Sports Chat - Free Sports Forums

Super Bowl XLII Predictions

2007-09-17T09:06:00.000-05:00

Carrying on with a Sports-Chat tradition, here's the thread where you can start making your Super Bowl picks early in the season.

Go Bears!

World Series Predictions

2007-04-02T08:23:00.000-05:00

With the 2007 MLB season underway it's time to start talking about the World Series...who will be in it and who will win win it?

Stop in and make your World Series prediction in the baseball forum.

Yankees, Mets, White Sox & Red Sox are some of the early picks by members of the Sports Chat forums.

Sports Search Engine

2007-03-13T10:16:00.000-05:00

If you're looking for something related to sports try the Sports Chat sports search engine. It only searches sports sites so you should be able to find pretty much anything you're looking for that's related to sports.

Enjoy!

Top Reasons Soccer is Stupid

2007-02-10T09:34:00.000-06:00

Ooooooh ... "Soccer is an intelligent game."

Soccer lovers are much like religious cultists, except they don't kill themselves.

The conspiracy of non-athletic people promoting soccer.

Soccer is usurping resources that real sports should be getting.

Soccer moms:
TAKE YOUR KIDS TO A BASEBALL GAME, YOU IDIOTS!

Alexi Lalas: Looks suspiciously like Rasputin.

Marginally talented kids can dominate and then think they are great.

Play a real sport, punk.

Continue reading; Top Reasons Soccer is Stupid

Super Bowl XLI

2007-01-22T08:30:00.000-06:00

Da' Bears vs the Colts.

Who will win Super Bowl XLI?

Cast your vote and discuss the Bears vs Colts match up in our football forums.

GO BEARS!!!

Da' Bears

2007-01-17T14:42:00.000-06:00

Talk about the Bears journey to the Superbowl in the Sports-Chat football forum.

Bench Grossman?

2006-12-11T08:15:00.000-06:00

Should the Bears bench Rex Grossman?

So far "no" is the leading vote.

Hot NFL Topics

2006-12-01T09:41:00.000-06:00

The NFL season is in full swing - stop in the football forum to comment on any of these hot NFL topics:

Vinny is back

Poll: M. Vick - Overrated?

2007 Superbowl Predictions

McNabb undergoes surgery for torn ACL in right knee

Baseball Trivia

2006-12-01T09:36:00.000-06:00

In the Sports-Chat sports trivia forum we have a few tough baseball trivia questions out there right now. Think you know the answer? Stop in and take a shot at any of the sports trivia questions that have been posted by our users.

Rookie Batting Average Record - AL & NL

.400 Batting Average Seasons

Good luck!

Happy Holidays from Sports-Chat

2006-11-29T13:19:00.000-06:00

Just a quick post wishing you all happy holidays from the Sports-Chat team.

Now head into the sports forums:-)

July 23 Forum Outage

2006-07-23T10:53:00.000-05:00

The Sports-Chat forums are down. We are working on a resolution but please be advised it could be as late as July 24 (Monday) before the forums are back online.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Thank you for visiting Sports Chat.

LeBron Staying in Cleveland, Gets 80 Million

2006-07-09T08:08:00.000-05:00

Cleveland's All-Star forward agreed Saturday to sign a contract extension of up to five years and worth as much as $80 million with the Cavaliers, a huge relief for the rising team and its fretting fans who worried he might be planning an escape.

James, who in three seasons as a pro has turned the Cavaliers from doormats into NBA title contenders, will sign the deal after the league's moratorium ends Wednesday, said his agent Leon Rose.

"I am very excited and happy to be re-signing with the Cavaliers. Staying in Cleveland ... provides me with the unique opportunity to continue to play in front of my family, friends and fans," James said in a statement released by his publicist. "I look forward to working toward bringing a championship to our great fans and the city of Cleveland."

2006 World Series Predictions

2006-06-05T09:58:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year again...time to brush off the crystal ball and make those 2006 World Series predictions.

Who's it going to be? Make your prediction and cast your vote in the World Series prediction thread.

You're Looking For Our Sports Forum

2006-06-02T15:13:00.000-05:00

I get lazy with blog here at Sports-Chat...all the action is in the sports forum. Use the link over there on the right or just click - Sports Chat Forums.

See you in the forums!

Super Bowl XL

2006-01-23T18:54:00.000-06:00

The Seahawks and Steelers face off in Detroit for Super Bowl XL.

Jump in and talk about Super Bowl XL in the Sports-Chat Football Forums.

There's a poll running so make sure to cast your vote for your team!

Recent Sports Forum Posts

2005-12-23T13:09:00.000-06:00

Here are a few recent threads from the Sports-Chat forums:

Football Trivia (NFL)

Test your football trivia knowledge with 6 questions about the NFL.

