The Pewch Revolution

John Wall is the truth

2009-12-10T09:37:00.004-05:00

Now that Kentucky has played a good sample size of games, I think we can call John Wall the truth. He is averaging 19 points, 7 assists a game for the #4 team in the nation. Kentucky has posted back to back wins over UNC and Uconn and Ahley Judd has to be happy. Kentucky has slipped in the nations spotlight over the past couple years and has not been the powerhouse we are accustomed to. The failed Billy Gillespie era is over and Calipari has come in and landing the top recruit in JDub has helped out tremendously. It seemed ever since Kentucky was the #1 seed and lost in the second round to UAB they have never regained their mojo. Well Kentucky basketball is back, and its great for the SEC, and college hoops.

Speaking of the SEC. Billy Donovan and the forgotten gators are making a name for themselves. They lost stud PG Nick Calethes who left as a Sophomore to go over to Greece and make a quick 6 figures. Tonight they will look to avenge a loss last year when they match up against Syracuse in a battle of unbeatens in a "neutral" Tampa.

Cuse is looking to knock off its third major opponent this off season since it has already taken down a Pac-10 foe (Cal) and ACC contender (UNC). Outside of the Florida game tonight, the last remaining major game on their out of conference schedule is Memphis. Now ladies and gentlemen this is the second straight year Jimmy B has silenced the critics and played a tough out of conference schedule. You can't bash the man for playing Cal, UNC, Florida, Memphis all before he gets thrown ND, Cincy, Uconn, Pitt, Georgetown, Marq, Nova, etc I could go on.

Cuse has been drubbing their lousy out of conference games (101-55 vs Maine) which is a good sign because they usually barely slide against lousy teams, so its encouraging to see them handle these weaker teams. I am no doubt convinced this team is good this year, but I am very weary on judging them by the tourny wins vs Cal and UNC. All it takes is a team playing extremely hot back to back to make them look a lot better than they are. Do you recall just a few weeks ago the Portland Pilots getting hot and knocking off Oregon, UCLA, and Minnesota....now they have dropped their last three including games vs Portland st. and Idaho. Yuck.

In other college hoops news Greg Monroe is continuing the streak of great Hoya Big men. Great double double two nights ago took down a feisty Butler squad who was probably a bit over hyped going into the season. Butler will stick around the top 20ish of rankings since they will probably run house in conference. Georgetown will be right there in the end I feel. They were a very young team last year and Monroe is a beast, and if he gets more assertive its gonna cause major trouble.

UCLA, Ben Howland, can things get much worse?

Vegas Wagers

2009-12-09T22:30:00.000-05:00

Want to share some recent wagers made for me from my sister who was recently in Vegas. Gave her $200 dollars to unload at the Hilton Sportsbook for some future bets. I did not want to bet on heavy favorites because if I was going to win at all I wanted it to be a good chunk of change. I took some squads that no doubt have a chance and have some heavy odds against them.

NFL:

Win 2010 SuperBowl @ Miami, FL

Philadelphia Eagles

30-1

$15.00.

Win $450

Analysis: Philly no doubt has a talented team. They always play some interesting defense schemes and they have offensive firepower. McNabb is a gamer and it will be interesting to see if Desean Jackson can come back healthy as he is a huge piece of this team. It appears Westbrook if he ever comes back will be fairly ineffective. Big win today over the Falcons who have probably knocked themselves out of the wildcard race with back to back losses to the Gmen and Philly. Big game next week against the Giants...and speaking of the Giants..

Win 2010 SuperBowl @ Miami, FL

New York Giants

30-1

$20.00

Win $600

Analysis: Giants are an interesting team. Started out extremely hot at 5-0, but once they started to play real NFL teams they lost something like 5 of their next 6. Brandom Jacobs has looked to be dead all season and Eli Manning's foot might fall off. They laid a stinker Thursday night against the Broncos and looked to be dead. Then today they come out and Beat the Cowboys for the season sweep and looked pretty sharp on both sides of the ball. Manning played solid and Jacobs had a long score. The win for the Giants was huge, and even bigger it knocked the Cowboys down a peg as win for them would have been a huge step to taking the division. My though on these two first bets is that they are both dangerous teams who are no doubt talented and we should see at least of them, if not both, in the playoffs this year.

Win 2010 SuperBowl @ Miami, FL

Cincinnati Bengals

9-1

$10.00

Win $90.00

Analysis: I guess the Bengals have to have pretty low odds on them since they are winning football games, but I don't think they can really contend. I pretty much had to fire a little on them since they were on Hard Knocks and I enjoy them. Who knows though, they are looking like they have a chance to take the 2 seed and have a bye...so stranger things have happened...

Win 2010 SuperBowl @ Miami, FL

San Diego Chargers

12-1

$20.00

Win $240.00

Analysis: Chargers pretty high odds and might end up taking the #2 seed themselves. I like them like the Bengals because they will get to the playoffs most likely then who knows what can happen. They have owned the Colts over the past several years so if the AFC goes through the Colts then it bodes well for the SuperChargers.

NBA:

Win 2009-2010 NBA Championship

Portland TrailBlazers

15-1

$20.00

Win $300.00

Analysis: Took a huge blow this weekend as Sam Bowie...I mean Greg Oden, is out for the season after his 44th leg injury in the past 3 years. Taking Oden over Durant is looking more and more like it was the wrong pick as we keep moving on. This was a mulldog pick as I don' t know how confident I am that the Blazers are true contenders in the West...but Brandon Roy is the truth no doubt.

Win 2009-2010 NBA Championship

Denver Nuggets

15-1

$25.00

Win $375.00

Analysis: We all saw what the Nuggets did last year in taking the Lakers to the brink in the West Finals. Carmelo looks hungry and they are my favorite team so I had to have some play here.

Win 2009 NBA Championship

Lebron Cavaliers

4-1

$50.00

Win $200.00

Analysis: Biggest single wager made. Figured the Cavs have a great chance to come out of the East as even though they will probably slug their way through the regular season, once they are in the playoff stage we can expect Bron to start stepping up. Bron has to win the big one pretty soon right?

NCAA Basketball:

Made a bunch of small plays on different teams to win the National Title. Gotta hope that some of these can make a run, but using the same formula I didn't take any heavy odd favorites.

Michigan Wolverines

75-1

$5 to win $375.00

Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

20-1

$5 to win $100.00

Texas Longhorns

8-1

$5 to win $40.00

Butler Bulldogs

50-1

$5 to win $250.00

Oregon Ducks

300-1

$5 to win $1,500 (Lock City?)

West Virginia Mountaineers

20-1

$5 to win $100

Syracuse Orange
50-1

$5 to win $250 (thrilled to get this bet in before the Orange showed everyone they seem to be not pewch. What are the odds for them present day...without looking this up they have to be like 8-1 in the neighborhood of Texas right?)

Georgetown Hoyas

40-1

$5 to win $200

So that is it. Sorry if I wagered on any of your favorite teams as they have all been officially jinxed and have no shot of winning.

Jimmy V

2009-12-08T15:24:00.001-05:00

One of the greatest speeches out there folks. Jimmy V week has begun and the Jimmy V Classic tips off tonight with a good Butler vs Georgetown matchup.

BCS Bowl Breakdown

2009-12-07T10:01:00.010-05:00

Really interesting playoff breakdown provided by Dan Wetzel on Yahoo Sports today. The above picture is a format that he (and others) have come up with on how to solve the atrocious BCS problem. I for one love the idea. This formula pits a 16 team field comprised of 11 conference winners and 5 at large bids. How unbelievable would this be? You have the Cinderella stories in place with the chance for serious upsets. You have every deserving team (outside of a couple teams who feel they got shafted for an at-large bid) vying for a title. And those teams that feel they got hosed probably have 2-3 losses, not zero like TCU, Boise, and Cincy this year.

Boise and TCU have to be extremely disappointed that they are matched up in a bowl game this year. Both of these colleges, and non BCS schools in general would be much better served if they had a chance to knock off a big program. The winner of this game does nothing for small schools.

The Texas game was real good Saturday. Mack Brown should be instantly fired though for having a time out and almost squandering away a National championship shot by having Colt McCoy lob a Ball out of bounds with .5 seconds left. Can you imagine what happens if time runs off the clock there? I knew the kicker was going to nail that 46 yarder, even so confident to throw a quick 10 down against my buddy without hesitation.

Tim Tebow's legendary status as a college QB is over, tears and all. He will no longer have a chance to win Florida's 3rd National title in 4 years. Probably no Heisman, and all he can do is beat a weak Cincinnati team. Cincy is lights out on offense, but shouldn't Florida, the all powerful SEC team rout a Big east Squad. Absolutely huge game for Bearcats and the BIG east conference. A win over Florida would do wonders for the step-child of the BCS conferences.

Speaking of Cincy, how about that game against Pitt...Probably the best college football game of the year.

Did the BCS get it right? I guess they did, but every year without a playoff is a year wasted. How can you tell 3 undefeated teams they have no shot at the national title...what is the sense of playing? Are you telling me all five at-large bids in the diagram above wouldn't have a chance to make some noise? And how thrilling would watching central mich or Troy making a push in a game be. How cool would it be to see a warm SEC team have to play in snowy Michigan or Penn State one year with a Northern team having home field?

You also finally give reason for the non BCS schools to have meaningful regular season and conference championship games. Those teams outside of the 16 teams that make the playoffs could still play in the Heinke Midas Touch Outback Go daddy.com Bowl if they wanted.

Get it done. FYI its a pretty good read...here is the link to the Wetzel article if you want more details... http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news;_ylt=AnRXjAZcxZZWDqmjNQ.2xEg5nYcB?slug=dw-ncaafplayoff120709&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Looking to score some weed?

2009-12-07T09:28:00.001-05:00

Just drive over to your local McDonalds.

Jarrett Jack is the man.

2009-12-06T22:10:00.001-05:00

Purple Jesus Speeding?

2009-12-04T08:28:00.002-05:00

I was away for a week and some seriously bizarre stories came out. The Millman already touched on JP Losman, champion quarterback. We had Tiger Woods being exploited as a phony and now being ripped to pieces all over the place by Jasper Parnevik of all people. And perhaps best of all was Adrian Peterson getting pulled over for going 109 in a 55 and commenting afterward that he "has to be more aware of the speed limit." More aware of the speed limit? What exactly did he think the speed limit just dropped from 100 to 55? Did he think he was cruising through Germany on the auto-bon? More aware of the speed limit, really? That's it? Just a simple misunderstanding of how fast he was allowed to go?

There have been some good college basketball and college football games of late, not to mention the NBA and NFL. I plan on getting to a full-blown basketball report card for college and NBA next week. For now, I must prepare to head down to New Jersey for the night as I will be attending the Rutgers-West Virginia game Saturday. Full report on that and the much anticipated Alabama-Florida matchup to come on Monday.

Take your name off the list

2009-11-29T20:05:00.003-05:00

No longer will you be associated with the likes of Jim Kelly and Dan Marino. You won't be looked at like Donovan McNabb, a talented QB that just could not get the job done. No, John Paul Losman, you my friend are a CHAMPION. After all the scrutiny and ribbing you have taken over the years you can finally turn it on all the naysayers and let them know that you have done the unthinkable!

Everyone was so impressed with the NY Giants taking down the undefeated Patriots in the Superbowl a couple years back. Big deal, they were undefeated in a weak AFC EAST and had Tom Brady as their QB. It was not that impressive of a feat for the Giants. Want to hear something impressive, JP took down the 6-0 Florida Tuskers in OT on the biggest stage in football. Not to mention going against a QB like Brooks Bollinger. All 15K in attendance were amazed as well as the countless home viewers who watched during Primetime (By primetime I mean a Friday noon game and probably not witnessed by any directv owners since the game I assume was on VS. and they are still blacked out). So my guess is really no one even knew the game was on, or hopefully had better things to do if they were even aware.

Jp had a very pedestrian game going 21/35 with 193 yrds no tds no ints. MVP went to Dede Dorsey, Who Dey Bengals cast-off who was a fan favorite from Hard Knocks. Lets hope JP can ride the moment from a UFL championship back to the NFL. If people are still crazy and don't pick him up, lets hope he can get back to back championships, and set massive records in the UFL the way Flutie did in the CFL and then come back to dominate one day.

JP. A champion.

Davidson/Fredonia St.

2009-11-24T19:09:00.002-05:00

Game is tomorrow.

Davidson -41.5

***Edit in - Final Score:
Davidson 78
Fredonia St. 37

Someone inform Vegas that they need the Mulldog.

Bad Santa

2009-11-23T14:01:00.001-05:00

Eric Wood aka the kid from Bad santa faces a tough break this season. Literally. This was shades of LT vs Theisman. Except people really care about those two players and no one cares about Eric wood and whatever scrub (Harvey?) for the Jags that cracked his bone like a peice of pasta out of the box.

At least Buffalo finally got its first break of the season.

Winners Weekend.

2009-11-23T13:48:00.004-05:00

Big weekend for the millman in terms of Sports and winning.

1) Let's start with a Cuse coaches vs Cancer title! Huge wins over #12 Cal on Thursday night and #4 UNC on Friday. Though Cal was banged up and UNC is young, you can't discredit the Orange for going out and absolutely bangin two top ranked teams the way they did. Wesley J is a star in the making and this team just defends. Its only November, but two wins of this magnitude can't help but resonate on the committee come March. Who would have thought, but are the orange actually better after losing Flynn, Harris, and Defendorf?

2) Coach Miller takes his 12 year old B team McLean attack into a huge pre-thanksgiving tournament. Coming off an 0-3 weekend in the previous Coach Wooten tournament last weekend, they had some serious work to do. Last weeks tournament by the way was hosted by the Biship O'connel head coach who has coached the likes of Marcus Ginyard (UNC) and Summers (Gtown). He managed to offer me a spot instantly on his staff after seeing the way I coached my team to zero wins that weekend, but I refused to opt out of my highly paid contract with the Attack.

First game we gutted out a 45-41 victory and had our first win of the early season. Dropped the 2nd game by 12. Needed to beat the Great Falls B team in the nightcap to be eligible for the championship game Sunday. 37-37 with 19 seconds to play and we got the ball of the rebound. Coach Miller does NOT call a timeout as he sees the PG running down the court. First true test of Coach Miller's career. Not calling the timeout paid dividends as our PG who had about 7 turnovers on the day whisked by the defense for a baseline runner with 10 seconds to play. 39-37 Attack! After some smothering defense we got the ball back and executed an unreal sideline play that gave our big man the ball under the hoop off a back screen where he held on to the ball, and the game. Attack go 2-1 on the day, but unfortunately fail to qualify for the championship
game due to point tiebreakers. Tough break, but a great tourny for Coach Miller. Gutsy.

3) Sunday we had our Flag Football Playoffs. Da Misfits was my squad and we had the 2 seed going into Sunday. Speaking of "Misfits" who in this picture does not belong?

After a close semi-final we narrowly escaped 18-13 after not scoring a td in the 2nd half. our defense led by yours truly was truly shut down circa Baltimore Ravens in the hay day. Championship game was a laugher as we blew them out of the water to the tune of 36-13. 3 picks and 2 touchdowns out of me wraps up the MVP. Best WR/Safety in the league....hands down. Also known in the regular season to play a little QB. Brady Quinn, Tom Brady, eat your hearts out...there is a new dreamboat in town.

Weekend Roundup

2009-11-23T10:53:00.002-05:00

All sorts of action in all sports this weekend including NBA/college hoops. Instead of getting to all that I'm going to try to do a basketball roundup tomorrow - basically try to see where we're at with teams.

College Football:
For all the complaints about the BCS selecting the wrong teams to play in the championship game every year, the bigger problem with the system is really that no one wants to play anyone out of conference. That's why Alabama pounded the snot out of Chattanooga and Florida beat up on Florida International Airport. Teams are too afraid of scheduling someone that might actually beat them...I have not been the biggest BCS opponent but honestly the system has to go. For those reasons and for the fact that people talk about it more than the actual game of college football (myself included now I guess).

NFL:
-You know things are bad when the Lions and Browns play in the most exciting game of the week. Nothing like an old-fashioned Brady Quinn and Matthew Stafford shootout. Can it get any worse for Browns fans than to lose on a pass interference on a hail mary? I say we combine the Bills and Browns into one mega team - I say they win 4 games, maybe 5.
-The Giants got back on track with a win over the Falcons. Somehow, they managed to blow a 14 point lead at home before winning in overtime. This had huge playoff implications as it will basically be two NFC East teams, the Falcons and Packers fighting for the two wild card spots. The Giants now have a 1 game advantage and and the tie-break on Atlanta.
-How many people picked Kansas City to knock off Pittsburgh? How about Oakland over Cincinnati? I wouldn't be too alarmed, these types of off-the-wall upsets happen every year around this time. A team sleepwalks into an opposing stadium and the other team shows up. With that said, Pittsburgh severely out-gained KC and if not for a Roethlisberger overtime concussion, probably would have won. I'm sure everyone has seen the Caldwell fumble, but again, this is probably a game the Bengals would have won all things being equal.

As it stands however, the Patriots and Colts have opened up a gap between themselves and the rest of the AFC. No one appears to be quite on the level of either of these two and only Pittsburgh and San Diego probably have the talent to compete with them come playoff time.

On the NFC side, Minnesota and New Orleans have done the same thing (to a lesser degree). New Orleans is the league's most explosive team and Minnesota is the league's best. I'm not sold on any other team except maybe the Eagles and maybe the Giants. That said, this year's playoffs is shaping up to be a year of the bye week teams (at least on paper).

-Watching the Eagles-Bears game last night, one thing became clear: Lovie Smith needs to be fired. This is not a ground-breaking statement, but seriously the man is lose trying to coach an NFL team. The Eagles basically gift-wrapped the Bears the game with sloppy play all night but Lovie refused to get Bellichikian and try to put the game away, instead he was ultra-conservative and decided he wanted field goals, field goals and more field goals.
-Early second quarter, down 10-0, 4th and 2 at the Eagles 27, he opts: Field Goal. This is always a bad decision. Why make your kicker connect from 44 yards on a score that nets you less than half of a touchdown, when you probably pick up the two yards over 50% of the time. Simple math.
-Next possession they break off a 72 yard run to the Eagles 10. Fullback screen, run up the middle, incomplete. 28-yard Field Goal.
-Nearing the end of the second quarter, again, 4th and 5 at the Eagles ten...a chance to take a 13-10 halftime lead instead of walking into the locker room down 10-9, Lovie opts Field Goal.
-Third quarter, he was left no choice, 4th and 13 at the Eagles 31, he opts Field Goal.
-Teams exchange TD's, Chicago gets a 2-point conversion and go up 3 points.

Here is where the worst decision of all is made. Up 3, with 12 minutes remaining in the 4th quarter, the Chicago defense comes up with yet another turnover at the Eagles 37. Forte 2 yard loss, incomplete, 9 yard pass. 4th and 3 at the Eagles 31. 48-yard field goal after your kicker has already hit five to go up 6 points against an offense that has been on the verge of breaking through your defense all game (Chicago's defense did a nice job of collecting turnovers and had some timely sacks, but other than that the Eagles moved the ball pretty easily all game). It's so conservative to try to kick again there, of course, Lovie did, and it was blocked. The Eagles went right down the field and scored a touchdown. Then Cutler failed again to put together a game-winning drive and ended the game on a *shocking* interception.
Bottom line, when you have a team as explosive as the Eagles on the ropes, up three in the fourth at the 30 yard line on 4th and less than 5, there is no decision to be made - you go for it. Try to end the game like Bellichik would do (just not when you're at your own 30).

-Not sure how many people caught the MLS finals last night but I was cheering for the Galaxy. Devastating loss to Real Salt Lake in the penalty kicks. Have to wonder if the Glaxay pull it off if their starting keeper didn't get hurt. This game got me pretty fired up for some World Cup action (unexpectedly).

Congratulations are in order

2009-11-18T09:19:00.003-05:00

24+ hours of the college basketball marathon are now over and I hope the mulldog is sleeping well. What the man pulled of is one of the single greatest feats a human being can accomplish. Folks I want to remind you this was not March madness, or conference championship week...hell it wasn't even conference play. Mulldog put in 24+ hours of mostly sickening match ups, tons of mid-majors, tons of below mid-majors, and the occasional good team playing some realllll pewch.

Essentially you can claim there were only two marquee match ups on the slate yesterday and that would be zaga v mich state and Memphis v Kansas. I spoke with the Mulldog late two nights ago when the first game, UCLA vs Fullerton was about to get away. I don't even think he was fully aware that we were about to be handed 24 straight hours, but after we talked, he set his mind on one goal and one goal only: Making it to the end.

The best part of this story is the set-up and conditions Mulldog endured during this process. This was not a case of a man sitting in a huge living room, nice leather recliner chair, with a laptop by his side, and a 40 inch HDTV. Mulldog trapped himself in a jail cell, with a 1987 computer, folding chair, and 13 inch Magnovox. I would not have watched one game under those conditions.

I will no longer be astonished when I ask Mulldog...."what do you think of this cal st northridge vs Montana Grizz match up tonight?" and his response is..."Well I have seen this Cal St team play 3 times and they are okay but had a tough loss against Santa Barbara who isn't that good. Montana plays in a tough Big Sky, but their big guys Jenkins can't finish and their guard play is weak."

For him to know any information about either team is absolutely sickening, and impressive at the same time.

Rest up Mulldog. You deserve it.

On another note, I would feel remiss if I didn't make a statement about the Dick Jauron era finally ending. My only regret is that Alex Van Pelt was not given the interim title. Imagine the run he might have had. From two years ago he was in the booth calling games on radio. Moved up to Quality control coach, moved to Quarterbacks coach, promoted to offensive coordinator, and the next logical step would have been head coach which would have been the greatest promotion run in history.

Weird time to fire Jauron because no one even cares in Buffalo anymore. Why not fire him after the poor start? Why not fire him after the bye week? Well they fired him after all and let's see what Buffalo does this off season about bringing in someone new. Buffalo never brings in established coaches because none want to come, and ralph doesn't empty his wallet. So no ralph is on the hook for paying Jauron about $6M to finish his contract, and we can expect Raheem Morris Jr. to be our Head Coach next year.

24 Hours of College Basketball

2009-11-17T08:41:00.016-05:00

For those of you living under a rock, ESPN is airing 24 hours straight of college basketball, starting midnight, about 9 hours ago.

Your boy the Mulldog has pulled an all-nighter and plans to threaten the Guiness Book of World Records in total coffee consumed by one man in a single day as I attempt to make it through every game.

Game 1: CS Fullerton 68 UCLA 65 2OT: Not a misprint on the score. An absolute thriller as Cal Fullerton beats UCLA in double OT. To call it a thriller is a bit of a joke to be honest. It was one of the worst combined shooting performances seen outside of a biddy league since Naismith invented the game. No, Cal State Fullerton is not that good. No, UCLA is not THAT bad. Before you go burying them realize that they are rebuilding this year and should improve as the year goes on. Dragovic is a very good shooter and he couldn't hit the broadside of a barn...he'll start hitting shots and their big men will develop. They still play excellent defense, rebound it and don't turn it over. They are going to have trouble scoring though and really won't be a national factor this year.

Game 2: St. Mary's A Lot - San Diego St. Not A Lot. This game was a bit of a snoozefest as they only switched to it after double OT and it was already Gaels 19-9. And it only got uglier from there. Mickey McDonnell made Gaels fans quickly forget about Patty Mills as he hit his first 5 three-point attempts including one that was actually registered as having departed from the Congo Republic. Here's the thing. Before you buy into the St. Mary's hype that we will no doubt start hearing...it's an impossible place to play against a team that is rebuilding (San Diego St) and beat up. Good team, but ultimately not that good.

Game 3: Northern Colorado - Hawaii: 4 a.m. Eastern and ESPN decided to try to put anyone attempting the all-nighter to sleep. Little did they know that I am a complete sicko. Watched the whole disgusting game. Northern Colorado won after a fairly tight game turned into a 17 point rout with about 4 minutes left, only for some kid on Hawaii (who I can only describe as Lil' Penny grows up and accepts a scholarship to Hawaii) gets blazing hot from deep and they cut the deficit to 4 points with less than a minute left. UNC held on however. This Hawaii team was a real miscast group of characters. They had some transfer from Providence with a mohawk who made an "And-1" lay-up on a big guy from UNC and decided to get in his face and pound his chest after he "lay-upped" on him.
Also would like to mention that a man on Hawaii got compared by the announcer to the one and only John Bryant. Normally this would disgust me, however this giant white stiff actually came in the game, had about 7 rebounds and 10 straight points in the span of 3 minutes erasing a deficit and giving Hawaii what would be their only (brief) lead of the game. He then got hurt. The comparison stops there.

Game 4: Getting to the good games - Monmouth 30 - St. Peter's 54. I made that score up, but I kid you not it's a lot closer than you would expect. Monmouth made 4 field goals in the first half and had 8 with about 5 minutes remaining in the game. I really don't know exactly what to say about this game other than Peter's gym was the most full I've ever seen it...which is kind of bizarre, considering it was 6 a.m. on a Tuesday. Sometimes I really miss college.

Game 5: Niagara - Drexel. NU overcame a typically sloppy, lazy start (what could you expect after all, with an 8 a.m. tip?) to take a 42-30 lead into the half. Who knows what to expect from this team in the second though, hopefully they keep rolling.

Niagara got the win, classic NU hoops. So talented, but can't stay focused for a game. When they want to they can be absolutely lights out. It all starts with the defense and boxing out for them and they don't always have it though.

So I am on my third pot of coffee, starting at 10 p.m. last night. I'm pretty sure the early stages of hallucinating have set in, I just walked out of the bathroom and knowing no one was in the house heard the music blaring from my room and thought a couple strangers were carrying on a conversation in my house. I have caught myself staring at the TV screen missing what I would approximate at 4-5 possessions in whichever game is on. Honestly, I'm beginning to think this is one long game that will just never end. UCLA, you still have time to come back and beat Fullerton! Monmouth, couple more hours and you'll reach 50 points! Speaking of zoning out, I just spent the past 5 minutes staring at the screen like it was the original Mona Lisa.

Game 6: Siena and Northeastern are underway. Throw out any praise I heaped on Siena. They are lifeless and garbage without Hasbrouck who I thought was a replaceable part. There was more to tell, but I must post this before I begin hallucinating. Back again at the conclusion of this Siena-Northeastern game. Also, the announcers just mentioned we are in hour 13 of the marathon. Past halfway. I think they also just called me a junkie.

Siena won by, oh who the hell cares, they won by less than 8.5 points. Northeastern couldn't make a shot all game and decides to know down three 3's in the final two minutes. Love it. I don't know how tired I am right now. I feel like it's a regular Tuesday afternoon, 2:00. Tulsa and Arkansas Little Rock just came in so the true test of how tired I am is underway. Seems like days, maybe even weeks ago when that UCLA/SF Fullerton game ended. I'm basically a geriatric. I move from the chair to my bed to the coffee pot and to the bathroom. That's it. I'm half waiting for a nurse to show up and ask if I want the meatloaf or the chicken pot pie for dinner tonight.

