2016 English Football Playoffs Done

The promotion playoffs in English football are done.  Here's who's getting promoted via playoffs:

Championship to Premier League: Hull City - Mike is not quite happy about this one because (a) Hull were promoted at the direct expense of Sheffield Wednesday, and (b) it's at least one more year we're going to have to hear about the owner wanting to change the name of the club to Hull Tigers.

In fact, Mike will make a bold prediction about the 2016-17 Championship right now, and it will have batsu game implications: Aston Villa (minus the idiots who got them relegated) and Sheffield Wednesday will be two of the three promoted clubs next year.

League 1 to Championship: Barnsley - Well, at least it wasn't Millwall (when you think football hooligans and fan violence, Millwall are usually one of the first clubs that come to mind).

League 2 to League 1: AFC Wimbledon - Great job out of AFC Wimbledon!  Next year we'll see the Dons play that other club - MK Dons, who were relegated from the Championship.  NFL fans, think Cleveland Browns vs. Baltimore Ravens circa 1999, with AFCW playing the part of the Browns (ironically owned at the time by the father of Randy Lerner, who just sold Villa to Tony Xia, a Harvard-educated Chinese doctor and businessman) and MK Dons playing the part of the Ravens and the actual Art Modell.

Conference/National League to League 2: Grimsby Town - At least we can't make fun of them for sharing their name with a color (Forest Green).

Tim wins Champions League SAFETY!

"Spanish Tottenham" - better known as Real Madrid - have won the 2015-16 UEFA Champions League over their city rivals Atletico Madrid - on penalty kicks.  (Before you complain, "Spanish Tottenham" is an apt nickname given the two clubs share the same color scheme and plenty of Real Madrid's current squad were imported from Shite Hart Lane.)

This is the 11th European Cup won by Los Galacticos.

Tim correctly picked Real Madrid to win the Champions League and is thus SAFE!!!

As a reward for his safety, Tim will choose the FA Cup Final team batsu.

Episode 200!!!

We did it!!!  200 episodes!!!

Today is a little look back down memory lane as we reflect on this monumental podcasting milestone.

Some of the favorites we discuss on today's episode:

• Tim: Washington NFL team nickname/logo controversy
• Tim: University of North Carolina's academic fraud controversy 
• Tim: Interview with Jim Chappell, owner of Chappell's Restaurant and Sports Museum
• Mike: Promotion and relegation discussion
• Mike: Know Your Football Clubs - England edition (namely our late friend Ryland's dubbing of Preston North End as "everyone's favorite high school team")
• Mike: NFL Los Angeles debacle reaction
• Tim's favorite batsu: Mike wearing the fake tattoos
• Mike's favorite batsu: Tim singing karaoke (New Kids on the Block)
• Honorable mention: Mike doing target practice

Mike still owns the Pittsburg State hoodie from that very first batsu, by the way.

Thank you to everyone for listening to us for the past 3 years and over the course of 200 shows.  Looking forward to the next 100 and so on...



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On This Day in Batsu...

Mike's batsu for the bad bracket is officially paid off, courtesy of our good friend Lucas Stoneking.  Mike picked up the caricature at this weekend's Planet Comicon in Kansas City.  Strange how Planet Comicon keeps finding its way into our batsu games.



That said, there is more batsu to come.

FA Cup Final today, after extra time:

Crystal Palace 1
Manchester United 2

This will be a team batsu, as both Mike and Tim picked Palace.

UEFA Champions League Final is a week from today, and Tim needs Real Madrid to beat their city rivals Atletico Madrid for safety.

The only other outstanding batsu is the game of Cards Against Humanity that Mike and Tim have to play.  Mike is talking with his brother (who owns a copy of the game) about appearing on the podcast to run the game and also to talk about eSports.

Episode 199 - 2016 NFL Draft

Tim talks today about the 2016 NFL Draft and gives his thoughts.

As might be expected, Mike didn't even watch the Draft this year and has a few choice words about the NFL's conduct with this Draft (based on what he's heard).  Yes, he's still clearly upset by the LA debacle.



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Episode 198 - Big 12 Expansion?

