Rival watch

  • Please bear with us on the new site integration and fixing any known bugs over the coming days. If you can not log in please try resetting your password and check your spam box. If you have tried these steps and are still struggling email [email protected] with your username/registered email address
  • Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!
As I meant to say above,i love Baseball,used to play for Croydon Blue-jays,and i also like NFL,my team is Washington Redskins
 
Last edited:
*Do not enter into discussions about political correctness. It tends to rile people, including yourself*
I don't think I've ever watched a game of Baseball, just literally seen highlights every now and then on the news/ internet. Must get round to watching one, the speed those guys throw and bat is phenomenal.

The only sport outside of football I watch consistently is MMA, I probably watch MMA more than football come to think of it, mainly the UFC but I also keep up with Bellator and WSOF (occasionally watch the odd Invicta and BAMMA event but that's a rarity). I'd recommend to anyone who likes a bit of combat sports to watch it, especially the UFC which is basically the Premier League of MMA. The training these guys go through is incredible, with most training a minimum of twice a day (usually between 2-4 hour intervals) with many of the top, top fighters training three times, all in various styles of martial arts (predominantly boxing/ kick boxing, Muay Thai, Wrestling and Jiu-Jitsu), with strength and conditioning plus fitness regimes added to the mix. I went to the UFC event held in London at the O2 last March, was a fantastic experience and I'm hoping to go to the recently announced Glasgow and Krakow events, if prices are within my budget.

The highlight of going to a game may be watching the players warm up, when you keep thinking: I cannot believe these guys can hit the ball that far, and throw it that far and that fast. A major league pop up is well named. It goes farther up off a bat than you would have thought possible.

I find NFL quarterbacks terrifically unimpressive by comparison. I was on the Steelers field and found I could throw a football nearly 60 yards. (I have a mild knack for it.) NFL quarterbacks can throw it seventy or a bit more but that’s not such a big difference.

MMA fighters’ fitness is really impressive, as are their skills, not to mention the guts it must take to face someone with the ability to hurt you in so many different ways.

But I grew up as a boxing fan, and love the poetry in motion of the very best boxers: Marquez, Mayweather, Duran, Hagler, Leonard. Even the best MMA fighters don’t have that, to me, though I can’t say I’ve seen enough of them to be sure.
 
Another abysmal half of refereeing by Oliver. I can't understand the Costa penalty decision at all, even Skrtel's only defence is pointing to the ball to pretend he got it yet Oliver still gives a goalkick!
 
Poor marking by Balotelli for the Chelsea goal. Now there's a surprise. Liverpool still need the goal they needed all game,

And now Hernderson squanders another great chance. Liverpool would be a much better team if they had a first rate finisher.

As has been observed.
 
What chance of costa get a retrospective ban for the stamp?
And how was Henderson not given a 2nd yellow for handball?

I'd say he has no chance of being banned. It was the same as Cahill's after he kicked Kane and no one batted an eyelid. This should be an issue that the referees association take seriously though, as they're just making stamps look accidental when they're entirely preventable and probably deliberate.

I don't see how Henderson's handball could've deserved a yellow, his arm was behind him and and I felt he was trying to move it away from the ball. Oliver still has been terrible though, total lack of consistency in the level of contact needed for a foul and I don't think anyone's the wiser as to what is deemed a booking in this match, he's let so many cynical fouls go.

So Chelsea against either us or Sheffield United then.
 
Oh what's that noise coming from the SW of London.Sounds like "Sheffield,Sheffield!" Well Chelsea will get to play them if Spurs don't match them for effort....and don't score.......unless.....can we keep them from scoring??????
 
I'm very glad you got through that okay, first of all. Having said that...

...a Phillies fan! My god. How on earth did you ever end up as a Phillies fan? I was born a theoretical Phillies fan, but both my brother and me ran screaming into the hills.

I was born in Carlisle, which is about 50 miles closer to Philadelphia than Pittsburgh*. My brother took a class trip to see a baseball game in Philadelphia and decided, in about the only non-conformist move of his life, to root for the visiting Chicago Cubs. When you move five times in seven years, as we did, there seems to be a natural tendency to root for the away team--since you're always "away" if you see what I mean. I remember watching a gridiron game between two US army divisions in Munich, and asking who the visitors were, so I knew who to root for.

Anyway, for some reason the Cubs' allegiance stuck to my brother and to me. 106 years without a title and counting. I don't like the Phillies at all for a number of different strange reasons, but above all because the Phillies were similar to the Cubs in being big losers, but unlike the Cubs managed to win a World Series eventually. I also think Philadelphians are on average more unpleasant than the residents of any other place. They're famous for booing Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Still, you're certainly no glory hunter, I"ll give you that.

*It is in fact closer to both Baltimore and Washington than Philadelphia, but it was unthinkable to root for a southern team. Carlisle was the farthest town north occupied by Confederate troops, and anything below the Mason-Dixon line was still enemy territory, a century after the end of the Civil War.
I landed at New York airport one year with my Kentucky wife and got to watch several Phillie games.But the man who turned me was Pete Rose.The Dave Mackay of baseball.Trying all the time in every match and never gave up...and they refuse to put him in the Hall of Fame!....and that's my story......
 
