Body Parts That Don't Belong to Favre

We interrupt the 24-7 news coverage about Favre and his wiener to talk about something that actually matters, and no, we don’t mean the NBA season starting. Everyone knows the NBA season doesn’t really start until after Christmas. Do you really think a veteran Celtics team with Garnett, Allen, Pierce, Shaq and Jermaine O’Neal cares if they win 51 or 65 games? Do they care if they are the #1 seed or the #4 seed?

And I’m not talking about the enormous Big Ten matchup in Madison this weekend between Wisconsin and Ohio State. Wisconsin is going to have to play defense with their offense by playing a little keep-away from Terrell Pryor if they hope to upset the top-ranked Buckeyes. The Badgers have the rushing offense to put points on the board, but the concern is that their defense has more holes than David Arquette’s explanation of his relationship with Jasmine Waltz. Add to that their lack of discipline and poor special teams play, and it could be a scary Saturday for Brett Bielema two weeks before Halloween.

What I actually think are the best events of the weekend are the playoff baseball games. The ALCS and NLCS start on Friday and Saturday night and both series should be extremely entertaining, particularly the opening games. Arguably the four best pitchers in all of baseball have led their teams to the league championship series – Roy Halladay of the Phillies, Tim Lincecum of the Giants, Cliff Lee of the Rangers and C.C. Sabathia of the Yankees. Add in the other premiere starters: Roy Oswalt, Cole Hammels, Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez, Andy Pettitte, Phil Hughes, and CJ Wilson, and you have yourself the makings of a tremendously pitched series.

The year of the pitcher has continued in the playoffs with amazing performances one after another. Even the teams that lost had stud pitchers that got them there: David Price, Francisco Liriano, Tim Hudson and Johnny Cueto.

I wonder if the Brewers owner and general manager were watching the playoffs? Dear Doug Melvin, I hope you can tell the difference between any pitcher that started a game this post season and pitchers that were on your roster named Bush, Parra, Doug Davis, Suppan, or Randy Wolf. None of those guys would even make the roster of the playoff teams, more less actually see the field. Upgrade the pitching whatever you have to do – and that includes trading Prince. Sincerely, The Sports Addict

So sit back and get ready for some amazing pitching performances in the league championship series. My baseball prognosticating is worse than my football picks (I picked the Mariners as the best odds bet to win the world series before the season…at least I had Cliff Lee right, just on the wrong team?), so I won’t bother trying to convince you who will win.

Ah, who am I kidding? I’ll take the Rangers over the Yankees in 7 games with Lee winning games 3 and 7. I’ll also take the Giants to beat the Phillies in 6 games, but that might be as much because of my hatred for the Phillies than any sound logic.

If We Knew Then What We Know Now........2009

First things first – the most important health news you will receive – EVER. You’re welcome.

LATE ADD - Thursday NFL Pick:
Colts (-3) over JAGUARS
Coach Caldwell wants to rest his players and the players want to go for the undefeated season. Something tells me the Colts will blow up the Jags early in an attempt to put the game away before Caldwell can take them out.

As we begin to wrap up 2009, instead of listing off the top movies or songs or albums or something of the year, I decided to take a little trip back in time. So hop in the Delorean with Marty McFly, fire it up with one-point-twenty-one jiggawatts of power and let’s set the destination to January 1, 2009. Let’s look at things we were pretty certain of at that time, and how they ended up playing out during the year. And next week I’ll come up with the things we believe at the end of 2009.

Belief #1: Brett Favre is retired and going to (finally) disappear into the vast farmland of Mississippi. After trying to force his way to the Vikings, Brett ended up with one poor season in New York hampered by a torn bicep, and it appeared pretty obvious to everyone that his tank had run dry and that he would finally hang up the cleats for good.

End of Year Reality #1: Favre did in fact retire in February 2009, blubbering like a little baby and telling ESPN that “there is no chance” he’ll play football again. Yet we all saw the ridiculous circus that ensued, with Favre denying that the Vikings had reached out to him, then eventually having his driver, Coach Brad Childress, pick him up from the airport. Favre is now among the favorites to win the league MVP, leading Minnesota to an 11-2 record. While some may have predicted the return to the game, very few people expected him to play as well as he has. Level of Surprise: Kim Kardashian Sex Tape (intriguing, but not really surprising)

Belief #2: The Arizona Cardinals were lucky to sneak into the playoffs by winning a terrible division, and would quickly be eliminated by the 11-5 Atlanta Falcons. The Cardinals won the putrid NFC West early and coasted the final weeks of the season. They looked like easy prey for Matt Ryan, Michael Turner and the Falcons.

