In my second installment of Hometown Sports Takes I decided to do a running blog of the 49ers vs. the Tampa Bay Bucs. I’ve read a few running blogs of sports games and figured that mine could be just as corny as the others. The only running blog that I’ve read that has been fantastic has been by The Sports Guy Bill Simmons. One thing that Bill does during these commentaries, is watch the events with his dad, so I’m stealing his gimmick as my dad is watching the game with me today. I’m not sure what will be more entertaining, this game, or my dad’s frustration watching this game.

This game should be on Monday Night Football. Chris Simms, son of Phil Simms against Ken Dorsey, biggest fan ever of Joe Montana. A throwback to the great battles between the former New York Giants and ‘9er QB’s. Ok, that’s a stretch, and if the NFL could, they’d probably hope for a country blackout, but I’m trying to pump myself up here.

Kickoff: The Niners get the ball first and it’s a bouncer that Maurice Hicks receives and then he just slips and falls down. Predictable way of starting out this game. Might be a good omen for the 49ers as Simeon Rice was sent home before the game for disciplinary reasons.

So far so good for the 49ers as Barlow carries the ball 3 times in a row for a first down and Brandon Lloyd gets in the mix with a catch for eight. Dad just sat up and is taking notice. All that excitement for nothing as the 49ers eventually punt.

Simms takes over on his own eight and goes three and out including one pass where he one hopped his receiver. I wonder how long until Buc fans start asking for Tim Rattay. I know I’m asking for him.

Quick dad story as this game so far is a dud. Way back when the 9ers were good, Dad could be impatient. If they didn’t start out killing everyone, dad would get a little upset and start throwing things. I used to think that the reason he wore his 49ers hat inside the house was simply so he could toss it like a ref throwing a flag. Pillows, newspapers, and others would soon follow.

Simms and Dorsey are in a battle to see who will be the first QB to throw for a first down today. And this is with 3:35 left in the first quarter. Simms beats Dorsey to it with just over two minutes left in the first with a completion to Michael Clayton. Fantasy football players everywhere are wondering if Clayton was still alive. I’m here to say that he is as I just saw him. The first quarter ends and it’s a surprise to no one that we have a scoreless game.

If anyone wants to argue that the quarterback isn’t the most important player on the field, take a look at this game as Tampa Bay is a 5-1 team, but without Brian Griese, they just played a scoreless first quarter with the worst team in the NFL.

Last week, the 49ers lost to the Redskins 52-17. This week, the NY Giants beat the Redskins 36-0. So later this year when the 49ers play the Giants, the Giants should win 88-17.

If anyone wants to argue that that Ken Dorsey in his third year is a superior quarterback than Alex Smith in his rookie season, Dorsey is killing that argument. Three and out yet again.

Finally some action. Frank Gore had the greatest two yard run in 49er history, and more importantly, he got hit when he was down and they got fifteen more yards out of it. After missing Lloyd in the endzone, the 49ers had to settle for a field goal from Joseph Nedney, from that great college called San Jose State University. 3-0 with six minutes left in the half.

Tampa Bay had a nice little drive going as Simms got a little bit hot. The running game still isn’t there, but I think the 49ers are simply worried about the running game and that’s it. Derek Johnson on a corner blitz sacked Simms on second down taking them all the way back to their own thirty seven. By taking that sack, Simms just made Matt Bryant’s field goal much harder. But, it didn’t matter and right before halftime, Bryant ties up.

With time running out in the first half, Barlow runs for thirty something yards and calls a time out, leaving two seconds left. Joseph Nedney who might be the 49ers MVP this season kicks another field goal to give the 9ers the lead 6-3.

Just for those Dorsey fans, he is 4-13 passing for 34 yards.

To start out the second half, the 49ers defense acted like they were good again as they stopped Cadillac Williams on third and one to get the ball back. The 49ers offense convincingly acted like they were bad and after a nice run by Barlow, simply gave the ball back going backwards on the next three downs. If the goal on offense was to go three and out, the 49ers would be the greatest team in the league.

