Frisbee, 1988, Records, Dreams, Guts.

Mr. Tyson: Boxer, Felon... Pigeon Racer?

As we usher in the final days of Sports Month on DiMB, I must apologize to you for a truly underwhelming amount of posts. I know how much you all (really, only Dan) wanted me to write about all kinds of sports and interesting sports related things. I blame TFCHs for winning the super bowl, undermining all my predictions and gambling, and sending me into an anti-sports tailspin. Truthfully, that has nothing to do with it; I’m just a lazy fucktard. But without further ado I’ll get onto another topic.

The entertainment gods have smiled on us once again: Mike Tyson has his very own TV show. The show will air on Animal Planet, debuting a week from Sunday (set your DVRs now). Now you are probably very confused as to why this particular station is airing Iron Mike’s reality TV debut, but I’ll get into that later. First I’d like to look at some of the more interesting professional and personal highlights of ‘The Baddest Man Alive.”

Mike Tyson is easily the most polarizing sports figure that we have ever known, and maybe of all time. He is one of the most prominent and successful heavyweight boxers of all time. He is also a prominent cultural figure with his antics, noticeable lisp and unmistakable appearance. Throughout his career he has been admired, loved, hated, feared, and pitied. Often times all of this at once. He has kept a fan base captive with exciting bouts, record breaking knock outs, historic upsets and disgusting DQs. In his personal life he has been nothing short of pure insanity, pulling his fans along for one of the rockiest roller coasters ever imagined.

Now lets walk through an abridged version of Mike’s Life:

- Born in 1966 in a very impoverished, crime-ridden neighborhood in Brooklyn

-Had first fight sometime between 10-12 years old when a bully kills his pet pigeon (cue Animal Planet)

-By age 13, he accumulated 38 arrests

-Won first 28 professional fights. Twenty-six knock outs, sixteen in first round (including a record 8 seconds)

-Married an actress under the false idea that she was pregnant. Wife later described to Barbara Walters that being married to Mike is “pure hell.” Divorce followed not long after.

-Accumulated all 3 heavy weight title belts, a feat that had never been done before. Lost them in 1990 to 42-1 long-shot Buster Douglas. Tyson’s first career loss (37-1).

-At 25, convicted of rape of an 18-year old beauty queen. Serves 3 years in jail. Converted to Islam. Really.

-Began comeback career. Bit off Evander Hollyfield’s ear.

-Got married again. This one stuck for a full 5 years before being served papers for adulterous activities.

-Announced: "I'm the best ever. I'm the most brutal and vicious, the most ruthless champion there has ever been. No one can stop me. Lennox is a conqueror? No! I'm Alexander! He's no Alexander! I'm the best ever. There’s never been anyone as ruthless as me. I'm Sonny Liston. I'm Jack Dempsey. There's no one like me. I'm from their cloth. There is no one who can match me. My style is impetuous, my defense is impregnable, and I'm just ferocious. I want his heart! I want to eat his children! Praise be to Allah!"

-Pioneers Face Tattoos for everyone. Thanks, Mike.

-Filed for bankruptcy, despite having earned $30M the previous year, and $300M in his career

-Retired at 50-6 overall. (Realistically 52-4 if you count a few No Contests and ignore the last two injured bouts, which I do.)

-Arrested again. This time on drug charges as he nearly hit a police officer with his car and announced, ‘I’m on drugs and have a cocaine problem.’

-Daughter Exodus, 4, died in an accident. Ten days later Tyson marries his girlfriend. This was not a pre-planned ceremony. He also announced he’s become a vegan at this time.

-Appears in the Hangover, and on the View (because, ya know, he’s the prototypical guest for that show). Lands his own show, “Flying with Tyson.”

Obviously, Iron Mike’s career is a fantastic account of how to be a lunatic, with some fantastic boxing thrown in. In total he’s had eight children (Milan, Morocco, Exodus, Miguel, Mikey, and D’Amato to name a few). He has also received a face tattoo, changed religions in prison, and developed the most frightening trash talking ever known. Only Mike Tyson can follow the tragic event of losing a child with a shotgun wedding. At times he has announced that his life is ‘a total and complete waste.’ He also ‘wants to be humble at all times,’ while considering himself ‘the greatest ever.’ He’s a truly entertaining phenomenon, and his show will be phenomenal as a result.