Game 7: This Little Rock - Tulsa thriller 25-20 has officially made me teary eyed. I never knew I could see the players in 3D on my 13" Magnavox. BTW, I perhaps should have mentioned that's what I am watching all of these games on. No HD, no big screen, no flat screen. Back to basics. So anyway, I just had some mail delivered, it's my retirement fund records. Apparently, your boy has racked up $5.62 in retirement lifetime. Looks like I'm on the fast track. Or maybe I'm just delirious. I'd also like to take this moment to call out those clowns they showed in the UCLA dorms saying they were "still watching, 24 hours of college hoops on ESPN" Where are they now? That's what I want to know. Did they even make it through the double OT? I know none of those fair weather fans made it through Hawaii and Northern Colorado, much less Monmouth and St. Peter's.
I just sat a solid ten minutes on my sent myself from my phone of my beautiful TV...just to look at my cell phone and realize email account waiting for the picture I
^Not sure what happened up there. What I meant to say is: I was waiting for this picture of my TV that I sent to my email from my phone for a while before I realized I hadn't completed the process of sending it.

Well Tulsa won by a bunch in a game that near rivaled Monmouth-St. Peter's in terms of ugly play. The Tulsa big man Jordan looks much improved. Decent shooting touch. Interested to see him play vs. a team with some size to see if he looks ordinary again or if he's truly improved.

Game 8: Goergetown vs. Temple
Yet again I'm not sure if I was seeing things but right after the tip I swear the score read Temple 6 G'Town 0. I like the Hoyas -10 here. Temple's strength is their big guy but G'Town has Monroe to counter with...the question is can this team find ways to start making shots. 5 minutes in the answer is no.
Also, I decided to make a Bloody Mary. I literally was going to make myself a virgin Bloody Mary except I realized I would have to blog about it so I made it legit. Let's see if this does me in. Plan on a pot of coffee after dinner and then trying to hang on for dear life until that TCU-Zona St. game is over. May have a nightcap with some knockoff Bailey's on the rocks and then sleep for I don't know - 2 days?
At least the good games have arrived.

At halftime 19-13 Hoyas. What did I do to deserve this? Seriously, why must the basketball Gods make this the most miserable 24 straight hours of basketball ever? Seriously, there hasn't been a well played game yet. No one can make wide open shots. This is absolutely terrible!!!!
Georgetown blew a decent lead, looked dead, then came back and won. New year, same old Georgetown team? This team can still get after it on defense, but they seemed to tire out and stopped boarding. Then they came through with a fury. I thought they were unbelievably good last year. At this point I'm about ready to hop off the bandwagon.

Game 9: Duke-Charlotte
Was eating dinner and missed the start and this one is already over. Do you know what it's like eating dinner with your parents without sleeping for 33 straight hours (forgive me if that math is way off)? Do you know what it's like eating dinner with your parents after getting absolutely blasted? Then you do. I was eating chicken and my mom was talking and I felt like it was 3:30 a.m. at Denny's. Somehow the conversation shifted to Jenna Jamison, which got me to up and leave and rush back for game 9 (apparently she was on Oprah today). This one looks to be in the books tonight and Duke is probably going to be very tough this season. I must admit, for the first time, I feel like I'm struggling. I feel kind of drunk, exhausted, my balance is way off (took about three tries to get the foot pedal on the garbage can) and I am fired up for more college hoops. I haven't had enough yet ESPN, keep feeding me. Anyway to schedule a 1:30 a.m. Hawaii jump-off?

We are approaching the 19th hour and I have a question. What is that crazy board they keep showing Rece Davis in front of with all sorts of team name's and numbers? At first (that is the first 15 times they showed it) I thought it was a scoreboard....but after the last showing I am fairly sure it's not. It really made no sense to me. Is this board real?

Happy 20th Hour! Duke 101 Charlotte 57. What did I do Basketball Gods? What?

Game 10: Gonzaga at Michigan St. I actually like Michigan St. -11 here. I can't see any way Gonzaga hangs with them as they really don't have much left. But as we begin to close in on the finale and as my eyes grow heavier and heavier, I have to sit here and hope a game draws my interest. To recap:
-We started with a double OT thriller of an improbably CS-Fullerton upset over UCLA (in a miserably played game)
-St. Mary's was up about 20 on SDSU before we even switched to it.
-North Colorado and Hawaii slugged it out.
-Monmouth got held in the 30's vs powerhouse St. Peter's.
-NU and Drexel played in the most entertaining and exciting (sloppy of course) game of the day. Thank you Purple Eagles. Thank you Dragons.
-Clemson destroyed Liberty despite an absurd line of -10 by Vegas.
-Siena and Northeastern played in a snoozefest at a dead silent, empty Times Union Center.
-Arkansas Little Rock and Tulsa played a miserable game where Tulsa was never threatened.
-Georgetown and Temple both got held under 50 points in at least a rare close game.
-Duke beat Charlotte by 50.
How miserable am I right now? Well at least I got some more coffee, let's hope these last three games cap things off with a fury.
I would just like to thank Michigan St. and Gonzaga for actually playing good basketball. Not only did it come down to the wire, but both sides played defense and solid team ball. Very exciting and enjoyable game to watch.

Game 11: Kansas - Memphis
At the half in a pretty competitive game 26-20 Kansas. I get the feeling that Kansas can't be beat here, the only question is will they run away and hide or will it remain close?
24 Hours of hoops in the books...going into bonus ball now with this ending and then onto ESPN2 to watch TCU-Arizona St.
There is 2:13 left in the game (Kansas 52-47) and I just realized Dick Vitale is announcing. It's not everyday you can say that. Can't say either team was impressive here, I was quite disappointed with the way Kansas played. They have some really good pieces, but they look underwhelming tonight. Memphis just looks like a much lesser version of last year.
I say this all before Memphis makes a serious run, they have just hit a three-ball to cut it to a 1-point game with 16.7 seconds left. The big games really showed up big. Honestly, I wasn't that attached to this game, I just don't have anything left, but an exciting finish has me rejuvenated.
57-55 Kansas as a Memphis player draws bank iron on a three-point attempt with time expiring.

Game 12: TCU-Arizona St.
A dozen games. What a day. Flip over from the Memphis-Kansas game and there is three seconds before halftime. A lesser man may pack it in here, but I am determined to watch the second half. In the meantime I think I'll cap some horse races from Aqueduct for tomorrow in case I wake up before the track closes.
12:38 a.m. - The second half starts. I'm really on my last leg here, I can feel my body starting to shut down...if it wasn't the last half my body would probably just knock me right out now.I actually came up with a horse race I like but I forget what it was.
1:02 a.m. - 25 hours of hoops. I'm watching this game, yet I have no clue what is happening. No way I could operate a motor vehicle right now. Can't believe there is another half-hour left...please no OT.
1:06 a.m. - They keep reviewing plays, they really don't want me to sleep. Me want me to sleep though. When I'm not typing my hands are on my cheeks like a bum asleep on a train. TCU just took a 4-point lead, this game literally might be headed to OT, which might put me over the edge. Who am I kidding? Give me 5 OT's, I'm ready for it.
1:19 a.m. - TCU extended it to an 8-point lead with under 4 minutes remaining. As I'm typing this ASU hits a 3 and calls timeout. This is never going to end. I've been very tired before after working overnights but this takes it to a whole new level. Think I am at my limit right here. 48-44 with under 3 minutes left and this is turning into a drag-out foul fest.
1:27 a.m. - This reminds me of the sleepover parties when you're younger when everyone tries to stay up all night, only I'm not with any friends, I'm watching my 12th college basketball game in just over 24 hours between TCU and Arizona St. because I'm a sickening human being with no life. ASU just tied it at 48 with 1:30 left. Seriously, OT may break me. Gigantic sequence, TCU makes 1/2 free throws, chance of OT just went down. 49-48 TCU, ASU ball 35.5 seconds remaining. I just looked at my backpack and it appeared to be expanding...come on gentlemen, let's end this one already. My eyes are opening and closing, announcers words are fading in and out, this is it, I've hit the wall and hit it hard, no fouls please. Miss. Zona St. should have it now.
1:37 a.m. - The buzzer sounded, ASU won, as I fade in and out, let's wrap this up, it's been fun.

Overall, this was a great run. It started with a bang, was pretty miserable (in a pleasing masochistic sense) and really only the big games panned out much. I come away knowing a decent amount about each team, but since it is so early you can't really tell how teams will gel and develop. I had some more thoughts but my brain literally feels like it has been replaced with a hunk of lead. I just looked in the mirror and I have full-blown shopping bags under my eyes. I may or may not be hearing laughing voices outside my window. I think it's safe to say that I've had enough...meanwhile, TCU looms ominously close to Zona St. trailing just 33-31...do I dare consider the possibility?

Most impressive Team: Duke - Far and away looked the most battle ready. Polished, good on both ends and already knocking down shots. Sure, Charlotte isn't as good as some of the teams the other top-ranked teams faced, but you simply can't look better than that. Duke is going to be a force this year.

Least Impressive Team: There were many, but Monmouth takes the cake. They actually have a big guy - Travis Taylor - who is very tough to stop, but their guard play is so bad that it's a miracle if he touches the ball. They were held in the 30's by St. Peter's and while maybe the 6 a.m. tip is an excuse, Monmouth looked ever so slightly worse than Liberty.

(refs are reviewing a call in this Zona St. - TCU game, you have to be kidding me)

As I wrap things up on the marathon I figured I would do what I should have done in the first place and show you the disgusting set-up I have now sat in for over 24 hours straight:
That's it, just a folding chair, old desktop computer and 13" Magnavox, lots of cups, mugs, glasses and my blood, sweat and tears. Until next year's marathon, stay pewch.

We're Going For It

2009-11-16T11:31:00.002-05:00

Arguably the greatest coach of our era, Bill Bellichik made one of the worst decisions I have ever seen a NFL head coach make last night. I'm sure everyone has heard all about it so I'm not going to explain what happened, but my take:

I am one of the biggest "go for it" guys around. I think NFL coaches are absolutely crazy in their old-fashioned ways of punting and settling for field goals. Case in point: yesterday, Andy Reid three times allowed the Eagles to settle for field goals inside the San Diego 10 yard line. One on literally the one-inch line. Another time with a 4th and 1. And another time goal-to-go at the seven. Each time the Eagles were down multiple scores at the time. It's simple math Andy. You got 3 fg's = 9 points. You convert once and punch it in that's 7. Two times 14. And you might even pull off all three for 21. It just doesn't make sense to settle for FG's inside the ten.

It also doesn't make sense to punt on 4th and 3 or less in the opponents territory. In today's NFL that is such a high percentage conversion that it's absolutely crazy not to go for it. When you're on your own 28 with 2 minutes left, however, you simply can't go for it. This is a case of Bill letting his ego get in the way. Yeah, if they convert the media would probably call you a genius, personally I'd still think it was a ridiculous chance that put your team in harms way. Can't do it, just can't do it.

Around the rest of the league: The Bills are atrocious, back to Earth Dallas, back to Earth some more Denver.

And a huge, improbable win by the Bengals who are now in second place in the AFC and trying to secure a bye, much as Ocho Cinco predicted in his infamous battle on 1st and 10 with Skip Bayless before the season. All praises due, 8-5.

In college football: USC is in fact terrible. Florida, Texas and Alabama are still the cream of the crop....and I'm glad everyone is going to be all over a TCU team that beat Utah. Let me tell yous something, Utah is terrrrrrible this year. Somehow, they were ranked, when anyone paying attention knows the team is dreadful this year. The entire MWC is and I don't want to hear about TCU and how they should be in the National Championship match. They'll get smoked when they play a real team, mark my words.
And I love the small schools, but the hype surrounding a team that quite frankly, isn't that good is ridiculous.

Weekend Games

2009-11-13T10:00:00.005-05:00

Well the NFL Network has to be depressed at the game it handed folks last night (At least we get Miami @ Carolina next Thursday...yuck). Do not tell me just because it was close that it was a good game. It was a horrible football game between two lousy teams. Mike Singletary coaching against his new team? Who cares. It is a joke of how bad of a QB Jay Cutler is. This guy has won nothing in his life and has been the definition of mediocrity, but he was anointed the second coming this off season after crying his way out of Denver. Just because a QB has a rocket arm doesn't mean he is good. I swear, every time he drops back you almost expect a pick. 5 INT's for this man last night against a Nate Clementless 49ers secondary. Some of the picks he threw were just god awful. I don't mind a QB taking chances, in fact I would love if the QB of the Bills actually flung the ball around a little a la JP Losman. Cutler managed to throw about 3 horrible interceptions that no one reading this article throws. Triple Coverage, man blanketed, fires it straight to a 49er. I think two of his picks weren't his fault - one was pass interference and the other Hester tripped, but good lord. Well at least Chicago didn't do anything drastic like sign him to a $55M dollar extension after a .500 start......OOOPS.

On to this weekend's games:

New Orleans Saints -14 @ St. Louis Rams.
Blah. Rams stink, though Steven Jackson is quietly putting together the greatest season ever on a horrible team. He just kills himself for 100 yards a game when the whole world knows they are just going to run all day. Poor guy. Saints continue to roll I have to assume.

Jacksonville Jaguars +7 @ NY Jets
I think the Jets stink. I think the Jaguars stink. I think Maurice Jones-Drew is legit. I think the Jets defense has quited its talking ways and Kris Jenkins out has made them softer. I think I like the Jags to win, but I definitely think I like them getting 7.

Buffalo Bills +7 @ Tennessee Titans
Lets name the Buffalo Bills greatest weakness (and yes I can only choose one). Stopping the Run. Lets name the Titans greatest strength (outside of benching Kerry Collins). Running the ball with Chris Johnson. Potentially no TO this week for the bills, Edwards returns (big wahoo). Vince Young wins ballgames. Remember the Titans.

Detroit Lions +17 @ Minnesota Vikings
Strange feeling here but the Lions cover. Vikings win, but Lions Cover. My Logic- none.

Cincinnati Bengals +7 @ Pittsburgh Steelers
Learned a nugget from Brandon Lang this morning listening to the Junkies. Lang has been terrible this season, but he is 10-2 in his last 12 plays so maybe heating up. Anyways, the stat is that the Dog in the Bengals games this season has covered every week. I ride the trend, Bengals keep it close, Steelers probably win. Chad ocho sprays mustard packages over Heinz Field.

Tampa Bay Buccs +10 @ Miami Dolphins
J. Freeman has made me a believer after one week. The buccs are terrible against the pass...which happens to be the Dolphins weakness. Look for a lot of Wildcat, but I think the Buccs are finding out how to play. Dolphins win, Buccs score a late TD to cover.

Broncos -4 @ Washington Redskins.
Never bet the skins. Never.

Chiefs +2 @ Oaktown Raiders.
Raiders do not lay points to anyone. Take the Homophobic Chiefs to win on the road. Love Dogs.

Seattle Seahawks +9 @ Arizona Cardinals
Can we move the NFC West to the UFL already. Like the Cardinals here. No analysis allowed for NFC West games.

Dallas Cowboys -3 @ Green Bay Packers
Big game. Are the Boys finding their swagger. Maybe maybe not, but the win in philly last week sure was impressive. I don't like this packer team, and have always had a soft spot for Tony Romo. I take the Cowboys here to win some games before it gets too cold and Romo has his annual meltdown.

Eagles +1 @ San Diego Chargers.
Chargers escaped the Meadowlands last week with a last minute W, I think the Eagles are the better team though. Westbrook should be healthy and him and LT can battle it out for the fading former pro-bowlers with no knees award. I take Philly . Fly Eagles Fly.

New England Patriots +3 @ Indianapolis Colts
Colts just struggled against the pathetic 49ers at home coming of the bye. They then should have at the very least won in OT vs the Texans who missed a fg as time expired last week. I hate it, but how many times are the New England Patriots getting points. Too much value for me. I take Tom Brady and the points. New England has been Peyton's Daddy.

Ravens -11 @ Cleveland Browns
Brady Quinn is back...its about time. Let him finish out the season and see what you got in this guy. I still think he can be a good qb...give the guy a chance. He won't get much done this Monday though. Ravens should roll and Flacco and crew should stomp the Brownies.

And I just looked at my picks and realized I like about every Away team. Not a good sign.

NFL Network

2009-11-12T19:46:00.001-05:00

Thursday night football.

If the first game between the 4-4 Bears and the 3-5 (?) 49ers does not fire you up..then what is wrong.

Will break down the weekend's games tomorrow.

College Hoops is Back

2009-11-10T10:42:00.002-05:00

Isiah Thomas's first effort at Florida International was a decent one. 88-72 loss to UNC is actually pretty respectable. That said, UNC turned the ball over 26 times and I wonder how much of that was FIU vs. UNC adjusting to life without Lawson.

Cuse bounced back and held the Albany Great Danes to 27% shooting in a 75-43 win. Rautins was an alarming 0-6 and no one really dominated, but it looks like the zone defense had the Danes befuddled all night.

Cal beat Murray St. 75-70. Probably a little closer than most would expect from a Cal team that is nationally ranked. Wouldn't sound the alarms just yet however, Murray St. is a pretty good looking veteran mid-major team that is heavily favored to win the Ohio Valley Conference this year.

Pittsburgh beats up on Denver on Monday Night Football. Can't imagine anyone is surprised by this. See what happens when Kyle Orton has to throw the ball?

Devastating Loss

2009-11-09T11:14:00.002-05:00

The Giants suffered a crushing blow to their playoff hopes with a tough loss to the Chargers yesterday. It was the national game and I'm sure just about everyone saw it. Quite simply, Tom Coughlin decided the clock was more important than the game and for that reason they deserved to lose.

Looking at the schedules you must expect Dallas, Philly, Minnesota, New Orleans and NFC West Team X to probably make the playoffs. That leaves one spot for the Giants, Falcons....Packers and Bears. It's going to be a wild race and it appears that you may need 10 wins to get a wilcard spot thanks to the plethora of completely hopeless teams in the NFL this year.

The Bengals beat a terribly overrated Ravens team and now apparently they are the class of the AFC according to ESPN..

Dallas beat Philly in a pretty good Sunday Night game. Can't say I'm surprised, it's the NFC East, never know what will happen.

The Green Bay Packers slept-walked into Tampa Bay and 32-year-old Raheem Morris notched his first NFL win at the rip old age of 32. Pretty crazy watching his press conference afterward, how does this man land this job at such a young age?

Vince Young does nothing but win football games.

NO and Indy both were scared a bit this week but got by and remain undefeated.

Davidson Hoops

2009-11-06T09:33:00.002-05:00

We all know that Davidson is going to come back to earth now that Stephen Curry has moved on to bigger and better things in the NBA. Well he plays with the Warriors, so maybe not better, but definitely bigger. Davidson faces some stiff competition this year and it will no doubt be tough for them to still be that dominant force they once were with Curry gone. They have touch match ups this year @ Butler, vs Rhode Island, and @ Gonzaga. Not to mention they will be participating in the Charleston Classic where they will play South Florida and then the winner/loser of La Salle/South Carolina. Not a bad out of conference schedule for a team that will certainly fall back to life. My only question is the game they have scheduled on November 25th, the day before Thanksgiving.

Traveling to play in Davidson, N.C will be the SUNY Fredonia Blue Devils. Hold on...lets have that sink in.........

Okay its not a lie...SUNY Fredonia Blue Devils vs Davidson Wildcats. This is not an exhibition game or a pre-season contest. Davidson has just destroyed their R.P.I ranking and Strength of Schedule. Not only have they decided to not play the worst DI team in the nation, they by passed any DII squads like the power house LeMoyne, and have gone to a DIII squad. A DIII squad in the SUNYAC league, that has a logo that may have been drawn by a 4th grader. The same team that yours truly once had a uniform and warmed up for, and cheered on the bench for.

Now FSU I have to imagine gets absolutely blown out, but I know nothing about the squad. Preliminary look at the roster shows some color and promise from years past. Is there going to be a spread for this game? Obviously Vegas will have to do some serious researching and trending for this game and set the line @ Davidson -20? Davidson -30? Davidson -40? Is there a high enough number that will shake you off.

Does Fredonia just play tough and get their moment in the sun taking down a D1 school of notoriety? You got to bet there will be some sport center clips of this game if its an upset, worst case scenario SUNY Fredonia gets a mention on the bottom line scroll, which is a victory in its self. And who does Coach Moore (Blue Devils Coach) know to get this game scheduled. Does he just make a random call to coach McKillop and say "Hey, wanna play my team at home."

Is SUNY Fredonia receiving some serious cash from Davidson for making the trip. Usually schools will pay smaller schools to come and get an whooping. Will this game even be able to be tracked on Yahoo or CBSsportsline? Will it actually have player names for Fredonia or will the box score just have player 1 (2 pts) player 2 (4 pts)?

Yankees in 6

2009-11-05T09:04:00.003-05:00

All criticisms of managers, players and umpires aside, the Yankees emerged and cemented their role as the best team in baseball in 2009. In a pretty exciting post-season, this team never really had its back to the wall. While their opposition made errors with the glove, on the bases and at the plate, the Yankees executed near perfectly and capitalized on their opponents mistakes like true champions. And when it came down to it, in a game 6 at home against a bitter rival, Pedro Martinez, the heart of their order got it done, in particular the man on the way out the door - Hideki Matsui. 37-year-old Andy Pettitte couldn't top 87 on the radar gun but outsmarted hitters by keeping his pitches outside of the zone all night and making them chase. One of the all-time grinders, Pettitte is an absolute legendary Yankee and all-time post-season pitcher. As a friend texted me last night, it's hard to believe we were just freshmen in high school last time the Yankees won it all. It was a decade from my birth before they would win their first in 1996 and now we spanned nearly another decade since their last. Much has changed since that first one. Steroids, a new manager, a new owner, record-setting contracts, players gone, players gone and back, players gone and back to manage and of course a brand new stadium.

As I watched the Yankees clinch it last night it was a pretty good moment. The excitement Mariano showed. Derek Jeter getting another and earning it. Jorge Posada. The young guys, Hughes and Cano and Joba. It was cool to see. I even thought it was fun to watch A-Rod exhale a huge sigh of relief, he dropped his guard and was, for once, candid and overwhelmed with happiness. Still, I couldn't help but think back to the 95-00 seasons, sitting downstairs with my step-dad or at my father's house or sometimes over with a friend. The excitement of their late inning heroics. Maybe, it's because I'm getting older, but I think more likely because of the ridiculous gap between the amount of money the Yankees are spending vs. everyone else - I simply couldn't get too excited this year. It was nice to watch but I didn't struggle to sleep when they lost and I didn't stay awake abuzz with excitement when they won. I didn't head right to my bedroom and flip on WFAN to listen to callers express their joy or pain until early into the morning like I used to after every game. Yankees fans should be excited, but until the playing field is leveled out a bit, I for one will temper my enthusiasm. A perfect example of this is my mom knocking on my door this morning:
Me: What?
Mom: We are going to the parade tomorrow. Do you want to come?
Me: (Thinking it through in my head - hmm, tomorrow, hmm, Friday, hmm Breeders Cup) No, I'm not going.

...wonder what my answer would have been in 98...

Couple notes from last night:
First and foremost, I don't care what statistics you drop in front of me. Matsui was not the MVP of that series. He had one monster game and was basically an after-thought the rest of it. He had a great game last night and basically won it single-handedly, but his contributions pale in comparison to the gigantic at-bats and subsequent hits Johnny Damon put together, the leadoff prowess Derek Jeter had or even Pettitte and Rivera's pitching in my opinion. You can't give the MVP to a positional player (that is - DH) who can't play in half the games and really only made a big impact on one. But, I have always liked Matsui and it's good for him, I'm not bitter and certainly don't take things like World Series MVP's as serious as most people - but I thought it was a pretty shallow choice.

Pettitte had absolutely nothing but guts and smarts last night. Brilliant.

As much as I ripped into the Yankees spending and it is unfair. It's interesting that their three big signings - Burnett, CC and Tex ranged from decent to terrible in the World Series. CC and Burnett each won a game but also pitched in the only two losses they had. Tex hit .136 and that's after a 1-3 last night. Just saying...

I'll leave it at that. Go Knicks.

Long Season Ahead?

2009-11-04T09:45:00.004-05:00

Not good news for my Syracuse Orange. Last night, the Orange dropped a close exhibition game to Le Moyne. Le Moyne (for those keeping track at home) are a DII team. Aich.

Now I am not going to put to much stock into a simple exhibition game, I have no clue if the starters played the majority of the time, if they were just trying out different combinations, etc, etc. Though the bottom line is you should roll against this Le Moyne team no matter what the situation is. The Cuse is predicted to finish in the top tier of the Big East, around 6th through 8th. I think that is an accurate assessment. I don't even think its necessarily bad for this cuse team to suffer a loss like this. It might be a wake-up call and better to have it when it doesn't count, because the Cuse are notorious for getting upset early in the season by some scrub team on their home floor. Last year it came from Cleveland State on a full court shot with no time left. Turns out Cleveland State wasn't all so bad, but still a game the Cuse should win at home 9 out of 10 times at least.

The Orange are going to be a very interesting team this year. Not really sure where they are going to find their scoring, or leadership from. They are going to miss Jonny Flynn big time. Eric Devendorf and Paul Harris look like fools. Last I checked Eric was entertaining offers to go play in Turkey or Greece, or here in the United States for the NBDL. Yikes. Paul Harris on the other hand looks to have a real promising future as he was not offered a roster spot on the Timberwolves team after summer league. The Utah Jazz then invited him to their pre-season camp, and Harris injured his ankle before camp began and was waived. No word on what his future holds, except for being the father of one too many kids.

Anyways, the PG spot will either be manned by freshman Brandon Triche, or redshirt sophomore Scoop Jaurdine. Jaurdine got some burn his freshman season and was fairly unimpressive, though not terrible. He sat out all of last year after I believe some legal trouble and an injury. Either way it is a huge drop off from possibly the best PG in the country last year. I secretly hope Triche can outplay Scoop, as I prefer him to come off the bench unless he has drastically improved.

Andy Rautins will start at the SG spot. Rautins has a solid game and has been better at attacking the rim and playing defense, and we all know his shots is lights out. I just fear that opponents will go into the game keying on him and he will have to do his best Steph Curry impression to run like a mad man on the court just to get shots up.

Small Forward is where all they hype is on this team - and this team will only go if this man is who everyone claims he is. Wesley Johnson is a transfer form Iowa State where he had many accolades his freshman year there. He had a cool 32 last night in the exhibition, but apparently this man can fill it up inside and out. I have not seen him play, but for some reason I feel he will be like a Donte Green minus the horrible shot selection, weakness, and stupidity like most recent cuse players to come out of college way to early. Donte Green, Paul Harris, Eric Devendorf could all be on this Cuse team right now - and now none of them are making an impact...anywhere. Last I checked donte Green was flip flopping from the Sacramento Kings to the D League.

The big strength for this cuse team is the front court. Rick Jackson (who I used to shred) and Arinze Onuaku are arguably one of the best frontcourt duos in America. Arinze is a flat out beast, and apparently he shed some fat and is just ready to dominate. These two should be good for at least 10 and 10 a night and are the only constant on this Cuse team. Let's hope they have learned how to hit a free throw. They are both about the worst free throw shooting big men in the history and should add to the fact that cuse teams can never stroke from the line. Funny how the only title they have won was because Kansas was AWFUL from the charity stripe.

