October 5th, 2015

Let’s start with some baseball where the Dodgers managed to clinch the NL West in San Francisco last week, and were fortunate enough to secure home field advantage in the NLDS against the scuffling Mets.  I’ve been as critical as anyone all season long about the Dodgers, whose payroll is larger than the GDP of many small countries.  However, I have no problem with them celebrating the way they did after the clinching the division.  The baseball season is longer than any other season, so these guys deserve the right to let loose a little.  However, they know that they will be judged by how they perform in the postseason.  The Dodgers and Mets are pretty evenly matched on paper, but LA has the big edge in starting pitching.  I sure hope Don Mattingly isn’t going to roll the dice and put Yasiel Puig in the lineup for the NLDS.  LA is also catching a huge break in only seeing Matt Harvey in game 3.  If Kershaw and Greinke are brilliant, and I mean so brilliant that the rest of the bullpen has little to no use, and if the Dodgers can put up a little bit of offense, they should be able to beat the Mets in four games.  I’m not so confident in how they’ll do after that though.

As for the Angels, they had a nice run while it lasted, but their playoff hopes were obliterated after yesterday’s loss to Texas.  In some ways, I’ve gotta hand it to these guys for battling as hard as they did until the last day of the season.  The fact they came so close to sneaking into the playoffs is almost amazing considering the team had more drama than a daytime NBC soap opera.  Josh Hamilton was a distraction they had to get rid of, so was the Jerry Dipoto-Mike Scioscia battle, and CJ Wilson proved unreliabe .  Then again, the Angels had plenty of opportunities to clinch a wild card spot, and even the division over the last two months, but suffered some major late game collapses.  The collapse against Oakland last Wednesday was the real the kick in the balls.  The starting pitching and the bullpen just wasn’t what it was last year, and the lineup had some holes in it.  If there’s one thing the Angels need to do this off-season, it’s get some organizational stability.  That starts with getting a GM who is on the same page as Mike Scioscia.  The Angels have named Yankees assistant GM Billy Eppler their new GM, so hopefully he and Scioscia can play nice.  Now that they’ve done that, they can plug the holes at 2nd base and left field.  They aren’t that far away from contending, but Albert Pujols isn’t getting any younger, while the Astros and Rangers are only getting better.

To college football where the Bruins laid an egg on Saturday at the Rose Bowl against ASU.  I love how UCLA urged fans to show up on time for the game.  Turns out it was the Bruins who didn’t even show up for this one at all.  The offensive line provided about as much protection for Josh Rosen as a busted condom.  The running game was non-existent, nobody could catch a pass, and the defensive couldn’t stop the Sun Devils ground attack either.  I thought this was a different UCLA team, but it looked eerily similar to what we’ve seen the past few years: A couple of big wins followed by a major let down.  The good news is that the Bruins only fell to #20 in the polls, and aren’t really out of contention for anything.  The bad news is that the schedule ahead is a mine field.  UCLA has a bye week, then travels up north to play #16 Stanford, followed by #23 Cal at home.  Both games are on Thursday nights, which Coach Mora bitterly complained about.  Every team can be expected to have a let down somewhere along the way.  However, this one had an all too familiar feeling to it.

Elsewhere around college football, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Brian Kelly for completely blowing the season for the Irish.  Notre Dame lost at Clemson 24-22, and Kelly blew it by going for two points instead of the easy one point after the first Irish touchdown.  If that wasn’t bad enough, Kelly called a stupid play in the final seconds, foolishly trying to get his quarterback, Deshone Kizer, to run in into the end zone.  I used to think that Kelly looked liked William Shatner, but now I think that he is Shatner because their coaching ability is about the same.  I love their heart, I love their depth, but that game was lost on coaching.  Four top 10 teams lost over the weekend.  Ohio State and Michigan State barely survived their games.  I’m sure OSU is trying to schedule Devry and University of Phoenix instead of MSU before the season ends.  TCU plays absolutely no defense.  Florida abusing Ole Miss just proves how disgustingly overrated the SEC is right now.

Let’s talk about week 4 in the NFL.  The Browns lost to the Chargers yesterday in the most Cleveland Brown way possible.  Josh Lambo nearly blew the game for the Bolts, but redeemed himself on a 2nd field goal try, after Cleveland jumped offside.  What has happened to all the NFL kickers? They are about as accurate Hellen Keller’s parallel parking.  Josh Scobee blew that game for the Steelers on Thursday night against the Ravens.  After missing three field goals, he was seen on the sideline looking for jobs on Monster.com in the 4th quarter.  The Cowboys had 3 more players out after losing to the Saints.  Next thing you know, their fans are going to be blacked out from drinking another shot of tequila.  Big play by Drew Brees to win that game.  Boy, wait until Chip Kelly gets his system in place.  I’m sure everyone will be shaking in their cleats when that happens.  The Broncos are the sketchiest 4-0 team I’ve ever seen.  After the Dolphins embarrassing loss to the Jets in London, Miami officials are attempting to get the entire Dolphins roster on the U.S. no fly list so they can’t return to this country.  Todd Gurley is going to be a really good NFL player.  What happened to Colin Kaepernick? The guy nearly won the Super Bowl a few years ago, and now he can barely complete a pass.  An arrest warrant has been issued for the entire Falcons roster on charges of assault, rape, and murder against the Texans.   It appears as though the Houston Texans season is over before the Houston Astros.  I’m sure we all could have predicted that one.  The Colts are fortunate they play in a division that is a dumpster fire.  Andy Dalton and the Bengals are making it very difficult to make jokes about them since they are tearing it up right now.  With the Bears win over the Raiders yesterday, they are assured of not going 0-16.  The parade will be held on Tuesday on Michigan Avenue.  Odell Beckham made the greatest catch ever that never counted against the Bills…….

The Lakers had their 1st preseason game last night against the Jazz in Hawaii.  I think the Lakers had one too many Mai Tai’s before this one.  LA shot about 28% from the field, got crushed on the glass, and more importantly,  Nick Young and Ryan Kelly are having serious issues with their hair.  There were a few bright spots though.  Lou Williams was a great free agent signing for the Lakers, and he came for a bargain.  That dude can score.  It was good to see Kobe back on the floor, even in limited minutes.  Just seeing the guy on the floor and physically able to play is a victory in itself.   Every now and again, D’Angelo Russell makes a pass where you go “OMG!”  It’s going to take time, but the talent is there.

As for the Clippers, I don’t like to draw too many conclusions from preseason games in any sport, but as sports fans….it’s what we do.  Paul Pierce is going to be a great fit for the Clipps.  He probably knows Doc Rivers playbook better than most of his other teammates.  Meanwhile, Lance Stephenson looks just a crappy as he did last season in Charlotte.  He can’t shoot, he’s out of control, and he looks lost.  The Clippers have so much depth that they simply aren’t going to find minutes for all of these guys and keep them happy at the same time.

Let’s go the ice, where the Kings and Ducks are ready to start the season this week.  The Kings defensive depth is already going to be tested with Matt Greene and Jake Muzzin already hurt.  LA is an outside favorite to contend for another cup.  However, they are going to need some unproven kids like Jordan Weal, Nick Shore, and Michael Mersch to play big roles on the 3rd and 4th line.  They probably need to acquire another quality defenseman as well.  Without that defenseman, i like the Kings to finish 2nd in the Pacific, but lose in the 2nd round of the playoffs.  As for the Ducks, they are once again loaded with talent, but can they come through when it matters in the playoffs? Anaheim has even more speed now with Carl Hagelin, and with the development of young defenseman Hampus Lindholm, they are what you would call “the paper Stanley Cup Champions”.  Unfortunately for them, Stanley Cups are won on ice, and not on paper.  I like the Ducks to have another great regular season, finishing 1st in the West, but I don’t think coach Bruce Boudreau is the guy to lead them to a cup.  The Ducks make it to another Western Conference Finals, but lose to the young and upstart Nashville Predators.  I say the Predators go on to win the Stanley Cup over the New York Islanders.

