The Cheap Seats: Jason and company sports blog (used to be Tom and Sean's)

But there is no joy in Sun - mighty Tom and Sean are out.

I don't know how to say this, but I must humbly report that Tom and Sean will no longer be able to contribute to this blog.  To all of our surprise and sadness, they have departed Sun.

Guys, you will be sorely missed.  You are great and kind men - it was an honor and pleasure working with you the past few years.

When you started this cheapseats blog, I was really excited and looking forward to reading your entries.  Then I was flattered when you asked me to come in for relief, but I did not expect this to happen.  I will embrace this blog and will do my best to keep it alive and interesting.  If/when you decide to continue your personal blogs, please let us know so we can maintain a window into your world and insight.

Whatever teams you play for next will be picking up all-stars and they will be lucky to have you.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out.

The final verse of Casey at the Bat by Ernest Lawrence Thayer

I accept Sean and Tom's invitation to fill in while they're on holiday.  I just returned from a two-week break, and I lost out on a couple days because I didn't see their Cheap Seats invitation until today.

Now the pressure's on to publish interesting posts.  And I'm surprised there hasn't been a mention of 2 other major events that have happened the past couple weeks, so I'll do it and add my perspective.

Tiger is golf. 

Who else attracts a gallery of dozens deep yearning to witness his magic and absorb his competitive intensity?  Who else can single-handedly control TV ratings?  Who else can put together a performance, despite the injuries and pain, and win in dramatic fashion?  Golf (including the players, fans, networks) will miss Tiger during his absence.   But it gives the PGA a chance to prove that it can survive without Tiger.  And it gives other players a better chance of winning a tournament.

Soccer/Football.  It reigns in Spain. 

I didn't watch much of the Euro 2008 tournament myself, but while I was vacationing in Europe there was no escaping it.   Will the U.S. ever be an international presence for football?  And I'm not talking about American football, where we are the ONLY presence.  What happened to that generation of young players a few years back that were supposed to grow and bring a soccer presence to our country and represent us?  Nothing.  The rest of the world doesn't fear the U.S. anymore, and I'm only talking about sports.  Football is the measuring stick of the sports world for dominance, and as of this post, the US is ranked 30th.  But then we're not even dominating other sports that we're supposed to be the best at.  We're not the best in basketball (losing the last 3 World Championships and also the Olympics in 2004), or even baseball (doing poorly in the inaugural World Baseball Classic and not qualifying for the 2004 Olympics) anymore.  Lets see what happens in Beijing next month.

Thanks again guys for welcoming me to the Show.

Tom and I have asked Jason if he's interested in filling in with an entry or two this week while we're on vacation.  We don't know if he'll accept (he was on vacation himself last week), but since he left the first and most enthusiastic comment (flattery will get you everywhere on this site!), and has done some nice blogging himself, we wanted to give him the first opportunity.

This has always been intended as a group effort, so if anyone else would like to contribute, pls. let us know.  Note that it may take a while to respond, due to aforementioned vacation.

Last night the Fresno State Bulldogs defeated the Georgia Bulldogs 6-1 to win the College World Series.  I have to admit that as cynical as I am, I got caught up in all the story lines with this final and it made me feel good to see that at least at the College Level, a huge underdog could actually come all the way to the top and win a title.  What is also interesting to me, is that I could root for Fresno at all based on their horrible treatment of their women's coaches and women's athletics in general. This would not be blog worthy, but book worthy.  In short, Fresno has already lost two huge sexual harassment lawsuits by former coaches for Women's Volleyball and Basketball, yet it does not appear they have learned anything from these expensive lessons.  The administration and athletic department seem to be operating with a 1950s or 1960s mentality towards women's athletics.  Yet, here I am rooting for the baseball team, mostly because they were truly a case of a team that (check off your favorite cliche) did not belong in the tournament, was given no chance to even make it out of the first round, had no business advancing to the CWS, let alone win it, and truly appeared to not know that they were not supposed to be knocking off all of the blue bloods of College Baseball, yet did anyway.

