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Speedburner on Sports

Growing up in Los Angeles during the 70’s, I became a huge USC football fan, and my love of sports and statistics just snowballed from there. I still live in L.A., and still love the Trojans, but hate the Dodgers and Lakers. I’m also a huge fan of tennis – both watching and playing - and hope to someday see a revival in its popularity.

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Thursday, October 11, 2007

On Retreads and Other Matters

Allan Houston and Penny Hardaway are attempting comebacks with the Knicks and Magic, respectively. Why? No really, why? They each made tens of millions during their NBA careers, though both were incredibly overpaid (Houston because the Knicks are stupid, Hardaway because his body continually broke down). They both still have incredibly frail, often-operated-on knees, and cannot hang with today’s NBA athletes. Penny is 36, and last played in 2005-06, appearing in just 4 games, and averaging a robust 2.5 pts in those contests. Houston is also 36, and last played in 2004-05, scoring 11.8 pts/gm in 26 min/gm, and pulling down a pillow-soft 1.2 rebs/gm. During his spectacularly one-dimentional NBA career, Houston never once averaged 4 rebs/gm, despite being 6’ 6”, a great jumper, and garnering well over 30 min/night. He also finished his career with a mere 139 blocks in 839 games. For comparisons sake, Dwyane Wade, at 3 inches shorter and in only 264 career games, already has almost 100 more blocks than Houston, 236. Michael Jordan, also 6’ 6”, once had 131 blocks in a season. And Penny, while far more well-rounded than Houston, always showed the heart of The Tin Man, even in his prime. Come on guys, get on with your lives, no wants to see you back on the court. The good news is, neither is a very good bet to make the final roster.

This brings us to the 3rd retread, back from the grave, just when you thought all sports relics from the 80’s were gone….Vinny Testaverde is back!!! The extremely desperate Carolina Panthers have signed the 43 year old fossil after Jake Delhomme went down for the season and David Carr injured his back. Come on, isn’t there another option out there? Some NFL Europe veteran, an Arena League all-star? What defense would ever respect the deep ball with Vinny at the helm? How long would it take for his ball to reach the sideline on an out pattern? DB’s would be frothing at the mouth if he had to take snaps. Is the Panthers’ last year former Heisman winner Chris Weinke really so bad that a 43 year old is better? I was a high school senior when Vinny won the Heisman in 1986…this last summer, I just went to my 20th yr reunion!!

Other Quick Thoughts:

USC is in trouble, the aura of invincibility over. Look at the trend….lots of close games in 2006, then losses to unheralded Oregon St. and UCLA, a wakeup call this year vs. Washington, but they never woke up and lost the next week infamously to Stanford. The demarcation comes after Reggie/Leinart/Lendale left. The attitude and intensity just isn’t the same, and now dissent is slowly creeping in. I hate to say it, but the fun seems done. Hopefully they can at least be just another solid, top 10 program, and don’t fall much further than that.

Yankees are done after one round of the playoffs…again. Dump Torre, and don’t listen to the vets who are so loyal to him. It’s time for a change and Torre has no more fire in him - he’s fat and happy. A-Rod, nice of you to finally get an RBI in the playoffs…too bad it was way too late and way too little. Don’t get me wrong, as a big fan of statistics, I’m a big fan of A-Rod’s. 54 HR’s, 156 RBI, .314 BA, and 143 Runs this year make a season for the ages, but unclutch is unclutch, and A-Rod tightens up BIG TIME when the heat is on. 1 RBI in 4 games this postseason, dropped to 8th in the order in last year’s playoffs…it’s really rather sad.

Saw recently that former Laker Aaron McKie recently retired. Didn’t he retire after the 2004-05 season? Oh, wait, that’s right…it’s only that everyone who knew anything about basketball thought McKie was going to retire after that incredibly unproductive campaign (16 min./gm, 2.2 pts, 1.5 asst). But not Mitch Kupchak, no siree…Mitch saw something in McKie – a solid guy, over-the-hill, often-injured veteran who was just the player the Lakers needed to waste $5 million on for two years. During those two seasons combined, McKie played in a total of 24 games, averaging 1.2 pts, 1.0 asst, and 1.4 reb. Mitch, you are a legend. Please write a book as a public service to people of mediocre/poor talent everywhere – ‘How to Keep Employed While Accomplishing Nothing in Your Job’. One caveat to the book – I think you’ll have to leave out any mention of drafting Javaris Crittenton in 2007. For some odd reason, he fell into the Lakers lap at pick # 19. Do this draft over in 2009, he’d go top 7. Mitch, tell the truth – was that a Jim Buss pick??

