Destiny is calling me, Open up my eager eyes...

Greetings one and all, Twig here. Let me start this portion of greatness with two quick notes: First of all, I'm happy as a lark to be here. I was a semi-frequent contributor at another blog, but it seemed like most of my sports-related talk was over the head of much of the intended audience, so hopefully all three, maybe four people who read this will follow what I'm sayin a little better than my mother-in-law. Secondly, no idea where I got the name 'Twig,' but what Jiggerscout wants, Jiggerscout gets, so ask him. Speaking of Jig, I thought starting this thing off with a recap of the year's sporting events-both good and bad-was a great idea. I'll do a quick overview of my favs, but i'll keep it short since the two of us have a pretty like mind about sports, and I don't want it to seem to redundant. Here they are, in no particular order:

Sweet things about sports in 2007:
-Double Ball, Super Bowl Sunday, Spencer abode, McKinney Texas. If you don't know by now, you'll never know.

-Being lucky enough to be visiting my brother at Oklahoma Christian at the exact time the Big XII tourney was being played in OKC. We were heading back to the TX on Sunday, when we realized that UT was playing Kansas in the championship game that afternoon. I was able to convince my dad to scalp us some tickets after we said our goodbyes to my bro. Anywho, we scored some upper-deckers just before tip-off and proceeded to watch a great battle that went into OT. Unfortunately, the 'Horns fell by a couple of points, but it was a great game, with Kevin Durant going off for 37 in one of his last games as a Longhorn.

-Three of my discus kiddos placing in the 17-3A junior high district track meet. Had no idea what I was doing out there. Good times.

-Scoring a goal in the requisite soccer game out at Brandon's lake house during his bachelor party. That brings my career goals in soccer up to three. Once in youth league, once at ACU intramurals, and that one by the lake.

-Going to the UT-Tech football game in Austin last month with my parents and Kayla. She didn't exactly 'love it,' but it was a great atmosphere and the teams combined for 101 points.

-Spurs winning the NBA championship. Has anyone else realized that, if it weren't for Derek Fisher's miraculous shot with .4 seconds left in the 2004 playoffs, and Manu's idiotic foul of Dirk in the 2006 playoffs that this team could have potentially won five straight titles?

-Being at the game when Craig Biggio got his 3,000th hit. Special thanks to Garrett for inviting me and Kayla, and extra special thanks to Derek, Garrett's brother, and his girlfriend, for not going, so we could have the tickets.

Not Sweet Memories:
-Texas Rangers.

-The fumble game against the Seahawks. I was by myself in my apartment in Graham when it went down, and let me tell ya, that's about the lonliest feeling I've experienced as a sports fan. Not good times. Let's never talk about it again, alright?

-UT football. Yikes. I know, I know, "tons of teams would love to be 9-3 at the end of the year." Who cares? I'm tired of the choking in big games, losing crap-fest games to the aggs, and especially for all of the excuses after the games. With a few exceptions, the team underachieved this year, and something needs to change, even though I'm not sure it will. Note to Mack: Get rid of Greg Davis (the offensive coordinator. and I do mean "offensive") and most of the rest of the staff, start over with a new philosophy, and use your players to the best of their abilities.

-Leaving the Biggio game in the top of the 10th, well after number 3,000 was in the books, so we could beat the traffic. We did beat the traffic, but missed Carlos Lee's walk-off GRAND SLAM. Nice idea, G.

-I know this will ruffle a few feathers, but to an extent, the Boston Red Sox. They're still my second-favorite team, but really, how are they any different than the Yankees at this point? We used to hate the Yanks for buying championships, not developing talent, and just outbidding everyone else. Well, folks, the Sawks paid $50 million just to TALK to Dice-K, then proceeded to give him something like an 80 mill contract. Same can be said for a lot of their free agent signings-just pay them more than everyone else, and hope to beat the Yankees to the punch. For those who disagree, please respond and tell me how the Sox are any different than the Yanks nowdays. For the record, I'm still rooting for Boston when the two play.

-Mike Vick, Tom Donaghy, Mitchell Report, etc. Some things you can't escape.

All in all, a pretty entertaining year in sports, looking forward to 2008 already.

That'll be it for now, if anyone is reading I've got a little game for y'all before my next post . In college, Justin Scott and I played a little game where we would spout off Heisman trophy winners as far back as we could remember. I can get to about 1993 or so, but Scotty J can go all the way back to, like, 1974-dudes got the memory of an owl. Or is it elephant? I dunno. Anyway, without doing any research, post the winners as far back as you can remember. You'll have to be honest, it's no fun if you use the internet to cheat. I'll have a follow-up post tomorrow or friday, depending on the responses, and we'll see where we can go with that. Alright folks, you've been great, can't wait to see where this goes.

twig