Reserves Kris Joseph and Mookie Jones will be key contributors off the bench, and for cuse fans sake lets hope they improved since last year. They also lost Kristof Ongenaut who seriously grew on me last year and was a great glue guy. Loved Kristof!!!

Anyways - not a huge deal that they lost, but very concerning where this team goes this year. The backcourt could be a huge weakness, and as always SU depth should be limited. It remains to be seen if Jimmy B will go back to his 2-3 zone defense that he abandoned last year. It was the right move last year because the cuse were so athletic, but a switch back to the trapping 2-3 may be the right move with this team. The cuse will have some early season tests in the tournament they enter they will play I believe California then the winner/loser of Ohio St. vs North Carolina. They also have Florida and Memphis on the out of conference schedule so Jimmy B can't take to much heat for not playing anyone, though outside of the games I just mentioned, they don't play anyone else worth much value at all.

Checking in on the NBA Rookies

2009-11-04T08:43:00.003-05:00

Who has been the best rookie to date? If you haven't been paying attention it might surprise you to find out it's a European. No, the best Euro PG has not been Ricky Rubio. It's the guy who decided to pass up on his American college career to make some extra dough in Europe - Brandon Jennings. He opened his career with a 17 point, 9 rebound, 9 assist game that was swept completely under the rug. But he has followed up that effort with 24 and 25 point performances and at just 20 years old, it looks like the Bucks have their PG of the future. Obviously, the fact that Milwaukee has no surrounding talent helps his stats a bit and he must cut down on the turnovers but the kid looks explosive out there.

Other rookies off to hot starts include Pewch Revolution favorite Johnny Flynn: 15 ppg in just over 20 minutes per game...he is really having trouble taking care of the ball however and must get that figured out if he wants additional PT.

Dejuan Blair is still a beast on the boards and an efficient low volume scorer.

Basically, all of the point guards have at least flashed a bit. Ty Lawson and Steph Curry are doing their thing. Tyreke Evans is getting a lot of burn for that pathetic Kings team and flashed with a 22 point game against New Orleans. He also seems to be taking the best care of the basketball of any of the rookies, though I can't claim to have seen the Kings or know what type of role they are using him in.

James Harden has predictably struggled to adjust to a scoring role in the NBA but did have a game he offset a 1-6 shooting game with 8 assists and no turnovers in a winning effort at Detroit. The Thunder quietly already have two wins and just took the Lake Show to OT, is this coming together sooner than thought? (probably not)

Not playing well: Jordan Hill.

Quick Hitters

2009-11-03T14:09:00.003-05:00

The Byrd is the word folks. Jerrius Byrd, rookie safety out of Oregon for the Buffalo Bills, had his third consecutive multi-interception game this past weekend. With 7 on the year, with only 3 (or 4) starts this year he is giving himself the front runner for defensive rookie of the year. Bills stink, but at least son of former Charger Gil Byrd is a promising young talent. Ballhawk Byrd. The next great safety...

Manu Ginobli has the best hands in the NBA. Bottom line is if you can yank a bat out of mid air and catch him in your hand, you are legit. If you have not seen this clip yet give it a YouTube look. Funny thing is now Manu has to go in for Rabies shots. None of this helps resolve the bald spot on the back of his head...Rogain...please Manu.

Rajon Rondo handed a quick $55Million extension. I say good for him, he is worth it and anytime in the NBA you can lock up a PG long term - you have to jump on it. Never envisioned Rondo coming out of Kentucky and being this much as a force. Then again, I probably put up decent stats with KG, Pierce, and Shuttlesworth as my wings.

Cleveland Cavs are off to a disappointing start...now is not the year to have a down season. Lebron, probably already inclined to jump ship, is definitely going if they struggle.

Hard to make much of three games, but Carmelo Anthony is looking smooth. Does he have enough in the tank to put together an MVP season in Denver. Last year his scoring took a huge hit, but he is starting to fill up the other statistical categories and is no longer a one dimensional player.

Tom Cable has officially beaten everyone he has ever come in contact with. FACT.

Back to the Bronx

2009-11-03T10:49:00.002-05:00

The last paragraph I wrote in yesterday's piece:

Now the whole world expects Cliff Lee to send it back to Yankee Stadium but Burnett looked good last out. I think the Yankees have a serious chance to close it out tonight against what should be a deflated Phillies team. Will be interesting to see how Burnett throws on short rest and the one caveat I will make is this: If Lee beats Burnett as most people seem to think he will....You have Andy Pettitte throwing on short rest like he has never done against a hot Pedro, I think that's a match that the Yankees will win, but if they do end up dropping that and we see a game 7 - I think Girardi has all but used up CC, again throwing him over 100 pitches. The game 7 adrenaline would probably help him but that is not something that the Yankees want to have to rely on. They'd be wise to close it out tonight, otherwise I have the funny feeling they better get it done game 6.

Obviously, there is a lot of underlying stuff going on here with Cole Hamels comments about how he can't wait for the season to be over (who will pitch game 7 for the Phils?). Now everyone sees essentially what I was trying to point out yesterday. Last night was very likely a game the Phillies would win, and while all New York has to do is win one at home, Joe Girardi has really set them up to possible fail.

If you're confident in Andy Pettitte on three days rest for the first time in four years raise your hand. If you're confident in CC Sabathia again on three days left after a gutsy outing where he had maybe C+ stuff, raise your hand. Personally, I'm not confident in either. Andy has thrown well on short rest before, but he's much older now and his velocity is already down. If he throws any slower it might be much closer to batting practice than people realize.

The Yankees, in my opinion, will have to win this series with their bats. Pedro and an unknown starter in game 7 (Hamels? Happ?) are not world-beaters at this point. If I'm Philly I'm throwing Hamels despite his comments. If anything, I like him more with something to prove. Either way, Joe Girardi faltered by not throwing Gaudin up 3-1 against Cliff Lee. He could have then had AJ Burnett and Andy Pettitte on full rest with CC available out of the pen. Or he could have thrown AJ on full rest and then came back with CC in the seventh.

As it stands this series looks eerily familiar to the 04 ALCS where the Yanks got stunned after they ran out of pitching against a potent lineup.

As for last night's game I won't get as in-depth. I didn't have a problem with using Coke down 6-2 against a bunch of lefties. I didn't think it wise to use up your good arms there with the way Lee settled in...and if the Yanks didn't come out and pop him no one would complain about the decision. You did have an off day today, but I still thought it a decent spot to use Coke - he just didn't deliver.

You see what happens when Molina is put into a lineup that already is going to have a weak hitting center-fielder and the pitcher - you basically get a very good top, but with a lot of pressure on it and room to work around. The Yankees 7-8-9 hitters are miserable game-in, game-out and it is really hurting their offense.

Chase Utley is a monster.

I have a feeling this series may come down to this - which team can get their power hitter going. Can the Yanks get Tex hitting again at home? Or does Ryan Howard break out and start popping homers again? That to me, above all else, will have the most say in deciding who wins this.

The Phillies are headed to New York but they must be feeling confident. Two games seems so much less insurmountable than three games. Even with Lee on the mound and the home-field advantage I felt that was a tricky game for Philly. Now, if Pedro throws well one more time and they get a decent start game 7, I think their bats may steal away the series. On the other hand, the Yanks have to feel good about winning just one of two at home. Andy Pettitte and CC Sabthia are gutsy pitchers who you don't fear handing the ball over to, and something like 6 innings 4 runs might just be good enough, especially if Tex starts to hit. Or maybe Cano with a couple well-hit balls snaps out of it? Either way, this series is far from over and should come to an exciting finish. Enjoy.

Series Over?

2009-11-02T10:27:00.003-05:00

Last night, the Phillies suffered a crushing defeat that has just about everyone thinking this series is over for all intents and purposes.

I'm sure everyone saw it or at least the highlights and boxscore by now so I won't bore you with the details. A couple thoughts I had while watching:

The Phillies have let the Yankees off the hook time and again (see game 3, bases loaded 1 out for Victorino) and they did it again last night. After the Ynaks jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning, the Phils had a real chance to re-capture the lead in the bottom half after Chase Utley doubled in Victorino with 1 out and Howard stepping up to the plate (by the way, does anything sum up how good the Yanks are running this post-season like the A-Rod home run off the camera that shouldn't have gone out vs. Utley hitting that double off the top of the fence? It's a game of inches and the Yanks have been winning those inches)...and the Phils failed to score again that inning despite CC missing locations time and again.

Speaking of CC, he put together a gutsy performance but I think the innings are finally taking their toll as he was really laboring out there...the velocity was down on average, he missed a lot of spots, relied on his off-speed stuff and at times just looked flat out gassed out there.

To me, this game was won and lost in the 5th inning. In the top half the Yanks break a 2-2 tie and make it 4-2. The Phils brought the top of their order to the plate and Rollins delivered with a single, Victorino walked, and the table was set for the Phils to throw a knockout blow to CC Sabathia and even up the series 2-2. Utley watched a couple pitches right down the middle and couldn't hold back on a check swing on a 1-2 curve at his ankles and popped out weakly to short. Ryan Howard came up and impatiently popped out to left field. CC then got ahead on Werth and got him to chase a breaking ball in the dirt for strike 3...they got out of the inning unscathed and that to me pretty much ended the game and the series..

But the Phils did get another chance with the top of the order against CC surprisingly enough to me and I think Girardi made a big mistake letting CC pitch to Utley despite Rollins and Victorino scorching balls right at fielders and Utley delivered a solo homer.

In the bottom of the 8th, Joba came in and finally looked as electric as when they first brought him up and put him in the pen. He was throwing 96 mph fastballs that no one appeared capable of catching up to. He gets the first two outs and then has Pedro Feliz 1-2. Feliz looked about as far behind Joba's fastball as I usually did against an upper 80's fastball. Then Joba threw a 1-2 slider in the dirt immediately following McCarver's announcement "I don't think we'll see anything but the fastball with how hard Joba is throwing right now." Funny, but I actually think McCarver was right to say that..I don't think Feliz had a chance to catch up to the fastball there if he had to think about the slider in the back of his mind. When it went to 2-2 however, Joba had set him up perfectly and should have reared back and fired one as hard as he could..instead he got fancy and threw another slider in the dirt which Feliz was able to lay off. 3-2 count and every single person in the world, male, female, adult, kid, was sitting dead red on the fastball there - Feliz surely was and he deposited it into the left field bleachers. I thought it at the time, if you're throwing that 2-2 slider, you absolutely have to come back with it 3-2.

Didn't much matter as Lidge came in the 9th and allowed a 2 out single to Johnny Damon...Damon then stole 2nd and 3rd on the same pitch before Ledge hit Texeria. For some odd reason Lidge and Manuel decided to pitch to A-Rod, which might be more stupid than all of the moves I have killed Girardi for all post-season combined. A-Rod doubled. They then made an equally puzzling move pitching to Posada with first base open and the struggling Cano on deck and Posada plated two more runs, which completely ended any chance of the Phils coming back.

Now the whole world expects Cliff Lee to send it back to Yankee Stadium but Burnett looked good last out. I think the Yankees have a serious chance to close it out tonight against what should be a deflated Phillies team. Will be interesting to see how Burnett throws on short rest and the one caveat I will make is this: If Lee beats Burnett as most people seem to think he will....You have Andy Pettitte throwing on short rest like he has never done against a hot Pedro, I think that's a match that the Yankees will win, but if they do end up dropping that and we see a game 7 - I think Girardi has all but used up CC, again throwing him over 100 pitches. The game 7 adrenaline would probably help him but that is not something that the Yankees want to have to rely on. They'd be wise to close it out tonight, otherwise I have the funny feeling they better get it done game 6.

All Square

2009-10-30T10:33:00.005-04:00

Well, AJ Burnett finally earned his paycheck. As one of the biggest Burnett haters you will find I had a feeling this was a good spot for him and his arsenal is the type you need to beat this Phillies lineup. 7 innings, 4 hits, 9 k's, 2 bb's, 1 run. By the way, that run should have been unearned, Matt Stairs hit a one-hopper to A-Rod's glove side and that quite frankly is a play you have to make as a major league 3rd baseman. No clue how they scored that a hit. It wasn't the most routine play ever, but a definite error. So, Burnett was absolutely brilliant.

Again, game 2 saw two brilliant starting pitching performances where one guy gives up two solo home runs and it turns out to be the difference. Pedro Martinez and his afro turned back the clocks as he has done down the stretch all year throwing the bugs bunny change that fooled hitters all night. Unfortunately for him, he left one up a bit to Texeria and just as Manny Ramirez did in a previous game, sitting on that change, blasted it out of the park. He then gave up a home run to Matsui who golfed a ball about three inches off the ground down the left field line 320' for a stadium special.

6 innings, 6 hits, 8 k's, 2 bb's, 3 runs was Pedro's line. His last run scored after Manuel brought him out for the 7th inning and he allowed a two-strike bloop by Hairston Jr. and then a single to Melky Cabrera on a hit-and-run before being pulled. Chan Ho Park limited the damage in large thanks to Derek Jeter trying to bunt with two strikes, two on and no outs and a bit more of bad umpiring resulting in a double-play on Johnny Damon. Where do I begin?

First, Joe Girardi did a terrible job making this lineup. The 7-8-9 hitters were Jerry Hairston Jr. (because he's 10-27 off Pedro lifetime, yipppie), Melky, Jose Molina. If you're starting Molina over Posada there is no way you choose that game to start a guy like Hairston over Swisher. Yes, Swisher is slumping but he gives you a ton more power and a much greater ability to get on base. Since Hairston hit a cue shot down the line with two strikes (after looking hideous at the plate all night) in the 7th in what ended up being a big hit most will call Girardi a genius for the move. He wasn't, he was an idiot and got bailed out. By the way, the bottom of the lineup killed a few rallies and the Yanks may have gotten to Pedro real good with a better back-end, but we will never know.

In what was a brilliant move after Hairston gets on, Girardi pinch-runs Gardner, Melky shows bunt first pitch, they go to the hit-and-run on the following pitch. It's not clear if Melky was just showing bunt to confuse the Phils or not, but if-so that's brilliant by him or Girardi. That is the type of thing a good baseball manager will come up to you and say before an inning "hey look, if jerry gets on here we're going to run for him, show bunt first pitch and if its a strike we'll have gardner steal, if its a ball we may put the hit and run on, so be aware." And that is my guess to what happened, so kudos to Girardi there.

But this idea McCarver was promoting that Girardi is a genius for then pinch-hitting Posada there? Are you kidding me? Of course he's going to pinch-hit Posada there. It's 1st and 3rd no one out in a 2-1 ballgame bottom 7. Personally, I would've pinch-hit Posada for Molina the last time he got up (right before the Jeter double) and told Burnett to man up and throw to Jorge like he should anyway.

Next came Jeter bunting. Usually when Jeter bunts it's on his own. It's a nice thought Derek but come on, you're the hottest hitter in the lineup...give yourself a bit of credit and swing the stick. You're hitting .500 on the series and that's after fouling out. Great announcing by the way, "no way he bunts here (bunt) no way this happens (it happens)." We know for certain that Girardi, if he did have the bunt sign on, would have taken it off with two strikes. If he ever put it on it's a ridiculously bad call, but I'd bet it was Jeter all the way. I'm sure everyone has seen the next play as Damon hits it to Howard and it is incorrectly ruled a catch and resulted in a double-play. Not sure what Howard was doing there as the play would have resulted in everyone safe, bases chucked, 1 out for Tex/A-Rod..so this was a big play (and if the Yankees lost last night people would be calling for the umps heads..as is this is maybe the perfect play that would call for instant replay, though it's tricky in baseball and would slow down already slow games, more to come on this after the series)...all Howard had to do was step on first base for the double-play and even if he was playing it like a ground ball after you run to within a step of first base, step on it, sucker. **Editing in a note - Should mention this is a tough call to make and going to instant replay ruins the flow of the play, much like the difficulty of dealing with fumbles and whistling plays dead in football.

The next inning (8th) Mo comes in and the Phils have Rollins and Victorino on 1st and 2nd with 1 out and Utley batting. Count goes full and again McCarver is promoting a ridiculous idea that "You have to send the runners here." Manuel pretty much shut it down in the press conference after saying "Check the stats, I'll bet you Utley has hit into less than 5 double plays all year. So I wasn't worried about that. On top of that I don't want him lining out and if he strikes out, he's a lefty and Posada would have had a straight shot to third there. And I want Howard to hit." The fact is, McCarver, if you send the runners there and Utley makes an out, it's 2nd and 3rd with 2 outs and 1st base is open so they're either walking Howard or making him chase a pitch. Werth with the bases stacked is nice there, but you want Howard to hit. It was just a freak play, Utley hit it taylor made, Cano and Jeter made a ridiculously sweet turn and in the words of Charlie Manuel, stopping mid-answer to about the third question after that and turning back to the reporter who asked why he didn't send the runners "And another thing Jim, check the replay, Utley didn't hit into a double-play, he was safe!" Classic.

Fox track is terrible. DJ Hero is terrible. And Fox, you're the worst. When we have Chase Utley squaring off with Marino Rivera in the 8th inning of a 3-1 game with two guys on, DO NOT SHOW ME THE BASE-RUNNERS. They missed the beginning of three pitches including the double play showing us a ridiculous angle. No one cares about the base-runners. What ever happened to the announcers? Can Joe Buck let us know if the runners are on the move? K Thanks.

A-Rod is now 0-8 with 6 k's and what should have been an error.
Ryan Howard went 0-4 with 4 k's last night, though he did have that big double in game 1, might be struggling.
Wonder who will take more heat if it continues?
Raul Ibanez is quietly putting together a brilliant series.

I know there was more I wanted to say, but I think my brain is burned out now. Games Saturday/Sunday/Monday/Wednesday/Thursday. Some huge decisions on pitching and such. I fully expect Hamels to "surprise" everyone and out-pitch Pettitte in game 3, but that shouldn't come as a surprise if you've been paying attention.

Afternoon Notes

2009-10-29T16:11:00.002-04:00

I get a call from Mulldog today who tells me as he posted earlier that he is at the local OTB and nailed 5 straight races at the track. He was confident he had the field down cold and was looking for the improbably 9 for 9 day. Just like you never mention a perfect game in baseball, Mulldog's phone call had done him in. Race 6 was a loser, and so is Mulldog.

Tatum Bell of the UFL's Florida Tuskers has come out today and said that his squad is better and could beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers! Let's get this game to happen! Bell predicted a 24-14 Tuskers victory, and watching the Buccs play this year, could he be that wrong?
Thought in all reality the Buccs would spank the Tuskers, can we get the UFL champions to play the worst NFL team in the pewchbowl at the end of the year? Tell me you are not watching it.

The article for the record, comes out and credits JP Losman as the best player in the league.

A Call to Common Sense

2009-10-29T11:01:00.004-04:00

In a bit of single game overreacting I'd like to call some attention to two players...first...for those of you who were not committed Pewch Rev. readers back during the NBA Draft (can you believe we have been blogging to no one for this long?), here is some things I wrote:

Knicks - Jordan Hill - Pewch. Pewch. Pewch. He stinks. Literally outperformed by 6-6 Dejaun Blair in every category and that was while playing in the soft Pac-10 where Jeff Pendergraph was an absolute monster. Just an outright terrible pick. And I love how everyone says "Has only played 7 years" like it's a good thing...that's so ridiculous. I'll take the guy who had a ball in his hand out the womb before the guy who just put down the power ranger action figures and picked up a basketball a few years ago.

Game 1, Dejuan Blair: 22 minutes, 7-10, 14 points, 11 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 turnovers, 4 PF.
Jordan Hill: 1 minutes and 45 seconds.

DEJUAN BLAIR IS ROCKING IT FOR A CHAMPIONSHIP CALIBER TEAM AND JORDAN HILL CAN'T EVEN CRACK THE KNICKS SAD ROTATION IN GAME 1? COME ON WALSH, YOU'RE KILLING ME HERE.

The other guy who was ultra-productive in college but fell like a ton of bricks on draft night was Ty Lawson. A guy I personally thought was the most dynamic player in college basketball (with many disagreeing UNC fans).

Game 1, 26 minutes, 7-13, 17 points, 6 assists, 1 turnover, 1 steal, 4 rebounds. Lawson ran the second unit which essentially won the game for the Nuggets over the Jazz (check the +/- numbers).

Why is it so hard for NBA GM's to get it through their heads that guys who produce in college are the best bets to produce in the NBA? Sure there are exceptions both ways, but why gamble on a guy like Jordan Hill just because he's taller than Blair? Why pick all sorts of players with the upshot of being 6th or 7th men - I'm talking about you James Johnson..when a player as explosive and productive as Ty Lawson is available?

By the way, Steph Curry had a nice first game starting for the Warriors and hitting 7/12 shots with 7 assists to 2 turnovers while falling to one of my favorite sleeper teams - the Houston Rockets.

***edit in - After re-reading the Jordan Hill note, I still can't help but think of how stupid the whole "He just started playing a few years ago" noted as a positive is. Think about that. In no other area of life would anyone say this. You don't go checking around for surgeons and check a guy's credentials, well on one hand we have a guy who has been performing them for twenty years without incident... the other option is this guy who shakes the scalpel around like he just drank two pots of morning howler coffee, but hey, he's only been doing this for a few years, he's got huge upside! I'll take him!

Phils Take Game 1 / The NBA Lives

2009-10-29T08:38:00.002-04:00

Everyone can now wake up and realize that the Phillies have been flying under the radar. No way should the Yankees have been such overwhelming favorites in this series and we see why as Cliff Lee out-duels CC Sabathia and Chase Utley single-handedly out-hits the entire Yankees lineup.

Now the problem for the Yankees is this: If Burnett doesn't beat Pedro tonight, they might be on their death bed. I know I'm the only person in the world who still believes Cole Hamels is throwing well, but agree or not, that is going to be a very difficult game for the Yanks to win (game 3, back in Philly, Pettitte-Hamels). That means if they lose tonight they might be starting at 0-3. Looks like it's time for AJ Burnett to finally step up and show us all why the Yanks signed him to such a lucrative deal.

...oh and he has to out-pitch arguably one of the 5 greatest pitchers of all-time in Pedro Martinez (an old, lesser version, of course).

King James and the Cavs fall to 0-2? Glad I didn't get that Eastern Conference preview out saying the Cavs would win 70 games. The king did notch a triple-double in a losing effort.

God, the Knicks are dreadful.

This is how a 5 year old should train

2009-10-27T17:43:00.001-04:00

Mark my words, if I have a son he will train exactly like this. This kid is flat out ridiculous. Unreal. He is officially stronger and more athletic than any of us combined.

NBA is Back

2009-10-27T12:46:00.003-04:00

Just like Hockey did a few weeks ago, the NBA has crept back up on us all. Lots of intriguing plot lines this year to get into and I am sure we will begin to cover some of these in some previews and breakdowns of some early season match ups. Hockey is in full gear, NBA is starting up, NFL is in full swing, and MLB is starting the World Series....what a time for sports.

Wanted to touch on two quick games tonight, the TNT double header. First off with NBA comes TNT pregame and halftime reports and Big Chuck Barkley. This crew is honestly the best group of analysts you can find in any sports. They know there stuff, are controversial, and honestly funny. I can't take listening to Fox and CBS stutter and laugh at themselves at non-sense anymore.

Game one match ups up two favorites in the east. Celtics @ Cavs. Lets see how the Big Witness protection program (Shaq) works in Cleveland. If nothing else, this should be the funnest pregame introduction team in the league by far. Expect nothing less then an MVP out of Lebron this year.

Sad note on the Clippers franchise who face off vs the Lakers tonight. Should be good to see Ron Artest go nuts on the lakers at some point this season. Clippers receive a huge blow with the latest news that Blake Griffin stud #1 prospect trashed his knee and the Clipper Curse Continues. He will be out around 6 weeks and its a shame because everyone wants to see what this kid can really do. All signs point to him being NBA ready. The Clippers may have been able to contend in the west for an 8 seed as they have some decent pieces. Excellent big man in the inured Griffin, Camby, and Chris "top three ugliest in NBA" Kaman. Al Thorton is a solid player. Baron Davis is apparently in better shape than ever looking for a bounce back year, and Eric Gordon is ever improving. Plus any team with Sebastian Telfair has to be good, its a proven track record.....

Lets see what the NBA season brings us...

Sad Story

2009-10-27T10:47:00.001-04:00

No jokes on this story guys. Unbelievable...need to share with the revolution. Has a bit to do with sports since she was an aspiring Redskins Cheerleader.

Big Coaching Moves in St. Louis

2009-10-26T12:38:00.006-04:00

No I am not talking about Tony LaRussa signing a one year extension with the Cards as Manager. I am talking about Big Mac becoming the hitting Coach! McGwire has been out of the spotlight since his famous Congressional hearing where he was "Not here to talk about the past." Well Mark, the whole basis of the hearing was to get all you roided up freaks to ummmm Talk about the past!

It just goes to show you that any public figure who is held in high regards and is behind a huge scandal can always get there way back into the publics good graces. All you have to do is stay out of limelight for a few years and boom, all is forgiven.

I can't actually say that I despise McGwire for several reasons.

1. Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire had made baseball interesting again and rejuvenated a dying game.

2. I still think he was Innocent. Both him and Slammin Sammy were just taking Flinstone vitamins.

Everyone in Major League Baseball, Owners, Management, Coaches, players, media, and fans can all be blamed for the Steroid era, because the bottom line was it was exciting and put fans in the seats. Now everyone wants to do the right thing and pretend they had no idea what was going on and play dumb. No one in the media asked the tough questions when this was happening, they were too busy covering another monster slam by the Bash Brothers. Did anyone in the Owners box or in MLB front office get suspicious when Sammy Sosa smashed about 25 home runs alone in the month of June one year? Of course not.

Mark McGwire is only a career .263 hitter and is an interesting hitting coach selection...almost seems more of a publicity move. I can picture him kinda being like Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite giving advice to young players. "You see that arch out there in, I bet you I can hit a baseball over those arches." Maybe he can have his son still sit in the dugout and run and give him high fives every time a player gets a home run like the old days.

Two more statements on this. The first is that you have the purest, best baseball player in the world in Albert Pujols who to this day has not been really linked with Steroids and PHDs, and now you want to cloud suspicion by bringing in the master of it all.

And second, either the Cubs are going to make a retaliatory move by hiring Sammy Sosa as there newest hitting coach or Mark McGwire may bring him on the Cardinals as an independent Consultant. God knows if Steroids don't work for this team then Sammy can always cork a bat to get the job done. These guys are slime, and the MLB loves it.

Weekend Roundup

2009-10-26T11:16:00.002-04:00

-Yanks win a pretty good game 6 and it will be Yanks-Phils in the World Series. We'll get up a preview on that soon. Is it really that intimidating to play the Yankees this year? Every game their opponents have made either a really bad error or a big base-running mistake. Again, last night the Angels made three mistakes you just can't make as a major leaguer. Vlad got doubled off first base on a routine line-out to right field, Howie Kendrick drops a ball at first base that hits him right in the glove on a bunt and Scott Kazmir makes maybe the worst throw a major leaguer has ever made in a game on the very next bunt.

