A Few Things

Too much goin on in the sports world right now to focus on one topic..

• First of all I want to say I agree with Katzo in that the Red Sox are now the team to beat in the AL East. With that being said, can we relax with all this talk of the Red Sox dynasty and how they are the ideal franchise in baseball. When you boil it down, this team won for three reasons. They have one of the most fearsome 3-4 combinations in the history of baseball, a dominating closer and an all-time great clutch starting pitcher. I know Lowell, Schilling and others contributed, but those are the reasons the Sox were a step ahead of the rest. Beofre we annoint Theo and the Sox front office as geniuses lests remember a couple things...They have tried to trade (or give away) Manny Ramirez each of the past four seasons. They signed Julio Lugo and JD Drew to contracts combined over $110 million. They paid $51.1 million just to talk to a pitcher how has a 4.40 ERA and did close to nothing in the postseason. If Red Sox fans want to think of their organization as the most well run in baseball, then they must agree that the Yankees were the most well run over the past 10 years. The Red Sox have taken the baton as a team that has so many resources, to the point where they can screw up on players time and time, again but still can cover those up by spending more money. It's not a bad thing, but before we annoint them as Gods, lets be honest about how they got here. Lastly, I am not going to go crazy about Lester or Burgholtz because they have not shown me enough yet. As far as position players, they look good, but more on say the Melky Cabrera level. Not that thats bad, but its not cornerstone type guys.
• I think Joe Torre is a great fit in LA. They have a ton of talent, money and chemistry problems. He will win that division next year and will be playing the Mets in the NLCS in what will shape up to be a great thing for baseball (and the media). A lot will depend on the health of their starting pitching, but they have the bullpen and the line-up already has talent from top to bottom.
• I can't assess the Yankee offseason until we know the Pettitte, Posada and Rivera situations. I am not a huge Joe Girardi fan. I know he was covetted all over baseball, but I will be very interested to see how he handles the young pitching of the Yanks and the media. Remmeber all those great young pitchers he had in Florida came back the next year with major arm problems. Just a thought..
• Giants are the one team in the NFC that can beat the Pats. Two reasons...pass rushing and running the football. My big thing to watch the second half of the season will be how Eli performs, especially the next game against Dallas. Last season in the same situation (6-2) the Giants came home to a huge game against Chicago and Eli played horribly. We know how the season went from there.
• Not much space for NBA talk....My sleeper from each conference are the Grizzlies and the Bucks. I got it right with the Raptors last year, so lets see if I can make this a habit. I admit though that it will be tough for the Grizzlies to make the playoffs in that brutal conference. They will be a tough team to play though. They got a ton of length and potantially very exciting point guard play, plus a long range assassin in Mike Miller. The Bucks have a lot of talent up front and a strong starting backcourt. The East is always up for grabs. They will make the playoffs there.
• Lastly, my Knicks. All I will say is this. Two thing you need to win in this league are defense and an unselfish offense. You need to pass the ball and be able to get stops in big spots. I do not see them able to do either of those two things. Add in the fact that the fanbase is ready to explode, the owner is slowly (hopefully) getting more and more embarrassed, plus Eddy Curry and Zack Randolph might not be able to fit on the team bus together and they team will have problems. At least we got some good sound bytes to expect out of Stephon. For me though, if Isiah is gone by the end of the year this season was a success and we can turn the page towards a hopefully birght future.

STKAFI

Changing of the Guard

Some said it would never happen. They were wrong.

1978? Wrong. 1986? Wrong.

Some thought 1999 was the year. They were wrong.

Some believed it would be in the year 2003. Aaron Boone will be the first to tell you, they were wrong.

Some knew it was one minute after midnight on October 21st, 2004. And then again, after it was finally won after 86 years on October 27th, 2004. Contrary to popular belief, they were wrong.

It wasn't until Sunday, October 28th, 2007 at 12:06 EST that the impossible finally occurred. The Boston Red Sox, NOT the New York Yankees became the team to beat, in the AL East, and in all of baseball.

There are a few reasons, the baton has finally been passed at this very moment in time, and not before. For decades upon decades the Yankees were considered the evil empire, they would constantly win, and continually spend more money to be better than everyone else. It worked, it worked well. Eventually, teams like the Red Sox and the Mets starting spending like the Yankees because they could, to make it a more level playing field, but did so unsuccessfully. For obvious reasons, no one, particularly the Red Sox had taken over the Yankees as the team to beat through 2003. No one could really beat them. Sure they lost to the Diamondbacks and the Marlins in 2001, and 2003, respectively, those were two different teams, and the Yankees couldn't win the World Series EVERY year. Plus, the Yankees were still continuously getting there.

