Categories
MLB General

MLB Power Rankings Roundup for May 26 2006

The Tigers and the White Sox vie for MLB Power Ranking supremecy but not much has changed in a week in the top 10. Except for the Dodgers. The other team from LA have won 7 in a row, most recently sweeping the previous Top 10 team the Rockies. It only takes a hot streak to reach or fall out of the top 10, which is why the White Sox and the Tigers (?!) are so impressive.

Here are your Major League Baseball Power Rankings by top sites this week.

Rank Sportscolumn ESPN FoxSports Sportsline USA Today TSN.ca
1 White Sox White Sox Tigers White Sox White Sox Tigers
2 Tigers Tigers White Sox Red Sox Cardinals Dodgers
3 Cardinals Cardinals Cardinals Tigers Tigers Yankees
4 Mets Mets Diamondbacks Cardinals Red Sox Red Sox
5 Red Sox Yankees Yankees Dodgers Mets Cardinals
6 Yankees Red Sox Mets Phillies Yankees White Sox
7 Blue Jays Diamondbacks Dodgers Mets Blue Jays Phillies
8 Reds Dodgers Red Sox Yankees Reds Rockies
9 Diamondbacks Blue Jays Blue Jays Blue Jays Phillies Reds
10 Astros Reds Reds Astros Astros Blue Jays
11-30 more more more more more more

Categories
MLB General

Full Count for Fri May 26 2006: There actually is crying in baseball



…it’s only Nats wasteland

1. This really shouldn’t be that emotional: Frank Robinson was crying after Thursday’s game despite his Nationals’ 8-5 victory over the Astros. This was because he had to use an extremely rare move–benching a catcher in the middle of an inning. It’s not like this move was unjustified either–backup catcher Matthew LeCroy had allowed 7 stolen bases and made two throwing errors. “I feel for him,” Robinson said, “And I hope fans understand. I just appreciate him hanging in there as long as he did.” What is this, a little league? LeCroy didn’t care as much. “Hey, he’s doing his job, just like I would do if I was in his position. Yet Robinson still cried, in the process becoming the Dick Vermeil of baseball. By the way, has anyone noticed that Jose Vidro is leading the NL in hitting? He had a homer and 4 RBIs on the day.

2. Simply unfair: The Tigers-Royals matchup the past few seasons has been a laughable affair between the worst two teams in baseball. Well, it’s laughable as well this year, but in a different way. The Tigers, already up 3-0 in the series, won 13-8 despite being down 6 runs after the first inning. Tigers starter Mike Maroth, who was 3rd in the AL in ERA coming into the game, had possibly the worst game any starter has pitched this season. He recorded one out, allowed 6 earned runs, 6 hits, and 3 homeruns before getting pulled. And the Royals still couldn’t win the ballgame, as Detroit’s offense rocked their weak pitching staff. Ivan Rodriguez homered and drove in 5, Craig Monroe went 4-4 with 4 runs scored, and Marcus Thames hit two balls out of the park. The win increased the Royals losing streak to an unbelievable 13 in a row, and the team has yet to defeat the Tigers this year in 8 tries.

3. Your typical AL West game: The AL West division is kind of like the PAC-10 of baseball. The games always seem to be a little crazier than games from other divisions. Thursday’s Rangers-A’s matchup was no different, as Texas stormed to an 8-7 victory. Despite being down 7-0 after five innings, the Rangers scored all of their runs in the last four innings to win the ballgame. Mark Teixeira hit a homerun (surprisingly only his fifth of the season), and Phil Nevin hit a game-winning, walk-off shot in the 9th. Texas, at 24-23, commands the division lead.

4. Just who they were looking for: The Boston Red Sox signed Josh Beckett in the offseason to be their ace, and so far it has looked like an excellent decision. Beckett beat the Devil Rays last night to improve to 7-1 on the season, allowing no runs in 6 innings. Before last night, Boston was only 3-3 against the D-Rays this year. But last night’s win preserved their one-game lead over the Yankees in the AL East. By the way, Tampa Bay is still in last place, but they do have more wins than the LA Angels, Minnesota Twins, and Chicago Cubs, among others.

5. A collection of no-names: Usually the batting average leaderboard is filled with current and rising stars. This year, it’s more about the `rising’ stars. The top two hitters of the year have been Alex Rios and Casey Blake. Shea Hillenbrand, another Blue Jay, is fifth. Florida’s Hanley Ramirez, a rookie, is eighth at .335. Brad Hawpe, a previously unknown catcher from the Rockies, is 11th overall. In fact, only about 8 of the top 20 batters are known by the casual fan. What a season.

