That's right the Nationals are now 2-0 and own a half game lead over the Mets in the NL East. The future looks bright, but let's not forget to enjoy the present. The Nationals have a great new ball park, new players, and lots of optimism following a season ago where many were predicting Washington to set a new MLB record for losses prior to last season.
"21" the movie adaptation of Bringing Down the House about a group of MIT students taking down casinos in black jack for millions of dollars should score big in the box office. The recent explosion of poker on tv and in movies has even spawned a black jack tv show. The thirst for the quick fix and gambling bug should have this movie raking it in with a solid story and stellar performances by Lawrence Fishbourne and Kevin Spacey.
Wrapping up my Major League Baseball season preview by division, here are the AL East teams listed in order of predicted finish. While I admit it is not easy for me to be objective about the AL East, I’ll give it my best shot.
Boston Red Sox. It pains me to say so, but the Red Sox have done everything right over the past four plus years to build a championship contending team. It pains me so much to say that previous sentence that I can’t say any more about this team.
From the pre-game festivities to the nationally televised game on ESPN, the Nationals from top to bottom delivered the goods. Channel 7 and ESPN's pregame showcased the stadium, it's view, and all it's emenities. The only thing left to accomplish in their new ball park was to bring home a win and that they did in a dramatic walk off home run by Ryan Zimmerman in the bottom of the 9th for a 3-2 victory.
The Final Four is set today with a Jay Hawks two point margin of victory as Davidson's three point shot failed to hit iron. Curry was forced to give up the ball after three different screens failed to clear any room for him to shoot. Teams throughout the tourament have refused to go to a box in one defense in attempt to coral Curry. When it mattered most Kansas came up with the critical stop against Curry and his Davidson team.
Continuing my Major League Baseball season preview by division, here are the AL Central teams listed in order of predicted finish.
Detroit Tigers. Let’s get this out of the way first. The Detroit Tigers are not going to score 1,000 run this season. Every year during the pre-season, baseball writers, analysts, and fans anoint a team as being the one that will score 1,000 runs during the upcoming season. The Yankee teams of recent years have been perennial favorites to score 1,000 runs. But guess what? Even in these days of record breaking individual offensive production, only one team in the past 57 years has scored 1,000 runs: the 1999 Cleveland Indians. And while the 2008 Tigers are good enough to win their division, they won’t be scoring 1,000 runs this year.
With all the rumors spreading about Canseco's new book, who's mentioned, and that A-Rod was interested in Canseco's wife there's only a few things to be said. Somewhere along the way DiNero's 'circle of trust' has been broken. Has anyone seen Canseco's wife? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but who is this beauty that has Canseco making such accusations. There's defending the woman you love and then there's the old someone has a high opinion of his wife besides even getting into the A-Rod factor. Canseco shocked the world with this first book as it brought steroids into the light of day and naming names as people laughed and ridiculed Canseco. Will the sequel be quite as earth shattering?
Continuing my Major League Baseball season preview by division, here are the AL West teams listed in order of predicted finish.
Seattle Mariners. Despite being the Arizona Diamondbacks of the American League in 2007 (having given up more runs than they scored), the Mariners look like a real contender in the division. Yes, their lineup is aging, but the pitching is solid, with the addition of Eric Bedard being just what they need to compliment Felix Hernandez and a good bullpen.
ESPN Nation is having a mock draft and it appears that McShay and Scouts,Inc. provide the guidance. "Who are these people!?" and what are they thinking. Do those that voted even follow the Skins? How did McShay come to the conclusion that the Skins need more help at safety than at OL? ESPN Mock Draft I'm not saying that Mario Manningham is the next Desmond Howard or Westbrook, but let's get real here. How can safety be a higher need than DE? Does any history in the past 20 some Super Bowls Champions show you that pressure from the front line allows even more creativity than a smoke and mirrors back seven approach. No one need look any further than this year's winner, the NY GIants.
There were many great games, near upsets, and indeed a few David's slaying Goliath. To wrap up a previous conversation with Bob there were a couple of 5-12 upsets, but for those that really knew something about college basketball the Villanova game wasn't a surprise. They've had more upsets as a lower seeded team in modern day history than any other school. Toss in free throw shooting by Clemson and the fact that other than coming close with UNC they played some close games with mediocre teams in the ACC that didn't make the tournament.
