Boo!

Happy Birthday to The Playmaker, who turns 9 today!

Ahhh, the good old days...

Stop screwing Our Son...

The Bucs won last night, 13-0, to improve to 8-0 on the season. (The defense gave up one first down the entire game.) The other team had severe play calling issues in the huddle (or they were trying to keep our offense off the field). As such, we only had 5 possessions the whole game. (Normally we are in the 6-8 range.) The Playmaker had one series at QB and was 1-2 passing. He completed a 10 yard down and out pass his friend Ben. He also had a touchdown catch called back on an A-B-S-O-L-U-T-E BULLSHEEET call by the ref. Playing QB, he took the shotgun snap and handed the ball off to the running back, who sprinted to the right sideline while The Playmaker sprinted to the left sideline. Then the RB stopped and threw the ball back all the way across the field to The Playmaker, who bolted down the sideline 30-plus-yards into the end zone. HOWEVER, the ref ruled the RB was "tackled" before he threw the ball. While our two assistants screamed bloody murder, The Head Ball Coach did the 30 second-arms-folded-Silent-Stare at the ref. Then we then decided to engage said ref in a conversation.

HBC: "What was the call?"

Ref: "Your running back was down before he threw the ball."

HBC: "Really?!? 'Cause that's not how it looked from here."

Ref: "I saw it all the way, coach."

HBC: "How's that possible when you were standing right next to us?"

Ref: "The player was down."

HBC: "Interesting. Whatever happened to, if the call is not clear cut, you reward the kid for making a good play and scoring? Isn't that what you do when dealing with 8-year olds?"

Ref: "Coach, the player was down."

(At that point, we lost it...)

HBC: "That's effing bullsheeet and you know it!"

After that we both walked away. But not before the ref gave us a 5 yard "unsportsmanlike behavior" penalty.

First time ever for that one. Classic.

Frigging A-hole...

Great job, Clifford...

Three and out...

1. Cliff Lee is a total douche bag! He openly admitted to cheering against the Phillies in this year's playoffs. Why?!? Because they traded him. Memo to Clifford: The Phillies traded you because three years of Roy Halladay was far superior to one year of you. And we will openly laugh when you sign with the Yankees even after they spit loogies on your wife.

2. The Heat suck on offense! Granted, we could only stomach the first quarter of their game last night. And granted D-Wade missed all of training camp. But their offense looked exactly like that of the ... wait for it ... Cleveland Cavaliers!!! Watch LeBron pound the rock into the ground and then launch a 19 footer that dents the rim. Awesome that after just one game the Pat Riley Watch has already begun.

3. The Bucs eked one out last night! We started off like gang-bangers. First two times on defense, we made picks. First two times on offense, we scored. And then to quote Old Friend Jim Mora: We sucked! We won, 12-6, making a goal line stand at the end of the game that ended with the ball inside the one yard line. The Playmaker had 4 catches for about 35 yards. The Bucs are now 7-0.

Gotta love the NY tabloids...

By the way, Eli's big night (along with Hakeem Nicks') got us a fantasy victory in our Play for Pride league.

We suck...

The Playmaker's Sister lost her field hockey game on Saturday, 3-0.

The Playmaker lost his soccer game on Saturday, 2-1.

The Phillies lost their series to the white trash Giants Saturday because Ryan Howard is, well, Ryan Howard.

The Oklahoma Sooners lost their top ranking Saturday.

The Eagles lost to the Titans on Sunday.

Oh, and we sat Darren McFadden, which means we are undoubtedly going to lose in our Play for Pay fantasy league. (That's what happens when the guy you sit gets 43 points.)

We even lost out on trying to Junior Seau ourselves. Before we could do so, we fell asleep (pissed off and with a throbbing head) on the couch at the un-godly hour of 2:30 AM Saturday night/Sunday morning.

Two days later, we are still pissed. And we still have a throbbing head.

Phillies 2 Giants 3

The Phillies suck. At least the offense does. We have a throbbing headache and we are now going to Junior Seau ourselves.

Thanks for reading the last few years.

Goodbye.

Hello, cliff.

Zzz...

Field hockey and soccer today. OU and Phillies tonight. Tired. Really tired. Do not disturb.

Phillies are GREAT, so are the Bucs...

It sure as hell wasn't pretty, but Our Phillies got back off the mat last night and successfully moved the series back to Philadelphia. They now have Roy Oswalt going in game 6. He's the guy who is 10-0 pitching in The Bank.

