Other Blogs I read

I thought I would take today's entry and talk about some of the blogs or forums that I like to read/watch. Now a lot of them are Wisconsin-centric, but if your from Wisconsin they should be.

• Rattler Radio (http://rattlerradio.mlblogs.com). This blog is one of my personal favorites to read. This blog is maintained by Chris Mehring who is a great radio announcer for the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers (Class A of the Milwaukee Brewers). This blog is just not about a current promotion of the team or a recent event. This blog is everything about the Timber Rattlers past, present and future. Chris provides good commentary about the team each day during the season including spring training and in the off season providing a look back from the previous years in baseball in Appleton. I hope to be writing some posts about Chris and the Timber Rattlers next season

• BrewerFan.net (http://forum.brewerfan.net/). This blog provides a great place to find out all Brewer information from the Brewers and the minor league teams. This forum does not "doll" up the information. Some of the information on the rest of the site can be outdated, but the forum is kept pretty much up to date and is a good read.

• Ben's Biz Blog (http://bensbiz.mlblogs.com). In this blog, this guy goes traveling around to other minor league stadiums. I like this blog since this person not only writes about his experiences at the game, but the journey to get to the game. The places he stopped at while traveling, sites he saw, the places he ate along with the operations of the minor league club. This blog is the complete minor league journey in one spot.

• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/brewers.html, http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/packers.html, http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/badgers.html). This is your typical hometown blogs you would expect from any major city. They provide good coverage of the local teams along with real time blogging for the Badgers and Packers. For breaking news for the Brewers, Badgers and Packers, this is my place to go.

• NFC North Blog (http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcnorth). If you are working for ESPN, you should be good, but that is not the point with this blog. Kevin Seifert does a good job covering all that is the NFC North. He provides good content about the games going on Sunday along with reporting during the week.

• Close Call Sports (Formally Umpire Ejection League, http://www.closecallsports.com/). I started following this site when they use to only cover MLB umpire ejections, but has expanded to other sports including technical fouls in the NBA. They provide a good in site for each MLB ejection and takes a closer look in season at the MLB rules.

Some NBA players need a reality check

Another set of Christmas games done for another years but not without players complaining that they should not have to play so they can spend time with their families. Now I'm not against people being with the ones they love for the holiday's but I'm getting tired of NBA players wanting their cake and eating it too.

Ron Artest (Metta World Peace) decides to let everybody know his discontent for playing on Christmas as many other players have said in the past. The thing NBA players forget is playing on Christmas is where the money is for the TV networks, teams, players and sponsors. Without that money, they can not get paid as much as they want to get paid.

TV networks are able to put their premier games on Christmas with the maximum audience which generates the most sponsorship money, teams can fill their seating on this day and sell their merchandise, players get maximum exposure to sponsors or possible sponsorship opportunity. Sometimes based on your profession, you need to suck it up and do things that your not quite fond of or want to do. My father always had to work during the Forth of July for while the machines were shut down. That meant that we never got to go to any fireworks shows, but that was the fact I had to accept growing up.

It is time for the NBA players to stop acting like they have no common sense do what they do best, play basketball. I know today this is a shorter post, but the items in life that should be common sense should not take many words to state.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all and all a good night.

December 21

Today is the "supposed" end the world according to the Myan's, but yet I'm still here. Oh darn, I guess I need to go to work.

Snow

Snow, Snow and more snow today

Up and Coming Brewers Minor Leaguers

In this post I would like to highlight a few minor league players in the Brewers system I will be watching for the upcoming 2013 minor league season. This is just my opinion and is not based on any other thing than my thoughts:

