This lack of a precise itinerary is partially by design. For those of you who have followed some of my travel blogs in the past you have probably figured out that I like to have some understanding of where I’m going but not make too many arrangements or else it takes away from the adventure. Right now, we’re leaning towards heading to the Tamarindo area, renting a car there (Don’t worry – Beyda will be the driver), and checking out the beaches along the Nicoya and the Pacific Coast. But it seems like there is so much to do and so many cool places to go. It’s no wonder the country has blown up as a travel destination. I would love to uncover some of the hidden gems that aren’t in the travel books. For example, Weino told me about his friends who went giant shrimp catching from midnight to sunrise. I’m probably going to skip out on the Volcano, cloud forests and national parks as the pull of the beaches are too appealing.

If you have the scoop on places to go, beaches to see, hotels, restaurants, giant shrimps, activities, etc. I’d love to hear about it. The more random the better. Keeping to my digital geekdom, I’ve set up a Costa Rica Wiki to pull together all the information that we collect from friends and experts. So please share on the Wiki, leave a comment or hit me up directly if you got the dopeness.

P.S. - Doesn’t it seem like all the travel websites on the internet blow. What’s up with that? Who’s going to build the bomb travel socail media website? And don’t tell me to check Trip Advisor!

More often than not I find myself in situations where I say to myself “I have to blog about this” Thanks to my lack of patience and writing skills this rarely happens…and just like that the moment quickly turns into a memory. However, the events that occurred tonight were so insanely ridiculous I had to share my thoughts…a mix of frustration, laughter and the unknown.

Wine Tasting at the Y

A few months back I enlisted my few remaining single girl friends on a mission. Let’s go to as many social jew events as possible in an attempt to meet single jewish guys to date and eventually marry. Let’s do as much cool shit in the city as possible in an attempt to meet more people. Let’s face it, we are officially done with the 20’s…meeting random guys in bars is just not what is used to be. We are not getting any younger and at this point we have nothing to lose…or do we?

It started a few months back when my friend took me to this big charity event at Chelsea Piers. In a room of 800 Jews people, more than half had the xy chromosome, stable jobs, Ivy League diplomas and healthy trust funds. It was in theory a great place to meet somebody to settle down with, however midway through the night I found myself wanting to pluck my eyes out with the butter knife. Maybe this type of event wasn’t for me. When I drunk-texted my mom to tell her that I’d rather be with the guy who drinks beer and listens to country music she replied “would you rather drive a BMW or a Pick-up Truck?”

Score: Lisa-0, Mom-1

While this event may not have been my cup of tea, it didn’t mean they all had to be like this one. I mean…there had to be other events that me and my peeps could attend that were a bit less…what’s the word I’m looking for…GAY.

The summer came and went faster than you can say “Thirty-something single chick”. As me and my friends sat at the usual brunch spot we decided to start brain storming ideas as to how to find a husband meet new interesting people like we had just done a few short months before. That’s when I suggested we go to a wine tasting event at the 92 Street Y. How bad could it be? A bunch of upper east side yuppies drinking wine and making small talk…the worst that comes out of it I get drunk off of kosher wine and go home alone…not like that hasn’t happened before. Liz and Jen buy into my plan and we decide to give it a shot. We are going to be social if it kills us.

Jen and I met for a drink before. Ya know…that pre-date drink you have to take the edge off. When we arrived at the event, Liz had already been there for a few minutes. The look on her face was priceless when we met her in the lobby. I knew at that point I should have saved the calories on that pre-event drink. It was gonna be a loooooooong night.

Looking back on the event I’m not sure what part of the night was the best part.

a) The weird guy who looked like a pedophile coincidentally telling us he writes children’s books for a living
b) the old guy who smelled like farts and had food on his chin
c) The janitor that kept sneaking in for food when he thought nobody was looking.

It was awful. No amount of wine could have made this event cool. I mean, just to give you an example of how not cool this event was…I ate. They had finger foods and I ate in public. Those of you who know me, now get it. Of the thirty people at the event…four of them were XY, of those none were dating material. You know exactly the type I am taking about. Picture the 40 year old virgin…enough said. I’ll be the first to say “beggers can’t be choosers” but seriously…in this case that just doesn’t apply.

The funny thing is, as we left the event we couldn’t stop laughing…it seemed we were laughing the entire time. It was just three single girls having a silly time making fun of ourselves and our wine-tasting classmates. You see, no matter how many events you go to or how many attempts you and your girlfriends make to meet “the one” nothing is better than just having fun doing it. In an attempt to find our unborn baby daddy, we have become better friends and the experiences we have are memories that are gonna last a hell of a lot longer than my crappy dates. I still think about the boring lawyer I met at the Chelsea Piers event all the time who I am 100 percent sure had a stick shoved up his ass. I am positive we will talk about this night for years to come. Only Jen and Liz will actually get it, but I know you have had those nights too.

As I left Liz at the subway we laughed holding our heads high for trying something new and different. Doing what we actually said we were going to do…meet people in ways other then j-date. We then decided that if our speed dating event that we committed to next week as part of our “Let’s do as much cool shit in the city as possible in an attempt to meet more people” is twice as bad as tonight’s event it’s gonna be a great night!

Hey Courtney, what u got, little sis?

If I ever write the book on happiness, one of my key principles would be to decorate your living space with things that make you happy. Last week, I hung up a framed Malik Sealy jersey on the wall in my apartment. Every time I look over at it, I’m happy.

Malik Sealy was and is my favorite athlete of all time (actually, it’s a tie with Donnie Baseball but you get the point). I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to ever like players as much you do when you’re a little kid (with the one possible exception being my friend Roy and his infatuation with Francisco Cervelli).

I was always kind of impressed with the way Malik carried himself both on and off the court. He seemed cool, confident and in control of any situation that he faced. He was thoughtful and low key and didn’t feel the need to unnecessarily grab attention. If athletes really are role models for kids, I tried to follow the lead of Malik Sealy.

It was really strange and surreal when I learned that he tragically passed away in a car accident in the summer of 2000. I decided to write about him as a way to express my feelings and deal with the death. A few years later I put the essay up on Littyhoops.com and you can read it here.

By the way, my sister Lisa got the jersey for me a few years ago. She remembered that a family friend used to be a big St. John’s fan and tracked him down. He was more than happy to give her the jersey as it was just sitting in his closet. She gave it to me on my birthday and it was one of the coolest presents ever. It took a few years for me to get it framed because…well, because I’m me.

BTW, the other things on my wall are….

• Photo of me looking at the Western Wall in Israel
• Wood carved mural of Yankee Stadium that I’ve had since I’m four years old
• Framed photo playing checkers with my Poppy
• Photo of my house in San Diego with my dad in it (photgraphed and printed by my mom)
• Hologram poster of Mariano Rivera (random and goofy)
• Michigan Flag is hanging in the bathroom

I decided I’m missing a few things. It would be a great photo of my entire family, a good shot of the backyard at my country house in the summer, and some La Jolla Cove action!

I have a few distinct memories of experiences with the World Wide Web that have made a lasting impression with me. They all happened in college. This makes sense as I really dug deep into the power of the web my freshman year of college when I first encountered high speed Ethernet in Mary Markley Hall. Before that I had to put up with the slowness of dial up and the wackness of the damn AOL busy signal.

