One down, just Seven to go

"Not one, not two, not three, not four, NOT FIVE, not six NOT SEVEN." Those were the words uttered by Lebron Raymone James on July 8, 2010 when he joined Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami. Allow me to start by saying, congrats Lebron. The first ring is said to be the hardest one to obtain and countless hall of famers played their entire career and made tons of money, enjoyed the fame and lifestyle of a professional athlete and would trade it all today for one ring. This is a great win for the Miami Heat franchise and for their fans, but is it a great win for Bron Bron?? 

It's no secret that I can't stand the sight of Lebron James, the sound of his voice, the cut of his jib and the simple idea that so many declared him the greatest basketball player of all time before he stepped foot on the hardwood of The Association. All of those things were starting to dissipate when he took the Cleveland Cavs on his back and nearly won a championship ring for his hometown. I felt like he was doing it the right way, building something special in Cleveland and the idea of hating a guy for doing that started to seem a bit ridiculous. Had he chosen to stay in Cleveland, forced owner Dan Gilbert to spend some serious money to get top flight players to join him, I would probably have stopped hating him so much and settled for disliking him. Hell, if he would have left Cleveland respectfully instead of in the middle of the night with a bunch of Mayflower moving trucks like Art Model, maybe I would respect that. But he didn't and he felt the need to make a spectacle unlike any other athlete in the history of professional sports. I don't need to rehash The Decision and go into great detail about how pathetic that was, but I do need to address the insanity of predicting eight championship victories. If Rafa Nadal predicted 8 grand slams, nobody would care. Not only because he plays tennis and few people care about that sport, but he plays an individual sport. It doesn't take an MIT Graduate to recognize that the odds of winning 8 championships in a team sport is highly unlikely. That being said, I will answer the question I posed earlier. Is this a great win for Bron Bron? No, it's not. Had he kept his mouth shut and predicted that he would bust his ass for this franchise, leave everything on the court and make sure he got a ring, I'd say it was an incredible victory, but he didn't do any of that. He flat predicted 8 championships and for that, I have to point out that he's only an 1/8th of the way to the promise land. 

To make matters worse Lebron is delusional enough to believe his own bullshit after he won his first ringwhen he said and I quote "I'm really glad I did this the right way, no shortcuts and because of that it makes it that much more special." I disagree with all of that and feel like this is one of the reasons why I can't be onboard the Bron Bron train and never will. You did this the right way? You joined forces with 2 of the best ballers in the league and ditched your hometown team to buy a ring. You didn't take any shortcuts? You are the same guy who deflected blame after you tanked the 2011 NBA Finals and said "At the end of the day, all of the people that were rooting for me to fail, tomorrow they will have to wake up and have the same life they had before they woke up today. They got the same personal problems they had today and I'm going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things I want to do." I'd define that as a shortcut and a gut punch to fans who pay for you to live the way you live. That's wrongfully taking out your failures as a pro on the fans and pointing the finger of blame at anyone and everyone but yourself for choking away a chance at your first ring. I'm confident that Lebron can handle the success better than some professional athletes but it's the failures that have bit at his ass all these years. He has an extremely difficult time facing adversity with class, dignity and respect. Now that you've won the first ring, I gotta ask it Bron Bron. Can you do it 7 more times as you predicted?

Is the no-hitter becoming so common that it's losing its luster?

The title of this blog post is stolen from a professional sports writer named Tom (Todd) Verducci. More often than not I prefer to think up a creative (or not so creative) title that's original and fresh. However, the article featured below was not posted today or even over the weekend. It was posted Thursday June 14, just hours after Matt Cain turned in the performance of his lifetime, tossed only the 22nd perfect game in the history of major league baseball and his feet hadn't even hit the ground, but ole Tom was already puking all over this amazing accomplishment.

I'm a young guy with an old heart and old soul. I have learned that I was likely born in the wrong generation because for all of my life I've wanted my baseball served up the way it was generations ago. Simple, clean, by the "book" and stats are for fans to enjoy while sipping coffee. Currently, statistics in baseball have become completely out of touch with the game that's played on the field and I refuse to indulge any further than that. What I will say is that I don't care that of the twenty-two perfect games in major league baseball history, five of them have been thrown in the last three years. That's none of my business and I refuse to play ball here. In my book, a perfect game is an amazing accomplishment and each and every time a guy gets one, it should be given the respect and credit it deserves. Reading this article the day after Matt Cain pitched the best game of his life, the first perfect game in the history of one of the proudest franchises in baseball history, made me sick and I am not even a Giants fan. If you have enjoyed any of my work over the years, you know a few things. I don't toe the line and I refuse to take marching orders. I am not the guy who forms an opinion based on what the majority feels or thinks; I think for myself and I know my thoughts are in the minority, but I do know this. Diminishing a perfect game is something I will never engage in and I can't help but think that because Matt Cain plays on the West Coast, this article hit the internet before the fans at AT&T Park made their way home. I know for a fact that if Josh Beckett or CC Sabathia threw a perfect game last week, Tom Verducci would be sucking knee caps not pointing a fire arm at them.



