Blue Streak

The Blues are currently enduring the downswing of a season long trend. St. Louis has gone all year without a streak, either winning or losing, stopping at just one game.

The opened the season with consecutive wins over the Flyers and Ducks. The Blues went on to lose three straight, all on the road, to Chicago, Nashville, and Dallas. This pattern has remained consistent throughout the season right up to their last game of November, which is tomorrow night in Chicago. Now that the Blues have lost two straight, there's no telling what tomorrow's outcome will be. But if they beat Chicago and you like to put money down on trends, betting on the Blues to knock off the Capitals when they return on home on Wednesday night is your kind of bet.

There are two much more telling and disturbing trends that are currently plaguing the Blues. First, only the Predators rank worse offensively than the Blues. The team was getting scoring from David Perron before he went out with a concussion. And although T.J. Oshie had scored just one goal before breaking his ankle, he had chipped in nine assists to the Blues' scoring cause. Another factor that isn't measured on the scoresheet, is how Oshie is one of the team's best forecheckers and how he can create offense with his hitting in addition to his constant pursuit of the puck. With those two players out, the St. Louis has needed to find other sources for scoring. To an extent, they have. Andy McDonald and Brad Boyes have both come alive on the scoring front. Boyes had a four-game goal-scoring streak in recent weeks and McDonalds had three goals and a shootout goal between last Wednesday's and Friday's games. Defenseman Alex Pietrangelo is having a very strong year in his first full NHL season and is leading not just the team's blue-liners, but the entire team in assists. Unfortunately, that's about where the bright spots end for the Blues' scoring. David Backes has been fairly quiet all season. Patrik Berglund has looked brilliant at moments, but still hasn't developed into the consistent scorer that the team had hoped for when they drafted him in the first round. Matt D'Agostini, who was on fire to begin the season, has been stuck at six goals for quite some time.

The secondary scoring also hasn't been there for St. Louis. Alex Steen, who got a lucrative extension over the offseason, hasn't been producing lately as he's failed to register a point in six consecutive games. Jay McClement has only scored in one game all season. Sure, in that game, he scored three goals, but he needs to contribute more as well, especially since we know he has the talent to do so after his hat trick against Atlanta and in addition to him putting up 29 points last season. He currently only has one assist for a total of four points, which has him on pace for just under 15 points by the end of the season. Everyone on the offense can improve and must if the Blues are going to stay in the thick of things until Perron and Oshie can return. Jaroslav Halak is a fantastic goaltender, but he can't post a shutout in a third of the team's games like he did over the first nine. Expecting that would simply be both unrealistic and unfair to Halak.

The other trend that the Blues much change and quickly, is the fact that they continue to blow leads late in games. It was an issue earlier this season when they coughed up a couple of late leads, including a two-goal advantage in Chicago with just seven minutes remaining in regulation. The Blues ended up losing that one in overtime, but they then followed that up with their seven-game winning streak. The Blues blew third period leads in back-to-back games with Dallas over the weekend, reprising the pattern from earlier this season. I'm not asking them to roll off another seven-game winning streak, but they can't go back to their old ways of blowing leads like they did all of last season. Not being able to close out games is the primary reason that the Blues missed the postseason a year ago and if the team goes back to that mentality, where they play not to lose, it will have similar results this season.

Photo by John Grieshop

Managerial Decisions

When the Cardinals announced that they'd be bringing back Tony La Russa as manager for another season, and possibly two with a mutual option for 2012, they pretty much were saying that's what has happened over the past two seasons is acceptable.

I suppose that I'm spoiled since the Cardinals make the playoffs so often, but really, they just haven't accomplished much in the last two years. In 2009, they couldn't score runs for about the last two months of the season including the playoff series against the Dodgers that resulted in a sweep. The offensive struggles continued for most of 2010 and coupled with injuries to Brad Penny and David Freese, among others, allowed an inferior Cincinnati Reds to win the division. The Cardinals easily had the best rotation in the division as they had two Cy Young candidates in Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter as well as rookie Jaime Garcia, who was among the leaders in ERA for the majority of the season. Some decent hitting should have been enough to win most of their games, but the team continued to have their difficulties with hitting, especially after Ryan Ludwick went down. Less than a week after the team got Ludwick back, they decided rather than add some more offense (the obvious problem with the club), they would rather go after another pitcher to replace Penny and get rid of even more offense my sending Ludwick to San Diego. I was furious when I saw that this trade had gone through and we ended up not acquiring any offensive pieces to replace Ludwick. Add this to the fact that Tony La Russa never wants to play Colby Rasmus when after that trade, he was clearly the second best offensive outfielder on the team behind Matt Holliday, and the team was doomed due to a lack of production.

La Russa won't even allow the sub-par offensive talent he has to get in a groove because he's always changing the lineup around. Aside from a massive amount of injuries, there's no reason to run out 100 different lineups in a single baseball season, but he does it year in and year out. If you look at the teams that made the playoffs this season, almost every single one used the same lineup for the majority of the postseason. When the Texas Rangers take the field in San Francisco on Wednesday for Game 1 of the World Series, you can bet that Elvis Andrus will be batting leadoff and playing shortstop. That's his role. He knows it. I know it. And most importantly, his manager Ron Washington knows it. And if Tim Lincecum shuts down the Rangers in Game 1, you can bet that Andrus is going to be right at the top of the order again for Game 2, rather than Washington trying to "shake up" the batting order to get something going. This is what works and it has worked for years. It's the same with batting the pitcher eighth. No team has ever won a World Series while batting the pitcher eighth. Why? Because it doesn't work. For a guy who's been managing in the big leagues since the early 80's and in the National League since 1996, you'd think La Russa would have figured this out by now. Hopefully he'll finally figure it out this season. Otherwise, Cardinals fans are in for another disappointing season that will end up with a sub-par team winning the NL Central and another season of the Carpenter-Wainwright tandem wasted.

The Chicago Cubs also made a puzzling choice with their managerial position. Ryne Sandberg, perhaps the Cubs' biggest player icon behind Ernie Banks, was very vocal in discussing his desire for the position. He's managed his way through the minor league system and by reaching the helm of the Cubs' Triple-A club, he was the logical choice. But the Cubs rarely do what is logical and they continued that trend by simply dropping the "interim" tag from Mike Quade's title, retaining him for the 2011 season. I realize that the Cubs started to play better under Quade down the stretch, but for a team that's had so many issues over the years, why would you pass on a guy in Sandberg who's lived through these problems and understands the Cubs mentality? Sandberg has stated that he still wants to manage at the major league level and with that no longer being a possibility in 2011 with the Cubs, Chicago could see him go elsewhere and perhaps even manage against the Cubs in this upcoming season. We'll see how it plays out, but I certainly think that passing on Sandberg will soon be an addition to the laundry list of regretful decisions that this franchise has made over the years.

This year's World Series had its ups and downs for me. It was certainly an up that it didn't have the Yankees in it and even more so that it wasn't a repeat of the Yankees and Phillies series from 2009. That would have been reminiscent of the late 90's when it seemed like the Yankees and Braves were in it every year, even though they only met in the series twice (1996 and 1999).Another poitn of interest was being able to see two cities get their first shot at a title in the same year. Even though the Giants had won before as a franchise, all of their titles came while they were in New York, and the Rangers had never even won a pennant before this season. As for a downer, it would have been nice to see the series at least go back to San Francisco for a sixth game. Cliff Lee, previously infallible in the postseason, dropped both the series opener and the series clincher. Neither Lee or Giants ace Tim Lincecum had their best stuff in Game 1, but both brought it to the table in Game 5. Lee just made one very big mistake to World Series MVP Edgar Renteria and it cost him dearly. And although he had first base open and could've walked Renteria or at least could have tried a little harder to pitch around him, Lee refused to do so and came right after him. That's the kind of mentality a manager or a GM wants out of an ace pitcher. They want a guy that thinks,"Screw you. I'm better than you and now I'm going to beat you." When a pitcher has that mentality and the stuff to back it up (yes Jason Marquis, you really must have the stuff to back it up for that to work) it makes him a very valuable commodity. This why even with giving up that bomb to Renteria and going 0-2 in the series, Lee is still being sought after and sought after hard, by the Yankees. There's word coming out according to ESPN that Lee and the Yankees are meeting in Arkansas, which just goes to show once again, few good things ever come out of Arkansas (No offense Tyler). Yes, now that the postseason has ended, it looks like baseball will go back to business as usual. The Yankees will continue to try and buy another title, the Red Sox will do the same while claiming that the Yankees are far worse offenders, and the Pirates will rack up their 19th consecutive losing season with no end in sight. I guess hockey will just have to tide me over for now. Sigh...
 

Photos in order by Roberson/AP, unknown, and Louis DeLuca of the Dallas Morning News.