The defending champion Phillies are not going to be intimidated by the Yanks. No one seems to be giving them a chance, but I don't see why. They have the lefty bats to neutralize the Yanks home-field advantage and the starting pitching might be a coin flip.

-Not much to discuss from college football, it has become quite the uneventful year. Alabama again proved to me that they are the exact same team they were last year, barely beating Tennessee. Florida escaped narrowly in a battle with former offensive coordinator Dan Mullen. Texas made the biggest statement of the week pounding a weak Missouri team. TCU crushed BYU and made themselves to appear the best non-BCS team out there (still don't think they're very good). Iowa snuck past Michigan St. but stop worrying everyone, no way does Iowa run the table, we aren't going to have to watch them in the championship game, I promise.

-The Giants season is about to crumble before our eyes. I felt strongly that the Cardinals would cover the spread and maybe win, but the Giants continue to look like the injuries are taking their toll. We will get a much better idea of who is going to win this division when we find out if Philly's loss to the Raiders was a complete aberration or serious cause for concern, because I think Philly is a top-5 team in the NFL, but I've also seen the Raiders 3 times this year - Eagles, you've got some explaining to do.

Billllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllls

Pittsburgh and Minnesota are very good.

The Saints are very good, offensively.

Dallas is good again, and Miles Austin has become a major fantasy football sleeper.

Seriously, nothing of much surprise value happened yesterday in my opinion, so what did all of you think?

The Pewch Revolution: Unwaveringly Pewch

2009-10-23T18:46:00.002-04:00

The other day the Millman brought to my attention the SportsIllustrated.com listing of the "Web's Best Blogs" and while I was shocked to not find The Pewch Revolution on there, I was equally shocked and appalled to see that all of the blogs listed had not updated their sites in over a month. So, in a continuing effort to extend from our readership from the 5 of you out there who still visit, to possibly a few more I decided to email SI and name drop us.

And no, they didn't respond. And I have to wonder why. Could it be that they saw through my attempt at acting as if we didn't want the spot ourselves and use one of my suggested blogs, such as:

Kissing Suzy Kolber (a great hilarious football blog google and read if you never have)
FEI (a college football website dedicated to ranking all of the nation's teams and projection scores - truly another great blog)
or
FireJoeMorgan (an absolutely great blog about baseball where the arrogant bloggers critique Joe Morgan chats, anything Joe Morgan does, and all types of sports journalism pieces they deem terrible..................................................................................................and as I just found out by visiting first time long time.......................inactive since November 2008.

Ladies and gentlemen, further clarification of the word Pewch.

Clueless Joe Strikes Again?

2009-10-23T10:04:00.002-04:00

Hope everyone stayed up to watch what turned out to be a very exciting game. The Angels prevailed 7-6 and sent the series back to the Bronx.

Mr. Joe Girardi made a slew of bad decisions.

I'm sure the media will be all over him today, my three biggest problems from last night...

1. Phil Hughes - You have a man on third, 2 outs. Torii Hunter is up with Vlad on deck. Hughes clearly went with the unintentional, intentional walk strategy looking dead scared of Hunter. Why???? You have a hall-of-fame legendary player on deck. A career .320 hitter with a .950 OPS. Torii Hunter is a career .270 hitter with a .800 OPS. The Rod Sox did the same thing. I don't get it. Since when did people become scared of Torii Hunter? I don't care if they wheel Vladamir Guerrero out there and he swings one-handed with a cane in the other, I'm making Hunter beat me. And of course Hughes throws a 1-2 fastball right down the middle and was fortunate it didn't end up in the stands, as is Vlad got it up the middle and tied the game.

2. Reggie Willits - You're winning 7-6 in the bottom of the 8th. You're on third base with one out and the greatest post-season pitcher ever is on the mound. Figgins hits a somewhat shallow fly ball to Nick Swisher in right field. Why don't you tag and try to score? Why???? Sure, Swisher ended up making a perfect throw, but Posada still would have to make a great pick and tag and with your speed you may have just beat it anyway. Seriously, Mariano Rivera is on the mound, take a chance to get a little cushion man. That's terrible.

3. The biggest mistake of all goes to Clueless Joe himself. 2 outs in the top half of the ninth and Scoscia makes, in my opinion, a bad decision himself to intentionally walk A-Rod. Why are you bringing the go-ahead run to the plate in the form of a very capable hitter - Matsui. Worst thing A-Rod can do is tie the game so why not at least pitch carefully to him? But back to the real egregious mistake here. Girardi pinch-runs for A-Rod with Freddy Guzman. The Yankees strategy with pinch-running has gotten completely ridiculous. They've basically done everything short of trying to get Usain Bolt eligible and dropping bench spots to put in pinch-runners. Sometimes however, you have to let your team play. A-Rod is still pretty fast, maybe not Freddy Guzman fast, but he's perfectly capable of scoring from second on a single or first on a triple. He stole 14 bases and was only caught stealing twice this season. In a sense, Joe Girardi got extremely lucky they lost that game, because if they had only tied it there and anything happened defensively or god-forbid, A-Rod's spot came up again, he would be getting absolutely murdered by the media today.

Note to Mr. Girardi:
This Yankees team isn't about you. A monkey could have got them here. Stop over managing. Stop trying to win the championship yourself. You have the best team in baseball. A good manager would focus on not losing it here. Stick to the formula, make a couple moves when you need to and let your team play. It's that simple.

Sunday Showdowns..

2009-10-22T22:20:00.006-04:00

Minnesota Vikings +4 @ Pittsburgh Steelers
Vikings are 6-0 after squeaking out a couple wins this year namely a hail mary back of the end zone miracle by Brett Farve, and a come from behind thriller last week vs Baltimore and lucking out on a missed field goal. Pittsburgh has been strangely mediocre this year, and Polamalu being out has been a huge detriment. I roll Minnesota here. Not only do I think they have a great shot to win the game outright, I just don't see the Steelers winning big. An interesting Nugget (and its true)..anytime the defending champion has played a team that is undefeated and has atleast six wins they have lost. Not really sure if there is much to make of that, but if the trend continues we got a Vikings win. Plus who doesnt want more Brett Favre coverage.

New England Patriots -14 @ Tampa Bay Buccs
Things do not get any easier for the Tampa Bay Buccs. I had a conversation with Pewch Revolution reader PC (who has been quiet for weeks) who is a die hard Boston guy. He made a great point when people forget about this Patriots team that it takes about 5-6 weeks for someone coming off of major knee surgery to trust the knee again and feel right. Well we are going into week 7 and I think Tom Brady thought to himself last week...."oh I remember how we did this in 07.

Don't think this team is 07 good, but they might have their swagger back. Wes Welker is healthy, and Joey Galloway is finally cut, leaving room for Julian Edelman to be welker 2.0. This team is so good that Bellicheat has decided to sit Pro-bowl linebackers as healthy scratches. What gives Adalius? 14 is a lot of points, but if you are going any direction in this game you got to lay the 14.

San Diego Chargers -4.5 @ Kansas City Chiefs
Chargers with a pretty disappointing performance last Monday night vs the Broncos. The offensive line was pitiful, and LT might officially be dead weight. Its unbelievable how Running Backs in this league hit the wall and hit the wall hard. They go from absolute studs to wastes of lives without a mediocre average season in between. Crazy. I like what Todd Haley is doing in KC and was thrilled to see them strip Zorn of his dignity last week. Dwayne Bowe is a monster, Cassel is solid, and I wish some of these young guys would step up. I think I realized that Glenn Dorsey and Jamarcus Russel have switched teams and positions and that's why they are both doing so bad. They are both the same size so who knows if they have or not.

Conventional wisdom says lay the points, but I am rolling with the Chiefs this week and I like them in the upset bid. Two solid performances vs the Cowboys and Skins and i think this team is learning how to play football.

San Francisco 49ers +3 @ Houston Texans
Two very tough teams to figure out. Matt stump the Schaub has been lights out and is coming off a 4 td performance. Slaton is starting to be utilized and Andre Johnson is Andre Johnson. This team is always dangerous. San Francisco has kinda faded from their hot start, but are a solid football team. This week we will see Michael Crabtree, and we will see him start apparently. Lets see if this kid was worth the wait. Every indication he gave us in College says he will be, but we shall see. I roll Houston at home here...don't forget they are a couple boneheaded plays away form having 2 more wins.

Green Bay Packers -7@ Cleveland Browns
Interesting article on ESPN Page 2 on Browns fans. It really is a good article by a special contributor. The thing that resonated with me is that how is Brady Quinn not the starting QB for this team? They drafted a stud QB who is essentially a third year rookie, and decided after 3 games of playing against unreal defenses and with a terrible supporting cast that he is not the guy for the future? Listen, your clearly not making the playoffs this year, so find out what the heck you have in Brady Quinn, because Derek Anderson right now looks like a flash in the pan.

As for the game I have one name why I am all over GB. AHMAN GREEN. Love AHMAN and happy he is back in the NFL and with the pack. Green claims he had such a bad time in Houston because of family issues with his daughters and the death of his father. Not that I wish injury on anyone, but I would love to see AHMAN back as the featured RB. Now if we can only get Samkon Gado back...

Indianapolis Colts -13 @ St. Louis Rams
Marvin Harrison is obviously a stud receiver, but the job that manning is doing with Garcon and Collie have to take a bit away from his illustrate career. Or maybe its just the fact that he has faded into oblivion because no one wants to mention that he may have shot a guy outside of his car wash in Philly and since he was a quiet guy we all assumed he was good. Peyton has that championship swagger back and the colts welcome back Bob Sanders. Dangerous team and don't have the Titans lingering around to give them problems in the division. They could run away with this thing real early.

I have to mention that Steven Jackson has been an absolute beast this year. He is putting up 100 yard games and doing what he always does. Great RB and wants to stay with this team. Hope the poor guy can find paydirt this week. As for the game, a lot of points, but St. Louis is bad and the Colts can score...

NY Jets -7 @ Oakland Raiders
I am not going to get into how the Raiders beat Philly, because I have no answers. What I do have an answer for is the following question. Do you like the raiders? Why yes, they are gonna start rolling baby.

Count me on the Richard Seymour bandwagon. Seymour said the other day that this team is making the playoffs and told Antonio "hide the gun" Pierce that he better shut his mouth and worry about his own team getting rung up for 50 pts. Jamarcus Russel still stinks don't let his mediocre stats last week fool you as 80 yrds and a TD came on a huge Zach Miller score. I just like this Raiders team...this week at least. The defense isn't shabby and Mark Sanchez is a rookie QB with 10 college games to his name. Its going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
Raiders stick with em, Just win Baby!

Buffalo Bills +7 @ Carolina Panthers
Terrell Owens???? Steve Smith???? I really don't like the bills, though AVP is calling plays for the sideline, and Fitzpatrick might be an upgrade over Trent Edwards. Caroline really doesn't justify being favored by a touchdown over anyone. Though expect them to run all over the Swiss cheese defense. I still like Buffalo to keep it a close game, maybe even win and instill some perfect false hope into a few naive fans...

Atlanta Falcons +4 @ Dallas Cowboys
Don't care that the Cowboys are off a bye and Falcons are working off a short week. I just kinda like Atlanta here, they are better on offense, better on defense, and the overall better team. I ride ATL and Matty Ice after their impressive victory over the Bears monday night.

Chicago Bears +1 @ Cincinatti Bengals
Some unreal tweeting has been going on this past week between Cutler and Ocho Cinco. Cutler was given a 2 year 30 million dollar deal and Ocho Cinco was taking credit for it. He then was tweeting some hilarious statements such as...

"Chicago Amber Alert; bears secondary ----if found please make sure they show up on Sunday, I cant wait."

"This just in fresh of the wire, the Bears secondary is listed as doubtful for Sunday...damn now what do I do"

"I just got this from sportscenter now. Bears secondary placed on waivers for refusing to cover Ocho this Sunday"

"CNN reports a new strand of the flu has been discovered by the Bears trainer H1N85. The chicken flu."

"Breaking news on ESPN; The NBA replacement officials to replace Bears secondary after Ocho Cinco is done with them."

"News flash, a small balloon though to be carrying Bears secondary seen floating over Chicago. Witnesses claim this is no hoax."

Okay enough is enough. As for my prediction I like the Bears here and think Cutler has a field day break out game proving for at least one game why they paid him 30 Million.

New Orleans Saints -7 @ Miami Dolphins
Lets see how the Saints do against the Wildcat...or will it matter, can anyone stop this juggernaut. If they are dropping 50+ on a good Giants defense then Miami stands no chance right?

Arizona Cardinals +7 @ NY Giants.
Mulldog probably has some more insight on this, but I like the Gmen here after an embarrassing loss to come back strong and dominate. Though it is concerning that the first good opponent they truly have played they get smoke showed.

Eagles -7 @ Washington Redskins
This line can't be high enough for me to back off the Eagles here. Coming off a bad loss and pissed. Not to mention this skins team is in total disarray and Jim Zorn is a lame duck. Play calling has been taken over by Sherm Lewis who was last scene reading Bingo Numbers at retirement homes. Good Riddance.

Also I forgot to mention the Patriots game is in London I think...they are still doing that apparently....

Few Notes

2009-10-22T11:15:00.004-04:00

The Phillies are back in the World Series. Jimmy Rollins is getting hot and the team looks dangerous. The bullpen issued might be resolved and the only area of concern is that Cole Hamels threw a clunker. He's been pitching a lot better than most people think but he really labored out there last night and couldn't even make it the full five to gut out a win. The Phils are really going to need Lee and Hamels to be at their best to take out the Yanks (or what would be a hot Angels team). With how well they are hitting right now they might just want to root for the Yankees and get this thing underway.

I see Terrelle Pryor's high school coach said Ohio St. needs to let him run more. Thank you. What in the world are the buckeyes doing? Pryor does look like a robot. Yeah, Ohio St. has a winning formula which is more of a pro style offense than most college teams...but you have a player who could be one of the best in the nation and he doesn't fit that system. QB's who can run and move around to buy time are king in college football. Loosen the reigns and let him win you games.

Very alarming news coming out of the SEC - They have suspended the entire officiating crew from the Florida-Arkansas game after a personal foul was called as Florida rallied late for the win, apparently there is no video evidence for this foul. This is not the first time this has happened with this crew either, apparently a very similar call was made during the LSU-Georgia game earlier this month.

The crew won't be back until mid-November and probably won't be doing any post-season games. Arkansas head coach Bobby Petrino handled this issue with much class and isn't making any excuses. He said their focus is on Ole Miss.

Billboard City

2009-10-21T16:21:00.004-04:00

Do the Buffalo bills realize that your supposed to get talent to win championships. I am talking about monsters with freakish ability that stay in school for minimum amount of time and only pass classes because they are on the football team. A coach from Yale, a starting QB from Stanford, and a backup QB from Harvard. You can't write this stuff.

For the record, I called the loss to the browns and the win against the jets two weeks before either game was played to mulldog. It's classic Bills football. They are going 7-9 folks. They will find a way to keep it interesting for a couple more weeks. I just hope Fitzpatrick can win a few games so we don't have to see Captain Check down anymore and we can officially draft a new QB to add to the long list of failures.

Main point of this post is to just show you a picture of the billboard referenced in a previous story.

Fall League Softball

2009-10-21T15:28:00.003-04:00

Last night a friend asked me to fill in for his Fall League softball team. The game would cut into the start of the Yanks/Angels game but I decided to play anyway. As I pulled up in my customary fashion (that is two minutes before game-time)...I walked over to be greeted by a number of former teammates from our legendary Kingston City League Arc Pitch Softball team - the Laidlaw Killer Bees.

Yes, the infamous group of young kids who pulled up on a yellow school-bus a half-hour before gametime one early Summer evening, with our player/coach stepping off the bus and announcing to a stunned audience and paused softball game "The Champs is here." he then pressed play on the boom-box he held over his right shoulder and Juelz Santana repeated the phrase as we filed off the bus and 10-run ruled the first 5 or so opponents we faced.

Anyway, as I stood around bs'ing while the other team was on the field warming up, the guy making the lineup told me to swing a bat I was leading off. So I grabbed a bat stepped up, swung at the first pitch, roasted the right fielder and trotted around the base-paths for an in-the-park home run.

Normally this is of no merit and it really isn't anyway, but you had to see the guy I hit it off of. First, the guy was elder middle-agred, balding and out-of-shape. In other words, the prototype franchise pitcher for any city league softball team. He had an impressive arsenal too: throwing the fake pitches, throwing from way behind the mound, spinning the ball every which way; he had a curveball and a screwball (legitimately curved as I found out in a later at-bat), a front-spinner and a back-spinner.

Of most interest however, occurred after two of our batters fouled out (league rules state that a foul ball with two strikes is a strikeout)...after each strikeout, this man turned his back to our bench which revealed his jersey "number" to be a backwards "K". His name? "You Got Cha'd" And after each foul out he pointed to it with the pride most exhibit after a long home-run.

Unfortunately for Mr. Cha'd I knocked him and his bullshit pitches around to the tune of a 6-6 night with a homer, triple, four singles and even drew a walk. 22-8 final, Who really got Cha'd?

2009-10-21T08:32:00.004-04:00

CC is a bear. Why he pitched in the 8th inning up 7-1 is beyond me. Girardi said he would be available for 115 pitches if necessary...this was far from necessary though. Either way, A-Rod continued his miracle run. When will him or Ryan Howard not have a RBI in a game?

Last night, to me, was the best case to date for this team's invincibility. It was the key game in the series as I think in LA, the Angels have a big advantage in game 5 with Lackey facing Burnett. They had a pitcher going on 3 days rest. On top of that, the Angels fan-base (for all my hate of the stupid rally monkey, which is incredibly stupid) is one of the best in baseball. That stadium was absolutely electric from start to finish last night. With their team down 5-1, most stadiums get a little quiet even in the post-season, but that place was electric. The bottom of the 6th inning had the place abuzz, ready to explode at the first guy crossing the plate. CC let the first two batters on and I thought for sure the rally was coming. CC brilliantly escaped the jam with a double play ball and a pop-out.

I still say the Phillies are not getting enough attention. Maybe Hamels goes out there tonight and makes a statement. On the other hand, if Hamels goes out there and throws poorly (or perhaps if the bullpen blows one) then the Yankees suddenly become big favorites again..and I do think the Yanks/Angels series is headed to a game 6 at least, so I'm not completely counting the Angels out. With that lineup and two of the next three at home with Burnett/Pettitte/CC though, that is a tall task for the Angels, unlike what Boston did to them down 3-0 when they essentially ran out of pitching.

I pointed it out in the divisional series and now it is getting more and more attention - the umpiring in baseball is terrible. It is one thing to miss some ball/strike calls..that is essentially part of the game and an incredibly difficult task. Most of the blown calls there are simply from the guy just having a "bad" strike zone. But, this bad calls on the bases - completely unacceptable. And I'm not talking about the occasional bang-bang play that we re-watch in ultra-slow motion five times before figuring out. There have been numerous calls on the base-paths that were completely obvious to the naked eye in real time, on my 13" non-HD, magnavox, 1994 tv set. It's the playoffs gentlemen, just as we expect the players to up their play the umpires are expected to do the same. Make all of the easy calls and do a decent job on the tough ones. That's all we ask...and if you can't do that, I'm quite sure technology is more than ready to replace you..so step your game up right now.

Clueless Joe?

2009-10-20T10:38:00.003-04:00

Joe Girardi has been making moves this entire playoff run that have made me scratch my head. To this point, every move he made turned to gold. He got bailed out by the A-Rod home run Saturday or he was staring at Freddy Guzman (Hairston would have pinch-hit so Hairston I guess) and Gardner as his last hopes vs Fuentes. Meanwhile Sciosca brilliantly had his regular lineup in with the only change being at catcher with the defensive stop Mathis in for Napoli and Matthews in for a slumping Juan Rivera (Matthews drew a big walk and scored a big run). On top of that his pitchers went 7/2/1/1/1.1....Girardi's pitchers? 6.1/.1/.1/.2/2.1/1.1/.1/1.1 KISS. On top of that Rivera has now pitched in every game, most of which over an inning (over two Saturday)...he is amazing and has yet to surrender a run. But if he comes in one of these games, isn't sharp and gets knocked around look no farther than the guy in the dugout flipping around a binder for meaningless small sample statistics like "oh man, Howie Kendrick is 1-2 off Robertson this year, I better go to the pen and use another arm" like he did last night. TURRRIBLE.

Great game in Philly last night though it effectively ended the series in all likelihood. The manager formerly known as clueless Joe had to watch as his flame-throwing closer surrendered an improbable game-winning double to Jimmy Rollins with two men on and two outs in the bottom of the ninth. I will say this much - if that gets Jimmy Rollins going, whichever AL team ends up winning better get a little scared. With so much attention on the AL games there isn't enough talk that A) Ryan Howard is putting together one of the all-time post-seasons and B) The Phillies are every bit as good as the Yankees when their bullpen is pitching well and their lineup is going. People forget that the Yankees are going to be hurt when they have to travel to a National League park. They lose the DH and they don't have a very deep team. This World Series is far from the forgone conclusion many believe it to be. A big thing for the Phillies will be to see how Cole Hamels throws tomorrow. He's been pitching pretty well but always seems to have a rough inning when he gives up a three-run homer or just sees things fall apart. If he re-gains form here, this team is murderous.

Shocking News!

2009-10-19T14:18:00.003-04:00

Detroit Basketball will no longer be played @ the Palace. They have decided to uproot and play in Tulsa, Oklahoma....Kinda strange since Oklahoma City already has a team, but Detroit must really be hit hard financially to move a proud franchise....

Wait? What? Ohhhh Nevermind its the WNBA Detroit Shock, not Pistons. Read the weekend Roundup below for real news stories.

Weekend Roundup

2009-10-19T10:04:00.007-04:00

In the words of Larry David: pretty, pretty good.

This weekend did not really disappoint the viewer.

Friday kicked off with a vintage playoff pitcher's duel as Pedro threw 7 scoreless innings that made you think it was the 90's again. Him and Vicente Padilla were painting corners, changing speeds and overall just throwing everything but the kitchen sink at guys to get them out - and it worked. Just a fun game to watch that the Phillies bullpen predictably lost. And that is the difference between this series being 3-0 Phils after last night's bloodbath.

Yanks took game 1 Friday behind the masterpiece CC turned in. Then came back Saturday in what will go down as one of the more epic ALCS games ever played. Fitting end to a game littered with errors that the second baseman throws one away to end the game, but am I the only one who found that to be a bit anti-climatic? Lots of questionable managerial decisions in my opinion, but pretty much all worked out. The only thing that didn't work out? Turns out 0-2 to A-Rod up a run isn't a great time to throw a belt high 91 MPH fastball down the middle.

Saturday gave us some good college football (before that classic Yanks/Angels game stole the show)...Texas knocked out Bradford early, looked like the lesser team for most of the game, but gutted out a 16-13 win in the Red River Rivalry. It wasn't the shootout we hoped for, but finally we had a hyped up college football game that was watchable.
USC/Notre Dame then gave us a more exciting game, though honestly I thought USC should have won by 20+. Props to Notre Dame for hanging tough but they looked much out-classed to me.

A young Bobby Petrino led Arkansas team went into Florida and gave them all they could handle. Ryan Mallett looked good and this Arkansas team is going to be a National force next year. Of course Tim Tebow and company found a way to win, but much like Ole Miss did last year, Arky stripped a bit of their invincibility from them.

The big teams to lose were: Ohio St to Purdue in a real shocker. The Ohio St offense continued to sputter and their defense looked terrible. I can't figure out the Big Ten. Iowa sucks, Ohio St sucks, Penn St sucks. The whole conference is terrible...but who will emerge? I still don't think it's Iowa when all is said and done. And Va Tech fell to Georgia Tech in a less shocking defeat.
A lot of arguing about "what if this team goes undefeated, what if these two go undefeated, who plays in the championship game?" I think I'll make a post about that later in the week with a little preview of next weekends games, but none of this matters if Florida and Alabama win out.

NFFFFL SUNNNDAY:

No 48, NYG 27: My GGGGGGGGGGGG-Men got destroyed. They looked completely over-matched and it turns out the defense can't just turn it on when they need to. This was a game I fully expected to lose but the way which the Giants did so was very alarming. They couldn't get to Brees and even when they did he would just throw it up to receivers that were bigger and way too physical for our d-backs. Even when guys were covered they would come down with the catch. Defensively, the Saints are very much smoke and mirrors. The Giants could have run it all over them if they didn't fall behind early...and Eli missed a couple receivers (including once Steve Smith who had about 5 steps on the entire Saints defense) and this could have turned into a closer, complete shootout.

Houston 28, Cincy 17: So the Bengals aren't that good? Shocking.

Green Bay 26, Detroit 0: Drew Stanton and Daunte Culpepper got shut out? I don't believe it!

Jax 23, St. Louis 20, OT: Alright guys, I admit it, you were right, my prediction of 12-4 for the Rams was off the mark.

Minnesota 33, Baltimore 31: Told you Baltimore's defense is no more. Can't say I saw this type of shootout coming.

Pitt 27, Cleveland 14: Yahoo's spotlight player for Cleveland? Lawrence Vickers (I believe about a 5th year FB out of LA Tech or Colorado, how do I confuse those two schools? I don't know..but I recall wanting the Giants to draft him in the 6th round or something one year, pewch). Vickers stats: 1 catch, 1 yard, 1 TD. At least Derek Anderson raised his completion percentage to 37.5% this week.

Lina 28, Tampa 21: I don't even believe this game was played, I think they just did a Madden simulation.

KC 14, Wash 6: So Washington isn't winning the NFC East?

Oakland 13, Philly 9: Still not convinced this actually happened either. I'm waiting for the NFL to release a statement: "Sorry fans, we were just kidding. Come on, you didn't really believe the Raiders beat the Eagles, did you?"

Arizona 27, Seattle 3: Nothing to say.

New England 59, Tennessee 0: That damn Madden simulation again? I guess we can stop hearing about how Tennessee is a "good" 0-5 team (and not just because they're 0-6)?

Buffalo 16, Jets 13: After I sent out an en masse text message to most people from school including a bunch of Bills fans and a few others proclaiming "Wide Right Bitches" after Lindell missed the would-be game-winner at the end of regulation my responses varied from "lol" to "im glad, we want a better draft pick" to "die" (the last of which being a female respondent - welcome to ruff buff)...of course, more responses were added after the conclusion in which the Bills won in OT after Sanchez threw his 6th int of the game. It took until about 8:30 for a Bills fan to be wise enough to rip into my Giants, but hey, congrats Bills fans, you just missed out on a franchise QB! But Ryan Fitzpatrick looked great!

Atlanta 21, Chicago 14: I actually found this to be a compelling game. Just a good battle between evenly matched teams. I thought Ryan and Cutler were better than their numbers and though they each threw some picks on balls they let fly, both can really sling it when they get in a groove.

