Guess Who's Back

It's been a while.

For two months I stopped writing and for two months everyone who doesn't read this blog kept not reading. It's roughly 5:30 a.m. right now where I am and regardless of what time the post will read, as blogger.com is clearly located somewhere in the western Aleutian Islands, it's friggin late right now. Yes, I'm staying up all night for Konichiwa Day, even though I hate the Red Sox as much as I hate the Tar Heels or the Patriots.

It's the first game of the Major League Baseball season. And considering that if the NBA and NHL were TV shows instead of professional sports leagues they would have been canceled after 13 games each, the hibernation period of winter is over.

I'm in the midst of my greatest sports year since pre-school. Seriously. In 1986, the Celtics, Mets and Giants were world champions. Duke basketball was in the national championship game and Notre Dame football was on the brink of a national title. If you, like any red-blooded American male should, have six favorite sports teams — MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, college basketball, college football — and three win championships in the same year, it will probably never happen again.

Realizing that my peak as a sports fan happened at age 5, and further realizing that my only memory of those three titles is the image of Jesse Orosco throwing his glove in the air at the end of Game 7, I understand that those moments are few and far between.

Because of that, it's safe to say I enjoyed the Giants' win in Super Bowl 42 more than any other game in my lifetime. For one, I wasn't 5. But more importantly, I hated the other team. The undefeated, perfect team from a town I've grown to hate over the years (even though the Celtics will always be my No. 1 team of all; that's how f***ing annoying Red Sox and Patriots fans are). The Giants beat the crap out of the Pats. Every football analyst broke the game down into sections from the opening kickoff to Randy Moss not wanting to jump for that 60-yard bomb that would have made me punch/kick/break whatever was in front/next/near me. But for me, the play that's YouTubed in my head is when Jay Alford steamrolled into the backfield in the final minute and knocked Tom Brady into mid-air like Charlie Murphy had just kicked Rick James into the mirror on Chappelle's Show. It was great and it was perfect, but the greatness continued.

Within a week Duke beat North Carolina in Chapel Hill (clearly now not an omen of things to come) and the Mets signed Johan Santana. Think of a better week in your sports life. Does your favorite football team win the Super Bowl , your favorite baseball team trade for the best pitcher in the league and your favorite college basketball team beat their bitter, better rival on their home floor in 7 days? Probably not. But they did and they did and they did.

Is it all downhill from there? Of course it is. It's always downhill when you're at the top just like it's always uphill when you're at the bottom. That's why guys love sports.

Bad jobs get worse, bad relationships drive you insane and bad Chinese food can keep you within 10 feet of a bathroom for three days straight, but your team will get better.

That bad contract will expire, that horrible GM will get fired (unless you're a Knicks fan), your team will make the playoffs, the best free agent will sign with your team or you'll win the draft lottery. Good things always happen to loyal sports fans. It may take a long time and you may need six "favorite teams" for it to happen just once in your lifetime, but greatness in sports is cyclical. Your team will be good again. Time heals all sports wounds.

Just ask those all idiot Red Sox fans that are awake right now.

Cheaters Never Win

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this entry right now.

I'm too busy celebrating the Giants' Super Bowl win, the Patriots' Super Bowl loss, Bill Belichick's lack of class, Junior Seau's lack of a ring and the Patriots' ability to win their 18 least important games of the season.

I hope all you New England fans will be able to deal with this loss with as much class as you displayed during all your wins this year. Your season is a failure. Your coach is a fraud. Your quarterback isn't perfect. Your line isn't inpenetrable. Your running back isn't anything special. Your team set the record for most wins in a season without winning the Super Bowl and your team didn't win the only game this season that mattered. Take your 18 wins and try to trade them to a Giants fan for just this last one. No one's biting? Too bad. Live with it.

Amani Toomer, Plaxico Burress and Steve Smith have a ring. Randy Moss, Wes Welker and Donte Stallworth don't. I guess the Giants' receivers really are better than the Pats receivers in some ways.

