[aslyfox]

. . . When a player is injured, you sit quietly until he gets up, then you applaud. I thought every basketball fan on the planet knew that.

I agree. and the players should be standing in another area respectfully

I unintentionally put an opposing player, their star running back, out of the game as he returned a kick off.

I was running as fast as I could across the field from midfield and hit him as he ran up the side line ( a block more than a tackle )

quite a collision, hitting with my shoulder, striking the top of his body and lifting my head as I did so

I lost sight of him as I immediately focused on the fence post holding a boundary rope line a few feet in front of me.

I was unable to stop my momentum

I grabbed the post leaning to my right as I did so.and I ran into the rope.

I said out loud that was a near miss but everyone was looking down and I discovered, the runner had been carried by my lower body into the side of the fence post

I was worried about him ( and very glad I was playing at home and the incident occurred on the home field side )

he was out of the game in the first quarter [and out for the season damaged ribs ]

no one on the field or the crowd did anything except applaud respectfully when he was taken off the field

I can still remember the whole incident which happened in 1974

[monochrome]

so long as your not talking about the Cardinals keep on talking

Dude.

Bonnie Raitt had a good response, though what she would give them to talk about ain’t baseball.

OTOH we do love our Cardinals here.

Youtu.be

Youtu.be

[luftfluss]

Had New England Boston illicitly recorded the St. Louis practices, they might have won.

[monochrome]

Had New England Boston illicitly recorded the St. Louis practices, they might have won.

How do we know they didn’t tape them? Practice rink is wide open.

---

Last edited by monochrome; 06-15-2019 at 06:26 AM.

[lesmore49]

I agree. and the players should be standing in another area respectfully

I unintentionally put an opposing player, their star running back, out of the game as he returned a kick off.

I was running as fast as I could across the field from midfield and hit him as he ran up the side line ( a block more than a tackle )

quite a collision, hitting with my shoulder, striking the top of his body and lifting my head as I did so

I lost sight of him as I immediately focused on the fence post holding a boundary rope line a few feet in front of me.

I was unable to stop my momentum

I grabbed the post leaning to my right as I did so.and I ran into the rope.

I said out loud that was a near miss but everyone was looking down and I discovered, the runner had been carried by my lower body into the side of the fence post

I was worried about him ( and very glad I was playing at home and the incident occurred on the home field side )

he was out of the game in the first quarter [and out for the season damaged ribs ]

no one on the field or the crowd did anything except applaud respectfully when he was taken off the field

I can still remember the whole incident which happened in 1974

When I was about 17, I blocked a kick off with my nose. It was during Phys. Ed. class and we weren't wearing helmets. It was a low, strong kick and that ball made a beeline for my face. I recall going down hard and fast to the ground and then recall our Phys. Ed. teacher putting his foot on my chest, grabbing my arms which were attached to my hands which were holding my nose, because of the terrible pain. The teacher wrenched my hands away from my nose and I next recall him saying to the rest of the class, was his nose always on that side of his face !

I knew then, that I had some trouble and that my dream of being the next Cary Grant would never be realized.

[RGlasel]

I could start a new thread, but the new NBA champions are also an expansion team from an unlikely location, with long-suffering fans, that wins its first franchise championship because it played better as a team than as individuals, so I feel justified in hijacking this thread.


