Actual wife not pictured

It’s Super Bowl week—which for many men is the most important gambling day of the year. The one question on gamblers’ minds everywhere is not who will win the game, but which team will cover the spread.

Last year, not knowing whom to pick, I consulted with my wife, who knows next to nothing about football, with the hopes she would be my good-luck charm.  Amazingly, not only did she accurately predict that the Packers would cover the spread but she nearly got the score of the game right.

So I decided to consult her once again in hopes that she could pick me another winner. Here’s how our conversation went… (more…)

This is always a great time of year at Living with Balls. The Super Bowl is around the corner, which is usually exciting in its own right. But because I create my annual Super Bowl drinking game, I see a huge spike in visits. My pageviews nearly double because of it. Apparently, there are plenty of degenerates in this country looking to get obliterated during the Super Bowl.

I’m not a big drinker these days but I plan on getting blitzed on Super Bowl Sunday. As a Jets fan, I couldn’t imagine a worse Super Bowl than Patriots vs. Giants. Sure it was great in 2008, when the Giants took down the undefeated Pats. I was right there, rooting for Big Blue. But now I’m just tired of it. I have obnoxious Giants fans gloating to me in one ear and even more obnoxious Patriots fans gloating in the other. I hope to get good and drunk and forget the result of the game.

But enough about me. You came here to find a Super Bowl drinking game. Well, you came to the right place. As always, I must warn you with this disclaimer:

This drinking game is not for the casual drinker. Proceed with caution. Living with Balls is not responsible if you get violently ill from playing this game. Feel free to adjust the rules to your tolerance or just quit playing when you’re good and drunk.

I have set up a game for both beer and shots. You’re welcome to do one or the other, or play both if you’re feeling daring. (more…)

Every year, in the world of fantasy football, there are a few guys that just don’t live up to expectations. No matter how good your team is, you’ll always have one guy on your team that you hate. Every so often, there will be a guy SO BAD that you swear you’ll never draft him ever again. NO MATTER WHAT. You hate him for destroying your dream of fantasy football glory and you’ll never forgive him.

The 2011 season is no different. Below you will find a list of players who are currently the most hated men in fantasy football.

I prepared a similar list in 2009, but many of those players have become largely irrelevant. Predictably their shitty play in the fantasy world correlated with their shitty play in real life and now most of them are out of football. Before I get to the current list, let’s recap where the players from my 2009 list stand now. (more…)

Scandals are everywhere in college athletics. Over the past year, we’ve seen Terrelle Pryor get paid to autograph memorabilia at Ohio State, Cam Newtown get mixed up in allegations that his father tried to bribe Mississippi State and, most recently, that half the Miami football team was enjoying free prostitutes. Anytime a new scandal comes up, someone in the mainstream media, with nothing else to write about, likes to pose the question: Should college athletes get paid?

ESPN and the Wall Street Journal have made a case for paying college athletes and most recently, Taylor Branch, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer joined in on the fun with an insanely long article in the Atlantic. He gives plenty of reasons why college athletes should be paid to play—even comparing student-athletes to slaves—but fails to outline any sort of plan to pull this off. Here’s the main point of his argument…

For all the outrage, the real scandal is not that students are getting illegally paid or recruited, it’s that two of the noble principles on which the NCAA justifies its existence—“amateurism” and the “student-athlete”—are cynical hoaxes, legalistic confections propagated by the universities so they can exploit the skills and fame of young athletes. The tragedy at the heart of college sports is not that some college athletes are getting paid, but that more of them are not.

The basis for many people’s argument, including Branch’s, is that these college athletes are poor and this is why they resort to taking improper benefits. Since the NCAA and big-time Division I schools are profiting from these athletes, aren’t the students entitled to get a piece of the revenue pie?

Can we PLEEEAASE STOP with this argument!? This will NEVER, EVER happen, (more…)

It seems like anytime an all-star game approaches, no matter what the sport, there are always people talking about how to make the game more interesting or how to make the game as exciting as it once was.

The truth is, there is nothing anyone can do to makes these games more exciting. All-Star games in any sport are nothing but a glorified, overly drawn out exhibition game.

