Happy Fourth of July

I know this is a day late on the title but such is the life of a dad with a nine week old.....congrats to the best closer EVER Mariano Rivera on save # 500 last Sunday night (ironic proof of his greatness when another pretender to his throne, K-Joke, walked him with the bases loaded.....hillarious) here is the link to a great article on SI.com talking about Rivera....I did not know he had Tommy John surgery in 92....I do remember watching both him and Andy Pettitte make their debuts in Anaheim in 1995...thank goodness John Wettlend took the money from Texas during the winter of 96.....how did that work out for both sides???? Nice work by Rodger Federer this am....Andy Roddick put up a good fight but I have to admit the 5th set got boring until Federer got to 15-30 and some drama came in....credit to both players with some big shots....Federer at one point down 15-30 on his serve in the fifth set and fired three striaght aces.....SI might want to recosider this article from the middle of May talking about how Nadal had passed Federer.....you might want to make sure the number one is truly done before you bury him.....glad to see the Islanders took the young scorer with thier first pick....not sure about the rest of the draft though....sounds like they traded up to get a defensemen who was not as good as some that went after him.....drafting two goalies and the signing of Dwayne Roloson leads one to wonder about the future of Rick DiPietro....as for the local nine the D-backs have committed some brutal errors in the last week (though the Mets pitcher trying to kick save an errant throw to home plate last night against the Phillies was pretty funny) but the manager suggesting dropped balls were the effect of "trying too hard" was insulting.....I know one does not want to call out his players in the media but to insult the fans by saying they were not errors by lack of effort is dishonest and pretentious.....just do not comment if you cannot tell the truth....and as for Justin Upton, the right fielder, faking a ball toss to the fans because he was mad at being booed, try using two hands when you catch the ball and you might not get booed....now their infielder Mark Reylods laid into the team Friday night and I applaud him for telling the truth, that too many guys were not trying....and not into the game mentally....however I would not have said, if I were him, that he was out their busting everyday when he made one of the glaring errors last Sunday, but at least he was honest at calling out some effort......too bad for Tyler Hnasborough that he had to go to Indiana....I was hoping he would fall far enough to get to a good team....thanks to the Red Sox for giving away the 8-0 advantage they have over the Yankees this season.....and to Seattle for not rolling over this weekend at Fewway.....as for the Yankees as from the mid-90's teams the pitching is leading the way...kudos to Burnett for turning it around after he got blown out of Fenway.....Joba needs to go back to the pen....Andy Pettitte leading the team in wins....Derek Jeter the MVP he has always been.....a couple fo gripes with Girardi....how has Robison cano continued to bat 5th with both Posada AND Matsui in the line-up astounds me.....yesterday he batted six times with a runner on bas and made out all six times....including a bunt !?!?!?!! on 3-0 with the winning run on second in the 12th inning with NO ONE out (the look on Mark Texeria's face as he is thrown out at third is priceless)....why if Cano is in the line-up is he not batting 8th or 9th is beyond me....get his head on straight before he moves back up the lineup......as for Phil Hughes....LEAVE him the game....I can understand taking hime out for Mariano in the 9th but if he mowing people down in the 7th let him pitch the eigth too...gee whiz is it that hard to figure out it is about getting outs.....hard to quibble with them over all over the last week and a half.....is Ron Artest to the Lakers a repeat of Dennis Rodman to the Bulls....the question is will Kobe use Artest the way Jornan used Rodman.....Gillette has to be thrilled today, Federer sets the grand slam record, Jeter hits the game winning home run and Tiger on his way to a tournament win.....will their body care products sell and more????.....any comments are welcome....

