UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

Wow.  It’s been a week since I last blogged?!?

Whoops!

I’ve got lots to talk about, but I’ll split it over two or more blog entries.

Random thoughts (aka an extended version of “Quick-hitters”):

- Speaking of not blogging lately, apparently one week of not blogging has absolutely killed my blog traffic statistics.  I got about one-third of the normal hits over the past few days.

- This is a very cool Eddie Izzard fan site, which I found via Google Analytics shortly after I posted my Stripped mini-review.

Check it out!

- How great is it that Diva Favre is no longer the top sports news story out there?

Thank you, Michael Phelps (more on him another time).

(And do we really have to hear about how his arm was fatigued after a practice?  What’s next?  Will we get an article about him being constipated before a preseason game?)

- In succession, I just viewed the following annoying-as-hell commercials:  a McDonald’s commercial advertising their apparently still “New” Southern Chicken sandwich, a Wal-Mart commercial (Do you know what I like about Wal-Mart?), and a really obnoxious Target commerical (You…say…goodbye…and I…say…hello…).

I need a TiVo.

- Current rebate-o-meter:  $1,100.  I received a couple hundred bucks in rebate checks and gift cards in the last week, and, naturally, I added about $200 in unfiled rebates over the weekend.

- Hey Dodger fans, do you realize that your team could easily be on an eleven game winning streak?

Stupid bullpen.  Damn you, Broxton, Kuo, and Park.

And what the hell was Matt Kemp thinking in the Dodgers’ most recent loss, a 4-3 decision against Milwaukee on Saturday?  For those of you that didn’t see the game, Kemp was at first, and Andre Ethier hit a towering drive to center.  Brewers’ CF Mike Cameron missed the ball as it bounced off the base, but Kemp was only able to get to second?!?  Apparently, he went back to first, thinking Cameron caught the ball.  What the hell?  If Kemp were standing at or near second, like he should have been, he ends up at third at the absolute worst, and a Kent sac fly (he lined out to center eventually) ties the game!

Dumb base running, a terrible bullpen, games choked away…I’ve seen this script before.  Oh yeah, I saw it last year.

Other Dodger thoughts:

- Two more bombs by Ethier, including a game winner.  Shouldn’t that all but cement Andruw Jones’ status as a $36 million cheerleader, and seriously shorten Juan Pierre’s playing time?

- I know Manny has only played a few games as a Dodger, but is it too crazy to consider him a possibility as the NL MVP?

(Call me a homer.  Go ahead!)

Isn’t it amazing what happens when this guy tries?  Six HRs, an NL-leading 21 RBI in August, and look what he’s done for Jeff Kent and Andre Ethier!  Ken’t BA has gone up 20 points or so, and Ethier’s raking!  Now, if Manny can rub off on Loney and Martin, look out!

What scares me about the Dodgers is that, despite their very nice run of late, they’re only tied with the D’Backs, and we know that the D’Backs won’t run into too many prolonged losing streaks (not with Webb and Haren on the mound).

Until next time!

Tags: andre ethier, bullpen woes, chan ho park, diva favre, eddie izzard, fan site, hong-chih kuo, jonathan broxton, los angeles dodgers, manny ramirez, matt kemp, nl mvp, stupid commercials by Peter
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Sunburns are bad.

They’re really bad when they prevent you from sleeping.

Time to apply some more sunburn lotion.

(AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!)

No quick-hitters tonight.

- I got an email last night from Sprint.com, telling me that my next billing statement was ready to be viewed. I said to myself, “Oh great. I get to call Sprint CS again to get my 10% credit manually added to my account!”

That’s when I saw this:

Total Due by August 20 $31.77

OMG. Sprint added the 10% discount to my account AUTOMAGICALLY??? Whoa!

EDIT: WTF? Just a few minutes ago, I logged on to my Sprint.com account, and saw this:

Last Bill Amount $527.01
Adjustments/Credits $0.00
Recent Payments -$118.00
Total Due $409.01
Pay By August 18

Completely horrified, I clicked on “View latest bill,” and saw the correct amount due: $31.77. I then logged on to My Account through my cell phone, and saw that I owe $536.41, due on August 5!

Sprint’s customer call centers are closed right now, but you better believe that I am going to call them first thing tomorrow morning afternoon.

I love you, Sprint.

(Now, I’m just going to assume that this is an obvious error on Sprint’s end. However, we are talking about Sprint here…)

- Manny Ramirez is a Dodger, and the dividends are already coming in!

(Granted, one of his hits was a check-swing grounder, but still.)

The last time I saw a Dodger crowd THAT energized, we had another future Hall of Famer playing on our team: some guy named Mike Piazza. Geez, did you hear how loud the crowd got when Ramirez made a catch on a routine fly ball? And how about when he got his first hit, nearly taking out D’Backs’ SS Stephen Drew in the process?

