Celtics

I was a Celtics fan growing up and then spent many years not caring because the team was so bad for so many years.

I'm watching again. Obviously, Game 2 was a lot of fun.

However. In a courtside seat of the new Garden was a Laker fan wearing an AC Green jersey. This raises all sorts of questions.

-why AC Green (note: this individual did not appear to be AC Green)?
-was this the only AC Green jersey ever purchased?
-seriously, why AC Green? Are there any other famous players for the Lakers?
-AC Green last played for the Lakers in 2000. His "glory years" were in the late 80s. Was this jersey really purchased then?
-this fan had tens of thousands of dollars to spend on that seat. If you have that much cash, would you really be seen in a fifteen year old AC Green jersey?
-is there an age limit on men wearing basketball jerseys in public?

Mars

We have a spacecraft taking pictures on Mars.


If you don't think that's really cool, there's something wrong with you.

Preservatives

With my spaghetti tonight, I'm having Whole Foods All Natural Roasted Red Pepper pasta sauce. Why let the world know? Well, the lid says "Best before JUL/24/05". I guess it was in the back of my shelf and somehow has been passed over the last three years.

Now I don't expect any ill effects (it smells just like normal pasta sauce), if the paramedics need to figure out what it was the put me in the hospital, kindly direct them to the inside of my refrigerator, where I will keep the leftover sauce.


That is all.

I went for a run yesterday and I noticed that I was wearing Asics shoes, Nike socks, and Adidas shorts. Is that the success of branding, or is that the failure of branding? I dunno.


This is boring. I am so ready for Opening Day.

The Sports Doldrums

This is such a boring time of year for sports fans. Spring training is far away. The bowl games are done. I could theoretically care about the NBA, but why start paying attention before the playoffs?

Ranking systems

Ranking sports teams is inherently difficult. What is a ranking supposed to mean--the best team right now or the most deserving team over the course of a season?

The best way to rank teams is by playing a long season and declaring the winner to be the league champion. This is how it's done, for instance, in European soccer leagues. There are 20 teams in England, and they each play every other team for a 38 game season. Whoever finishes on top after the season is the champion. No playoffs, no Super Bowl; a team proves it's the best over the course of the season.

Baseball used to do this, before the playoffs were expanded. Now, mediocre teams routinely win the World Series while superior teams lose in the playoffs.

As I noted before, there's always lots of complaining about college football rankings. I don't think they're perfect, but given the nature of the system (120 competitors, each playing 12 games) they're pretty good.