Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Boston Celtics: Basketball After All
And on the 149th day of the NBA lockout, David Stern said, “Let there be basketball,” and there was basketball. And it appears Mr. Stern will not be the grinch of this year's Christmas.
I guess the only appropriate phrase I could come up with to describe my sentiments regarding this decision is “Better late than never!” Following in the footsteps of the NFL and the MLB most recently, the NBA owners and the Players Association finally reached an agreement that will allow them to play basketball this season – the probability of which was becoming more and more grim as time progressed.
It was a difficult battle not only to follow, but also to choose a side, as both parties consisted of multi-millionaires squabbling over more multi-millions of dollars. Needless to say, I think most fans are all glad that it’s over and done with (at least for the next ten years anyway).
I’m not sure where the change of heart originated, because all the reports leading up to this news had been incredibly pessimistic, and a potential deal seemed improbable. Who knows? And, in the end, it doesn’t really matter and I don’t really care. Just get back on the court and do what you get paid unthinkable amounts of money to do.
Perhaps Santa Clause is an NBA fan. Maybe old St. Nick swooped in and provided that little bit of extra motivation and holiday cheer that allowed the deal to finally get done. If that’s the case, his timing could not have been more impeccable.
The NBA schedule is set to open on Christmas Day with three key matchups being featured. Included in these spotlighted games is our beloved Boston Celtics. They will be up against Carmello Anthony, Amar’e Stoudemire and the rest of the New York Knicks to kick of their 2011-2012 campaign.
Because the two sides took so long to come to this agreement, the normal 82-game season has been reduced to 62 this year. Despite the loss of these 16 games, this abbreviated schedule could actually end up helping the Celtics. Composed mostly of aging veterans, the extended break and fewer games might allow for fresher legs throughout the course of the regular season.
Training camps and free agency don’t actually begin until December 9th and this will be a very crucial time for the Celtics as they will potentially only have eight players in their roster to begin the new season, and that includes their two new rookies they drafted; E’twaun Moore and JaJuan Johnson
The “Big 3,” while all another year older, are still very capable players, but the ability of the Celtics’ front office to surround them with talented role players will be essential if they hope to be successful in their championship aspirations before this team’s quickly-closing window finally slams shut.
Rajon Rondo is at the epicenter of this team. He is the glue that holds those fading championship hopes together. His continuing development as one of the NBA’s best, young point guards will be imperative for this team moving forward. Health, as it has been for the last three or four years, will also be a huge question mark heading into this season.
The potential loss of impending free agents Glen “Big Baby” Davis and Jeff Green will create immediate voids that will need to be filled quickly in order for the Celtics to achieve any type of continuity early on in the season.
A capable backup to Rondo is a must along with a shooting guard to come in and spell Ray Allen. The trade that shook up last year’s roster involving Kendric Perkins has left a gaping hole at the center position for the C’s and that will obviously be foremost in their priorities with the shortened season rapidly approaching.
All of those details will work themselves out in due time, though. The important thing is that basketball is back! And as this season of Thanksgiving has come to close, that is yet another thing Celtic fans can add to their list of things to be thankful for.
So in the spirit of this new deal, a new basketball season and the upcoming holiday season I’ll leave you with this nugget: Now, Rondo! Now, Pierce! Now, Garnett and Allen! On, Delonte! On, Wafer! On, Johnson and Moore! To the top of the standings! It’s time to play ball! Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
The Patriots Stunned by Steelers
The New England Patriots have been nearly unbeatable coming off of a bye week under head coach Bill Belichick. Their impressive 9-1 record under those circumstances combined with Tom Brady’s career dominance over the Pittsburgh Steelers all but assured a Patriots victory on Sunday. However the Patriots defense had other plans.
A team that once established their identity playing hard-nosed, scrappy, stingy football on the defensive side has completely lost touch with that personality and has slowly deteriorated to become an embarrassing and pathetic semblance of that previously proud tradition.
The New England Patriots have the worst defense in the entire NFL. Let that statement sink in for a minute. Their incredibly rapid decline rivals that of the September effort displayed by their baseball counterparts, the Boston Red Sox. While no reports have been published linking key defensive players to consuming large amounts of beer and fried chicken in the locker room while the offense is out on the field; that type of activity would at least provide some logical explanation for their absolutely abysmal performance.
In a week that saw the Patriots inexplicably waive Leigh Bodden and place rookie safety, Ras-I Dowling, on season-ending injury reserve, further depleting an already paper-thin secondary, the Steelers came into this game with one goal in mind: Throw the ball until Ben Roethlisberger’s arm falls off. It didn’t. But that wasn’t from lack of trying.