Ram-dy Moss?

The Rams have not put in a waiver claim on Randy Moss as of the end of today's practice, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. However, with the deadline still 25 minutes away, the club could still put in a claim if they haven't already.

I personally think putting a claim in for him is a great idea. Is Moss a jerk? Sure. The story that came out about him ripping a team meal right in front of those who prepared it show him to be selfish and inconsiderate. But sometimes in sports, you need jerks to win. Dennis Rodman kicked a camera man in the groin for no real reason, but man, could he rebound. He won five NBA titles and was a key member of those Chicago Bulls and Detroit Pistons teams. Manny Ramirez is a completely self-absorbed brat who only seems to care about himself and displayed this in the way he left Boston. But he helped the Red Sox win two World Series titles before he left.

The fact of the matter is, sometimes jerks win, especially if they're talented jerks, and Moss is both of those things. The Rams offense struggled on Sunday against a terrible, one-win, Carolina Panthers team. If Sam Bradford wasn't nearly perfect (25-32 with at least two of the incompletes being wise and intentional throw aways, passer rating of 112.4), the Rams would not have beaten the Panthers. The reason the offense has been struggling, going back even to last season, is that teams have been able to find success by stacking eight guys in the box to stop Steven Jackson from running. And why shouldn't they? The Rams don't have a single, healthy, deep threat in their receiving corps. Donnie Avery, Mark Clayton, and now Danario Alexander have all been injured. Clayton and Avery won't return and counting on an Alexander return with his history of knee problems would be silly.

The Rams need a wide receiver that can stretch the field. He doesn't even have to catch the ball to be valuable as long as he's a threat in the back of the minds of opposing defensive coordinators. And NFL coaches still do regard Moss as a threat. The proof is in the Vikings' game from last week against Moss' former team, New England. Bill Belichick had a corner lined up against Moss for the entire game, at least from what I saw, while also keeping a safety on him over the top. If teams are required to double cover Moss and want to put eight in the box still, that leaves just one other defender to try and stop Danny Amendola, Brandon Gibson (who played well last week), and the Rams tight ends who have proven themselves to be decent receiving threats. The Rams' opponents obviously can't leave one side of the field that wide open and would have to go with six or seven in the box instead, which would open up the running game for Jackson.

I know that there's some risk with bringing Moss in, but it's in his best interest to come in and be productive. He's already been dumped by two teams in a contract year. If he wants to get paid this offseason, he has no choice but to behave. I'm also pretty sure that if head coach Steve Spagnuolo can manage to win four games in the first half of the season after winning just one all of last year, he can handle Randy Moss.

Photographer information could not be found for this photo.

Playoff Baseball Update: ALCS Game 3

The Rangers scored twice as many runs in the ninth inning of last night's ALCS Game 3 as the Yankees had baserunners for the entire game. New York managed just two hits off of the dominant Cliff Lee while Lee only walked one batter.

Josh Hamilton, who is batting .300 during the ALCS and slugging a ridiculous 1.000, gave Lee all the runs he would need with a two-run first inning bomb. It was Hamilton's second of the playoffs as well as the series. Lee sat down the first 11 Yankee hitters in order, fanning seven over that span, before giving up a two-out walk to Mark Teixeira in the bottom of the fourth inning. Lee also retired 14 Yankees before surrendering his first hit to Jorge Posada in the bottom of the fifth. For a while, it looked possible that the third ever postseason no-hitter could have happened last night. And even though the perfect game ended in the fourth and the no-no concluded in the fifth, there's no denying that Lee was flat out nasty. He finished with 13 strikeouts over eight innnings. To say that the Yankee hitters looked lost would be an understatement. They might have had a better chance to hit the ball using the Adam Dunn approach: swing hard with your eyes closed and hope for contact. Or they could have gone with the Luke Skywalker approach as they may have had better luck leaving the blast shield down and trusting their feelings. It worked for the leader of one Evil Empire, why couldn't it work for this Evil Empire too?

Rams Win? Rams Win!

It's early in the NFL season, but the league is proving to be as unpredictable as ever. The Vikings started 0-2 after going to the NFC title game last season and returning all of their starters from last season. The Super Bowl sleeper pick of the 49ers have stumbled to an 0-3 start. My Steelers, after I was hoping for just two wins in the four games without Ben Roethlisberger have already won three without him going into next Sunday's home game against he Ravens. And perhaps the most surprising development of all, is that the Kansas City Cheifs have started 3-0. Sure, they've played the Browns, 49ers, and Chargers, with the Browns being their only road game, but most pundits probably had them pegged for 1-2 at best by this point. I doubt many people if any would've said the Steelers and Chiefs would be the last of the AFC undefeateds.

Another bright spot for me personally is the Rams getting out to a good start. Even though they've only won one of their first three games, they very easily could have won all three and certainly should have won their first with all of the mistakes that the Cardinals made. Sam Bradford had to throw the ball over 50 times and he looked great. He threw three interceptions, but with those numbers, the box score is misleading. Two of th three picks were thrown in situations where he had to force the ball, including a fourth down on a last minute drive. If he simply threw it away, the game would end with a loss, so why not throw it for the end zone? He even did his job, by getting it to the end zone, it just wasn't caught by a Rams player.

Today's games for my teams are both huge. The Steelers have gotten off to this great start without Big Ben and have a great chance to put some space between themselves and Baltimore. It's important for them to win, as it is their home game against the Ravens. If they lose, they would have to win at Baltimore in Week 13 in order to avoid a season sweep, which could be a division tie breaker at the end of the year. This is a very winnable game for the Steelers. Charlie Batch will get the start and he's the classic "just don't screw this up, and the defense will win it" quarterback. He's shown this by posting a 4-1 record as a starter with the Steelers. With the way the defense has been playing, including leading the league in takeaways, a few well-timed passes from Batch, a decent running game, and a strong defensive effort against a Ravens team that can't score should be enough to win. Baltimore only score 10 points in each of their first two games, in which they went 1-1. Last week, they managed to score 24 points on the road, which would be impressive, but it came against the Browns. The Ravens also trailed for much of the game in Cleveland. You can be willing to bet if they get behind in Pittsburgh today, a miraculous comeback will be far less likely.
My pick for this game: Steelers 17-Ravens 9

The Rams game is huge for many of the same reasons that the as Steelers' game. They need to win in St. Louis to escape the possibility of needing a win later in the season in Seattle, a very difficult place to play (just ask the Chargers), to avoid a season sweep at the hands of the Seahawks. A win would tie them at 2-2 atop the NFC West, by far the weakest division in the NFL this year, and a division game like this could also end up being a tiebreaker. With the starts that the 49ers and Cardinals have gotten off to, it's not completely far fetched that an 8-8 or 9-7 record could be enough to win this division. And with something like that being possible, a team wants to have all possible tie-breakers on their side. The Rams are already 0-1 in the division after the season opening loss to Arizona. They don't want to fall to 0-2. The Rams also need to show the Seahawks that they can beat them again. The Rams haven't beaten Seattle since the 2004 playoffs, a streak that has lasted for 10 games now. Many of those games were close, with the Seahawks wining on last second field goals, but a win is a win, a loss is a loss, and ten consecutive losses to the same team is way too many. For the Rams to win this game, they're going to need Bradford's best effort yet. Steven Jackson is active today, but as banged up as he is, he is unlikely to be much help against one of the league's best running defenses. On defense, St. Louis needs to stop the run. Their secondary has been pretty good and the team has been great at coming up with big plays (they're second to my Steelers in takeaways) to stop drives even while allowing a plethora of yards to be gained. But they must get better at the run, because those takeaways don't always happen. And when they don't, a lot of yards can become a large amount of points. The Rams also have to get pumped up on special teams, which was the difference in Seattle's last game. They got two touchdowns on kickoff returns from Leon Washington against San Diego and ended up winning by seven. If the Rams can shutdown the Seahawks' special teams and come up with a few big plays, they certainly have a chance to win this game. Seattle doesn't have players like Clinton Portis, Donovan McNabb, and Larry Fitzgerald that put them a head above the Rams. St. Louis just has to play solid football, which they've shown they can do in their first three games, and they'll be there in the fourth quarter. The Rams' third straight sell out crowd should help as well if they can bring the crowd noise while the Seahawks have the ball.

Beyond Belief

Every year as a football fan, it's easy to get out the schedule and go down the list of the games that your team should win. No one should really do this, as it just leads to disappointment when they screw up and lose to the Raiders, like my Steelers did last year. But many of us fans do this with football because it's so easy. There are only 16 games and just 12-13 in college. No one wastes their time doing this with baseball, because there's 162 games in a season. The starting pitcher changes every game, so the results are too hard to determine for each game in general by just looking at the schedule. However, as Cardinals fans know all too well, when the games actually are played, it's quite easy to see who should win them. And unfortunately, the Cards have dropped quite a few games this year that they should have won. But lately, the problem is that they shouldn't win them.

