The Skolney Blog

All over the internet right now, you cannot escape the right wing freaks whining like children about how there's so much politics in sports. Go fuck yourselves, seriously. It's the same shit basically that you hear day in day out from these people, just on topics that don't have anything to do with sports. The fact of the matter is that everyone on the right in this country is a dinosaur. Their entire ideology is outdated bigotry and racism. They want this country to go back to being pre-Civil War, where only white men had any power and everybody else had to be subservient to them or die basically. These people cannot stand even the possibility of American society moving beyond this systemic racism once and for all. This is why they cheer like the fascists they are when peaceful protesters are beaten in the streets, some even killed by Trump's goon squad. This is why they cheer when fascist pig cops murder unarmed black people for no reasoun whatsoever. This is why they...

Vikings training camp officially opened today. Rookies reported already, but now everyone has shown up. But one guy who won't be showing up, and won't be showing up all year, is Michael Pierce, our one significant free agent signing, who we nabbed to replace Linval in the middle of the DL.  Pierce opted out of the season, as players are allowed to do this year  whether for medical concerns or not. His is medical related. Look, that's his decision and it's okay. I will not be ripping any player who taps out of this season. But from a football standpoint it sucks for the Vikings. Interior DL play was an issue last year. We got handled in the run game on multiple occasions, including the playoff loss at San Francisco. Upgrading there was a key, and Pierce was going to do that.  Now with him gone the Vikings have a big hole in the middle all over again. But they do have options. Right now it would probably be Shamar Stephen and Jaleel Johnson. But I'm all in on James Ly...

1980: This was not technically the first spoof movie, but it was the first one to really hit. I think the ZAZ team perfected this more by the time they got around to The Naked Gun, but we don't get that without Airplane.  This movie has to have one of the all time best ratios of jokes to laughs. Very few jokes in this thing don't land. And many that do land are completely iconic.  This movie completely changed the careers for Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack and of course Leslie Nielsen.  I do wish that instead of Robert Hays, we had original lead David Letterman. That would have been amazing.  1990: Die Hard 2 is a classic late 80s/early 90s Hollywood sequel, for better and worse.  Arriving barely 2 years after the original Christmas classic, this one is truly a rehash. It copies the premise, many of the characters (even one or two that have no business being here), they even set it at Christmas (even though this time it isn't really worked i...

Lynx 77 Sun 69 Well that woke up the  echoes. Nobody really thinks the Lynx are a title contender. They're in a rebuilding'n'retooling phase again. Playoffs? Sure, maybe. And for most of 3 quarters they looked like a team that's still figuring it out. Their offense looked very sloppy, with lots of turnovers. They didn't shoot well. They couldn't hit a 3 to save their lives. They kind of looked disorganized. Their defense kept them in the game, but it seemed like it was a 9 or 10 point deficit the whole time.  But then the 4th quarter came. The quarter that the classic Lynx teams just owned. If a game was close, they took it over. If they led already, well then you might as well just go home. They went in down 7, but then just caught fire. Reigning ROY Napheesa Collier, who didn't even score I think til well into the 2nd half, started hitting everything. Fowles started to assert authoritah. And instant rookie steal Crystal Dangerfield was just great in her de...

Twins 10, White Sox 5 Of course the LONG delayed opener to the season got weird fast. Like first pitch fast, as Max Kepler sent the first pitch of the season into the seats. Then the Twins tacked on 3 more 1st inning runs. And Kepler sent another one out in the 2nd.  Too bad Jose Berrios stunk. I know historically he regresses badly after the all star break, but only the calendar is the same this time. Hopefully this is a flukey clunker (Giolito stunk too for the Sox, so maybe it's just a thing). The Twins deep lineup slugged their way out of trouble. Polanco got a big hit to retake the lead, and Arraez tacked a couple more runs on late to seal the deal. Most encouraging was the production with the bases loaded. We got multiple run scoring hits with the bases packed! All last year, despite all the runs and homers, we had this bizarre mental block or something where we couldn't do shit with the bases loaded. I would gladly swap out a few bombas for this kind of improved producti...

