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Happy anniversary, Hungary’s Golden Team!

In the mode of Pardon the Interruption, happy anniversary goes out to soccer’s Golden Team! On this day in 1953, Ferenc Puskas and Team Hungary recorded possibly their greatest win of all-time in torching England at Wembley, 6-3.

Video of “The Match of the Century” runs below, followed by the video of the song “6:3″ by Hungarian group Hobo Blues Band. The dramatic scenes are taken from the 1999 science-fiction film (really) on the match, entitled “6:3 (or, Play it Again, Tutti)” and long a favorite of BuckBokai. In the video’s opening sequence, our hero Tutti, having been hurtled back through time from 1990s Budapest to 1953, leads the workers at the pub in a rousing rundown of the Team Hungary roster before the radio broadcast of the match begins.

(Incidentally, for those followers of BuckBokai or new discoverers of the ‘site, rest assured the BuckBokai lives! Life, that thing that happens when you’re busy making other plans, has been invasive lately. Regular posting will soon continue…)

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Really the Top 10 Greatest Athletes of All-Time (plus one)

Is it just BuckBokai or does this get a chuckle out of other sports viewers as well? We’re talking here about the propensity for hyperbole-addicted commentators and writers to quickly place that season/game/play they’ve just witnessed among the pantheon of “all-time greats.”

Seriously, existentially, think about how silly an accolade like “the greatest right-handed post-season relief pitcher of all-time” is: Even if you ignore the absence of modern-style relief pitching before Joe Page in 1947 and the wider opportunity for earning such a reputation thanks to Selig Era extra playoff series, the truth is that “all-time” in this context becomes a time period measuring 266 or 147 or 134 years long depending on when you personally date the origin of baseball.

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William Webb-Ellis: Locus of alternate histories

You want to talk what-if scenarios, serious parallel universe-creating moments from the world of sports? Forget relatively trivial stuff like Michael Jordan going to the Portland Trail Blazers in the draft or Harry Frazee taking up the Chicago White Sox’ offer for George Herman Ruth: Go back to 1823 to find a guy that, through simply wanting to gain an advantage in a sports match literally changed world history.

The overwhelming majority of North Americans have never heard the man’s name, despite his literal hand in the creation of three sports currently played and enjoyed by billions. Though he never recorded an official statistic, his effect on the sports universe was a cataclysmic bolt that changed everything. Though his innovation was sometimes called “cheating” by contemporaries, his mode of play now defines leagues all over the world.

Ladies of gentlemen, BuckBokai presents the single most important figure in the history of modern sport itself: William Webb-Ellis!

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Posted by Os Davis | 2 Comments

Who’s on First: The Doctor’s great moments in sport

Thanks to the performance contributed on the football pitch by the increasingly awesome Matt Smith in this season’s Doctor Who episode “The Lodger,” BuckBokai was inspired enough to delve the ol’ matrix memory banks for other great sporting moments from this frankly mostly cerebral Time Lord.

Some sports in which the Doctor has taken part through his 11 lives and 900-some odd years include the following.

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