End of the Year Reality #2: The Cards got hot in the playoffs, squeaked by Falcons, flattened the Panthers on the road, and beat the Eagles in Phoenix to advance to the Super Bowl. Suddenly the Cards offense was among the most dangerous in the league and their defense was playing as well as any team in the league. The end result was they were a few seconds, inches and an amazing Santonio Holmes tip toe in the endzone from being the Super Bowl champs. Kurt Warner was making you seriously consider him as a potential Hall-of-Famer, completing a comeback that could only be rivaled by the turnaround his wife made from resembling Annie Lennox of the Eurythmics (look her up kids) to being kind of a sneaky snicky. Level of Surprise: Carrie Prejean Sex Tape (we knew she had it in her)

Belief #3: Tiger Woods was coming off knee surgery, primed to continue his assault on Jack Nicklaus’s record 18 majors. He won the 2008 US Open on one leg, so there was no doubt that he would be able to rehab quickly and continue to dominate the PGA Tour. And as if his professional life didn’t seem good enough, he had a Swedish model for a wife with one beautiful kid and a baby due in a few months.

End of the Year Reality #3: He won 7 events on the tour and took home his second FedEx Cup championship. For almost 11 months, the year had gone exactly how you would have expected for Tiger. However, there was a reason he was so big on privacy, as his entire empire eventually collapsed around him due to his “transgressions” with a harem of women, concerns over his extreme gambling habits and most recently potential ties to a Canadian doctor with hook-ups for HGH. He has become the butt of numerous jokes using the slogans of many of the products he endorsed:

“Is it in you? It’s in every skank in town!” (Gatorade)
“Just Do It! Literally!” (Nike)
“Go On Be A Tiger – In the Bedroom!” (Accenture)
“The Best a Man Can Get – A Perkins Waitress, Really?” (Gillette)

He’s taken an indefinite leave from golf as his wife has moved out with the kids and she is parading in public without her wedding ring. His endorsements are drying up and he’s not speaking to his celebrity friends. No one ever could have predicted this. Level of Surprise: Tiger Woods Scandal (his own level at the very highest of surprises)

Belief #4: In December 2008, the Yankees signed C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett to fix their pitching woes and help them pass the Red Sox and Rays for the AL East title. As of January 1, they were just in talks with Mark Teixeira, to join them. With a rotation of CC, AJ, Pettite, Wang, and Joba, they were expected to pitch their way to the title.

End of Year Reality #4: That’s exactly what happened. The team added Teixeira to bolster the offense, and in the playoffs they switched to a 3-man rotation, relying solely on Sabathia, Burnett & Pettite through the playoffs. Despite Alex Rodriguez admitting to using steroids and missing the early part of the season to recover from hip surgery, he started dating Kate Hudson, settled down and became clutch. Level of Surprise: Liberace and Clay Aiken playing for the other team (duh)

Belief #5: Tim Tebow and the Florida Gators were preparing to take on the Oklahoma Sooners for the national championship in Miami. Tebow was as powerful and unstoppable as the Most Interesting Man in the World from the Dos Equis commercials. The question was not whether he would win the championship, it was whether he would come back for his senior season, win another Heisman Trophy and a win a third championship.

End of the Year Reality #5: Tebow and the Gators did win the championship on January 8th and Tebow did come back for his senior season. Yet everything changed when Taylor Wyndham of Kentucky came free late in a blow out game and knocked Tebow unconscious, sending him to the hospital with a severe concussion. Suddenly he was human, there was renewed concern about his ability to play quarterback at the next level and it became clear that he was a great leader, but not among the best players in the country. He came back to play in two weeks and still was a finalist for the Heisman (finishing 5th), but the team lost their chance at a National Championship, and the aura of Tebow was broken. Level of Surprise: Jessica Simpson broke up with another boyfriend (inevitable at some point)

Belief #6: Michael Jackson had disappeared from the public radar and had become a reclusive star. There were rumors of financial trouble when he sold his Neverland ranch, and rumors of failing health when he was seen in a wheelchair. However, there was no reason to believe there would be any news around him.

End of the Year Reality #6: Michael came out in February and announced he would be doing 10 “curtain call” concerts in London. At 50 years old, he began preparing himself to put on the shows. Unfortunately, on June 25th Michael Jackson went into cardiac arrest and died, surrounded by questions regarding his personal doctor and the care and prescriptions he was receiving. The public outcry of emotion and tributes to the King of Pop continued for several months and included him posthumously collecting a handful of American Music Awards. Level of Surprise: Betty Draper finding out about Don’s secret life (no one’s rooting for it, but it was going to happen at some point)

Bonus Belief: Obama was about to take office, walk on water, bring together both parties, stop the war, solve the economic woes and fix world hunger in his spare time. The expectations were through the roof for a young politician coming out of the dirty political pool that is Chicago and Illinois.

