Weekend Hangover - Love/Hate

LOVE

- Congrats to Michigan for winning a huge game this weekend which should launch them……INTO the rankings? Seriously, we’re supposed to be impressed by a victory against a team that was barely .500 last year and lost their starting quarterback for much of the game? I don’t buy it. Yes, Denard Robinson has put up monster stats the first two games…against Connecticut and Notre Dame. Call me when he does something against a real team.

- I love the return of football season, but let’s not overreact too much too early in the season. The sky is not falling in Indianapolis, Arian Foster will not rush for 3,000 yards this season and the Seahawks will not go undefeated.

- So much for Boise State’s chances of making the BCS Championship. When you’re only marquee win is against a Virginia Tech team that then loses to James Madison (who knew they even fielded a football team?), you can forget playing for a national championship. That would be like Jessica Alba trying to claim she should get a lifetime achievement for acting award with her highlight being Into The Blue.

- Everyone knows I hate everything Philly. Watching the Packers beat the Eagles brings me an inordinate amount of joy. And while it is a big road win to start the season in Green Bay, there are definitely some major concerns, particularly on defense. Dom Capers defense seems to be completely boom or bust. They blitz and take chances and if they don’t get a sack or an interception, they give up a ton of wide open pass plays and gashing runs. Perhaps Andy Reid’s sugar rush wore out by the end of the game, but he made some really questionable decisions down the stretch. Using his timeouts with more than 5 minutes remaining left the Eagles without a way to stop the clock after the 2 minute warning. And then on the critical 4^th and 1 play, with the Packers struggling to keep up with Michael Vick, Reid chose to take the fastest guy on the field and run him straight ahead like a fullback rather than stretch the field and let him use his speed. At least now we’ll get to watch the Eagles idiot fans whine about a quarterback controversy all season.

HATE

- Can the media – particularly BSPN – finally stop trying to sell us the hype on Miami quarterback JaCorey Harris? Much like the success of Glee, I just don’t understand the fascination with a show about the glee club or the fascination with a quarterback who can’t throw. He is a great athlete but a terrible quarterback. He was exposed against Wisconsin in the bowl game last season, so what made anyone think he would excel against an Ohio State team that was better than the Badgers and returned most of their starters? Harris threw 4 interceptions against the Buckeyes, ensuring an easy win for Ohio State. Looks like a reincarnation of Isiah “Juice” Williams at Illinois. Who? Exactly – another overhyped nobody quarterback.

While BSPN was hyping this as “Monster Saturday” they would have been more accurate to call it “Exposing the State of Florida” weekend – Miami and Florida State got hammered in so-called marquee games and the Florida Gators continued to show they have a long way to go to get past the ghost of Tim Tebow.

- Went to the US Open on Saturday with tickets to the women’s final. It’s a great atmosphere and we got there early and had drinks out in the gallery watching the end of the Roger Federer match on the multiple big screens available. Then we settled into our seats and watched Kim Clijsters absolutely destroy her Russian opponent, 6-2 6-1 in exactly one hour. As if I wasn’t disappointed enough that neither Venus Williams nor Caroline Wozniacki were in the finals, but then the match was a complete blow out. Imagine how annoyed I would have been if I actually had to pay for the tickets.

- The Wisconsin Badgers have enough talent to win the Big Ten this year, but they seem to be plagued with the same thing that has been a staple of too many Bret Bielema teams – they are undisciplined. They are careless with the football and make stupid plays which allow inferior opponents to stay in the game. Opening weekend against UNLV they gave up more points than yards in the first half (14 points and 12 yards), and this week against a pathetic San Jose State team, the continued to turn the ball over with a chance to put the game away before halftime. The Badgers have an awesome trio of tailbacks, a dynamic tight end, and an emerging receiving corps, yet if they play this way against a respectable opponent, they will get blown out.

- Even if the call at the end of the Lions-Bears game was correctly interpreted, it sucks. Calvin Johnson caught the winning touchdown in the final seconds but the ball came loose as he was bouncing up to celebrate. It’s a shame because the Lions played well enough to win even after franchise QB Matt Stafford was injured.

Donovan Saves US Soccer!!

Quick Hits for a hot & humid Thursday…..

- Ho-ly S#!t. That U.S. soccer game was among the most intense and amazing sporting events I have ever watched in my life. Anyone who says soccer games are boring after watching that game has absolutely no appreciation for true sports effort, intensity and athletic stamina. It was a game filled with scoring chances and plenty of sitting on the edge of my seat. I’m pretty sure that my neighbors may think I’m torturing Algerian hostages in my apartment after the the screaming and banging on furniture I did during the game. Jozy Altidore played the game of his life, Clint Dempsey put himself in the mix continually, and Landon Donovan – after remaining quiet most of the second half – picked the perfect time to get himself a spot in U.S. soccer lore. An incredible effort by a team that doesn’t seem to wake up until after it takes a punch to the face – Algeria hit the crossbar in the first ten minutes. And once again, Tim Howard was the key to it all, making a huge save on a dangerous header and throwing a strike out to a streaking Donovan to get the game-winning play started.