As I understand it, the show centers on Pigeons, his first love. Apparently growing up in Brooklyn, the pudgy, awkward Mike Tyson loved and cared for pigeons he found along the streets. His life forever changed when a bully killed one of his pigeons, and while seeking revenge for his friend, Mike discovered it was easy for him to knock that kid out. The rest is history. After retiring, he began to raise a whopping total of 350 pigeons at his home, and began racing them. This is where Animal Planet steps in. I have no idea what this show is going to do to fill a full season, or even a full episode. Maybe Mike freaks out at a Pigeon Race and starts punching people and birds alike. Maybe he sits down and has talks with the birds and fully believes them to be responding. Maybe he and his pets do drugs together. I don’t know, have no idea. The only thing that is guaranteed about this show is that I’ll be watching, and I hope you do too.

I will leave you with this bit, posted by Animal Planet about the show:

Despite the boxer's criminal record, Animal Planet realized some people overlooked his past -- and decided his magnetism typecasts him for reality TV. His cameo in the 2009 comedy "The Hangover" only amped up his appeal.

Of course, in pure Tyson fashion, he later admitted to taking the role to fuel a drug habit. He is a cauldron of contradictions. There's kindness and violence. Chaos and calm. Humility and hubris. Pugilism and -- now we learn -- pigeons.

Ten Miscellaneous Sports/Games/Activities I'm Fond Of

Bonus: The Giant Parachute
10. Archery
9. Bowling
8. Flag Football
7. Obstacle Course
6. Trampoline
5. Shooting Game
4. Frisbee Golf/Frisbee
3. Prison/Pin Dodgeball
2. Juggling (Soccer)
1. Dunking Game

Explanations to come in revisions and comments. Other suggestions encouraged. So many activities...

From the Foul Line!

Distance dunks are some of the most underrated dunks out there. The only way they've really gotten much attention is when the dunkers smartly used a clearly visible measurement device to validate the legitimate awesomeness of their dunk, the foul line.

The earliest of such dunkers that I know of was the Doctor himself. Dr. Julius "Julio H." Erving had the talent, the ambition, and most of all, the audacity to walk in from the ABA as an outsider to the NBA and house people around the rim. He gripped the ball as if it were a softball and used his 10 ft wingspan to navigate his way around the airspace, all while maintaining this mug to the likes of, "the fuck you think you're doing?" right before he'd hammer home a one-handed testament to dunking.

Dr. J's foul line dunk starts at 5:00 minutes in. Just pause and wait for it to load or watch the hi-jinks that precede his dunk.

Also:Top 10 Dr. J Dunks

If Dr. J was the Old Testament, Jordan was the New Testament of dunking (and Vince Carter was the return of Jesus!). Anywho, Jordan redefined it all and was brilliant at basically levels, but let's focus in on his foul line dunks.

1985: He put down a strip of white tape on the foul line (not sure exactly what this is for other than to emphasize the already painted foul line beneath the tape). This is one of the farthest back dunks I've seen and even though it doesn't have as much "flair" as the next couple he would do, it is actually from behind the line instead of right on it. Ya see!

1987: It's all in the legs and the one-handed pump on this one. The camera's slow-mo also helps out tremendously. Gorgeous dunk.

1988: This one is even closer to the rim with even more added in to the bent legs and Jordanesque "cup" grip toward the end when he throws it down. Love it, as always.

And now, for five Vince Carter foul line dunks! What can I say the man knows how to dunk.

What are the kids doing now? Here are the moderno free throw line dunkers. Love the one at 2:00 minutes.

And finally, what would this post be without this video?:

February = SPORTS

A topic that has been relatively absent to the great dismay of all those jocks and manly men men (as well as girls who like sports). But sports are easily one of my favorite escapes as they create worlds to lose yourself in, become obsessed with, and pretty much take more seriously than normal serious people stuff.

Given that there's the Super Bowl, the NBA All Star Weekend, some sort of Wintry X-games no doubt, and just the possibility that we may get warmer weather toward the end of the month to go outside and do something, sports might as well be the month's topic. Let's start it out with a classic youtube to get things going...

First Time I Let Go (of Youth Soccer)

One of the worst elements of my favorite sport, soccer, is the penalty kick. There's nothing really good about the kick except for maybe some sort of spaghetti western duel aspect that hypes up an easily tangible, simple, and ultimately suspenseful moment. But that aspect is really only good for those watching, and I don't even like watching PKs. Basically, the shooter is expected to score by all means. This means the goalie is basically fucked unless he pulls off a brilliant stop, but even then that outcome will make the shooter feel like shit because he was supposed to score. Either way, someone's going to feel crappy.

