I Have an Announcement to Make

I̶'̶m̶ ̶g̶a̶y̶.̶

Naaaaaaahhhh....

I'm announcing that I will no longer post sports pieces in my blog. I will be posting them instead on a website called The Front Office News, which is a sports website based in Cincinnati, Ohio that was created by a man named Jesse Smith. He is a man who covers everything about sports and events surrounding his alma mater at the University of Cincinnati. He is experienced as he's been doing this job of sports journalism for a number of years. Through networking and discoving similar preferabilities, Mr. Smith has allowed me to post whatever sports articles of my choosing. With his guidance, I hope to improve my writing in the one field that I so love, sports.

Other than that, there's really not much to say.


If you want to follow me on my journey in a different website, check it out in the line underneath the sentence after this one.


G'bye!



The Front Office News

*psst* The Houston Dynamo Are Trying to Win a Cup Later Today. Did You Know That? *psst*

Yeah, it's true.

The Houston Dynamo are in the final match of the 2018 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup competition against the Philadelphia Union and if they win tonight, they'll win the whole thing. That's right. The whole thing. They'll take their 3rd title in club history, with the first two being the MLS Cup which was won in succession in 06 and 07, their first two years in existence.



Besides the fact that both the Dynamo and Union are in the middle of a battle for a spot in the MLS playoffs with their respective conference rivals, they can make this season a memorable one by winning the final tonight. Furthermore, the right to hold such a prestigious cup in American soccer lore is not the only thing up for grabs.



Along with winning the Open Cup--which is, oh, by the way, the oldest domestic cup competition in American soccer--the winner of the competition will earn a place in next year's CONCACAF Champions League, a club competition situated in the North, Central America and Caribbean region where the best teams of each country face off against one another to see who is the best of them all. It rakes in a tremendous stream of revenue and, as a result, gives teams a sizeable amount of prize money, thus providing an incentive for them to participate. For this year's competition, a total of $1.2 million was given out to all the teams who took part, with $500,000 going to the winner.

So as you can see, the magnitude of tonight's game is plentiful. Surely I know it's happening what with me being a big soccer fan and all, but what about you, reader? Did you know such a game is going to be played at BBVA Compass Stadium in a few hours' time? Yes, there may be a chance you might see a little advertisement while you're scrolling on your phone in social media apps, but other than that, did you take notice of it whatsoever?



It's a shame you haven't. The Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup is essentially a knockout-style tournament where teams from every division in American soccer (MLS, USL, NASL, PDL, and so on...) play together like equals. They are drawn at random which provides for exciting and sometimes unexpected fixtures. It's a carbon copy of the FA Cup from England in which low-tier teams from the 5th all the way down to the 10th division are given the rare opportunity of possibly playing against a Premier League (or 1st division) team, sometimes doing so in their own backyard. If you still have no idea what it's about, then think of it as a bigger version of March Madness. You think seeing 64 college teams play basketball in 2 days is a lot? Try watching more than 100 teams play soccer nonstop for nearly a year.

As it is put in the same breath as March Madness, you can probably guess that a tournament so vast can be ripe for upsets. Surely, you're not mistaken, for established MLS sides have been trounced day in and day out by their inconspicuous amateur counterparts where--and they actually happened--some teams were formed simply for the sake of leisure. Memorable games have been played in this tournament and this year's edition has proved to be no different. For reference, look at the various penalty shootouts and late-winners that have salvaged the winning teams from their near deaths and doomed the resultant losers into sudden elimination and heartbreak.

Here are some examples:

1. The DC United vs Orlando City SC shootout in the round of 16.
2. The Minnesota United vs FC Cincinnati shootout.
3. The USL's own Louisville City FC's Cinderella run to the quarterfinals of the tournament.
4. The EPIC Columbus Crew vs Chicago Fire shootout.
5. The upset win from Sacramento Republic FC vs the 4-time U.S. Open Cup winner Seattle Sounders.
6. And the instant-classic semi-final game between the Dynamo and Los Angeles FC.

