BRONX, NY – As I wasted my Monday night watching the New York Football Giants get obliterated by Andrew “Captain Caveman” Luck and the Indianapolis Colts, I had an epiphany of sorts; Sports are fairly predictable. In many cases we know exactly what we’re getting ourselves into when we follow certain teams or players. Here’s what I mean.
Giant Problems. Getting back to the Monday Night fiasco, as I watched the Giants get demolished on both sides of the ball it occurred to me that their offensive coordinator–the one that calls a Peyton Hillis draw on third-and-forever–has a name, McAdoo, better suited for basketball. Meanwhile, I’m pretty sure their defensive coordinator, Perry Fewell, is preoccupied with his other career as front man for Jane’s Addiction to worry about how to stop TY Hilton and Reggie Wayne. Knowing these things, the Monday Night whitewash makes perfect sense.
Fightin’ Mad. Bernard Hopkins is two weeks shy of 50, a light heavyweight champion, and fighting a unification bout in Atlantic City on Friday. How does he do it? It’s really quite simple; he’s pissed off. Hopkins believes his accomplishments are ignored because he’s black. In a recent interview he had this to say about his under-the-radar success: “[It’s] because I’m black. What do you think if my name was Augustine, Herzenstein, Stern? Cappello? Marciano? Don’t you understand the conflict of interest? If I was any of those names of any other background, I’d be on every billboard and every milk carton and every place to be. If we’re talking ‘American Dream,’ here’s a guy who almost threw his life away and he took this great country’s great attributes and used it — do for self, work hard and be a law-abiding citizen. I’ve done that for 26 years.” Whether you agree with him or not, being mad at the world works for Hopkins and I wouldn’t want to be in Sergey Kovalev’s shoes come Saturday night.
The Mets Can’t Win… at anything. It wasn’t more than a week ago that there were reports that the Mets main off-season free agent pursuit would be Colorado Rockies’ outfielder/first baseman Michael Cuddyer. This idea absolutely cracked me up. Cuddyer will be 36 when the 2015 season kicks off, played only 49 games in an injury-plagued 2014, and has your standard inflated offensive stats from playing in Colorado. So, of course the Mets want him. He fits the Jason Bay/Curtis Granderson mold perfectly. But, luckily for the Mets, in true Mets fashion the Rockies gave Cuddyer a one-year $15.3 million qualifying offer. This means the Mets (or any other team) would have to surrender a draft pick were they to sign Cuddyer. So even though Sandy Alderson and Co. were saved from this potential massive screw-up, they are right back with their hands in their pockets, whistling, waiting for something else to come along. The more things change, the more they stay the same in Flushing. You can set your watch to it.
Embattled Trestman: Bears are Behind Me. This was a headline on ESPN the other day concerning Chicago Bears head coach Marc Trestman. It immediately reminded me of this Bill Murray Stripes quote: “If we ever get into real heavy combat, I’ll be right behind you guys every step of the way.” And I’m pretty sure this is what Trestman means when he says the Bears are behind him. He may want to look into hijacking an Urban Assault Vehicle and hightailing it out of the Windy City asap.
OK, as I understand it, I’m over 500 words so I’m done for this week. Come back tomorrow for something much, much better from Big Al Sternberg/Fake Sandy Alderson.
