The hoops event bearing the name of the late Jimmy Valvano takes place tonight at Madison Square Garden in NY with a doubleheader.
Game 1 sees No. 22 Davidson taking on West Virginia with WVU favored by 1.5-points–the Mountaineers are 3-1 SU and 2-2 ATS in the last four games.
In Game 2, No. 6 Texas will go up against No. 12 Villanova with the Longhorns listed at -2–Texas has gone 1-1 SU and 0-2 ATS vs. the Wildcats in the last two games.
The Twitter for Gordon Wittenmyer, who reports on the Cubs for the Chicago Sun-Times, tells the world that Ryan Dempster has agreed to a four-year contract. The money: at least $52 million, not Canadian (even though it would be better for Dempster, who is from B.C.).
Dempster, 31, converted from closer and finished sixth in Cy Young voting, going 17-6 with a 2.96 ERA. He made the NL All-Star squad and started Game 1 of the, ahem, playoffs for the Cubs, who lost in three games to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLDS.
Dempster’s agent, Craig Landis, said that four or five other teams had been interested in Dempster, whose $13m/annum salary might set the market for the likes of A.J. Burnett, the Newark Star-Ledger reports.
The Cubs, who recently let go of Kerry Wood and added Kevin Gregg to their bullpen, are expected to pursue more pitching, though Wittenmyer’s story also has them after infielder Rafael Furcal again. They have been in so-far fruitless negotiations with the San Diego Padres for Jake Peavy. Rick Sutcliffe, who has links to Chicago and San Diego, is doing his best recruiting job on the Cubs’ behalf.
The best news about Dempster returning to Chicago: dogs on the city’s streets are a little safer.
If you’ve been watching the World Series even a little bit (I gather that many of you have not), then you know that the umpiring has been atrocious. In every game there have been blown calls in big spots that have cost one team or the other either runs or momentum. Some of the calls I speak of: A missed (and obvious) balk in the sixth inning of Game 1 that cost the Rays a leadoff base-runner in a one-run game; a bizarre “call strike three and then a second later wave him off to first with a walk” against Brett Myers in Game 2 that cost the Phils a much-needed strikeout with a runner on first; most egregiously, there was umpire Tom Hallion’s blown call at first in the seventh inning of Game 3, calling Carl Crawford safe at first when he was clearly out after Phils’ pitcher Jamie Moyer made what Ryan Howard could only call a “ninjaesque” leaping play to scoop up Crawford’s drag bunt and nail him at first.
Hallion’s bungle led directly to two runs scoring, and nearly affected the outcome of the game, as the Rays came back from a 4-1 deficit to tie the game at 4-4. In the end, the Phils eked out the win on Carlos Ruiz’s squib single in the bottom of the ninth, and the only damage done was to Jamie Moyer, whose record was deprived of a World Series win that he most certainly deserved.
As a Philly guy who is suffering with every pitch in this series, that hour or so late Saturday night when I thought there was a possibility that an umpire’s blown call might go on to cost my team a World Series game was seventh-circle-of-hell material. The misery was swept away, of course, when the Phils prevailed, but I was immediately reminded of it again last night when there was yet another umpiring blunder right in the first inning of Game 4, this one going against the Rays, one that Mottram described in his Game 4 Cluster Bomb. It cost Tampa an early run and, more importantly, early momentum in a must-win situation. At that point it hit me like a mack truck – “when the HELL is baseball going to start really using instant replay?”
Talks have been in the air on this topic for years now, and the first move was made this past August when long-time replay opponent, Commissioner Bud Selig, finally approved the use of replay for disputed home-run calls. Doing so, however, Selig reiterated his position as a staunch traditionalist, saying, “My opposition to unlimited replay is still very much in play. I really think the game has prospered for well over a century now doing things the way we did it.”
I wonder if, watching this World Series, he still feels that way. His argument against replay always has boiled down to those same old flogged dead horses, the danger of slowing down the game and the weight of tradition.
The weight of tradition, however, is a red herring. Tradition didn’t seem to faze him much when it came to the Wild Card, or that bane of die-hard traditionalists everywhere, inter-league play.
