All Over the Place

It's been several years since I have had the feeling of being in college and being completely overwhelmed with work towards the end of the semester. This feeling seemed strange and new to me this week as I began my first real end-of-semester push of my graduate school career. Between completing my work, going to work in order to earn money, going to class, and keeping abreast of what was happening in the sports world, I haven't had the opportunity to post in over a week. This has been extremely difficult for me, because it has been a pretty crazy week in sports and I have been tempted many times. However, I am now finished for the week, and ready to get out all of the stuff I've been keeping bottled up.....here it goes.....


Before I start, I just want to make a special note that I made a mocha for William H. Macy yesterday, which I'm pretty pumped about. He's certainly the most famous person that I have ever made an espresso bar drink for. It's hard to judge whether or not he's the most famous person I've ever come into contact with. Charles Barkley had me thrown out of a bar in Chapel Hill, NC about 3 years ago. To me, Charles Barkley is way more famous and the fact that he's one of my favorite players of all time added to the strangeness of the whole situation. But, I'm sure there are many people who would be much more thrilled about meeting William H. Macy. Although, I also bet that none of them read this blog. Does anybody read this blog? Anyways, I made William H. Macy a mocha, and I'm still pumped about it.

I was totally shocked by how close the Eagles played the Patriots on Sunday night. I shouldn't be. As a Giants fan, I am totally aware that you can never count the Eagles out. Keeping the ship on course after losing Donovan McNabb to injury is something that they have been able to do consistently over the past 6 or 7 years. However, I really thought that the ship had already been lost at sea before the McNabb injury this season. Aside from that one game when they wore hideous throwbacks and trounced the Lions, this team has been bad all year. They were awful against the Giants, Cowboys, and at the end of the Bears game and they were unimpressive in wins over Washington and Minnesota. This, combined with all of the drama surrounding Andy Reid's family situation, led me to believe that the Eagles weren't going to show any of the resiliency that has characterized them over the past ten years. Add this to the fact that they were playing in Gillette Stadium on a cold November night, which is a virtual death sentence, and I expected this one to be a laugher. However, in retrospect, maybe I should have seen this performance coming. This Eagles team is made up of talented veterans who have been embarrassed this season. We're talking about Brian Dawkins, Lito Sheppard, Jon Runyan and Takeo Spikes. They were going into the belly of the beast on national television as the biggest underdogs in history. This was a prime example of hardened veterans with their backs against the wall, and they certainly responded. That being said, the Patriots still won the game. In many ways, a win like this is even more impressive than the 50 pointers when they are clicking on all cylinders.


Do you think Eli Manning wants to play the Eagles team on December 9th? I can't even discuss his performance against the Vikings in this post. I don't think there are words for the way I feel about it.


I want to make three more quick points about the NFL before moving on. First I'd like to commend Kyle Turley, who has always been appreciated here at roomofzen for being a huge badass and a very technically sound blocker, for announcing that he will donate an entire game check to the Gridiron Greats foundation. Hopefully more players will follow in his footsteps. I think that it is hard for people to sympathize with this cause, and I can understand that on some level. But, it's important to remember that the first professional football players did not make huge salaries like they make now.
However, their bodies suffered the same abuse. Many of these players now are physically unable to work and are in need of a great deal of medical care. I don't expect an average person to spend much time worrying about this topic. There is need all over the world, and there are certainly more worthwhile places that you could spend your money (again, as I've said, I'm a huge proponent of Children International). But, for the NFL (a multi-billion dollar organization) and its players (many of whom make millions of dollars a year plus endorsements) to flat-out refuse to help alleviate the burden of the retired players that helped make the league as popular as it is today is inexcusable. Imagine what a difference it would make if every NFL player gave up one game check for season. Imagine even what a difference it would make if every NFL player gave up half of one game check per season.