I'm only giving you a miniscule amount of all the highlights from the entire tournament, reader, so that you may look more into the rest of the other games by yourself.


This event is such a wonderful gathering of various walks of life. People whose ordinary jobs consists of accounting, construction work, and much more that play this sport can be paired up with professional soccer players in the blink of an eye. No other major sport in this country has a competition that can remotely compare to this. You don't see AAA or AA minor league baseball teams play Major League teams in the middle of the regular season nor do you see D-League affiliates face off with their parent NBA team.



The Open Cup is one of a kind, and it's only fitting that it ends later today as a new champion will be crowned at the final game's end. But you know what would make this even more perfect, reader? Maybe have a game that ends in a penalty shootout. The soccer fan in me would be ecstatic, but the Dynamo fan in me would absolutely detest it. Either way, we're in for a good one in Houston.

It's Hard Being a Texans Fan

I've been a Houston Texans fan for the majority of my life.


I've seen a carousel of quarterbacks play behind center for us throughout the years along with a number of disappointing finishes in football games. I went through disastrous seasons ('member 2005 & 2013?), promising seasons (2009), and playoff losses ('11, '12, '15, '16). I've had expectations like any other football fan prior to the start of all those seasons only for them to go up in smoke by the year's end. Nevertheless, I understood that to fully realize a champion in your team you must first go through the trials of defeat and suffering.


This patience finally paid off for me in baseball last year when the Astros won the World Series, and with the Texans having a terrible end to their 2017 season thanks to their injuries coinciding that with the emergence of their first-round draft pick named DeShaun Watson, I thought maybe, just maybe, they will turn a corner for the better. Watson kicked ass before he suffered a torn ACL last year, so Texans fans like myself had a positive outlook towards what our offense might look like. We might be seeing an offensive monster in the making. Add that to the acquisition of Tyrann "Honey Badger" Mathieu and a new general manager in Brian Gaine, we thought that a new era was ushering for the Houston Texans.



Well........3 games into our season and things have not looked so well for us.



The first game was lost to the Patriots 27-20 in Foxborough. The second game was lost to the Blaine Gabbert-led Titans by the score of 20-17 in Nashville. And the third game, which just ended today, was lost to the Giants by the score of 27-22.

The first game I understand because we went up against the quintessential football player in Tom Brady. It's hard for a second-year quarterback--or any quarterback for that matter--to beat someone who is essentially a demigod in their house, so I let that pass. Along with a respectable defense that kind of held their own against Brady and his corps of low-radar receivers and the embodiment of the Jersey Shore in Gronk, the mood with the team was hopeful.




The second game, however, was unforgivable. You mean to tell me that the Texans couldn't beat a team with Blaine fucking Gabbert as their starting quarterback?

Blaine Gabbert?

BLAINE? GABBERT!????

A man who openly shat on a field while playing for the Jaguars!? Someone whose last name sounds like a very bad cavity!?

This man was only tasked with not giving up a turnover and you couldn't even take him down. You couldn't get more than 1 sack on him with that defensive line. Oh, and let's not mention the injuries they went through last week. They didn't have Mariota play that game. Hell, some of their key weapons weren't on the field and you still lost.

AND THE FUCKING FAKE PUNT!!!!!!! You mean to tell me you couldn't even cover the one man left alone on the right side of the field before the ball was snapped!? The fuck went on in the defense's mind that play????

And then today was just as laughable. Turnovers in key plays killed us. Lamar Miller, really? You still don't know how to secure the ball after playing in the NFL for 7 FUCKING years!?