Stanley Cup Recap

Is there such a thing as bloggers-block??? I cannot seem to get started and therefore have not written anything so we are going to just add some stuff and see where it goes.....we are a little behind the times but have to make a comment on the Stanley Cup finals.....I hope the league is happy they got Sidney Crosby his Stanley Cup....not saying Pittsburgh did not do a great job coming back from 0-2 down this year.....the lack of enforcing the rules was blatent....Game 1 Crosby slashes Kurt Maltby on the ankle as Detroit skates to congratulate Chris Osgood....as Maltby skates after Crosby the linesman steps in a stops him...too bad the whole Wings team did not close in on Crosby and pound him along the boards....no penalty on that play....Game 2 Malkin earns an instigator penalty in the last five minutes, which is an automatic suspension for the next game, yet somehow 30 minutes after the game Colin Campbell in on ESPN.com claiming no intent by Malkin so no suspension is warrented...therefore Pittsburgh's second best palyer gets to play in the game 3 when the Penguins (and Crosby) are down 0-2 because if they go down 0-3 bye-bye Penguins......Game 3 Pittsburgh gets to play over 30 seconds with 7 men on the ice....somehow all four officials who could make the call miss it.....then amazingly within two minutes Detroit has picked up a penalty, Pittsburgh scores and the series is still alive.....we move to game 7....Eddie Olcyck and Pierre McGuire discuss Crosby's injury and that one of them thought Crosby should have been called for holding but just went off hurt....then in the third period someone from Detroit gets knocked down and Olcyk says "that should have been a penalty" and McGuire says" maybe in the regular season or the first two rounds of the playoffs but not in game seven of the finals"....REALLY the rules change in game 7...nice integrety there....and depsite all of the league's efforts to get their guy his cup Nick Lidstrom almost got the tying goal with a second to go...of course it would have been disallowed....it is really sad how Crosby is being shoved down our throat to the next one.....Alexander Ovechkin of the Caps is the best palyer in the league (as proved by the players voting him as the league's best player).....the NHL wonders why it hurtles to obscurity....let who is the best be proven on the ice, not in the boardroom.....two great things about about the NHL though....Mike Emrick is THE BEST play-by-play announcer today.....Marv Albert is close by listening to Doc is a treat to the ears....and as a host Ron MacLean of the CBC is the beast host too.....as good as he does with Don Cherry on coaches corner his work on the second intermission on the Hotstove is great....he guides everyone around (can they replace Al Strachen next year....PLEASE...his jealousy of Mike Milbury being a GM and he just a reporter is annoying) and interjects his opinions to show he know what he is talking about.....we need someone like hime here in the USA....all of the CBC intermission reports can be found by clicking on the links highlighted.....

Final Four Thoughts

Nothing would be finer than a win by Caroliner in the Final Four to kick off the year of our baby.....it would not be a bad anniversary of baby Deyette's birth....too bad for Caoch Pitino....may Coach Buffoon and Mouth-apari could take some lesson in class from Coach P.....on Coach Buffoon....where was the bluster he had for the reporter who questioned his salary when it was reported his team broke the rules??? No where to be found which shows his grace and class....His defense of the player never played for us???? Yeah coach, why did he never play for you??? Was he expelled before his freshman season started??? Nice player......as much as I would love for UNC to do to Coach Buffoon what they have done to Radford, LSU, Gonzaga and OU....let's go MSU....as for Mouth-apari he was right about one thing....the NCAA was WRONG in their seendig of Memphis....they were seeded too high....I am sure next year they will be 32-2 going into the tournamant so hopefully the committee will remember this year and seed them the 4 or 5 they should be based on their strength of schedule....one last note on the NC game....if Blake Griffen was protected by the Big 12 officials as he was in today's game it is no wonder he was player of the year....he could bump and hack and not get called for a foul but anyone looked at him for NC (listen to what Clark Kellogg said in the second half about UNC defensive separation when they went for their steals) he got the foul call....good luck in the NBA with that.....hope to be back later in the week....

