Cue Cards Archives - Page 14 of 19

Cue Cards 9-30-14

Cue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.

Yesterday — Monday, September 29

Down and out in Kansas City — The Kansas City Chiefs beat the New England Patriots 41-14 last night and the game didn’t even seem that close. The Chiefs dominated the Patriots in just about every way possible. They were better at running the ball. They were better at throwing the ball. They were able to keep the Patriots from running the ball successfully and, when the Patriots tried to pass, the ball seemed just as likely to end up in an opponents hands as one of their own. It was a complete beat-down.
Line: I know the Patriots always seem to turn it around, but this year their team seems really bad.
Two little bits of soccer — Other than the football game, the sports world was pretty quiet yesterday. You know it’s quiet when the other biggest score of the day is Stoke City 1, Newcastle United 0. Both these teams are relatively weak teams in the top British soccer league, the English Premiere league. According to this ESPN article, Newcastle United’s manager might get fired because of the result. Also their nickname is the Magpies! The other interesting soccer news is that Chivas USA is being sold and as part of the deal will skip the next two seasons! It’s an unorthodox move. Chivas had been one of Major League Soccer’s most interesting franchises because it was owned by the owner of a Mexican soccer team and operated almost as a minor league team. Apparently that has not been successful and the new owners insisted on the team taking a break from competition while they rebrand and potentially relocate the team.
Line: Soccer seems so wacky compared to other sports. Who names a team the Magpies? Who buys a team but insists that it stop playing?

Cue Cards 9-29-14

Cue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.

Yesterday — Sunday, September 28

Football, football, football — It was a full day of football, replete with amazing performances, unfortunate blunders, strange coaching decisions. With Monday comes a slew of analysis and heated debate. Brush up on your lines about all the games with our NFL One Liners.
Line: How about them Cowboys? [They won big over the Saints, that’s how.]
Europe retains the Ryder Cup — The verb retain will be used by almost everyone talking about the European victory of the United States in the Ryder golf tournament. This is because of a small wrinkle in the rules that calls for the defending champions (the Europeans) to hold on to the championship if the two teams tie after three days of play. This rule didn’t come into play — Europe beat the U.S. by a comfortable 16.5 to 11.5 margin — but the verb will anyway.
Line: That’s three Ryder Cup wins in a row for Europe.
Baseball playoffs are set — The last spot in the MLB postseason was settled yesterday when the Oakland Athletics clinched by beating the Los Angeles Angels. This eliminated the Seattle Mariners from contention. The dates and times for the playoffs are set, starting with two one game playoffs on Tuesday and Wednesday. If you’re curious, here’s how the baseball playoffs work.
Line: Can you imagine playing 161 games and being eliminated on the 162nd? Brutal.

Cue Cards 9-26-14

Cue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.

Yesterday — Thursday, September 25

A Fitting Farewell to Derek Jeter — Derek Jeter has been the shortstop of the New York Yankees for as long as I can remember. It seems like forever. In actuality, it’s been since 1996. He’s retiring after this year and last night was his last game at home in Yankee Stadium. He’s a divisive player, partially because the Yankees are at once the most popular and the most hated team in the league, but also because he’s widely thought of as a great player but a close study of his statistics often leaves room for doubt about how good he actually is. Last night, he further cemented his legend as a winner by hitting a single in the bottom of the ninth inning which helped his teammate score the winning run. Basically, as soon as he hit that ball, the game was over and the Yankees had won. Believe it or not, there were plenty of damp eyes among Yankees fans in the stadium and at home.
Line: You couldn’t have written a more Jeter-like ending if you had tried.
The Good Night for New York Continued in Football — Meanwhile, back in the NFL, the New York Giants were beating the Washington Redskins 45 – 14. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong for Washington, and everything that could go right, went right for New York. After many seasons playing with the same offensive coach and offensive strategy, the Giants installed a new coach and a new strategy over this past off-season. They started the season looking horribly. It’s possible they are a bad team that had a good night but it’s also possible that they just needed some time to get used to new ways of playing. On Washington’s side of the ball, the enthusiasm they had for quarterback Kirk Cousins when he took over for injured Robert Griffin III might be waning slightly (okay, dramatically) after he threw four interceptions in the second half.
Line: Maybe Kirk Cousins isn’t the savior everyone thought he was.
The Ryder Cup Begins — Not strictly, yesterday’s action, this international golf tournament started very early in the morning, East Coast time. So far, the European team is slightly ahead of the team from the United States, but that’s not bad for the U.S. because we were underdogs coming into the tournament. Play continues at 8:15 a.m. ET. If you’re curious about how the Ryder Cup works, read my explanation of it here.

Cue Cards 9-25-14

Cue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.

