Alexander Ovechkin Should Do Sony Ads

I have learned that crappy fans are good for something after all! After hearing (and delighting in) the panic preceding the Capitals – Habs Game 7 all over the radio Wednesday morning, then watching Washington go down early and fail to respond for the third game in a row, I knew that the only thing better would be the collective sorrowful wail that would echo off the marble pillars of the District for the rest of the week. And oh did it ever satisfy. Thursday morning on the way to work I listened to every radio host and caller in town fire Boudreau and Green and Semin and everyone else, though not so much Alexander Ovechkin, which surprised me. Oh but how they lamented, waffling between dejected fatalism and impassioned outrage. And it was the same on the way home later that afternoon, as it will be for days to come. None of these new age fair-weather fans know enough about hockey to really understand what, if anything, needs to be done or why this tragic fate has befallen them (it should be noted that I don’t know enough about hockey to have an educated opinion either, but I am not offering one on that subject (yet)). They simply sob and lament and lash out like children, spilling their guts all over the airwaves and providing me no end of amusement. Now, as I mentioned in a previous column, I was terribly torn by this situation, finding myself rooting for the dreaded Canadiens, but it was worth it to watch this meltdown of the DC Metro area. It reminded me of sitting in the visitor’s section while watching my high school wrestling team manhandle another pudly district opponent. All you hear are melodramatic complaints (that kid is thirty and on steroids!) and sour grapes (they recruit shamelessly anyway). Is it wrong that I take so much pleasure in this? Probably, but in the midst of my giggles I did hear one comment that gave me an idea.

Among the apocalyptic predictions and suicide threats I heard one guy call into the Sports Junkies and advocate patience. The example he used was the Indianapolis Colts, who did not win as soon as Manning showed up. In fact, it took a lot of heartbreaking playoff losses before they got their super bowl ring, but they did get it. I thought it was a decent point, but the analogy could be drawn out much further, especially regarding Manning and Ovechkin (the obvious parallel). Not only are the Caps the pre-2006 Colts and Alex their Peyton, but he (Alexander the Great) even has the Tom Brady-esque foil on the Pittsburgh Penguins to round it all out. Lemme splain.

First let’s look at Ovechkin and, say, 2004 Manning. Both are the flashiest offensive players in their respective sports, finding themselves routinely at the top of every individual single-season leader board. Ovi can be matched in scoring but sets himself apart with his physical style. Both play on teams that will bury you in scoring but have defenses that can be exposed under the right circumstances, both struggle in crunch time, and both have an arch nemesis who, while not quite as individually dominant, has quickly accrued multiple championships and jumped way ahead in the head-to-head debate because of it. Manning had Brady; effective, efficient, and cool under fire, who by early 2005 had three rings and a perfect 6-0 record against the professional commercial actor (including two dramatic postseason drubbings) with which to drown any claim of Manning’s superiority. Alex Ovechkin has Sidney Crosby, an even more natural rival. They came up at the same time, they hail from the two great hockey nations on earth, they play distinctly different styles for distinctly different teams in distinctly different cities. You couldn’t draw it up any better. But once again, one, in the early years of the rivalry, one has jumped out in front to dominate the question. Sid the Kid has played for two Cups, won one (getting insta-revenge on Detroit in the process) and sweetened the pot by winning a gold medal on home ice in Vancouver, WITH THE WINNING GOAL. On the way to both of his championships Crosby trampled Ovechkin, first on the Caps in the Eastern Finals then as a member of a disinterested Team Russia at the Olympics. Ovi is left without a leg to stand on. It is even worse in his case because at least Manning, even in ’04, could fall back on his superior stats. Ovi scored less goals then Sid this year. They tied for points, but one of them is a winner.

People liked to watch Manning a little more than Brady’s Patriots back then, because the Indy offense would put on a show while the Pats seemed to always do just enough to win (remember, we are talking about this relationship circa 2004; a past I happily and willingly live in). This doesn’t translate literally to the hockey, but Ovi is more fun to watch than Crosby. He throws hits, he plays with a mean streak, and people generally think that he would kick Sid’s ass in a fight. The other comparison all the Red Rockers here in DC would like to draw is that Crosby, like Brady, had a wicked D backing him up and truly authoring those big wins. Unfortunately for them (and for my case, to a point) this is where things go a bit awry, because the Caps actually played better D over the course of the recently concluded regular season. Sure, they scored more goals than most lacrosse teams, but they seemed to have enough defense to win big all season. And they didn’t fail defensively against Montreal. The Habs won two of the last three games with only 2 goals. Two goals should have been a slow PERIOD for that Caps team.

The failure came mainly on the offensive end, especially on the power play, which was truly abysmal for Washington (1 for 33 in the series). And whose fault was that? The supposed best player (and richest man) on ice needs to take that squarely on his shoulders, just like when we saddled Manning with the blame during those glorious days of pick after heartbreaking playoff pick. Now Ovi is out again and the Penguins at the number 4 are after one round inexplicably the highest seed left in the East, with a very manageable road to yet another Stanley Cup Finals. The only question remaining is whether Ovechkin will ever have the strength of character to put a team on his back and carry them over this daunting Game 7 hump that continues to haunt Caps fans in this new era of perceived entitlement. Or is it?

Manning, the consummate professional, finally conquered his demons and led his team to a championship, right? Sure, he stopped throwing playoff games away for the most part, but we all know that it was actually Bob Sanders who conquered all those demons and dragged the Colts to a Super Bowl win. Just as sure, the Caps could use a Bob Sanders. Their D which, while better than Pittsburgh, was middle of the pack this year (and not as good as Montreal’s) is not that of a Stanley Cup contender. They, like the Colts of yesteryear (and the 2007 Pats (SHUT UP!)), could mask that weakness with an avalanche of points in the regular season, but in the playoffs there is nowhere to hide your flaws. The Colts were so talented on offense back then they could have easily scored enough points to win games with a lesser quarterback. The changes they needed to, and eventually did make were on defense. Similarly, the Caps would have scored the most goals in the East this year (and second in the NHL) without Alexander’s contributions. He is not the problem. They need their Bob, a smash-mouth blue-line defenseman who will offset the overly offensive Mike Green and give them some intimidation and stability in their own end (to that end I'll trade them Chara for Ovi heads-up right now).

The parallels are many, but what should concern Caps fans is what is still left to be determined. Can Alexander the Great overcome what appears to be a complete lack of the clutch chromosome to get his team to the promised land? All the other factors aside, Manning did nut up and win one, and he has looked much more stable in January and beyond ever since (save that one time he went up against the biggest sentimental favorite since the 1980 USA Hockey Team). There was a time, though, when Manning had the Can’t Win The Big One moniker, and many believed he would never find a way past Brady and the Pats when it mattered. Eventually, though, he did do it. There is no joy inside the Beltway, but perhaps the fact that Peyton managed to outgrow his playoff funk and gather a more complete team around him can offer some small glimmer of hope for the future to the DC faithless. That is if they don’t burn down the Verizon Center first.

Fantasy Journal, Week III

So I took the win for Week 3, and I am actually thinking that I have made some good moves. Joel Pineiro is turning out to be a useful pickup, and my closers are racking up saves and Ks. Thus, between that and good production out of most of my position guys, I am feeling empowered again. Yes, my confidence is directly proportional to how I did last week. But what else is there? It’s not like I’m playing. I have made a total of about 5 moves as of the end of Week 3, and I didn’t even draft this team. Plus, like I said, if I had drafted it I would be 0-3. It strikes me as so childish, because it’s only fun when I’m winning. OK, that’s not entirely true. It was fun last week to try to find some tweaks that could bolster my point totals and it is definitely fun this week to see them work, if only marginally. And I suppose there are some other good features.

It’s pleasant when my players are going head to head against my opponents’, like when we are each playing one of the second basemen in a single game. The same when my pitcher is facing his hitter(s) or vice versa. Those match-ups effectively offset the annoyances of having my own pitchers facing my batters. That is one thing that pisses me off about Fantasy. You constantly have to deal with all these conflicts of interest which take the fun out of actually watching the game. Now granted, I am not watching a whole lot of non-Sox games yet. I feel like checking out the opposing teams is doing me a lot of good, though it would be more helpful if it was an AL only league. Still, between watching just about every Sox game and paying special attention to Nats news around here (for National League insight) and Sportscenter when I can catch it, I feel like I can stay informed enough not to screw up too too bad.

One thing I did learn last week from Sportscenter was that Michael Cuddyer is from my high school. It kinda makes me want to go trade for the Upton brothers (who also hail from Great Bridge High, Chesapeake, VA), but not really. Still, that should tell you something about my fantasy skills. I owned this guy for three weeks before the boys in Bristol told me the most notable fact (from my point of view) about him.

The lackluster boredom surely attended with reading this should also tell you why I am gonna push these to once a month. It was interesting when I was first getting into it, but now that we are settling into a long season I am not going to bore you with the blow by blow. The broader strokes of my impressions and frustrations would be much more my style anyways. So don’t worry, I won’t put you through this again. Look for something tangible on Friday.

Defending Bobby

I'll be the first to admit that I mailed in my Week in Review yesterday. My heart just wasn't in it. This is where my heart was:

Yesterday I was poking around on Tomahawk Nation and found a refutation of this article from the Charlotte Observer. Bud Elliot of the Nation took the opportunity to write a scathing counterpoint embracing the proposition that replacing Bobby Bowden will not bring the challenges usually associated with inheriting the throne of a legend because Bobby has not been legendary in a while. As I read it something just didn't sit right with me, and on reading the comments to see if anyone had similar reservation I was eventually drawn to voice my own feelings. You can find all this buried in the many comments on the Tomahawk Nation page, but for your convenience I have posted it here. I'll leave it to you to determine whether my argument was worth my time and the crappy article I put you through.