I decided to create my very own website called Littyhoops.com in 2002. It was a college basketball website in which I voiced my opinions to the world and picked games. It was a glorified blog before there was such thing as blogs. Therefore, everything took lots more time to setup as I figured out how to code, host, design and manage the site on the fly. But it was all worth it because I loved the feeling of being able to broadcast my message to the world. All of a sudden, I had a soapbox to stand on that was high enough for anybody who wanted to watch. It boggled my mind that what I wrote in my basement apartment could instantly be shared with the world.

Another web memory I had during college was reselling Michigan vs. Ohio State football game tickets my junior year. The game fell on Thanksgiving that year and I realized that many out-of-state students would be going home for the holiday. I worked with my friend Dick B. to collect about 75 tickets and then went about selling them through eBay, craigslist and even a local website called Orange Sorbet. At one point we were selling $15 tickets for $150 each (then damn MSU and TJ Duckett upset Michigan on a phantom second). I would check on the auctions and my email every hour in amazement on how easy it was to sell the tickets and generate revenue. One day, Rich and I met up with a woman in an Ypsilanti restaurant who gave us $1000 in cash for a handful of tickets. I was scrambling to get rid of the final few tickets before I left town myself that weekend and actually somehow set up a meeting for my friend Kraz to meet a dude on the side of the highway to exchange two tickets for an XBOX (impossible to get at the time).

Finally, the third digital memory I have from college is creating a website for Robert and his nephew Robert who ran Champion’s - a local laundrymat/keg market/convenience store down the block from our house in Ann Arbor. Colby, Brodsky and I somehow came up with the idea to convince a teacher to let us do this as an independent study project (easy way to get a guaranteed A). We had fun with it. Posted a bunch of goofy photos, threw up some coupons and beer specials and Ben surely towed the line of indecency with his wily copy. We then “borrowed” some ridiculously large email list and sent an email blast out to every student in greek life (you could still do things like that back in the digtal stone ages). Instantly, the Robert’s saw an effect in sales from the website and email and they quickly realized the value of the website. Unfortunately, soon after Robert and Robert and us had an unfortunate falling out that included racial slurs and death threats.

All three are great memories on how I discovered the power of the web. While I enjoyed creating Littyhoops, I realized that the economics of that website sucked. I would need to increase my traffic by literally 500x to begin to sniff similar revenues as the other two projects. I was most captivated how I could make money from the Internet. It seemed magical. It still does.

So that was basically my long, over the top introduction to what I’ve been thinking about these days — digital business models. The common belief is that there are three ways to generate revenue online.

1) E-commerce
2) Advertising
3) Subscription

One of the very first things I realized at CSTV (and this probably holds true for any big media company) was that if I wanted to get anything new accomplished it better have some advertising dollars attached to it. (Incidently, his is why media companies got into a pickle by giving away all their content for free - they believed the best way to monetize was to grow audience and sell advertising around that aggregated audience.) When you work in sports media you quickly realize that it’s a never-ending cat and mouse game between sports properties and major brands looking to reach the mass audience of sports fans. Unlock brand’s advertising budgets in any way possible and the cash flows and you’re a hero.

Lately though, advertising hasn’t lived up to its billing. There are two main causes. The first is that the advertising market has gone into the crapper during this so-called Great Recession. Marketing budgets have been slashed as marketers are forced to evaluate everything and focus on proven tactics and ROI. The second is that digital advertising just really isn’t all the effective. With the exception of Google, which has an awesome thing going with search, most big brands don’t really understand how their website can help a brand be cooler (branding) or sell stuff (Direct response). Social Networks, Twitter, Facebook (virtual products? please!), blogs and mobile have had difficulty creating innovative monetization models to go along with innovative products, platforms or communication.

Chris Dixon wonders what happens if this is it for digital business innovation? What happens if all these breakthrough platforms end up monetizing in a similar fashion as AOL Instant Messenger? Groundbreaking behavior and communication product for sure, but not a business. That sounds like an industry that I want no part of.

Perhaps the ad market will soon make a comeback and easy advertising revenue starts flowing online again. Traditional media (print, radio, television) all got fat eating off the advertising world. Then in the 80’s cable television came along and innovated a new business model (charge cable companies for distribution of content). My gut tells me that digital is going to create new business models and not just borrow the advertising playbook. I’m more interested than ever in evaluating and innovating new digital business models. Link instant messenger, a great idea or product doesn’t always add up into a great business (especially in the digital world). I want to be in the business of creating great businesses.

E-commerce interests me. It allows you to buy anything from anyone at anytime. It makes efficient and fluid markets and increases transactions. Check out Etsy and buy handmade good from Africa and then think about what you are actually doing! In addition, the market share of people who shop online will increase. Children today view Amazon.com as Toys R’ Us or Wall Mart. E-Commerce has yet to be integrated with the social web. This blows my mind away how far we still have to go when it comes to e-commerce. I want to buy stuff that my friends recommend to me. That’s more effective than any advertisement I will ever view. I expect major innovation in the E-commerce space in the next stage of the web.

Mobile interests me. The utility ability of a mobile application is so powerful and so intimate. Most people have their phone on them at all times. It’s so valuable that the iPhone has been able to do something that the media companies could never really figure out how to do on the web. They charge for applications. The more the product is downloaded the more $ it generates. I like that model.

Subscription and micro-payments interest me. What kinds of digital services are people willing to pay for on the web? I’d love to offer something of such value that a consumer would lock into paying recurring fees to access it.

There are so many great ways to generate money on the web. My goal is start to learn more about some of these different opportunities. I want to talk to people who have non-advertising business models that are generating revenues and are profitable. What are they doing right and what are the fundamentals of their digital business? The tools that are available to an online marketer are as powerful as anything I have ever come across in business. I want to take advantage of that.

I no longer want to hear (or think) about great digital ideas or products. I want to focus on great digital business (and new money making schemes!).

I’m not at the point where I feel comfortable enough to share my career ambitions and goals in this blog post. To be honest, I’m not sure if I’ll ever have the desire to do that. But I do have a few things on the process and how I’m trying to figure it all out.

When I get an idea or concept like this stuck in my head, I usually think and think and then think some more and try to chip away at the issue until I begin to make sense out of it. I’ve always been thankful that my mind works in such a way that the more I focus on something the better I’m able to process it and feel more comfortable. I’ll usually try to clear my head and then think my way out of pickles or stressful situations. The nice thing about being a rational and logical thinker is that it’s easier to trust myself. I’m my own shrink.

Still, sometimes I need a mental boost to get me over the humps. Besides my father (who admittedly is clueless when it comes to today’s digital world) I really don’t have a mentor to turn too. So i rely on good conversations, things I read or even by connecting with people through this blog. I’ve had a few of worthwhile moments recently that I want to mention to ya’ll.

Recently, I’ve been playing career adviser for both of my sisters as they try to figure out their next career moves. I kind of give them the no holds barred brotherly lectures where I recite everything I know all at once in a condescending, know-it-all tone. The analogies I come up with on the fly with Courtney are frighteningly bad as I try to explain the same concept to her in four different ways just to make sure she grasps it exactly how I intended. Discussing and understanding their challenges allows me to realize and reaffirm some of my fundamental principles. Sometimes, solving other people’s problems can be the best way to solve your own.

