Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Cabrera shines in Yanks loss

Melky Cabrera, who has dramatically improved his game since he was called up to the Yankees last season, was about the only bright spot in an otherwise anemic lineup as the Yankees lost the middle game of a three game set against the Braves 5-2. Cabrera was 3-for-4 and was responsible for both Yankees runs. His RBI infield single was the only run that the Yanks could score against Atlanta starter Horacio Ramirez. Cabrera also kept New York's slim hopes alive when he golfed a solo shot to right field in the bottom of the ninth, making it a 5-2 game, but that was all that the Yankees could do in the final inning. Cabrera is now hitting nearly .270, and his defense is greatly improved, as he's made some stellar catches while being converted from a center fielder to a left fielder.

Monday, June 26, 2006

Surprises, surprises

As we near the midpoint of the 2006 Major League Baseball season, let's take a look at some of the players that have raised a few eyebrows so far this year.

Kenny Rogers, Detroit: So, you thought his career was over. Well, you're not alone, many of us did. After building a respectacble resume in his first stint with the Texas Rangers, Rogers had a few less-than-admirable stops, including the Yankees, Oakland, the Mets, two more stops in Arlington, and a year in the Metrodome. His career has been spattered with ups-and-downs, bad years following good ones (compare his first and second years with the A's), and a lack of success in towns that he genuinely enjoyed playing in (see Yankees career).
Who would have thought, that in his 18th season as a journeyman pitcher, that Kenny Rogers would be reborn in, of all places, Detroit.
But that is exactly what has happened. In his first year with the Tigers, Rogers has become the first pitcher in the American League to reach the 10-win plateau, he's given up less hits than innings pitched for just the sixth time in his career and the first since 1999 with the Mets, his strikeout-to-walk ratio is better than 2-1 for just the fifth time in his career, and his earned run average, which is at 3.44 at the moment, is his best since '98 when it was 3.17 with the A's.
At 41 years old, Kenny Rogers may be saving his best for last.
Jose Contreras, Chicago White Sox: Speaking of careers that we thought were over, how about Contreras? Here's a guy that could not buy an out at the end of his stay in New York, and now he's pitching lights-out in the windy city.
Contreras is undefeated in his 13 starts with an 8-0 record, and his 3.15 ERA ranks him third in the American League.
Jose Contreras has certainly turned things around.
Tom Gordon, Philadelphia: Gordon began his career as a fireballing starter. Eventually converted to a closer, the Yankees brought him in as a setup man for Mariano. It was an experiment that had just about as many failures as it did successes, but Gordon was never comfortable in the role.
Fast forward to 2006, and we see Gordon back in his old role, as closer for the Philadelphia Phillies. Was his career on its way out? Some people in New York thought so, but back in a familiar role with a team that's contending for the National League Wild Card, Gordon is third in the NL with 20 saves, and he probably would have several more had the club not had some late-inning implosions.
Nomar Garciaparra, Los Angeles Dodgers: This man has gone from no-play to no-can-get-me-out. Nomar has spent so much time on the disabled list the last few seasons that it became a pre-season ritual for fans to start their own pool to see who can come the closest to guessing when Nomar would go down with a season-ending injury. This season, Garciaparra has let the water out of everyone's pool, as he has not only stayed healthy, not only has become an integral part of his club, but he's doing it in style, as his league-leading .362 batting average is 10 points higher than his nearest competitor, Matt Holliday of Colorado.
David Wright, N.Y. Mets: Not so much of a surprise, but this is a player that has got to be mentioned when talking about this season's early producers. Wright is now beginning to flourish and show the talent that he was touted to have, and he's impressing everyone in the process.
His 18 home runs puts him in a four-way tie for 10th with Atlanta's Andruw Jones, Houston's Morgan Ensberg, and Philadelphia's Pat Burrell. He's tied for fourth with Andruw Jones with 64 RBIs, he's in a three-way tie for 15th in the National League with 19 doubles, and is tied with teammate Jose Reyes for second place with 98 hits. If that's not enough, Wright ranks sixth in slugging percentage, ninth in on-base percentage, sixth in batting average, and is tied for 25th in the league in walks. This kid looks like he's going to be a stud in the league for years to come.
Brandon Phillips, Cincinnati: Phillips was traded from Montreal to Cleveland in 2003, and he was considered a bust, as he hit just over .200 for the season. The Indians were not pleased with his production or his cockiness. A Cincinnati scout pestered the GM to take a chance on him in the spring, and it paid off. So far, Phillips is batting .310, he has seven home runs, and 43 RBIs.
Alex Rios, Toronto: In his third year with the Blue Jays, Rios is showing that Toronto's patience has paid off. In his first two seasons, Rios' slugging percentage was below .400 both years and he had a total of 11 homers.
This season, Rios is proving the nay-sayers wrong. In 71 games, Rios has taken his slugging percentage to an amazing .602, he's got a .323 batting average, 15 home runs, and 51 runs batted in.
Freddy Sanchez, Pittsburgh: I'm putting Sanchez in as an honorable mention. His numbers are not mind-blowing, but they have improved. In his third season with the Bucs, Sanchez is developing as a hitter, as he's second in the National League with a .355 batting average and above-average play at third base.
Andy Phillips, N.Y. Yankees: Another honorable mention because he's not an every-day player, Phillips has been buried in Triple-A Columbus for several seasons, knocking the cover off of the ball and waiting to be called up. He had a couple of cups of coffee with the big club in '04 and '05, but this season, with all of New York's injuries, Phillips has done a fantastic job in his sporadic role. In 55 games, Phillips has five homers, five doubles, a pair of triples, and is hitting .294 with a slugging percentage of .496.

