Baily's Sports & Stuff

Screenwriter Goodell has done it again! It's admittedly not the script I saw written in the stars - or rather in the combination of the NFL's Super Bowl logo and a Memphis radio station's (now) false advertising. The best explanation is that not even Goodell could have foreseen the Taylor Swift effect - and called in the cast midseason to push the Chiefs' Super Bowl hangover back one more year at Baltimore's expense. When the Harbaugh family threatened to sue, he called in a favor to the NCAA - and Jalen Milroe - to have Jim pocket the family's due 2023 ring. And then, to give big bro the upper hand, inflicted Jim with the worst curse in all of sports - that of the LA Chargers. Equilibrium is restored. It looked like the revised script was about to bring the 49ers down too in favor of the bookended schedule Super Bowl that Jake Marsh wanted to see so badly - the same kickoff game and championship game matchup. The thought crossed my mind as a minor consolation i...

I'm gonna start with Baltimore and Kansas City, because I actually might have more to say on this topic than on my beloved 49ers. There are a number of nerd nuggets (thanks to Jake Marsh from Pardon My Take) that absolutely astound me when it comes to this game. Theme 1: Patrick Mahomes Mahomes has more playoff wins than Aaron Rodgers. He has as many as Brett Favre and Big Ben. If he wins Super Bowl 58, he will not only break the curse of the Super Bowl logo, but he will also pass the likes of Peyton Manning and Steve Young to reach 3rd all time in playoff wins. He's 28! This is the first time Kansas City hasn't hosted the AFC Championship Game since 2017! The Chiefs will have played five opponents - New England, Tennessee, Buffalo, Cincinnati, and now Baltimore, in those six years. New England rattled off seven straight appearances from 2011-2017 and won four. Mahomes has already won three. Mahomes, as a starter, has never not been to the AFC Championship Game before. Sinc...

Since the mid-1950s, economic hardship and athletic heartbreak have had an eerily strong correlation in Cleveland...so much so that one may even wonder if correlation equals causation.  The phrase "pessimistic city" was used in the 30 for 30 "Believeland" more than once to describe the mistake on the lake, bereaveland, grieveland, you name it. Believeland it or not, a moniker that could be credibly used to describe the city in 1955 was "the best location in the nation". The Browns had made 10 consecutive title games (winning 7), the then-Indians were a few years removed from baseball glory, and the city had twice as many Fortune 500 companies as San Francisco and Los Angeles...combined. The Cavs weren't around yet. We'll get to them later. But an exodus to suburbia, loss of industrial jobs, and the rising tensions that accommodated this pain quickly began to scar the city's psyche. In 1978, Cleveland became the first major city to default on it...

I've recently gotten captivated by the practice of journaling - generally on my own thoughts that I notice and how I feel at various moments. This has been a transformative practice in my personal life in enabling me to be more honest with myself (which is really hard!) - whether that be about discomfort I feel, what conditions provide a state of flow, or anything in between. The ability to document my life on paper - and go back and read what resonated with me at a particular point in time - has been a similarly great practice for me. Recently, the excitement of playoff football and midseason basketball has led to me pursuing a similar practice in my personal journal - airing out thoughts on sports ranging from stats I've tried to memorize to my (often unwanted) psychological analysis on a given athlete / situation. I love the process of putting pen to paper, and plan to continue this in my personal life.  But when it comes to sports, I had the thought that maybe there's n...