White Suburban Punk

The Patriots win an ugly one in Buffalo, but a win is a win at this point.  Especially on the road.  Randy Moss’ comments after the game were hilarious.  I wonder if there will be any talk that Wes Welker quit on the team after his quiet day.  Laurence Maroney continues to look good, really fighting for yards.  I had to admit I was worried after the Bills’ first drive, but then they reverted back to what they are, and the Patriots defense played well against an awful team.  Jacksonville is up next, and supposedly New England still has an outside shot at the #2 seed if San Diego loses its final two games.  I still can’t figure out the Patriots offense, though.  The same personnel as 2007, but it sure doesn’t look like it.  Is it all Brady?

Liverpool lost to last place Portsmouth, 2-0, over the weekend.  They now sit in seventh place.  Javier Mascherano got sent off for a bad tackle, and he managed to strain his MCL on the play, as well.  So he’s suspended and injured.  I don’t know if it can really get any worse for this team.  Wolverhampton is next in the Premiership on Saturday.  They drew a Romanian team in the Europa League, which will start in February.

The Champions League draw also took place, with Inter Milan getting Chelsea, The Chosen One’s current team and former team.  And AC Milan drew Manyoo, David Beckham’s current team and former team.  Should be interesting.

The Landon Donovan loan to Everton went through.

So Mike Lowell is back with the Sox.  Both player and team must be thrilled.  If he’s going to be ok by Spring Training, why didn’t the Rangers just go through with the trade?  They’d only be paying him $3 million.

The Cubs traded Milton Bradley to the Mariners for Carlos Silva.  So the M’s continue to improve, while all the Angels have done is sign Hideki Matsui.  That also means that Jason Bay will not be going to Seattle.  I’ve got to think that he’s not real psyched to play for the Mets, with the big ballpark and circus atmosphere.  I hope I’m wrong, but I still think the yankees are going to swoop in.  Speaking of, Brian Cashman claims that the yankees will “almost certainly add a starter by New Year’s,” according to the New York Post.  But no one seems to have any idea who that would be.

Coco Crisp is going to the A’s.

Bill James projects your Opening Day first baseman, Casey Kotchman, to hit .272 in 372 at bats (122 games), with 9 HR and 52 RBI in 2010.  His best year was 2007 with the Angels, when he played in 137 games, hit .296 with an OBP of .372 and slugged .467.  He finished that year with 11 HR and 68 RBI.  The next year he was traded (with a prospect) to the Braves for Mark Texeira and hit his career high 14 HR.  He was considered a top prospect by Baseball America for a number of years; in 2002 he was ranked 22nd, 2003 13th, 2004 15th, and 2005 6th.  He’ll be 27 years old in February.

Glen Davis will supposedly return to the Celtics in early January.

Everyone’s favorite whipping boy, the Big 10, has seven teams in bowl games.  Only two are favored to win, Minnesota by 2.5 over Iowa State, and Penn State by 2.5 over LSU.  The other five are underdogs.  Wisconsin is 3 point dogs to Miami, Ohio State 3.5 to Oregon, Iowa 4 to Georgia Tech, Northwestern 7 to Auburn, and Michigan State 8 to Texas Tech.  Does the fact that 5 of the teams are underdogs prove the conference sucks, or if they have another bad bowl year, can Big 10 fans say, “yeah, but 5 of the teams were underdogs?”

Despite a 1-0 win over Debrecen in Budapest, Liverpool was eliminated from the Champions League when Fiorentina beat Lyon by the same score.  Liverpool’s goal came early in the game off a tap in by 20 year old David Ngog, after a header in the box by Jamie Carragher.  Glenn Johnson and Fabio Aurelio were able to start after getting the mysterious horse placenta treatment from an alternative medicine woman in Belgrade.  I wonder if she can treat manager Rafa Benitez?  The Reds started out fairly strong in this game, but seemed to get more uninspired as the game wore on, perhaps because they knew Lyon had fallen behind in Florence.  Debrecen actually had two great chances to tie late in the game, but goalie Pepe Reina made excellent saves.