I have just been informed that the thread I cut and pasted from Tomahawk Nation "exceeds fair usage."  Here is the article, with comments viewable below.  My username is PhattyRob, naturally.  You can read the entire thread there.  Sorry for any inconvenience.  -BMOB, 30 April, 2010

Week in Review 4-26

With all four major sports making for one of the busiest weekends in our little world, there was an overabundance of topics to address. To be honest it was strangely underwhelming and uninspiring as everything was getting nauseating amounts of ink, often disproportionate to the importance or excitement of the goings-on in question. I mean, I was pondering devoting an entire column to the draft, until the second day of coverage literally put me to sleep. But we’ll get to that in due time. Here’s your Week in Review:

First, hockey. I’ll tell you what, NHL, there is no better way to capitalize on any momentum you might have carried into the playoffs from Vancouver than to show only half (if that) of the first round games. I am missing out on Game 6 of the Boston – Buffalo series tonight after missing out on Game 5 as well. How are you supposed to win back any fans if you are not even putting the playoffs on TV? Somehow the NBA managed to put every game on. What the hell? GIVE AWAY the rights if you have to, but get those games on TV. I know most fans live in the local viewing areas but that doesn’t expand the audience. These series are too good to screw people out of them.

I have to admit, the NBA is offering some good storylines in its first round. The fact that there are rumblings that Kobe might choke it away got my attention, though it won’t happen. The pundits will be talking about LA dominance again after they obliterate the youthful Thunder in the Staples Center (mostly thanks to skewed officiating). I can’t wait to see the Spurs finish off the Mavs. They are the Pete Sampras of the late era of the League and I have a lot of grudging respect for Duncan (who grew up under Naval Academy grad David Robinson so, go Navy) and anyone who keeps the Lakers out of the Finals. I’m not as excited to see Carmelo on the verge of elimination, though Utah’s a good story too, getting past some untimely injuries. Speaking of which, go Brandon Roy. There’s nothing but awesome in that story. Mostly I am just feeling good about basketball because the Celtics are more or less handling their business against the Heat. I am glad they gave Miami a game though. If D Wade is going to be a free agent, I don’t want any hard feelings.

Baseball is just pointless to try to get a read on before May, so I am not going to try. Check back next month for some MLB analysis. Right now it’s just too early; I mean, the Sox are under .500. That has got to be an aberration.

Oh wait! One baseball note; A-Rod is fucking with karma again! I can’t wait to see how that plays out, but seriously, what a douchebag. Please, Alex, please try to walk across the mound with Daniel Bard pitching. Please.

So then there was the draft. I anticipated a great feeling of relief when it was over, but parts were kind of fun. I enjoyed the first round and the three-day format and even the campy ESPN coverage. I didn’t look into the NFL Network coverage but I assume it was as sterile and dull as every other studio show they do. Every team had hits and misses and everyone has an opinion on everyone’s “grade,” but this is another thing where the over-analysis that has become so prevalent that it takes the jam out of my doughnut. There is certainly no reason for you to come here for pick-by-pick rehashing and punditry. And I won’t give you any. I will throw you some of my off-the-cuff impressions though:

Welp, FSU got its ass kicked in first-rounders by UF, Georgia Tech, and Rutgers. Ouch. We did get one though and Miami didn’t get any. So there.

The following is exactly what I wrote when Denver started to wheel and deal in the first round:

everyone shits on josh mcdaniels but I think he got all the best part of his jedi master. Jay Cutler is trash, if you don’t have the locker room to police marshall and can’t expect 100% out of him you have to see what you can get, and I love the Belichick-like first round trades. If he takes Claussen he is the man.

Then he took Tebow. Wow. ESPN is queer for him, half the country is queer for him, and now Josh McDaniels is queer for him. The irony being that Tebow condemns the sin of homosexuality. I would like to pose this as an actual question: better pick – Myron or Tebow? Go.

Maybe I was letting Kiper pour honey in my ear, but I think Claussen will make everyone pay. The Bills letting him slip was particularly surprising, but CJ is apparently an unnatural athlete and hard to pass up. My response would be, of course, so was Reggie Bush.

Honestly, there’s no amount of prognosticating that can really predict which picks are good or not, so I’m not going to get any deeper into it. Hell, the best part of the entire thing was that I got to see the new World Cup ad for the first time. “It’s not about religion…” That is a kick ass commercial. Facebook will have the poll question on the fan page.

Homer Pangs

I just want to put up a little description of my experiences Wednesday night; a night that embodied exactly why I love sports. This one’s just for me.

Last night I was simultaneously watching the Boston Bruins in game 4 of the opening round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in the New Garden against Girl's Buffaslugs AND the second of a three game set from Fenway with The Other Guy's Rangers. The MLB package was streaming intermittently from my computer as the hockey game flowed out of my big new HDTV in all its 720p glory. Even though I had to switch to the radio broadcast at times for the baseball game, I love baseball over the radio, so I was a happy camper. There I was, surrounded by the drama of two tight games being played by two of my favorite, nay beloved teams against personal rivals in each case. Both games were not just good, they were thrilling; they were packed with euphoric highs and heartbreaking lows. The Bruins looked discombobulated on the offensive end for 40 minutes, and Tuuka let in 2 goals to put us down to the best closing team in hockey with All American Miller in the net. The Sox got down 4-1 early, and then blew a 7-4 lead late, still failing to live up to their preseason "defense and pitching" moniker, and still being run on like they were Churchill Downs. However, JD Drew hit another $16 million grand slam, and the Bs scored 2 goals in the third period to tie the game and take away another second intermission advantage from a Buffalo team that never blows leads in the final frame. And then to top it all off, both games finished regulation in a tie. Extras and overtime all around.

There was not a single whistle from sixteen minutes to six and a half minutes left to go in the first overtime of the Bruins-Sabres game, and it was the best hockey I have ever seen. Even in those incredible USA-Canada Olympic match-ups, we never saw such a long, intense stretch of all-out pucks. When Ryan Miller would dislocate his arm to reach back and deny The Devil Himself with a flash of the glove, Tuuka would leap like a second baseman for a sharp liner, PARALLEL TO THE ICE to save a goal, the game, home-ice advantage, maybe the series. Those ten minutes were wide open, end to end, and blistering fast; they looked like the four on four overtimes of the Olympics. And after 20 minutes of virtually non-stop action, we still had hockey to play and I needed a cigarette.

After another mediocre start from Beckett and some more unexpected offense to match, the bullpens took over the ball game in Fenway. Hope seemed bleak as the Sox failed to get a man on base through inning after extra inning. The Rangers marched out their fireballing (I saw 102 on the gun once) closer Neftali Feliz who got them through the tenth and made our hitters look lost and scared. But we had fire of our own, with Daniel Bard (also throwing 100), Papelbon and Okie-Dokie combining for five innings of one-hit ball to get us to the bottom of the 12th. The Rangers had gone to Dustin Nippert in the eleventh and he put up a zero, but the marathon was going to start to tell on the pens and the Sox had a one-inning head start. They were coming up in the twelfth against Nippert, the post-closer, working in his second inning.

But first, the Bruins had work to do. The pressure on Ryan Miller was building to a crescendo, and the offensive attacks were getting stronger, more cohesive. Then came the dagger. Perhaps it was fatigue, perhaps it was a miscommunication, perhaps Buffalo is just a snake-bitten city, but a too many men on the ice penalty in double overtime? I give that great crowd a lot of credit actually. That was a tough place to play that night (as always), and they stayed with their team every minute. The Devil Himself handled the rest. I don’t know if my soul is actually in on whatever deal the Bruins made late in the season to get him, but if it is I’m not unhappy. And what a goal it was, switching to the backhand at the last possible second to foil the screen and the best goalie around and send Boston into a frenzy. I was elated, I was relieved, I was drained, but we weren’t done yet.

Finally, after 6 scoreless innings put up by the Rangers bullpen, in the twelfth the Sox broke through. With two on and two outs Youk banged one off the wall in left center for the Sox’ second walk off win in as many games. As hard as wins have been to come by this April, it was particularly special, and the perfect ending to a perfect night. I was worried until that ball grabbed wall, because I was bargaining for the Bs most of the night (at one point informing the TV that the Sox could drop 20 in a row if the Bruins took that game), but last night the cards all fell my way.

So I took off this year’s lucky hat, got ready for bed, and then sealed it all up with some quick texts exchanged between Da and I. With Girl in bed and The Other Guy too hard a worker to call after 11, I could do no gloating. Da and I just exchanged a few words back and forth, but it was the best part of the whole marathon. Knowing my father was sitting on his couch way past his bedtime with an incredulous smile on his face (just like me), after almost 5 hours of flipping between the two games, responding to that same deep impulse to share the moment with someone whom you love and who understands like few really do; that is why I love this stuff.

