Rooney, everyone’s favourite English soccer hooligan, will no doubt miss some time after falling and suffering a hairline fracture in his foot. It’s looking like this season won’t be too much of a cake walk for the Red army. At least with Carlos Tevez finally coming in, the blow of losing Rooney for nearly two months won’t be as painful.

Also, I could never fail to mention the fact that my boys of Blackburn defeated Middleborough 2-1 in a come-from-behind victory to be included in the massive tie at the top of the fixtures.

Let's celebrate!

Soccer fans have always been known to take celebrations up to the next level over all other sports fans, but this one is tragic. Yesterday, after Iraq beat South Korea 4-3 on penalty kicks to advance to the Asia Cup finals, fans took to the streets and did what they seemingly usually do in Baghdad: set off car bombs. 50 people were killed during the celebrations in the horrific event.

It should be needless to say that this sort of thing is senseless but everyone hears and says it every day it seems. Who would've thought that a time of happiness could turn around this quickly?

You could only imagine what would happen if the Iraqi side defeats Saudi Arabia (who surprisingly beat Japan to advance) for the Asian Cup. It might be an even happier and conversely an even more tragic day if "celebrations" like that keep up.

MLS Stunner

This will most likely go down as the second biggest story of the year in Major League Soccer and hardly anybody will know about it. Last night, the Toronto F.C., an expansion team who didn’t score a goal in their first four games, overcame the defending champion Houston Dynamo 1-0 in front of nearly 20.000 rain-soaked fans. While it may be one of the lower leagues in the soccer world and doesn’t have the visibility of the higher end North American leagues, it should be noted any time that an expansion team beats a defending champ, it’s going to be a news story. The Toronto Sun even went as far as running a photo on their cover from the game.

This won’t even come close to topping the Beckham saga in newsy-ness, but it goes to show that anything can happen in the world of sports.

Nomar’s a Papa

Nomar Garciaparra’s wife, Mia Hamm, delivered twins yesterday while Nomar was on a flight from spring training in Florida. Hamm is also a recognizable name in U.S. sports having played on the national soccer team prior to the pregnancy. One thing is for sure, Nomar isn’t going to get much sleep this season so try not to start him in your fantasy league if it’s a day game at home. But it shouldn't be much of a dilemma as he'll most likely be injured on top of that.

Beckham goes down!

Everyone in the MLS, every member of the Los Angeles Galaxy squad and every fan of soccer in North America will be disappointed by this turn of events. During Real Madrid’s game vs. Getafe on Sunday, Beckham injured a ligament in his knee and will miss some time. While it doesn’t appear to be too serious, it’s never an easy sight to watch your quarter-billion dollar man go down while playing for a different team. Reports are conflicting regarding the amount of time that Becks will miss with some saying a month, others saying two months and others going with indefinite. At least now he won’t have very much of an opportunity to injury himself and actually miss some MLS playing time.

Notes from the Soccer World

Zidane to Red Bulls?

Apparently, Zizuo himself was in attendance for a recent Knicks and even had a conversation with Knicks die-hard fan Spike Lee. This only throws fuel onto the fire that Zidane will come to play MLS ball in the near future. Could you even imagine what Zidane and Spike would talk about? I actually have no idea.

Beckham Playing?

Apparently Real Madrid is pretty hard up since they're now contemplating putting David Beckham back on their squad. After the announcement of Becks signing his mega-deal with Los Angeles, Madrid's manager decided to keep him off the pitch but still on the practice squad. I don't know about you, but every second Beckham's on the pitch for Real Madrid, I'm hoping that he doesn't do something stupid enough to hurt himself. The Galaxy, who invested hundreds of millions in him, will probably be turning blue from holding their breath.

Ecuadorian Bad Boy to NY?

It turns out the New York Red Bulls are also pursuing Ecuador's all-time leading scorer, Augustin Delgado. Apparently, Delgado also has a troubled past but does that really matter? After all, how much trouble could one guy get into in New York City? It's also not like the NYC media is that fierce either.

MLS News

Beckham!

I figured that it had been a while since I had wrote the name David Beckham in this blog so I thought he deserved a posting.

With the MLS schedule being announced yesterday, soccer fans in the U.S. finally know when David Beckham will suit up for the L.A. Galaxy. Fans in Toronto should be rejoicing as August 5, 2007 will mark the day that Becks debuts and it will be against their expansion franchise. He may not be the same player as he was back when he played for Manchester, but you can count me in for watching history in the making.

What does the F.C. stand for?

Most soccer fans know that the F.C. in Toronto F.C. means Football Club, but after hearing the team's coach Mo Johnston's comments, it could stand for something closer to Fiercely Crappy. Johnston has been put on record saying that the team looks like it isn't near the calibre of what a professional team should be at. While he spared the youngsters some wrath chalking their play up to inexperience, he didn't like the looks of the veterans at all. This may be a long season for soccer fans in Toronto.

More top players coming to the MLS: (! or ?)

The New York Red Bulls have signed Manchester City cast-off and American national Claudio Reyna. This move should help but it won't make up for the departure of phenom Freddy Adu as well as losing out on David Beckham to the Los Angeles Galaxy. The bigger news is that the Chicago Fire is courting all-world head-butter Zinedine Zidane. Whether they can land him or not is debatable as the French mid-fielder retired from soccer after the World Cup. If they can land Zizou, it would be another huge (past-his-peak) star coming over the league and another huge draw soccer fans in North America.

I Can't Help It That Beckham's Always In The News

What was lost in the hub-bub of the size of David Beckham's contract and the fact that he's coming to play in Los Angeles is that he and the L.A. Galaxy committed collusion. Since when has an athlete been able to sign a contract with a team while still being under contract with another team? I'm surprised this deal is legal. With months still on the Spanish league's schedule and Beckham's contract, there should have been no way that negotiations even took place.

In the least surprising turn of events of this Beckham saga, Real Madrid's manager has decided to bench Becks until his contract with the team ends. Real Madrid had no other choice than to do so. Beckham, if he's smart, wouldn't be playing all out when he's set to start his new contract a few months away. There's no reason for him to risk injury. Breaking his foot, tearing something in his knee or suffering a concussion would seriously affect his arrival and ability to play for his new team.

This news should make the L.A. Galaxy, MLS and North American soccer fans rejoice even more about his arrival. With his benching in Spain, an early arrival to the U.S. may be closer to spring than his previously stated July debut. That is, of course, if Real Madrid will consent to him doing so.

The Math Behind Beckham

While many will be distracted by the thrilling MLS SuperDraft today, the biggest news in the history of the league occurred yesterday when David Beckham signed with the Los Angeles Galaxy. What Beckham will do for the league may not be as much as people want, but having a name like Beckham on the pitch will draw more fans then just the soccer die-hards.

His five-year $250M deal will make him the highest paid player in sports but crunching the numbers is where the deal gets really interesting. With the MLS season being 30 games long of 90 minutes a piece, Beckham will earn $308 every second that he plays (or $18518 every minute). This is, of course, assuming that he plays every second of every game for the next 5 years and also discounting the amount of time he will spend in practice and off-field activities. If he should miss time, that per second goes up rather steeply.
I've got the feeling Becks is going to love L.A.