It’s October and that means the fall TV series are back! Season 5 of Homeland was back on Showtime last night.  It’s really amazing how much this show has changed since Season 1.  I have to say, after a couple of crappy seasons, it’s back to a very solid combination of thrills and drama.  Spoiler alert for those of you who have yet to see the the first episode of the new season.  It definitely hurts to see Carrie and Saul as cold to each other as they were, but you know it’s only temporary.  I like how Carrie has a new boyfriend who looks exactly like Brody.  It’s probably only a matter of time before Quinn and Carrie cross paths.  I think he’s really going to need her in Berlin.  I like how we were all led to believe that the Middle Eastern guy walking through the Berlin Airport was a bad guy.  Instead, he seems to be a computer hacker working against terrorists.  Then again, just because he’s not a bad guy, doesn’t mean he’s working for the good guys.  This seems like classic Homeland drama.  I love the fact that his username is “douchebag” spelled backwards.  Nice job by Carrie getting herself kidnapped to ultimately give her more safety in Lebanon.  The whole concept of Carrie as a mom is way too weird.  It’s a good start for the 5th season.  Hopefully it continues that way and doesn’t go out with a whimper like last season.

And finally, the season finale of Fear The Walking Dead was on AMC last night.  When i saw FTWD trending on Twitter last night I assumed it was because another Dallas Cowboy player was injured.  But seriously……the show is simply moving too fast.  Spoiler alert for those of you who have yet to see it.  The real fascination with the show was everything that was going on before the world fell apart and the zombie apocolypse started.  That all happened way too fast.  Now there’s supposed to be another season of this? I don’t see how it can deviate too much from Fear The Walking Dead and be entertaining.  Travis was by far the most interesting character.  From the start of the show until now, he transformed from a weak minded, can’t come to grips that this is actually happening male, to a near Rick Grimes type attitude where he was forced to kill his infected ex-wife.  This was actually somewhat anti-climactic because it occurred after they escaped from all the chaos.  I found the whole thing entertaining, yet very unsatisfying.  Especially considering the writers never even addressed the question of what Ophelia thinks about Daniel, now that she knows he’s a torturer.  They don’t need to keep the show going.  It gave us a peek about how it started, but let’s just bring back The Walking Dead next week and stick with that.

September 28th, 2015

I’ll give you this Arizona fan…..you make some hilarious ESPN Gameday signs.  You’re football team is no match for UCLA though.  The Bruins went to Tucson and throttled the Wildcats 56-30, in a game that made UCLA look more like a legitimate top 5 team.  UCLA moved up to #7 in the AP poll.  Josh Rosen returned to being an elite quarterback just one week after having more turnovers than Betty Crocker.  Wasn’t this supposed to be a hostile environment? Weren’t the Bruins supposed to be vulnerable after losing their heart and soul, Myles Jack?  The last couple of seasons, UCLA has talked like they are an elite team, but fallen far short of that in moments like Saturday’s road game against Arizona.  However, they have a much better quarterback in Josh Rosen, and much more depth.  UCLA is going to face three more very tough tests on the road in Stanford, Utah, and USC, but based on what we’ve seen so far, you’ve gotta like their chances.

As for the Trojans, they won what was basically an elimination game against Arizona State, 42-14.  It probably would have also meant the elimination of Steve Sarkisian as the USC head coach had they lost.  Nevertheless, the win tells us that the Trojans aren’t the total disaster that we thought they might be after last weekend.  Then again, when I see another five touchdown passes from Cody Kessler, I know USC played a team that either stinks or doesn’t have its shit together.  By halftime all Sark had to worry about was ordering from Papa John’s to satisfy his craving for drunk food.  The Trojans threw the ball to Adoree Jackson three times and he put up 131 yards and a touchdown.  Since nobody ever dares to throw the ball at this guy on defense, why the hell doesn’t Sark get the ball in this guys hands more often on offense?  You would think you would want the ball in the hands of one of the best athletes in the country, no?  SC has some time to build momentum with the bye week followed by Washington, before heading to South Bend.  USC moved up to #17 in the AP, and maybe they’ll have their act together by then.

Elsewhere around college football, The Fighting Irish of Notre Dame beat down UMass 62-27.  The Irish remained undefeated and 6th in the AP poll, and the best part was that nobody got hurt doing anything stupid this week.  I’ve gotta think at some point the injuries are going to catch up to Notre Dame, but I do like their chances on the road next week against Clemson.  The Tigers offensive line has been dinged up, and they looked pretty underwhelming against Louisville.  Meanwhile, the funeral for the Oregon Ducks football season took place on Saturday night after getting slaughtered by Utah.  The Ducks still know how to waste $100,00 on ugly uniforms every week.  The last time Tennessee beat Florida, I think the wheel had just been invented.  How is Texas Tech unranked after nearly beating TCU? The Frogs are going to have to score 60 points every week if they hope to make the playoffs.  All of the Alabama fans are really confused about the rumors of Lane Kiffin allegedly sleeping with Nick Saban’s daughter.  They wonder why he isn’t picking up chicks at family reunions like everyone else.  I guess Ole Miss wasn’t the only one bending over a Saban last week.  This punter from Syracuse is an animal……

On to week 3 of the NFL where Chargers were run over by Adrian Peterson and the Vikings.  The Bolts are losing offensive linemen faster than Bruce Jenner lost his penis, and they had no chance to protect Philip Rivers.  They should have better luck against the Browns and banged up Steelers in the next two weeks though.  Meanwhile, Tom Brady now has 400 career TD passes.  One for every scandal the Pats have had since he’s played for them.  The Cardinals are strongly considering making Colin Kaepernick their starting QB.  His chemistry with their receivers is incredible after throwing four interceptions for the 49ers.  DeMarco Murray was inactive for the Eagles, and as a result, he had his best game of the season.  Jimmy Clausen is so bad, he’s actually making the Bears do the unthinkable and miss Jay Cutler.  I was beginning to think that the Seahawks didn’t even know that Jimmy Graham plays for them.  Even Jason Pierre Paul thinks the Rams need to practice better safety with fireworks.   I could swear the Colts are actually trying to get the #1 draft pick in 2016.  The Cowboys could put me at Running Back and I could have a 1,000 yard season.  Speaking of the Cowboys, they along with the Saints and Browns have received 2,000 missed calls from Tim Tebow regarding their quarterback position.  This may be the worst 2 pt conversion ever.  I think Ahmad Hall was playing against someone in fantasy football that had him on their team……

To baseball where, the Dodgers are a disaster.  The Boys in Blue just got swept by the worst team in baseball, the Colorado Rockies.  Their magic number is only 2 games to clinch the NL West, but the Dodgers have problems.  When it comes to pitching, they can’t trust anybody not named Kershaw, Greinke, or Jansen.  Everybody else stinks, and will likely be blowing things up in the postseason a few weeks from now.  Then there’s Yasiel Puig, who likely will not be playing in the postseason due to a hamstring injury.  He is rehabbing in Arizona, however, a very reliable source close to me saw him last night at a bar in Arizona, getting his groove on, on the dance floor at a local bar.  Can we just trade this clown already?  The only good news is that with just one win in San Francisco, the Dodgers will be celebrating a division title on the field of their hated rivals. As much as I love rubbing it in the face of those organic eating liberals, the Dodgers have bigger things to concern themselves with, like home field advantage against the Mets.  The Mets have a 1.5 game lead on LA for home field, and sine the Dodgers are 7 games under .500 on the road this year, I think it’s safe to say they need it.

As for the Angels, their resiliency has been impressive.  With one week to go in the season, the Halos are just .5 games back of Houston for the AL’s final wild card spot.  I think I’ve written these guys off about 4 times in the last month, but somehow they are still in the race.  The problem is, they are basically fighting for one spot with Houston and Minnesota.  They are also missing Joe Smith and now Huston Street for at least the last week of the season.  Houston has the more favorable schedule facing the Mariners and the D’backs, while the Angels have to deal with the A’s and the Rangers.  Even the Twins get Cleveland, and a Kansas City team that won’t have anything to play for.  I don’t know what’s gotten into Johnny G, but it looks like he’s been slamming a 5 Hour Energy drink before every game in the last week.  It also doesn’t hurt to have this guy playing center field for you……

Just another day in Washington where Jonathan Papelbon tries to choke out Bryce Harper….

NBA training camp opens today, and that means Lakers basketball is right around the corner.  The Lakers actually signed Metta World Peace to a one year deal. Since Metta hasn’t played NBA ball in about a year, he’ll probably change his name to Metta World War III once we see him play.  This just goes to show you that the Lakers really don’t have a lot of great options at the small forward position.    To a large extent, Metta is going to be mentoring Julius Randle, which should help the young Laker power forward develop much quicker.

Meanwhile, Paul Piece says that if the Clippers win an NBA title, he is going to retire.  I guess that means Pierce will be playing until he’s 100 year old.

