Sportoberfest!

October is always a fun month in sports.  NFL kicks into high gear and the MLB playoffs start. It is pretty much the only month when baseball is relevant and must-watch TV. I follow baseball and keep an eye on it all season long, but I almost never watch an entire game or even a couple of innings straight on TV during the regular season.  I am sure I am less engaged with MLB because the teams I care about, the Oakland A’s and the Arizona Diamondbacks, have not been great the last few years, though the DBacks did have a good season and made the playoffs this year.  But even otherwise, I am just not sure who watches regular season MLB games on TV religiously anymore. There are several reasons for that. The game doesn’t have great stars since the previous generation has left the building and the next generation stars like Mike Trout and Bryce Harper have not been in the biggest of stages or won consistently yet. As much as I didn’t like the Yankee dynasty, the lack of a dominant team like them also hurts the league. Love them or hate them, it turns out we need teams like the Yankees and the Patriots and the Warriors.

Also, I feel like our entertainment choices and consumption patterns have changed even compared to just 5 years back and I can’t imagine people sitting on their couch and watching baseball games uninterrupted these days. If we already had way too many TV channels 10 years back, now we have way too many entertainment platforms, each with multiple binge watching “channels” or options. The net-net of it all is, baseball as a sport is in trouble and is becoming less and less culturally relevant. I do have to say the macro-economic numbers from MLB tells us a different story. They are raking in more money than ever before and the player salaries are sky rocketing as always. Last I heard, the stadium attendance might be going up too and even the TV numbers are not alarming in anyway . Of course, the Cubs playing an amazing 7-game World Series last year helps TV ratings, though the league can’t count on a storyline like that every year.  MLB has been lucky this year too as they got the Yankees, Astros, Dodgers, and the Cubs in the Championship series. That’s 4 of the largest TV markets in the country.

Despite all of that high-level data, there is something off with baseball and it just doesn’t feel like the sport of the future. It doesn’t have the star power of the NBA or the gambling stranglehold of the NFL. With all that said, the MLB playoffs are always watchable and fun. The drama and the level of competition are top-notch. You can’t take your eyes off a Clayton Kershaw versus Dallas Keuchel matchup in the playoffs when a single pitch or a hit can decide the game. Having a likeable superstar like Jose Altuve in the World Series is a huge plus too. Maybe he should be the next big star the game should be pushing. I totally expect the Astros to win this World Series, though the Dodgers are probably more talented on the pitching side. It will be a great story for Houston after the devastating hurricane. I wouldn’t mind a long and exciting World Series given that these really are the only MLB games I have watched all season.

What makes this October especially special is the early start of the NBA season. Right now, we have all three leagues in-season plus College football and the NHL if you care. There are only a handful dates in the history when we have had all 3 pro leagues in action. It’s usually in late October or early November when the World Series is wrapping up and the NBA is starting off. But now, we are having several such days thanks to the NBA schedule change. I do wonder if the early start of the NBA is affecting the World Series ratings. You can’t complain during a week like this one when you can go from Monday Night football to World Series games on Tuesday and Wednesday to a NBA double header on TNT Thursday night back to World Series on Friday and wrap the week up with college football on Saturday and NFL on Sunday. Of course, I left out several other NBA games one could have watched through the week, not to mention the usually unwatchable Thursday Night football. In any case, mucho options for us sports fans! Let’s drink it all in while it lasts.

Captain Obvious here: Klay can play!

I have had a busy few weeks and missed blogging. When you take a break like that, you would like to come back with a big bang sports story. I can't believe I missed even the Cubs' championship (more on that later). Or the NBA season, the Warriors, and Russell Westbrook. And then there are the great NFL games that I have missed blogging about the last few weeks. But today, Klay Thompson gave us all a great story on a drab late-fall, early-winter Monday night that featured a horrible 41-10 MNF game between the mediocre Colts with a great quarterback and the horrible Jets with a quarterback who can be mediocre at his best. Klay Thompson dropped 60 points in 29 minutes. His average points per minute in this game was almost as high as Wilt Chamberlain's in his 100-point game.