Yesterday — Wednesday, September 24

More champagne in baseball — It’s traditional in baseball to celebrate division titles or even just making the playoffs in flamboyant fashion. This tradition has evolved over time and today it involves wearing ski goggles and spraying champagne all over the locker room. For a sport whose regular season is an almost-every-day grind with teams playing 162 games over only around 180 days, the release is well earned. Yesterday the L.A. Dodgers clinched their division, the National League West division and celebrated ecstatically after beating the San Francisco Giants 9-1.
Line: I should celebrate my next achievement at work that way… Wonder what would happen to me if I did?
ESPN VIP suspended — Bill Simmons is one of the biggest names in sports media. He’s one of the original independent bloggers but as long since moved into the mainstream media within ESPN. He’s now a television personality, the driving force behind Grantland.com, a television producer, and one of the biggest podcasters out there. None of that kept ESPN from suspending him for three weeks for (we assume) critical comments he made about NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on his latest podcast. This suspension is a big news item because of Simmons’ celebrity and because it fans the flames of outrage among people already angry at sports establishments. There’s a #freesimmons going around on twitter with some great stuff which, as of now is the third highest trending topic on all of twitter. The first is just “Bill Simmons”… so yeah, people are paying attention to this story.
Line: No matter how big you get, you’re still an employee, I guess. [Lots of people are also saying:] Wow, that’s one more week than the NFL originally gave Ray Rice for the domestic violence itself.

Cue Cards 9-24-14

Cue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.

Yesterday — Tuesday, September 23

The Pirates Make the Playoffs — Before last year, the Pirates hadn’t made the playoffs since 1992. Now they’ve made it twice in a row! That’s an impressive turn-around for the long-suffering franchise. They clinched their playoff spot last night by beating the Atlanta Braves 3-2. They don’t get to rest now though, because playoff seeding is a big deal and they still have a chance to catch some of the teams ahead of them, including their division leader, the St. Louis Cardinals. According to Playoff Magic, the Cardinals magic number over the Pirates is four. And if you don’t know what that means, you should read this!
Line: I’m excited the Pirates are back in the playoffs. I love their throwback caps!
Hockey? Hockey is back? — That’s right! Preseason hockey began this week. Of the big sports, hockey probably has the smallest fan base but their fans tend to be passionate about the sport. With temperatures still in the seventies across the country, it’s hard to believe it’s hockey season again, but it will be soon.
Line: Did you know hockey preseason games have started?

Cue Cards 9-23-14

Cue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.

Yesterday — Monday, September 22

The Bears ground the Jets — There’s really only one thing in the sports world that happened yesterday which will create conversation today, and that’s the Chicago Bears beating the New York Jets 27-19 on Monday Night Football. It wasn’t an unexpected result, the Bears seem like they are pretty good and Jets seem like they’re tragically flawed in many of the ways they often are: mediocre quarterback, unreliable wide-receivers, slightly dysfunctional organization. The most notable aspect of the game last night was how many injuries there were on particular positional groupings. By the end of the game, the Bears were scraping the bottom of the barrel for their defensive backs but the Jets were missing their best wide receiver so it was hard for them to take advantage of it.
Line: [Jets quarterback] Geno Smith shows just enough promise to keep luring you in without delivering.
Fantasy, fantasy, fantasy — Tuesdays after otherwise quiet Mondays are the perfect time for fantasy football owners to crow or gripe about their teams. They “absolutely crushed” their league this week or they “lost by a fraction of a point because [name of player] had a touchdown called back because of [penalty, usually offensive holding]” or because they started [player] when they should have started [other player.]
Line: [Nod head, make sympathetic noises, and then launch into telling them about your hobby of fishing/crocheting/model trains/historic reenactment. Fair is fair.]

Cue Cards 9-22-14

Cue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.

Yesterday — Sunday, September 21

Another rollicking NFL Sunday — As with most Mondays in the fall, this will be the dominant conversation topic among sports fans. Prepare yourself for water-cooler talk with our NFL One Liners that not only give you a little information about what happened in each game but also a line to say if asked what you think.
Line: The highlight of yesterday’s games was when the rematch of last year’s Super Bowl, between the Seattle Seahawks and the Denver Broncos, went into overtime.
Jeter’s last weekend game — Yankees star, Derek Jeter, has been on a retirement tour all season. Every last is celebrated. Yesterday, he had his last weekend home game at Yankee stadium. The Yankees won, 5-2 over the Blue Jays, and Jeter had a very good game.
Line: I’m glad Jeter is playing well again, it was a little sad when it looked like he’d be leaving the game playing so poorly.
Manchester United stink — Talking about the Yankees, the Yankees of British soccer, Manchester United, continues to have a nightmare of a season. They lost 5-3 to Leicester yesterday. This leaves them with one win in five games this season. That’s like the Yankees going 5-28 to start a season!
Line: The bigger they are, the harder they fall, eh… eh…?

Cue Cards 9-19-14

Cue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.

