Sports, Sports, Sports

Ok ok, I know I missed two weeks. Things got busy, I’ve got some I’m working on to make it up.

This week though: sports week. I’m sure it won’t be the last one of these.

March Madness: Its been mad.

I don’t watch a lot of college basketball, or any basketball for that matter. That being said, how can you not love March Madness.

With the second ever 16-1 upset and 15 seed Princeton already making the Sweet Sixteen, this has been an epic year already. Not for my bracket however. I’m currently in the 15th percentile (that is very, very bad) and its not looking like I’ll be doing much better. 3 of my 4 Final Four teams are out already, and 6 of 8 Elite Eight teams. Couldn’t be much worse really.

The odds of having a perfect bracket are 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808. Thats 9 quintillion (is quintillion a word?). So its definitely not looking likely, but having the opposite of all my picks better than my actual picks is pretty pathetic.

World Baseball Classic

I’m a big baseball fan, but for some reason the WBC just never really excited me that much. Washed up pitchers, people not really playing that hard or caring, players playing for countries that they’re not from? Just wasn’t my jam.

This year however is a different story. Its been way more entertaining and enjoyable than the past few. Maybe its watching Mookie and Trout hit 1-2, or Ohtani throwing 102 in a packed Tokyo Dome, but its been a great tournament thus far.

Still not that enthralled with the pitching quality (especially from the US), but the hitters really seem to care and you can tell. Trout said this is the most fun he’s had playing baseball in a while (though that maybe says more about the Angles than the WBC) and Trea Turner said that his grand slam in the 8th inning of the quarterfinals game was the biggest hit of his career. High praise.

Still though, my favorite part has been watching how much the Japanese care about baseball. During the pool play game against Korea, there was a point in the game where 46% of Japanese households were streaming the game. 46%!!! That game (maybe obviously) was also the most watched TV event EVER in Japan. Kinda crazy.

For reference, the most watch World Series game ever had 54 million people watching it in 1980. Japan vs Korea last week? 63 million viewers. Pretty insane. With the Japanese rolling out all of their aces, they’re looking pretty unstoppable in winning this years tournament. We’ll see how it plays out though. I’m definitely a little bummed the finals won’t be in the Tokyo Dome.

With Trout vs Ohtani coming up in the finals this afternoon, USA vs Japan is gonna be an epic one. After watching the WBC, I can’t believe the Angels are so bad lol.

Hopefully for the next rendition of the WBC, not only will more players come out, but more countries as well so we can get proper group play, and maybe even a series format for the elimination stages. Single elimination feels wrong in baseball for some reason.

F1 is Back

Red Bull is fast. Thats it.

Not sure if they’ve been in touch with NASA or what, but that car is a bullet. Even the announcers said it looked like they were racing against F2 cars lol.

Still great to have something to watch on the weekends now, and hopefully some other team can find away to compete before the end of the season. At the very least, maybe Red Bull will have some inter-team drama or reliability issues to make it a little interesting…

Whats up with cars missing their grid boxes too? Kinda weird.

Premier League: Make it make sense

The biggest news of the Premier League in the past few weeks was Liverpool. They looked like prime Barcelona agains Man U two weeks ago, putting in one of the biggest lopsided victories you’ll ever see in the Prem at 7-0. Man U never really had a chance as the practically slept through the game. What a thrashing.

Of course Liverpool followed it up with a 1-0 loss to Bournemouth, but I guess you can’t win them all.

At the top, Arsenal has been looking stronger than ever. Man City has really been putting the pressure on as of late, but the gunners are looking strong outscoring their opponents by 12 goals in the last 5 games. The City Arsenal matchup later in the season may be the deciding game in who takes the championship this year.

At the bottom, there are nine teams within four points. You’d think at this point in the season, in 12th place you’re safe. Anything but. It should be an entertaining next few months as the table gets sorted all the way through.