All-Star Game Jibber Jabber (aka I rock at cooking)

So here was my plan.  I was going to blog about possible other options with Cliff Lee off the board for the Twins tonight and then give a little British Open preview tomorrow.  However I've had a great day.  At work I had the opportunity to meet Disturbed and listen to their new album (dropping 8/31) and it was awesome.  Sounded great and the guys were cool as hell.  Then I came home and my parents came over and I grilled them up the awesomest meal ever:  Herb & Garlic grilled pork chops, grilled lemon pepper asparagus, and grilled seasoned american fries.  It was out of this world good.  And now I have a couple Negra Modelos in me, along with a couple of Brewfarm Selects, and their might have been a daquiri mixed in there, so I'm feeling good, and we're going to blog the All-Star game.  Maybe you'll get some possible Twin targets, and maybe you'll get some British Open.  I don't know.  What am I, Nostradamus?

-  Ok, so we might as well break down this Twins crap.  They aren't going to go after Oswalt or Haren.  Too much money remaining, plus Oswalt has basically ruled out the AL central teams and has a no trade clause, and the D-Backs owner has said he would need to be "blown away" to trade Haren.  Not going to happen.  The Cubs are clearly looking to trade either or both of Ted Lilly or Ryan Dempster, and I am interested in Lilly but Dempster is worthless.  The real problem with Lilly is that he's now the hands down #1 arm on the market, and with just $6 mil this year (pro-rated) and nothing due to him after that, he's an attractive arm and everybody is going to be putting on their lowest cut top and body glitter to go after him.  Pretty sure the Twins philosophy is more Kelly Kapowski than Valerie Malone, so they have no chance.

-  Other options are Jake Westbrook, Kevin Millwood, and Ben Sheets, but do you really think they'd upgrade the Twins rotation?  Oh, right.  Blackburn.  Good point.  Still, I can't imagine anybody being dumb enough to give up anything of substance for any of those guys.

-  Another name I heard on the radio today is Jarrod Washburn, who has been linked to the Twins more often than Audrina to Justin Bobby.  He hasn't pitched all year but somehow a completely mediocre pitcher is going to command a big salary and come in and contribute in a pennant race?  Please.  In all seriousness, as bad as Blackburn and, frankly, the rest of the rotation have been I don't really see any way they can improve unless they can find a way to steal Lilly away.  Of course, if David Kahn was in charge of the Twins he'd trade Orlando Hudson and Jason Kubel for Livan Hernandez and a $7 million trade exemption, so I guess we're lucky tight-ass Billy Smith is in charge.

-  I watched an inning and a half of the all-star whilst typing that and I didn't notice a single thing that was memorable.  Good show, MLB.  The best part of this entire broadcast has been this sneak peek at Inception I'm seeing right now.  Also, and this is really not cool to say, but there is a commercial with MLB players helping out special people, and they showed a guy and I thought, "oh, poor guy, looks like he's doing well for himself though", and it turned out to be Jake Peavy.  I know, I feel bad.  I'm just sayin' is all.

-  So British Open, huh?  My favorite of the majors.  I love the weird times, and I love the weird, unpredictable golf.  I'd love to give you a full breakdown, but I haven't done the necessary research.  I will tell you that either Justin Rose or Ernie Els is going to win though.  I have a couple of sleepers, too, but I'm not ready to release that information.  Maybe for a small fee.  Send me an email.

-  1-0 in the bottom of the sixth.  That over 8.5 is looking AWESOME.

-  You know, right after the first inning they were talking about the weird shadows and how it would be difficult to pick up the ball.  With guys like Ubaldo, Josh Johnson, David Price, etc. pitching early there was no way anybody was going to score.  How is that fair?  How come they don't tell you that before you bet on the over 8.5?  See, this is why all those dicks in Vegas are rich.  Not because gambling is inherently stupid and a losing proposition, but because they are all cheaters.  And dicks.

-  Al Jefferson to the Jazz for a couple picks, which won't be lottery, and a big ole trade exemption.  Well, if hey do something good with that exemption I'll be in favor, but if they eat it to sign guys like Luke Ridnour this is going to be an awful trade, and to be honest I'm not really feeling good.  They are trying or have I'm not sure signed Ridnour to a 4 year/$16 million deal, one year after signing Ramon Sessions to the same deal, and are now trying to trade Sessions.  Honestly, there's no doubt that Kahn is either a genius or is setting Minnesota basketball back ten years, and it's already six years behind everybody else.

