Week of November 25, 2022

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A World Cup Without Beer

Right before this World Cup began, host country Qatar pulled the ol’ switcheroo: after ensuring FIFA for years that they would permit beer sales in and around the stadiums, Qatar announced that they had change their minds. Fans were mad, none more so than English fans. The New York Times wrote a fun story about how English fans, for many of whom beer is an essential part of the soccer experience. It’s worth a read but I particularly liked this part:

“To deny an Englishman a beer is to starve an Englishman,” said Kenny, who mentioned (several times) that he had turned 50 that very day.

To paraphrase Patrick Henry, give me beer or give me death.

Also, this was funny:

As he left, he began to sing an expletive-enhanced chorus of “There’ll be no drinking in Qatar,” to the tune of “She’ll Be Coming ’Round the Mountain.”

The English fans then left the bar to head to the stadium, only to be replaced by a new batch: Welsh fans, resplendent in their dragon insignia, and the Dutch, all in orange.

“We always drink before the game, but we don’t go out to get hammered,” said Thomas Bowen, 27, from Wales.

He said while he respected the English approach, his countrymen had their own traditions. “They get quite rowdy,” he said. “We just like to sing.”

-TOB

Source: “England Had a Game, but First Its Fans Had a Quest. For Beer,” Sarah Lyall, New York Times (11/22/2022)

This is Maybe the Least Timely Story We’ve Ever Covered, But It’s Also Thanksgiving, So…

I saw a random tweet this week that sounded so unbelievable to me I had to look it up:

No friggin way. What? TWO outs from their bullpen in a 5-game series win? In today’s game, that’s absolutely inconceivable. Even in 2005, that would have been outrageous. So I looked it up. It’s true. It’s actually true. Here’s the White Sox pitching line for the series:

C’mon. Look at that thing. It’s friggin incredible. The White Sox lost Game 1 to the Angels, 3-2. Contreras was pulled with 1 out in the Top of the 9th, down 3-2, after a single by Bengie Molina. The Angels held on in the 9th to win. The White Sox then won the series on 4 straight complete games.

I have absolutely no recollection of this, which is odd because in 2005 I still followed the Angels fairly closely. But it was also my first semester of law school and I was pretty busy, so it makes some sense. 

Has a staff had a better series in modern baseball history? Seems hard to believe. Anyways, thanks for coming to 1-2-3 Sports!, where we do things like ponder the incredible events of a baseball series from 17 years ago. -TOB

Checking in on Big Game

Toldja.

Also, on Friday night I got some beers with some neighborhood dads. I mentioned that I went to Big Game last weekend with my oldest and one of the dads, who I don’t know that well, asked me who won. I said Cal. “Damn,” he said. And if that doesn’t encapsulate Stanford fans perfectly, I don’t know what does: he has no idea who won, a full week after the game, but pretends to care. Go Bears Forever. -TOB

Video(s) of the Week

(I laughed so hard at the first answer by Tim Robinson)

Tweets of the Week

Song of the Week

Happy Thanksgiving:

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