Last night's hockey game was a doozy, although I missed some big chunks of it to get wedding invitations out. The good news is everything is tied and mostly printed. Now it's just printing the big envelopes that the invites actually go in, and we're done. Other than paying for postage, which gives me shudders. Still, I loved every part I saw, including the whole third period. The goaltending on both ends was superb, a shame somebody had to lose. But, it wouldn't be sports without that. Congrats to Vancouver for finally breaking through with 18 ticks left on the clock. We'll do it again Saturday, though I'll probably have to record it. Now, I was going to do this yesterday, but there was big hockey news I wanted to hit. So, today we're doing an MLB Reset. Let's start with my personal favorite division, the NL Central. The Cards are sitting in first with the Brewers a few games behind them. The slumping Reds sit in third, with the right-where-I-thought-they'd-be Pirates a game and a half behind them. The Cubs are barely outpacing the Astros, and getting swept by Houston in Wrigley didn't help matters. This division is playing about pretty much as expected. The Cardinals are a little better, the Reds a little worse, but neither so off-pace that they can't settle where I predicted. I'll stick by what I said here. In the NL East, the Phillies are the top dogs. I didn't predict that, but I'm not at all surprised and have no problem amending that. I'll give the Phightin's the nod from here. Right now Florida is sitting in second, and I thought they would be pretty good. I still think Atlanta, currently in third, will overtake them and be the wild card. The Mets and Nationals are pretty much lost causes, though the Nats have the young players that the future looks bright. The Mets, well, I don't know how anybody can get that upset at Wilpon. He was just telling the truth. Out in the NL West, the Diamondbacks have come out of nowhere. I think I had them slotted for last, though I remember being pleasantly surprised at their roster when they rolled into Wrigley. They could be a dangerous team. I'm still not convinced their pitching is going to be good enough to hold on to this division, but they have a very good (and young) lineup that's going to keep them in ballgames. Still, the Giants are only a half game back, and they are the defending the champs. And it (thankfully) looks like Posey is coming back. I'm going to say they take the division, and very possibly the NL crown again. The Rockies are only four and a half back, but that team has been a big disappointment. They hit like everybody thought, but the pitching has been atrocious, which I honestly didn't see coming. San Diego I didn't think would score enough runs to be a threat, so I'm not shocked to see them in last place. The Dodgers are probably close to what I thought, given the mess surrounding them right now. In the AL Central, the Indians continue to roll with the best record in the American League. The rest of that division is too sad to really discuss. The Royals have cooled off, the Twins and White Sox continue to be awful. Detroit's been decent, scratching up to a winning record, but too big of a hole against a team that's apparently just too good. I will eat as much crow as the city of Cleveland wants me to, though thankfully I'm small time stuff, so I haven't gotten any wrath.* The Tigers have put themselves possibly in a spot for a wildcard. Put me down as somebody who will be fervently rooting for that. *I would take some wrath for readership, though. I'm not too proud. In the AL East, the Yankees are ahead, but not without their own drama.* Plus, that division is tightly bunched. The Orioles are the only team with a losing record, sitting at a respectable 25-29. This division could end up beating up on each other enough that only one team comes out of it, which I would love. I've always had a soft spot for the Blue Jays, so I'll be rooting for them to make a run. I think it comes from them being the champs when I really remember first watching baseball. Plus, they've not been to the playoffs in a while, it'd be nice to see them back. *The Derek Jeter Hit Counter is up to 2,984. Keep swinging, cap'n. That leaves us with the AL West, which finds everybody within three and a half games of each other. The Rangers are in first, and will probably carry the division, but I see this one close all the way through, so long as Seattle can keep scoring runs like they have been so far. I thought the A's would be better than they've shown so far, but I see this one staying close all summer. The Danville Dans have their opening day tomorrow. Get ready to read about some summer college ball. It's official: the Atlanta Thrashers are dead, on their way to Winnipeg. Now the question is what to call the team. The two leading contenders seem to be either readopting the Jets moniker, or upgrading the Moose nickname from the minors. I could probably write more about this, but it has to be the Jets, doesn't it? I guess I wasn't really paying that much attention when the move to Phoenix happened, as it was in 1996. I was ten years old and paying much more attention to the Olympics in Atlanta. But, from my understanding of the aftermath, it had much more to do with the Canadian dollar more or less failing that drove Winnipeg and Quebec to the States. Plus, there wasn't a good revenue sharing system and maybe not even a salary cap. Or, at least, not a sensible one, as the cancellation of the 04-05 season would show.