End of Year Bonus Reality: We’re still waiting. Other than having “Cash for _______” programs, he has more rounds of golf played than problems solved. Obviously most of these problems are not quick-fixes, but we’ve seen his approval rating sink faster than Jay Leno’s ratings. I think his only campaign promise that he kept was when he said he wanted a playoff in college football, and the Senate subcommittee actually voted on it. (sorry to get political, but it is what it is) Level of Surprise: Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame Speech (suddenly falling off the pedestal)

ALCS & NLCS Previews

Before getting to the baseball playoffs, a moment of silence for Captain Lou Albano, who passed away yesterday. In addition to being an actual wrestler back in the day, he became more famous for the Hawaian shirts, crazy hair and rubber bands in his beard. And who can forget that he played the father in Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" video? Takes me back to when wrestling seemed like a mainstream sport when I was growing up. Watching some of the greats from the 80's and 90's, before Vince McMahon made it into all about too much violence and production and less about the wrestling.

ALCS – Angles at Yankees

So the easy pick in this series is to take the Yankees. They have the big payroll, they steamrolled the Twins, have the big name pitching, solid bullpen, home field advantage, and are the favorites to win the World Series. But let’s not dismiss this Angels team so fast (like I did in the first round, picking the Sox to knock them out in 4 games). Let’s break this down John Madden-style………

“Now there’s a team that’s better than the Twins. See, they won more games than the Twins, and even though Brett Favre is now in Minnesota, the Angels are better than the Twins.”

If the Twins had come up with a couple of clutch hits and maybe gotten the correct call on that Joe Mauer liner in game 3, it would have been competitive. Now those are huge if’s and it’s like saying if OJ hadn’t (allegedly) stabbed those people he would have continued jumping luggage for Hertz and making Naked Gun movies. But the bottom line is that the Twins did not play well after being extremely hot down the stretch to steal that playoff spot. And the Angels are a better team than the Twins, not just because of their better record. They have better pitching, more speed, and a great manager in Mike Scioscia. The Yankees swept all 10 games they played against the Twins this year (playoffs included), and split their 10 games with the Angels.

“Now, now, what we have is a big guy in Sabbathia, who can just, BOOM! Zip that ball in there and dominate the game. I mean, he’d be good competition for me at an all-you-can-eat buffet.”

CC will always have a special place in my heart for carrying the Brewers to the playoffs last year, and he followed it up with a tremendous year in the Bronx, possibly winning the Cy Young award going 19-8. Yet, he was 0-2 with an ERA over 6 against the Angles this year, and he’ll be starting game 1 in NY when the weather is supposed to be brutal – possibly rain and definitely cold. CC is a California guy, and I still believe that he wanted to sign with the Angels last off season, but had to take the mammoth amount of money being thrown at him by the Steinbrenners. So I’m not convinced that he will be lights out in the first game, and if he’s not, the Angels have a chance to build some momentum and put some pressure on the Yanks. And we know how A-Rod feels about pressure.

“Brett Favre is great under pressure and there’s a guy that can just play football, because he’s a football player. If he were a baseball player, then he would, you know, be a baseball player. AJ Burnett is no Brett Favre because he doesn’t even have the same initials and then……..and then………….there you go.”

AJ Burnett has never been a big game pitcher and in fact has shied away from attention or big games historically. Keith Law of ESPN (formerly a Blue Jays front office guy) claimed that Burnett would rather spend time in the training room than on the mound. Add that to the fact that he needs to have his personal catcher in Benji Molina (at least I think it’s Benji. It’s one of those Molina brothers), and the drama that results with the Yankees biggest diva, Jorge Posada. Poor little Jorge is angry that he doesn’t get to start every game at catcher, but the Angels are going to run and it’s going to much harder with Molina behind the plate than if Posada’s noodle arm is back there lobbing rainbows down to second and allowing passed balls regularly. If the Angels get to Sabbathia in game 1, the pressure will be on Burnett, which is not a good thing for him.

The Yankees are talking about going with a 3-man rotation, and the Yankees should probably be the most confident in their 3rd starter, Andy Pettite. If the weather holds out, there is a chance that the Yankees could go with a 3 man rotation, giving Sabbathia 3 starts in the 7 game series. If the weather doesn’t work out, then they have to make a decision between throwing Chad Gaudin or taking Joba out of the bullpen.

The Yankees do have the big bats in Texeira and Rodriguez to carry them if the starting pitching falters and their bullpen has been tremendous with Joba back where he belongs, Phil Hughes and the ageless Marianano Rivera. But the Yankees will have to also contain Vlad Guerrero, who despite having a subpar (for him) regular season, hit over .400 against the Yankees, and Torii Hunter, who has a knack for the big moment.

And I haven’t even mentioned the huge edge the Angels have in coaching with Mike Scioscia over Joe Girardi. Not only has Scioscia owned New York as a manager of the Angels, when he played for the Dodgers he was a thorn in the side of the Big Apple – knocking the Mets out of the NLCS in 1988, and being a part of the 1978 Dodger team that defeated the Yankees. And also add the extra motivation to win to honor their fallen teammate Nick Adenhart, and you have a well-coached and motivated team of destiny.