Last week, I had lunch (La Mazouski) with Mia’s husband who now scares me with his intelligence and understanding of the digital startup world even more than he scares me with his flamboyant exuberance (penis jibbitz!). Jer has a combination of abundant energy and extreme restlessness that can get your gears turning. I find myself still thinking about some of the things we discussed one week later.

Finally, I read a blog post by investor and tech entrepreneur Chris Dixon this week. His blog is all the rage these days as he’s certainly distinguishing himself as a influencer in the tech startup community. Dixon used a classic computer science problem to discuss career path. I sucked at the only computer science class I took in college (got a C+ in C++) but the analogy clicked for me immediately. In my moments of second-guessing, I sometimes have difficulty reconciling the career opportunities that I’ve passed up and wondering if I made those choices for the right reasons. If an 18 year old Brian Litvack looked at a 28 year old Brian Litvack he might even call him an underacheiver (he would definitely call him fat). Chris’s blog post helped me put this insecurity into a larger perspective. It also has helped me better think through the entire topic of my career.

You can read the full blog post, and the comments are also worth a read, but here’s my favorite part…

A classic problem in computer science is hill climbing. Imagine you are dropped at a random spot on a hilly terrain, where you can only see a few feet in each direction (assume it’s foggy or something). The goal is to get to the highest hill.

Consider the simplest algorithm. At any given moment, take a step in the direction that takes you higher. The risk with this method is if you happen to start near the lower hill, you’ll end up at the top of that lower hill, not the top of the tallest hill.

A more sophisticated version of this algorithm adds some randomness into your walk. You start out with lots of randomness and reduce the amount of randomness over time. This gives you a better chance of meandering near the bigger hill before you start your focused, non-random climb.
Another and generally better algorithm has you repeatedly drop yourself in random parts of the terrain, do simple hill climbing, and then after many such attempts step back and decide which of the hills were highest.

 

 

Going back to the job candidate, he has the benefit of having a less foggy view of his terrain. He knows (or at least believes) he wants to end up at the top of a different hill than he is presently climbing. He can see that higher hill from where he stands.

But the lure of the current hill is strong. There is a natural human tendency to make the next step an upward one. He ends up falling for a common trap highlighted by behavioral economists: people tend to systematically overvalue near term over long term rewards. This effect seems to be even stronger in more ambitious people. Their ambition seems to make it hard for them to forgo the nearby upward step.

People early in their career should learn from computer science: meander some in your walk (especially early on), randomly drop yourself into new parts of the terrain, and when you find the highest hill, don’t waste any more time on the current hill no matter how much better the next step up might appear.

I’m curious to hear what other people think now that the novelty of social networking has worn off a bit. My hope was that Facebook would evolve into a utility that compliments my actual life. I would receive book recommendations, restaurant reviews, stock tips or learn about local events and activities from my peers – people who have similar interests as me. Instead I just view photos of weddings and summer weekends from people who are trying hard to maintain some kind of mythical social status.

I’ve worked for three years trying to build an online community that has real life value. I am still a very strong believer in that concept. I’m fascinated by websites like Craigslist, Etsy, Kiva and Meetup.

Facebook has become less interesting. It’s a website for your social life. I’ve never been all that interested in my own social life let alone other people’s. It’s like TMZ or Perez Hilton except the subjects are people I actually know. It just kind of seems like a voyeuristic waste of my time. I don’t really enjoy it much and therefore don’t plan to visit the site as often.

Facebook is like the friend you had in high school or college who was really unique and gifted and had lots of potential to do something special. Instead he/she decided it would be easier just to fit in with the cool crowd, party and take it easy. You still like them but it’s a shame he/she didn’t grow into the person you wanted them to be.

I’ve been spending more time on Twitter than Facebook. It has its own faults but it is a heck of a lot more interesting. My friend Jon keeps saying that Twitter is for smart people. I don’t necessarily agree with that but do see his point. Keeping with the high school analogy, twitter is like going to the science fair. Yeah, it’s geeky but you’ll learn a few new things and feel good about yourself. All those people who bash twitter for being so weird and narcissistic should try it. They’ll quickly realize that Facebook is a whole lot weirder and more narcissistic.

That’s all I got for now. I’ll obviously still keep my Facebook account but I don’t plan to do much sharing. You can follow this blog, my twitter feed or better yet, BBM or good old emails. There is value in the intimacy of one to one or targeted direct communication. I’ll continue to hope Facebook matures into something more worthwhile but at this point I’m sick of waiting around for it.

Before I could lay down my whole megillah, the Detroit Free Press (are they even a newspaper anymore?) decides they want to publish a hatchet job on UM — a shanda fur die goy. When I first heard about this whole shtunk and all the dreck I wanted to blame Dick Rod. Heck, I have blamed him for every other crappy thing that has happened to the program since he rode his wagon into town 20 months ago. But the more I’ve learned the last few days the more this smells of NOR.

I’m willing to wager that every major college program practices just as much as Michigan. One pisher who has transferred coming forward with any kind of negative sentiment surely does not warrant a thorough investigation, ESPN news conferences and the insane tumult that this story has received. My guess (and I usually have a decent pulse on the NCAA) is that this blows over in the next few weeks and Michigan gives itself a light slap on the wrist and adheres strictly to the practice rules in the future. The NCAA doesn’t want to open up this can of borscht as it’s virtually impossible to differentiate between voluntary and mandatory practices.

So let’s hope and assume that this current hullabaloo disappears as quickly as Justin Feagin’s shipment of cocaine. My friend and life long Michigan friend Ben wrote to me that he’s “hoping this in the long run 5, 10, 20 years from now is only a blip on the radar, he will be our ron zook between spurrier and meyer or mike walsh between gene stallings and nick saban”. I agree. If only Rich Rod is our Elijiah Ingram in between Erick Barkley and Marcus Hatten.

Where does this leave the Wolverine Football program heading into 2009?

Talentless. I’m not exactly sure how this happened but the nebbish talent pool on this season’s team rivals a DPhiE date party. Michigan has three legit above-average Big Ten starters on this team - Brandon Minor, Donavon Warren and Brandon Graham. The rest of the players are a collection of backups and shleps, none of who would have sniffed the field in the first seven years of this decade. My buddy Vant was all ferdrayt because he wanted to buy a jersey but didn’t know what player’s number to get. I don’t blame him. It’s tough to get excited to rock Renaldo Sagesse, Boubacar Cissoko or Obi Exeh threads.

The weird part is that Michigan has had a top 15 recruiting class in each of the last five years. Early departures, transfers, state law, and the erosion of family values have prevented many decently ranked recruits from staying enrolled in Ann Arbor longer than acclaimed film director Zach Sherman stint in A-squared. The most inexplicable travesty is the inability to trot out a capable quarterback. It was bad that we lost out on Terrelle Pryor to Ohio State. Michigan is actually going into the season opener planning to play all three shmegegges. Nick Sheridan is back with his shmedrick arm, along side QB Force Tres and Shoelace Robinson. Ay Gavalt!

I really don’t want to get too much into evaluating Rodriguez because I’ve said or written it all already. I don’t like him and I’m counting down the days until he is gone. He might be a decent coach and is certainly a real macher. He did a good job at West Virginia - give him kudos for keeping Pac Man and Chris Henry out of prison and there mishegoss in check. It’s just that he’s not the right guy for Michigan. He came into the program with lots of chutzpah and made it clear he wants to run a program his way and doesn’t want to be bothered with the history and tradition of a place like Michigan (He tried to turn their road uniforms into yellow shmattas). That’s certain to be an issue at a school in which the history and tradition is almost as important as winning.

