Not Just A Hat Rack

What Marca is Saying

The Spanish sports daily Marca declares "The Yankees have brought us down from the clouds."

From coach Del Bosque: "This is sport and today it was our turn to lose."

Casillas: "Of games like this, we lose one in ten."

Xavi: "We have to learn from the loss."

Villa: "This was like a World Cup for us."

Xabi Alonso: "We have to accept it."

Sergio Ramos: "I didn't see there was someone on my shoulder."

Sweet win.  Let's hope they can come up so big in the World Cup.  Go USA! 

Opening Night

Is it just me, or do more people seem interested in baseball this year?  

I think the regeneration of the Mets and Yankees, each with sparkling new stadiums, is part of it.  Maybe there's a hangover from the Phillies winning the World Series - it's Philadelphia, where a hangover is a good thing.  There's the story of Manny and Torre in Dodgerland - which replaced Vero Beach with some Arizona desert complex this year.  A Cy Young winner in San Francisco, plus Randy Johnson and the young lively arms of Cain, Lowry and Sanchez.  The Baby A's.  Cub dreams.  Big stories in major markets.

And then there's the tragedy of Nick Adenhart's death, who will live on only in our memories now.  I thought of Nick when I took the two 'Hat Rack boys to see the Salt Lake Bees play tonight.  We saw Adenhart pitch last summer.  His number is emblazoned in front of the Bees' dugout now, and adorns the team's uniforms.

It was Opening Night on the Wasatch Front, and an announced crowd of 10,000+ braved swirling clouds (it stayed dry).  The "Hat Rack boys lasted 6 full innings - their best performance to date.  We started 11 rows back from the field near the third base dugout, then moved upstairs for better sighlines, ending behind the plate in the upper deck, where Lucca counted the panels on the home plate netting.  I think they're a little more into baseball this year having learned more basics by playing baseball on the Wii.  I kid you not.

Another pitching phenom, Anthony Delgado won his sixth game without a loss in a Bees' uniform - dating back to his late-season call up last year.  Brad Coon, a smallish infielder who will serve as a pall bearer at Adenhart's funeral this coming week, homered.  Grown men cried.  Young men hit balls over the wall.  Kids played catch.  It was another day at the ballpark and another layer of legend and tribute in the Grand Ol' Game. 

PS - This year's Bees' team is stacked. I think they'd split a season series against the Giants.

(Photo: Coon and Freddy Sandoval embrace c/o Salt Lake Tribune) 

Update: Soccer's famed Bradley clan has a member I'd heard of long before the name Bob Bradley meant anything to me.  Ex=Major League baseball player Scott Bradley suffered a loss equal in tragedy to the Angels' family this week.  Read about it here. 

Weekend Predictions

So I'm going with Army Black over Air Force Blue on Saturday in the big televised match on the U.S. Olympic handball website.   I'm thinking Amry Black is going to run to the Men's Collegiate title - making it back-to-back for the Black Knights. 

Oh, and for soccer... here goes: 

WEEK 3
Game	AWAY (A)	HOME (H)	A-H-T
1	Dallas	Toronto	H
2	Chicago	San Jose	T
3	DC United	Real Salt Lake	T
4	Colorado	Columbus	H
5	New York	Houston	H
6	Kansas City	Seattle	H
7	Chivas USA	Los Angeles	A
8	St Louis (WPS)	Boston	H
9	Chicago (WPS)	Washington	A
10	FC Gold Pride	Sky Blue FC	H

Watch live handball this weekend

When Army and Air Force meet in any competition from marksmanship to checkers to football - it's a battle.  That competition is renewed Saturday at 3:30pm mountain time in team handball, when the top two seeds in the College National Championships meet in Colorado Springs.

Watch live here.  Kenn Tomasch and three-time Olympian Laura Ryan call the action.

Who is Stephen Strasburg?

