Dire Calamity

Normally, this would be the perfect spot for a World Series preview, today being the day before game one and all, but I decided to go a different direction this week (although I will have my WS prediction at the end of the post).

I wanted to share with everyone why it sucks to be me as a sports fan right now.

The obvious example right off the bat is being a Dolphins fan. What has happen to this storied franchise? It's like the football gods are pouring it all on at once. It all started with the hiring of Nick Saban (who, at the time, even I thought was a great hire). Then came the choice of Daunte Culpepper over Drew Brees. The disastrous season last season, the Saban bail, the hiring of Cam Cameron, the passing of Brady Quinn, and so on and so forth. Coming into this season I had 0 expectations. Zero! But I couldn't even see this coming. Trent Green out of the year, Chris Chambers traded, Ronnie Brown out for the year, most of the secondary out for the year. And now, here they are, standing at 0-7 and no game in the near future looking all that winnable. The Dolphins do play the Jets and the Bills one more time, and those two games are the only games I would think they could possibly have a chance to win. But with names at the skill positions like Cleo Lemon, Jesse Chatman, and Marty Booker, things are the bleakest they have been in the history of the Miami Dolphins. There is a chance for them to be the first team in history to go 0-16, and what makes it even worse is that one of their long time rivals, the Patriots, look unstoppable and could go 16-0. 0-16 and 16-0 in the same season, and the Dolphins being the team to go 0-16, you can't make this stuff up. They do have some intriguing young players, but I don't even want to get into that, I just want the season to be over and head to the draft with the top 1 or 2 pick, or do I? In an amazing stat pointed out by Peter King yesterday, in the six drafts between 1998 and 2003, the Dolphins had a total of 59 picks, 46 were drafter, and the other 13 were used to trade for 10 other players. Of those 59 picks from 1998-2003, how many players are on the active 53-man roster today? ZERO! That is insane, I almost pooped my pants when I saw that. Maybe someday they will be competitive again, but that day will probably around the time my kids have kids. Pathetic.

Let's move on to some still sad, but not quite as dismal teams. The Atlanta Braves GM John Schuerholz stepped down earlier this month. When I first heard this I thought it was much worse then what actually transpired. Schuerholz is staying on the payroll as President and will be across the hall from his protege Frank Wren. I have the sense any major decisions will be run by, if not decided by Schuerholz himself. That being said, the Braves need to win, and they need to win now. Andruw Jones is gone. Chipper and Smoltz getting old. Teixeira could only be there for another year. If they don't win next year, they Braves will be in the same mode as the Dolphins. Starting over. Granted the Braves organization is 1,000,000,000 times better than the Dolphins, but at the same time, they will be reloading with no real legitimate shot at a championship for a few years.

I do not have a NBA team because the NBA sucks. But the Celtics and Suns could be fun to watch this year.

I used to be a much bigger hockey fan, but the strike put a little bit of a damper on that. The New York team I do heavily root for and have since I was little are the Rangers. I love their fan base and love the MSG atmosphere during a Rangers game. I also used to root for the Colorado Avalanche when they had Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg, Chris Drury, and Patrick Roy because they were fun to watch, and I hated the Red Wings. But back to the main point of this post. Even the Rangers, one of the favorites to win the Stanley Cup this year have been a disappointment so far. It is still early in the year, and they have one of the best teams on paper. But seeing them play the Islanders in the preseason, flying all over the ice and scoring in many different ways, I have not seen that at all this year. They need to stop playing tight and open things up. This can be a very dangerous squad, but again, because I root for them, have been nothing but a disappointment and are currenlty in last place in the Atlantic Division.

This brings us to the college game. UConn, a traditional basketball powerhouse, did not even make the NIT last year? Are you serious? Embarrassing. This year, every player has had a year under their belt and they should compete, but they used all their scholarships on their players last year and had none to use this year so have no decent recruits. The could be very competitive in a year or two, but in all honesty, the players they have right now, do not look like championship material.

The one bright spot in my sports life lately has been the Huskies football team. They have had a surprisingly nice beginning of their season. New QB Tyler Lorenzen, and the RB tandem of Donald Brown and Andre Dixon have carried them to a 6-1 start, a win at home over Louisville last week and a #23 ranking in the BCS for the first time in history, (they have only been a D-I A team since 2003). Fairly impressive. However, they easily could have been 7-0 losing in Virginia in a sloppy game that they should have won, and their win against Louisville could have gone the other way (the infamous fair-catch signal). On top of that, this team has no shot of playing for a BCS championship (maybe a BCS bowl), but play host to USF and Rutgers in back to back weeks, and I actually expect them to lose both games fairly handily.

All in all, I have very little to root for in sports in the upcoming years. And it sucks.

This brings us to the World Series pick. Everything in my gut, and everything I had said before points to the Red Sox in 4, 5, or 6 games. Since I have made my predictions all year and from the beginning of the playoffs, I have said the Red Sox will win it all. That being said...

There's only one Rocktober!

Rockies in 7!