Johan Santana Joins the New York Mets

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I just wanted to throw out my thoughts about Santana going to the Mets. Pretty simple: The Twins didn’t get enough back for him. The Twins have a great history of judgejing minor league talent (See: 2003, Boof Bonser, Francisco Liriano, and Joe Nathan to the Twins for A.J. Pierzynski and cash to the Giants), but giving up the best SP in the game is a bit much for four prospects.

Also, why didn’t the Red Sox make that trade happen? Listen to this potential 5-man rotation and you tell me if they wouldn’t be the favorite to win the World Series for the next 3 years:

Santana
Beckett
Dice-K
Schilling
Either Lester or Buchholz (one of them would have been in the trade)

You’re telling me that anybody could beat the Red Sox in a 5-7 game series with that going against them? Theo Epstein needs my cell number.

Anyway, check out my objective commentary here.

Dana Jacobson Follow-up

ESPN's Jacobson back on air, apologizes for comments at roast

ESPN2 "First Take" host Dana Jacobson returned to the air Monday with another apology for comments she made at a Jan. 11 celebrity roast for ESPN Radio personalities Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic.”

"Mistakes do not define us. It's how we respond to those mistakes that does," Jacobson said in her on-air apology.

Well her mistake was drinking too much vodka at a public setting. Her response to that mistake was lobbing expletives at Notre Dame and Christianity as a whole. Either way, I wish her the best in the career rebuilding phase of her life. Just lay off the vodka Dana and everything should be fine.

FA Cup: The World’s Greatest Tournament

As a sports fan, one of my favorite times of the year is the month of March. Growing up near the University of Kentucky, its impossible not to get caught up in March Madness. I love the idea that any team in the country can qualify for a spot in the 64 team field. (I refuse to admit the Play-In Game exists.) Well if you’re a fan of the NCAA tournament, I’ve got news for you. It pales in comparison to England’s FA Cup.

Disclaimer: The FA Cup is a soccer tournament. I’m just talking about the setup of the league and the tourney; so even if you hate soccer, please keep reading.

English Soccer 101: Think of English soccer as an uber-version of Major League Baseball. But instead of baseball’s 4 major divisions (MLB, AAA, AA, and A), English soccer has 14 separate classifications, culminating in its Premier League. If you get interested, read all about the English Football League System.

The best thing about the setup is that each league promotes and demotes teams from year to year. So at the end of this season, the 3 teams with the lowest amount of points in the Premier League (accumulated similar to the NHL), will be demoted to Football League Championship (AAA). Those teams will be forced to WIN their way back into the big time. Similarly, three teams from the FLC, will be promoted to the promised land.

Imagine if the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Kansas City Royals, and Pittsburg Pirates all got kicked back to AAA. In turn, Nashvillians would truly root for the Sounds, because if they finished in the top three, they would be in MLB the next year!

For all practical purposes, teams in the top 11 tiers are allowed to enter the FA Cup. Teams in better leagues get byes to further rounds. An astonishing 665 teams entered last year’s draw. The tournament exists amidst league play and lasts for an incredible 9 months. Besides the initial byes, there isn’t any seeding. All match-ups are drawn before each round. So there isn’t a bracket; you could play any team remaining in the tournament at any time. There are from time to time historic upsets. The system is set up so that the West Tenn. Diamond Jaxx would have a change to beat the Boston Red Sox.

I think tournaments/league setups are the reasons soccer fans in Europe are so passionate. There is always a chance for greatness.

ESPN Execs: "She said WHAT?!"

I really hate political correctness. I think society has gotten to a point where we rip people apart before learning all the details or know somebody’s true heart. A while back a female golf analyst jokingly remarked that other golfers should “lynch” Tiger Woods to keep him from winning tournaments. If she would have said “shoot him” or “stab him” people would have laughed/shook their head at her and moved on. Instead she threw out a word that conjures up awful racial sentiments and all kinds of craziness broke loose.

I think it was a ridiculous word choice, but when Tiger Woods himself comes to her defense, I think we as a society have to move on. So with that said, this next story draws the exact opposite response out of me.