I heard that the Dodgers sold somewhere around 10,000 extra tickets for the remaining games against the D’Backs once it was official that the Dodgers traded for Manny. Is anyone surprised by that? Did Frank McCourt not realized that trading for a big name was going to increase ticket sales?

(Sigh…what if the Dodgers had traded for C.C. Sabathia???)

As for the deal itself, I absolutely loved it. When the rumors about Manny coming to LA first circled about, I heard Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp’s names. Had the Dodgers dealt Matt Kemp, I (and a number of Dodger fans, I would imagine) would have been royally pissed. At first, I was sorta OK with giving up Ethier for Manny, but then it quickly became evident that another prospects—LaRoche?—would have been involved in the deal.

Naturally, when I found out that LaRoche was the only key prospect involved, I was filled with glee. Andy LaRoche had virtually zero trade value, thanks to the Dodgers’ terrible mismanagement of his career to date as well as the “emergence” of Blake DeWitt. To flip him and an inconsequential minor league pitcher for two months of a future HOFer, as well as at least one compensatory draft pick, AND the rest of Ramirez’ salary, one has to give some props to Colletti.

(On the other hand, one could argue that Boston REALLY wanted to get rid of Ramirez. I mean, they had to pay the Dodgers to take him, AND trade two of their own prospects, all to get a downgrade in Jason Bay?)

Dodger fans have to be elated by the fact that we know we’ll get two months of the maximum effort Manny; after all, he’s basically playing for one more huge contract. That’s just even more reason to be giddy.

Does Manny guarantee a Dodgers’ NL West victory? Not if they keep scoring one run against Arizona. However, you better believe that I am going to thoroughly enjoy every AB Manny has from here on to the end of the season.

I feel like a kid in a candy store…on Christmas.

Tags: 10% discount, andre ethier, andy laroche, Arizona Diamondbacks, billing errors, blake dewitt, C.C. Sabathia, los angeles dodgers, manny ramirez, matt kemp, sprint by Peter
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No quick-hitters today.

- So thanks to SlickDeals, I scored a pair of cheap field level tixs for Tuesday’s Rockies-Dodgers game.  I expected to see two struggling offenses (check), solid pitching (nope), and the typical rude, obnoxious Dodger fans (check, naturally).

What I didn’t expect was a scrum, which is exactly what we got in the bottom of the eighth inning.

I remember seeing Matt Kemp strike out on that wild pitch, and as I went to sit back down in my seat, I saw the Rockies bullpen all of a sudden pour out.  I stood back up immediately, and that’s when I saw Kemp fall to the ground.

Nothing like a brawl to energize an otherwise moribund crowd!  For the rest of the game, the fans chanted  “Rockies suck!”  I wanted to remind the fans that the scoreboard said otherwise, but I had no intention of spending the night in a hospital room.

When the hell is Rafael Furcal coming back?

(After seeing the replay of the events that led up to the brawl, Kemp clearly overreacted.  Torrealba didn’t even shove him, and Kemp acted like he got sucker punched.  Yeah, Torrealba shouldn’t have shoved Kemp in the throat, but Kemp was clearly the instigator.  I thought Kemp deserved a five game suspension—one more than he got—and Torrealba should only have gotten two—one less than he got.)

- Once Paul Pierce returned from the locker room after his injury, you could just feel the game slipping away from the Lakers right into the laps of the Celtics. Add some great lockdown defense on the Lakers down the stretch, and it wasn’t hard to see how the Celtics surged ahead of the Lakers in the second half.

(Damn PJ Brown! That guy was EVERYWHERE in the fourth quarter! Someone give me some of the magical potion someone obviously gave him :P)

Everything that could have gone wrong in this game probably did for the Lakers. And even as I typed that, I knew that Boston didn’t play their best game either. It might only be one game out of a possible seven, but the Celtics are clearly the better team right now.

KG got off (Gasol’s got no chance against him), Allen got off to a great start, and then there was Pierce. And it seemed like, every time Boston needed a play, one of their role players happened to be there to do so.

(Freaking PJ Brown.)

At our lunch last weekend, I was told that the key to the series was stopping Paul Pierce. Personally, I thought the key was figuring out which Kobe Bryant was going to show up. We can both be right, no?

And what was with the Lakers committing so many stupid, away-from-the-basket, in-the-penalty fouls?

(Mark Jackson just said that the Lakers need Kobe to make the right play, and then Kobe goes ahead and takes a terrible three-point shot.)

The Lakers better plan on stealing Game Two if they want any chance of winning this series. Otherwise, this series could be over in as soon as five games.

If there’s anything to be positive about, the Lakers got trounced pretty well in the first road game of their series against Utah and San Antonio.

And the Lakers can’t possibly miss that many open shots in Game Two, right?

Right?

Tags: boston celtics, colorado rockies, los angeles dodgers, los angeles lakers, matt kemp, yorvit torrealba by Peter
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