What an amazing week in sports! I don’t believe I’ve ever experienced a week that contained so many impactful events in the sporting world. It was difficult to keep pace with the lot – and most had to pick and choose which to follow. I did the best I could in spite of a busy schedule…and here are my thoughts, otherwise known as the Lo End Theories.
1. The major event of the weekend, IMO, was the NFL Draft. For the first time in almost 50 years it was held outside of New York City. It landed in the mecca of my sports world – Chicago. The NFL has done a fantastic job of marketing the draft. Let’s be honest, it’s really not that fascinating of television programming. But the NFL is the king of sports, so they can not only put it on prime time during the week, but have it broadcast on TWO stations. That’s amazing. Personally. I’m an NFL Network guy. ESPN and Chris Berman jumped the shark for me years ago. Although it is fun to reminisce about the Mel Kiper/Bill Tobin feud, I’ve long since grown weary of Berman’s shtick and prefer other networks. At the same time, I enjoy the fact that the NFL dropped the hammer on reporters revealing the picks on social media before they were actually announced. This really sapped all the drama out of the picks. This year there was heavy drama for me and my Chicago Bears. If I could have picked one single player in the draft that I wanted the Bears to pick, it was Leonard Williams of Southern California. The first three picks went as I expected: Winston to TB, Mariota to TEN and Fowler to JAX. The fourth pick was a precursor of the Bears pick since Amari Cooper of Alabama was high on my watch list, as well as the Bears list. I figured the Raiders would select either Cooper or Kevin White of West Virginia. Oakland took Cooper. So Leonard Williams was dropping; I was ecstatic. The fifth pick (WAS) was really the most important precursor to the Bears pick because, in my simple logic, the NY Jets, who picked right before the Bears, had two Pro Bowl defensive tackles and wouldn’t pick another in Williams. The Redskins pick was revealed to be….Brandon Scherff of Iowa. I was jumping up and down thinking we were going to get our man. I paused the broadcast to gather my thoughts and pray the Jets wouldn’t, ummmm…swerve us. As the pick came in for the Jets I was nervous and it wasn’t even my team! As Goodell made his way to the podium I was getting more and more excited. He announced the pick – Leonard Williams of USC. I fell to the floor, absolutely devastated. TWO years in a row, the stud DT in the draft got picked THE PICK BEFORE THE BEARS. Last year it was Aaron Donald of Pitt and this year it was Williams. My sons could sense my dismay as they proclaimed to my wife that I was upset because Michael Leonard got picked. It calmed me down a little to see my sons take an interest in my interest of the pick. The Bears then picked Kevin White, the WR from West Virginia, which I’m happy with at this point. Again, drama on television from a drafting of college players. The NFL is genius.
2. Speaking of the NFL Draft being in Chicago, the Cubs took full advantage of this opportunity and lassoed as many NFL dignitaries as possible into Wrigley Field. The marriage of the NFL and the Cubs was a great one, except for the seventh inning stretch that took place on Tuesday night. As a side, as with my feelings for Chris Berman, I have grown extremely weary of the “guest conductors” of the 7th inning stretch at Wrigley Field. I’ve maintained that the Cubs should play a recording of Harry Caray singing the stretch and leave it at that. Now that they have installed a video board – here’s a thought – play a video of Harry singing the stretch. By the way, if you feel as I do about the guest conductors, go here and let your vote be heard. Anyway, the NFL Network crew of Rich Eisen, Steve Mariucci and Melissa Stark were slated to sing on Tuesday. As he stated on the Waddle and Silvy show on ESPN1000 in Chicago, Eisen was partaking in libations in the spirit of Harry Caray. He was asked to leave the Cubs television booth to prepare for the stretch but wanted to stay and continue to converse with Len Kasper and Jim Deshaies. Therefore, he was not able to get his earpieces put in before singing. He could not hear the organ music playing; hence the music and the singing were desynchronized. It was abysmal. I give Eisen kudos for admitting how dreadful the moment was on radio. However, this brings us to the logical conclusion that the guest conductors needs to end, yesterday. Whether it’s bad singing or celebrities nobody knows – the Cubs should do the right thing in honoring Harry and that’s playing him on the video board for the stretch.
3. It took a while, but I finally watched some NBA Playoff basketball this weekend. And to be honest, I don’t think I need to watch anymore. Why, you ask? Because after watching the last half of the third quarter and all of the fourth quarter of Game 7 between the Spurs and the Clippers, I don’t think the playoffs can get any better than what I saw. It was fantastic basketball. If the NBA was like that all the time, I’d be a fan. So many big plays by so many different guys – Kawhi Leonard, Blake Griffin, Tim Duncan, Matt Barnes, Manu Ginobli, JJ Redick, Danny Green, and finally, Chris Paul. The last shot by CP3 was unbelievable. How it went in I’ll never know. Add to that the fact that he was playing on one leg and it was a career-defining performance for Paul. Had the Clippers lost the game they could’ve blamed the inability to secure a defensive rebound in the 4th quarter. I was floored as I watched San Antonio grab offensive rebound after offensive rebound. The Spurs are just old school and enjoyable to watch. Realizing that this might be the last time that Duncan, Ginobli, and Parker are together on the Spurs was sad, and for this to be a first round match up wasn’t fair either. This series should have been the Western Conference Finals. But as we know, sports aren’t fair.
