Sports by a non-athlete

New York Yankee Joba Chamberlain recently had ankle surgery after a rather unfortunate trampoline accident. Joba was playing around, jumping on a trampoline with his son when his ankle reportedly got caught in the side railings of death.

Chamberlain suffered an open dislocation of his right ankle and set to leave the hospital this Sunday. Chamberlain was still recovering from his Tommy John surgery for his elbow so now he will have to rehab both his ankle and elbow. His timeframe to come back, if he comes back, looks around mid-July at best.

As a Yankee fan, it’s really sad watching Joba go from the fame of “Joba Rules” to having to have Tommy John surgery and a freak accident like this basically kill his career. We’ve seen him shine and do so well. He definitely has struggled in the past but he’s had flashes of brilliance and I really hope that he can recover enough to join the MLB again, no matter what team. Hopefully he’ll still be wearing pinstripes and pitch for the Yanks.

This also makes trading Phil Hughes rather questionable now that Joba is sidelined. Really can’t wait to see what the Yankees do in this spot, maybe if Brian Cashman can stop having affairs and rappelling down walls, he might actually get some work done. But I really don’t want to ask too much of him, you know.

And not to be completely insensitive but what am I supposed to do with my Joba Chamberlain player t-shirt? I guess I’ll just throw it in my pile of t-shirts I’ll never wear again. It will join Johnny Damon and Brett Favre’s t-shirts. May I never see the latter ever again. DAMN YOU BRETT.

As a Jets fan, and someone who loathes Tim Tebow, this news was kind of heartbreaking. I’m not a big fan of Tebow or his game. I’m not that religious so the constant Jesus talk kind of annoys me, although to his credit, the media definitely blew that up. Either way, I still don’t like him

I thought to myself, reading about the million of Tweets that flooded my precious Twitter timeline, two mediocre quarterbacks do not equal one great quarterback. Mark Sanchez, God love him, is mediocre at best although he’s played briliantly at times, especially in the playoffs. He has been our QB in two AFC championship games. Even Eli Manning sucked in his first few seasons (worse in some statisitics actually). The fact that Eli Manning was also rather mediocre is the fantasy that I hold on to and that Sanchez will lead the Jets to a Super Bowl. A girl can dream.

It also helps that he’s super good looking, Tebow doesn’t do much for me in the looks department? Why is this even mentioned? Because we lose, all the time. So at least my QB is good looking. I have that. And only that.

But naturally, the Jets being the Jets, didn’t read the fine print. Literally. The Broncos owe Tebow $5 million as an advance and the acquiring team is expected to the take that on. However, the Jets were unaware of this (no reason they shouldn’t have been) and now there’s a snag. Even though I don’t like Tebow, I’m really intrigued as to what can happen if he does eventually make it to the team.

But after it’s all said and done, Tim Tebow is officially a Jet and I am officially emotionally exhausted as a Jets fan.

ANDY PETTITTE!

Andy Pettitte signed a minor league contract with the Yankees worth $2.5 million this past week. YES! I was one of those who wish Andy never left and now he’s running back (I completely disregard his time with Houston, where he followed he who must not be named (Clemens)). I believe the plan is to get Pettitte back into major league shape where he may or may not join the rotation. For the first time ever the Yankees rotation actually has options with C.C. Sabathia, Hiroki Kuroda, Phil Hughes, Freddy Garcia, Ivan Nova, Michael Pineda and now Pettitte. Obviously it’s a 5-man rotation so I’m assuming the starting five will be:

1. Sabathia
2. Nova
3. Kuroda
4. Pineda
5. Garcia

In other news, Robinson Cano got hid on the hand yesterday and had to leave the game but thakfully his x-rays came out negative so he should hopefully be ready to rumble come Opening Day.

I couldn’t be more excited for the season to start and for the Yankees to start making headlines, for better or worse again. Love staying up till midnight to watch Baseball Tonight on ESPN!

This past week was the BNP Paribas Open aka Indian Wells, in Indian Wells, California. This is a Master’s 1000 tournament so all the big names come including my love Rafael Nadal, who lost. All in all it was a great tournament until the weather decided to wreak havoc during hte last two days. Roger Federer ended up winning the whole shabang.

Some headlines include the big man John Isner beating Novak Djokovic in an incredible match. Isner won in three sets, including two tie breaks. Kind of a shocker. I didn’t expect Isner to be an easy win but I thought Djokovic was a done deal. I guess Isner’s crazy serve which hovered between 120-145 mph, you have a little more work to do. It doesn’t help that Isner is a whopping 6’9.

As for my favorite, Nadal lost Roger Federer 6-3, 6-4. He didn’t put up much of a fight until the second set but it still wasn’t enough. He ended up struggling with wind and went down pretty easy. But he did win the men’s doubles final with his partner Marc Lopez, also of Spain.

But there is no time to waste! The Sony Ericsson Open starts this week for first round wild card matches and Rafa is playing doubles again, color me excited! Hopefully he can actually win this one. He hasn’t won a title since he won the French Open in June 2011. Sounds bad but he’s made the final of almost all the major tournaments and…lost. All of them. So here’s hoping for a better year!

Roger Federer recently defeated Andy Murray for the Dubai Championship title, his fifth. Federer, who is 30, I think really showed that he’s still got it and still a force to be reckoned with. Federer, Murray, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic are known as the big four in the ATP and I am always looking forward to who will challenge them, apart from each other. A lot of people wrote Federer off considering the strength of Djokovic, Nadal, and Murray and Federer recently turned 30. The oldest of the other three is Nadal, who is only 25.

Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray. Photo via NBC Sports.

