Series Hopes on an All-Sports Sunday

It was one of the best sports days ever. NFL action and all its fantasy implications, MLB playoffs races coming down to the wire and the Mets on the verge of finally ending the Omar Minaya era and its four years of disappointing mercenary baseball.

Ultimately, it will be that last event that will be the most important event in my life. But in the short run, for sheer excitement and that feeling of true participation in the day’s events, you just can’t beat Sunday NFL action, especially if you have the resources to buy the NFL Redzone package, or watch streaming videos of games on the Internet.

After watching the G-Men (yes, they finally deserve that name) vanquish da Bears last night on mainstream TV, I can’t imagine going back to that totally unwatchable platform for commercials, even if it did afford me the opportunity to get along further in my reading . I also became quite accomplished in manipulating the remote control, especially the “mute” and “last” buttons.

The G-Men weren’t expected by many to beat da Bears last night. That was before the nation witnessed the total humiliation of the Bears offensive line. It reminded me of a similar game against McNabb’s Philadelphia Eagles a year or two ago when Osi Umenyiora just ate up the guy in front of him. (Come to think of it, it looked a lot like the Colts decimation of the Giants offensive line just last week).

Things change so quickly in the NFL. Those same Giants who looked like gangbusters in that first game of the season returned last night. After that pitiful effort against the Colts, they turned their season around with a resounding victory against a Chicago team that had been undefeated at 3 and 0. And that result wasn’t even as surprising as the action in a few other games on the slate.

The lowly Lions from Detroit gave Green Bay fits before losing. The Jaguars, a team I had thought incapable of ever winning a game this season, beat those same Colts who ate up that Giants offensive line just last week. And they did it by outcoaching the brash Indi team, who called timeouts for their offense while the Jags still had the ball!

Ahmad Bradshaw broke my heart by fumbling once again down by the goal line, even if he did have a really marvelous day. I could watch those nifty changes in direction forever, that and his ability to run over people. Tom Coughlin broke it again when he inserted old sourpuss Brandon Jacobs into the game, in effect rewarding the Twink for his surliness by giving him the touchdown, not Bradshaw.

That last decision crippled my chances of winning my fantasy contest this week. Coughlin also limited the participation of Mario Manningham, a player who could have played after his concussion fears were laid to rest. And a player I had foolishly decided to pick up to replace Miles Austin and/or Percy Harvin in my fantasy lineup. Manningham gave me the big zero.

I still have a fantasy of a chance, but even the most optimistic outlook would snigger at the prospects of my opponent’s Ronnie Brown and Davone Bess (from Miami) failing to achieve 80 yards or a touchdown, even against a New England team that hasn’t really distinguished itself for defense of any kind this year.

And all that NFL action was only a portion of the excitement for the day. The interminable 162-game baseball season finally actually ended. And, in the National League, the only league that still plays the actual original game of baseball, the playoff teams were actually determined on the season’s final day!

It ended much to my satisfaction too. The San Diego Padres, a team with almost no hitting, a team that had relied almost entirely on pitching all year long, finally succumbed to the Giants from San Francisco, a result that cemented the Giants as NFC West Champions while, at the same time, anointing the Braves as the wildcard, thus assuring that the venerable Bobby Cox, long-time manager of that forever Mets rival Braves team, would get a chance to win a World Series.

The San Francisco Giants had been a favorite of mine all year, what with their great pitching and exciting (if nothing else) brand of baseball. I had relied upon some of their players for my fantasy baseball team, the Panda Pablo Sandoval and the 4-tool Andres Torres giving opponents fits when super-sub Juan Uribe did not, or when big Jersey guy Matt Cain couldn’t otherwise pitch himself into another win.

So it’ll be the Phils and Reds, the Giants and Braves, and that’s okay with me. The Phillies are the real class of this bunch but I’ll be pulling for the Giants, the only other team that rates a chance of unseating the American League World Series representative, whether that winds up being the Twins or Rangers, Rays or Yankees (God forbid).

I’ll be pulling for the Rangers in the American League. Even including the baseball Giants, they were my favorite team, with the likes of Ian Kinsler and Michael Young, Josh Hamilton and Pedro Guerrero all capable of bashing the ball and the opposing team out of the ballpark, especially at home in the friendly confines of that Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Texas.

In Josh Hamilton, the Rangers own the most exciting and revered baseball player since Mickey Mantle. That’s a huge statement, sure, but Hamilton is that kind of player. It’s Hamilton who’ll be the MVP and it’s the Rangers who’ll win the World Series.

They open against Tampa Bay, who couldn’t duck as fast as the Yankees in their efforts to avoid the prospect of playing them. The Yanks will beat the Twins. The Rangers will beat the Rays, Yanks and then the Giants in a dream of a Series.
The Yanks have Sabathia and Arod. You can have the rest. And that’s what the Rangers will do.

