This season we're going to stick with the blog News & Notes format that we've used with some success these past few seasons. So whenever the mood strikes, be it stats night on Wednesday, the middle of the 4PM game on Sunday, or maybe even a Thursday morning before I leave for work, I'll come here and post entries. Sometimes it will be a paragraph or two, sometimes longer.

I'll make sure I put a date on everything so you can easily tell what's new from what you may have already read. So feel free to come to this page often, or continue checking in once a week as the stats update, to check out and catch up on the latest entries in what I hope to be a season long "All My Rowdy" blog.

If anyone else has anything to contribute, I'll be more than happy to post it here, with all credit given to the author of course. And if we get one of our infamous 20+ reply e-mail threads going, I may also opt to copy that into this space as well so it's saved for all posterity.

September 18th, 2008

I'd like to start this week's column out by saying I'm sorry for posting this a day later than usual. You see, I actually had it all finished on Wednesday night and gave it to Eagles WR DeSean Jackson to deliver and well you can guess what happened next… So it appears that the retractable roof on Reliant Stadium isn't so "reliant" after all now is it? Granted that was one heck of a storm, Hanna on Draft Week and now Ike in Week 2, I say enough with the hurricanes already! Unless someone's pouring me one of those lime juice and rum deals from Pat O'Briens… So despite the fact that we had two less teams playing this week we sure had plenty of offense to go around!

First up with the Big "O", and that's "O as in Offense" folks, is Neil, who really put the "O" in OJ's Innocent. OJ may be innocent to some, but Neil's guilty of putting up the 6th highest single game score in league history this week with an 84 - 47 drubbing of Brian L and Thomas "Broken" Glass' Huddle Of Mud. Neil now owns the 4th, 5th and 6th highest single game scores all-time. Here's a hint next time you're in the local sports book. Neil and The Over (and there's that "O" again…) The 131 combined points in this game also rank as the 7th highest combined single game score in Rowdy Friends history. Sorry Thomas, only good tasting tuna gets to be Starkist, eh? Actually, not sure how old you are, that commercial might be before your time? If so click here to bring yourself up to speed on some 1960's pop culture … Oh, and I have to give credit where credit is due. Nice game by your Redskins over my beloved Saints last week, don't let it happen again…

Well it sure looks like Rob got a good night sleep on Saturday as his team came roaring out on Sunday, routing Fab's Sparanos by a score of 80 - 41. Five players scored in double figures for Two QBs, One Cup and the 80 point total gives Rob the 11th highest single game score in league history. Too bad he did this the same week that someone else posted an 84-spot, eh? Well this isn't the first time this has happened to Rob, far from it. We've got an expression in this league for a team that scores 50 points and still loses their game, it's called "getting Hanrattied" and back in 2002 Rob's Douches Wild team scored 79 points in a week when The Commish's Austin Powers In Golden Domer team scored 82. That was the previous league record for "most points scored that wasn't high points for the week" until now, giving Rob the top two (two times, two times) spots on this dubious list. Two QBs, two times snapped off on the high points dollar… As for Fab, he might also want to click on that Wikipedia link at the end of the last paragraph. Get himself acquainted with Charlie The Tuna because if this losing keeps up, he might find himself, how shall we say it, "falling out of favor" with Sparanos team management and "swimming with da fishes" in a few weeks time…

In any other week, scoring over sixty points would be more than enough points to get yourself a high points dollar of your own. But the way things have gone so far in this young season for Don & John what can you expect other than third high points and an "atta boy but sorry no dinero". Last week 48 points wasn't enough for a win, but things were different this week after The Tony Hunt Fan Club (NJ Chapter) routed Marc's Like Hell squad 64 - 26… The last time this happened, three teams scoring 60 or more points in a week was Week 13 of the 2004 season when Neil's Sucks 2 B Me (85 points), The Commish and Kevin's Got MiLK? (71) and Russ' Best One (67) teams pulled off the high scoring trifecta… So I read they turned on that Hadron Collider in Switzerland last weekend. You know, the machine that send atoms speeding in opposite directions around a 12 mile tunnel with the intent of crashing them together to see what happens? Some folks fear that collisions of this nature might cause mini Black Holes to appear that could suck part of the Earth into them and end life as we know it. Well I'm here to tell you that no black hole caused by this Hadron machine thingy is going to suck as bad as Marc's team does now with not one but two (Two times! Two times!) QBs on the "thank you for playing we have parting gifts" list. And giving up 64 points? Well that's downright "Defenseless", which just happens to be the title of the #7 track on the latest CD by Marc's band "Lipstick Magazine" (by the way, Marc plays bass for those of you just hearing about this). Click here if you're into the early 90's hard rockin' stuff and want to sample some of the band's tunes…

