Interesting Sports Weekend

Let's review the weekend in sports:

1. Brewers trade JJ Hardy for Carlos Gomez. While Gomez's offensive numbers in the majors concern me (let's get that career OBP over .300 next year, fella) at least he has some tools and plays a fantastic defensive CF. I don't hate this trade like some do. Seriously, Hardy isn't very good. What did people expect to get back?

2. Badgers slip by Indiana. Clay/Ball looked good. So did Toon. Badgers secondary did not. Did IU's QB throw an incompletion? Chris Borland might be my new favorite Badger. Can he play corner?

3. Iowa lost to Northwestern. At home. This was just beautiful. Hawkeye fans currently feel like I felt when Minnesota beat Wisconsin in 1993. That is, they feel awful.

4. Navy beats Notre Dame. I think every head football coach at Notre Dame should have an automatic termination clause in his contract if he loses to Navy twice. What, exactly, has Charlie Weis done to deserve to continue as coach? Not that I'm complaining, mind you - I love it when Notre Dame loses to the service academies.

5. Bucks destroy the Knicks. With Murdock blowing kisses to him from the stands, Jodie Meeks has his coming-out party against the Knicks. No, that doesn't mean that he succumbed to Murdock's forward advances - it means that he scored a bunch of points. The Knicks are horrid.

6. 0-7 Bucs beat the Packers. WTF? LOL? Huh? For some reason, nobody started Tampa's D/ST in my fantasy football league this week. I guess nobody saw the two touchdowns coming. Does this finally convince all of the Ted/McCarthy backers that these two fools should be run out of town on a rail? News flash! 2007 was a fluke, engineered by a different QB and aided by lots of good breaks. The reality is that this team isn't very talented, hasn't been very talented since Ted came to town, and it sure as hell isn't well-coached. But it sure is young.

Stop It

Just a quick rant here, but please, for the love of God, can people stop it with the stupid "First Initial and Portion of Last Name" nicknames?

Look, A Rod for Aaron Rodgers is among the stupidest nicknames ever. Christ, there is already someone with the nickname A Rod. That one is stupid enough, but it's established.

What are people really gaining by calling him A Rod?

If you say "Rodgers really played a good game for the Packers" is that misunderstood? Is there a chance that you meant a different Rodgers, like Rodney Rogers or Charles Rogers? Roger Clemens? Roy Rogers? Rogers Hornsby?

Is A Rod easier to say? Shorter?

No.

And.

No.

Absolutely not. It's dumb. Rodgers would be universally understood as meaning Aaron Rodgers, #12 on the Packers. Even if you say Aaron, I'm pretty sure people are going to figure it out. And it takes you just as long to say "Aaron" or "Rodgers" as it does to say A Rod. 2 syllables. Same amount of effort. No benefit.

Even though it is stupid, I sort of get it with Alex Rodriguez, why that nickname came about. There are about a million trillion Rodriguezes in major league baseball. It's a long-ish name. K-Mart for Kenyon Martin is at least sort of clever in that it is also a discount department store that is in financial disarray.

But people call Charles Woodson C-Wood. And Fernando Martinez is called "F Mart" (do you know who that is? No? Exactly.)

Just stop it.

End of rant.