Weekly thoughts
The great thing about sports is that no matter how busy you get in life with work, kids, the weather, the sports world keeps on going and providing good things to talk or write about.
The NBA moves forward into the conference finals. Gone are the Suns with nearly everybody blaming the league offices for them being dismissed in six games by San Antonio. Would I have suspended the players for going on the court at the end of game 4? Probably not, I would have suspended Robert Horry though. ESPN personality and Washington Post writer Michael Wilbon wrote on the subject http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/18/AR2007051802092.html and has the take that the NBA has let the Suns down by allowing the Spurs to bully the Suns all series long. He says the NBA should have made an exception to the rules and allowed the suspended Suns players to play in game 5. I agree. Lets suppose Michaal Jordan or Lebron or Kobe are the ones coming on the court with 18 seconds left in a game that has been decided (ok, so maybe Kobe wouldn't stand up for a teammate, you get the picture)? Would David Stern pass down suspensions for Michael Jordan (in his day) or Lebron today? No way. The most exciting team was knocked out in game 6 and now the NBA has the juggernaut and exciting matchup potential of Utah or San Antonio vs. Cleveland or Detroit...woohoo!
The NHL playoffs have one of their Stanley Cup finalists in place after the Ottawa Senators moved past the Buffalo Sabres. The big story here isn't the success on the ice, unfortunately it is a story that came out over the weekend of a Sabres fan that attended a game in Ottawa. This fan was a woman...and she got beat up after a Buffalo win. This woman, Renee Luck, was repeatedly punched in the face by upset Ottawa fans after the loss. From espn.com - "Luck's face was swollen and cut after she was assaulted by two men as she and a group of friends were leaving their seats at Scotiabank Place. Luck was rescued by other Senators fans." - entire article - http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/playoffs2007/news/story?id=2875417 Give me a break. If it was a loud mouthed, cussing jerk, maybe an altercation could happen. I don't know this woman obviously, but it is really hard to imagine any fans getting to the point of repeatedly punching a woman in the face. Can you say loser? I'm sure the jerk(s) were drunk beyond belief.
Anyway, the Senators will face either the Ducks or Red Wings. The Ducks hold a 3-2 lead in the series.
Zach Johnson, Master champion, won this weekend here in Atlanta at the AT&T Classic. All three of his career PGA wins have occurred in the state of Georgia. While I did not have Zach in my weekly golf pool, I will be sure to take him when the PGA Tour Championship comes up this fall...why you ask? It is played here in Atlanta at East Lake Golf Club.
Another PGA story I happened to find on www.pgatour.com is a good one. Nice guy Hal Sutton led the fundraising efforts that led to the building of the Sutton Children's Medical Center at CHRISTUS Schumpert in his native Shreveport, La. The full article (worth reading) is at http://www.pgatour.com/2007/r/05/18/sutton.foundation/index.html
On to baseball. This past weekend featured the first pass through interleague games this season. I will focus on the marquee matchups from the weekend. Clearly the Kansas City Royals visiting the Colorado Rockies deserves the limelight...oops sorry if you didn't realize they played this weekend. Looking back at the weekend, 6 of the 15 matchups featured both teams under .500 winning percentage. This is caused by the wonderful scheduling by MLB that provides a few high profile matchups every season. RedSox vs. Braves was one and Yankees Mets was the other. Both of these series had interest for me personally as the two teams I follow and root for played each other and the two teams that would be considered their rivals also played.
It worked out to be a pretty good weekend, the Sox took 2 out of 3 from the Braves and the Mets took 2 of 3 from the Yankees.
Earlier this season I beat up on many of the Sox hitters for their early performances. Without any fanfare, Jason Varitek has raised his average up to .280.
Here are the Sox batting averages for the players that play everyday:
Youkilis .340
Lowell .333
Ortiz .312
Varitek .280
Pedroia .260
Drew .254
Lugo .250
Ramirez .245
Crisp .236 
They have the best record in baseball due to their pitching, no doubt. Drew, Lugo and Ramirez are below where they will end up, that only is a good sign of how they will keep winning when they heat up. Coco my friend, remains in the .230's. Local talk radio this morning suggested that Andruw Jones was on display for a potential trade to the RedSox. Too bad Andruw is terrible this year (contract year) at .212
Finally, my son's little league team finished up their season Saturday with a win in the Championship game. As I mentioned previously, the league he plays in (NYO) is very structured and very intense. The amount of time put in by parents, coaches and of course the kids really is a lot but I will say the improvement of the entire team was fun to watch. Jack (my son) didn't get any hits in the championship game but made one nice defensive play and really enjoyed the season. As the team pitcher I received a ball signed by the entire team and well wishes for my likely pending rotator cuff surgery (joke). I missed the first playoff game last week due to a conflict with a work function and virtually every parent sought me out to thank me for being there Saturday. That felt good. The spring baseball was intense but the coaches and a few of the players now begin "All-Star" season, which doubles or triples the intensity and involves traveling for games and tournaments through the month of July. Both of Jack's coaches are coaching the all-stars too so I am sure the teams will do very well as both are very good coaches for this age of kids.
Here is the winning team's picture, jack is 2nd row, third from the left (yes I know he needs a haircut)
No comments:
Post a Comment