And the play-calling. OH MY GOODNESS THE PLAY-CALLING. O'Brien, you have eyes, right? You can see, right? You can tell when a part of your offense is and is not working, right? You're a professional football coach, RIGHT!? The run game was not working, and you still try to hand the ball back? Watson was playing alright when he passes the ball quickly. There were times where he ran drive seamlessly with just his arm and legs. He was on fire. You can't just halt his momentum to play a handoff run down to the middle of the pile simply for the sake of  "mUh EStaBlisHinG the ruNNinG GamE foR bAlAncE". In sports, when someone on your team is hot, you ride it all the way! It's not that hard to understand.

Also, the defense was carrying us once again. I have no problem with that but games are not normally won on one side of the ball. One can't rely on their defense all the time, right? I feel like I saw the same story today that I've been seeing for the past 4 years, where we have been competitive thanks to a great defense despite having an underwhelming offense. It's frustrating for me to not see a lot of touchdowns. Where was the magic from last season before Watson got injured? Where are the option plays?

The worst out of all this, though, is the God damn penalties. Our discipline so far this season has simply been stupid. Key plays in our favor were erased thanks to self-inflicting penalties in all those games (I swear to God if I hear one more false start penalty on the offensive line in the red-zone, I'm going to choke a bitch). As of before the start of the Texans vs Giants game, we were tied for 7th place in most penalties called with 17. Today they had 10 called penalties. My goodness, if they keep this penalty production up, we'll be 1st place by next week.



Look, I get it. This 2018 season is only 3 games in and things may change drastically since now. But looking at the team we are with our questionable play-calling and childish behavior, I don't like our chances in winning a lot of games. Plus, there are only 16 games in a season and they fly by.



Even worse, history is not kind to teams who are 0-3 after 3 games in the regular season. Since 1980, only 5 teams out of more than 160 have made the playoffs after starting their given year 0-3, with the recent one being the 1998 Buffalo Bills. This makes for nearly 2 percent. As such, I believe it will take a miracle for the Texans to turn things around and somehow make the postseason.



Regardless of this, I will not lose hope in the face of such insurmountable odds. I am a fan of the Houston Texans and I will not abandon my team when they're on the negative trajectory of play. Much like what I did with the Astros, I will stick with my football team through thick and thin with the hope that one day we will win the elusive Super Bowl in my lifetime. I will believe in them to the end.




Go Texans.



Well, at least we have J.J. Watt.

Why?: Wearing a Sweater in a Hot Sunny Day

People who go out on hot days wearing their jackets, why do you do it?





What prompted you to further torture yourself with immense heat coming from not just the sun, but from yourself as well?





Is it because you wanted to stand out from the crowd and be known as a rebel?





Was it because you have always been a fan of hot weather and not the cold? Was it because you really like sweaters?





Or perhaps it was because you did it to lose weight through excess sweating?





I was in my university walking to my classes today and I saw scores of people wearing dark-colored sweaters outside. OUTSIDE. Here I was suffering in this heat as always and there they were walking as if there's not a single thing wrong going on in their minds. I was just baffled. Some even had their hoods on their heads while in the face of the blazing sunlight. As they passed my sweat-dribbling self, all I could think of was how crazy they were to do such a stupid stunt. No one needs to be Evel Knievel in the middle of September.

Speaking of which, why is it so FUCKING HOT in SEPTEMBER? Fall should be signaling its return by now with breezes and not-so-hot weather, but no, summer just had to stay put like an annoying little ass. God damn climate change, man.

Sweaters are made for two things: for workouts and for the retention of body heat during the winter. That's it. There's no need for anyone to be an edgelord by wearing it during the summer. Seriously, people die out of fighting the heat with their host of clothing after a given period of time. Hell, look at Chris from Everybody Hates Chris. You know that show, right? There was one time in an episode where he bought a leather jacket to impress a girl in his neighborhood (screw you, Keisha) and wore it in front of her outside on a bright sunny day. Do you know what happens next? You don't? Well then, let me give you the answer.

Don't die.



If you feel warm outside, simply take off your sweater. No one's going to tease you if you do. Consider this as a public service announcement, reader. Don't wear your sweater outside on a hot sunny day.