10/22/2007
May Rocktober reign supreme
The World Series is almost upon us.
In one corner, we've got the team that, absent the New York Yankees, has the highest payroll in baseball, without a care in the world about how much its spending. In the other corner, we've got a team with a lower-tier payroll and a national profile that's non-existent.
While I've been a fan of the Milwaukee Brewers since I knew what baseball was, it was around the 1992 expansion draft that a friend and I were talking about wanting to be fans of a team from its inception. We had a choice between the Colorado Rockies and the Florida Marlins. We chose the Rockies.
Not too long after that, I won a bet with someone concerning the outcome of a Mizzou - Oklahoma State basketball game, and my winning was a Rockies baseball cap. Fitted. 7 1/4".
I wore that cap a lot over the first five years of the Rockies' existence. The Blake Street Bombers were exciting, though not particularly good. Better than the Brewers, though. Burks, Walker, Galarraga, Castilla, Bichette. That was fun baseball.
Then the move to the Eastern Time Zone and a gradual decline in the Rockies' competitiveness kinda forced me to lose track of Colorado. Like the Brewers, when a team isn't at least competitive, the team doesn't ever show up on television.
So this year was a good year for my two favorite teams. Milwaukee choked in the second half with lousy pitching, but stuck it to the Padres on the last weekend to give the Rockies a shot.
And the Rockies were on national TV, playing their 163rd game of the season. First time all year they'd gotten a national broadcast, albeit on TBS (which had gone HD just days before, lucky me).
Eight wins later, they're in the World Series against the bleeping Red Sox.
I'm not rooting against the Sox just because they're playing the Rockies. I'm rooting against the Red Sox because I hate them, too. If the Red Sox and the Yankees simply vanished, I couldn't be happier about life.
You don't have to hate the Red Sox to root for the Rockies, though. You could just hate the big money clubs that spend their way to the Series instead of working the hard way to get there.
18:07 Posted in Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
10/13/2007
Where are you?
Where's all of those "Ditch Mitch and Rich" UK fans now?
20:26 Posted in Sports | Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this
08/15/2007
Dan Patrick Returns (if only briefly)
Well, today Dan Patrick was back on the radio, much to my surprise.
I didn't get to catch all of the show, but from what I heard, he had been vacationing, most likely using up vacation days before he leaves ESPN after Friday's show. I didn't hear an explanation why he missed Monday and Tuesday, when ESPN, himself, and the guest hosts had been saying that he would be there.
He also shared that he now has a website where fans can keep up with what his plans are after he leaves.
It doesn't sound like his tag team partner, Keith Olbermann, will be around for any final Big Shows.
19:00 Posted in Sports | Permalink | Comments (3) | Email this
08/13/2007
Where's Dan Patrick?
While it's old news that Dan Patrick apparently cut out of his not-yet-expired contract with ESPN to take a job with The Content Factory, it's surprising that Patrick wasn't hosting his radio show today. When he announced his departure, he said that the week of Aug. 13-17 would be his last week, and the fill-in hosts who have been serving in that time slot have been repeating this information, even as recently as last week.
But today, there was no Dan Patrick. There hasn't been any Dan Patrick since news leaked that he'd already found a new gig. It looks like there won't be any Dan Patrick on ESPN Radio ever again.
18:20 Posted in Sports | Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this
08/06/2007
This is my vow
I have a confession to make.
All of this coverage of Barry Bonds and his quest to pass Hank Aaron as the all time HR leader? I haven't been paying attention.
This doesn't mean I'm not aware of how many homers he has, or when he's hit another one. That's too difficult to avoid -- it's on ESPN, scrolling across the bottom of the screen. It's on the news websites. It's on the ticker at the bottom of my web browser. I'm pretty sure there's blimps flying over our cities with hourly updates scrolling across them.
But I am not clicking on any of the stories to read them. I am changing the channel if the subject is broached. And I'm not watching the pitch-by-pitch coverage of his each and every at bat. I even change the radio station when it's being discussed ad nauseum.
Accuse me of burying my head in the sand, if you wish, but as far as I'm concerned, Henry Aaron is the HR King until someone doesn't need mysterious substances like the clear and the cream, or body armor that our troops in Iraq are envious of, to challenge the mark of 755.