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Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Wild, Strange Sports Weekend

Ok, that was one of the nuttier sports weekends that I can remember. Let’s take a look at it chronologically:

Friday Night – West Virginia, ranked 5th, loses to South Florida, ranked 18th, after Steve Slaton, who rushed for at least 100 yds and a total of 9 TD’s in the previous 4 games, gained only 54 yards with no TD’s.

Saturday – The football upsets continue, as unranked Colorado scores 17 in the 4th quarter to take down #3 Oklahoma, #7 Texas is trounced 41-21 by unranked Kansas St., and #10 Rutgers also loses to an unranked opponent, this time Maryland 34-24. Nighttime comes and on national TV Auburn, who came into the game 2-2 and not ranked, took down #4 Florida at the Swamp, 20-17, after their kicker totally clutched up and hit a 43 yd FG TWICE, after copycat Urban Meyer tried to mimic Mike Shanahan and Lane Kiffin in the NFL, calling a timeout right before the ball was snapped the first time.

The nuttiest ending on Saturday was the great Cal/Oregon game, which ended when Oregon fumbled the ball through the end zone about 2 inches before scoring the potential game tying TD with only 20 seconds left in the game. The strong performance by both teams showed strength of the Pac 10 this year. USC, who had many issues up north in Washington before escaping with a 27-24 win, has their hands full this season as they face Cal, Oregon, and Arizona St. all on the road starting in late October.

Sunday – Before we address the goofiness that took place in the NFL on Sunday, let’s look at how the wild National League playoff races ended up. The Mets completed their meltdown, as a 7 game lead on Sept. 12th was not big enough to hold off the surging Philadephia Phillies and Ryan Howard, who homered in his last 4 games to lead his team to the NL East title and keep the Mets out of the playoffs. Mr. Future Hall of Fame Tommy Glavine showed his age in getting rocked for 5 hits, 2 walks, and 7 earned runs while only recording a single out for the Mets on Sunday. Also on the Phillies, MVP candidate Jimmy Rollins hit his 20th triple of the season, becoming one of just 4 major leaguers ever to have 20 HR’s, 20 2B’s, 20 3B’s, and 20 SB’s in a season. Also on Sunday, the Colorado Rockies won their 13th game in their last 14 to force a play-in game against the S.D. Padres on Monday. As if overcoming those odds wasn’t enough already, they then went into extra innings against the Padres, spotted them an 8-6 lead in the 13th, and had to face All-time saves leader Trevor Hoffman. No sweat, as they started off the inning with 2 doubles and a triple to tie the score, and eventually ended the game and San Diego’s season with a sacrifice fly.

Now, on to the nuttiness from the NFL on Sunday. First of all, Daunte Culpepper, in his first action since looking terrible in early 2006 as a Dolphin, completed a mere 5 passes for only 75 yards, while adding 28 on the ground. No matter, he still accounted for 5 TD’s (3 by ground, 2 by air) as the Raiders beat those hapless 0-4 Dolphins, 35-17. In Detroit, the Lions entered the 4th quarter down 13-3 to the Bears – a defensive battle, not too much excitement. They then scored an NFL record 34 points in the 4th to win the game and take their record to 3-1 while leaving the struggling Bears at just 1-3. In San Diego, the Chargers came home to finally have a feel-good game against the struggling KC Chiefs. Wrong…those Chiefs spotted the Chargers a 10 point lead, and then came back to spank the Lightening Bolts 30-16. Hey AJ Smith, Marty certainly had his playoff struggles, but at least he got you there. Norv has already lost more games this year, 3, than Marty did all of last year, 2. Making a change might have been the right call, choosing Norv was the wrong call. At Dallas, a Cowboy WR had 7 catches for 184 yards and 2 TD’s…hmmm…that T.O. sure is talented. Oops, it was the unheralded Patrick Crayton with the monster game, not T.O., who had a very pedestrian 3 catches for 33 yards in Dallas’ demolition of the truly pathetic, very injured St. Louis Rams, 35-7. Finally, the night game came and Donovan McNabb, coming off a 381 yd, 4 TD game against Det, was set to lead the Eagles against the NY Giants, who through 3 games were not known for their stout defense. The result: 12 sacks of McNabb, 6 by Osi Umenyiora, as one my favorite ex-Trojans, OT Winston Justice, was clearly not up to the task of blocking Umenyiora. The Eagles scored only 1 FG after scoring 56 points the week before, and lost 16-3.

What a wild, crazy, unpredictable weekend…exactly why we love sports!

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