Here’s a brief description from an Atlantic City paper of what transpired at a roast for ESPN radio hosts Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic when Cold Pizza host Dana Jacobson took to the stage:

“ESPN anchor Dana Jacobson made an absolute fool of herself, swilling vodka from a Belvedere bottle, mumbling along and cursing like a sailor as Mike & Mike rested their heads in their hands in embarrassment. (Comedian Eddie) Griffin came to the podium to defend her after she was booed by the crowd. Ross eventually had to pull her off stage, too.”

So what in the world did this seemingly shy lady say that drew such a response? From multiple reports, she threw out these 3 bombs:

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"f**k Notre dame"

"f**k touchdown Jesus"

and - the step-aside-because-lightning-is-about-to-strike… "f**k Jesus."

In a statement, Jacobson said,

"I am sorry. My remarks about Notre Dame were foolish and insensitive. I respect all religions and did not mean anything derogatory by my poorly chosen words. I also deeply regret the embarrassment I've caused ESPN and Mike and Mike. My actions at the roast were inappropriate and in no way represent who I am. I won't make excuses for my behavior, but I do hope I can be forgiven for such a poor lack of judgment."

Yeesh, where do I begin with this? I’m just going to list a couple thoughts and be done with it.

1) ESPN really tried to keep this under raps and only said something about it once a Catholic organization said something about it. Nice job sports leader.
2) If she would have said a derogatory remark about Muhammad, she would have been fired in about 3 seconds.
3) It’s crazy how two words can ruin a person’s image.
4) Its sad how mad I got when I first heard this story.
5) It’s amazing how forgiving Jesus Christ is, even when so many people don’t realize/understand his divinity.

MLS SuperDraft..Yes its Real

Without any significant national exposure, the MLS conducted its 9th annual SuperDraft this weekend. The timing of the draft itself must be called into question.

Why didn’t the MLS wait until after the Super Bowl to hold this? MLS should schedule the draft before MLB teams have their pitchers and catchers report for training camp. That timeframe would also still miss out on all the pre-March Madness hoopla. Waiting 2 weeks would be worth the exposure. For a league still struggling for national attention, they should have used the dead time in February to garner a little more publicity. I would safely wager that none of this blog’s readers knew the MLS even had a draft recently. Speculating further I bet nobody reading this even realized how the MLS got their players.

Soccer in the United States is struggling because it is lacking the ability to cultivate local stars. I, along with the majority of soccer fans, don’t really care which 22 players are on the field at a given time. But for a sport to survive in the US, you must cultivate stars that fans can get behind. MLS execs must put more focus on the draft and work closer with the NCAA to cross-promote. That is why the NBA has started to see a renewed interest -- we actually have gotten to know starts that are coming into the league.

The draft itself was categorized as “unpredictable” by a majority of experts, including ESPN’s Ives Galarcep. You can check his column here for a bio of all of the first round selections. He went on to say that “the Chicago Fire, Toronto FC and Kansas City Wizards were the big winners Friday”. But as in everything, only time will tell who will benefit the most from Friday’s draft.

There's a Reason They Call Them Free Throws

As a young impressionable boy, I remember three things most about my high school basketball career:

1) Scoring a career-high 17 points on Senior Night when Estill Co. didn’t follow the extensive scouting report on me and decided to play 2-3 zone. I can only do one thing well in basketball; stand and shoot, and Estill Co. played right into my hands. By the way, over the course of my 4-year “career” I probably scored 17 points combined in all other games, so I still contribute to the Estill Co. alumni fund.

2) During a disastrous loss my junior year, coach was going to put me in for some classy scrub minutes. As you can image I was pretty pumped. Time to impress. We were already down by about 20, so I really couldn’t screw up. Well, so I thought. Coach came over to pull me into the game. I stood up and swiftly ripped off my button-up warm up pants. You know the ones that come off in one violent motion. I pulled my pants off triumphantly, and much to everyone’s surprise, my left hand literally punched my coach in the nose. That was the only time I’ve “punched” anybody or thought I was going to be killed. The bench completely lost their minds laughing out loud, which, well, didn’t help anything.

