Olympics Gone Wild

The Winter Olympics come every four years it is the chance for the winter athletes to show there skills to world to compete to see who is the best. So far this has been an exciting event for Team USA as they are in the lead for the most medals earned by a country at this point in the games. The games have a little bit of everything for the average fan that isn’t a normal fan of winter games. I am one of these fans before this year Olympic Games I never looked forward to the event because I’m normally just a fan of the Xgames type events. But this year I have followed the games and become a fan of sports I never thought I would follow. I have watched the drama unfold as both the men and women curling team has struggled, in years past this was an event that I would make fun of but now I love it. I have also followed the hockey, being from Kentucky hockey isn’t the most popular sport so I don’t understand a lot of the rules. But I am learning and have enjoyed watching Team USA defeat Canada last night as the Americans won a game that they was supposed to lose to get a bye to move them on in the tournament. As always I watched the snowboarding half pipe competition for the men and watched American’s Shaun White and Scotty Lago medal for the USA.

Snowboarding bronze medalist Lago has brought a lot of unwanted drama to the games as he was had a photo took of him celebrating his win. Celebrating isn’t a bad thing but the act that was going down put his values of a representative from the United States at risk. The paparazzi got a photo of a young lady kissing his bronze medal in an inappropriate place and with his medal her mouth. These actions lead to Lago leaving Vancouver before the closing ceremony and on his own will or so we thought. According to Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports, the United States Skiing and Snowboarding Association (USSA) gave him the option of leaving on his own or risking going before an Olympic trial process and risking being ejected from the games. Lago plans to participate in future games so he chose to leave on his own will so he didn’t risk being banned from the games.

Now I am not saying this was not a disrespectful act toward your country and the games itself, but Lago didn’t do anything Illegal. His event was over and would not have been in front of the cameras any more in the event so I feel He should not have been asked or forced to leave the games. He is a young athlete in an extreme sport which brings a different lifestyle to the games that it has not in the past. Lago was acting as any 23 years old would who just won a major sporting event, he apologized for his actions and while the action was distasteful he shouldn’t have been treated the way he was and should have been allowed to stay and enjoy the games which his friends and teammates

Call Me

It was a wild night in Mississippi when the number two ranked Kentucky Wildcats played the Bulldogs of Mississippi State University. The drama started way before tip off could even get tipped, the students from MSU some how received the cell phone number of DeMarcus Cousins and has been calling and sending him text messages for a week, which lead him to play a great game. The Cats also had to play a game in front of the biggest crowd to ever show up at “The Hump” so this was a big game.

The game was a close game from the start and it was also a physical one, which lead to several players taking shots from the free throw line. As a team the Cats made 21 free throws of 31 attempted this is what kept the Cats in the game. This is a very young team who has a desire to win as we saw last night in the overtime victory. It was game with several lead changes and ties with a final score of 81-75. It was a great game for three of the Cats as Cousins, Patrick Patterson, and John Wall all had a double-double, this makes Cousins 17th on the season. Cousins also played most of the second half with four fouls and never fouled out of the game which shows his determination and growth since earlier in the year. This freshman used to wear his emotions on his sleeve which he had trouble doing a month ago.

But as I said this was a wild night in the last seconds of the game the students section went crazy as someone threw a soda on the court which delayed the game so they could clean up the court. While the Cats was leaving the court the danger began as more stuff come flying from the stands and Coach Cal rushed his team off of the court. During a post game interview Cal said “We made plays. We made shots. We made blocks. We did enough to win the game and now we're going to get out of here,” as he rushed off the court to be with his team.

With this win this puts the Cats at 25-1 and they still hold the number one spot in the SEC east. The Cats have today off and they will get back to work on Thursday as they get ready to play on the road against Vanderbilt University on Saturday.

Happy Truck Day 2010

Well Red Sox fans the day is finally here it is truck day the official start of spring to die hard sox fans. Today is the day that Fenway Park gets packed up to send off to Ft. Myers, Florida for the start of spring training, this has become an annual event in Boston. The truck got to Fenway around 6:30 a.m. and they started the work around 7 a.m. and was packed and left out for its journey around noon today.