* *There seems to be something very stark about that Wikipedia article when it lists "Duration: Not Played." Am I going a little picture crazy today? Probably. Oh well. But, the Stanley Cup Finals start tonight, and if you've not paid any attention to any sports media lately, it starts tonight in Vancouver, pitting the Canucks against the Boston Bruins. This is a pretty classic match up. Boston is an original six team and five time winners of Lord Stanley's Cup (though the last came in 1972). They've also had the "spoked B" basically since the team's inception. Vancouver is celebrating it's 40th year as an NHL team and has never won a Stanley Cup. Their uniform history is, uh, a little more varied than Boston's, as we've discussed here before. That's the history, though. This is now. Obviously, these are both very good teams. Vancouver was the top team in the regular season, and other than a three game stretch against Chicago, they've pretty well breezed through the playoffs. Their roster is full of big time names, though the big three to pay attention to for the casual fan would be goalie Roberto Luongo and the Sedin twins, Henrik and Daniel. You'll be able to tell who they are, because they are carbon copies of one another. The rest of the team is pretty darned good, too, but those are the big names. Boston also has a stud goaltender in Tim Thomas. Their captain is Zhedno Chara, who is one of the biggest players in the NHL (standing 6'9", 255 lbs) and has won four of the last five (only missing in 2010) Hardest Shot competitions during All-Star weekend. His win from this past year set a record (which he already owned) at 105.9 MPH. I know Luongo has some extra padding as a goalie, but taking a frozen piece of rubber to the head, helmeted or not, at 106 MPH doesn't sound like my idea of a good time. Again, many other good players, but those are probably the key guys to know. As far as a prediction, I've adopted Vancouver as my team, and they've breezed through a very solid San Jose team, a solid Nashville team, and with the exception of the three games where the Canucks just weren't themselves, made the Blackhawks look silly. The Bruins absolutely crushed Philadelphia, but the Flyers have some major issues in goal, so I'm not quite as impressed. They barely scraped by a Montreal team that I really thought would win that series, and a game Tampa Bay team took them to seven games. The Bruins are good, but I just think Vancouver is better. I say the Canucks win in, let's see. . . how about six. That feels about right. Now, obviously, there is no good reason for a young kid (or a kid of any age, for that matter) to be riding an alligator. Is that Photoshopped? I sure hope so. Anyway, this photo relates to the French Open, because it too featured a kid who was somewhere he really didn't need to be. Here's the video. That was pretty bad. But I couldn't help feeling some deja vu as I watched. Where else have I seen a uniformed kid in the right place at the wrong time? Then it hit me. JT Snow snatching three-and-a-half year old Darren Baker (now Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker's kid) away from home plate during the 2002 World Series. This picture doesn't even begin to capture what it was like to see it live, and Snow ought to have been given a medal for that catch. Unfortunately, MLB is well-known to be draconian about their online video presence, so no luck finding anything on YouTube. Or anywhere else, for that matter. So this picture and the hope that you were also watching is all we have.
That's enough for today, but before I sign off, a hearty congratulations are in order for Jordan Lyles. He made his major league debut last night in Wrigley Field for the Astros and proceeded to throw seven shut-out innings. The eighth might have been a shut out, too, except he decided to throw to third to get the lead runner instead of the sure out at first on a bunt. Big Z also pitched very well, giving up just a single run on a solo homer in seven innings. Things got ragged when the bullpens got involved, Carlos Marmol especially didn't have his stuff. I was really hoping to see a dual complete game. I don't know the last time that happened, and that is sad to me. I wonder if the last occasion was even in my lifetime. This line used to say the Cubs played the White Sox today, but that isn't right at all. The Cubs schedule calender I have on my cubicle is set up kind of odd, so I looked at July 1st instead of June 1st. It's still in a couple hours, but it's just boring old Houston. Who the Cubs can't beat. |
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