The best subplot, out of the millions that were artificially generated by bored media members who were forced to submit stories each day over the last two weeks, was Burress giving his "prediction" that the Giants were going to win 23-17. It was based on nothing, I guess it was his old number or his favorite number against his current number or something, just because someone asked him for a final score.

He didn't make a guarantee, or even a real prediction. He just gave an answer to the media and it got blown out of proportion just like everything else does nowadays. But Tom Brady wanted to take it a step further. He laughed at the notion that the G-Men could hold his mighty Patriots to just 17 points. "Is Plaxico playing defense?" Ha ha ha. Well, how does 14 points sound Tom? Ha ha ha.

Bill Simmons, The Sports Guy, ESPN's darling columnist, predicted the Pats would romp and compared this Patriots team to a team he would create in Madden. Simmons also created the "Eff You" phrase this season, as in the Pats scoring "Eff You" touchdowns just for the hell of it to run up the score. Well, Bill, you could have used one of those "Eff You" touchdowns in this game. Because after dealing with four straight intolerable months of listening to Patriots players and New England fans this year, I can't think of anything that sums it up better for me, so, I'll try it, Bill. Eff You. Wow, that feels pretty good. Let me try it again. Eff You!!!

Kiss the ring Pats fans, but not the old dusty ones that you stole when the other teams weren't looking. Kiss the new one, the one you thought was yours...

Fool Me Once, Shame On You...

...Fool me a bunch of times, win three or four rings.

So this Matt Walsh guy claims to have taped a bunch of stuff for the Patriots from 1998 to 2003. Not surprising. Usually when an individual or group gets caught cheating, it's not the first time they tried it. I doubt the Pats started videotaping other teams in Week 1 of this season. There will probably be a bunch of Matt Walsh's to come out of the woodwork.

I went to college with a guy named Matt Walsh and I didn't trust him either. The Patriots' Walsh could potentially blow this whole Spygate/Belicheat wide open, casting shadows of doubt on all of the wins the Patriots have accumulated in the last decade.

That's bad enough. But today, an unnamed source claimed to have stayed behind to tape the St. Louis Rams' walkthrough before Super Bowl XXXVI, which the Pats then won the next day despite being 14-point underdogs. That was their first Super Bowl win.

Can I say for sure that New England has cheated its way to three (hopefully not four) Super Bowl rings? No. The only thing that I know for sure is that Belichick had a terrible video staff in Cleveland.

Johan, Chuck, Doug and Kwame

From the time it was announced that the Mets had somehow moved ahead of the Yankees and Red Sox into the driver's seat of the Johan Santana derby, I couldn't help but think something was going to go wrong. And now, with the extension agreed upon, I still feel that way. Someone's failing a physical. That's just the Mets fan in me.

I'm glad all interested parties were able to agree on a contract extension, but it really took four days? Who raises their hand and asks the teacher for an extension in this situation? Is it Omar, is it the Twins, is it Johan? Get it done you dopes. I procrastinate as much as the next guy. I'm the one who did homework during 3rd period study hall when it was due in 4th period. I get it. But these guys make millions to run their own little fantasy teams, and 96 hours later you gotta call up Dud Selig and tell him that you need two more hours?

Maybe if the Mets took four days to think about Victor Zambrano, we'd still have Scott Kazmir in the rotation.

I have to say, with (a healthy) Santana, Pedro, John Maine, Oliver Perez and El Duque, not only do the Mets have the required 80% Spanish-speaking rotation under the Minaya regime, but it's automatically a top 5 starting 5 in the majors. Boston is great, as is Arizona with Haren added to Webb, but if, and it's a huge if, the Mets pitchers stay healthy, you would have to assume the playoffs are a guarantee and the National League World Series berth is ours for the taking.

In other news:

Tiger Woods holds just a one-stroke lead after two rounds of the Dubai Desert Classic. Apparently he borrowed Curtis Strange's clubs and is playing lefty just for the hell of it.

Chuck Knoblauch carried his kid strategically in front of his face Friday to and from a House committee meeting in Washington like he was an NBA star who just got caught cheating on his wife. Nothing like holding a toddler up for the cameras to distract from the fact that you're (allegedly) a scumbag. Maybe Chuck should have positioned his kid in front of him at second base when he went to the Yankees. Could have saved him the move to left field and Keith Olbermann's mother from getting hit in the face with a baseball in the seats behind the first base dugout.