Tony La Russa insists on putting together ridiculous lineups that have Nick Stavinoha batting fifth after he's spent most of this season in the minors. Tyler Greene, who also has spent most of the year in Triple-A, was batting lead off last night. It's things like this that leave me to insist, that we need to part ways with La Russa. It's been a good run, as he's made the playoffs in half of his seasons here, but he can't keep pulling crap like this and expect John Mozeliak to keep him around. If La Russa is sending a message to the front office, saying,"Hey, this is what you gave me, this is what you get," then he's an idiot. He's the one that got fed up with Ryan Ludwick and shipped him off for a rental pitcher who, while Jake Westbrook hasn't pitched poorly, I'd hardly say that he's made a difference, being that the team is 2-4 in games that he's started. Ludwick would have influenced far more than six games and probably could've kept this offense out of some of it's huge lulls. The Cards have just 23 runs in their last 10 games. Some easy math will tell you that is an average of 2.3 runs per game. This means that in order to win, nearly flawless pitching is required. And guys that have been great all year like Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright, and Jaime Garcia, have finally hit a couple of bumps. That's ok, except that when they weren't hitting their bumps, the team still wasn't scoring very much and thus didn't capitalize on the great pitching that they got while they had it.

This team was officially done when they went 2-8 on a 10-game road trip against the Astros, Pirates, and Nationals, perhaps three of the most inept teams in the National League. Going 6-4 against those clubs wouldn't have been great, but it left overtaking the Reds as a doable task. Two and eight? That's telling the fans that you've packed it in, so they might as well do the same until spring training. The Cards got some nice crowds for their three-game set against the Reds, but that was primarily based on the previous series being so solid and changing the division race for the better. I would expect to see some sparse crowds over the last few homestands. People can call us fair weather fans for that, but it's not about winning, it's about trying. And when the team looks like they're packing it in, why should we bother? At least the Pirates' players try. They might be ill-equipped, hence 18 consecutive losing seasons, but the effort is usually there. With the Cardinals, most days, it's hard to watch them because it'll just frustrate the crap out of you. Thank God football season is starting and we can all pretend that baseball season is already over. I'm jumping on the Rays (or anti-Yankees) bandwagon for the rest of the year, but I'm quite ready for both football and hockey to arrive.

The NFL starts tonight with a rematch of the NFC Championship game and my teams, the Steelers and Rams both get it going on Sunday. As I mentioned earlier, you never should go over a schedule and pick out wins and losses for a team, but I admit it, I did it with the Rams. I could see them winning as many as eight games and with this division as weak as it is, the playoffs are possible with a couple of fluke wins added in. That said, I'm picking the Rams to actually win five games, which would still be a huge step in the right direction after going 1-15 last year. As for the Steelers, who are without Ben "She was asking for it" Roethlisberger for four weeks, I'm hoping they split the first four games and go 9-3 or so once they get him back for an overall record of 11-5. That's typically enough to make the playoffs, so they should be ok. I think the TO/Ocho-Cinco combination could blow up in the Bengals' face and half of the Ravens' defense is practically on walkers, so the Steelers should be able to take the division, provided they don't do something stupid like lose to the Browns again.

My picks to make the Super Bowl are the Saints and Jets with the Saints repeating. Of course, we could see the Colts in there again. Every time I think they're on the decline, they go out, win 12 games, and end up in at least the second round of the playoffs. So with that, Go Steelers, Go Rams, and just go away baseball Cardinals. I'll write about hockey soon again, I promise.

The Skitzophrenic Cardinals Season Continues

I've said it several times during the course of this season, but I'm yet to say it in this space. This Cardinals team is the most frustrating I've ever watched. They can play lights out baseball in Cincinnati with first place on the line and then they come home against the Cubs and play like, what's the term I'm looking for? Ah yes, "little bitches." Thanks, Brandon Phillips. The Cards were ignited last Tuesday night by a shoving match with the Reds in the bottom of the first inning. It stemmed from Phillips' comments from Monday that didn't get to the Cards' clubhouse until after they had already delivered Monday's beating. He then had the brilliant idea to tap Yadier Molina on the shinguard before leading off the inning. Yadi told him that they were not friends in so many words and the whole thing just spilled over from there. It was kind of like a hockey fight now that I think about it. Not in the physical sense, as the only real physical contact other than shoving was Johnny Cueto kicking like a girl scout. But as for how it fired up the team, it really took the Cards to a new level and they just dominated the Reds for the rest of the series. Cincinnati never led during the three game set and St. Louis went from two games down to one game up when they left town.

The Cards then came home to face the Cubs after an off day. Chicago jumped on them early and went up 2-0 after a half inning, but the Cards came right back at them with yet another Albert Pujols home run in the bottom of the first. They then managed to keep at it by taking the lead in the third and padding the lead in the fourth and seventh. They gave one back on a Derek Lee home run in the eighth inning, but seeing as Lee was superhuman during this series, clubbing four bombs in three games, that obviously was unavoidable. The Cards put the game away with Ryan Franklin's 21st  save of the year in 23 chances. He's not the shutdown guy that I'd prefer, but he has been getting the job done this year. As long as he doesn't fade down the stretch like he did last season, I'm alright leaving him in that spot, as much as I was clamoring for Jason Motte earlier this season.

On Saturday, the Cardinals just didn't get it done when they had guys on base. They outhit the Cubs 9-7 but only managed to squeeze in two runs. That being said, the Cards had just strung together four consecutive wins and in baseball, losses happen. Good teams lose 60 games a year, often more. What really got to me was Sunday's game. Kyle Lohse did alright for a few innings in his return from the 60-day DL, just giving up a couple of solo shots over three innings to the immortal Lee and the Cards trailed just 2-1 after three. The fourth was tough to watch. The Cubs scored six runs in the inning, getting just one extra-base hit off of Lohse and one walk from him. So it certainly wasn't a merry-go-round of walks and he wasn't giving up rockets all over the outfield either. There was one walk, a ground-rule doubles, and a bunch of bleeders. He was then removed for Mike MacDougal who walked won and gave up a double himself, allowing three other runs to score. I'm not sure why MacDougal is on this team right now and I'm pretty sure he won't be when Motte comes back. He wasn't finding the strike zone often and when he was, the ball was being hit hard into holes. After the top of the fourth was over, which must have lasted a good 30 minutes, it was 8-1 Chicago.

The Cards managed to get a run back in the fifth, but almost as soon as they scored that run, the man who crossed the plate, Colby Rasmus, was lifted from the game as was Yadier Molina. I understand that it was hot. I was sitting in the shade for most of the game and I was hot. But when it's the Cubs, who have a terrible bullpen, the end of the fifth inning is not time to consider the game over. I could see Tony La Russa getting rest for players if they were in a long stretch with no off days, but currently, they have a plethora of off days. They were off on Thursday, they're off tomorrow, and they have another open date this Thursday. That is a lot of time to rest guys without taking them out of games early. As a Cardinals fan, when the rally was going in the bottom of the ninth of today's game, who would you rather see representing the tying run at the plate, Randy Winn or Matt Holliday? Winn did his job by drawing a walk and getting on base against the wild Carlos Marmol, but there was no power threat up there. The team batted around and the Cards didn't send a single power threat to the plate. Sure Allen Craig has pop, but he still only owns one major league home run. Until he produces consistently at this level, he can't be considered much of a threat at the plate. Our last out was made by backup catcher Steve Hill, who led off the inning with his first major-league home run and hit. The likelihood of him cranking out another one was extremely low. When he hit the first, it was 9-2 and there wasn't any real pressure. In his second at-bat, the game was on the line. That's a lot of pressure for a guy in his third major league at-bat, especially when geography was the only reason he was up here instead of AAA catcher Bryan Anderson. So I don't blame him for grounding out to end the game. I blame Tony for putting him in that spot in the first place. A manager's job is to put his players in the best position to succeed and he certainly didn't do that today. Perhaps it's decisions like this that have left the Cardinals with a 15-16 record against the Cubs, Astros, and Brewers this season. The Cards play well with the big boys, but you have to take care of your business against your little brothers too and they haven't been doing that this season.

