Tiger is back. I was very curious to watch him play today. The public is obviously going to be heavily betting on him in his return in the Match Play, so I wanted to get a first hand sense of whether there would be any value in betting against him. In a word – no. It seems ridiculous to think that a guy could take eight months off, have major surgery on a pretty important golf joint, and have a new son a couple of weeks ago, and still be ready to perform at a high level. But then it seems even more ridiculous to think that a guy can be as Continue reading “The King Returns”
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So much for my theory that Matt Kenseth’s Daytona 500 win was a fluke. After not winning a race all of last year, and mostly looking pretty useless, Kenseth has two wins in two races this year. Last week he won thanks to some bizarre circumstances, but this week he was just plain faster than anyone else. He’s driving with a new aggressiveness, and is benefiting significantly from a new crew that brings a much more positive attitude to his operation. Kenseth was particularly strong in the pits. It will be very interesting to watch how long he can maintain this momentum. Kyle Busch also had a very good weekend. A historic one, in fact. On Saturday he became the first driver ever to win two NASCAR events on the same day when he won both the truck and the Nationwide event on the same day.
College basketball is brilliant, and it gets better and better every week as the season progresses. This is shaping up to be a great weekend. Here’s a look at five games I will be paying particular attention to:
Well, it took precisely one day for all the questions I asked about the Suns yesterday to be answered. Amare Stoudemire is out for eight weeks with eye surgery after suffering a detached retina on Wednesday against the Clippers. That essentially eliminate any chance they had of being relevant down the stretch. It seems like Steve Kerr is cursed. He certainly can’t catch a break as GM. I know a lot of people are really down on Kerr, but I’m not one of them. He has certainly struggled to get this team going this year, but I put a lot more of that on Terry Porter than Kerr. Sure, Kerr made the decision to bring Porter in, but that decision turned out to be much worse than it looked at the time. Mike D’Antoni had to go, the team couldn’t lay much defense, and Porter was respected, so it made some sense. I also think that not trading Stoudemire was the right move, even if it really doesn’t look like it right now. Picking up Jason Richardson was also a good move, and Shaq was a solid gamble.
The trade deadline hasn’t passed in the NBA as I write this, so I don’t know for sure that Phoenix has stayed pat with what they have. I believe that they will, though, so I’ll assume that they did. Whether they do or not, they have played two of the most interesting results I have seen in a while since the all-star game. They’ve made it very clear that they are happy to see Terry Porter in the rear view mirror. In the first two games of the Alvin Gentry era they have averaged 141 points per game – 140 in the first game, and two better the second time. Those are their two highest totals of the season. Now, some of the credit for this sudden success has to due with the fact that both games were against the incredibly pitiful Clippers. That’s only part of the explanation, though – they averaged 107.5 points per game in the first two against the Lakers’ runt sibling.
Continue reading “The Suns – Turning Heads and Raising Questions”
There is an impressive amount of interesting news out there today. Let’s get to it:
It’s official – Ken Griffey Jr. is a Mariner again. I thought for sure he was going to Atlanta, but it turns out he fooled everyone. The move makes sense for many reasons. First, he’ll finish his career out as a returning hero. He’ll also be on a team that won’t have a lot of pressure for him because expectations won’t be huge. Most significantly, the AL has the DH. That makes so much more sense than Atlanta. It will be fun to watch.
So, I’ve been thinking with all of the garbage you hear about guys in professional sports who are baby-cries, idiots and cheaters, there definitely are some players that you can’t help but root for. No, I am not nominating these guys for sainthood, but I am saying that they have character, a strong work ethic and come to play everyday.
There are few things I take more pleasure in than watching Notre Dame fail. As a Michigan fan I don’t particularly have any love for the Irish to begin with. The general hatred has elevated to a whole new level in the Charlie Weis regime, though. I think it was a bad joke that they got rid of Ty Willingham when and how they did, a bad joke that when they gave Weis, a guy with no head coaching experience, the reins, a really bad joke when they gave him a massive extension before he did anything to earn it, and a really, really bad joke when they kept him around for another year. With a nod to Marvin Lewis, Weis is the worst head coach in football. That makes the latest news from South Bend particularly ridiculous.
Continue reading “From The Ridiculous To The Really Ridiculous”
This Amare Stoudemire situation is very interesting. I was convinced that Miami was going to be his new home. I didn’t think that the Suns would be thrilled with getting Shawn Marion back, but they have no hope this season anyway, and his contract will be helpful in the massive rebuilding they are suddenly faced with. That all blew up, of course, when Marion oddly ended up in Toronto in exchange for Jermaine O’Neal. I don’t think that O’Neal will particularly help the Heat – he certainly hasn’t shown much health or interest in Toronto, and that was after saying how excited he was to join Chris Bosh. It’s a great deal for Toronto. They get the room to figure out what to do next to turn this into a contender. Their current path sure isn’t working. As for Amare, now I need to find a new home for him. I still think the best home is Phoenix, and I hope he stays there. If he goes anywhere, though, then I think it will be the Cavs . The Bulls have more to give up and might make more sense for Phoenix,but I still can’t figure out why they would make the deal for him now. The Cavs could certainly use him, Danny Ferry and Steve Kerr are buddies, and Amare would probably be happy because he’d have a very good shot at a title. The rest of the teams mentioned just don’t make sense to me. I don’t see why they would trade him to Portland to make a team in their own conference that much stronger, and I think that the rumors of the Lakers deal are stupid. The Suns would never help the Lakers, and Amare does not seem like a good fit for the triangle – especially with Andrew Bynum in town.
I obviously won’t believe it until the season starts next year, but the news of Brett Favre’s retirement has me positively giddy today. I’m excited for several reasons:
1. I don’t need to see a guy erode his legacy in front of our eyes when it is in his control to not do so. There is enough legacy-eroding going on in baseball these days that Favre doesn’t need to do his part any more.
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