4. MLB had a frightening moment last week as Archie Bradley of the Arizona Diamondbacks took a line drive off the bat of Carlos Gonzalez to the face. Thankfully, he was able to get up and walk off the field under his own power. But watching it was extremely frightening. Below is the video of the play:
According to this ESPN.com article the ball traveling off the bat of the Rockies Gonzalez was traveling at 115MPH. If you do the math (I did it for you), Bradley had all of .33573 seconds to react to the batted ball. That’s impossible. Imagine if the ball had been hit by an aluminum bat? Baseball, as a whole, has to do something more to protect pitchers from getting hit by a batted ball. In the last few years, there have been quite a few pitchers get drilled from comebackers – J.A. Happ, Brandon McCarthy and Alex Cobb come to mind. And it’s not even a new phenomenon. Herb Score’s life was changed back in 1957 when he took a line drive to the eye off the bat of Gil McDougald of the Yankees. His career only lasted a few more years after the incident as it greatly affected his effectiveness. All of the options so far protect the head of the pitcher, but the face needs to be protected as well. This needs to happen before there is a fatal injury on the baseball diamond.
5. Finally, there was the “Fight of the Century” on Saturday night between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather. Where do I start? The stinkfest that was the actual fight? The female reporters getting credentials pulled? The domestic abuse cases reported on by the aforementioned reporters? Pacquiao’s alleged shoulder injury that turned out to be a partially torn rotator cuff? Holy smokes, does this story have layers. I have not, nor will I ever be a fan of the “sweet science”. I wasn’t about to pay $100 either for a fight that should have happened five years ago. However, through the wonderful world of social media, I was able to follow the fight up through the sixth round before I tuckered out. Had I actually been watching the fight I might have fallen asleep sooner according to all of the pundits on Twitter. It sounded more like Manny and Floyd were at Prom then fighting for a title with all the hugging and dancing being publicized. We’ll most likely never know if Pacquiao could have won with a healthy shoulder. If it took them this long to fight once (all on Mayweather’s terms, BTW) then chances of a rematch are slim to none. Personally, I considered disclosing the shoulder injury in the post-fight presser the next day to be akin to sour grapes. Now that we’ve heard that Manny’s injury is serious it does remove the perception of whining. But why not wait to disclose the information until the severity has been determined? At that point you can reveal the non-allowance of the shot to help the pain. Anyway, I digress. The bigger issues came from the other corner. My goodness, Floyd Mayweather is a lightning rod. As we drew closer to the fight many news outlets circulated stories of Mayweather’s history of domestic violence. If there is one issue the public does not receive well, even with apologies, it’s domestic violence. I am 100% on that team. In no circumstance should a man ever lay hands on a woman. But to ignore it as if it never happened is shortsighted and ignorant on that camp’s part. Michelle Beadle and Rachel Nichols were out in front of this story and made sure the masses knew of Mayweather’s discretions. They are reporters, yes. But they are women first and that belies the angles of the reports given by both ladies. I get that. And then on fight night, the game changer occurred. Even if you are upset by the misperceived “shots” by the female reporters, lending credence to their claims by pulling their credentials the day of the fight just shouts guilt, arrogance and entitlement. After the “dispute” was settled, Nichols and Beadle had their credentials restored but neither attended the fight. Good for them. Apparently some people don’t get it either. Take two current/former Minnesota Twins players, Jacque Jones and Torri Hunter. Both tweeted on Saturday about rooting for Mayweather, which in and of itself isn’t bad. However, when you are trying to justify Floyd’s actions outside the ring just to make yourself feel better about rooting for him? Not a good route to take. Both men deleted said tweets. Here’s Hunters:
Torii Hunter apologizes for tweet about Mayweather http://t.co/89LHcjtr0K pic.twitter.com/GC0WNd7uov
— Sporting News MLB (@SN_Baseball) May 3, 2015
Back to the actual fight itself – it was a bore. They could have at least salvaged what little credibility they have left in putting on a good show for the paying customers. But they didn’t. And it if truth be told, it was the perfect bow to wrap up this entire debacle. This article on Deadspin is spot on in the analysis of the entire circus that was the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. Again, I don’t condone the language, but the perspective is perfect.
Until next time,
Shawn
No comments:
Post a Comment