Sports Blog – December 2013

With 2013 winding to a close, it time to reflect on what has happened this past year in the world of sports and ask where did the time go?

http://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?p=top+baseball+plays+of+2013

As a Dodger fan, it was definitely a good year under the new ownership. We saw some amazing pitching by Kershaw and Greinke. Kershaw even won the Cy Young. There were great plays by several Dodger players, such as Adrian Gonzalez, Hanley Ramirez and Carl Crawford.

We also saw a rookie not only play well, but Yasiel Puig brought back excitement to the Dodger Stadium that the fans have not seen for several years. The Dodgers didn’t make it very far into the playoffs, but there is renewed hope for next year.

www.dodgers.com

Our local collages football teams also had a lot to offer us sports fans this past year. Without a NFL team in the Southern California both USC and UCLA get a awful lot of our support.

We found out what a difference a coach can make when dealing with a losing season, USC fires Lane Kiffin and turn the team over to an interim coach which turns the team completely around and leads the USC football to several wins.

However it was after the loss to UCLA that USC ended that coach’s rein and hire Steve Sarkisian from the Washington Huskies as the new coach for the 2014 season.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/college/usc/la-sp-1203-plaschke-usc-20131203-11,0,6325781.column#axzz2n2OTSyKr

With UCLA taking the win from USC at the Coliseum, it was a upset, UCLA has not beat USC at the Coliseum in a very long time. It was also two years and two wins in a row for UCLA against USC and that hasn’t happened for a long time either.

And although either UCLA or USC made it to any of the BCS Bowls, they will still play in a bowl game. It will be Stanford, with its win over Arizona, and won the Pac-12 title that will play Michigan at the Rose Bowl January 1. This was the second year in a row for the Stanford Trees.

http://espn.go.com/college-football/bowls

We also saw lots of controversy in a lot of different sports. Baseball, NFL Football, hockey, basketball and even collage sports were not spare from making headlines for all the wrong reasons. Hopefully next year will be a better year for sports, with players not resorting to drugs and violence to solve their problems.

What to expect in the early part of 2014

But there are secretworldchronicle.com cialis 5mg generika also ways you can naturally boost your chances of overcoming ED such as exercise. But these inhibitors do not function in everyone, leading to the formation of stones in them. cialis 20mg price It is important for your Physiotherapist to establish a right diagnosis early so that the accurate treatment can start timely. wholesale viagra online It is very important to learn cialis sales canada driving before putting your car on road. For start you have on Jan 25, the LA Kings take on the Anaheim Ducks for an outdoor ice hockey game at the Dodger Stadium.

http://wapc.mlb.com/cutfour/2013/12/04/64380292/the-dodgers-took-over-the-kings-on-tuesday-night

The NFL playoffs start with ‘wild card weekend’ January 4 and 5. The Divisional Playoffs are scheduled for January 11 and 12th. The Conference Championships games will be played January 19 with the winners going on to play in the ‘Super Bowl’.

The XLVIII Super Bowl is returning to New York as the NFL stages its first cold-weather Super Bowl in an open-air stadium on February 2, 2014. They are even preparing for the chance that the Super Bowl might become the ‘Snow Bowl’ of 2014.

http://www.nfl.com/superbowl/48

The city of Sochi in Russia will hold the XXII Olympic Winter Games in 2014 and the games start February 7, 2014.

http://www.olympic.org/sochi-2014-winter-olympics

Dodgers play their first pre-season game February 21, 2014 against the D-Backs

Angels play their first pre-season game February 28, 2014 against the Clubs
www.mlb.com.

All in all if 2013 was not your teams best year, or even a break-even year, the best part of the starting a new year is that we get to toss out the old and ring in the new year with all the excitement and anticipation that comes with starting anew.

Sports for Dummies would like to wish you and your Family ‘ Happy Holidays, Season Greetings and Happy New’.

Sportstalk4Dummies.com

Passing of the Torch In the World of Sports

 
It happens in every aspect of life ‘What goes up comes down’ ‘In today –Out Tomorrow’ and it is really apparent when the ‘Passing of the Torch’ happens in the world of sports.

It happened when the Anaheim Ducks won the Stanley Cup in 2007 and the Los Angeles Kings were on the down and out. The kings have since managed to retake the throne winning the Stanley Cup in 2012, but how long will it last. This season the Ducks are once again leading the way. score.espn.com

It also showed up with the Anaheim Angels winning the World Series in 2002 something that has alluded the LA Dodgers since 1988. The Dodgers have not been able to regain their top spot in Southern California for many, many years. Dodger fans are hopeful that with this year’s new ownership, things will change, but so far, it has been less than a good start for them. sportsillustrated

Now we get to the biggest ‘pasting of the torch’ that has occurred in recent sports history, and that my fellow sports fan is what has happened to the Lakers.

The mighty have fallen, so to speak, many claim that the team is just old and need new and younger players, but who knows?

