Wednesday 28 October 2009

Life's a Pitch

Good pitching always beats good hitting, and that’s just how tonights going to go. C.C Sabathia and Cliff Lee, the two previous AL Cy Young award winners lock up for an, almost, certain pitching dual. After C.C and Cliff (that sounds like some awful 80’s synth pop duo) the rest of the rotations are uncertain at best. At the beginning of the year, and even at the All Star break, this series should have been about some of the best young pitchers in baseball. Instead Andy Petitte is throwing game 3 for New York and Pedro Martinez is going in game 2 for the Phillies. I’m not going to argue how great those two guys are and how good the Pedro storyline is, he could achieve promotion to the ultimate anti-Yankee with a couple of wins against them, but why have both these two, and others, been moved ahead of Joba Chamberlain for the Yanks and Cole Hamels and J.A Happ for the Phillies?

Despite my general dislike for both the Phillies and Yankees I always get excited by seeing young players come up and do well (the long, dark winter months will bring desires just to see one Tommy Hanson curveball I haven’t felt in a long time!) so I like seeing guys like Hamels, Joba and Happ. I don’t like seeing whats happened to them. Hamels would have been the opening day starter against (my) Braves way back in April but got hurt, and seems to have stayed hurt, and not wounded lion hurt much more of teething baby hurt. Coming of his post season mvp performance of last year he was expected to be THE guy in Philly and he just never pulled it out. This post season has been just a tiny bit different for Cole, he complained about playing a day game (those molars do hurt) got beat up in said day game, pitched badly against the Dodgers and has been changing fresh diapers every day (that ones definitely Hamels’ fault). The end of last season I really liked Cole Hamels, he seemed a pretty cool, likeable guy, a lot of the Phillies do, it seems fun, this year I really wouldn’t want to hang out with Cole anytime soon. You know when your at a party, everyone’s having a good time, you got the ridiculously smooth guys with their fancy threads (Howard and Rollins) the effortlessly cool guys (Utley and Pedro) and the stiffs that know their place (Lee) then you have that one person you hope won’t come because the musics too loud or the punch is too strong? That’s the 2009 Cole Hamels. Luckily for him he’s pitching against Pettite so he’s gonna look like Bill Clinton in comparison (the party Bill not the other Bill).

J.A Happ is a completely different Philly case, he never seemed any fun, he was the Philly party stiff before Lee arrived. It worked though, he was lights out all regular season, apart from the late arriving Lee and Pedro he was the ace, pitching in the 4th spot in the rotation, but the ace. He was the only Philly pitcher I thought could shut a team down this year prior to the big moves. And then came the play offs and his first bullpen outing for about 5 months and Seth Smiths line drive. I don’t know how much this affected Happ’s first ever post season start but, after his four pitches on October 8th he started October 11th and decided to try and rival Hamels’ year long average-ness. The 3 innings Happ threw was nothing more than glorified live batting practise, Manuel pulled him and since we’ve seen the potential rookie of the year become a one out bullpen guy. I don’t know what Happ(ened), it’s not as easy as Hamels just playing the little bitch, but something went wrong somewhere between the end of the regular season and the start of the post season. It’s come to a point where Happ’s use has become less and I’m ready to proclaim 2009 J.A Happ the Gunther from Friends of the baseball world. He started out in the background, came on strong and was given a larger role, floundered and was largely ignored for long periods and then, if you think about it could come back with one final flourish, the “I love you Philly” moment. There’s more hope for Happ than Hammels to do that, or maybe it’s just bad luck to have a last name beginning with H on the Phillies roster.