Finally, the 2nd to last episode of the season of Fear The Walking Dead went down on AMC last night.  Spoiler alert for those of you who have yet to see it.  What I’m starting to love about this show is that it’s becoming good television showing very few if any walkers.  I guess that’s why they call it “Fear The Walking Dead” because it’s just the concept that we are fearing in this show.   I definitely envisioned the hospital we saw, just like the “Grady Memorial Hospital” in season 5 of The Walking Dead, but that wasn’t entirely the case.  It was both a real hospital, and a penitentiary.  Interesting that Nick was saved from quarantine by some dude that’s bribing soldiers with expensive watches.  The history of The Walking Dead tells us that if you’re black, you’re going to die, and those walkers will tear you to shreds.  Chris and Alicia have this weird romance where they apparently get turned on by breaking into rich peoples places, dressing up in their clothes, and breaking their crap.  It’s weird and borderline incestual for the almost step brother and sister.  The most powerful moment of the episode was clearly the torturing of Andrew that was done by Daniel and Ophelia.  This is the first time in this show we’ve seen people doing horrible things out of necessity, and it left a major psychological trauma for both Daniel and Ophelia when it was done.  Travis on the other hand shows he has yet to come to grips with going to those lengths, as he won’t even shoot a walker when the military asks him to.  I’m really waiting to see if any of these characters tie in to The Walking Dead in the coming seasons.  Looking forward to the final episode next week!

September 21st, 2015

The Bruins finally played some real competition on Saturday at the Rose Bowl, and they dodged a major bullet by beating BYU 24-23.  UCLA moved up one spot in the AP Poll to #9.  The guy who really dodged the bullet was Josh Rosen, who looked a lot less like the “Chosen One” and more like the “Frozen One”, barely able to complete a pass in the first half.  Maybe we should all stop calling this guy the next Andrew Luck? Rosen showed he’s going to take time to develop, and that has the potential to cost a talented Bruins team in their quest to make the College Football Playoff.  Rosen did a pretty good job of getting the hell out of the way, giving the ball to Paul Perkins and Nate Starks to let them run wild.  Jim Mora also deserves a lot of credit for making the right adjustments by speeding up the tempo, as well as not benching Rosen in favor of Jerry Neuheisel, allowing him to learn from his mistakes.  Up next is the duel in the desert with Arizona, which is another land mind in the Bruins schedule.

Although Bruin fans might be amused at the disaster that took place at the Coliseum for the Trojans, their loss to Stanford is bad for everybody else playing USC.  The Trojans took a 21-10 lead against the first real competition of the season, and then decided to stop playing football, and coaching it as well.  The Cardinal then imposed their blue collar style of play, controlling the tempo with long drives, dominating the line of scrimmage, and piling up 41 points along with 471 yards in total offense.  That’s right Trojan fan….we’ve reached the point where Stanford and their super nerds with 4.0 GPA’s are winning football games against USC.  Sark must have been reading Tom Coughlin’s clock management playbook at halftime, because he couldn’t have mismanaged this one any worse.  His defense was absolutely exhausted, unable to get off the field, yet he refused to use most of his timeouts until the final minute.  He also should have kicked an easy field goal down by two scores in the final minute and then went for the onside kick, as opposed to stubbornly trying to go for the touchdown.  USC only dropped to #19 in the polls, and has plenty of chances to move back up again, but this wasn’t some one game let down.  This is a team with good (not elite) talent, coached by a man with questionable decision making on and off the field.  Now the heat is really on Sark, who will probably be out with an underwhelming 8 or 9 win season.

Very impressive win by Notre Dame over Georgia Tech on Saturday in South Bend.  At this rate the Irish are going to make the playoff, but have too many injured players to participate in it.  I think Michigan State has a great chance to knock off Ohio State after what we saw this weekend.  The Buckeyes don’t play anybody until then.  LSU and Georgia are the most dangerous SEC teams to me.  Ole Miss suddenly has Alabama’s number, but both are extremely overrated.  I wonder if the AP Poll voters all get in a room before casting their weekly votes, throw back 6 or 7 shots of tequila then put pen to paper.  Seems like a reasonable question given what the poll looks like.  Stanford beats USC on the road, yet they are ranked two spots behind them?  Oregon loses to #2 Michigan State in a close one, yet they are #13, one spot behind Alabama, who lost to #15 Ole Miss at home? Obviously AP stands for “Alabama Pollsters”.  This is classic “luck of the Irish”……

When Alabama fan realizes that their cousin isn’t going to be in the mood tonight……..

Let me sum up week 2 of the NFL for you.  All the teams that suck won: Raiders, Jaguars, Browns, Bucs, and Redskins.  That sentence will never be written again in the history of civilization.  In typical Charger fashion, the Bolts followed up last week’s win with an undisciplined, turnover filled performance against the Bengals.  Cowboy fans are losing their minds after losing Tony Romo to a broken clavicle.  Good thing for them the NFC East stinks.  We reached that awkward moment where Brandon Weeden had more rushing yards than DeMarco Murray.  The Giants had more trouble hanging onto balls than Caitlyn Jenner.  The Falcons improved to 2-0.  Until Tom Brady is dead, I will never fall for the notion that the Bills are ready to take the AFC East.  The Ravens would like to point out that even though they lost, the city of Baltimore had two less murders than Oakland last year.  Jay Cutler threw a pick six and then blew out his hamstring on the same play.  That’s the first pick 6 in history that has actually helped the team throwing it.  The Cardinals gave the Bears a beat down.  The Browns treated Marcus Mariota like they treat their own quarterbacks.  If you’re still alive in a survivor league you must be some sort of Einstein, or you should go buy a lotto ticket.  After fumbling away a game to the Broncos on Thursday, here’s what Chiefs Running Back Jamaal Charles text inbox looked like……. I’m having my doubts that this story is true, but either way, it’s damn good entertainment.  There’s a Bills fan that posted on Craigslist, looking for the dude she jerked off at last Sunday’s game. Here’s the post……. Since there’s really no good segway from that story, let’s just go to baseball, where I’m trying not to write the Angels off yet.  They are right in the thick of the AL wild card race, but the next three games will determine the fate of the season.  The Halos are 2.5 games back of the Astros, who hold the AL’s final Wild Card spot.  They took a big two of three against Minnesota over the weekend, but the pitching is falling apart on and off the field.  Matt Shoemaker got lit up again yesterday.  Hector Santiago was once a very good pitcher for them, but lately he’s been tanking harder than the S&P 500.  I never know what Jered Weaver is going to show up anymore, and both those dudes are going to be pitching against the ‘Stros.  To make matters worse, set up man, Joe Smith, sprained his ankle coming down the stairs of his hotel over the weekend.  It’s amazing that these guys are world class athletes, yet they can’t seem to get out of the way of one step.  The Halos aren’t dead, but it just feels like they are barely hanging on.

Then there’s the Dodgers who are close to clinching the NL West, but in the big picture, have some issues to work through.  One thing the Dodgers don’t need to be doing is playing 16 inning games, where they use 11 pitchers and 28 players, like they did against the Rockies earlier in the week.  Every win is important and all with home field on the line, but keeping this team healthy, rested, and sharp  is also important.  By the 10th inning, I would have said “Sorry guys…..we’re going home in twenty minutes.”  The fans sure did on that night.  Does anybody even remember Yasiel Puig? Do you even want the guy back for the playoffs?  Puig is talented, but hasn’t played in ages, and it’s going to take him forever to re-discover his magic in time for October baseball.  The Dodgers have too many reliable players that are playing well to gamble on Puig.  At this point, Justin Ruggiano, Carl Crawford, and Scott Van Slyke are way more steady performers.  The Dodgers are also going to have to give strong consideration to playing Corey Seager regularly, even when Jimmy Rollins returns.  Rollins has had success against some of the Mets starters, their likely divisional playoff opponent.  However, Seager has been on fire.  Don Mattingly is going to have to consider matchups.  Too bad there are no good choices to consider in the bullpen, because that is going to be this team’s downfall.

The Kings and Ducks have both opened training camp, and hockey season is only a couple of weeks away.  The bad news for the Kings is that defenseman Slava Voynov just deported himself from the country, permanently leaving the kings without one of their better defensemen.  The reality of it is however, that it was probably right that Voynov is no longer playing for the Kings after beating his wife.  Now that the Voynov drama has been resolved and the Kings have some financial clarity, hopefully they can take care of the Anze Kopitar contract extension.  Meanwhile, the Ducks have overturned about 1/3rd of their roster, and added some nice depth.  Expect another fast start in Anaheim and a strong regular season.  As usual, the jury is out after that…..especially on coach Bruce Boudreau’s future.

