More Miscellaneous Thoughts

Now that I've had some coffee and been to church - here are some more observations...

Like most people in Boston, I want to root for the Indiana Pacers because of Larry Bird but rooting for the Pacers also means rooting for Reggie Miller and that's something most Celtics fans aren't comfortable with... (inappropriate out of context quote 1) Willie Wonka: "You can suck 'em and suck 'em and suck 'em, and they'll never get any smaller."... First place in the WSOP will be worth $5 million this year!... What a difference a year makes: a year ago the number one rated fantasy baseball player at this point in the season was Carl Everett... (Inappropriate out of context quote 2) Violet Beauregarde (from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory): "It's hot and creamy. I can actually feel it running down my throat!"... Is it me or is Eleanor Cliff morphing into Helen Thomas before our very eyes... I love reading Jason Stark on ESPN.com but I do have to take him to task for this gaff. On Wednesday (yeah I know but I just got around to reading it now) Stark had the following trivia question to end his column; "Randy Johnson has had three seasons in his career in which he won 20 games and had an ERA lower than three. Only three other pitchers currently on active rosters have even had one season like that. Can you name them?" This is what he listed as his answer, "ANSWER: Tom Glavine (three), Barry Zito (one) and Mike Hampton (one)." What about Pedro Martinez in 1999 or 2002? What about Derek Lowe in 2002? What about Roger Clemens in 1986, 1987, 1990, 1997, or 1998? And those were just the ones I could think of off the top of my head... OK while I'm criticizing ESPN.com writers - how about John Kruk (yeah - he writes for Page 2)? In his last column Kruk complained that young pitchers are basically babied and that old school pitchers like Robin Roberts were real men because they finished what they started and that Roberts once had a streak of six 300 innings pitched seasons in a row. This is a valid point but I would counter with the facts that Roberts led the league in innings pitched five out of six of those years and I would also point out that Cy Young once had a streak were five out of six years he had at least 400 innings pitched. That doesn't mean that Roberts was a piker compared to Cy Young. I would also mention that in his 10-year career Kruk only averaged 120 games per season - so I would be careful talking about the durability of any players... The dealers at the WSOP will split approximately $480,000 in tokes this year...