-  Capps is 2-2 to Ortiz, shakes off the catcher three times, and then gets Ortiz looking with a tailing heater.  Nicely done.

-  Wow.  Scott Rolen.  .290 with 17 dingers so far this year.  This dude is an ageless wonder.  He's got his 300 homers and will end up around 2,700 career hits.  Not hall of fame numbers, but combined with his great fielding year after year and he's going to end up as one of those really good players who isn't a hall of famer but is still recognized as awfully good.  I dunno, that's gotta count for something.

-  By the way, my dad really, really hates Tim McCarver.  I can't argue with him.

-  You probably haven't noticed because you are probably not smart enough to notice these things, but Derrick Caracter is destroying Summer League.  Steal of a pick for the Lakers.  Remember that when you see him playing meaningful minutes in the playoffs.

-  It' still 1-0 in the bottom of the seventh and I'm finding it awfully hard to pay attention.  Probably has something to do with the wine cooler I'm currently drinking.  Yep, wine cooler.  Because that's all we have left.  Come on, you've been there.

-  This summer, grant us all the power, to drink on top of water towers.

-  Brian McCann just cleared the bases with a bases-loaded double to put the NL up 3-1 and in position for their first win in like 20 years.  Naturally, we took the AL.  FML.

-  Ok, I don't like to admit stuff like this, but who in the hell is Andrew Bailey?  Apparently he is the closer for the A's, and has quite a few saves this year.  I've never heard of him.  Has he been around a long time?  Wait, he was rookie of the year last year?  Are we sure?  Wasn't it Elvis Andrus?  I know way too much about baseball, but I don't know who this guy is.

-  He struck Brandon Phillips out.  Like that's hard.  God this game is taking forever.  There have only been four runs scored and it's already 10:09.

-  I maybe had a little bit of an idea who Andrew Bailey was, but I seriously have never heard of Koby Kalay.

-  You know how if you ever read anything about a good curveball the guy they always point out amongst current players is Adam Wainwright?  There's a reason.

-  John Buck being an all-star makes me sad.

-  And he promptly doubles, although it shouldn't probably count because Matt Holliday did a nice little Delmon Young/Mike Cuddyer impression and let himself get all mixed up and that one hit off his glove.  Seriously, is there a worse defensive outfield than the Twins (outside Denard)?  Let's say you played a game where a machine threw out random flyballs to all areas of the field, and there were two teams who each had to field 10 balls each.  Team one was Delmon, Kubel, and Cuddyer.  Team two is Carlos Gomez.  Who wins?  Seriously.

-  Scene:  3-1 NL, bottom of the seventh, two out, Torii Hunter up in his home park.  Any doubt, any doubt at all that he strikes out against a guy with a breaking ball like Wainwright?

-  1-1 pitch, Wainwright breaker down and away and nowhere near a strike.  Wait, I mean it was strike 2 - swinging.  LOL.

-  1-2 pitch.  Wainwright breaker down and away and nowhere near a strike.  Wait, I mean it was strike 3 - swinging.  LOL.  Seriously.  If it wasn't so predictable it would just be sad.

-  Did you guys know Rafael Soriano is is the first Rays reliever selected to the All-Star game since 2005?  Did you also know that that's probably the stupidest thing I've read in my life?

-  Jack Buck?  That's not right.  Jim?  Jay?  Tim?  Mike?  Whatever.  The son of the good one wants us to know that "Brian Wilson showed up to media day with a mohawk" and his voice sounds as if he has a schoolgirl crush on Wilson because of that bit of teenage rebellion by a 30-year old.  So a crappy retard mohawk is cool, but the fake mooning Randy Moss did is the most disgusting thing in sports history?  This guy sucks.  He almost makes Chris Berman listenable but not really because I'd rather stab my face off than listen to Berman for more than 6 seconds at a time.

-  Valverde struck out the side in the top of the ninth, so to win both our bets we somehow need the AL to score five runs.  Could easily happen, but would take some luck.  I'm struggling to come up with any good closer in the NL who could shut this thing down, so I'm thinking it's a lock for the AL.