Is the GOP debate over?  Are you sure? How come nobody said, “live from New York It’s Saturday Night Live?” If there’s one thing I learned from the last debate it’s that Carly Fiorina should be the Republican nominee if they really have a chance to take back the White House from the Democrats.  However, the level of ignorance of voters in this country is amazing, and Donald Trump is smart enough to realize that, which could very well win him the nomination.  Plenty of voters never came out to vote prior to the 2008 election, yet they all decided to come out and vote for Obama.  People will do the same for Trump.  Why? Simply because of name recognition, and pop culture.  People aren’t voting for Trump because he understands the economy, or will cut taxes.  It will be because it’s the cool thing to do.  People are also dumb enough to focus on what religion their candidates are, and let that influence their decision.  It sounds like I’m oversimplyfying it, but that is the simplicity of the average American voters’ mind.  It’s a sad but true reality.

Finally, a new episode of Fear The Walking Dead went down on AMC last night.  Spoiler alert for those of you who have yet to see it.  Oddly enough. there wasn’t a single zombie that was seen or killed in this episode.  It was simply an emotional and mournful look at a slowly decaying society.   Now the real villain of the show appears to be the military, who are killing people who aren’t even sick.  That plot is about as predictable as the Dodgers losing every October to the Cardinals.  How stupid is Alice? The military is killing people with the slightest splatter of blood on them, so carving a tattoo onto your arm to honor your dead boyfriend probably isn’t the best idea.  Nick’s drug addiction couldn’t be any more over the top when we see him hiding under the bed stealing a taste of the morphine drip.  When Maddy slaps Nick, most of us probably cheered for hopefully knocking some sense into the drug addict.  However, it’s simply a moment between two people that love each other, who’s behavior reflects their realization that their lives are circling the drain.  I still don’t really understand why the military decided to take Nick instead of Daniel? I guess that’s the real cliff hanger that this show needed with only two episodes left.

September 14th, 2015

I think it’s fair to say that it was “Cupcake Saturday” for the Bruins and Trojans.  The Bruins went to Vegas and stomped all over UNLV 37-3, pushing the UCLA up to #10 in the AP poll.  I was thinking Josh Rosen might have a bad game here after a rough night out at the Cosmopolitan, but he didn’t even come back to earth that much.  He came up with a modest 223 yards and actually threw his first interception, to go along with a touchdown.  Since everyone has been acting like he’s the next Joe Montana, it’s probably good for his ego that he pumped the brakes a little bit and didn’t blow up this week.  It’s better he struggles a little now then against some quality opponents later on.  The Bruin defense was solid and Paul Perkins reminded everybody that he’s actually one of the best running backs in the Pac 12.  UCLA actually has to play real people the next two weeks starting with BYU at home, then Arizona on the road.  Looking forward to seeing them play real people.

Speaking of not playing real people, the Trojans had a power puff opponent of their own on Saturday against Idaho.  That of course meant that Cody Kessler put up some more video game numbers, 410 yards to go along with 3 touchdowns, propelling the Trojans to #6 in the AP poll.  We haven’t seen a beating like this in the ghetto since Rodney King.  I truly have no idea how good this team is after two games.  They are loaded with talent, but they seem to rely on the big play against these weak ass teams.  I’m not sure if the big play is going to be there against the prime time opponents.  Their offensive line was better, but the defensive line put about as much pressure on the quarterback as a girl who’s been engaged for 10 years puts on her fiancé.  Justin Davis was impressive in his return from injury, and is starting to make the team look like “Tailback U” again, with their log jam at running back.  I like their chances against Stanford and ASU, but after that the road is going to get much tougher, and then we’ll really see if Sark gets to keep his job.

Elsewhere around College Football, Notre Dame’s season is about as over as Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston.  The Irish may have escaped in exciting fashion against Virginia, but they lost starting quarterback Malik Zaire in the process.  That in addition to losing starting running back Tarean Folston the week before.  The Irish are up to #8 in the poll, but at some point, the injuries are too much to overcome.  I’d like to personally thank Brian Kelly for pushing Everett Golson out the door, as well as running plays that jeopardize the health of his QB on every play.  DeShone Kizer, their backup QB, has a cannon.  However, he can be so inaccurate, I worry he might hit me while I’m sitting in my living room.  With Auburn dropping like a rock in the polls, the Irish are forced to stay in the top 25 for two more weeks.  Auburn did “the unthinkable” by beating Jacksonville State at home in overtime.  I guess they have demonstrated that they are a clear favorite for the FCS title.  What a joke the SEC is.  Since they can barely handle and FCS team, asking Arkansas to beat Toledo was just too much.  Ohio State looks pretty unstoppable right now, but Michigan State will make things interesting.

Week 1 of the NFL finally arrived!  Ameer Abdullah looked scary great for a moment, but the Chargers had a nice rally in the 2nd half to beat the Lions.  Detroit reminded us that they are the Lions by only getting the ball to Calvin Johnson twice for 39 yards, and the Bolts took advantage.  The Steelers were dominated by Gronk and the Patriots on Thursday.  Somebody told Gronk there is bottle service in the end zone.  The Cowboys spent all of last night handing the Giants a free win and New York said “No thanks”.   Peter Caroll finally gave the ball to Marshawn Lynch at the end of the game, although it didn’t make a difference.  The Rams tore the Hawks defense to shreds and came away with the win.  I’m sure the Colts are going to complain the NFL that the Bills have too many fast black guys, and that an investigation needs to follow after getting smoked by Buffalo.  Somebody should tell them “Suck For Luck” ended years ago.  The Texans proved that they are much better at reality TV than football after losing to the Chiefs.  Football season doesn’t start until Jay Cutler throws an interception, which happened yesterday against the Packers.  Green Bay owns Chicago.  It’s amazing how good Ryan Fitzpatrick can look against the Browns.  The Jets sunk to a new low however, by giving up a touchdown to Johnny Manziel.  Tyler Eifert was a beast and the Raiders still stink.  Peyton Manning aged overnight, but they still beat the Ravens.  The Saints offense just isn’t what it used to be.  Jacksonville’s is what it’s always been.  Marcus Mariotta must love playing against Jameis Winston, since it probably feels like playing East Carolina State.  Everybody’s playing football, while the Dolphins and Redskins were playing hot potato……

I knew the Dodgers middle relief sucked, but now even Kenley Jansen is struggling to close games.  Zack Greinke has to be the front runner for the Cy Young award.  He’s piling up the wins and the stats to back him up, and he’s going to get a fat contract this winter.   It’s going to be a shame when those moronic nerds that are now in the Dodger front office convince themselves that a couple of .500 pitchers are adequate replacements for him.  Corey Seager is proving his worth right now.  Jimmy Rollins should be extremely nervous that Seager is on the verge of taking his starting spot at shortstop.  We thought that was going to happen over the winter, but the way things are going, it might need to happen in the next month if the Dodgers are serious about contending.  Clayton Kershaw said the Dodgers need to bring some urgency at this point in the season and they have.  It would be nice if the front office did as well by bringing up Julio Urias and helping their crappy bullpen.

Then there’s the Angels, who were dealt a knockout punch to their season yesterday afternoon.  The Halos were on the verge of closing within 2.5 games of the AL West leading Astros, before Huston Street got bombed in the 9th inning of yesterday’s game.  Instead, they are 4.5 games back in the division, and another 3 back in the wild card.  They may not really be dead, but I’m not sure how they recover from losing that game.  The Angels actually play all the teams that are still in front of them quite a few times, so in a way, they do control their own destiny, but other than one hot streak in July, I haven’t seen anything from this team that makes me think they can still sneak into the playoffs.  The pitching is falling apart, and the lineup is just too inconsistent outside of Trout and Pujols.

Did anybody see the Floyd Mayweather “hug” on Saturday night? You may never see another fighter like Floyd again unit Dancing with the Stars airs next week.  There’s no doubt that Mayweather is an excellent fighter, but unfortunately, he isn’t what boxing needs to keep the sport from dying.  It’s also a shame that Floyd dodged some of the better fighters throughout the prime of his career, including Manny Pacquiao.  I don’t think many people really knew that Floyd even fought Andre Berto on Saturday night, which is a sad ending to the career of such a successful fighter.  I’m disappointed that this is what’s become of boxing.