The Warriors are playing great right now and their offense is so fluid and effortless with the addition of Durant to the already lethal shooting combo of Klay and Curry. Things have come together real well, especially on the offensive side and the most surprising thing so far has been how the big 3 have had to sacrifice very little in terms of their shots and points. The big 3 have been close to their average number of shots from last year and that has to be good news for the team's chemistry. But tonight, they all deferred to Klay as he was in one of his zones. It reminded me of the game 6 in the Western Conference Finals last year against Durant's OKC or the regular season game couple of years back when he scored 37 in the third quarter against the Kings. He is as combustible as the other 2 MVPs in his team and I am glad his offense can still shine brightly under the new regime.

The early returns suggest the dubs have absolutely nailed the Durant addition and the offense is working just as they drew it up. This team can only get better, though none of this matters until they get to June. They are the presumptive Western Conference champions and the same goes for the Cavs in the East. The Cavs are playing great to justify such expectations as well. The Clippers and the Spurs are the other impressive teams and as always, the Western conference playoffs are going to be off the chains as kids used to say 15 years back. As for the NBA regular season, the dubs will keep us entertained. There are two other noteworthy individual performances to keep a close eye on. Russell Westbrook just got his 6th straight triple double and he could very well average a triple double for the entire season. That would be amazing to say the least.

The other surprising NBA stat of the young season is James Harden leading the league in assists. Mike D'Antoni has converted him into a point guard and it seems to be working wonderfully so far with Harden scoring a tonne as usual, but also dropping dimes in addition. I am curious to see if Harden can keep the assists going. NBA is going to give us a lot to talk about this winter and spring. Tonight belonged to Klay. Even the 10-2 Raiders who were at the game had to take a picture with Klay after his 60 point performance. East Bay right now has a lot of good sports going on. The Raiders somehow found the time to take in a Warriors game despite their short week leading into the huge Thursday night game in Kansas City. But who can blame them. The Warriors have been must-see TV for a couple of years and are now graduating to can't-miss TV.  The Warriors game at Clippers on Wednesday and the Raiders game against the Chiefs on Thursday are both can't-miss events this week.

I did miss blogging about several events in the last several weeks and can't possibly touch them all to catchup. But I do want to give a shutout to the Chicago Cubs for winning an amazing World Series in 7 games and destroying the curse of the billy goat. There is so much to write about the World Series, but the story for me is the Cubs President of baseball operations, Theo Epstein. It's time to put this guy in the Hall of Fame already. For him to cure almost 100-year curses in 2 major baseball cities and deliver championships to both Boston and Chicago is unbelievable. He did what he was hired to do in Chicago and he did it in exactly 5 years. The dude never has to pay for a drink in both Chicago and Boston ever and deservedly so. How does he top this? May be switch sports and win a championship for the Clippers or Knicks or the Cleveland Browns! And he might just do it.

In Billy we trust!

The Oakland Athletics have the best record in the Major leagues. They have won the AL West two years in a row and are looking even better this year. In 2012, they won the division with a nail-biting series at the end to put the heavily favored Texas Rangers away after the Rangers had gotten all the way to the World Series the previous two years. Nobody, even in the Bay Area, knew any of the players on the A's roster at that time. It was perceived as an amazing run locally and a fluke nationally. Last year, the A's won the division a little more comfortably, but they were still an anonymous team nationally and the local fans had barely gotten used to these guys. The national media was a little confused as to what to make of this team. There were no superstars, but the pitching was deep and terrific and the team just kept winning and surprising everybody. They proved 2012 was no fluke and that they are legit. Of course, both seasons, they lost to the more celebrated, higher-payroll, star-studded Detroit Tigers team in the ALDS in a five game series though they won the division over the more celebrated, higher-payroll, star-studded Angels and the Rangers. They came into 2014 with decent expectations - even nationally, and have been better than expected.

The 2014 A's have broken through. And Billy Beane went all in last week when he traded for Jeff Samardzija, one of the most sought after pitchers on the trade block. He did mortgage the future a little bit by trading his can't miss shortstop prospect Addison Russell, but he signaled finally that he wants to win the World Series and he is right in the middle of the window to do it. It may not have been a coincidence that the trade came right after a sweep at Detroit, but it was a coup nonetheless. A's were not rumored to be in the running for Samardzija, but they scored him early and comfortably. Billy decided to fortify a starting rotation that has already looked stellar so far. You could tell he was a little concerned about some of these arms - some young and some retread, slowing down later in the season. So he infused some new star arms into to mix. The pitching is so strong that the guy he demoted to the minors to create roster space was Tommy Milone, who had just pitched 6 scoreless innings! Billy is clearly getting ready for late October and he may not be done wheeling and dealing. He knows that Detroit will be around and their stars - both power hitters and pitchers, have to be neutralized. He now has the pitching to compete in any series against anyone and I love it.

