Soccer players are calm, collected people

I don't really like soccer much at all. Too little action combined with not enough scoring. But what I do love is how the sport turns fans, players, and referees into psychotic, violent lunatics.

Today's example comes courtesy of Kuala Lumpur, where rioting semi-pro players and a gun were involved in some hijinks. Awesome.

It seems that after a ref gave a player at a local soccer match a red card, all hell broke loose, with a number of players taking umbrage with the call. The ref, in an attempt to alleviate the tense situation, ran to his car to grab a gun. Of course. He proceeded to fire off a number of warning shots to stop the rioting players.

And to top it all off, the ref was a police officer. Uh oh.

"We are investigating as to whether the policeman was justified in taking out his firearm and discharging it, and also why he had it with him during the match," said Hussin Ismail, police chief in the southern Johor state.

Wait, so it's not ok for a cop to grab his piece and fire away when confronted by angry soccer players? I would have thought grabbing a gat was par for the course, rather than any kind of punishable offense.

Anyway, the cop was taken into custody for suspected misuse of firearms, while five players are also being held for questioning and could be charged with rioting.

This incident obviously raises a serious question, which is: Can only 5 people constitute a riot? I'd say no, but I'm not exactly experienced in the rioting department.

-WCK

Vladimir Putin will teach you to kick some butt

This has to rank up there as one of the coolest things ever done by a head of state while he's still in office. It seems that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a major badass at judo - he's a black belt. I guess when you consider his political background, this makes sense.

But he just announced that he and Yasuhiro Yamashita, a World and Olympic judo champion from Japan, have made an instructional video together.

If you're wondering when this future instant YouTube classic will become available, here's what Putin had to say.

"He and I have recorded a video disc as a video supplement to a judo manual," Putin said. "I think it will be coming out in January or February."

Man, it must be awfully cool to have a president that can break concrete blocks with his head, and administer the infamous "Touch of Death." And if you want to see Putin taking on either a really short Asian man, or perhaps a kid, here you go. I'm hoping it's a kid.


To be honest, this makes America look weak and scrawny. President Bush is really only known for two things in regards to sports - being a wussy high school male cheerleader and an incompetent MLB team owner. Neither of those strike fear into the hearts of anyone. I take that back, the male cheerleader thing definitely makes me afraid, but not in the right way.

Quite frankly, the only way to rectify this critical situation may be to elect Chuck Norris in '08.

-WCK

Santa hates Rangers fans

This is an old video, although it hasn't been viewed that much. It's a bunch of Islanders fans who got free seats for dressing up like Santa, and somehow they all wound up on the ice at some point.

But what makes it great is that some idiot Rangers fan also made it out onto the ice. Naturally, the Santas made him pay for this heinous crime.

-WCK

That kid hockey fight was just a tad overblown

People have been waiting for this all week. It's that hockey fight from Canada where a bunch of 8-year-olds started a massive on ice brawl that caused the cops to show up and then a riot broke out and then the world as we know it ended. At least, that's what I think happened from reading the early news reports. Since neither team would release a tape of the incident, some news outlets went a little nuts with this story.

Well, now the video is out. I was expecting at least one person, namely a sauced up parent, to have been brutally speared by a hockey stick judging by the early media reports. But as the video shows, the brawl was exactly what you'd expect a fight between 8-year-olds wearing tons of padding to be like. Fairly tame.

-WCK

More High School football fights

Yesterday we brought you that video of two Florida high school football teams fighting that resulted in a combined 58 suspensions. Well, that video was surprisingly not that great. So today we bring you another fight, which happened in Michigan this last weekend. Only 11 suspensions resulted from this dust-up, but they were all from one team. One kid gets absolutely crushed and gets up like he was hit by a bus. But my favorite part is when two guys on the same team nearly duke it out. Now that's teamwork.

Note to self: Never attend Jackson High School.