http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/tom_verducci/06/14/no.hitter.craze/index.html

Rivaling pure Dominance

In the event that you missed UFC 145 in Atlanta over the weekend, allow me to explain what happened in the main event. Suga Rashad Evans spent months running his mouth, talking trash about Jon Bones Jones and was hell bent on taking back "his" belt. he crawled into the ring as Jones does and for the record, it was not nearly as slick as cool as when Bones Jones does it. From the word go, Jones was dominant. 

 The fight was not nearly as exciting as we had hoped and the feeling out process lasted the entire fight. Some would lead you to believe that this was a boring fight, but I am here to disagree with that and explain what really happened in the octagon. Jon Jones prevented Evans from engaging him by slamming elbows in his face. He prevented Evans from using his tremendous wrestling skills by keeping his distance and it was nearly impossible for Evans to even attempt a take down. When Evans did attempt to take Jones to the ground, he was met with a fierce knee to the chest and that was followed up by even more vicious elbows that put fear in the heart of a once fearless Evans. I forget the exact moment that it happened, but Jones had Evans in a guillotine choke, it appeared as though Evans' was going to have the life choked out of him, then jones let him go, pounded him with leg kicks, more flying elbows and pure dominance. At the end of that round I realized that Jones did something that's rarely done in MMA. He decided not to finish his opponent. Not because he couldn't, not because Evans countered with something he couldn't handle and not even because it was too late in the round for a submission. He let him go because he wasn't done torturing Evans.

 I can understand how you might disagree with that last statement, but only if you didn't watch the entire fight or simply watched the highlights on TV. Jones was dominating this fight from the get go, throwing elbows that looked like closed fist punches, landing them square in the face of Evans and then he did something I've never seen before. He got Evans in the clinch and began to "throw" shoulders at his chin, stunning his opponent maybe five or six times consecutively before Evans even knew what was happening. It was pure brilliance. It was plain to see that Evans couldn't get anything going. When he did throw punches that landed, they seemed to have very little impact on Jones and a step further, they were single punches, not thorough combinations.

Jones won the fight by unanimous decision after a five round masterpiece and it leads me, as well as many others, to ask the question. Who will be the next victim to face Jon Bones Jones? Sunday morning I read an article that stated Dan Henderson would be next up, but by the time the fight happens he will be 42 years of age, far from in the prime of his career and not unlike every single man who steps in the octagon to face Jones, he will have a significant size disadvantage. Many rumors are circulating that Jones may be asked to gain some weight (or not drop so much weight before a fight) and compete with the heavyweights. As exciting as that sounds, I think Jones has earned a chance to compete as a light heavyweight for at least another 4-5 fights, despite the lack of competition in that division. I say this because the kid, yes kid, is still just 24 years young and is still learning the sport. His body will continue to grow, he will gain some weight as he matures and before we know it, he will be smacking around the likes of Junior Dos Santos, Cain Velasquez and the other giants of that division. But for now, he's the greatest light heavyweight champion this sport has ever seen and he's far from hitting the peak of his abilities. 

Giant Observations

I made my way to AT&T Park last night with one purpose. To watch Roy Hallday dominate the San Francisco Giants. Yes, Tim Lincecum was pitching but I couldn't care less. In my opinion, he's an overrated, over hyped kid who's best days are behind him.

I got to the park early enough to watch both pitchers prepare for their start. Having never seen Halladay in person I was curious to watch his pregame routine. It was really cool to watch. He starts out stretching is body and then he plays catch with his catcher. They start tossing the ball from about 20 feet and with every few throws Halladay moves back a few feet. They ended up about 180-200 feet apart playing long toss for the better part of 20 minutes. Then, Halladay slowly walks over to the mound, gets comfortable and throws a few to his catcher, while his catcher is standing upright. The catcher gets into his crouch and that's when Halladay gets his game face on. The picture below is from my seat and it's obvious that I wasn't close enough to analyze his every move, but I observed a pitcher with a plan of attack. He threw about 12 fastballs in a row, then switched to offspeed pitches. After about 12 of those, he gets in the stretch and mixes it up a bit. Fastball outside corner, followed by breaking ball and then a fastball to the inside corner. I was impressed by his efforts and it gave me an insight into the routine of one of the best pitchers in  baseball.