Big Ben moved the ball up and down the field with ease, dodging the occasional Patriot pass rusher who actually penetrated Pittsburgh’s offensive line and eluding cornerbacks and safeties as if they were potential sexual assault charges (allegedly). They didn’t just expose the Patriots anemic pass defense, they willingly exploited it. Roethlisberger attempted 30 passes before halftime… By far the most in his entire career. And it worked. There were more holes in the Patriots’ defensive coverage than there were in Casey Anthony’s defense trial.
Another troubling trend is the Patriots offensive ineffectiveness. Until the fourth quarter when Brady was forced to operate in the two-minute offense, they were unable to gain any sort of consistent flow and, by that time, it was too late. Combine this performance with the week leading into the bye, in which the Patriots narrowly edged Dallas at home thanks to late-game touchdown drive by Brady, and the luster of this once explosive, dynamic offense is fading fast.
The Patriots were held under 30 points for consecutive weeks after 13 straight weeks of previously reaching that plateau. Tom Brady threw for less than 200 yards for first time this season and for a second straight week the emphasis of the opposing team’s defense seemed to be placed on shutting down Wes Welker. This is an alarming notion considering that through the first five games of the season, this seemed nearly impossible.
If you’re looking for a silver lining in all of this, despite the glaring deficiencies found on this football team, they still have 5-2 record and are tied for the best record in the AFC. However their schedule over the next four games will not allow them to achieve similar results unless they experience a dramatic turnaround in play on both sides of the ball. The combined record of their next three opponents is 13-8 and the fourth game of that stretch is a trip down to Philadelphia to play an Eagles team that just dismantled the same Dallas team that New England had their hands full with.
We knew before the start of the season that the defense was a huge question mark, but the offense was so good early on that they could just outscore teams. Well doesn’t seem to be the case any longer, so where do the Patriots go from here? It’s a question that I certainly don’t have the answer for and with the game plan and execution showcased this past week, it doesn’t look like Belichick and his coaching staff are very solution-oriented themselves.
A great regular season record is nice but, as we learned last year, that gets you absolutely nowhere and that is the exact destination this team is currently headed.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Monday, October 3, 2011
Friday, September 30, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Do or Die Deable-Header
My cautious optimism for the Red Sox has quickly turned to bitter disdain and utter disgust after watching them participate in what could very well be the single most disastrous performance in the history of baseball.
Despite their putrid play, Tampa Bay wasn’t doing themselves any favors as they must’ve caught whatever it is the Red Sox have before leaving Boston earlier this week. They failed to capitalize on the numerous chances generously bestowed on them on behalf of Boston’s horrendous pitching staff. But after days of dodging potentially fatal bullets, the Red Sox postseason prospects took another big blow on Saturday when Jon Lester imploded on the mound en route to a 9-1 beat down in the Bronx and the Tampa Bay Rays disposed of the Toronto Blue Jays, trimming the Sox AL Wild Card lead to a dangerously slim 1.5 games.
It was an absolutely pitiful performance. It got so bad that I was switching over to the Animal Planet network to watch “Confessions: Animal Hoarding” to try and cheer up in between plays of the catastrophic second inning which ultimately led to Boston’s demise.
Boston’s new third baseman, Mike Aviles, failed to cover third base in a crucial situation setting the stage for a series of miscues. Carl Crawford celebrated his promotion in the lineup to the second spot by dropping a line drive with the bases loaded which allowed two runs to score. Then Derek Jeter, who hits home runs about once a month these days, managed to run into a Lester fastball depositing it over the Little League-length right field fence for a three-run dinger that capped off the scoring and sealed the Sox fate.
With the Sox playoff lives hanging in the balance, the Red Sox will turn to Tim Wakefield and John Lackey, of all pitchers, to face the Yankees in a day/night double-header. As if Red Sox fans didn’t have enough to worry about, that would be like the Celtics having to win one game to make the playoffs, holding on to a two-point lead in the final two minutes of a game and being forced to rely on Shaquille O’Neal and Rajon Rondo to shoot their free throws for them down the stretch.
As much as I hate even entertaining the thought, let alone writing it, if the Sox were to lose both games and the Rays were able to beat the Blue Jays again, Boston and Tampa Bay would be in a dead tie with three games to play. Ironically, the fate of the Boston Red Sox would lie in the Yankees’ hands as they would travel down to Tampa for the final three games of the season with home field advantage already wrapped up and the Red Sox heading down to Baltimore to face a team that just beat them three out of four games in Fenway.
The Yankees sole objective in that series would be to rest any ailing players and set their rotation up for success for the first round of the playoffs. This would most likely lead them to field a team of mostly obscure, completely inexperienced players, much like the team they exhibited on Thursday, a game in which the Rays defeated the Yankees 15-8. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Yankees decided to start Bartolo Colon, who has hasn’t won a game since July 31st and leads the league in pounds gained this season, for all three games of the regular season series finale. Needless to say, this would not be the optimal situation for the Red Sox.