Speaking of a lack of power threats, Ryan Ludwick is doing quite well in San Diego so far. Through 10 games, he has three home runs and seven RBI with a .271 batting mark. In case you're keeping track, that's three more home runs than John Jay has hit for the Cards since Ludwick was traded. I appreciate what Jay's been doing this year. He plays hard, he's a strong defensive player, and he's batting close to .370. But he's just not a genuine power threat like Ludwick. As far as true threats go, I'd only count us as having two in Pujols and Holliday. Colby Rasmus has 19 homers this year, but he's even streakier than Ludwick is, so he can't really be counted on. I'd love for him to prove me wrong and hit some more game changing bombs like the grand slam he had on his birthday last Wednesday in Cincinnati, but he hasn't done it yet. Jake Westbrook has given us three solid starts since he's arrived in exchange for Ludwick, but since we only have one win in those starts, it's still difficult for me to count the trade as a positive.

The first photo was taken by Tom Uhlman of the AP. Credit for the second photo couldn't be found.

The Beautiful Tournament, the World Cup

The World Cup reminds us every four years why it's one of the greatest sporting events to grace this planet. Even with the numerous reffing gaffes, players rolling around like they'd been shot when they hadn't been touched, and  egomaniac coaches, the tournament was fantastic. To counteract those things, we had fantastic goals, many upsets, and even Paul the soccer predicting Octopus (he went a perfect eight-for-eight in choosing matches, including picking Spain in the final).

The United States got off to a great start by managing a tie against England. I didn't see the game, but I did see the goals. They looked a little something like this:

Then, in our second match, it looked like we were going to suffer another disappointing group stage elimination when we fell behind Slovenia 2-0. We rallied in the second half to tie that game and should have won, had there not been a bizarre disallowing of our third goal. It's a week after the even has ended and I still never heard an explanation for the referee's ruling. I doubt we ever will. That brings us to our third match, which with England taking an early 1-0 lead in their coinciding game against Slovenia, became a must-win for the United States. I then got to experience my favorite soccer memory of my lifetime. As we went to stoppage time in the second half, looking like we were doomed to a tie with Algeria which would not be enough to move on, we got a brilliant goal from Landon Donovan. It started with a great save by Tim Howard, who started it up the field with a fantastic throw. Donovan crashed the net to get to the rebound, caused by the rush, and banged it home. I was streaming it in my company's break room and jumped up and yelled. Two other people asked me if I had money on the game and I simply responded,"No, it's my country." It's very disappointing that they didn't understand this. It made me feel like I, along with my friend Ben who passionately streamed the World Cup with me, were the only soccer fans in the country. But to me, it didn't matter. I smiled for the rest of the work day and watched the replay 10 times on youtube before going to bed that night. Here it is again, if you'd like to relive it as well:

I still get chills watching it. It was amazing. Donovan can join Ryan Miller at the bar, as he too, should never pay for another beer in this country. And also, clearly, Ben and I weren't the only ones watching. The second location is where I watched the Ghana game the following Saturday. And although it ended in disappointment, the atmosphere was amazing and it was incredible when Donovan tied the game. Here's a picture of the scene at halftime that I took.

The upsets in this tournament made it very interesting as well. Even though Spain, one of the favorites, ended up winning, it was still their first time winning which makes it alright with me. I'd much rather see them win than Brazil or Germany, who always seem to win. I'm envious of my friends Dan and Julie, who were over there for most of the tournament including the final. I would imagine the party is still going. But back to the actual upsets. Who saw Japan making it to the round of 16? If not for penalties deciding their match, they might have gone even further. The Netherlands taking out Brazil, especially in a come from behind fashion, was also very shocking. The Netherlands is a very good team, don't get me wrong, but for a bit, the tournament seemed destined to have a final between Brazil and Argentina. But then Europe took down South America via Spain, Germany, and the Netherlands. I would look for Brazil to end their dry spell when they host the next tournament in 2014, assuming we make it past 2012 of course.

The tournament's final wasn't pretty, as Holland picked up nine yellow cards and a red, while the Spanish weren't exactly gentlemen either. My favorite play in the game aside from the goal (which was obviously onside if you understand soccer, by the way) was a Spanish player taking the rules into his own hands. He got sandwiched by two dutch players, which probably should have been a foul by the way they took him out. However, when he got up and looked around, he saw that there was no call. He then said, "Eff that noise" and threw one of the two offenders to the ground with a quick swing of his arm. I assumed that would be a yellow card, as it was deliberate, but it was just a foul. Perhaps the refs knew they had missed something, but either way, the game could have been officiated better, which could be said for most of the tournament. Luckily, it didn't completely ruin the World Cup. In my opinion, the best team still ended up winning, even if the USA, England, Mexico, and several others got screwed along the way. Ghana got screwed within the rules and then screwed themselves, and after their cowardly display against us, I didn't feel all that bad about it. I already can't wait for the qualifying games to begin in a couple of years as we begin the road to Brazil. If we can play better defense, we could be very dangerous. Here's to 2014.

Thoughts on Griffey Retirement, Strasfest, and NCAA Conference Expansion

The two biggest baseball stories of the past week both peaked on the same day. We had the retirement of a legend and a first ballot Hall of Famer in Ken Griffey Jr., which was overshadowed by the debut of a possible legend, Stephen Strasburg. Griffey's demise was as sad as Strasburg's debut was happy and exciting.

Strasburg was the first overall pick in the draft just last year and he rocketed up through the minors, debuting before Flag Day. Griffey, who hit 19 home runs as recently as last season, retired after managing just 18 hits in 98 at-bats this season and finished with more clubhouse naps than home runs (one compared to none). Strasberg threw seven innings in his debut, fanning 14 and allowing just two runs on just four hits while walking no one. In one start, he did more for baseball in the city of Washington since the Texas Rangers were there under the name the Washington Senators. He electrified the crowd with every fastball (four and two-seamers), curve ball, slider, sinker, and God-knows what else he threw at the helpless Pirates hitters. He electrified them in the same way that Griffey used to in his first stint with the Mariners and even in his first year with the Reds. Griffey never reached his true potential due to injury problems and still managed to hit 630 home runs in his career. To me, he's the Mario Lemieux of baseball. One of the best to ever play the game, especially in his prime, but he'll never get the recognition that guys I hate do like Barry Bonds and Wayne Gretzky (I'm sure hockey's golden boy was clean of PEDs, I just hate him as a Blues fan).

Griffey's biggest legacy for me, though, will be nothing that he did on the field. It's one of my favorite video games of all time, Major League Baseball featuring Ken Griffey Jr. for N64. And no, I don't mean that Slugfest BS that was a travesty compared to the original for the platform. Sure, you could create players, but the game play wasn't anywhere near as good. To show you what an incredible game it is, I took the system, controllers, and the game out to New Mexico just so I could play it with my friend Jon(athan) during my visit. N64 stuff took up more luggage space than clothes. That's what washing machines are for. I've met four masters of this game, including myself and Jon, as well as my friends from middle school Mike and Justin. The latter two and I spent an entire summer doing almost nothing but playing this game. Jon joked during my trip that we're probably better at this game than the programmers ever meant anyone to be. He's probably right. Just for the record, I took two World Series out of three (Yes, much to Jon's wife Sarah's chagrin, we found time for three World Series, all of which went at least six games if I recall correctly). And if it weren't for my damned cleanup hitter Dante Bichette batting under .200 with no home runs or RBI in the third series, I may have taken that one too. I'll get you for this Dante!

While I'm on the subject of Dante Bichette and bottoming out, I should talk about conference expansion in the NCAA and how the University of Missouri got completely owned by the Big Ten, Nebraska, the Big 12 South, and hell, even Colorado, who sucks at everything but ultimate frisbee. Mizzou got all hot and bothered when they heard the Big Ten was expanding. They want off into a fantasy world where they have a football program that competes with Texas and Oklahoma, when in reality, they still haven't beaten either under Gary Pinkel. And while their basketball program is on the rise, as much as I love the sport, it doesn't affect anything when compared to football. Otherwise, the Big Ten would've extended an invite to Kansas, who stomps Nebraska every year in basketball. Twice. But alas, the Cornhuskers have joined the likes of Michigan and Ohio State, while the Jayhawks were on the verge of having to beg the MAC or Mountain West for a home. Football makes the money in college sports and sadly, money is all that matters to schools. It's certainly not the student-athletes. You know, those little people that can have their scholarships taken away when their school's head coach has recruited someone better to replaces them. Those people that have to sit out for an entire season if they want to switch schools, while coaches can leave them high and dry while rarely encountering consequences of their own. Let's face it, if the students and the spirit of competition mattered, we'd have a playoff system by now in Division I-A college football. But no, we're still stuck with the BSC (not a typo), because it makes more money than the school presidents believe a playoff system would.

