1. Pittsburgh's "feel-good" story angle took a hit with me after their Wild Card win against the Reds to send them into the NLDS. While many American sports fans and media who aren't from Cincinnati were rooting on the Pirates to continue their magic carpet ride of a season for at least three more games, an incident at the stadium involving the wife of Reds pitcher Mat Latos being physically harassed by fans was largely ignored - to the point where you wonder if people are afraid of spoiling the narrative that the Pirates have created to this point.
A huge man called me a cunt & said he was going to kick my ass so I told security. His chick is who threatened me & then attacked me.
— Dallas Latos (@DallasLatos) October 2, 2013
There's several more tweets from her posted between October 1st and 2nd that you can search yourself. Most of the other tweets seem to be her defending herself from a bunch of classless people who assume she was "asking for it" or "looking for attention" by Tweeting about it so much.
A few things about this:
(a) There will be morons in any fan base, Pittsburgh or otherwise, that are a very small portion of the fans representing the team. One of the problems is that usually this small portion of fans is also the loudest (the drunken idiot yelling nonsensical obscenities at the ball game). Mrs. Latos stated in a tweet that she got an apology on behalf of a Pirates fan who was seemingly unrelated to the incident, so it's good that there was someone actually at the event that was supportive of her - potentially preventing mob mentality from setting in.
(b) The people who say she is looking for attention through Twitter crack me up. The beautiful thing is that none of them realize the irony of their statement - anyone that uses social media of any kind is looking for some level of attention. I didn't track any tweets from the people who critiqued Dallas for her "attention-seeking", but if their tweets are anything like mine, there's a lot of self-serving material on their feeds (my guess is they're not as funny or nice as me though). I saw a Pittsburgh shock jock (Mark Madden) getting into a war of words with her - oh so many beautiful ironies and stories to tell from this simple incident. Color me shocked.
2. What should have been a great week for Cleveland sports has a sour taste to it come Friday. This week in Cleveland sports started with the Browns downing the Bengals in relatively easy fashion, culminating with the Indians ending their regular season on a ten-game winning streak, closing out the Twins and advancing to host a one-game Wild Card playoff between the winner of the Rays/Rangers game the next day. Their World Series hopes were dashed a few days later when the Rays shut them down. On Thursday, the Browns took down the Buffalo Bills and moved their T-Rich-less winning streak to three games and have sole possession of the AFC North till at least Sunday afternoon. However, the quarterback that kick-started the winning streak and local product (Brian Hoyer) suffered an ACL injury that ended his season and put the signal caller reigns back into the shaky hands of Brandon Weeden - who actually didn't do so bad given the ugly-looking sequence of series that he had when entering the Thursday Night game.
While Cleveland as a whole should feel better about their prospects in all sports going forward (even in basketball, provided Kyrie Irving doesn't bail and they can continue building a decent core), "just getting there" or "getting better" will not be enough to heal the decades of wounds Cleveland sports fans have endured. The question is - what Cleveland team will be the next one to win a league title?
3. Speaking of titles, many people seem so quick to anoint the Super Bowl crown to the Denver Broncos. Yes, the Broncos have looked like a well-oiled machine in destroying their first four opponents so far, to the point where they are laying a touchdown or more (depending on what sports book you may use) as a road team heading into Dallas to face a consistently inconsistent Cowboys squad. But remember, the one many dub as the best quarterback to ever play the game, Peyton Manning, hasn't had the best track record in the playoffs (9-11), particularly when having a bye week entering the playoffs (2-4). If you want to argue that quarterback win/loss records are overblown, I won't completely disagree - many factors that a QB can't control go into a team's prospects of winning or losing. However, if you're going to give credit to him for how brilliant Peyton is while citing his regular season successes, you cannot deny the disappointment his teams have had in the postseason.
Also, let's not ignore the obvious angle that has occurred in the NFL playoffs - the emergence of a team playing in the Wild Card round that goes on a run and wins the Lombardi. Seven of the last eight Super Bowl match-ups have featured a team whose playoff run began in the Wild Card round versus a team who had a bye to start the playoffs, with the Wild Card team winning the Super Bowl six of those times (including Peyton's lone Super Bowl victory in 2007). And remember, this list of Super Bowl losers includes the seemingly invincible New England Patriots, whose lone loss in 2007-08 was in the Super Bowl against the New York Giants.
Beware the delicious fruit.