The lucky company that gets the privilege to transport the items on its journey is New England Household Moving and Storage; this is the 12th year straight that they used them to move the items to Florida. The man behind the truck is Al Hartz he has became a local hero because he has manned the truck all 12 years.

This day brings us closer to the start of spring training with pitchers and catchers reporting on Feb. 18th and with the first full squad work out being Feb. 24th. This is first of many exciting days to come for Red Sox fans.

Photo and Video from Steve Silva / Boston.com

How to make 6 go into 5

Is there such thing as too much pitching? I say no such thing. The reason I bring up this topic is because the Red Sox run a five man pitching rotation but they have six starting pitchers going into spring training. Like I said, there is no such thing as too much pitching as we learned last year with Daisuke Matsuzaka having such a poor season due to injury that he received during the World Baseball Classic last year. Then you had Brad Penny, who is a natural National League pitcher who as we saw last season proved he doesn’t belong in the American League. They also had a short stint which future hall of famer John Smoltz who coming off injury didn’t have much to offer the team. So the team was down the stretch using pitcher Paul Byrd who had been throwing batting practice to his kid’s team all season instead of even going to spring training and didn’t start the season until August. But hopefully all that is in our past.

This season we go into the season with six starting pitchers we have in my opinion three ace pitchers in Josh Beckett, Jon Lester and John Lackey who all be the number one pitcher. Then we have three pitchers who can feel the four and five spot, in Daisuke Matsuzaka, Clay Buchholz, and the veteran knuckle baller Tim Wakefield.

Who will feel the four and five spot? Well it is reported that Matsuzaka is in great shape as He has been preparing for the season in Arizona and that he will be ready for the season. I feel He will hold the four spot not only because he is ready for the season but also because of his $104 million contract that they don’t want to waste by having him on the bench. Plus we know that he can be a winner when he is healthy he has had an 18 win season in the past so we know he has it in him some were.

So know we move on the youthful Buchholz, last season Buch went 7-4 in 16 starts, with a 4.21 ERA. This will make his fourth season in the majors but I feel this will be his first full season in a Boston Red Sox uniform. He has not yet proved to be a great pitcher but I feel He is growing in to the spot more and more each year. His clam to fame is his 2007 no hitter against the Orioles. Though life time pro winning percentage is below .500 but I feel a full season will help him.

But we also have Wakefield who has gone in front of the press stressing that he deserves a spot in the line up. He is coming off his first all-star season and also coming off of a back surgery. It makes me iffy as to weather he will have a great season or not, He is a knuckleball pitcher which means he is not a consistent with his wins. This will make Tim’s 18th year in the league and his 17th as a member of the Red Sox. He is on a 2 year contract so he is looking upon retirement soon, so should the organization respect him and give him a spot in the retirement? I say yes but if we look back to last year he was so broken down by the all-star break that he had to set out several games. So what should you do allow him to pitch until he gets hurt again or just save him for the second half of the season? I do you think that Wakefield would be happy if he was saved for the second half so what do you do?

I have a solution to this problem we know that the spots 1 through 4 are filled but we have to fill the 5 spot but we have two pitchers and only one spot. I say allow them to share the 5 spot that way Clay can work his way up to becoming a great pitcher of the future that we know he can be, and Wake gets his starts and doesn’t over work his body to allow him to play a whole season. The 5 spot pitch in most cases doesn’t get to pitch in the post season, so it isn’t they are your most important pitcher they are in there to win a game every 5 days. If you share the spot you only have to worry about winning a game every 10 days which will make the body fresher and allow you to work on the mechanics in the off days to allow them to make the win on the days they are called on.

The Red Sox have one of the best starting pitching in all of baseball this season as long as everyone stays healthy. If what they say about pitching wins championships, then this is the year for the Sox.