This week’s madness comes courtesy of the Yanks/Phillies World Series (the Turnpike Series for my faithful readers), a screwed up BCS, the opening week of the NBA, and NFL picks that I, well, I’m not particularly proud of. Needless to say, this is the craziest week I’ve had since I started here and I didn’t quite see it coming. I mean, for so long everything was massively predictable and I felt invincible making broad proclamations about how Tim Tebow was messed up in the head, the SEC was indirectly rigging games through poor officiating, the NFL was all good and bad and only one soft crunchy (and cheesy) center. I thought the Lakers would cruise through the West and the Celtics would look like a bunch of old men with walkers. Yeah, I got some of this stuff right, a whole bunch of it wrong, and there are some things I think I might be able to explain now that I hadn’t been willing to touch. I thought I was making hard decisions when, in fact, I was skirting some serious issues. I couldn’t have been more blind to some of the more obvious things going on in the sports world so now I need to “come in from the cold” and see how warm it is in the land of “should’ve had that figured out”. So, let’s start with the World Series and I’ll go ahead and eat some crow and see how it tastes…
I really thought alot of the Series would look like this. I had good reasoning on my side. C.C. and Cliff Lee came from Cleveland (where they don’t win titles) and all of the Yanks’ eggs were in his fat basket. Well, I didn’t anticipate Cole Hamels sucking, the Phils not hitting, and A-Rod staying clutch. Honestly, then I said last week that I was just waiting for him to implode how many of you actually thought “Oh no, not this time. A-Rod is the MAN now. He won’t fold. He’s the new Ruth, the new DiMaggio, he’s “Alex Baseball”!” Anybody? I didn’t think so. Well, you know, that’s ok. We could only go on what we knew and what we knew was that A-Rod disappeared in the postseason. How was I supposed to know he finally got it figured out? Really? How could I have anticipated that one of the unclutchest hitters ever would get clutch overnight? A-Rod became the new hero in New York. He’s the man. They’ll have a statue of him in
Monument Park before we know it, but he earned it. I don’t want to say he deserves it because he doesn’t. He’s sucked more often than not, but he earned it this postseason and that’s ok by me. Even in the picture he looks like a distinguished Yankee great. Like he’s Lou Gehrig or Joe DiMaggio or Reggie Jackson (ok Reggie isn’t distinguished and George Steinbrenner hates his guts, but he is a Yankee great.) A-Rod transformed himself into a new player in just a handful of games…he truly is the man right now and I’m not going to fight it. He earned it, Philly is dead, peace out Charlie Manuel because Joe Girardi’s about to have his first managerial World Series Title.
I still can’t get over the opening night game between Cleveland and Boston. For almost the whole first half the Celtics looked like old men, then I guess Shaq came in and he actually IS an old man and the Celts looked young again. It’s the weirdest thing. So, Boston comes back and makes the Cavs look stupid (mostly for acquiring Shaq, but stupid in general too.) Then they go out and hold Charlotte to 59 points. {Listen, I know it’s Charlotte, but it’s still hard to hold a team in the NBA to 59 points. Either the Bobcats need to be contracted or we need to reevaluate the Celts.) Meanwhile, the Cavs lost again and then they finally beat Minnesota and (you guessed it) Charlotte. {Now I know that Charlotte needs to be contracted or taken over by the league in much the same way the government takes over failing schools. I mean, doesn’t Larry Brown need to go to the Principal’s office anyways?} Look at how bad the Bobcats are. I could have guessed that somebody would suck more than them but I don’t even think the Clippers are this bad. [I mean, I could make a joke about Larry could do this bad in L.A. and no one would notice, but he DID do this bad in L.A. so the joke’s kind of worthless…]
As for the Mavs and Lakers I think I made a misjudgment. My beloved Lakers got smoked by the Mavs the other day (and when I say smoked I mean that Mark Cuban can actually afford to smoke a Laker. I vote for Mbenga or Josh Powell. I mean, doesn’t Josh Powell seem like the kind of guy who might be game for that in some kind of weird and twisted way?) So, anyways, we got killed by the Mavs and now this is where I have to admit that I was wrong abut the Mavs. Now, does this mean I’m sending them to the Finals? Nope. But I will put them ahead of the Spurs in the West. Only Dirk is really old and the have JTerry. These two guys have been solving problems in Dallas for a few years now, so if the got something figured out then the Spurs better look out because they can’t outlast the Mavs. The shame of all this is that I like Mark Cuban and I’d like to see him win a title triumph over the evil Red Baron who masquerades as the commissioner, but not at the expense of my Lakers. Since I know we can’t have a tie in the West I guess Cuban’s gonna have to wait until Kobe retires (and this only works is Andrew Bynum keeps sucking eggs.)