Mizzou, or as a Huskers fan called them today(and quite appropriately I might add), the University of Texas at Columbia, is officially Texas' bitch. They're going to continue to make less money than the Longhorns or Sooners and there will be nothing that they can do about it. Mizzou might as well be to Texas what UMSL is to Mizzou, an affiliated school with a lesser athletic program that only play each other in exhibitions. Sure, Mizzou's won two straight against the Longhorns in men's basketball, but their football games really do appear to be exhibitions, with the Tigers playing the role of the Washington Generals. And no Krusty, the Generals are never due. That tiger on the left doesn't look nearly sad enough. It looks like it lost its cubs. Mizzou lost its cubs and then found them again, just to realize that they had been burned and that Shooter McGavin had pissed on the ashes. McGavin is pictured  below and to the right.

The Cardinals are starting to get right on offense again. Nothing will fix an offense like a visit from the Seattle Mariners, especially when a team gets to avoid Felix Hernandez AND Cliff Lee.  The Reds won't be so lucky, as they get to travel to Seattle and face both of them in the series that follows this one. If the Reds aren't out of first place before that series, they will be soon. Colby Rasmus has caught fire, David Freese has gotten healthy, and Albert Pujols appears be back on Mount Olympus again. The starting pitching has been a constant all season outside of rookie starts from P.J. Walters and Adam Ottavino, and it even remained on Tuesday night when Jeff Suppan made his return to Busch Stadium. He only lasted four innings due to little work before his departure in Milwaukee, but he pitched around a big two-out jam in the first inning to leave the bases loaded and only allowed one run, giving the club a chance to win. He even doubled and scored in the bottom of the fourth before being removed in the next inning. Kyle Lohse might be a $10 million bullpen arm when/if he gets off of the DL. It'll be nice to have consistency out of the fifth rotation spot again if Suppan can keep it up.

Also trending up as of late is the NHL. The Stanley Cup Finals was one of the most viewed in a long time. After almost every game, especially the ones on NBC instead of Versus, the media would talk about what great ratings the game got. It had two large market teams in Philadelphia and Chicago going for it. Another positive was that neither team had won the cup in forever. The Blackhawks last title was in 1961 and the Flyers' last parade was in 1975. The best part about the series was that just like Strasburg, it lived up to all of the hype. The only way the series could've had more drama was if it had gone seven games. Four of the six games were decided by one goal, including two in overtime. And one of the two games that wasn't decided by a goal had an empty-netter tacked on at the end. We also had our first clinching goal in overtime since Jason Arnott locked up the cup for the Devils a decade ago. It seemed that only Patrick Kane, who scored the goal, actually knew it was in. But I had a sinking feeling when I lost sight of the puck and saw Michael Leighton crouching in one corner of the goal. If the puck wasn't in the net, it should have gone into the corner of the boards in the opposite corner. My only hope was that it was in Leighton's pads and I didn't know it. But instead, the puck went straight through and stuck in the netting, sending the cup to Chicago. I can be happy for friends that are Blackhawks fans, as no Chicago fan under 50 had seen their team win before, and I feel the pain that they now have sweet relief from. But now, for me, it's just another bitter reminder that I'm yet to see my team do this. I've seen some of my favorite teams, Duke, the Cardinals, and the Steelers bring home an NCAA title, a World Series, and two Super Bowls in the last five years respectively, but with hockey being my favorite sport, I'd probably trade them all for one cup. I felt we were getting close as we made the playoffs last year, but after missing them this season and now having ownership uncertainty, it feels as far away as ever. When I'm asked why I still believe it will happen someday, my answer is simple. Because I have to...


Photos from the Googly, Nintendo, and The University of Texas

Game 7, NHL at its Finest, NBA at its Non-Existance.

There are several reasons why I prefer the NHL to the NBA. It's faster. Ticket prices are cheaper. Interference, while not called consistently, is still put to better use by officials in hockey than traveling is in the NBA. But most importantly, it's just more exciting.

The NBA's second round series have consisted of three sweeps and the lone series going to six, possibly seven games, the Cavs and Celtics, has been full of lopsided contests. On the other side, the NHL's second round will have a five-game series, a six-game series, and two seven-game series. One of the seven game series even started out as a 3-0 for Boston, but it's still a series and for the sixth time in league history, a game seven will come about after a team led 3-0. The Flyers will try and become just the third of those six teams to pull off the unthinkable and rally from a 3-0 deficit for a series victory. It hasn't been

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pulled off since the Islanders did it against the Penguins in 1975. The other time was in 1942 when Toronto did it to the Red Wings. Where's that history will be made commercial Versus? Where?

Tonight, the Canadiens pulled off the unthinkable yet again by taking out the defending Stanley Cup champions in Game 7 to advance to their first conference finals since they won the Cup in 1993. This was their encore to a seven-game series in which they ousted the top-seeded Capitals. If I had given a friend of mine 2-1 odds on the Habs winning the Cup (which clearly I didn't because that's illegal in this country), I still wouldn't be worried. Why? Because I don't believe any team other than Pittsburgh or Washington from the Eastern Conference could defeat the West's representative in the finals. I hate both San Jose and Chicago, but I feel it's just unrealistic for the Habs to beat them after two grueling series plus whatever goes down against Boston or Philly. That being said, it could happen, because it's hockey. The NHL hasn't been accused of being rigged seriously before, aside from one little incident this season. The NBA, on the other hand, has a former referee that has done jail tile for fixing games. So when people come out and say that NBA commissioner David Stern want the Lakers and Cavs in the finals, it's a little harder to ignore, which is why if the Habs do become the first eight-seed to win the cup, I'll gladly pay an unspecified hypothetical amount to be a NHL fan instead of an NBA fan.

The Cards really need to quit beating themselves. They've allowed as many unearned runs (9) in the first two games against the Astros as they've scored as a team total. Brendan Ryan has more errors (4) in the last two games than he's had hits in his last eight games. The team could really use getting Felipe Lopez back from the DL as Ryan's offensive shortcomings may have began to affect his defense as well. There were a couple of bright spots in the first two games, however. David Freese continued to hit well on Tuesday, collecting another double, RBI, and walk in three at-bats. Albert Pujols had his second consecutive multi-hit game to begin the home stand and Matt Holliday collected an RBI for the second straight game. If the club can get back to basics like good defense, patient hitting, and good pitching (they've gotten better than that from their starters), they'll be just fine. They've seen a large lead dwindle in the last week, but they still are on top of the Reds by a game. And while I think the Reds are greatly improved, I still think they're a year away from being a true playoff contender. The redbirds have plenty of time to get their stuff together, but they'll certainly be better off if they do it sooner rather than later.

A lot has been made of the Univeristy of Missouri's possible jump from the Big 12 to the Big Ten. Offers were said to have been made by the Big Ten to Mizzou, Notre Dame, Rutgers, and Nebraska, but the conference has denied those rumors. I could see positives and negatives to this for Missouri. It would completely change their rivalries. If Nebraska didn't come, they might not play them every year in football, and now that both teams have been winning in that game, it is a true rivalry once again. The same can be said about the KU game, which has certainly been built up with the neutral-site of Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. If Mizzou and the other schools wanted to schedule those games every year, they could, but let's face it, most big schools prefer at least three non-conference patsies to start the year. Scheduling KU and Nebraska would require the Tigers to have two tough non-conference opponents in addition to the Big Ten schedule. That's quite a gauntlet. It would also change things a bit in basketball. Could the Bragging Rights Game really stay in St. Louis if the two school were supposed to play twice per year? I highly doubt it. There are several non-conference basketball rivalries that have schools play each year, like Duke and St. John's, for instance, but these games usually are played at alternating campus sites. The dynamic for the Mizzou and Illinois game(s) would certainly be changed and I'm not sure that this would be a positive thing either.

That said, Mizzou has gotten screwed out of better bowl games in nearly every season since becoming part of the national picture. They should've gotten a BCS bowl when they only had one regular season loss, but Kansas, who the Tigers beat, got it instead. The last two seasons, Mizzou has been passed over for a team below it in the conference standings for the better bowl games while the Big 12 has stood idly by without changing their rules to anything that makes sense or is fair. And let's face it. When it comes to college athletics, football is what pays the bills. So if it makes sense academically (and the Big Ten does), Mizzou should do what's best for it's football program, which would mean adios Big 12, Hola Big Ten. We'll see how much truth these rumors hold in the upcoming weeks.

Quick Hits

• San Diego Padres pitcher Tim Stauffer proved once again this week, that there is an app for everything. He pulled up a medical website while not feeling well in which he inserted his symptoms and eventually diagnosed himself as having appendicitis. He called his team's trainer and eventually had his appendix removed the following morning.
• The AP decided to re-vote this week on its annual Defensive Rookie of the Year award, after last season's winner, Brian Cushing,  tested positive for steroids and was suspended for the first four games of the upcoming season. It's their award and I suppose they can do what they like with it. However, if you're going to bother re-voting because the winner cheated, wouldn't you take him of the ballot? Isn't that what makes sense? Well, apparently not, as Cushing not only stayed on the ballot but won the re-vote, albeit by a smaller margin. That away AP, I'm sure you taught this young man a valuable lesson. Steroid use in the NFL can win you awards, so why not use them? Well done AP, well done.