Return from a Nap

To paraphrase the last reason to watch the WWE, "Finally, Mark has come back to his blog".....time, time, and time, that has been at a premium but now that we have reached spring break I am going to post again and see if we can keep some semblence of a consistant posting until the little one arrives and then all bets are off.....looking back at the last post the Jets were the toast of the NFl....how quickly that went away....After the Seattle game I told someone they should not let Mangini on the plane....he is a good coach but way too conservative....If Favre had a bad shoulder and you had the top rusher in the conference AND the dynamic Leon Washington why not let them run the ball in the snow of Seattle? Revisionist history I know but I had to get it on the blog.....I think Rex Ryan will be good....but with the free-agent signings it looks like he is trying to recreate the Baltimore defensive scheme.....low scoring games won with turnovers and short field for a limited offense....not sure who the quarterback will be next year....I would not mind seeing Brett Ratliff getting a chance....I know Clemens had not had a fair chance....but again like all the doomsdayers with A-ROID being out, I do not think the Jets QB situation is as dire as being reported....more on the Yankees in a minute, but first to the NCAAA tournamnet.....I can't split hairs with Carolina being a #3 toverall seed instead of the two....Pitt lost in the second round of their tournament, however....I do think Louisville deserved the number one seed going in.....and Carolina got a break getting the weakest #2 seed in OU.....Carolina will beat Lousiville in a track meet 102-94....Carolina will beat Villanova to get there and Lousiville will beat Memphis....on my least favorite coach...if Calipari wants his team to be taken seriously have it move out of Conference USA and join a REAL confrence.....Carolina's losses all came in the ACC...if they were in a low-level conference like Memphis they would have stayed #1 all year long....when you play no bodies your record can look a lot better than it is....can't let the college hoops go by without a comment on Jim Calhoun's tiraid a couple of weeks ago (what a regional final we are looking at here in the desert: Coach no respect versus Coach out of Touch) it is sad that guys like Calhoun do not get it.....just tell the guy he is not answering questions about his personal finances.....not get into a shouting match with the guy....callous, arrogant and uniformed that is what Calhoun is....he could be Herb Sendek and Dennis Erickson here at ASU, forced to take furloughs and as a result pay cuts, or better yet be like Roy Williams and UNC think about taking a voluntary furlough to help the unversity.....I bet AIG is a sponsor of Clahoun's radio show...they go perfect together......one last tournamnet note, it was even more of disgrace and joke that this year Arizona made it in......seriously does Jim Livengood the AD have pictures on someone....last year losing to ASU twice was bad enough but this year team was awful....everyone says who gets in if you take someone out....St. Mary's and and San Diego State were better teams and would have been a west coast repsresentative to replace teflon Lute's team...I guess the only way the U of A gets its streak of appearances ended is when they get probabtion from the impropriaties they are under investigation from (somehow this will disappear too, no one wants to ruin the old blowhards reputation)....my Islanders are playing their way out of the number one overall pick in the draft....as a fan you love to see them playing better....but as a coach the number one pick would set them up for while....we'll see....the question is will they still be on long Isalnd when the fruits of this dowturn arrive....my Sixers look like they will be in the playoffs...trying to move up to the 5 seed to get Atlanta in the first round and avoid any of the division champs in the first round.....OK off to do some yard work before it reaches 86 today...we are scheduled for 90 the next couple of days....Happy St. Patrick's Day to all.....

Jets-Titans

How about that??? All I kept saying to myself all afternoon as I watched the J-E-T-S play the best game they had played in YEARS....so much so I cannot remember when they dominated a good team so much so....the old man is playing himself into MVP consideration....if you go by stats Kurt Warner all the way...but if you take intagibles (which Valuable is supposed to incorporate, right) #4 has made the Jets (and their fans) believers.....the New York media that is getting ready for a Jets-Giants Super Bowl needs to relax...though if it happens can they play the game in the Meadowlands instead of Tampa??? Here is the nightmare AFC playoff scenario that will happen....New England and Indy finish 12-4 as wild cards so the Colts are the 5 and Pats the 6 as a result of their game....so NE goes to Pittsburgh (3) and wins...sending them to Tennessee (1) for round two and Indy to the Meadowlands after they elimate Denver (or San Diego).....NE takes out Tenn (does anyone not a Titans fan not believe this would happen?) and the Jets (2) take out a tired and old Indy team setting Yankees-Red Sox....I mean Jets-Pats III for the right to go to the Super Bowl....uggh....I guess it should not be easy to get there but I would rather play ANY other team but NE....oh well one can dream, right???? According to Peter King if the Jets and Giants both host conference championship games they would be on different days....Saturday or Monday(?!?!?!?!) and Sunday.....Seriously, if the games are at the same stadium....in the Northeast in January.... how are those games not played at 1 pm local time Saturday and Sunday afternoon.....I sat through a Jets-Pats Monday night game Dec 26, 2005 and even though my blood was thinned from four years in AZ it was FREAKEN cold....MLK weekend would be worse......the NFL would really not do that to the fans and players would they??? One other thought before wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving....my Tar Heels look good so far to get the National Championship Tyler Hansborough deserves....my Sixers could not have that bad of a season to be able to draft him in June, could they????