So the pride of East Hartford, Doug Wiggins, is back with the Huskies. I'm a little confused though. Does the first UConn player to fail four drug tests win or lose?

Staying with UConn, does recruiting a smart kid who went to one high school, has never been arrested and can hit an 18-foot jump shot go against school policy? Or was it just too easy with Ray Allen and Rip Hamilton around, so they added a few obstacles to make winning a national championship so much harder?

Despite being a horrible basketball player, having no professional resume, being accused of rape (cleared), stealing a cake and then assaulting a man with it (not prosecuted) and getting arrested for disorderly conduct and interfering with a police officer, Kwame Brown has now been the No. 1 overall pick of the NBA draft, traded for Caron Butler and now traded for Pau Gasol. He must feel like George Costanza in the Seinfeld episode where he does the opposite of every instinct he has.
Brown: My name is Kwame. I'm unemployed and I live with my parents.
Memphis: We're the Grizzlies, hi.

Grandma and Santana

Normally I would have a lot to say after the Minnesota Twins traded Johan Santana to the New York Mets. How many times in any one person's life does the best player in a sport get traded to your favorite team?

Even better, how many times does the best pitcher in Major League Baseball get traded to your favorite team for three guys who barely, if ever, played in the majors, and another guy who is basically a track star in a baseball uniform? It doesn't happen. If it does, it's once in a lifetime.

The three pitchers the Mets traded have potential — much like Alex Escobar, Alex Ochoa, Bill Pulsipher, Paul Wilson, Damon Buford and countless other busts in Mets history had potential — but potential doesn't win games or championships. Performance does. Santana is the ultimate in performance.

The one position player the Mets traded, the track star in question, is Carlos Gomez. To give you an idea of how I see Carlos Gomez, picture this: My older brother used to play slo-pitch softball in a league in Bristol. He had a teammate who was a stereotypical Irish guy. He would drink like a fish after the games (before I think, too), he had red hair, a ton of freckles and to top it all off, his name was Mickey. He was a muscular guy, all jacked up, and every time he got up to the plate, he would take a monster hack.

Now, picture a 5-year-old playing his first T-Ball game, taking a swing and only connecting with the tee. Mickey and the 5-year-old would get the same results, lucky if the ball reached the pitcher's mound.

Anyway, Gomez, Mickey and the T-Baller basically have the same swing. They swing for the fences, chop the ball down the third-base line and beat the throw to first for an infield hit. From seeing that for a half seaso, I could care less that Gomez got traded. It's just my gut instinct. I don't think he's going to be that great. He may be good, but not great. So, to recap, the Mets traded four guys who have accomplished nothing in the major leagues for the best pitcher in baseball. Sounds good to me.

The only problem(s) now is that the contract extension may not get worked out, Santana could reject the trade, the pitcher I never heard of could fail a physical and any number of Mets-type issues that seem to always pop up will eventually pop up. Kevin Mulvey could have a partially torn labrum, Santana could say he wants to go to the Sox or Yanks instead and Omar Minaya could hold out and try and make it a three-way deal to re-acquire Victor Zambrano.

I'm not getting my hopes up until I see Johan Santana in a Mets uniform on a pitcher's mound in Port St. Lucie in March. Not a minute before.

However, the main reason I can't get excited right now is more of a family matter.

Every family has its members that have quirks, funny habits or traditions. One of my favorites was that every time I spoke with my grandparents on the phone, one would answer and the other one would hurry and grab the other phone and turn it into a conference call. They used to summer in Vermont and spend winters in Daytona Beach — not a bad gig if you ask me — but as they got older and health issues popped up, they stayed in Daytona year round.

The funny part of the conversations was trying to talk to both my grandmother and grandfather at the same time. We would chat about what was going on, what was new, the weather or anything else that came up. Gramps knows I'm a huge sports guy, so inevitably the conversation would turn to that. My grandfather was a Michael Jordan fan back in the Bulls heyday but he would always talk about the Miami Heat or the Orlando Magic, mainly because that's what was in the local papers every day. After all, NBA games don't end by 8 p.m. (his bed time) so what was in the papers was what he knew about.

