Good to be back

At the behest of my colleague (I use the term loosely) “T” I have decided to get back on the horse and start posting on the good’ol blog once again. These are just some unorganized thoughts I’ve had over the past week.

1. This years Masters was great. Despite the rain the tourney became a two-man race that could have developed into a one-man race. Chris Dimarco showed great determination and posted the second best fourth round score on the day. We definitely get spoiled watching the Masters because of the continuous coverage and minimal commercials. Compared to any other sporting event, the Masters may be the toughest event to get up and use the bathroom because there aren’t too many breaks in the action.

2. Watched my first baseball game from start to finish the other night. This just shows how fantasy sports or gambling can cause someone to watch an otherwise meaningless game. This was a prime example, there was no other reason for me to watch the Pirates-Padres game other than fantasy implications.

3. The steroid issue is not going to go anywhere soon. It seems that major league baseball will continue to bust inconsequential players each week for the rest of the season after busting Alex Gonzales and Jorge Piedra over the first two weeks of the season. Wouldn’t it be great if we could bet on the next player to be suspended for steroids. My money is on Jorge Cantu.

4. Is there anything worse than having the 1st pick in a draft with no clear-cut first pick. The 49ers are in this position. Of course one of two QBs that the 49ers take could develop into great players, but everyone knows if another team wanted to move up to the 1st pick the 49ers would jump at the offer. I will be most interested to see how the receivers are drafted. Braylon Edwards and Mike Williams may be the two best players in this draft and could have the most impact on the teams they end up on.

5. Continuing with the draft, does anyone else think that Mel Kiper has his final “Big Board” finished and he moves players around just to keep people buying into ESPN’s Insider.

6. The NBA playoffs should be exciting this year. That’s an obvious statement if I’ve ever made one. It is even scary to make predictions. The departure of Shaq from the West makes almost every playoff team a contender. The Nuggets, Rockets or Mavs all could make runs to take them to the finals. The East looks like it will probably come down to the Heat and the Pistons. Even though I don’t like the Piston’s attitude of thinking they can turn it on when it matters, they do have a successful strategy for shutting down Shaq. The most intriguing team in the East is the Baby Bulls. They are that unpredictable team that depends on their youth. Also, Ben Gordon may be the best 4th quarter player in the league and it will come down to him producing in the playoffs like he has in the regular season. As much as I like Lebron, thanks to upper management moves Lebron will be gone after the first round, but he will probably average 38 points a game. All that being said, I like Dallas to beat the Pistons in the Finals and finally give Mark Cuban a successful reality show. Yes, this is a biased choice.

7. I saw “Fever Pitch” this past weekend. A little background, I was with my parents and they were trying to decide between “Fever Pitch” and “Sahara”. I think I made the right choice. Drew Barrymore personally tried to ruin this movie. I guess she must be a bargain compared to other Hollywood actresses. She just isn’t likeable. And if I’ve learned anything from watching countless amounts of movies, to make an otherwise borderline movie into a slightly enjoyable movie all you have to do is just get the hottest girl available. This movie would have been much better if someone, say Jessica Alba, played Barrymore’s role. Even though I haven’t seen any of Alba’s movies, I am sure she can act as well or even better than Barrymore, plus she is much, much, much hotter. Besides Barrymore, the movie wasn’t terrible. The best part about the movie was the scenes from actual games. It was like watching a part of the series “When it was a game” that used to come on HBO from time to time. Seeing glimpses of the greatest comeback in sports history from angles that even Fox couldn’t get their hands on was great. I also liked the tough issues that this movie confronted. The issue of men’s obsession with sports hasn’t been tackled like this since 1996 when both “Celtic Pride” and “The Fan” came out. These movies deal with fans having obsessions with either one team or one player. However, today’s sports fan usually likes all big time sports, where there isn’t an off-season. I am still waiting for the movie to come out about a sports fan that is consumed year round by sporting events and how he deals with his relationships. It could be called “Fever Pitch 2: Electric Boogaloo”

Z