Archive for October 2nd, 2006
Continue Reading October 2nd, 2006
And so our previews begin.
As we previously stated, we’re going in random order, although that’s not going to stop us from pointing out that our new favorite dude at RealGM called the Cavaliers the best team in the East.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get down with the Toronto Rnaptors. (Not a typo.)
New GM Bryan Colangelo traded away all their Americans for a healthy stock of Europeans, South Americans, Italians, and Italian-Europeans, leaving Morris Peterson as the only English-speaking player on the team.
Although TJ Ford’s Texan and Chris Bosh’s prehistoric creature dialects are nearly compatible, we don’t expect it to be enough to bring the Raps much higher than they were last year.
That said, they’ve got a lot of young talent, an actual All-Star big man, and nationalized health insurance. That’ll come in handy when (as was foretold in the scrolls) Rasho Nesterovic goes down with a bruised rib on November 18th.
If you can’t tell, we don’t think much of the Rnaptors for this year, and therefore have nothing to say about them. While they’re a team that’ll always put up a fight, they’re not going to the playoffs, nor are they coming close to it.
The most intriguing things we can think of is they dropped the purple “colour” in favor of red, and they gave Vince Carter’s number to “Greasy Guy #7″ on the roster.
Predicted Record: 35-47
MVP: Chris Bosh
Unsung Hero: The colour red
Biggest Storyline: Sam Mitchell’s impending firing, which will take place at loss number ten. Strangely enough, that’ll happen even if they’re 20-10 when it comes.
(These previews are merely our thoughts. If you need to know the intimate details of what this team did in the offseason, we recommend the NBA Blog Previews group blog thingie, or John Hollinger’s crazy, obsessively detailed training camp previews.)
Continue Reading October 2nd, 2006
Everyday I send an email or two containing FanHouse “posts of interest,” which is usually 10-20 notable NFL and college football links, to AOL Sports and some choice bloggers. If you’d like to get on the distribution list, let me know by writing dcsportsguy@aol.com. If you want to remain off of the distro, as they say, well, then you’ll keep missing out on items such as this strange ritual conducted by Texas A&M cadets…
Some other FanHouse posts of interests from today’s email…
• There’s legal precedent for Andre Gurode to sue Albert Haynesworth.
• Mike Vanderjagt is the NFL FanHouse Overpaid Player of the Week.
• Ravens FanHouse predicts Baltimore will stumble from 4-0 to 9-7.
• Oakland’s sellout crowd should be ashamed of itself. Or themselves. Whatever.
• Shockingly, Eagles fans treated Giants fans violently.
• This is the year Auburn wins it all.
• Georgia Tech FanHouse makes a great case for the Coach’s Poll being a joke.
• UCLA’s Karl Dorrell is being fitted for the hot seat.
• Florida FanHouse says Gators aren’t a top-five team.
• Would Navy be a good fit as the ninth Big East team?
Also, remember that MJD live blogs every Monday Nighter in FanHouse and follows that up with an updated Kornheiser Chronicles, which I tried to get him to name Kornheiser Kronikles, in honor of the Kinks, but he wasn’t feeling it. Anyway, tonight’s MNF live blog includes this great screen grab from the first half.
Continue Reading October 2nd, 2006
Perhaps my favorite thing about having a sports blog is getting email from folks sharing under-the-radar yet highly entertaining items. Case in point, Caps media relations director Nate Ewell writes…
“Alex Ovechkin just hit a hole in one during the Caps Care Classic at the Springfield Golf and Country Club in Springfield, Va. Ovechkin took a shot on the par-3, 160-yard fourth hole that landed short of the green and rolled in.”
What’s great about this is not only that AO turned 21 last month, thus allowing him to pick up the ensuing hole-in-one clubhouse tab, but he also has one of the ugliest swings in recorded history…
Photo by Greg Fiume, Washington Capitals
Continue Reading October 2nd, 2006
We’ve known for some time that Frank Robinson is done managing the Nats, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late to show some gratitude…
1. Thanks to Frank coming to Baltimore and winning the Triple Crown and two World Series well before I was born. He’s on the short list of greatest living ballplayers.
2. Here’s to Mr. Robinson for being the first black manager in MLB history, which makes hime one of the great pioneers the game has ever known.
3. And I’ll never forget the old grizzly bear at the helm of two of my favorite teams, the ‘89 O’s and the ‘05 Nats. The fact that those two teams improved by 33 and 14 wins, respectively, makes him a miracle worker.
As for the Nats next skipper, Banks of the Anacostia analyzes the situation and comes up with the following list…
“At this early stage, I would say that the candidates probably rank as 1) Girardi, 2) Baker, 3) Pena, followed by Acta/Manuel/Piniella/Alou/etc.”