My grandmother, not into a sport not called NASCAR, would then sit quietly on the line while me and my grandfather would talk about the Florida sports scene or the Celtics or the Mets or whatever was going on up north. My favorite part was when she had enough of listening to me and Gramps talk on and on about details of a game that happened a week ago and she would finally chime in, loudly, and say, "Well alright then!" That was her way of saying, "I don't know what the hell you're talking about but you guys sound like nerds and I'm bored, so wrap it up."

I always waited for, and loved, that part of the conversation. It was just her. Loving, caring, patient — to a point — and completely real. She was the best.

She died on Monday. It was her time to wrap it up. In a world full of complainers, whiners, prima donnas and spoiled brats — especially a sports world full of them — she didn't complain. If you looked at the NFL injury report in Week 16 and went through what was wrong with each player, well, she probably had entire teams beat just on her own. She lived her life — all 86 years of it — for her family.

While most Mets fans can rejoice today about the news of Johan Santana, I just can't. At least not yet. But maybe that's a good thing. The high points of Mets seasons usually come around January anyway. I'll mourn for now. Hopefully I can rejoice in October.

Pull The Bandwagon Over, Everybody Off!!!

I've been thoroughly enjoying the Giants' surprising run through the playoffs. They were picked to be around the 6-10 mark and finish last in the NFC East by most "experts" before the season started. (Blogger's note: "Expert" means someone who is paid to give an opinion or prediction on TV, in print or online who in no way has to be either accurate or accountable for said opinion or prediction. Many media outlets let two "experts" give two predictions so said outlet will always be "right".)

The problem I have now is that everyone, for some reason, seems to be treating the G-Men like they're the favorite. Most people picked Tampa Bay, Dallas and then Green Bay to eliminate Big Blue. Now all of a sudden, out of fear of being wrong four times in a row in a sport with a four-round playoff system, people are jumping ship. Guys, I don't think now is the time to jump ship.

Let's pretend the Patriots lose the Super Bowl (which may, unfortunately, be the only way the Patriots lose the Super Bowl).

The Pats already have the most wins in a single NFL season. You could make the argument that an 18-1 Patriots team could still be the best squad in league history. The only team that you could bring up in an argument would be the 1972 Dolphins, and I'm pretty sure all the "experts" would take this year's Pats in a fantasy matchup of the two teams.

What they did this year was unbelievable, especially in this era of the salary cap, parity, supermodels, candid cameras, superstar wide receivers who tank and get traded for 11 cents on the dollar, coaches who can't cut it in the big leagues and call their coach friends and tell them to trade for a certain possession wide receiver before running — tail firmly between legs — back to college, quarterbacks who can't even start when they're in college and then get put into the game only because of an injury to the starting QB and somehow become one of the best of all time, safeties who take HGH, a fan base that multiplies with each win like they were vulnerable, college-aged rabbits locked in a bedroom with nothing but cheap vodka and a Barry White album playing on an eternal loop...God, I hate the Patriots.

My point is, the Pats have not lost a game this year. Are the Giants' hot? Sure. But where is your money going? On the team with the three-game winning streak or the team with the 18-game winning streak that beat the team with the three-game winning streak four games ago?

People fall in love with the underdog. It's natural. But you're all jinxing us. When this many people align themselves with the trendy, popular pick, it never works out. The Giant bandwagon has been a fun ride the last few weeks, but it's getting really crowded. Get off. The New England wagon, much like the Boston Red Sox wagon, has infinite capacity. Hop on. They're always looking for new riders. But be warned, a few years from now, if you don't get off that wagon quick enough, you'll be sitting alone.

Spew Stew

Chris "Mad Dog" Russo, or this week, "The Marquis", is in the midst of whining and complaining about his listeners' lack of knowledge while trying to give away Super Bowl tickets during the annual trivia contest on WFAN-660. Where does he get off being Alex Trebek one week — condescending toward his own fans because they don't know the answers to questions he made up and is looking at — and the other 51 weeks out of the year he doesn't have the basic current event sports knowledge to be able to host a public access show.

