Saturday, October 29, 2011

The Big Chill.......Vol. 40 (October 29, 2011)

Good Afternoon....

David Freese, hometown hero, wins the World Series MVP after the St. Louis Cardinals finish an unlikely comeback to win the 2011 MLB Championship....Freese slugged his way to an outstanding postseason, leaving the shadows to become a viable fantasy threat in 2012....How do the Texas Rangers feel after being defeated in the World Series two years in a row?....Chris Carpenter rebounds from a shaky first inning to hold the dangerous Rangers to only two runs after six innings....Pitching, especially starting pitching, proved to be the Texas achilles heel....Game 7 was anti-climatic after a pulsating Game 6, which shall go down as one of the best Series games ever played....The Pujols and Fielder sweepstakes begin in earnest shortly....Theo has his checkbook ready.

Who do you want to manage the Boston Red Sox?....I like Ryne Sandberg or Dave Martinez since my first choice Bobby Valentine is not on the short list....And how about Larry Lucchino?....Dissing Epstein already....Why can't this guy keep his mouth shut?....He got his power back, God bless Ben Cherington....The full page ad taken out by the former Boston GM thanking the fans was nice but it lacked the sincerity that Drew Bledsoe's had when he left for Buffalo.

The NBA cancels more games as the players slowly figure out that the owners are not going to budge from the 50/50 split and the pro game is becoming irrevelant.

An easy fix for the Boston Bruins....Fire Claude Julien....They won last year despite the coaching.

Young QB's continue to make an impression on the NFL season....Christian Ponder gave Green Bay all they could handle last week....But the week belonged to the Tim Tebow show....Ugly for 55 minutes, Tebow showed us the magic in the last five....Aided by an onside kick recovery Tebow revitalized the Denver team and their fans by LEADING them to overtime finishing the 4th quarter with one of his signature bull rushes.

Mikey Cee's NFL Selections (Week 8)
0-3 season total

Carolina - Minnesota over 47
New Orleans - St. Louis over 48
Philadelphia - Dallas over 50

"I wanted to have a career in sports when I was young, but I had to give it up.  I'm only 6 feet tall, so I couldn't play basketball.  I'm only 190 pounds, so I couldn't play football.  And I have 20-20 vision, so I couldn't be a referee." - Jay Leno

talk to ya........

Friday, October 21, 2011

The Flyer.......Vol. 39 (October 21, 2011)

Good Afternoon....

Phil Kessel is having a terrific start to the season, leading the NHL in scoring to this point....But I'm very pleased that the Bruins have Tyler "The Flyer" Seguin....This kid is gonna be something....He is not Jumbo Joe Thornton and he's not Phil Kessel....Seguin is a mature 19 year old with blazing speed and a crackerjack shot....Born to score....Claude Julien kept the reins too tight last year but he's starting to loosen up....Sure the kid will make mistakes....But his upside is sky high....Another Boston superstar.

Speaking of Boston superstars, at least we get to enjoy Jacoby "All-World" Ellsbury one more year before he gets outta town faster than Tito Francona did....And that was fast....Trust me, there is no way that All-World signs with Boston unless the Sox make him the highest paid outfielder in baseball history....MVP winner will be named soon and it's gotta be Ellsbury....After crunching the numbers all signs point to Jacoby....The Red Sox will regret the way they treated him in 2010....The guy was hurt, simple....But he answered all critics with his performance on the field in 2011.

I don't know if anyone else noticed but there is a World Series going on....Instead of the mess swirling around Yawkey Way....Good World Series with both teams playing National League baseball in a National League park....Reminds me of how badly I detest the designated hitter....Fundamentals (except for Pujol's missed cut-off), timely hitting, pitching and managerial chess moves....Real baseball....Nice comeback in ninth last night by the Rangers, clutch hit and great baserunning by Elvis Andrus.

Too bad she retired her show....Has anyone needed Oprah more than Josh Beckett and John Lackey?....Can't see Lackey putting on the Boston jersey again and Beckett has to do the mea culpa press conference....I dunno if he can pull it off  'cause those people from Texas got a pretty good chip on their shoulder.

What part of the owners are intent on killing the 2011-2012 season do the NBA player's association not understand?....Fellas, you're gonna cave sooner or later....Go overseas....We don't care....You have no leverage and you've been spoiled rotten for too long....Not that I'm on the owner's side but I certainly have no sympathy for the overpaid, underperforming player....Great move by the players bringing Kevin Garnett to the negotiating table....Pissed everybody off.

