Back with another blog. Arguably the best time of the sports year: College World Series breathing down our necks, NBA and NHL Finals on the way, MLB baseball heating up. Plus, Cam Newton got a nice, big, fat contract. As a matter of fact, that's where I'm going to start. This is a football blog, after all.
So let's talk about Cam Newton: Yes, he won a Heisman Trophy and a national championship at Auburn. He came from 24 points down against Alabama in their building in 2010 and brought the title back to Auburn. And in the NFL he had a stellar rookie campaign.
But let's look at the facts, too: He has a single season above .500, has a TD/INT ratio of just 1.5 and ranked 27th in the NFL last year in that statistic. Even E.J. Manuel, who got his behind benched in Buffalo for Kyle Orton, had a better ratio than him. He's also been progressively worse the last four years, and had his worst season in the NFL in 2014.
Yet, he got paid. Oh, he got paid all right. To the tune of a $103.8 mil contract extension. This includes $67.6 mil over the first three guaranteed years. Sure, this guy is a talented quarterback. But THAT much money for a guy who's gotten progressively worse each year in the league? Yeah, I don't know about that one.
On baseball: Wonder how many people saw Joey Gallo's debut for the Rangers last night. He has been a AA prospect in their system but a very highly prized one. Yes, AA, not AAA. Yet, because of Adrian Beltre's injury over the weekend (which sadly caused me to put Beltre on the DL in my fantasy baseball league), they called him up this week and he made his debut last night. And in his debut against Jeff Samardzjia and the White Sox he did not disappoint; he had three hits, and came within a triple of the cycle.
Makes you wonder, with the Astros injury situation at shortstop (their normal starting shortstop Jed Lowrie is currently on the DL), should the Astros bring up Carlos Correa right now. Correa, like Gallo, is a very highly prized prospect, and is probably the most talked about of the Astros young players in the minors (he is at AAA Fresno right now). His talent is definitely off the charts, but his #s aren't great in AAA. Personally, I don't think they necessarily need to bring him up right now, but with the AL West starting to heat up a bit, I'd keep my finger near that trigger. He could be the difference between the Astros making the playoffs and sitting at home.
While we're on baseball, let's go to the college game now and I'll start by saying this: even though the Huskers had a terrible year on the baseball diamond, the Big 10 having two teams (Illinois and Maryland) with a legit shot to make it to Omaha is a very healthy thing for the sport. In baseball, it's natural that a team from the south would have the advantages over the northern schools because of weather and days you can get outside to play baseball. Here in Texas, you can play ball all year round and the high school baseball season usually starts around late February and early March.
In fact, the Big 10 got more teams into the Super Regionals (two) than the Big 12 got (one, and the Big 12 wouldn't have any if North Carolina State hadn't gagged massively in their regional final Monday against TCU). No doubt, as much as I hate to say it, the SEC is the best baseball conference (they got five teams into the Supers and will likely put multiple teams in Omaha) but it is good to see the Big 10 with a pulse. In particular, Maryland, a team who kind of struggled at times this season, beating top overall seed UCLA (and a team that won it all two years ago) was huge for the Big 10.
And as far as NC State: How is it possible to give up SEVEN, yes, SEVEN unearned runs in the space of two innings? TCU was done like dinner and then NC State just...lost it. That's a loss they will never live down.
On the NBA Finals, which start tomorrow: The Warriors have the better team, but do not underestimate Lebron. That man is as close to superhuman as the NBA has right now. I think it goes 7 but the Warriors prevail.
One Rockets note: apparently James Harden was recently seen with Denver point guard Ty Lawson. Could the Rockets somehow snag Lawson in free agency? That would be terrific because a Rockets area of need is a point guard and Lawson would fill that void quite nicely.
Time to briefly touch on FIFA (soccer) now and their ongoing corruption scandal. The last anyone heard of this corruption scandal, seven men were being hauled out of a hotel in Switzerland a week ago today in connection to an investigation by the FBI into wire fraud, racketeering and money laundering.
Think about this: FIFA decided to give Qatar the World Cup in 2022, pretty much the highest level of that sport on a national scale. Now think about this: in Qatar it's hotter than blue blazes in the summer so they'd have to play it in the winter when the best players in the world are all playing in their respective worldwide leagues, and they don't have the stadiums to hold this huge event.
In addition, according to an article from the Washington Post, the workers who were hired to build these stadiums are dying at an alarming rate. From everything I have read, the worker conditions in Qatar aren't good.
So yeah, I think it's possible there was some dirty money underneath the table for Qatar to get this event. In all honesty though, this thing goes pretty deep: this investigation isn't just about the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids. I'm not going to go into all the details, but this whole problem FIFA's got goes a lot deeper than that.
The good news for FIFA is that Sepp Blatter, the head of FIFA, resigned yesterday. Hopefully for them that is a step in the right direction.
And finally, a first, and very possibly last, for this blog: something related to hockey. That sport played on ice with a puck. Actually, I'm not even sure it's hockey; it's more of a fans thing and the asinine decisions sometimes made by professional sports organizations and college athletic departments in response to a lot of visiting fans in their stadiums. I wasn't going to talk about this, honestly, until I saw the link below on my Yahoo feed yesterday. Thus, this little soapbox.
Something's happened relating to the Stanley Cup Finals between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Chicago Blackhawks, which begin tonight, that touches a bit too close to home as a lifetime fan of Nebraska and in particular football. You see, the Tampa Bay Lightning have this asinine dress code for visiting fans that, because they are playing in a final series, is getting a little national attention. They aren't going to throw Blackhawks fans out of the building, but it's asinine enough. You can read more about it here: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/pass-or-fail--tampa-bay-lightning-s-anti-visiting-fan-dress-code-140431070.html
See, this hits a bit too close to home as a lifetime fan of the Huskers because these are the kind of tactics Husker fans were used to from schools like Colorado, Iowa State, Kansas State, etc. who would see Nebraska fans fill their stadium for big games every Saturday during the fall and they would try various things to keep Nebraska fans out of the stadium (that is, before the Huskers went to the Big 10).
For example, CU used to drive up ticket prices for just the Nebraska game alone. Nebraska would get anywhere from 7,000 to 10,000 fans at places like Folsom Field and CU players and fans hated it. I don't like Notre Dame's football program at all (though Catholic, I still don't like them), but at least when the Huskers went there in 2000, Notre Dame didn't try any stupid tactics to keep Husker fans out.
Similarly, TCU will face A&M in college baseball's super regionals this weekend and with the powerful Aggie base of fans in this state there will be a lot of them in TCU's ballpark. A&M's school is about four or five times the size of TCU and they have a very powerful network. I hope TCU makes a concentrated effort to get their fans in the stadium while still allowing Aggies to watch their team.
Bottom line: bush league move by the Lightning, similar to what Colorado, K-State, and others used to do when the Huskers came to town on Saturdays during football. Get more of your fans in, and don't be bush league to other fans who want to see their team.
Until next time....
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