Back after good times with good food and drink. To borrow a line from my good friend Laura, "eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall DIE."
Um, yeah.
Anyway, while I was stuffing my face and drinking, I got to wondering just why the hell we have 4,000 bowl games in Division I-A college football, the only college sport that doesn't decide it's national champion by a playoff system? It's utterly ridiculous. Does anyone care about the Papajohns.com Bowl or the New Mexico Bowl? Who wants to see a 6-6 team against a 7-6 team besides the fans of the two schools? The National Championship Game is determined by computers and coaches poll. Is that what anyone really wants?
Let's look at the title game: Ohio State vs. Florida. Does Ohio State deserve to be there? No question. Does Florida deserve to be there? Good question, and I don't know the answer. Michigan has every right to claim that they should be number two and get another shot at the Buckeyes. If that game back in November is played at the Big House, it's probably a different story.
Fact of the matter is there has to a better way to settle this. But I'm not smart enough to figure out how.
The big story continues to be Barry Zito and the columnists are starting to have a field day already. You can read about the media backlash against, as Ken Davidoff of Newsday loses his marbles in his column. http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/mets/ny-spken1229,0,4227767.column?coll=ny-sports-headlines
He suggests that the Mets sign Jeff Weaver. Read that again.
Jeff Weaver. Can you say riot?
Look, I can understand why Met fans have reason to be angry that they didn't get their man. But in three years time, this could have the Mets looking pretty darn good with Zito getting hammered. People calling Fred Wilpon "Freddy Coupon" or saying that Minaya didn't go after Zito because he wasn't Latin are completely off-base. Zito does not deserve $126 million dollars. No one does, unless you find the cure for cancer or AIDS. But especially Zito, a soft-tossing lefty whose numbers, as stated in the previous post, continue to regress. If anyone thinks that Minaya didn't pursue Zito because he isn't Latino, your out of your mind. He only just signed David Wright to a long-term extension instead of trading and went hard after Billy Wagner, two Caucasian players on his team. It doesn't matter if the team is black, white, Asian, Martian or whatever. If you win games at the end of the day, it's all good.
The last thing Omar should do is overpay some bum like Weaver or panic and trade the farm for an overrated starter, such as Danny Haren, Brad Penny (extremely overrated and injury prone) and Jon Garland, like Davidoff suggest. Bold prediction: the Mets will be a playoff team and the best team in the National League, along with being a World Series contender. Their rotation isn't terrible and their bullpen is good, although it's taken a hit with Chad Bradford sidewinding down in Baltimore. They will be a good team and who's to say that Minaya doesn't decide to make a move for a player at the trading deadline in July?
The Cubs have been crowned the winners of the Hot Stove Season. But as the Yankees have found out, you don't win World Series during the Hot Stove. You win them in October. That's a long ways off.
3 comments:
I watch the New Mexico Bowl! How bout those San Jose State Spartans! There was pressure from a lot of people trying to convince San Jose State to drop to 1AA because they were a horrible team that would consistently go 2-9, or 1-10. Then they hired Dick Tomey a couple of years ago, and San Jose State has become a respectable program. Almost every mediocre bowl game has some kind of storyline to make the game interesting.
Honestly, I'd watch the WBCR Bowl. Better than the Gaylord Hotels and Entertainment Bowl. To borrow a line for Seinfeld: "not that there is anything wrong with that..."
I think Pettitte will have a decent year, but he doesn't assure the Yanks of a title. Wagner is still a top five closer, despite his coming up short in the big spot. See Taguchi,So, Game 2 2006 NLCS.
I know there's an appeal for the hardcore element of college football fan, but honestly, wouldn't it be better to have a playoff system? We'd actually have an undisputed national champion. Isn't that what we really want instead of Hawaii vs. Arizona State in the Aloha Bowl or whatever the hell its called these days.
I'm not arguing against a playoff. I'm just trying to give some love to the little teams out there. San Jose State and New Mexico weren't going to be in any playoff discussion anyway. Its just one of the plethera of mediocre bowl games out there, but some of them are important to the teams involved. My problem is that there are at least 4 or 5 too many. Just being 500 pretty much gets you a bowl. Its like the NBA playoffs where over half the teams get in.
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