Novak Djokovic proved why he’s the #1 men’s player in the world with his victory over Roger Federer in the US Open yesterday.  Novak has now won 3 of the last 4 majors, and feels like he’s been dominating for the last few years.  Even though Federer hasn’t hoisted a major trophy since 2012, I’m still impressed that he has been able to play at an elite level as he ages.  As for the women, I still don’t understand how Serena lost to Roberta Vinci.  Nevertheless, the highlight of the tournament was still the Williams sisters going at it.  Hopefully this isn’t the last time we got to see them battling it out with each other in New York.

Finally, a new episode of “Fear The Walking Dead” aired on AMC last night.  We’re seeing the world fall apart slowly as the zombie apocalypse takes over.  The police and the military are beginning to understand that they need to actually shoot down the people there are sick.  They are also beginning to understand the the dead and now walking amongst the living, and that “the sick” are really dead.  As we are witnessing this, the writers are open to some criticism here.  They are portraying the main characters as strategizing to leave and go to the desert, or somewhere in the morning.  However, if the world around you were falling apart like the show is portraying, you’d probably be losing your mind.  The quick and smart people would die as quickly as the dumb people.  Those that survive would be too much in shock to actually do anything, and likely would be curled up in the fetal position somewhere.  The most powerful scene in last night’s episode was seeing Susan’s husband Patrick find her as a zombie, and as he goes to embrace her, the military takes her out with a bullet (just before she can attack him of course).  It’s facinating to see how this all began, and I’m looking forward to seeing more.

September 7th, 2015

You’re trying not to overreact but you can’t help it.  You’re trying not to be prisoner of the moment but it’s too late.  You’re trying to keep it in your pants, but your pants are off.  True freshman quarterback Josh Rosen was that good in his debut for UCLA against Virginia on Saturday.  Rosen went 28-35 for 351 yards and 3 TD’s in the Bruins blowout win.  Rosen actually told teammates that the game felt slower than he thought it would be.  Look….the sample size is small, but that’s all we have to go on, so we might as well talk about it.  Rosen’s debut was equally as good as Brett Hundley’s, and he’s got the tools to be better than him.  In fact, he looks more like Cade McNown, who was an absolute stud in the 90’s.  The Bruins have some great talent on both sides of the ball, but at the end of the day, it’s going to depend on how this kid performs against the elite.  That’s something that Jim Mora and the Bruins have’t been able to do in recent years.  Maybe now they finally have the piece to get them over the hump.

As for the Trojans, they bombed Arkansas State 55-6 at the Coliseum on Saturday night.  I hope Arkansas State cashed the check they received from USC before they got off the plane, because they earned it for coming all the way out here for that beat down.  Cody Kessler’s accuracy wasn’t exactly as good as it’s been, and neither was the Trojan offensive line, but USC came up with some big plays throughout.  These early games are more about impressing the voters with big margins of victory and surviving injury.  USC was very luck with the latter, as sophomore standout Adoree Jackson suffered an abdominal strain early on and didn’t return.  The injury doesn’t appear to be serious, and Jackson can probably even sit out next week to recover before Stanford comes to town in two weeks.  USC might have a better chance than I thought of starting 4-0, except with Stanford and Arizona State laying eggs early, that might not hold that much weight with the voters.

Elsewhere in college football, My Fighting Irish of Notre Dame beat up on Texas 38-3, except they lost starting running back Tarean Folston to a season ending knee injury.  That means Josh Adams is going to have to do a lot more of what he did on Saturday.  For at least one week, it was nice to see the Irish not be their own worst enemy, turning the ball over time after time.  Malik Zaire was pretty accurate, and off to a good start as the new Irish quarterback.  It’s easy to forget that Notre Dame started 6-0 last year before imploding.  Other than UCLA, USC, and Oregon, the Pac-12 was a disaster.  Not only did ASU and Stanford blow it in their first game, Washington and Washington State laid eggs as well, while Arizona survived against UTSA.  Michigan is probably bad enough to lose to the 49ers.  The highlight of the weekend though was the ending to BYU-Nebraska.  The non-alcoholic beers were flowing in Utah after this…….

Speaking of football, we’re now just 4 days away from the start of the NFL season.  I’m sure Roger Goodell is now going to suspend Judge Berman’s NFL Red Zone channel for the first 4 weeks of the season, after he overturned Tom Brady’s suspension.  I wasn’t a fan of either side in this whole deflate gate debacle, but it’s amusing to see Goodell’s authority overruled.   I guess the Patriots had to release Reggie Wayne because he had trouble adjusting to catching deflated footballs.  This was actually the last weekend until February of 2016 that the Browns, Raiders, Jets, and Redskins will be in first place.  Trent Richardson was cut by the Raiders, potentially ending his NFL career.  Rumor has it that while cleaning out his locker, it took him 14 attempts to carry his stuff 20 yards to the parking lot.  Speaking of players getting cut,  Maybe Tim Tebow was cut for all of our sins? I actually thought he played well enough to be the Eagles #3 QB, but apparently Chip Kelly didn’t think so.  It’s too bad the media circus that surrounds the guy ultimately hurts him, because he seems like he can be a serviceable NFL player.  Now there’s rumors the Eagles are interested in Christian Ponder.  Obviously they feel that they just had the wrong “Christian”.

To baseball, where I’m actually going to be positive about the Dodgers for just a few moments.  They have basically wrapped up the NL West after winning 11 of their last 13, and thanks to some absolutely brilliant pitching by Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke.  Look, if these two guys are absolutely flawless in the postseason, they could actually end up in the World Series.  The problem is the margin for error is just too small.  Once the bullpen gets involved aside from Kenley Jansen, it’s an automatic loss.   I also don’t buy for one second that Matt Harvey won’t pitch in the postseason against LA.  Speaking of Matt’s, Matt Latos is like the 2nd coming of Joe Blanton, and at this rate, shouldn’t even be allowed to watch the Dodgers on TV in the postseason, let alone be on the roster.  The Dodgers also need to find a way to get Chase Utley in the lineup regularly, even when Howie Kendrick returns from the DL.   I sure love what I’m seeing from Corey Seager so far.  If the Dodgers value Seager and Julio Urias so much, they should be called up now to give them a chance to make an impact when the team needs it most.

As for the Angels, they aren’t dead yet, but they are definitely on life support.  They’ve won 4 of their last 5, and are only 2.5 games out of the 2nd wild card spot in the AL.  The problem now is what lies ahead.  They are going to have to face Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke for the next two nights, while 17 of their last 26 games are against teams in contention.  They are also likely to face King Felix and the Mariners one or two more times.  In addition to that, there’s a 10 game road trip in there, and only Andrew Heaney has been a reliable road starter.  Every other starter on the team has an ERA over 4.00 or higher on the road.  In other words, you probably shouldn’t be planning on saving up for those Halos playoff tickets.

This has to be the worst misjudged fly ball in Major League History……….

I loved hearing the Shaq and Kobe podcast last week, in which they reminicsed about their 3 championships with the Lakers.  These guys were so different yet so similar in many ways.  They have a very different style of doing things, but together, they were incredibly successful.  I don’t think there’s any doubt that they left a championship or two on the table when they broke apart.  While Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan were the most successful duo in NBA history, Kobe and Shaq were by far the most dominant, since there never really were two alphas like that on the same squad.  It also goes to show you that you don’t actually have to like the person you are working with.  You simply have to have a good enough working relationship and respect them to be successful.  It’s a shame they couldn’t keep that relationship together for longer, but deep down, they both have some regrets about that.

Finally, some news on the LA Kings.  They are currently in the midst of trying to negotiate a contract extension with arguably their best player, center, Anze Kopitar.  Kopitar and the Kings are currently very far apart on a deal, and we’re talking at least a few million per season.  He’s due to become a free agent next summer, and says he won’t negotiate during the season, which starts in a month.  In other words, he may want close to the $10 million per season average that Blackhawks stars Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane are making.  LA has to find a way to keep this guy, or else their days of Stanley Cup contention are over.  There are three cornerstone players on the Kings.  He is one of them, along with Drew Doughty and Jonathan Quick.  His offensive numbers may be slipping, but much of that is due to the very defensive system that he plays in.  He is a very valuable two-way player, and still one of the more underrated in the league.  If the Kings don’t come up with a deal, someone will break the bank for him next summer.  This is one situation that should make Kings fans very nervous for the next few months.