Hey wait, we scored fifty points and only made it to the 4th paragraph? Sorry Bruce & Alex, only good tasting tuna… Oh wait, you're Fins fans so we have to leave this paragraph "Dolphin safe" don't we? After having to listen to Ken complaining that he had too many Ravens and Texans for an unexpected Week 2 bye, Pam And Da Boyz promptly got pasted by Hanging Chad by a score of 53 - 17. The following fantasy football tip is brought to you by Starkist's new "Ricky Williams safe" tuna…Uh Ken? All that complaining about having too many Ravens and Texans? Yeah, well that kind of needed to happen on Draft Day. Like maybe about five minutes before you actually picked them? Then you wouldn't be having these problems now would you? As for you Bruce, make sure you give the dollars you got for the win this week to Alex OK? After last Saturday's heist of all our baseball game money, the least you could do is cut the kid in for a fin right? And yes, that would be a dolphin fin…

Next up, the Rodney Dangerfield Game, named as such because the winning team scored 48 points but gets absolutely no respect, getting lost in the shuffle of all the offense this week. Charlie & Joe's Bo Knows The Reaper throws up a 48 - 35 win over Brian Boghosian's Clear November and what am I going to write about? The fact that I still don't know what the phrase "clear November" means! Perhaps a name change to "Clear DeSean Jackson's Head" is in order here as that boy almost cost you a win by prematurely ejac…, uh celebrating, that touchdown on Monday night! Well that six pointer would've brought you to within 7 points of a win. Had you then picked up a few stray Ike-stranded Texans and Ravens free agents you could've gone all Bamrick on the league and claimed that Steve Slaton and whichever Clayton is on Baltimore would've certainly gotten at least 9 points between them and given you the win. Instead what are we doing? Clearing November! And how exactly are we supposed to do that anyways, it's a freakin' month on a calendar not something you can just sweep up with a broom or that new Swiffer Wet Jet thing that's got the ordinary mops so upset…

Last week's Best One is just a little lower down the list this week as Russ' (Sixth) Best One stays undefeated by defeating The Commish & Kevin's Don't Pay The Dingmans Ferryman by a score of 42 - 25. Russ has already stated that should his Raiders stupidly fire head coach Lane Kiffin, that Lane would have a home on the Best One coaching staff. Of course, anyone who runs and manages a bowling alley bar (as Russ does for those of you just hearing about this) has to have a guy named Lane on his staff doesn't he?… Last week I took a stab at describing the terror of crossing the Dingmans Ferry Bridge for all of you who haven't had the pleasure of driving over it at some point in your life. I made it sound quite scary didn't I? Well, not as scary as say owning Lehman Brothers or AIG stock was this week, but I think you got the point. Oh, and Fab? Kevin wants me to ensure you that he was nowhere near Lehman Brothers or AIG this past week so don't go all "Refco" on his arse OK? Anyways, I digress… In an attempt to demystify this famed Pennsylvania overpass click here to read the bridge's Wikipedia entry. Pay close attention to the section labeled "Maintenance", where they attempt to explain the "rattling" that scared me so as nothing other than the combined characteristics of the way the nails hold down the floorboards. Yeah right, you believe that and I've got another famous bridge and some Washington Mutual stock to sell you…

Last but certainly not least we have a game that bucked the trend and held to what we thought were "normal" scoring patterns as The Brothers Flinn guided Wait Til Next Year over Nick, Bobby, (Ricky) & Mike's Gotta Believe by an "evenly divisible by 12 on both sides" score of 36 - 24. By the way, any of you 80s music fans out there (I'm looking at you Bro or even you Mikey boy) get that "(Ricky)" reference in that last sentence? A parting gift of Turtle Wax ("for that new car finish") awaits the first person to tell me the band and the song title I was making reference to. And if you need another hint how about if I throw in some Rice-A-Roni ("the San Francisco treat" and the emphasis is on "Roni" there, hint, hint) if you can also give me the next line in the song? Phone lines are now open, operators are standing by to take your calls…

Well that's about all I've got room for this week as we're coming up on about 1,800 words right now. Again sorry for the delay getting this out there, at least I didn't postpone this column until my bye week in November. Besides, who knows if November's even gonna be around once Brian B breaks out the Mop N Glo! By the way, all of those single game records mentioned above (and many others) can be found on the new league history web site. Tastefully titled "Historically Rowdy", and featuring the first ever "rotating chronological helmet logos" animation, the site can now be accessed by clicking on the League History link below the Live Scoring link on the league web page. I don't know about you, but I'm off to the barbershop now to get me one of those J.T. O'Sullivan haircuts. Why would I do that? Because I've always wanted to look like one of the "Way-Outs" from that Flintstones cartoon that's why (sorry, no links provided here, you're on your own with that one if you need research help). Until next week when referee Ed Hochuli sports his new Sarah Palin-esque glasses so he can see the replay properly and Broncos coach Mike Shanahan becomes the first coach to "go for two" two times, two times in two weeks, I bid you so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen and goodbye …