As Halladay finished his throwing, I noticed Lincecum stretching along the third base line so I paid close attention to him as I was literally 100 feet from him. He started off by stretching his legs out a bit, kinda like we did back in the day. Just enough to stretch and tell coach we stretched, but nothing serious. He headed straight for the bullpen mound and began to toss the ball to his catcher. It didn't appear as uniform or deliberate as Halladay, but he looked to have good life on the ball. Quickly he got up on the mound and started throwing fastballs, which missed the target at least five times in a row as I noticed Buster reaching for the ball and his glove moved, a lot. He wasn't in the bullpen for longer than five minutes and he was gone.

In the first inning, both pitchers struggled. Lincecum didn't have his command, his fastball was between 88-91 and he threw a good amount of sliders. He got hit around a little bit, his outfielders didn't help him much and he struggled. I noticed something very interesting. It's fair to say that neither pitcher had his best stuff going last night and that's actually a great opportunity for a fan to see what his pitcher is made of. When Lincecum isn't on his game, his body language tells the entire story. He appears to be frustrated, his facial expressions are priceless as his snaggletooth appears more and more frequently. He moves his body around a lot as if he's not feeling right. Halladay on the other hand is flawless. His facial expressions are the same regardless of the situation. He was giving the homeplate umpire the mean mug as he wasn't getting the call on balls that were close to the strikezone, or so they appeared. He didn't have his best stuff, but he got guys out. He worked through difficult innings and that's the sign of a true professional. Lincecum did a pretty good job after the first inning, but to be completely honest, it doesn't appear as though he is comfortable on the mound right now and I feel like it's because he doesn't do well when things aren't going his way. I don't like him, I don't think he's nearly as good as Giants fans would have you believe. I'm curious to see if he learns how to pitch out of jams in a different way than he has this month. I know it's April, but if i were a Giants fan, I'd be concerned.

Mega Numbers

No, I am not about to discuss the insanity of the United States largest lottery jackpot in history. I bought a few tickets and dreamed the good dream, but it's not something worthy of discussion just 5 days prior to The Real opening day of major league baseball. I'd like to discuss the contract that Matt Cain signed with the San Francisco Giants today. 6 years $127 million and the language can be found at your favorite sports website, but I won't dissect each year and the actual money being paid. I will say that his agent is an extremely smart cat, getting San Francisco to sign off on a deal this large that includes the ever important no trade clause. 

The Giants are in the stretch run of the Barry Zito contract disaster and most Giants fans likely would have assumed that never again would the Giants offer a pitcher than much guaranteed cash and lock them off for that long. Yes, this is a different beast. Matt Cain is a professional in every sense of the word. If you didn't watch him every fifth day and you only knew his name from watching his highlights on ESPN, you would assume that a guy with a career record of 69-73 and an era of 3.35 is not worthy of a contract that large. But, if you live in the Bay Area and are a Giants fan (or if you are a guy like me who just watches a lot of their games) you know what he means to this club. His career record should be expunged from the record books forever because the Giants have provided 3.73 runs for him, lowest in all of baseball. That doesn't do justice because I can't begin to explain how many times I'ver seen him lose 2-1, 3-2; 4-3.

This contract is a microcosm of who the San Francisco Giants are and clearly who they will be in the future.   At this stage in the game, the San Francisco Giants have $57 million of their payroll locked up in 3 guys, all starting pitchers. Barry Zito makes $22 million, Matt Cain $15 million and Tim Lincecum $20.25 million. In recent years, the 2010 World Series championship included, offense has been an issue for the team and has prevented them from taking full advantage of their all star caliber pitchers. San Francisco avoided Albert Pujols, for good reason. They turned their heads when Prince Fielder was on the market for them to enjoy and this has been the pattern ever since they signed Barry Bonds way back in the stone age. For the next 7-10 years this team has decided to grow their own players on the farm, avoid huge contracts for sluggers and that's terribly disheartening news for Giants fans across the country. I understand that pitching wins championships and the blueprint for success in San Francisco is crystal clear. This team will win or lose based on how their pitching performs. Unless this team is willing to spend more of the money they claim they don't have and spend it on guys who can hit and drive in runs, they will continue to fall short of the gold ring. 

I thought for sure the Giants would allow Matt Cain to reach free agency and let him walk next winter. I practically guaranteed that he would wear a Cubs, Yankees, Red Sox or even Dodgers jersey in 2013, but I admit I was wrong. I will continue to believe that San Francisco doesn't have enough offense to compete at the highest level and until they break down and start spending some of their "rainy day" fund, the fans will continue to be frustrated and angered by the lack of offense put forth by this club. 