The A's have often added to their teams mid-season when they were in contention. But usually, it's a rental for the remainder of the season and mostly hitters or bullpen help. Billy has rarely added a star starting pitcher via a trade and this has been a pleasant surprise to the A's fans. Samardzija started for the A's right away and gave them a gem of a start to go with a win. So life is all good in Oakland right now. Between their best record in the league, consistent winning over the last three years, Cespedes' highlight reel throws to the plate, and now the Samardzija trade, they are not anonymous anymore. The league knows them well and they have six dudes in the all-star game. They will be the fancy pick to win it all, though the Angels are breathing down their neck for the division. Billy has always maintained, I might add rightfully so, that the MLB playoffs are a crapshoot. Given his low payroll, all he can do is get them there and the rest is just luck and a pitcher or two getting hot or cold at the right moment. But this year, he has decided to do something about the crapshoot. He wants to go in with a bevy of hot pitchers and increase his odds of one of theoe guys getting hot and shutting some fools down in October. Thats exactly what he is going for.

Moneyball is so year 2000, but this team the last three years has been Billy's masterpiece and more impressive than even those moneyball teams. The A's have the fourth lowest payroll in the league and have been out-performing the big money spenders as always. The moneyball concepts have been co-opted by every other team and is nothing unique anymore. So Billy has found other ways to exploit market inefficiencies - he had to. He is loaded with pitching as always and some great signings and trades are behind it.  But platooning is the specialty of this version of the A's - the new moneyball if you will. The A's matchup their hitters against pitchers and rotate them in and out. The lack of stars gives them more flexibility to do this. Not only does it help the team to platoon these guys, it also puts them in the best position to succeed. Just to illustrate the point, they sometimes start three catchers. Aside from pitcher Scott Kazmir, outfielder Yoenis Cespedes, and now Samardzija, the other A's all-stars are third baseman Josh Donaldson, catcher Derek Norris, first baseman/outfielder Brandon Moss, and closer Sean Doolittle. Thats an impressive list of no-name stars who get the job done. It's just a matter of time before this platooning approach becomes the new fad and A's front office dudes like David Forst and Farhan Zaidi get GM jobs elsewhere, but Billy is trying to win one before all that happens. All he needs is just one World Series ring to cement his legacy as one of the best GMs ever and I hope he gets it done this year.

Mid-season blues

The New York Giants and the Minnesota Vikings played a horrible Monday Night game tonight. Usually, the Thursday night games are bad, but this one was worse. Somebody had to win this one and the Giants did to wrap up week 7. The real story of this week was injuries. It's that time of the season when bodies are sore, legs are weak and minds are tired. Guys - both superstars and no-namers, went down all over the place yesterday. Sam Bradford, Reggie Wayne, Brian Cushing, and possibly Doug Martin are all out for the season. Jay Cutler, Nick Foles, Jermichael Finley, Lance Briggs, and Arian Foster also went out and I am sure I am missing some other names. This shows how violent this sport is despite all the rule changes and softening of the blows. It does pain me to watch these guys get hurt. But thats the reality of the NFL.

As for the games, Colts welcomed Peyton Manning back to town in what was the game of the week. Despite all the chatter from their blabbering owner Jim Irsay leading up to the game, the Colts welcomed Manning with class and treated him well at the game. But Andrew Luck showed why Manning is in Denver and not in Indy anymore. Luck is the real deal. His maturity and skill-set is better than most 10-year vets and he looks as close to being the next Peyton Manning as anybody ever has. Plus, he is more athletic and can make some things happen with his legs. Out of all the young-uns, Luck and Russel Wilson look like the most complete talent. It was a real impressive win for the young Colts. They are 5-2 and have already beaten the Seahawks, Niners, and now the Broncos. I have no idea how and why they lost to the Dolphins and the Chargers. The only bad thing for Luck and the Colts was the bad pass he threw to Reggie Wayne, who was wide-open, but had to bend down and twist trying to catch the ball and ended up with a season-ending injury untouched. I am sure Luck is beating himself up over that today pass. But this Colts team is going places both this season and in the future.