Fantasy Journal, Week II

In Week 2 of the Fantasy Experiment things didn’t go quite as well as in Week 1. What was a close race at the time I had finished the inaugural Journal on Tuesday devolved steadily into a rout by the end of the week, slapping me with my first loss of the young season. Clearly Laissez-Faire isn’t going to quite carry me all the way to the title. I’m going to need to do SOMETHING. At least that was how I felt in the aftermath of that beatdown. But what? I started pondering my options for trades and the like, but to give you a clearer picture of the situation, I’d better give you my roster. Here’s my actual lineup from last Friday, the 16th:

Washington Hot Chicks

C Ryan Doumit, PIT (C)
1B Miguel Cabrera, DET (1B)
2B Brandon Phillips, CIN (2B)
3B Chone Figgins, SEA (2B, 3B)
SS Rafael Furcal, LAD (SS)
OF Jason Bay, NYM (OF)
OF Alex Rios, CWS (OF)
OF Michael Cuddyer, MIN (1B, OF)
UTIL Bobby Abreu, LAA (OF)

P Chad Billingsley, LAD (SP)
P Joel Pineiro, LAA (SP)
SP Tim Lincecum, SF (SP)
SP John Danks, CWS (SP)
RP Francisco Cordero, CIN (RP)
RP Matt Thornton, CWS, (RP)

BENCH Grady Sizemore, CLE (OF)
BENCH Adrian Gonzalez, SD (1B)
BENCH Billy Butler, KC (1B)
BENCH Johnny Damon, DET (OF)

BENCH Brett Anderson, OAK (SP)
BENCH Rich Harden, TEX (SP)

My first thought was that I looked a little thick in the OF/1B department, so I started suggesting to the league that I was shopping a couple of them around. But for what? Since I lacked depth in the infield I figured I would benefit from acquiring some multi-positional players who could back up more than one guy and keep me scoring on those days without a lot of games. My first thoughts went of course to Youk or Victor, but I didn’t go after a trade for either of them, afraid my heart would lead me to overpay (plus Victor is inexplicably listed as only a catcher).

I also wanted relief pitching, specifically closers. If I could load up on top-ten closers, I would have lots of save and K points coming in more steadily than they do when I have to wait for my starters for five days. The problem with pitchers in our league is that they have as many ways to lose points as they do to gain them, so your cash cows really are your position players. And among those position players, none are more valuable than the big boppers in the 1B/OF vein. Thus I wasn’t sure if I was on the right track, and ended up doing nothing at all, except putting my needs and wants out there and seeing if anyone made me an offer.

Over the weekend, as I was being obliterated, the league manager John offered me Gordon Beckham, who plays second and third, for Billy Butler, one of my many first basemen. Billy had scored a few more points than Gordon up to that time, but Beckham would diversify my bench and make me a bit more nimble, and it was impossible to get all those 1Bs into my lineup. So, as much to get one under my fantasy belt as anything, I agreed to the trade. I did something. I wonder how long it will be until I regret it.

As I am pondering all these options Dan, a buddy of mine from college, was busy eviscerating my team by over two hundred points. Some of this was due to underperformance by guys like Jason Bay, but overall I feel like I can’t complain about my boys too bad. Joel Pineiro, one of my few free agency moves, is even panning out thus far. The Hot Chicks started out strong to blow out Hoops, after all. Remember when I beat his ass in Week 1? No dice last week though, and part of it is I just ran into a brick wall. I had the second highest point total in week one with 605, but Dan came out last week and dropped an unprecedented 729 on my ass with great malice. Sometimes you just run into a Mack truck. That’s why I don’t want to overreact, but I also don’t want to stand idly by while the arms race of the league passes me by. So I got me a couple free agents (while cutting fat like Sizemore, who I think is way overrated), including the Astros' new closer Matt Lindstrom and good ol’ Alex Gonzalez, who I wish was still on the Sox. Speaking of the Sox, I don’t have a one, but I think I might actually be happy about that. I doubt I could deal with the compounded heartbreak of watching JD Drew and Victor Martinez kill Boston rallies as well as my fantasy dreams. Still though, maybe I’ll trade for Pedey, haha.

So we’ll see what happens. I don’t think I am done making moves but I certainly don’t know whether any of the ones I have made have been beneficial. Time and this week’s match-up will tell, and then I’ll tell you next week.

Week in Review, 19 April (ish)

It was a busy weekend, but really I just had to put off the recap until the Red Sox won a game. So now that that’s settled, here you go:

It’s been a crazy off-season in the NFL this year, hasn’t it? I don’t remember another year where so much was constantly in flux. Maybe it’s the uncapped year everyone likes to talk about, but there just seem to be inordinate trades, trade rumors, and draft buzz this spring. I feel like normally you can come back to football in August to find it more or less where you left it in February, with the one exception of a weekend in April where you take in the draft. This year I can’t keep track of all the moves, and the media is so full of buzz and speculation that I can hardly tell what’s real and what’s conjecture on a given day. I am not sure I like it, seeing as how both the Celtics and the Bruins are locked in exciting playoff battles and baseball is hitting its stride. Football needs to go on the back burner for awhile; until the Cup is hoisted at least. That’s why I am going to hold off on getting into it until the draft actually takes place.

There’s one guy who will take all the innocuous NFL news he can get right now though, and that’s Ben Roethlisberger. This news-heavy off-season could not have come at a better time for him. He has been allowed to duck a bit of the spotlight that he brought on himself by being a drunken asshole. It is really no big deal to be a drunken asshole out at a bar or club. I have done it many a time. The issue is when you are a drunken asshole who’s out with a bunch of enablers who can’t be trusted to check you and will in fact assist in any assholic pursuit your drunken ass decides to pursue. The rest of us slump off a stool and go home alone, but not Ben. He has a cadre of muscle seemingly to ensure he follows through on whatever devastating thought his inebriated ass can dream up. I don’t just blame Ben’s bodyguards or whatever they are for this incident, and I hope he gets a suspension (6 games is my call) because he was a dick, but what are these guys getting paid for if not to PREVENT an occurrence like this from happening in the first place? Still, I thought until recently that this would blow over for Big Ben and he would come out more or less unscathed. What changed my mind was not the release of the gory details of the Milledgeville incident (though that did hurt to listen to), but the fact that on Thursday Eli Manning commented on the situation, deigning to give Ben and all athletes some life advice and wisdom gleaned from his years as a professional. What?!?! Eli Manning is offering people counsel?!?! As I have said many times, especially since, oh, early February 2008, Outside the Lines is going to have a special any day now about the mentally handicapped son of Archie who overcame his disability to win an NFL championship. So Ben, if it has come to the point where you are getting life advice from Algernon Manning, I feel its safe to say you’ve hit rock bottom.

So anywho, how bout them playoffs? Lemme splain; no there is too much. Lemme sum up. I won’t get into all the match-ups because there are, in the case of hockey, too many good series, and in the case of basketball too few. These opening rounds embody why you need to abandon the NBA (if you have not done so already) and get yourself some hi-def hockey action. Look at all those good match-ups, all those potential or at least possible upset series wins in the works. I am in love now that I have an LCD TV and the proper component feed to put into it. Plus, the Bruins have jumped to a 2-1 lead on Girl’s Buffaslugs, so I am psyched. And how bout that Montreal-Washington series? It looks like it might be over after that pounding the Habs took at home on the heels of that thrilling OT loss here, but I say they hold serve at home tonight and get this thing at least to a game 6. 7 was my original call, though, so that’s what I am pulling for.

Speaking of that series, I’ve never done this before, but I find myself drawn to root for the dreaded, despicable, hated Habitants over the Caps, thanks solely to my distaste for the bandwagon, amateur-hour, fair weather fans in this area. I didn’t even root against the Rays like that. It raises the question as to whether I was right in declaring Florida fans utterly the worst when DC fans can make me root for the Canadiens no matter how many times I try to stop myself. The difference, I suppose, is that while I don’t like these Washington homers, I actually felt pity for Florida teams due to the blight that was their fan base. So no, they are still the worst. I feel better.

Baseball is a bit too painful for me to get into right now, as my team that was ok with sacrificing offense to win this season with pitching and defense has some of the worst stats in both latter categories in the majors. God. Dammit. That walk-off win better be the jump start they need and not an aberration, or it is going to be a long season. The Rays and Yanks are just too good for us to survive with much more foot-shuffling, especially from the staff. Oh well. I'll get into some broader baseball analysis Wednesday in the Fantasy Journal, but for now: Go Darnell McDonald!

I haven’t spared soccer any of my time yet, so if you were hanging around for the MLS report, no soup for you.

Friday Feature: Are You Ready For Some Futbol?

For my Friday feature, I am once again going to go a bit off the wall. In the midst of baseball and hockey and the looming threats of watching Tebow become a Patriot in the draft and the Celtics get obliterated by the Heat in round 1, I find myself wondering about soccer. I know, weird, but there ya go. This is brought on mainly by the approach of the World Cup. The U.S. got a good draw this year and may be able to escape Group C (containing Algeria, England and Slovenia) to get into the main tournament, and I’m always all for America kicking a little ass on the world stage. The real genius of the World Cup though comes from its infrequency. Anything you have to wait four years to see and have to go to Irish pubs to watch has to be a good thing, right? I’m ready for it, and I am trying to find the beauty in this gentleman’s game played by ruffians.