September 10th, 2008

While I continue to dry off from the deluge that was Hurricane Hanna, Marc Rabin slowly comes out of his "I can't believe I lost Brady in Week 1" coma and Chuck watches the glue dry on his reconstructed bar stool, I do believe it's time to dial the West Coast and say "hey Rob, wake up! It's time for the first week's News & Notes…"

Let's start the recap off with the best game of the week, Ken & Pam's And Da Boyz squad clutching victory from the jaws of defeat, beating John & Don's Tony Hunt Fan Club (that's the NJ chapter by the way), by a field goal; 51 - 48. I believe Ken summed up not only this game, but also the reason why we're so caught up in this crazy little thing called fantasy football, in his recent email entitled "Sorry Don & John", and I quote… "Sorry about the painful loss but what a game! We were up 30-3 early then 45-12. You scored 36 points between Sun night and 4 minutes left in game 1 last night. You take the lead by 2 on Aaron Rogers late touchdown run (I threw the TV remote at that point) and complete the comeback from 45-12 down to 47-45 up! BUT THEN ADRIAN PETERSON GOES IN FOR 6 TO LEAD THE BOYZ TO A 51-48 VICTORY!" Well folks, it looks like a new Rowdy Friends rivalry is born! The Flinn-Bamrick Feud is yesterday's news. Oh and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Don & John's namesake, Eagle RB Tony Hunt, did in fact score in Week 1. Had he been drafted, he not only would've had a real, live, genu-whine sticker this time, but the Fan Club would've had a nice 54 - 51 victory on their hands instead of the title of the best one-loss team in the league that they have right now…

Next game on the highlight reel, Russ Jones' Best One squad who live up to their name and are currently the "best one" in the league after taking the first weekly high points Washington (as in George, not Redskin) with a 55 - 32 win over Virginia Brian & Thomas' Huddle Of Mud team. For those of you who may not be aware, Brian has a new co-owner this season and his name is Thomas Glass. Thomas is a co-worker with Brian at Sun Trust down there in old Virginny and I do believe Tom's a Redskin fan ("Hail to the Huddle!"). So welcome aboard Thomas, sorry about the loss but you know the deal with rookies, right? Just be glad we're not making you sign your high school fight song or anything. We tried that once with this Bamrick guy, trust me, it wasn't pretty! Brian, please fill your new partner in on all the good inside jokes I write about here otherwise this column's going to make about as much sense to him as a seventy year old Republican presidential candidate picking an inexperienced, unknown female vice presidential candidate does to the rest of the country. I do have to ask the obvious question here though. With an early Week 1 loss, how do you feel about your team? I mean, is the (Thomas) Glass half-empty or half-full?…

Now Russ, being a bartender by trade, is definitely someone who knows a little bit about sturdy bar stools and had he been at the draft we might have avoided the catastrophe that will probably forever brand Bruce with the nickname, Bruce The Bar Stool Breaker. There's a "butcher, Charlie Baker and the barstool breaker" nursery rhyme in here somewhere but I just can't nail it right now. But that probably wasn't as bad a scenario for Bruce & Wunderkid Alex as this week's loss by the narrowest of margins, 28 - 27 over Brian Boghosian's Clear November. Now question for Brian B. I realize you're in the business of "clearing" things with your team names but what's the deal with November? Are we getting rid of it? Is it a bad month? I mean, it's got Thanksgiving and all. Turkey, football games, leaves in the beginning maybe snow at the end? Granted, it's certainly no December with Christmas and Hannukah and all that but if you ask me August is a heckuva lot better a month to be clearing than November. As they say "please advise" when you get a chance and I'll bring everyone up to speed in next week's column…