My buddy Da Bwetty took it one step further. “Players recruited by Lloyd and his staff were met with a guy who knew no more about the Michigan program than a freshman girl who traded her ticket away for a salad at Mr. Greeks. Instead of Cinderalla Man and a fatherly figure the players got a rule-bender and his UFC fitness program. Rodriguez may be a good coach, he may be more passionate about football than anyone we could imagine, but the West Virginia way is not the Michigan way, its that simple.”

I’m not sure why Michigan would hire a zhlub who blatantly doesn’t fit into their value system (let alone tradition, style of play, or recruiting methods). Leave it to some gold old Midwesterners to be shmoozed by a slick talking, sun burned West Virginian gonif.

From the highlights of Monday’s press conference, it seems like Rodriguez is starting to feel fershlugina (although that could very well be shtick). He was back to being a hok a chanik during this interview on ESPN this morning on First Take. I imagine one negative story on top of another starts to bare down on a program. But I have no rachmones for Rodriguez’s tsoriss. And boy, have there been some negative stories coming out of A2. Here is a timeline.

2009
9/1 - Rodriguez sued over condo project
8/29 - U-M players allege program broke NCAA rules
8/23 - Michigan eyes quarterback shuffle
8/11 - Rodriguez defends his checks on recruits
8/10 - The story behind Michigan’s dismissal of Feagin
7/16 - Michigan’s Wermers transfers, rips RichRod’s staff
1/23 - Rodriguez cost Michigan $6.6 million last year
1/21 - Barwis reportedly owes West Virginia dough

2008
12/15 - Michigan Wolverines season recap
12/12 -McGuffie reportedly will leave Michigan
11/22 - Final: Ohio State 42, Michigan 7
6/30 - Garrison: Rodriguez ‘very distraught’ in private meeting before he resigned
3/26 - Boren says he left Michigan because ‘family values have eroded’
1/17 - Rodriguez accuses WVU of staging ’smear campaign’
1/8 - Manningham, Arrington likely to skip senior years; Mallett may transfer

2007
12/27 - West Virginia sues, seeking $4 million buyout in Rodriguez’s contract

The Matzah Ball Soup Is Half Full
I hate to be a total kvetcher and it’s always easier to plotz, especially when the going is rougher than a winter’s walk across campus to the Frieze building. So I’ll channel my inner Roy and come up with some happy thoughts.

Michigan’s first four games are manageable and even if they can’t handle the Irish at the Big House there is still a good chance they can start the season 3-1. Hopefully, all that extra practice pays off and the team actually knows what it’s doing this season with one year of the spread offense under its belt. One of the QB klutzes steps up to bring some stability behind center and shows glimmers of hope for the future. The young guys play well enough to keep it interesting all season. Minor stays healthy and breaks out to be the best back in the Big Ten. Michigan manages to hover around .500 in conference play….I give up. What a luftmensh I am! This team sucks!!!!

It used to be dreams of a perfect season and running naked down Vaughn screaming out my allegiance to Philip Brabbs. This season might be my least anticipated college football season since the pre Marvin Graves days (I was a die-hard Syracuse fan growing up). Gornisht helfn.

Rewind back to my senior year of high school. After I was rejected from my top eight nerd colleges and decided to go to Michigan I figured that at the least I’d be able to shep naches for the football team for the rest of my life. Rich Rod is ruining that.

Gai kakhen afenyam Putz Rod. Essen brek drek.

I received a comment and an email from a developer in NYC named Kevin Marshall. Kevin has been in the fantasy sports space for quite awhile and had a bunch of very similar ideas on how fantasy sports should leverage the twitter platform to create new types of games. A few lunches later (and the recruitment of a talented designer who designed the site and created a sick logo) and we agreed to go for it and see if we could do any damage.

This week we launched our first actual fantasy game called Pennant Race Drive. It is a baseball prediction game in which a player can tweet up to five predictions per day on which teams will win and which players will hit a Home Run that night. Obviously predicting who will hit the long ball is far more difficult than which teams will win and therefore the payoff is 10x greater.

Win/Loss = 1 point
Home Run = 10 points

I’d love to see all you fantasy sports + twitter heads to give the game a shot. If you want to predict team wins include up to five teams (full nickname), the hashtag #win, and the #gawkit hashtag, or http://gawk.it within the tweet. If you want to predict Home Runs then use players full names plus the #HR. Be sure to include #gawkit or http://gawk.it so that the tweet is picked up by the gawk.it scoring enginge.

Here are a few examples
Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada will all go yard tonite #HR #gawkit

The Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, Red Sox will all #win http://gawk.it

Only one type of prediction will register for each tweet. Also, the last five predictions that you log each day will count. All predictions need to occur at least 10 minutes before the game starts.

You can check out all the rules and details for the game at http://gawk.it website. Be sure to join the Littyhoops group to compete against yours truly. The game will continue throughout the season and we’re giving away Amazon Gift cards to weekly winners ($25) as well as the overall winner ($100).

In addition, we’re also donating one penny per correct tweet to the DonorsChoose.org organization (a charity that I recently blogged about). The overall winner of Pennant Race Drive will determine which school projects we will donate too. I’m excited by this philanthropic angle. As the game grows in popularity so to will our contribution to a great cause.

We’re excited to have something up and running and see if it sticks. Twitter is an extremely viral platform so if you like the game please just send out a few tweets to your followers and help us spread the good word. You can easily just retweet this message.

The Gawk.It game engine is built upon the twitter platform (using twitter’s open API’s) and this allows us to easily create all different kinds of fantasy games for just about any sport or statistical category. We’re already thinking about what we should do for football season and beyond.

Hit me up if you want to chat some more about gawk.it or the Pennant Race Drive.

The more the steroid story has progressed (or digressed) the more I (and everyone else but the media!) have been turned off. Take away Brett Farve and Michael Vick and the most annoying and over-covered sports stories of this decade are all steroid-related (Canseco, BALCO, Congress hearings, Bonds, McGwire/Sosa aftermath, Clemens and Mcnamee, A-Roid, Manny, Big Papi/Boli). I might as well follow the daily toils of Spencer and Heidi if I want to intentionally make my brain ache.

The thing that really gets me is the hypocrisy. Steroids permeated throughout the game for so long. Yet almost every player acts super self-righteous about how clean they are and that they’ll take any kind of drug test anytime. When a player gets caught he says he only did it once, puts his head between his legs, and then he apologizes for the mistake. It worked for Giambi and Pettite. The media feigns outrage on how they got bamboozled once again. The front office pretends like they had no idea. For goodness sake, as I right this there is still no way to test for the most prevelent steroid HGH! How can you not assume a large majority of players are still on the performance enhancer? The scandal runs deep.

You know what though. I can almost look past all this crap. My love of the game would make me a baseball apologist. I don’t really care that players “cheated” and don’t need to hear about every detail of who and how and why.

But I’ve finally reached my tipping point. LittyDingers is tapped out trying to make sense of how steroids has effected the game of baseball.

There is all this banter and buzz about the list. 104 players tested positive for Steroids in 2003. The test was supposed to be anonymous and the results destroyed. But they weren’t. Now a player is leaked every few months and it brings this crappy steroid saga back to the forefront all over again. I’m sick of it. Sure, I’m curious to see whose on the list. But does it even matter? To me everyone in Baseball is to blame.