Week 7 in the NFL....A little fish n' chips and a pint are in order for halftime of the Chicago-Tampa Bay game to be held in London....Look for Tampa to pick off  Jolly Jay Cutler more than twice....What is Carson Palmer capable of after one week of practice?....Look for lots of Kansas City blitzes and lots of Darren McFadden....Three other QB's are scheduled to start for the first time on Sunday....Beck with Washington and Ponder with Minnesota are two....Gotta like Cam and Mr. Rodgers....The headline story is Tim Tebow leading the Broncos into Miami....The storyline is set, Tebow's alum the Florida Gators are being honored this weekend and it helps that the Dolphins are in the Suck for Luck sweepstakes....Big game for Timmy.

Mikey Cee's NFL selections - Week 7
Tennessee -3 over Houston
Green Bay -9 over Minnesota
Baltimore -8 over Jacksonville

"I'm the most loyal player money can buy." - Don Sutton

talk to ya.........

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Zoned In.......Vol. 38 (October 18, 2011)

Good Morning....

The times they are a changing....A few years ago Direct TV was the way to go because of their NFL package....Watch the game you wanted to, not just the one your local TV market was showing....Very popular and rightly so but you risked whiplash if you tried to follow all the games at your favorite wateringhole....Pricey, but enjoyable....But now there is NFL Redzone....Whiparound action of all games as they happen....All the action and no stiff neck....Perfection....Inexpensive....And no fucking commercials....In the end they show all touchdowns scored that Sunday....A little slice of heaven.

So the McCourts have settled their battle over the Dodgers....Frank keeps the team and continues his steel-cage match with Bud Selig....I think they should let McCourt sell the TV rights and keep the team but there is no way Battlin' Bud lets this happen....McCourt is fighting a losing battle but it's fun to watch....Jon Lester comes out to defend himself and Josh Beckett and John Lackey after Curt Schilling calls them out for not answering the critics....But no matter what Lester said it seemed he stepped into the shit a little deeper....Ah, when things go bad....Lester seems like a good man, Lackey is dysfunctional and Beckett is from Texas....Lackey and Beckett let Lester be the front man instead of standing up for themselves....What does that say?....I don't know how Lackey and Beckett can put the Red Sox uniform on again without clearing the air in Boston or else they may as well call Johnny Damon to find out what they can expect at their first appearance at Fenway in 2012....Let's call off the dogs as far as Francona and Lester are concerned....Theo Epstein too, once this protracted compensation matter is finished....Boston set the bar high, asking for Matt Garza in return....Thats not gonna happen....A Boston establishment is offering a new lunch special...."Rally" beer, fried chicken and a video game at a reasonable price.

How sad about the horrific IndyCar crash in Las Vegas that claimed the life of Dan Weldon....What were they thinking?....I'm talking about the organizers and the folks that run the IndyCar series....These cars usually run on a 2 1/2 mile track with 22 cars involved....This past Sunday they ran on a NASCAR track (1 1/2 miles) with 34 cars in the race....A recipe for disaster....And disaster is what happened.

I thought I was watching NFL Films Follies when Jim Schwartz and Jim Harbaugh had their little catfight after the Detroit-San Fran game....Both overreacted and both looked like a jackass....Harbaugh is passionate and Schwartz is intense....This had its roots in a dinner this past summer where Schwartzie told Harbaugh that if the lockout didn't end soon Harbaugh had no chance to build a winner with no time to prepare his team....Harbaugh bit his tongue....When Sunday's game started with a boatload of false starts by the visiting 49ers it didn't look like San Francisco had a chance....The 49ers came back to upset the Lions to go to 5-1....Harbaugh overreacted when celebrating his team's victory and when he smacked the Detroit head coach on the back Schwartz took exception....I found it very amusing.

Who said Al Davis was dead?....With the rumors flying that the Raiders were going to deal for David Garrard, Davis reaches from the grave to make a trade with old school Mike Brown of Cincinnati for Carson Palmer....Yes, that Palmer....The one that Brown repeatedly said he wouldn't trade....Two reported first round picks will change that way of thinking....Carson wins his holdout, goes back to the west coast and joins a lineup that includes Darren McFadden and tons of speed on the outside....And Al Davis was quoted as saying "just win, baby".