The Giambi Show Rolls on in the Bronx

Jason Giambi continues to impress as he handled Atlanta Braves' starting pitcher Tim Hudson all by himself on Monday night at the Stadium.
Giambi's two-run home run in the bottom of the first gave New York a 2-0 lead. He followed that up the next inning, when his three-run blast put the Yankees ahead 5-0. The two homers move him up from fifth to a tie for second in the American League with Boston's David Ortiz with 22 dingers each.
The pitching was outstanding as well, as Randy Johnson gave perhaps his best performance of the season. Johnson kept the bats of the slumping Braves at bay with seven shutout innings, finishing it off in grand style as he struck out five of his last six outs, including striking out the side in the sixth. His total of nine K's for the night was his most in a game this season.
Giambi continues to impress. He won over the hearts of the fans of New York by being the first and only man still playing to openly admit that he took steroids, apologize to the fans for doing it, and trying to reconstruct his career after giving them up. He struggled on the diamond when he first got off the juice, but had a strong second half of last season, and this year he's picked up where he left off. He currently ranks in the top five in home runs, RBIs, walks, and on-base percentage. There is little question as to why Jason Giambi won the comeback-player-of-the-year award last season.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Hopkins Ends a Great Career

41-year-old Bernard Hopkins, perhaps one of the greatest pound-for-pound fighters in recent history, is calling it a career.
When you talk about pound-for-pound champions, there are several that jump into mind. The original was "Sugar" Ray Robinson. Never a large enough man to be able to work up to the heavier ranks, Robinson was one of the most revered fighters of his time. He was such a textbook fighter, with speed and uncanny power that could damage any opponent at any given point in any fight. His fights with Jake "Raging Bull" Lamotta were legendary.
The next pound-for-pound champ was another "Sugar Ray", some 30 years later in Sugar Ray Leaonard. Leonard won America's heart in the 1976 Summer Olympics with his flashy style en route to a gold medal. He had classic fights with Thomas "Hit Man" Hearns and Roberto "The Hands of Stone" Duran, forcing the mighty Panamanian to coin the famous "No Mas!" phrase when he could take the punishment from Leonard no longer.
Leonard finished off a Hall-of -Fame career when he rose from the ranks of the welterweights to fight the undisputed middleweight champ, "Marvelous Marvin" Hagler. In what was a close, if not questionable decision, Leonard had done what everyone said that he couldn't: jump up in weight class and beat the most dominant champion of the era.
Roy Jones, Jr. would be next on the list of boxers who dominated one or more weight classes. Jones was a fantastic fighter, with a ripped, muscular body, speed, power, and a tremendous ego. But like Muhammad Ali had done decades earlier, Jones won the fans over by proving that he could back up what he said.
Jones captured his first belt, the IBF Middleweight title, in May of 1993. The following year he beat James Toney to take the IBF Super-Middleweight belt.
In November of 1996 he jumped up to win the interim WBC Light heavyweight title by defeating Mike McCallum. He lost that belt in March of 1997, but regained it later that year by beating the man that beat him, Montell Griffin. Public opinion said that Jones would win the fight easily because the only reason that he lost the first fight was for hitting Griffin when he was down, disqualifying Jones and handing him his first defeat as a boxer.
In November of 1998, Jones not only defended the WBC title but added to it the WBA Light-Heavyweight crown. In June of the following year he again added to his collection, as he picked up the IBF title, giving him three different light-heavyweight championships.
Then on March 1, 2003, with the unified belts still intact, Jones jumped up again, this time to heavyweight, and he beat champion John Ruiz to claim the WBA Heavyweight Title.
Which leads us to Hopkins. He regained the IBF Middleweight in January of 1996 and held it until April of 2001, when he added the WBC Middleweight crown to his list. Five months later he would unify the middleweight title by knocking out Felix Trinidad in the 12th round. Hopkins successfully defended all three belts until July 2005, the first time that he lost to Jermain Taylor.
Bernard Hopkins went out on the high note that he promised that he would when he beat Antonio Tarver on June 10 to capture the IBO and NBA Light Heavyweight Championships. At 41, Bernard Hopkins was still schooling them till the end. Pound-for-pound one of the greatest fighters ever? I think so.