Bottom Line: The Angels are going to give the Yankees all they can handle and more. It should be an extremely entertaining series that will give the New York media multiple moments to flip out and turn on their home team like they always do. Prediction: Angels in 7

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NLCS – Phillies at Dodgers

The Dodgers get a chance to avenge last season’s NLCS loss to the eventual champion Phillies. The Phillies get a chance to prove that last season wasn’t a fluke and win back-to-back titles. In what should be a good matchup on the field and also adds off-the field stories if the Dodgers win with Joe Torre getting a chance to go back to face the Yankees in their new stadium, or the potential of an all LA/Anaheim series. Reminds me of the scene in Swingers:

“Hey man, you're not from here, alright. You don't know how it is. I grew up in L.A.”
“Anaheim.”
“Whatever, man…”
“….It’s not like you grew up in Compton, Sue, with bullets whizzing by your head...”
“People get car-jacked.”
“Who would ever carjack your f—kin K-Car?”

So let’s break this series down Drew Rosenhaus-style………..

“Next Question.”

The Phillies starting pitching has the two big names in Cliff Lee and Cole Hammels, while the Dodgers throw a young stud in Clayton Kershaw and then follow it up with Vincente Padilla, Hideki Kuroda coming back from injury and Randy Wolf. As a side note, didn’t the Rangers cut Padilla after he got swine flu? And now he’s pitching in the NLCS? Seems like the swine flu actually worked out well for him. But like I pointed out the other day, Hammels struggled all year, finishing 10-11 and got hit hard in game 2 against the Rockies. He will be starting in game 1, and it’s a night game, so he won’t have that excuse to lean on if he gets shelled again. Cliff Lee was lights out against the Rockies, proving that his lack of big-game experience would not be a factor. Kershaw, Wolf and Padilla were solid against the Cards, besting Cy Young favorites Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright. Having lefties in Kershaw and Wolf seems like the best chance to neutralize Utley, Howard and Ibanez. Overall, it seems like a wash.
“Next Question.”

The Phillies hit more HR than any team in the league – by a wide margin – hitting more than 220 with the next closest team being the Rockies being below 190. Manny cruised down the stretch, but is always dangerous in clutch situations. Adam Eithier appears to be a legitimate stud, and James Loney and Casey Blake provide reliable protection in the line-up. For the Phils, it’s all about Ryan Howard, who came up with clutch hits against the Rockies and is proving to be a more reliable hitter (for more than just HR) than even Chase Utley. Howard has gotten timely support from Jayson Werth and Raul Ibanez, which makes the Phillies lineup dangerous almost from top to bottom. Slight edge to the Phillies.

“Next Question.”

The Phillies were among the top defensive teams in the league during the regular season, but played uncharacteristically poor against the Rockies. Manny is always a defensive liability, yet manages to unleash a laser whenever he needs it. Neither team is exceptionally poor on defense, so I’ll call it a wash again.

“Next Question.”

Joe Torre has more playoff wins than any manager in history, and would love to get another one before the Yankees do. While the knock on him has always been that he was a caretaker for well-paid, veteran-led teams, this Dodger team is young and the team follows their manager’s calm and collected demeanor. Charlie Manuel earned his stripes with last season’s title run, but against the Phillies got away with a few questionable decisions – starting Cliff Lee in game 1 when he had never started a playoff game, pitching Cole Hammels in game 2 during the day knowing he had struggled mightily in day games, and burning Joe Blanton and JA Happ in game 2. Luckily for Manuel, the weather in Denver postponed game 3, which allowed him to come back with JA Happ, but it could have been dicey if that game would have had to be played on Saturday night. Advantage: Dodgers, heavily.

“Next Question.”

The Dodgers bullpen has been solid, with the mid-season acquisition of George Sherrill setting up for the fireballer Jonathan Broxton. Against the Cards in game 3, I didn’t see him throw a pitch under 98. The Dodgers had the lowest bullpen ERA in the league during the regular season, and show no slowing down. The Phillies bullpen is a mess because you never know what you’re going to get with Brad Lidge. Yes, he was effective against the Rockies, but has a team ever won the World Series while removing their closer during the season, only to give him the job back right before the playoffs? Advantage: Dodgers

Bottom Line: In another what should also be a closely contested series, the Dodgers pitching is more reliable than the Phillies, because I’m basing it on what I’ve seen of Cole Hammels this year, not his reputation from last year. And when you factor in a better and more versatile bench that will factor into close late inning moments, and a better bullpen, I see the Dodgers getting their revenge from next year and moving on to their first World Series since 1988. Dodgers in 6 games.