Photo taken my Matt Slocum of the AP. Padres story originally reported by ESPN Los Angeles.

Don't Tase Me Bro!

For anyone that has been under a rock for the past day or so, the Cardinals jumped into the national spotlight during last night's game. This wasn't because they have the best record in the National League or because they were facing the two-time defending National League Champions. No, it's for a far more comical reason.

Last night, some 17-year old kid named Steve Consalvi decided to hop the fence and run a muck. Since FSN didn't want to give this kid the attention, they showed many of the players while security tried to round him up. They were all bursting at the seams. As you can see here, it was quite a comical scene. But then a cop had to end the fun by whipping out a taser and dropped the youngster like an anvil over Wile E Coyote. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Consalvi should've been on the field. He was trespassing and delaying a game which already was strung out by the Phillies manager Charlie Manuel getting tossed over a runner's interference call (Manuel was wrong, by the way, the correct call was made). However, tasing this kid was way out of line. Whatever happened to the normal protocol of just surrounding the fool and eventually tackling him? Sure, this might have taken a bit longer, but Consalvi wasn't endangering anyone, so there shouldn't have been that much urgency. It's rare, but tasers have occasionally killed people. If this guy had a heart defect or some other issue and had died from the charge, I doubt the Phillies would still be laughing or the police department would be defending the officer that used the excessive force as publicly as they have. There's certainly good reason for the internal investigation that's going on regarding the incident.

Perhaps the oddest part of this story is that Consalvi actually called his father to ask permission to run on the field or at least get his father's opinion on his stupid idea. His father told him it wasn't a good idea, but we've all been kids, and we know we don't always listen to reason. Consalvi will learn from his actions and hopefully will grow up at Penn State University next fall. I doubt we'll see him on the field again anytime soon, Happy Valley might soon be equipping their security guards with tasers as well, just in case.

As for the game itself, this wasn't necessarily one I expected to win. The Cardinals had a rookie going against the Phillies who were coming off a good series against the Mets. But this isn't just any rookie. This is Jaime Garcia, who out dueled the Mets' ace, Johan Santana, the Brewers' ace, Yovanni Gallardo, and stayed with two-time defending NL Cy Young winner, Tim Lincecum. Garcia doesn't appear to be intimidated by anything to this point and if those pitchers and the fans in Philly don't do it, I'm pretty sure nothing will. He kept the team in it long enough for the club's other star rookie, David Freese, to break the game open. Outfielder Nick Stavinoha hit a pinch-hit home run in the top of the seventh to give the Cards a 2-1 lead, his second pinch-hit dinger of the year. Freese then followed this by stepping in with the bases loaded and proceeded to clear them with a double, blowing the game open with a score of 5-1. Freese would come around to score on a single by the next hitter, Colby Rasmus to make it 6-1. The Phillies would get two runs back, but it wasn't enough as the St. Louis closer, Ryan Franklin was brought in and he shut the door with consecutive shutouts to end the game with a score of 6-3. Freese came through again on Tuesday with a 2-for-5 night including a double that led off the ninth. Yadier Molina would then follow that hit with a double of his own to drive in Freese and tie the game at one. This got Adam Wainwright off the hook for a loss that he didn't deserve, having given up just one run on four hits over eight innings. In the end, one run wasn't enough on the road, which really isn't surprising, as it rarely is.

The Cardinals offense, having scored six runs in each of the three games that preceded Tuesday's contest (yes, 25 cent drinks for all!), isn't even going on all cylinders yet. Pujols has been up and down this year (yeah, and he's still hitting .327), and Matt Holliday and his new $120 million contract has been a ghost for most of this season. If the Cards can get those two going in the near future, they could be 20 games ahead by the all-star break. They're already five games up without consistency from them. It's unlikely that Freese is going to hit .360 all year, but even if he keeps a similar pace, Pujols and Holliday will be needed in the long run. Pujols will be there. But will Holliday? We shall see.

The second round of the NHL playoffs is in full swing and the series are mostly going as expected. Vancouver and Chicago are headed to Canada tied at a game each, Boston held serve at home for a 2-0 lead, and the Pens are up 2-1 on the Habs after three. I expected Pittsburgh to win in 5 or 6, Chicago and Vancouver to go seven, and home ice to play a big role in the Boston and Philly series. One thing I did not expect was for the Sharks to take both games in San Jose from Detroit and then steal Game 3 in Detroit as well. The Sharks rallied from two goals behind in Game 3 to force overtime on Tuesday night before former captain Patrick Marleau finished off a 2-on-1 in overtime to send the Wings to the brink of elimination. I still think the

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Red Wings can win a game or two before they get out their golf clubs, but I don't think even the group of chokers known as the Sharks can blow a 3-0 lead with two home games left. Detroit will not be making their third straight trip to the finals. However, the Penguins might be doing just that. They stole back home ice on Tuesday by beating Montreal 2-0. With the top three seeds in the east losing, the road to the finals will go through Pittsburgh.They have the best remaining goalie in the conference with Marc-Andre Fleury. They probably have the best two players remaining in the playoffs with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. All signs point to Pittsburgh to win their third straight Eastern Conference title. I also believe that they're the only club in the east that has a chance against a much stronger Western Conference. Here are my picks for the remainder of the playoffs:

• The Sharks finish of Detroit back at the tank in Game 5.
• Chicago loses in seven to Vancouver as Roberto Luongo stands on his head.
• A much more talented Sharks team pushes past Vancouver in six games to make their first finals.
• Pittsburgh takes out a Canadian team in Canada for the second straight round, finishing the Habs in six.
• The Flyers come back and force a Game 7 before the Bruins take care of business. 
• The Penguins show the Bruins that they really don't belong in the Eastern Conference finals, knocking Boston out in just five games.
• The Penguins repeat as the Sharks kill their fans by waiting all the way until Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals before finally choking. Crosby is now up on Alexander Ovechkin 2-0 in cups and this time he takes home the Conn Smythe as well.

 First photo belongs to Warner Brothers. Second was taken by Dave Reginek.

Singler Returns, Updates on NHL, MLB, and Steeler Issues

The defending National Champions got a huge boost on Monday when the reigning Final Four Most Outstanding Player, Kyle Singler, announced that he'd be returning to Duke University for his senior season. The Blue Devils will be losing Jon Scheyer, Brian Zoubek, and Lance Thomas to graduation. The possibility of losing Singler and Nolan Smith as well would've put Duke in a similar position to the one of North Carolina during the past season. The majority of UNC's key players either graduated or left early for the NBA following their NCAA title and the Tar Heels failed to even make the tournament this season. They did manage to make the NIT finals before falling to Dayton, but when Roy Williams hadn't missed the dance since moving back to Chapel Hill, this season certainly will be viewed as a disappointment.

Singler's return along with the potential of Smith coming back would allow Duke to remain with the elite NCAA schools for next season, not just in TV ratings, but in the polls as well. And when Kentucky can lose five key players early to the NBA including stars John Wall and Demarcus Cousins, and coach John Calipari still manages to reload, keeping key players through their senior year is the best way to compete with him. Marcus Camby was a part of Calipari's bogus recruiting, and from that look, he can't believe he's still getting away with it either.

I know I'm a little late with hockey predictions for this space, but I did make them elsewhere. Here's what my choices looked like in the ESPN sports nation voting:
Eastern Conference
Caps over Habs in 5
Devils over Flyers in 7
Sabres over Bruins in 6
Penguins over Senators in 6

Western Conference
Avalanche over Sharks in 6
Blackhawks over Predators in 6
Canucks over Kings in 6
Red Wings over Coyotes in 5

All of my predictions are still possible other than the Wings over Phoenix in five, but I'm willing to let that one slide. The Coyotes have surprised everyone with their grit and determination to this point. They lost their captain, Shane Doan, in the second period of game 3 but they kept coming at Detroit and the Wings failed to counter and bring the pressure until it was too late. By stealing a win in Detroit, the Coyotes have managed to get home ice back after they were unable to secure game 2 at home. I'm sure the Wings aren't done, but Phoenix has them right where they want them.

The biggest goat of the playoffs so far has to be the Sharks' Dan Boyle. He ended a scoreless game in overtime by shooting the puck into his own net. You can see it below.



Blues fans will feel empathy for the Sharks but no pity as we all remember the Marc Bergevin goal against the Sharks when the Blues were the top seed, having won the President's Trophy. Just awful.

My finals hockey note relates to both hockey and baseball. According to my friend Matt Lucas, a White Sox fan,  the Cubs showed up to Game 1 of the Blackhawks series and the Hawks lost. The Sox showed up to Game 2 and they shut out Nashville 2-0. If losing is contagious, then the Cubs must have the bubonic plague of losing. It seems to just radiate off of them, kind of like Pig Pen from Peanuts.