ALCS

2009-10-16T14:26:00.002-04:00

The ALCS will be the nightcap to follow a NLCS game which pits a guy some people once compared to his opponent (that is Vicente Padilla to Pedro Martinez)..what we get today is a watered down version, though Padilla comes in throwing well, he never turned into the pitcher many envisioned early in his career. Pedro meanwhile, has been pretty good for the Phillies, until of course, they over-worked him. Now he is much rested and there is just no guessing what type of performance to expect out of either of these guys. One thing is for sure however, the Dodgers have to win this game or the series is over. Especially with Cliff Lee set to pitch game 3 back in Philly.

I'm not going to get too in-depth on the Yankees-Angels series. Everyone knows how much trouble the Yanks have had in recent history with the Angels. Everyone also knows that the Yankees are the best team in baseball and the favorite to win both this series and the World Series. The weather in NY is terrible. It hasn't rained or snowed here like the weather called for, and honestly, I don't think it will rain a ton tonight. But it is going to be extremely cold and likely pretty windy. Tomorrow's game is almost undoubtedly going to get canceled with rain forecasted all day. The decision will then be whether Fox wants to pit the baseball at 4 o'clock against a weak slate of 4 o'clock NFL games. Otherwise both the Yanks/Angels and Phils/Dodgers will be playing at 8 Sunday night. My guess is Yanks/Angels game 2, 4 o'clock Sunday afternoon.

Obviously potential rain-outs would figure to be advantage Yankees. One of the few chinks in the team's armor is a lack of depth in the starting rotation. They will probably be using CC on 3 days rest in game 4 anyway, but clearly if he gets any more rest it makes the decision that much easier. Meanwhile, a strength of the Angels team is depth in the starting rotation. They don't have a true ace, but there isn't a ton of difference between Lackey, Weaver, Kazmir, Saunders.

I definitely think we will see the Angels take a couple games here. Burnett can be very shaky and did not exactly pitch well against Minnesota. A repeat performance of that against this Angels team could be a disaster. The Angels are always tough at home and the Yanks do not like traveling to the West. Clearly, the Yankees should be able to get it done this series, but their margin of error is probably smaller than people think. Say CC Sabathia loses tonight, will anyone be shocked if Burnett then drops a game and the Yanks find themselves in a hole before heading out west? CC has proven he is a horse and can pitch on short rest, but this is just one year after his arm was completely abused in a pennant race. The question of whether he can repeat that type of performance on short rest seems underrated to me.

Ultimately, the Yankees lineup is just too good and the bullpen is certainly much stronger than the Angels....LAA would have to play near flawlessly hitting with runners on, getting quality starts and managing not to blow games with a less than stellar bullpen (not the norm for this team recently).

Prediction: Yankees in 7.

College Football Saturday

2009-10-16T10:43:00.006-04:00

We should finally have some excitement back in College Football.

Charlie Weis may have his job on the line when USC comes to town tomorrow. Very interesting that a college football team can get fired for losing to USC. Isn't that essentially the same as if the Raiders came to town and beat Notre Dame and they gave him the axe? Is it maybe not as bad? Either way, last time this game was played they gave us an absolute classic and the teams, talent-wise, are a lot closer this time around. But something tells me this one is going to get ugly. Clausen might be in for a rough day and the Notre Dame defense seemingly doesn't have a prayer in trying to stop USC. You would think the only chance of a win they have is to put up 40+ and while the USC defense this year is not as good as those of the recent past - it is probably still talented enough to keep Clausen somewhat in check. Thinking Notre Dame is going to need the friend to lean on after this week.

The other big match is, of course, the Red River Rivalry, Oklahoma-Texas. Last year, Texas avenged the loss in 2007 with a 45-35 win. At the time, Oklahoma was ranked #1 in the nation, with Texas #5. This season Oklahoma is ranked #21 and Texas is #3. I have a feeling this will be the best game of the early college football season. Neither team appears to have played its best game to date. Texas has gotten away with playing some cupcakes and even struggled early on in those games at times.

Oklahoma lost a pair of games by a single point, in their opener against BYU after Bradford went down with an injury and at Miami, two weeks ago. The question is, can they beat a good team? So far, they have not. But Bradford is back and healthy and this is the team's best chance to salvage an already disappointing season. Certainly, Bradford didn't get what he wanted out of this season (an injury, and no chance at a National Title, after passing up being the likely first pick in the draft...though he still may be this year, that is another story though)...you have to figure he is going to be fully motivated to try and get this done...if they win out they could still land a BCS bowl.

A friend who is a big Longhorns fan, had this note, which I felt was insightful, through text message, regarding the Texas defense this year vs last year, "It's ten times better the 2nd year under Muschamp. Texas is always good against the run but a lot better against the pass this year." If Texas can go out and prove that against the strong Oklahoma passing game, then that should be the difference...if not, the Big 12 might once again look wide open. He also noted that excitement is much higher than confidence...Personally, I think this one comes down to the wire with a good chance to see who has it in them tomorrow - Colt McCoy or Sam Bradford? Could say a lot about the BCS this year and could say just as much about the NFL Draft (I prefer Colt for the record).

Buffalo Billboards

2009-10-16T10:08:00.009-04:00

Ryan Abshagen is the new hero of Buffalo NY. Yes fans are unhapy with the team. God knows you have seen enough of this blog to know that I am unhappy with the team. Mr. Abshagen, an unemployed 18 year old, has taken matters into his own hands. By the way, I like how websites are making it known this guy is unemployed....he is only 18 years old folks, not a huge deal. Regardless, this saint raised about $1,500 through the Internet to rent a billboard.
The Billboard will read:

"It's time to clean house, RALPH"

Then a checklist of three names:

Jauron (head coach)

Tom Modrak (College scout)

John Guy ( VP of Pro personnel)

This may not be the most creative idea, but nothing like driving on 190 and seeing this flash over 3,000 times a day. Its a disgrace and the fact that nothing has been done is just pitiful. I would actually consider dropping $500 dollars with 3 friends to get a billboard hung in Buffalo for a week and publicity. Mine would be much more brutal though.

Potential Ideas:

*A puppet Master controlling Ralph Wilson's limp, slumped over body.

*Five fat pigs in Bills Uniforms with the phrase, "These fat little pigs can block better then the Buffalo Bills line."

*Picture of me and my qualifications pining for the next head coaching job

*A picture of Fred Jackson with a thought bubble next to him saying, "I wish I could go back to DIII Coe College, Arena league, or the USFL and play with a real team again."

*A picture of Marshawn Lynch as a werewolf with the entire 53 man roster slained beneath him screaming, "Beast Mode"

*A picture of Terrell Owens crying in his dark sunglasses crying next to a picture of Trent Edwards saying, "That is NOT my quarterback man"

*A skeleton body next to the phrase, "Dick, the human cadaveour, Jauron."

Torre Getting Ripped

2009-10-16T08:37:00.006-04:00

Apparently, the LA media is predictably all over Joe Torre for his decision to leave in 21-year old Clayton Kershaw for "too long" in last night's NLCS opener in what would become a loss to the defending champion Phillies.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-plaschke16-2009oct16,0,1346275.column

There is Bill Plaschke's (of Around the Horn fame) article.

There was wildness, whiffling, waffling, a proud kid being whittled into an absolute wreck.

Clayton Kershaw walked the pitcher on four pitches. He walked the third baseman on four pitches. He put one on a tee for the catcher to crush into dark blue oblivion.

Did I say he walked the pitcher on four pitches?

With a 21-year-old sophomore bumping and staggering through a roomful of boos, the fifth inning Thursday contained every element of a textbook youthful playoff meltdown except for one.

An adult to stop it.

My problem with Plaschke here is that a) his writing is divisive - the first thing he says is that he walked the pitcher. Well, first off that was after the three-run homer. b) While I understand that he felt he should have taken him out before Rollins - HE GOT ROLLINS OUT. AND THEN STRUCK OUT VICTORINO. He was sstill flashing bits of wildness, but no manager actually wants to pull his pitcher in the 5th inning. On top of that, from what I understand, Jeff Weaver was suffering flu-like symptoms and wasn't available. I can't believe I'm admitting it, but Jeff Weaver is the only type of pitcher you want to go to in the 5th inning of game 1, no matter how good your bullpen is. Yeah, you want to have a quick hook with your starters in the playoffs, but you also don't want to use up your entire bullpen. With the way Cole Hamels was pitching there was no way to predict if the Dodgers would even score again. Could you imagine if he pulled Kershaw after apparently settling, getting Rollins out and then striking out Victorino - and then the Phillies won anyway? The same writers (cough * Plaschke * cough) would be killing Torre for "using up the bullpen." The fact that he looked un-hittable for the first 4 innings, and possibly settled back in before facing the heart of the order is just the icing on the cake..nothing Joe could do here but sit back and hope.

Look, I'm not opposed to questioning a managerial decision. And believe me, I used to kill Torre on some of his moves when he was with the Yanks. But this is your classic second-guess. Were there signs Kershaw was in trouble? Certainly. Did they have a better option to face Utley and Howard, with the added bonus of not having to use up their bullpen in game 1 (a game they were already trailing)? No, probably not.

It was an exciting game 1. The Dodgers got 3 of the 5 runs back in the bottom half of the inning and still had every chance to get to a questionable Phillies bullpen. Bottom line is this - the Phils wheeled out Chad Durbin to help work out of a jam (he kisses men, on the lips!! come on! that was him right? I thought so, but didn't re-check). They used JA "never thrown a strike in my life" Happ.
They brought out Chan Ho Park who worked a perfect scoreless 7th right through the heart of the Dodgers lineup. But I suppose we should also kill Joe Torre for that?

And I do find it funny how much Plaschke pushes the whole kid thing. After four innings he probably had written his lede sentence as "Clayton Kershaw is still a kid by major league standards, but last night he was a man among men." Oh wait, that's probably not poetic enough for baseball writing's own poet laureate, Billy P.

A cup of Brew

2009-10-15T11:25:00.004-04:00

Well...in case any of you out there are still struggling to figure out what exactly Pewch is (and there really is no way at this point that you could not know) here is a conversation between two guys stuggling at life..

Mulldog: have to run out and get some fire for a big weekend of capping
Millman: haha alright

Mulldog: by that i mean pure columbian

Millman: typical
Millman: where you going to load up
Mulldog: already all over my bluff of coffee?
Mulldog: monkey joe's coffee shop
Mulldog: best beans in town
Millman: monkey joes wow
Millman: nothing better then a local place that can brew a mean cup
Mulldog: oh yeah, they have their signature blend, jazzy joe, a maple cinnamon blend, delectable

Mulldog: or i could go with the morning howler, named after the loudest monkey in the world and essentially gives you a caffeine rush like you just downed a liter of jolt cola
Millman: that is risky
Mulldog: or i may just go for the pure columbian
Millman: wouldn't mind a quick jazzy joe
Mulldog: they have some certified rainforest beans there too, more expensive, never tried, can they really be fire just because theyre from the rain forest?
Millman: tough to spring for the extra dime with such uncertainty
Mulldog: definitely

Nice Lives.

NLCS: The Other Series

2009-10-15T09:51:00.006-04:00

Baseball is back today as the Phillies head to LA with a battle of talented southpaws in Cole Hamels and Clayton Kershaw. Hamels hasn't been the same MVP-caliber pitcher he was last year as he led the Phillies to a championship but it's interesting that Vegas has lined him +127 even on the road against the young Kershaw. The Phils are a very good road team and with the more experienced arm. Game two will be tomorrow and is scheduled with a sickening matchup of Pedro Martinez and Vicente Padilla. Padilla is fresh off a complete gem but is Vicente Padilla...and Pedro has been magical down the stretch, until they decided he was '08 CC Sabathia and threw him 115 pitches and then came back with a 130+ pitch outing down the stretch. Now, I believe his arm is actually detached from his right shoulder and they have to glue it into place before games.

Game 3 will be Sunday night as both teams will travel eastward to Philly and it will be Hikori Kuroda vs. Cliff Lee. Kuroda is a very underrated pitcher but this is clearly a game you have to expect the Phils to win at home.

Game 4 is Tuesday. The man originally projected to toss game 1 for LAD, Randy Wolf is scheduled to face Joe Blanton. Obviously, these things can sometimes change depending on what the series is at. This would be a good battle of crafty pitchers, or possibly a good battle of mashing lineups.

Game 5 Wednesday 9/21. Back to Hamels/Kershaw except this one would be played in Philly.

Game 6 - Friday back in LA, Pedro/Padilla.

Game 7 - Saturday. Lee/Kuroda.

Not a terrible job by MLB in spacing out the games too much. This is about as tight as it is going to get. Kind of strange to schedule a game 7 on Saturday I feel? That is one you'd almost rather they skip a day and play Sunday night as everyone would be watching (Yanks/Angels possible game 7 is scheduled for that Sunday).

So beside that, what actually matters here - what is going to happen? Well, while most everyone is rooting for Joe Torre to bring his team to the World Series for a possibly electric rematch his the team that made him, the Yankees...no one seems to want to give the defending champs their due. This is essentially the same Phillies team that won the whole thing last year, the difference?
Last year their bullpen was a huge strength and this year they can't get anyone out. There is no question the bullpen could end up costing them, but it seems as if it has quietly settled in a touch. On the other side Joe Torre knows his biggest (and arguably only) advantage is the strength of his bullpen. What he will need is big outings from Kershaw and Wolf and will be asking Padilla and Kuroda to give him something like 6 innings, 3 runs...then he can turn it over to a dominant bullpen and see if his lineup can get to 4.

The problem is this Phillies lineup is getting hot at the wrong time for LAD. People for some reason still don't realize that if Rollins or Victorino get on ahead of Utley and Howard it's almost a lock they're going to score. And when they both get on, it is huge trouble. Not to mention a guy like Jayson Werth who gets absolutely red-hot at times. The Phillies lineup might not be the absolute best in the MLB, but it is the most dangerous (certainly in the NL at least). Throw in Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels and suddenly you have a team which I think should be the favorite to win this series (they are not) and ultimately the most dangerous team remaining in the playoffs for the Yankees (unless the Angels continue to be their kryptonite).

Prediction: Phillies in 5 (originally said in 6 but it's so pewch to predict a team in 6 games, everyone always predicts - this team in 6, that team in 6...show some creativity).

I would like to mention that USA tied Costa Rica in a thriller yesterday. I caught the tail end...they were trailing 2-1 in extra time, must have been the 94th minute (scheduled for 5 extra minutes), USA gets a corner kick and despite being a man down, somehow some cat is left completely unguarded and drills a perfect header past the goalie and a defender sitting in net. Of course, therein lies the problem with soccer, they just got a tie and you would have thought they just won the World Cup. No game that ends in a tie can really be considered a classic either... It's just a problem with soccer in my opinion.

Another exciting finish to any of us who bet Argentina +175 yesterday when they broke a 0-0 tie in the 86th minute for the 1-0 win.

The Calm Before the Storm

2009-10-14T13:09:00.002-04:00

There is literally nothing to talk about from last night in sports. But we have the NLCS kicking off tomorrow with a good weekend of college football and NFL games as I noted. There are even some good college football games Thursday and Friday. Tonight could be a somewhat interesting game as Boise St. goes to Tulsa in hopefully a shoot-out.

I intend to preview the NLCS tomorrow morning and the ALCS Friday morning. I'm sure the Millman will come through with some picks and I'd like to at least blurb about the exciting Giants/Saints game this weekend. We will also have to try to get into what should be the first big college football game that ends up being interesting in a while - Texas/Oklahoma.

Long Weekend Roundup

2009-10-13T11:28:00.003-04:00

With a ton of games this weekend I must admit to being a bit of a poor sports fan this weekend. My girlfriend was here and I spent more time looking at ancient artifacts at the Museum of Natural History Saturday than I did watching Florida/LSU or Alabama/Ole Miss...fortunately for me neither game really lived up to the hype. Huge weekend in college football this Saturday including Texas/Oklahoma and I plan on touching on that a bit later in the week.

As for the NFL yesterday: The Broncos beat New England and have officially entered way overrated territory. Look, they beat a struggling, overrated team, by three points at home in a game they probably should have lost. Champ Bailey did an excellent job on Randy Moss but they are going to have a hell of a time defending the multitude of weapons that San Diego will be giving them in Cali this week (I think that is the Monday night game).

The Giants are good, the Eagles are good. The Raiders are bad, the Bucs are really bad.

I thought Seattle would beat Jacksonville this weekend but is there a stranger team than the Jags in all of sports? One week they'll look like the '07 Pats and the next they'll look like the current Raiders.

Talk of Dallas being terrible I think is a little overrated at this point. Yes the Chiefs are terrible. No, they don't usually get blown out in back-to-back weeks at Arrowhead. Dallas has some problems, but how about Miles Austin. Credit at least one Pewch Revolution reader who picked up Miles Austin Sunday morning and inserted him into his lineup en route to mashing his opponent in my league (thumbs down on dropping Hester to do it though).

Indy, New Orleans, Giants, Philly. Those are the best 4 teams in football. Luckily two of them square off this weekend (New Orleans and NYG).

The Jets defense looked painfully average against a once again surging Dolphins team. But, on the bright side for the Jets, Braylon Edwards is away from Lebron James and once again ready to play football.

Other than that yet another pretty bland weekend in football.

What I really wanted to get to...the MLB playoffs..

Sweep, Sweep, Sweep, 4 games? With a bunch of intriguing Divisional Series matchups who could have guessed that they would already be complete, with only one losing team managing to muster a win and none of them going 5 games. Most people's favorite to win the NL - the Cardinals - were swept away by a familiar face in the form of Joe Torre. I don't think too many people are surprised by the Angels beating the Red Sox, but a sweep is quite surprising. And that is the series I want to focus on:

I guess I should first mention it will be Yanks/Angels and Phils/Dodgers...I believe it doesn't start until Friday or Saturday, either way expect a big preview for each.

Back to the Sox/Angels series...

Back to last Thursday...Lackey/Lester at LAA. Torii Hunter homers and as I already mentioned, in a terribly umped game that certainly made the score worse than it should have been, Angels win and probably would have anyway...I mentioned how bad the umpiring was and it really has continued to be miserable throughout the playoffs. My thoughts coming out of this game: if it's Lester/Lackey again I will be betting a lot on the Sox. Angels 1-0.

Game 2: This is the game I believed the series would come down to. If the Angels win, they ensure a worst-case-scenerio of game 5 at home, with a chance to win the series in Boston if they could take just one game. Weaver-Beckett certainly made this a good pitching matchup, but one that you would have to give the edge to Boston in. It is my contention that Terry Francona absolutely lost the Red Sox this game and in turn the series here...

First of all, we must say that the umps again missed a number of easy calls on the bases, again the Sox came out on the short side of the stick. That however, is not why they lost this game. A bit of decent managing probably would have resulted in a 1-1 extra inning game that could have gone either way.

It all began in the 4th inning as Beckett gave up a run but still looked strong. In the 5th he had a 1-2-3 inning against the 7-8-9 hitters, he was about to face the order the 3rd time through. Then he came out with a Beckett-esque 6th inning going 1-2-3 against Figgins (k), Abreu (ground out) and Hunter (fly out). The problem was that the balls the Angels were putting in play were hit squarely and even Figgins I believe smashed a line drive or two foul before striking out. We then enter the 7th inning and Beckett issues a 4-pitch walk to Vlad to lead off the inning. His pitches varied from 6 inches outside the zone to a foot-plus. Something didn't look right. Kendrick comes in to run for Vlad and Beckett quickly falls behind Kendry Morales with a couple more pitches that aren't even close to the zone. He battles and eventually gets Morales to fly out to deep left-center. Crafty and gutsy. Kendrick then steals second on a very poor Beckett-Martinez combo in terms of holding runners. As Beckett again falls quickly behind Juan Rivera Billy Wagner is now up, throwing and completely warm in the bullpen. Rivera absolutely clocks a Beckett fastball left right over the heart of the plate and the Red Sox are fortunate as it is right at third baseman Mike Lowell who makes the play. 2 outs, good baserunner on second and switch-hitting Macier Izturis stepping to the plate. To be fair, Izturis has been better hitting from the right side this year, but on his career he is actually a better left-handed hitter. He came into the game 3-3 with a double off Beckett on the season. In fact, he has hit Beckett well his entire career. Meanwhile, Beckett has lost command of the strike zone and his fastball has tallied off to low 90's..but he hadn't yet hit 100 pitches and I think that is what Francona hung his hat on. So instead of turning Izturis around and bringing in the left-handed Wagner to all but ensure getting out of the inning 1-1 (and with plenty of power arms available to get through the next few innings) Francona turned the Sox biggest strength (bullpen) into an unused commodity and Izturis singled in the winning run on a fat hanging curveball from Beckett.

I promise that this is not complete Monday Morning Quarterbacking on my part. Sure I didn't know all of those stats, but Francona certainly did. And I was sitting there urging for Francona to bring in Wagner (I had bet the Sox and also figure the Yanks would benefit from these two teams playing a tight series)...yet he didn't.

Perhaps worst of all instead of Francona then going out and making sure his team was just a run down, he left Beckett in to face Mike Napoli. Izturis took second base and then Beckett plunked Napoli. Then, he finally took him out, right? Oh no, he left him in to face Ayber who tripled in two more runs. Finally, Francona went to Wagner and with the Sox now down 4-1 headed to the 8th inning, Wagner averted further damage throwing 98 MPH fastballs and struck out Chone Figgins on 3 or 4 pitches.

Perhaps best of all (since I already used worst of all) is the fact that Wagner gives off a leadoff single the next inning and then Francona goes to Papelbon! So, he's willing to use his power arms to keep them in a 4-1 game with just 3 outs for his own team left, but not in a 1-1 (or even 2-1) game with 6 outs remaining for his hitters? What kind of sense does this make? He was willing to use Papelbon for two innings if necessary yet waited all that time to bring in Wagner?

I discussed the decision with a Pewch reader and respected Red Sox fan who didn't seem to agree with me. He thought it was debatable at best. Personally, I thought it was every bit as bad as Grady Little leaving Pedro out there....sure it won't be as scrutinized or met with the legendary blunder that Little's move was, but it may have cost the Sox the series...too often managers only look at the pitch-count and don't best utilize their pitchers...in the regular season, ok, but this is the playoffs, you have to do whatever it takes to win every game.

Game 3 is history itself as Papelbon and the bullpen blew a late lead..so maybe Francona just knew his pen wasn't as good as advertised all along? More likely, a lot of the wind was already out of the Red Sox sails at this point.

The good ole days

2009-10-13T11:10:00.001-04:00

I miss the good old days when we had a squad and fans like this.

Football is fun

2009-10-13T11:05:00.001-04:00

The millman went an impressive 9-4 against the spread this weekend. In other news, football has offiical ended for the season in Buffalo, NY. Hope for all you back yard quarterbacks out there atleast. With Derek Anderson going 2-17 for 23 yards and getting a W, we all should have aspirations to be an NFL QB.

Let me repeat that real quick. 2-17. 23 Yards...and won!!! Enjoy, the clip and song are better with pictures. Until next year.

Sunday Countdown

2009-10-09T11:34:00.006-04:00

Rough last week for the millman picking games. Let's see if he can turn it around and check out some game previews while we are at it...

Minnesota Vikings -10.5 @ St. Louis Rams
I don't want to mention "He who shall not be named" in this preview, but I have to give a quick kudos to his performance last Monday. This week I turn to purple Jesus to go wild and run all over the Rams. Take the Vikings, lay the points.

Cincinnati Bengals +8.5 @ Baltimore Ravens
If the Bengals can continue this magical ride they have been on I will be impressed. Ocho Cinco has been tweeting all week that he is going to be doing his best Ricky Bobby Talledaga Nights impression when he hits pay dirt. I hate to keep pumping him up, but best guy in the NFL hands down. He has said the fine check is in the mail already. Ravens had a bad beat @ new England last week in a game they couldn't pull out thanks to Mark Clayton trying to catch a ball with his chest. Baltimore did their fair share of talking and complaining after the loss and no matter how valid it may be, you just always look like a whiner doing it. Regardless I love the Bengals here and think they stick around and play some ball...Gus Johnson is calling the game and CBS/NFL rig the games to make sure they are close when he calls the shots. I take the Bengals here.

Redskins +3.5 @ Carolina Panthers
Has to be one of the worst games of the week. I take Carolina coming off a bye to get it done.

Pittsburgh Steelers -11 @ Detroit Lions
Fast Willie Parker may have been relegated to the Injured not so fast backup Parker from here on out. Coach Tomlin has restored his faith in mendenhall and he had a hell of a game last week. Look for him to rip through a bad Detroit defense and Pitt wins big.

Dallas Cowboys -9 @ Kansas City Chiefs
Hmmm. Tough loss last week for the Cowgirls. Tony Romo could not squeeze the ball past champ Bailey and the boys are slowly losing ground to the Gmen and Eagles in the NFC West. They will get the win here this weekend, but I like the Chiefs to make a game of it. Take the points.

Oakland Raiders +16 @ NY Giants
Jamarcus Russel is laughable, Tom Cable is two days away from being whisked into police custody...McFadden has bust all over him and is now out 2-4 weeks with a knee issue. Derius Heyward Bay is being paid about 7 Million per catch at this point in his career. No upside and positives to mention here. On a tangent me and my buddies were at Marshall High School the other day throwing the football around. I nailed a legit 35 yarder and then attempted one from 40. A terrible shank and the first reaction out of the mouth was...That a boy Janikowski. Raiders can't even get a break on the George marshall high school field. I don't love it, but I can't back the Raiders no matter how many points they are getting. Giants win and win big. As impressed as I am with this Giants team...they have had a cake schedule with the only real tough game being @ Dallas Sunday night so far (who haven't impressed). Would like to see this team when the schedule turns harder...

Tampa Bay Buccs +15.5 @ Philly Eagles
McNabb back, Westrbook back, coming off a bye....ehh I take the Eagles and the Points...but it is a ton.

Cleveland Browns +6 @ Buffalo Bills
Please lose. Fire Jauron. In all seriousness, the Bills at this point should not be favored 6 points over anyone in the league. That being said, the Bills probably win because they need to keep pace to go their standard 7-9.

Atlanta Falcons +3 @ San Francisco 49ers
I really like both of these teams. 49ers last week did what good teams do against bad teams...absolutely stomped the Rams. I like the Falcons off the bye though. Matty Ice should be able to move the ball and they have a big bruising back. Should be a close hard fought game.

Houston Texans +5.5 @ Arizona Cardinals
Andre Johnson vs Larry Fitz. I don't see any team stopping the other. I love dogs. Love the Texans here in an evenly matched game between two mediocre teams.

New England patriots -3.5 @ Denver Broncos
Broncos a huge win last week move to 4-0. The defense has surrendered next to nothing and Orton has been the definition of the game manager. They take care of the ball and move the chains and play methodical football. At home, I am starting to believe in this Broncos team and will take them over the Patriots. Patriots are good, but they are a normal team that will finish 12-4, 11-5 this year so they will take some losses.

Indy Colts -4 @ Tennessee Titans
Titans stink. Colts are one of the best teams in the league. What manning is doing with his young guns is impressive. I think I could be the head coach of this team and it wouldn't matter because Peyton is that good and he calls everything anyways.