Yesterday — Thursday, September 18

The U.S. Women’s National Soccer team rolls — Our women’s soccer team is to international soccer what our men’s national basketball team is to basketball. Dominant. Perhaps they aren’t quite as overwhelmingly dominant as the men’s basketball team but you wouldn’t know that from the easy 4-0 victory over Mexico last night. This followed an 8-0 win over the same team in their previous game. According to Liviu Bird of Sports Illustrated, these two games against Mexico are actually likely to be more challenging than any teams the team will face in official qualifying games for the 2015 World Cup.
Line: If only we could develop male soccer players in this country as well as we do women, we’d have been able to give goalie Tim Howard some support in the men’s World Cup in Brazil.
The Atlanta Falcons swoop the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — Last night’s NFL game was compelling like a fender bender is. The Falcons scored the first 56 points of the game. 56!! The Bucs? Well, they fumbled and bumbled and slipped and fell. It was ugly.
Line: I know they’re professionals and all but how can you not feel sympathy for a group of guys who just had their absolute worst day on the job watched by millions of people?
Auburn survives Kansas State — There was a rare high-profile college football game on Thursday last night. The Auburn Tigers have national championship aspirations and the way college football is set up, teams basically can’t lose more than one game all season if they want a chance at the championship. It’s far better to be undefeated. The Kansas State Wildcats showed a lot of talent and heart by putting a real scare into the Tigers late in the game.
Line: The good thing about college football is that the regular season is so important, the games feel like playoff games.

Cue Cards 9-18-14

Cue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.

Yesterday — Wednesday, September 17

Another division has a winner in baseball — The Los Angeles Angels won their division, the American League West last night. When baseball teams win divisions, they sometimes celebrate in wacky, ritualistic ways that involve spraying champagne all over the place. The Angels did that last night but not too many people saw it in person because their definitively winning the division relied on the outcome of a rival team’s game and that game didn’t end until an hour after their game. So, the team waited in the locker room, watched their rival’s game on tv, and then, when it ended the way they needed it to, they “roared up the tunnel and onto their home field, goggles in place and champagne bottles in hand.”
Line: Did you know that this will be Mike Trout’s (excellent young player with a great name on the Angels) first time in the playoffs?
European Champions League soccer — The Champions League is the most prestigious club soccer tournament in Europe. It matches the best teams from all the domestic leagues, the English Premiere league, the Spanish La Liga, the Italian Serie A, the German Bundesliga, and so on. Even for a sports fan like myself who doesn’t follow European soccer closely, it’s exciting just for the novelty and the romance of seeing teams that normally only play opponents from within their country compete internationally. There were eight games yesterday. The biggest one was probably between English powerhouse Manchester City and perennial German Champions Bayern Munich. Munich won, 1-0. For sheer international mystique, it’s hard to beat Amsterdam’s Ajax playing Paris Saint-Germain or AS Roma vs. CSKA Moscow. The game with the best story was absolutely the 0-0 tie between the Spanish team Athletic Bilbao and Ukrainian Shakhtar Donetsk. There was a great New York Times story about Shakhtar Donetsk this past week. Donetsk, home town to the team, has been in an active war zone for the past six months, so the team has had to relocate to Kiev, where they are followed by a small but passionate group of fans. New York Times reporter James Montague caught one of these fans leaving a game. In place of a line for this, just relay this awesome story:

“This was the best day of the season!” said one fan, a 21-year-old finance student named Vladyslav, who declined to give his last name. He beamed as he left the stadium. “I don’t know how I’ll get home,” he said. “Maybe I’ll hitch a ride on a tank.”

Cue Cards 9-17-14

Cue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.

Yesterday — Tuesday, September 16

Two divisions settled in baseball — Yesterday we mentioned that the baseball season is coming to an end soon. Just to prove the point, two of the six division winners in Major League Baseball (MLB) were conclusively settled last night. The Washington Nationals won their National League East division after beating the Atlanta Braves 3-0. The Nationals have now completed their three-year journey from surprisingly good to incredibly disappointing and now to living up to the expectations of being good. Their geographic neighbors, the Baltimore Orioles, also clinched their division after winning 8-2 over the Toronto Blue Jays. The Orioles are in the same division as two giants of baseball, the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, so division victories are hard to come by. Congratulations to both teams!
Line: Are you ready for the baseball playoffs? In case you don’t know how they work, here’s a Dear Sports Fan post explaining it.
Crime and punishment still reign over the NFL — The scandalous season of the National Football League (NFL) continued yesterday with three stories. In the Adrian Peterson story (arrested for child abuse in Texas for beating his four year-old child) the Vikings reversed course. After benching Peterson for a week, they had announced he would practice and play this week but then yesterday they changed their minds and re-benched him. Maybe it had something to do with a major sponsor dropping the team. Meanwhile, the NFL Players’ Association (NFLPA) is officially appealing Ray Rice’s suspension. When you think of it just from a labor/management perspective and look at the process, it is a pretty messed up process. First he was suspended for two games, then the league changed the rules about domestic abuse so that they called for a six game suspension for a first offense, and then a week or two after that, the league suspended him indefinitely and has still not put a time-frame on the suspension. It’s good that the players’ association is playing their role properly here, no matter how repugnant the crime is. In other policy-changing-after-the-fact news, the NFL and NFLPA is about to agree on more lenient punishment for drug violations which will retroactively lesson the punishment for 20 or so suspended players, including some high-profile ones like wide receiver Wes Welker of the Denver Broncos.
Line: So, lemme get this straight, Welker’s suspension gets shorter, Ray Rice’s is being appealed, and Adrian Peterson? After one day of practice, he’s “excused” from team functions again.