And now the most painful case of the three young, shouldda been W.S starters. The Curious Case of Joba Chamberlain. I thought it was great that even behind all the investment in Sabathia and Burnett the Yanks were still willing to put someone like Joba Chamberlain in their rotation. I like Joba and I think he’s got great stuff but I was watching the ALCS against the Angels, like a lot of people, and heard so much from so many experts about this 7th-8th-9th punch the Yankees had of Joba, Hughes and Rivera (Hughes is a different case all together) and thought that looked, and sounded, pretty freaking awesome, until I saw Joba. I occasionally catch those shows about neglected animals if the television has been abducted from my control by a person who will remain nameless and I swear Joba looks like on of those little lost, neglected, unhappy puppies that are picked up from dumpsters or home made kennels. The bullpen has become Joba’s dumpster. Everytime he waddles out to the mound there just isn’t any belief that he’s going to throw anything other than 94 down the middle and you can picture the sad look on his watching the ball fly back past him, like the boy in Free Willy when they try to kill Willy. If you follow baseball you know what happened to Chamberlain at the end of the year. The strange decision that rather than just shutting him down or sending him straight to the ’pen Joe Girardi would prefer to pitch him once ever 7 or 8 days, disrupt any kind of rhythm he had in favor of his favourite children. Joba became Cinderella to the step sisters of Burnett, Pettite and even Chad Gaudin, there hasn’t been a prince charming for Joba yet, just his ever decreasing velocity and relevance to this year. At least he’s got a new hat and t-shirt out of it already, maybe new ring will bring a smile to his face, maybe not. It is worth reminding Joe Girardi however that a Joba is for life, not just the summer.

Wednesday 21 October 2009

Coach's Fighting Championship

Even Raiders fans seem to have ceased being surprised by the mess that their organisation continues to wander blindly into. In fact it has almost become something of a humorous bone in the NFL world, unless your name is Cable, Goddell or Hanson. Notice the absence of Al Davies who, if we’re being perfectly honest, has just stopped giving a damn, perhaps he goes to sleep at night not by counting sheep but headlines. With the continuous dribble of information coming out of Oakland and as the media carries on piecing the mystery together it got me thinking, if I was in Randy Hanson’s position in any NFL coaches office which head coach would I least like flying at me, teeth bared, fists up? We quite clearly have our heavyweight champion in Cable who obviously would “f***ing kill you” given the opportunity, but who are his challengers and who are the good, gentle souls of the National Football League, this is my power rankings for head coach violence. For these rankings I will try and take into account everything although some may not get far past body size, Andy Reid aint coming near the bottom anytime soon for example. This is not based on team bias, I’m usually a huge homer I admit that, but Mike Smith wouldn’t break my teeth, I hope. It has to be remembered that even minutes after I post this Jim Zorn may be moving out of Washington D.C so his position will forever be tainted as he may not be in a job long enough to assault a defensive coach. Without further delay, the rankings for the Coach's Fighting Championship.

31. Brad Childress (Minnesota Vikings)
You just cannot imagine Childress hurting anything. As a person I’m sure he’s a great guy but he’s very gray. I couldn’t imagine having to put up much resistance to any attempted assault from Coach Childress, also the way he acted at the arrival of Brett Favre shows that he needs a strong man in his life and maybe couldn’t do much of his own dirty work.

30. Norv Turner (San Diego Chargers)
Norv’s kindda like one of your kind uncles, gives you a lot of hope and anticipation and then doesn’t fully deliver with the Christmas gift. Despite this he’s always at the family gatherings and always one of the nice guys. Try and picture this for a second, Phillip Rivers throws an interception in the end zone in the Super Bowl, whats Turner going to do freak out or give him a consolation hug? My point exactly.

29. Sean Payton (New Orleans Saints)
Another who you just can’t see throwing himself into a fight, but now we’re starting to see the kind of guy who’s probably at least try and put up a fight against Tom Cable, although not much of one. Plus he lives in New Orleans, Payton’s a lover not a fighter.

28. Todd Haley (Kansas City Chiefs)
This is one where I really wasn’t too sure where Haley deserved to go, I see a lot of Sean Payton in him just with more facial hair. This is now the primary reason that Haley is above Payton but also the blandness means that he will not get a shot at the heavyweight champ.

27. Lovie Smith
His names Lovie, how could you possibly imagine anything other than a good guy. Well I think that he has something more about him that prevents Smith being the number one lover on the list, that certain X factor that can just put that intimidation into a group of people, unfortunately in the end his first name and the fact he is now the proud owner of his own big baby in Jay Cutler so he has to set a good example.

26. Jim Schwartz
Living in Detroit keeps Schwartz off the very bottom of the rankings but otherwise Coach Schwartz is the perennial Mr nice guy. There is a certain toughness about guys from Detroit, it’s the same about guys from places like Seattle and Denver, Detroit then qualifies Schwartz for 26th position, if he coached the Patriots he wouldn’t be here.