Not only did the Phillies win last night, Your Flag Football Bucs also won, 18-6. They are now a nifty 6-0 on the season. The Playmaker did a little bit of everything in the win. He had 4 catches (for about 70 yards), 1 touchdown catch and 1 interception on defense. His highlight moment came when he took a crossing pattern catch and jetted down the sideline while being doggedly pursued by a defender. Sensing he was about to be tackled on the two yard line, he held the ball out and dove into the end zone, hitting the pylon a la the guys on television. It promptly set off an eruption of parents and teammates in the end zone. Alas, the ref ruled he stepped out of bounds on the 3 yard line. Upon hearing this, The Head Ball Coach perhaps dropped the eff-bomb. (No big deal, however, as a different Buc scored on the very next play.)

Happy Friday and stay safe.

Phillies SUCK, Bucs do not...

We are pissed as sheeet about Our Phillies. They are offensively inept, and been so for two seasons now. Thank goodness Uncle Charlie heeded our texts and tweets and got Raul Ibanez the hell out of the lineup. The Other Stiff, Jimmy Rollins, stayed in the lineup and paid HUGE dividends. For the Giants. In the second inning he got picked off first. In the fourth, he struck out to end a four run inning. Then there was the 8th inning. Howard and Werth had just clubbed back to back doubles to tie the game at 5 with NO OUTS. Up to the plate stepped Rollins. Man on second, NO OUTS. Bunt the speedy Werth over to third? Nope. Advance the runner with a ball hit to the left side? Of course not. Those two things are what fundamentally sound teams (and players) do. Instead, A-Hole-J-Roll popped out. He frigging POPPED OUT.

Ugh. The series is over. Doc will take the mound and pitch very well tonight. No doubt about that. Unfortunately, Druggie Lincecum will pitch the Phillies into a drug induced hitting comma. Giants will win, 3-1.

ONTO to happier news...

Your Flag Football Bucs won this past Tuesday, 26-6. The Playmaker had 1 catch (for 12 yards), 1 tackle behind the line of scrimmage (on a run), 1 quarterback sack and 1 touchdown pass. (Oops, he also threw an interception.) The Bucs are now 5-0.

Just saying...

1. Raul Ibanez sucks! He sucks so much it is incomprehensible.

2. Jimmy Rollins is a PATHETIC hitter! The only thing worse than his hitting is the fact he never takes responsibility for his ineptness. It's always, "The pitcher made good pitches."

3. The chances of Buster Blanton getting the Phillies a win tonight are about 2 percent! No lie.

It's about how much Bironas you have...

You already know we lost (first time all season) in our Play for Pay league this week. In our other fantasy football league, we entered last night's Monday Night Football game between Jacksonville and Tennessee trailing by 10 points.

And then Rob Bironas nailed three field goals and three extra points.

We won, 110-108.

Nice.

Putting things in perspective...

The Fire lost (3-2) yet again, to bring their record to 1-5. Roy Halladay failed to pitch the Phillies to victory in game one of the NLCS. The white trash woman behind us at the Patriots - Ravens game couldn't complete a sentence without using the eff-bomb. And we lost our first game in our Play for Pay fantasy football league. Oh, and we have an early season cold.

Such was our weekend.

Thankfully, none of that matters or even bothers us.

We were wasting time yesterday before leaving to go tailgate and came across the chilling video of Rutgers defensive tackle Eric LeGrand. In the span of five seconds, he went from making a special teams tackle against Army to being paralyzed below the neck. Watch the video. It will put your "problems" in proper perspective. And then shut your mouth and stop bitching about stupid stuff. Go hug your wife and kids. Tell 'em you love them.

And say a prayer for Eric LeGrand.

The Sabbath...

And on the seventh day,

we successfully traded for Arian Foster.

Say it ain't so...

Game 1 Prediction: Giants 3 Phillies 0

8-Teen-2-Six...

Sometimes you have to be an A-hole as a coach. Even when dealing with 8-year olds. And so it came to pass last night.

Opening drive of the flag football game. Third play of the game and The Playmaker makes an interception to give us the ball on the Falcons 30 yard line. We immediately score.

Then the sheeet hit the fan.

We go for two and a kid drops a wide open pass in the end zone.

On the very next play, the defense allows a Falcon to run all the way down the sideline for a touchdown. Three Buc defenders have clean shots and fail to yank the flag. Three other Bucs stand and watch the kid run by.

Then the Falcons get the two point conversion because two Bucs were too lazy to make a play on the ball.

Now trailing 8-6, the Bucs march down the field before stalling with not one, but two drops in the end zone.

Mercifully, halftime arrives.

