In The Mind Of A Sports Guru

I had about 3 trillion different ideas swimming around my head for a possible topic today. Nothing I settled on felt worthy of a full length post. So I had a better idea...in order to rid my head of all these rambling and unrelated sports fragments, I figured I would just toss some of them down here and let you all make what you will of them. Oh and anybody who is concerned that I have not touched upon March Madness...fear not. Once the field of 64 is set on Sunday night.. I will most definitely dedicate some space here to it. I just find it pointless to engage in the endless speculation and 'bubble' watching. It changes by the day and half the speculation ends up being wrong anyway. I think the two best jobs in America have to be Meteorologist and ESPN College Basketball 'Analyst.' They are the only jobs where you can be wrong 50% of the time, not get fired and probably end up getting promoted. Anyway....

1. I think its odd that the Red Sox get rewarded for winning the World Series by having to make a 17 hour flight to Japan to open their season against the Oakland A’s. I mean why not open the season in Bangladesh or one of the poles (North or South...I’m not picky). I know the weather in Boston in early April sucks but come on..

2. The Houston Rockets seem hell bent to make me look foolish for semi-dismissing their post season chances by winning 20 straight games...2nd longest NBA winning streak of all time. I keep waiting for this smoke and mirror show to collapse upon itself but day after day they keep chugging along...picking off one team after another. Even if they are not as good as some of the other Western teams...they now think they are just as good, if not better, than those teams. Confidence is a big factor in the post season and they have so much of it right now they could probably sell some to Phoenix for a jar of Shaq’s sweat.

3. Who gets in a fight in spring training? On Wednesday the Yankees and the Devil Rays got into a bench clearing brawl in the second inning of their SPRING TRAINING GAME. Apparently some nameless Yankee slid spikes high into some really nameless Devil Ray, sparking the fight. But wait...there’s more. Apparently there was bad blood from a game these same two teams played a couple days before, in which some totally nameless Devil Ray player bowled over some young nameless Yankee catcher and broke the wrist of said, insignificant Yankee catcher, in a play at the plate. This is worse than a wrestling storyline. The Yankees, as usual, are just pathetic. They got a new, no nonsense manager and boy are they tough now. Please (rolls eyes). The Devil Rays have a right to be upset...but it shouldn’t be at the Yankees.. It should be about the organization they play for. They suck. They have always sucked. They probably always will suck. All they do is spread their contaminating suckiness all over everybody else. Just be gone Tampa Bay, please.

4. Notice how my first three points got progressively longer?? :)

5. Alert! NASCAR thought forthcoming. I find it very interesting that Roush-Fenway is not appealing the penalties assessed to its 99 Sprint Cup team, driven by Carl Edwards, after the race at Las Vegas two weeks ago. In case you are wondering what the penalties were for, and I know you are in breathless anticipation for my explanation, I shall tell you. Two weeks ago in Vegas, Edwards wins the Sprint Cup race in pretty dominating fashion. However after the race, his car fails the post race inspection. It seems as though his oil tank reservoir lid had come off during the race. Who cares you say... well the lack of that lid where it is supposed to be can create significant advantage in aerodynamic down force. Non-nerdy answer? It can make his car go faster and handle better. Believe me at almost 200 mph..every little bit helps. Now these oil tank lids don’t just slip off..they are supposed to be bolted on. So in order for it to be even possible for the lid to come off, the prevailing theory in the garage was that it was rigged. Well, NASCAR pretty much agreed and took 100 championship points from Edwards, suspended his Crew Chief for 6 weeks and fined him 100k for good measure. Jack Roush (Owner of Roush-Fenway Racing) went on a child lake tantrum at last weekends race in Atlanta talking about his integrity and how his teams do not cheat..blah, blah, blah. NASCAR has an appeal system set where you can appeal any penalty. Most teams appeal penalties..most of them do not get overturned...Every once and a while some do. So if you didn’t cheat, you have tons of integrity, and you are offended at the mere insinuation that you cheated...then don’t you file the appeal on principle? I guess you don’t if you actually did cheat so your horse toothed, back flipping driver could win a race.

6. Last one, because I like even numbers. Involves both Super Bowl teams. The Giants have just recently signed David Carr to a one year deal to back up Eli Manning. After winning the Super Bowl in stunning fashion this year, Giant fans will now know what its like to have a star quarterback backed up by a sack of potatoes,. My point is this... if Tom Brady ever suffers an injury that takes him out of a game or games... then we have Matt Cassel to back him up. That’s like going from a Ferrari to a Ford Pinto. And David Carr is a lot worse than Matt Cassel. He even gets sacked 6 times a night in his dreams. Anybody else wondering what the Patriot plan is for the secondary? They lost Asante Samuel to free agency, released Eugene Wilson (about time), and Randall Gay. That’s half their secondary and they are in dire need of making the line backing corps younger as well. Belichick always has a plan but my sense is that he is trying to overhaul a majority of that defense. He hates drafting linebackers..so he might grab a free agent line backer or two and then promote some of the young guys that have played in garbage time and special teams the past couple years, like Pierre Woods and Erick Alexander. Which leaves the draft to pick up some CB’s. They like bigger, physical corners for that defense (a la a younger Ty Law). Samuel and Gay were certainly not that and I think that’s the direction they are going to head. Their pass defense was soft at times this year and certainly in the last two minutes of the Super Bowl. We shall see..

I’ll be back on Monday with a weekend review and the official start of 'March Madness' Have a good weekend all.