Now all the U.S. has to do is rid themselves of the Ghana-rians. I think they just need to find the ointment that will make the entire team disappear.

- In addition to that great sporting event, did anyone happen to catch what happened (and is still happening) at Wimbleton? I’m not big into tennis other than to mention Andy Roddick so I can post a picture of Brooklyn Decker, or to mention Maria Sharapova or the girl with the breast reduction. Yet this match yesterday between some 6’9” American and a French guy was/is unreal. They have been playing for nearly 10 hours, and in the fifth set they are tied at 59 apiece. They started the match on Tuesday, had it suspended due to darkness and played all day today only to have it suspended again due to darkness without a winner being determined. It is the most fight put up by anything French…..ever. It has been an epic battle of will to stay standing and competing this long. So to honor them, I probably should post a picture of one or both of them. Instead I’m going to post a picture of Anna Kournikova because much like this match, it won’t win a championship, but you’ll still be in awe of it.

- It is yet to be determined how the latest moves from the Milwaukee Bucks will turn out going forward, but as of right now, I am impressed with the moves that GM John Hammonds has been making. He traded dead weight for Corey Maggette, a legit scoring threat at the small forward position and also acquired a second-year guard, Chris Douglas-Roberts, that has shown flashes of being a Richard Hamilton-like player in the league. And after all of that, he still is sitting on 4 draft picks, including 3 second rounders. The Bucks have a dynamic point guard in Brandon Jennings and a post presence in Bogut already, so the addition of a swingman in Maggette, and the potential resigning of John Salmons gives them a nice position as one of the stronger teams in the East – probably somewhere behind the aging Celtics, the Magic, the Bulls (with or without LeBron) and potentially the Heat (if they resign Wade and convince James or Bosh to join him).

Too Much Ego for Buehrle & Perkins

I have written in the past that I do not like to whine about officiating because they are human, they make some mistakes and they take too much criticism from people that can watch in super-slow-motion-high-definition replays. Yet two event s in two different sports yesterday highlighted a problem with the umpires/officials that doesn’t involve them making bad calls during the course of the game. The problem is that the egos of the umpire/official got in the way, resulting in the ejection of key players in the White Sox game and in the Celtics game.

It has always been said that the best officiated game is one in which you do not even notice or remember the officials. There are tough calls and close calls and as long as an official is mostly consistent and confident in their calls, there is not much else to be said. Yet when the officials start to wedge their way into the key moments of the game and affect the outcome because they make a spectacle of themselves, it is a major problem.

Yesterday in Chicago Joe West was the first base umpire and West already has a reputation as a guy with a quick hook and a knack for making himself the center of attention. He called the slow pace of the Red Sox-Yankees games a “disgrace” to baseball. While he is correct that those games are insanely slow, the umpire is not the guy you want to hear from about it. Fast forward to yesterday and West ejected White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen and starting pitcher Mark Buehrle before the 3rd inning was over on two controversial balk calls. Buehrle dropped his glove in disgust after the second balk and was given the heave-ho. Give me a break, Joe. That wasn’t “showing you up” as all of the umpires in baseball like to lean on for a rationale for ejection. In reality, West showed up Buehrle. Bud Selig needs to step in and do something about West before it gets even more out of hand.

In the Celtics-Magic game, Kendrick Perkins was hit with two technical fouls and ejected before halftime. As a side note, that gives him 7 technicals during the playoffs which would qualify him for a one game suspension if the league does not recind the technicals from last night (and I think they will take back both of them). Perkins got his first technical when his hand slipped while helping Paul Pierce up and his arm flew back resulting in an elbow to Martin Gortat. The officials hit Perkins and Gortat with a double technical. A bad call overall, but can’t really be argued that much. If the official didn’t see the arm slip, it appeared he threw an elbow. Fine. The second technical was egregious and a result of an official being overly sensitive. After a questionable touch call, Perkins stomped away from the official and whined that it was a bullshit call. Again, he stomped AWAY from the official. Yet the referee quickly slapped him with a technical without pausing to realize that Perkins was walking away and that it would be his second technical and lead to an ejection of a key post player early in the game. Perkins is a notorious whiner but did not deserve to be thrown out.

Officials and umpires need to check their egos at the door and realize that these are athletes competing at the highest level and their emotions are running high. They may react when a call goes against them and not every eye roll or stomping of the feet is “showing up” an umpire. They need to have thicker skin than that because they are affecting games and potentially a playoff series.

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And one final note that shows size does not matter…….in women’s tennis.