New York Jets -2 @ Miami Dolphins

Dolphins are not that impressive, don't let that big win over the Toronto Bills fool you. The jets were still in the game with the Saints even with Sanchez playing like a rookie. I take the Jets here.

In Need of a Holliday

2009-10-09T09:59:00.003-04:00

I'm sure you all saw what happened in the St. Louis/LAD game, but in case you missed it the Cardinals got a gem of an outing from Adam Wainwright and led 2-1 in the Bottom of the 9th with 2 outs and no one on. Ryan Franklin induced what looked to be a routine line drive at Matt Holliday who was jogging in for the catch to tie the series at 1-1 when suddenly the unthinkable happened - he missed it. It never even hit his glove, it hit him right in his stomach. The Dodgers ended up rallying and won 3-2.
Wainwright threw incredible though I heard him complaining "I don't think they should be allowed to wave white towels when we're trying to catch a white ball" Shut it down, Wainwright. No one else had a problem catching the ball, Holliday just blew it, no excuses, period.

I would like to point out an excellent bit of managing by Joe Torre that not many will credit but in hindsight may have won them the game. In the top of the 8th, with the Dodgers trailing 2-1, the Cardinals had Pujols leading off (with Holliday and Ludwick also due up)...so who does Torre wheel out of his bullpen? His closer, Johnathan Broxton. This is such an easy decision but it's not one most managers would make. Broxton got them to go 1-2-3 and the rest is history. If he went with anyone else there is a very good chance The Cards would have scratched some more runs and they would be headed back to St. Louis 1-1.

Hamels got beat and didn't look too sharp. Aaron Cook was dominating. I don't want to give the game too much credit as the umpire was miserable. He was giving Cook pitches about 6 inches off the plate. To his credit, Cook noticed this and utilized it more effectively than Hamels...but the umpiring in almost every game this playoffs has been brutal...and speaking of which...

The umpiring in the Red Sox/Angels game last night was absolutely the worst I have ever seen. The 1st base ump was criminally bad missing routine calls that were obvious to the naked eye on a non-high def 13" tv to me. There was also a terrible call at 3rd..and the balls/strikes calls behind the plate were laughable. Again, credit Lackey for noticing this and taking advantage of it...I also would like to say that it appeared to me (and I did bet Boston so I'll acknowledge a possible bias) that especially early on Lackey got every strike call on close pitches and Lester got nothing..they even showed Lester pitches clearly in the K zone that were called balls and Lackey with pitches inches outside it that were strikes. Hopefully the umps get it together because that is not what should be the focus in these games...

Kudos to Torii Hunter for breaking the game open with a 3-run moonshot.

Yanks should roll through the Twins again today.

Interesting game will be Beckett vs. Weaver. I think the winner of this game will probably take the series.

Phils and Colo head back to Denver and it will be interesting to see...Phils used Blanton and Happ out of the bullpen so it appears they'll go with Pedro. Happ only faced one batter though and got hit in the leg - Manuel immediately pulled him..so maybe he would be available. More than likely it's Pedro with Happ being the first up if he gets in early trouble. Phils should not be in this situation - they over-worked Pedro in meaningless regular season games and now need him to come up big. The lineup better come up big or I think the Rocks take the lead.

Heeeees Baaaaackkk

2009-10-09T09:22:00.003-04:00

Las Vegas Locomotives opened up the first ever game in UFL history with a convincing 30-17 victory over the California RedWoods.

Total fans in attendance at Sam Boyd Stadium (home of the UNLV Running Rebels) was just over 14,000. Not entirely shabby I must say.

As for the real story, and the significance to the Pewch Revolution, J.P Losman has started his comeback bid to the NFL in great fashion. 21-31, 226 passing yards, 2 tds...LEGIT.

Not much else to say really except Losman and Fassel have to be the favorites to take the UFL Championship this year. Fassel was quoted as saying, “Our defense stepped up to the plate big time...“The things that we didn’t do well at the end of the day we can coach. It was a good football game. It wasn’t sloppy. It was hard hitting. It was what people want to see.”

It must be hard for Fassel to give press quotes and not think in his head "what has my life come to."

Dennis Green, Coach of the Redwoods, continues his losing ways and drops to 0-1, though most could see this loss coming, after all...

The Locomotives are who we thought they were...if you want to crown em, crown em!

MLB

2009-10-08T11:04:00.002-04:00

Day one of the actual MLB playoffs was quite the success. There was a lot of wind, some great performances and a bit of a surprise that perhaps shouldn't have been...

First, the Yankees somehow really do have that feel of those Championship teams from the late 90's. The lineup has power at nearly every spot. They got 29 homers out of a role player like Nick Swisher. The bullpen has rounded into form and they have some reasonable to outstanding starting pitching.

That said, I think everyone may be going a bit over-board using last night's win as reason enough to already crown this team. We have seen it everywhere - this team is just too good, etc etc. Look, CC Sabathia went out there and beat Brian Duensing in a game the Yanks were trailing an exhausted, average Twins team at one point. On the same day we saw the Phillies bats wake up against a very good pitcher in Ubaldo Jimenez as Cliff Lee nearly threw a complete game shut-out. The Dodgers, a very talented, well-managed club beat Chris Carpenter. Tonight the Yankees kryptonite (the Angels) square off against a somehow flying-under-the-radar Boston team. I'm not saying the Yankees shouldn't win (by the way I thought CC was incredibly sharp and answered all questions surrounding his last start vs. Tampa)...but it's not going to be as easy as everyone seems to think it will.

Today we have some great matchups: At 2:30 the Phils should move to 2-0 as Cole Hamels takes on Aaron Cook. It's an important start to see if Cole Hamels has still got something left in the tank. If Hamels pitches a gem everyone else should be on note that the Phils are ready to defend their title.

The 6 o'clock game pits Clayton Kershaw against Adam Wainwright. Kershaw, the incredibly talented young southpaw can be dominant at times..and can also be prone to getting bombed. Wainwright has been perhaps the team's most consistent pitcher this year...in a series most people expected the Cardinals to walk, it looks like the Dodgers are going to give them more than they bargained for.

At 9:30 it's Lackey vs Lester. Will it be the Angels or the Red Sox attempting to beat the Yankees in the ALCS? The winner of this game has the inside track.

Don't Mess with LeBron

2009-10-07T10:21:00.004-04:00

You know what messing with Lebron James and company gets you in Cleveland? A one way ticket out of town. Reports are that the Jets have acquired Braylon Edwards from the Browns for some bum, Chansi Stuckey, and two draft picks. I have to say initial reaction is that I like the trade for both teams. Braylon though he has a case of the dropsies here and there is a stud who will give Sanchez some serious weapons with him an Cotchery flanking both sidelines.

Still unsure if it is a great trade for the Browns depending on the picks, but at this point don't they have to just flat out rebuilt. What does keeping Braylon on the team do for them? They ditched Kellen Winslow, Jamal Lewis is in the tank, and they need to either commit to DA or BQ. They are in a complete rebuild mode and I don't necessarily think the move is horrible for them either. Though they probably would have had more value for Braylon if they ditched him this past off season as the rumors indicated.

MLB Playoffs Kickoff with a Bang

2009-10-06T23:00:00.004-04:00

Wow. What a great play-in game. If that doesn't fire you up to watch some MLB playoffs then forget about baseball, it's not in your blood.

I was going to write "Congrats to the Twins" and then that reminded me... Why do bloggers always do that? "Congratulations to Team X." As if the team is reading what they write. You even see it in away messages and facebook status updates, which is even worse. Joe Mauer didn't dash home to check out if the Millman or the Mulldog sent a courtesy "congrats" on The Pewch Revolution. And Rod Gardenhire isn't logging onto his facebook to see if Reginald McPewchster updated his status to congratulate his ball-club.

No, instead I'm going to do what we're supposed to do. State facts. And facts is: The Twinkies are boarding a red-eye to New York right now after playing an Odyssey-esque epic play-in game that had everything you could ask for from go-ahead homers, game-tying homers, plays at the plate, closers being stretched to the max and a walk-off hit. Tomorrow, they will head uptown to the Bronx in the morning to play a 6:00 p.m. beisbol game with the heavily favored Yankees and CC Sabathia. Unfortunately for them, they no longer have the guy front and center in the picture above and I believe they are throwing poor Nick Blackburn. They are probably going to get swept away in game one and in the series as well. But never forget, in what should be a great Fall Classic - that the Twins and Tigers put on a show that reminded many of us why we sit through the long and tedious 162 game season...for right now.

Enough is Enough

2009-10-06T16:59:00.004-04:00

About to boycott this team until they just cut everyone. EVERYONE is dead weight. EVERYONE. Our starting left tackle, is a backup right tackle from the 0-16 Lions, who got cut, and we picked up on free agent waivers to be our back up right tackle, moved him to right tackle for half a game, and now he is left tackle!

Lee Evans...we are paying you 9 Million a Year. Do something.
Lynch..overrated. Oh he runs hard. Well Lynch you suck. Fred Jackson is the man
Trent...you are average at best. You are Terrrrrible
Defense is so bad.

In all seriousness the Bills problem is that they don't have a good team and they refuse to flat out rebuild. They always try to put a decent product on the field, but one that will truly never contend. They need to say to their fans and themselves. Okay guys were starting over...we will be horrible the next 2-3 years...like really bad, but bear with us because its the only chance we are better in the future.

The only players I would take heading into next year are...
Terrence Mcgee, McKelvin, Whitner, Poz, Maybin , Bell, Wood, Levitre, Evans, Steve Johnson, James Hardy, Fred Jackson, Marshawn Lynch.

Everyone else is CUT. They are cast offs from other teams or backups. Bring in a legit GM, not promote a Marketing clown Russ Brandon to GM. Have someone in the front office who can truly evaluate talent. No coach such of Cowher or Shannahan dares come to this pathetic organization so you probably will have to hire an upstart head coach which is fine, just dont hire a tossed aside corpse like Jauron. Young guys are doing okay so far (Caldwell is 4-0 in Indy, Singletary 3-1, McDaniels 4-0).

Just do it. Ralph Wilson. Grow some balls because saying you aren't going to take mediocrity, but making no moves and accepting it is lying. You are lifeless puppet. Enjoy.

Baseball Playoffs Are Here

2009-10-06T10:43:00.002-04:00

A nice bonus to baseball fans will happen tonight as the Twins take on the Tigers at 5:00. I already touched on this one, but with the unveiling that Miguel Cabrera was picked up by a member of the Tigers organization after being brought to the "drunk tank" following a possible domestic abuse with his wife (this after he allegedly got extremely intoxicated with a member of the Chicago White Sox, who they were playing)...perhaps it's no wonder Miggy is slumping when the Tigers need him most. Advantage: Twins.

Yankees/Twins/Tigers: The winner of said matchup will head to NY to face the Yankees Wednesday evening. Say what you will but neither team poses much of a threat to the Yankees who are the overwhelming favorites to win the AL. The interesting things to watch here will be what kind of start does A-Rod get off to? He hit 2 homers and drove in 7 rbi's in one inning during the last game of the season to bring him up to 30 homers and 100 rbi's. If he gets off to a nice start it could be a big post-season for A-Rod and that may spell goodnight to the rest of the teams. Also interesting will be to see how CC pitches. He has struggled at times in the playoffs and despite a dominant second half he comes off a terrible outing in his latest start against the Rays...if he shakes that and returns to form the Yanks are going to be murder to beat. Lastly, will Joba come out of the pen? If so, how effective will he be? Do they dare bring him in for a big 7th inning? He came out reportedly tossing 95 in a scoreless inning against the Rays this weekend. At least it didn't take the Yanks too long to figure out where he belongs....
Prediction: Yanks break out the brooms.

Boston/Angels: Here is a rare series where the road team is actually favored, not only in game 1, but on the series...at least according to Vegas. The first matchup of Lackey/Lester looks like a good one for the Red Sox and I must admit I don't think the Angels will be able to get it done here. The Red Sox are simply more talented. You can bring up the Al East's record vs the NL West and the Angels record against Boston and New York all you want...but when you look at the overall talent on both teams the Red Sox are simply better. I don't expect a sweep here but if the Sox take 1 of the first 2, expect them to close it out in game 4. Both teams come in having won a few games in a row so they should both be at optimal performance.
Prediction: Boston in 4.

NL:
Philly/Colorado: If there is a bit of an upset looming I feel this series may be it. The Phillies are in fact the better team, but if Cole Hamels and Cliff Lee don't turn into aces they may be in trouble. Colorado's Ubaldo Jimenez quietly turned in one of the more underrated seasons in the majors. His 3.47 ERA as a starting pitcher at Coors Field says all you need to know and the kid can throw serious flames. His biggest drawback is that he walks a lot of guys but his ability to strike out a high percentage of batters often allows him to escape jams. It would not be shocking to see him out-duel Hamels at this point and if that happens the scale swings to Colo. That said I am not by any means dismissing the Phillies and their title defense. Hamels k/bb numbers all year have been pretty good and he got it going in the second half. If Cliff Lee and him throw well and the bullpen of Lidge and Madson don't implode you are forced to deal with a powerful lineup playing in two major home run parks.The Phillies middle of the order is still arguably the toughest to get through in baseball and when they start getting guys like Werth, Victorino and Rollins to hit there is literally not a team in the NL that can compete.
Prediction: Phillies in 5

Dodgers/Cardinals:
The other matchup that Vegas favors the road team. The Cardinals are pretty decent favorites on the road with Carpenter throwing in game 1. The Dodgers backed into the playoffs and at this point it is impossible to like them. Manny isn't swinging a good stick and reliable guys like Billingsley have lost a lot of their luster. The Cardinals, much like the Phillies have a lineup that is near impossible to get through if you let one of their first two hitters on...because Pujols and Holliday are straight murder. The supporting cast of hitters in St. Louis is not as strong as the other teams but those two guys could easily be argued the best combo. At this point it is certainly stronger than the Dodgers and the Cardinals are everyone's pick to win the NL. Be careful here, the Dodgers are managed by playoff veteran Joe Torre and Manny's bat can wake up at a moment's notice. They have one of the best closers in baseball, some capable arms and Kemp, Ethier, Hudson, Loney and Martin vary from very good hitters to dangerous bats. Impossible to side with the Dodgers here, but wouldn't be totally shocking to see them wake up and get it done, especially with home-field advantage.
Prediction: Cardinals in 5.

So I'm a total square. I couldn't bring myself to pick any of the underdogs to win the series despite two of them holding home-field advantage. Anyway, for your conference series predictions:

Yanks/Sox: The classic ALCS that everyone is sick of but secretly wants to see because it is, after all, the Yanks and the Sox. Much of this will depend on Hughes/Chamberlain and CC/Burnett. If CC and Burnett are dealing you have to like the Yankees. If the Sox continue to have figured out Burnett and CC's last start carries over the Sox could easily fly under the radar and steal the AL from the Yankees. Not sure why everyone assumes the Yanks will win just because they are the best team in baseball this year. They have a few question marks and as all of us who read Michael Lewis's Moneyball know - the MLB playoffs is a crapshoot.
Prediction: Soxxxxxxx steal it away in 7 at the new stadium (yes I'm a Yanks fan, and yes I know Babe Ruth will probably appear with a scythe in my dreams tonight).

Phillies/Cardinals:
Everyone knows I secretly adore these Phillies. It's sickening for an ultimate NY fan - Knicks, Yanks, Giants...hell I still like the St. John's Red Storm and Erik Barkley would play point guard on my all-time team...but I did predict their World Series last year and I have admitted, on the record, man-crushes on both Chase Utley and Cole Hamels. Hell, I once even won over an entire bar in Philadelphia on New Year's Eve after many "New York Giants" chants by re-directing about 75 angry glances with a "Cowboys suck" chant (this at least is how my drunk ass chooses to remember that night). Me and Philly have really bonded over the years. That said, I hate Philly. I hate everything about the place. Illadelph only provided one good thing - The Roots. The Eagles are a hideous disgrace. The Sixers, other than having Iverson, are detestable. I hate all of their college teams including Temple. The entire state of PA in fact is a terrible place. The ugliest and worst city (Pittsburgh) with the most annoying widespread fanbase in the country. No, I think it's time me and Pennsyltucky split forever and it starts with me siding with the St. Louis Cardinals this year.
Prediction: Cards in 4. Yeah, that's right.

World Series:
Pujols gets it done. Cards in 7.

While football is in full swing and the MLB playoffs get underway there really may be no better time to be a sports fan. Too many fans of baseball tend to only watch until their favorite team is out...and that's too bad. They miss some seriously good baseball. Sure, it's a boring sport...but when played right, the tension slowly mounting to a final pitch in the bottom of the 9th on a cold October night...there may be nothing better in sports. Enjoy.

The Pewch Revolution: Criminals!

2009-10-05T13:49:00.004-04:00

As many of you know when the Millman and I started this blog we went searching for a way to track our hit count. Blogspot happened to have connected with Google in a program called Adsense which tracked hits and also gave bloggers an easy method of creating revenue by placing advertisements in as many places as the bloggers would allow. For each click of an ad the blog would create some revenue (usually somewhere between 10 and 25 cents I believe). Bloggers of course were not allowed to click ads themselves or use a program that would click ads. We decided to place a single advertisement in between the first and second story - which I have come to realize many people never even noticed.

And so The Pewch Revolution Adsense marriage began. It was quite the marriage as The Revolution in a couple months actually surpassed the magic threshold of 100 bucks (thanks to our small but loyal fanbase - and I stress this is not something we believed would happen in under a year) to actually get a check from corporate super-power Google itself:

In fact, The Pewch Revolution's fanbase had been so strong that the Millman and Mulldog were well on their way toward hitting the 200 dollar mark as we had surpassed 7,000 total hits and countless ad clicks in the blog's short history.

And then, Adsense became suspicious that the Pewch Revolution was not being entirely faithful to her. I believe this stemmed from me logging in on my girlfriend's computer to try and add an update for you readers while out on a trip out to Buffalo...my girlfriend I'm sure is the most avid ad-clicker out there (not surprisingly) and while I knew there was a risk, we never really cared about the money, I just wanted to enhance the value of the blog. But super-power Google and its understudy Adsense apparently consider The Pewch Revolution and it's 100+ dollars of revenue a significant risk to their company, as our appeal was met with this email (about a month plus later despite their claim of a week or maybe a little more):

Hello,

Thanks for providing us with additional information. However, after
thoroughly reviewing your account data and taking your feedback into
consideration, we've re-confirmed that your account poses a significant
risk to our advertisers. For this reason, we're unable to reinstate your
account. Thank you for your understanding.

Interestingly, I never even cashed the first check, so Google wins again! Ladies and gentlemen, your very own, Pewch Revolution Criminals: The Millman, The Mulldog...and I think, still..TommyB.

Strasburg Professional Debut

2009-10-05T13:02:00.003-04:00

ESPN covering it with some non-Hannah Storm woman (for some reason) asking Steve Philips questions. Struck out the first batter which ESPN missed. Second batter was a lefty who cracked one to the left-field warning track. Struck out the third batter on a hard breaking ball after a couple foul balls and a ball in the dirt.

This is in the Florida Instructional League. Basically very low-level of ball and he'll probably just over-power these kids. He's only going two innings or 40 pitches, whatever comes first. This really isn't worth being covered by ESPN, but since I'm covering ESPN's coverage I guess I can't complain.

Gave up some hits and at least a run in the second. I missed it - I think ESPN may have also. Philips claiming his stuff reminds him of Justin Verlander...says his mechanics needs work. High 90's fastball, 12 to 6 curve and apparently a decent change as well.

Alright, that is enough of an indulgence. May try to preview the Minny/GB game if time permits (and it usually does).

*****EDIT***** Not sure where to put this and I believe this blog is actually more or less devoid of Mets fans...but Mike Francesa of 660 AM WFAN NY is going to have a long in hourse interview with the Mets owner Wilpon and GM Minaya. Should be an excellent excellent listen for all true Mets fans as Francesa is a very good interviewer who will not hold anything back (can't wait for him to absolutely force them to admit that they were wrong on Murphy). Even I, a Yankees fan, look forward to this. ....seems a good spot to also say that Francesa was attacking ESPN columnist and author Bill Simmons on Friday. Not sure if anything ever happened but Simmons tweeted he remains a huge Francesa fan but could not go on the show since ESPN forbid such (which is complete garbage by ESPN). Apparently Simmons is making some documentaries for ESPN and was ripping one that HBO did about Ted Williams which Francesa thought was well-done and called Simmons a front-man for ESPN and eventually said something along the lines of "Just stop talking Bill. No one wants to hear what Bill Simmons thinks." He then was going off about how Simmons apparently invited him to join him on his podcast saying something like "Call me back when you actually get your own show. We want there to be an actual record of this. We want someone to actual here it." And then something about technology. Slightly ignorant comment as podcasts have come into popularity, but funny nonetheless. I side with Francesa as usual.

Weekend Roundup

2009-10-05T11:44:00.002-04:00

The baseball playoffs are on the horizon and almost everything is lined up. Thanks to an epic choke-job by the Detroit Tigers, we will now have to wait until the Tuesday tie-breaker with the Twins to see who has the right to get knocked out of the ALDS by the Yanks. Interestingly, the Tigers went from a basic lock, to now pretty big dogs to get in. Your pitching matchup will be a pretty good one with Tigers 20-year old phenom Rick Porcello and Twins young veteran Scott Baker. Twins opened -160, so we know where Vegas is siding. btw...the Metrodome is going to be WILD.

In college football Oklahoma was taken out by Miami. LSU made a statement (I guess?) against Georgia. And pretty much everyone else held serve in a number of boring matchups. Finally this weekend should be a little better based solely on the one matchup I am aware of - Florida and LSU.

As for the NFL:

Who would have guessed that the two teams who played in what we all thought was an atrocious game between Cincy and Denver in Week 1 would be a combined 7-1 after four weeks, with the only loss being Cincy's misfortune in that very game. Don't be too misled...I don't think either team is very good..but impressive start for both teams nonetheless.

The NFL, much like college football was littered with boring games. The Giants-Chiefs game near put me to sleep. Tennessee fell to 0-4. Mark Sanchez got welcomed back to Earth. The Bills looked like the worst team not in St. Louis in the NFL. New England and Baltimore was even boring despite being a close game between two good teams.

Then Pitt blew out San Diego last night...err..kind of. San Diego made an exciting late push (as usual) but ultimately Pitt held on to avoid 1-3.

That is why I strongly believe that Minnesota/Green Bay is going to be exciting besides all of the over-done Favre talk that we will be forced to listen to. This weekend gave us no life whatsoever. Boring, boring, boring. All week I have thought the under 45 was a good bet tonight, but that would be too much boring in one week. Bret Favre and Aaron Rodgers going to give us an old-fashioned shoot-out? Or maybe it will be an exciting, low scoring battle? Either way, please Minnesota/Green Bay, give us something worth watching.

BCA ?

2009-10-02T11:26:00.003-04:00

A strong 13-4 against the spread last week the BCA is here to weigh in on the Slate of NFL games this weekend.....

Cincinnati Bengals -6 @ Cleveland Browns.
Hard Knock Curse? The Bengals are coming of one of their most impressive come from behind victories in some time. The browns have relegated starting QB Brady Quinn to backup duty and given the reigns of this offense to Derek Anderson a former PRO-bowl caliber QB several years ago. I am not sure if a QB change will make much of a difference. This team is turning into a circus and Mangini is looking foolish. Braylon Edwards...where have you gone? Really like this Cincy Team and Ocho will be sporting some pink cleats for Breast Cancer Awareness. Take the Bengals and lay the points.

Detroit Lions +10 @ Chicago Bears.
The Detroit Lions are in the W column! Unbelievable victory over the lifeless Skins. Now they travel to Soldier Field where the Bears after laying a stinker opening night have posted some solid victories over Pittsburgh and Seattle. I like the Lions to get comfortably back to their losing ways, but will they cover. Cutler begins to get this offense rolling Bears win, lay the points.

Oakland Raiders +9.5 @ Houston Texans
Oh Jamarcus Russel. You my friend are about to be written off for good. Texans got hosed last week vs Jacksonville fumbling the all away at the goal line for a costly loss. Texans can put up points, but Oakland defense should be okay. Texans win the game, but Oakland finds a way to hit paydirt 2 times and covers!

Seattle Seahawks +10.5 @ Indianapolis Colts
Some seriously large lines here. Seattle isn't that bad, but still not confident they cover...Indy is quietly proving to be a force this year. I take the Colts and gun to my head I lay the points, though I don't like the game.

Tampa Bay Buccs +7.5 @ Washington Redskins
If Matt Stafford can do it...can Josh Johnson? Don't think so. As much as I dislike the Skins I fear that they get it done at home and even cover. Tampa is just really bad this year, maybe the worst team in the league. Another tough line, because I don't trust the Redskins to score 8 points let alone cover, but another gun to the head game I lay the points. Be on the lookout for a lot of bags on heads...Junkies local radio show is apparently handing out 10K+ of bags for fans to wear after the embarrassing loss to Detroit last week.

Tennessee Titans -3 @ Jacksonville jaguars.
This is the last week I ride the Titans...if they don't do it this week I will admit they stink.

Giants -9 @ KC Chiefs
Giants just continue to roll. Really interesting to see these young WR develop. Chiefs stink. Giants win and cover.

Baltimore Ravens +2 @ NE Patriots
Riding this Ravens squad until they prove me wrong. How about Willis McGahee hitting paydirt 5 times so far this year. He looks motivated with a young Ray rice on his heels getting a lot of carries. Flacco is the truth.

Buffalo Bills -1.5 @ Miami Dolphins
Both of these teams are beaten to a pulp. Chad Pennington will hand the keys over to Chad Henne do to a bum shoulder, but the Dolphins have Tyler (yancy) Thigpen in the stable now. Maybe Pat White gets some serious wildcat action now? Leodis McKelvin gets shelved for the year for the Bills with a broken Fibula. Nice season buddy - cost us the game and the gods repay you with a broken leg and vandalized house. I take the Bills and lay the points. Lee Evans notoriously destroys the phins and they will force the ball to T.O so hopefully a couple go for big gainers.

NY Jets +7 @ New Orleans Saints
Love the Jets. They are so good. So are the Saints. Dirty Sanchez vs Poop face Brees. what a match up. Jets Cover....Saints win.

St. Louis Rams +10 @ San Francisco 49ers.
Lets hope that Kyle Boller still gets the ball in this game so he can keep throwing to his FB Fells (?). No Frank Gore for 49ers....but Vernon Davis welcome to the NFL with a two TD performance. Steven Jackson will have another strong performance (back to back 100 yrd games), but it won't be soon till he gives up on this team for not getting any support. I like the 49ers here, but I do like the Rams to cover.

Dallas Cowboys -3 @ Denver Broncos
Broncos first test and its funny for all the ribbing McDaniels took for a crazy off season, he has this team on top of the AFC West at 3-0. I like the Cowboys and lay the points.

Chargers +6 @ Pittsburgh Steelers
Steelers are having a letdown performance after the Superbowl win, but might be able to get things on track. Chargers should have LT and Merriman back in the lineup and I just think 6 pts is too much for a team of the Chargers caliber. Steelers may roll, but there is too much value so I take the points and chargers.