1. Hiram Burgos: This guy has rapidly progressed through the Brewers farm system to the point, with a good season in AAA, could be pitching with the big club. The key with Hiram will be consistency. Can he string together a series of starts that prove he is ready for the Major Leagues?
2. Hunter Morris: When the Brewers drafted Morris, they sent him directly to the Timber Rattlers. I'm honored to have see him play in person and knew that they had somebody special. The only concern at the time was Prince Fielder was playing first base, but guess what no Prince. It will be interesting how he plays this year and if he gets a shot at the major leagues.
3. Drew Gagnon: This pitcher seems to be the player that nobody is talking about, or I'm just not looking in the right places. I have also seen this guy pitch in person and I was impressed. He has a low 90's fastball with a good breaking slider. Success in Low A Appleton did translate to High A Brevard County. Where he ends up this year is all up to him.
4. Scooter Gennett: When first looking at this guy, I thought he was small, but fast for a second baseman, but this guy has progress well.
5. Jason Rogers: This guy has great power, good doubles power. The only issue I see with Rogers is his tendency to swing wildly.
6. Johnny Hellweg: A pickup in the Greinke deal, this guy needs to be able to put together consistent starts to move up the Brewers system. A good Arizona Fall League season for Hellweg has put him on the right track.
7. Khris Davis: I saw him play a couple of years ago in Appleton and he had good power. Since then, he has developed nicely playing in AAA at the end of the season.
8. Taylor Jungmann: This pitcher started out on fire last year, but cooled off as the season progressed. To progress, Jungmann needs to show more consistency as he gave up more than 1 hit per inning pitched.
9. Josh Prince: This is the wild card in the bunch I'm watching. This guy had a good AFL season, but with an up and down batting average, 2013 should show if Josh is the real deal.
10. Lance Roenicke: This guy started in Helena and got off to a red hot start. Then he was transferred to Appleton and also got off to a good start before cooling off at the end to a near frost. 2013 for Roenicke will show if he has the ability to bounce back and progressive up the farm sys

I have extremely grateful for the MILB.TV to be able to watch the majority of these players. It is well worth the price.

More Conference Realignment, has everybody gone crazy?

I just recently posted about conference realignment here, but it appears that we are not done yet. Now the Non-FBS football school of the Big East have a problem with the current alignment of the teams in the conference, so what do you do? Start a new conference. A new conference with new teams and knowing with how things are going, the seven breakaway teams will probably accept inventions to other conferences and additional teams will need to be found for the breakaway seven.

Has everybody gone crazy? Yes. Is there a way to end the craziness? Yes. Do I think that anybody will do anything about conference realignment? No. It's time to do something about all this conference realignment, the straw that broke the camels back for me was when TCU left the Big East conference before even leaving the conference they were in currently.

There is so much moving so fast, people are going to lose focus and just give up watching. NASCAR went through a similar kind of issue back in the early 2000's and still occurs today. Up and through the early 2000's, drivers and teams were easily identifiable year after year. You knew that Rusty Wallace always drove the #2 Miller Genuine Draft//Miller Lite car, Terry Labonte drove the #5 Kellogg's car, Ricky Rudd drove the #10 Tide car. I could go on forever, but the point is, that drivers, teams and sponsors were changing even if the car was successful. This made NASCAR confusing, at least for me, to follow since there was little to no consistency. This is one of many reasons that I barley watch NASCAR now.

The college conferences are going the route of NASCAR, people can not identify with their conference, the teams have no chance to build up rivalry, when conference games are played, they are just another game. The conference names do not even identify with the teams that are in them, Boise State will play in the Big East?

My solution, a sort of draft like thing needs to occur. Just have a draft of all the Division 1 teams and agree not to move for five years. Then, set a ceiling on the number teams in a conference so that the Big 10 does not turn back into the Big 14 as it will now. Another idea would be to break all the Division 1 schools into regions, then you will not have Boise State playing East coast teams in conference.

Whatever the solution is, someone needs to stabilize the ship in conference realignment before the fans start tuning out.

Finley, Shut Up!

It is said "Least said soonest mended". Apparently that phase lost on Packers Tight End Jermichael Finley when he stated that the Bears were better off without "Slow Urlacher". This statement continue a long list of statements that make you want to clamp Finley's mouth shut. When he keeps his mouth shut or is injured, the Packers are successful, when he is yapping, the Packers seem to struggle amidst the additional attention he draw. On top of that, it seems that he has trouble grasping the concept of catching the ball after he has opened his mouth.

The sad thing is, this guy has the talent, but he tries to run before he can walk. He has a Sterling Sharpe complex, he wants the ball, he wants the attention, but he can not deliver the consistence performance required out of a superstar. To matters worse, he rips or comments on everybody from his own teammates to players on other teams. In the NFL today, teams are usually already all fired up, Finley just likes giving them additional motivation.

Finley does not get it, follow the flow and everybody wins. When Finley was injured a couple of years ago and was out for the rest of the season, what happened.... We won the Super Bowl. When the grand champion of getting attention, Sterling Sharpe got injured in Week 17 in 1994 what happened.... We won the Super Bowl two years later. Keeping the distractions down along with getting on a hot streak near the end of the season generally leads to success in the NFL playoffs.

If Finley wants to help the team he needs to catch the ball and keep the big ole yapper shut!

Today is 12-12-12

Happy Aaron Rodgers day everybody!