Dad update: He’s been fairly quiet, but after the recent third and 13 completion to Terry Jackson for five yards, he said, “Didn’t they used to say don’t throw it to the guy unless it’s going to be a first down?” He needs to be running the offense.

After just missing out an interception by Emmanuel, the Niners do get the ball back as Shawntae Spencer picks it and gives the 49ers good field position. And of course, Dorsey misses two wide open guys and then they run on third and eight, making it Nedney time! And of course, the team MVP comes through. 9-3 49ers in the lead. Tim Rattay is chomping at the bit.

The 9er defense has been acting like a good defense all day today and Chris Simms is helping. Simms was getting hit on a blitz from his blindside and he threw a pass that hit the ref in the head, only to pop up into the arms of Brandon Moore and it is once again 9er ball. Three more plays and it’s time for Mr. Nedney. Viva Mr. Nedney! 12-3.

During third and long, the 49ers ran up the middle coming up a few yards short of the first down, and Dad showed some passion. “Why don’t they go for the first down!” he exclaimed.

Simms is starting to look like an NFL quarterback. A quick pass to Joey Galloway and then a long pass to Alex Smith puts them in 49er territory. He hits Alstott out of the backfield for 9 yards to end the third quarter. Unfortunately, that brush of greatness takes a hit as Andre Carter sacks him to set up third down and long. A short pass means long field goal time and if dad were a Bucs fan, he would’ve said, “Why don’t they go for the first down!” That sack killed them as Bryant missed the long field goal and early in the fourth, it’s still 12-3. 49er fans are trying to sit in exactly the same place and not move so they don’t jinx it.

This is why they are the 49ers and other teams are not. In what was supposed to be a very makeable 3rd and 2, Kwame Harris shoved a man right in front of the official, sending him flying and thus getting penalized, and it is now a very unmakeable 3rd and 17. Punt time.

After the great punt coverage, I got to thinking. I’m not sure the 49ers have missed many tackles all day long. Now if you watched that Raider game today, missed tackles were aplenty from both sides. But then again, Los Raiders got in the endzone.

Jeezus, I just jinxed them. Joey Galloway takes a short pass all the way to the house. Technically, no one missed a tackle as no one was able to come close to catching him. Galloway showed us why he was once the fastest man in the NFL. 12-10 with 10:33 left in the ball game.

Cody Pickett, who already made a tackle on special teams today, is now the QB for the Niners. Looks like Dorsey had his ankle rolled on. He did a great Dorsey impersonation. Three and out.

The Niner defense got the ball back with a nice stand and Pickett on third down hit Brandon Lloyd for a first down and now, and the Niners are getting closer to Nedney territory as the clock ticks under five minutes. All of a sudden, a large “Cody, Cody, Cody” chant erupts. And he asks for more with a naked bootleg for a first down on second and five. An offisides penalty by the full back Steve Bush might come back to haunt the 49ers as they were driving for a touchdown, but after two runs, they are short. But then again, we get to see Mr. Nedney! His field goal makes it 15-10 with 1:56 to go. And Joey Galloway scares me.

Right away, Simms goes back to pass and Bryant Young hits him and knocks the ball loose as Julian Peterson picks it up giving it back to the 9ers. We’re going to see this replayed. The ruling on the field stands.

Dad says, “I wonder how we can screw this up?”

The Niners run three times and out comes Mr. Nedney! Unfortunately, Mr. Nedney is not perfect and he misses it. There’s thirty nine seconds left in this game. And Joey Galloway still scares me.

Simms gets flushed out by Bryant Young and nearly laterals it right into Julian Peterson’s hands, but the Niners get hit with an illegal contact penalty. However, Bryant Young gets to Simms again and the clock runs out. The game is over.

As a 49er fan, it was a great victory especially after the beating they took last week. As a football fan, yikes that was an awful game. But at least dad was happy.