There's still no love for the Big 12 from Mike, but that won't stop him from talking about whether or not they need to expand.

Here's what we're thinking:

Reasonable to get to 12: Cincinnati and Memphis
Reasonable to get to 14: the aforementioned two plus BYU and Houston
You're having a laugh: Boise State, UConn, Central Florida and South Florida

We also touch on some other unrelated topics near the end.



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Episode 197 - Tim Say Relax

Tim goes to Hollywood with a simple message for Royals fans:



The defending World Series champions are off to a mediocre start this season (17-18 as of this post, 3rd in the AL Central, 6.5 behind division-leading Chicago White Sox).  That said, it is a long season and there's still more than four months of baseball remaining.

We also take time in the episode to discuss other baseball happenings, including the current standings (as of 5/10/16) and Ichiro's quest for 3,000 hits.



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Episode 196 - 2015-16 English Football Season Review

How do we start a review of English football's season?  Simple: pick a winner for the FA Cup Final.

Mike and Tim have made their picks for the FA Cup Final: both are picking Crystal Palace.

Congratulations to Leicester City FC on winning the 2015-16 Premier League!  This is the very first top flight title for the Foxes in the club's history.  They are only the sixth club to win the top flight title in the Premier League era (since 1992 - the others are Arsenal, Blackburn Rovers, Chelsea, Man City and Man United), the 24th club overall to win the top flight (since 1888, the founding of the Football League), and the first first-time winner since Nottingham Forest in 1978.

On the flip side, Aston Villa - a team Mike follows - were the first Premier League side relegated (later joined by Norwich City and Newcastle United - "thanks" to Everton for choking at the opportunity to take down Sunderland instead of one of these two).  How did the players react?  Mike came across Stan Collymore's radio rant about what happened - and we've decided to share that rant in today's podcast (fair use).

In the lower leagues:
- FL Championship: Burnley and Middlesbrough promoted; Brighton, Derby, Hull and Sheffield Wednesday (another team Mike follows) in the playoff; MK Dons, Charlton and Bolton relegated
- League 1: Wigan and Burton promoted; Walsall, Millwall, Bradford City and Barnsley in the playoff; Doncaster, Blackpool, Crewe Alexandra and Colchester relegated
- League 2: Northampton, Oxford United, and Bristol Rovers promoted; Accrington, Plymouth, Portsmouth and AFC Wimbledon in the playoff; Dagenham & Redbridge and York City relegated
- National League (formerly the Football Conference): Cheltenham promoted; Forest Green Rovers and Grimsby Town in the playoff

We also talk about how certain teams are treating their fans, from Liverpool publicly apologizing for ticket prices to Arsenal blaming their fans for not supporting the club.  Given that Arsenal are owned by the scumbag who ripped Mike's NFL team away from St. Louis (and, by extension, him), we've decided to introduce a new device to use when talking about him: a fair use remix of the Simpsons classic song "Senor Burns" with input from St. Louis' 101 ESPN (including some creatively edited comments from the SOB himself).

Last fair use notice: We open and close this episode with a comedy parody of Boyzone's "No Matter What" that rips on the "Great Red Satans of English Football."  I apologize to the artist who did it for not mentioning his name, but it is not known to me.


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Episode 195 - Batsu Game Fulfillment and Issuing

Today's episode is all batsu all the time.

First, the fulfillment of outstanding batsu games.

Tim had to wear a shirt depicting at least one of Houston's pro sports teams.  This is what he came up with - and it is awesome:

 
Mike had to partake of Chili Nut M&M's (turns out it was a promotional thing that was somehow available in Topeka but not in Kansas City).  They start out as regular peanut M&M's but when you swallow the spiciness comes out.  Think "Guatemalan insanity peppers."



Now, to issue batsu games:

Mike's batsu game for turning in a bad bracket: having a caricature done by Kansas City artist (and former co-worker to both Mike and Tim) Lucas Stoneking.

The team batsu game for picking the LA Kings to win the Stanley Cup: play a round of Cards Against Humanity, a card game that Mike considers evil.



Next time, we pick the FA Cup Final.



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