Not ten fucking games!

For anybody who has never had the pleasure of attending a Spring Training game, it’s an experience that I highly recommend. Sure, it’s nothing more than a meaningless pre-season game, and you’ll probably only get to watch a handful of players who you actually know anything about, but the experience itself is almost always fantastic. Yesterday was no exception. It was a sunny 70 degrees outside, the kind of day where it seems unfair to be stuck inside at work. Which makes it all the more gratifying to be outside, watching baseball and drinking a few beers.
As for the game itself, the Cards brought a few regulars (David Eckstein, So Taguchi, Junior Spivey, and Chris Carpenter) as well as a number of other guys who may or may not make the major league roster. Carpenter looked to be in mid-season form as he pitched 4 scoreless innings before taking a seat and allowing a stream of guys whose jersey numbers were divisible by 21 to take their shot at impressing Tony LaRussa and Dave Duncan. Of course, there’s a reason why these guys are going to be playing in places like Memphis and Peoria in less than a month. Those reasons became painfully clear as the Nationals stormed back to score 4 runs and tie the game in the bottom of the ninth inning. St. Louis eventually reclaimed the lead in route to a 7-4 victory in 10 innings. Before yesterday, I had forgotten just how intimate and enjoyable a Spring Training game can be, now I’m already counting the days until my next game in a couple of weeks.

One last note: St. Louis Pitching Coach Dave Duncan has a kid who plays in the Cardinal organization. I had no idea. I also had no idea that the kid was such a damned monster. He’s got to be at least 6’6”. Evidently Mrs. Duncan isn’t a very petite woman. Either way, young Duncan looks to be a pretty solid player. He certainly looked good while going 2 for 3 with a HR yesterday. I wish I could say the same for Larry Bigbie.

While there is a lot of baseball going on these days (between Spring and the surprisingly captivating WBC) there’s no denying that this time of year belongs to basketball, and basketball alone. With that in mind, here are my most recent batch of basketball (mostly collegiate) related thoughts:

- Without fail, this time of year always reminds me of Spring Break in Key West during my first Senior year of college. Not the entire Spring Break mind you, just the first morning in Key West after our first night in town. A first night that saw, among other things, my friend Roberto throw up on a girl’s feet, me in handcuffs at 4 am, a cop waking me up with his flashlight as we were being kicked out of our hotel room (completely unrelated to me being in handcuffs, by the way), and my roommate Vitas and I sleeping in my 1992 Honda Civic. As you might guess, some of us were spectacularly hungover the next morning when we woke up in my Civic in some random Key West parking lot. I was not one of these people. I felt so good that I managed to eat two Denny’s breakfasts, rent a new hotel room and rent a scooter that morning. Vitas, on the other hand, sat in the shower for about an hour as he tried to muster up the strength for some afternoon drinking. As I sat watching #1 Cincinnati play in the Conference USA tournament that morning, I heard Vitas let loose with what had to be the most violent puking sound that I’ve ever heard. At precisely the same moment, Kenyon Martin slipped awkwardly on the Kiel Center floor and broke his leg. It was as if Kenyon had slipped on Vitas’ vomit. It’s my “Where were you when JFK was shot moment?”, only far less historical and far more boozy.

- I love the Big East Tournament. Absolutely, completely and with all my heart. I’m not from the Northeast and have always followed the ACC more closely (through a combination of geography and TV contracts), but there has always been something about the Big East Tournament that resonates with me. I’m not sure if it’s the location of the tourney (MSG is the Mecca) or the fact that they play games all day long starting on Wednesday, but I’ve always wanted to take a vacation and go to New York for the week to watch the Big East Tourney. Some people dream of going to Paris or Rome. I dream of watching the Big East Tournament and drinking in New York for five straight days…one day soon I’m going to make that happen.

- It’s been so long since I’ve seen Rutgers participate in the Big East tournament that I’d almost forgotten that they were even eligible to participate in it. I’m not saying they haven’t been it at all in recent years (I’m sure they have) it’s just that they are usually eliminated before I even get home from work on Wednesday so I don’t even bother to notice their participation. With that said, I was openly rooting for them to beat Seton Hall last night. Not only do I have a growing man crush on Quincy Douby (and his Cris Carter-esque eyebrows), but I’m also strangely infatuated with the rotation of rotund big men that Gary Waters employs. Actually, though I’m sure that it won’t happen (the Big East is too good), I’m going to continue to hope that can Douby put the Scarlet Knights on his back and carry them to the Big East Championship game (and win it?) ala Randolph Childress and Wake in 1995, right down to Douby re-enacting the classic “No, over here.” move on UConn’s Marcus Williams. Who (coincidentally) happens to be the closest thing to Jeff Mcinnis in a over a decade. Think about it: Good/Great passer playing with an insane collection of talent, average athlete, clever game, good floater, questionable character. In fact, Andre LaFleur might want to keep closer tabs on his wife. I’m just saying.

- Even though I’ve already done it once in this space today and I’m not a big fan of anointing a player as the “next so and so”, I’ll be damned if Steve Novak isn’t the next Matt Bullard.