And it wasn’t too much of a struggle either, he won 7-5, 6-4. I think after Djokovic’s monster year, the other three are ready to give a challenge to him. This time last year, no one knew how much Djokovic would dominate. But Nadal took him to 5 long sets, six whopping hours and Murray defeated him in the semi-finals. Federer then beat Murray. I don’t think it’s going to be another monster year for him but I do think it’s going to be a great tennis season for men.

The Americans are finally stepping up, John Isner has a big game and will most likely crack the top ten this year and Mardy Fish is a strong contendor and the lone American ranked in the top ten. Andy Roddick is hopefully getting back to being healthy (still don’t like him, but I still want to see him end his career on his own terms as he is nearing 30 and more injury prone).

Women’s tennis on the other hand is still kind of a mess. I’m hoping that Serena Williams makes a huge comeback and really gives the top girls a run for their money. Victoria Azarenka is currently ranked number one but she recently pulled out of a tournament because of an injury and the other big name is Caroline Wozniacki. Don’t ask me why, but I cannot stand her. Maybe it’s because she was ranked for #1 for so long and never won a major and hits about 3 winners per match.

I can’t wait for Indian Wells coming up in a few days followed by Miami. All the big names will be there, including Nadal who did not play in Dubai. Can’t wait!

This is a must listen for Mike Francesa. Recently the anniversary for Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 point game, Mike Francesa took it upon himself to go over some of Chamberlain’s stats. He realized that he Chamberlain rarely plays under 48 minutes a game. And because Francesa is a radio god and knows exactly what he’s doing, here is how he told you said statistics.

LISTEN HERE: FAWTY EIGHT

AJ Burnett just cannot catch a break. Except in his eye. That was mean. Burnett recently broke an orbital bone in his face after he bunted a ball off his face. Yes, off of his face. I actually feel bad for him. He’s going to be out 2-3 months but it won’t affect his vision so hopefully he will make a full recovery.

Here is a very amateur video taken by VannyandVital of YouTube. What you don’t realize is that everyone is watching him take his bunt.

The ESPN article has their screenshot of the video approximately .05 seconds before the ball makes contact with AJ’s face.

After he was traded to the Pirates, AJ said, “It’s going to be fun. I’m going back to the National League, where I can hit and bunt and get the joy back into the game.” Yikes. Talk about a bad omen. Worst part is that it was actually during bunting exercises, not during an actual game. Seriously bad luck.

On a baseball related note, I can’t tell you how excited I am for the baseball season to start, only 32 days left!! The season always starts with 2-3 days of my birthday, if not on my birthday, so I consider it a birthday gift from the MLB. My birthday is on April 4th, so happy early belated birthday to me! Thanks, guys!

And you never know, the Pirates might pull a Tampa Bay and suddenly become the team to beat. You never know.

So Ryan Bruan has been vindicated because some genius decided that he can just stick Braun’s urine sample in his fridge because he thought FedEx was closed. As in he wasn’t even sure it was closed, just assumed it was close. Maybe it’s because I’m a bit of cynic and just don’t like Braun to begin with but this really doesn’t vindicate him to me.

But let’s go ahead and assume that Braun is in fact innocent and completely drug free. He’s always going to have this stigma that he failed a drug test and was only proved innocent because of a technicality. Not cool. This also shows that there are some major flaws in the drug testing system. Mostly with the hiring of people who think it’s okay to put urine samples of major league athletes in their fridge because they think FedEx is closed.



I’m not a big soccer fan but I do like to keep a little bit considering it’s the most popular sport in the world I definitely give the sport my time and it’s steadily increasing. Anyway, I saw this pop up on my Twitter feed multiple times and I thought to myself, “Let’s see what’s so special about this.” So I clicked and well, just be prepared to be amazed.

You don’t have to know anything about the sport to know that this was just absolutely spectacular. This man is super human. HOW DO YOU DO THAT? Again, I don’t know much about Ronaldo but I do know that he’s currently one of the greatest players and will go down as one of the greatest players ever.

A lot of people say that Cristiano Ronaldo is a selfish soccer player, but come on. Look at this guy. Let him score goals. Let him do whatever he wants. I really can’t get over it. Oh and speaking of Ronaldo and my Rafael Nadal fandom, they recently filmed a Nike commercial together and they both tweeted a picture of them having dinner together.

Cenando con @Cristiano después de rodar un nuevo spot para Nike. Gran día!! twitter.com/RafaelNadal/st…

— Rafael Nadal (@RafaelNadal) February 22, 2012

Is it just me or does this picture look painfully awkward? Didn’t they just come from a Nike commercial shoot? Why doesn’t Rafa’s hair look Rafabulous instead of…whatever is happening? So many questions.

Prolific closer and one of the greatest of all time, Mariano Rivera said that he already knows if he will be retiring at the end of the season.

Closer @MarianoRivera says he’s made his decision about retirement, but won’t reveal it … atmlb.com/zDVkI2

— New York Yankees (@Yankees) February 20, 2012

To me this means yes, you never know what will happen to you during a six-month long baseball season, if you will be able to play the next season so to know for sure what you’ll be doing after this 2012 season, then I’m going with retiring. It just seems like the logical thing to do. This makes me want the Yanks to win the World Series even more (remind me to do a blog post about the Yankee Parade in 2009 after they won and how I won tickets to see them and was feet away from Derek Jeter).

My only wish was that Jorge Posada was still here (still feeling emotional about that) and the three of them can win one more ring together and then they can retire together and fans can have this wonderful image of the three together for their last season as a Yankee.

Mariano is the last baseball player the legendary #42 after it was retired for Jackie Robinson and it will never be worn again. I think he is in good company. Remember #602? How about some Mariano highlights?