However, whatever the reasons, The Clippers, which has always been ‘the other team’, the bride-maid, never the bride, the team that late night comedians poked fun at, have de-throned the Lakers this year. Have stepped into the lime-light. Clippers

The Clippers weren’t always the Los Angeles Clippers, in fact, from 1970 to 1978 they were known as the Buffalo Braves. Then in 1978 the team moved to San Diego and changed their name to the Clippers. Clipper History

In the team’s first season in San Diego, it posted a record of 43–39 under new head coach Gene Shue, leaving them two wins shy of the final playoff spot. It would be the Clippers’ last winning season for 13 years.
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The 1981–82 season brought changes to the franchise as Irv Levin sold the team to Los Angeles-area real estate developer and attorney Donald Sterling for US $12.5 million. The Clippers’ poor play in the final years in San Diego resulted in averaging only 4,500 fans a game. Sterling lobbied the NBA to relocate the team to his native Los Angeles. Which they did in 1984, and once again changing their name to ‘The Los Angeles Clippers. They played their home games at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.

It wasn’t until 1992 when they added several players and a new the coach that the franchise had its first winning season in 13 years.

But, once again the Clippers were on the move, only this time is was a short hop from LA County to Orange County and from 1994 to 1998, the Clippers called the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim, their home, sharing the venue with the NHL’s Mighty Anaheim Ducks.

However, in 1999, the Clippers joined the Lakers and Los Angeles Kings in the new Staples Center in Downtown Los Angeles. This final movie did improve their fan attendance, but it also placed them face to face with fighting the highly-popular Lakers for the LA fan base and the Clippers, with relatively low success, have always being overshadowed by the Lakers until this year.

Congrats to the Los Angeles Clippers for finally winning their division.

 
Diana Olmos
Sports4Dummies.com

WHAT IS ‘MARCH MADNESS’?

What is it about men’s college basketball? Especially the NIT (National Invitation Tournament) and the NCAA (National Collegiae Athletic Association) tournaments.

We spend hours agonizing over what schools to pick, do we go for the long shot or pick the favorites. Some fans will use the school mascots as the deciding factor. What school’s mascot will win over the other school’s mascots? There are still others that will simply flip a coin, but no matter how it gets done, it seems that everyone had their bracket.

It starts with smaller tournaments all over the United States, each division only able to send it best college teams to the tournament. It all comes down to only 68 teams competing over a matter of just a few weeks starting in March, hence the term ‘March Madness’ and it doesn’t end until there is just one team left standing.

The winning college teams enter the NCAA tournament; the college teams that are the runners up enter the NIT tournament as their consolation prize. But it’s the NCAA tournament that will have people glued to their TV, radios and their computers.

Well over 3 million people signed on to ESPN’s March Madness to filled out their brackets, with many more just doing it for fun and not using ESPN at all. If you are not a basketball fan it would hard for you to imagine what all the fuss is about.

I joined in on the fun and picked most of the favorites to win and before the end of the tournament even got close, most of my brackets were a complete bust. However, while it lasted I was glued to the TV, watching and holding my breath as my teams either won or lost, enjoying every minute of it.

It wasn’t always like this, long before the idea of March Madness, there was still college basketball. I can remember watching college basketball long before the notion of bracketing was even born. In fact, I am not sure when the idea of using bracketology sprung up. It probably has something to do with our ‘social media’. Even the President of the United States filled out his bracket. http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/03/20/president-obamas-bracket-2013-ncaa-mens-basketball-tournament.

All I know is that I was a UCLA fan back when John Wooden was their coach www.coachwooden.com and I am still a fan, although I do have a little to less to cheer about this past year and the year before that. I am hopeful that with the hiring of a new coach, he will be able to get past the first round in next year’s tournament http://www.presstelegram.com/sports/ci_22925919/ucla-introduces-new-bruins-basketball-coach-steve-alford?source=rss

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But with the invention of the brackets, college basketball might be the new great American past time at least during March Madness. There has been quite a bit of news regarding the loss of production in the work force do to this madness for college basketball. Some employers have tried to embraced it and use it as a means to improve moral in the workplace, others just see it as a waste of time, their time and their time is money.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Sports/2012/0313/NCAA-Tournament-2012-means-distracted-workers.-What-s-an-employer-to-do

http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/2170-march-madness-work.html

I see no end to this phenomenon known as ‘march madness, as long as everyone loves a winner and these games are set at such a fast pace, what’s not to love. TV sponsors know this and have adjusted the showing of ‘March Madness’ to guarantee a large viewing audience. No longer does March Madness actually end in March but closer to mid-April, ensuring the games are mostly played over weekends thus a larger audience.

I have tossed out this year’s brackets and have shifted my sports interest back to baseball and regular
basketball. It was fun while it lasted and although I personal did not do well this year with my choices, I can’t wait until next year.

Diana Olmos
SportsTalk4Dummies.com