Michael Irvin

A funny poll - Who really left the pipe in Michael Irvin's car? - stop in and cast your vote. Right now it's a 4 way tie.

Chicago's Superbowl Journey

A Chicago Bears fan dreams of the Bears being in the superbowl.........

Hsppy holidays from the Sports-Chat team.

You can put it on the Board.....YES

2005-10-27T11:37:00.000-05:00

Congrats to Chicago's south siders, The Chicago White Sox.

I won't bore you with details here - talk about the White Sox World Series victory in the Baseball Forum.

One Reason the Chicago Bears Suck

2005-10-12T14:47:00.000-05:00

Perhaps our starting QB should act a little more like a professional football player and a little less like a drunken frat boy. Kyle - people are watching your dumb ass. Might want to think about that before you make an idiot of yourself in public. I'm talking about the bar here, not what you've been doing on the field on Sunday.

The Chicago Bulls: 1966 to Michael Jordan to Today

2005-10-10T14:48:00.000-05:00

On November 2, the Chicago Bulls will open the season against the Charlotte Bobcats. Entering their 40th season, the Bulls have seen it all, from their early struggles to the return of Michael Jordan in the mid-90s to lead them to three more championships.

In total, six championship banners hang from the United Center. All six have come in the 90s, a decade the Bulls clearly dominated. The first three were won in 1991-3, and the next three in 1996-8 (1995-96 also saw the Bulls go a record 72-10 in the regular season). The amazing line-up throughout the run has included Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, Horace Grant, B.J. Armstrong, Toni Kukoc, and Ron Harper. All six winners were coached by Phil Jackson.

The inaugural season was coached by Johnny “Red” Kerr. Bob Boozer and Guy Rodgers both led the team, each averaging 18 points per contest. Jerry Sloan was also a key player, averaging 17.4 points and a team high 9.1 rebounds. The franchise’s first win came on October 15, 1966 when they defeated the St. Louis Hawks. Season highlights include making the playoffs (albeit losing in the first round), Kerr winning Coach of the Year, Guy Rodgers leading the league in assists with 11.2 per game, and sending Rodgers and Sloan to the All-Star game.

In only a few years, the Bulls would have their first season over .500. In 1970-71, they went 51-31. Stars on that team included Bob Love, Chet Walker, and Jerry Sloan. They would end up losing in the division semifinals to the Lakers in game 7, but showed promise for seasons to come.

In years to come, solid stars such as Norm Van Lier, Artis Gilmore, and Reggie Theus teased fans of basketball glory in the city of Chicago, but it wasn’t until the 1984 draft when it all changed. Michael Jordan burst onto the scene and averaged 28.2 points, 6.5 rebounds, and 5.9 assists.

It took a few years, but the Bulls soon had the likes of Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, and Phil Jackson on the bench. After their championship runs in the 90s, things slowed to a lull. Posting embarrassing win totals was not what the fans were used to, but the new generation (dubbed the Baby Bulls) just didn’t have the experience.

All that changed this season, as the young cast got older, and the rookies and sophomores made their contribution. The Bulls were finally in the playoffs again, with Kirk Hinrich, Ben Gordon, Eddy Curry, Tyson Chandler, and Luol Deng leading the way.

The future looks bright, and fans should be exited for what is to come. The young roster is still getting older and wiser, and we should expect many playoff berths in the future, and perhaps a few new banners.

The History of NFL Football

2005-09-30T15:02:00.000-05:00

Baseball has always been known as “American’s Pastime.” However, a gander into American living rooms on a winter Sunday afternoon confirms that football is, in fact, “America’s Passion.”

From The Beginning

Football is a game that is uniquely American. Evolving from the sport of rugby, the first iteration of American football was born in a game between Rutgers and Princeton University using modified London Football Association rules in 1876. At this time, the game resembled a modified rugby rather than today’s football. A few years later, the Intercollegiate Football Association was formed by representatives from Rutgers, Princeton, Columbia, and Yale Universities. The rules for American football were written for the first time.

Yale University coach Walter Camp, who would become known as the father of modern American football, convinced the IFA to revise their rules. IFA called for fifteen-man teams, for example, while Camp preferred eleven. The playing field dimensions, non-existent before Camp, were limited to one hundred ten yards. Camp also introduced the system of downs used today. His influence would lead to the evolution into modern American football.

Although rules were in place, the game became increasingly brutal in the early 1900’s. So brutal, in fact, that some colleges banned its play. Eighteen deaths were attributed to playing football. President Theodore Roosevelt had to intervene and asked Princeton, Yale, and Harvard to reform the sport. The three schools, along with sixty others, met and appointed a seven-member Rules Committee. They also established what eventually became the National Collegiate Athletic Association, also known as the NCAA.

