With Apologies to Matt Metcalf

.... I will admit that some of the stuff I wrote about him on Monday may have been untrue. My sources were not the most reliable and I should not have posted those quotes without hearing them directly from the man himself. A good and resposible writer would have never done that. I'm not sure what that has to do with me, but still - I feel bad about the whole thing and I just want you all to know that I take those comments back. Besides, I'm sure Matt would let a person of any color clean his pool.

It's a relatively slow time of year in the sports world, so I don't have much to say and probably should take the next few days off. But screw it - I'm in the mood to blog. And you're just going to have to suffer through it. (Wow. Back-to-back sentences started with the words "But" and "And" and now I have one of those annoying off-topic notes in parentheses. Not a good sign for today's blog.)

I don't care what the people want. I'm going to talk sports today, starting with some baseball:


* The Nationals snapped a 4-game losing streak last night with a walk-off win over the Angels in the bottom of the 9th. The Nats have really been struggling lately but they always seem to do well when Tim Redding takes the mound. Since May 14th, the Nationals have a record of 15-25 but incredibly are 9-0 when Redding starts over that same span. In other words, over their last 40 games, the Nationals are 9-0 when Tim Redding starts and 6-25 when anyone else does. What's even more interesting about this is that Redding has been far from dominant: He has received a no-decision in each of his last 7 starts and sports a mediocre ERA of 4.05 for the season. It may not be as big of a secret as the Tim Wakefield in a dome stat but I feel that this is something to watch for the rest of 2008....

* Chase Utley, also known as "The Great Chase Utley," went 4 for 5 on Wednesday night in Oakland. Going into Wednesday's game, Utley was mired in a 1 for 29 slump. But who cares? He always hustles down the line after weakly grounding out to the shortstop....

* The Tampa Bay Rays won 15-3 last night over the Florida Marlins, and are now 15 games above .500. They are 30-13 at home and have the 4th best record in the major leagues as we approach the midway point of the season. I don't know what is more amazing to me - the fact that everyone on earth had them pegged as a sleeper in 2008 and that everyone was actually right, or that Austin Bhushan STILL won't give them any credit and admit they are a good team....

* How big of a star would Edinson Volquez be right now if he played for the Yankees or Red Sox, or even the Cubs? Volquez is 10-2, with a 1.71 ERA, and 110 K's in 95.0 IP despite playing his home games in one of the best hitters parks in the Major Leagues. And he has done all this despite being in his first full Major League season and being (Allegedly) just 24 years old. He will be taking the mound on Thursday in Canadia against the Toronto Blue Jays....

* Germany managed to squeak by a very game Turkey side on Wednesday, with a 3-2 win that secured them a berth in Sunday's Euro 2008 Final. The Deutsch will play the winner of Thursday's Spain-Russia match. Funny story about this Russian side: Two years ago I was home in Virginia, and sitting in the basement with my brother, when we saw on the ESPN bottom line that famed soccer manager Guus Hiddink would be taking over the Russian national team. I knew that Hiddink was a miracle worker so I checked online to see what the odds were on them winning the next Euro tournament, which was then nearly 2 years away. When I saw they were listed at 100-1 on Pinnacle, I checked to see how difficult their qualifying group was to determine whether or not they were worth a play. When I saw that they had drawn both England and Croatia, I decided to pass and told my brother as much. Upon hearing this, my brother told me that I should play it anyway because the Russians were "Sweet" in his FIFA video game. I replied that there was no point and that the tournament was almost 2 years away and that the whole thing would be nothing but a waste of money. His response: "Dude, just put 5 dollars on it. Who cares?" So.... I did:

*Pending Wagers
Ticket Accepted Event Date Type Description Risking to Win
72593066-1
1Expand 9:31am 9-Jul-06 11:45am 25-Jun-08 Future Soccer: Euro 2008 - Outright. All bets ha... +10000 5.00 500.00

I placed this bet on July 9th, 2006. I totally forgot about it after Pinnacle closed to U.S. customers in January of 2007, until one day when I saw that Croatia had pulled a shocking upset of England at Wembley Stadium to knock the British out of the Euro tournament, therefore allowing Russia to squeak in.

Now they are in the semi-finals and I have a ticket on them at 100-1. Obviously, I wish I had made a real bet on them instead of pussy-footing around with 5 bucks but it would be really nice to take a nickel out of Pinnacle, especially considering it's been about a year and a half since they stopped letting me bet there. Go Russia....

* I like the Raptors move of trading T.J. Ford to the Pacers for Jermaine O'Neal. The duo of O'Neal and Chris Bosh could be very formidable, especially in the weak Eastern Conference. The move also allows them to start Jose Calderon (Whom everyone seems to agree is a better player than Ford, anyway) at point guard. Imagine how good the Raptors could be if they had taken the 2006 Draft seriously and picked a real basketball player like Brandon Roy or Rudy Gay instead of drafting a doofy European guy....

* The Red Sox were the runaway winner of my poll asking who the most annoying Boston team is. I figured the Red Sox would probably win, due to their legions of bandwagon fans, but I have to admit I am surprised they won so easily. People loved my pictures of Kelly Kapowski, which inspired me to do a poll about hot girls from the 1990s. Obviously, I missed a lot of them but I feel that is a pretty strong foursome. Here's hoping the vote in this poll is a little closer. It's definitely a more interesting topic....

* Andy Ross and I chatted about the 2008 Chicago Bears on Wednesday. I'll be posting the transcript soon. I just need to have Andy and his lawyers look it over and sign off on it. Jeff - I'd like to have you on to preview the Falcons next, so take the next few days to gather all your notes on your beloved Dirty Birds and give me a call when you are ready....


Enough of my dumb thoughts. Here are my even dumber picks:

Russia +0.5 goal

Rays

Reds



I know some of you probably wanted more "Jokes" today. Sure, I could've written something about Jorgen and his red man-purse. I could've made the token joke about how many times a day Jeff refreshes my blog to see if I've posted a new one. There was no inapporiate reference to Mike Miller and a naive high school girl in today's blog. No jokes about Austin being obsessed with me, either. It would've been easy to make a joke about how uncomfortable watching the NBA Draft in the same room as Rodney and Metcalf after Matt had downed a few beers would be. It would've practically written itself. (In fact, I did write that joke out and it did practically write itself. It was really funny, too. But I decided against posting it. Sorry, Ed.) I'm taking on a more serious tone here in an effort to one day be linked on GolfOdds.com I know some of you may not like that. I just really want to meet Greta Van Susteran.

Take another day with that trivia question. It's actually pretty good.


Feel free to post a comment on the blog if you are interested in participating in any of my NFL team previews, feel free to vote for your favorite 90s hottie in my poll (Only once this time, Austin. Seriously, bro....), feel free to root for the Russians on Thursday morning, but mostly feel free to....



Enjoy the game.