And a good one it is. I hope you don't take my dislike of the Phillies seriously, because I don't have any serious reasons for it. Rose was banned from baseball for betting on games, though no one ever accused him of betting for, let along against, his own team. You could take it as either typical American holier-than-thou self-righteousness, or an unfortunate consequence of trying to slap up a needed firewall against the danger of fixed games. American sports will never forget the fixed baseball championship series of 1919.

The Cubs collapse in 1969 had something to do with their manager, Leo Durocher, a hero in the Jackie Robinson story, betting on his own team every day. He never rested anyone as a consequence, so the team burned out and blew a big lead in the division. Being the only team that played all its game in the day, in the summer heat, played a part as well.

The player for me was Ernie Banks, Mr. Cub, who died Sunday. There have been sports idols who have accomplished more, though not many. He may have been the best shortstop who ever played. There may not have been any who were held in higher regard by everyone over the course of their lives. I loved Kane throwing out the Cubs' opening pitch, by the way.

You must log in or register to see images


You must log in or register to see images
 
Last edited:
MMA fighters’ fitness is really impressive, as are their skills, not to mention the guts it must take to face someone with the ability to hurt you in so many different ways.

But I grew up as a boxing fan, and love the poetry in motion of the very best boxers: Marquez, Mayweather, Duran, Hagler, Leonard. Even the best MMA fighters don’t have that, to me, though I can’t say I’ve seen enough of them to be sure.

I really enjoy boxing too, admittedly not as much as MMA but I do love watching a lot of the "big fights" and also seeing our British lads go to war. I went to the Haye and Chisora fight at Upton Park a few years back and was hoping to go to the first Groves vs Froch fight but circumstances at the time made it difficult, my Cousin was a semi-pro boxer too, so went to all his events.

The names you mentioned are all superb fighters that anyone would enjoy watching even if not boxing fans. There probably isn't really a list of many MMA fighters to name like that yet, mainly because the sport has only been truly going for about 20 years (in terms of valid promotions, although arguably it could be dated back to ancient Greece) and it's only really been the last decade where it's gained a world wide audience so there's not been as much hype and acknowledgement as to what boxers had/ have. You could probably put Anderson Silva in a list of supreme MMA fighters, accompanied by Jon Jones and Georges St Pierre but then it would be really hard to add to that list just yet, especially as in MMA you rarely find people that can go unbeaten all career/ for a very long time.

I'll stop waffling now though, I can talk about MMA for days just like I can football but seeing as this is a football thread I'll keep it football from now on lol :D.
 
The Cubs collapse in 1969 had something to do with their manager, Leo Durocher, a hero in the Jackie Robinson story, betting on his own team every day. He never rested anyone as a consequence, so the team burned out and blew a big lead in the division. Being the only team that played all its game in the day, in the summer heat, played a part as well.
Why on earth would you need to rest baseball players. Not a game I know much about, but don't they spend hours sat on a bench or fielding in the same position, with the occasional burst of energy as they jog round after knocking the ball out of the park?
 
  • Like
Reactions: redwhiteandermblue
Why on earth would you need to rest baseball players. Not a game I know much about, but don't they spend hours sat on a bench or fielding in the same position, with the occasional burst of energy as they jog round after knocking the ball out of the park?

Pitchers would definitely need rest. Imagine throwing a ball at 90mph repeatedly. Even a perfect game would be 81 pitches (unless i'm bad at maths, or baseball).
Pitchers rarely last a whole game, i've never worked out whether bringing on a finishing pitcher is tactical or because the starter is too fatigued. My guess is the latter
 
Pitchers would definitely need rest. Imagine throwing a ball at 90mph repeatedly. Even a perfect game would be 81 pitches (unless i'm bad at maths, or baseball).
Pitchers rarely last a whole game, i've never worked out whether bringing on a finishing pitcher is tactical or because the starter is too fatigued. My guess is the latter

Like a fast bowler bowing 13.5 overs without a run up? Not too tiring...
 
  • Like
Reactions: No Kane No Gain
Like a fast bowler bowing 13.5 overs without a run up? Not too tiring...

If you say so. I used to bowl and i disagree.
A small drop in quality for a pitcher is much more detrimental that that of a bowler in cricket too. Its not as if they take the pitcher off after 7 innings with him unable to stand or throw at all, he's just not optimal, and a non-optimal pitcher gets hit out the park.
 
  • Like
Reactions: redwhiteandermblue
It's the crashing irony. I look at it that the US takes sport too seriously to trust it to the free market, whereas the rest of the world takes it too seriously to trust it to societal control.

Incidentally, I said the NFL, not the NHL, but even the latter mollycoddles losers and weaklings far more than real football would dream of.


.

I meant to say NFL <doh>

This is what NHL means to me
You must log in or register to see media
 
  • Like
Reactions: redwhiteandermblue
And how was Henderson not given a 2nd yellow for handball?
Because Handball is not a yellow card offence unless it is 'unsporting behaviour' and Henderson didn't do it to gain possession or break up an attack. I wasn't even sure it was worth a free-kick as it wasn't clear it was 'deliberate'. Similarly Lucas's trip on Hazard (?). Just a foul not a yellow card.