you can't hear it on the radio, you can't hear it anywhere you go.

--America's nightmare descent into socialism has been delayed -- for now.  The Ghana game was tough to watch in both an agonizing and boring sort of way, and served as an especially fine example of the truism that Bob Bradley's greatest gift as a manager is correcting Bob Bradley's abundant tactical errors.  Cherundolo (and Bradley, for that matter) was too tired to keep up his excellent form from the past few games, and Gooch Onyewu, rehabbing or not, was best equipped to deal with the size/speed combo Ghana offered.

--And may I note, for the record, that soccer is the last, best hope of "go harder, win better!" analysis?  Baseball and football certainly suffer from it too, but there's at least the pretense of strategic analysis in those sports to go along with determining who does and does not have swagger (a term generally reserved for people of the natural athlete persuasion) or scrappiness (more appropriate for players of a fan favorite complexion).  With soccer, it really is just, "[Player name]...GOAL!/Just wide."  Or, if the announcer is the insufferable John Harkes, "THESE GUYS JUST NEED SOME HEART TO GO AND WIN OUT THERE!"

--In conclusion, the reason why America isn't more competitive in Ninja Warrior is that the best athletes in America are playing sports other than Ninja Warrior.  Think about it, people!

--Speaking of athletic competitions that are superior to soccer, Spencer Hall had an excellent post recently detailing one of my very favorite things about college football:  superdickery.  It's an incredible list (bolstered by incredible writing), but my favorite has to be the Jack Pardee story, which is just Biblical in its douchiness.

--Dr. Saturday is in the midst of Mid-Major week, and he's been absolutely on fire.  Hinton's blog is required reading anyways, but posts like this one on Saban show that, in addition to his great statistical analysis, he's a really funny guy, too.

--Two tales of Cardinals pitching.  First, read Joe Posnanski's excellent piece on Bob Gibson, owner of the best season ever by a pitcher.  Second, observe the anatomy of a colossal fucking choke.  Compounding the misery of allowing the biggest comeback in another franchise's history was that La Russa had needlessly used the team's best (and craziest) reliever, Jason Motte, in the eighth.  It's the sort of loss that could drive a flaky team like this year's Cards into a bad, bad funk.

--As per usual, I'm saving the best/most relevant item for the last third of the post (the so-called "sweet spot").  NBA Free Agency has been ridiculous so far, specifically the horrific Joe Johnson and Rudy Gay (and now Carlos Boozer) max contracts handed out by desperate, short-sighted teams.  Amare's move to New York is, well, let's put it this way:  Amare has never been and will never be a premiere player in this league.  He is, on some nights, one of the five most potent offensive players in the NBA, but he's not a Hall of Fame player, partially due to his laissez-faire approach to defense, and partially due to freak injuries.  Approaching his move to New York in any other sense than, "Well, what are the Suns going to do now?" would be a mistake.  He'll still be a good scorer, poor rebounder, and worse defender in New York, and won't make them a good team, or even necessarily a good offense.  There's too much missing there, and you can't build a team around Amare.

--Now, as for players you can build a team around...Wade and Bosh are playing for Miami, which is a predictable enough move.  Wade's one of the three best players in the league, and Bosh -- who's received a ton of unwarranted criticism for some reason in the last few weeks -- is a wildly overqualified outlet option.  The option to go to Miami certainly has to be tempting for LeBron (and, considering Wade and Bosh's willingness to take pay cuts, likely), and makes much more basketball sense than Cleveland (a mediocre team with no salary cap flexibility) or Chicago (overrated supporting cast).  New Jersey's an interesting wild card, and for some reason I keep suspecting his decision tomorrow night comes down to Jersey or Miami.

--I could do some webjunk postage, but it'd be smarter to just direct you to Videogum, which has been on an absolute tear for the last month or so.  My favorite posts recently: a link to Harry Knowles' delightfully gross Twilight review and Joe Mande's script for Glenn Beck's The Overton Window.

--Thanks for reading.