Packers -3 @ Vikings
Will touch on this game later...Favres return needs more time to ponder...

Fantasy Beisbol's Finest

2009-10-01T09:23:00.002-04:00

After a troubling year in which everything has gone wrong for Team Yawn...I have finally opened up on my league and will in fact win.

I am the greatest fantasy baseball. This is a challenge. You have a money league you think I won't win? Invite me. I will crush your soul. The greatest of all-time.

Yawn Inc.

Tomahawk Chop

2009-09-29T09:18:00.004-04:00

Jair Jurrjens. Tim Hudson. Derek Lowe. Tommy Hanson. Javier Vasquez.

Say what you want about how boring the baseball races have been (and they have been boring), but this staff for the Atlanta Braves is taking a page out of the Rockies playbook, the team they are coincidentally chasing. The braves are having a run like the Rockies did a few years back in hopes to sneak into the playoffs as the NL wild card. They have won an outstanding 15 of the past 17 games and have 2 more games remaining against the marlins, and then close out the season with 4 against the Nationals.

The Rockies are currently 2 games up, but have a tougher slate of games with 3 vs. Milwaukee and then 3 @ LA Dodgers. The Braves starting pitching is phenomenal and those aces keep them in every game. The bullpen is obviously a bit less desirable, but these five usually allow the Braves to be competitive no matter who the opponent or pitcher. With only 6 games remaining and 2 to make up on the Rockies you figure they will have to go 4-2 at the very least just to have a shot. In all reality they need to split with the Marlins and then definitely sweep the lifeless Nats @ home to get into the postseason or force a playoff.

They have a shot, and with that pitching can they actually make some noise in the NL...?

Weekend Roundup

2009-09-28T16:13:00.002-04:00

Couldn't post earlier as I went to work WWE...got to build the ring and I must say it is not as soft as I thought.
Also, outside the Times Union Center was a movie set...supposedly the set of a Will Ferrell movie...probably the most overrated comedian of all-time (and I'm not counting guys like Dane Cook who no one with half of a half of a half of a brain doesn't find funny).

Is there a more boring NFL venue than Tampa Bay? Watching the Giants pound them 24-0 actually made me wish I didn't get the game. I ended up watching as much of the Jets vs Titans since the atmosphere was so much better. Speaking of which, how about those 3-0 Jets?

The Bills are still terrible.

Overall a fairly boring week in the NFL. There was the Minnesota come-from-behind victory. Cincy taking out the Steelers, as Pittsburgh blew a late lead (rare). The Lions finally won a game. Jacksonville got some life. Philly, even against a terrible KC team, put the league on alert, they may be the best team in the NFL.

College Football was predictably quite boring. Overrated Penn St fell to Iowa, fairly predictably. It's funny all the talk about Iowa running the table and being a top-5 team in the nation. Too funny. The team is terrible...how does everyone not realize that Ohio St was, is and for the next couple of years will be the class of the Big Ten? We found out Ole Miss was overrated (OK, another thing we all knew). Alabama is officially looking like the 2nd best team in the country. And it turns out Jacory Harris isn't accurate (who would have thought?).

Baseball playoffs are just around the corner. The Braves have made a serious run at the NL Wild Card, winning six straight and have a favorable remaining schedule than the Rockies. Still going to be hard to pick up two games, but at least there is a little drama in the pre-playoff MLB season.

Sunday Showdowns

2009-09-25T12:29:00.004-04:00

Cleveland +13 @ Baltimore
Should be a yawner here. Baltimore has an aging defense, but was impressive in a road victory over a good Chargers team last week. If this offense continues to put points on the board, something we haven't seen from Baltimore ever, then this team is going to be scary. Flacco is starting to look more and more like a real NFL QB as opposed to a game manager relying on the defense. Baltimore rolls in the game, and covers.

Tennesee Titans +3 @ NY Jets:
Both teams surprised me last week. I had the Titans primed for a victory against the Texans and the Jets dead against the Pats. Tennessee needs to turn their season around. They are in an 0-2 hole and can't afford to start 0-3 against the AFC. The jets beat the Patriots, but how impressive is that seeing as the Patriots seem to be just another solid team this year, and people might have to curb expectations that they can't go 16-0 every year. I take the points and the Titans straight up. They are desperate and will show it.

Packers -6.5 @ St. Louis
Packers bounce back here and St. Louis is just too one dimensional at this point. They have quite the putrid offense, though they have played on the road against solid defenses the first two weeks vs Seattle and Washington. Until they can prove to throw the ball around Steven Jackson will be keyed on and have to earn every yard. I forgot who mentioned this to me, but it was a great point that Jackson is probably thinking if he was playing with the greatest show on turf he is a Hall of famer and a superbowl MVP. Very unlucky as I think he is still one of the better backs in the league. I take the Packers and lay the points until St. Louis proves they can score.

Washington Redskins -6.5 @ Detroit Lions
This is the play of the day folks. Ride the Lions and Ride them hard. Washington is so bad. Zorn won't take the leashes of Campbell and Portis is running against 10 man fronts. Detroit is not terrible and most teams would be 0-2 after starting vs the Saints and Vikings, two Superbowl contenders in most minds. I think the Lions win this game and break the 19 game losing streak, but I definitely think they at least cover. Lions have some skilled offensive players and if they get a score or two it will be hard for the Skins to put up much more.

Chiefs +8.5 @ Philly Eagles:
I take the Eags here, Chiefs just bore me. Vick action this week?

Atlanta Falcons +4 @ NE Patriots:
Real Tough game here. It will be interesting to see how the Patriots rebound after a tough loss last week. I guess I need to stop doubting the Falcons, because they seem to be just really good. I think NE is just an average team, and the whole AFC seems pretty average in general. That being said I take the Patriots @ home and lay the points.

Jaguars +3.5 @ Houston Texans:
Weird game here, not sure what to make of either of these teams. Jacksonville just looks very bland and the Texans seem to be hit an miss. Texans ultimately have to many playmakers in Schaub, Slaton, and the best receiver in the league Andre Johnson. They get it done at home.

San Francisco +7 @ Minnesota:
This will be Minnesotas first test as they won't have the Lions or Browns to beat up on for victories anymore. San Francisco has shown to be a fairly stout defense and will key on All Day Peterson. I like the Vikings to win, but San Fran Keeps it close and covers.

Giants-7 @ Tampa Bay:
Tampa Bay just does not have a good team this year and they are so susceptible by the big play. Dallas torched them for 3 long scores, and Buffalo had 2 long bombs as well as 3rd that was dropped that should have gone for the score. Giants get it done and roll to an impressive 3-0.

Saints -6 @ Buffalo Bills:
Until someone shows they can stop the Saints I think you need to keep riding them. Buffalo will be able to put up some points on this defense, though the NO does not have as weak of a defense as they shown in years past. The RB core of Bell, Bush, and Thomas is banged up and could pose for some difficulties. My heart says Bills, but my head says take the Saints and lay the points.

Bears -2 @ Seahawks:
Big win last weekend as predicted by the Bears. I like them to beat the Hawks in a close game on Sunday as either an injured Hassleback or Seneca Wallace (pick your poison) will have to get under center for the Hawks. Always tough at home though.

Steelers -4 @ Bengals.
Child Please. Kiss da baby.

Dolphins +6 @ Chargers
Chargers furious, Dolphins huge let down game. Chargers roll.

Broncos -1.5 @ Oakland
Broncos will have to prove they can beat a team outside of Ohio and Oakland is a tough place to play. I like Oakland here I guess. This team could be good if they had a QB. Should have held on to Garcia and dumped fat boy Russel.

Colts +2 @ Cardinals:
Tough game, but safety in numbers is to take Peyton on Prime time getting points.

Carolina -9 @ Cowboys:
Cowboys get the first win in the new palace, but the Panthers should be able to get a late meaningless score for the backdoor cover.

More Intersting then Esteban OchoCinco......Child Pleeez

2009-09-24T12:48:00.005-04:00

Speaking of the No Fun League and Chad Ocho Cinco...this guy is the best thing to happen to the NFL. Besides being a really good receiver...this guy is marketing gold. It is to bad the NFL doesn't use him more because he is what this league should be all about. Granted he had a little issue over the last year about being on the Bengals, but its only because of his desire to win. The guy produces, doesn't get in trouble for doing anything harmful, and is genuinly a good guy. He doesn't drink, smoke, and strip club it up. He has the most interesting Tweets every in my opinion and he is giving away tickets via tweets to every Bengals home game. He has also done some of the most creative touchdown celebrations to date from golfing with the pylon, an irish jig, the lambeau leap, the Hall of fame Jacket, notes to the commish etc.

There is another thing that is great about Chad and I think you should all visit. Ochocinco.com. I already have 100 dollars worth of products in my shopping cart. These shirts are great.

J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets

2009-09-24T09:18:00.006-04:00

I can't say I really admit to liking either the Pats, Jets, or Phins...in fact I pretty much hate all three teams. I root for them to lose every week and there are hardly any players I like on the teams just because they are AFC East foes. I will say this though...the Jets are a pretty likable group of guys right now in my opinion. I kinda like a team that just talks trash...and so far (though the season is young) they are backing it up.

Many teams have tried to punk the Patriots calling out Bellicheck, Brady, and Crew. We all remember Anthony Smith of the Steelers calling them out and then getting burned for not one, but two TD scores if memory serves correct.

I love it when players and coaches don't just speak straight X's and O's and actually have an opinion. Granted, once the Jet's start talking about the Bills I will hate their guts, but in the meant time okay. Trash Talk is great for the NFL and it shows that some players and teams still care about Ws and Ls as opposed to cashing a paycheck and hugging their friends at midfield after the game.

Before the game started we had Kerry Rhodes saying they wanted to embarrass the Patriots team and we had Bart Scott coming out and saying they were going to kill Brady fine or no fine. That is classic. Even Rex Ryan got into the act a bit when he talked about they were a team that needed to be respected. Not a better way for a rookie head coach to go out and yap then to get the team fired up and behind him. Better than a Dick Jauron press conference that plays out the same way every time..."We missed some opportunities, hats off to Team "X" they are a good football team."

Just recently Bart Scott Fired another missile in the direction of Randy Moss...

"I hear the easy cop out by Randy Moss, saying that anybody can guard ... that 'I can play cornerback if I had safety help,'" Scott said. "That was a one-on-one jump ball. I think sometimes you've just got to give the man his credit, understand that [Revis] was the better man that day.

"That doesn’t take from the fact that Randy Moss is a great receiver in this league. But give the kid his due. Next time it'll [be] another chance to go out and do it again so [Moss] can't say the same thing.

"[Revis] shut him down. He intimidated him. Randy was coming across that middle real slow. Tell him to man up next time and come across the middle like a man if he wants to be a complete receiver."

So I still hate the Jets...but at least they bring some attitude which you have to respect.

The Claw

2009-09-23T11:11:00.004-04:00

Worked the overnight shift setting up the stage for a pair of u2 concerts going on at Giants Stadium tonight and tomorrow. The stage is called The Claw apparently...all I know is I have worked a few concerts in my day and I have never seen anything like this. The needle at the top I think someone said is ten stories high. It literally looked like an Alien Spacecraft had just landed in the center of Giants Stadium. My dad, who does this for a living, and doesn't get excited about stages, shows or even celebrities (usually he doesn't even know who is playing) - was even excited about this thing. Not sure if anyone is planning to go...and not so sure how this is a "green show" as we all know Bono is saving the world since the amount of energy being wasted (for only two shows no less) is insane. That said, if you like u2 (and I don't) this should be pretty awesome.

MLB Playoffs Coming

2009-09-22T00:01:00.003-04:00

Does anyone care? Something tells me no. Even so, I'm going to do a half-assed run-down of who is left:

Yanks will win the AL East.
Boston is a lock to be the Wild Card.

Central: Detroit leads Minnesota by 2.5 games.
Tigers - 3 games at Cleveland, 3 @ Chicago, 3 at home vs Minnesota to finish the season. Isn't that how you draw it up?
Twins - 2 @ Chicago, 3 @ KC, 3 @ Detroit.

Big win by Minnesota today, they should really get 4/5...Detroit should get 4/6. Would give Tigers a 2 game lead before the season-ending series, which would be Minnesota would need a sweep. Could make for a great finish, impossible not to side with Detroit having the series at home and a little cushion, but a slip up or two and it could get very interesting.

West: Angels are a lock.

Yanks will have home-field, so it should be Boston @ Angels and Verlander @ the Bronx. Nice draw for the Yanks.

NL...

The NL divisional races are about as boring as the AL wild card race.

East:
Phillies have had this locked up since about June.

Central:
St. Louis will be the first team to actually clinch their division.

West:
The Dodgers hold a 5 game lead and don't have another home game. Now that I've built up the drama, those road games are against Washington, Pitt and San Diego. West = Dodgers.

Wild Card:
Rockies hold a .5 game edge on the Giants. And a 5 game edge on Atlanta and Florida. Their last 8 games are all home, but won't be given to them. After 3 vs San Diego they have 3 vs St. Louis (fighting for home field) and 2 vs Milwaukee.
San Fran is currently tied 4-4 @ Zona in the 7th inning (yes it is after midnight, Tuesday a.m.). Two more games with them to follow. They then get 4 at home vs the Cubbies and two at home vs Zona to finish it out.
I think Colorado is the better team but I feel San Fransisco obviously gets the easier schedule. Complete toss-up that I feel hardly anyone cares about.
I won't review Florida or Atlanta's schedules, but you never know. I'm going to go with Colorado.
An interesting race for home-field:
1. Dodgers 90-60
2. St. Louis 88-63
3. Phillies 87-61
4. Colorado

LAD have a cozy schedule to finish as I noted.
St Louis: 2 @ Houston, 3 @ Colo, 2 @ Cincy
Philly: 2 @ Fla, 4 @ Milwaukee, 3 vs Houston

If I had to guess, I'd say it will stay just as is. Philly gets two vs a fighting Fla team, 4 at a dangerous Milwaukee...St Louis will have to play an extremely motivated Colorado team on the road, and while LAD go on the road, it's against terrible teams with no pulse.

I'm sure many of you know all of this already. For those who have engrossed themselves in the NFL though, that is your 2009 MLB playoff picture.

Not much to say about the Colts/Miami game. Very obscure time of possession dominance in a loss for Miami. Pretty decent game. Peyton is too good. It is impossible to find a rock-solid NFL team this year, and this is before we've had a lot of injuries. Have a feeling it is going to be a parity-heavy, futile mess of a season this year.

A Costly Win

2009-09-21T14:09:00.005-04:00

I have to imagine that Donte Whitner made a deal with the Devil before Sundays game against the Buccaneers. Whitner, a Safety for the Bills, has been a solid player over his 3 years, but has not really lived up to the hype of the #8 pick out of THE Ohio State University. Then again, most critics bashed the pick because no one thought he would go that high. I am pretty sure the Bills strategy was that Michael Huff was taken a few picks earlier by the Raiders, and he was the next best. Well Huff and Whitner, 3 years later, are starting to play. Huff has 3 INTs on the year andWhitner had a pick 6 against the Buccs for his first NFL Touchdown.

Why I bring up the deal with the Devil is because Whitner's home in Hamburg, NY was just robbed for $400K. This is the 2nd straight week a Bills player will come home from a game and find their house messed with. I can't wait to see who gets picked on next week. The funny thing is, both McKelvin last week and Whitner this week don't want to press charges. If I lived in the Buffalo area I would just hope the trend continues and wreak havoc with no concequences.

The conversation with the Devil must have gone like this:

Whitner: "Please Satan, I was caught crying at the press conference last week, I just can't bare another loss. Can you please let us win, and maybe can I even do something good, like make an impact play for the firs time in my career."

Devil: "Well Donte, even I have a hard time gauranteeing a win out of the Buffalo Bills. It is going to cost you quite a pretty penny...."

Whinter: "Please Satan, I swear I will do anything!"

Devil: "Fine! The Bills will win and you will get an INT. In return you will allow one of my devil children to steal your jewerly while at the stadium."

Whitner: "Deal, I have so much of my rookie bonus tied up in Jewerly that they can take as much as they want. God knows I have spend atleast 2Million in bling for me and my boyz....any chance you can muster up an Interception return?"

Devil: :Ughhh fine, just don't press charges...and I am going to injure Derek Schouman, Brad Butler, Leodis McKelvin, and Shawn Nelson."

Whitner: "Yout got a deal."

End Scene

Weekend Roundup/We All Need Somebody to Leaaaan On

2009-09-21T10:18:00.008-04:00

Not a whole lot to talk about as far as college football this weekend. Texas took care of business against Texas Tech. Tennessee was plenty competitive enough to prove Florida is not in fact the 07 Patriots reincarnate. The biggest thing to happen, of course, was USC being beaten by Washington. Amazing what a little coaching can do. A year ago Washington was completely hopeless, now they grab the USC offensive coordintaor and a year later beat arguably the most talented team in the nation. Guess Pete Carroll really needs somebody to lean on right now.

I'm going to try to cover the baseball playoff races tomorrow...for now, from the NFL....

I had to help move my cousin's stuff and after being promised we'd be done by 1, I of course, didn't get home until about 3. That said, from the bits and pieces of the Jets/Pats game that I saw the Pats continue to look pretty bland. Brady is missing open targets and looks a little uncomfortable preparing to take a hit. Underrated in the whole thing was that Wes Welker was out so Brady was missing his safety valve. Against a fierce pass-rush with a true lockdown #1 CB (Darrelle Revis), that is a tough thing to not have. Credit due to Rex Ryan and the Jets though. They got in Brady's face and shut them down. The first have they pounded the football and were very patient before opening it up for Sanchez a bit in the second half. Brilliant gameplan and execution, the Jets have now placed themselves in the driver's seat in the AFC East.

Oakland won in come-from-behind fashion? When is the last time that happened? Looked like a painful game to watch, but I could be wrong.

New Orleans has an offense.

Frank Gore and Chris Johnson went wild. Gore had over 200 rushing yards on under 20 carries. Meanwhile I don't even want to write out Chris Johnson's stats as he went for 50 points against me in my fantasy league dropping me to 0-2. By the way, the Niners are 2-0.

Buffalo beat Tampa in one of the most boring games I have ever almost watched. I actually stopped flipping over to it during commercials in the Pitt/Chicago game (and this was when it was a 6 point game). It just was so boring. Brought me back to being in Fredonia and seeing all the exciting looking scores at 1 o'clock as the only game on was the Boring Bills. Nice rebound off the heart-breaker, looked for a second like they might repeat the floppage.

Speaking of Pitt/Chicago, that was a pretty boring close game as well. I don't even know if I have a true comment to make about the game. Jeff Reed cost the Steelers the win missing some easy ones.

CBS switched over to the Baltimore/SD game after that. Philip Rivers carved up the Baltimore defense with a steady mix of dump-offs to Darren Sproles and deep balls to Vincent Jackson. Problem for the Chargers was that they missed Tomlinson's nose for the end zone when they got down there. They settled for 5 field goals inside thirty yards. On top of that, they decided to get into a power formation and run the ball with Darren Sproles on 4th and 2 at the end of the game deep in Baltimore territory. An absolutely terrible play-call after Rivers carved up the Baltimore defense to run the speedy but weak Sproles in a power set. That worked right into Baltimore's strength and Ray Lewis dropped Sproles about 14 yards behind the line of scrimmage. to ice the game.

How does it feel to usher your Hey Technology stadium in with a loss, Cowgirls fans? In all seriousness, my thoughts are this: the Giants were mighty fortunate to win last night. There was the interception off Jason Witten's foot. The Manningham bobbled TD after (though to be fair, despite fortune the said Philips interception should have been a TD, so maybe that was just karma). And at the end, the Ratliff deflected ball Eli threw to pick up the first down that resulted in eventually kicking the game-winning field goal. Hell, there was even the Felix Jones fumble that went right into Sinorice Moss's hands which he then fumbled just for the Giants to recover again.
The Cowboys absolutely carved the Giants defense up on the ground after Flozell Adams tripped Justin Tuck and had him sidelined awaiting a MRI. Obviously, Tony Romo is the reason the Giants won. He made a couple terrible passes that resulted in interceptions. The Cowboys secondary was as bad as the Giants run defense though. Giants wideouts were running wide open all day and Eli dissected them with relative ease.
All and all it was an even game that could have went either way and I expect no different when Dallas comes to New York later in the year.

Indy-Miami tonight has the potential to be pretty good. The Colts are missing #2 WR Anthony Gonzalez. The Dolphins got off to a poor start in Atlanta last week as Indy barely held off Jacksonville. Miami should try to get Ronnie Brown going a bit more this week but ultimately you have to expect Peyton Manning to find a way to get the win.

Overrated:
New Orleans Saints: They beat the Detroit Lions and the Kevin Kolb-led Philadelphia Eagles. From all accounts they seem to be the exact same team as the past couple years, explosive offense, no defense. Why are they suddenly considered the class of the AFC?
New York Jets: Like this team, I honestly do. Well-coached, for real defense. Great young quarterback. Going to need them to prove it against a team that can handle the blitz a bit though. Schaub was a statue and Brady looked scared. When it's all said and done the Jets are likely an 8-8 team.
Baltimore Ravens: The defense isn't what it used to be. Flacco has been playing better and a healthy Heap / Ray Rice getting more touches has the offense on the rise. I'm still not convinced they're very good and if the Chargers didn't settle for field goals numerous times inside the 15-yard line they would have beaten them.
Green Bay Packers: They are who we thought they were.

Underrated:
Jacksonville: Couldn't beat the Colts and has some misfortune with fumbles and a blocked kick returned for a TD that put them in a big hole vs the Cards yesterday. Long a quirky team, I feel strongly that this team is not dead at 0-2.
San Diego: Offense is a beast...if they can ever get Merriman to get back to beast status this team is going to be insanely tough.
Indy Colts: I'll say it before tonight..a) I think this is a game Indy could lose...b) No matter what happens tonight I think the Colts are probably the class of the AFC considering how poor New England looks.

One final note, not sure if anyone else caught the Money Mayweather-Manuel Marquez fight Saturday night. Couple things: Mayweather remains the greatest boxer I've ever had the joy of watching. He is far and away the most technically superior pound-for-pound boxer of our generation. He is a ghost. You can't hit him. When you do hit him, it's always as he's hitting you. Marquez is a hall of fame boxer and Mayweather made him look foolish - he didn't lose a single round in my eyes. Mayweather connected on nearly 60% of his punches, Marquez on something like 7%. Ridiculous. After the fight Sugar Shane Mosley bum-rushed a Max Kellerman/Floyd Mayweather Jr. interview calling out Mayweather saying they should fight. Things got quite heated and almost came to blows. Kellerman tried to continue the interview and switched topics, asking a question about why Mayweather chose to fight Marquez to which Mayweahter starting talking about something else..Kellerman asked him to answer the question again and Mayweather grabbed the mic saying "I'm going to talk about what I want to talk about because first off all, you talk too much." Kellerman refused to swallow his pride and ended the interview. After, he gave a speech about how Mayweather hurts himself acting like that. I disagree. Either way, Kellerman could rip it up on the mic, in case some of you are unaware check the video.

Sunday Looming

2009-09-18T12:21:00.002-04:00

We are all obviously waiting for Sunday to hit.

Let me remind you all...no team is as bad as they looked last week, and no team is as good as they looked the weak before. Here a couple thoughts on the upcoming games.

Carolina @ Atlanta
I like Carolina to bounce back here. Tough game on the road...though I will go based on my theory of the NFL is wacky. There is no way Carolina and Delhomme are THAT bad....right..?

Minnesota @ Detroit
Fairly impressed at Detroit last weekend vs the Saints. At least they through the ball around and put points up. Minnesota is too good, mainly Purple Jesus. Expect him to run for another 180 and 3tds against a porous Defense. Vikes all the way...

Cincy @ Green Bay
Cincy fresh off a devastating, and I mean devastating loss will travel to Lambeau to face a Packers team coming off a big Sunday night victory against the division rival Bears. I expect Green Bay to go 2-0 and get the W. Though Chad Ocho has tweeted that if he scores hes going for the Lambeau Leap...so lets all hope for that.

Houston at Tennessee.
Tough Opening Slate of games for the Texans going against a Jets and now Titans Defense. I expect Shaub and Johnson to hook up at least once, but Slaton could be in for another rough day as the Titans shut down the Steelers and Parker on the ground. Tennessee gets the Win.

Oakland at Kansas City
Both team impressed against good teams last weekend. Not sure if Matt Cassell will be playing this weekend, not sure if it matters. Should be a hard fought game and I don't know if I am sold on Oakland yet. They are probably the better team, but until Jmarc can start playing consistent football, I'll take the home team in Arrowhead.

New England @ Jets.
Let's hope both teams catch swine flu and they can't play. If that doesn't happen I am going with the Patriots. Patriots are better than they looked last Monday, and the Jets aren't that good. Why does Houston come in with so much hype every year. I swear the past 4 years they are everyone surprise playoff team then they play.500 ball.

New Orleans @ Philly
One of the best games of the weekend. Hopefully Mcnabb can go for Eagles fans, but Garcia is legit. I can't think of a better QB who has proven to be a winner get tossed aside as much as Jeff Garcia. Westbrook showed signs of life last week and Mccoy is a good spell. I like Philly at home, though we will see how this defense does against an offense like New Orleans.

St. Louis @ Washington
I expect this to be a Redskin victory as St. Louis looks to be terrible again. Though it appeared that way last year and the Rams upset them @ FedEx field. IF the skins lose this game people will be calling for Zorns job.

Arizona @ Jacksonville
I like Jacksonville here at home, though they have no home field advantage really. Zona is a pewch 9-7 team from last year who got hot. Warner is done, and Zona will have the west coast 1pm kickoff curse against them.

Tampa Bay @ Buffalo
Not only will Buffalo get the victory here, but if Fred Jackson has another game like last Monday, it will be awfully hard to not give this guy atleast 50% of the time in the backfield when Lynch gets back. Look for T.O and Evans to do some damage the way the Cowboys receivers did as I think Tampa will focus to much on stopping the screen that was so effective against the Pats.

Seattle @ San Fran
Yawn. Don't care. Seattle?

Pitt @ Chicago
Tough game, I like Chicago though. may be biased, but Cutler won't throw 4 picks every game. I think they will exploit the secondary the way the Titans did in the first half with Troy P. sidellined. Titans would have won that game if they still attacked in half 2.

Batlimore @ San Diego
Both teams won. Both have good defenses, and I guess both have good offenses now that Flacco and Rice seem to be the truth. LT not practicing this week...not a good sign as this was supposed to be his bounce back season. I like the Chargers still none the less.

Cleveland @ Denver.
Unreal game by the Broncos last week. I like them to roll again this week, let's hope Gus Johnson gets a chance to have another call like he did last weekend. Broncos are the pick.

Sunday Night Giants @ Dallas.
Hate both of these teams, but I will watch none the less just to hope at least 9 punts hit that stupid video screen that everyone won't stop talking about. As for the game, I guess I like the Cowboys...lot of people sleeping on them this year. This has been the least hyped this team has come into a season in quite some time.

Indy @ Miami
Indy here. Miami is primed for a fall back to earth season I think.