The day began for Liverpool with news that Ryan Babel had conducted an interview with the Liverpool Echo, which was printed on the day of the match, that he wants out of Liverpool and he “does not understand the manager.”  Good riddance.  Why would they ever want to keep him now?  He also complained about the senior players not helping him and only being interested in their own glory.  What a freaking baby.  Maybe the team can get some good money when they get rid of him at the transfer window in January and use it to get someone with some heart.

The Reds had qualified for the knock out stages of the Champions League the last five years, with two finals appearances and one championship.  As third place finishers in their group, they will now join the Europa League knock out stages, where they will almost certainly be favorites to win the competition.  Rafa claims the team will concentrate first on finishing in the top four of the Premiership to ensure Champions League play next season.  They currently sit in seventh place, and will need to leapfrog Man City, Tottenham, and Aston Villa.  Difficult, but certainly not impossible, with five months still to play.  In the aftermath of yesterday’s game, both captain Steven Gerrard and Javier Mascherano vowed to try to win the Europa League.

It is certainly not unprecedented for a so called “big team” to fail to reach the knock out stages.  Manchester United actually finished fourth in their group in 2005 and was out of Europe altogether.  Milan and Bayern Munich have also been relegated to the Europa League (formerly called UEFA Cup) in recent years.

The Reds will try to pick up the pieces this weekend in the Liverpool derby at Everton.  Fernando Torres is still not expected back, but the team does appear to be getting healthier.  The almost unbelievable run of injuries is without question the number one reason for the team’s struggles this fall, and the depth has simply not been enough.

Wrapping up the weekend, Liverpool tied Man City 2-2 at Anfield Saturday.  The Reds got goals from Martin Skrtel and Yossi Benayoun, who returned from what looked like a severe hamstring injury in the previous game.  He received treatment from a woman in Belgrade with horse placenta.  Yes, horse placenta.  Steven Gerrard played the whole game, but he still looks rusty after missing so much time.  Fernando Torres is still out and will miss the Champions League match with Debrecen Tuesday, and probably will miss the Everton derby next weekend.  The Reds need to beat Debrecen and hope Fiorentina does not beat Lyon tomorrow to have any hope of continuing on the Champions League.  They are still seventh in the Premiership.  The World Cup starts in 199 days.

Wisconsin basketball has their first real test of the season tonight at midnight eastern in Hawaii against Arizona.  Remember these were the two last at-large invites to the tournament last year, but both proved they belonged.  Wisconsin is generally picked seventh or eighth in the Big 10, and are not projected to make the tournament field.  However, they have never missed under Bo Ryan and the strength of this year’s team is two senior guards, Trevon Hughes and Jason Bohannon.  If Jon Leuer becomes the force they were hoping for, I think they’ll be in the mix again.  Unusually, most prognosticators are saying that the Big 10 is strong this year.  It sounds strange when all you hear is Big 10 bashing all the time.

The Sanchize didn’t look to good in Foxboro yesterday.  In fact, he looked absolutely bewildered.  Maybe we can add a Sanchize face.  8-21, 136 yards, 4 interceptions, and 1 fumble.  And I haven’t heard much mouthiness from them since the game, either.  That loss effectively knocked them out of the playoffs so Rex The Mouth Ryan will have to find another way to motivate his team the rest of the year.  Crying failed, what else you got?  Wes Welker was awesome and the defense only gave up 1 score.  The hype for Monday night in New Orleans has already started, and I’ll be interested to see what the line is.

Wisconsin football lost at Northwestern, 33-31, a game I was frightfully afraid of.  I haven’t still haven’t watched it, and I’m not sure if I will.  The Badgers apparently had three possessions to win it and punted once and turned it over twice.  At Hawaii in two weeks, and then wait for the bowl assignment.  They deservedly dropped out of the top 25 in both polls, although it still looks like a New Year’s Day bowl in Florida.  Tennessee would be interesting matchup.

