The More Things Change, The More...

Greetings from Blogger Land. Apologies for the delay in my posts - things have been rather busy lately for me personally. A new job, and a move. However I think I have enough time to right on the latest state of things.

To begin, college football is upon us again, a not a moment too soon - more about that in a minute. For the immediate future, the Yankees are finished. Everyone wants to find a reason for why this happened, for why a $200 million payroll will fail to even make the playoffs. Simply put - inconsistency. The offense never produced on a consistent basis. For example, Nady, Damon, Jeter, and Abreau all had excellent batting averages with runners in scoring position (RISP). However, the middle of the line up had two glaring, no rather, cavernous, holes in the line up. Alex Rodriguez and Jason Giambi. A-Rod (aka Mr. Madona) hit intl 11, yes 11, Double Plays for the month of August. 11. Giambi is batting his ususal .250, following A-Rod. Nothing spells rally-killer, and season-killer, like these two back-to-back in the line up.

And what did Girardi do about this? Nothing, absolutely nothing. One would have to believe that Joe Torre would have at least tried shuffling the line up by now, remember, A-Rod was batting 8th at one point last year. Of course, this isn't all Girardi's fault. He's been an OK, but not great, or even good manager. He has made some freshman managerial mistakes. The base-running has been dreadful this year, and for reasons unexplained, he has continued to rely on Rasner, who rarely makes it beyond the 5th inning.

Yes, the Yankees have had serious injuries. Posada is gone for the season, and Matsui has been missing for much of the season. Nobody foresaw Wong being injured in a freak base-running issue either. Still, the Red Sox have had injuries too - Schilling, Ortiz, Beckett, and Manny is gone (in one of the worst-managed personnel decisions ever). The Rays (not the Devil Rays anymore), lost Crawford and Longoria for almost all of August. Both teams managed to keep winning games. Someone should remind Hank Steinbrinner of that.

Of course, there are the what-ifs? Suppose the Yankees had given up Melkey Cabrera and Phil Hughes for Santana, or Cano for Sabathia. Try getting anything for them now, after the league has seen Hughes sit out the season in the minors, Cabrera be demoted to the minors, and Cano not crack .270 all season. I believe at the time Hank said the Twins and Indians wanted too much. Really??

Bottom line, too many variables have combined to render an all-star line-up to be totally ineffective. Blame can and should be pointed at the front office, the manager, and especially the players. Players who make $250 million in 10 years, and can't score with RISP because they are too busy hooking up with Madona (I think he could do a lot better on and off the field).

Its September, and New York belongs to the Mets. Great. Of course the Mets didn't factor on losing John Maine and Billy Wagner within two weeks of each other. Big Problems.

I'll root for the Cubs, as I used to live in Chicago, and also because the Mets screwed Willie Randolph. The Cubs haven't won in 100 years, and unlike the Red Sox, they have not blamed another team for their problems.

As for College Football, well the more things change, the more they stay the same. Michigan continued their winning tradition, by losing what ultimately became a close game, to Utah. Their problem? No QB. Perhaps they should have done a little more to keep Mallet.

Alabama looked more than dominant against Clemson, and could be a serious force to be reckoned with by Florida and Georgia in the SEC.

Virginia Tech is clearly in a rebuilding "phase" this year, Like Michigan, they don't have a QB.

The next big game? OSU against USC. Bet on USC to hang over 40 on the buckeyes, as a west coast offense that works will always beat a running attack, any time. Without Beanie Wells, OSU will have to start their star freshman recruit, and look for USC to key up on him.

The Olympics were fun, if you like watching Phelpls win over and over again. I actually got more enjoyment out of watching the Men's and Women's beach volleyball finals, than Phelps swimming. The one thing that bothered me about it, was that the media made as though he deserved it, and him winning 8 golds was a foregone conclusion. I'd like to point out that finish against the Serbian swimmer by half a stroke was questionable at best. It's possible that a bubble in the water could make the difference between 1/100th of a second and second place. None-the-less, it still was an amazing achievement, even Phelps may be a deuchebag:

http://www.bestweekever.tv/2008/08/19/just-asking-is-michael-phelps-a-douche/