Second, I want to express how saddened I am by the death of Sean Taylor. It seems trivial to talk about someone who died so young in terms of sport, but this was really the only way that I knew him before his death. This is a guy who was one of the most impressive athletes ever to play college football. In fact, I would place him right up there with Randy Moss and Ed Reed for college dominance. He was all over the field all the time. He had already established himself as one of the NFLs top safeties so early in his career, and reports are that he maturing a great deal both on and off the field. Reading reports of the way he helped give back to his home community in Miami and of how he was embracing fatherhood helped to illustrate how much potential was wasted by this act.



I have to also point out that I think there has been a lot of irresponsible coverage of this death. People need to keep in mind that this is a man whose home was invaded while he was asleep. This was not someone who was out somewhere looking for trouble. I have heard reports that the home was broken into just days before and a knife was left on the bed. However, I have also heard that the investigation of the previous break in showed that this was a knife from Taylor's kitchen that investigators believed was used to break into locked doors and items. There has been a great deal of speculation by reporters that seemed to be baseless and rooted in nothing more than biases about Taylor based on the combination of the fact that he was an NFL player and the fact that he was black. Speculation of this nature before facts are released seems irresponsible to me. Antrel Rolle of Arizona, a long time friend and former teammate of Taylor, said that he believed the shooting was the result of the fact that Taylor was breaking away from his old circle in order to begin starting a family and living a more focused adult life. If this is the case, I find it hard to fault Taylor for his sentiments. Regardless of the details, regardless of the motives of the man who fired the gun, a 24 year old man with a great deal of potential is no longer with us and it is terribly sad.

Third, I am really bummed about about Ricky Williams being hurt. I would love to see this guy come back and be successful. I can never get sick of seeing him run the ball. This guy was such a great running back, and I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for him because I made him a late addition as my fantasy team entered the 2005 playoffs as the last seed. He and Shaun Alexander (fair enough) proved to be the perfect pairing as my team came out of nowhere to take the league championship. People forget how good he looked when he returned from his "retirement" in 2005. This guy is a phenomenally gifted player. I also have a hard time being upset by him (obviously, I'm not a Dolphins fan). This is a guy who really seems to be affected by his social anxiety. They say he has worked very hard to overcome it, and that he was in great shape at the time of his return. So, hopefully, Monday night won't be the last we see of Ricky Williams in an NFL uniform.


The Celtics have continued to look good over the past week.

They looked particularly good on defense against a high-scoring Golden State offense on the eve of Thanksgiving. One think that stood out to me in that game was how good Brandan Wright looks. I don't know why he's not getting more minutes. They say he's a work in progress, but to me he looked like he's ready to see major minutes right now. They then played a great all around game against the Lakers on the day after Thanksgiving. The offense ran smoothly against the team that at the time was second in the league in field goal percentage defense. The Charlotte game was a let down game, but as we all know a debacle was avoided. I don't know what to make of the game against Cleveland. It is a frustrating game to lose, but I can't see the Celtics losing to them again on Sunday. How often is Ray Allen going to miss two free throws at the end of regulation? LeBron is playing at a whole different level than the rest of the league right now. But, there just isn't enough around him for this team to beat the Celtics at their best. I will say, I think the time has come for us to see more minutes out of Glen Davis. I know that Doc doesn't like to throw these guys into the fire right away, but it's time. He waited too long last year to start giving Rondo significant minutes (which to me didn't make sense because I think Sebastian Telfair was 14 when last season started).