I’ve decided t project my own list and I’m just going to assume it’s exactly correct. It will be similar to the dog and pony show that Lunardi does on ESPN complete with the pompousness and geeky inside jokes. I was explaining this to my friend Tanny but he didn’t share in my confidence that I could correctly pick all 104. Instead he just asked a bunch of questions?. I admitted I’d probably only get at least 97 and challenged him to match his list against mine and put up $10 per player. The offer is still out there for whoever is interested. The only other prognosticator that I fear is Jose Canseco as he’s been right almost every single time!

L-Hoops Steroid Projected Field of 104

Here is the criteria for being selected by the committee of me.

• Guilty. I’m listing all players who have already been implicated. If they’ve ever been named in Steriod reports and they played in 2003 they are on the list.
• Stats. Any player that had an unnatural and meteoric rise in Home Runs is suspicious. This includes players that started peaking after their normal prime (28-31) years or who magically reversed their production numbers after they peak. It also takes into account players who suddenly started hitting for power and who had just as sudden declines after MLB officially banned steroids in 2005.
• Nationality. If a large percentage of the players that have been caught so far are from Latin America than it’s a trend worth noting. It seems like you could walk into a bodega in Santo Domingo and order boli con arroz. This doesn’t excuse the Aaron Boone’s of the world but let’s let bygones be bygones (if anybody can explain to me what a bygone is I’ll buy you your next anabolic cycle).
• Team. Steroids is a locker room thing. You live and play with a teammate and he starts killing it. Natural curiosity will get the best of a player and it’s not far fetched that a closed door club house meetings turns into a bunch of dudes stabbing needles up each other arses.

Disclaimer: No actual primary source research has gone into this post or the formation of the list. I have mixe feelings that I may be smearing clean ball players (although I’m pretty sure I’ll go 104 for 104 in Steriodology). I blame the game. Being unfairly implicated on any level is a product of choosing a slimy profession (which baseball was in 2003). If I meet a politician I assume he’s corrupt. If I meet a pharmaceutical sales rep I assume he is a total bullshitter who is great at leaving long-winded voicemails and verbally fluffing doctors. Hence, if you were a power hitter in 2003 you no longer get the benefit of the doubt. Sorry dudes. In fact, I’m including three of my favorite players (Andy Pettite, Shawn Green and Ed Duque). There really is no favoritism here. So don’t think I put 9 Red Sox Players on the list just because I hate them.

Confirmed Players on the 2003 List (#1 Seeds)
Thanks to over ambitious reporters like Mark Fainaru-Wada, Selena Roberts, unknown sources and the union really screwing up we seem to get a name from the shadows every now and then. Below are the four players that have been confirmed to be on the 2003 list

1. Barry Bonds
2. Alex Rodriguez
3. Manny Ramirez
4. David Ortiz

Players Named in Mitchell Report who played in 2003 (Locks)
This ESPN.com list does a thorough job explaining the context of why they were included in the report.

5. Marvin Bernard
6. Bobby Estalella
7. Jason Giambi
8. Jeremy Giambi
9. Benito Santiago
10. Gary Sheffield
11. Randy Velarde
12. David Segui
13. Larry Bigbie
14. Jack Cust
15. Brian Roberts
16. Josias Manzanillo
17. Todd Hundley
18. Matt Franco
19. Rondell White
20. Roger Clemens
21. Andy Pettite
22. Jason Grimsley
23. Greg Zaun
24. Mo Vaugn
25. Denny Neagle
26. Ron Villone
27. Ryan Franklin
28. Todd Pratt
29. Kevin Young
30. Kent Mercker
31. Adam Piatt
32. Miguel Tejada
33. Jason Christenson
34. Mike Stanton
35. Stephen Randolph
36. Jerry Hairston Jr.
37. Paul LoDuca
38. Adam Riggs
39. Fernando Vina
40. Kevin Brown
41. Eric Gagne
42. Matt Herges
43. Garry Bennett
44. Jim Parque
45. Brendan Donnelly
46. Chad Allen
47. Howie Clark
48. Derrick Turnbow
49. Rafael Palmeiro
50. Rick Ankiel
51. David Bell
52. Paul Byrd
53. Jay Gibbons
54. Troy Glaus
55. Jose Gullien
56. Darren Holmes
57. Scott Schoenweis
58. Ismael Valdez
59. Matt Williams
60. Steve Woodard

Players that Have Been Suspended by Baseball (Received Automatic Bids)
Official testing and suspensions started in 2005. The players on this list were in the league in 2003.

61. Juan Rincon
62. Alex Sanchez
63. Rafael Bettencourt
64. Matt Lawton
65. Felix Heredia
66. Carlos Almanzar
67. Guillermo Mota
68. Neifi Perez
69. JC Romero

Guys Who Just Hit Too Many Home Runs
(Projected to be on the list based on their body of work)

70. Richie Sexson (45 Home Runs in 2003)
Sexson might be a natural giant standing 6′8″ but his numbers are just too inconsistent to be trusted. He twice hit 45 Home Runs in a season (including 2003) but had a precipitous drop in production in 2007 when he batted .205 in almost 500 plate appearances. Yuck. He was cut twice in 2008 despite having a 15.5M salary.

71. Carlos Delgado (42)
Forget the fact that Delgado has an impressive 473 career Home Runs. All you need to look at is a 2008 season in which he looked washed up and was about two more dreadful weeks from losing his job and being released but ended up with 38 Home Runs and was an MVP candidate.

72. Andrew Jones (36)
Jones had all the talent in the world as a young prospect and vividly remember the 2 Home Runs he hit as a teenager in game 1 of the World Series against the Yankees in 1996. A few things don’t add up. Jones smacked a combined 92 Home Runs in 2005 and 2006. In 2007 at the peak age of 30 he batted .222 and then last year he hit .158. My guess is that he weighs 75 lbs more than he did when he first entered the league.

73. Preston Wilson (35)
Wilson had his best year in 2003 when he drove in 141 runs. By the time he was 32 he was out of the league.

74. Brett Boone (35)
Boone never hit more than 24 Home Runs in a season going into 2002. Then at the age of 33 he had a power surge where he averaged 33 Home Runs over the next three years. In 2005, he quickly shriveled down to 7 diners in 360 plate appearances and batted .221. Canseco implied that Boone was a user in his book — so put him on the list!

75. Jeremy Burnitz
At the age of 27, Burnitz had more years of life under his belt than career Home Runs. He then went on a five year tear where he averaged close to 33 HR’s per year. Burntiz was a classic swing for the fences power hitter who struck out more than Evanter in his single days. Burnitz is on the bubble but he was around in the Rodomski clubhouse so he makes the list.

76. Reggie Sanders (29)
Sanders was a speed guy who didn’t start to hit for 30+ HR power until he was 33 in 2001. He also stayed in the league till he was 39 and had a better stolen base percentage after he was 34.

77. Dmitri Young (29)
He is a fat guy who was a gap hitter. In 2003 he had 29 HR’s but never hit more than 21 in any other season. Young also won Comeback Player of The Year (a dead giveaway) and bashed Bonds a bit too publicly.

78. Carl Everett (29)
Classic case of roid rage. Shady story about family abuse. He also thinks that “Gays being gay” is wrong. Everett also wondered once, “if everybody in the world goes on steroids, we’ll still lose more kids to a war than we will to steroids”.

