Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Sports ramblings

I'm in full baseball deprivation depression mode. Thankfully the C's and Pats are getting me through that.

All 5'7'' (let's be realistic) of Dustin Pedroia took home the Rookie of the Year. No surprise there. Some Arizona paper had the contents of a text message that Pedro sent to his former ASU baseball coach on April 19, when he was mired in a terrible slump.

He wrote, "Book it. i am going to hit 300 even after the horrible start i'm having right now. you taught me how to deal with this. 1 for my last 26 no biggie. an explosion is going to happen soon."

We all know Dustin is a cocky little son-of-a-bitch, but that right there is just an incredibly endearing quote to me. Dustin's work ethic and grace under pressure won me over this season. I was one of the idiots wondering why Cora wasn't getting more playing time in April. I'll be the first one to admit I was wrong. I look forward to Buchholz and Ellsbury fighting each other for next year's AL ROY honors. That is, if they aren't traded for Miguel Cabrera.

Beckett lost the Cy Young to Sabathia -- not a huge shocker there. I read a lot of BoSox fan blogs expressing outrage, but I like numbers and I'm not a fangirl, so let's look at this objectively.

Sabathia started four more games and pitched 40 more innings. Sabathia's four CGs to Beckett's one probably influenced the voters. Sabathia had a better K/BB ratio, but Beckett had the better K/9. You know how much the voters love ERA as a statistic, so Sabathia wins there too. Their WHIPs were dead even. If you're into VORP, WARP and win shares, CC bests Josh in all three.

CC can have the award. I think it's fair to speculate that those extra innings tired the big guy. If Cleveland has Josh and we have Sabathia, the Indians are celebrating their first World Series title since 1948. Thanks, but I'll take Beckett's postseason performance over the hardware any day.

Moving along, the Patriots are still undefeated. The media still continues to fellate Peyton Manning. Boy, he was heroic in that Sunday night downpour in San Diego when he almost led the Colts to an improbable victory despite throwing six interceptions. And he's playing without Marvin Harrison. Boo-fucking-hoo, the Patriots were missing Rodney Harrison and Junior Seau in last year's AFC Championship Game. And Brady's go-to receivers not named Ben Watson were Headlights Caldwell, Jabar Gaffney and Heath Evans (!) It's a miracle the Pats even stayed in that game through the third quarter.

I still don't think the Patriots will go undefeated this season. They'll demolish Buffalo this Sunday, but I look to the Baltimore or Pittsburgh games to snap the undefeated season. With the Colts at two losses now, the first-round bye and HFA seem to be sewn up.

Things are looking great on the NBA front too. The Celtics are 6-0 after beating Indiana tonight. Paul did a push-up at the free-throw line after Jamaal Tinsley got physical with him. Apparently KG told him to do push-ups instead of getting technicals, so that works. They'll be playing Miami and Orlando this week, so I'll get to watch the boys on television again. ESPN is already comparing them to the 95-96 Bulls that only lost 10 games. We'll need to wait and see how they match up against the cream of the West first, but I'll just leave it at I'm finally enjoying watching the NBA regular season again.

I was going to jump into Heisman analysis, but I'm too tired. I left my pillow in Atlanta, so the entire purpose of this blog was to get me so sleepy I forget that I'm sleeping on a pillow that isn't my baby.

I got to see my Uncle Ken and the Thrashers in Atlanta though -- my first NHL game since I lived in St. Louis. I forgot how much I absolutely love going to live hockey games. I think hockey is the sport with the most discrepancy between how fun watching live versus watching on television is. I wish there were more Floridians who are as into hockey as I am. Maybe they're out there -- who knows?

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