Thursday, July 15, 2010

5 Interesting Observations from MLB All Star Game

Another All Star game is in the books and the AL is the win... oh wait thats right, the NL won this year 3-1 and now have home field advantage for the World Series. Sorry for that mistake as I, along with everyone else got so used to talking about the AL and there dominace in winning All Star Games that you just get used to typing the same thing. After the All Star game I just wanted to throw out some observations of what was in my book one of the better All Star games in the last few years.

1. When does FOX finally tell Tim McCarver to sit at home and sound like an old guy? I know that he has alot of baseball knowledge and he has been with FOX for quite a long time, but McCarver is starting to sound like he has had the infamous run in with Alzhimer's, Several times during the pre game show and during the game it sounded like McCarver would either forget what he was talking about or he tried to come up with some weird fact that nobody could give a crap less about. For example, when they were talking to Joe Giardi in the AL dugout and they were talking about the Rangers Cliff Lee and McCarver starts talking about whose house Cliff Lee was renting while he was in Seattle. McCarver heres an answer to that question; WHO IN THE F*$& CARES???

2. American Anthem. Why is it that every time we get a celebrity to sing the national anthem, they have to get this stupid idea in there head that its ok to f*$& up our national anthem by trying to trick up there voice. I listened to the anthem and when that stupid cast member from GLEE tried to go from one end of the voice spectrum to the other I threw my hat at the TV and said that this is it. I want to start a campaign that says unless you sing the national anthem exactly the way it was written, you need to be put in jail for a year until you can learn to sing it right.

3. Why is it when there is a long streak of losses by one team, the network feels the necessity to run the obligatory "here's what was cool in the last year that the losing team won" montage. I hate these cause anyone that is watching the game doesn't care to remember something from the past. Thats why it is in the past.

4. Pitching was absolutly fantastic. From David Price to Ubaldo Jimenez and pitchers into the 5th inning, both teams really could have been throwing no hitters with the heat and the movement that they were dealing. Verlander hit 100 MPH on the radar gun and several pitchers were hitting 99 MPH. I thought we were going to get another Randy Johnson- John Kruk moment.

5. Marlon Byrd should have been the MLB All Star Game MVP. As I said to my soon to be wife last night after the game was over, here was a very good case for Marlon Byrd to be MVP. In the 7th inning Byrd comes up with 2 outs and the NL threatening to score at least one run. Matt Thornton from the White Sox gets ahead in the count 0-2 when Byrd couldn't catch up to 2 fastballs. Then Marlon does what Marlon do, and he works the count and is patient. He makes Thornton work and gets the count to 3-2. Thornton then tries to come in on Byrd's hands and Marlon gets out of the way and draws the walk which brings up Brian McCann (then we know what happens). But if it weren't for the patience of Byrd, the NL would have been out of the inning without getting a run and going on to lose the game 1-0. Then the greatest play of the night. David Ortiz on first base and John Buck at the plate. Buck hits a shallow fly that Marlon Byrd couldn't get to. Marlon with clear mind sees that Ortiz was going back to first base comes up guns a blazing after getting the ball on the bounce and gets Ortiz, the lead runner for the second out of the inning. If Byrd doesn't make this play, it brings up the winning run to the plate and there is only one out to the inning. NO BRAINER FOR ME!!!

Tell me some of your observations of the game that I may not have covered here at my email address: Eric@BigBadSportsDaddy.com

Thursday, July 1, 2010

All We Will Remember is the Officials

Another Major Sporting Event, and All We Will Remember is the Officials

As the World Cup gets ready for the quarterfinals tomorrow all that we as sports media are talking about know is how bad the officiating has been and what it has cost some teams. So far in this World Cup a goal has been taken away from the USA during a comeback that would make anybody proud, a Brazilian soccer great has been red carded out of a game for a cheap dive that even my grandma who never has watched the sport knows it was a dive, a goal was given to the Carlos Tevez that even he knows he was offside for, and England gets robbed of a goal cause the ref can't see that the ball clearly crossed the line. Now I consider myself to be quite the soccer officianado and I was really looking forward to what this tournament was going to bring us this year, but quite frankly I can't even watch the rest of the World Cup cause I know that there is going to be more and more screw ups to the point that it is going to cost a team the World Cup Championship.

Also in the last few days we have heard all of the arguements as to why or why not soccer should go to a replay system, but I have come up with a good plan for what FIFA (Which is the governing body for Soccer) should do to impliment a replay system that even the casual watcher can get behind. Here is my plan:

1. Like in tennis, they have a system that decides line calls in or out called "The Hawkeye". What you do is you install this system into all goal posts so that when a ball crosses the line, a signal gets sent to the assistant referees and head referee notifying them of the ball crossing the line. This would take the human element out entirely of calling goals.

2. You institute instant replay like you have in American Football. You give each team two challenges. The coach has a flag that he can throw out onto the field to let the referee know that he is challenging a call. Now in soccer you don't have time outs to lose, so here is the punishment for soccer; for every challenge that you lose, you must lose a player off of the field for a 15 minute period. So if one team challenges a call and gets it wrong, that team then has to play a man down for 15 minutes. This makes it so that there is a replay system in place but the penalty is more severe for a team to use the challenge and be wrong. On this plan there has to be a time limit for the review. If in 2 minutes a call can't be rendered then the challenge is lost.

A simple two part plan to make refereeing more simple for soccer and that it won't add a whole lot of time to the length of the game.

So remember when you are watching the rest of the World Cup next week and a referee blows a call that sends home your favorite country, just remember my simple plan for replay and just think how much better the game will be when we can get most if not all of the calls right and we don't have to worry about a referee being a cause to remember such a great sporting event that only comes around every 4 years.

Email me with your instant replay plans for Soccer at Eric@BigBadSportsDaddy.com.