Some of that beauty is in the fans. If you want passion, look no further than the pitch. Last night, because for some damn reason the TV gods didn’t deign to show me my Bruins game, I watched some of the Philadelphia Union’s 2-1 loss to the Toronto Whateverthefucks. My buddy Ffej told me a story a little while ago about how Philly has apparently been angling for years for an MLS team, with fans going so far as to travel to nearby games to root against the home teams (like the Revolution, who I may adopt) and fashion preemptive rivalries (they also have awesome logos and colors). Last night’s game was in Toronto, where apparently the deal is that you verbally berate and throw long streamers (or what-have-you) at any opposing player attempting a corner kick. All this might seem like child’s play to the hooligans in Europe, but it’s a very American approach. We love rivalries, and we love the idea of being the 12th man (or is it 13th? I don’t know). I have another buddy (MikeOdius) who lives in Seattle and has become a Sounders season-ticket holder based on the atmosphere alone. He has probably even taken to actually liking the sport itself after seeing so much of it. I am not there yet. Like I said, I get my fix every four years and that’s that. But I find it strange that we would not take this game and make it our own. I guess we’re just more used to making up our own games altogether. Never fear, though, for I know just how to fix soccer. I’m going to have to if I want to get in on this Revolution-Union bad blood.

If you have ever had to live through the month-long ordeal that is test cricket, with its 5-day long tests and endless at-bats and sparse action, you would know just how revolutionary 20-20 cricket is. For the rest of you, suffice it to say the Indians (dot) have taken an unwatchable, unmarketable contest and made it into an exciting spectator sport. It’s now catching on throughout the cricket-playing world. I mean, which one of those websites looks like it covers a real sport? That’s what America needs to do with soccer. It’s a low-contact, relatively uneventful game punctuated mostly by lots of dives and the near-constant stymieing of both offenses. See, our major sports have it figured out: You don’t need to score all the time, but you do need to have plenty of action that can take place without points, or in pursuit of points. That’s what I feel soccer lacks. The fans are crucial and the rivalries are building (I’d watch Parcheesi for a good rivalry) but dammit we’re Americans! We need action! We need violence! Give it to us!

First of all, let’s just get a couple things straight: You play sports on a field, clocks count down, and they stop when play stops. Now, I like the wide open free play, but if there is a real stoppage for injury or the like, just stop the clock. Why do we have to try to guess the stoppage time at the end? It’s a senseless and archaic holdover and you know it. And get rid of these stupid Euro-inspired names. What the hell is Chivas USA? It’s bad enough you make me put up with all those new age, WNBA-like singular team names like the Galaxy and the Revolution; I really have no patience for DC United (no matter how appropriate it may seem to you Premiere League types). American Soccer also needs to find a way to reward toughness and eliminate all these pathetic dives. Let the Europeans writhe on the turf trying to draw a flag (er, card). For us it’s just embarrassing. I would say that if a guy is running full speed less than 20 minutes after being “injured” on a penalty, he ought to be immediately ejected. But that’s just me.

The real issue to address with soccer is of course the scoring and scoring chances, and I think I have that sussed as well. Now, you don’t want to become lacrosse, and start having 15-12 soccer games. Then a goal hardly matters at all. You are looking for more of the 4-2 or 5-3 type of game, where each team has plenty of chances and there is a lot of excitement on both ends where the athletes can get a chance to show their talents. The NFL last year saw its teams average about 23 points a game or so, or just over three touchdowns. The NHL this season had an average of just under three goals a game per team. The MLS, meanwhile, averaged about 1.3 goals a game per team last year. That’s not a major difference (unless you are going by percentages) but the difficulty for soccer is what is going on between those goals. The rules and the tactics of the game make it nearly impossible to get a breakaway or any sort of clean scoring chance. And no exciting offense means no spectacular defense. But what to do without rendering the game unrecognizable? Well, I have some thoughts on that.

You could always make the goal bigger or remove the goalie or other such ideas like that, but that doesn’t do much for the game “between the 20s.” Adjusting the offside rules could help, perhaps having a more hockey-like style with an offensive zone the ball needs to enter ahead of the controlling team. However I am thinking more along the lines of another hockey institution. I believe it will be the penalty box, not blue lines, which will save soccer. Think about it. Instead of having one penalty a game that renders the offending team dead in the water, have a bunch of temporary man advantages throughout the match to put more pressure on defenses and make things more interesting. It works for lacrosse really well, a sport hurt by the opposite problem soccer has: too much scoring (though they have the violence to make up for it). Increased power plays are bringing hockey back around for some people as well. I think if you could invent a bunch of minor fouls (like flopping, as a for instance) and assess decent periods of time for them (5-10 minutes I would say), it would open up the field and let the players play a little more.

In the end anything that would give the athletes more of a chance to showcase their unique abilities is going to benefit the sport immensely. Really, isn’t that all we really want? These are some of the greatest players in the world playing in a country with an insatiable appetite for good sports. They deserve a format that allows them to shine. So, contact the commissioner of Major League Soccer for me and set up a meeting. I’ve got it all figured out…

Fantasy Journal: Week I

So I got an invitation to play fantasy baseball a couple months ago, and for some reason (ok, it was because I was unemployed and jumped at anything that might fill up my days (and I'll never turn down a competition)) I assented. This was a bit out of character for me because I just don't believe in fantasy (and no amount of clapping...)

I really just can't stand rooting for opposing forces in the same game in any sport; hoping the Cleveland defense gets a pick 6 but Chad Johnson scores two TDs on them. And I am not going out of my way to watch Kansas City play Pittsburgh just because "I have a couple of guys going." It's still a shitty game. I liked sports long before I ever heard of fantasy, and I can't figure out how it improves the experience. I'm just as likely (i.e. not very) to land on KC and the Bucs for some random baseball now as I was before this little experiment.

I also don't believe that any amount of analysis or savvy or skill can make anyone "good" at fantasy sports. People who say they are good at it have just as much basis for their claims as blue-haired ladies that are good at bingo. Case in point: Last year I was playing fantasy football, and went 3-0 before I made any roster moves. Then I started trying to "improve" and ended the season 5-10. I realize this only proves that I suck, but seriously, unless Matthew Berry wins the Sportscenter pool every year, I'm just not going to buy it. There are an infinite number of sound arguments and cogent statistics to prove or refute any opinion. Beyond the top 20 or 30 players it's all a crap shoot.

Nonetheless, here I am. I am part of a Fantasy Baseball League for the first time, my third foray into this realm overall. I had that one fantasy football season last year, and once in college I played fantasy hockey to try to get more into that sport. It didn't work. Still though, I was looking forward to the draft and to trying my hand at something that might ultimately end up winning me some completely unearned bragging rights (and some unearned cash to go with it).

Then an event occurred that turned out to be a perfect metaphor for my feelings on this subject: I missed the draft. But why, you ask, why after looking forward to it for months did you miss the draft for your fantasy league? Because I went to watch an ACTUAL BASEBALL GAME. Go fucking figure. I found out the Sox were playing their last exhibition in Nats Park the day of the draft and, well, that's not even a question. Of course I went. Brought my whole family. It turned out to be a great game, and I was rather accepting of the prospect of building a team from the free agency scrap-heap to try to achieve Not Last.

But I was in for another surprise, this time in the form of the Best Player Available function. Lo and behold, I already had a team. And as it turns out, it's damn good. I discovered this in Week 1 as I put a shellacking on by buddy Cole, who you will be hearing from soon on this site and also runs The Appleyard Drive which more or less inspired this site. He's a smart guy, with a lot of fantasy experience and a better draft position than my computer-driven team enjoyed, yet I crushed him. I mean, it was a massacre. Did I mention I destroyed him? Anyways, this made me wish I could play two teams. One would be auto-drafted and I would make only the most basic of maintenance moves (benching injured players or those with off days), and the other where I would do everything myself and tinker on a daily basis. I have no doubt that the laissez-faire team would kick relative ass, but it would be a fun experiment. Maybe next year.

I'd say that that is quite enough exposition for one day. So the following will be my Week I Fantasy Journal for real. That thought about an untouched, auto-drafted beast of a team prompted me to leave my boys to do their thing in week one. Like I said, they did work. Still, I started to ponder strategies, if only to feel more like I was earning the W. Most of my roster came as no surprise but I did notice that Tim Lincecum had dropped all the way down to me to be picked up 13th overall. It seems that the other cats in my league were not prioritizing pitching. Since wins are 10 points a piece and position player categories only score one at a time I thought I might be able to hunt down a rotation of all-stars and dominate. That was until I saw that my position players were the ones doing most of the damage. So for now, Laissez-Faire it is. This week I have a tough match-up against a college buddy of mine. I'll give you the skinny next Tuesday.

A Week-of-Consciousness for 12 April

Bleeding My Own Blood's weekly recap will take the form of a more-or-less Joyce-like spilling of my mind into your compy's screen. Enjoy.

There’s a lot that has happened over the week and I want to try to touch on all of it. At least all of it that has interested me. I’m going to start with the hockey playoffs, which have shaped up in dramatic fashion with some wild hijinks over the weekend. The Bruins, for instance, scored three shorthanded goals in a minute four. That has never happened. Of course I was walking to the bar when it took place and missed seeing it live by two minutes. God. Damn. It. No matter though, The Bs hung on to win the game and set up the Me-Girl match-up in the first round of the playoffs. I’ll preview that directly.

6 Boston vs. 3 Buffalo

Boston has had a lot of trouble scoring, thanks to bad luck, injuries, and cheap shots taken throughout the season (and letting Phil Kessel go), but Tuuka Rask has been playing great and they seem to be hungry heading into the postseason. The main problem is that Buffalo, last time I checked, is employing the greatest American Hockey Hero since Jim Craig. The hope is that he is worn down and goes back to his mediocre playoff ways, but the Boston offense is one that can make even bad goalies look great. I guess as long as we can put some guys in the penalty box and employ our blistering man-down attack we have a chance. Or not. I’d like to come out on Boston’s side on this one but against Miller I just don’t know where the goals are going to come from, and Boston, no matter how good their net minder is, has had a long brutal history of running into a goalie who stands on his head and carries a team deep into the playoffs, not having one. I think it’s Buffaslugs in 6.