A lot is made of the Hilltoppers of Western Kentucky making it to the sweet Sixteen, but how much of an upset is it when the selection committee pitted two Mid-Majors against each other for one less Mid-Major to challenge the power conference teams. San Diego played their hearts out and sure the loss of UConn's guard and leader played a major factor in the game, but here's where the real challenge begins for a solid WKY team. Drake was a good team than ran into the wrong style of play as most teams do when they get bounced from the tournament.
Did you hear it? No, everyone pretty much knows about March Madness (yeah, Georgetown is out!). The Major League Baseball season started this morning (for those of us in North America) or tonight, if you are in Japan or other parts of Asia. In not going to begin to figure it out for Istanbul. At least they didn't start the season tomorrow. The defending World Series Champion Boston Redsox defeated the Oakland A's 6-5 in 10 innings. Yes, it was also the first extra innings game for the season.
Continuing my Major League Baseball season preview by division, here are the NL West teams listed in order of predicted finish.
Arizona Diamondbacks. As usual, the NL West looks to be a very tight race, with any of four teams being able to win the division. You would expect that a team which significantly outperformed their Pythagorean record last year to have a fall back the following year, but the Diamondbacks went out and improved. Dan Haren gives this team two Cy Young contenders, along with Brandon Webb. Chris Young and Stephen Drew are a year older and now should be able to provide some much needed spark in a lineup that was lacking in runs last year.
The time is 12:50 and yet as in prior years when CBS allowed fans to watch two different games on HD TV and low definition TV, this is not the case again this year. Once again CBS tries it's best to challenge is college sports fans by showing Duke vs. Belmont in the DC Metro area. It's my theory that CBS lost some of its best sports minds when they lost the NFL years ago. Why else would the Sports Division of CBS be unwilling to move non-home team games to better games. For example, Duke is scheduled in the local area while the most hyped and maybe even anticipated game of the day USC vs. KSU isn't even being shown as the primary game here. Ok maybe if you're Peter Angelos and would like to lay claim that Carolina is your territory then you'll have a case, but Duke - really?
You're never going to be able to please everybody, but if common sense prevails then switching games without being trigger happy when the cases are warrented would keep complaints to a minimum as things go. Everyone knows when a game is lopsided so why make fans suffer in these 1-16 or 2-15 matchups?
"It's go time", as Mendlebaum said on Seinfeld. People may not be trying to lift a heavy TV and throw out their back right now but they're probably frantically figuring all the permutations and scenarios dancing in their heads with only an hour to complete their brackets.
Did you ever feel like as soon as the word spread about the 5-12 upset it would eventually become such common knowledge that every Joe Schmo in the office that knew nothing about sports would even know this rule until it virtually no longer occurred? Well a couple of years ago I made mention of this to some friends that it looks like the 6-11 is the new 5-12. The way the selection committee is taking fewer Mid Majors and even pitting them against each other makes for a tournament more like chalk and one in favor of the power conferences.
When I pondered the brackets I kept certain things in mind such as WV. When reviewing websites and articles and the major pundits, some believe that WV is a strong threat to defeat Duke. Although this isn't the strongest Coach K team, I recalled that Huggins has lost many games and clutch games in the tourney never breaking through.
Well this is certaintly not the entry I wanted to write in mid-March about the Maryland Terrapins. In any case, the Terps travelled to Minnesota to take on the Golden Gophers. After a close first half, at which Maryland led by 1 point, the Terps continued to work hard and won 68-58
OK, this is not local, and I would not even care about this team if The Sports Freak and I had not seen the interview. But really, who is going to root for the Georgia Bulldogs in the NCAA Tournament?
The SEC Tournament was delayed during the quarter finals. On Friday night, a tornado struck the Atlanta area, including the Georgia dome, where the tournament was being held. Georgia and Kentucky's game was postponed. After discussing with the NCAA, it was determined the only way to preserve the SEC's automatic bid was to have the championship game done by Sunday afternoon. To facilitate that, Georgia and Kentucky would have to play early Saturday and the winner would have to play a semi-final game on Saturday evening. Essentially two games in one day.
I really feel like I'm doing a disservice by discussing UMBC's first ever trip to the NCAA Tournament. They won the America East Championship over Hartford. I've never followed them other than the times the Maryland Terrapins scheduled them for one of those non-conference December games. You know, the ones that drag down RPI?
For those that don't know, UMBC is the University of Maryland Baltimore County Retrievers. I did not know they were the Retrievers, although I think I saw them once or twice in my 17 years of going to Maryland games. Probably at good old Cole Field House. OK now I'm really doing a disservice to the Retrievers. Back to them.