The announcers of last night's game pointed out that the Fresno State baseball team has been on the road since the middle of May, emphasizing how tough it is to win on the road.  This is a perfect set up to make a joke about the city of Fresno, but I'll pass -- for today at least.  Fresno was on the verge of elimination, I believe 6 times throughout the tournament, yet came though and won each time.  No team has ever won the College World Series with as many losses as Fresno had as their record was 47-31.  No #4 seed in a regional had ever won the College World Series until Fresno won it last night.  Probably most important for Fresno, was that no team had ever scored as many runs as Fresno did in the College World Series.  They scored 62 runs in 7 games.  Fresno reminded me of a heavyweight boxer with very little defensive skills, but a powerful punch.  They seemed to be willing to get clobbered many times in order to get their shots in, eventually slugging their opponent into submission.  Seemed a little ironic that they won the title game on outstanding pitching.  I expected maybe a 13-8 score for whoever won instead of the actual 6-1 final score.

The College World Series reminded me of why I still like watching College sports.  Thank you Fresno State. 

I think the idea is to do like the Indianapolis Colts:  open your new stadium at - or near - the peak of your powers, so you can sell out those luxury boxes and a bunch of early games in advance.

As usual, the Mets have their own ideas.  They bring over the biggest free agent pitcher, only to make exactly the kind of history (giving up a game-losing grand slam to the opposing pitcher) they don't want. 

At the manager position, the local talk-shows seem to like Manuel and consider him an improvement.  But last night they lost again - badly - to a team even lowlier than themselves.  For all their talent, old and new, they seem to be in the same tailspin they got stuck in late last season.  At least Beltran is acting like a star: in temperament if not in performance.  That ought to sell some seats next season

From the department of obscure coincidences, the 2008 College World Series Finals will pit the Georgia Bulldogs against the Fresno State Bulldogs.  Wonder if Vegas had any odds on the chances of that happening?  Appropriately, both teams came into the College World Series as underdogs and now one of them will emerge as the top dog of College Baseball.  I could go on with the puns forever or maybe I couldn't.  Go Bulldogs!

Kudos is not a big enough word to congratulate George Martin (of NY Giants - not Beatles - fame), on completing his *walk* across America (video) to raise money and awareness for first responders to the World Trade Center attacks, and all who worked on the recovery and cleanup operations who are now suffering respiratory and other ailments, often with little support from insurers, local, state, or federal agencies.

Peter King, who's not only followed the story but walked many miles with Mr. Martin, made a last, impassioned plea to support him (he's well short of his goal) back in May when Martin was in AZ.  Feeling badly for not amplifying the message then, we do now.

looks like we've seen as much of Curt Schilling as we're going to this season:  none.  Like Tiger Woods before him, he's announced that he's having season-ending surgery.  Unfortunately, in Schilling's case, the prognosis is not necessarily as positive.  Whatever happens, when you've been a dominant pitcher for 3 different teams, and have won championships with two of them, you've had a  Tiger-like career.

We'll let Curt take it from here in his own blog...

a rare non-sports question, but since we're all geeks here... 

Why would anyone want to run Windows XP on their iPhone?

...because Vista's too big and slow! (sound effect)

Congrats to the Mozilla folks for the release of Firefox 3: also for a reported 18% market share  which seemed inconceivable just a few short years ago.

What a performance!  Not talking about the Celtics, but their devoted beat reporter Dan Shaughnessey, who delivered these gems in his giddy coverage of the long-awaited return of the NBA trophy to Boston:

Boston's bench won the game in a 34-15 second quarter that demoralized the visitors and made the second half more coronation than competition.

Kobe Bryant scored 22 for the losers, but ultimately LA just had too many Europeans.

and of course the now-obligatory reference to the town's other championships:

 Boston is home of the world champion Celtics and the world champion Red Sox. Now if only that slacker team in Foxborough can get with the program.

 As for the Celtics themselves, I have to give credit to an LA reporter who asked Doc Rivers (who agreed) after game 4: "do you get the feeling we haven't yet seen the Celtics at their best?"

Ya THINK??