Amazing Race: Did Josh and Brent deserve to win?

I'm going to deviate from my usual posting that deal with sports related thoughts and talk about the Amazing Race finally that occur Sunday. Josh/Brent, Goat Farmers from New York won the million dollar prize for finishing first ahead of the Chippendale's and Trey/Lexi.

Many people are already asking if they deserved to win since they had not won any legs prior to the final and spent most of the race in the back of the pack. My answer is yes, they are deserving winners.... They came in first in the final leg, that makes them deserving winners. It does not matter how you get there as long as you play by the rules.

This is no different than in NASCAR when a driver wins on the final lap without leading any other laps? Do you hear the announcer say "He really did not win since he only led the last lap. In football, if the other team scores with no time left and that was the only time they led, do they not deserve to win? It does not matter how you got there, just that you got there. Josh and Brent did what they needed to do to win the race and that is all.

Someone said once "When you see a bear, you do not need to the be the fastest person, you just need to outrun the slowest person". Josh and Brent employed this motto on the race, a technique that rarely works. I said rarely works, not never works. They were able to come in second to last six times (if I did my math correct) in the race.

If the Chippendale's or Trey/Lexi would have won, people would have said they wanted someone other than Mactor's (Model-Actors) winning the race. Two normal people won the race and people are all up in arms, I get the feeling that people want nobody to the win the race, that way there are no complains.

I have watched all 21 seasons of the Amazing Race and I think what separates the teams that win the race now verses the teams that won in the early seasons where the number of countries visited, number of days spent in one country, number of tasks and the number of miles traveled. Teams in the early seasons had to do more to win and I think people can not get over the fact that teams do less to win the top prize. People also got a warped sense of what real teams were when more stars were added to the show starting with Rob and Amber in Season 7. Prior to that season, all the teams were normal people like Josh and Brent, back then people did not complain a peep.

The glory days have pasted for the Amazing Race, the reality show era in prime time television is just about over. Television stations are not doling out as  much to reality shows as when the Amazing Race first started, but the Amazing Race has survived in the Sunday night slot. We now spend more days in large countries to account for that, but the Amazing Race has some years left and I look forward to watching them all. This show needs more Josh/Brent type of players, the normal common person, that is how the show got started and that is who they should rely on for the future seasons.

Josh/Brent.... Deserving winners?  In my mind.... YES! They came in first, they deserved the million.

Packers Running Game

Was it me or did the Packers running game actually look competent in the second half against the Detroit Lions?

New kickoff rules and the insane

The other day the media was reporting on some of new proposals to make the NFL safer for the players in the game. The only thought that ran through my head was if there was gas leak in the NFL office's.

The two ideas being talked about are eliminating kickoff or the wild 4th and 15 idea. I have similar opinions on the two options that were proposed.... They both suck.

These ideas are not about the so called "player safety" , but more about Roger Goodell trying to prevent another uprising in 30 years when former NFL players playing today would Sue since they can not remember why they are standing the bathroom. Players then and players then should have known inherently that bashing into each other has its side effects. Injuries are a part of the game and especially in light of the recent head injury developments, there should be no ignorance by players that what they do now will affect them later in life.

I also believe that Goodell is thinking long term when making these tougher "player safety" rules. If he can reduce the number of head injuries, then reduces the healthcare costs for NFL players after they have retired, therefore helping the NFL's bottom line in the long term future. I have no proof of this, but the whole basis of the recent legal action is about head injuries.

Another angle I have thought about was that few to no star players ever play on special teams, especially on kickoffs, that eliminating kickoff also allows the elimination of players that generally only played special teams. This could reduce the additional costs that come with players that only play about 5 to 6 times a game. This increasing the revenue of each team is something I'm sure the NFL owners would not mind.

The game has become too technical, too many rules, to much for officials to process. The spirit of the game is lost, and if any of these new proposals go through in their current form or in a similar form, the game could decline, the excitement could diminish, fans might turn something else that peaks their interest and the NFL could lose the popularity they work so hard to achieve.    

Conference Realignment: Make it Stop!!!

Any year and another swath of colleges changing conferences which causes other teams to move to fill the vacated teams. Rutgers and Maryland to the Big Ten. Louisville to the ACC, Syracuse to the ACC and...... it goes on and on forever with the list of schools changing conferences more than stock prices.