Categories
NHL General

Maggie the Monkey picks the conference championships



3-1 in second round

Maggie the Monkey went 3-1 in the 2nd round, only getting the Ottawa over Sabres pick wrong and leads all the TSN experts throughout the playoffs (7-5). For the conference championship round, Maggie takes Carolina and Edmonton. So far so good for Edmonton but the Carolina pick might be in trouble.

Good luck, Maggie. We got $5 on you.

Links:
[TSN.ca]: Monkey Business 2006

Categories
Dallas Mavericks

Avery Johnson hits Josh Howard in the crotch

As anyone who has every watched American Funniest Home Videos can tell you, getting hit in the jewels is always funny. Here’s a video of Avery Johnson getting so excited about a basket, he knocks Josh Howard right in the crotch. The look on Howard’s face is priceless. And worth watching four or five hundred times. (Thanks to There’s Your Karma, Ripe as Peaches for the video find.)

Categories
Boston Red Sox

Odds and Ends for Thu May 25 2006: Schilling is a charitable blowhard

Does it surprise anyone that Curt Schilling loves Curt Schilling? He had a video game character created in his likeness for EverQuest II. You know, the video game where dorks play for days at a time and some get so obsessed that they kill themselves after playing it. The only upside to this story is that everytime someone beats the Curt Schilling character (named Major Asshole Curt Schilling), Sony will donate $5 (up to $10,000… quite an underwhelming figure, actually) to the ALS Association. Next up, Schilling will digitally replace John Malkovich with himself in Being John Malkovich. (via Deadspin)

In other news…

[CBS Sportsline]: Ruben Droughs might run into Jake Plummer in court.

[SF Gate]: Fans in SF think baseball tickets are lottery tickets

[Royales With Cheese]: Fixing the Royals attendance problems

[Inside Bay Area]: Oakland A’s owner searching for a place in San Jose to build a soccer stadium. How about this place?

Categories
New York Yankees

A-Rod doesn’t pimp his balls

We’re as sick of the media East Coast bias and the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry as anyone but you gotta admit that it’s pretty funny when two teams start arguing about hitters staring at home run balls too long. After Manny Ramirez admired his homer off Scott Proctor (he did show him up by the way), A-Rod has been accused of doing the same thing to Tim Wakefield.

A-Rod denies that he would ever do something like that.


First of all, I’d never want to embarrass myself, so I wouldn’t pretend to embarrass myself by saying I didn’t see it if I had. Especially with someone like (Tim) Wakefield on the mound, who I respect as much as any pitcher in the game.

I’ve hit a lot of homers and I’ve never pimped one or tried to embarrass myself, my team or a guy like Wakefield or the Red Sox, who I respect so much. I don’t celebrate homers, it’s not my thing. All you have to do is look at my track record.

Meanwhile, Joe Torre said, “There’s a lot of things that go on today that the old-time pitchers wouldn’t put up with. The game has changed a lot. It’s not only Manny Ramirez.” Sounds like Torre wants a beanball at the head of Manny to clear a few things up. We’ll root for anything that results in a bench clearing brawl. And, if somehow, AJ Pierzynski could get socked in the jaw in the deal, that’d be even better.

Links:
[NY Daily News]: A-Rod sez charge an injustice

Categories
MLB General

Full Count for Thurs May 25 2006: Bonds on Bonds cancelled

1. Bailed on by his best friends: Barry Bonds is probably more widely hated than any other athlete. But even he didn’t know it could get this bad–his best friend, ESPN, cancelled his reality show “Bonds on Bonds.” Producer Mike Tolin said it’s about performance. “If Barry was hitting homeruns at Albert Pujols’ pace, then we would continue. Also, there is some fan fatigue.” The latter has been caused by more Bonds-related material on ESPN than any human being could possibly handle. Every Bonds at-bat is aired live on the network, and on nearly every edition of “Sportscenter” there is talk about Barry. By the way, for the few people out there who actually watch the show, it might come back during the All-Star break or for a regular season wrap-up.

