Two Guys from Jersey Head NFL Action

Guys from Jersey were sure in the news this weekend, for good and bad. One guy from Garfield broke the single-game receiving record for the Cowboys, another guy has become the leading running back for the Ravens, catching passes from still another Jersey guy from Audobon.

Miles Austin, the wide receiver, in addition to setting the Boyz receiving record, also won the game for them and kept Tony Romo from looking like a monkey. The Cowboys had played poorly all game against the Chiefs from Kansas City and our Mr. Austin was a part of the problem in the early going, dropping a couple of balls that looked catchable.

He sure made up for it later, catching a 59 yarder for the score that finally put the Cowboys ahead after about 50 minutes of hard-nosed football on both sides, only to see KC tie the score on a fourth down pass from Matt Cassell. Then, in overtime, Austin caught still another, this one going for 60 yards, to win the game for Dallas. Quite an afternoon of football.

Then there’s good ol’ Ray Rice from Rutgers. In his second year now, Ray is making Willis McGahee, the erstwhile top running back for the Ravens, just an afterthought. Mr. Rice just refuses to go down. He’ll hit the ground eventually but not before his hand without the ball holds him up for a while.

The Bengals had the misfortune of dealing with Rice yesterday, and, if not for a last-ditch effort by Carson Palmer, he would have had his Ravens team in the winners column once again. He does everything too, not just run. He caught 7 balls for 74 yards, one for a TD, and rushed 14 times for another 70.

Most interesting to me though was the similarity in style between Austin and Rice on their touchdown catches. They both appeared to be going down but they never quite made it there. Their opponents will no doubt be watching a lot of film this week with their positional coaches. I wish I could be there. I’d bring the popcorn.

You can’t speak of Jersey without mentioning the Giants, of course, and they just methodically beat up the Raiders. The final score was 44-7 but it looked as if it could have been anything they wished it to be. Everybody wearing a blue uniform looked terrific. And vice-versa for the silver and black.

I won’t make too big a thing of it though, if only because they’ve had things really easy thus far. They’ve beaten Washington, Dallas, Tampa Bay, Kansas City and Oakland. Except for Dallas, which has been struggling all year, that’s the bottom of the barrel. Washington has a bad QB and a bad coach, KC has Matt Cassel, a well-meaning coach but not much else, and Oakland has nothing.

Things will start to get interesting for the G-Men next Sunday night. They have to visit New Orleans, who will have had an extra week of preparation to ready themselves for our men in blue. You might recall the Jets had some huge problems during their trip to Louisiana last week.

The Giants are not the Jets, of course, and the two teams really don’t have much in common with each other, from the management to the coaches to the quarterbacks to the players on the field. And that’s not to cast dispersions on either squad, just to point out that they are very different.

In general terms, I’d say the Jets have a better defense and a worse offense. The Saints only scored ten points off the Jets defense. The rest was attributable to the trials and tribulations of a rookie quarterback, a good rookie but still a rookie. Eli is anything but a rookie. But the Saints will find the end zone, I’m afraid, with a little more regularity than they did against the Jets. It will be the season’s first real test for the Giants.

Things don’t get any easier either for the G-Men after that. Kurt Warner will be visiting, along with his merry cast of receivers, and then it’s off to Philadelphia to see Donovan McNabb. Then they’ll be hosting what might be a very aggravated Charger squad before their bye week.

Hopefully they’ll enjoy the week off because they’ll get Atlanta and Denver after that, then Dallas again, Philly again, and Minnesota in the final week. If you could call it a respite, they get to face Carolina and the Redskins again before having to face the Vikings. Five and oh is nice but they could be about 6-6 going into those last four weeks of the season, and at least two of those will be very tough contests.

The Jets are favored by two over the Fish tonight and I think you’ll see a more conservative approach from them and Sanchez, a game plan that will feature the running game, and a Jets pass defense that will be tested after the Jets stop the run. I think they’ll be quite up to the task.