- I hate Digger Phelps. Amazingly enough, I always seem able to avoid his idiotic ramblings until this time of year when the sheer paucity of non-ESPN college hoops coverage makes it nearly impossible for me to watch basketball without being suckered into listening to his horribly biased opinions. I find it personally offensive that he is paid to watch (presumably) and analyze college basketball. No more than five minutes after the conclusion of the Seton Hall-Rutgers game last night, Digger was listing his reasons for Seton Hall’s abysmal offensive performance when he stopped because he couldn’t remember the name of SHU’s Kelly Whitney despite the fact that Whitney is a senior starter and All-Big East player whose game had just concluded. Personally, I’m not quite sure how Dave Revsine managed to keep himself from stabbing Digger in the ear with his highlighter.

Digger Phelps: Making the dumb even dumber for only $19.95

Considering what we already know about Digger, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that his knowledge of the “mid-majors” isn’t exactly encyclopedic. To be honest, it’s downright ridiculous how little that this man seems to know about any school that doesn’t play in a conference with a major TV deal. Here what I’m getting at: When asked on the radio about the number of bids he thought the Missouri Valley Conference deserved, Digger responded, “One, maybe two.” Excuse me? Did you just drink a Gatorade bottle full of mescalin? I’m not one of those people who think that the MVC deserves 5 or 6 teams. However, I do believe that a consistent track record of success in the tourney as well as a conference RPI in the top 6 should count for something more than a pat on the back. I’m paraphrasing here, but Digger’s reasoning went something like this, “I watched the MVC Final (thanks for going out of your way Dig) and there’s just not enough talent to compete there. I mean, Bradly went for 5 minutes in the first half and 7 in the second half w/out scoring. Southern Illinois is a good team, but none of these schools have the athletes to compete with the major conferences.” Really? How would you explain the MVC getting a team into the Sweet 16 for each of the last three years? Of course these smaller conferences don’t have the same caliber of athletes as the major conferences. That’s why most of these kids ended up at mid-majors to begin with. Unfortunately, nobody has explained to Digger that none of these teams will be competing in the decathlon next week. Either that or the concepts of sharing the ball, team defense and solid fundamentals are no longer applicable to a team’s collective chances for success in the NCAA Tournament.

- While I’m harping on the lack of wisdom amongst basketball analysts, I might as well address the whole Amare Stoudemire injury situation. This has really been bothering me lately. Why is everybody acting as if it’s sure thing that he’ll come back at 100% this year? As I see it, the Suns should be hoping that he comes back at 100%, period. If he’s able to come back and be effective this year then that’s just icing on the cake. This isn’t minor surgery that Stoudemire had. In fact, you could make the case the microfracture surgery is to knee surgeries what ACL reconstruction was 15 years ago. Remember, when an ACL tear (depending on it’s severity) was a possibly career ending injury, and even if it wasn’t, still often left it’s victim as a shell of their former athletic self? That’s what microfracture surgery has become. Just look at this list of guys who’ve had this same surgery recently: Jason Kidd, Kenyon Martin, Stephen Davis, Brian Grant, Alvin Williams, Zach Randoplh, Chris Webber, Penny Hardaway. Not one of these guys has managed to regain their previous level of athleticism since undergoing this procedure. Granted, most of these guys are much older than Stoudemire. Age is certainly in the favor of Black Jesus. Yet, you also have to take into consideration how dependent Stoudemire was on his freakish athleticism. We’re not exactly talking about Kevin McHale here. All I’m saying is that Amare’s inevitable return to greatness is far from the sure thing that it’s being made out to be.

- I have to address the Gonzaga situation. Much is made about the media’s love affair with Duke and how they receive preferential treatment from ESPN, the announcers, and even the refs. Well I say, what about Gonzaga? These guys play on ESPN more than any small conference team in the history of collegiate sports. ESPN even went out of their way to broadcast the entire WCC tourney, during primetime no less. They even get to play their conference tourney on their own home floor each year. This stuff wouldn’t bother me nearly as much if announcers didn’t spend half the game falling all over themselves in praise of Gonzaga and Head Coach Mark Few. Who, from what I can tell, just copied the formula that Dan Monson had proven successful during his run at GU. I’m not saying that Duke doesn’t get more credit and praise than they deserve, but at least Duke is doing this stuff in a real conference like the ACC. I don’t care who you are, if you can go undefeated in the ACC then you deserve to have your horn blown (ngs). Personally, I don’t think that Gonzaga could go undefeated in the MVC, much less the PAC-10. Jeez, these guys needed a solid combination of luck and clutch play just to advance past two completely mediocre teams during the semis and finals of the WCC Tourney (have I mentioned that the WCC Tourney was played at Gonzaga?). Gonzaga is a good program that happens to benefit from playing in an average conference, not the a dynasty in the making and certainly not a program that deserves to be mentioned amongst the likes of Duke, Kansas, Michigan State or any other number of schools who consistently churn out 20+ victory seasons and NCAA Tournament victories. I feel very strongly about this. I’m also very confident that I’ll once again be vindicated when Gonzaga loses in the second round to a mid-major with comparable athleticism (Gonzaga’s biggest weakness year-in, year-out and a major reason they’ve been so unsuccessful in the role of the hunted, as opposed to their former role of “mid-major Hunter”) and a huge chip on their shoulder over the inordinate amount of praise and attention being lauded upon Gonzaga. Oh yeah, Gonzaga's nickname is the Bulldogs, not the Zags. Can we stop calling them that? Please?

Finally, I'd like to thank Coach Jim Boeheim for my new catch phrase. You're the man Coach.