Conspiracy Theory

Readers I believe that I, James Choleras, have unearthed one of the greatest sports conspiracies of all time and against my better judgement I am going to share my theory with you.  I don't care if it puts me in serious danger because this needs to get out.  Ok are you ready?  The city of Boston is stealing all of the city of Minnesota's big sports stars and winning championships with them.

That's right.  Boston is stealing from Minnesota and no one is doing anything to stop it.  The city of Boston has become the most successful sports city in North America by taking the best talent Minnesota sports teams have and making it their own.  I know you are sitting there saying James what the hell are you talking about?  Well let me lay it out for you case by case.

Case #1 David Ortiz

In 2002 David Ortiz played for the Minnesota Twins and hit 20 HR with 75 RBI.  After the Twins lost in the playoffs Ortiz was subsequently released.   During the offseason he was quickly signed by the red Sox.  The next season he hit 31 HR and had 101 RBI and became an instant star in the MLB.  The following season the Red Sox, led by David Ortiz and his post-season heroics, won their first World Series and lifted the curse of the Bambino.  In the playoffs, Ortiz hit .400 with 5 home runs and 19 RBI.  Since then Ortiz has been the hero of the team and has brought the Red Sox into an unprecedented age of prosperity.  

Case # 2 Randy Moss

Randy Moss was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings in 1998 and spent 6 great years with the Vikings eventually becoming one of, if not the, best receivers in the NFL.    However after not making the Super Bowl Moss angrily left the team and tested the free agency market where he eventually landed in Oakland.  In Oakland he felt that he was underutilized and realized that the Raiders sucked so he looked for greener pastures.  He would find his home in New England and upon teaming with Tom Brady broke the record for most touchdown passes in a single season with 22.  He would also be a part of the first team to go 16-0 in the regular season.  While New England won their championships before Moss they never went 16-0.  Also if Tom Brady hadn't gone down in week 1 they would have had a shot at the SuperBowl this year.

Case # 3 Kevin Garnett

Kevin Garnett was the Minnesota Timberwolves.  He was drafted by them 5th overall in the 1995 draft and spent most of his career there being named an All-star numerous times and even leading them to the post season a few times.   However he couldn't waste away in Minnesota so what did he do?  He jumped ship and went to the Celtics and in his first season there brought the city its first NBA championship since 1986.  While the Celtics did have Paul Pierce and Ray Allen Garnett was clearly the heart and soul of that team and the piece needed to win.  

After looking at these 3 cases can anyone deny that Boston uses Minnesota as a development city then just takes their best players.  Case #4 is on the way too as Marion Gaborik of the Minnesota Wild is a UFA (Unrestricted Free Agent) at the end of the season and would be a perfect fit for the Bruins who look like a favorite to win the Stanley Cup this year.   

The conspiracy is out there now.  Be careful.

Blowing it out of Proportion

On January 13 two girls High school basketball teams took part in what will most likely be the most famous girls basketball game of all time.  The Covenant School's girls team from Dallas Texas was taking on Dallas Academy and ended up winning 100-0.  That's right the other team didn't score a single point and Covenant ran up the score on them.

Now ever since the game happened there has been national media attention about how Covenant was wrong and how they shouldn't have been shooting 3s or playing the full court press.  The head of the school even offered to forfeit the game and apologized for the actions of the coaching staff.  

Before I get into my opinion it needs to be stated that Dallas Academy is a school that teaches children with learning disabilities such as ADD and dyslexia and that they have roughly 22 girls at their school and only 8 are on the team.  So if you were wondering how this team didn't score a point it may now be a bit clearer.

Since the game the coach has been asked to apologize for his actions and has since refused to do so.  While everyone is getting all over him and national reporters and journalists are berating him I will do the opposite and will have the guts to do what they all want to do.  

Coach Grimes of Covenant I salute you for not apologizing and I agree 100% with your decision to continue to play hard no matter what.  What does it teach kids if you tell them to not try their best all of the time and to give up when they have a lead over someone in competition.  It teaches them to be weak is what it does. 

Let me try and relate this to something more practical than basketball.  Let's say for instance that one of these children was attending a university.  Said student is doing much much better than the rest of their class and making them all look bad.  Would a smart parent say "try not to do so well you're making everyone look bad" or would they encourage their child to be the best they can be at all times.

Our society today tries to act like everyone is sympathetic and compassionate for the feelings of others yet in their own minds they could care less and these reporters and journalists who perpetuate this nonsense are no better.  One of these guys at ESPN or SI needs to step up and say "look, its one game in high school and no one got hurt so what's the big deal."