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07/12/2007
The end of the Dan Patrick Show
As was announced earlier this week, Dan Patrick will be leaving ESPN in August, which will end his radio show, which I have been listening to since it's inception.
Unlike the end of Tony Kornheiser's ESPN Radio show, I am less saddened by the departure of Patrick. He wasn't as awful as Colin Cowherd, who replaced Kornheiser, but Patrick's show had become increasingly annoying as the mountaintop from which he preached became higher and higher above the masses who listened to him.
If what has been reported is true, and Patrick's ESPN contract didn't expire until 2008, then his early departure to find other oppotunities reeks of hypocrisy. Just as recently as the end of the 2007 college basketball season, when the coaching carousel was going in full force, Patrick ripped coaches who were abandoning their existing contracts to take other jobs. New Kentucky coach Billy Gillespie took the brunt of his disgust, as he was a guest on a show when Dan was at his peak of ripping these college coaches.
From what it sounded like on today's show, Patrick might already be gone. Guest host Scott Van Pelt gave the e-mail address to the show as radio@espnradio.com instead of the usual danpatrickshow@espnradio.com address.
23:32 Posted in Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
06/27/2007
Brewer Mania!
I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying this baseball season.
For the first time in 25 years, the Milwaukee Brewers are looking like a playoff team. They've got the best record in the NL, and also have the largest divisional lead in the league.
The last time they were this good, they were known as Harvey's Wallbangers, chock full of talent and sluggers. Hall of Famers Robin Yount, Paul Molitor and Rollie Fingers were the stars. They even added another Hall of Famer, Don Sutton, near the trading deadline.
This time around, the team is very young, but very talented. Prince Fielder has overtaken Albert Pujols and Ryan Howard in the All Star voting at first base. JJ Hardy has been hitting better than anyone ever imagined. And Ben Sheets is anchoring a rock solid pitching rotation. Let's knock on wood and hope he stays healthy all year long.
As a youngster growing up in Madison, Wisconsin, I first learned to love the Brewers. My best friend's mom was a huge Brewer fan. She always had games on the radio, and her son and I would play imaginary games on a wonderful little contraption called a Pitch-Back all day, every day.
Sadly, I moved away during the summer of that glorious '82 season, all the way to Oklahoma, where everyone was a St. Louis Cardinal fan. And when the World Series rolled around, I was a stranger in a strange land, rooting for the team everyone else was rooting against. And then the Cards beat the Brewers in 7 games. I've never been more crushed.
But now, a quarter century later, hope returns again. And if Milwaukee can't win it all this year, that young nucleus should get more than one chance to win it all.
22:21 Posted in Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
05/19/2007
It's OK to leave the bench in the NBA -- If You're a Star
This week, it's been really tough to find a sports type yakker who thinks that the one game suspension of the Phoenix Suns' Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw was justified.
Why? Because suspending to key players for violating a rule that mandates a suspension for leaving the bench during an altercation apparently should be ignored when the next game could be directly impacted by the suspensions.
So, since the suspended Suns actually play and contribute to the team on a nightly basis, they shouldn't have been suspended, even though they violated the rule.
How come nobody is blasting Raja Bell for trying to mix it up with the Spurs' Robert Horry, which created the 'altercation' that activated the no-leaving-the-bench rule? If Bell doesn't mix it up with Horry, then Stoudemire and Diaw don't get suspended for leaving the bench, right?
And how many of these sports yakkers would have been defending two players who never play for getting suspended in the same situation? If it has been Sean Marks and Pat Burke, who would have said that they shouldn't be suspended for violating the rule? Anyone? Anyone at all?
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02/15/2007
Guess who was the BALCO leak? Not the government!
Well, those S.F. Chronicle reporters aren't going to have to do any jail time, because their source has revealed himself.
Remember all those journalists who were crying, saying the government should never have threatened the reporters with jail unless they revealed their source? One of their major arguments was that it was probably a federal prosecutor who leaked the secret grand jury information, so it wasn't fair for the same prosecutors to now be attacking the poor, innocent reporters.
Now that it's been revealed that the leak was a defense attorney, maybe those journalists owe the federal prosecutors an apology.
08:30 Posted in Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
12/09/2006
Heisman prognosticators aren't that smart
Congrats to Troy Smith for winning the Heisman trophy. He deserved it, and his win was a foregone conclusion.