They were one of my four best bets for the week. The other three were Minnesota, Cincinnati and Arizona. They all worked out so I’m looking forward to the game immensely. The Fish are better than their 1-3 record though, having lost to the likes of Atlanta, the Colts and the Chargers. It should be a real battle and the Jets may even have to resort to passing, maybe even phasing in their newest acquisition, Braylon Edwards.

The Yankees were fairly awesome in their sweep of the Twins. The Twins played badly in spots, a little out of character for them, but it seems the Yankees bring out the worst in them, a sure sign of a superior team. They’ll find things a lot tougher against the Angels, but the Bombers, 2009 edition, compare favorably with any team on the planet.

So, fear not, Yankee fans, the best may be yet to come. And maybe Mister Torre.

Sunday Meanderings

It certainly has been a good weekend for sports of all varieties, the Preakness, with Mine That Bird showing everyone he’s not just a flash in the pan, the Mets showing their stuff in San Fran, their second-line men holding down first base and shortstop, the Yankees (not that I like them) flashing their big men, Teixeira and Arod giving the Twins fits at the new Yankee Stadium, and even the Sybase Golf Classic hard by Route 3 and the Parkway, where Michelle Wie is trying to hang in there with names like Pettersen, Oh and Creamer.

As this is written, I’m watching the Sybase, where the same strong wind I hear whippin’ around the neighborhood is giving these women fits, including Creamer, whose pink all over thing seems out of place in this cold. Does she really hit pink balls, or is it just a trick of my TV? Right now, it looks as if Ms. Oh at 13-under is playing better than anybody else, including the erratic Ms. Wie .

To give Wie her due, she hits some incredible shots but then she lands in the water for inexplicable reasons and looks to her caddy of the week for advice, sympathy…something.

Okay, back to the Yankee game, if I must. It looks right now as if A.J. Burnett is having his way with Mauer, Morneau and the Twins. I hate to say it but those Yanks pitchers are beginning to look formidable. Sabathia won, then Joba didn’t lose. Pettite won too, come to think of it, and now A.J. is having fun. Am I missing anybody? Oh yeah, Mr. Hughes. You can’t have everything.

Thanks to the baseball and TV gods for David Cone. If I had to listen to the other two all afternoon long, I’d go mad, truly. The Yanks have, as far as I can tell, by far the worst broadcast team in any professional sport in any state of the Union. And that’s saying a lot.

Back to the golf, Pinky Creamer just hit a nice shot. And Michelle’s on a par 3 15th hole hitting another nice shot to the middle of the green. Woops, another commercial, and on YES they’re talkin’ bout what to do with Phil Hughes. Hmm, a real poser for Yankee management. (That’s if they can forget about their middle relief).

Hey! Johnny Damon’s up and there’s another base hit. Do they discuss the hit, no!! They talk about some dumb question somebody made up. Time to get back to the golf.

Pettersen is one back of Oh at 12-under. Another weather surprise, it’s starting to rain now. Wie just missed another putt, wasn’t even close. Here’s Jie Young Oh on the green in the rain at 15. And now Suzann Pettersen hits a 7-iron about 10 feet from the cup. Back to the Yanks now. And maybe a nice cup of coffee. Yeah.

Ok, now armed with a cuppa, I see Burnett is now waay out of his comfort zone, so far out of it that he’s now on the bench after walking Morneau after giving up two runs in the seventh. And Girardi’s calling for Albaladejo. Here’s where the fun starts (for a Mets fan).
Gotta stay with the Yankee game now. And Albaladejo strikes out Kubel for the third out! Oh man, I was hoping for disaster. Downer.

Skip the national anthem and back to golf. Pettersen for birdie, not even close. And an old gal like Alfredsson misses her putt by a hair. Back to Wie, another putt, tough downhill, she makes it! It ties her for third so far. And here’s Lincicome who makes a putt to the amusement of the crowd. And shows some real personality by throwing her hands in the air. Here’s Oh again and she’s a real pro, it looks like. She makes another nice shot and we see Wie again. Well, that’s okay.