-  Broxton?  This is a gimme for the AL.

-  Base hit Ortiz.  Like Fergie said, let's get it started uh huh, let's get it started in here.......

-  Beltre strikes out but that's not a surprise because that guy sucks.  Not sure what Girardi is saving A-Rod for.  Don't think Nick Punto is due up anytime soon.  Also every single pitcher has hit 99 on the gun tonight.  Going to go ahead and surmise that thing might be juiced up for TV.  Also now John Buck is up, and we're still not getting A-Rod.  I know there's something something about only having one catcher or some crap, but I'm not a big believer in planning ahead.  That's why I'm about to have two kids.

-  Ortiz gunned at second on what should have been a bloop single by Buck.  Look, I get that you want to play everybody, but the All-Star game now counts for something, and something fairly substantial, so shouldn't you be prepared with your 33 man roster to deal with this situation?  Just make Go-Go an all-star for his pinch running duties.  And therein lies the problem with trying to make an exhibition into a meaningful game.  I feel like an essay is due here but I'm tired and much like my scholastic life I'm going to go to bed instead of turning in my homework.  NL won.  They didn't score over 8.5 runs.  Joy.

NCAA Hoops Preview: CONFERENCE USA

Calipari is gone, taking most of an incredible recruiting class with him, and Memphis lost enough talent to be a top 10 team all on their own, meanwhile three other C-USA teams are geared up for a run at the title.  What this means is that looking at this conference is not as simple as penciling in Memphis for the first time in a whole lot of years.  It's wide open.



1. MEMPHIS.  It was very tempting to pick one of the other schools that look poised to knock off the Tigers, but don't forget the guys they have coming back were still signed by Calipari when he could get nearly anyone he wanted, you just don't remember because they were behind so much other talent.  Wes Witherspoon is a 6-8 combo guard/forward play anywhere do anything type guy, and he was #34 on the Rivals 150 when he came out.  Junior guards Willie Kemp and Doneal Mack were #s 53 and 47 when they came out, and forward Pierre Niles was #117.  And don't forget Elliot Williams who transferred from Duke - he was #16.  So yeah, there's plenty gone, but there's still plenty around.   

2.  TULSA.  If you were going to put up a blueprint for a mid-major to make some noise in a season, the Golden Hurricane would be it.  Senior point guard who can score and control a game?  Check, Ben Uzoh.  Monster center who dominates the paint, offensively and defensively?  Check, Jerome Jordan.  A bunch of juniors and seniors who are quality role players and know their responsibilites?  Yep, all over the place.  They have gotten a little press already (I think Katz or somebody had them on their early Top 25), and it's worth noting that the C-USA tournament is in Tulsa this year.

3.  UTEP.  I almost had the Miners in first (which explains why I had a UTEP photo at the ready), but then I remembered that I was mostly putting them there because I have an irrational love of Derrick Caracter, the fat discipline problem who got booted from Louisville - yes, he's at UTEP now.  If he has it together, they will be very tough on the front line, and also return Randy Culpepper, a 17.5 point per game scorer who, although being very Robet Vaden-like, really seemed to hit his stride in the Miners' run to the CBI championship game.

4.  HOUSTON.  I'm not a huge fan of the Cougs this year, but any time a team returns two 18+ ppg senior guards you at least have to pay attention.  Of course, they also lose all the size they had without much coming back to replace it, but you know Penders can coach, you know they're going to play up tempo, and you know they will probably give a few teams fits this year.  Houston is playing in the Great Alaskan Shootout this year, which will be a good litmus test to see where they stand.

5.  MARSHALL.  Randy Moss U returns four starters from last season's 6th place team, although they do lose their top scorer.  The Thundering Herd's strength lies in the backcourt, where they get most of their scoring including Chris Lutz who scored 37 against Tulane and recently won a roster spot on the Phillipines' National Team (note:  I have no idea how impressive this is or isn't.)  Marshall also brings in the best recruit in C-USA not going to Memphis in center Hassan Whiteside (#87 rivals 150), a 6-11 center who should compliment the perimeter guys, although it sounds like his academics might not be in order.