But most college football analysts dismissed the second-place finisher, Arkansas' Darren McFadden. Not a single ESPN talking head even gave him a chance to finish second. Every single one of them said Brady Quinn would finish second and really didn't give McFadden a 'second' thought.
<>Here's to hoping he stays healthy next season, because he will be the first Razorback to win the Heisman trophy.23:16 Posted in Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
10/10/2006
Why the Yankees should trade A-Rod
The Yankees should trade A-Rod while he still has value.<>
<>Why? Because the Yankees don't need him as much as the potential players they could get for him in a trade.
All season long, as the Yankees took advantage of the Red Sox' injuries and sub-par performances from off-season acquisitions (Lowell, Crisp, Beckett), all baseball fans heard about was how the Yankees were fielding an all-All-Star lineup that was bashing its way to victory after victory. But we heard little about the Yanks' pitching staff, which is getting older and less effective each year.
Detroit knocked them out of the playoffs because of the adage, "Good Pitching Beats Good Hitting." So for all that offensive firepower, the Yankees still couldn't beat good pitching, and A-Rod was just one of the Yankee hitters who had a miserable postseason.
So, the Yankees could have made the postseason even without A-Rod in their lineup, but they might have advanced if their pitching staff was better.
Trading A-Rod before his career begins to fade could net the Yankees some younger pitching that could, within a few years, give New York the kind of dominant pitching staff necessary to compete for more World Series titles in the near future.
22:57 Posted in Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
08/16/2006
Why the S.F. Chronicle writers don't deserve a free pass
It has recently been reported in the news that the two reporters for the San Francisco Chronicle, Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada are being threatened with jail time if they refuse to divulge the source who illegally leaked grand jury testimony from the BALCO case that implicated such baseball stars as Gary Sheffield, Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds as having used illegal substances to improve their bodies for playing baseball.
The reporters, their editors, their lawyers, and other journalists are now screaming that such a threat is unfair.
I think their pleas are full of crap.
Regardless of what was accomplished by reporting the details that were leaked, these two reporters knew beforehand that leaking grand jury testimony was a crime. Not that the reporters are criminals, but the leaker of the information is. These reporters should have had the foresight to realize that printing this leaked testimony would likely lead them to the position they are in now -- reveal their source, or go to jail. By reporting the information, they accepted this risk, and took upon themselves the responsibility to do jail time if that was what was required of them.
Williams and Fainaru-Wada should be content with their fate of facing jail time, likening it as a small price to pay for the goal they accomplished, which was forcing Major League Baseball and the Players' Accociation to negotiate tougher rules and standards for drug testing.
The only person who can save them is the person who leaked the testimony to them. Much like the Valerie Plame case, if the source either comes forward or gives the reporters permission to divulge their source, then the reporters can be freed. But until then, journalistic ethics dictate that these two reporters pay the price they knew they'd be required to pay before they published the leaked grand jury testimony. <>17:49 Posted in Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
05/09/2006
Barry Bonds' Chase for Babe Ruth Doesn't Matter to Me
There's been a lot of flap in the media lately about Barry Bonds and his climb towards Babe Ruth on the all-time home run list. Most of the media think that Bonds' pursuit of '714' is a special event, because Ruth's number is such a lexicon of baseball statistics.
I say that's biased, and biased because of the age of any media type who says it. I am only 33, which means that Hank Aaron passed Babe Ruth's total before I even knew what baseball was. Ever since I began following baseball at the end of the 1970s, the only home run total that mattered was Aaron's 755. I've never known Ruth's 714 as being anything more than a number Hank Aaron passed along the way to posting his own.
In fact, the only reason I know the significance of 714 is because the video highlights of Aaron's 715 are burned into my mind, along with the harrowing journey he had to take in order to get there.
714 is an old, white man's number. 755 is a real number, and if Bonds approaches that, then we have reason to take notice.
20:37 Posted in Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
02/25/2006
Kudos to Stan Heath and the Razorbacks
My sincere congratulations go out to Stan Heath, head coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks. The Hogs win today at Tennessee all but clinched an NCAA Tourney berth, the first in a number of years for the program, and Heath's first invite since taking over a troubled program.