Bills CB McKelvin’s front lawn vandalized

2009-09-16T14:56:00.000-04:00

Don't Fumble the Ball then.

I'm forever yours....faithfully

2009-09-16T10:06:00.010-04:00

I am still not ready to touch on the Bills game from this Monday night. I expect maybe after a couple more days I will be able to express what happened in words. One thing is for sure though. Prime time games are not allowed for the Bills anymore...Dallas, Cleveland, and now New England...

No matter what they do, just like Journey sang many years ago, I will forever be a Buffalo Bills fan, Faithfully. Speaking of Journey, and classic rock ballads, I stayed up late last night and caught an infomercial that kept me up past midnight. Time Life's collection of 70's and 80's Rock Ballads, hosted by the front man of REO SpeedWagon, Kevin Cronin. Cronin, age 57 looks borderline 75, but is still ever enthusiastic about Classic Rock. Anyways, I wad extremely tired after a late Monday night of watching my team get devastated, and I just couldn't get any sleep because this infomercial was just pumping out hit after hit. I almost pulled the trigger and bought the $120 dollar 8 CD Set I was so fired up. Since I can't really find it in me to talk about sports right now, I thought I would give you a run down of my top 25 songs on the collection.

25. Chicago - Look away

24. Toto - Rosanna:
An underrated tune by Toto, as most think of blessing the rains down in Africa when they come to mind. Don't sleep on Rosanna.

23. Foreigner: I want to know what love is:
And I want you to shoooow me.

22. Eric Carmen All By Myself
Dont sleep on Carmen. We will hear from him again.

21. REO Speedwagon: Time for me to Fly
First of 4 songs of REO you will see on this countdown. REO, underrated in my opinion, really does pump out hits. I dare you to hear an REO song on the radio and turn the station. Does not happen. I'll take time to mention that there are some unbelievable songs left off this countdown and the CD. These are not my 25 songs off all time, just the 25 on the CD.

20. Eye of the Tiger: Survivor
A classic in its own right, and probably deserves to have a higher ranking on this list, but not sure it really fits with the vibe of the CDs. Really not a power ballad. Obviously need to make a Rocky reference here. Just overall not that impressed, and the song has been overplayed in my opinion. After all my bashing, it still hits #20. The list is getting increasingly harder to compile. The classics are about to start rolling.

19. Eric Carmen: Hungry Eyes:
This song was featured in the classic movie Dirty Dancing and the success of the movie catapulted this song, and Carmen into stardom. Peaking at #4 on the billboard charts, this is the forgotten song from DD (Dirty Dancing) that gets overshadowed by the hit song "(I've had) The time of my life." Rest in Peace Patrick Swayze. Your dancing moved a generation of young girls...and me.

18. Sara: Starship

17. Blue Oyster Cult: (Don't Fear)the Reaper
The song is good no doubt, but its ultimate fame for me and most had to be the Will Ferrell Need more Cowbell skit SNL. Not really sure the song fits in with the rest on the list, but good none the less.

16. Pat Benetar: Love is a Battlefield
Ultimate female power song.

15. REO Speedwagon: Keep on loving you
Cuz its the only thing I wannnaa doooo.... REO song #2. Must help to have 15 songs on the CD since the front man endorses it for Time Life.

14: Journey: Open Arms
Fairly disappointed with the lack of Journey tracks across the CD's. Open Arms is solid no doubt, not quite going to crack my top ten though.

13: Steve Perry: Oh Sherrie.
Just a good song.

12: Kiss: Beth
Just like Journey, I would have liked a lot more Kiss on here, though I guess there stuff is too hard for the ballads on here surprisingly.

11: Extreme: More than Words
Just misses out on a top ten spot. This song was ruined by the fact it was redone by Westlife many years later. Though actually, Westlife was legit. More than woooooords, is all you have to do to make it realllll, then you wouldn't have to say, that you love me....Cuz I already knoooow!

Okay folks here come the big dogs!!!

10: Ms Mister: Broken Wings
Kinda cheesy, and reminds me of a bad 80's movie, but at the same time it does give a good representation of music at the time. Not a huge fan and surprised I have it ranked this high to be honest.

9: MeatLoaf: I would do anything for Love
We are getting into some heavy classics here. MeatLoaf shocks the world with this Power Ballad cementing his place in music history. And now we can all think and discuss, what exactly would Meatloaf not do. You have seen this slob, he is doing everything an anything for love, no questions asked.

8. Alannah Myles: Black Velvet
With a twang of country this surprises coming in at number 8 as it really isn't cut from the same mold as the others on this list. I think this paved the way for mainstream country. Its also a personal favorite due to the alternative lyrics I sang with a buddy in College that are not clean enough for this site.

7. REO Speedwagon: I can't fight this feeling
Song 3 of 4 for REO. Who knew I liked them so much?

6. Boston: More than Feeling
This song is fantastic. When the guitar rift hits, and you close your eyes, there is no doubt on my mind you are taken to a better place.

5. Bonnie Tyler: Total Eclipse of the Heart
Once upon a time I loved this song, and man is it oh so good. Nothing you can say will ever make me hate this song....(Sung to the tune)

4. REO Speedwagon: Take it on the Run
My personal favorite of the REO songs on the list.

3. Piano Man: Billy Joel
Some may say the 3 spot does this song injustice, and granted, it probably does deserve to be #1 on the list. But I am gonna throw some shockers out at you. This no doubt is one of the greatest songs off all time, any genre.

2. Poison: Every Rose has its thorn.
I may take some heat for this one, but bring it on. This is a great power ballad and I dare you to not sing along.

Drum roll Please......You Number one song.....

1. Night Ranger: Sister Christian
ooooo yeahhhhh your Motorin!!! What a song. The drum solo in this is excellent. Lyrics on point, Slow start, huge finish (check). There is not doubt on my mind when I saw this list that this song was going straight to the top.

Your top 25

B-B-B-B-B-Blew It

2009-09-15T16:11:00.003-04:00

Well the Millman is obviously too heart-broken to post his thoughts. But someone should be touching on the choke-job that was another Buffalonian start for the Orchard Park Bills.

First, let me say that as much as I was ragging on the Bills and as much hatred as I have harbored for the Bills in my past five years of living out the football season in the area of Buffalo, PA, an All-America city...I actually felt a little bad for the true Bills fans out there. And there are some true Bills fans out there, some good football fans that know the sport and know their team - that go into every season with hope and hold onto that hope until every single mathematical equation they can run on the wild card contenders proves the Bills to be dead in the water.

However, I must say that knowing the Buffalo fan-base pretty closely I sense that it is one which aligns itself closely to the fan-base of the team that ripped its heart out last night actually...only baseball...That's right, I'm talking about the Boston Red Sox. And not today's Boston Red Sox. But the Red Sox fan-base pre-2002 championship season. The Bills are a fan-base that prides themselves on misfortune. They love to wallow in their own pity. The like to carry out their misery on their faces. They like to whine and complain. They like to hope, almost only so that they can feel more crushed when it all inevitably goes wrong. I wonder what would happen if the Bills actually won the Super Bowl before the team gets moved to T-Dot. Fans wouldn't know how to react. They would be lost. They would need to re-create their entire persona. I dare say it might ruin them. That day seems far off however.

Let's face it. If the Bills won last night they probably would go 5-11 instead of 4-12. The Patriots came out with an odd, vanilla game-plan that left Bill Bellichik showing nothing in way of complex defensive alignments and blitzing schemes...and a rare heavy dosage of ineffective running and a refusal to let Tom Brady even think about throwing the football down-field. I don't know whether the Patriots a) didn't take the Bills seriously, b) don't feel confident that Brady is ready yet, c) are finally feeling the losses of all of their coordinators or d) simply aren't that good this year. Either way, the Bills somehow managed to put on a pretty effective blocking display despite an inexperienced, mix-matched offensive line. Defensively, they were probably more fortunate with Brady showing some rare fits of inaccuracy, Bellichik with some bizarre play-calling and overall missed opportunities for the Pats.

But make no mistake about it, the Bills should have won that football game. And as the Millman told me yesterday "I'd gladly take a 1-15 season, if it means taking out the Patriots tonight." And that is what makes it so painful I'm sure. Therein lies the problem, however. Bills fans have taken on an incredible hatred for the Patriots - as all other fans of this division's also-rans have taken on as well...and with such a limited roster, Bills fans really don't have much to hope for outside of beating the Patriots in a "well, if we are going down, then we want to take you with us" approach. My step-dad is a huge Jets fan and has tickets to the game against the Pats at the Meadowlands this Sunday. I have heard him say, "hopefully we don't get crushed." The Bills squandered a golden opportunity last night to take the Patriots back down to the level of the rest of these teams. Instead, they do nothing but add to the mystique of the Patriots. To the invincibility of this team..the magic that makes all the other team's feel that somehow, someway, despite score, down, distance and time - that the Patriots and Tom Brady will somehow find a way to win. In just two minutes last night the Bills missed an opportunity to strip that from them in 2009. Instead, if I were feeling more cruel, I would have posted the top-5 prospects in the 2010 NFL Draft...and in the mean time we are all forced to believe that the Patriots will against get it together and win the AFC East.

A couple other things from the game: Tirico, Hodge and anyone else who thinks Leodis McKelvin shouldn't have taken that ball out of the end-zone: you're an idiot. Of course he should have taken it out of the end-zone and spoiled the two minute warning. The problem wasn't that he took it out, but that he prioritized gaining yards ahead of what should have been his two main goals: getting to the 2 minute mark and holding onto the football. And while I'm ragging on Tirico, nice comment he made right after they showed the stat that was something like, TO: targeted twice, one catch for 26 yards. Randy Moss: targeted 12 times for 10 catches and 126 yards. "Terrence McGee has done an outstanding job covering Randy Moss tonight." I don't even know how much McGee covered Moss, but I do know that Moss was a one-man wrecking crew and the only thing that really kept the Patriots offense moving the chains all night.

I already mentioned that I thought the Pats looked vanilla. Their defense looked remarkably slow and I'm really not sure what to make of that. Bellichik might need to really show off his genius by getting this unit to be productive this year. I think the offense is obviously going to get better as Brady gains his confidence back, but the defense looms a large question mark. With the Dolphins already losing, is this division open for the Jets? I liked them before the season and don't want to be another one jumping all over this team after just one game (against a constantly overrated Texans team no less)..but their defense right now may be the best in the division. They can block and they have a couple play-makers. Interesting division if New England doesn't take off.

Raider Nation is Back?

2009-09-15T10:05:00.004-04:00

So the Raiders, of course, ended up losing to the Chargers in the nightcap, but it would appear that the Raiders are not going to be the laughing stock of the league this year.

They held a lead much of the game and by all accounts arguably outplayed the San Diego Chargers - a team most feel is a legitimate Super Bowl contender.

They got it done with an offensive line that looked downright dominant, opening up big holes for Darren McFadden and Michael Bush, and perhaps more importantly - gave Jamarcus Russell some time to sit back in the pocket and make some downfield throws.

Russell is ultimately the guy who is likely to hold this team back. He still is far too inaccurate to be a consistent and successful NFL quarterback, and his decision making is often questionable. Still, he has a big arm and if the Raiders offensive line continues to block for him he is capable of making a couple big throws a game which might just be enough for the Raiders to play .500 ball this season.

Richard Seymour was an absolute monster last night and he looks extremely motivated. This is a very talented defense that really only needed one more guy on the defensive line who could take up a couple blockers. Seymour demands that kind of attention and everyone is going to play better for it.

Disappointing loss, but encouraging effort for Raider Nation. This team will likely go as far as Jamarcus can take them.

B-B-B-B-B Biiillllllsss

2009-09-14T11:21:00.010-04:00

Man it is good to have football back in our lives. I spent all of Saturday noon to midnight on the couch. Only to make my way to bed, wake up at 11 for pregame, and spend 1 pm to 12am on my couch again watching football. It was a tough weekend.

Mulldog gave you the breakdown of the weeks biggest stories. A couple other brief things to touch on before I go into my review of tonight's games.

Tampa Bay was extremely susceptible to the big play on Sunday, giving up long plays to not one, not two, but all three of the Cowboys receivers. Miles Austin, P Crayton, and Roy E. Williams all had some buck nasty long td's that did the Buccaneers in. It was however impressive and a feel good story to see Cadillac Williams back to form running hard after having both knees blown out already in his career. Let's see if he can run that hard all season.

Drew Brees. 6 tds. Legit. It was against the Lions I know, but 6 tds is 6 tds.

Jake Delhomme was re-upped this offseason with a guaranteed $20M. Looks like the Panthers wisely spent $4M per turnover...in the first game. 4 INTs, and a fumble lost. Jake was not able to bounce back from that horrid playoff performance.

Shocker of the week had to be KC hanging with Baltimore, in Baltimore, with no Cassel. Baltimore got a last second TD to widen the gap, but the game was down to the wire.

Breaking News. Brian Urlacher out for the season after breaking his right wrist. This guy was primed to come back healthy for the first time in two season. I really like this guy, and he is a great LB. It is a shame he can't stay on the field and be the menace he was early in his career. Tough loss for him and the Bears.

Defending NFC west champs looks awful on Sunday. Kurt Warner can't move, and I can't imagine the 49ers defense is that good that they should stifle Fitz and Boldin for most of the game like that.

Now on to tonight's game. It will be a doozy in New England Tonight. As far as Aaron Maybin is concerned he doesn't see it being a problem while he tweeted..."U gettin strait mayhem tonight wit no chaster. Lets Go!" Very promising....

I received a call from an unidentified Fredonia, NY source that Saturday night Eric Moulds and Lee Evans were patrolling the bars of SUNY Fredonia. Moulds was a common visitor over the course of my tenure at the school. I confirmed that Buffalo did not leave for NE until Sunday so the story checks out. Good to see our star receiver is out drinking and partying with 18 year olds before a huge game. I got a tip from another source out of Mulldogs camp that Moulds and Evans were there, and Evans was opening up on the game...Mulldog received a voicemail 3 am on Sunday from our source who had the following to share:

“Yo mull, whats up dude, its ____. You want gambling tips? I got gambling tips for you. Put the mortgage on the ****** Patriots against the Bills, and I got exactly the reason why you should do that. It is actually Sunday right now and yeah the Bills play the Patriots on Monday and I just met Lee Evans in Fredonia, ****** hammered, and I got a picture to prove it. he’s got to get on a plane or I think he said bus tomorrow. My brother talked to him on the phone and yeah. So yeah, put the mortgage against the Bills. Cause why the *** isn’t he in New England right now? And I swear on my mother like, he was here. Dude, unreal. Unreal. I met Eric Moulds, you know Eric Moulds. And I met ***** Lee Evans. So get at me. Later homie."

After receiving that voicemail Mulldog called his source back and he went on to say that Evans Quoted that Donte Whitner said "Tom Brady is looking weak....he will go on to expose us anyways."

All that being said, I like the Bills here. Patriots are 0-6 last 6 games they have been favored by double digits. I take the points, and I take the Bills Straight Up Money Line. Buffalo is obviously relaxed and not worried about the game. Why should they be. I have already ranted on the specifics on why they win. So just win baby.

Speaking of just win baby, the Raiiiiiders play tonight to. Should be a laugher as I expect LT to do his typical damage against the Raids (something like 26 tds in 15 games vs them). Mike and Mike will be calling the game so that should tell you what ESPN thinks of this match up. Can't wait for tonight. I will be at the Bills Bar in Georgetown rooting on my squad. Please don't get blown out. I can't take it anymore.

Weekend Roundup

2009-09-14T09:56:00.006-04:00

-Not a whole lot of surprises in the NFL. Mark Sanchez and the Jets looked sharp. As did the Giants. Maybe now everyone will stop acting as if Aaron Rodgers is the second coming of Peyton Manning? Nice quarterback? Yes. NFL MVP this season? Very unlikely.

-Was that Jay Cutler or Rex Grossman running the show in Chicago last night? The Bears offense looked like a total disaster. Jay Cutler may have broke that one guy's record for most consecutive times hitting an opposing defensive back in the hands. The guy really doesn't value the football. To be fair, the Chicago wideouts are the worst in the league. Additionally, they are not yet on the same page as Cutler. Green Bay should have won that game by a lot more, but I still think if Urlacher can play and be effective that the Bears will end up the better team. The Pack defense got pressure by sending tons of blitzers, singling up on the Chicago wideouts and taking advantage of a confused offense. Chicago's D was able to get pressure using their 4 down lineman.

-The Bungles did it again. One of the most inconceivable losses I can remember. Can you imagine being a Bengals fan? You go to the game and sit through what I imagine was a disgustingly poor 1st half where no one can score. It's 6-0 late in the game against the lowly Broncos and you finally punch it in for the win. Finally, it was worth sitting through the disaster and then that happens. Have to imagine half the people in attendance will never go back.

-Dallas offense looked much sharper without TO. Can't wait to see the Buffalo offense look less sharp with him! Go Western New York!

-Can you draw it up any better than McNabb getting hurt week one? Now Philly is forced to go to Kevin Kolb (who my buddy in Philly said looked terrible yesterday) for a week. Then they have to hope and pray that McNabb will be ready to go otherwise they have to then make another QB switch to Michael Vick (something tells me they'll platoon Kolb and Vick if Kolb is even halfway dreadful this week, just a guess). Obviously they go back to McNabb whenever he gets back, but this situation could get sticky, Philly looks like the best candidate to be the contending team running a complete circus act this season (thanks to Buffalo being complete garbage and irrelevant).

-Adrian Peterson is Purple Jesus and Purple Jesus is Christ.

-In college football, there were a couple of great games in Michigan-Notre Dame and USC-Ohio St. They didn't disappoint though arguably the two teams that deserved to win, lost. I thought Ohio St completely outplayed USC, but Pete Carroll coached an excellent game and of course USC got it done. Incredibly disappointing to my prediction of Ohio St winning the Nat'l Championship.

-Roger Federer is ridiculous.

-In a continued effort to be the blogosphere's leading home for foot fault enthusiasts, I'd like to say that Serena Williams really took the whole thing to a new level. I would post the video, but I'm sure everyone has seen her threatening the poor line judge that she was going to shove the tennis ball down her bleeping throat. The match ended as the cry-baby was about to lose to an old mother (KIm Clijsters) anyway. Has this ever happened before? Someone is penalized a point for making a threat and it turns out to decide the match? At least Serena offered an unapologetic apology. The real question is, who would you rather have threatening you after calling them for a foot fault, Serena Williams or Andy Roddick? I think Roddick is the clear choice.

Ellis Lankster 7th round draft pick of the Buffalo Bills

2009-09-11T13:39:00.001-04:00

This guy had a great 2 INT performance vs the Bears in pre-season. He is a cornerback, add him to the list of Buffalo Bills who can't speak (Lynch, Leodis, Roscoe). I think this guy must actually have a speech impediment, but im guessing its just that fine WVU education.

GOOO BILLLS

NFC East Preview

2009-09-11T09:32:00.002-04:00

I'll preface for the few who don't know that I am a Giants fan.

I honestly have no clue who is going to win this ultra-competitive division. I think each team is actually worse than last year and it is no longer really a "super-division" but still had four very solid football teams, all capable of competing in the NFC.

1. Washington Redskins 10-6: Not much more than a gut feel. Just think the team is due. This pick probably hinges a bit on Malcolm Kelly becoming a legitimate #2 WR, which I'm not sure is a great bet. I'm not a huge fan of him or Devin Thomas necessarily but they desperately need to find someone to take some of the attention away from Santana Moss and to give Jason Campbell another option. I feel like a bit of a jackass taking a Campbell-led team to win this division, but it is what it is. The team actually looked very tough before LT Chris Samuels went down and getting healthy on the O-Line could be enough. Obviously, I love the addition of Albert Haynesworth to the defense and I think it could really spark this unit into dominance. Throw in the addition of Brian Orakpo to the defense and this could be a very good unit. Again, it is very hard to project this division, I just think Washington is due for a little luck and if they stay healthy on the offensive line will end up being the most solid team in the East.

2. New York Giants 9-7: I looked at the schedule with my friend the other night and we really couldn't find more than 10 wins, and the 10 seemed a stretch. I have an eerie feeling that this thing might completely crumble if the team suffers any injuries on the offensive line as the depth there has gone downhill and a lack of skill at WR could turn this offense into a true disaster if the running game isn't as dominant as it has been the past couple years. That said, the starting offensive line is one of the best units in the league and the defense on paper looks absolutely dominant. In all honesty, the Giants should be considered the team to beat in this division and even if the offense struggles I think the defense should carry them to a winning season. The upside is if the line stays healthy and the receivers emerge, this could actually be the best Giants team in recent memory due to an absolutely stacked, DEEEEEEP, defensive line..some more skill than usual at linebacker and a developing secondary with all-underrated stud corner Corey Webster and a possible multiple all-pro safety in Kenny Philips.

3. Dallas Cowboys 8-8: Another tough team to figure. I think they may come out hot out the gates, but another team with a lack of depth on the offensive line, it is hard to project them to win the division. Can Demarcus Ware really put in another season like last? Even with that, I felt the defense was very susceptible to good offenses. For the past few years now the Cowgirls have really been the team that scared me least in the division. Their secondary has just been completely vulnerable and if you block them at all huge holes open up. That said, the offense has the potential to be very strong on the ground with Barber, Jones and Choice and Romo still has Witten to throw to. I think Jones can actually take the place of TO a bit as a playmaker out of the backfield in the passing game. The defense should be solid enough so this team will probably go as far as their receivers and secondary can take them.

4. Eagles 7-9: Desean Jackson is a nice receiver, but he is fragile and the Eagles refuse to ever address the need for more weapons in the passing game. I think it was brilliant to not use Brian Westbrook in the pre-season, but you have to wonder what type of sign that was to his actual health. They bring in Mike Vick which sounds like a good idea, but clearly is just setting up a possible nightmare media/fan situation in a city that loves controversy. The defense has aged and you have to question if a re-vamped offensive line won't hurt the offense. Those who know me well, have given me the distasteful identity of a closet-Eagles fan over the past couple years as I have regarded them as nothing other than a top-5 team both years, despite their record. I admit it, the Eagles scare me like the Angels scare the Yankees. Brian Westbrook has been the biggest matchup nightmare for the Giants in all of football over the past five years...and a fast, talented defense, along with Westbrook and McNabb just spells danger. That said, I think the Eagles might be close to blowing the whole thing up and starting over. Westbrook is getting old, the line had to be re-vamped, the defense has lost many of its coaches, some key players and see itself aging. I won't be shocked if the Eagles win the division, but I also won't be surprised if they go 5-11. Tread lightly when betting them early season in my opinion.

So that does it for my portion of the NFL season previews. Happy Friday as Belmont re-opens and we have a full slate of college football Saturday before the first Sunday of the NFL Season. With an exciting baseball stretch run heating up, it doesn't get much better than this in the world of sports. I think the Millman is still going to churn out an AFC East preview this afternoon if he gets some time at work. I also may do a feature where I pick the straight-up winners in each game if I get a chance. Expect some betting stories/advice to start up next week, possibly along with some fantasy football analysis.

NFL is Officially Back: Steelers-Titans Review

2009-09-11T08:07:00.002-04:00

Mulldog's Thoughts:
Before I really get into it, I just want to say it feels great to have the NFL back. We even got a little bonus football for the long wait as the Steelers took it 13-10 in Overtime. But now...

Why is all the analysis during and after the game raving about these two teams, claiming this was a preview of the AFC Championship Game? Was I watching the same game or do I just live on a different planet? That was a disgusting, poorly played game where both teams (hopefully) looked extremely rusty. The Steelers offensive line failed to open up a single hole all game and couldn't keep the defense away from its quarterback. There were missed field goals, bad fumbles, missed receivers, and yellow markers everywhere. You would have thought it was the Raiders-Lions with all the sloppy play. Yet somehow, since it was the Steelers-Titans, and they were both great last year, that was considered a great game. Sorry, but color me unimpressed - I'm not going to take to much out of it because it's the first game in primetime, but both teams need to play better if they plan on making the playoffs in a stacked AFC.

And all of this raving about Ben Roethlisberger. Seriously, what was everyone watching? Roethlisberger played terribly almost all night. He missed open receivers, threw one bad interception...took terrible sacks to take his team out of field goal range (and other times to turn 3rd and shorts into 3rd and longs). Look, Big Ben is my fantasy QB this year..he can make plays and at times he looks pretty good, but just because the defense shut down the opponent all night and Ben was able to chuck it around a bit on a gassed defense late, doesn't mean he's all of a sudden Peyton Manning. He played terribly for 3.5 quarters, let's not forget that.

Kudos to the Titans defense, which performed very well, especially against the run without Albert Haynesworth. I question how much of this is a poor Steelers run-blocking offensive line and a bad running back (fast Willie)...I would hold off the "Titans defense is as good as last year" until they play again. Their secondary looked shaky when they couldn't get to Ben and I'm interested to see how they do against a more balanced attack.

God, if the Titans didn't have Chris Johnson would they ever score? Their offensive line is incredibly, truly one of the best units int he league, and yet their receivers are all terrible, their QB stinks and the only time they are at all dangerous is when CJ has the ball.

Troy Polamalu is a damn freak. Too bad he got injured because he looked better than ever, the interception was exceptional, but personally I was more impressed with his open-field tackle of Chris Johnson where he showed a burst that was even too quick for the speedy Johnson and took out his legs on what looked like a big gain waiting to happen.

Both teams have solid defenses. I want to see what they do against some other teams before anointing these two the class of the NFL off that effort though.

Even I have lost Hope.

2009-09-10T12:41:00.003-04:00

I have now spent three straight evenings arguing with my roomates trying to give false hope to the Bills season. I was even is such a heated debate that I left my chicken on the grill for 45 minutes and forgot about it. 45 minutes pass, Bills still horrible, chicken is pure charcoal. Nice Life.

Horrible comments have come out of my mouth such as

"Alex Van Pelt is the truth, he can't do any worse than Turk Schonert"
"Dude we will be fine, there was a report out of practice today that we were actually throwing a ball down the field."
"The last time we played the Pats opening day we throttled them 31-0, history always repeats itself"
"I think the Bills are just trying to trick everyone, they haven't shown any of their offense this offseason"
"2 rookies, a backup center, a 7th round pick who was inactive 14 games last year, and a journeyman guard converted tackle, who cares, this line will be hungry."

Okay I have finally cracked. This team is bad. And the one to push me off the edge was one of my favorite columists ESPN's Bill Simmons. I am drawn to his humor and pop culture references, his love for Boston Sports, and his articles. Well Bill Simmons, you hardly write articles anymore, all you do are podcasts which I don't listen to you because your voice is nasaly, and you just bashed my beloved team. Please see quote below...

Prediction I: The Buffalo Bills will finish with the worst record in football, allowing T.O. to star in the worst NFL season and second worst reality show in the same year. I would have given T.O.'s show "worst reality show" status, but you can't top "Megan Wants A Millionaire" going off the air because one of Megan's bachelors allegedly killed his wife and tried to get rid of her by cramming her into a suitcase. I mean, when VH1 pulls a show because something bad happened, you KNOW something bad happened.

Laughing stocks of the league.