NHL Playoffs - Still the Best

The NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs have come and gone, and once again the players displayed why these NHL Playoffs are perhaps the most riveting and exciting in all of sports.
As if this game wasn't difficult enough to play in the regular season, the speed, intensity, and level of play increases in the NHL playoffs like it does in no other sport in America.
And on top of that, there were some terrific early-round upsets and come-from-behind victories as well.
The Edmonton Oilers not only made it to the finals, and pushed it to a seventh game when they were on the verge of being eliminated four games to one, but the forgottten fact (since both the NBA and NHL Playoffs are so long) is that the Oil took out the mighty Detroit Red Wings in the first round. The Red Wings, who had nearly 30 more points (124-95), 17 more wins, which equates to nearly 25% of a full season's schedule, outscored them on the season by nearly 50 goals (305 for Detroit and 256 for Edmonton), and allowed more than 40 goals less (209-251) than Edmonton, yet was unceremoniously tossed aside as the Oilers left eighth place in the Western Conference playoffs on a mission towards Lord Stanley's Cup.
Also in the West, #2 Dallas got upended by the seventh seed, The Colorado Avalanche. The Stars were one of the stronger teams in the league throughout the season, but found the wrong time to slump...in May. The Avs, however, barely made the playoffs, as their season was far more inconsistent than Dallas', and they stumbled into the playoffs with 95 points, tied for eighth in the conference with Edmonton, 17 points behind the Stars, and just three points ahead of the Vancouver Canucks, the ninth-place club that did not make the post season.
In the East, the fourth-ranked Buffalo Sabres had a tremendous run as well, as they first took out #5 Philadelphia, then beat second-seeded (and heavily favored) Ottawa before taking eventual Cup winner Carolina to the brink.
That brought us to a final series of the Carolina Hurricanes and the Edmonton Oilers. There were mixed emotions about who to root for and why. Some people held the age-long attitude that they would not root for a Canadian team over an American club. Some said that they always pulled for the underdog, so they were going with the Oilers because of all that they had accomplished to that point in the playoffs.
Others took sides based upon players. Some fans were rooting for one the league's best two-way players ever, Michael Peca, while others went with the list of Carolina Hurricanes who had been in the NHL for a decade or more and have never hoisted the Cup.
I found that based on all of the facts mentioned as well as others that were not, I myself had mixed emotions and also found justification in whichever side I chose, if I was to take a side at all.
So whomever you were rooting for, and whichever cause you got behind in the 2006 NHL Playoffs, you still had to feel good in the end about what an awesome second season it was, and what phenominal entertainment that the teams gave us along the way.

p.s. Although I would have been happy for Michael Peca had he won a cup because he is so deserving of one, do you really think an Islanders fan was going to root for the Oilers? Long live the Whale.