answering the bat-signal.
i’m here. i promise. long story short:
i used to have no work, and lots of time. now i have managed to pick up a fair bit of work, which results in no time.
somehow, i feel like i have the same amount of money though. that doesn’t seem right. in either case, my time to write has shrunk to a precious few minutes here and there. this bums me out somethin’ fierce.
so. call off the search hounds! here are some things that have happened since i last posted anything here of substance:
1. the rockies got swept in the world series. the biggest sting of this was my tickets to game 5. my brother flew out from the NW on an expensive last minute ticket to go to game 5. verdict on the rockies: it was a great second half run. they’re going to lose a couple guys, hang on to a couple guys, and we’ll see next season how much of it was adrenaline and how much was pure baseball– i think we’ll be happy with what we see, but if all the new baseball fans in town just expect to make the WS again by default, we’re going to see a lot of ex-baseball fans real quick. the real fans among us know how difficult it really is to be the last team standing in your league, which says a lot about what the rox did this past season. i’m excited for next year, if only because maybe there will be butts in the seats, and mid-week games against the pirates won’t feel like they forgot to open the doors at coors.
2. the broncos got bitch-slapped by brett favre, then annihilated by the lions (?!?!), then came back with a solid effort against k.c. it was nice to see them play well, to see cutler continue to mature (that TD pass to graham? elway like. i don’t care what anyone says, that was bad-ass). the defense… well, let’s just say the defense didn’t give up 40+. KC was just plain bad though. the thing is… don’t take this performance as a reason to think denver’s D can stop a REAL offense. because they can’t. when it mattered, they really didn’t stop KC. brody FRICKIN croyle took the team down the field without nary a sneeze, and it was as much the chiefs’ incompetence as denver’s play that stalled those drives. yes, dumervil is awesome, and yes, it’s nice to see some pressure on the qb. these things are marks of progress, but in reality, denver is still a middle of the pack team, and will be until some things change.
3. i got to see my first NHL game live and in person. i’ve been to a lot of hockey, just never at the nhl level. let me tell you… i totally appreciate the athletic ability these guys have to have. they are big, fast, precise… wow. for a fan of the game as much as of one team, that was a pleasure to watch. of course, it was their one home loss that i was at… but you take what you can get. and what i got was a well played game. i want to go again later in the season when the fans actually care and don’t have to be prodded to make noise every 43.8 seconds.
4. back to rockies news, in this instant baseball town (just add tulo!), tulo was brutally and mercilessly snubbed for rookie of the year. that was followed by an unceremonious brushing off of mr. hurdle for manager of the year. so when the east coast writers reveal their votes and rollins is handed the mvp over holliday next week, the cries of east-coast bias can rise again from the rocky mountains. shout it from the top of pikes peak, my friends: we don’t get no respect.
So. where do we go from here? I’m not sure. I’ll just keep being highly inconsistent with my capitalization, and will continue to pull for the local teams, even when the play calling in the redzone looks like something the local junior high flag team might have come up with. I’ll write when I can, and keep doing my best to make this a place for some fun interactions, and where opinions flow freely.
–jason.
ps: do you think the nuggets will be any good? i’m trying to care, i really am… it’s just that basketball ran me by years ago and it’s hard to bring back that lovin’ feeling, you know?
11.1515.2007 3:46 pm
Good to hear you’re making money… even if it disappears as quickly as it comes.
Well written synopsis on the Rocks. I can tell you this; I went to twelve games this year and I’ll go to twenty next year if I can afford it. I don’t harbor any illusions that we’re a shoe-in for the WS next season, but I think our record will be about the same (maybe even a bit better) and that we’ll make the playoffs. The rest of the NL is gonna be gunnin for us though.
The Broncos still seem poorly coached to me. You can blame any number of errors on individual players, but when the whole team is making the same mistakes and when two linebackers miss assignments on the same play you just have take a long, hard look at the coaching staff.
I didn’t attend an Avs game last year. Made me feel like I was dying inside all off season. I sat in row 1 of the third level for the game against Edmonton last week, and I gotta tell ya… a good, hard-fought hockey game is good for the soul. Also, we have a great team that’s just going to get better as the season goes on.
Troy Tulowitzki was robbed. Some thugs calling themselves sports journalists came in the night and took what was rightfully his. I can’t tell if anybody outside of Colorado cares, but they should. A travesty. Matt Holiday deserves the MVP, but not as much as Tulo deserved Rookie of the Year. Better offensive stats, better (read: best) defensive stats, and was a true leader on his team in his ROOKIE YEAR. Ridiculous.
The Nuggets are damn good. Definitely in the top five most talented teams in the NBA (I put them at #4.) That said, they will still get outworked by a team like the Spurs or the Mavs and outscored by a team like the Celtics or the Suns on any given night. I find that it’s in my best interest not to give a crap about basketball until two thirds of the way through the season. I’ll watch a half game here or there in the meantime, but after a solid hour of watching NBA refs disrupting the flow and determining the outcome of EVERY SINGLE GAME I just start watching the Food Network or the Travel Channel to soothe my anger.
11.1616.2007 6:12 pm
In reverse order with one switch:
5. Yes the refs control all of basketball total-combined-score-wise, and yes they can ruin a close game for one right at the end with a conveinently timed blown call. But the great teams in basketball can avoid such close games with effort and execution. While the later the Nuggets certainly have (I’ve seen them rattle off 16 points in 1:30 twice this season), the former the Nuggets do not always exibit. They could be a top tier team if they get to work and do the hard jobs every night.
3. Speaking of hard work, the Avs are consistently the hard working team in sports as far as I’m concerned. And when you have a team as stacked as our that does the hard jobs, you’ve got a Championship threat. Our current pace puts us at 111 points at the regular seasons end.
2. I don’t care about the odds (which I most certainly understand) the goal of the Rockies is now the World Series. You can’t come that close and decide a Divisional Championship is good enough. Not that I take a big risk of returning to the wilderness, but Tulo, Helton, Holiday, Hawpe are the best returning 4 hitter any team has got and Atkins still might be amoung them. Francis, Cook, are Hirsh are 55 wins right there (and I’ve already factored in injuries) and the two Latino rookies (I hereby dub them “Dos Fuegos”) should add at least 15 between them. With a starting floor of 70 wins by the starters, the lineup should break 20-25 other bullpens. Any way you add it, it means playoff spot.
4. We all know of Tulo’s greatness and the East coasts stupidity. The big injustice here is against baseball itself. Braun is a better hitter than Tulo, no question about it, so if all you’re looking at is hitting Braun deserves it. Tulo was the 3rd best hitter. But Tulo was the best SS in baseball and Braun was the 2nd worst 3B. Everything Braun earned at the plate he gave back in the field, where as Tulo was awesome everywhere he played. You would think sports writer would factor this in.
1. The Broncos are a young team in a new system, so the jury is still out on them for me. I do stand by my prediction: The Broncos will win the AFC West by way of no competition.