Gotta see if the Yanks can come back now, Melky’s up in the seventh with one out and a man on third. He pops it to Span in left and Matsui scores to make it a one-run game. I smell some momentum here. The reliever does his job, Melky drives in the run (again) but Punto makes a bee-u-tiful sliding catch of a foul popup to make an end of that.

The birds are chirping, must be improving weather, back to the golf and Oh is lining things up again, still in the lead. Now Pettersen lines up a 10 or 12 footer but misses a foot to the left. It doesn’t look good. Let’s see ho the Yanks relievers hold up. Pettersen just lost any chance by missing a one or two footer. Cheesh!

Albaladejo catches Cuddyer off second to help hold off the Twins, who are mounting a comeback of sorts. The Twins seem to be tightening up. But Gomez keeps the part going by singling to left. Two men on, just one out and what will Albaladejo do now against Punto?

Uh-oh, the wife’s home and she’s muttering. That’s not good.

Punto walks and so does Albaladejo. To the bench. The Yanks bring in Tomko, where did he come from? Back to golf, but no, instead we learn about the 12-month payment protection plan on Lincolns. Now, really, if I needed a protection plan, would I be buying a Lincoln? It just doesn’t make sense.

Jie Young Oh has 9 straight pars. Turn out the lights. The party’s over and they’re interviewing Wie. She sounds pretty analytical. They make her relive her experience in the water. She handles it graciously. Very nice. This thing’s over – back to baseball for good.

Bases loaded, two outs, tie score, this could be great! And Tomko gets the Yanks out of it with a grounder to the vacuum cleaner, Teixeira. Watch the Yanks come back now, they’re psyched.

Slowey’s still in there. Eighth inning, the Yanks would never let Joba go this far. Now it’s Jeter up there after an uneventful day. The Twins bullpen is up now. And so is Mariano. And Jeter fights off an up and in pitch for a Texas-League single. Hmm. They leave Slowey in against lefty Damon. And there’s another oh-excuse-me single to left. Things are getting interesting in the Bronx.
And Teixeira drives one deep to right but he’s gotten under it and now it’s two outs, the winning run on third with Arod at the plate. They walk him and bring in a no-name named Mijares but he strikes out Matsui on an awful swing at a way-outside pitch.

Now there’s no golf to switch to, allowing time for some fond reminiscences of the Mets, who’ve wowed the crowd in San Francisco, all kinds of heroes but mostly Beltran and Wright. But things are going great now, all the pieces are coming together, ironic that it’s been without Delgado and Reyes.

Now Mariano’s in in a tie game. I wish they’d save Rivera for save situations. (Of course I’m not rooting for them). Mauer singles and now there’s Morneau, looking intense. Intense but out, as things work themselves out. He looks at a borderline strike and he’s outta there.

Now there’s Kubel. But Mariano saves the day by retiring him and Cuddyer too. And Johnny Damon wins it with still another Yankee walk-off home run. Mot that I’m rooting for them.

Ten Four ...Joba... Over?

Although I’m a Mets fan through and through, and would love to wax poetic today about Jerry Manuel’s relief-pitcher shuffling, or Jose Reyes’s diving stop on that hard line drive today to end the game, or even Beltran’s newly regained power at the plate, let me today turn my thoughts to those other locals, those Yankees, who, after all, have been written off by even their most loyal followers. But there is still hope.

Playing 2-4 baseball at home in their last six, losing all kinds of different ways over that stretch, and facing ten games in four different and distant cities in the next ten days, one might think the Yankees were done. I'm sure we've all heard it these last few days, "Stick a fork in 'em, they're done". Well, I'm here to tell you, it ain't necessarily so.