Here at Roomofzen, we all love Bill Simmons. I have been reading his articles for many years now, and I look forward to them every week. To me, his voice is the perfect one to relate to fans of my generation. He is the true voice of a fan. There is no pretending to be objective. His work is always filled with humor. And yet, I find much of it enlightening. In fact, I would put his NBA columns up against any NBA writer in the country. As much as I have always enjoyed his columns, they have now become secondary to the podcasts for me. I didn't even know what a podcast was before I started listening to them and now I'm hooked. If you are a Simmons fan, but haven't yet begun dabbling in the podcasts, now is the perfect time. I assure you, you have nothing to fear. In fact, two of the three most recent podcasts were the two best that I think I have ever heard. Last week, Simmons had Gus Johnson on to talk about the Knicks, the NBA as a whole, and his broadcasting career. This was one of the best interviews that I have heard in a long time. There were so many aspects that were intriguing. One of the best parts to me was when Gus talked about Stephon Marbury, and how his background still affects his personality today. I have found Marbury to be an intriguing character ever since the release of the Starbury shoes. To me, this was one of the greatest things an NBA player could do. I was totally floored when I heard about the shoes, that they only cost fifteen bucks, and the he was actually going to wear them in games. This makes it hard for me to understand everything that is happening with he and the Knicks right now. All the good things that I know about Marbury are documented (he has been one of the Sporting News "good guys in sports" three times for his community work that has been going on throughout his entire career) and all of the bad stuff seems to people speculating. It seems like such a mess that there is no way to really know what's going on. But, ever since the release of the Starbury shoe, I have wanted to believe that Marbury is not the guy that the media portrays him as. Gus Johnson helped me take steps in that direction in this podcast.




Then, yesterday, Simmons released a long podcast with Bill Walton, which is an absolute must listen for anybody that loves the Celtics or the NBA. He just goes on and on in a classic Walton uninhibited fashion about everyone he played with and all of his coaches and how much he loved playing and it is just a really great listen. There is also a very awkward moment at the end when Simmons references Breaks of the Game by David Halberstam and says that Walton was partly responsible for the Blazers falling apart. Hard to describe, but just a great interview overall.

Finally, I guess we need to talk about Johan. Look, I want to say first of all that every year it is getting more and more apparent that changes need to be made in baseball. There needs to be a way to make the league more equitable. We're talking about a guy right now who is going to be traded because his team doesn't have the money to re-sign him and there are a select few teams who do. Bear in mind, it's not that they can't re-sign him because they have made some bad decisions and they don't have enough cap room, it's that they don't generate enough revenue so he needs to go get more money from the teams that do generate more revenue. Why is baseball still the only sport like this and why is it so hard to change? And, since we're going down this road anyways, why was it so hard to get drug testing in a sport that had such an obvious problem? Look, I'm excited that the Red Sox might get Santana. I love the Red Sox. That's not going to change. But, if this keeps happening, eventually baseball is going to lose all excitement for many fan bases across the country. Look at the inequity between World Series teams. Yes, I'm pumped that they won, but at the same time, shouldn't these teams always win. I understand that there are a couple of surprise teams every year. But, for the most part, it is the same teams that are consistently successful over long periods of time.

Back to Johan. If the Red Sox get him, they will win the World Series. Imagine the rotation that starts with Santana, Beckett, and Matsuzaka. People are very against giving up Ellsbury. However, to me, it would make much more sense to give up Ellsbury and to retain either Buccholz or Lester. Ellsbury was great in September and in the post season. If we can hang on to him, he's going to be a great asset to us. However, it's way too early to be saying this guy is one of the league's next great center fielders. He's certainly expendable for a guy like Santana. WEEI was receiving reports out of Minnesota that a deal might be able to happen that included Coco Crisp rather than Ellsbury. This would be ideal, but these reports were most likely fabricated because Hank Steinbrenner has essentially come out publicly and said that he is desperate and will do anything to get Santana. To be honest, the best thing for the Red Sox may be the Yankees getting Johan in return for Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy, Melky Cabrera, and Robinson Cano. It is unlikely that Cano will be included in the deal, but even just Hughes, Kennedy, and Cabrera would be great for the Red Sox. Hank Steinbrenner may not have a salary cap situation to screw up, but his ineptitude could show through if he manages to totally deplete the Yankees farm system that has improved so much over the past few years. To be honest, I think the Yankees are probably going to get him. Am I worried? Not in the least.