The New York Mets fired manager Willie Randolph today in a move that should surprise nobody.  The only real surprise might be why did it take so long?  Randolph seems like a pretty nice guy and in interviews I have heard and read, he sounds like a pretty intelligent guy.  However, for some reason, this did not translate into winning games for the Mets.  I don't know what the problem was, but the Mets have underachieved under Randolph, and ultimately that counts the most.  I would not feel too sorry for Randolph though.  He now becomes a member of the good old boy network of MLB of fired managers who will be first on the list to fill the next opening.  Retread managers always get new jobs in baseball, regardless of how successful or competent they are.  In Randolph's case, I don't see any reason why he should not get another chance to manage.  There are many before him that have been much worse than Randolph that have gotten second or even third chances.  

To anyone who might think that the "good old boy" reference is in any way some kind of racial slur in this context, all I have to say is get a clue and get a life.

Last fall Tom and I were discussing a conversation between annoying radio personality Colin Cowherd and former Yankee David Justice, in which the latter was painting a gloomy scenario where many of the "true" Yankees would defect after Joe Torre left.  Cowherd was correct that it wouldn't transpire, but then kind of lost it, saying at the end "Sabbathia and Beckett will both be Yankees next season".   It was easy to dismiss as a crackpot/head comment - the Beckett part still is - but, as the Cleveland season wanes and the Yankees' needs don't, the Sabbathia part may yet come to pass.
Incidentally, Wang's baserunning injury gives new ammunition to critics of interleague play, who've otherwise been pretty well silenced.

 The two remarkable things to me about last night's NBA game (5) were the small game by The Big Ticket (Kevin Garnett), and Kobe Bryant's steal (and subsequent dunk) from Pierce in the last minute.  Though he was only semi-visible after the first quarter, that game-clinching play would be an instant, career-defining replay classic should the Lakers win the series.   Would be ...

 And in football news, Roosevelt Colvin has reportedly signed with the Texans, saddening defensive-minded Patriot fans.  From his perspective, it might be worth trading a few wins for escapting the pressure-cooker that must have been the Pats' last season.

Congratulations to the Celtics for coming back from a huge deficit to win game 4 of the NBA Finals against the Lakers and take a commanding 3 games to 1 lead in the best of 7 series.  As compelling as this series may be to basketball fans, I seem to have lost interest, maybe due to the officiating scandals that keep coming up.  I do know that in last night's game, the free throw attempts were about equal for both teams.  When that happens the visiting team normally has a chance to win.  Hard to imagine the Celtics losing 3 games in a row, with two of them being in Boston.  I expect them to wrap up the series in game 5 against a dispirited Laker team.  With the success of the Red Sox, Patriots and now the Celtics, Boston fans are going to be even more impossible to live with!  :-)

Last weekend, the San Diego Padres won their fourth consecutive game by a 2-1 score.  Isn't that exciting???  It ought to be, as according the those that keep track, as it was a new record for winning consecutive games by identical 2-1 scores.  The folks on ESPN's Baseball Tonight seemed pretty jazzed about it, although perhaps they were being a little facetious.  What next?  Will there be an announcement when someone breaks Steve Finley's record for most times scratching his crotch at the plate during a nine inning game?  Will we find out who holds the record for most sunflower seeds consumed during a game?  Most check swings in a career?  Don't know about you, but I'm on the edge of my seat waiting to hear about the next record set in baseball.

All in all I think David Stern's been a good commissioner of the NBA.  And I can't fault him for pushing the message "it's all good:  the Celtics and Lakers are back, the boring old Spurs are gone.  Andjust forget about that Donaghy guy, he's an isolated bad seed".

 Problem is, the message is pushing back.  With a timing eerily similar to the "Rams walkthrough" allegations raised against the Patriots on the eve of the superbowl, disgraced official Tim Donaghy claimed that corruption was rampant and in some cases "ordered from above" among NBA refs.

As dismissive as Stern was about the charges, and as baseless as they might be, they were detailed with some credibility in the halftime show, and provide a cynical subtext to another year of dubious playoff officiating.

Conspiracy or not, when the home team gets 18-2 free throws in 2 consecutive games, and the working definition of flagrant, technical fouls seem to change as often as an NBA score, things are not as perfect as the commish would have you believe.