Les Miles completely bungled the clock in LSU’s loss to Ole Miss, and then lied about it after the game.  He claimed he didn’t know who told his QB to spike the ball with 1 second left, but TV cameras showed him making the arm motion.  Plus he let 17 seconds go off the clock before he called a timeout.  It’s hard to believe that national championship was only two years ago, when he blew off Michigan.  Speaking of Michigan, Rich Rod managed to blame Lloyd Carr for his team sucking the last two years, saying that they’ve had bad Februarys the last four years.  The guy just seems like he’s over his head in Ann Arbor.  Jim Harbaugh is a Michigan man, isn’t he?  Although he will probably be considered the favorite for the Notre Dame job after they fire Charlie Weis.  I wonder if Charlie will come back to the Patriots.

I actually went 8-0 on my college picks against the spread, so I would’ve doubled my money if gambling were legal.  But I don’t live in Vegas, so it’s not.  I was actually kind of curious about this, so I did a bit of research.  Here’s what I found out:

Sports betting had been left up to the states until The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992, which effectively outlawed sports betting nationwide, except for a few states.  It passed overwhelmingly in both the House and Senate.  Sports lotteries in Oregon and Delaware were exempt, as were licensed sports pools in Nevada.  Then in 2006, the Security and Accountability for Every Port Act was passed and signed by President Bush, which had an online gambling measure called the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.  It prohibits the tranfer of funds from financial institutions to illegal internet gambling sites.  The Congressional supporters were Republican Jim Leach of Iowa and Republican Robert Goodlatte of Virginia.  Republicans Bill Frist and Jon Kyl are credited with ensuring passage in the Senate.  The Bush Administration had previously stated that it would not finalize any rules after November 1, 2008, but the final regulations were issued on November 12, 2008 and came into effect on January 19, 2009, the day before President Obama took office.  Democrat Barney Frank introduced a bill in May, 2009 seeking to overturn the gambling aspects of the Act, and he also introduced a bill to delay the implementation of the Act for one year, until December 1, 2010.  Neither have been acted upon.

Maybe I should stop trying to pick college games.  All are against the spread, but I went 1-5 2 weeks ago and 2-9 this past weekend.  It seems that some years I’m uncannily tuned in to the college game and some years I’m, well, I’m not tuned in whatsoever.  There were some harsh losses last week, though.  I picked Indiana +17.5 against Iowa and they lost by 18.  Houston -7.5 against Southern Miss and they won by 7.  And Oregon State -8.5 against UCLA and they won by 7.  The pro picks have gone fairly well, though, 9-4 against the spread both weeks.  I’ll keep trying.

Rajon Rondo signed at 5 year, $55 million contract extension.  Great signing by Danny Ainge, I actually thought Rondo could get more money.  He’s still not in the top 5 highest paid point guards in the league.  If Ainge had let him go to restricted free agency, who knows what would’ve happened?  One of the teams that didn’t get Lebron, Dwayne Wade, or Chris Bosh probably would’ve dumped a plate full of cash on Rondo’s lap and the C’s wouldn’t be willing/able to match.

The supposed contenders with the Patriots for the AFC East crown are a joke.  Buffalo gets blown out by Houston, and Miami somehow beat the Jets.  Again.  Yet the Jets continue to talk.  Rex Ryan claimed that his team outplayed the Dolphins, but still lost.  Special teams don’t count?  They sure do on the scoreboard.  Miami, meanwhile, had 52 yards rushing and 52 yards passing for the game and their hero of the game, Ted Ginn, was called an embarrassment and a coward by a former Dolphin earlier in the week.  Patriots are 5-2, Jets 4-4, Dolphins 3-4.  In the AFC, Indy is 7-0, Denver 6-1, and New England, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh are 5-2.