The committee established more rules to help evolve the sport and tone down the brutality. The forward pass was legalized, allowing an open style of play. Rough play was forbidden, as was the practice of teammates locking arms to clear running paths for ball carriers. The sixty-minute game clock was established, shortened from seventy minutes.

Football Becomes a Profession

In 1892, two rival athletic clubs from Pittsburgh would produce the first paid football player. The Allegheny Athletic Association (AAA) and the Pittsburgh Athletic Club (PAC) participated in a football contest. William “Pudge” Heffelfinger was paid $500 by AAA to play. AAA defeated PAC 4-0 after Pudge scored on a fumble recovery.

This would pave the way to the growth of American football as a profession. By 1920, there were ten professional football teams across the United States. Representatives from the teams met in Canton, Ohio and formed the American Professional Football Association (AFPA). The AFPA then became known as the National Football League (NFL). Further refinements to the rules made the game a true American sport.

Football started making its way into the collective consciousness of Americans. Franchises such as the Green Bay Packers and the Decatur Staleys, later renamed to the Chicago Bears, began drawing crowds. Red Grange, the first bona-fide NFL superstar, drew record crowds as large as 36,000 people to New York Giants games. The NFL divided into two divisions, with the first NFL Championship being played in 1933. In 1936, teams began a system to draft collegiate players.

With the ballooning popularity of American football, rival leagues began to sprout. The upstart leagues came and went, including several iterations of the American Football League. However, under Lamar Hunt, the AFL flourished. The NFL and the AFL fought to bring the best players, television contracts, and other perks to its respective league.

The Modern NFL is Born

The late 1960’s was a momentous time in American football history. In 1966, under the leadership of Pete Rozelle, the NFL and AFL agreed to merge, forming the modern National Football League. Beginning in January 1967, the leagues agreed to play an annual AFL-NFL World Championship game. The first game between the AFL and NFL was played between the Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs. In the same year, they also agreed to the first interleague draft of collegiate players.

Today’s NFL actually began in 1970. Two conferences were created and reflected the heritage of both leagues; namely, the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). From there, the two conferences would pit its two best teams against each other in a championship game, later known as the Super Bowl. The league consisted of 26 teams.

The NFL Today

Today, the National Football League is a multi-billion dollar operation, and is widely recognized as the best-run league in all of sports. Every Sunday and Monday night, millions of Americans participate in gatherings of varying sizes to cheer on their favorite football team. From a living room get-together among close friends to a full-blown stadium tailgate party, the NFL is a sporting event in its purest form. Technology advances such as cable television have allowed football to permeate homes around the world.

Franchises were bought and sold for as little as $50 in the 1920’s. Revenues from ticket sales, merchandising, television contracts, and advertising have propelled today’s franchise values to almost one billion dollars.

Professional games were once played on open fields. Multi-purpose stadiums that hosted football, baseball, and soccer games then dotted the NFL landscape in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Most have been demolished in favor of football-only facilities. Today, state-of-the-art stadiums seating up to 90,000 fans make going to the game a true multi-sensory experience. Luxury suites, upscale restaurants, and cigar bars are the norm rather than the exception. Some stadiums today even have retractable roofs.

Super Bowl Sunday has become an unofficial American holiday. Every January, and sometimes early February, millions of people around the world tune in to watch two of the best football teams in the NFL battle for the Vince Lombardi Trophy. The game has become a spectacle inside and outside of the host city. It is broadcast on television and radio in dozens of languages.

American football grew from its roots of soccer and rugby. From the humble beginnings of inter-college games, the sport has become one of the most widely-watched around the world. With constant innovations on and off the field, American football shows no signs of slowing down.

Discuss the History of Football in the Sports Chat Football Forums.

The Birth of Baseball -- Cooperstown or Beachville?

2005-09-29T08:57:00.000-05:00

One of the more interesting and disputed aspects of baseball history is the period prior to 1845 -- the year in which Alexander Cartwright officially invented the rules of modern baseball and organized the first game using those rules.

The most widespread belief holds that Abner Doubleday was the true creator of the “American pastime” and held the first recorded baseball game in Cooperstown, New York in 1839.

Although most historians now discard this theory as a folktale based solely on a letter written by one of Doubleday’s schoolmates, it has a sentimental value that many Americans find attractive. After all, Cooperstown is the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

To suggest another city may have given birth to the game is strangely unnatural. To suggest another country may be responsible for such an integral part of the traditional American identity as baseball nears heresy.

Yet that’s exactly the claim made by a small town in Canada.

