UConn basketball is good or something

In case you missed it, the UConn men's and women's basketball teams are going to their respective Final Fours this weekend. This marks the first time this has happened since UConn did it two years ago. In all seriousness it is really, really hard to do for any team not based in Storrs. The women's Final Four will feature two teams, UConn and Stanford, that have made the last four Final Fours. Before you get on your high horse about women's sports and parity, just remember the Red Sox and Yankees finished first and second in their division every season from 1998-2005 so blow me.

Anyway, the Huskies are led by their respective stars, Kemba Walker and Maya Moore. ESPN took advantage of their proximity to sit down with the two All-Americans before they jetted off to Houston and Indianapolis. It was an intense look into the daily lives of two college athletes furiously finishing their studies between relatively meaningless basketball games as their work towards their all important degrees. I kid, I kid, it was a typical ESPN fluff piece featuring two kids who have not seen the inside of a classroom in a month. Notice that the interview was done with both athletes sitting down because it might embarrass Kemba to stand next to the taller Maya.

Questions that ESPN should have asked and did not: Who got more tail during their time at Storrs? Who can bench press more, Maya or Shabazz Napier? Which was the bigger cheating scandal, Jim Calhoun and the phone calls or Geno Auriemma and the illegal tours of ESPN?

Answers that should have been given to questions that were actually asked: What skill of Kemba's would Maya like? Dunking. What skill of Maya's would Kemba like? Bringing a girl to orgasm.

Luis Castillo is terrible

A week and a half ago the Mets released Luis Castillo, a lightning rod for criticism and a living reminder of the failures of the Omar Minaya era. It was suggested by Andy Martino of the Daily News that Mets fans hated Castillo in part because we are racist. Mr. Martino is obviously digging for a story because Mets fans do not boo players based on their race, they boo players for having large contracts and playing terribly. No seriously, look at his stats on baseball reference. His best full year with the Mets was the abysmal 2009 season and his OPS+, a simple measure of your offensive proficiency normalized for era, ballpark, competition, etc, was 99 where 100 is average. His BEST offensive year was below average. Add onto that the fact that nagging foot and leg injuries had stripped the one-time speedster of his range at second base and you are left with a statuesque singles hitter whose greatest contribution to a game is his nearly unrivaled ability to lay down a sacrifice bunt. For this unique skill set the Mets were on the hook for $6 million. Instead the front office did the only reasonable thing and cut him to give a younger player a look.

Interestingly Castillo was quickly snatched up the rival Phillies who are in desperate need of a stop-gap solution at second base while their All Star Chase Utley nurses an injured hip. Castillo promptly showed up two days late to camp, performed about as you would expect and was quietly showed the door. Are Phillies Phans also racist for not warming to Luis's professionalism? Can you even consider a group racist if they hate everyone equally? Maybe, just maybe Castillo is what Mets fans perceived him to be, a terrible, terrible baseball player who has no excuse earning the league minimum, much less someone who deserves a roster spot and $6 million.

Shawn Thornton sees red

Bruins enforcer Shawn Thornton took an accidental skate to the face. He was finishing his check behind the net, Fernando Pisani tripped over a teammate, Thornton fell as well and landed face-first on Pisani's skate blade. Fortunately for everyone involved it was a relatively superficial cut and Thornton was able to have something of a sense of humor about it afterwards. The interesting thing is that as Thornton is being escorted back to the Bruins bench by a referee, someone yells something from Blackhawks bench that infuriates him. Thornton needs to be restrained by the ref to prevent him from diving into the enemy bench with blood streaming down his face. This is obviously the healthy reaction. I could not find an embeddable clip of it (fuck you ESPN!). There is a pretty good clip of it on the Sports Grid that was recorded off of someone's DVR so it will probably get taken down by the NHL sooner or later. There is also a clip of his post game interview that is worth a watch.

Instead I'll include a clip of Thornton pounding on Matt Cooke from Cookie's first game in Boston after essentially ending Marc Savard's career. I noticed a couple of things after gleefully watching this somewhere between 1 and 11,000 times. First Thornton went for his helmet then realized Cookie wanted to fight helmets on, forcing him to punch Cookie in the hard plastic a couple of times before disgustedly ripping off his helmet. Second Cookie obviously went into the fight with the intention of getting punched once and going down, much to Thornton's disgust. The Bruins enforcer is a veteran of many fights so when he goes off protocol and hits a player whose fallen you know he did not feel like he got a good shot in there. Of course we should expect this sort of behavior from Cookie who much prefers cheap shots to physical combat.

Mets rushing Beltran back

Last off-season Carlos Beltran had surgery on his ailing knee against Mets' managements' wishes. Pissed off, they rushed him back before he was fully recovered to watch him stumble around in the outfield like a 41 year old Willie Mays. Trust me, older Mets fans get that reference. In the off season, the team and Beltran admitted he was rushed back and probably should have taken more time off to fully heal. Well the incompetent Omar Minaya/Jerry Manuel team was mercifully removed from duty after a second straight 4th place finish. In swept a new era of Mets baseball spearheaded by competence and making the best decisions for the long haul.

