Monday, April 27, 2015

Thoughts from the Weekend

Figured that we needed something on the blog, so let's try something new. Just some takes from the past weekend in sports (maybe something else at the end).

1. Tony Stewart needs to see a shrink. He goes up the track during the race, runs into Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s car and takes himself out of the race at Richmond and then blames Junior for the wreck. Here would be my plan for Mr. Stewart to get back to being a threat to win a race each and every NASCAR season:  1) Spend some of your millions on a shrink to help you with the bad memories that you have over the past 2 years. 2) Take some of that money and join a gym. The excess fat around the stomach probably ain't helping with the driving. 3) Let your business partner Mr. Haas take some of the leadership for the team. You have way too many irons in the fire. Eldora, Driving, leading the Corporation, and other things that I don't know about. You have spread yourself too thin. 4) Finally, stop being a cantankerous a-hole. Enjoy yourself and let yourself enjoy life. That might help relieve some of the pressure of your life right now.

2. Adam Wainright, St. Louis Cardinals pitcher hurt himself while batting this weekend and might be out for the year. That has national sports writers calling for the National League to institute the Designated Hitter. I strongly disagree. I would stop inter-league play. No more American League vs. National League. It causes the World Series to become just another series. I would have the American League end the Designated Hitter rule. I like the strategy that having the Pitcher hit. I also like the way that National League teams pace their games. If the NL implements the DH, I have worries that Dodgers-Giants, Cardinals-Cubs and Mets-Phillies will become 4 hours marathons like the Red Sox-Yankees. That is not good.

3. The officials in the playoffs need to be held to some sort of standard. In Game 6 of  the NHL Eastern Playoff game of Montreal-Ottawa, a referee whistled a play dead and negated a good Ottawa goal. The game was 1-0 until an empty net goal by the Canadiens with 0.7 seconds left made the final 2-0. The Senators were eliminated from the playoffs by that call. In the NBA, we have a separated shoulder for Kevin Love because a Celtic yanked and put wieght on Love's extended arm. and then we get a slap to the face of Jae Crowder by Kendrick Perkins and then a nice spinning back fist by J.R. Smith to Crowder's face. And all we hear is how the players were being overly physical in both sports. Well, who allowed it to get that way? The officials, that is who. When you have P.K. Subban trying to run a guy's face into the goalpost and nothing is done to him by either the league or the officials assigned to that game, you have problems.

4. Thank god that the NFL draft is this weekend. I am so tired of the hype. It needs to go back to the early part of April. I do not need someone giving me 14 mock drafts over 3 months. And I am tired of hearing about all the prospects. However, I am thinking about disowning the Buccaneers when they draft Jameis Winston.

5. Finally, something off of sports. We need a law or a constitutional amendment stating that there can be no political advertisments, political campaigns or announcing for political offices until January 1st of the year that the elections are being held. I am already tired of hearing about the 2016 elections. They are 19 months away. Right now, I don't want to hear anything about how this person took money for political favors, especially if there is no proof.

4 comments:

R.J. said...

I'm with you on Smoke. He's got too many things going on all at once, and he's seriously underperforming. He also found some of those pounds I lost. :-(

As for the NFL draft, I want to see who the Raider pick with their last first round pick in Oakland. They will be in St. Louis or LA next season.

This new CAPCHA thing for Blogger where I have to match images can bite me, too.

Zebster said...

First, thanks Brent, it's been dead awhile. I'm with RJ on the CAPCHA thing...it's been pissing me off for a while. It's my damn blog, dammit.
I hate to get into a DH argument, I really do. A, No one wants to watch pitchers attempt to hit. B, pitchers haven't hit, many of them, since high school since everything is so specialized these days. Why is a guy who couldn't make a high school team as a pitcher swinging a bat in the majors? Yanks/Sox games are so long because they're the two most patient hitting teams in the majors. They know pitch counts and getting into bull pens is important. And the pace of play in the NL has nothing to do with a lack of a DH. Go back to the 86 NL championship between the Mets and Astros, when seemingly everytime the Astros had the bases loaded, it was Mike Scott's turn to hit. With a DH the Astros would've won that pennant. Just saying.
And finally, F the Habs!

Brent said...

I will beg to differ on the Red Sox - Yankees reason on why they take so long. They are #1 (Yankees) and #2 (Red Sox) for how much time it takes for their games to reach 100 pitches. When they play each other, the game seems to go for days.

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2011/5/26/2190937/game-duration-2010-I

The Captcha is just a fact of life. Too many idiots running bots out there.

As for baseball, I want more all around players. If you cannot play the field, then you don't need to be in the major leagues. Otherwise the team has to overcome the errors you commit.

Zebster said...

But the Capcha shouldn't be in effect for authors commenting on their own damn blogs. That's stupid.
Who doesn't want more all-around players but in this age of specialization, you have very few of them -- true all-around players. The DH is not at fault for that and you'll never see pitchers who are good hitters. We'll just continue to disagree on this one.
Then the Sox/Yanks games are perfect candidates for the pitch clock and other new rules but they still take more pitches than anyone as well. And BTW F A-Rod!