The Cubs struggles are going right from the start this season. They've dropped three of their last four, including two of three at home to the last place Astros. That was the only series so far this season that Houston has actually won. The Cubs' overall record of 5-8 has them four games back of the Cardinals already and with no signs of slowing by St. Louis, the Cubs could find themselves in a big hole before they can even get going.

St. Louis has now won four series out of four to begin the season, taking two of three in each. After winning the opener in Arizona, they look primed to make it five for five. The redbirds have gotten great starting pitching so far this season. Their starters now have a record of 8-1 this season and the Brad Penny signing is already starting to look like a genius move by general manager John Mozeliak. Penny is 2-0 in three starts, having gone seven innings in each and he has only yielded a total of three runs. When you add him to Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter, St. Louis has a dominant top three in the rotation. With that trio, they only need Kyle Lohse and rookie Jaime Garcia to be decent, and Garcia's been far better than that, only allowing one run in his first two starts. Lohse will get his third shot tomorrow and even though he's the only St. Louis starter without a win, he hasn't pitched poorly either. He receives a tough match-up in former Cardinal Dan Haren, but if Lohse can keep the club in it early, he should have a chance to notch a "W" as the Arizona bullpen has struggled over their last five games with an ERA over 15.00.

In this country, everyone gets the benefit of a doubt. Especially athletes. We look at them as role models and heroes, even though this is usually unfair. Most of them are just normal people like you and me, who just happen to be talented at playing games. However, most of them won't be looked down on as long as they're just decent people. That being said, I've been just as guilty when it comes to turning a blind eye towards my own teams and players. When Ben Roethlisberger followed his first Super Bowl victory with his disastrous motorcycle accident, I called him an idiot, but other than that, I just hoped that he had learned from it and would make better decisions in the future. After his second Super Bowl win, a civil rape suit was brought against him by a woman from Nevada. Her story was very weak with no charges being filed and the fact that is was a civil suit made it look like she just wanted some money. So I stuck by him and it looked even worse for this woman when he decided to counter sue for defamation.  The big story now is that he's been accused of raping another girl and even though no charges were filed, details keep coming out that make Roethlisberger look worse and worse. He met with commissioner Roger Goodell last week and it seems like a suspension is imminent. The only question is for how long. My guess is somewhere between two and four games, but Goodell could decide to do something drastic to make and example of him. And while that would dramatically impact my team's chances to make the playoffs next season, let alone win the Super Bowl, I can't say that I'd be that opposed to it. After all, who knows what Ben will do if he wins another Super Bowl? Rob a bank? Hold a hospital for terminal children hostage? Genocide? At this stage, it sounds less and less like hyperbole.

The Steelers seem to have sent Roethlisberger a pretty clear message by trading Super Bowl XLIII MVP Santonio Holmes to the Jets for next to nothing (5th round pick). Holmes has had a few run-ins with the law since being drafted and with Pittsburgh being a classy organization over the years, they had clearly tired of their image being sullied by Holmes' antics. Trading the team's top wide receiver should show Roethlisberger that no one is untouchable. He should know now that it's shape up or ship out. I just hope he chooses the former.

Back to baseball to end on a lighter note, here's Chan Ho Park showing the language/culture barrier while defending his poor outing to begin the season. Classic.

Final Four and the Blues' Last Stand

The most recent time that I had a team in the Final Four that  I really cared about,  I was a freshman in college. UCLA made it for the past three seasons before this year's collapse, and while I've cheered for the Bruins, I've never considered them one of my teams. The Duke Blue Devils are, however, one of my teams. I've cheered for them since they came to prominence in the early 90's alongside my father who enjoyed coach Krzyzewski's coaching style as well as his passion.

I would still cheer for my local teams like Mizzou and my personal favorite, SLU, over Duke, but that's about it. I've also found links between my local teams and Duke. My hatred of the Kansas Jayhawks transferred quite nicely to being a Duke fan when KU's coach, Roy Williams, left Kansas for North Carolina. My hatred for the Kentucky Wildcats for knocking out SLU in their last NCAA tournament appearance is also eased by a particular March Madness moment for which I will always have Duke to thank (see below).



And while I am very optimistic about both SLU and Mizzou's chances to become great in the next few years under Rick Majerus and Mike Anderson respectively, Duke is still and might always be, my best chance to see one of my teams win a national championship in college basketball. I'm ecstatic to have a real rooting interest in the Final Four again. I've also despised Bobby Huggins on the behalf of SLU when he was with Cincinnati and Mizzou during his one year with Kansas State, so now I can have a truly universal dislike for him between my top three teams. I'm hoping he gets a "T" just like he always did when he came in to play the Billikens. I took my little sister Natalie to see Cincy one year and told her prior to the game that their coach was going to get called for a technical foul. She was impressed when fewer than five minutes into the contest, coach Huggins gave a ref an earful causing him to turn and tap his hands together. Huggins has calmed down a bit since those years, but if a bad call goes against him, I still wouldn't put it past him. And as all you Duke haters know, we always get the calls (Rolls eyes).

As for the Butler and Michigan State game, I doubt anyone had two five-seeds meeting up in the Final Four. Both have great stories. MSU is really shorthanded after losing their best player, Kalin Lucas, in the second round of the NCAA tourney. But with great coaching from Tom Izzo, the Spartans persevered and managed to knock out a Cinderella in Northern Iowa and squeak by Tennessee. Izzo's coaching is what gives Sparty the best chance tonight. His six Final Fours since 1999 are the most among all NCAA coaches and it is difficult to argue that this can be a coincidence. Izzo is a great motivator for his players and can adjust game plans with the best of them as well.

As for Butler, a lot of people are calling this Hoosiers, the College Years. There's no way it can be as bad as another piece of Americana gone to college.  Butler's coach, Brad Stevens, doesn't have Izzo's experience going for him, but he's still no slouch with the clipboard. He's gone 86-14 in his first three years with the Bulldogs, which is one of the greatest starts in college history. He's also gone to the dance every year since being hired. The Bulldogs might be looked at as an underdog overall, but they're actually favored in this game by a point, and with good reason. Butler shouldn't have been a five-seed. They were ranked 8th in the coaches poll and 11th in the AP poll coming into the tournament. This means that they were deserving of at least a three-seed if you do the simple math. Four teams for each seed, so the top four teams should all get a one, the next four should get a two, and the next four should get a three. Butler wasn't even the bottom team of the 3-seed tier, but because of their conference, they got passed up for a team like Georgetown, who comes from the power conference known as the Big East. How'd that work out again? Butler's still playing and the Hoyas were knocked out before you could say Ohio Bobcats. Oh, and Georgetown was ranked 14th and 15th in the polls. Should the pollsters should get more of a look from the NCAA committee next year, perhaps?

The Bulldogs are playing six miles from their campus, which I'm sure you'll hear at least 11 times during tonight's broadcast on CBS and an extra seven times during the second game if Butler wins. This will get overplayed, but it really is a home game for them. Even if there are Indiana and Purdue fans there, who do you think they'll cheer for? Big Ten rival MSU or hometown Butler? Yeah, that's an easy choice.

My picks are going to be from the heart as well:
Duke 73 - Virgina 68
Butler 82 - MSU 74

The Blues are all but done now when it comes to the playoffs. They are six points behind Colorado for the last spot with five games remaining. Had they not blown yet another lead on Thursday in Nashville, they could be a much more realistic four points out. Even with missing the postseason again, it would still be nice to see a strong finish.

The team has a lot of potential for next year and a lot of money to spend this offseason, even though a fair amount should go towards locking up restricted free agents like Erik Johnson, David Perron, and Alex Steen. EJ's really come on since the Olympics and has more goals than any Blues defenseman since Chris Pronger scored 16 in the 2003-04 season. Perron still needs to be more consistent, but has shown off his magic hands this year and that he can be physical and all over the ice like Detroit's Pavol Datsyuk. As for Steen, I would crown him the Blues' MVP for the second half of the season. He's always playing hard and always scoring. He's finally starting to live up to that first-round potential that Toronto thought he had when they drafted him. Anyone still complaining about giving up Lee Stempniak for him, even with Stempniak's 27 goals? Steen will play in 68 games at most this year due to an injury back in the fall and still has one more point this year than Stempniak. I'll certainly take that. I'd also love to see us bring back Paul Kariya for a cheaper price with the way he's come on, but I'm not sure if he would sign for around the $2 million that I have in mind. Making a run at Ilya Kovalchuk would be nice to see as well since owner Dave Checketts has told the media that the Blues will have a very active offseason.