Mere hours before a baseball season that began ominously with a Yankees win. MLB announced that there will be an expanded playoffs. Each league will have eight teams. All three division champions. All three second-place teams. And then the top two teams remaining after that. It's something similar to how the NHL does it. And then everyone will play a best of three first round series and go from there. As a purist I don't like it. But as a way to kind of minimize the randomness of baseball in a 60 game season, I don't mind it for this one year. If you're playing just 60 games, you can't really be certain that the team that finishes with the best record is considerably better than the team that finishes with the 8th best record. Because that's baseball. It just doesn't work that way. This will also help to keep worthy playoff teams still in the playoffs that maybe, you know, had one bad week that could knock you out in a 60 game season, but now they'...

Okay, time to make some deep analytical predictions about what's gonna happen this season. 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂 Yeah right! You serious? Let's take a trip back to 2011. The Minnesota Twins have just a disastrous season. The run of success under Ron Gardenhire crashes and burns in a last place, 63-99 fiasco. It's just the worst. BUT...in the middle of this catastrophe, there is a 50 game stretch, from June 2nd thru July 27th, where the Twins are 32-18. So even in a 99 loss season, there is nearly a third of that season during which the Twins played at a 100 WIN pace. Even in the 103 loss 2016 season there was a 33 game burst where the Twins were 21-12, again a more than 100 win pace. The point is, baseball is not meant for short seasons. Over 162 games you can feel pretty sure that you probably have the actual best teams in the playoffs. But 60 games? The fact is there is no possible way to know how things might shake out. I think the Twins will be very good. Had we had a full...

Only bits of these two seasons.  2008 : Favregate: Brett Favre The name makes my eyes roll at this point. Frankly, this attention whore pissed away much of the goodwill he earned back last season. This guy has psychological problems. Now, that said, I had been hoping the Vikings would somehow find a way to bring him in. True, the Vikes are cursed and Favre woulda broken his leg in week 1, but still, they aren't going to the super bowl with Tarvaris Jackson, even though I do think he could pan out to be a good qb. It looked like Tampa was getting him, but the Jets swooped in and got him. I'm not exactly pleased at the thought of him being cheated twice a year by the Hatriots, but he might be able to make them a wild card contender. Season Predictions: AFC EAST: 1. New England Hatriots 15-1* I'm still savoring their mighty fall on that glorious early February night. But now it's back to the reality that nothing has changed. They will still cheat all the time, they will st...

Remember all that talk about the oncoming 2nd Civil War? Well, it's here, and the 2 sides are: 1. The American citizens and government officials who are genuinely trying their best to slow the spread of COVID,  and do what they can to limit both the human and economic casualties of all this. 2. The American citizens and government officials (including the treasonous murderer in the White House) who are doing everything they possibly can to keep COVID running rampant through this country, and ensure that if and when this nightmare is over we don't even have a country left. Or if we do it's a third world one.  Group one is bigger. It is. As lost as we are right now  I still have no doubt more people are willing (at least grudgingly) to do even the most basic of things to try to help the situation. But this doesn't work as long as group 2 exists, and has the power they do   We are the joke of the world. EVERY other country has done better than we have. EVERY other ...

8/11/07--preseason post: Now, onto some football, since I went to the Vikings preseason opener last night. I only went cause I had the ticket, and I only had that cause I had to buy one with a ticket to the Packer game. Anyway, it was a colossal bore, but I found the play of T Jack somewhat encouraging. I'm pulling for the guy, and hope for the best. Bobby Wade looked pretty good too. As usual I will save my predictions for just before the season, but I will reveal that I think the Patriots will win it all. I am only able to deal with this because I got to see the Steelers and Colts get theirs the last 2 seasons. And there's always that hope that the playboy wannabe Brady will get his knee ligaments shredded at some point. Season Predictions: AFC EAST 1. Patriots (14-2) Yes, sadly I see the dark times returning. Not cause of Moss. He's actually the lone hope. Maybe he'll destroy the team from within. But the Adalius Thomas signing and the other professional receivers ha...