8 Montreal Canadiens at 1 Washington Capitals

I’m not going to call this an upset special, but Montreal will make the Caps sweat. The Habs have a hot goalie in Jaroslav Halak (it really does always come down to the goalies) and I wonder how Ovi will hold up to the pressure now that Sid the Kid has made it clear who the big dick in the NHL is. Can Ovechkin rise to the challenge? I’m doubting it, honestly, but that won’t keep them out of the second round and another rematch with the Pens. The Habs have not had a whole lot of offense this season, and the scoring attack for Washington is Hydra-like. I do think this series will go seven, if only because the three games in Montreal will see home ice advantage like Washington can never have down here in what is still most decidedly the South (also known as the land where the crowd only cheers for fights). The Caps fans are enthusiastic, but they can be taken out of the game with a quick strike. I think the Habs steal one down here, but the Caps get it back in Montreal with one of those 7-2 offensive avalanches of theirs. So yeah, Washington in 7.

I had bounced around the idea of previewing every first-round match-up, but I haven’t seen enough hockey and would be forced to regurgitate what others already wrote. That’s not what this is about. This is one man’s impressions, attained over beer in front of big screens. So if you want a full hockey preview, pay for Insider. But I digress:

The Masters turned out as fun as we thought it would, but not for the expected reasons. El Tigre was pleasantly relegated to the sidelines as Lefty charged ahead and took his third green jacket. My Da asked me Saturday night what I thought was going to happen in the final round and I said that Lefty would make a push but falter in the end and Lee Westwood would take the win with consistency. You see, I have never much liked Lefty. He seemed like such the appropriate choice to carry the Best Golfer Never to Win a Major monkey on his back that I was disappointed when he finally shed it. Then he was anointed by the press as “Tiger’s Rival” because he strung a couple wins together in relatively close succession. Tiger being without peer, he was doomed to fail in this role, and I kind of took it out on him. But dammit, he makes it so hard to hate him. Due to the battles both his wife and his mother have had to fight with the disease, he has made the elimination of breast cancer his personal mission. He is left-handed (which is always a strangely endearing quality for me), likeable in interviews, played a great douche on Entourage, and while he is not Tiger’s rival he is a damn good player. But still, even as I watched him pick up 5 strokes in 3 holes on the back nine Saturday, I expected him to choke it away on Sunday. Now that he hasn’t, but instead charged ahead for the W, I gotta say I am ready to jump onboard the Lefty bandwagon. I guess I’m the only one left off it.

BC won the Frozen Four on Saturday, which I figure most people would expect me to be happy about. Well, I’m not. Boston College tortures my Seminole nature in football and basketball with excruciating regularity, and I don’t know anyone who went to BC. I applied to Northeastern when I was in high school, and my Da went to the University of New Hampshire. The latter school has become my college hockey team, and strangely enough they have a lot in common with Seminole Baseball, as it turns out. Both teams know the agony of owning the Phil Mickelson Memorial Trophy (this seems especially dumb now that the bastard actually won the Masters) for being the best teams in their games to never have won a championship. The painful moniker is for the Seminoles applied entirely to the Mike Martin Era. He is the reason for our ascent to greatness but more and more is becoming the scapegoat for our inability to reach the pinnacle. UNH has been at it for longer, and has been dispatched by the unlikely likes of schools like Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute enough to truly wonder if they are cursed. I saw one of those games in person in Anaheim in 2000, when the Wildcats went down to U Maine. This year the Cats made the tournament with an underage and inexperienced team but ran into a red hot Rochester Institute in the second round. Bastards. So no, I’m not happy about the friggin’ Eagles.

The Sox are hard to peg down after the first week of the season. I was watching them lose sheepishly to the Twins while writing the first part of this schpeel, and while their performance is disappointing thus far you can see that the pitching is going to come together (Lester looked strained but did have 5 Ks), the defense is very good (though they need to stop running into each other (but that will come)), and they have the ability to score runs consistently. I just have one message to Red Sox Nation: Get off Papi’s back. I know you are hopeful, I know you only want to will him to break out and be his old powerful, clutch self, I know you have no mean spirit about your yearning for his success, but for the love of God just relax. He can feel you pressing for him, and it makes him press. Let’s all just take a breath and not worry so much about him. I include myself in this by the way.

The only other thing I would say about the Sox is that I would run on them every time I had a man on first. No outs, two out, no matter who was up, just run. They are atrocious at defending the steal, and they get exposed every time someone tries. Today the Twins did just that and it led to two runs. This has me afraid. The new Minnesota stadium looks great though. We gave them the opener as a housewarming present. It would be nice to take the series as a door prize.

Well, that’s what struck me this week. Tomorrow will be the inaugural Fantasy Diary, in which you will be able to have a weekly update of my virgin fantasy baseball season. Hilarity should ensue.

Grand Reopening: Eagles Fandom - A Defense

With March Madness over and baseball, glorious baseball just kicking off another wonderful summer of joy and excitement, I am given naturally to pondering the Eagles. No, not Donovan McNabb and his arrival in my back yard with the Skins; I feel the Eagles didn’t do right by him in hanging him out to dry for so long but overall everyone is more or less a winner. But that’s neither here nor there. My thoughts are even further off the current events mark. I got to talking about sports fans with my buddy Fast Ryan when I found myself defending the Philadelphia Eagles faithful against the accusation that they are the worst fans on earth. First of all, even if they are very bad fans (a notion I will soon dispute) we should all be able to agree that the worst fans, speaking generally, are all Florida sports fans. That goes for Gators, Seminoles, Rays, Jags, or whoever else. No fans are more belligerent when on top, or invisible when struggling. Their lack of grace after a win is matched only by their immediate abandonment after a loss (often well before the contest is actually decided.) When your baseball team makes the playoffs and the Jumbotron is showing messages like “when there are two strikes on an opposing batter, stand up and cheer!” you know you have problems. I got to see a lot of amazing sporting events while I was at FSU, but I was often heartbroken by constant displays of disloyalty and aloofness, especially from the paying customers in the stands. And if you doubt this, think about all the obnoxious gators you know right now, wherever you live. Did you know where any of those people went to college five years ago, before the Tebow/ Donovan Era? Of course you didn’t.

That established, I will now defend the Eagles fans. Of course they are obnoxious, of course they are insufferable, and of course they boo everything. But, unlike Florida fans and every other group of rooters with no spine, they have passion. Unconditional, perhaps irrational love of their team. It’s that love that makes them not only defensible, it might put them in the running for some of the best fans in sports. Isn’t that the greatest mark of a fan base? Sure, being knowledgeable is nice and sportsmanship is usually a good thing, but nothing tops a town and people that reach cult-like levels in their adoration.

It’s sometimes possible to confuse some Philly fan antics with a fair-weather nature or inherent impatience. When I was a lad I lived in Montgomery County, PA and personally saw a couple games in the Rodney Pete- Randall Cunningham Era, where each incomplete pass would lead to chanting of the name of whichever quarterback was on the bench. More often than not this chanting would be acknowledged by the coaching staff in the form of a substitution, and soon the roles of goat and potential savior would be reversed. I also watched as they booed both a wedding and a very good boys' choir at halftime (though it should be noted that the bride was kinda fat and, if you don’t already know, the infamous Santa was drunk). For you Seminoles, this would smack of the Weatherford/ Lee drama of 2006, where fans and coaches combined to destroy a season and two young men’s psyches. But there was a difference; take it from someone who witnessed both. In Tallahassee, the boos were laced with venom, as well as a true ignorant belief that switching QBs would actually bring positive results. In Philadelphia, it was a cry of distress. They didn’t think any good could come of a change, they just didn’t know what else to do. I have likened Eagles fans to Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver. They have been through a lot, are in a lot of pain, have had their hearts broken, but still only want the best for those they love. They will do crazy things for them, things that don’t seem to make a lot of sense to the outside world, but nonetheless they are driven by a pure passion that few can even understand.

I also think that as a fan base you need an edge like that to set you apart in the debate for best fans, and the Eagles fans have it in spades. Who really thinks that the blindly loyal Cubs fans are the best in baseball? Anyone who can take a crushing loss with a shrug and an “oh well” like, say the touted Indians fans in 2007, can’t really be in the Best Fan Conversation. You are looking more for the Boston Bruins fans, who will come in droves for a last place team, know the game, dole out plenty of shit, and step it up a notch for the big rivalries and key games. I might be biased, but they get my vote, by the way. Notre Dame football and Tobacco Road basketball fans are pretty good, but college fans are a different animal, and for every Cameron Crazy there is a limp-dick Gator, so I won’t even go there (not to mention my personal experience is limited).

The point is that Eagles are blessed with fans that love them. These fans are flawed; they’re drunk, they’re surly, they’re rude and they’re oftentimes jackasses. But every one of these foibles is a product of undying passion for their team, and so for them they ought be forgiven. The only real difference between Eagles fans and Travis Bickle is that while Bickle was ultimately revered for his violence and insanity Philadelphia’s loyal followers are reviled. I wonder about a society that will celebrate a murderer and condemn some fans who boo Santa. Just sayin’.