August 31st, 2015

Jim Buss still hasn’t figured out the politics of being an NBA executive yet.  Buss sat down for an interview last week, and started by saying that it’s completely up to Kobe, whether or not he wants to continue playing with the Lakers after this coming season.  That sounded great at first, until he said “He just has to know, at that age, and that many miles on you, what is your role?  We’ll explain the role, and if he still wants to do that and that’s how he wants to go out, that’s fine with me.”  Jeez Jim….why didn’t you just say you’re going to throw him out like Uncle Phil used to throw out Jazz on the Fresh Prince? This will likely be Kobe’s last NBA season anyway, but there’s no need to publicly throw down the gauntlet like that.  Even if the Lakers do need to move on from Kobe after next year, there’s no need to publicly say that.  If Jim’s dad were still around, he would have been smart enough to know this.  The irony of it is, Buss said some other really good things, like the fact that the Lakers are focused on developing 7 or 8 really good young players they can move forward with.  For a guy who could be forced out in a few years, he’s actually going about things the right way.  He just doesn’t have the charisma to handle these situations yet.

Speaking of the NBA, the Clippers are currently in the midst of negotiating a new TV deal with Fox Sports West.  However, owner Steve Ballmer suggested that the Clipps might instead move their games away from cable, and go to online streaming.  Even though consumers are slowly moving away from cable, we still haven’t yet reached a point with live sports where we can reliably go to the internet to find our content.  The Clippers already struggle with ratings and market share in LA, so moving their games to the internet for a subscription fee will only further their irrelevance in the LA sports landscape.  Let’s hope for the sake of Clippers fans that this is just a negotiating ploy by Steve Ballmer to get the deal he wants with Fox Sports.  Ultimately, Fox Sports West needs the Clippers equally as much as The Clippers need Fox Sports West.

On to baseball, where the Dodgers are the most pathetic $300 million team I have ever seen.  The Boys in Blue were no-hit for the second time in nine days.  This time it was by the Cubs and Jake Arrieta.  Fortunately the Giants have been blowing it, so the Dodgers have been hanging on to the division lead.  Nevertheless, LA is incredibly fundamentally flawed.  You think we should be excited because they won 5 in a row before last night? Yea, well they lost 5 in a row before that.  That’s called .500 baseball, or better known as mediocrity.  I love how skipper Don Mattingly has been instructed by Andrew Friedman not to play hit and run because his team cannot run the bases, and he would rather not give away outs.  It’s too bad the Dodgers don’t have a young, all-star, cost controlled, 2nd baseman and leadoff man, who can steal 60 bases a season.  Oh wait….they did have that in Dee Gordon, but Friedman traded him to Florida last winter.  Watching this team play couldn’t be any more frustrating.

Then there’s the Angels, who got swept away by the Indians.  The season has quickly gotten away from the Halos in the last few weeks, and with a month to go, the division looks out of reach.  Even the Wild Card is slipping away with a couple of teams that have jumped in front of them.  The lineup has too many holes, and suddenly the starting pitchers look like hell.  It’s sure going to be fun dishing out about $40 million next year to Jered Weaver and CJ Wilson, when neither should even be in the rotation.  If Mike Scioscia has as much power and influence as I think he does, he needs to make sure that he’s got a roster that can actually manufacture runs, play good defense, and play his style of ball, rather than one that sits back and waits for the long ball.  Otherwise, the team is making one of the best managers in baseball look like one of the worst.

It’s really a shame what Sark has done to the USC Football program in the last week.  People should be talking about how great of a team they could have this season.  Heck, Adoree Jackson might even be a sleeper Heisman Trophy candidate.  Instead, we are talking about how stupid Sark is for getting hammered at last week’s donor event.  Sark could have easily been suspended by Pat Haden for his stupidity, however, if Haden eventually has to remove Sark, the USC AD will find himself under much more heat from the University for making a 2nd straight poor hire.  Then again, without Sark, we’d be talking about something stupid like how many points USC is going to crush Arkansas State by.  This is a far more interesting story to follow!

On to the NFL where they say week 3 of the preseason is like a dress rehearsal for NFL players.  This makes perfect sense because RGIII was on the sidelines in street clothes for this past weekends preseason game.  Rumor has it that not only has Griffin lost his starting spot to Kirk Cousins, but that Subway will now try to trade him to another restaurant as well.

Did anybody actually watch the MTV VMA’s? Did anybody actually realize that some artists still make music videos?  Since there aren’t many, it must not take much to win these awards.  In any case the show was still entertaining.  The Nicki Minaj and Taylor Swift “beef” is fake, but Minaj’s beef with Miley Cyrus is way more real.  Once again, Kanye found a way to make everything about him, stealing the stage for an 11 minute speech, where by the end, you really had no idea what hell he was talking about.  I do see why he thinks he has a chance to become President in 2020 though.  I mean Donald Trump has given hope to everybody now.  Miley Cyrus also had a nip slip.  Since Jock Talk LA is a family site (ok maybe not) i’ll let you just Google it.

Finally, Fear The Walking Dead aired it’s second episode last night on AMC.  This prequel to The Walking Dead is really more of a “slow-pocalypse” rather than a “zombie apocalypse”.  The world is very slowly falling apart, but that’s perfectly ok for the audience.  What we’re really seeing isn’t how the world fell apart.  It’s how human beings fell apart and brought the world to an apocalyptic state.  Nick, one of the main characters, is a drug addict who has to deal with withdrawal during the chaos.  Ironically, his seizure prevents his sister from walking off to her imminent death.  You also know the world is falling apart when the principal tries to eat you.  This show is far less bloody than The Walking Dead, and the zombie scenes are actually more intriguing because people don’t know how to deal with zombies yet.  They don’t know how dangerous they really are, and that they are actually trying to eat people.  One of the themes that’s emerging in this show is that people just don’t talk to each other either, which is causing the decay of society.  I’m talking everything from the government not communicating with citizens, to Nick’s own family members not wanting to listen to him because he’s a drug addict.  It really just confirms that the zombies didn’t cause the apocalypse.  Human beings did.

August 24th, 2015

There is a major nerd crisis going on in the Dodger front office, and a disaster happening on the field.  They got swept away by the A’s and Astros.  Meanwhile, the front office thinks they are brilliant but they are about to get slapped in the face when LA misses the playoffs this year.  Last week they acquired old man 2nd baseman Chase Utley from the Phillies.  This is a great move…..if it were 2008.  What’s the plan next? Convince Roy Halladay and Brad Lidge to unretire?  I guess Andy Friedman thought the best way to jump start the Dodgers offense was by adding another .220 hitter to the lineup.  To make matters worse, he hasn’t fixed the bullpen.  For all his brilliance, he can’t fix the easiest part of a team to fix.  It cost them multiple times last week.  I mean for god sakes, if the Dodgers are so obsessed with 19 year old pitcher Julio Urias (who they refused to trade for David Price or Cole Hamels), just bring him up now and use him out of the pen!  All of those Atlanta Braves rejects the Dodgers acquired have a collective ERA of 8.  What they really need to do is start using a trash truck to shuttle relievers from the bullpen to the mound.  5 straight losses and it looks like this team is running out of gas before September even gets here.

The Angels won’t be sending the Dodgers any fruit baskets after the Astros opened up an even bigger lead in the AL West over the weekend.  The Halos took a Ronda Rousey like beating from the Blue Jays, and now even the Rangers have blown past them in the division.  Andrew Heaney doesn’t look invincible anymore, and the Angels most reliable starters are bleeding runs.  2nd base is a black hole, and the cast of characters they acquired in the outfield has been useless. Oh, and the extra kick in the balls is that Mike Trout looks like he’s going to lose his reigning MVP trophy to Blue Jays 3rd basemen Josh Donaldson.  The Angels remind me of a ship that is slowly springing one leak at a time, and once one leak is plugged, two more show up.  Seems like they need a real General Manager this winter before they start fixing them.  It sure would have been nice if that GM was Dave Dombrowski.  Then again, it’s going to be tough to get a real General Manager in Anaheim with Mike Scioscia proving recently that he had more power than ex-gm Jerry Dipoto.

On to college football, where USC coaches still act like buffoons.  Head coach Steve Sarkisian was speaking to a group of alums on Saturday for their football kickoff event, where he completely embarrassed the program.  Sark must have stopped by the Sigma Chi house for a few keg stands prior to showing up, because he was totally liquored up and slurring his words while speaking at the event.  He then proceeded to drop an F-bomb while introducing his team to donors, then claimed that Notre Dame, Oregon, and Arizona State suck.  By the way, Sark is a combined 0-9 against Oregon and Arizona State all time.  He then said a number of other inappropriate things while cussing some more, and he had to be pulled off the stage by Athletic Director Pat Haden and John McKay Jr.  Annnnnd……just like that Sark is on the hot seat.  He’s been rumored to have had some legendary drunk nights at local bars in Seattle, and seeing him at an event like this just confirms that he’s a PR liability.  The Trojans had better live up to that #8 preseason ranking, or else Pat Haden is going to kill Sark’s USC career faster than Waterworld killed Kevin Costner’s career.