A Heart in San Francisco

This fine Friday is special. Why? Because I’m leaving town, bound for San Francisco, that city by the sea, but also home of the 49ers and baseball Giants and geez, whoever cared about those things before?

But the Giants’ve got the freak, Tim Lincecum, and Matt Cain, and that probably beats Sabathia and Burnet. And the Niners have a crazy old linebacker from Jersey named Mike Singletary, who’s been turning an annual pigskin joke into a real live football team.

Lincecum is 14-5 with 244 strikeouts in 207 innings, not too shabby I’d say for a team with no cleanup hitter, well, to be honest, they really have no hitter of any kind, leadoff, a guy to move the runner over, a real live number 3 hitter; you name it, the Giants don’t have it.

Why do they call him the freak though? Maybe it has something to do with being 5’11” and 170 pounds. Maybe it’s his weird delivery that features a whip-like release that ends up somewhere real close to his foot. Or maybe it’s just his demeanor, which is kind of laid back and unworldly, other-worldly?

Anyway, if they just had Lincecum at the top of the rotation, they’d be scary enough, but then there’s Matt Cain too. Now he’s only 13-6 with a paltry by comparison 155 K’s in 202 innings, but how many guys have a 2.71 ERA and 1.17 WHIP?

Oh, and there’s Barry Zito at 3.94 and Jonathan Sanchez at 4.16 and oh, yeah, they picked up an old retread (are there any new retreads) named Brad Penny from Boston, a city obviously not to his liking. But he likes San Fran real well apparently as he’s given up just 4 whole runs in 22 innings in 3 games in September.

Gone are the days when all anybody heard about was Barry Bonds, although they still revere him there, strange as that may seem to me. But then, there’s Giambi and Arod and McGuire and Sosa and about a hundred others. Of course, they liked Bonds before we knew about all those other guys. Maybe it’s having watched all those majestic drives into the water. That would probably do it.

As luck would have it, the Giants won’t be playing at home this weekend. They’ll be in La La-land, home of the Dodgers and, oh yeah, another freak named Manny Ramirez, who seems so much less freaky since his name appeared in the steroids-yes column.

Nevertheless, the Dodgers lead in the West by 5 over the Rockies and 8 ½ over San Fran’s finest. But they’re just 3 ½ behind the Rocks for the wildcard with 16 games left to play. And that will mean 6 more starts at least for Lincecum/Cain and a guarantee that the rest won’t be easy with Zito, Sanchez and Penny going.

The relief’s not too shabby either with Brian Wilson closing and Jeremy Affeldt setting things up. Wilson looks kinda freaky too, by the way, but he’s got 34 saves and a 2.69 ERA so whos going to make a big thing about hair.

So I won’t be seeing the Giants first-hand or experiencing the thrill of AT&T Park but I shall be feeling that buzz, a buzz you feel more in smaller and less cynical markets than New York, like Denver for sure and even Chicago for that matter.

The buzz will be that much stronger as the Niners are playing Seattle at home and both teams won their openers, but the Niners did it versus last year’s NFC Super Bowl team, the Arizona Cardinals while Seattle just walked all over an overmatched Rams squad.

But it all started for these Niners against Seattle last year. That was Singletary’s finest moment for most NFL fans (but not Mike himself) as he benched his star tight end Vernon Davis at halftime and dropped his pants to make a point. And, since that game, his point seems to have been made.

“…cannot play with them, cannot win with them, cannot coach with them. Can’t do it. I want winners. I want players that want to win.” And since then, the Niners have won, going 6-3 since that game and since inserting Shaun Hill at the quarterback position.

Ya think that doesn’t inspire SF fans? I know it inspires me, and I’ll bet it inspired at least some of those players. (Davis is now a team captain). You sure can’t point to any one guy, or even any one portion of the team, as the reason they’re winning. They just seem to be eking out these team victories.

Defense is a good part of it though and the Cards found that out last week as Kurt Warner was harrassed into mistake after mistake. The running game is part of it too, even though they couldn’t run very well against the Cards. The passing game got them the win in that one.

But that’s par for the course for this team. Whatever it takes to win from week to week, they seem to come up with. They’re my pick to win that Western Division this year, and this game against Seattle should go a long way towards deciding that one.

It’s too bad they haven’t yet been able to sign their Number 1 pick in the draft, WR Michael Crabtree, even though their offer was said to be for 5 years and 22 million, 16 of it guaranteed. Even that enormous sum is apparently low-balling a Number 10 pick overall. They supposedly are trying to appeal to the player directly. I don’t hold out too much hope for that effort, and I’d rather see them spend that money on a more established wideout.

But even the holdout might eventually work to their advantage, especially if they can manage to beat up the Seahawks a little this Sunday.

Yeah, I’m looking forward to it , almost as much as that the Jets have taken the Pats and those G-Men the Boyz.