Mariano Rivera Appreciation Day

I would like to take a moment to mention just how awesome Mariano Rivera is. He is so awesome that in the very few times he was not perfect, he was almost a victim of his own awesomeness, due to the fact that we expect him to be perfect.

Rivera recorded his 500th career save (and 1st career RBI) on Sunday against the Mets. But nice, round number aside, we should marvel at him any time, not just when he hits a milestone.

His career statistics are staggering. As of this moment, he has thrown 1054 1/3 innings, with a 2.30 ERA. His dominance of this, a hitters' era, is shown in his career ERA+ of 197. For non stat lovers, this means that over the course of his entire career, his ERA has been about half of the American League average ERA. He has 973 career strikeouts to just 247 walks, and has allowed just 828 hits. (Career WHIP: 1.01.)

It's not out of the question to say that inning-for-inning, in Mariano Rivera we are watching the best pitcher who ever lived. But I'll get into those comparisons another time. The Yankees have won 4 championships during his career. His postseason ERA is 0.77, and if not for his mere three playoff blown saves - 1997 vs. Cleveland, 2001 vs. Arizona, and 2004 vs. Boston (the very fact that I can remember all of them without looking them up also means something) - the Yankees might have 7 rings instead of 4. So, thanks for your awesomeness, Mo.

My Top 4 Curious Sports Commercial Campaigns

Nike's failed LeBron James and Kobe Bryant puppet ads sent me down memory lane for the most ill-advised, puzzling, or flat-out bizarre sports commercial campaigns ever. Here is what I came up with, in countdown format.

4) Tiger Woods/Roger Federer/Thierry Henry - Gillette - 2008

It's standard for a company to get recognizable athletes to promote their product. But when you can only recognize one of the three faces - and the recognizable one arguably does not even play an athletic sport - well, as Steve Spurrier once said, "Not too good!" I consdier myself a pretty knowledgeable sports fan, but truthfully, when I saw these commercials I thought Roger Federer was Jeff Gordon until my brother corrected me...and I had to enlist the help of Google just minutes ago to figure out the third guy, Henry.

3) Larry Johnson as "Grandmama" - Converse - mid 1990s

Yep, as we all know, the only thing better than drag, is elderly drag. Perhaps it worked in the mid 1990s, but nowadays a strong, large man in drag performing great hoops feats just seems weird.

2) LeBron James/Kobe Bryant Puppets - Nike - 2009

Even if LeBron and Kobe both made it to the NBA Finals, as Nike had assumed they would, these ads would be considered mediocre at best. The puppets don't look or sound like their human subjects at all, and the dialogue simply isn't that funny. But consider that everything Nike was building up to - a LeBron/Kobe finals - was not delivered, no doubt Nike has egg all over their face for this one. If only they'd done a Dwight Howard puppet (or even a J.J. Reddick) instead of LeBron James. Nike's mistake was not the all-time undelivered matchup-gaffe however; that brings me to #1...

1) Dan and Dave - Reebok - 1992

Dave Johnson and Dan O'Brien were destined to collide in the 1992 Olympic decathlon event, but Dave placed third and Dan failed to qualify for the games. It was a lesson in "jumping the gun" that, until this year (see above), was well-learned. (As a side note, I see by the Youtube posts that Jim Rome talked about this campaign a few days ago - which means he beat it to death for two hours with repetitive and shallow analysis, and played the same sound effect 185 times.)

So, those are some curious ones. But what is the best sports commercial of all-time? Easy. This.