In 2004, the Red Sox finally beat the Yankees in the ALCS (in record setting fashion no less, coming back from being behind 3-0 in the series). The Red Sox also won the World Series that year, but still, the Red Sox weren't the team to beat. The Yankees had still won the division that year, as well as 2005 (via tie-breaker) and 2006 (where the Red Sox didn't even make the playoffs).

But what makes this time around different is the fact that the Red Sox won the World Series in convincing fashion, starting the season as potential favorites to win it all, and ending the season hoisting the trophy. What makes this year different then any other year, and particularly 2004, is that the Red Sox have most if not all of there pieces coming back, and are only going to be better, whereas, the Yankees finally seem be in a little too much turmoil even with all that money to dig them out.

Let's analyze both teams heading into the offseason. The Red Sox have two key free agents to sign, World Series MVP third basemen Mike Lowell, and Curt Schilling. They need to sign Lowell, no doubt about it. A gold glover and RBI machine protecting Manny and Papi, they wouldn't have made it as far without him. I'm posting this under the assumption they will sign Lowell, if they don't, this whole rant might be considered irrelevant. Schilling is a different story. The Red Sox have always been good about letting their stars go when they feel like they are over the hill, even the beloved ones, i.e. Nomar, Pedro, Damon. They will offer Schilling a decent 1 or 2 year deal, and he will probably turn it down, move on, and accept more money somewhere else. But this leads me to the most important reason for why the teams are finally trading places in baseball, the Red Sox don't need Curt Schilling. Not only will they have almost every single key veteran back from this season, their rookies and younger players will all have another year under their belt and will only be getting better. I anticipate Theo Epstein to shop Coco Crisp for a power arm in the bullpen, and have Ellsbury start as the everyday center fielder next year. They bring back Pedroia, Ellsbury, Youkoulis, Papi (after recovering from whatever knee problems he's been having this year), Manny, Lowell, Drew, Varitek, and Lugo, everyone. In addition, they keep Beckett, Dice-K, and get back healthy Lester, and a MLB ready Bucholz, and of course Papelbon and Okajima whatever changes or not made to the bullpen in the offseason and you have your 2008 World Series favorites.

On the other side of the coin you have the Yankees. After any other season, I would not be so fast as to say the Red Sox had taken over, but when you look at what has happened so far this offseason with the Yanks, its hard to say they will be as competitive the next year and the years to come. First comes the bogus offer to Joe Torre and running him out of town. Then Arod opts out of his contract (that's a whole other post in itself) but I don't care what sort of discomfort he brought to the clubhouse, it will be impossible to replace his defense at third, not to mention the 54 home runs and 156 RBI. And finally the hiring of Joe Girardi and Donny Baseball bouncing (I actually think Girardi is the best man for the job in the short-term, but again, another post, another time). In addition, the looming negotiations with Rivera, Posada, Mientkiewicz, and Vizcaino all of which are not guaranteed to stay, and you have a totally different ball club from last year. Again, normally this wouldn't be such a bad thing, especially with the likes of Robbie Cano, Melky Cabrera, Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy and of course Joba beginning to come into their own, but for at least the next 2 or 3 years, and can confidently say, the Yankees are no longer at the crest of the baseball world.

Yep...I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit...

• The Braves traded Edgar Renteria to the Tigers yesterday for young prospects, Jair Jurrjens, a 21-year old hard throwing right hander, and Gorkys Hernandez, a 19-year old speedy center fielder, with a terrific name. Good deal for both sides.
• Oh, and in case you've been living under a rock, the Huskies of UConn are now ranked #13 in the latest BCS poll, as well as receiving their first ranking in the AP and USA Today Coaches poll in their history just 5 years and 10 weeks after becoming a D-1A (or Bowl Subdivision as they are now calling it) football program, the second fastest program to do so behind Marshall. They play host to the Rutgers Scarlet Knights this Saturday, primetime at 7:15pm. Red Sky NYC (the UConn Huskies bar) is the recommended establishment to enjoy the game this weekend.

QB Generation

Random Topic. I was listening to Mike and Mike this morning and the mentioned the topic below. The pretty much piss poor level of quarterbacking in the NFL today. Think about this...


