Jon Marthaler makes every Saturday even more pleasurable with links for some leisurely weekend reading. Other times, you can find him here and here.
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Happy Saturday, folks, and I have to ask: what was YOUR favorite moment of the Brett Favre honeymoon?
Of course, that's not true. Everyone still loves #4. Never mind that Favre threw four passes last night, two of which missed open receivers, one of which failed to land within ten yards of any possible target, and one which was complete but fired into double coverage. The QB still received nothing but a verbal tongue-bath from the chuckleheads in the Vikings commentary booth; Mike Mayock kept saying, "You know, I'm fine with that!" even after Favre failed to do literally anything positive. This is your likely preview of the new Vikings era: failure, followed by inane, inexplicable love from the media.
Not that I'm feeling pessimistic or anything. But that's not why you called. And so: links!
*Smart Football's Chris Brown has plenty to say about sportswriting and the death of the 800-word column. Well said, sir.
*Remember the story of Jericho Scott, the nine-year-old kid who was kicked off his summer baseball team for being "too good"? Deadspin's Craig Fehrman, instead of just reading and reacting like so many columnists (see previous link), actually went out and did some reporting -- and found out what was really going on.
*Speaking of good links from Deadspin: Tommy Craggs points out the hypocrisy of those who are up in arms about Michael Vick -- this, in a sport that chews up and spits out human beings. (I try not to think about this, myself.)
*And finally: Cricket news! Since today is the third day of the fifth Ashes test, I.... hang on, I'm being told that nobody's still reading this sentence because they've all either skipped ahead or fallen asleep. Drat. Anyway, apparently Broward County in Florida built a shiny-brand-new cricket ground, which is nice except nobody ever uses it for anything. You'd think the builders of a cricket ground in America would have seen this coming, wouldn't you?
That'll do it for me. I'm off to try to live in a world where Tarvaris Jackson has just notably outplayed my favorite football team's starting quarterback! Also, I'm making the trek to TCF Bank Stadium today, and I don't think I'm overstating things when I say that this could be the most important event in the history of the world.
