Sunday Blues

I’d like to first extend my apologies to any regular readership, as life’s realities have once again intruded upon my carefully-crafted fantasy existence. Between personal problems and the proposed NJ budget, carefully crafted by the tyrant Corzine to attack the middle class and smokers, it’s really tough to keep my mind on sports.

Kudos though, to the WBC, the Knicks and the Nets. Raspberries to the U.S.A. baseball team and Jake Peavy. I could probably add UConn and Pitt to the raspberries list but my heart’s not really in it. They are just students after all.

The U.S. baseball team surely didn’t show much in their embarrassing ten-run rule loss to Puerto Rico yesterday, but they’re still in the tournament, for now anyway. If this tournament has shown me anything thus far, it’s just to reaffirm the importance of good pitching.

Jake Peavy gave up six runs right off the bat, no pun intended, and that was pretty much the end of things. Meanwhile, the friggin’ Netherlands has shown basically nothing at the plate but are pitching their little hearts out. I’ve heard they practice in wooden shoes, which just makes things that much easier when they get to wear their spikes. It’s only conjecture that they also pitch into windmills for added resistance.

The Mets are showing pretty well. Beltran and Delgado have been smacking the ball all around the parks while K-Rod closed out the Dutch with four outs too. I can’t say it makes me happy though. A 162-game season is hard to preface with a huge tournament.

The timing of this event really couldn’t be worse for the U.S. Our pitchers save themselves for the regular season and aren’t geared up for big performances in March. If the U.S. loses again tonight, maybe we’ll take this event a little more seriously in the future. I don’t think we can afford to ignore it any longer. We’re getting embarrassed on an international stage.

Major League Baseball has to prevent teams from being obstructionists too. And the biggest fly in the ointment thus far seems to be the Yankees, whatta surprise, who whined loudly about a little shoulder problem for Cano. Is there still any doubt that Cano is a deadbeat? I guess so. I know you won’t find him on my fantasy roster.

At the same time as the Yanks try to destroy any baseball talk outside their own team, they are still patiently keeping those seats unaffordable for all but the richest. I anxiously await their demise, not only on the field but also in home attendance. Really! Was there ever a more disgraceful team management in any sport whatsoever?

You have to wonder about the security of these fans as they approach the gates of the new stadium. In this economy, and with the locals not only ticked off about the stadium in general but also about their inability to afford seats, I could definitely see some hostility directed toward their dwindling fan base.

See “Robin Hood.” It’s pretty easy to characterize the new stadium as Nottingham Castle, Hank Steinbrenner as evil Prince John and Cashman as the stumblin’ bumblin’ Sheriff of Nottingham. Picturing the Bronx as Sherwood Forest is a little tougher, of course, but maybe they’ll plant some trees. Oh, that’s right….parking lots…but I digress.

I have to say it’s really nice to see the Knicks and Nets both coming back to contend for that eighth playoff spot. D’Antoni never stops. He’s never missed the playoffs and doesn’t act as if he wants to break his streak. I couldn’t help but notice his pulling the jock Harrington from the lineup down the stretch, definitely a good thing. He also chastised Lee and Robinson for their attitudes toward the officials.

Although I’m not quite ready to shower the same kind of credit on Lawrence Frank, you can’t help but notice his N.J. team is still trying. The thing I always notice about the Nets is their height. Lopez, Yi, these are big guys, and that never hurts in basketball. If the refs ever give Lopez a break (they won’t), the Nets would be great. Both teams have their work cut out for them down the stretch though. They have to face each other twice down the stretch.

The Knicks also have to face LeBron and the Cavs, then shortly thereafter have a home and home against Orlando. Then it’s on the road against Utah and Denver, then at the Bulls, at Orlando again and at Miami. That’s not a schedule I’d advocate for a playoffs team.

The Nets might have it even tougher. A home and home vs Cleveland, the Lakers, Detroit, Boston and Orlando will all make it tougher for the Jerseyans. The most likely outcome for our locals will be a final game steel cage death-match against each other for the final playoffs berth on April 15^th.

The madness begins soon, of course, and the finals seem harder to predict every year. We see the UConn’s and Pitt’s of the world all season but then come to realize that Louisville’s not too bad either. North Carolina, Texas, Kansas, Arizona, they always seem to be contenders. And Syracuse always seems tougher when it really counts.

Actually it’s probably a lot harder to predict the 64 entrants than it is to pick a winner. There’s at least as much acrimony over the participants as there is about the results. And that’s a good thing, I guess, except I keep thinking those last 32 teams should really be in the NIT.

I never should have watched “No Country for Old Men”. I find myself pining for the good ol’ days, day games, 154-game schedule, no DH, double-headers, Mickey, Willie and the Duke.