The Other Guy - NL Central Preview

Cincinnati Redlegs-
Key Acquisitions: Aaron Miles 2B, Aroldis Chapman SP, Orlando Cabrera SS

Key Departures: NONE

Outlook: The Redlegs look to improve on last year’s finish after falling away by midseason. There were so many holes visible in last year’s performance that this off-season, the front office must have felt like a kid in a candy store. Not a single move could have missed because anything and everything would have been an improvement. The Reds lacked offense last year, for the first time in a decade. They struggled to move runners, failed to take walks, and struck out almost as many times as they did when they had the automatic K machine (Dunn). And, for the first time even over two decades, pitching appeared to be the one strong suit. They had great young arms in Volquez and Cueto, and with the addition of Chapman, the young Cuban pitcher who defected during last year’s World Baseball Classic, and in turn made the choice to possible save a franchise. He is apparently one of the most sought after arms (likened to Dice-K in many circles) and tops out at the triple digits in mph. They resigned Rolen at 3B, who despite age brings a class and work ethic to the Reds that last year almost saved this team. With Miles, and Cabrera giving back up to Phillips at 2B the Reds should see a marked improvement in hitting production out of the middle infield. That leaves the outfield, which unfortunately the Reds seemed to have forgotten all about. They appear content on maintaining their youth, with Bruce in RF, Stubbs in CF, and Dickerson in LF. All together now, “who the f*ck are these guys?!?” That right, Im seeing an almost Major League-esque performance this year if they see production and not injuries from their few veterans. With Broyo and Harang (always tops in Ks in the NL) at the front of their rotation, and Dusty’s history of working miracles on bullpens, the Reds may be looking at the positive side of 80 wins. “May” being the operative word.
Projected Record: 88-74

St. Louis Cheaters-
Key Acquisitions: Brad Penny SP

Key Departures: John Smoltz SP

Outlook: Well, after this winter’s admission from current hitting coach Mark McGuire, these Cards should be looking forward to a season of boo-birds and a sign depicting some sort of cartoon version of the Bash Brother’s sticking each other in the butts. Yea, I went there. They lost their true veteran pitcher in Smoltz and hope to replace that arm with Penny. Yea, its not going to work. They are still going to crush the ball with Superman playing 1B for them but past that, they have a slew of fresh faces who hope to provide some sort of protection for their Kryptonian Warrior. They have retained Holliday who will serve as the strongest bat next to Pujol’s but past that, some young guys will really need to step up. Their pitching should be strong, with Carpenter coming back healthy and after ending last year as the hottest pitcher in baseball that cant be a bad thing, but past him, they are expecting Wainwright, Lohse, and Penny to hold up the other 3 days Carpenter cant go. In their bullpen they have one of the best young Closers in Franklin but beyond him, they are looking at the age of Reyes to anchor what is a rather shallow bullpen. This is still the team that seems to always win the Central, no matter who they put out there, and I would thank their fans for that. Lets see if they can will their Cards to another Division Title.
Projected Record: 95-67

Milwaukee Commissioners-
Key Acquisitions: NONE

Key Departures: NONE
Outlook: This is a team that honestly should scare people. They did little to effect any major change, and that may have just been the right call for a team as young as the Brewers were last year. If we take a look at last year’s team, I think we will see why the GM and entire coaching staff were willing to take a backseat in free agency and their results be their proof. They are a team based around the young powerful bats of Fielder and Hart, and around the speed of Weeks and Braun. Oh, and did I mention they have one of the best young starters in the league? With Gallardo locked up for long term, we should now see why they were so willing to take a short stay from Sabbathia in exchange for some patience with Gallardo. The only real moves they made were locking up some bullpen help in Letroy Hawkins and Todd Coffey. I think they could have done more in attracting some big time help in the back end of their rotation, what with Suppan and Manny Parra bringing up the rear. It’s a shame that they don’t have a legit number two starter to move Wolf and Doug Davis to the end of the rotation where they rightfully belong. Its going to be a long year for the Brew Crew, with lots and lots of long shots to deep left center. The only downside to that is it will be both sides launching them deep.
Projected Record: 75-87

Chicago Pups-
Key Acquisitions: Marlon Byrd

Key Departures: Milton Bradley
Outlook: Well, lets start with the offense. With the departure of the walking/talking cancer that is Milton Bradley, the Cubbies welcomed into the fold Mr Marlon Byrd. Welcome Mr Byrd to the twilight zone, hope your stay is comfortable. Please enjoy all the sunny afternoons in Wrigley as the life is sucked out of your career just like every other Cubs player. That’s right folks, Im going ahead and calling it how I see it and for whatever reason, being a Cub makes you suck. Look at that line up; Derrick Lee, Alfonso Soriano, , Ryan Theriot, Aramis Rameriz, and Geovany Soto to name a few. Its honestly enough to make you want to cry for all their lost careers. All of them quality hitters and even the likes of Soriano are seeing a drop in his career numbers. Its swallowed the likes of Zambrano and Lily, Dempster and Marmol. I ca see them playing well for about a month and then one of them goes down with a minor injury that will render them on the DL for the remainder of the year. That one player will happen to be the lynch pin in their offensive or defensive identity and bam, the next thing you know they are limping into the end of the season with 80 plus losses…again. Its sad, but for Cubs fans, you are looking ahead at a season of unreasonable poor defense up the middle from two great middle infielders, Theriot and Fontenot. New theory! Canada has always been mediocre and lame and maybe Theriot and Fontenot are Canadian underachievers sent down from the Big White North to sabotage the Cubbies with their silent letters and mediocre ways. Who knows…Ive heard so many crazy Lost theories lately maybe I am starting to get conspiracy crazy. Or maybe I’m finally catching on to Canada’s great scheme to lower our standards and ooze socialism onto us from above. You decide.
Projected Record: 70-92


Houston No-Names-
Key Acquisitions: NONE

Key Departures: NONE
Outlook: NOT GOOD. This team went from boring to even more boring, if that was possible. They don’t have speed. They don’t have power. They don’t have pitching, starting or relief. They don’t have veterans and they don’t have rookies. They dont even have prospects. Life is bleak in Houston. What stars they do have are looking more and more beaten down with each passing season. You have Oswalt at the top of the rotation, with a young Wandy Rodriguiz to back him up, and with Lindstrom and Lyon being your two arms out of the bullpen, its left looking a little thin on pitching. And on the offensive side you have a rapidly aging Berkman, a toothless Carlos Lee and some speedsters in Bourn, Pence and Kaz Matsui. Beyond that, its all no names and journeymen minor leaguers filling out a line up that’s rather thin as well. All this is not to say winning is out of the question, for we have seen a team built much the same way perform well into the post season. I give you this year’s Colorado Rockies, circa 2008. They too had few role players and few veterans to turn to in the middle of tough games. They learned quickly that season how to win in the face of overwhelming odds. I will go so far as to say lightening like that strikes once or twice a decade, and we have seen two teams do it so far this century. Could this be the new formula for success? No real stars, just a team that becomes a cohesive unit down the stretch, only to face Goliath in the World Series and win?! Nope, cause as we have seen the last two years, big money equals big results, at least most of the time. LOL.
Projected Record: 68-94

Pittsburgh Steelers/Penguins-
Key Acquisitions: NONE

Key Departures: EVERYONE

Outlook: This team dumped its roster last year and will do so again and again until the team folds or moves. Its sad, cause this used to be a franchise that had respect and a history of winning. In Pittsburgh, they are busy watching the Pens win it all again and then watching training camps and the Steelers the rest of the way. Only bright spot will be watching Andrew McCutchen play his way onto a contender by mid-summer. Im hoping the Reds or Sawx nab him because his speed makes him the last remaining gem in Three Rivers, er sorry, PNC. I give this team a legit shot at losing 120 games this year. They are going to struggle to score with LaRoche as their power hope and their pitching hopes lie with Paul Maholm and Octavio Dotel. Not good folks, not good at all. The bright side could be that there is only one player who should play their way out of baseball purgatory this summer, so, get attached Pirate fans! These loveable losers are yours, probably for a season and a half or so? Maybe?

The Olympics, As Seen From My Couch

This should have come out Friday, but suffice it to say some American University kids threw a wicked old school kegger this weekend, so it’s coming out Monday. Better this way anywho, because I can talk about the Hockey, and on the 30th anniversary of USA 4, USSR 3. First, though, my thoughts on these 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, of which I have seen more than my fair share:

To start off, were those opening ceremonies not absurd? Everything had a cloud over it due to the death of that poor Georgian luger, but I think the biggest problem was that Canada was following that unbelievable Chinese spectacle to open the Beijing Olympics a little over a year and a half ago, and they knew it. They never had a chance to create anything like what China was capable of (if nothing else, Communism can do pageantry), but that didn’t stop them from trying in their particularly Canadian way. From my limited experience, Canadians just don’t have the same concept of production value as the rest of us. Campy is king for the Canucks, and they put this on display for all the world. True, there were some cool moments, and some nifty effects, but overall, I spent a lot of time wondering what I was looking at. Did they demonstrate the colorful mosaic of Canadian culture? Maybe. Did they have a giant polar bear and a lot of gyrating Indians, people in white and dudes in kilts? Yup. I just don’t know.

This has been a brilliant Olympics for the good ol’ U.S. of A. Lindsey Vonn, after steaming up the SI swimsuit issue has overcome a difficult injury and untold amounts of scrutiny to get a gold medal in her best event, the Downhill, which was an incredible thing to watch. She caught some hell for not going quite as balls-to-the-wall (at least in the Washington Post) in subsequent events (still winning a bronze as well as of Monday morning) but damn, the girl skied faster than anyone else in the Downhill, and she did it on one leg; give her a break if she doesn’t have a whole lot left for the Super G. Speaking of, what is the Super G? I get Downhill, I get Slalom, I get Combined, but what is Super G?