2. Fading in May: Greg Maddux was magnificent in his first five starts, starting out the year 5-0 with 1.35 ERA. But in his last five starts he has looked like the 40-year-old he is, going 0-4 and increasing his ERA to a pedestrian 4.28. One of those poor starts came last night against the Marlins, when Maddux allowed 6 runs in as many innings. Miguel Cabrera did most of the damage, going 2-2 with a 3-run homer and RBI double. The 9-3 victory by the Marlins completed a sweep of the Cubs, who should definitely be embarrassed. By the way, last night’s game drew only 7720 people to Dolphin Stadium. Please move this team or build a new stadium, Marlins owners. This is as bad as the Devil Rays a couple years back.

3. C stands for Complete: CC Sabathia started out the year on the DL, but Indians fans are clearly glad to have him back. Last night the ace won again in complete game fashion over the reeling Twins. It was his second straight complete game, and he is 4-1 with a 1.52 ERA. The Indians offense also excelled against Minnesota, crushing 11 runs off of Brad Radke and others. Travis Hafner and Victor Martinez each drove in 2 runs, and Casey Blake led them all with 4 RBIs. Though the Indians are way out of the AL Central lead, at least they are back to .500 on the year.

4. Back in action: Last year Andruw Jones was the MLB home run champion with 51, though this year he has semi-struggled in that department. In fact, Jones hadn’t homered since May 3 until last night, when he hit two blasts off of Padres starter Chris Young. Edgar Renteria also went yard for Atlanta, who beat the Padres 10-6 to move into a tie for second in the NL East. San Diego, though their record (24-23) is identical to Atlanta’s, is tied for last in the surprisingly tough NL West.

5. The Wright Stuff: David Wright is on a tear for the New York Mets, who beat the struggling Phillies 5-4 last night. Wright homered for his third straight game and drove in two. Carlos Beltran also hit it out, for his 13th time of the season. First time Mets pitcher Alay Soler allowed three first-inning runs but then settled down, shutting out the Phils over the next five innings. The Mets improved to 28-17 on the year, five games ahead of both the Phillies and Braves.

Categories
General Sports

Odds and Ends for Wed May 24 2006: Motivation

Thanks to The Hater Nation for pointing us to MotivationalBuck.com where you can create your own motivational poster spoofs. You know, those lame ass “Success” and “Teamwork” posters you find in offices of people who lack any actual skills. We couldn’t resist creating one. Send us any that you create and we’ll post the best ones.

In other news…

[Miami Herald]: Dolphins still cockblocking the Toronto Argonauts

[Raptor Blog]: Who will the Raptors take with the #1 pick?

[USA Today]: College Football fans: Paul Maguire is ready to ruin your Saturdays

[ESPN]: Duke womens lacrosse team will wear “innocent” bands to support the mens lacrosse team. No truth to the rumor they bought them from OJ Simpson.

Categories
General Sports

Apple and Nike take over the world

We spend most of our time camped out on the couch watching sports but once in a while, we’ll actually lace up the old asics and go for a run. But if Apple and Nike have their way, no run would be complete without an ipod nano and a pair of Nike+ shoes.

The two companies (along with spokesman Lance Armstrong) announced the Nike+Apple Sport Kit today at a news conference in New York. The $29 kit includes a sensor that fits into custom Nike+ shoes (The $100 Nike+ Air Zoom Moire will be the first Sport Kit compatible shoes released.) and a wireless receiver that plugs into the bottom of the nano. The nano displays and stores a bunch of data during your run and when you’re done, will automatically upload your data to nikeplus.com.

The iPod will also have a “Power Song” feature that plays your designated song when you need that extra boost at the end. Is there any question it should be David Hasselhoff’s Looking for Freedom?

Links:
[Business Week]: Nike, Apple team up on iPod running gear

[Apple.com]: Nike+Apple Sport Kit product page

Categories
General Sports

The Weekly Sports Roundup Podcast for May 24 2006

Welcome to another episode of the Sportscolumn podcast.  If you’d like to be a guest on the podcast (which is recorded Tuesday nights) or you want to suggest a topic, drop me a line at [email protected].

You can download this week’s podcast directly (running time 38 mins) or subscribe to the feed.  

If you use iTunes, just click here and then click subscribe and iTunes will take care of the rest.

This week’s topics include:

  • NBA playoffs
  • NBA Draft
  • Preakness and Barbaro
  • Britney vs Christina
  • Stephen A. Smith sucks

Hope you guys enjoy the podcast.  If you did enjoy it, please give us a good rating below so we can rise up in the rankings. If you didn’t, send us an email ([email protected]) and give us some suggestions. Thanks for listening.