What makes the Toronto Raptors winning the National Basketball Association championship (to help out @Kerrowdown) an even bigger story is how it affects an entire country. A Canadian invented basketball (while working in the U.S., a common story at the end of the nineteenth century) and in the pre-DreamTeam Olympics, the Canadian mens team won silver in 1936 and finished fourth in 1976 and 1984. I watched a team of Canadian college players beat the American College B Team for the gold medal in the 1983 Universiade Games (the B team team had Charles Barkley, the A team with Michael Jordan was playing in Brazil). Steve Nash was born in South Africa, but grew up in Canada and was named Most Valuable Player in the NBA twice (in 2005 and 2006). There are about a dozen Canadians on NBA rosters at the moment, including Chris Boucher on the Raptors (who was born in St. Lucia in the Caribbean, but grew up in Montreal). In 1995, the NBA expanded to include two teams in Canada, but the Vancouver Grizzlies were moved to Memphis in 2001, leaving just the Raptors. The Raptors tried building a team through the draft, by trading for big name players and signing expensive free agents, but they were a team that made a name for themselves as chronic underachievers. The city of Toronto has been blessed by several professional sports teams that excelled at underachieving, the Maple Leafs in the NHL last won the Stanley Cup in 1967, the year before the St. Louis Blues joined the league. The Toronto Blue Jays did manage to win Major League Baseball's World Series in 1992 and 1993, but haven't been back since and are in the midst of another complete rebuild.

But this isn't just about Toronto, as much as Canadians love the game of hockey (and there are 7 Canadian teams in the NHL), the last Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup was the Montreal Canadiens in 1993. National pride is very much connected to the performance of Canadians in sport, from the highs of winning the most gold medals in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver to the lows of the mens basketball team being eliminated in 2011 from qualifying for the Olympics by the mighty nation of Panama (I won't mention all the countries Canada's mens soccer team have lost to). Steve Nash was a huge boost to player development in Canada, but he played for teams in Dallas, Phoenix and Los Angeles. The Raptors are the token international team in the NBA and the only Canadian on their roster didn't play in the finals, but this team made an entire country stick out its chest with pride. It was a great moment for basketball internationally as well, even though almost one in four NBA players are "imported" the Raptors have players born in England, Congo, Cameroon and Spain, their general manager is from Nigeria and I thought it was exceptional when Marc Gasol answered questions in Spanish during press conferences and Pascal Siakim answered questions in French.

What can I say about the basketball played? The Raptors had the second best record in the regular season and were expected to easily win the first round of playoffs against Orlando (which they did). Then the 76'ers played a very physical game and took it to a game 7 in Toronto. The 76'ers tie the game with 4.2 seconds left and then the Raptors "token" superstar makes a basket with time expired that bounces 4 times on the rim before dropping. Then the Raptors lose the first two games to the team with the best regular season record, the Bucks, and just squeak out a win in game 3 at home in double overtime. That was it for the Bucks, though, the next three games, every time it looked like the Bucks might come back, someone on the Raptors snuffed them out with defence. For the first time, a team that was swept by the Wizards in the first round in 2015 and soundly beaten by LeBron and the Cavaliers in 2016, 2017 and 2018, was going to the Finals. That they were playing a team that was going to its fifth consectutive Finals, a team that had beaten the Cavaliers for the championship in 2017 and 2018, didn't matter. The Warriors out-scored the Raptors in just 5 0f 24 quarters of basketball. The Golden State dynasty is done. Welcome to the Kings of the North!

[aslyfox]

I could start a new thread, but the new NBA champions are also an expansion team from an unlikely location, with long-suffering fans, that wins its first franchise championship because it played better as a team than as individuals, so I feel justified in hijacking this thread. . . .

no problem with the winners

I haven't followed the NBA since the days of Magic, Jabbar, Bird etc.

however winners of the National Basketball Association [ or possible winners in the National Hockey League or the American League ] being over the border ??

what's next

College Conferences with numbers greater or lesser than the name ?

[ Big 10 ( 14 members and 2 " associate members " ), Big 12 (10 members and 11 " affiliate members " ) ]

[normhead]

I could start a new thread, but the new NBA champions are also an expansion team from an unlikely location, with long-suffering fans, that wins its first franchise championship because it played better as a team than as individuals, so I feel justified in hijacking this thread.