I've marked my calendar to be in Ogden May 14, 15 or 16.  The University of Utah is hosting San Diego State those days in baseball (why they're not playing at their on-campus stadium six blocks from my house is beyond me), which ordinarily wouldn't mean a thing.

Except the Aztecs have this guy: 

Stephen Strasburg struck out 23 Utes in one game last year (how did I miss that?).  He's being talked about as the hardest-throwing baseball pitcher... ever.  Clocking 103mph on his fastball.  "Nintendo fast," said his coach, Tony Gwynn, who knows a little bit about hitting good pitching.

Strasburg is a perfect 5-0 this season... with 88 strikeouts in 42 1/3 innings.  That means 88 strikeouts and 39 outs by all other means (fly outs, ground outs, hidden ball tricks, etc.)  These numbers are just unfathomable.  Oh, just eight walks.  88 K's.  8 walks.  42 innings.  Good gracious.

This column  tells you more.  Last mega-prospect to come out of SDSU with this much hype?

Former High Desert Maverick Travis Lee?

Thanks to the Automatic Man for setting up an MLB Fantasy League. My fortunes rest on the Giants' arms... Lincecum, Cain, Johnson, Wilson... with an eye on Lowry and Sanchez, too.

10 Winners.

I picked 7 of 10 last week... let's see how this week goes:

Winners: RSL, New England, DC United, Colorado, San Jose, RED STARS!, FC Gold Pride, Czech Rep. 

Ties: NY-CHI, SEA-TFC

Umm, can someone remind me where FC Gold Pride plays?  And I love the name St. Louis Athletica, by the way... but can't go against the Red Stars in their debut.

Read yesterday's post here if this is all Greek to you.

Toto Soccer Prediction League

Last week, 11 of us set out to predict win, loss or draw in 10 matches chosen from MLS, WPS and World Cup Qualifying.  It's harder than you think, but two of us once-fired-GM's picked at least six of 10 correctly.  At the other end of the spectrum were three folks with 20 years around in the league who COMBINED to pick three games correctly.  I won't name names.

Anyways, we're turning it into a season-long contest... Here's 10 games to consider for this week, including the WPS debut of the Chicago Red Stars (I'm a proud season ticket holder!) and the border war between the Czechs and Slovaks in European World Cup Qualifying.  

If you'd like to join our league, submit your picks in the comments below.  We'll track you down for a donation if you're in for the season-long competition.

First game is early afternoon Eastern time on WEDNESDAY, so get your picks in right away.  Good luck.

The Weekend Awaits

It was an eventful week... Declan's fifth birthday.  Found a Play by Play announcer for team handball's debut on the US Olympic website, handball.teamusa.org.  Announced the Germany partnership referred to on the website.  Got skewered on another website.  Signed up to "Run with the Leopards" tomorrow morning - a 5K to raise money for East High School (i.e., "the place they filmed High School Musical").  It's supposed to be 29 degrees at 8am tomorrow - should be perfect actually.  It's great when you can jog to the start line, run the race, and jog back home.  Who needs a car.  Anyways, there was some other stuff this week, too.  I think.

Most importantly, I launched the Soccer Prediction League - a loose-knit assemblage of friends (and family!) to pick MLS, WPS and other soccer games on a weekly basis all summer.  To keep me honest, I'll post my weekly picks here.  It's the Euro format - pick home or road winner, or a tie. Simple.  Most correct picks over the course of the season wins the prize.  I've always wanted to do this - never had time or motivation to start it.

If you'd like to join in on the fun, send my your picks by 4pm ET on Saturday. Season entry fee is $10.

So, here goes... 

Game	Winner	AWAY	Tie	HOME	Winner
1		Washington		LA Sol (WPS)	X
2		Toronto FC		Columbus	X
3	X	Chicago		DC United
4		New England	X	NY Red Bulls
5		Kansas City		Colorado	X
6		Houston	X	San Jose
7		RSL		Seattle	X
8	X	Chivas USA		FC Dallas
9	X	USA (WCQ)		El Salvador
10		Costa Rica		Mexico (WCQ)	X

Here's an example of what it looks like in Italy...

