Records? How about wins in October?
Thank You Albert Pujols. You have made the baseball season in St. Louis the talk of the town. I appreciate that. You are a tremendous player. There is one slight issue, though. I say issue because, hopefully, it will not become a problem.
You see, we can get a little bored around here at this time of the year. Once the NBA finals are complete, it will be all baseball until Rams training camp begins. With all this time on our hands two items will come up for mass discussion. The first is the National League All Star team.
It is an annual argument that runs for about three weeks centering on whom should be on the team and who should not. OK, I get it. I cannot do enough about it to change it because I am not going to be stuffing the ballot box to prove a point.
The next is Albert’s quest to be either a triple crown winner or what record will he break? Home runs or runs batted in? Records are nice. I do not personally own any in anything, but they seem pretty cool.
For me, I would take the necessary wins it takes to win the World Series. That is what is important here. You see it’s a team game. Those 24 other players and all the coaches would be happy for Albert should he win some hardware, but the one piece of hardware they would all like would be a World Series Championship ring. To anything else? Not interested.
98 years of futility? Blame Dusty!
When it comes to talking about the Chicago Cubs and the team’s failure to win a World Series in nearly 100 years, stupidity seems to run rampant. To hear the socially narrow-minded — and in some cases mentally challenged – fans that now want to blame Cub manager Dusty Baker for all of the team’s woes is comical yet concerning.
Some of these people have the distinction of doing things like running a business, hosting a radio talk show, deciding the fate of others and, yes the scariest part, the ability to breed and produce another generation of socially starved offspring.
Dusty has been saddled with a lot of problems that he can do nothing about. Losing his best player Derrek Lee to injury early in the season has been catastrophic.
Pitchers Kerry Wood and Mark Prior, the two aces of the staff, have contributed very little because injury. The team also added many new faces and they have yet to play together well. These are just a few of the reasons that the Cubs have yet to play well. But yet you hear the question, ‘should Dusty Baker be fired?’ For what? If anything his contract should be extended just for having to sit through this mess in Chicago. With that said I must remind you they are the Chicago Cubs… 98 years and counting and yet they want to blame the manager. Let Dusty go to open market and see how long he would have to wait for another job. Not long.
Bobcats No Longer BO&O?
From the rumor mill. Word is that the only Black Owned & Operated sports franchise, the Charlotte Bobcats of the NBA, might be looking for a new owner. BET founder Robert Johnson might have already realized that this is a losing proposition. This is the same guy that sold BET to Viacom, became a billionaire, bought this NBA franchise and named it for himself. (There isn’t a Bobcat within a thousand miles of Charlotte.)
The team has seen attendance drop and a lack of wins could be contributing factors as to why the team might quietly looking for a buyer. The fact that longtime Bobcats CEO Ed Tapscott, a respected NBA executive, stepped down abruptly last week might only be the tip of the iceberg. Tapscott’s relationship with Johnson goes back 20 years when Tapscott’s wife worked at BET. In lieu of big paychecks they were also paid in stock. A stock that took off through the roof when Johnson sold out to Viacom. Tapscott has declined to go into detail about his sudden departure saying only, “ask Bob.” Johnson in turn replies “ask Ed.” I say go figure. Although, it’s not as if the Bobcats would be moving to St. Louis anytime soon considering they just moved into a new building and to break that lease would cost even more.