Other names the Curly W is throwing out there include Davey Johnson and even Barry Larkin. I’m not sure where I’m at on the matter, although it would be fun to hire Johnson if for nothing else than to irk Peter Angelos.
Update: Just in case you want to ruin your the enjoyment of listening to your iPod on shuffle mode, download the Honky Tonk Confidential song, ‘That’s Nats’. Thanks, I guess, to DC Sports Bog for the tip.
Continue Reading October 2nd, 2006
Shouldn’t Tigers fans be happy that their first playoff experience in about 323 years leads them against the Yankees in the first round? Isn’t it more fun that way? Wouldn’t it not really feel like the playoffs if they were playing anybody other than the Yankees?
Maybe? Hey, we’re trying to help.
Here’s a roundup of predictions from around the Web.
• Buster Olney: Yankees in four.
• Tim Kurkjian: Yankees in four.
• Dayn Perry: Yankees. (Our estimation.)
• • Jeff Pearlman: Yankees.
• Jeff Passan: Yankees in four.
• Mark Pesavento: Yankees in five.
• Baseball Prospectus: Yankees in four.
• John Donovan: Yankees in three.
• DEADSPIN: Yankees in three. We’re not so convinced the Yankees are the dominant force people seem to think they are … but the Tigers just got swept at home by the Royals, and not even the Cardinals did that. And hey, at least we’re not jinxing anybody.
Let’s hear your predictions, or at least your heartfelt beliefs in a clearly dead baseball team, in the comments.
Continue Reading October 2nd, 2006
If we’ve learned anything about Octobers the last few years, it’s that the month tests, stretches and hones every aspect of loyalty fandom. Typically, we pretty much just tell our friends that we’ll see them sometime in November. It’s a stressful time.
Therefore, to adequately preview the madness that is the baseball playoffs, we’ve invited some of our favorite bloggers for each of the eight playoff teams to write about their teams, similar to our NFL Season Previews. No sport has better individual team blogs than baseball, and these writers are some of our favorites.
These will be running all day today, and we very much hope you enjoy them.
Up right now: The Los Angeles Dodgers. Your writer is Jon Weisman.
A features editor at Variety, Jon Weisman writes about baseball at SI.com and about the Dodgers specifically at Dodger Thoughts. His words are after the jump.
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Have you figured out the Dodgers yet? Don’t worry, because in Los Angeles, we gave up trying to. They just served as a valuable teaching moment - practically their own Afterschool Special. Specifically, they taught us this: Ignorance rules.
“Nobody knows anything,” was William Goldman’s quote about Hollywood. It applies a few miles down the freeway at Dodger Stadium as well.
It doesn’t matter how good you are; you can always lose 13 out of 14 games. It doesn’t matter how bad you are; you can always win 17 out of 18 games. You can blow a 5-0 lead in the ninth in April, you can rally from a 9-5 deficit in the ninth (by hitting four consecutive solo homers, no less) in September. Whenever we looked too close at the 2006 Dodgers, we just got cross-eyed.
Somehow, though, it came together for the Dodgers just enough to extend their season past October 1. Despite having no hitters with more than 20 home runs, the Dodgers offered a deceptively productive offense, leading the National League in on-base percentage and finishing first among NL playoff teams in OPS. The pitching finished fourth in the league in ERA, with only four guys hanging on the staff from season’s start to season’s end.
For a good part of the season, rookies like Andre Ethier, Matt Kemp and Russell Martin were carrying the team as much as anyone. By the end, the maligned J.D. Drew was having a robust September (1.145 OPS) while reaching a career high in games played in 2006. Nomar Garciaparra was channeling Kirk Gibson, hitting magical home runs while leaving us in suspense as to whether he’d need a pinch-runner for his home-run trot. Marlon Anderson, acquired before September in the hopes that he might have a pinch-hit or two, hit so many home runs that Vin Scully was calling him Merlin. Rafael Furcal (1.046 OPS in September) was rocking. Derek Lowe became almost unhittable (except for the one time he blew a huge lead, of course), and midsummer acquisition Greg Maddux seemed to need, like, five pitches to get through his typical six innings. The guy’s 40, but I don’t know, he bends time and space or something.
Oh, and Takashi Saito (Heard of him? Probably not.) managed to pretty much replace Eric Gagne. Mull that over.
Since 1988, on the few occasions the Dodgers have hit the playoffs, it has been as decided underdogs. This year, who the hell knows? Three wins or losses decide the Division Series. The Dodgers could win or lose three games in a row faster than Lindsay Lohan generates a Defamer headline. There’s no script for this team that a single monkey working at a single typewriter couldn’t have typed with more coherence.