Worthy of note is now all the girls from the losing team are being interviewed on TV and are in magazines and being talked about by people all over North America.  They are made out to be heroes while the kids who are actually good at the game are made to be villains.   It's a sad day when something like this happens and people over react as if it the most crucial event in our history.  Even sadder is that this game got more press than some of the baseball players I mentioned in my previous article.  Mike Piazza, the greatest hitting catcher of all time, retires and there is nothing but a high school basketball game has a crazy score and the world stands still.

Bowing Out Quietly

On Saturday January 24th, 2009 Sean Casey announced his retirement from the MLB.  He held a small press conference in which he lamented on his years in the league and all of the great times that he had and it was all very classy.  Unfortunately for Sean Casey the story of him retiring was nowhere to be found on any of the big sports sites that I frequent (Sports Illustrated, ESPN, and TSN).  No, the only reason I found out Casey had retired was because it appeared at the bottom of the ticker as I was watching highlights on the Score.

Now this may not seem like a big deal but when you start to add this incident with other incidents that have occurred previously and the ones that are soon to come it becomes more shocking and troubling.

Its not as if Sean Casey was an absolute nobody.  He had a career average of .302 and hit 130 HR with 735 RBI all the while making 3 All star teams and being well known as being the nicest guy in baseball.  Yet his retirement is just one of many that fans can expect this off season.  With the current economy and the new approach to the game (the young approach) players like Casey no longer have a place in the game it seems.

Jeff Kent also retired this week without a whole lot of media hype and he was a 5 time All-Star, former NL MVP in 2000 and 4 time Silver Slugger Award Winner.  His stats are more impressive than Casey and yet he was also went silently into the night.  And there are players like Ken Griffey Jr.,Garret Anderson, Nomar Garciaparra, Moises Alou,Luis Gonzalez, Pudge Rodriguez, Frank Thomas, Cliff Floyd, Jim Edmonds who may also have their careers cut short by the current economy.

These are big names and future hall of famers who have now become irrelevant and have been cast aside by the league that they helped to build.  This is not a new phenomenon either as recently players such as Kenny Lofton, Shawn Green, Mike Piazza and Sammy Sosa were forced out of the league in years past for financial issues.

I am not trying to say that teams should be throwing their money around wildly at older players who may or may not be past their primes and I don't think there should be a parade or giant media circus when someone retires but a little more class by the league and these major sports entities would be nice.

A new age in baseball is fast approaching where big names of my childhood will be cast aside for younger and less expensive players but the MLB needs to take care of its own and try and not push these men aside as if they were clutter but maybe make the transition out and the final goodbye a little more sensitive and classy.

What’s Wrong with the Raptors?

Coming into the 2008-2009 NBA season many people had the Raptors being a force to be reckoned with in the East.  They had traded locker room disruption TJ Ford and had acquired Jermaine O’Neal a former All-Star.  Even with the questions of O’Neal’s health people still assumed that with Bosh, Calderon and now O’neal that the Raptors would challenge for top spot in the East.

Now two months into the season the Raptors are 16-28 having lost their last seven in a row.  They have fired Sam Mitchell, a man who only two years earlier had won Coach of the Year, and have replaced him with untested Jay Triano.  Jose Calderon and Jermaine O’Neal have both been injured and trade rumors are swirling that anyone could be traded at any moment.  All of these things have compounded into a negative attitude in Toronto that has the fans upset and superstar Chris Bosh looking unhappy.

Something has to change in Toronto if the Raptors want to save their season.  But this far into the season and looking at the Eastern conference one is forced to wonder if GM Brian Colangelo actually wants to improve this current squad or if would be better served to “blow it up” and start all over.

As it stands now the Raptors don’t have many options as the players and compensation they would receive on players such as Anthony Parker and Jason Kapono would not be worth their true value.  There has been talk of the Raptors trading O’Neal straight up to the Heat for Shawn Marion but do the Raps really need a self-centered player who isn’t nearly as good as he believes he is? 

For now it seems that all the Raptors can do is try and dump some of their contracts and attempt to sign some free agents in the off-season and use draft picks to rebuild because what they have now clearly isn’t working.  The only real problem is that if you decide to blow up the team that would mean Bosh would have to go which would hurt the franchise deeply as he is the cornerstone.  What they can’t allow to happen is another Vince Carter situation where they are forced to deal their best player and get nothing in return.

Maybe if the Raptors can get healthy and get their full team out there they may be able to compete.  However seeing as they are 3^rd last in the Eastern Conference maybe they should just sit it out and hope for another 1^st overall draft pick.  God knows the Thunder don’t need another one.

To Fight or Not to Fight

Fighting in hockey has always been a topic of great debate.  On one side there are the traditionalists who feel that it is part of the game and that to remove it would ruin the game and make it "soft".  On the other side of the debate are the people who feel that fighting should not be tolerated in any sport and note the serious injuries that can occur from fighting.  