The Hogs are playing well down the stretch, too, a key ingredient for teams who want success beyond the first round of the Big Dance. Good Luck to the Hogs!
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02/11/2006
See Ya, Quin!
So glad to hear yesterday that Quin Snyder is finally out at Mizzou.
I've read how some Mizzou supporters actually liked this hire when it happened, but that it's gone downhill since the first few seasons.
I never liked the decision. Quin Snyder is a Dukie, and a Dukie with no previous head coaching experience. So, what basis was he hired under? And why was his first job in a superconference like the Big 12? Let's look at three of Mizzou's major rivals, Arkansas, Kansas, and Illinois. How many of those teams, all of whom have endured coaching changes in the last few years, hired a coach with no head coaching experience? That's right --- None.
Snyder needs to get a job at a mid-major school or lower to learn how to coach before he tries to return to the major college coaching circles, but I'd be wary of hiring him since he also carries NCAA scandals in his wake....
08:17 Posted in Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
01/22/2006
Laughing at the Cards (Or, an uglier train wreck than the Cats)
Gotta hand it to Louisville, who has made a huge splash in the Big East with Rick Pitino at the helm. I wonder how often the Cards started Conference USA play 1-4.
What's scarier is that they've played like crap since getting their butts kicked by Kentucky, who's also having a nasty time of it in the SEC, pulling out a last-second win to avoid an 0-3 home conference record for the first time in history...
I wonder what it will take before Cardinal fans start grumbling about Pitino....
09:47 Posted in Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
12/15/2005
Donovan McNabb can't win
I wonder if anybody owes Rush Limbaugh an apology.
Limbaugh got chased off ESPN when he suggested McNabb wasn't as good as the largely white media portrayed him as, and said McNabb was essentially treated with kid gloves because the aforementioned white media wanted to promote him. The NAACP was one of those calling for his firing before Limbaugh quit.
Now, the head of the Philly chapter of the NAACP basically calls McNabb out for being, among other things, a mediocre quarterback and a disgrace to his race for apparently playing a race card to defend his quarterbacking skills. Who gets to call for this guy to be removed as head of this NAACP chapter? I know Charles Barkley did, for one....
09:11 Posted in Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
12/11/2005
Fire Quin Snyder!
I'm not a fan of Dookies anyway, but this one has done nothing but drive nails in the coffin since he got to Mizzou...
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11/25/2005
Best hoops walk-on ever?
Not that I agree with the assessment, but one of the University of Kentucky basketball broadcasters said that it was his opinion that Ravi Moss, a guard/forward on the current team, is the greatest walk-on ever.
Can anyone out there give me other candidates? I don't think that this would include players who were on football scholarships, like a Julius Peppers from North Carolina, but rather true walk-ons, guys who play basketball without an athletic scholarship.
23:45 Posted in Sports | Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this
10/19/2005
Stephen Jackson & the NBA Dress Code
In case you hadn't heard, NBA Commish David Stern is implementing a dress code for NBA players that requires collared shirts and the hiding of all 'bling,' among other things.
Stephen Jackson of the Indiana Pacers isn't the only player to have spoken out against the proposal, but his statement struck me as interesting.
"I think it's a racist statement because a lot of the guys who are wearing chains are my age and are black," said Jackson, 27. "I wore all my jewelry today to let it be known that I'm upset with it.
"I'll wear a suit every day. I think we do need to look more professional because it is a business. A lot of guys have gotten sloppy with the way they dress. But it's one thing to [enforce a] dress code and it's another thing if you're attacking cultures, and that's what I think they're doing."
That's what he said.
If black males being told NOT to wear chains is racist, then what is it if young black males are FORCED to wear chains?
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10/08/2005
My Fantasy NBA League
It's getting time to start the annual ritual of drafting your fantasy NBA teams. Me, I've been playing for years, dating back to the days when Sandbox.com was totally FREE. Well, they started charging $$, and our league left for Yahoo! where we've been ever since, playing football, baseball and basketball.
A few years back, we decided to make our basketball league a keeper league, since we had so little turnover and so we could reap the long-term benefits of wise drafting and trading.
Suddenly, this year we lost three owners instead of the annual one or less. And we have only replaced one of them so far.....
Anybody interested?
18:44 Posted in Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this