Playoffs

Baseball Playoffs

Though long, as long as 5 hours in one case, the baseball playoffs have been pretty entertaining, full of clutch plays, miscues, good pitching and loads and loads of drama.

As much as I loathed the outcome, Saturday night’s Yankees win was a classic. And it was good to finally see the Angels break through tonight. I thought they were definitely toast this afternoon, especially after Bobby Abreu got thrown out by whom else – Derek Jeter – trying to stretch a leadoff double into a triple.

But Joe Girardi will be mercilessly second guessed for taking out Robertson and bringing in Aceves, with TWO outs and nobody on in the 11th. Aceves gave up back-to-back hits, a single and a long double, and gave the Angels life in the process.

One random note: I think Joe Buck and Tim McCarver are doing a great job announcing this series.

I know he can sound smug, but I think in general McCarver is a pretty fine analyst. He sure has some juju over Mariano Rivera. In 2001, he practically predicted that a blooper against Rivera could drop with the Yankees playing the infield in, and as folks know that is exactly what happened as the Diamondbacks defeated New York to win game 7. Today he mentioned that in that same 2001 World Series game Rivera made a throwing error on a bunt seconds before Rivera made ANOTHER error fielding a bunt.

Despite the pummeling the Dodgers received in game 3 I am still on the LA bandwagon. I thought the game was over tonight when Howard hit that 2-run blast in the first. But the Dodgers made a nice comeback to take the lead as I blog between innings, 4-3.

One other random note: Besides Carolina blue, of course, is there a finer, more beautiful color than Dodger Blue? That uni is a classic; ditto the LA hat.

Greece is in the playoffs, too

The Greek men’s football team will play Ukraine in a two-game playoff with the winner qualifying for the 2010 World Cup. Greece, Ukraine, and six other squads that came in the second in their groups are in the playoffs.

The first game, on November 14^th, is in Athens, and the second game is in Ukraine on November 18^th. Let me know if you want to cover over to watch that contest on Saturday the 14^th.

Greece has some history with Ukraine. One, we civilized them and they use the Cyrillic alphabet. And two, in 2006 the two nations played in the same group, with Ukraine qualifying while Greece, the 2005 European champs, finished a disappointing third.

This year, Ukraine came in second in their group - won by England - and even defeated the English squad 1-0 in London (though in fairness to the Knights of St. George they had already qualified and fielded a B-team in that contest).

Ukraine has some good players who are regulars in the English Premier League, but from a cultural stand point join Moldova, Latvia, and Luxembourg in Greece’s recent run of games versus utterly inconsequential countries.

However, like Switzerland – who defeated Greece twice in the qualifying round - Ukraine also has a sordid history of Nazi collaboration. The Nazi occupiers found many willing collaborators in Ukraine, mainly nationalists who hated that Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union (those same folks really hated Jews, too).

All in all it’s a decent draw. Having the first game in Athens should help, and the Hellenic team should want to avenge having Ukraine keep them out of the previous World Cup.

A birth in the world’s most popular sporting event, revenge and pay back for being Nazi collaborators should make it an entertaining two-game playoff.

Cornucopia

It's a cornucopia blog this holiday Monday - lots of different sports topics to cover including a new one! I know, cornucopia is more of a Thanksgiving thing, but they both involve indigenous peoples so why not?

Baseball playoffs

The Twins did not deserve to win their series against the Yankees. The Twinkies had multiple chances to win games 2 and 3 and could not make a play, or plays, when needed. The Yankees did the opposite; even players like A-Rod stepped up. From Nick Punto to Joe Nathan to 17 left on base Minnesota had chances but simply did not capitalize.

Jonathan Papelbon caught some of what Joe Nathan had in giving up a two-run lead on Sunday as the BoSox were swept by the LAAofA. But unlike the Twins, who were in two of the three games they lost, you never got the sense that the Red Sox had a chance against Anaheim. The game one shut out by John Lackey seemed to sap the strength from the Sox, and their offense never recovered.

It should be an interesting ALCS. Petite and Sabathia will make the Yankees tough to beat. If those two start four of the seven games it will hard for the Angels to match up with New York.

In the NL, in sweeping St. Louis the Dodgers reminded everyone why they were the best team in the Senior Circuit for much of the summer. Andre Ethier, rejuvenated starting pitching, and timely relief pitching and hitting did in Tony LaRussa's squad.

Vicente Padilla's start, where he dominated the Cardinals in game 3, is making me believe that the AL may be that much better than the NL. In Texas, Padilla had an ERA of almost 5 (4.92 to be exact) before getting cut by the Rangers. With the Dodgers he went 4-0 with a 3.20 ERA, then pitched 8 innings of shut out baseball against Albert Pujols and company. In the playoffs. On the road.

Finally, the Phillies look like they will pay back the Rockies for the 2007 playoffs after winning game 3 last night. I still think the Phillies are the team to beat in the NL.

Change ups in Little League

Evan's Major League Little League team (majors is 10-12 year olds) lost a scrimmage game on Saturday 7-3. He went 1-3 but struck out in his final at bat. He was way ahead of the pitch he struck out on, and I thought he just was anxious or he simply struck out.

Then two batters later, one of his teammates struck out on the same pitch. I was coaching third base, near the other team's dugout, and asked one of the coaches if their pitcher was actually throwing change ups. The coach said yes, he was throwing change ups but only in certain situations. This is a 10-year old kid mixing up pitches and using a change up - in Little League - as his out pitch.

Quick Soccer Update

The U.S. went on the road to defeat Honduras on Saturday to clinch a spot in the 2010 World Cup. Any road win in Latin America is big. Not only was it a road win, but it was a come-from-behind road win. I'd write more, but the game was not shown on cable or free TV so I only saw highlights. The U.S. TV rights were held by a company that only offered the game via pay-per-view ( a la boxing and ultimate fighting).

