Category: Sports

First of all, through the generosity of Aaron Shapiro (and the fact that his dad couldn’t make the rain-out make up day) I got to go to the last opening day at the present Yankee Stadium. Aside from how great that is just by itself, it was the perfect game. Wang pitched 7 solid (though a bit shaky) innings. Melky Cabrera totally saved him with back to back amazing catches in center and followed that up with a home run. OK, it was the shortest possible home run in Yankee Stadium. It’s 314 to the right field foul pole. This ball went 314 and 6 inches. The Yankees came back to take a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the 7th.

Then Joba Chamberlain shut down Toronto in the 8th, striking Frank Thomas out with a 97 mile an hour fastball. Jorge Posada, the catcher, was asked afterwards if he had called for 97 miles an hour on that pitch. He said, “no, 98”.

And then to start the 9th inning the strains of “Enter Sandman” began. Yankee Stadium erupted as it always does when that music starts. For those that don’t follow the Yankees, that music means that Mariano Rivera, the greatest closer of all time, is entering the game. When he threw his first pitch, you saw so many camera flashes lighting up. It looked like the first pitch of the game, not the first pitch of the ninth inning.

Of course Mariano had a 1-2-3 inning, the fans went nuts and they cranked Sinatra singing “New York, New York” as they always do when the Yankees win. It was a great night.

By the way, the new Yankee Stadium is going up fast across the street. Here’s a picture from my phone:

This great night was followed by two fantastic pieces of news. First Tom Crean is hired as the basketball coach at Indiana University. This is a great hire. Great coach, impeccable ethics (unlike their last coach). With NCAA sanctions on the way, getting a coach that good was a surprise, though Indiana is still one of the great basketball traditions.

Then, even better, Donnie Walsh is taking over the Knicks. I may be able to watch pro basketball again. He might even (dare I dream) fire Isiah Thomas as coach. It will take a while to fix, but there’s actually hope for the Knicks. Professional basketball may return to Madison Square Garden.

So all in all, a great couple of days…

As many of you know, I always do an NCAA pool. I use CBSSportsline.com. If you are interested the link is this:

http://fish2006.mayhem.sportsline.com/e
Our Group password is: fish

The exact rules for the pool are there. For those that have done this before, it’s the same as every year.

Let the madness begin…

Brett Favre gave an emotional press conference that was just pure Brett. That is the reason the fans loved him. Emotions on his sleeve, no pretense, just a pure football player.

ESPN.com did a survey and 80% of fans said they rooted for Brett. It’s hard to get 80% of people to agree on anything. Think about how many players for teams you don’t like, that you still root for. I can’t think of many. I hate the Bears, but I always rooted for Walter Payton (except when he played the Packers). I hate the Cowboys (a bit less these days) but I always rooted for Emmitt Smith. I hate the Patriots and I respect Tom Brady, but I don’t root for him. I root for Payton Manning, but I don’t hate the Colts. I always rooted for Montana, but I also liked the 49ers. There are a few others, but not many. Elway. Barry Sanders.

My favorite quote from all the quotes I’ve read actually came from a ref, Ed Hochuli:

I remember a play where Brett had to scramble and took off running. He was cutting inside, and I saw a big ol’ defensive player running full speed. Brett didn’t seehim, but I realized what was coming. It was a collision just like you’d expect. Favre was off the ground in a second, face mask to face mask yelling, “Is that as hard as you can hit?” On the very next pass, he threw a touchdown.”

My boy Brett Favre retired. It will be strange to watch the Packers without him.

There have been a bunch of articles about him, and there will be many more. This is one of the ones I liked best.

I had to drive into the Bronx this past weekend and I went right past where the new Yankee Stadium is being built. It’s starting to look like a stadium:

Here’s the artists rendition of the final result. The picture above is the entrance in the lower right hand corner.

That was as exciting a Super Bowl as I can remember. I remember the 49ers against the Bengals with Montana’s great comeback drive and of course the last time the Packers won was the most exciting from my perspective (though not as exciting from a pure game drama perspective), but this one was at good as they come.

It was great fun watching Brady getting knocked around. As someone pointed about to me before the game, “too much has gone right for that guy lately, he needs to lose”.

If there was any doubt that the Giants have a great defense, that doubt is erased. They shut down the Cowboys, they shut down my boy Favre and they shut down the greatest regular season offense in history (ah, how I loved adding “regular season” to that sentence).

And Eli has shown he’s the real deal. Tyree made the amazing catch but on that play Eli looked like he was simply determined not to go down.

Plaxico Buress predicted 24-17 and Brady laughed that he thought the Patriots would only score 17 points. Who would have guessed that Plaxico actually wasn’t giving his defense enough credit?…

Sports Illustrated named Brett Favre Sportsman of the Year this year. So his picture is on the cover. For the first time in its history Sports Illustrated had to do three printings of an issue. This is a weekly magazine. Three printings. And virtually the entire last printing went to Wisconsin.

Why do people love Brett? Check out the highlights from last week’s game. That scene where after his second touchdown when he’s giving the ref five, that’s why people love Brett Favre. Hilarious…