Throwing Out More Thoughts on Sports, Life, and Whatnot
It’s been a while since I cleaned out the fridge, so let’s get right to it…
With all of the potentially intriguing World Series match-ups out there—Cubs-White Sox, Dodgers-Angels, Red Sox-Mets, Red Sox-Cubs, Angels-Mets, Red Sox-Dodgers—we’d all better prepare ourselves for the inevitable Tampa Bay-Milwaukee tilt.
Speaking of the Brewers—I cannot believe they fired manager Ned Yost last week. Yost has managed the Brewers for six years, turning a 68-win team in 2003 into a playoff contender. He’s the first manager to lead the Brewers to back-to-back winning seasons since Tom Trebelhorn in 1988. And yet he got fired with two weeks to go in a season in which his team has a chance to make the playoffs. I had no idea that George Steinbrenner had taken over the Brewers.
I loved watching the Olympics this year. Can we have the Olympics every summer? Would that be possible? Who can I talk to about this?
Great move by the NFL postponing the Ravens-Texans game (due to Hurricane Ike) and moving teams’ byes around to make it happen. But when the formal plan to move to an 18-game regular season schedule is finally announced, don’t be surprised if the league decides that every team will have two by weeks per season instead of one. The official reason will be to ensure that there’s an opportunity to reschedule games if need be, but the real reason (as always) will be money. The only good thing that will come of it (other than an extra week of football) is that the Super Bowl would then be played Presidents’ Day weekend, giving all Americans a needed day off after the big game.
In other rescheduling news, it was great that Milwaukee’s Miller Park was available for the Astros-Cubs game on Sunday, but does Bud Selig just sit around waiting for an opportunity to use his team’s place or what? This was not the first time a set of non-Brewer teams played there—last April, an Angels-Indians series was shifted to Milwaukee thanks to snowstorms in Cleveland. I’ve brought it up before, but Selig should really think about scheduling off days in the last few weeks for any potential make-up games that need to be played. Then the Houston Astros might not need to have a home game in Milwaukee against a team that lives 90 miles away.
I’d like to thank the TV executives for cramming most of the Sports in a Can-approved TV shows on Monday and Tuesday this year. The Missus and I have 11½ hours of shows to TiVo over the course of those two nights, but only 4 hours on the other nights. And yes, that includes Prison Break, which is back on the must-watch list now that the boys are no longer in that ridiculous Mexican prison, but does not include Monday Night Football, which consumes another 3+ hours of our Monday.
If you’re wondering why—as a Boston sports fan—I never mentioned the Celtics’ phenomenal run to the title even though I was on board as soon as they made the trade for Kevin Garnett, here’s why: I publicly gave up on the NBA a long time ago and it would have been the biggest leap onto the bandwagon since Rockies fans started showing up in droves last September.
The Magic Number for the first Yankee Elimination Party since 1993 is 2. Any combination of Red Sox wins and Yankees losses equaling two officially eliminates the $200 Million team from the postseason. Just thought you should know that.
With one of the most exciting presidential races in a long time well under way, I wanted to weigh in with my hope for the 2008 election: a tie. Yes, I’ve become a political anarchist it seems. But if the Electoral College vote ends in a 269-269 tie, guess what happens? The United States House of Representatives decides your next President. How much fun would it be watching the Congress debate—on live TV—who they want to elect the next President? It would be more fun than Governor Palin’s first speech. That’s what I’m rooting for. This is the Sports in a Can blog, and I approve this message.
ESPN Radio’s Mike and Mike in the Morning have a great contest going on. After making fun of last week’s USC-Ohio State game—which had been dubbed the “Collision at the Coliseum”—they decided to have listeners name an obscure college football match-up. Last week it was Maine vs. Stony Brook: “The Battle for the Butter.” This week it’s the Trine Thunder vs. the Defiance College Yellow Jackets, and the name of the game is “The Clash of Mother Nature’s Wrath.” The winning coach gets to come on and talk to the guys Monday morning. I love it.
Week 3 Picks
Arizona (+3) over WASHINGTON Carolina (+3½) over MINNESOTA NY GIANTS (-13) over Cincinnati TENNESSEE (-4½) over Houston ATLANTA (-5½) over Kansas City NEW ENGLAND (-12½)) over Miami BUFFALO (-9½) over Oakland CHICAGO (-3) over Tampa Bay SAN FRANCISCO (-4) over Detroit New Orleans (+5½) over DENVER SEATTLE (-9½) over St. Louis Cleveland (+2½) over BALTIMORE Jacksonville (+5) over INDIANAPOLIS PHILADELPHIA (-3½) over Pittsburgh GREEN BAY (+3) over Dallas NY Jets (+8½) over SAN DIEGO
I have long been in favor of having a "bye" week in baseball, between the final game of the regular season and the playoffs. Of course, you schedule two or three doubleheaders per team to make that happen. NONE of this day-night doubleheader ####! A TRUE doubleheader, with the second game starting 30 minutes after the first one ends. And you don't schedule northern teams like Chicago and Cleveland to have their season openers in early April! Put their #####$ on the road for a week and a half to start the season, preferably to warm weather cities. The bye week would be used to reschedule postponed games that have a direct impact on the pennant races.
MLB, you start the regular season THE FIRST MONDAY IN APRIL, IN CINCINNATI, AT NOON EST.
Last edited by jon_464 on September 20th at 11:46 AM.
Interesting, factual, humorous - what's not to like about Sports in a Can? The Chicago Sun-Times needs to hire Kelly. He'd be like a breath of fresh air after Mariotti!!
Holy ####!
I stopped comparing your guesses against the line and you'd only picked Atlanta correctly. You lost some coin this weekend.
No, I didn't scroll in the order of your picks.
I used the Fox Ticker.
SportsinaCan, brilliant idea about "scheduling off days in the last few weeks for any potential make-up games that need to be played" in Major League Baseball Seriously - a logical idea which I think a lot of people - fans, players, managers, owners, would actually love to see.
I have been very vocal about my opinion of what happened last week for this reason. There were so many things that could've been done that would've worked but were ignored.
Regardless if this idea would've made a difference or not (the Astros mentality last week with both the Cubs and Marlins series probably not), it definitely is food for thought - definitely toward Selig.
Last edited by jadewarlock on September 23rd at 10:08 PM.
Thanks for the kind words femfanatic and jadewarlock...I link to a couple of my older posts in this week's post in which I had a few more suggestions on "Buidling a Better Baseball."
Darren Kelly got tired of waiting for his ship to come in. A lifelong sports fan, he wants nothing more than for his full-time job to involve watching and writing about sports. To this end, he launched Sports in a Can. There's no money in it...yet. More of his fine writing is available on the Patriots Insider website: http://patrio ts.scout.com.