3) Finally, when University of Kentucky legend Kyle Macy came to one of our practices to teach us the art of free-throw shooting. Here’s why he came, from his Wikipedia entry no less: “Macy was an excellent free throw shooter throughout his career. He still holds the career free throw shooting percentage record at the University of Kentucky, as well as the Phoenix Suns franchise record. Macy emphasizes free throw shooting in his coaching, and the emphasis has paid off, as his Morehead State teams were perennially among the Division I leaders in free throw shooting percentage.” In 3 hours, he basically gave us his philosophy on winning basketball games: low turnovers and hitting free throws.
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Why I’m I referencing a forgotten legend? Well, because I watched the North Carolina/Clemson men’s basketball game last night. I’ve been watching a lot of college basketball this year. I had seen North Carolina play twice against nobodies, so I was very excited to see them take on a solid team. Clemson was ranked 19th and their only loss came against an undefeated Ole Miss school.

I came away with a couple quick thoughts:

1) One of the better games I’ve seen in a long time
2) NC’s Ty Lawson is pretty much un-guardable when he wants to drive
3) NC’s Tyler Hansbrough was over-matched against two large post bodies
4) At about the 3:00 mark left in the second half I realized some guys named Ellington had 30 points for NC. Who is this guy? I kept hearing about the previous two guys and Green. Man, I really missed the boat on this guy
5) Clemson’s Terrence Oglesby doesn’t have a conscious. He was 1-8 on 3’s and shot some of them from a fictitious Rock N’ Jock line. I like confidence, but jeez some of those were ridiculous.

6) I am thoroughly convinced that Clemson would beat North Carolina 7 times out of 10 IF…drum roll……..they were a better free throw shooting team.

They hit 52% (14-27), while NC was at 80% (24-30). Clemson as a whole averages 65% as a team at the line. This is what we call a team that likes to throw games away. If they don’t straighten up, they’re likely to lose a lot of ACC games but not being able to close teams out. Here is my recommendation for March: Circle them in your bracket and promptly have them getting beat by Fairleigh-Dickinson. Gotta hit your free throws fellas. If Kyle Macy coached Clemson, you would be looking at a Final Four team.

Team First (Seriousness Level: Low)

I wanted to give a quick congratulations to Brian Westbrook of the Philadelphia Eagles for his unselfish act in last night’s game. His team was up 4 with the ball against their rival Dallas Cowboys. Basically, if the team held on to the ball they were going to win the game.

Westbrook broke a run and was trotting towards the end zone. He could have easily scored and padded his stats, but instead, he headed the advice of a teammate and stopped at the one-yard-line and insured victory. If he would have scored, Dallas would have had about 2 minutes for a possible TD, 2-pt conversion/onside kick/FG to tie the game. It would have been highly unlikely, but I’ve seen crazier things happen.

Anyway, in this me-first sports world, it was nice to see a guy think of the team ahead of himself.

Read the full story here:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3158572

Vanderbilt’s International Invasion (Seriousness Level: Low)

I’ve been a bit skeptical about Vanderbilt Men’s Basketball team. As my good friend Jon pointed out, they didn’t seem to have a go-to guy in the clutch like last year. Well after tonight’s game, I don’t think it matters. A couple fun things regarding Vandy’s great come-from-behind win at DePaul:

Vandy trailed 58-40 early in the second half.
Vandy trailed by 10 with less than 5 minutes left in the game.
Vandy is the first 10-win team in the country

I’m not one for hyperbole, but this win was one of the gutsiest I’ve seen in a long time. They could have packed it in numerous times and refused. I’m official sold as this team being able to handle about any situation thrown at them. At this point, they look to be a lock for a 16-0 record before SEC play. I’ll be randomly talking about this team throughout the season, so if you want to join the bandwagon, here are my favorite three players:

Andrew Ogilvy #4, Center: One of the top freshmen in the country. Period. From ESPN’s feature piece on him. “One NBA player personnel director told ESPN.com this week that Ogilvy already solidly projects in the 14 to 20 range of the first round if he chooses to make himself available for June's NBA draft.” He’s an extremely athletic big man who hits free throws. Oh yeah, and he’s from Australia. He’s half kola bear and two-thirds kangaroo. What’s not to like.