I still plan to be as obnoxious as ever at the game tonight, even with our playoff chances being bleak. There's a lot to cheer for as a Blues fan in the coming years, even if it's not this year. LET'S GO BLUES!

On another hockey related note, if you've noticed how inconsistent suspensions have been in the NHL over the past few years, believe it or not, they really do have a system to decide it. My buddy Mike sent me this from a blog called Down Goes Brown. It's certainly worth your time if you're a hockey fan.

U.S.A upsets Canada and SLU's Stock Keeps Rising.

WOW. I'm still reacting to last night's riveting game between the United States and Canada. You know the line from Mighty Ducks 2, "Hey Goldberg, I bet if that puck was a cheeseburger you'd stop it?" Well, apparently Ron Wilson hypnotized Ryan Miller before the game under this pretense. And with NBC, err....MSNBC, broadcasting the game, hiring Keenan Thompson, currently of SNL,  to sit in the stands and heckle Miller with the famous line was rather easy to pull off. Even easier than beating Norway. Miller stopped an incredible 42 shots en route to preserving a 5-3 victory over Olympic host Canada. Ryan Kesler's empty netter to seal the deal was also magnificent. You can watch that goal, along with the rest of the game's goals right here.

I'm really enjoying cheering for guys like Kesler and Brian Rafalski who I can't stand during the NHL season during to their current rosters (Vancouver and Detroit respectively), have been money guys for the USA so far in this tournament. Rafalski, a defenseman, leads the team in goals with four. That's an example of your veterans getting it done. An example of the Canadians' veterans getting it done would be Patrick Marleau taking huge dive to draw a penalty against the Erik Johnson. Canada would score on the ensuing power play to cut the USA lead to one goal. I'm sorry, but when you have to take a dive in an Olympic game to get some momentum, your team does not deserve to win. Even Charlie Conway of the peewee Mighty Ducks has more integrity than that. That's right, Marleau has less integrity than a Hollywood scripted 12-year old. For shame Mr. Marleau, for shame. That said, the USA didn't entirely deserve to win this game either. When your club is out-shot nearly two to one, your goaltender has to be something quite magical just to be in the game, let alone win it. Luckily for the States, Miller was David Blaine and more (The sequel to the video is just as good, FYI).



The USA will need Miller's play to remain at a high level to win the gold, but thanks to winning the top seed in the single-elimination, they will get to avoid the tournament's three biggest threats, Canada, Russian, and Sweden until the gold-medal game. Another huge ramification of Canada losing to the US is that Russia and Canada will meet in the quarterfinals (assuming the Germans don't pull a huge upset of Canada). This means that either Russia or Canada is already assured to leave Vancouver without a medal. Many experts were picking these two teams along with the Swedes to medal in this event. I picked the USA, Canada, and Sweden (just not in this space), but I'm no expert. I would be rather surprised if Canada medals at this point. To win the gold, they would possibly have to beat Russia, Sweden, and the United States in a span of four days. They have the home crowd, but it might take that plus a bit of a miracle to get that done.  One thing is for sure though. If the rest of the tournament plays out like the USA-Canada game, hockey fans are in for a real treat.

The St. Louis University Billikens are continuing their charge towards the bubble. They have now won six consecutive games and own soul possession of fourth place in the Atlantic-10 conference, which is slated to get more NCAA bids than the SEC this year. They are becoming more and more difficult to ignore. If they can pull off the upset on Wednesday when they host Xavier, they will be impossible to ignore. I'm not saying that win will get them in, but it'll certainly keep the Bubble Watch interested. Three of SLU's last four games are at home, including the next three against Xavier, Duquesne, and Temple before finishing at Dayton. Winning three of those four plus a good showing in the A-10 tourney would make them a shoe-in for the NIT and keep their NCAA hopes alive until Selection Sunday as well.

Idiot of the week award: Ryan Franklin.

The Cardinals closer of last season may have deserved this last year when he was constantly blowing games down the stretch, but he truly earned it this week. He apparently has a big problem with Major League Baseball banning guns in the clubhouse. Franklin is from Arkansas and was brought up hunting and fishing, so it's understandable that he's attached to these hobbies. But he'd have to be living under a rock to not have heard about the Gilbert Arenas "guns in the locker-room" story. Wait, I did just say he's from Arkansas, so I guess that is possible. However, MLB is worried about it's image enough already due to the PEDs scandals, it doesn't need a gun headache as well. MLB didn't say it's players aren't allowed to hunt, it just said keep it out of the locker-room. Most places of employment ban firearms: schools, banks, the post office, etc. Most places of employment don't pay you millions of dollars to play a game. Count your blessings Mr. Franklin and please, quit whining over such a stupid issue. If he keeps this up, we're going to have to start frisking that beard of his to make sure he's not hiding a Noisy Cricket.

Super Bowl XLIV, the Blues, and the Bubble

Technology has forever changed the way we follow sports. We can now watch games in HD, check scores on our phones, and even follow our favorite athletes on Twitter. Sports video games graphics improve each year, looking more and more realistic, and now even the results are becoming very realistic. For the sixth time in seven years, a simulation on EA Sports' Madden accurately predicted the winner of the Super Bowl. This year, it even got the MVP right by selecting Drew Brees. The game was more lopsided than the 35-31 score it projected, but that's still scary good. Betters will probably pay more attention when the Madden simulation is published next year, as it broke a streak of projecting favorites to win and it's choice still held up.

The game itself was still very entertaining, as the Saints did have to rally from a 10-0 deficit and they didn't put the game away until Tracy Porter's pick-6 put the Saints up by 14 and left the Colts just 3:12 to try and score twice. I was thinking that the Saints had left Peyton Manning too much time and that they might have to go to overtime, but Manning's throw, or moreover, Reggie Wayne's weak attempt to catch it or at least break up the play, cost the Colts the game.

Also doing some winning as of late, have been my St. Louis Blues. They flat out railed a weak Toronto Maple Leafs team on Friday night. They outplayed Toronto the vast majority of the night and getting a pair of shorthanded goals in under five minutes during the second period pretty much put the game away. A shortie, as Blues color man Darren Pang termed it, is a back-breaking goal. Giving up two within two power plays has to completely demoralize a team. It's something I rarely do on the PS2, so to actually have it happen is pretty much inexcusable. Toronto isn't even going to benefit from their low finish as they dealt away their first-rounder for Phil Kessel. Their GM Brian Burke has a plan, but we'll have to wait and see how that one turns out. Trading away Alex Steen and leaving T.J. Oshie off of the U.S.A Olympic roster didn't pan out too well for him, as those were the scorers of the shorties. Not a bad way to stick it to him a bit, huh?

The Blues still have quite a bit of work to do. They have the Washington Capitals coming in tomorrow night, fresh off a two-game losing streak to follow up a 14-game winning streak, which was the third longest in NHL history.  So to put it lightly, the Caps are almost due after dropping two in a row. This could be a great test for the Blues. Even if they get a lead, the thing they haven't been doing is closing out games. They have now blown third period leads nine times. And unlike in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, those nine blown leads won't disappear of the computer screen like Ferris' nine absences. The Blues managed to salvage their game against Detroit on Tuesday, but they still let the Wings get away with a point, which can't happen against a team that you're directly competing with for one of the last playoff spots. Washington will keep coming the entire game, so the Blues can't afford to be complacent for a minute. They were down 5-2 to Montreal on Wednesday night to begin the third period and came back to tie it and force overtime before succumbing to the Habs in overtime. The Blues have to close out games if they expect to close in on a playoff spot. They sit just four points back of the eighth spot right now and it would sure be nice to go into the Olympic break within two.

Another team that's had trouble closing this season is the St. Louis University Billikens. They've squandered a couple large leads on the road and with those wins, they'd be a top-100 RPI team. At this point, they're looking at a very small shot at getting an at-large bid into the NCAA tourney, but if they can run the table or even go 6-1 over their last seven, it would certainly have to be noticed by the committee. In their last seven games, they have five left at home and two on the road. One of the road games is at UMass and is very winnable. The other is at Dayton, which would not be a bad loss by any means. They currently rank seventh in the Atlantic-10 which is projected by ESPN's Bracketology to get six teams into the dance at this point, which is even more impressive when you see that the Big East is also projected to get six. So the Bills certainly are in a league that is getting respect this year. That being said, their 6-3 record has mainly been built against the weaklings of the conference with the lone exception being a home win over Richmond (Which won't look quite as good since SLU got pummeled at Richmond). They have the meat of the league coming in with home games against Dayton, Rhode Island, Xavier, Temple, in addition to one of the aforementioned patsies in Duquesne who the Bills beat in OT on the road. SLU is 12-1 at home this year, so if they can keep up their home-court advantage, they could be in good shape heading into the conference tournament. Let's just hope that like the Blues, they can start to close games out.