Ari's Take: Michigan Fiasco, Baseball Notes

I meant to add to Ari's take below with some of my own, but the day has gotten away from me. So without further adieu, here are some thoughts from Ari. I will be back tomorrow if possible with some of my own....

As someone who loathes the University of "Mi-choke-again" as much as the next lad, I was tempted to bury them in criticism after their improbable debacle Saturday---especially since I viewed the game's climax amongst fans of "the Maize and Blue" at a restaurant in gorgeous Northwestern Michigan over the weekend. But then I heard Kirk Herbstreit's belated apology for condemning Mich and OSU for scheduling 1-AA teams, and realized Michigan is not the culprit here; as usual, ESPN and the clueless media are for making this seem like "the greatest upset of all time..." Bullocks.

App State has won back-to-back national football championships at the second highest level of college football. And, judging by today's display and past history, few would doubt they could wipe the floor with half of the 1-A teams and probably play even up with another 25%, including, obviously, the boys from Ann Arbor. But all Kirk likely saw was that the Mountaineers were not 1-A, thus rarely televised, and so he made his arrogant judgment, which no one at ESPN questioned as far as I know. I suppose Herby's contrition on Saturday night in Berkeley was nice, but why was he not criticising Rutgers, Louisville, Penn State, Florida, West Virginia, USC or Nebraska for playing the likes of Buffalo, Murray State, FIU, Western Kentucky, Western Michigan, Idaho and Nevada instead? The boys from Boone (NC) would crush all of those teams.

It's not often or ever I stand up for the Wolverines, but this time makes sense as Herbstreit is theoretically one of the top two analysts for the NCAA football propaganda network out of Bristol.
Baseball:

Every time the Yanks win or get hot, they push back. With 24 games to go, barring a sweep at Fenway in a few weeks, the Red Sox, who are playing .600 ball, barely have to play .500 ball (against an easy schedule) to win the AL East for the first time in a decade. That the Yanks can play arguably their best series of the season, then lose a series to the 57-81 D'Rays, then get crushed by a team on a nine game skid is baffling. Again, every time they push forward, they fall back. See the great stretch in early to mid-June, then losing 5 of 6 in Denver and SF the following week. Should be an interesting WC battle, though. Big week for the M's in NY and Det. By the way, how can Detroit, with all that talent and a great manager, only be 73-64? Injuries to a 43 year old pitcher and a bitter, 39 year old racist are not valid excuses in my view.

The Tribe are six up in the Central, and I'm looking for playoff tickets to the Jake for the first time in six years. It's been awhile, but Wedge finally lit a fire, CC stepped up, Fausto has been great, and even the Byrd man has 14 wins. That trio of hurlers has combined for 44 wins. Cleveland lost all six meeting to the Bronx Bombers this year---giving up 49 runs in the process---so we'd surely rather see Seattle, Anaheim or Boston in Round One.

First to 80 wins the NL Central?

I knew it'd happen sooner or later, but Tony Bruno and Baseball Tonight's Steve Berthiaume both separately indicated Ryan Howard is an NL MVP contender, if not the frontrunner. I like Ryan but he does not deserve this. Not only do I still argue that he, on a team that crumbled down the stretch, robbed Pujols of the 2006 award, but in 2007, Howard is arguably the 4th most valuable player....on his own team. Are there Philly fans who see what I am saying?

Howard: .268 BA, 36 HR, 111 RBI, 23 2B, 168 K in 119 games. {That's a a 200K pace in 143 games; nearly 230 if he had not gone on the DL in May. I believe ESPN is prohibited from ever showing or talking about his massive whiff count. If it were Adam Dunn, they'd have weekly features. They have in the past.)

Utley: .340 BA, 18 HR, 88 RBI, 43 2B, 72 K. (Chase would have had close to 30 HR and 120 RBI at the end of the year had he not been out a month. He also would have had nearly 60 doubles. When he returned, the Phils swept 4 from the 1st place Mets)

Rollins: .297 BA, 25 HR, 79 RBI, 34 2B, 69 K

Rowand: .310 BA, 23 HR, 77 RBI, 37 2B, 101 K

Utley, Rollins and Roward also all play stellar defense. I think there's a far better argument that Ryan Howard is not the MVP of his own team than the League MVP----but who said journalists did research?

After all, SF-based AP writer, Janie McCauley recently pontificated that Mr. Howard had the best chance of any current MLB playerto get to 500 HRs at a younger age than A-rod. At nearly 28 years old, Ryan would need about 94 HRs the next four seasons. Meanwhile, there are NUMEROUS guys like Pujols, Cabrera et al who are younger than Howard and have more career HRs. Janie must have been too busy salivating over Barry Bonds up in the Bay Area to notice. She never returned my emails either. Affirmative Action is wonderful.

Lastly, it was very un-Padre like to step up and win big games in the most crucial part of the season. The non-Boo-chy factor in full effect, as SD is in first while SF is on their way to their worst season in year, but has anyone noticed?

Young tonight and perhaps Peavy tomorrow could set the Pads up quite nicely for the final three weeks. My two favorite MLB sqauds---San Diego and Cleveland---have only been in the postseason the same year twice: 1996 and 1998. In '96, both were bounced in the first round. In '98, the Yanks did both of them in, though at one point, SD was up 3-0 in ATL in the NLCS and C-town was up 2-1 on the Yanks in the ALCS.