Thoughts on Sports

I watched game 2 of The World Series tonight, I'm not gonna pretend I'm not rooting for the Tigers. While I've never been a fan of either Kenny Rogers or Ivan Rodriguez, I like the fact that they've made such a turn around the last three years and they have so many kids to root for. I can;t help but want Justin Verlander, Joel Zumaya and Jeremy Bonderman to win, for now. I've always been a fan of exciting young players and at the same time I have a feeling that in two years I'll root against all these same players. I can already sense that I'm getting a little tired of the hype around Zumaya and I'm sure if he wins he'll be completely overrated by next all-star break. The thing I enjoy most about the Tigers is Dave Dombrowski, when they hired him I started hyping him up and I'm glad to see I was right for once.
The biggest reason I'm rooting for the Tigers is that I can't stand the Cardinals. I'm tired of this current group. I don't like the way the media embraces Albert Pujols as if he's the one player in the majors who is above suspicion for steroid use and they constantly praise him as the greatest player of this generation. I will admit that he's a very impressive hitter, but lets just slow down on the current lovefest. The way things are going, I'm expecting Joe Buck to say something like, "We now know that God is latin because he created Albert in his own image." Meanwhile Peter Gammons is in meetings with Bud Selig to have Albert's face become the new MLB logo. The second most hatable thing about the Cardinals is Tony LaRussa, anyone who's been paying attention realizes he's no the genius that some still claim. I presonally thought the bloom was off that rose when he went to the 3x2, three inning rotation he tried at the end of his A's tenure. The most important factor in me disliking the Cardinals is that they probably would've been the 10th best team in the AL, but we have to pretend they're some sort of unrealized dynasty. They're just the captains of the JV same as they've been for the last 5 years. I won;t claim that I'm unbiased here but I view Chris Carpenter as a mediocre pitcher who couldn't hack it in the American League and now there's a good chance that he'll win his second straight Cy Young.
Long story short, go Tigers.

I wanted to comment on Shawn Merriman being caught for Steroids. In one week two of the best defensive players in football have been suspended for steroids (Merriman and Lions' DT Shawn Rogers.) Perhaps football got a sample of the latest designer steroid and knew what to test for, and now they can finally catch a few of the payers. It amazes me that everyone is performing a witch-hunt trying to find who is on the juice in baseball but everyone wants to pretend that no one in football is using. These guys are all benching 400 punds and running a 4.3 40 but that's just natural ability.

I was tickled to see the Steelers fall to 2-4 after losing to the Falcons. This was a game where whoever lost, I would enjoy that, and I could make peace with one of them having to win. The Steelers have always been the loudest, most bragadocious gathering of egomaniacs the NFL has ever seen, lord only knows how unbearable they'd be if they were a true dynasty. All I can say is that they look well on their way to missing the playoffs, couldn;t happen to a better bunch of guys.

I gotta say that nothing kills a team like drafting a bad QB. The Jaguars currently have all the makings of a championship team, but they have an anchor tied to their leg in the form of Byron Leftwich, he's just good enough to convince them not to acquire another QB but he's just bad enough to keep them from truly competing for a title. The Titans will go through the same thing with Vince Young, the Packers with Aaron Rodgers, and the 49ers with Alex Smith. They won;t realize or they won't admit that these players aren't worth the high draft picks and they'll probably get a combined 9 years worth of starts proving how big of a mistake these teams made. It's bad enough totally whiffing on a high draft pick, every team could use a great star on their roster but whiffing on that pick when it's a QB who will drag down the offense for a few years is a killer.

That's all I got for now, so, to paraphrase the late great Ryan Seacrest.
Bender Out