Our norm is to talk to the kids in the end zone in front of the parents. Last night, however, the Head Ball Coach announced, "Get your water bottle and get over to the soccer net." The soccer net is a good 30 yards away from the parents. Then for first time in memory, we tore into the kids. Each of the three coaches took a turn getting pissed.

Boys, it comes down to a total lack of effort!

We get the ball to start the second half. Still pissed, we decide to go for the jugular right away. We line up three kids wide (wide!) left. The Playmaker snaps the ball to the QB in the shotgun. We have one of our Big Guns lined up as a running back to the left of the QB. (Kind of in a pistol formation.) The three wide kids are all told to run down and outs. (As in, get the hell out of the way...) The QB takes the snap and hands to the running back, who proceeds to run a wide sweep toward the right sideline. The defense goes into attack mode and then the RB carries out the play to A-B-S-L-U-T-E perfection. He throws a prefect pass to The Playmaker who catches it and outruns the lone defender to the end zone some 30 yards away.

12-6, Bucs.

Cruise control the rest of the way. We don't allow a single first down. And just for kicks, we throw a TD to a kid who hasn't caught the ball all season.

Bucs 18 Falcons 6.

The ass-chewing worked.

Big Time.

For the game, The Playmaker had 1 interception, 3 catches for 60 yards and 1 touchdown.

The Future...

Craig Brackins

Big players make big plays in big games...

So there Your Flag Football Bucs were last night, all tied up 6-6 with five minutes left in the game. (The defense gave up it's first touchdown of the season on the opening drive of the game.) The Panthers had the ball on their own 20 yard line. The Head Ball Coach stepped into the Bucs huddle and said, "Someone needs to go get us a pick."

Little did we know it would happen on the very next play.

The Panthers tried a foolish little slip screen over the middle. The Playmaker jumped the route and made the pick (his second INT of the game). Bucs ball with about four minutes to play. We took our time in the huddle, burning time off the clock. Eventually it was third and goal from about the 8 yard line. We stepped back and let one of our assistants call the play. No dummy, he put split our two best players out wide on opposite sides of the field. He told each one to run hard to the middle of the field and then cut sharply to the respective corners of the end zone. The QB took the shotgun snap and dropped back.

The play ended with The Playmaker making the game winning touchdown catch in the end zone.

Bucs 12 Panthers 6.

For the game, The Playmaker had 2 interceptions, 5 catches (for about 50 yards) and 1 huge touchdown.

Thank goodness for the Jets defense (and Brett Favre)!

In our Play for Pay fantasy football league we had a huge showdown this past weekend. Undefeated at 4-0, we took on the second place (3-0-1) team. Entering last night's Monday Night Football tilt between the Jets and Vikings, we trailed by 5 points. We had the Jets defense in play, but our opposition had Adrian Peterson.

With under two minutes to play in the Jets-Vikings game, we still trailed by 5 points.

Brett Favre changed all that. By throwing an interception and allowing Dwight Lowery to return it for a touchdown, we picked up 6 big points.

So the Sons of Mike Schmidt won, 96-95, to remain a perfect 5-0.

Andrew 22, version *6.0 (*First one of these since New Year's Day)

This is the fifth edition of the column, which is a blatant rip-off of (1) Pat Forde's "40 Yard Dash" column that he pens during the college football season. (He also does a college basketball one, but it is his pigskin one that coaches, players and fans anxiously wait for each week.) Of course, our version comes with a twist. Instead of 40 things pertaining to college football (Forde's runs the gamut from coaches and players to cheerleaders and college bars), ours is 22 things pertaining to...well, whatever is on our mind at the time. As for the name of the column? It honors (2) Andrew Toney, the single greatest under-6'4"-offensive-threat in history of the NBA. Today we will tie up various (and numerous) loose ends, as well as detail a fascinating story of (3) The Mayor nearly getting kicked out of a youth soccer game. (Do tell. Do tell.)

We already talked about watching Roy Halladay's no hitter with our son. While listening to the (4) Tony Bruno Show (via a podcast) the next morning on the elliptical, we heard an absolutely classic joke.

Q: Who is the one Philly player to have more no-hit games than Doc Halladay?

A: (5) Asante Samuel of the Eagles. (Of course, the joke would have been just as funny if you substituted (6) Greg Dobbs' name.

You know about last Saturday's 1-zip loss in soccer for (7) The Fire. When we put (8) The Playmaker to bed that night, something downright awesome happened. As we were leaving his room (to go watch four hours of Saturday night college football, including highlights of Oklahoma's win over (9) texASS), he called us back into his room. "I have one more thing to say," he announced. We were fearful it was going to be something like an apology for allowing the game winning goal. Instead, he sat up and bed with a huge grin and ... wait for it ... flashed us the (10) upside down hook 'em horns sign. For the clueless, that's OU's way of saying Eff You! to loser texASS people.