Two Unrelated Tidbits?

Luis Arroyave is reporting on his blog for the Chicago Tribune that the Fire is expecting 10-12,000 for their home opener.  Then there's some mumbo-jumbo about home openers being a tough sell.

Meantime, a member of the Fire faithful informed me he saw erstwhile President/CEO/Soccer Ambassador/Nice Guy & Ego-in-Chief Dave Greeley for the first time recently.  Greeley, on hand to watch a Fire game in person (how spirited of him!), allegedly did not look up from his Blackberry for the first 35 minutes of the match.  Must have been working on some whiz-bang promotions like "Bob Avellini Appreciation Night," ""Turn Back the Clock to 1985" or "Soccer for Dummies DVD GIveaway."

So, who wants to put a wager on the better Opener attendance-wise... Red Stars or Fire?

 

Save Me a Seat on the Sounders Bandwagon

Where to start?  What a great day to be an MLS fan.

Some personal thoughts:

1) What if Kasey Keller had signed with RSL instead of Moechengladbach?

2) What if RSL had decided to pursue Sebastien LeToux instead of Jean Martial Kipre after the 2006 MLS Cup tryout that I orchestrated?

3) Should I have more aggressively pursued the conversations I had with Sounders owner-turned-GM Adrian Hanauer about moving to the Sounders organization?  Some may find it surprising, but I think the answer - all things being equal and known - is still no.

4) I want to March to the Match!

5) I'm wistful not to be part of MLS these days - in part because so many of us dreamed of nights like tonight - and I'm proud of the league and everyone who works so hard within it.  But I don't miss the stress and pressure.  I really don't.  Maybe it depends on who your bosses are?

Now about the game:

1) I LOVE the play of Osvaldo Alonso.  Reminds me of a young Dema Kovalenko, before the Ukrainian became old, slow and earned the "hack" reputation.  Alonso is all over central midfield, very aggressive, and can go forward.  He was a revelation.

2) Flank play in MLS is probably the weakest part of the game, but the two-headed monster of Nyassi/Zakuani has blazing speed, appears fearless and will be enjoyable to watch this year.  Let's see how they play when their backs against the wall, or, when they don't smell weakness in a really poor opponent.

3) If Fredy Montero scores 15 goals this year, either Chris Henderson, Sigi Schmid or Adrian Hanauer deserves some real recognition for finding him.  Wow. Wow. Wow.  Did you see the graphic that Paco Palencia scored two goals in his debut as well... that turned out great.

4) Sebastien Le Toux... I found him! :)

5) How does the expansion team have five better players on the bench than the 14th-year club?  Sturgis, Ianni, Stephen King, Sturgis, Wahl... plus the #1 pick Zakuani and the local sentimental favorite, Roger Levesque.  Oh, and that Ljungberg guy didn't even dress.  Compare with Dufty (who??!!), Borman, Mbuta, Sassano, Wolyniec... I'm ok with Oduro and Jeremy Hall.

6) Finally, Brad Evans is the real steal of the expansion draft.  What a clutch player.

7) Quick Seattle, develop some depth at defender and this team will make the playoffs.  

8) Have you ever seen an expansion team looked so organized and composed?

MLS Preview to come one of these days... off top of my head:

WEST

4 playoff teams: Houston, Colorado, Chivas, Seattle

1. Houston

2. Colorado

3. Chivas USA

4. Seattle

5. RSL

6. San Jose

7. Dallas

8. Galaxy

EAST

4 playoff teams: Columbus, Chicago, DC, New England

1. New England

2. Columbus

3. Chicago

4. Kansas City

5. Toronto FC

6. DC United

7. Red Bulls

1st Coach Fired: Juan Carlos Osorio

1st GM Fired: Dave Greeley