The debate has been raging lately after the tragic death of Don Sanderson, a 21 year old kid playing for the Whitby Dunlops suffered a concussion while fighting in a game nearly a month ago.  Sanderson was fighting and had his helmet come off and eventually fell to the ice awkwardly and was knocked unconscious.  He was rushed to a nearby hospital but eventually succumb to his injuries and passed away.

After the tragedy the OHL, and other minor hockey leagues, have started to implement new rules to try and stop fighting.  One of these new rules is that if a players helmet comes off during a fight then the fight is over.  Suspensions are also being handed down for fighting in the hope that it will deter players from fighting.

In the upcoming GM meetings the NHL has asked that fighting be discussed to see if there is any way to improve it.  The question then becomes do people actually want fighting out of hockey?  The Don Sanderson incident, while tragic, is hardly the norm and removing fighting from hockey might remove some of its fan base.  While this is a reality it is also very sad as the NHL is such a poorly run league that if it were to remove fighting some people might no longer watch.

Look at the NBA, MLB, NFL or any other major league in sports around the world.  If two people fight in those leagues then they are suspended or kicked from a game where as in the NHL the players receive 5 minute penalties and can even fight again in the same game.  Its no wonder that the NHL is such a joke around the world.  To go even further does fighting really matter?  People argue that if you remove fighting it will make the game "soft" and that the Europeans will take over.  To them I say go back to your trailer and grab another Miller Light.

Whose favorite player is a fighter anyways?  If there were to remove fighting guys like Andrew Peters, Chris Neil, and George Parros would be out of a job and would anyone really care? The reason I watch hockey is for the goals, saves and hits.  I don't like seeing people glorified for doing something that is detrimental to their team and if I want to watch two people fight I will watch the UFC where the fights are actually good.  

So call me what you will but having people getting killed or seriously injured is hardly worth the 30 seconds of punching that comes along with it.  Fighting has no place in professional sports and it speaks volumes that the NHL wants to keep it in to keep its fans.  Maybe instead they should hire someone with a marketing degree and learn how to market their sport properly.

Defying all Odds

Today the Arizona Cardinals punched their ticket to Tampa Bay as in two weeks they will represent the NFC in SuperBowl XLIII.  No that is not a typo.  The Arizona Cardinals will be playing in the SuperBowl.  Going into this season if you told me that the Cardinals would be going to the SuperBowl I would have told you to put the pipe down and seek some help.  An aging Kurt Warner, no running game to speak of, and a defense with no real identity are not ingredients in a winning recipe.  Yet the Cardinals have been proving the naysayers wrong all season.

While the Cardinals did finish 8-8 last season, just their third non-losing record since moving to Arizona in 1987, most experts felt that the only reason they finished .500 was because of their weak division where they beat up on the Rams. Seahwajs, and 49ers.  Still the Cards came into the season with low expectations but got off to a hot start as after week 10 they were 7-3 and there were talks of Kurt Warner winning the MVP.

The Cards cooled off however as they would finish the season 9-7 going 2-4 the rest of way.  Their one win was a 34-10 win over the St. Louis Rams which would also allow them to clinch the division for the first time 1975 and their first playoff appearance since 1998.

Going into the playoffs they were touted as the worst team of all 16 and no one expected them to go very far.  The Cardinals took this as a direct challenge and went on to beat the Falcons in the Wildcard round and then decimated the Carolina Panthers the next week 33-13.  

Throughout the playoffs the Cardinals have been winning by stopping the run and having Larry Fitzgerald play out of his mind.  Going into the playoffs the Falcons and the Panthers were the number 1 and 2 rushing attacks in the NFL and yet the Cardinals held their ground.  

Speaking of Fitzgerald he is having a post-season for the ages.  He already has more receiving yards in one postseason than any player in history. He became only the sixth player to score three touchdowns in a conference championship game and the first to accomplish the feat since the Cowboys' Preston Pearson in 1975.  All this while having the best attitude of any reciever in the NFL.  Fitzgerald is all class and though the spotlight is on him he doesn't bask in it.  He is pure class and you can tell that he really enjoys playing the game when you see him jumping around after first downs and always having a smile on his face.

However Fitzgerald's play and attitude was not the most impressive thing that I saw on Sunday.  After giving up 19 unanswered points and letting the Eagles back into the game and eventually go ahead the Cardinals either had to step up or go home.  In the face of adversity and having just surrendered the lead Kurt Warner marched his team down the field and scored the eventual winning touchdown.  This showed me that the Cardinals are for real and that Kurt Warner's 8-2 lifetime post-season record is no fluke.

If the Cards can keep up this strong play and good attitude there will be no stopping them in Tampa.