Our team, the Fury - my opus magnum of my career as a soccer player, spanning five years with sometimes two seasons a year in fall and spring through tournaments, trials, and tribulations, the loss of friends, the growing pressure to travel further, to win more, to become better conditioned, better skilled, better mechanized cogs in a monstrosity of a division-climbing machine that inevitably drove itself into the ground winning only one game in its last two seasons finishing off any last urge within me to satisfy some sort of athletic achievment in life - needed a designated penalty kick taker. I was far from the first choice. Being a defender with very little experience touching the ball in the attacking half let alone the 18 yd. box, I held myself back from volunteering or even being noticed during the scan over the team by the coach in his selection. I think we actually had some sort of mini-tournament of PKs to decide who was going to be the one to take the kicks in game. This process, although efficient, logical, and excruciatingly simple on the outside didn't really make sense in the long run when concerning PKs, because the nature of the kick was so variable on the immediate state of mind that even the kid that scored cleanly 50/50 kicks was bound to trip up in game depending on the various outside forces and internal pressures, and that botched kick will be in the most important game of them all.

Either way, I don't think I placed first or second in the mini-tournament of PKs, but I also wasn't that far off from the top, leaving only a couple games where the top few missed kicks, and the coach's gaze inevitably fell on me. And in the first few times I came to kick in game (which happened pretty damn soon after I was picked not to my liking), I got the goals and tried not to think twice about it. These were also some of my first ever goals in my stint on the Fury so it took a lot of effort to downplay these shots, because I knew the second that I thought I had a PK gift, or even thought about it at all for that matter, it would be all over.

It was a home game, which in our warped division meant traveling 40 minutes away instead an hour and 20 minutes + away. Our home field was right beside the man-made pond area of a freshly carved suburban development characteristic of Loudoun's burgeoning wealth. The field itself, because of position depressed into the land, surrounded by a sloping hill on the other three sides opposite the reservoir. This gave us a finely chewed and over-saturated mud plain to play on. The ball skipped and stopped on a dime as it chose, and inevitably someone just ran straight into someone else, the whistle blew, the card was pulled, and the kick was set. I was pulled up from the back for what was to be a momentous kick, not for what it meant to the game, to the shaking parents atop the hill or my fellow teammates and coach sunk in the mud behind me. I approached the ball, trying not to look left or right, showing a little right but knowing I was to pull left, and then I hooked it, hard to the left. I hooked it so far to the left that it wasn't even a question for the baffled goalie, seeing my shot stumble over the ground more than maybe five or ten feet to the left of the goal post. I wasn't even close.

I anticipated the approaching disappointment, shame, and weight of a potentially game-losing miss, the shot hopes of those behind me along with their pitying words and pats on the back. I waited for all the shit to hit me and make me feel like it. But I didn't. I felt nothing of the sort. I think I may have even looked forward to going to McDonald's or some crap food after the game, trying to make the most of what was left of the weekend. I realized I just didn't care. None of it mattered. Perhaps I was years later in this realization than most kids, but then again, I was also years ahead of those that continued on after me into high school, college, adult leagues, coaching their own kids, and preaching sports to be the ultimate life lesson mechanism ever on and on. Fuck that. Sports are fun. You forget that and you're not playing anything.

Childhood Saga Month Poll Closed: Dodgeball Wins

A real close battle between recess activites with a whopping 8 votes total to determine the winner of this poll (allowing people to select more than one activity), I think dodgeball proved itself by way of half our writers being from Waterford Elementary where dodgeball was the main event every day. It seemed to capture so many elements in one ruthless, wild game. I'm not sure how other people interpret "Dodgeball" in terms of rules of play, but our game was not like the one made semi-famous for a few months after the movie Dodgeball came out where there are multiple balls and if you're out you sit on the sideline hoping to get caught back in. We played what I've heard some times to be called "prison dodgeball" where the people who get out have to go to the other side of the opposing team, where it almost benefits them because then they can just play catch with their remaining teammates while the opponent dances in the middle.

This form of dodgeball brought on many elements, which I'd consider better than the one-hit-you're-out dodgeball. The pickle was a strange fascination, or even obsession I'd say among kids back then (probably influenced heavily by the Sandlot or the game with two bases, which was literally one giant game of pickle that was popular then), and having people in a jail behind who you were throwing at allowed for some pretty intense games of pickle. It also bred the need for "launching" the ball, the one thing I could ever claim I was good at and even cool for a few minutes for - that is until I lost the softball throwing contest to Josh Nesbit on Field Day of 5th grade, and I knew my place (what an epic event for a field day, a marfuggin throwing contest for distance!).