In closing, just a word about Dodger fans. Win or lose, you might see a few Dodger fans leave the game early to beat the traffic, and people will make their smarmy comments about it. Yeah, we have traffic in Los Angeles. Sue us. All I ask is that you take a look at the other seven playoff cities. Inevitably, when games get decided in elsewhere in the U.S., those fans also start streaming toward the exits, but no one says a word. Meanwhile, plenty of Dodger fans around the world are cheering their guts out, wherever they are. We may not have the best public transportation system in the world, but we love our team.
Continue Reading October 2nd, 2006
If we’ve learned anything about Octobers the last few years, it’s that the month tests, stretches and hones every aspect of loyalty fandom. Typically, we pretty much just tell our friends that we’ll see them sometime in November. It’s a stressful time.
Therefore, to adequately preview the madness that is the baseball playoffs, we’ve invited some of our favorite bloggers for each of the eight playoff teams to write about their teams, similar to our NFL Season Previews. No sport has better individual team blogs than baseball, and these writers are some of our favorites.
These will be running all day today, and we very much hope you enjoy them.
Up right now: The Oakland A’s. Your writer is Tyler Bleszinski.
Tyler Bleszinski blogs about the A’s daily at Athletics Nation. His words are after the jump.
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As an A’s fan, I’m elated that the A’s made the playoffs. And as an A’s fan, I’m also scared to death that the A’s made the playoffs. The team has that enormously large monkey on its back of postseason failure. Granted, much of the personnel on the A’s has changed since the team made its last postseason appearance in 2003, but the fans can’t change our psyche. We know all too well that the A’s have struck out nine times when facing the opportunity to close out a series.
This season could be different. The A’s have always had great starting pitching going into the playoffs. But they have never had a marvelous defensive team as they do now. This is also the best bullpen that the team has had during Billy Beane’s tenure. The teams from 2000-2003 were good, but they always seemed to have a malfunctioning bridge to get to the closer … or the closer was a problem. You had the Island of Misfit Toys. If the A’s pitching falters in the postseason, it will likely be the starters, not the bullpen.
Speaking of something that might falter, the A’s offense was abysmal for most of the first half of the season. Yet the offense was there when the A’s needed it most. The A’s starting pitching stumbled quite a bit coming down the stretch, but thanks to Frank Thomas and the bullpen, the team was able to hold off the hard charging Angels. The offense was actually second to the Yankees in the AL in OBP in the second half, and if the team is going to succeed, it’s going to wear down the starting pitcher by making him throw a lot of pitches. The problem is that most of the teams in the playoffs on the AL side have deep bullpens, so it’s questionable how much of an advantage that will be.
So when Tuesday rolls around and the A’s open in the Terrordome, you’re going to see a new A’s team; one that is a great defensive team (unlike when Jeremy Giambi was patrolling left field and Terrence Long in center) and a deep, solid bullpen. The question will be: Can the offense and starting pitching carry its share of the load? Hopefully Rich Harden, Barry Zito, Danny Haren, Frank Thomas, Nick Swisher and Eric Chavez can answer that one in the affirmative. Otherwise, the familiar criticisms of our beloved green and gold will bubble to the top once again. Hopefully this group of guys is fundamentally sound enough to remember to slide (Giambi), touch home plate (Byrnes) and not stop to argue an interference call (Tejada).
At least we’re getting the chance to find out.
Continue Reading October 2nd, 2006
We know there’s absolutely no reason to believe the Cardinals belong here, and we know that the Red Sox, the Phillies and the Angels — teams that weren’t particularly close to making the playoffs — all had better records. That doesn’t mean we still can’t be happier the Cardinals are here. October is an extremely long month when your team isn’t playing.
Even if maybe it means just three games.
This rematch of last year is being seen as decidedly different than last year, though, to be fair, when the Padres are wearing the cammo uniforms, you can’t really see them at all.
Here’s a roundup of predictions from around the Web.
• Buster Olney: Padres in four.
• Tim Kurkjian: Padres in five.
• Dayn Perry: Padres. (Our estimation.)
• Jeff Pearlman: Padres.
• Jeff Passan: Padres in three.
• Mark Pesavento: Padres in three.•
• John Donovan: Padres in four.
• DEADSPIN: Cardinals in four. Hey, someone had to pick them. If not us, who? Besides, the concussed Jim Edmonds will be replaced by Matt Leinart by game three, and he’ll be the spark they need. But who will replace the concussed us?
Let’s hear your predictions, or at least your heartfelt beliefs in a clearly dead baseball team, in our lovely comments section.
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