At what point will this end? Maybe never. At this point I see this occurring years after year until someone steps in and suspends all changes for a set amount of time. When? Maybe when we have the PAC-24 (PAC-12 today), Big 32 (Big 10 today), Big Coast East of the Mississippi (A combination of the Big East and ACC today), MCC: Mid Country Conference (MAC today) someone will step in and stop all changes.

Personally, I'm not surprised that Conference leaders have not tried to bring in schools from FCS(Division 1-AA) for Football up to the conferences that are short handed, plus attempt to bring schools from Division 2 to fill the void. If that were to occur, then Division 3 school would have to fill the void of Division 2 schools and Division 3 would cease to exist. With this logic, in about 75 years the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point(Currently a Division 3 school) would be playing USC in Football since all colleges would all be Division 1 schools.

It is time for someone to stand up and stay "No More!" to all these changes and allow the dust to settle and the games be played.

Parra Finally Gone

On Friday, the Brewers decided not to tender an offer for pitcher Manny Parra. With that, that should end the career with the team he showed so much promise. He threw a perfect game while in Nashville back in 2007, but that appears to have been the beginning of the end of this left handed pitchers time in Milwaukee.

Parra never had "The Pitch" needed to get out of situations which resulted in walk after walk, hit after hit, home run after home run. Melvin likes to fall in love with certain players, thinking that with additional time he will be vindicated, but it seems like that rarely works.

I'm glad that we got rid of Parra, he was not going to get any better with the Brewers and was just going to be a target for the fans taunts and boo's.

I hope Melvin goes out and fines a quality left handed pitcher and not another teams leftovers that could not cut the mustard.

Goodbye Bret: Prepare to struggle

Tuesday it was announced that Wisconsin head football coach and all around target for criticism, Bret Bielema was leaving for Arkansas. Nobody was happier to hear about this news was myself who has been writing about removing Bielema here, here, here, and here plus I have been complaining about Bielema long before starting this blog. His winning was built on easy non-conference schedules, Indiana, a downturn in the Minnesota program and some poor decisions by other teams. Finally we rid ourselves of the coach that was driving the program into the ground and we can move on with new improved ideas. Plus anybody we hire should be able to make a decision in a close game closer than Bielema did

With Bielema there were too many close games or games that were closer than they should have been. Too many blown opportunities to keep, too many close losses to have faith in the Wisconsin football program. With Ohio State coming off their probation and Penn State in four years, there was little to no chance for success since the road to Indy would go through both of these school. Both programs are rejuvenated and winning, a combination that does not prove well for Bielema.

For as inept as I have said Bret is, him moving to another school was probably one of the smarter ideas he thought of in some time. Bielema saw the writing on the wall, he knew that dark days were ahead for the Wisconsin football program. Bad recruiting was catching up to him and games in which we would be battling Indiana at the bottom were in the near future. The biggest signal of issues to come was no established Quarterback for next season since his "free agent" pickup did not pan out. Another area of concern, that I have talked about before, was at Wide Reviver. After Jared Abbrederis, there is nobody that can fill the role of wide receiver, nobody. Other positions lacking due to Bielema horrible recruiting were:

• Tight End - We have no true tight end's. We have converted Fullbacks to Tight Ends
• Fullback - We have converted Linebackers for Fullbacks
• Linebacker
• Cornerback
• Safety
• Kicker
• Punter

With all these area deficit in top talent, it was time to move on to another school before his winning reputation, built with his cupcake schedules, is tarnished and any chance of a big payday was gone. His last decisions at Wisconsin was his best decision... leave

Bielema was come into the Arkansas program with so much hype and so much talk. When hired at Wisconsin, he took over a top notch program, at Arkansas he takes over a 4-8 program. Bielema flourished on the easy opponents, at Arkansas, he will be the easy opponent. Arkansas will be what Wisconsin was going towards, just accelerated by 5 years, near the bottom of the SEC. In Wisconsin, college football comes third behind the Packers and Brewers. In Arkansas, college football is first, second, third and fourth. There is nothing to deflect the attention of people in the Razorback state, no other professional sports for people to change the channel too. All eyes will be on Bielema and if you do not win, you pay the price.

Teams like Alabama and LSU have just marked their calendar with a "W". They do not fall into all the big talk that comes with Bret, they know how to recruit and how to win the close games. Bret had trouble with Michigan State, he is going to have real trouble with Alabama, LSU, Texas A&M and all the other big names of the SEC. The issues will be amplified and Bret will have no way out.

With this move this is a chance for the Wisconsin program to move on and correct the issues that have plagued the program for the last seven years. It will be interesting to see how each program comes out in the end, but I'm glad the Bielema era is over!

