Agent Palmer

Many years ago, back in my college days, I would mindlessly play FIFA 2005 to take my mind off school. Playing FIFA mindlessly meant playing on an easier mode and scoring a ton of goals, and my good friend Chris (a.k.a. Agent Parker), would hear the announcer yell “DONOVAN!” repeatedly as I would maneuver Landon Donovan for a goal.

Well, it appears that the real Landon Donovan has been playing on easy mode for a long time as the career goal-scoring record holder for both the United States Men’s National Team and for Major League Soccer.

The 2014 Tour de France ran from July 5th to July 27th. This 101st edition of the Tour was made up of 21 stages and covered 3,664 km, containing nine flat stages, five hill stages, six mountain stages with five mountaintop finishes, one time trial and two rest days.

The Tour started in England lost a few big names along the way to Paris. In their absence the race was still competitive, for the Sprinter’s Green and King of the Mountain’s Polka Dot Jerseys. The Yellow Jersey and General Classification was decided early quite early on, with Vincenzo Nibali’s performance in Stage 2 and the withdrawal of both Christopher Froome and Alberto Contador.

Germany stands atop the game of football (or futbol or even soccer, depending on your country of origin) as the 2014 World Cup Champions. This isn’t a shock as they’ve been here before – three times, in fact – making this their fourth World Cup.

This makes them a powerhouse in their sport, but it was how they managed to get to World Cup Championship No. 4 that makes this impressive.

It’s been almost a month since the San Antonia Spurs beat the Miami Heat to win the NBA title and the much hyped NBA draft has come and gone.

The NBA may be a part of the American, and partially, the global sports landscape, but sometimes there is no escaping the good, the ugly and the ridiculous, as sometimes happens. These events or stories appear both on and off the court, in and out of the arena.

Football, Futbol or Soccer, whatever you call “The Beautiful Game” it’s currently in a stage of frenzy commonly called, “World Cup Fever,” and the only cure is more of it.

In fairness to the other sports, it is only really in the United States where you either get it or you don’t. Otherwise, you get it and it’s a matter of degrees between passing fancy or religion.

In places where it is a religion, almost every beyond American borders, although factions do exist within the US, it’s hard to explain to Americans why it’s so important.