College football enters its meaty part of the schedule as this old-timer tries to keep track of which conference teams are in....Its gotten crazy....Looking forward to the LSU-Alabama slammer....Papa Joe going to his 38th bowl with Penn State....I've got Oklahoma State as a darkhorse for the BCS Championship....Stanford hopes that with any Luck the Champions will be the Cardinals.

Have the Boston Bruins finally woken up from their Stanley Cup slumber?....Terrible start....Lethargic play....This team needs to hit and fight....One of the unfortunate results of winning the Cup is that they kept Claude Julien as coach....The guy who tried to bury Tyler Seguin....Seguin is playing right wing on the third line 'cause we are told there are four better centers on the team in front of Seguin....Bullshit....Seguin is their best centericeman and should be playing on the top line....He's smart, super fast and has got a helluva shot....Pencil him in at C for the next 10 years and then just let him play....Putting him on the third line at RW is like the Red Sox putting Jacoby Ellsbury in left field when they signed Mike Cameron....Seguin is a potential MVP....Let the superstar be the superstar.

We've got the Tea Party out there, the Occupy Wall Street protest, the Republicans just saying "no" to everything, the ineffective Democrats, Herman Cain wanting to electrify fences, Barney Frank, Eric Cantor and everyone has an opinion....BUT NOBODY CARES ABOUT THE NBA!!....cool.

NFL Top Five
1. Green Bay
2. Baltimore
3. New England
4. San Diego
5. San Francisco

"I think my favorite sport in the Olympics is the one in which you make your way through the snow, you stop, you shoot a gun and then you continue on.  In most of the world, it is known as the Biathlon, except in New York City, where it is known as winter." - Michael Ventre, LA Daily News

talk to ya........................

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Oh Henry.......Vol. 37 (October 15, 2011)

Good Afternoon....

The three ring circus that is the Boston Red Sox continues....John Henry couldn't be found when Mid-Life Crisis Francona jumped ship but as his team is being slaughtered in print and thru the airwaves he makes a spontanoeus appearance on a local radio station in some kind of defense....He looked like an idiot....Just watching the rats scurry from the wreck....Adrian Godzalez is one naive superstar....Dude, wake up!....You are playing in Boston....David Ortiz, the big crybaby is whispering about how he doesn't know if he can handle the drama and will consider going to the classy Yankees organization....Don't let the door hit you in your fat ass ya bum....Francona, who was not the greatest of managers, leaves to pal around with Joe Buck....Theo Epstein trades in his gorilla suit for a white horse and rides into Chicago as a conquering hero as he leaves behind a heap of steaming shit....Josh Beckett, well he's from Texas, 'nuff said....And the should be MVP, All-World Ellsbury will again put up great numbers next year on the last year of his contract and then sign with the Evil Empire....Then we can pull Bob Lobel from the mothballs and we can all sing the refrain together "why can't we get players like that"....If the Sox want to keep All-World they are going to have to give him the richest contract in baseball history....Memo to John Henry: bunker down, shut the fuck up and ride out the storm.

On a lighter note, I still can't stop chuckling thinking about the guy throwing the hot dog at Tiger Woods....WTF?....Can't figure it out but it is funny....Very.

St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers do not like each other....And it looks like it's almost Miller Time as the RedBirds are on the cusp of sending the Brew Crew in search of a tee time....The Cardinals continue their torrid stretch since the beginning of September....The anti-Red Sox....I was reading someone's opinion that the Boston batting order of Ellsbury, Pedroia, Godzalez, Youkilis and maybe Ortiz at #5 was the best in baseball....PLEASE....First of all, one of the many mistakes that Francona made was not putting Carl Crawford back in the top of the order....Believe me, and I use Curtis Granderson as the example....Crawford will bounce back in 2012 and assuming the BoSox hire a capable manager he will be restored to the top three in the lineup....Remember Granderson had a shaky start in the Big Apple his first year there....Then he puts up MVP numbers in his next year....Second, the quoted lineup isn't even in the top five....The Yankees order of Jeter, Granderson, Cano, Teixeira and A-Rod isn't too shabby but I think the Texas gang of Kinsler, Andrus, Hamilton, Young, Beltre and Nelson Cruz is the best.

I used to be able to put a college football game on and know whose playing who by the uniforms they were wearing....Not anymore....Got the Michigan-Michigan State game on but you wouldn't know it by what they have on....It seems the Oregon Ducks have a different uni every week....I guess I'm old school....Simple is better....Dodgers, Red Sox, Yankees, Celtics...Simple but elegant.

