Happy St. Patty’s Paddy’s Day!
MARLBORO, NY – As the sports scene starts to heat up with NCAA Conference Tournaments and subsequent bids to March Madness there is also the NHL Playoffs home stretch, MLB’s Opening Day, and plenty of NFL-related news to think about and here are some of my random thoughts lately.
Angel Hernandez: Ask an even casual baseball fan like myself who this guy is and you’ll get an earful. Across the game of baseball there is no bigger douche-bag then this guy… and he’s an umpire no less! I hate players who think they’re bigger than the game but this pr!ck takes things to a whole new level of spectacle while doing his job. On display during a Houston Astros Spring Training game was Hernandez ejecting manager A.J. Hinch after the first pitch of the exhibition. Say what?! What hostilities were exchanged before this? If you saw Bull Durham the one word that gets a player or coach tossed is c**k s**ker but regardless, there’s usually a crescendo in a dispute before calling somebody one. I’d like to see Hernandez receive some disciplinary action for having the shortest fuse imaginable. Hey Blue, people pay to see players perform during a baseball game. We don’t do so to see umpires officiate.
OBJ: It was bound to happen. The Giants traded the mercurial wide receiver this past week amid a storm of opinion that the Giants didn’t get enough of a haul for Beckham. I disagree. 
A first-rounder, a third-rounder and safety Jabril Peppers seems about correct for a cancer in the locker room and clearly a “me first” kind of guy. We’ve seen his type before – extremely talented, as one of the game’s best, but with a hamster on a exercise wheel between the ears. The trade gives me every indication that the Giants will select a quarterback with their own first round pick, as they couldn’t possibly pollute the environment for any rookie by having OBJ in the same meeting and locker rooms. There is a certain amount of pressure on Giants draft room personnel to hit a home run with the picks garnered from the trade. Anything less will end up being a trivia question similar to what the Mets got for Nolan Ryan way back when.
St. Paddy’s Day: I want to know from all three of our readers, who their favorite Irish sports star is or was. I gave this some thought and it took all of a nanosecond to come up with the name Terry O’Reilly. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish leprechaun should have his likeness on the logo. 
As a member of my beloved Boston Bruins’ O’Reilly could fight with the best of them during the NHL’s fisticuffs era of the 70’s and 80’s. He could play the game as well scoring 20+ goals in four different seasons. “Taz” will be forever remember for his five seasons of 200+ penalty minutes, leading his charges into the stands in dealing with some unruly fans at MSG and the swipe he took at referee Andy Van Hellemond toward the end of a Game 7 playoff defeat at the hands of the Quebec Nordiques which cost him a hefty suspension the following season. O’Reilly was a first-round pick, a team captain, later coached the Bruins and is Happy Gilmore’s favorite hockey player. This guy was Pete Rose on skates and probably had just as many hits albeit of a different kind as Charley Hustle.
Speaking of guy that knows a thing or two about hustling, come back tomorrow for Buddy Diaz.