1992: Dan Marino, John Elway, Steve Young, Jim Kelly, Troy Aikman, Brett Favre (first good year), Joe Montana (second to last year)

2007: Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Brett Favre (near the end)

That is a pretty considerable difference. In 1992 we had five hall of fame quarterbacks at or near the top of their game who each would play in a Super Bowl before their career was over, plus a rising star and a legend at the end. Now we have only two, with one legend and no clear rising star (sorry Carson Palmer, but you have not looked good this year). Going into this season we thought Drew Brees and/or Carson Palmer could be at that level but they both have disappointed greatly. Why is this? I really don't know, but here are a few aspects of the argument.

• Maybe 1992 was just a golden age for quarterbacks in a way. We were spoiled.


• Nowadays offenses are throwing the ball more than ever. The West Coast offense was popularized in the 1980's by the 49ers, but now every team incorporates some aspects of that offense. There are more screen passes (WR and RB), more three step drops, etc. One would think QBs would be better as a result of offenses being geared more around them.


• Possibly the QBs have become so accustomed to the short passes/quick release that many struggle with the aspect of sitting in the pocket longer and waiting for plays to develop or finding secondary receivers if the primary route is covered. Who knows?


• One thing is for sure and that is the feeling of 1999-2002 that you can win a Super Bowl with an average QB is pretty much a thing of the past. When Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson were winning Super Bowls a lot of GMs felt that there was no need to waste high draft picks/big money on QBs. Well in recent years you have Phil Rivers, Ben Rothleisburger, Eli Manning, Kyle Boller, David Carr, Carson Palmer, Alex Smith, Brady Quinn, Jamarcus Russell, etc. There are more QBs being taken high in the draft than ever, but there are also more QB busts than ever.
• Some may say the QBs are being thrown into the fire too soon. The playbooks are so complex, and the QBs don't have enough time to learn them. As a result they play poorly, their confidence drops, and so on.
• These are all just random thoughts on why this could be the case. Like I said, maybe it is just random. Maybe I will look back in 15 years and see that Carson Palmer went on to win two Super Bowls, as well as Eli and Roethlisburger and this will be looked at as incorrect. One thing is true though and that is in 1992 you knew you had a solid group of very good QBs. Now, not so much. Just think about fantasy football. You could have gotten the same production from drafting Romo or Eli in the 6th round as people have gotten from brees and Palmer by drafting them in the 2nd round. All four have had turnover problems. Meanwhile, you have other QBs like Garcia and Garrard who aren't turning the ball over, but can not carry a team like a Romo or a Brees can.
• The QB pool in October of 2007 does not look deep. A lot depends on winning, so we shall see how these other QBs develop over the next six to 18 months. Right now though it is Brady/Manning and then a bunch of above average QBs. Which one will make the leap to join them the way Young, Aikman and Favre joined Elway, Marino and Kelly?

I am rooting for and feel that the Rockies will win. I am a National League guy and unless an arch enemy was in the series I would have to root for the NL. The Rockies line-up is deeper than the Indians and their defense is tighter. Their pitching does not look as good on paper, but when you consider how poorly Sabathia and Carmona pitched against Boston they look pretty similar. I think Boston wins game one and then losses four in a row.

That Boston line-up looks much worse without Papi or Lowell or Youk in that NL park. Plus if you have watched the postseason, the numbers could be deceiving. Beckett has been unreal, but Schilling has looked very hittable. We all know how shaky Dice-K has looked as well. I see a lot of hitting in this series, with the Rockies doing more of it. They are a confident team who thinks they have a higher power on their side (cooocooo, but true).

STKAFI

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!

On to the Series

Last night the Red Sox clinched the American league pennant for the 2 time in 4 or so years. I was in attendance at one of the most electric sporting events in my life. The atmosphere was amazing, the entire crowd stood and screamed at an average of 5 times an inning. When at the plate, any 3-0. 3-1. 3-2 count got us up and if there was a guy in scoring position, forget about it. With Dice-K on the mound, every 0-2 pitch, despite logic that said he would waste a pitch, everyone was on there feet. It got to the point very early when the elderly people in the area were complaining because they simply could not manage the ridiculous amount of sitting and standing. Fenway was overly loud. The feelings and thoughts of the crowd could be felt en masse when Lugo dropped that ball, it took something out of the Red Sox faithful. When Indians 3rd base coach, Joel Skinner, inexplicably held Lofton, preventing the tying run from occuring; I still felt a little uneasy, the Red Sox still needed a break. We all know the rest. Double Play to Mike "Gold Glove" Lowell and the Pedro-ia and Papelbon shut the door. The emotions were up and down last night but incredible 8th that shut the door was probably the most celebratory inning of any game that I have ever attended.