Sandy Alderson came riding in on his white horse to clean up the organizational dysfunction that has plagued the team for two decades. He will not be afraid to cut ties to overpaid, under performing players just because they have pulses and a track record of success as recently as six years ago! He is going to put the best 25 men on the roster so that night in and night out the team has its best chance to compete! He is going to force Carlos Beltran to start the season in right field even though he has played one game so far at DH and missed two weeks with knee tendinitis! Wait, what? I apologize, I must have blacked out for a minute there, because that sounds like something the incompetent Minaya administration would do in a desperate attempt to save his job. Beltran has played 3 games in his career in right field, the last a mere 11 years ago. Additionally it has been his left knee that has troubled him this spring even though it was the right knee that was surgically repaired.

Now I will have to go back and peruse my resume, but I am pretty sure I have never once been the general manager of a baseball team. With that expertise in mind it feels an awful lot like 2009 and 2010 when I hear a Mets GM talk about rushing a player back onto the field before he is fully healed. It astonishes me that the team is so willing to risk a much longer stint of inactivity by forcing an obviously hampered player to play through an injury. This is not pain or soreness, have you seen his spring training stats? One spring training game as a DH over two weeks ago. He had three at bats and has not been able to play the game since. Hey here is a novel idea: let him play a FULL 9 innings in right field in a minor league game, have him wake up the next day and do it AGAIN! Once he proves an ability to perform such monumental feats THEN give him a roster spot with the big club. The last thing the Mets need to do in 2011 is play game after game with only 24 or 23 guys available to play.

Stay classy Matt Cooke

It probably seems like I am overly critical of the Penguins agitator, but Matt Cooke is a world class douche bag. I have been calling him a bitch but that seems a little unfair to the bitches of the world who do not deserve to be lumped into the same group as trash like Cookie. Cookie decided to send a message to Rangers' defenseman Ryan McDonagh, and it was received loud and clear. It screamed, "I hate playing in NHL games and cashing my cartoonishly large paychecks. Please stop this from happening." I would not worry your simple little head about it Cookie, you are likely to be free from such onerous obligations for the next several days.

Philadelphia sucks

Philadelphia has officially been named home to the worst sports fans in America by none other than leading fan-assessing publication GQ. Honestly, nothing about these people is worthwhile. I have had the good fortune to visit gorgeous Citizens Bank Ballpark on two occasions. Both times I was blown away beauty of the stadium, the friendliness of the staff, and the appalling behavior of the fans.

Being a fan of their biggest rivals I was expecting to be accosted for daring to wear my blue and orange cap. I seemed to disappoint the rabid locals by not acting like a douche bag, nor did most of my Mets fan brethren. The Phillies Phans therefore responded in the only way in which they knew how by turning on each other. The first year featured the drunken idiots who found it hilarious to throw peanuts at every Mets fan in their vicinity, and by Mets fans I mean people with pulses and seats to the game. They were eventually signaled out to the security staff by an irate Phillies Phan who felt he should be able to watch an entire game without having to shield his children from delicious projectiles.

The second year Phillies Phans in the upper deck competed to see who could goad a Mets fan into a fight first. Unfortunately for everyone involved none of the Mets fans took the bait. This lead to a cannibalistic attack between competing Phan groups that left a young Phan bawling as a girl was hauled out of the stands in a headlock. I am sure other people have their own horror stories to share because at their core Philadelphia Phans are soulless creatures looking to suck the fun out of rooting for your favorite sports team. Honestly can a city really have an inferiority complex when it is so obviously inferior? Just suck it up and be glad you do not root for the Pirates.

Here's a pretty shootout goal

Pretty much does what it says in the title. Martin St Louis of the Tampa Bay Lightning undresses the Blackhawks goalie with a move that is borderline illegal. Seriously, they had to check the video replay and everything back at the mothership in Toronto.



It brings to mind another memorable shootout goal from St Louis you can see here (5 minutes, worth the click)

Fuck me, I'm a Yankees fan???

Maybe that explains this inner conflict. Still, if you skip over that pesky first question, I go straight to the Mets! Original image (I think) from here.

Knicks management is...odd

As a fan of the Mets you would think I am used to teams I root for making bizarre personnel decisions, but I feel like this warrants mentioning. Last week the Knicks landed Carmelo Anthony in a blockbuster trade. Among the finer details of the move they sent a couple of corpses occupying the end of their bench to the Timberwolves for Corey Brewer. Brewer is a marginal offensive player, but he can defend and on the Knicks anyone who can make a stop is a luxury.

The Knicks, being the Knicks, decided to cut Brewer so they can sign the recently cut Jared Jeffries. Jeffries is, to put it delicately, terrible. He already played 3+ years with the team and one of the things he proved during that time is that he is nowhere near as good as oh say, Corey Brewer. To top it all off they also signed the newly available Derrick Brown who is the exact same player as Jeffries except that he is superior in every way. Somewhere Isiah Thomas is nodding approvingly and wondering if the team can still throw $100 million to Stephon Marbury.