The Yanks are now 72-64; the Red Sox are at 79-57. Over in Minnesota, the Twins are 77-60, just 1/2 game behind the White Sox in the Central. So the American League wildcard will be decided among these four teams. I'm conceding the AL East to the astounding Tampa Bay Rays, who nobody thought would do anything different this year, except my little brother, of course, who will remind me of this at the drop of a hat.

If the Yanks can take the Tigers tomorrow in a makeup game in Detroit, then fly to Tampa and take two of three, then fly to Seattle and sweep, and then fly to LA, drive over to Anaheim and take 2 of 3 from their old nemeses Angels, they'll be at 80-66 in ten days.

The Red Sox seemingly have an easier time over the same ten days, traveling to only one city over this same time period to face the Texas Rangers. Sandwiching that series will be six at Fenway - three against the lowly Orioles but then three versus those Tampa Bay rascals. Even if the Red Sox take both series against the Orioles and Rangers, if they lose 2 of 3 to the Rays, they’ll be 84-61 in ten days. The Yanks at 80-66 would then be just 4 ½ games out for the wildcard with 13 games still to play before playing the Red Sox at Fenway for the last three.

The Red Sox will then play 14, featuring Toronto for half those games. Toronto has the best starting pitching in the league, in both leagues maybe. The other seven are versus those pesky Rays again, and the Cleveland Indians, who have seemingly risen from the dead. If the Red Sox were to falter just a little, going just 6-8 over that stretch, they’ll be at 90-69.

The Yanks would have just 13 games versus the Rays, White Sox, Orioles and Blue Jays. If the Yanks can go 10-3 over that stretch, they’ll be at 90-69 too. And they’d still have to take 2 out of 3 at Boston to take the wildcard. But it’s certainly still do-able. The wildcard winner Yanks would then be 92-70.

I won't bore you with the details of the schedules for the Twins and White Sox over the same time period but, after only a cursory inspection, it looks pretty easy for them But my point is that this game is baseball, and just go ask the Colorado Rockies what can happen in this strangest of national pastimes. Or the Mets for that matter.

The Twins and White Sox are, after all, just, well, the Twins and White Sox. It’s entirely possible for them to falter too. In fact, for the Twins, who have been doing rather well as of late, it’s almost a sure thing. So, for the purposes of this exercise, I’m assuming the Twins will fold and the White Sox will take the Central. The Twins, now at 77-60, would just have to lose 11 of their remaining 25 to finish at 91-71.

That may be a little too complicated for most people not totally obsessed by numbers and the vagaries of baseball. Let me simplify it for those folks. Remember me saying the Twins are the Twins? Well, the Yanks are the Yanks. But they have not really been the Yanks for most of this year. And they soon will be.

You can see that Hideki Matsui has rejoined the team after his knee problems. And, while he hasn’t been hitting for average yet, he’s already been knocking in some runs and you can see his affect on the team.

And Joba Chamberlain will be coming back too. But not as a starter, where he did not seem as formidable over five to seven innings as he did for just one. I must say that seeing Joba almost every day for just one inning beats seeing him for six or seven innings every five days. Just think of it, five amazing Joba sightings every single week. WOOHOO!

Arod showed some life yesterday and Giambi continued his little hot streak too. With Matsui back, the boys are all in line, so to speak, with the whole team back except for Posada. And the pitching hasn’t been that bad. Incredible as it may have seemed, Pavano was great in his two appearances, Ponson could have been a lot worse and Rasner is credible too. Mussina has been great. Pettite hasn’t been but there’s no reason he can’t come back to form either.

If the Red Sox were not showing signs of weakness, it would be a lot more difficult to predict a close finish. But really, they’re getting very little from Big Papi and they let Manny go. How long can they really expect Pedroia to go 10 for 10? How long before Youkilis reverts to the late-season Youkilis of old?

Beckett’s a little banged up too. The Red Sox are really not the Red Sox who won the World Series. And the Yankees could soon be the team that made the playoffs those thirteen years in a row.