This Week in Balls - April 25

Not everyone has the inclination to follow sports full-time, or even real-time. Thankfully, we combed the latest, greatest, and worst stories from the world of balls this past week—hockey playoffs, NFL pre-draft, actual baseball—so you can hobnob with the weird regular people at the office, your doorman, or your minions, if you have minions.

Soccer:

- Welp, Barcelona lost on Sunday, then THE MOST INCREDIBLE THING HAPPENED ON TUESDAY. ooOOOOOOoouughh! You probably already know all about that Barca-Chelsea match if you care at all about soccer. Basically, the best team in the world just lost to some scrappy underdogs in the final moments of the match, just like a terrible movie. That must have been some halftime speech that Roberto Di Matteo (who’s a “tactical genius” according to his Wikipedia page), gave, huh?

- This referee fucked up his shoulder signaling for a free kick. That said, he’s no Bill Gramatica.

- Robin Van Persie won the Pro Footballers’ Association Player of the Year award. He’s really good, check out this shit. He came up in the Dutch soccer system, of which there’s a good—old, but good—rundown here.

NHL:

- Playoffs! The Vancouver Canucks were eliminated in five games by the Kings, and going in they were the best team in hockey. Isn’t that shameful? Editorials from Vancouver papers are calling for, change, I guess? And Roberto Luongo, whose incredible/gross hair didn’t help the team this time, said he’d waive his no-trade clause if it came to it. The fans are pissed and angry and confused and say a lot of contradictory things, as fans will do.

- The Penguins did a bit better than the Canucks, but still finished short of expectations, and are either going home or have gone home, depending on which cars they’re driving. Should the team get blown up? Should Sid Crosby have to deal with these kinds of videos all summer long? If he throws away his razor tomorrow, will he ever grow a respectable mustache? Hard to say, though I hope not, re: mustache.

- Thank the hockey gods that the Boston-Washington series is close—each game decided by a goal, and alternating wins, which is mildly historic and/or OCD, depending if you give a shit or not. Feel the excitement, feel the pleasure, feel the heart palpitations or pleasure burn or absolute disinterest, depending.

- Way out West: The Blues and Predators each move forward, and the Panthers—they’re from Florida, LOL—are close. The Senators are the lone Canadian team in the postseason, and forced a Game 7 with New York. If they win, Obama will be straight pissed (probably).

MLB:

- “Chill” Phil Humber threw a perfect game on Saturday against the Mariners, who for the past few years featured one of the worst offenses in baseball history. Like, really, really bad. Phil was good enough to make baseball history and nearly quadrupled his Twitter followers in the day following the game, because throwing a ball well makes you more interesting. That said, don’t overrate a no-hitter.

- Jose Canseco, who I guess has something to do with baseball, got dumped by his girlfriend, signed with some team out of Worcester and put on a show at Fenway Park’s centennial ceremony. Plus, his Twitter is down now. Rough week, but he’s seriously sleazy so I’m fine with it.

- Oh, Joe Buck’s Twitter got hacked. Or he wants you to lose some weight.

NFL:

- The Raiders signed a guy with a funny name.

- The Draft is going on soon, or so we hear. If you have a borderline-OCD obsession with football that has probably harmed your personal life, you care a lot about this.

@samreiss_

Previously - April 9