-WCK

It's not the U versus FIU, but it'll do

I don't know why, but some sportswriter for a Washington paper had this video linked on his blog today. He was congratulating his local high school sports teams for not doing what happens in the above video. Which obviously means they play wuss football up in Washington. In Florida, however, they take no prisoners. This is a fight between two high school Florida football teams, Miramar and Flanagan from Sept. 28th. Miramar high school football rules! An unreal 58 players were suspended as a result of the brawl and most for the whole season. In addition, Miramar was fined $5,550 and Flanagan $6,800. The game was called off halfway through the third quarter. It'll be finished later this month in a 4-on-4 tag football game by the 8 total players who weren't suspended for sticking a shiv in someone.

I'm not really sure why there were so many suspensions. For 58 suspensions I expected to see at least one guy using his helmet as a weapon, and one or two Neds. Maybe even an anti-aircraft missile. But no. So anyway, enjoy this somewhat disappointing video of high school kids wailing on each other.

-WCK

Take me out to the brawl game, multiple times

For a more concise, and I would argue better version of this story, here's Home Run Derby's take on it.

There's nothing quite like a good old fashioned baseball fight. And if you attended the Thursday and Friday night games pitting the Kannapolis Intimidators against the Greensboro Grasshoppers of the South Atlantic League (Class A), you more than got your money's worth.

That's because first on Thursday night both entire teams were ejected after two epic brawls. A phone call had to be made to South Atlantic League president John Henry Moss, who ultimately decided along with the umpiring crew to reinstate enough players to actually conclude the game.

With two outs in the first inning, Intimidators pitcher Alberto Zazueta hit batter Logan Morrison with a pitch in the small of his back. Both benches cleared and, eventually, home plate umpire Matt Abbott ejected Grasshoppers batting coach Anthony Iapoce and issued warnings to both teams.

Logan returned to the plate in the third with two outs, and Zazueta hit Logan with a pitch on his upper leg. Abbott immediately ejected the pitcher and Kannapolis manager Chris Jones, and for a second time both teams left their dugouts for a true free-for-all.

"There were four or five brawls going on," Grasshoppers general manager Donald Moore said. "When all was said and done, each team had so many players ejected that they couldn't field a team -- there weren't enough position players left. No one wants a pitcher to play second base."

The umpires had tossed so many players that they didn't know what to do. The umps went into the clubhouse for an hour to discuss taking action before the decision was made to reinstate players.

Even after the call was made to continue the game, things weren't exactly normal.

The dugouts were empty for the remainder of the game. When not at bat, on deck or manning a defensive position, players were to remain in their clubhouses, which were protected by cops. Grasshoppers front-office personnel became messengers, summoning the sequestered players from their lockers to the field when a half-inning ended or their spot in the batting order drew near.

Then on Friday, just because two massive brawls weren't enough, the teams squared off again.

Benches cleared in the top of the third inning, after Intimidator Scotty Madsen slid into second with his spikes up. With South Atlantic League President John Henry Moss watching, players fought for about five minutes, until officials got both teams back into their dugouts.

Despite the fighting, no one was actually ejected this time.

I'm not sure what kind of suspensions are ultimately going to come down on both teams, but maybe if we're lucky all these guys will sign pro boxing contracts to fight during their down time. That's certainly get me watching boxing again.

Here's some video of the major bench clearing brawl, that would be the 2nd dust up on Thursday, in case you were wondering.


-WCK

Someone needs to sedate this woman

This is a NSFW video of a woman absolutely flipping out when her son gets into a fight on the ice. I can understand her concern though. She doesn't want her son to be a pussy, like Brian Urlacher's kid.

-WCK

Happy Anniversary Izzy

Today marks the 6th anniversary of the famous Izzy Alcantara meltdown during Family Night in Pawtucket. Izzy only got a 7-game suspension for this if you can believe it.

He played in 50 major league games and had a career MLB batting average of .270

May your foot find the facemask of many more catchers, Izzy.

-WCK