As for slowing down the game, it’s an argument that might have held some validity in the 80’s, but the available technology is now so fast and advanced that we the fans watching on television often know that an ump has blown a call about two seconds after the play has happened. If replay was in place this past Saturday night, the Phils would have challenged Hallion’s safe call at first base, the home plate umpire would have called up to the ump up in the replay booth, where most likely that ump already would know that the call was wrong and the runner was out. So the home plate ump would reverse the call after about a 30-second transaction. Bada bing. The whole thing would take infinitely less time than a good old-fashioned ump-manager chest-bumping session.
Obviously, balls and strikes would have to be exempt from the system, as would some other judgment calls, balks probably being one of them along with fan interference. But for calls that can be proven with replay to be definitively right or wrong, there’s just no reason to ignore the existence of that technology anymore and risk the integrity of the game, not to mention precious World Series contests. In principle, I agree with you, Bud, that the game has been just fine this past century or so without instant replay. That’s inarguable. Then again, we used to play every game during the daytime and baseball was just fine in those days, too. Until along came this contraption called the electric light bulb …
The adoration for FX’s It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia on this blog is no secret. Many of us here at SN love this show the way Philly adores Cole Hamels right now.
Rob McElhenney (right) is the creator and one of the stars of the show. In an interview with FirstCuts, he answered a few Philly sports questions on Thursday and talked about Season Four of Sunny along with what’s to come in the future.
Littmann: Thanks for taking some time out of your busy schedule to answer some questions for our readers. We can’t start this interview off without talking about the World Series. Your thoughts on the Phillies’ Game 1 performance?
McElhenney: I’m excited about the world of sports right now. I mean, how beautiful is Cole Hamels? I think he’s got like a just over 1.00 ERA for the playoffs, like 1.55? One of the stats I looked at today, in his four wins in the postseason, the Phillies only put up an average of 3.5 runs per game. That’s amazing, and they’re all wins!
CL: So are you going to get to any of these games?
RM: Yeah, I’d love to. I went to two of the Dodgers games out here, including the one where they clinched, which was amazing. We’re trying to work something out where I can get back there this weekend, but we’re just finishing up Sunny and starting on our new project, so it’s difficult. But I’m trying desperately.
The Tampa Bay Rays don’t get mad.
They do, however, get even.
Facing a possible two-game deficit, the Rays got some timely hitting, or at least some productive outs, in a 4-2 victory against the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 2 of the World Series on Thursday night.
James "Big 17 Outs" Shields (you can’t be "Big Game" James if you don’t go at least six innings) got to tip his cap and David "The Right Is" Price finished off the Phils with 2 1/3 rocky-ish innings for a non-save save. Let’s call it, a game finished, or, "GF."
The Series continues in Philadelphia, the city where all are beloved by their brother, on Saturday night.
Here are a few more thoughts on Game 2, which might include another mysterious call by umpire Kerwin Danley and the Phillies kicking themselves for not hitting with runners in scoring position:
That won’t cut meat: The Phils went 0-for-13 in Game 1 and 1-for-15 in Game 2 with runners in scoring position, or as the SABREtooths call it, RISP. Yikes. Zoinkees, even. The Phillies stranded 11 runners, though it seemed like more. Maybe they should try kicking, instead of swinging. When asked by a TV interviewer about his prowess with Phillies in scoring position, Shields did not take the bait: "That’s a great ballclub over there," Shields said. Good kid there.
Bo-ring!: The Rays scored their first two runs on grounders, with Carlos Pena and Evan Longoria hitting the ball into the turf with a runner at third base and less than two outs in the first inning. It’s like offensive rebounding in basketball. Not necessarily pretty, but a great way to get points runs.
He’s not Werthy: Jason Werth’s error in right field set up one of the Rays runs, and he was later doubled off first base from right field with the Phils down 4-0.
Kerwin the frog here: Should ump Kerwin Danley recuse himself from umpiring the rest of the series? In Game 1, he missed what appeared to be a balk on Cole Hamels. OK, it’s a judgment call and not the first time the world didn’t agree on a balk. In Game 2, he appeared to call out Rocco Baldelli after a check swing but instead made a vague gesture toward the first base umpire, who did nothing, giving Rocco first base and setting off some Phillies confusion and probably giving the Rays a run they didn’t deserve.