Beachville, Ontario may look inconspicuous enough -- its easygoing lifestyle a useful disguise and its famous limestone quarry a handy distraction -- but below the surface you’ll find a town both proud and assured of its place in baseball history.

According to a letter written to Philadelphia’s Sporting Life magazine by an American physician named Adam Ford, Beachville actually held the first baseball game in North America in 1938. If the claim is true, as the Beachville District Museum passionately argues, the Beachville game bests the Doubleday’s affair by a year.

Canadian baseball fans take infinite joy in rubbing this in the noses of their American neighbours -- even though calling Beachville the birthplace of baseball is only slightly less dodgy than touting Cooperstown.

The truth is that baseball evolved from several English games, including cricket, over a period of at least half a decade. If any nation can assert it gave birth to baseball it’s neither the Americans nor the Canadians, but the English.

So, for the sake of North American pride, it's a good thing the English hate the great American game.

Bears Look Sharp in Home Opener

2005-09-19T10:13:00.000-05:00

Like most Bears fans, I'm sure I'm still in a little shock over the beating the Bears handed the Lions yesterday afternoon.

The Chicago Bears put 38 points on the board and actually pulled their starting QB (Ortman) because the Bears were so far ahead they were no longer worried about losing the game. That's not a typo - THE CHICAGO BEARS ACTUALLY PUT 38 POINTS ON THE BOARD! They haven't done that since back in the early 90's...93 if my memory is correct.

A couple things really stood out yesterday and made me thing about a few things.

Cedric who? Thomas Jones is a stud. The guy can run it right up the gut, catch passes with the best of them and has some moves that made Detroit look plain silly yesterday. I know Chicago shelled out some serious $ for Benson but In my opinion he needs to win a spot on the field. Not giving Jones the play time he deserves would be a crime in my opinion.

Ortman had a solid game yesterday too. I'm really impresses with this young QB. He stands his ground in the pocket and doesn't panic when every form of blitz known to man gets thrown at him. He ever stands in there and takes a hit when need be. He has leadership qualities, and the offense has his back and he's earned their respect. Makes me wonder how much longer the coaching staff will keep spouting crap like "Grossman is our future and the starting job is his". Grossman has yet to much of anything in the NFL because of all the injuries. Just like Benson, I think the Bears need to make Grossman earn a spot on the field.

The Bears defense was solid - that's not a big surprise. I, and just about every other Bears fan you there, expects the Bears to put a solid defensive unit on the field. In both games this year the Bears D has locked the opposing team down. The Bears defense even did a great job in their week 1 loss...it was the offense that put up baseball game like scores.

I know it's early but I like the way things are looking for the Bears. With a division that includes the Packers, Vikings and Detroit - all of which are not looking like playoff caliber teams - the Bears might actually have a shot at the post season this year.

Stop in the football forums and discuss how your team performed in week 2 of the NFL season.

2006 Superbowl Predictions

2005-09-04T12:03:00.000-05:00

With the official start of the NFL season right around the corner it's time to make your prediction for the 2006 Superbowl participants, and, the winner.

Make your predictions in our football forum in the 2006 NFL Superbowl Predictions thread.

It's still early (really early) but right now the voting has the Eagles and Chiefs in the front running.

The Sports-Chat Photo Gallery Opens

2005-08-15T15:31:00.000-05:00

This entry is a not exactly about sports...but it's about the forum which is close enough. The Sports-Chat Photo Gallery is open for business!

Members of the Sports-Chat forums can upload pictures of their own or, view pictures posted by other sports fans from around the world. Some of the pictures will be sports related but there's also a section where members can upload non sports related pictures.

The gallery itself has some nice features. Here are a few:

- Automatic resizing of pictures during the upload process.
- Members can comment on pictures.
- Members can rate pictures.
- There's an "e-card" feature so members can send photos as e-cards to their friends or family.
- The gallery displays recent uploads, and, the most popular pictures based on the number of views.
-The gallery is completely integrated with the forum - there's no need to register twice.

Take a look around, I think you'll like what you see. If you have questions/comments about the gallery you can post them in here.

Cameron & Beltran Collide

2005-08-12T08:38:00.000-05:00

Mets right fielder Mike Cameron was taken off the field on a stretcher and driven to a hospital after a diving head-to-head collision with center fielder Carlos Beltran in Thursday`s game against the Padres.

Beltran left the game with a sore left shoulder and a cut to his face after the 7th inning accident.

Cameron laid on the field for several minutes as he was tended to by trainers from both teams. He lifted up his head at one point, and shielded his eyes from the sun as he was put onto a stretcher and driven off the field. He was wearing neck brace and was immobilized while he was carried from the field.

Beltran, luckily, got up after a few minutes and walked off the field on his own power.