It’s pretty sad that I have to preface every soccer violence story with an, “at least nobody tried to kill them with grenades” thing, but here we are.

By way of Dirty Tackle comes this clip from a match between Baquedano and Pablo Lizama in Melipilla, Chile, wherein a ref stops play for roughing and fan interruptions and gets brutally beaten in a rough style by fans. At least nobody tried to kill him with a grenade.

The sad thing is that they probably DID try to kill him. They only succeeded in beating the ref and his assistant within an inch of their lives and removing half of their teeth (refer to the banner image for more details), but a former Baquedano coach talked to an English-language Chilean site about players have skipped a few steps of rational anger and moved straight-on into murder:

“Unfortunately, football has too many players like this. In Holland, an assistant referee was murdered by some young players. The surprising thing is that the only people who work at FIFA are mafia types and complete idiots. That works from the top down.”

Video if the incident is after the jump. It’s brutal, but thankfully you don’t get to see a lot of it, because when a crowd of people attacks somebody, really all you see is a crowd. Still though, viewer discretion is advised.

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I don’t know what the opposite of a Bucket List is, but “have an arena full of people roar with approval when I get blasted in the face with a hockey puck” is on mine.

That’s what happened during the third period of Tuesday night’s Ducks/Wild game at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota. In this clip (courtesy of Sportress Of Blogitude’s Weed Against Speed, the only Minnesota Wild fan on the entire Internet), Anaheim defenseman Cam Fowler dumps the puck back into the offensive zone, remembering that “dumps” means “hits it as hard as humanly f**king possible” and “the offensive zone” is “referee Dennis LaRue’s shoulder and head area”. The ref goes down like a ton of bricks and the crowd loves it, assumedly because the Wild had gotten a few bad calls early in the game.

LaRue got up and finished the game (like a boss), which leaves us with a question: What is most socially uncomfortable?

1. An Xcel Energy Center full of people thinking it’s awesome that you’ve suffered physical injury because they don’t like the job you’re doing.
2. Me thinking this is hilarious, but being indignant enough to pretend I wouldn’t have cheered too.
3. Sharing this on the Internet so you’ll do numbers 1 or 2.

[video via MrNHLFanatic]

Some fans of the Los Angeles Dodgers – I’m assuming not the kind that go around beating up innocent fathers in front of their children for gang initiations – have started a website hoping to lure Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban into purchasing their baseball team so they no longer have to worry about having the most ridiculously inept owners not named Wilpon. MarkCubanSaveTheDodgers.com is trying to rally Dodgers fans to show their support for the team by getting Cuban’s attention and hoping that he won’t think anything of the team’s $400 million debt. Then again, he tried to purchase the Texas Rangers and didn’t care about the debt that Tom Hicks had amassed, so it looks like Dodgers fans may be on to something here.

*shakes head, mouths “No they aren’t.”*

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While the San Diego Chargers were busy thrashing the San Francisco 49ers 34-7 last night, Niners defensive tackle Justin Smith got into a bit of a verbal bout with Chargers tight end Randy McMichael. As the two exchanged words in the second quarter, referee Garth DeFelice stepped in to break it up, when Smith unleashed a thousand furies upon him. Or he pushed his arm away.

DeFelice didn’t take too kindly to Smith’s response and he immediately ejected him from the game for making illegal contact with an official. Legal contact, of course, is a gentle nude embrace followed by breakfast. Of the fiery DeFelice, one announcer said:

“This guy right here, that’s Garth DeFelice and he’s one of the toughest umpires in the National Football League.”

I think that marks the first time that a NFL announcer used the “This guy right here” on a non-player. Finally, a breakthrough. As for Smith’s take on the ruling, he seems to be fine with it. Or at least he understands it…

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Why, wot's all this then?

I played football throughout high school, and other than practices in 100 degree heat, questionable coaching, and games in which you lose by six touchdowns, it was a good time. So when I got to college, I tried out rugby, under the assumption that it was a less popular form of football that didn’t require me to be three inches taller, 75 pounds heavier, and get consistently cold clocked by 300 lb men. In that regard, I was right, but after a week or so I finally decided to drop the game. It is violent, which I enjoy, and you can get past hitting without pads soon enough, but it’s just not the same as football. Football is organized, and has a sense of direction. You know what you have to do for the play to be successful, and if everyone does their job, the play will work. Rugby is a clusterf**k. I had no idea what was going on at any time I was on the field, and as such, was almost as useless as Brian Scalabrine.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I enjoy videos in which people get hurt. There’s one after the jump, and it’s rugby related. I would also like to state, for the fictional record, that I like Australian and New Zeland accents. You mean they have summer in the winter and winter in the summer? That’s craaaaaazy. Read the rest of this entry »

After what I'm sure will be a thrilling Pro Bowl, football will be gone for 6 months. I'm depressed, let's watch a fight: 

Brandon Dubinsky and Mike Richards also engaged in some fisticuffs during this game. Man, hockey's awesome, except for the hockey part – Rangers won 2-0. -KD