The silver lining surrounding this dark cloud hovering above the Red Sox could be found in the form of Yankees’ starter A.J. Burnett. As brutal as John Lackey has been for Boston, Burnett has been equally inadequate and he is scheduled to pitch game one of the double-header, opposite Tim Wakefield. Although Wake he got his 200th win in possibly the most important game in his career, a victory in this game could be the most important for the Sox this season and would be an incredible encore for the ageless wonder.
The second game looks like a landslide in favor of New York on paper, but Red Sox/Yankee games often have a funny way of not working out according to plan. Hopefully this unpredictable trend continues for the nightcap, because the gap between Ivan Nova’s (3.62) and John Lackey’s (6.49) ERA is about as staggering as the difference in their salaries.
I wish I could offer up some comforting words or some ambiguous statistics that might instill confidence going forward, but the Sox pathetic performance has robbed me of that ability. It might not be a bad idea if you happen to wander across any spare farm animals on your property to offer them up to the baseball gods this morning. Or, if animal sacrifice isn’t really your thing, then stick to the more conventional superstitious activity of crossing your fingers, because it appears as though it’s going to take something supernatural for the Sox to avoid the biggest September collapse in baseball history. I could say that it can’t get any worse, but that would be the fifth time I’ve said that this week and I hate being wrong.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
Best in the Biz
http://armchairreport.pointstreaksites.com/view/armchairreport/news/news_32110
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
Big League Bargain
.312 AVG, 23 HR, 82 RBI, .889 OPS and 61 Extra Base Hits
If I would have read you this stat line prior to the 2011 MLB season and told you to guess which outfielder those numbers belonged to through the month of August, the myriad of elite, super stars you would have rattled off would’ve been endless. If the name Jacoby Ellsbury was even one of the first 25 names you uttered, I would have told you that you were crazy and suggested an immediate, comprehensive psychiatric evaluation simply out of concern for your mental well-being.
But the fact of the matter is, he has been as good, if not better, than any other outfielder in the entire league. While cases could be made for a handful of other players, there’s certainly not another player providing the type of production for the money the Red Sox are paying him this season.
Ellsbury is currently making $2.4 million this year. Now I’m sure most of us would take that type of money to play baseball, but when you compare his salary to those of the highest paid players at his position, it appears as though the Red Sox are making out like bandits.
A list of the top 25 highest paid MLB outfielders ranges from Vernon Wells of the Anaheim Angels at the top, pulling in $26.2 million, to a surprising Cleveland Indians outfielder, Kosuke Fukudome, who is making $14.5 million. In all five of those aforementioned, critical offensive categories there is only one player who has a single statistic higher than Jacoby Ellsbury right now.
Coming into this week Matt Holliday of the St. Louis Cardinals has an OPS of .949. His salary for 2011-- just a shade over $16.3 million. That’s a lot of cash to dish out for an extra 60 points in OPS. Jacoby beats out every other single player on that list in every single one of those five offensive categories. Did I mention that he also has 36 stolen bases this season? That’s only one less than the American League leader. So there’s that as well.
Delving even further into the comparisons, the Red Sox have two players on that list – Carl Crawford and J.D. Drew. Crawford is the ninth highest paid outfield and Drew is the eleventh. Boston will pay them a combined salary of $28.9 million this season. If you were to cram the two players into one body and add both of their stats together in those five categories here is what “J.D. Crawfords” line would read -- .239 AVG, 13 HR, 68 RBI, .648 OPS with 44 XBH.
Remember our old pal Jason Bay? Well, after ditching Boston and running off to the New York Mets to become the sixth highest paid outfielder, he has been absolutely miserable. While making over $18 million this year, Jacoby has an average that is 79 points higher. He has hit 14 more home runs, driven in 39 more runs, has 40 more extra base hits and has an OPS 230 points higher.
Therefore consider this my official declaration to lead the campaign for Jacoby Ellsbury as the American League MVP. If we’re truly talking “most valuable” then salary should be calculated into the equation; especially given the state of the current economy.
Yankee fans can scream Curtis Granderson’s stats at the top of their lungs until they’re blue in the face, but my response to their clamorous pleas will be a simple one. The “Grandyman” might be having a great season but he is also making $8.25 million. Since he is getting paid about four times as much as Ellsbury, his production should be four times greater than Jaboby’s. Since that is definitely not the case, my vote goes to Jacoby Ellsbury and his $2.4 million salary as the most truly “valuable” player in every sense of the word.
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