My first game seven, my first Red Sox clinching game. Needless to say, well worth the price of admission.

Quick Thoughts:

1. Jonathan Papelbon comes out of the bullpen to Wild Thing, this we know. What I didn't realize is that every time once he reaches the mound and the announcer says "Jonathan Papelbon", without missing a beat, Fenway chimes in with the song from the Departed (which has somehow been claimed as the theme of Red Sox nation this playoff run, i think i heard it ten times last night) Needless to say, it is ridiculously bad ass and it gets the crowd going over the top crazy. It is almost unfair how much that song gets you pumped up.

2. Sadly Da Bocker has retired from the Blog. Apparently for the large mass of people (the Da Bocker following) that miss the ever valuable red dot picks; he does have an email chain going around that you can request an invite to. It is called the jordan/sonny nfl pick love fest email chain and if you want to make sure that you are banned from it forever, we can arrange that too.

3. I think the fact that Beckett went back to the bullpen intimidated the Indians into not hitting well early. This way, they made sure they would not have to face him.

4. Very interesting decision to bring Okijima out there for a potential 3rd inning. Paging Eric Gagne, you are terrible, Eric Gagne . . . terrible

5. Close call win for the Saints. 2-4, someone is stirring in a stagnant / ridiculously horrible division.

6. Anyone else laugh hysterically everytime Brady airs it out to Moss? If you had been listening closely you could almost here KatzoRelaxo's spirit breaking. At least Ronnie Brown has been a bright spot (ooooo, was that too soon? my bad)

7. I do believe the Red Sox will beat the Rockies but its going to be tough to deal with the fact that they forgot how to spell the word "lose".

8. Why was Betancourt left out there for so long. Sure, he had been their best reliever but wasn't it clear early that he did not have it last night. And why not at least try Borowski? Is there no faith in him? Obviously not, I would have none in him. But isn't the point to have your best reliever close for you? If you are going to designate him "closer" then how are you not going to bring him in for the 8th before Rafael broke down?

9. Beckett deserved the MVP and I hope he takes home the CY

10. Why are some Red Sox fans chanting MVP every time Mike Lowell comes up? He is good, I get that but its' been going on for the entire postseason and I need an explanation. MVP of the team? of the defense? of hispanic players at 3rd base? goatees of america? of 5 hole hitters? It is confusing. Red Sox nation . . . quit it. Otherwise my MVP for JDD chants just don't hold water.

11. Another Pet peeve of mine, the "Yankees Suck" chants are old. Quit that too. Stick to the Hey Hey Hey Goodbye chant, Cleveland Sucks, and Warm up the Bus, ok? is that to much to ask. We aren't playing the Yanks, we didn't beat the yanks so give it a rest.

12. Red Sox in 6 against the Rockies.

go saints. go sox. go c's

Parity. Is it for College Football?

1. Ohio State (7-0)
2. South Florida (6-0)
3. Boston College (7-0)
4. LSU (6-1)
5. Oklahoma (6-1)
6. South Carolina (6-1)
7. Kentucky (6-1)
8. Arizona State (7-0)
9. West Virginia (5-1)
10 Oregon (5-1)

The above list of top 10 teams, is the first release of the 2007 BCS Standings in college football. Yes, that list. The same list which features the likes of South Florida at #2, Boston College at #3, and South Carolina, Kentucky, and Arizona State at #6-8, respectively. No USC, no Florida, no Virginia Tech, no Michigan, no Texas. Besides Ohio State, LSU, and Oklahoma there are no true college football powerhouses in the top 10 this year...so far.

But the question remains, is parity (at least THIS much parity) good for college football? At first glance, parody is almost always good for sports. However, in this case, with so many of the "better" college football programs losing, and some of the rising programs continuing to go undefeated and even upseting some of the more well known teams, with an arguably softer schedule, the end result might, just might not be for the best.

Let's take a very, very hypothetical approach here and say Ohio State loses somewhere along the line, USF and BC win out, and the computers don't think there is a one-loss team that deserves to jump ahead of either one. Does the general public really want to see a USF/BC national championship game? I don't know. Do people, and college football experts really believe that BC could beat LSU on a neutral field, or that USF would beat Oklahoma, or USC, or Florida? Maybe.

The bottom line is all of this is looking very far into the future of a long college football season. No one knows exactly how it will work out, and there is always second guessing when it comes to the BCS system, but as I see it now, this is the most wacky and unusual college football season to date.

Oh it is most definitely a VAN DAMME FRIDAY!

http://www.planetdan.net/pics/misc/dammedance.gif



OH YEAH!