The SaniTERRYum XIX:

The Blackhawks remain undefeated (in regulation) a quarter of the way through the NHL season and coming home from a ridiculously successful extended road trip. Tom Thibodeau and The Bulls continue to plug right along, anxiously awaiting the return of Número Uno. And here I am, about to talk to you about some motherfucking Rugby.

Fumbling through Saturday’s monotonous network programming, I stumbled upon some good old fashioned Rugby. On NBC, no less.

Am I crazy or is Rugby not only completely badass, but also waaaaay cooler than Football? Where I come from, Rugby doesn’t even exist. I’ve heard of this sport you speak of, but seeing it is a-whole-nother-thing

Are you feeling a little empty since the American football season ended? Need something to fill that void? Post Super Bowl blues gotcha down? Have a hankering for something familiarly similar yet maybe just for you? Might I suggest…Rugby?

Rugby’s like football on steroids and amphetamines if NFL players weren’t already on steroids and amphetamines. It’s like if football was one long, constant backwards lateral pass and what looks like a touchdown is worth 5 points. Where kickers look to posess a skill set beyond one precise motion. Where there are no pads. Where the ball is bigger and harder to handle. Where the halves are hella short. Where the plays are fast and furious and you mit find yourself in an organized scrum. Come to think of it, Rugby is nothing like football.

I never learned this on Flight Of The Conchords, but New Zealanders rule supreme in it. Awesome.

After taking in a full Saturday docket of Rugby, I still don’t completely understand the rules/scoring/much of it at all, but I do know this: it is fun as hell to watch.

SPORTS!

Yellow memories

The first time I saw the green fields at Hermosillo stadium is when the longing began. the camera from centerfield panned down from the upper bowl crowd down to the playing field and the visual was a backlit playing field full of yellow sun flare, evoking memories of a time long past.

Here I am, in a frozen city looking out at a gorgeous summer scene, my dreams incarnate on a 44″ screen.

Tantalizing, yet ultimately frustrating. We in the northern hemisphere aren’t there yet. Yellow dreams won’t become a reality for a few months.

Yet…

Out there
Beyond the gray frozen pavement
Far away from the winter winds that cut to the bone
Past the hibernating earth that is invisible to the eye
Beyond the bounds of this frozen city and her black and gray landscape that is entrenched in a fight Against the bitter February cold
Beyond all that
There is an idea forming.

Currently this idea is on the outer limits of the visible horizon
It resides in a landscape that we can only see in our memories and in our hearts
We squint to remember it currently, but it is there
It is tangible to our senses, and we will become acquainted with it once again.

Within our memories and our hearts, within the very soul is where this idea, this belief, this concept, this essence, lives.

It is out there, currently being honed on foreign soil, and soon the very fiber of this entity will be sown over the red encrusted earth of Arizona’s landscape.
The seed will also be spread over Florida’s soil and this idea, this belief, this thing
will grow.

The idea will become more concrete over time
Winter’s death will give way to the rebirth of spring
Gray will become green
For the young a dream will begin, continue, or be put on hold.
For the old, dreams will be extended or become extinguished.

For me

It’s another year of falling in love.

The SaniTERRYum XLVII: Super Bowl Edition

Super Bowl XLVII: A Tale of Two Fuses
The 49ers will be contenders for awhile, Ray Lewis can fuck right off, the power went out, and Beyonce killed it. Nutshell. Boom.

Anyone who knows me knows I love the city of San Francisco and all it has to offer, including their football 49ers, so watching yesterday’s game was painful in a few ways.

Cocktail of the game concocted courtesy of the bro-in-law consisted of Smirnoff Citrus, Arnold Palmer, and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, but no amount of delicious liquor can make me forget what a classless, mean jerk Ray Lewis truly is. Greatest Middle Linebacker to ever play the game or not, his persona and off the field shenanigans are questionable at best. But let’s talk about the game on the field before I get carried away here.

The game started questionably for the San Francisco 49ers, gaining 20 yards on a well-executed 1st down pass play, only to have it called back on an illegal formation penalty. From there, the Baltimore Ravens seized momentum and held onto it until the end of the first half and into the first blackout in Super Bowl history.

Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco made huge first half plays, extending would-be sacks into offensive opportunity and eluding would-be tacklers to give his receivers chances beyond belief to come back to badly thrown balls to make plays. Seriously though, has Joe Flacco EVER hit a receiver in stride? Ever? Colin Kaepernick, on the other hand, showed little to no resemblance to the quarterback we’ve grown to love over the last few weeks. He even managed to throw the first interception in San Francisco Super Bowl history, a feat that is quite frankly, astounding. The 49ers have played in a lot of Super Bowls, and to think that Joe Cool/Steve Young never threw a single INT blows my mind, albeit only slightly.

The second half’s start just brought more of the same gridiron shock and hash mark horror for the 49er faithful. Jacoby Jones took the half’s opening kickoff to the house for a Super Bowl record-tying 108 yards, clearly just as inspired by the Destiny’s Child reunion as the rest of us.

Then, the lights went out. Literally. No, seriously. A power outage knocked out the lights at The Superdome, resulting in a delay of over half an hour. And everyone rooting for San Fran hoped for a Mulligan. This being the Harbaugh’s Bro Bowl and all, here’s a thought: you ever play Tecmo Bowl (or any sports game, for that matter) and start losing badly, so you “accidentally” reset the system? That’s what Jim did to big brother John when the power went out. There’s my conspiracy theory, but it turned out to be for naught.