We saw Lindsey win when she was supposed to, which is one of the most difficult things to do in sport, and we also saw Bode Miller come back from the dead and take a gold, a silver, and a bronze already. He got no pub, no endorsements, no nothing coming in after the hectic egg he laid in Italy four years ago, and I didn’t even know he was there at all until he had already won his gold medal. He looks fat and he knows it, freely admitting he did not condition for these games properly. Yet there he is, racking up the hardware and reinventing his Olympic legacy with every podium appearance. It’s redemption at its best, and is one of my favorite story lines of the whole shindig.

One American figure skater has PETA after him and another trounced the favored Russian, Yevgeny Plushenko, much to the dismay of all the Motherland. I love these guys, though I admit I didn’t see their event. We didn’t come to Vancouver with a whole lot of national pride on the line. None of the sports being contested is vital to our collective consciousness, no matter how much we enjoy seeing them every four years. Thus, the most fun lies in shocking other countries who do have their identities tied to these Winter Games. It’s not always successful though.

Our speed skaters are running into some stiff resistance. After all the Colbert-driven exposure, I figured we would be dominant on the ice tracks, but the Koreans and Dutch are defiantly tempering my ambitions. Shani Davis did get one gold and Apolo Ohno has become the most decorated US Winter Olympian on the short track, but he did it with a bronze and Davis was surprised in the 1500M and took silver. There are more events to go, including the short track 5000M relay, which is going to be nuts if they ever run it. It seems like the qualifying was a week ago. I also shouldn’t say that Ohno got “just” a bronze in that race, what he should have done was go down on a tough slip, but somehow he didn’t, and flew back onto the podium in the nick of time. It was truly impressive.

Maine native Seth Wescott won gold at the coolest event of the Olympics for the second straight time; Snowboard Cross. He had to come from behind to do it, and was one of the first American heroes of the games. They are calling that event “NASCAR on snow” and I would say the comparison is warranted. Crazy crashes at high speeds and slick passes on tight turns with dramatic finishes make this my new favorite, since curling hasn’t treated me right this year. More on that later.

Lindsey Jacobellis on the other hand managed to shed the stigma of her early celebration to earn some hype and a national ad spot going into the games, but she was one of our few duds, failing to make the finals of women’s Snowboard Cross and remaining unredeemed. I guess we can’t have everything.

Vonn and Hannah Teter got the spread in SI, but there is American fire all over that town these days. Teter isn’t even the hottest snowboarder. That honor would belong to the lovely and talented Grechen Bleiler, who nailed some of the best tricks of the night before wiping out in the Halfpipe Finals. Then there our ice dancer chicks, especially Meryl Davis, a couple of our speed skaters (Allison Baver is worth a google); even one of our curling ladies is pretty hot. Of course, we’re not the only country bringing sexy back to Canada, but we are definitely showing well.

Speaking of curling, the US teams have been one of the few disappointments in Vancouver, stymieing the groundswell of support that always seems to spring up during the Winter Olympics for the sport. I’ve seen as much curling as anyone, since it is all NBC show during the day, and I am bummed about the performance of our teams, but far worse than the play of the Americans is the coverage of the games. Both color commentators have no concept of the strategy of the game, or if they do they don’t bother to inform us of it. They’ll decide what they would do in the current situation, tell the audience, and disagree with anything other than their decision without any explanation of the possible motives or consequences of the shot being played. There is also no analysis of the strategy of the game beyond the next shot. Worse than anything, though, is how they only show the American games, even when there are three others going simultaneously. You hear the crowd erupt after a good shot by the Canadians and all the announcers say is “that must have been a good shot by the Canadians. The fact that the Americans are so heartbreakingly bad makes this even worse. It’s like a network covering a golf tournament and only following one crappy golfer who is not even going to make the cut. Oh, and to add insult to injury, NBC will double up on ads so that they will nearly miss entire ends. Ridiculous. Finally on Monday morning they showed a match between powerhouses Britain and Canada which reminded me why I ever thought this game was cool. It had well-played shots, it had sound strategy, and it had drama. Finally. Without that, I probably would have written curling off altogether.

Russia played the Czech Republic in Hockey Yesterday in a good game, and Alex Ovechkin is getting all kinds of kudos up here in Washington for slamming 67-year-old Jaromir Jagr to the ice at the center line. Yeah, way to go, Alex. Why don’t you go to my dad’s house and throw him down some stairs while you’re at it.

As we all know by now, Canada had never won a home gold medal coming into these Olympics. That I was why I was happy to see that Canuck win in the Men’s Mogul’s on the second day of competition; it made last night even sweeter, knowing that the monkey was already off Canada’s back. I’d feel a little bad if we crushed that dream.

Last night was the best hockey game I have ever seen, and I have seen some barn-burners. I started watching not really believing that we would win, but hoping we could force OT and improve our seeding in tournament play. But the Americans came out firing and swung the momentum in their favor quickly, and controlled the game with timely goals to answer the Canadians. Miller absolutely dominated the entire game from the cage, reminiscent of Michael Craig, and the Americans looked like they just wanted it more. I hadn’t even been looking forward to this game, but damn I was glad I watched it. NBC couldn’t even dork it up, because apparently Canada got to dictate the stoppages, and therefore there were none for ads during play. It was pure, old-time hockey and it was what you would expect of the best in the world. Maybe it was more. Both teams played furiously and passionately. Neither gave an inch and there was never a lull in the action. Canada would pressure the American zone interminably, but Miller would make a couple miraculous saves and the Americans would fly down the ice to challenge the best goalie on earth (who did not have a good game). It was wide open and had all the intensity a struggle between two nations battling for supremacy should have. Wasn’t that the best part? Normally you get these teams made of pro athletes and their unfamiliarity and lack of enthusiasm leads to uninspired efforts, but not in this Olympics. The Canadians, Russians, Americans, and Czechs all look dominant and hungry, and though the Americans are looking at a 1 or a 2 seed going into the tournament, the Gold is still anyone’s to take. In fact, I expect the Canucks to play fierce and determined with their backs against the wall, while the Americans might have a letdown after winning the biggest game in USA hockey history in 30 years. We’ll see.

Seminole Basketball: A Deathgrip on the Middle

Before I begin I have to admit while I live in an ACC television market, coverage of my beloved Seminoles is spotty at best up here in the Metro Area, so my observations are long-distance and in a lot of ways derived from recaps and analysis of our season rather than from my own viewing experience. I have, however, seen three games in the last four weeks and have followed this team as closely as the internets allow, so I'll give you what I got.

When the conference season started Seminole pundits predicted a ludicrous level of parity in the ACC, thanks I guess in large part to UNC's fall from grace and the even start all the teams had out of the gate. 9-7 in the conference was set out as a very achievable goal and one that would allow us easy entry into the big dance come March. Well, though the Heels are reeling and there have been a couple other changes at the top and the bottom, things are shaping up as they always seem to, with a few good teams in front and a few crappy ones in the basement. Quite literally in the center of all this is Florida State, a team that survives on paralyzing defense but doesn't have enough offensive firepower to reach the next level. It's also a somewhat young and immature team that can be thrown out of rhythm by unfavorable calls or the press (Clemson and UMD run the press in the conference; FSU's record against these teams: 0-3). Both of these factors took them completely out of synch when they played Clemson on ESPN2 last week. That game seemed to embody the ceiling that this team has. They can whoop up on the dregs of the ACC and beat the teams that they are supposed to (like BC this weekend, who always seemed to hand us heartbreakers in recent years, so I am very happy to walk all over them now), but they rarely come up with a really big win. Marquette provided us a decent out-of-conference victory, but that is tempered by a loss to NC State at home. We lost to Ohio State and Duke soundly, got swept by Maryland, and only have one win over any team ranked ahead of us in the current standings (VT, at home). The only good news is that we get Wake and another crack at Clemson in the Duck; these will have to serve as our best chances for signature wins down the stretch. Well, there is UNC, but if we win it will be seen only as kicking them when they are down, and if we lose it probably won't even help their tourney chances. If the season ended today we'd probably deserve a slot as the last ACC team in, though who knows how many they will actually take. Still, with only two home games left, and those against our most difficult remaining opponents, the Noles have a hard road ahead and haven't shown the gumption to see it through.

Watching them unravel against Clemson was difficult. I love the defense-first style of Coach Ham, who formed a philosophy around the talent he had to maximize their effectiveness. But that philosophy came apart as the officials micromanaged the pace and intensity of the game and Clemson’s press caused too many sloppy and hurried offensive possessions. It showed me that this team does not have the depth of character to really make a push in March. It's too late in the season to hope for growth and maturation, so I guess I'll settle for the middle, because, to be fair, I never expected to get even that out of this team. I feel we are forgetting something as the groundswell of outrageous expectations that always accompanies the slightest Seminole success takes over. Sure, we are stuck in the pack; sure we only beat the bottom half of the ACC, but we could BE the bottom half of the ACC. After Toney Douglas left with Uche and the rest of our veterans, having dragged us kicking and screaming into March Madness for the first time in 600 years, hope did not exactly spring eternal. We lost crucial scoring and experience when that senior class moved on, and I don’t think anyone had any expectations that we would reach the NCAAs again after just ending the drought, even with our perennially impressive recruiting classes. If football can teach us anything it is that good recruiting classes do not translate to successful seasons. So I for one am proud of our middling basketball team, and am psyched to watch it hover between good and mediocre. Two NCAA tourneys in a row would be a great feat. I just hope they can get there by treading water.