Just my thoughts of late:

Babyface was right when he said that it’s about drama, love, and lationships, and probably in that order too


Now, I could be wrong about this, and someone please correct me if I am, but since when was the term “Afro-Americans” ok?


The Chicago White Sox just won the World Series, and there was a time in my life when I would’ve actually cared


The new Fugees track is out and Lauryn Hill is back with a vengeance and if you don’t agree, take it easy


Young DeBarge says that Janet Jackson had a baby back in 1986, and this is such a non story, the only thing I thought was, “who names their son Young?”


Adam Levine has a ghetto pass, and no one seems to have a problem with this


For the first time since I was 9 years old, I no longer get the San Jose Mercury News daily and this makes me very sad


Truth: I am Tivo’ing the new Freddie Prinze Jr. show, creatively titled Freddie, but only because Brian Austin Green is back on television


Dare: Watch 5 minutes of this show without wanting to stab your hand with a fork


Diet Mountain Dew, Diet Dr. Pepper, and zero sugar energy drinks are my savior


Since when did kids start reading at 4 years of age?


Clerks 2 is second on my list of movies I can’t wait to see, after the new Rocky

Is Mel from Real World the hottest plain girl in the history of TV?


Speaking of reality babes, Aubrey from Making of the Band 3 is hot like fiyah, but soon she will get Diddied


I think Jay-Z is going to come back to the rap game, if only to rid us of 50 Cent


Tonight, I say a prayer for my Uncle Harry

I’ve written so much in this space that it amazes me. Not because the content is necessarily good, but mostly that, well basically, well honestly, I’ve done a lot of damn writing.

I went in and fixed all the archives for 2003 and found some interesting things I wrote back then.

My first of what I believe is like fifty American Idol reviews.

I really did blog about the 90210 Ten Year High School Reunion Show.

Uncle Dave.

My experience trying out for American Idol.

The Greatest Love Of All Part II: aka, the case of the missing pants.

Blake is the baddest man on the planet.

All night, I waited for T.O..

I became Stone Cold.

Carol stars in The Mean Wife.

I literally stood there watching Mick act out scenes by himself, like no one was watching. He simulated climbing something. He also stood there with his hands at his sides pretending there was another person next to him, then put his arms forward with his palms facing upward. All of this was happening while I was just watching him in awe. I tried interrupting him once, to no avail. And then I did it again.

“Dude!” I yelled. “I have an idea on what you can do to get Leia back.”

“Huh?” he said. “Oh, ya, what should I do?”

I started to tell him of ways he could show Leia that he made a mistake and that he really truly cared about her. I told him that he could buy her eleven roses, send them to her apartment, write a love note and then when she figured out that her dozen was missing one, show up with the last rose between his teeth as he sat upon one knee asking for her forgiveness. I noticed that he still wasn’t paying much attention.

He shook his head and said, “That’s a good one,” then went back to his day dreaming.

I had to think of something that would catch his attention. Mick is a skateboarding fanatic and has been on his board since he was old enough to stand on two feet. I told him that he could buy her some perfume, ride to her place on his board, and deliver it and ask her if she needed a lift somewhere. It wasn’t as sweet an idea as my first, but the man needed to snap out of his slumber.

It did get him to snap out of it a little bit, but not for good. He did have an idea. It was an idea that would get him arrested, but it was still his idea.

“Hey G, what if I dressed up in my Spiderman costume,” he said in a voice that led me to believe that he was serious. And before I could ask him if he was joking, he continued.

“I would dress up in my Spiderman costume and go up to her door and ask her if she needed any help from her neighborhood friendly Spiderman,” he added happily.

“Um,” I said before I exploded in laughter.

Mick is very proud of his Spiderman costume. He bought it a few years ago and wore it to our family Halloween party. It was awesome in more ways than one. First, it was Spiderman and Spiderman has always been cool. But also, this was the shortest Spiderman of all time, as Mick wasn’t a tall, or even average in height. However, the greatest comment about his costume came from my Uncle Dave who told Mick that he never remembered Spiderman having such a bulge in his nether regions. Let’s just say that Mick’s costume was very tight in the groin area.