All-Star games used to be exciting many years ago because sports coverage was very regionalized. Fans could usually only watch games of their local team. To follow the other teams in the league, you either had to read the newspaper or wait till the end of the news broadcast for a sports anchor to scroll scores across the screen.

The All-star game used to be one of the few opportunities a fan would have to see some of the game’s best players. Let’s say you were a fan of a National League team in the 80s. Your only chance to see American League stars such as Don Mattingly or Roger Clemens play was during the All-Star Game. This isn’t the case anymore. (more…)

It’s Super Bowl week—which for many men is the most important gambling day of the year. The one question on gamblers’ minds everywhere is not who will win the game, but which team will cover the spread?

This is a particularly hard year to bet on the Super Bowl because both teams seem to be evenly matched and the spread is small, with the Green Bay Packers favored by just 2 ½ points over the Pittsburgh Steelers.

If you’re struggling with who to bet on this coming Sunday then you’ve come to the right place.  I’m having a hard time picking this game myself, so I’ve decided to consult with my wife, Mrs. Sacks, and perhaps with her female intuition she can accurately predict which team will cover.  I sat down with my better half recently and asked her to break down the game like only she can.

Johnny Sacks: What are your initial thoughts about Pittsburgh?

Mrs. Sacks: I’ve been to Pittsburgh a few times and I don’t like it. It tries to be like Philadelphia but it’s not nearly as good.   I also hate that their fans wave those stupid towels and I don’t like that “Black and Yellow” song.

Johnny Sacks: I hate that song too.  I believe you are referring to the Terrible Towel.

Mrs. Sacks: Yes. Those things.  They’re stupid.

Johhny Sacks: How about Green Bay?  What do you think about them? (more…)

CLICK HERE FOR THE SUPER BOWL XLVI DRINKING GAME (GIANTS VS. PATRIOTS)

With the New York Jets exit in the AFC Championship game, I am once again left without a rooting interest in the biggest football game of the year.  For fans of my team and the other 29 teams that are not in the Super Bowl, we need to a find a way to make the game interesting.

There are two ways to make the Super Bowl interesting if your favorite team isn’t playing:

1.       You could gamble on the game (The BetUs Super Bowl odds have the Packers favored by 2 ½ by the way). Gambling can make just about any game exciting…

2.        …or you can drink heavily.  If gambling isn’t your thing, then you should try the second annual Living with Balls Super Bowl Drinking Game.

I’ve created a game that you can play with either beer or shots—or you can combine the two.  It’s up to you! (Though the shots one could potentially get dangerous)

Disclaimer: This drinking game is not for the casual drinker.  Proceed with caution. Living with Balls is not responsible if you get violently ill from playing this game.  Feel free to adjust the rules to your tolerance or just quit playing when you’re good and drunk.

What you’ll need: You’ll need lots of a beer and a bottle of any type of hard liquor (if you decide to play with shots). Here are the rules… (more…)

I write these words moments after my beloved New York Jets came up just short of the Super Bowl for the second straight year. I am legitimately depressed right now. After just staring into space for the past 30 minutes, wondering what went wrong and going through all the “what if” scenarios of this game, I decided to vent my frustrations by writing this blog post.

Throughout the game, my emotions went on a wild roller coaster ride. I went from despair (Jets trail 24-0 in 2nd quarter), to hope (Jets cut the lead to 24-10), to excitement (Jets have 1st and goal, trailing 24-10), to frustration (Jets get stuffed at the goal line thanks to retarded play-calling), to unbridled enthusiasm (Jets get safety and TD to make it 24-19) to devastation (Steelers run out the clock to win the game).

It was a crazy ride that left me mentally exhausted—and I’m certainly not alone. Millions of football fans across the country experienced these same swings of emotion today. No matter what the sport, die-hard fans have these strong feelings for their team throughout the year. Few things in life can conjure up such uninhibited emotions like sports can.

And this begs the question? Why do we care so much? Why are sports fans like myself so passionate about it? Think about how silly it really is… (more…)