79. Nomar Garciaparra (28)
Nomar burst into the league (and his chest burst onto the cover of Sports Illustrated) and led the AL in hitting in ‘99 and 2000. But his decline was as rapid as any player in history and 2003 (age 29) was really his last good season. Boston knew something was up when they traded him. Nomar is even angling because he knows he is on the list. He recently suggsted that many players asked to be put on the list.

80. Richard Hildago (28)
44 HR’s in 200 at the age of 25. Never hit more than 28 in any other season. Was a disaster on the Mets in 2004 and out of the league at the age of 30 in 2005.

81. Jay Payton (28)
Payton had his best season in 2003 when he hit 28 HR (it was in Colorado). He never hit more than 18 HR in any other season. His stats don’t stand out but it amazes me that he hung around in the big leagues for 11 years. The Randomski presence also plays a factor here.

82. Jose Valentin (26)
Utility player was 5′10″ and 175lbs. Doesn’t make sense that he averaged 27 HR a year from the age of 30-34 (2000-2004). Before that string he had only one season with more than 20 HR.

83. Luis Gonzalez (26)
If your looking for the template model of how Steroids are a performance enhancer look no further than this guy. At the age of 33 in 2001 he jacked 57 HR. That is more HR than Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehring, Hank Aaron or Willie Mays ever had in one season. Gonzalez had never hit more than 31 HR in a season before 2001. No juice and there is NO WAY his little jam shot gets out of the infield in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series. Gonzalez acts outraged that their is steroid talk around his name. But really, Luis, we all know it’s roid rage!

84. Tony Batista (26)
Tony Batista averaged over 30 HR per year from 2000-2004. After that, from the age 30 on, he hit 7 career HR.

85. Morgan Ensberg (25)
He went from 10 HR in a full season in 2004 to 36 HR and 101 RBI in 2005. Houston got rid of him in 2007 and his career was basically halted at the age of 31. He played on the Yanks for a bit in 2008 and was worthless.

86. Raul Mondesi (24)
I could have sworn that Mondesi was on the Mitchell Report list but I guess not. Mondesi was a beast on the Dodgers - perhaps too big of a beast. He never hit more than 33 HR in a season and his power numbers kind of look Kosher. Yet, if you saw him play day to day on the Yanks you knew that something was up.

87. Brian Giles
Between 1999-2003, Giles average 37 HR. In the last five seasons, he’s never hit more than 15 HR. Instead he was sued for beating his girlfriend.

88. Marcus Giles
Standing all of 5′8″, Giles crushed 21 HR in 2003. Let’s just say this him and his bro were also butt buddies.

89. Shawn Green
This kills me since the jewish superstar was one of my favorite players as a teenager. But let’s be honest, Green had no business averaging 40 HR per year over a five year span between 1998 and 2002. Green power dramitcally dropped off in 2003 and he was out of he league by the age of 34. There’s always the chance that he DIDN’T do steroids and that’s why his production fell off. Are sterioids even kosher?

90. Jason Varitek
Varitek had really little power until 2003 when he knocked 25 round trippers at the age of 31. He’s a good catcher and consummate professional but no way he should ever have 25 jacks in a season. Rumors swirled that he would be named in the Mitchell report but he wasn’t.

91. Kevin Millar
Another Red Sox with 25 Home Runs in 2003. I guess Millar has some pop in his bat but he also was awful for large stretches of his career. But there just always appeared to be something shady about that guy.

92. Travis Hafner
Hafner is huge lugging around a 240 lb frame. He was just starting his career in 2003 but went on to hit 113 HR in the next three season. He hasn’t done much in the last two seasons and it appers like hi career has been derailed by injuries at the age of 30.

93. Edgardo Alfonso
Alfonso had a few great seasons with the Mets but never hit more than 17 HR after he was 27. He was already on the down slope of his career in 2003 and was basically done by 31. It seems like he was either never meant to put up 2 seasons of 25+ HR or he fell off way too quickly. Another guy who was Radomskied!

94. Phil Nevin (13)
Nevin was the overall #1 pick in 1992 but it really took him till the age of 27 in 1999 to break into the big leagues. He had a few monster years in 2000-01. But then injuries set in for the next few seasons. Nevin had another decent year in 2004 but was out of league after 2006. In the 2004 off-season he lost 30 lbs of muscle. I remember him pointing at the fences in disbelief after he hit a ball to the warning track in San Diego. He was basically saying “I can’t even hit it out and I’m cheating!”

95. Ryan Klesko (9)
Klesko was a typical power hitter on the Braves but then just seemed to lose it on the Padres in 2004 when he hit 9 HR at the age of 33. He had 1 HR at the break that season and it was just too fishy for something not to be up.

96. Shane Spencer (12)
Anybody who remembers Spencer’s remarkable performance during his September call up with the Yanks in 1998 knows this is a no brainer. The unheralded prospect hit 10 HR in his first 67 AB’s. He would hang around the league for 5-6 seasons although never hitting more than 12 HR. But let’s face it, he was not a major league talent.

97. Ruben Sierra (9)
Sierra was a all-star player in his prime in the mid 90’s but was basically toast by the age of 31 in 1997. He somehow surfaced again in the big leagues in 2001 at the age of 35 and would go on to play 5 more seasons including hitting 17 HR for the Yankees in 2004 at the age of 38. He either found of the fountain of youth in Mexico or…

98. Ellis Burks
Ellis Burks averaged 28 HR between the age of 34-37. It was the most powerful four year span of his career. In his so called prime with the Red Sox in the early 90’s, Burks never hit more than 21 HR’s.

99. Julio Franco
The oldest guy to hit a HR in the majors (48) had a perfectly sculpted body and looked more like a 25 year old guy when he was 45 than when he was 25.

100. Gabe Kapler
I love Kapler because we hail from the same tribe. But after hitting 49 HR in a three year span early in his career he never hit more than 6 HR in a season. Kapler is a muscle head who was often featured in body building magazines. Got to figure he was taking some kind of banned substance.

Pitchers
101. Oscar Villareal
In 2003, at the age of 21 he led the league by pitching in 86 games. It’s by far the best season he’ll ever have in the big leagues.

102. Kyle Farnswoth
Perhaps the worst human being to ever play the the game of baseball there is no doubt in my mind that Farnsworth was part of this mess. He threw 105 miles per hour but was still somehow ineffective.

103. Julian Tavarez
Tavarez went from awesome to crappy throughout his career. He had horrible facial acne and always seems to be raging on the mound.

104. Livan Hernandez/Orlando Hernandez
The half brothers shared more than just a father. Always a cloud of unexplainable mysteriousness surrounded their careers. Livan ate too much. El Duque disappeared for a few years before surfacing again. Bizarre injuries. Lot of scowls on the mound from Duque.