We are living in a golden age of baseball writing, as evidenced by all of the enjoyable, thought-provoking and engaging content being written about all aspects of the game in many different media (books, newspapers, and the internet). The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2008 is yet another example of this high quality writing in what is already a crowded market for baseball books.
Finally, we can all say, American Eagles can dance.
American University, with former Virginia coach Jeff Jones guiding them, got an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament with the defeat over Colgate in the Patriot League Final.
The Maryland Terrapins lost to Boston College Thursday night in the opening round of the ACC Tournament. It was a punch in the gut, but at the same time, all us fans felt that this was how it was going to end. Not a loss to BC, but more that it would end in dissapointment. This is not how they wanted to end the season. After nearly 12 minutes, BC had only scored 9 points and Maryland was in a double digit lead.
Continuing my Major League Baseball season preview by division, here are the NL Central teams listed in order of predicted finish.
Chicago Cubs. Kosuke Fukudome will round out this team quite nicely. The pitching staff is nothing special but is deep enough and good enough to lead the Cubs to the division title.
As I was watching one of my HD channels, one of my favorite recent sports movies was on TV. How can you not watch Roy Hobbs come through in the clutch? He could have been the best there ever was if not for Barbara Hershey.
March is a perfect time where college basketball/basketball and the grapefruit leage in MLB intersect. The NFL draft isn't far behind in April, so you can plug in Rudy or Brian's Song anytime. This started me thinking what are some of the best sports movies in recent years.
A blip came across the headlines and I thought for sure that Bob (the Yankeeeeeeeeeeeeees win!) would have posted an article about Billy Crystal signing a minor league one day contract with the Yankees. Billy Crystal - A Yankee?. Crystal isn't the first celebrity to do this but probably the oldest as he's about to turn 60. It will be interesting to see what he has left, but I'm sure the players are loose and loving it.
"What is with this?" and what is with the Red Sox making Hank Steinbrenner a member of Red Sox Nation? Well at least he received an autographed cap from big poppy.
I'm not exactly a fan of the team, but Jim Larranaga, their coach seems like one cool coach. I've seen his interviews on Pardon the Interruption during their unbelievable run to the Final Four a couple of years ago. His team, the George Mason Patriots, got their ticket stamped by winning the Colonial Athletic Association's tourney.
Congrats to the Patriots for being first from the DC area.
What started as a terrible season with back to back losses to Ohio (no, not Ohio State) and American, then great with a win at North Carolina, the Terrapins lose twice to end the season. First in a heartbreaker a week ago to Clemson on Senior Day and yesterday to Virginia at Charlottesville.
MD now heads in to the ACC tournament, which starts Thursday, as the #6 seed against #11 Boston College. The Terps could have been seeded as high as #3, but the late season letdown burst that bubble and is on the verge of bursting the NCAA bubble as well.
Part one of my Major League Baseball season preview by division begins with the NL East. Teams are listed in order of predicted finish.
New York Mets. The Mets have a lot of question marks for a team predicted to win their division. Can you really expect to get much production out of Pedro Martinez and El Duque in the starting rotation? Can Oliver Perez and John Maine have the consistency they’ve lacked in the past? Besides Billy Wagner, who is going to solidify the bullpen? Does their high priced, aging lineup have enough left in the tank? David Wright, Jose Reyes, and Johan Santana are bona fide stars, but the Mets are going to need production from other guys as well. The one thing the Mets have going for them is that the NL East is a relatively weak division.
Stan Kasden has done it again. He already improved RFK with the food court. He brought in some of the best minds in baseball and improved the farm system from one of the worst to a top ten farm system making it one of two teams that had the biggest leaps in grading MLB farm systems. With Stan's committment to winning and improvements made in the outfield, how can Stan mark another big win for the Nats?
The group of prized free agents in this offseason appears to be less than in years past. The few legitimate immediate impact unrestricted free agents led me to look at some of the franchise tagged players and one in particular. Naming someone a franchise player denying someone the ability to truly be a free agent unless compensated by 1st Round picks instantly vaults a player into elite status, so why have some teams labeled players with this designation?
Yes, the man, the legend, the "good guy" has decided to retire.
Is it a surprise? Yes and no. No because he's been contemplating this for a few years now. At 38 years old, he will not be able to recovery as quickly as others. He also does Green Bay a great service by allowing them to test out Aaron Rodgers and/or give them time to evaluate QB talent in the draft. From the ESPN report, it appears his decision was made partially because did not pursue Randy Moss for the upcoming season.