What makes the Toronto Raptors winning the National Basketball Association championship (to help out @Kerrowdown) an even bigger story is how it affects an entire country. A Canadian invented basketball (while working in the U.S., a common story at the end of the nineteenth century) and in the pre-DreamTeam Olympics, the Canadian mens team won silver in 1936 and finished fourth in 1976 and 1984. I watched a team of Canadian college players beat the American College B Team for the gold medal in the 1983 Universiade Games (the B team team had Charles Barkley, the A team with Michael Jordan was playing in Brazil). Steve Nash was born in South Africa, but grew up in Canada and was named Most Valuable Player in the NBA twice (in 2005 and 2006). There are about a dozen Canadians on NBA rosters at the moment, including Chris Boucher on the Raptors (who was born in St. Lucia in the Caribbean, but grew up in Montreal). In 1995, the NBA expanded to include two teams in Canada, but the Vancouver Grizzlies were moved to Memphis in 2001, leaving just the Raptors. The Raptors tried building a team through the draft, by trading for big name players and signing expensive free agents, but they were a team that made a name for themselves as chronic underachievers. The city of Toronto has been blessed by several professional sports teams that excelled at underachieving, the Maple Leafs in the NHL last won the Stanley Cup in 1967, the year before the St. Louis Blues joined the league. The Toronto Blue Jays did manage to win Major League Baseball's World Series in 1992 and 1993, but haven't been back since and are in the midst of another complete rebuild.

But this isn't just about Toronto, as much as Canadians love the game of hockey (and there are 7 Canadian teams in the NHL), the last Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup was the Montreal Canadiens in 1993. National pride is very much connected to the performance of Canadians in sport, from the highs of winning the most gold medals in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver to the lows of the mens basketball team being eliminated in 2011 from qualifying for the Olympics by the mighty nation of Panama (I won't mention all the countries Canada's mens soccer team have lost to). Steve Nash was a huge boost to player development in Canada, but he played for teams in Dallas, Phoenix and Los Angeles. The Raptors are the token international team in the NBA and the only Canadian on their roster didn't play in the finals, but this team made an entire country stick out its chest with pride. It was a great moment for basketball internationally as well, even though almost one in four NBA players are "imported" the Raptors have players born in England, Congo, Cameroon and Spain, their general manager is from Nigeria and I thought it was exceptional when Marc Gasol answered questions in Spanish during press conferences and Pascal Siakim answered questions in French.

What can I say about the basketball played? The Raptors had the second best record in the regular season and were expected to easily win the first round of playoffs against Orlando (which they did). Then the 76'ers played a very physical game and took it to a game 7 in Toronto. The 76'ers tie the game with 4.2 seconds left and then the Raptors "token" superstar makes a basket with time expired that bounces 4 times on the rim before dropping. Then the Raptors lose the first two games to the team with the best regular season record, the Bucks, and just squeak out a win in game 3 at home in double overtime. That was it for the Bucks, though, the next three games, every time it looked like the Bucks might come back, someone on the Raptors snuffed them out with defence. For the first time, a team that was swept by the Wizards in the first round in 2015 and soundly beaten by LeBron and the Cavaliers in 2016, 2017 and 2018, was going to the Finals. That they were playing a team that was going to its fifth consectutive Finals, a team that had beaten the Cavaliers for the championship in 2017 and 2018, didn't matter. The Warriors out-scored the Raptors in just 5 0f 24 quarters of basketball. The Golden State dynasty is done. Welcome to the Kings of the North!

That's an eloquent effort. I'd just point out, I get a little tired of the "long suffering" thing. 11 NBA franchises have never won a championship. 8 haven't won one in 36 years or over. 19 of 30 teams have suffered longer or basically 2 out of 3. Toronto fans suffered, for 24 years. It almost makes up for the Leafs not winning since 67. That's 50 years.... But Toronto also had back to back world series teams in 92 and 93.. 4 major sports league champions in 50 years, they aren't that long suffering. There are lots worse.

[aslyfox]

That's an eloquent effort. I'd just point out, I get a little tired of the "long suffering" thing. . . . .

my beloved Chicago Cubs

began as the White Stockings in 1870

founding member of National League in 1876

1880, 1882, 1882, won the championship

1907, 1908 Won World Series

2016 Won World Series

except for teams which have never won a championship at all, I don't want to hear it

[monochrome]

500,000 people expected for the parade, and then the Rally on the Gateway Arch grounds - even in the rain.