AL Preview: The Beasts of the East

I am scared shitless this year, but it should also be noted that I am not above the reverse jinx by any means. Draw your own conclusions.

New York Yankees:
Acquisitions: Curtis Granderson, Randy Winn, Javier Vazquez
Departures: Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui, Brian Bruney, Chien-Ming Wang, Melky Cabrera, Jose Molina
Well, the rich just get richer, don't they. It's fine with me when it's the Sox, but not the dreaded Yanks, anything but that! But wait, have they, really? Sure, Granderson is an all-star and will take their lineup from the deadliest in baseball to the deadliester in baseball. What else can you say? They are truly bruising at the plate, even after losing Damon and Godzilla. Honestly, as long as they have Nick Swisher, the sky's the limit. Oh, you didn't know that? That’s right, Nick Swisher is the key to this team. He is what changed the culture in that clubhouse and forced them to have fun again. Last year was totally fucked because of the stark role reversal of the two big dogs of the decade. The Sox were a quiet, professional assortment of big names that went out and did their jobs but had no collective character, while the Yanks were all of a sudden a loose, fun-loving bunch of guys who believed in each other and played as a team. The results speak for themselves, and Nick Swisher, that goofball, eccentric, enjoyable, carefree character, is to thank. He's the Tino Martinez of the New Yankees, and I am not sure the Sox have the answer for that right now. Still, they have no fifth starter, and I stand firm on the theory that those long deals for Sabathia and Burnett will bite them in the ass. And Pettitte? How long can the HGH keep him and his huge ass going? They will also be debating the fates of Hughes and Jaba the Hutt endlessly until both of them will end up as neither great starters nor great relievers. Even so, they cut a lot of fat in the offseason, and they are so good right now that things have to break against them for them to do poorly, not the other way around. Here's hopin'. Projected Record: 100-62

Tampa Bay Angel Rays:
Acquisitions: Raphael Soriano
Departures: Gabe Gross, Greg Zaun, Akinori Iwamura
Well they dropped the Devil from their name and the dividends paid immediately, but oh how far away 2008 seems already. The 47 true Rays fans in Florida watched in horror last year as the team struggled with injuries and the free agency market (as well as some pitchers coming back to earth) and land right back in the pack. The band-wagoners deserted in kind. But all is not lost. In fact, far from it. Hell, “the pack” is the second best finish in Rays history, and they are just starting to tap some of their potential. The outfield is solid left to right, with Gabe Kapler the weak link (a roll player on the Sox for many years) but a reliable fielder and great clubhouse guy. Speed out there is unmatched with Crawford and Upton. Eva Longoria's marriage to Tony Parker has not seemed to effect her range at third nor her bat. Moving across the diamond, Bartlett and Zobrist are fiends, just hitting their stride, and Carlos Pena, well, he's still pretty friggin good, as is Navarro. Of course, defense and offense weren’t really their demise last year, it was supposedly pitching. The word on the Rays is that in 2008 outstanding starters concealed weaknesses in the bullpen, but that got exposed but good, starting with the World Series and carrying right over to the next season. I don't see it. This is a young team that played out of their mind in '08 and probably did well to finish over .500 in '09, and they keep getting better. This year the rotation doesn't look a whole lot different, but it need not. Look out for Jeff Niemann. They got a reliable closer off of Atlanta in Rafael Soriano (named after the greatest of the Ninja Turtles, good sign) and there are a lot of old faces in the pen, but some of them actually performed well last year, and with a ninth inning anchor man, they will have a chance to get in a rhythm. I mean, hell, they are in the AL East with the juggernaughts. This team is getting to where they don't need to exceed their potential to win a lot of games. Projected Record: 90-72

Boston Red Sox:
Acquisitions: John Lackey, Marco Scutaro, Mike Cameron, Adrian Beltre, Jeremy Hermida
Departures: Jason Bay, Casey Kotchman, Alex Gonzalez, Rocco Bladelli, Billy Wagner, Nick Green
I wrote this last, because frankly I was dreading it. Boston has been busy this offseason, there is no doubt, but I really don't think they have moved forward, and might be set up for a disappointing campaign in 2010. Their rotation looks even better than it did to start last year, when we made a lot of risky gambles only needing one or two to pan out, and not only did we cash in on none of them, but our sure things like Dice-K crapped out on us as well. But it's a new year, and In Theo We Trust. He addressed our biggest problems from last year in the winter meetings, i.e. starting pitching and defense. John Lackey will join a potent staff that, if it performs up to its potential, can be the best in the majors. But what of the bullpen, which melted down in the latter half of the season like a stick of butter on the sidewalk, starting even before the all-star break? We seem to be hoping that that was just an aberration. Fine (though I am skeptical), but what of the offense? We won two long-awaited championships with the greatest hitting tandem of all time. Ownership ran half of that duo out on a rail and replaced it with Jason Bay, who, admittedly, is a sabermetrics god, with win-shares and runs created coming out of his ass. That was (almost) palatable, but now, in our third season since that second title, we have again traded down to the likes of Mike Cameron. Mike Cameron?!?! WTF, mate? Yeah yeah, Putting Cobi in left will save his body and might allow him to climb another rung up the Greatness Ladder, but seriously, is it gonna be small-ball now for the second highest-paid team in baseball? Youk and Pedey and Victor would say no, but the concerns are legitimate. Off topic a bit, but equally concerning: that clubhouse is way too tight, so Pedroia or someone needs to take on a leadership roll and loosen things up in there or that team is going nowhere. So, look for Theo to deal for a bat before the 31 July deadline, and for some dugout shenanigans to take place, or look for the Sox to sink hard and fast. I'm frankly terrified of the Yankees, and I see the Rays poised for a run, so I am gonna reluctantly place the Red Sox a painful third in the division and out of the dance. Projected Record: 84-78

Baltimore Orioles:
Acquisitions: Kevin Millwood, Miguel Tejada, Garrett Atkins
Departures: Melvin Mora, Danys Baez
With a bullpen that looks more like the cast of a Telemundo soap, I am not holding my breath on the O's turning that elusive corner and becoming a contender. They did take the offseason seriously, though, getting Kevin Millwood off Texas for some guy named Chris and another guy with no name at all. But he can only pitch every five days, and there is a lot of hope that he will somehow spread his wisdom to a shaky rotation. Again, I'm not banking on it. Their outfield can hit a bit and I like that kid Pie, who needs to give up and let us pronounce it like the delicious treat. He has game-changing speed and I think he will develop into an every-day player, giving them some options come trade deadline time if they are contending. They put a guy named Aubrey at first base this year to replace the aging Huff, who they seem to have dealt just in time, and overall are a young team with unknown potential. After all, their elder statesman, the absurdly loyal Brian Roberts, is only 32. Oh yeah, except for Tejada, who is triumphantly (perhaps) returning after a sojourn in the West. They need a few breaks, like all the small markets in the East, but if their proven guys have big years and they get some timely pitching from the homegrown talent they have been banking on forever, then maybe, just maybe, they can take fourth in the division. Projected record: 78-84

Toronto Blue Jays:
Acquisitions: Alex Gonzalez, A bunch of future Players to be Named Later, Kevin Gregg and Brandon Morrow?
Departures: Roy Halladay, Marco Scutaro, Kevin Millar
Well, they finally gave up. The Blue Jays clung to their one blue chip longer than I would have thought they would, but Roy Halladay has finally left Canada for a real chance to win and the Blue Jays have finally contented themselves with the bottom of the AL East. And that is where they will finish. At least before they could go out knowing they had a better-than-average shot of winning one out of five. He was a stopper, he was a starter, he was everything good for that staff and that team, but now he's gone. In his place is something just short of open tryouts in Spring Training for the "ace" position in Toronto's rotation. The Jays are in trouble. Their bullpen was crappy last year and will be again, their starters might be me and Alex at this point... They could hit some last year, and they will bring some of that back. Perennially inconsistent Vernon Wells only hit .260 last year, but he hit .300 the year before that, so who knows. Alex Gonzalez is a wizard at short and may have broken out at the plate with the Sox. Then again, Travis Snider came back to earth last year after a big half-season in 2008 and Encarnacion hit a little better for the Jays in 09 than he did for the Reds, but was still underwhelming by the numbers. Overall they have a few decent run producers, but no really good ones. In this division, with arms races reminiscent of the Cold War, taking as big a step back as losing Halladay without any big step forward to make up for it will land you in the basement faster than you can say Cy Young, and that's where the Jays are headed. Projected Record: 69-93

So At the end of my forseen season, you have a couple good races; one for the West, and one for the Wild Card, in which Seattle is fighting for both. The Angels outlast the Mariners in the division, but in a race that comes down to the very end the Mariners squeak out the Rays and head to the postseason. The first round would see those same Mariners obliterated by the Yankees, while the Angels go down to the White Sox in 4. The Yanks have a hard time with the Other Sox in the ALCS, but knock them off in 7 games to face… well, if it was up to me, I'd say maybe the Phils again, but its just a crime to predict a World Series rematch. We'll see what Alex says. So there ya go. The 2010 American League baseball season, done and done. No need to watch the games now, so we’ll have plenty of time for World Cup and WNBA action.