They gone!

Well, folks, it turned out to be a wonderful weekend for Chicago Cubs baseball. That's a rare enough thing for me to get to say, but sweeping the Sox at the Cell deserves a post.

The good: Three quality starts by Cubs pitching. The Sox were held to 16 hits and 2 runs over the entire 3-game series. Alfonso Soriano gets a gold star for homering in all 3 games, plus a beautiful throw to the plate in today's game. The Cubs looked solid on both sides of the plate.

The bad: Saturday's game subjected me to the atrocity that is the Sox broadcasting team. For those of you unfamiliar, allow me to give you a crash course. The duo consists of Ken "Hawk" Harrelson and Darrin "DJ" Jackson. "DJ" is apparently fond of loading up on Valium before every game-he seems to have serious trouble with minor things like, um, words. If he wasn't calling Cliff Floyd "Gary Boyd," he was bumbling his way through promo copy in a fashion that would have made Mushmouth look like Casey Kasem. And as for the "Hawk?" There are so many levels of awful here, I'm just going to hit the major ones. He's been criticized for being an obvious "homer," which he certainly is. However, Harry Caray was definitely one as well. The problem is that "Hawk" takes it to a whole other level-referring to the Sox as "we" or the "good guys." Irritating to hear a score like this..."end of the 4th, good guys down 2-1."

He also has some of the most annoying catchphrases in the history of sports. After an opposing team has a player strike out? "He gone." Not "he's gone," as anyone with a sense of grammar would say, but "He gone." And when the Sox get a home run? I suggest covering your ears, because you're about to get both "Hawk" and "DJ" screaming at once- "you can put it on the board....YES!" This, combined with "Hawk's" random references to "duck snorts" and "cans-o-corn," had me yelling at the TV by about inning number four. These guys are so bad, their own team's fans are calling for their heads:
Heave the Hawk
and also here.
Pretty bad, folks, pretty bad.

And the ugly: One of the strangest baserunning plays I've ever seen in today's game. I won't even attempt to try and describe it. Even the umpires were confused. The game was held up for a good 15 minutes while they had a conference on it. For a pretty good explanation of what happened, swing over here to one of my favorite Cubs-related blogs.

All in all, a fine weekend. The Cubs get out their brooms, the weather here is nearly perfect, and it's all topped of nicely with a heapin' helpin' of ribs, chicken, and turducken at Fin's place. That definitely works for me.

"Game Seven," the aftermath.

The Predators' series came to an end. In five games. To the Sharks. Again. To call this a disappointing outcome is an understatement. Here was a team that seemed built to make a deep playoff run, if not go all the way to the Stanley Cup. In some ways, the Preds were their own worst enemy. They spent way too much time on the penalty kill, and seemed almost lethargic.

The Sharks did us no favors. They generally outshot us, and showed a real ability to stay in the game at all times (the obvious exception being our one win of the series). They made things happen by simply putting the puck on net, while we seemed content to wait for a fancy play to materialize.

Looking back on all this, the big question is simply "what happened?" This team had no shortage of talent (Kariya, Forsberg, Dumont, Weber, Radulov, Erat, Legwand...) yet managed to go from being in the driver's seat in February to dropping crucial late-season games. After some thought, the answer I've (unfortunately) started to come up with is that the problem lies with the coaching. Barry Trotz has done a great job of turning around this franchise. However, as we've moved into the ranks of the NHL's best teams, with an ever-increasing array of talent, we've hit a wall. For three straight seasons, we've made it to the first round of the playoffs, only to make a rapid exit. It seems that Trotz may not be the man to take us further. It may be premature to say this, and I'm certainly not advocating that he be shown the door right away. Hopefully, these past couple seasons have been a fluke. Let's see what happens, and go for a Cup in 2008.

Game Seven, Part One.

Well folks, this is it for your Nashville Predators. After finishing with one of the best records in the NHL, we find ourselves down 3-1 in a best-of-seven series against the San Jose Sharks. The equation now is very simple: Win. Or go home. For all intents and purposes, this is our Game Seven. The team has showed some fight tonight. As it sits now, we're about to go into the third period with the score knotted at two goals each.

As an aside, I stumbled across this blog the other day:

A Sharks fan who made it their goal to attend every game this season. Home, away, playoffs, you name it. It's interesting to see their impressions of other cities. And they've posted some cool photos from the stops along the way. Go check it out.

It's tough to come back after a 3-1 deficit, but if there's a team that can do it, it's this one. Despite the loss of the playmaker Steve Sullivan, we've had some guys step up big. Radulov, Dumont, and yes, Vokoun. We're twenty minutes away from living to fight another day, or thinking about next year. Here's hoping this team has some fight left.

A moment of silence.

After the horrors on the campus of Virginia Tech, we should all take a moment to reflect. The victims ranged from students to a Holocaust survivor. The impact will be felt for a long time. Each one of those victims had friends and family who will never be the same. To borrow from John Donne: "Any man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind." Regardless of our personal connections (or lack thereof), we should all keep these families in our thoughts and prayers. It will be a long journey for them. I can only hope they realize that we as a nation are keeping them in our hearts.