By Trevor Freeman
There are certain truths that are engrained in the minds of the Bay Area sports fan. They range from knowing that the Golden State Warriors will suck year in and year out to knowing that Ray Ratto is unstoppable at Sizzler’s $9.99 “All You Can Eat” buffet. When it comes to Oakland A’s baseball there is an undeniable truth and it will hold up again this year. After the All-Star break, Oakland will get hot and runaway with the American League West.
The World Cup is set to finish soon which means it will be another four years before America starts slightly caring about soccer. Why is this so? I think the following breakdown outlines the reasons:
The New York Knicks are wandering in NBA incognito, and the key to winning again may lie 2600 miles away in a desert scorching for more reasons than just the heat.
By David J. Cohen
NFL mandatory mini-camps have started and in Denver there is a bewildering absentee: Ashley Lelie. Lelie is holding out and demanding a trade because the Broncos are not going to hand him the number 1 receiver position on the team. He wants to go to a team that would place him in that role. The top two receivers on the team are reliable veteran Rod Smith, who gets it done year in and year out, and Javon Walker, who is coming off of an injury but has proven he can be a volatile offensive weapon in this league. Instead of going to camp and competing for the top spot Lelie is whining like a little girl (as his first name would indicate) because he knows that on the field, he isn’t good enough to beat these two out for the spot. And when you look at Lelie’s career production, he shouldn’t be a number one wide-out anywhere.
The All-Star Game is upon us, which means it’s time for all the stuff that goes along with it: the homerun derby, the battle for homefield advantage, and of course, this year’s edition of the timeless discussion on the snubs and the all-stars who don’t deserve to be (or the Mark Redman Award).
This year’s Midsummer Classic also provides us with something else to enjoy: finally a game in Pittsburgh worth watching.
The Chicago Cubs are experiencing yet another losing season, and the blame is squarely on the shoulders of two men: Steve Bartman and Dusty Baker.
I have been thinking about the ‘problem’ of performance-enhancing drugs for a while now. With people like Barry Bonds and Jason Grimsley consistently re-opening the topic after something they do or something they say, I am getting tired of hearing about all of the players who use these substances and have little patience for the media’s treatment of them – what usually consists of two or three days of coverage of them and then, well, nothing. We need to accept the fact that we have come to a time where steroids and human growth hormone are a fact of life. These performing enhancing drugs are probably never going away.
There is this weird feeling that I felt when I heard that Ben Wallace was going to sign with the Chicago Bulls this off-season instead of the Detroit Pistons. It is hard to explain, I wasn’t upset or happy. I’m not a fan of either team, but I don’t dislike either of them like the team that wears purple and gold. I enjoy watching the Pistons because they are one of three or four teams that still play defense, and the Bulls are that team of young guys who shoot pretty well and are a player away from being really good. This off-season might see an Iverson trade, or a KG trade, and some definite shake-ups in New York, but one thing was supposed to be A-B-C, Ben Wallace re-signing with the Pistons. So when the news leaked that he was Windy City bound, I really felt “blah” about it.
It’s summertime. I’m American. Baseball is my nation’s pastime, gearing up for the 77th installment of its midsummer classic and my hometown heroes, the Chicago White Sox, appear fit to defend their title.
But soccer is the world’s game. And I’m finally beginning to understand why.
Believe it or not, we’re already halfway through the Major League Baseball season. Not only does that mean that it’s time for the worst All-Star venue in the history of sports, but it’s time for my annual mid-season awards (which, if it was a televised show, would most likely be ten times as exciting as the MLB All-Star game).
This is when I give you my thoughts on who, based on their first-half performances, should and will win the major awards…and a few awards of my own. Also, I will give you the All-Stars we SHOULD be seeing in Pittsburgh, not the ones the fans voted for because they saw them in a magazine once.
Drum roll please…