Too Close To Call
(Teetering on the Anabolic Bubble)

Jim Thome
Javy Lopez
Albert Pujols
Jim Edmonds
Alfonso Soriano
Aubrey Huff
Vernon Wells
Carlos Lee
Jorge Posada
Magglio Ordonez
Vincente Padilla
Brett Myers
Craig Biggio
Rocco Baldelli
Johnny Damon
Trot Nixon
Casey Blake
Jose Lima
Eric Byrnes
Adrian Beltre
Geoff Jenkins

So there you have it. My greater point of this list is that it is representative of what the real list would look like. True, perhaps there is some oversized Dominican shortstop who genuinely started hitting for power at 36. Perhaps he really just decided to eat more spinach (comer mucho espinacas). I do apologize if I’m tarnishing his name. But I just don’t feel bad about it. If players were so worried about the game and the reputation of their good names they should have spoken up long ago. I’ve had enough agonizing over how steroids was ruining baseball. From now on, I’ll have fun with it and I hope you do the same,

Let me set the guidelines. My rankings are based on the live sports experiences that were most enjoyable and memorable. It boils down to how many times I said or thought or mumbled to myself “this is awesome. This is the best moment of my life” while I was at the event. Pregame festivities can enhance an event but can’t make one (otherwise Michigan home football games would the list). The historical significance of the game is only a factor if it contributed to the excitement and experience. I’m sure there are a bunch of other technicalities that I’ll leave to my litigious homies to figure out.

To fully enjoy this post my advice is to click to the blog post web page so that you can watch some of the videos that are embedded within the post. They dont appear on the email.

Honorable Mention

1991 US Open First Round - Jimmy Connors defeats Patrick McEnroe
I was mad young at the time. I was there with my whole family so we went home in the middle of the third set (girls can’t hang past 11pm) with Conner about to be finished off. A few hours later I’m watching in disbelief from home as the 5th set unfolds and Connors is running around the court with winning point celebrations that rival Evanter’s slickest dance moves and thinking to myself - damn, I should still be there! My guess though is this match isn’t as remembered if Connors doesn’t go on to two more thrilling five setters against Krickstein and Paul Harhuis.

2002 - South Bend - Notre Damd 25, Michigan 23
Best tailgate/pregame scene of my life. Pre-game peakage for 2.5 solid hours. Walk to the stadium was nuts. The Great Weino was cursing out a priest and Da Bwetty was vandalizing the pristine campus. Unfortunately, the game was super lame. The whole time I had the feeling that we would lose and we did.

1999 - The Big House (My first game) — Michigan 26, Notre Dame 22
My first game as a freshman was a thrilling victory by Michigan over Notre Dame. I was celebrating in awe on the walk back home and ran into Anand (who already had a season under his belt). I kept on asking him if all the games were this good. I was in total amazement that this was the first of 20-25 Michigan games I was going to be at in the next four years. College just rocks. Here’s a Youtube highlight clip of the game that is fun to watch if it was also your first UM game.

2004 Accenture Match Play - La Costa/San Diego - Tiger Wood Match Play
A surreal and sensory scene as my SD roomy Jon and I followed Tiger for about five holes with less than 100 other people in the gallery as he destroyed some poor European chap in match play. I’ve never been in the presence and so close to a man with such intensity. He was in a ZONE. I must have yelled “Tiger, YOU DA MAN” a few hundred times from about 5-10 feet away and Tiger was so locked in with his Darth Vader style deep breathing that I’m not sure if anything could phase him.

Events I Should Have Been At And Jealous that I wasn’t…

2005 NCAA Tournament First Round - Vermont 60, Syracuse 57
I had to work that day and was heading up to Worchester the next morning. I had been following Vermont all season and adopted the Catamounts as my team. I was sitting on the couch next to Hillman when first Mopa-Njila and then T.J. Sorrentine heaved a three in overtime to ice the game. Lisa and Howie Hoops still talk about that shot. Apparently Lisa was going at it with a Syracuse fan the entire game and taunted him after the Catamounts pulled off the upset.

2003 ALCS Game 7 - Yankees 6, Boston 5
I had just moved to San Diego and was freaking out watching the Yankees come back off of Pedro on a 16″ inch TV that barely worked. Not sure I’ve ever been as excited watching a sports event as when Posada tied the game. This was when the Yankees were still on top and you felt like they could do anything if you rooted hard enough. I think Brett, Matt, Hillman and P were all at the game. Damn. This video does Aaron Boone’s Home Run proper.

1998 - David Wells Perfect Game
I had been planning to go to that game with my cousin Stacey. That week we decided not to go. Wells threw a perfecto - something I’m dying to see in my lifetime. Only mitigating factor is that my cousin and I plan to go to a bunch of games each season and always seem to flake (sorry Stace!)

1998 Jericho vs. Wheatley High School - Troy Slade vs. Jason Horowitz Doubles Match
Man, just to be there to see Troy straight up cheat on line calls as Witz gets angrier and angrier. Finally, Witz calls him out on it and Troy invokes Machiavelli by responding “An Eye for an Eye, HOROWITZ”. It amazes me that Troy lived to tell the story. My buddy P was there and verifies that the blatant cheating was as startling as I imagine it to be.

The Real List

#5 - 2005 US Open Quarterfinals - Andre Agassi defeats James Blake
During a change over in the middle of the 5th set, I was yelling like a maniac from the upper deck as the entire stadium was on its feat applauding the battle between the aging Agassi and the resurgent Blake. The place was still packed well after midnight and the atmosphere was more akin to a football game than a tennis match. I remember thinking to myself “Damn son, if every tennis match was like this it would be the greatest sport in the world”.

Blake dominated the first two sets and was up a break in the third. He had his own personal and super white and super annoying luxury suite chanting section that would repeatedly scream his name in between each points for two straight hours like he was in the midst of a keg stand. Everyone in the crowd wanted to see Agassi make it a match. It seemed hopeless. But Agassi somehow turned back the clock and started hitting stunning winners all over the court. I could sense it might be Agassi’s last hurrah on a grand stage. I wasn’t just rooting for him to win the match but was cherishing the experience to watch one of the best and most likable athletes of my youth. The match was finally decided in a tense, and extremely well played fifth set tie breaker that at one point was knotted at 6-6 with both guys one point away from facing match point. It was truly a match that nobody deserved to lose. I remember the buzz on the train ride home as everyone was gitty and thankful that they were in the stadium.

#4 - 2002 College Football - Michigan 32, Washington 29
Nothing could make a Michigan Man’s senior year of college more exciting than a national championship run. The Wolverines were a top ten team but faced a stiff test in their season opener against another top 10 teams in the Huskies (the team that had ruined their season the year before). Get by Washington during welcome week and Ann Arbor was going to be A LOT of fun.

The weather in Ann Arbor was perfect (which happens maybe 3x times a solar year) and our seats (25 or so of us sitting together) were 10 rows up in the student section. On the second play of the season, Chris Perry broke through the line for a 50 yard touchdown and a mosh pit broke out in our section that at the time I thought was going to last my entire life. If I ever thought I have received a omen from g-d, it was that play signaling a championship.

But then the game went back and forth and nerves starting to creep into the pit of my stomach. Kind of the same feeling you get after you would eat at Maize and Blue. Evidently, Michigan couldn’t make a kick! They had flubbed three field goals (by two different kickers) including the potential go ahead kick with less than 4 minutes in the game. Somehow Michigan got the ball back and went on one of those nerve-wrenching unwatchable final drives that have so often ended in heartbreak. This time the breaks fell Michigan’s way as a Braylon drop on 4th down was ruled a fumble recovery. After a lucky Penalty, Phillip Brabbs lined up for a 44 yard FG to win the game. At that point I would have bet all the rupees in Southeast Asia that Brabbs shank the kick. But the little powder looking fella nailed it flush through the uprights. Pandemonium lasted for a good week. I spent my night gloriously drinking Jaeger bombs in Brabbs honor all night at Rick’s and screaming his name on top of my lungs on the entire stumble home!