Big Fine for Spurs; What a Joke

Friday, the master and commander of the NBA David Stern has decided if you don't play the lineup he wants when she says so, you pay the consequences. A $250,000 fine for not playing the right players in a game the Spurs almost won against the Heat.

In general, I have agreed with the way Stern has run the NBA making it one of the largest commercialized sports leagues. I have agreed with how he has expanded the number of teams, cleaning up the image with the Dress Code and the policies in cleaning up flopping. The fine set by Mr. Stern sets a different tone for the league, sit the wrong player the wrong night and pay the price.

His logic is it was not in the best interest of the league, the people paid to see the top players and this was the only time the Spurs were visiting Miami. It makes you wonder what will be next for fines? Don't play Lebron or Kobe at least 40 minutes and get fined? Don't play Kobe at the Shooting Guard but at Power Forward and incur another fine since the people were paying to see him play Shooting Guard?

Additional reasoning for fining the Spurs, whether Stern wants to say it or not, was due to the game being on "National Television". In today's televise everything climate in sports today, there is no such thing as National Television. People now only follow their local team because they can with most to all games on some local TV station. Going back 30 to 40 years ago, in order to get your fix of basketball, you had to rely on the National TV game, but those rules do not apply today. While I don't have numbers to back this up, I bet the only people that were watching that game were mostly fans of the Spurs or Heat.

Teams in other sports sit players all the time without the fear of their commissioner. Bud Selig should be fining the heck out of MLB teams when they traditionally play their backup players on Sunday day game or do not call on a bench player/bullpen pitcher on any given night. Same concept, would not the fan have purchased the tickets with the understanding that their favorite player(s) might not be playing that day. In the NFL, teams that have cinched playoff positions have rested players in front of the playoff with no penalty.

I'm sure on the tickets the Heat fans brought it did not say "Tim Duncan vs. LeBron James", it stated "San Antonio Spurs vs, Miami Heat". When you purchase a ticket to any sport you are purchasing to see a sporting contest, not a player. If you want to ensure you see a player in person you buy a ticket to any personal appearance he might make in public outside the sporting world. Because you are purchasing a ticket to the appearance with the understanding he will be there.

I have traditionally agreed with the choices Stern has made, but this one leaves me a little shaky on the NBA and what the future holds. Lets hope this is only a blip on the radar and not a trend to a possible downfall in NBA.

Chelsea got what they deserved

While I like to watch soccer, I generally do not blog about soccer, but this Chelsea disaster is something to talk about.

The previous three managers for Chelsea F.C. have won the Premier League or the Champions League or international competition but yet have fired them all. That is insane to fire three coaches that have brought so much success to one club. That would be like hiring and firing three super bowl winning coaches to put this in American terms.

Saturday, I watched West Ham play Chelsea and getting what they deserved, a 3-1 defeat to West Ham. Now the fans do not like Rafael Benítez, well maybe you should have stuck with a good thing.

Someone has to win the games and someone has to lose them. Sometimes you have to ride out the rocky moments and success will come.

Wiscosin Football: I was wrong

Near the end of the game with the big win 70-31 over Nebraska during the Big Ten Championship game I began to start thinking what I was going to say about the team in my next post. All I can say is this...

This is hard for me to say but.... I was wrong about Canada. When the chips were on the line, the offense came through. We rose to the occasion and overcame the loss earlier this season. We passed when we needed to, we ran... well... we ran all the time. The running game worked up the middle, to the left and to the right. If there would have been a fourth direction, I'm sure the offensive line would have blocked well in that direction.

Bielema did have the troops ready for this game, but if you think that I'm going to let him off the hook, you have another thing coming. I have been personally scarred by his bad decisions too many times in the past, there have been too many close games for me to recant my previous statements of firing Bielema. This win does help him move towards me not wanted him canned, but he is not there yet.

Canada might have pulled himself out of my dog house, but Bret, not yet. I need to see more from Bielema, I need to see more consistency, more big wins against big schools with decisions in the big spots.

The Rose Bowl will be interesting, with the long layover to the game, we will not surprise Stanford like we did to Nebraska tonight. We are going to run the ball and Stanford knows it. This game will most likely come down to the decision Bret makes in the week up to the game and during the game itself. The question is... Is he now up to it? Can he make the right call?

All we can do is wait and see. Congratulations to the 2012 Wisconsin Badgers on being Big Ten Championship and the Rose Bowl representative for a third year in a row.

On Wisconsin!