MLB playoffs
I'm having a hard time watching the baseball playoffs, given the Cubs collapse at year end. Sharon, Alan, James, Angela, and I were at the game at Shea Stadium (one fugly-looking stadium, I might add) when the Cubs blew a three run lead with two outs and two strikes in the ninth. Ryan Dempster walked two batters to lead off the ninth, and Latroy Hawkins came in and gave up a three run home run to Victor Diaz. Yeah, I have no idea who Victor Diaz is either. Two innings later, in the eleventh, Kent Mercker gave up a game winning walkoff home run to some guy named Brazell. Brutal. The Cubs went on to lose a few extra inning games to the Mets and Reds (two awful teams) and basically flamed out to end the season.
In the game, Sammy Sosa struck out four times, and his fifth at-bat, he grounded into a double play. In the final game of the season, Sosa arrived late and left early. Later, Sosa blasted Dusty Baker for blaming him for all the team's woes. Clearly, it's time for Sosa to go, especially since his bat speed has evaporated. He's always been vulnerable to good fastballs, and now he's lost his plate discipline and willingness to go to the opposite field. He proved sensitive to the fans booing, his manager's innocent comments, and the harsh words of the press. In other words, he needs to be fitted for diapers.
The rest of the Cubs were a whining crew as well. They complained about announcers Steve Stone and Chip Caray (especially Kent Mercker). They complained about the umpires (especially Alou). It was really unbecoming and made it difficult to root for them as hard as I usually do. The Cubs had a team OBP of .328, ranking them 11th out of 16 NL teams, and thus they went through long offensive droughts between home run binges.
Fortunately, though they're certainly no spring chickens, the Cubs are not as old as the competitive teams they've fielded in the last twenty-five years. An imminent collapse can be avoided by building around the really young and talented (Prior, Zambrano, Leicester), reasonably young and talented (Wood, Lee, Ramirez, Barrett, Hawkins), and old but still effective (Maddux, Walker). Patterson is so frustrating, but he's still young and cheap, so he'll probably stay. Everyone else is either too old, too ineffective, too expensive, or some combination of all three. They can go.
I like the Red Sox and Astros to go the World Series.
In the game, Sammy Sosa struck out four times, and his fifth at-bat, he grounded into a double play. In the final game of the season, Sosa arrived late and left early. Later, Sosa blasted Dusty Baker for blaming him for all the team's woes. Clearly, it's time for Sosa to go, especially since his bat speed has evaporated. He's always been vulnerable to good fastballs, and now he's lost his plate discipline and willingness to go to the opposite field. He proved sensitive to the fans booing, his manager's innocent comments, and the harsh words of the press. In other words, he needs to be fitted for diapers.
The rest of the Cubs were a whining crew as well. They complained about announcers Steve Stone and Chip Caray (especially Kent Mercker). They complained about the umpires (especially Alou). It was really unbecoming and made it difficult to root for them as hard as I usually do. The Cubs had a team OBP of .328, ranking them 11th out of 16 NL teams, and thus they went through long offensive droughts between home run binges.
Fortunately, though they're certainly no spring chickens, the Cubs are not as old as the competitive teams they've fielded in the last twenty-five years. An imminent collapse can be avoided by building around the really young and talented (Prior, Zambrano, Leicester), reasonably young and talented (Wood, Lee, Ramirez, Barrett, Hawkins), and old but still effective (Maddux, Walker). Patterson is so frustrating, but he's still young and cheap, so he'll probably stay. Everyone else is either too old, too ineffective, too expensive, or some combination of all three. They can go.
I like the Red Sox and Astros to go the World Series.