Weekend Hangover - Love/Hate

LOVE

- Training Camp starts!! As much as I enjoy baseball, the boys of summer cannot compete with the grid iron in the fall. As camps start, there will be a ton of talk about position battles, who wants a new contract, what rookie is picking up the game quickly (once the rookies other than Dez Bryant finally start signing), and what aging veteran looks like he ran out of gas. Predictions will be made based on last season and hopes of a new season, and then finally in another month, real games will start to be played. And this morning the month-long heat and humidity in New York finally broke and the air had just the slightest chill to it…..almost like mother nature even decided to give a little head nod to football.

- The intriguing contract situation between Tom Brady and the Patriots. The Pats have always been ruthless in dealing with aging veterans, allowing players to walk or trading them instead of paying them large contracts. And yet, Brady has been the face of the franchise for the past decade and has been a great company man, taking below-market contracts to allow the team more flexibility to sign other players around him. Well, coming off some injuries and being likely in the second half of his career, Tommy had his Don Draper realization (great episode of Mad Men last night) that it’s time to own who he is and take what is rightfully his. There is almost no chance that Brady will hold out or cause any ripples because the guy loves to play football, but it will be interesting to see how the team handles the situation. Also keeping a close eye on the contract will be Peyton Manning, who can take the Brady contract to the Colts and say “This plus 10% is our starting point” next season.

- Loved seeing Andre Dawson get inducted to the Hall of Fame. The Hawk was among my favorite players growing up. Growing up a Brewers fan when the Brewers were in the AL, it made it okay to be a Cubs fan in the NL. And with almost every Cubs game on WGN – most during the day – it was easy to root for guys like Dawson, Ryne Sandberg, Shawon Dunston and Lee Smith, even if they never did win. Dawson went in as an Expo, which is a good thing considering there are no other Expos in the Hall of Fame and with the franchise moved, there likely will never be another.

HATE

- Talk about the looming lockout in the NFL. We get it. The owners want lower salaries for the players. The players don’t. Of course they’re going to argue over it and threaten to have no football next season. In the end, they’ll work it out because both sides know their meal tickets get punched when the games are played on the field. Even if there is a lockout, we’ll survive. College football will still be there, and hell half the players in college are getting paid more than the league minimum anyway, so it’s barely even amateur sports.

- The Angels pretty much stole Dan Haren from the Diamondbacks, and it does not start the baseball trading season with a bang. The Angels are still 6 games behind Texas in the AL West and even with Haren are unlikely to make up the ground on the strong-pitching Rangers. Yet it was still a good trade for them, not giving up many prospects and trading a middle of the rotation guy for Haren who has the stuff to be a top of the rotation guy. The Diamondbacks just pulled a Betty Draper and managed to find a replacement, but one not nearly as interesting as the stud they originally were working with.

Thoughts on Duke's Win from Wine Country

Apologies for the sporadic posts the remainder of the week. I am out in wine country trying to figure out why we don’t just move out to California, get jobs in a winery and spend our days making wine and our nights relaxing in the moutains drinking wine. Seriously, why haven’t I done this yet? Every time I make a trip to California, I contemplate pulling a Don Draper and just disappearing out here for a couple months at a time.

Quick thoughts on Duke’s vicotry last night in the championship game over Buter:

- Has there ever been a more uninteresting close game? I was so unintrigued by the game that I found myself flipping back and forth between the game and random opening day baseball games on the free preview of the season ticket. I’ve never missed a minute of a championship college basketball game for anything, much less the opening game for a team that wasn’t the Brewers. Neither team was playing very well offensively and the flow of the game seemed dull.

- As I received multiple texts on the topic – Matt Howard wore his Adam Morrison “I have candy in my van with no windows” mustache about as well as……….well, Morrison. Note to Mr. Howard: You can only afford to look like a monster toolbox if you have the game to back it up (see Brandon Jennings and his flat top, Anthony Mason with things shaved in his head, or even Jason Terry’s high socks). And Mr. Howard, you don’t have the game for it.

- Howard’s game deserves its own post – has there ever been a more overrated, talked about non-factor player in a championship game? Howard was the Horizon league player of the year two years ago! (who else was in that conference? My high school team?) Matt Howard is that third scorer that Butler needs to step up to win the game! (why? He sat out with fouls and a concussion against Michigan State and they were better without him) The guy is a spaz who committed some of the dumbest fouls I’ve ever seen to guarantee his time on the bench, and basically was more of a liability than a benefit to the Bulldogs all night. At one point he was 1-6 from the field, 1-4 from the line and had 4 fouls. Thanks for showing up, pal.

- My friend Sal posed this question during the game: Could either of these teams compete with ANY of the past 15 championship teams? Typically you have to side with the most recent teams because of the increase in overall size and athleticism of all of the players. Looking at the Duke & Butler teams……that’s not the case at all. The only team we could come up with that might have struggled with Duke or Butler was the 2002 Maryland championship team. That team had Steve Blake, Juan Dixon, Chris Wilcox and Lonny Baxter – definitely not blowing anyone away with athleticism – although leaping ability was the only reason Wilcox fooled an NBA team to draft him in the top 10. Actually, that Terps team would be a really intriguing matchup for Duke, with Blake against Scheyer, Dixon against Nolan Smith, Wilcox against Singler, and Baxter versus Zoubek in the middle. I think I’d take Duke, but not by much.