Similarly, Greece dominated Latvia in the second half in a 5-2 comeback win. Fanis Gekas, the 2007 Bundesliga scoring champ who has been a non-entity in European soccer ever since, netted four goals for the Hellenes. Greece trails Switzerland by 3 points as both teams head into their final qualifying matches. Press reports say Greece can win their group outright if Ellas wins (at home versus Luxembourg) and Switzerland loses (at home to a surging Israel team). That would leave each team with 20 points. However, Greece lost to Switzerland twice so I can't see why Greece would advance unless the tie-breaker is goal differential and not head-to-head competition.

FYI, Greece's game over an obscure team and nation like Latvia sent me to the Internet. I could only find one Latvian restaurant listed in the entire U.S., the 'King of Latvia Deli' appropriately located in the great American melting pot of Brooklyn. And wikipedia lists Buddy Ebsen as the most famous Latvian-American of all time. That's right, Jedd Clampett/Barnaby Jones's mom was Latvian.

BOXING in the blog!

Great article on Sugar Ray Robinson in Sunday's Post. It's a mini-boxing boomlet here, as in addition to the Sugar Ray article I watched the Mike Tyson documentary over the weekend.

I've always found Tyson fascinating. He's very introspective and unsentimental about his failures in the movie. And only 20 minutes into the film he starts to cry when discussing his former manager Cus D'Amato, who discovered Tyson in a state juvenile facility when he was 14-years old.

Sad to see what has happened to boxing, how a simple and elemental sport can become so vulgar and grotesque and buffoonish. How can a sport turn fighters - serious, skilled, sober men - into cartoons? Is it Muhammad Ali's fault, who acted more clown than sober champ after regaining the title from Joe Frazier? Most of the blame rests with promoters like Don King, who shunned free TV in favor of pay-per-view, and multiple governing bodies and the alphabet soup of associations handing out titles.

Boxing, along with baseball and horse racing, used to rule the roost in the U.S., and being heavyweight champ was like being the king of the world. Boxing used to be great and the Sugar Robinson article, excerpted from the book "Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson" by Wil Haywood captures both the era and the tactics and challenges that were the reasons boxing used to be called the 'sweet science.'

Great start to the postseason

What a great game today/tonight between the Twins and the Tigers. That game had everything - big hits, great catches, plays at the plate, bone headed plays, and extra innings.

Let's hope the Twins' roll continues tomorrow against the Yankees. That kind of momentum can take a team a long way. The Rockies rode a great September, and a one-game playoff win, all the way to the 2007 World Series.

The 2009 playoffs look wide open. The Dodgers will likely dispatch the Cardinals, but the Phillies could either win it all or lose to the once-again hot Rockies. I see both the Dodgers and Phils advancing, with the Phillies repeating as NL champs.

In the AL, I'll stick with the Twins to upset the Yankees and the Angels to top the Sox, with the Angels stopping the Twins' run.

If that happens baseball will have something it has rarely had since the demise of the recent Yankees Jeter-Torre-Williams-Posada-Rivera-Petitite dynasty - a repeat champion. If the Phillies or Angels go to the Series one team will join the 2004 and 2007 Red Sox as the only squad with more than one championship since 2001.

In that regard baseball has had much more parity than the other major sports; seven different teams have won the last eight World Series.

Compare that to the NBA, where six teams (Lakers, Spurs, Celtics, Bulls, Pistons, Rockets) have won 24 of the last 25 championships. That league is an oligarchy.

The NFL is like the NBA, with two teams (Pats and Steelers) winning five of the last eight Super Bowls. However, to the Super Bowl's credit some odd teams such as the Arizona Cardinals and Seattle Seahawks have played for a championship recently,

From First to Worst

But enough about championship teams, let's revisit our hometown Nats. The Nationals finished the 2009 season as the only team to start the season with a seven-losing streak and end it with a seven-game winning streak. They also had an eight-game win streak in there too.

In fact, if you look at the standings at the end of that eight-game streak the Nats were in last place with a 40-72 record. The other last place teams were: Pittsburgh (45-66); San Diego (47-66); Baltimore (46-66); Kansas City (43-68) and Oakland (50-62). A few things worth noting:

• At that point the Nats were only 3 games back of the Royals and 5 of the Pirates, and for a while Evan and I hoped we would catch one of those teams and not finish with the worst record in the majors. That did hot happen;
• It didn't happen because the Nats finished the season by going 19-31;
• However, if you add the eight-game winning streak it's an almost respectable 27-31 record;
• The only teams to win fewer games than the Nats after August 11th were the Orioles with 17 and the PIrates with 17;
• Of the six teams in last place on August 11th, five finished in last place. The only team to move up in the standings were the Padres, who went 27-20 after August 2nd to pass the Diamondbacks (18-30 after the 2nd).

For the record, here are the standings for the last place teams AFTER August 11th:

San Diego 27-20

Oakland 25-24

Kansas City 22-28

Washington 19-31

Arizona 18-31

Pittsburgh 17-32

Baltimore 17-32

So compared to our last place colleagues, the Nats didn't do so bad (except compared to those show offs in California).

Finally, it will be interesting to see what the Nats' front office does in the off season. In today's Post GM Mike Rizzo stated 'we are not going to bring back the same team that won only 58 games.' It seems safe to assume that the core of good (ZImmerman, Dunn, Lannan), hurt and/or promising (Morgan, Flores, Dukes, Detwiler, Mock, Staman, Desmond) and decent (MacDougal, Martin) players will return but after than who knows?

Carolina Football

I still cannot believe how badly Carolina played - in Chapel Hill! - in their loss to previously winless Virginia. The young offensive line has been exposed, and as a result the 2009 football season is practically over for the Heels.