I was also dead wrong about D12. I thought maybe there would be some lag after the deflating loss they took in the Finals (and the fact that Hedo was stupid enough to go to Toronto and then the Magic went one stupider and picked up Vince Carter.) Well, I was wrong. They got to stick it to Hedo’s Raptors (as if Chris Bosh would actually stay in Toronto. What’s he going to do, let Hedo funnel him the ball, keep losing and catch a Bills game?) Then, the Magic looked solid against the Sixers. Now, the Sixers aren’t this insanely good team, but they have solid talent and the Magic handled them. I’m impressed.
One thing I’m not going back on is my prediction that KG is pretty much done. His knees are older than dirt and I’m not taking that back. If he personally drags Boston to the playoffs (which he is physically incapable of doing) then I’ll believe, but I think we all know that won’t happen.
Another thing I’m not going back is the FACT that Shaq is fat, old, out of shape, and has a bad hip. Had I been writing this column in 2004 I would have said the exact same thing. The first time I told my Dad that he said “Son, don’t be ungrateful for those 3 Title you just won” and I said “I’m not ungrateful” (thank you for the 3-peat Shaq) “but Shaq is a crybaby/egomaniac/lazy-ass/loudmouth who can’t back it up anymore and that was CLEAR when the Lakers lost the Finals to the Pistons. That was FIVE YEARS AGO! It didn’t change people. You can call him the “Diesel” all you want, and you can give me the close-up of his Superman tattoo, but at the end of the day it just isn’t so anymore. {He even looks fat in this picture from his Miami days…}
Florida is still #1 in the BCS, but somehow Texas leapfrogged Alabama? I really don’t get it. I think these 3 teams are pretty close to each other but I don’t get how Florida is still #1. “Well, they killed Georgia.” I know they killed Georgia, but Georgia sucks. Beating Georgia right now is akin to beating Vanderbilt. Let’s keep it real. At least Texas beat Okie State. I still think is heading towards Tim Tebow winning the Heisman and not deserving it. I guess the only solace I can take is that he would actually get up there to accept the award and basically say he doesn’t deserve it.
As far as the whole “undefeated” situation all I can say is that I’m happy. Every undefeated team is ahead of every defeated. There’s something so satisfying about reading the rankings and seeing the zeros in the loss column for each of the Top 7 teams. I bitched like a little girl for that to be the case and somehow the BCS figured it out. I have no earthly idea how, but they figured out how to get all the teams with no losses ahead of all the teams with 1 loss. No the question is this: Will it stay that way? For this I have no answer…
However, they also figured out the 1-loss thing. Oregon is at #8 with one loss and they just toppled a team that was in the Top 7 so now they are (rightfully so) ranked as the best 1-loss team. This is nice. Once again the questions is: Will this stay this way the rest of the season? I don’t expect to see Oregon at #7 every week but if everyone keeps winning then these rankings really shouldn’t change unless (except) to account for the quality of wins (which is in the formula and is something I can’t change.) Right now…I’m pleased.
This is pretty much what happened to me this week. My hourglass theory took a beating and I saw some things that I thought I might not see all season.
– Philly smashed the Giants (didn’t see that coming…)
– Baltimore stomped on Denver (really didn’t see that coming!)
– The Rams won a game (and screwed up their chances of being defeated for the season, but if they don’t win again they might still be able to get the #1 pick and dump Mark Bulger.)
– Miami managed to beat the Jets in a pressure situation
– Dallas proved themselves
– The Titans won
– Carolina won
– And I was continually amazed by Brett Favre.
The Brett Fave thing is just incredible to me. Do we even understand what he’s doing? He basically had his bad year for the Jets after the Packers dumped him and he goes to Minnesota and continually leads that team to victory after victory. He’s saving Adrian Peterson’s career. Because Favre is slinging the ball around AP doesn’t have to be the “man” every down and get himself killed by Week 10. Brett Favre is saving Brad Childress’ career as a coach. Regardless of how much people will want to say that Brett Favre is THE reason Brad Childress just earned a few free passes for his career by getting Brett to come to Minnesota and winning with him.
Greg Lewis has made his entire career out of catching perfectly thrown balls from a Hall of Famer. (Not a bad deal for a wash out receiver from Philly.) Jared Allen looks like a genius for going to Minnesota for the money. All the defensive prowess in the world is worthless unless Brett is there scoring 5000 points a game. Washington is always in the Top 5 in defense and they routinely miss the playoffs. It happens all the time. The Vikes would have been no different.
What am I really saying? Sorry Brett? Al the times I mocked you to friends. Every time I called you a cry-baby. Sorry. I was wrong and you proved it so earned the apology. {P.S. – That pass against my 49ers WAS a miracle, you know that right?}
What have we learned today? I’m wrong sometimes, but at lest it’s entertaining! I promise more entertainment as I strive for perfection in my sports pontification. In the meantime tune in on Wednesday so I can skewer some really bad NBA teams and Rank the Power of the NFL.