Jets-Patriots

As another day of temps in the mid 80's in the Valley of the Sun comes to an end another post begins....it has been a week since the Jets put all of their fans through another roller coaster but this time Brett Favre kept us from flying off the track with his 3rd and 15 to Dustin Keller in OT....a play the Jets have sorely needed too many times in the 26 years I have followed them but never have seem to have gotten until last week....for my wife's sake and my sanity they did.....as Jay Feely lined up for the winning field goal visions of Doug Brien in Pittsburgh a couple of January's ago came to my head, I was ready to sink to my knees in agony, but this time a strange thing happened....I could smile at the end of a Jets game.....Mike Vaccaro of the NY Post had this wonderful article to all of us in Jet fandom.....lets hope the Jets pull an Ithaca College over SUNY Cortland from last week and go on the road and win a game against a higher ranked opponent with a chane to gain home field advantage in the playoffs.....congrats to my alma mater on their smoke-a-thon last Saturday....after falling behing 10-7 the Bombers outscored the obviously overrated Red Dragons 28 -3....unbelievably (from the IC SID's office) this will be the first NCAA home playoff game for IC since 1994....a win over Curry College and a Cortland win over Plymouth State will result in a Route 13 rematch the Saturday after Thanksgiving for the rite to go play Mount Union (Ohio) the first weekend in December.....the sports week continued to improve with the Islanders pulling a home and home sweep over Ottawa, the first win coming on the same night as the Jets W...and continuing with a SO win over Vancouver....hopefully Joey MacDonald can keep up his play and keep the Isles competative....I see the sportswriters are under the influence of the Red Sox again.....not that Dustin Pedroia is not a good player but if he did not play for the Red Sox would they have not won the wild card??? It goes back to the days of the Yankee dynasty...all those championships and no regular season MVP's...because the teams were so good.....so why now the Red Sox start winining the MVP's...and while it was wonderful Perdroia had his press conference here at ASU could someone from MLB or the Red Sox or ASU have lent him a golf shirt for his press conference? Nice grim reaper t-shirt.....some quick hits as we move toward the weekend.....Steelers over the Bengals tonight.....if you have not read Bill Simmons from ESPN.com you are missing out.....depsite his slant toward the Boston teams when he writes nationally there is none better......as is Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback and Pat Forde's Forde-Yard Dash column on college football....speaking of Pedroia can someone please explain to me why ESPN.com ran a link to Curt Schilling's opinion on Pedroia....please someone outside his family tell me they are interested in what he has to say.....Randy Johnson's free agency because he wanted $5 million from the D-backs after they had to layoff 31 employees is not playing well here....any Yankees fans wondering what is keeping Sabathia from making his decision???? Good luck to Mike Mussina......he left on his own terms, at the top, which not many of us get to do at anything.....I hope to be back with an NFL picks column this weekend (I know who does not have one??) Go Sooners on Saturday.....Florida-OU would be a great NCAA Cahmpionship game (I would settle for anyone but Ohio State again).....off the sports track I hope President-elect Obama sticks to his plan to bring all Americans together and does not fall under the spell of the Democrats who want to "make up" for eight years under President Bush....if we could have voted out Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid we might be OK...and nice work by the CEO's of the US car industry showing up asking for money by flying in on their corprate jets.....and Jack Bauer returns Sunday night on FOX....

One Year Anniversary

Before we get to sports news, somwhow Michelle and I just completed our fisrt year of marriage! It has gone by so fast I cannot believe it. I am a very lucky man and to all those who are supporting us....a big thank you....


On to the sports and I have to say MLB is getting greedier and greedier all the time...first to make the fans of Phiily (and those who were there for the Devil Rays) wait in the freezing cold Saturday night until 10pm local time to start a game that ended at 1:47 am was horrid but then for Bud Selig to determine he had the authority to change the rules of baseball during the World Series....that was even worse....the NY Post Post ran a story October 28 that the Vegas b00kmakers paid off on the rules baseball that the Phillies won, based on the fact if a game is called in the middle of an inning the score reverts to the last complete inning, which had the Phillies winning 2-1 after 5 innings which is an official game.....if the Yankees were getting screwed like this a lot of us would be screaming holy hell....but we all know if the Red Sox were winning like the Phillies were the parade would have been held today.....the incredulousness of Bud Selig to say he has the authority to change the rules in the middle of the game....and more so to me the lack of outrage by not only the Phillies owners, but all other owners and anyone else I think is reprehensible....as a teacher and a coach of middle school aged kids I preach to them to follow the rules or face the consequences....we need only look at baseball, a supposed kids game, which is now run by the money it recieves from Fox sports, to wonder why rule following does not happen so much in our world today.....