Mick started to laugh which made me relieved because that told me that he too thought it was at least a little silly, but the gleam in his eyes told me that while it was silly, it was something he was really thinking about before I laughed my ass off.

“Dude, do you want to get arrested?” I hypothetically asked.

He continued laughing, but the laughter retreated and he became somber.

“I’m at the point G, where I may never talk to this woman again,” he said.

He then started to tell me how she was the one and he knew it. He said she was the kind of girl he could change for. He said other than his son, he had never met anyone else in his life who loved him like he wanted to be loved.

“G, she’s the one who you tell your buddies that you gotta leave because your lady is waiting for you,” he said in a way that was semi-chauvinistic, but only because it was the way he talked.

He also started to act out a scene in which he was waving goodbye to his buddies, while putting his arm over the shoulder of an invisible person while throwing invisible kisses saying, “Let’s go baby,” while strolling for a good ten feet. And when I say strolling, I mean strolling. This wasn’t a walk. It was more like a skip. It was the happiest skip with an invisible woman under your arm that you’d ever seen. And he kept doing this over and over. The same exact thing. Over and over and over again. I watched him in awe. While I did think it was hilariously insane, it was also inspiring to see how in love he was. This wasn’t just some fly by night woman. This was someone who he had envisioned spending the rest of his life with. It was at this time that I told him if he really wanted her, he needed to act quickly.

“But G, she won’t return my calls,” he sadly admitted.

“And you’ve apologized and everything?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “But when we talk, it’s not the same,” he said.

He said that while she would talk to him on the phone, their conversations weren’t magical like they’d been before. He could tell that he hurt her, and her guard was fully up. He tried telling her that what they’d had was special and that he wasn’t going to be satisfied until he made her his again.

“So doesn’t she still work in the mall?” I asked him while I pointed to my right.

“Nope, she goes from mall to mall so I don’t know which one she’d be at,” he said.

Damn, I thought. How could this be any harder for him? This was like one of those movies where the man does the impossible to get his woman back. And I told Mick this. He needed to figure out the impossible if he really wanted to get her back.

“Come on Mick,” I said, “it’s time to put your all into this, don’t accept your fate if you really want it.”

He seemed like a beaten man, one who had accepted that his story was just that, a story. There would be no happy ending. There would be no happily ever after. He only had one heart. He wasn’t like other guys. He was content with his woman by his side and nothing else. He wasn’t a player. He didn’t crush alot. He only wanted one. And this one didn’t want him back.

It was ready for me to leave as I had to head home to see the wife and kids. But before I left, I told him that this was not to end if she was the one.

“Mick, don’t ever give up man,” I said.

“You have a huge heart and she will know this,” I said. “But if you quit now, she’ll never know the half.”

I then gave him a big hug, thanked him for my hair cut and again reminded him that he needed to make her feel that magic again.

I walked to my car and took one look back towards him. He was dragging longly on his cigarette seemingly in deep thought. It was a look of peace from the outside, but I knew that on the inside, his broken heart was not calm. If it was real, it wouldn’t be calm for a very long time.

We’re almost halfway through this season. Some teams are right where we thought they’d be. And some aren’t. Some teams don’t score a lot of points and win games. Some teams score many points and lose games. Fantasy Football at it’s finest.

This past weekend, there were some huge match-ups. First place teams matched up. Second place teams matched up. And what made this past weekend really great was that Emmitt’s Anthology lost.

Hear about all that and more on this week’s edition of Booshit Fantasy Football Radio

You can catch up if you’ve missed past shows below.
Booshit Radio Show 5
Booshit Radio Show 4
Booshit Radio Show 3.
Booshit Radio Show 2
Booshit Radio Show 1 (the draft show)