Into the Omaha Sunset: A Farewell to Andy Roddick

"It's been a pleasure. It's not something that's easy every day, for sure, especially when you kind of get anointed at a young age....For the moments where it's been hard, I've had 25 positive things that have come from it." --Andy Roddick on being the face of American tennis for the past decade

He lunged after a smartly placed short ball, smacked his reply a few feet beyond the baseline, and it was over. Andy Roddick's career ended in the 4th round of this year's U.S. Open after a hard-fought 4-set loss to the tall (and quite gracious in victory, given the moment) Argentine with the whip-crack forehand, Juan Martin Del Potro.

Minnesota Vikings Season Opener: A Recap

Genevieve Ross/ Associated Press

Sundays are back, baby! Woo! Our Minnesota Vikings kicked off the 2012 NFL regular season against the lowly Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday. It’s not often that the opening game of the season is a must win, but in this case, it was a must win. The Jags are a much worse team than us on paper, but they haven’t played games on paper since the infamous 1966 Paper Bowl, captured by the Kansas City Chiefs. If the Vikes were to make any progress this year after a disastrous 2011 campaign, they had to start with a win against the Jags. Week 1 also represented the potential return (resurrection?) of Purple Jesus himself, Adrian Peterson. His recovery after tearing everything in his knee last December has been nothing short of, well, miraculous. Would his ascension to the end zone be complete? Would he return to lead the Vikings to football heaven? Find out the answers to these questions, as well as more blasphemy, after the jump.

2012 Fo Flo Fantasy League: Draft Recap

Photo courtesy of Bleacher Report.

Come for the expanded half-hour inaugural edition of Fo Flo Video's Down and Dirty Draft Recap, stay for the 400 or so words I write below said video.

Hometown Hero Potential: Minnesotans in the Olympics

Kelci Bryant (L), Minnesota's first London medalist

It's currently about 4 am in London, which means that Day 5 of the XXX Summer Olympiad (brought to you by IBM, Chevrolet, and the fine folks at Rick's Cabaret) has wrapped up. The Games are now about 29.4 percent complete, which seems like a natural (?) point at which to meet and greet the Olympians with ties to Minnesota; call this your super-abridged cheering guide if you want. I wanted to get this out about a week ago, and then Silky came along with that great Wolves off-season recap and the ol' lazy summer dog days mentality kicked in. And here we are, with you, our loyal readers, ready to peruse a list of "people to watch," and you can't even watch some of them anymore, as their events have already handed out all their medals.

It's this kind of dogged determination to get the story out with unparalleled timeliness that makes us the 13th or 14th best sports blog in Minnesota.

Anyway, root for these folks.

Offseason Report: Timbas Edition

KLove has gone on record saying the Timbas need to improve significantly. Lets see if Kahn and Co. were listening.

I’ve wanted to do one of these for a while now, but the timing was never right (as we found out before). So, I waited. I waited for free agency to start. I waited for the Nicolas Batum saga to come to a close. I was ready to do a write up, but the signings kept coming in. It wasn’t until these last 24 hours when I felt comfortable enough to declare the Timbas’ offseason complete and, more importantly, a resounding success.

The Week in Review: Heat Wave Edition

"Hot enough for ya?" is the kind of thing annoying people say when they want to get punched in the face. Yes, Ned, it was hot enough for most of America last week; more than 3,800 record highs were recorded across the country as temperatures soared and sizzled in the 90s and 100s across much of the nation. In considering how our local sports teams have resembled this heat wave over the past week, we must remember and assign value to the good things associated with high temps (Kiddie pools! Free sidewalk grilling!) with the less good things (Drought! Excessive heat warnings!) To the recaps:

Roger Federer Can Suck It: A Wimbledon 2012 Recap

I was just starting my junior year of high school in early September 2003 as Andy Roddick won that year's U.S. Open. The fiery, often hilarious Roddick took the title in a year where old bull Andre Agassi came into the tournament as the number one seed. The 21-year-old Roddick took out the three-seed, Juan Carlos Ferrero, in straight sets in the final, taking over the crown of Open champ from Pete Sampras, whose 2002 triumph constituted the last match of his illustrious career. I was a fervent young American tennis fan, schooled on Sampras' serve-and-volley and Agassi's unmatched service return game. I watched that tournament excitedly as one generation of American tennis stars dissipated and the new vanguard--led by Roddick, but also including James Blake, Mardy Fish, Taylor Dent and Robby Ginepri--looked poised to secure several spots among the top of the tennis world rankings.

And then, four months later, Roger Federer just started winning everything.