The Kansas City Chiefs are the only unbeaten team in the league. I can't wait for the Chiefs-Broncos division games. This used to be THE rivalry back in the John Elway days. The rivalry is back now. In the NFC, the Niners are hitting their groove and look like a true contender finally. The Seahawks will be there at the end too and thats the other division rivalry that has super bowl implications written all over it. The NFL season is rolling into shape, but let's hope injuries don't derail the flow of some of these teams. It wouldn't hurt to see a new team or two contend as well. Teams like the Patriots don't look as dominant as they used to and thats a good thing. Speaking of New England, the World Series is here and fittingly, it features two of the most baseball crazy cities in the country - St. Louis and Boston. This series might go 7 and Boston takes it. I want Saint Louis to win, but I don't think a NL team can do a lot of damage at Fenway park.

Giant Pitching

The typical post-season script in baseball reads "pitching wins championships". It may not play out that way every year, but the San Francisco Giants definitely stuck to the script in these playoffs. The Giants have now won 2 out of the last 3 World Series and one more in the next 2 years, we will be using the D word - dynasty. They are already in the New York Yankees territory. In roughly the last decade (since 2002), the Giants have been to 3 World Series and that's one more than any other team including the Yankees. They were clearly powered by their pitching in 2010, led by Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain, carrying a sub-par offense which came alive a little bit during the post-season. This season was different, almost weird. The Giants pitching was still good, but the dominating ace we expected in Tim Lincecum was nowhere to be found the entire season. In fact, he ended up in the bullpen for the post-season while Barry Zito was named a starter. That was something we could have never guessed 6 months back. The pitching staff still had enough bullets even with a mediocre Lincecum, but all of them seemed to slip up and struggle a little towards the end of the regular season. Their offense was not stellar, but they scored a few more runs in the 2012 regular season than 2010, though with the help of far fewer home runs.

The Giants looked shaky because of these reasons going into the playoffs and they promptly fell behind 0-2 against the Reds after 2 home games. They then came back and shocked the Reds by winning 3 straight. They again fell behind 3-1 to the Cardinals and that's when things shifted decisively in the Giants favor. Barry Zito, of all people, was slated to start the elimination game on the road. After giving the Giants close to nothing in 6 long, expensive years, Zito inexplicably shut the Cardinals down. The Giants never look back from that point on. Their pitching took off from there as every starter wanted to and believed he could do what Zito did. Beginning with that Zito start in Saint Louis, the Giants pitched 4 shutouts in 6 games and gave up just 1 run in another game during that stretch. Ryan Vogelsong recaptured his form and was dominant throughout the playoffs and the rest of the rotation joined him at different points led by Zito. When Detroit rolled into town for the World Series, they were punched in the mouth by a pitching staff that was nasty at the start, nastier at the end with their closer Sergio Romo and everywhere in-between via their stellar bullpen. The big, bad Detroit lineup just looked fat and out of shape in this series as triple crown winner and potential AL MVP Miguel Cabrera hit .231 and Prince Fielder hit .071.

The Giants survived a strange season and a mediocre Tim Lincecum. They survived losing closer Brian Wilson at the start of the season and Melkey Cabrera to steroids in the middle of the season. They survived all the money spent by their division rival Los Angeles Dodgers and crazy trades. They survived 6 elimination games - 4 of them on the road, and a triple crown winning opponent in the World Series. Buster Posey can now say "I win the World Series if I play more than 100 games in a season, period!" He turned their 2010 season around and was a big part of that World Series run. He will probably win the NL MVP this season and the Giants have another ring. Buster got hurt and played in only 45 games in 2011 and the Giants promptly missed the playoffs. Posey is the real deal. For all the talk of Brian Sabean not drafting a decent position player, he might have found a hall of famer in this guy. I am happy for Sabean. As an A's fan, there is no question in my mind that Billy Beane is the best GM in the league. But I have always believed the Bay Area is home to the best 2 GMs in the entire league. I am glad Sabean has been vindicated twice in the last 3 years after a long wait. I am also happy for Ex-A's and Beane find Marco Scutaro. He stood tall and carried the Giants in the NLCS. Great team work, great season. Congrats to the San Francisco Giants.