"I don't know. I've never smoked Astro Turf." - Tug McGraw, when asked if he preferred grass or Astro Turf, April 1974

talk to ya....

Thursday, October 13, 2011

And In The End.......Vol 36. (October 13, 2011)

Good Afternoon....

Theo Epstein is now a Cubbie....Thanks for the outstanding job he did for the Boston Red Sox....It wasn't all perfect but the curse is gone and two championship flags hang in friendly Fenway....Best of luck, Chicago has a good one.

Back to the Beantown meltdown....Nice of the Boston media to point out all the things that went wrong this season....AFTER THE FACT....You're telling me that the local media did not know some of the things that were going on....A few weeks ago Peter Gammons let it out that there was a "disconnect" between Epstein and Terry Francona....The denials were swift and furious....Why would Gammons make up stories?....As a matter of fact when I heard the story I knew there was more to this than they were saying....Peter Gammons is one of the most respected baseball people out there....Drinking in the clubhouse, domestic problems, lack of conditioning and not many on the same page....Even the manager was suffering from domestic and personal issues....Not a word from the esteemed Boston media....Nomar was right....They suck....Also right is Buster Olney who reminded all that if the Red Sox had won one more game or the Yankees didn't give it to Tampa Bay we wouldn't be talking about this....But it is what it is....And when you lose sometimes the fingers start pointing....David Ortiz....Please, oh please, sign with the Yankees....So we can boo your fat ass when you come to Fenway....Look at the New York Jets....Full of themselves the last few years and now they are in the midst of a three game losing streak....The finger pointing has started....And Rex Ryan has lost his bluster.

Houston Astros are rumored to be heading to the American League to even the teams between the AL and the NL....So it's time to get rid of the designated hitter....IT'S TIME.

"October is not only a beautiful month but marks the precious yet fleeting overlap of hockey, baseball, basketball and football." - Jason Love

talk to ya..........

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Timmy Time.......Vol 35. (October 12, 2011)

Good Morning....

Shout out to the Henderson Boys!

It's about time the Denver Broncos wake up and start their saviour Tim Tebow....Yes, he may play ugly and his technique is lacking BUT ALL HE DOES IS WIN!....Reminds me of Doug Flutie....Beat down, looked down on and finally had to go to Canada to prove the naysayers wrong....They said Steve Young was too small....I don't know if Tebow can lead them to a winning season but football just got a lot more exciting in the Mile High city....Might have to tweak the offense to fit his skills but there is no doubt it's Timmy Time.

So Theo Epstein goes to the Cubbies and the Red Sox purge continues....Theo had to make the move....Lucchino on one side and Francona letting the clubhouse implode on the other side doesn't leave much choice especially with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in the Windy City....Looks like Ben Cherington is the Boston GM in waiting....Boston should sign Ryne Sandberg as manager in return....David Ortiz, Tim Wakefield, Jason Varitek, John Lackey, Dice-K, Jed Lowrie, Darnell MacDonald and Kevin Youkilis have got to go....Time to clean house and start over....The Sox have got to rebuild the farm system after trading three top prospects for Adrian Godzalez....What fires that boy up?....The even keel bullshit is gonna wear out its welcome in Beantown....Carl Crawford will bounce back in 2012.

Who cares if the NBA shuts the season down?....It's obvious thats what the owners want....To blow this bad boy up....And the players are blind....Please go overseas 'cause I don't want to hear it....NBA players are the most overpaid and underperforming pro athletes out there....Damage has already begun with the cancellation of the first two weeks....More to come....Who cares?

Major League Baseball playoffs are heating up....The big boys like Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun and Miguel Cabrera are bashing away while the rain has nullified Detroit's advantage with Justin Verlander....Doug Fister has kept Detroit's chances alive....Usually pitching shows up in the post season....This year Texas has won despite mediocre starting pitching and the pitchers didn't show up for the St. Louis/Milwaukee series....Yet.

I was chastised for my 2011 prediction that the Detroit Lions had a football team on both sides of the ball....Very exciting team....Great for the NFL....Need them to keep it up with a Turkey Day match up with the other unbeaten team Green Bay on the horizon.

NFL Top Five......
1. Green Bay
2. Detroit
3. New Orleans
4. Baltimore
5. New England

"It isn't hard to be good from time to time in sports.  What is though, is being good everyday." - Willie Mays

talk to ya....