Over in Westwood, Jim Mora Jr. is totally screwing with Jon Rosen.  This freshman stud should have been named the starting quarterback ages ago, but Mora is clearly trying to create some competition among him and soon-to-be backup Jerry Neuheisal.  Mora went off at Rosen in front of the media during a practice last week, where he ripped the freshmen after doing one lackadaisical drill at the end of practice.  Good thing Rosen’s dad isn’t a famous rapper, or else Mora might really be danger of his star freshman quitting the team.  Rosen has actually had the benefit of going up against a very good UCLA defense in practice, which should prepare him very well for his first game action in a couple of weeks.  There is simply no way that Mora goes into week 1 with Jerry Neuheisal as his starting quarterback. Even Neuheisal probably knows that.  But Rosen’s ego put off some people in the recruiting process, and Mora is aware of that.  He’s doing his best to keep the kid humble, which would be tough for any freshman starting quarterback at a big time university.  I like the motivation tactics by Mora, but it wouldn’t kill the guy to be a little more media friendly!

If I hear one more thing about deflate gate, I’m going to throw my television out the window.  At this point, Tom Brady is stomping his feet saying he’s only going to accept a punishment for obstructing the investigation and not deflating footballs.  The league thinks otherwise.  What I really want is for a judge to go “That’s it!…..you Mr. Brady and you Mr Goodell…..you’re going to jail!”  On the field, you’re probably losing your mind right now if you drafted Kelvin Benjamin or Jordy Nelson in your fantasy football league, since both are done for the season with knee injuries.  Speaking of injuries, football is back, and that means RGIII is injured! He’s about as durable as an IPhone charger.  I can’t believe any quarterback has to play behind that offensive line.  It’s just about time for both sides to split from one another for the good of the Redskins, and RGIII.  So let me get this straight…..RGIII thinks he is the best QB in the league, Tony Romo thinks the Cowboys will win the Super Bowl, the Eagles signed Tim Tebow, and Eli Manning thinks he should be the highest paid Quarterback? The league needs to drug test the entire NFC East immediately.

Nice move by the LA Kings signing veteran defenseman Christian Ehrhoff.  The Kings were badly hurting for some veteran depth on the blue line, and they got it for a cheap $1.5 million.  I’m still surprised that the Rangers took a chance on Jarret Stoll after he got busted for drugs.  I mean, they are taking a guy who loves dope, and putting him in a city with plenty of party action.  That’s like telling your friend that loves to sleep with Asians that he can’t do that anymore, and then sending him on a vacation to Thailand.

It’s amazing isn’t it? Caitlyn Jenner went from being admired for man slaughter to being arrested for manslaughter.  What a difference a space makes.

JR Smith is returning to the Cavs.  He celebrated by going to the bar and taking a shot.  And another……And another….

News broke last week that former Subway spokesman Jared Fogle is pleading guilty to child porn charges.  Looks like when Jared goes to prison, he will be tasting a different type of foot long from now on.

There was some good stuff on TV last night for a Sunday night in August.  First off, we had the Season Finale of Ballers on HBO.  I definitely love the show, and they should keep it going, but there wasn’t really a whole lot of adversity that any of the main characters really faced by the time the season ended.  It actually reminded me of Entourage, where the biggest problem facing the main characters was where they were going to go party.  In any case, it’s a show they can do a lot with, and should absolutely continue.  How likable of an actor has The Rock become?

Then of course there was the Series Premier of Fear The Walking Dead on AMC.  For several years, many of us have been watching The Walking Dead, and although we are hooked, we all wonder how the heck the illness and zombie apocolypse started.  After a 90 minute pilot that was the prequel to The Walking Dead, we have a little bit of an idea, but still nothing certain.  My only problem with the show thus far is that most of us are tuning in to get some answers, and there seem to be very little.  In fact, all we have seen so far is civilization right before it began to fall apart.  At the same time, a bunch of characters seem to consistently withold information from one another.  This is frustrating.  For instance, Maddie has a conversation with a troubled student who wouldn’t fully explain what he saw on TV, and what strange things are happening across the country.  I also get the feeling that watching this show will simply be like replacing one annoying set of teenagers on The Walking Dead with another set in Fear The Walking Dead.  The show has got my attention so we’ll see where it goes from here.

August 17th, 2015

We’re about a year away from the selection of the 2016 USA Basketball team for the Summer Olympics in Rio De Janeiro.  Most of us seem to think that Kobe Bryant’s Olympic career ended in 2012, after winning his second gold medal.  Apparently, he and Jerry Colangelo, who is the chairman of USA basketball, think otherwise.  Colangelo said that he and Bryant have had discussions about him possibly being on the team next summer, if he plays well enough to earn a roster spot.  That conversation tells me that Kobe finally realizes that his odds of winning another NBA Championship before his career is over are about the same as my odds of marrying Jennifer Aniston.  An Olympic gold would be the next best thing to finish it up.  Problem is, I have my doubts Kobe can make it through an entire NBA season healthy enough to play.  Even if he does, whose roster spot would he take?  It would surely mean a promising young player like Kyrie Irving, DeMarcus Cousins, or Klay Thompson would get left off the roster.  It would be a nice way for Kobe to end his career, but probably not a realistic one.

Speaking of Team USA, during their mini camp scrimmage that was aired on ESPN, Austin Rivers had a few things to say on Twitter.  Rivers said  “Straight up better than a lot of those dudes playing last night….. Have to prove that this year.”  Does Rivers mean he’s actually better at playing basketball than those dudes? He must mean beer pong, or bowling, or something else, because he couldn’t even stop Pablo Prigioni the 2nd round of the playoffs last year.  Oh, and then he must have forgotten about this moment too…..

Don’t you just love the NBA? The Cavs have yet to re-sign restricted free agent big man Tristan Thompson.  Thompson wants a 5 year $94 million contract.  $94 million for a guy that averaged 8 pts and 8 rebounds?  Typical NBA.  The only factor that could make this happen is Lebron James putting pressure on the Cavs to get this done, since they share the same agent.  I don’t care what Lebron says, signing Thompson to a deal that big would be idiotic.  He’s a nice player, but he’s not a max guy.  You have to draw the line somewhere.  Good for the Cavs for playing hardball.  If teams are going to give out max money like financial crisis bailout money, I’d like to personally declare myself an NBA free agent today.

On to baseball, where the Dodgers took 3 of 4 from the Reds over the weekend, but it’s hardly anything to get excited about.  For roughly the last 80 games, the Dodgers have been nothing more than a .500 team, and they’ve done that by beating up on scrub teams like the Reds, who have been waiving the white flag for months.  People want to blame Don Mattingly for the decisions he does or does not make with his bullpen.  However, Andy Friedman has given Mattingly nothing more than an empty water pistol to put out a forest fire.  Friedman has had nearly a year to fix a bullpen, which is the easiest area to fix, especially for a team with a unlimited financial resources.  Somehow, he’s managed to make the bullpen even worse than last year, The man just doesn’t know pitching.  He even had a chance to add another all-star starter which would put much less importance on a week ass bullpen, but failed to do so.  This is a team doing it with smoke and mirrors that’s going to get exposed come October.

As for the Angels, things aren’t much better.  They blew a 9th inning lead last night, and lost in extra innings to the Royals on Sunday Night Baseball.  They ended up losing 3 of 4 to KC, and now sit 3.5 games back of the Astros in the AL West.  They are also trailing by .5 games for the 2nd wild card spot.  Even though they seem to be within striking distance of the playoffs, the pitching is crumbling.  Matt Shoemaker suddenly can’t pitch, CJ Wilson is done for the season, and Jered Weaver is more unpredictable than Nicki Minaj’s hair color.  It’s gotten so bad that the Angels actually think Chase Utley might save their season.  Wouldn’t it have been easier to acquire a real impact bat a few weeks ago?  What they really need is an effective leadoff hitter.  No team in baseball has a lower OBA from its leadoff hitters.  That’s tough when you’ve got Mike Trout and Albert Pujols in the middle of your lineup.