That’s 1/4 the population of the St. Louis area and 1/16 the population of the entire state of Missouri. Yikes!

I won’t even try.

[robtcorl]

500,000 people expected for the parade, and then the Rally on the Gateway Arch grounds - even in the rain.

That’s 1/4 the population of the St. Louis area and 1/16 the population of the entire state of Missouri. Yikes!

I won’t even try.

We have the best seats, our recliners, high and dry, refreshments and a non smelly potty near by.
I couldn't believe people were setting up along the parade route yesterday evening.

[monochrome]

We have the best seats, our recliners, high and dry, refreshments and a non smelly potty near by.
I couldn't believe people were setting up along the parade route yesterday evening.

It’s a life list thing, I guess. My partner was at Enterprise Center at 6:00am Thursday to buy shirts. I was at my desk . . .

Update: O. M. G. They’re 40 100 deep at some points on both sides of the 1 1/2 mile parade route.

[RGlasel]

That’s 1/4 the population of the St. Louis area and 1/16 the population of the entire state of Missouri. Yikes!

What makes this bigger than the Cards winning the World Series? (I'm assuming the 2006 and 2011 parades weren't of the same magnitude)

[SSGGeezer]

What makes this bigger than the Cards winning the World Series? (I'm assuming the 2006 and 2011 parades weren't of the same magnitude)

Hockey fans are not generally of the bandwagon variety. The Blues ending 49 years of frustration since the Bruins beat them in four games leaves a lot of pent up desire to celebrate!

[monochrome]

What makes this bigger than the Cards winning the World Series? (I'm assuming the 2006 and 2011 parades weren't of the same magnitude)

I’ve attended many of these parades and celebrations. The Rams Super Bowl Parade was closer to this, but this is something else altogether.

There are so many stories.

• This Blues passion isn’t really new. It has been this way since 1967.
• Hockey fans are different than Baseball fans. The Center was sold out when they were in last place and people didn’t really BOO much.
• With all the negatives St. Louis has endured the last few years I think the city really needs something positive to rally around
• Hockey players are regular guys from small towns in Canada. They’re more like the typical fan than other professional athletes.
• 52 years story
• Craig Berube Interim Coach story (Blues GM - “The coach search is down to a candidate of one.”)
• Last to first story
• Game 7 in Boston and they shut down the Bruins.
• Pat Maroon hometown boy story. Signed with the Blues for less money to come home. His Oakville High School band is in front of his pickup truck.
• Zach Edmundson’s Dad story
• Ryan O’Reilly story - just said, “This is the coolest thing I have ever done.” He and Pietrangelo are carrying the Stanley Cup next to the barricades so fans can touch it.
• Jay Bowermeester story - long career, 1500+ games no playoffs.
• Tarasenko
• Jordan Binnington rookie goalie story
• Stan Kroenke revenge story - very prominent ‘in your face’ attitude here.
• Gloria story (Philadelphia dance bar story) - there are people here from the bar just interviewed on TV.
• Country Road story
• Laila Anderson / Colton Parayko story
• Tom Stillman (owner) saving the Blues for the city story. He’s not a typical billionaire owner. He’s like the third “city father’ to “save” the Blues.
• Players have embraced St. Louis and the fans. They live here and act like they like it here. 65 Blues Alumni live here.
• They’re actually one of the winningest teams in the NHL. 25 consecutive post-season appearances at one point. They’ve only missed the playoffs nine times in those 52 years. They always had something bad happen. We thought the hand pass was, “Oh No. Not again.” But not this time!
• It’s just different somehow. I’m a life-long baseball fan with many direct contacts to the Cardinals all my life so the Cardinals are my thing, but this is different

The Rally start is over an hour two hours late because the players keep getting off their trucks to sign autographs and shake hands. The Parade hasn’t ended yet!! That has never happened before.