Letters to the Editor
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No, it's basic baseball skills
But King? What's happened to the D'backs you picked for the world champions?
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From Peter King
Quote of the Week II
"Tom Brady is unflappable. Tony Romo can be flapped.''
-- King Kaufman, of Salon.com, on picking the Patriots to beat the Cowboys before Sunday's match of unbeatens.
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Take Your Pick
Saturday Or Sunday, you can see lunatics posing as coaches.
First Cal. They incredibly worked their way into easy field goal position to tie it with the backup QB. You cannot let him run a play with 14 seconds left and no timeouts. You tie it, consider yourself lucky, and see what happens in overtime.
As far as the Cowboys 22 yard field goal to make it 38-27 Pats with 10 minutes left, that was so obviously ridiculous it's not worth the time and effort to say why. Suffice to say that it's some kind of "we have to get points on the drive" mentality that is indefensible.
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The Rox better remember something about the old West
A dying rattler can still reach up and bite you.
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Luck?
The odds of 4 or more out of 6 three-game series resulting in one team winning all 3 games (assuming each game is a 50-50 proposition) is 265/4096 or about 6.5%.
That means that what we've seen this year so far, on average, would occur about once every 15 years (if it were pure luck). Not a likely occurrence--true--but not astronomical either.
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The Rockies are getting short changed
Imagine if it was the Yankees or the Red Sox who had won 20 of their last 21? The media would be in mass hysterics - production trucks would be parked outside the stadium en masse - live reports, every hour on the hour, would be taking place from A-Rod's second grade teacher's house, Joe Torre's car dealer, and someone who once sold Big Papi a churro on the boardwalk at Disney World.
But because it's the Colorado Rockies who have accomplished this magnificent feat - magnificent because the games have all come at crunch time, when they absolutely had to win - and not just as part of some paranormal mid-season hot streak, they are reduced to columns like this, which defend them from criticism that it's all just luck.
THEY HAVE WON 20 OF THEIR LAST 21 F&%^ING GAMES!!!!!
That should be the headline sweeping the nation, not that the Rockies are lucky and oh, woe-is-us for this lackluster playoff season thus far. The Colorado Rockies are putting together a display for the ages, and most people are treating it like a cute little sideshow. What a shame.
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Gwynn
Of course, Tony Gwynn, adding that great expertise, said, "Well, the Rockies might not be outlaying the D-backs, but they are out-executing them." Playing, executing ... obviously different. Doesn't ANY producer somewhere have the juice to tell these ex-players they have to make sense?
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Gwynn
I meant outPLAYing.
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Rockies treatment by the media is unjust but...
Sports fandom is a lot about history especially in baseball. The Red Sox and Yankees are hundred year old teams. Most of their fans have been rooting for them since the crib. Both teams have played a lot of baseball on a national stage. The same can't be said of the Rockies. The truth is that no one outside of Colorado has had a reason to give much thought to the Rockies before now.
The Rockies are doing everything they can and they're currently carving out their first significant piece of baseball history. Next time they make the playoffs, people will have a little bit more to say.
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20 for 21?
To me, that's hotter than the Tigers of '84 when they went 35-5 to start the year. That's because these Rockies have gone 6-0 in the playoffs to boot. And to think they almost didn't make the playoffs. I'm a D-Backs fan, and all of us should content ourselves with an otherwise terrific year. Not that many expected this team to go this far, and when you have young talent like Chris Young and Justin Upton, well, the future looks bright.
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Fool me twice...
This is the second time in a week I want my page-click back. But this time, you even put that tantalizing quote about football at the tail-end of your email teaser. I was positive you were finally going to talk about college football and give us your unique perspective.
Somehow I have the feeling that if not for Beavers Gone Wild Saturday, you'd have an article today on how the season is so bizarre, your alma mater made it to Number One.
Matt in Portland
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Insane
I've been watching the various TV media punditry as the scores rolled in the last couple weeks from NCAA football. One twit said "insane". Another "unbelievable". There was a "beyond comprehension". And even a "just plain stupid".
I'll cast my line and bobber out and try to fish up something from the psychological stew.
Just a few weeks ago the expert studio panelists almost universally informed us that it's USC and LSU head and shoulders above everyone else, with Oklahoma maybe causing BCS trouble if they go undefeated too. Now the last 9 games for those 3 teams, the last 3 for each, is a combined 265-213 or 29-24 per game. Each has lost one and almost lost another or all 3. With several unranked opponents among the 9.
The only thing I can figure is the media looks at who closed out last year on a roll, which of those teams has the most coming back, and maybe quickly take a gander at the recruiting rankings. Then they select the monster teams that are way better than everyone else and sing their praises right from the get-go, praying for and trying to set up a "game for the ages" at bowl time right from the get-go.
Then when parity raises it's ugly head, as it has been doing more frequently with each passing year (which the media seems to be completely oblivious of), they declare it to be "insane", "unbelievable", "beyond comprehension" or "just plain stupid."
There's not that much difference between a whole lot of these teams. Many more than can be squeezed in to a top-25, which seems to be the criteria used to determine if a team is somebody or not. And no matter who you are, you better eat an extra bowl of Wheaties before any road game.
It's not insane or unbelievable. What is beyond comprehension and just plain stupid is the media still pretending that it's 1975.