The Hunger Games

No no, I am not talking about the Suzanne Collins book series that hits the big screen this Friday, but I hear that's gonna be a good one. I am talking about Alex Smith and his hunger for an NFL superbowl ring. A lot has been published on the internet about Alex meeting in Miami with the Dolphins, his ego has been bruised because SF pursued living legend Peyton Manning and now it appears as though Alex Smith is playing hard to get. Alex has every right to be butt hurt. He had a very good season in 2011, played a very important role in a successful season and two weeks ago it appeared as though Alex would return and it would be business as usual. As a fan, I am more butt hurt at Alex than he can ever possibly be at this great, proud franchise. The guy had 6 seasons of crappy football and the team gave him more money than he or his family could ever spend. At the end of that deal, they gave him an opportunity to continue his football career, handed him more money and asked him to put up or shut up. Why am I speaking so much about money? Because this is a business after all and to quote the great Gordon Gecko "don't get emotional about business Buddy boy, it clouds your judgement."

Alex Smith has an opportunity to return to a franchise that has the greatest stable of stud QB's in the modern era of professional football and to bring Superbowl #6 to this great town. If he signs the current deal that's on the table today, (it's been reported that San Francisco has offered him 3 years $24 million with $10 guaranteed) he can attempt to bring the coveted Lombardi trophy back where it belongs. Also, he will be the first San Francisco 49er QB to start a season in a new stadium, assuming the stadium in Santa Clara opens on time to start the 2014 season. If you want to prove a point, prove it on the football field. You will not win in Miami and the current Niners roster is set up perfectly for you to succeed. Get your ass back to SF, sign the deal they have waiting for you and prove to the fans that you are better than we think you are. Complete some more 3rd downs, get us back to the playoffs with a much tougher schedule and a target on the teams back, win ring #6 that we have been chasing since Gary Plummer ripped the monkey off Steve Young's back and all will be good with the world. Stink up the joint as you have for 6 of your 7 years as a pro and we will run your ass out of this town. That being said, good luck with it Alex.

Conference tournaments suck, don't they?

That's what ESPN and the talking heads are saying today but that's only because Kentucky and North Carolina lost the title games and were beaten by teams that were fighting for their lives. Let's dissect this with an open mind though.

If you are St. Mary's and coach Randy Benett, building a program from scratch in a small town (Moraga to be precise), in a conference that is known by most as the conference Gonzaga plays in and you win a conference tournament, does that suck? Does it suck that you were on national TV (quite possibly an international affair) for all the world to see? Does it suck that the players on that team are able to relive that moment for decades to come, knowing that for their seniors it could be the last time the play organized hoops at a very high level prior to entering the workforce? It doesn't suck. In fact, taken a step further, it's truly an incredible experience for a team that has been building itself from the ground up, has made the NCAA March Madness tourney 6 of the last 8 years and coaches of that program get an opportunity to tell prospective recruits all about this when they settle down for cake and coffee in the living room of their family. West coast biased you say? Read on friend.

Let's talk about Vanderbilt (also known to the bracketologists as Vandy) for a second. Vandy knocked off the #1 overall seed Kentucky on Sunday and punched their ticket to the dance with a glorious and exciting victory. Would they have gone dancing had they lost that game to top ranked Kentucky? Sure, they had a great season and were likely a sure thing, but that's not how it looked in this video. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/recap?gameId=320710096

See, conference tournaments are not simply an opportunity for the likes of Duke, Carolina and other top rated teams to take a few days off to recharge their batteries before one of them goes on a 6 game winning streak to cut the nets down in New Orleans the first Monday in April. It's about bringing excitement to a fan base, punching a ticket to the most exciting playoff (take note here BCS chumps) scenario that is easily the most amazing tournament known to mankind.

Let's go further East and talk about what UCONN shall we. UCONN is a powerhouse program that doesn't need to put themselves on the map. They know first hand what happens when a team gets hot. This time last year, they won the Big East tournament and went on a ridiculous run to win the 2011 National Championship title. Yes, they won 12, yes 12 consecutive games and that was as impressive as anything I have seen in recent years. In fact, it also improved the draft position of their biggest stud, Kemba Walker.

I strongly disagree with so many of the "experts" today who claim that conference tournaments are meaningless. They might be meaningless for the big programs and in all honesty, who really cares about Kentucky, Carolina, Duke and Syracuse anyway? I don't. I care more about Cinderella ensuring that her dress fits just right and the conference tournaments do just that and they also provide an opportunity for us to see if her slipper fits just so. Conference tournaments are a grand opportunity for college basketball to rev their respective engines before the DJ starts jamming tunes at the big dance.