25. Jack Del Rio (Jacksonville Jaguars)
I just get the feeling about Del Rio that football is his big hobby, he does it for fun and enjoys the Florida sun, his real passion has to be something like golf. He has a real good pro and college sports resume but he now seems set to sit on his fortune in the sunshine coast, play golf and make college related bets with Maurice Jones-Drew, that might possibly get him to fight, otherwise nothing.

24.John Harbaugh (Baltimore Ravens)
Again the city wins out for Harbaugh rather than his own persona, Baltimore definitely qualifies up there with those tough cities and living there gives Harbaugh some bonus points. You could however imagine taking him home to meet your mother and she wouldn’t be disappointed, clean cut and hard working but tough and living in Baltimore gets you 24 on this list.

23. Jim Zorn (Washington Redskins)
There’s something very Third Reich about Jim Zorn, you could easily imagine him spending his spare time dressed in a leather trench coat, there’s something about his eyes that you wouldn’t want to upset. He may however not be in work by the time I finish this sentence so the intimidation factor is slightly lower, although his stress levels are cranked up, approach with caution.

22. Mike Smith (Atlanta Falcons)
Smiddy is again just like a cool uncle, although this time you’d probably want him on your side in a fight, and you could at least imagine Mike Smith in an argument. Having seen the veins pop out of his head and the blood congregate in his face your realise he’s not a coach you’d happily upset, but one that wouldn’t be too intimidating, especially with that funny hat he wears at training.

21. Jim Mora (Seattle Seahawks)
Again city helps but you put Zorn in a fight with anyone in the list before this and, so long as Childress fights without Favre as his tag-team partner, he wins. He’s the first to really separate himself by this criteria but it says a lot that this can’t break him into the top 20.

20. Jim Caldwell (Indianapolis Colts)
Caldwell actually bumps the Colts up a few spaces in comparison to Tony Dungy but more suits the relaxing outside his house with some cold lemonade and maybe some fried chicken. He has though got a little look about him that you wouldn’t want to push too many buttons.

19. Bill Belichick (New England Patriots)
The Jedi master, Hoody, whatever you want to call him there is a feeling inside me that scares me an awful lot about Belichick. I feel like he can look deep into my soul and discover all my greatest fears, use his Jedi mind skills and pulverise me. However other NFL coaches immune to such tricks could beat down the senior coach.

18. Wade Phillips (Dallas Cowboys)
Just through sheer physical presence Phillips gets a middle of the field kind of mark, he’s a one punch kindda guy, if you can make him have to go anything over say 15 seconds he’ll be blowing and will be asking Mr Jones to pay for his hospital bills, he is the first though that I think is immune to the Jedi mind tricks.

17. Gary Kubiak (Houston Texans)
Kubiak is simply a scrapper, he’ll hang around in fights long enough to hold Wade Phillips, he won’t try stealing Caldwells lemonade and he doesn’t expect much for Christmas, personally though I just think he’d punch real hard and we may have our first teeth breaker!

16. Josh McDaniels (Denver Broncos)
McDaniels had the opportunity to score really highly in the rankings, he didn’t take a swing at Jay Cutler or Brandon Marshall, he sparred in the media and through official channels and avoided physical conflict. I’ve given him the benefit of the doubt in marking him high, although he could easily fall way out of the top 20 if he pussyfooted around a situation like that again.

15. Marvin Lewis (Cincinnati Bengals)
He just looks tough, stern and a little mean. I don’t know if this combination can amount to sporadic physical violence, he could beat a lot of people down though and beat them hard, and do it gentlemanly which is perhaps holding him back a little.

14. John Fox (Carolina Panthers)
Fox was a strange one to have to make a decision on, basically I think he could beat down anyone previously listed but would struggle against anyone higher on the list. That’s the only reason he is here and nowhere else.

13. Raheem Morris (Tampa Bay Buccaneers)
To me Raheem Morris looks an awful lot like he was miscast as a football coach and missed a great opportunity to star as some kind of gang affiliate in The Wire, especially in the sampled picture with his chosen head gear and shorts. This is no reflection in Raheem just that I would not choose to fight him but would happily pay money to see him in conflict with any other NFL coach.