It’s good to see that Florida head coach Urban Meyer came down hard on his player for the cowardly eye gouge on Saturday.  Suspended for the first half of the Vanderbilt game.  That’s sending a message.  And the guy who did it wears a face shield!

Wisconsin blew out Purdue, 37-0 Saturday at Camp Randall.  Purdue played horribly, with tons of dropped passes.  But when that happens, they should be shut out, and they were.  In fact, Purdue’s QB was 5-23 for 59 yards and a pick, so it wasn’t just the dropped passes.  Purdue had 141 total yards for the game; Wisconsin had 150 in the first quarter.  Nuf ced.  Next up: at Indiana Saturday.  They’ll probably still be reeling from their choke job against Iowa.  Wisconsin is now ranked 22 in the coaches poll and 24 in the AP.

One other note: former Badger and current Houston Texan Owen Daniels tore his ACL in the Buffalo game and is out for the year.

Liverpool lost to Fulham 3-1 in the Premiership over the weekend.  That’s 7 losses in the last 8 games in all competitions.  Rumors are that Fernando Torres’ injury is more serious than they’re letting on.  They’ve got a must-win at Lyon in the Champions League Wednesday and then another must-win Monday against Birmingham at Anfield, televised on ESPN2.  I guess they’re all must-wins now.  Chelsea plays Manyoo at Stamford Bridge Sunday.

It was nice to see that the Phillies held on last night to force game 6, but I’m not too optimistic.  I really don’t want them to do it against Pedro, though.

Wisconsin hockey kicked the living crap out of UNH, 4-1 and 6-1.  Not a nice homecoming for Blake Kessel.

Liverpool – Lyon Champions League, Tuesday Oct. 21, 2009 at Anfield

So Liverpool has now lost four games in a row in all competitions, the worst run for the team since 1987. The calls for coach Rafa Benitez’s head unfortunately will continue, and he even got the dreaded vote of confidence from co-owner George Gillett. Rafa went with a couple of youths in the starting lineup for this game, David Ngog playing striker in place of the injured Fernando Torres, and Martin Kelly at right back. Captain Steven Gerrard returned to the starting lineup after being sidelined with a groin strain.

Although Ngog and Kelly acquitted themselves well, Gerrard was forced to the sidelines at 24 minutes due to a recurrence of his injury. His status for the huge Manyoo tilt at Anfield on Sunday is now questionable. Gerrard was replaced by Fabio Aurelio, and he ended up helping supply most of Liverpool’s offense on the day.

Goalie Pepe Reina made a great save early on, but Liverpool essentially dominated possession in the first half.  Dirk Kuyt was denied a goal for a questionable push, and then Yossi Benayoun scored at 41 minutes to put Liverpool on top, on a play set up by Aurelio. Fabio was later robbed on a header just before the half by Lyon goaltender Hugo Lloris, after a sweet cross by Martin Kelly.

Liverpool continued their domination for the first 15 minutes of the second half, but then appeared to get a bit lackadaisical.  Lyon began asserting their will and finally scored the tying goal at 72 minutes off a corner kick.  Reina valiantly saved the first two chances, but Liverpool boxed it around and he could not save the third chance. 

At 85 minutes, Rafa made the baffling decision to replace Benayoun with Andriy Voronin.  Things went downhill from there.  Seemingly happy with a draw, the Reds gave up the game winning goal 30 seconds into extra time on a set up that was ridiculously easy. 

Liverpool now sit in third place in Group E with 3 points, behind Lyon with 9 points and Fiorentina with 6.  With three games left, (at Lyon, at Debrecini, and home to Fiorentina), the team’s backs are against the wall.  Although Torres is hopeful to play against Manyoo Sunday, it appears the lights are growing dim on Liverpool’s season, even though it’s only October.  Of course, as Jamie Carragher reminds us, they beat Manyoo last year without Gerrard and Torres, but can lightning strike twice?  It better.