Speaking of Russo, during one discussion a couple weeks back, he was critiquing the NFL All-Pro teams and managed to mispronounce four names in under a minute. I bet you didn't know DeVon Hester, Asante Samuels, Flonzell Adams and Rod Barajas were going to the Pro Bowl. I can understand mixing up Devin with DeVon and adding an "s" to Samuel's last name and even throwing in an "n" for Flozell. But Rod Barajas? Sure it's kinda similar to Rob Bironas, but Doggie, you talk about sports for 5½ hours a day 5 days a week. Can you at least pretend to care about accuracy? Can a free agent catcher not be the Tennessee Titans' Pro Bowl kicker?

Right now ESPN is doing a "Family Feud" segment on SportsCenter about the Orlando Magic with Greg Anthony and Tim Legler as the "families" and talking torso Steve Levy playing the Richard Dawson, Ray Combs, Louie Anderson, Al Borland, J. Peterman role. Anthony "buzzed" in first, by hitting the podium, and "guessed" his answer, which was accompanied by graphics and video that somehow appeared in synch with his "answer". After the "game" was over, I think Dwight Howard came on and thanked us for playing. Has ESPN reached the point where it knows there is no other national sports network to pose a challenge in the ratings so it just does whatever the hell it wants? Is there a bed big enough for all of ESPN and every professional athlete to share at once? If ESPN had the sports equivalent of CBS, NBC and FOX to compete with, the programming would be drastically different. Trust me. It might even be watchable.

On Wednesday, Barry Bonds asked a federal judge to dismiss perjury charges. I was able to get my hands on a transcript:
Bonds: "Judge, can you get me off the hook? For old times' sake?"
Judge: "Can't do it Barry."
*Bonds rides off in car with three members of jury*

Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic are in the Australian Open women's final. I know you know Sharapova, but you may not know Ivanovic. YouTube her, trust me. If the people running the Aussie Open could call Vince McMahon so he could arrange Anna Kournikova as a special guest referee...hold on, I have to go set my TiVo...Is there an empty spot in that bed with ESPN and the pro athletes? If Ana and Maria are there I guess I can ignore Neil Everett and Skip Bayless seeing who can annoy the most people in America at one time.

Where have you gone, Chuck Knoblauch? (Sing it in your head as "where have you gone Chucky Knob-a-lock? Marshals want to subpoena you, ooh ooh ooh...")

The Celtics lost yesterday, but it's hard to get upset about it. It's been a while since the Celtics' losing a game was a news story, instead of the Celtics' winning a game being a news story, or a skit on SportsCenter.

Enough with the Eli stories. No he hasn't arrived. He's been here. He's been in the playoffs three straight years. He's not Peyton. He's not great. He's a good NFL quarterback, like he has been. Did Trent Dilfer arrive in 2000? No. Did Dan Marino never arrive? No. Or yes. Whichever one means he arrived, he just didn't get a ring. Stop it. Please. One quarterback wins a Super Bowl each year. Does that mean 31 quarterbacks suck each year? No. Can we just play the Super Bowl three days after the conference championships? You get your game stories, your follow-up the day after, your preview the day before and then your Super Bowl. It's enough.

Nolan Ryan declined to discuss steroids in baseball. If we just had a few more reporters that declined to write about it and a few more readers who declined to read about it, we'd be headed in the right direction. I understand it's an important issue, but the overkill about Bonds and roids and Mitchell and everything else, I think most people are numb to it. I honestly don't care who did it or when. The biggest issue with steroids in baseball is trying to figure out who was on it and how to adjust your fantasy draft for it. That's basically it. I've stayed away from Miguel Tejada and Jason Giambi for a few years now. That's the interesting part.
Let's just get spring training started. Each steroids story just reminds me of one of my favorite Simpsons quotes:

Marge: This is the worst thing you've ever done!
Homer: You say that so often that it lost its meaning.

Just set the fantasy draft up and play ball. Play the Super Bowl first, but then, play ball.