12. Mike Tomlin (Pittsburgh Steelers)
Ditto for Tomlin with cop shows, although he seems much more suited to playing the cop character. As I go I’m creating new ideas for this whole cop show using NFL head coaches, anyone for Axel Tomlin? Anyone? Anyone want to fight Tomlin? No? That’s why he’s twelfth.

11. Tom Coughlin (New York Giants)
He just looks mean, real mean. Even for the good cop, bad cop combination of Tomlin and Morris he looks mean. Add in the New York factor and suddenly Coughlin becomes a real adversary for anyone, right on the edge of the top 10 and, in my opinion well deserving of his place.

10. Jeff Fisher (Tennessee Titans)
Look at the picture hard, real hard. Now tell me if you see what I see, doesn’t Fisher just look the kinda guy who’s done some military service, worked the rail road, watched football at the weekend with his buddies after going deer hunting or fishing or some other carnivorous activity that is plentiful in Tennessee. Yup my thoughts exactly, barbrawl.com for more Jeff Fisher info.
9. Ken Wisenhunt (Arizona Cardinals)
Wisenhunt just looks trucker tough, and thats damn tough. He might not be the biggest coach or the most intimidating looking but he has that look of a genuine tough guy. Could anyone else see Wisenhunt as modern day Snowman? Kurt Warner could be the Bandit, I smell reboot!

8. Mike Singletary (San Francisco 49ers)
He goes out and hit people in the mouth. Period.

Joint 6. Steve Spagnuolo (St Louis Rams) Dick Jauron (Buffalo Bills)
I could not separate these two, they both have incredibly intense eyes, the scary kind that give children nightmares. I would not like to get on the wrong side of either of these guys, I’m worried for their players if they keep playing like they have been. Could you imagine trying to explain why you didn’t make that play to these two, not so much.

Joint 2. Eric Magini (Cleveland Browns), Mike McCarthy (Green Bay Packers), Rex Ryan (New York Jets), Andy Reid (Philadelphia Eagles)
As the last two were tied this time I have four tied for second position. This is such an important position in the rankings how can you possibly place one of these two above the other. If anyone can please tell me how, they are all basically physical clones of each other, give or take some dictator style facial hair and this would be a battle royal to end all battle royals, pay-per-view, yes please.

1. Tony Sparano (Miami Dolphins)
The champ is Tony Sparano. I could easily have included Sparano with the previous group, same physical characteristics, dictator moustache and intimidating presence. The one distinguishing factor, and we needed to have a clear number one, is the name and everyone I asked jumped on this real quick. Look real hard at the picture, transpose the bright green for a black shirt, move him from Miami to New Jersey and pow! You have a spitting image of Televisions favourite gangster. He won’t assault a member of his coaching staff, a member of the family will do it for him.

Friday 2 October 2009

The Stafford Theory

Would Georgia be a better team had Matthew Stafford chosen to complete his degree and take one more year of being the big fish in the Georgia locker room. Many, especially in Athens, felt that Stafford should have stayed, enjoyed one more year partying, earned a complete degree and given himself a shot at the SEC championship. The decision he did make is hardly unknown. There are however two questions that his choice has risen for me having seen him as an NFL starter and Georgia playing a Matthew Stafford-less offence; how much did the University of Georgia mean to Matthew Stafford? And how much did Matthew Stafford really mean to UGA?
After David Greene and then D.J Shockley there was already a Georgia QB dynasty blossoming and Matthew Stafford appeared to be the next one to lead the Dawgs to at least the SEC if not a national championship. Unfortunately for UGA and Matthew he arrived at the same time as Urban Meyer, Tim Tebow and the Florida Gators, but did this affect the way Stafford played for the Bulldogs? No simply. He lead his team to a win in Jacksonville but dropped conference games to South Carolina and Tennessee and your not going to win an SEC championship with 2 conference losses no matter how many times you beat Florida. Then perhaps in his best chance to win both the SEC and BCS in one attempt, starting the year ranked #1 in the country and with the nations best running back to balance his power arm the was supposedly no stopping the Bulldogs, wrong. Stafford, with a little help from his D and O-line, bombed in the two biggest games he would likely play for the university. However a capital one bowl win isn’t bad reward for the most multi-talented team in the country is it. Some Georgia fans, and I will include myself in this, felt Matt owed the university a bit, he owed his team mates and the fans one last shot, even without Moreno it became clear he had a ready made replacement for Mohammed Massaquai, perhaps even better, in A.J Green. Did the university, his friends and fans really mean as much as he said? Having seen Colt McCoy, Tim Tebow and Sam Bradford return to school for their senior years plus the emergance of Jimmy Clausen and Jevan Snead and a plethora of other great quarterbacks in Matthew Stafford could have challenged himself to lead the Bulldogs against a strong field of QB’s on strong teams, he left in a weak draft class for his position, he was chosen as the best of three and does anyone think Josh Freeman is going to do anything on Sundays? It seems to me that Matthew Stafford used the University of Georgia as a stepping stone to personal wealth, it also seems that UGA used Stafford as a stepping stone to collective success.