#3 - 1999 College Basketball - Duke 92, St. John’s 88
The Johnnies of 98-99 are, and will always be, my favorite basketball team of all-time. They had a budding, and still somewhat sane, star in Ron Artest. They had a pure NYC point guard in Erick Barkley who ran the show and a wonderful supporting cast in sharpshooter Bootsy Thornton, bruiser Tyrone Grant and glue guy Lavor Postell. They were NYC basketball, complete with the chip on the shoulder underdog attitude. (If you think this is L-Hoops hyperbole ask Hillman what the Johnnies did to the Terps in the Sweet 16 that year).

In the middle of the season, #2 ranked Duke sporting an 18-1 record and All-Americans in Elton Brand, Trajan Langdon and William Avery visited the Garden to take on the 8th ranked Johnnies. It was the first sellout for a St. John’s game in three years (a feat that seems unfathomable these days). For some inexplicable reason, we had given up our season tickets that season so Howie Hoops and I found ourselves up in the nose bleeds much closer to the rafters than the court.

It looked as though Duke was going to blow out the Johnnies early and the ghosts of Blue Devil past were starting to haunt me once again. But Bootsy Thornton, on his way to a forever endearing 40 point afternoon, heated up to keep the Johnnies close. The Johnnies hung around throughout the second half despite foul trouble. Artest checked back into the game and immediately scored a few buckets to set up an exhilarating final few minutes. It seemed doomed when Artest missed a three with less than 15 seconds left but he then stole the inbounds pass and was fouled hoisting up a wild three. I went nuts. The Johnnies were back in it! I did my patented “hold my breath and try to suffocate myself” as Artest went to the line. He was only able to convert on two of the foul shots (damn - I needed less oxygen!) After Duke hit two free throw to go back up by three, Barkley found Arest on the wing. Ron Ron nailed an off balance three to tie the game with one second left. I’ve never rooted harder for a shot to go into the basket in my entire life. Little Littyhoops screamed and screamed and screamed. We had shoved it to the man. Elton Brand had fouled out and the Johnnies were going to the Final Four!

Unfortunately, the magic was short-lived as Duke escaped in overtime. I remember leaving the Garden disappointed that they had lost but 100% confident in the team.

#2 2005 College Football, USC 30, Notre Dame 29
The opportunity to attend this game came about somewhat haphazardly. I was pulled into a project at CSTV that involved Tim Brown and Notre Dame themed dial-up internet service (made no sense at the time and still doesn’t) and I had to somehow oversee that 100K flyers were distributed at the game without any kind of street team (the details are hazy in my head).

Anyway, I showed up in South Bend four hours before the game and after walking for miles somehow ended up in a VIP tent with all the former Notre Dame greats (Totally, blew off the flyer thing). I met Joe Montana and had lunch with Tim Brown. As the game was about to begin, I tried to sneak onto the field by hopping on the back of a golf cart that Tim Brown took into the stadium but was caught without a credential at the last moment. My back-up plan to get into the stadium was that another CSTV contact was in the press box and would be able to get me in. But phone service wasn’t working and after fruitlessly calling dozens of times I figured I would try to scalp a ticket. I walked up to a group of kids and saw one dude jumping up and down because he had just secured a ticket. I asked him how much he paid and he told me $500. This game was that big. The night before they had sold out a pep rally in the stadium that was covered live on ESPNews (I caught the last 30 minutes of it).

I finally got in touch with my friend 15 minutes before kickoff. I went up to the press box for a bit and then settled into the bleachers in the stadium. The game was magical from the start as Notre Dame suprised the crowd by coming out in their Green jersey’s and turned back the clock and played like they were still in their glory days. When that little midget boxer Zbikowski returned a punt for a touchdown it was holy.

USC had Leinart, Bush, a 27 game winning streak and perhaps the greatest college football team ever assembled but the legend of Touchdown Jesus (one of the cooler sights from a football stadium) and the Golden Dome seemed to be in Notre Dame’s corner.

USC had the ball for one final drive down by 5. The faced a early 4th and 9 and the stadium was shaking with the Irish one play away from a shocking upset of the #1 team in the country. But under pressure, Leinart somehow threaded the needle on a sideline pass for a 1st down. USC steadily marched down the field all the way to Notre Dame one yard line. Leinart rolled out of the pocket and decided to scramble into the endzone but was leveled at the goal line. Game over. The place erupted and the fans stormed the field. But then just as fast as the fans rushed the field, they rushed off it. For some it struck me as a very similar moment to the parting of the red sea (wrong religion, I know). Apparently, Leinart fumbled and the ball went out of bounds and USC had one final play from the line of scrimmage. As thousands of fans watched from the sideline, Reggie Bush pushed Leinart into the end zone and USC escaped with the victory. The place was like a midnight mass. I looked around in amazement. Jesus had just died…again. The stadium was dead silence. I was freaking out to myself. I was not believing what I had just seen and not believing how crappy it must have felt to be a Notre Dame fan at that moment. I felt a little bad - sike! It was awesome to watch those bastards cry!

#1 2008 NCAA Tournament First Round in Tampa AKA Upset City

Four games. Four upsets. Two overtimes. Two buzzer-beaters.

Yeah, so it might be a complete bullshit cop out that I’m picking four games as the best game I’ve ever been too. But man, it really seemed like one long ass game and definitely one radical experience. There was about an hour difference between the end of the afternoon upsets and the start of nighttime upsets. I walked out of the arena and the Tampa sun was setting and I was pretty sure that this is what happens in heaven.

When you watch 10 hours straight of basketball in one day there are just too many special moments to remember. The first game was Drake vs. Western Kentucky. When the bracket was announced I figured this one was a dud. But it turned out to be one of the most entertaining ball games that I’ve ever watched. Drake came back from 17 down by shooting a three pointer every single time down the court. They had a point guard named Emmenecker who couldn’t shoot so instead he would just dribble around in circles until he found someone behind the arc to hoist up a three (Emmenecker had 0 baskets but 14 assists). I looked over and Howie Hoops was bobbing and weaving in excitement like that one “special” St. John’s fan (yes, the kid is even more special then me). Drake came all the way back to take the lead. Then some white farmboy bench warmer named Ty Rogers on Western Kentucky peeled off a pick from 40 feet and swished the game winner.

Game #2 saw my adopted Toreros of San Diego take down UCONN on a buzzer beater. We were sitting in the San Diego section and got swept up in the upset. My dad unexpectedly went for a ride with Thabeet in the hotel elevator and was staring at him funny the entire game. Mitch was bragging how tight he was with AJ Price’s family until AJ tore his ACL in the first half.

The first game of he night was #13 seed Siena blowing out Vanderbilt. As Vanderbilt was dejectedly walking into the locker room at the half Howie Hoops got a bit swept up in the moment and was screaming at the Volunteers about how much they suck. Courtney (a relative newcomer to the madness) looked on in horror! It seemed like more good basketball was an impossibility as Clemson had a 20 point first half lead. I searched for a television in the arena to watch the India game with my sister. But then Villanova stormed back with a monstrous second half. I was almost expecting a triple overtime game after being so spoiled all day but Nova pulled away. Four upsets in one arena. It had never happened before. I’ve never peaked for so long in my life!