Here are some things I just don’t understand:
1. Why do the NHL and NFL playoffs re-seed? Why do the NBA, MLB, and NCAA not re-seed in their postseason tournaments? Is there one reason or another why this should or shouldn’t be done? If a #15 seed upsets a #2 seed in March Madness, should the #15 seed then play the winner of the #1-#16 matchup? I’ve always wondered why this happens.
2. Why does the national media, made up of individuals who hate the Yankees, continue to give Joe Torre a pass for being a horrendous manager? It seems so odd to hate everything about a city and a franchise, including most of its players, but to continue to exonerate the man who stands at the top step. The guys on ESPN can’t wait to lead off their stories with tales of the Yankees’ demise, but never mention that almost everything going wrong is Joe Torre’s fault.
Torre can’t manage a bench or a bullpen to save his life and he’s costing the Yankees wins every day. I haven’t lost faith in the team’s ability to bounce back from their third consecutive poor start but my faith in Torre has been absent since 2002. Someone fire this idiot before it’s too late.
3. Whose bright idea was it to put NBA playoff games on a subscription channel that most Americans don’t have access to. Last night I wanted to check out some of Game 2 of the Nets-Raptors series. Lo and behold, I discovered that it was on an obscure channel called NBA TV (channel 412 on my cable system).
I’m sorry but if your channel is in the high triple-digits, most people don’t know about it. Isn’t the whole point of the playoffs to draw in the casual fan that doesn’t have the patience for all those meaningless regular season games? It makes sense for regular season games to be on random channels found all over the dial. But the playoffs? That’s supposed to be accessible to everyone on normal channels like TNT, ESPN, or ESPN2. Instead, ESPN was showing an NFL Draft preview and some garbage called “Contender Challenge” – a show that died on regular TV and isn’t doing any better on cable. If ESPN is going to shell out all that dough for the right to broadcast pro hoops, they should be willing to pre-empt their mundane tripe for exciting playoff basketball.
4. And while we’re on the subject of ESPN programming blunders, am I the only one that thinks that maybe, just maybe, all of ESPN’s draft coverage has reached the point of overkill. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve watched some or all of first round coverage of the NFL Draft in years past. But I’m beginning to feel like having a gazillion hours of this stuff is just ridiculous. I mean, is anyone so hardcore that they should need live televised coverage of the seventh round? Even fantasy geeks and professional gamblers can’t be that interested. Someone needs to sit ESPN and the NFL down and explain that perhaps all draft coverage beyond the first round should be moved to the NFL Network.
5. Although there’s nothing that can be done about it – and truth be told, I’m not terribly bothered by it – I’m still a bit saddened to think that Reggie Jackson was pushed out of the all-time top-10 list in career homeruns by Ken Griffey Jr. It’s not because Jackson was a Yankee since, after all, he only hit 144 of his 563 HR in Pinstripes, it’s more my lamentation of the devalued status of the long ball.
When I was a kid, Mickey Mantle’s 536 career homers was good for eighth place all-time. Back then, I knew the top-10 list (Aaron, Ruth, Mays, Robinson, Killebrew, Jackson, Schmidt, Mantle, Foxx, McCovey/Williams) because being able to recite that list, along with their totals, meant something.
Full disclosure – I rank Junior Griffey as one of my least favorite athletes of all time. I chafe that someone who has had less than five minutes of significance at any point in this decade could now be among the career leaders in homers. But this isn’t personal against him. It’s just sad that the 500-HR club is getting crowded with guys who couldn’t carry The Mick’s or The Say Hey Kid’s cleats. Baseball sold its soul for homers and now it’ll have to deal with Barry’s assault on the record and more guys like Griffey joining a list that was once reserved for the best of the best.
1. Why do the NHL and NFL playoffs re-seed? Why do the NBA, MLB, and NCAA not re-seed in their postseason tournaments? Is there one reason or another why this should or shouldn’t be done? If a #15 seed upsets a #2 seed in March Madness, should the #15 seed then play the winner of the #1-#16 matchup? I’ve always wondered why this happens.
2. Why does the national media, made up of individuals who hate the Yankees, continue to give Joe Torre a pass for being a horrendous manager? It seems so odd to hate everything about a city and a franchise, including most of its players, but to continue to exonerate the man who stands at the top step. The guys on ESPN can’t wait to lead off their stories with tales of the Yankees’ demise, but never mention that almost everything going wrong is Joe Torre’s fault.
Torre can’t manage a bench or a bullpen to save his life and he’s costing the Yankees wins every day. I haven’t lost faith in the team’s ability to bounce back from their third consecutive poor start but my faith in Torre has been absent since 2002. Someone fire this idiot before it’s too late.
3. Whose bright idea was it to put NBA playoff games on a subscription channel that most Americans don’t have access to. Last night I wanted to check out some of Game 2 of the Nets-Raptors series. Lo and behold, I discovered that it was on an obscure channel called NBA TV (channel 412 on my cable system).
I’m sorry but if your channel is in the high triple-digits, most people don’t know about it. Isn’t the whole point of the playoffs to draw in the casual fan that doesn’t have the patience for all those meaningless regular season games? It makes sense for regular season games to be on random channels found all over the dial. But the playoffs? That’s supposed to be accessible to everyone on normal channels like TNT, ESPN, or ESPN2. Instead, ESPN was showing an NFL Draft preview and some garbage called “Contender Challenge” – a show that died on regular TV and isn’t doing any better on cable. If ESPN is going to shell out all that dough for the right to broadcast pro hoops, they should be willing to pre-empt their mundane tripe for exciting playoff basketball.
4. And while we’re on the subject of ESPN programming blunders, am I the only one that thinks that maybe, just maybe, all of ESPN’s draft coverage has reached the point of overkill. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve watched some or all of first round coverage of the NFL Draft in years past. But I’m beginning to feel like having a gazillion hours of this stuff is just ridiculous. I mean, is anyone so hardcore that they should need live televised coverage of the seventh round? Even fantasy geeks and professional gamblers can’t be that interested. Someone needs to sit ESPN and the NFL down and explain that perhaps all draft coverage beyond the first round should be moved to the NFL Network.
5. Although there’s nothing that can be done about it – and truth be told, I’m not terribly bothered by it – I’m still a bit saddened to think that Reggie Jackson was pushed out of the all-time top-10 list in career homeruns by Ken Griffey Jr. It’s not because Jackson was a Yankee since, after all, he only hit 144 of his 563 HR in Pinstripes, it’s more my lamentation of the devalued status of the long ball.
When I was a kid, Mickey Mantle’s 536 career homers was good for eighth place all-time. Back then, I knew the top-10 list (Aaron, Ruth, Mays, Robinson, Killebrew, Jackson, Schmidt, Mantle, Foxx, McCovey/Williams) because being able to recite that list, along with their totals, meant something.
Full disclosure – I rank Junior Griffey as one of my least favorite athletes of all time. I chafe that someone who has had less than five minutes of significance at any point in this decade could now be among the career leaders in homers. But this isn’t personal against him. It’s just sad that the 500-HR club is getting crowded with guys who couldn’t carry The Mick’s or The Say Hey Kid’s cleats. Baseball sold its soul for homers and now it’ll have to deal with Barry’s assault on the record and more guys like Griffey joining a list that was once reserved for the best of the best.
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