They might as well have gotten the desired restart though. The game played out as A Tale of Two Fuses, with San Francisco making a hell of a game out of it after all. But Flacco did what he does: throw the back shoulder pass, throw the jumpball, and watch his receivers make plays for him in clutch situations, something San Francisco’s wideouts have done all year but failed to do last night. Vernon Davis and Michael Crabtree usually haul in those on-the-money throws from Kaepernick, but they dropped balls and ended up strangely as non-factors. The Baltimore WRs have been coming up big for Flacco and the Ravens this entire postseason, and they’ve been the hottest team at the right time. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: the eventual champion in any sport is not always the best team in the league. Champions are crowned according to whose momentum swings favorably at the end of the season.

And of course, the Super Bowl wouldn’t be the Super Bowl without the commercials. And it wasn’t the greatest commercial crop in recent memory, but XLVII had some highlights:

The Volkswagen commercial with the dude from Minnesota who speaks with a Jamaican accent.

For the farmer in all of us: the Dodge commercial with Paul Harvey’s powerful testimonial from the 1978 FFA Convention. “God made a farmer.”

It felt as though the Ravens had XLVII wrapped up for the majority of the game. Then the clock ran out on the 49ers, and I was left with the weirdly unsettling feeling of accepting Ray Lewis and the Baltimore Ravens as Super Bowl Champions.

The story of Ray Lewis ends with him on top of the NFL and atop the topic of conversation for years to come, for both his play and his foul play.

That’s so Raven…

Recovery

Steve takes us through his first week of recovery as he works his way back into the ring.

Welp, this is interesting.

Weekend Roundup

The Blackhawks are off to the best start in franchise history – Nick Leddy scored an OT goal to push the Blackhawks to 6-0-0 with the 10-0-0 Maple Leafs firmly in sight. 

Bulls lose to the Wizards – The Bulls front court got eaten up in an ugly loss to the Wizards, who are suddenly hot after an atrocious start. They were of course Wall-less for the first half of the season, but the Wiz have managed to beat the Heat, the Bulls, and the Thunder. 

Oh, and everyone is still waiting for Derrick Rose.

Paul Konerko shaved his goatee – Please note that all beards are to be flown at half mast until the start of the season in remembrance of PK’s tremendous goatee. He looks so wrong without one.

I just can’t.

Dave Sappelt made some unfortunate comments on twitter – They’ve been deleted, but here’s the recap.

The Pro Bowl was on? – Some stuff happened and here’s a happy fun time article about it.

Go forth and attack the day:

Random Hits

Soon

Rooftop owners present their case, poorly – iBlogged about it, basically the “roofies” are crying that they should be able to maintain a business because they keep Wrigley popular. Poor case.

Focused Konerko promises no distractions – Doug Padilla did a nice little Konerko piece. Basically  PK is looking to be productive and is focused on not getting caught up in any of the peripheral stuff.

Blackhawks, kinda good? – Yeah, kinda good.

Hard to not feel good for Noah – Here’s his All Star nod acceptance speech.

And hey, since we’re on the subject, let’s remember where the legend of Noah planted it’s seeds.

Soon

The Derrick Rose recovery saga is becoming a daily drama, which is both tantalizing and agonizing.

On the one hand the increase in updates means that a return is soon, on the other it means that we’ll be watching for the white smoke every day for a few weeks now.

I’m excited about Derrick Rose making a return, not only for the entertainment value, but also because Rose feels like one of us.

He seems like a Chicagoan.

There’s one player about which I cannot be objective about, and that’s Poohdini.

Soon my friends.

Soon.

RIP Stan

Bless old baseball players.

Steve 1.0

I’ve known Steve for a long time now. We haven’t always spoken and there have been some rough periods, but I think all of that is a misunderstanding more than anything. I was wrong about Steve a lot because I didn’t really understand who he was as a person. When we were in grade school together I thought Steve was just an arrogant prick hell-bent on showing off. That’s not the case. Steve is a confident guy that is hell-bent on being the best. Steve has his layers, and it’s been great finding those layers and understanding who Steve is better.

This is Steve.

We love transformations as a culture. Our most recent obsession with weight loss and transforming ourselves underlies what I think is a universal insecurity about what we’ve become and how we can become better people.

Steve has shown me a mirror that is being held up across the nation.

Steven Villarreal is a Chicago based boxer that is trying to make it in multiple worlds. He had a job he wasn’t happy with so he got another one. He had a life he wasn’t happy with so he’s trying to change it. He’s got a dream that he wants to chase down so he’s going to chase it.

He wants to be a Golden Gloves champ. Steve is chasing Sonny Liston, Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, Tommy Hearns, Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson.

He’s willing to go through a lot to get there too.

Boxing isn’t a sport you play. Boxing is a sport you dedicate your life and body to. Boxing is about personal sacrifice and the determination to break through your own personal barriers to chase a dream.

That’s what Steve is doing, he’s becoming a boxer.

I remember what it looked like when Steve started, and he looks like a completely different person now. He was slower before, he had more bad bulk on him. Now he looks like a lean athlete, his training has intensified to a level that I couldn’t imagine before. He’s willingly getting his ass kicked to better himself.

And really, that’s what it’s all about.

Steve recently had a surgical procedure to help someone out that needed it. He doesn’t want to talk too much about it, but it’s delayed his clock by a year.

I know Steve now. This won’t keep him from it.

Steve’s going to compete, and he’s got me believing that he’ll win.

“God gives the toughest battles to his strongest warriors.”

Steve has a day job that can demand up to 60 hrs. of his week. He finds time to train on lunch breaks and his days off.

Steve started his training at LA Boxing. He’s moved to another facility.

At a certain point Steve’s training intensified to another level.

Steve had a procedure that helped someone out in need. It pushed his Golden Gloves clock back a year but he doesn’t regret it.

The day after surgery Steve entertained some guests at his house. They brought him a teddy bear, an Animaniacs DVD, and vitamin water.

Steve reads a get well card.