Tuesday Ramblings - World Series - Philadelphia, NJ

Interesting take here from Gary D Howard on how to handle Brett Favre’s return to Lambeau this Sunday. I think I agree with him. As much of a d-bag as Favre was as a person on his way out of town, he was the single legend that returned respectability to the team, the franchise, the city and the state for football. He’s the reason Reggie White came to town. So I think he deserves the pre-game cheer when he runs out on to the field. But that’s where it ends, and once the ball is kicked, I’m cheering with all my might for him to be the overly-excited turnover machine he has been in the past.

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So Mark McGwire is going to be a hitting coach? Isn’t that kind of like asking a girl with a boob job to explain a push-up bra? I think this is another case of the arrogance of Tony LaRussa taking over. He is trying to get people to see McGwire as a baseball guy and eventually get him into the Hall of Fame, instead of only remembering his pathetic performance in front of Congress about using steroids – “I’m not here to talk about the past.” The guy is a career .263 hitter, and only hit over .300 twice in full seasons during his 16 year career. And that guy is going to teach guys how to hit? What is he going to teach Albert Pujols? Ridiculous.

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Could ESPN have a more biased team of analysts for the baseball season? Jayson Stark, Peter Pascarelli, Eric Karabell, and John Kruk are such homers for the Phillies, they can’t actually make sane assessments of the matchup between Philly and the Yankees. Stark just hesitated comparing Jorge Posada and Carlos Ruiz. Don’t get me wrong, Ruiz has a knack for coming up with huge hits and might be the Darrell Porter of the past few season, but he is not on the same level as Posada. And I think Posada is a whiny diva biyatch. Kruk claimed that the Phillies line-up was more potent than the Yankees. Really? Better than the Yankees lineup that had 7 guys with more than 20 HRs, all 9 starters with double digits in HRs, the second-highest batting average in baseball, 244 HRs as a team (more than the NL leading 224 the Phils hit), and the highest OBP in the league. It’s not even close, and Kruk showed he must have had his brains in his mullet during the 90’s and when he cut it off to do television analysis, he lost his mind.

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How are you feeling if you’re a Cleveland Indians fan right now? Watching your two former aces facing off in game 1 – CC Sabbathia vs. Cliff Lee. Ouch. Doesn’t seem like that long ago the Indians had a team that looked ready to compete for some time with Grady Sizemore, Jhonny Peralta, Victor Martinez, CC & Lee. Maybe they’re the new Montreal Expos – Pedro Martinez, Delino DeShields, Marquis Grissom, Larry Walker, Moises Alou, Cliff Floyd, Sean Berry, Mel Rojas, Dennis Martinez, Ken Hill, and John Wetteland

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Taking the Yankees in 6 games. Too much Yankee offense, and despite the fact that the Phillies bullpen was good in the NLCS, they are not good. The Phillies are relying on Pedro to keep his magic going and Cole Hammels to not be as awful as he has been during the regular and post season. That’s too many holes to allow a team like the Yankees to exploit. The Phillies were the best team in the NL all season, and deserve to be in the World Series, but they don’t have the talent to keep up.

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So the teams will have a something like 17 off-days during the post-season, after only having 20 off-days during the entire 6-month regular season. That’s a dumb schedule.

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Philly is my most hated city in the entire US. The city is dirty, ugly and not good to visit or spend any time in. And the people are all chubby, greasy, angry, fair-weather fans, and all have a chip on their shoulder. I understand that it’s not fun being the biggest city in New Jersey – I’d be angry too if that was my claim to fame. Oh, wait, their claim to fame is a fake movie about a 5’5” boxer named Rocky. So their baseball success has just made their fans even more insufferable. I hope they get swept just to shut up their fans. As a good friend says, “Philly is a good place to take a dump on your way to a real city.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: I know Philly is not actually in Jersey, but it might as well be – it’s surrounded by Jersey, the people are the same as the worst in Jersey and it smells like the worst of Jersey.

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I think the NBA season starts tonight. I think I’ll put together a season preview piece as soon as the players start to play hard and make an effort. So look for that piece to come out around New Year’s. The biggest stories for the season are what LeBron James and Dwayne Wade are going to do NEXT year, and all the teams that are tanking it to make cap room to try and sign one of those guys.

Oh, and Blake Griffin gets a hairline fracture in his knee 2 days before he’s supposed to make his regular season debut. And he looked extremely impressive and had the potential to keep the Clippers in the playoff hunt. Typical Clippers luck.

And I’m pretty sure that Kevin Durant is the new Dominique Wilkins. A dynamic player that everyone talks about as being under the radar, but he’s under the radar because he doesn’t have the ability to raise the level of play for those around him. Someone has to take shots and score on that pathetic team. Maybe a combination of Wilkins and Shareef Abdur-Rahim.