Speaking of clueless, we will throw ourselves on that list, as we lasted a whopping total of one week in this year's (11) Brent Suicide Pool. We got knocked out last week when the (12)Bastard Colts decided to sheeet the bed at Jacksonville. Having watched the utterly mediocre Eagles go on the road absolutely pistol-whip the woeful Jags the week before, we were confident the Dolts would do the same. After those A-holes cost us the (12) Fantasy Football Championship last season by resting (13) Dallas Clark, we hate that team more than anything else trivial in our life. If (14) Bill Polian came to our front door, we would seriously (15) punch him in the face as hard as we humanly could.

Now on to the main course. For the first time all season, The Fire (16) won a soccer game. We rolled up on a team at home, by a 4-1 margin. Less than two minutes into the game, (17) The Head Ball Coach watched in horror as The Playmaker had a clear breakaway to the net. As he got about 12 feet from the goal, some punk from the other team blatantly tripped him from behind. We waited for ref to blow his whistle and give The Playmaker a penalty kick. We're still waiting. As the goalie scooped up the loose ball (hard to shoot on goal when an a-hole trips you) we (18) screamed as loud as we possibly could, "Where's the call?!?" (And we did so while striking the (19) Rick "Table for two" Pitino arms spread-out-wide pose.) Then the ref blew his whistle. He jogged over to us and said, "Coach, one more outburst like that and you'll be sitting in the parking lot." To that we responded (not so loud, but loud enough for him to hear), (20) "Do your job and make the call." He said nothing and jogged away. So that was one goal The Playmaker got robbed on. He came thisclose to two more goals on top of that. He pulled up from about 10 feet and rifled one, only to miss the net by about two inches. (Seriously, two.) Then, with about 3 minutes left in the game, there was a pile up in front of the net (such is life with 8 year olds, even on the travel team circuit), The Playmaker was down (as in knocked down) on the field when the ball trickled over to him. While remaining down, he attempted a shot with his left foot. Alas, the ball hit the frigging post. Ugh. Still, we got (21) The Win to improve to 1-4.

That's it for now. Thanks to (22) Christopher Columbus, most of you probably aren't working today. Enjoy the day off.

It's all about The Wood...

Leftover wood from last season.

New wood delivered yesterday morning.

Finished product.

Phillies 7 Reds 4

We're trying to be calmer this year. The Phillies don't owe us much. They've been in the playoffs four straight years. They won the World Series in 2008 and made the series in 2009. In years past, if the Phillies fell behind early, we'd get pissed off and turn the game off. Now, we just get up and take a break from the game and then we come back later.

Take last night. We were outside playing with the kids and actually missed the Reds batting in the first inning. By the time we got the game on, the Phillies were down 1-zip. By the fourth, it was 4-zip. Pissed off, we fired off some angry tweets and started making dinner (ham and cheese omlettes with hashbrowns and bran muffins). After dinner (and dishes) we saw the Phillies cut it to 4-2.

After six innings we were convinced a loss was inevitable. We went upstairs and read with the kids before they went to bed. On our way back downstairs we checked the Evo and saw the Phillies had runners on first and second against Aroldis Chapman in the seventh. Presto! We called The Playmaker down and said he could watch "the rest of the inning."

And what an inning. Utley went all Jeter and got "hit" by a Chapman smoker. We saw walks. We saw Cincinnati boners everywhere. (Including one by Scott Rolen, who has replaced Nancy Drew as the most hated player in Philly.)

Before you could say Dave Concepcion, the Phillies were on top, 7-4.

Before The Wife could say, "It's way past his [The Playmker] bedtime!" Madson and Lidge closed the door on the Reds and the game was over.

Only then did The Playmaker go (back) to bed.

Sometimes it pays to be calm. Or at least try to be.

k

***Check back later today for more posts.***

Bucs 7 Saints 0

Our flag football defense continues to be outstanding. Once we again, we failed to even give up a single first down.

Our offense, however, was terrible. To quote Jim Mora, "We sucked!"

Still, we will always take a win. But hopefully next week will bring more impressive wins.

The Playmaker had two catches for 15 yards. We are now 2-0.

Doc!

Half day yesterday for The Playmaker and The Playmaker's Sister. They each went to friends' houses for the afternoon. When we got out of school, we picked up The Playmaker and went to get our heads shaved and then to the grocery store. Got home around 4:30 and checked homework, practiced math facts and studied for Friday's spelling test.