Who was that singer in the 80's? Oh yeah, it was Chris DeBurgh who sang "don't pay the ferryman, until he gets you to the other side". Well The Commish and Kevin, with an opening week win, 46 - 28 over Fab's The Sparanos, are on "the other side" of .500 for the first time since the middle of the 2005 season! Again for those of you who were not present at the draft the team name Don't Pay The Dingmans Ferryman is a reference to this rickety old bridge you need to cross and is about 10 miles away from Charlie's house. Think the "Indy cover your heart" scene in the "Indiana Jones and The Temple Of Doom" movie but only it's not Short Round and Indy running over the bridge, it's Kev's Jeep and The Commish's Honda CRV clacking over the rotting wooden boards with a Hanna-fed river gaping below. Now once you do get to the other side, there's a toll to pay, but sorry folks no E-Z Pass here! Just some dude in a rain slicker standing there under a makeshift lean-to making all Gandalf "None Shall Pass"-like from "Lord Of The Rings" and collecting his dollar for the coffers of the town of Dingmans Ferry, Pennsylvania. Here's an idea. Raise the toll to two bucks and spend some money fixing the darn bridge so it ain't so freakin' scary to cross, I tell ya! You're actually lucky Mr. Fabrizio Spara(no)cino wasn't at the draft, or he'd have his Union boys down there first thing on Monday with a "contract you couldn't refuse"…

I'm not sure where to go next and I'm tempted to write about both Neil and Marc's games in the same paragraph to mimic their "Bobsey Twin" like behavior on Draft Day where they drafted the same position each round all the way through. Let's go with Neil first as the defending champ lost his first defense as his OJ's Innocent squad was beaten by draft host Charlie and Joe's Bo Knows The Reaper team by a score of 50 - 33. Wasting no time after the loss, Neil stated that "he's not getting any Younger" and promptly dropped both Vince Young and Selvin Young from his team as he looks to right the ship in Week 2. For those of you who keep track of such things, Charlie & Joe's annual "dead music guy" team name refers to none other than the recently deceased Bo Diddley. Personally I was hoping that they'd pay homage to E Street Band keyboardist Danny Federici how also passed away in the offseason and play on the famous Malure/Migliore catchphrases and trend of naming their teams in tribute to Bruce Springsteen. I was going for something along the lines of "He's Dead, We've Got To Have Him"…

Well the Binder Boyz are certainly not dead. Ya Gotta Believe is the new team name and they debut this week with a 26 - 20 win over Marc's Like Hell squad. So Neil and Marc both lost too? The "coupling" continues I see… I don't think we need to beat a dead quarterback here and dwell too much on the Brady injury other than to let Marc know that since his fantasy football season is already over, there's always the fantasy hockey draft to look forward to in early October. And hey, if Brian B suceeds in clearing November you can go right to December and all those great Hannukah gifts! Let's see night one, a new knee for Brady. Second night, a rebuilt Jef Garcia… Marc's obviously paying for his sins of starting this silly first-round QB run we found ourselves in, the likes of which this league has never seen before! Five QB's in the first eight picks in what is notoriously an RB centric league? Then five more off the board by the end of Round 2? Learn this new commandment; Thou shalt not piss off the Rowdy Gods. That should be right up there with "thou shall not covet thy neighbor's pick" and "thou shall never take The Commish's name in vain, unless you are Kevin Kelly"…

Hey Rob, you up yet? I saved your game recap for last so you could shake the (Jeff) Jager induced hangover. What that you say? What's all that screaming? Oh that's just the din from over at Flinn's house where Jim (a.k.a. Super Nanny) flew cross country to babysit Mike's 437 kids and try to draft their team at the same time while Mike went out with his wife! Let's see those British beyotches try that, eh? Oh Jim? Remind me next season to send you out this 50 foot Ethernet cord that we used to get the Internet signal from Charlie's office at the back of his house to the living room in the front where we set up the draft. Apparently there's no such thing as "wireless" in the backwoods of Pennsylvania as they can't seem to fathom how in the world the two cans would work without the string pulled between them… Anyways, I'm thinking you could tie a kid to it every 5 feet or so and still have enough slack to log in and google up the absolutely digusting video that Rob's team is named after. Only you'll want to insert the word "girls" where you see "QBs" now and for crissakes please don't let the children see this! So what was the score of this game? Oh, we should probably not linger anymore and let Rob go back to sleep right after letting everyone know that his Two QBs, One Cup team won the first San Francisco Bowl this season, beating Mike & Jim 38 - 35. But they won't have to Wait Til Next Year for revenge as their team name implies. There's already a rematch on the schedule for Week 5 in early October…

Which reminds me! If Boghosian's seriously gonna wipe November off the map, I've got 5 weekends of games that I need to move! Man, I hope the guys in charge of February are in a a good mood. I've got to run now, whole lot of contingency planning to do in case he actually pulls this off and I sure as hell can't count on any help from those FEMA guys. There all busy squegee-ing off the trailers from this Hanna thing. Now sorry I won't give you a dollar for cleaning my windshield I already paid the Dingmans ferryman go bother him or ask Russ if you can have his high points winnings, but I must say nice job you're doing there (Ronnie) Brownie… 'til next week…