Thoughts On The Yankees, Around the Horn and The Trade Deadline

I can't watch ESPN anymore. It's awful.

I don't know when it went from being sports news to sports crap.

Maybe I have just begin to notice it more and more as my knowledge of sports grew. I use to love watching Around the Horn and PTI. Now I can barely stand listening to the show of asinine banter.

Here's the problem with Around the Horn. Your taking sports writers who focus on certain markets; like Jay Mariotti in Chicago. I'm sure he knows the Cubs and Bulls inside and out. However, he doesn't cover the Yankees. How can he formulate a correct opinion of what the Yankees should or shouldn't have done at the trade deadline if he's not aware of who our prospects are and how good they are. On Around the Horn he suggested the Yanks should have traded Joba Chamberlain for Gagne. In fact he said it in an insulting fashion to the extent of "the Yanks kept Joba Chamberlain instead of Eric Gagne? Are you serious?"

It's frustrating to hear this as aaseball fan living in NY and following the Yankees. I'm sure Jay would have been up in arms if the Cubs had traded 5 tool stud prospect Felix Pie for unequal value.

I digress

Anyway, Mr. Mariotti in the words of Silent Bob; Bitch what you don't know about Joba Chamberlain could fill the grand fucking canyon. Let me educate you!

Joba is nasty. Filthy in fact. He proved himself in AA, moved up and just housed AAA Scranton/Wilkes Barre. He's throwing pure gas, in his last appearance he hit 99-100 on the gun. He threw 13 pitches, 10 for strikes. Secondly, Jay, Chamberlain is getting called up to the big leagues soon. While he is no sure thing he has alot of potential. I can tell you this It would have been idiotic to trade Joba for Gagne. Joba could fetch more than Gagne at this point. Furthermore the Rangers weren't even demanding Gagne. We could have gotten away with trading Ian Kennedy (who while a good prospect is getting over-protected. He's not a front line starter. He's a 3 at best more realistically a 4.)

So Jay before you make a statement try to learn your facts.

...With that being said the Yankees should have traded for Eric Gagne at the trade deadline.

I'm all aboard the Luiz Vizcaino bandwagon. Before his last appearance he hadn't given up an earned run since July 4th. He'd be an ideal 7th inning guy.

Vizcaino and Gagne bridging the gap to Mo would make for a very successful bullpen. Especially when you factor in the surprisingly effective Myers and Vilone and the wild cards in Joba and Edwar Rameriez.

Had we made the Gagne trade we would have been able to trade both Farnsworth and Proctor.

I loved the Wilson Betemit for Scott Proctor trade, I just wish Farnsworth was following him out of town. Proctor is a 30 year old below average reliever. Besides that Torre has absoutely abused his arm this year. In exhange for what I believe to be damaged goods the Yanks got Betemit, while not great, is an outstanding super-sup. For now he can platoon at first with Andy Phillips. Betimit is a 27 year old switch hiter but he hits much better as a lefty. Agaisnt right handing pithcing he's hitting .285/.349/.463. Not awful, he never has been given a chance to start a whole season and still may have room to grow. The fact that we got anyone for Proctor is remarkable. If nothing else it's addition by subtraction. I wish we could have done the same for Kyle. If we had to pay to get rid of him so be it. Once again adittion by subtraction.

In an ideal world we could have gone with 12 pitchers on roster

Clemens
Wang
Pettite
Moose
Hughes

Vilone
Britton
Myeres
Chamberlain
Vizcaino
Gagne
Rivera

That looks pretty good to me.

(By the way quick side note: For anyone who thinks moving Joba to relief is going to stunt his growth, remember Joba is on a pitch count this year, he was close to being shut down anyway. In fact moving him to relief is going to help him keep his pitch count in manageable numbers.)

Alas we didn't get Gagne, but it's not the end of the world.

What people forget is that two big deadline acquisitions are going be Giambi and Hughes.

This team, while maybe not close to catching the Red Sox, will certainly be in contention for the wildcard. With our pitching and hitting healthy this team can make a whole lot of noise in the playoffs.

It feels good to write that for the first time all year.

Fade To Black

Dear Woody Paige,

If you don’t know what the hell you are talking about please shut the hell up.

I don’t get this. The man is a sports writer. He gets paid to write about sports! That’s his job! So how the hell does he have the gall to go on national television and make an ass out of himself!

On the popular show Around the Horn they talked about the Tommy Morisson fight. Host Tony Reali actually mentioned how it wasn’t truly an MMA fight just a glorified boxing match. The question posed to Paige and other analyst was is the Morisson spectacle bad for MMA?

Paige’s response was; "no one on the panel cares about MMA." In fact he further went on to say Morisson was terrible for MMA and it’s just MMA trying to compete with the UFC and Boxing.

Wait…What?

He referred to it as “the MMA” like it was some separate organization trying to compete with the UFC

Woody; MMA is mixed martial arts; ya know the type of combat that UFC fighters engage in.

Terrible absolutely terrible, to make matters worse no one corrected him!

ESPN made a positive step by recognizing MMA as a legitimate sport. Hopefully they can actually acquire some sports writers who know what the hell they are talking about.


Thoughts on the Sopranos finale

******************SPOILER WARNING*******SPOILER WARNING**********************


You know what I liked the season finale of the Sopranos, but I can also understand why so many people hated it. With a show of such great magnitude there was no way that the ending could have appeased everyone.

Most people were looking for a definitive ending, Tony going to jail or getting whacked. What we saw was just as definitive though.

Every time someone walked in or walked by him in the restaurant Tony looked spooked, like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, his life is caught in a never ending cycle of misery at this point. He’s never going too be happy. To me this is more satisfying than seeing him killed or jailed. Honestly would an ending with Tony getting killed or jailed been any more satisfying. Questions would still abound; who would take over, what would happen with his family and the New York mob and so on.

What about the guy in the bathroom? Was he going to kill Tony or was he going to wash his hands. We are never going to know and I think that’s a good thing. It shows what Tony’s life has become, how he can never feel safe. It gives us amazing insight into what is going through Tony’s mind.

Isn’t that the point of any great character centered TV Show, to truly understand the plight of the main character?

Maybe it will talk a few viewings to fully understand but the Sopranos had a great ending.