Shan Foster #32, Shooting Forward: Probably the heart and soul of the team. He’s passion on the sidelines either inspires his team or really ticks them off. I’m hoping it’s the former. He really doesn’t have a great ability to create his own shot, which bothered me last year. But with Ogilvy down low, double teams have to come from somewhere. And with coach Stallings knack for ball movement, he has the opportunity to stand and shoot a lot. Good times.

Alan Metcalfe #11, Forward/Center: I’ve liked this guy for a couple years. He’s always seemed to be a very hard worker. He’s from England and I remember hearing that he’s a boxer, so I like to imagine him as one of the gypsies from “Snatch”. From now on let’s call him Mikey O’Neil. I’ve never heard him talk, so I hope his voice is either A: a garbled mess or B: VERY high pitched like David Beckham. Either way, Ogilvy seems to get in foul trouble a bit, and in tonight’s game Englishman stepped in and put up 18, most coming in the first half.

Ping Pong Domination

I can now say that I am consistently beating Eric in Ping Pong. He had been complaining that our paddles were low quality, and that is why he couldn't beat me. So we bought him "the contender" (I'm not kidding, that's the name of this stupid paddle). So last night we played...Eric had his contender and I had my 25 cent paddle. Guess who won? Shannon. 3-1. You can now add your comments to make fun of Eric that he consistenly looses to his wife in Ping Pong. And yes, this is my face poorly photoshopped onto an Asian player.

(Posted by Shannon Adams)

BCS Part I (Seriousness Level: Elevated)

A lot of my sports stuff will be lighthearted and shorter, but with the BCS in the public spotlight, I had to discuss it. Today, the general problems with the system:

Steps in the right direction:
· The Elimination of Split National Champions: In 1997, Michigan finished the season as #1 in the AP poll and Nebraska wound up #1 in the ESPN/Coaches poll. Both teams were credited with a national title. That was a great way to reward to undefeated teams, but having two champions is absurd. Something had to be done. So at the end of the year, the BCS allows us to remember one team as a champion. Well except for 2003 when the AP went rouge and voted for USC, but that’s a story for another time.
· Money: Although I don’t have all the financial data, it’s safe to assume this system has brought in tons of money in TV deals and naming rights. Fox is in the tail end of a $320 million dollar 4-year deal. That money has been funneled back into colleges, which is nice…sort of.

Things that have not been addressed:
· What happens when there are not two clear cut front runners?: The best example I can think of is from the 2004 season. That’s when Dink and Flika’s own Auburn Tigers were left out of the BCS title game. They finished 13-0 but that wasn’t enough. The problem was that there were equally deserving teams. USC and Oklahoma made the game with the SEC Champs left out in the cold. How can any team from a power conference with an undefeated record not be given a shot? This leads to the next point
· Teams do not control their own destiny: In every sport in the US, maybe the world, every sports team has a shot at winning their respective championship at the beginning of the season. This is not currently the case in D-I college football. Let’s take this year’s Hawaii team. Are they the best team in the county? Probably not. But they deserve to play until somebody beats them. There have been many stories written about how major programs will refuse to schedule them. So for the sake of argument, what if Akron fields the best team in the history of football in 2008? There is NO possible way that will have the chance to jump other power schools to be eligible for a title. Out of the D-I schools, I would say regardless of talent or record, about 50% of them will have no opportunity to play.

There are tons of other issues, but I think the last point is the one that discredits the system the most. Basically college presidents have set up a system that makes them a ton of money, but doesn’t give their students a fair system to play in. How can the NCAA, which was created to act as a collective voice for 100+ schools, support a system that passively segregates some of its schools from the sport’s pinnacle?

Coming Friday: What’s the best way to fix this?