6.  TULANE.  At this point it's now a total crapshoot, as the remaining teams are all pretty much bottom of the barrel.  The Green Wave get the nod at the top of the scrap heap simply because they are the best defensive team of the bunch, and they return a three-year do everything starter at point guard in Kevin Sims.  They also add Juco transfer wing Aaron Holmes, who was ranked #117 on Rivals list coming out of high school in 2006.

7.  SOUTHERN METHODIST.   Slightly better than the rest due to a returning backcourt of Paul McCoy and Derek Williams, who averaged over 25 points between the two of them last year and both of whom had positive assist-to-turnover ratios, a rarity amongst the guards in the bottom tier of this conference.  They also return power forward and former transfer from Georgia Tech Mouhammad Faye, who closed out last season with four straight games scoring in double figures and played for Senegal in the FIBA Africa Championships, averaging 17 points per game.  Oh, and if you were expecting Matt Doherty to turn SMU around through recruiting, it ain't happening thus far.

8.  SOUTHERN MISS.  Partyboy Larry Eustachy seemed to have the Golden Eagles moving in the right direction, but then 3-time All C-USA guard Jeremy Wise decided to jump into the NBA draft (note:  he wasn't drafted) and that knocks the team back down a peg.  With three other starters gone, the new talent Eustachy is bringing in has to help immediately.  Minneapolis boy Angelo Johnson will likely start at the point right away, and there are three new JuCo players who are all ranked in the top 60 by Juco Junction, with Gary Flowers ranked #1 in the country.  As with all Jucos, you never know what you're gonna get.

9.  CENTRAL FLORIDA.  UCF loses Jermaine Taylor, last year's C-USA scoring leader at 26.2 ppg and returns not much outside of 3-point specialist Isaac Sosa, who shot 45% behind the line last year to lead the conference.  The Knights do bring in a nice class, including a trio of 3-star players who collectively had offers from teams such as South Carolina, Alabama, Providence, Iowa, Stanford, and Butler.  One of the newcomers will bring increased media attention - Michael Jordan's son Marcus.  At least until he quits like his quitter brother.

10.  RICE.  Do you know who Rice's coach is?  It's Ben Braun.  The same Ben Braun who had a good amount of success with Cal not that long ago.  It's going to be quite a task to turn the Owls around (they were 10-22 last year, Braun's first season), but he's already starting to make inroads.  He signed a couple of three-stars this year (no small feat for Rice) in PG Tamir Jackson, who also had an offer from UAB, and power forward and likely terrorist Arsalan Kazemi from Iran, who had offers from Cincinnati and Maryland and may or may not be related to the lion from Narnia.  It's still a long road ahead, but looking to get better.

10.  UAB.  Everything was aligned for UAB to make a run at Memphis last year, and at least make the NCAA tournament.  Oops.  And now everybody is gone, with the Blazers losing more than 75% of their scoring from last season and 90% of their shots with Robert Vaden finally graduating.  The recruiting class fell apart as well.  UAB had a verbal from both Rivals #2 DeMarcus Cousins and were thought to be in the lead for hometown PG and #23 prospect Eric Bledsoe, but both ending up signing with Kentucky, as Mike Davis still can't beat Calipari.  After losing out on almost every other recruiting battle, the cupboard is pretty bare.  Transfer Elijah Milsap, who I think is Paul's brother, transferred in from LA-Lafayette and will pretty much instantly become the Blazers' best player.

12.  EAST CAROLINA.  One of the worst defensive teams in all of college basketball last year (ranking 336/344 in defensive efficiency) did very little to address that, at least in terms of signing anybody of relevance.  They also lost their two best players to graduation, with not much behind them to step up.  The bright side is they have junior point guard Brock Young who was second in the country in assists last season with 7.6 per game - the only problem is there is nobody left to score.


So there you have it.  Will C-USA be a multi-bid league this year?  Will Memphis finally be dethroned or can Josh Pastner pick up right where Calipari left off?  Has Derrick Caracter finally grown up?  With coaches like Tom Penders, Ben Braun, Matt Doherty, and Larry Eustachy in the conference, when will it's national profile start to rise?  Will Arsalan Kazemi blow up a stadium?

It's going to be an interesting year in C-USA.