Sports, governments, the medical establishment, they all share disturbing similarities….too few dollars chasing too many services. Do we really need those extra 8 games in the season? How about the number of police on the streets? How about that EKG for a stomach ache?

The WBC and Not Much Else

Well, a lot sure has happened since last time, notably the “friggin’ Netherlands” upsetting the Dominican Republic after I made some reference to the ten run rule. So apologies are in order. I guess I’ll be “in Dutch” with them for quite a while.

But then it is baseball. Especially if an inferior team can put together some semblance of a pitching staff, the chances are fair to middlin’ that they can eke out a win against a superior opponent, especially if it can take a lead. That’s of course exactly what happened to the stunned Dominicans, who seemed to be pressing for most of the game.

The U.S. team was fortunate to get by the tough Canada team in their opener but then really handed it to the Venezuelans in Game 2. As this Mets fan watched Victor Zambrano head out to the mound in the 5th, I knew the game was just about over. You might recall the Mets trading Scott Kazmir for Victor, an early Omar Minaya particularly gaseous brain fart.

While the entire core of the Mets team frolics in various sites around the world, the Mets fan gets to watch what’s left. It’s not saying a lot. I know I haven’t been able to tune in since the Classic started. What would be the point? I know I’m enjoying this World Championship though, almost as much as the players themselves.

You had to like the U.S. team as players such as Chris Ianetta of the Rockies came through with the big, big triple to clear the bases against Zambrano.

It seemed almost impossible that anybody could knock Arod out of the headlines, but Terrell Owens and the Dallas Cowboys managed it in splendid fashion. Of course, it was only momentary relief as Arod’s back in front again, finally deciding on having the surgery he so obviously needed. That the Yankees took so long to figure that out is way beyond me.

But then I remember it’s Cashman pulling the strings and then it makes perfect sense. The Yanks still have quite a few seats to fill in their new digs and what better way to stay on the front page (or back page actually in New York) than to drag out even obvious decisions? And that’s it for that subject. I promised myself not to dwell on A-Fraud.

On lighter matters, Jim Berman says that “no team circles the wagons like the Buffalo Bills.” It had better be true because they’ll have to do a lot of circling next year. Has anyone in the entire history of the NFL needed more apologists than Terrell Owens?

While a lot of folks think T.O. was a great acquisition for the Bills, and my brother not the least among them, I tend to disagree. It’s not as if they’re Super Bowl material up there, and as they’re only getting him for the one year, eight and a half million dollars would seem kind of pricey for a one-time winning record of about 9-7.

The Bills are, after all, the Bills and they’re in a pretty tough division. T.O. won’t be scaring the likes of the Patriots, and the Jets just beefed up their secondary. And nobody knows (and probably dislikes) T.O. better than Bill Parcells, who just happens to run operations down in Miami.

So I figure the Bills will, at best, win two of those six intra-Division games and probably only one. If they even manage 9-7 overall, it’ll be a miracle. Of course, their fans will probably be much happier with that than with what has been trying to pass for a competitive team all these long years.

But it was great to see ESPN’s obnoxious Stephen A. Smith say a lot of foolish things about T.O. before he signed with the Bills. Most memorable for me was that Stephen was absolutely sure that Owens would sign with a team that had a great quarterback. He mentioned Tom Brady and hinted that the Colts would be a good place too.

I guess Trent Edwards qualifies, somehow, as a good QB but it’s really, really hard to figure out why. I won’t bore you with statistics but Edwards has been mostly a disaster unless you’re overly amused by interceptions at the worst possible times. Let’s hope T.O. can have a positive affect on the “team of the Northeast.” I’m quite sure they deserve better times.

And, who knows? Maybe T.O. really was being picked on in Big D. Maybe he’d start getting more separation if he had a better chance of getting the ball thrown to him. There’s nothing quite so pointless as running hard on every play, only to see the ball go underneath to somebody else.

But football is way in the future and, as I can’t get into hockey (although I couldn’t help but notice the attention being paid to Martin Brodeur lately), that leaves just basketball. Thank God for March Madness because we won’t be seeing too much more of the Knicks or Nets.

The Nets are usually entertaining for three quarters, but then you remember that the game has four quarters. What a bad bunch down the stretch this group is! Going through the motions is almost more than you can say about these guys. Sadly, their play is typical of other teams around the league once they’re out of the playoffs.

D’Antoni finally aired some of his frustration with his Knicks team lately, so maybe that’ll have some kind of positive effect on what appears to be just a bunch of chuckers. I’m ashamed now to admit that Al Harrington is from New Jersey. Does the ball ever come back again once it gets into his voracious hands? He truly never had a shot he didn’t like. I just wish he made more of them.

It’s got to be challenging for D’Antoni, who never misses the playoffs, to watch these guys under-perform night after night. And now Curry’s coming back. Heh-heh.