Hallf Of Fame Mess

Tony La Russa is a hall of famer and by all accounts, a smart guy. He lost some credibility when he got busted for DUI a few years back and couldn't recite the alphabets in order, but that's neither here nor there. I guess we can let a little DUI go when the resume is as impressive as La Russa's. He has been a very successful baseball lifer who is smart and unique with his strategies. He also does a lot of good things off the field like his work with animal rights groups. But yesterday's game 5 of the world series was a disaster for Tony. Good for him that he is a hall of famer. If the other manager, Ron Washington had been involved in this mess, the baseball experts would have buried him alive. The Texas-St. Louis world series is getting bad TV ratings as expected, but Tony might be reviving the interest all by himself with some crazy controversies.

Speaking of TV ratings, baseball ratings are obviously down and it's a fascinating fact that 14 million people watched game 1 and that's less than half of the 30 million people who watched the world series in 1971. That sounds like a bad stat if you think about the almost 100 million people added to our population since then and the millions of additional HD TV sets in circulation today compared to the seventies. But the context has changed too. We have 700 channels today and people's TV watching habits have changed considerably. So 14 million is not bad and the interesting stat that proves this point is, the world series in 71 was the eighth highest rated TV show that year and guess what! The 8-Th highest rated TV show in 2010 was the World Series as well. We just watch TV differently these days. It's a fragmented audience.

Anyways, the story of the world series right now is the bullpen communication issue ad the phone fiasco. The Cardinals could not get the right pitchers up and ready in the bullpen and every time Tony went to the mound to replace the pitcher in the critical 8-Th inning, he seemed to get the wrong guy sent. It sounds bizarre to say the least and Tony called it embarrassing. Apparently he asked for Motte on the phone and the bullpen coach heard it as Lynn. That's the only explanation. How amazing that a championship game in a 7 billion dollar industry was decided by a bad telephone call? Sometimes in life, crap happens, especially when people instead of machines are involved. But for La Russ and the Cards, these bad mistakes happened at the most inappropriate time yesterday.

There was also another issue with a bad hit-and-run call that apparently Pujols called himself. That's not looking good for Tony right now either. We are learning new things now even in this day and age of 24-hour sports TV and radio where every angle is analyzed a million times daily. Apparently, it's pretty common to have star players call their own hit-and-run sometimes and that's exactly what Pujols did - at the wrong time in this case of course. Also, it's apparently common to have bad phone connection and communication issues with the bullpen. We just don't care enough to learn about all that unless it's the world series. In any case, the Cardinals are now going back home trailing 2-3. They still got 2 games at home and I expect them to push this to game 7 if not win it in 7. It's been an interesting world series so far despite the lack of widespread interest among fans.

In the NFL, it was not a great weekend of football across the league last weekend. The national TV games were horrible as if to help the world series with it's TV rating. Baltimore and Jacksonville forgot how to play offense Monday night and the Sunday night game between the Colts and the Saints looked like one of those college pre-season games between a football superpower and a no-name school - Ohio State V Youngstown State or something. Who wins a pro game 62-7? And these 2 teams were in the Super Bowl less than 22 months back. I have always said (and blogged) that the best examples for the term "franchise player" you can ever find are Michael Jordan, Peyton Manning and Tim Duncan. LeBron too was going to be that guy in Cleveland before he took his talents to South Beach.

Peyton is now proving this point with his absence. The perennial power Colts are 0-7 and all they are missing is this one guy named Peyton Manning. How (franchise) player is that? May be Colts got a little older, may be some talent left, may be their offensive and defensive lines have regressed in ways that the average fan usually can't detect, but there is no way this team is a sub-500 team with Manning, let alone a 0-7 team. That's how great that guy is and quarterbacks are that important in the NFL. Not only is he affecting the Colts, he has single handedly destroyed NBC's TV ratings twice already. They have had 2 unwatchable Sunday night games that they couldn't get out of and those 2 would have been major "blockbusters" if only Manning was playing. The only positive coming out of this for the Colts fans may be that they luck into Luck - Andrew Luck.