Letters to the Editor
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Go Cleveland... it's your birthday!
I listened to the game last night and couldn't stop howling "whooooo!" I am thrilled! There is usually this cloud of concentrated bravado with the Yankees that makes me feel nauseas, especially when (in the past) I see Jeter trot off the field with this smug little smile... I don't like that. And if they don't win against Beckett again, they are GONE. That's wonderful. I mean, 12-3, Cleveland? That was just pathetic. It looks like the Yankees are no longer the golden boys of baseball. And Joe Torre is furious. *smile*
It's going to be Cleveland and the Red Sox, is my prediction. I think that Cleveland is going to do very well in the series, but the Red Sox are going to be even better, since they have those good fundamentals that make them a winning team. It's going to be close, but it's a victory for Boston.
You heard it here first.
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Weak Division?
the possibility that the Cubs really are representative of their weak division.
(cueing up Sarcasm) Aw, c'mon, Mr. Kaufman! We've got the Astros and the Cards in our division -- lord knows those perennial losers never go anywhere, season after season.
The NLC is a meatgrinder more often than not.
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Over The Last 6 Years Going On 7
Steinbrenner is Bush and the Yankees are starting to resemble America in Iraq and the other teams are the insurgents..........If we just keep spending and fighting we will win.
20 columns of NFL picks? This is where readers need a delete icon.
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New England over Cleveland 7-0
New England will win the coin toss; score on several brilliant plays.
Cleveland will receive and be manhandled by New England's defense. However the Browns will progress down the field due to "roughing the passer" penalties that will result in an infinitely decreasing geometric progression which leaves the football on the 1 millimicrometer line at the end of the game.
You can take it to the bank.
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The Houston
game was Harrington's second good game in a row so that rare occurrence already happened. That said I don't think he'll enjoy playing against a very underrated Titans defense.
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Patriots schedule
The Pats have the easiest schedule over the first half of the season of any team. I think much ado is being made of almost-nothing for these guys. Are they a great team? No doubt. But their points for/points against ratio isn't representative.
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Pats Schedule
The San Diegos? The Bengals? They were not supposed to be slouches. In fact either team on paper could have easily won. Plus two usually tough division opponents in the Bills and Jets? Nothing easy about that. You can't call schedule toughness based on how it ended up working out.
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Don't bury the Yankees yet
It's worth noting that the winner of the last few postseason series the Yankees have played has lost the first game. And a blowout Game 1 win often has meant little (See White Sox, 1959 version).
It would be nice to not experience another Yanks-Red Sox ALCS, though, wouldn't it?
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Baseball in the Temples of Pain
Thursday's game at Citizens Bank Park may have ended up 10-5, but no lead was safe in that place. Did you get the feeling that the Apollo astronauts (Phillies) could have launched some more moonshots at any time?
My blood runs purple and black, but I've got to tell you that that Phillie lineup is one scary assemblage.
Both teams' fans knew this series would come down to pitching, and the Rockies staff has been just good enough. Colorado's bullpen has been especially tough since the All Star break. The baseball world doesn't know that the Rox ERA since then is the best in the NL. You can look it up.
Saturday night's action moves to Coors Field. The balls don't fly out of there anymore since the acquisition of The Humidor, but they do drop in for hits in the gigantic outfield. Rookie Ubaldo Jimenez vs 44 year-old Jamie Moyer and two very potent offenses. If Jimenez can overcome the adrenaline rush, the Rox will win in 3. In which case, here's a tip of the cap to Philly. They're a fine team. Come back next year with an arm or two and you can win big.
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I Propose
Doing away with the bogus trade and call-up rules. Why not have cuts, waives, call-up replacements from the minors, and trades during the playoffs?
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Re: Meat grinder
Slackie Onassis (cueing up Sarcasm) Aw, c'mon, Mr. Kaufman! We've got the Astros and the Cards in our division -- lord knows those perennial losers never go anywhere, season after season.
The NLC is a meatgrinder more often than not.
That's nice. This year (the year we're talking about) happens to be one of those "not" ones.
Great name.
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So much for "character" and "momentum"
I thought the Phils won their division because they had so much more "character" than the Mets. So what happened? Do two teams of immense "character" colliding means that one team's "character" causes the other to implode into some "character" black hole? Does the "momentum" of 14 out of 15 wins obliterate the "momentum" of 13 out of 17?
Or could it be that "character" and "momentum" are two sportscaster cliches used to fill up pre-game and talk radio time? Could it just be that the team with the better pitcher that day wins?
Nah, couldn't be...
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Jeter's Defense
Is Jeter really as slow afield as it appeared last night? Peralta leading off second, Jeter playing behind him, and Lofton *still* hits the ball between Jeter and second base. I briefly entertained the possibility that Jeter allowed Peralta to block his view of the plate, but surely Jeter knows better than that. And I know Jeter has a reputation for not being good to his left, but this was unexcusable.
So Jeter's poor range combined with Damon's rag-arm in left, Abreu's peripatetics in right, and the Yankee staff's low number of strikeouts (12th in the AL), we might be seeing a lot more running around out there in the outfield. (If you have access to it, I'd be interested in the Yankee staff's batting average on balls in play--how well the defense as a whole gets people out).
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MarkL
Even better than the endless cliches by the sports media without which there would be close to total silence, is the fans----when their favorite team wins they think that they have personally accomplished something. They personally defeated the fans of the other teams. And they brag.