USA loses to Czech Republic; Big Ben hurt in motorcycle crash

If you follow sports at all, these were pretty much the stories of the day (unless, I guess, you follow hockey). Anyway, these have probably been rehashed a fair amount, but I'll give my word and hand out some links to some guys who are doing to same and probably doing it better than me.

First, the World Cup. How disappointing. All this talk about how this was the best U.S. team ever, and how Czech was good but old, etc. And what happens? Chech scores a goal in the first 5 minutes. First off, what's a 6'7'' guy doing playing soccer? Second off, isn't it probably good to put a little pressure on the guy passing the ball? But I digress.

Now, I'm not a soccer expert by any stretch of the imagination, but from my POV, the player of the game was Pavel Nedved, the 34 year-old who apparently came out of retirement just to help the Czech in the World Cup. He controlled the tempo of the game and just made some great passes.

As The Sports Pulse writes, this was probably the worst possible outcome for the U.S. They're just getting momentum, getting more confidence, etc. and they get outplayed badly by the Czechs. Don't get me wrong, Czech Republic is obviously a great team that should make a deep run, but it's got to be a tough pill to swallow for the U.S. to have all this hype, all this waiting after the quarterfinal run in 2002, and then come out and get beat 3-0.


The other story of the day, of course, was about Ben Roethlisberger getting into a motorcyle crash, not wearing his helmet, and suffering serious injuries. As Deadspin reported, the debate about Roethlisberger riding the motorcyle isn't really anything new, but now, well, it came back to bit him.

Jason from CF has no sympathy for a guy riding a bike and not wearing a helmet, and that's a good point. First off, I really have no idea why a pro athlete would be riding a motorcyle at all, especially after the things that happened to Jay Williams, Kellen Winslow, and others. Second off, riding without a helmet is just stupid. It doesn't matter how good of a driver you are, chances are, there's a bad driver someone else that could hit you. And while I don't know exactly who's fault this was, I'd say that's what happened.

The injuries are pretty gruesome to read about - broken nose, broken jaw, missing teeth, lacerations to the back of his head, and damage to his knees (not sure how series that is yet).

Apparently, even Terry Bradshaw was smart enough to tell him not to do ride motorcyles - especially with no helmet - while he's still in the middle of his career. And let's be honest, if Terry Bradshaw's smart enough to know that, everyone should be smart enough to know that.

All kidding aside, hopefully Ben gets well and these injuries aren't as serious as they sound. He's a bright young star in the NFL, and you always hate to see something like this happen.