Has the Georgia offence actually missed Stafford this year yet? Maybe once, in the beating Oklahoma sun when #14 was suffocating under the kind of scrutiny that the former #7 never faced. Matthew Stafford tied the record for touchdown passes in a game (5)in his second to last start with team, Joe Cox matched the same feat in his 4th start. Joe Cox who has sat behind Stafford for 3 years and finally got his chance is leading a young team and actually winning the Dawgs games, he has them at 2-1(2-0 SEC). What those stats don’t actually tell you that he has had to beat South Carolina single handed, throwing for 576 yards combined and 7 TD’s helping the Bulldogs to 93 points across the two games. I’m not saying Cox is a better quarterback than Matthew Stafford, I think he has shown enough potential in his two NFL starts to have belief he can be widely successful, I am just suggesting that maybe for now he is the better one for Georgia. There is every possibility that this season if Joe Cox plays the way he has against SEC teams this year against everyone he may actually improve on Staffords 10-3 record last year, that is a huge claim that Georgia could go the rest of the year losing only 1 game, but if they learn to play defence smartish they could do it and Joe Cox could do something Matthew Stafford never gave himself a chance to do, win the SEC, big claims for a big goal.

The end of progress?

There will be many debates in the coming months over the admissions and omissions from the 2012 and 2016 Olympic games but one sport that appears dead in the Olympic water is Baseball. As an individual sport this is not a major problem, the World Baseball Classic has pretty much got international baseball down pat, however there is a greater issue that is given rise to by this exclusion.

Time hasn’t been kind to the relationship between the United States and Cuba, as time has gone on old wounds have festered and grown deeper and more painful. Whatever your views on the constant troubles since Fidel Castro took control and JFK authorised the Bay of Pigs invasion, the two countries so close together geographically could be so far apart.

Whilst the participation of baseball in the Olympic arena may not have benefited the game anymore than it not being there it did do one thing; brought the U.S and Cuba together over something which both countries feel so passionately. Whilst the political relations remain cold the competition provided on the diamond provided the closet thing to togetherness these countries could possibly hope to experience. Since the Barcelona Olympics of 1992 Cuba has one three gold medals and two silver, the U.S has won one gold and two bronze medals, now these two great baseball nations have no hope of competing again in the near future, the fans also have no chance of seeing these great players play together. There are thirteen Cuban players playing professionally in the MLB, all banned from playing in, or for, the Cuban national team. These players defected to the U.S leaving family and friends behind in the hope of finding better lives for themselves in the back of their own God given talents.

It would seem that the one thing bringing these two nations together has now been taken away from them by the International Olympic Committee, how long now until Americans and Cubans will gather together in search of one common goal?

Numero 1

This is the very first blog post I have made so bare with me. Basically once or twice a week I'm going to drop on a U.S sports blog to try and hone my writing with the hope of ending up with a nice little sports journo job in the U.S with a nice holiday home on the banks of the Savannah, it's all in the detail. So please whoever reads them please give me feedback, e-mail or whatever, feel free to critisize or even make it fun and argue with me! Whoever helps thank y'all very much whoever doesn't I hope you enjoy what you read.