Various other characters were born from Dodgeball, like the girl who no one thought to throw at for the first half of the game until finally we realized she was the only one left, and we questioned deep down whether it meant she was in some way better than us even though the rest of us were risking our necks grabbing the ball and getting caught out or just drawing attention to ourselves in a ny way. This girl was your Camilla Nusbaum or possibly even Erica Strahin (some might also throw in a Julie Costantino). They were essential though, as they were your team's lifeline and could sometime figure out a way to get the ball to you in jail, allowing you a shot at redemption (note that those in jail could get back to their side by throwing someone out).

Other characters such as David Levernz, the sort of Leonardo (of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mind you) of Dodgeball, throwing with two hands with a look on his face more Far East than Wild West. Marquis was basically Waterford's only black kid for a good five years it seemed like, and he also was the most goddamn intimidating player ever to chuck a big red dodgeball - not to mention he was something like three or more years older than us. We feared for our lives because he could throw missles, that hurt, a lot.

Steven Jackson is basically the only real person though that should get credit for such a post, because God knows we would've all just as well tossed aside most of these memories of this game if it weren't for this ferverent righteous disciple of the game. The most defining move he brought to the table was running outside before anyone else could even get the door open (not possible? it happened), and screaming to the powers that be in the sky, "DOOOODDDDDDDDGGGGGEEEEEBBBBBBAAAAAAALLLLLLL!!!!!!!" like we were playing for the delight of those on Mt. Olympus, praying not to be smited (smoten? smote?) for an errant throw or a false moment of hesitation at deciding whether to catch or dodge. He was the flag-waver, the torch-bearer, the cheerleader, and the prophet for the game. And he wasn't even that good, which made his obsession that much better. He threw in this big goalie-esque chucking motion because, most understandably, the kid was so tiny any other throw was guaranteed to get caught because it would be so weak. Steven had heart though, and that was rare in the realm of the blacktop where egos raged and reputations were born. Dodgeball was recess.

House League

Right before the dawn of dunking burned a deeper ritual, that of getting up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning, watching a few half hours of cartoons, playing House League Soccer, and then coming back to watch more cartoons (and picking up McDonald's if we were lucky). Those original years before it was even possible to play on a bigger, better, and traveling-farther team were amazing. I don't remember a whole lot of the actual soccer, but more just being in awe at those that kick the ball hard (the aforementioned John Sheehan and Max Farley), messing around at practice (getting in fights with the Wheelers, a pair of brothers bent on destroying everyone and everything, including each other - the younger one, Nathan, bit me, twice, and the older one I got into an actual fight with at DZ Discovery Zone (probably my only true fight in life); I mean he had my name, c'mon!), and avoiding the oranges at half time (don't ask me why. I love them now, but never tried them then). Soccer was a huge Waterford tradition, as was scrimmaging the Hamilton kids, who for whatever god-forsaken reason, ALL had rat tails. It was a deeply potent sport in those days, before we knew the meaning of anything really, back when for whatever reason the opening of the MLS coincided with our youth; back when we went to DC United games to watch Marco Etcheverry rip shit up, marveling at how much he resembled what we believed the greatest player of all our peers, Edwin Hammerman, would grow up to be. The kid scored a goal off a corner with a bicycle kick when we were like ten years old.

I Dream of Dunking

What's hard about all these childhood saga posts is that I always want to put more into them because these posts are mere portholes into the universe that each refers to. The dream of dunking goes far beyond just my childhood as this is one of the few things I'm almost certain every single kid had tucked away somewhere in their dreams. I mean we grew up with Michael Jordan. Let's get serious. There was nothing greater than him dunking. There was nothing greater than a dunk. The move is so damn simple, and yet it works so well every time.

I was one of the many children who played on a lowered hoop, enabling myself to perform such an awesome move. And we got into it, I mean really into it. Entire summers consisted of nothing but dunking on lowered hoops at Edward's, Greg's, Aubrey's, Matt's, and even my lowered hoop, as well as various public ones like around Hamilton randomly and in the Purcellville community center; basically any lowered hoop we could find. We even dunked at the pool as referenced in Edward's pool entry. Dunking was everything and anything that was fun, exhilirating, and empowering as kids. God bless Woody Harrelson for wanting it so bad in White Man Can't Jump.

As a quick reference to this religion of dunking on lowered hoops, here is a not-so-quick video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X5nmA_lZko

Hopefully more will be said on this subject through the days and millenia ahead.

Happy Birthday!

Magic Johnson!

"Johnson was first dubbed "Magic" as a 15-year-old sophomore playing for Lansing's Everett High School, when he recorded a triple-double of 36 points, 18 rebounds and 16 assists. After the game, Fred Stabley Jr., a sports writer for the Lansing State Journal, gave him the moniker despite the belief of Johnson's mother, a Christian, that the name was sacrilegious"