You know what’s more annoying than an opposing fan who won’t shut up?  An opposing fan who still won’t shut up when his team is losing.  Duncan Keith took care of this idiot for us, but what about the rest of them?

h/t: MPS

We give a lot of crap to Philly fans; getting after them for their willingness to boo McNabb, likely their own children, and Santa, or their affinity for battery tossing and other general assbaggery.  Most All of that is well deserved and it’s even good form to make fun of their 10,000 losses.  On Wednesday night, however, Philly fans came through with a resounding victory the way they know best: booing the hell out of something. 

Obviously, as a member of the Ernie Johnson fan club I wouldn’t applaud a berating of the best on air talent in the business.  This was aimed directly at TBS.  Despite the network being owned by Mr. Turner of Atlanta Braves allegiance, I’m going to go with the idea that the people of Philly were booing the atrocious coverage TBS has provided throughout the playoffs and for the NLCS. 

The MLB playoffs have drawn terrible ratings this year and while the product may not be what it once was, you can’t convince me that TBS didn’t hurt MLB’s cause.  No one is thinking of TBS when they’re looking for a game.  TBS is the home of countless My Name is Earl reruns once the Friends and Seinfeld (God bless em) marathons are over.

For all their shortcomings, I’ve really come around to the idea that every major sporting event should be covered by ESPN.  Sure, the hype train blows its whistle twice as loud when something is on ESPN/ABC–look at all the athletes on Dancing With the Stars!…next on SC, Brett Favre takes out garbage–but they put together the best broadcast by far. 

In no way should this be an endorsement of Joe Morgan calling baseball games, or talking.  Seriously though, die TBS and well done Philadelphia. 

h/t: Awful Announcing

One thing we know about Canada is they love to drink up there.  Well for a little while they won’t be enjoying any Molson Canadians at Blue Jay games, due to some crazy fan antics at various events. 

First Drew Carey, owner of the MLS team in Seattle, got a beer dumped on him as his team was beating Toronto FC.  Canadians have been watching too many Phillies games apparently.  Then Monday night while the Blue Jays were dismantling the Tigers, fans thought it would be a good idea to throw a couple of baseballs at Tigers left-fielder Josh Anderson.  Then all kinds of debris started coming from the stands and the players were pulled off the field for about 10 minutes.  Jim Leyland had the quote of the night:

 ”Ice-cold Labatts and a big win for the Blue Jays — they were having a great time,” Detroit manager Jim Leyland said.

In response to this chicanery, Toronto has banned alcohol sales at sporting events for a while.  This is sure to do no good, since we know fans will just put down a few cases of beer before the game and then there’s that one speakeasy out in right-center where you can get a hollowed-out bat with whiskey or Labatts inside.

Have you ever said something like “My heart stopped during that play,” or “I’m going to have a heart attack if Tyrus shoots another jumper”?  I know I have.  Well maybe we should stop making those jokes, since a recent report just came out that shows fans can suffer severe heart conditions:

Researchers have found that overall and circulatory death rates in Los Angeles rose significantly after a crushing defeat for the Rams in the 1980 Super Bowl. Four years later, deaths declined after the city’s other team — the Raiders — triumphed in the U.S. football championship game.

“The emotional stress of loss and/or the intensity of a game played in a high profile rivalry such as the Super Bowl can trigger total and cardiovascular deaths,” said Dr. Robert Kloner, a professor of medicine at the University of Southern California, who presented the study at the American College of Cardiology scientific meeting in Orlando.

As Blog Down points out, heart-related deaths rose sharply in Buffalo from 1990 to 1993.

When the Bulls are at home playing in the United Center, fans who attend the game have an opportunity to win a Big Mac.  If the Bulls score 100 points and win the game, fans can take their ticket stubs to McDonalds and redeem them for the delicious sandwich.  I think it’s a fun promotion and anyone who has been to a game where the Bulls score 100 and win knows it’s fun to cheer for.

Well apparently not everyone thinks its fun.  After Tuesday night’s fiasco involving Kirk Hinrich, many people are outraged at fans, the Bulls and even the players for this “poorly thought out” promotion.  The Bulls were sitting on 99, but they were up by double digits with a few seconds to go.  Kirk missed the free throw and the fans booed him so hard he felt the need to apologize to them at the post-game press conference.

Basically the argument goes one of two ways.  The first is that the fans are just ignorant and classless because they cheer or boo louder for a Big Mac then they do the entire game.  The second  argument is that management’s greed has led to the “Love it Live” campaign, which is clearly geared at broadening the fan base to people who are less interested in basketball and more interested in seeing halftime shows and Dunkin Donuts races.

My response: Who cares?  It’s a Big Mac!  Let people cheer for the opportunity to win one.  This is the same garbage argument I hear at Cubs games.  People say “Oh fans just go to Wrigley to have fun and be in the sun, they don’t care about the game.”  I respond to this the same way I would respond to that: Of course there’s a few people like that but let them have fun!  It also doesn’t mean there aren’t real fans just because a few people pay more attention to winning a Big Mac than watching the Bulls stumble through another game.

So if the Bulls are sitting on 99 with the final seconds ticking away, cheer for your 100 points!  It doesn’t make you classless or ignorant, it just means you want a Big Mac.  Mmmmm, a Big Mac…I haven’t had one of those in years.  Sounds delicious.

I found this a few weeks ago and stared at it for about 15 minutes.  A few things jumped out at me as a little off, but overall this map makes sense:

I’m not sure how many Rangers fans there are in Oklahoma and shouldn’t there be some Cubs parts down in Arizona?  Also, I haven’t met a whole lot of Cubs fans from/in Ohio, but if Nike says so.