1. The baseball playoffs aren’t starting off any more interesting than the regular season finished. Three sweeps in the LCS round?!?!?!?! How painfully dull. Baseball has never been in more need of excitement than it is right now. That play-in game was brilliant, but very little since then has been even remotely compelling.
I’m deeply impressed by the Giants. They needed to come through in a big way this weekend to avoid letting the Rockies run away and hide in the wild card race, and they did that in a big way. They were three games back in the wild card race heading into this series, and now thanks to a sweep of Colorado at home they are tied. The Giants showed what kind of grit they have as well – they were down 4-1 to the Rockies on Sunday, but they fought back to win 9-5. There are still 31 games to play so anything could happen, but this race starts from scratch today, and I would certainly bet on the Giants to be the ones to go to the playoffs in the end. The Rockies have been flying higher than they should be lately, so I fully expect them to fall back to earth – they peaked too soon.
Haven’t yet figured out why the Vikings signed Brett Favre? I haven’t really, either, but here’s a big part of it – in the 24 hours following the signing they sold 3,000 season tickets and 10,000 individual game tickets. They have 7,000 season tickets left, and you can only go to the Green Bay game with a season ticket, so they will certainly sell even more. The extra ticket sales and jersey sales alone will pay for the contract, and now the team won’t have to struggle with blackouts like they have in recent years.
I this blog, I consider three guys who are totally committed to their sport and who have set high standards for their sport. Here’s a look at Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, the PGA’s Tiger Woods and NHL center Jeremy Roenick.
Probably the only people not rooting for Tom Watson to win the British Open were Stewart Cink’s wife and immediate family. Then again, you never know. It was tough to root against the 59-year-old Watson. Everybody wanted him to win, including everyone in the press, because it was such a great story!
If you were well above the average age of competitors in your sport then you should probably just have stayed at home on Sunday.
First, Lance Armstrong had to endure what must have been the most frustrating 20 minutes of his career. He and teammate Alberto Contador were virtually tied in Tour de France overall standings, and there was still some public debate about who would be the team’s leader – the one who the rest of the teammates work for to ensure he can win. There is no question about that anymore. Armstrong and Contador, who don’t seem to like each other much, were wheel to wheel for much of the long ride. The final 10 miles or so of the race were pretty much straight up hill. Again, Lance was climbing with Contador and looked very comfortable and relaxed. Suddenly, Contador made a bold move to break away. Armstrong had the legs to at least give chase and try to chase Contador down, but tradition dictates that you don’t try to chase down a teammate if he makes a break. That left Armstrong to sit there and stew as his shot to win the Tour likely went right out the window. This was almost certainly a team-dictated strategy and not one that Contador pursued on his own, but it still had to kill a competitive guy like Lance. He’s used to winning this race, and he is unlikely to have many more chances to do so.
Jason Schmidt hasn’t pitched in the majors for two years, but Dodgers’ manager Joe Torre announced before his game tonight that Schmidt is off the 60 day DL and will rejoin the team on Monday. Given what he has gone through, and because he is 36, I don’t hold out high hopes for him. Still, if he were able to come back and be even moderately useful then it’s a good boost to a rotation that is good but certainly could use some depth going into the stretch charge.
I like old guys in professional sports who can still get the job done. On the other hand, I get peeved with old guys who don’t know when to hang it up. Of course, “old” is a relative term. Late 30s to 40s is old in most sports, whereas in most other aspects of life people in that age group are still considered young. It all has to do with peak physical performance, which for most happens in their late 20s to mid 30s. There have been some old guys in the new lately. Here they are.
Of course I predicted that Miguel Angel Jimenez would be leading Tom Watson by one stroke after one round of the British Open. I mean, who didn’t? It was totally obvious. Bizarre. Only a couple of things made sense about the first round. Steve Stricker continued his hot play and is right in the mix. Camilo Villegas regained his lost form and is right there with Stricker. I’ll be annoyed if Villegas wins this thing – he’s been a choice for me in every major for the last couple of years, but I skipped over him this time because he has been so frustratingly ineffective. I think I’ll be safe, though. Oh, and what is it about Ben Curtis and this tournament? Bizarre.
I can’t wait to see Tim Wakefield pitch in the all-star game. He’s a pleasure to watch, and he deserves to be there for the first time. There isn’t a high profile knuckleballer in the NL right now, so it could be fun to see some of these big guys facing a knuckleballer – perhaps for the first time ever. It’s the little stories like this that have to be relied upon to make the all-star game interesting, because as a whole it’s not a great event in my eyes.
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