At 5 PM we settled into the couch and turned on the Phillies game. A little over two hours later, we had seen sports history. (Sports history, by the way, we would have missed had soccer practice not been rained out.)

After the fourth inning, we started joking that "Doc has a no-no going."

After the sixth inning, The Playmaker asked, "Do you think he can do it?"

After the seventh inning, The Wife announced, "At some point we need to eat dinner."

While the Phillies batted in the 8th, we wolfed down dinner in record time.

By the bottom of the 8th, we were back on the couch.

In the bottom of the ninth, we were joined by The Wife and The Playmaker's Sister. The DVR was recording the high def classic. The Playmaker was waving his playoff towel right along with the fans at The Bank.

With two outs and two strikes, Brandon Philips hit a nubber in front of the plate. We all froze with panic as catcher Carlos Ruiz casually and S-L-O-W-L-Y ambled toward the ball. Then The Head Ball Coach screamed in pain as the ball hit Phillips' bat and stopped. Screaming continued as we watched Ruiz fall to his knees and attempt a throw. When the ball safely reached Ryan Howard's glove in time, all of us let out a joyous scream.

n

A father-son memory to last a lifetime.

Five...

1. Phillies! Just 11 more wins until we get another parade. As long as Halladay doesn't hyperventilate today, we should be in good shape.

2. Eagles! When we coach soccer, we have Our Father standing with us on the sideline. His only job is to let us know when five minutes are up and it's time to sub. Why don't the effing Eagles have a coach whose only job is to handle clock management for Coach Andy?!? 'Cause Big Boy clearly can't do it on his own.

3. Patriots! Vintage Coach Bill. You don't want to be here?!? Then get the hell out. Bye, Randy Moss. (Yet, couldn't they squeezed the Vikings for one more draft pick?!? How about a 3rd this year and next year?!?)

4. Your Flag Football Bucs! We got rained out again last night. (Maybe Mother Nature is jealous of our ass-kicking 46 defense?!?) Rest assured we have a great game plan for tomorrow night, including a receiver reverse that ends in a (scoring) pass to ... wait for it ... the quarterback.

5. Fantasy! In our Play for Pay league, we improved our record to 4-0. However, Tom Brady has the bye week on Sunday and we have to play the second best team in the league. After scouring the waiver wire, we have decided to sit tight and go with Sam Bradford (17 points last week). In our other NFL league, we got screwed. We started Michael Vick, who promptly got hurt. And our opponent had the Patriots defense. Normally that would be an automatic W for us, but, of course, the Pats D came up with a mind-blowing 32 points. So we lost by 10. Weep no tears, however, as we are thisclose to getting Arian Foster for, well, for almost nothing. Details later, as we don't want to jinx ourselves.

Lester gets lucky. Real lucky.

We tweeted about this Saturday.

Dumb luck saved Lester his job.

"Hey, Djordjevic -- your kid cost us the game!"

The Playmaker's first exposure to organized sports was soccer in kindergarten. That led to basketball and baseball. The next year brought flag football. Since that kindergarten year, he has probably played in over 125 organized games. He's probably won 100 of them (and four championships). No lie, during those 100 wins, he was probably directly responsible for the majority of them. (Certainly the football, basketball and soccer ones.) As for the 25 losses, we honestly can't remember any of them being the result of his play.

That's not bragging. That's fact.

This past Saturday, that changed.

The Fire lost their soccer game, 1-zip. The Playmaker was the goalie. He faced seven shots on goal. He stopped six of them. The one he missed came late in the game. And it cost us. Even though he allowed the goal, he had a ton of help. His two fullbacks had their heads up their asses somehow allowed a two-on-none break situation. The Playmaker got aggressive and came out and attacked the kid with the ball. He nearly got his hands on it, but, alas, the kid was able to pass to his teammate on the right. By the time The Playmaker scrambled back to the net, it was too late. The kid had scored.

We watched from the sideline to see what Our Son would do. He's not used to failing athletically and does not take kindly to losing. We saw his body tremble just the slightest bit. Then he gave the ball to the ref, dropped his head and headed back to the net.

We were proud of how he handled the situation. Interestingly, one of his teammates did not handle the situation at all. In fact, he yelled out The Playmaker's name in disgust. Ironically, the kid was one of the fullbacks who effed up on the play. He is also the head coach's son. (We are the assistant coach.) We said nothing. (Kind of awkward when it's the head coach's kid.) Payback will come, however. And it will be far-reaching. The kid is someone we've "carried" on our various sports teams from season to season. Never again will that kid play on a team we coach. And if his parents are dumb enough to ask why, we will be honest.

Your kid's a frigging asshole!