The NFL preseason games are pretty overrated, but they’ve provided us with some nice entertainment over the last week.  Phil Rivers played his hand very well with the Chargers, securing a 4 year contract extension with $65 million guaranteed.  For that price, I’m sure he’ll move his 65 million children to Los Angeles if he has to.  They say Geno Smith tried to punch back after getting his jaw broken.  He missed the punch by about 10 yards though.  Trent Richardson is amazing.  He’s the only running back in the NFL that knows how to run right into a pile of lineman instead of a gaping hole that will lead to the end zone when both are right in front of him.  You know it’s the preseason when Jay Cutler isn’t throwing interception and the Browns are winning.  Speaking of the Browns, Johnny Manziel really had to check himself after scoring a TD the other night so that he would not flash that stupid money sign he used to.  Even Tim Tebow managed to get into the end zone for the Eagles over the weekend.  Here’s a look at what was going on at the ESPN headquarters after that happened…..

For a second there, Jay Day was beginning to look like the new Phil Mickelson, who was the lefty loser for so many years.  He finally broker through and won the PGA Championship over the weekend.  Meanwhile, Tiger Woods has fallen off a cliff and missed Saturday’s cut.  Do you realize in Tigers first 8.5 years as a pro, he missed one cut.  He’s now missed four of the last ten cuts.  He has literally lost his mind, more than his game.  You can’t free fall like that just off of losing a skill set alone.  Oh, I’m also pretty sure that when Jason Day loses, he still wins.  Meet his wife Ellie….

August 10th, 2015

The Dodgers need to bring back their slogan “A Whole New Blue” from two years ago.  That’s because this team is more painful to watch than having blue balls.  This weekend’s series against the Pirates was a perfect example of that.  The Dodgers are a good team, but they don’t look ready to beat a great team in October.  After refusing to trade Yasiel Puig at the deadline, Don Mattingly is on the verge of benching him for his inconsistencies at the plate.   If Puig were the real superstar we once thought he was, we could live with some of his stupid mental mistakes.  However, now he’s just a guy.  Then there’s rookie Joc Pederson, who is baseball’s new Adam Dunn.  He’s either going to walk, strikeout, or hit a home run.  Lately it’s been mostly strikeouts, and the only thing keeping Pederson in the lineup is his defense.  This is all compounded by the fact that the bullpen is terrible.  How many times do I have to see Joel Peralta give up a bunch of runs, then have that “I’m so disgusted with myself” look on his face? It doesn’t matter how much money the Dodgers have.  They just don’t know how to play their cards right.

Then there’s the Angels.  They had a relatively free drama week, but they are still chasing the Astros in the AL West, and they’ll also need to fend off the Rangers.  First, the Astros made moves at the deadline to jumpstart their team, then Texas acquired notorious Angel killer Mike Napoli from Boston.  I’m not sure what exactly Bill Stoneman is waiting for…..to turn 72 years old?  The man has a part-time job and essentially has nothing to lose, yet managed to acquire every useless left fielder in the American League at the trade deadline.  Meanwhile, Yoenis Cespedes is already tearing it up with the Mets.  He sure would have been a nice bat to put next to Mike Trout and Albert Pujols.  Speaking of Albert Pujols, MASN’s Gary Thorne probably didn’t use the right adjective here on this play…..

To the NBA, where Kobe Bryant says the Lakers can “absolutely” make the playoffs this year.  That is true assuming LA is playing NBA 2K in rookie mode.  Kobe also said that he can envision himself finishing his career overseas before retiring.  This would really be a complete no-brainer if he has the opportunity to do so.  The Lakers are going to need some time to develop their young core.  Kobe isn’t going to stick around for that beyond this year, especially if the Lakers are going to ask him to take a pay cut from the $25 million salary he’ll be making next season.  The Black Mamba can easily go to Italy to play for an easy $50 million a year, where he’ll be playing a much less stressful 30 games a year or so.  If Kobe knows he can’t win another title before it’s over, he should go for another payday.  Speaking of Kobe, Brandon Armstrong is a former overseas player who recently made a video impersonating him.  Armstrong has also made numerous other hilarious videos impersonating NBA all-star’s on the court, including Lebron James, James Harden, Russell Westbrook, and Tim Duncan.  Even the Mamba thought this was hilarious….

College Football is underway, and that means camps have opened for both USC and UCLA.  It absolutely blows my mind that Cody Kessler is in the preseason discussion as a potential Heisman Trophy Candidate.  Never in my life have I seen statistics as deceiving as this guy put up.  He has huge games against horrendous competition, and is nothing more than an average quarterback against real competition.  He also doesn’t take too many chances throwing the ball down the field, so naturally, his interception numbers are going to be low.  The Trojans have got some depth this year, but maybe not the star power they had in the past.  The non-conference schedule is pretty weak early, but things get tough down the stretch with games at Notre Dame, at Oregon, and at home against UCLA.  This has the makings of another 8 or 9 win season.

As for the Bruins, everything starts and finishes with true freshman quarterback Josh Rosen.  By all accounts, this kid is going to be good, the questions is how much time will it take?  The Bruins could be as good as an 8 or 9 win team if he learns slowly, or good enough to win the Pac 12 if he’s as good as advertised in his first year.  The early trip to Arizona and the late trip to the Coliseum will determine who is going to come out of the Pac-12 South.  The talent has been there for the last few years, it’s simply a matter of whether or not UCLA can come to play against the elite.

NFL Football is back! Ok sort of.  We got to watch the Hall of Fame game last night, which everyone salivated over, even if we get to see the starters play for a few seconds.  I’ve never really been a fan of attending preseason sporting events.  You pay regular season prices to see talent that probably won’t be playing during the regular season.  It’s even worse for season ticket holders, who are forced to actually buy those tickets with their season ticket packages.  Meanwhile, Alden Smith was released by the 49ers this past week under their “23 strikes and you’re out” policy.  Have the Cowboys signed him yet?  With Arian Foster set to miss part of the season, the Colts are now projected to clinch the AFC South when their week 1 game kicks off.  Amazing, Robert Griffin III has gone an entire hour at Redskins camp without suffering an injury, which sets a new personal best for him.

Finally, The GOP debate on Thursday night in Cleveland was simply epic television.  It felt like I was watching an episode of Saturday Night Live, especially every time Donald Trump opened his mouth. Trump may end up hurting the Republican’s chances in the long run, but his presence alone is generating the biggest and most attentive audience in American politics at this point.  In the most conventional of thoughts, most people would think Trump actually hurt himself with some of his smart ass comments.  However, when you have so many new people engaged in politics that generally don’t come out to the polls for elections, all bets are off.  There’s a great deal of frustration and anger that these new viewers have when tuning in, so in many ways, Trump is appealing to them.  The real surprise was actually that Jeb Bush didn’t do much to give people a reason to go the polls and vote for him.  There was simply nothing about him that set him apart.  There were other candidates like Marco Rubio and Carly Fiorina that did well, but nobody outshined Trump.  I can’t wait for the next one of these in September.  You knew it was going to be a great two hours when Trump opened with this…..

 

August 4th, 2015

Ok, so Monday Morning Coffee became Tuesday Morning Coffee this week.  I needed an extra day to rationalize my disappointment in the Dodgers.  I can’t accuse the franchise for being cheap.  I can’t accuse them for trying to develop their farm system.  I can’t even accuse them of not trying to build sustainable success.  However, what I can accuse them of is not taking advantage of their window of opportunity to win a World Series.  They failed to do that at the trade deadline when they had the opportunity to get Cole Hamels, David Price, or even Johnny Cueto.  Instead, we were left with a handful of underwhelming moves that you baseball nerds, who are super into analytics described as “cagey”.  Nobody cares if you are good for 20 years, but can’t win a World Series in that time.  The Dodgers have been a player or two away from it forever.  Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke won’t be here and performing well for an infinite period of time.  Why spend money getting rid of players and taking chances on a ton of prospects instead of spending that money on star talent while you have fewer but more quality prospects developing?  Grabbing another ace would have put them over the top, but they failed to capitalize.  They did sweep the Angels over the weekend, but that’s a small consolation.  It was fun while it lasted, but I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the Dodgers for participating in the 2015 MLB season, because it’s virtually over now.

Meanwhile, the Angels are suddenly sinking like the Titanic.  After a brief stay in 1st place, the Astros swung a few deals at the trade deadline, and now have a 4 game lead on the Angels in the AL West.    The Halos badly needed a bat, but settled for some mediocre outfielders in Shane Victorino, David Murphy, and David DeJesus.  Bill Stoneman should have been more aggressive going after the likes of Yoenis Cespedes, Jay Bruce, or even Justin Upton.  Even though the Angels roster is better than the rest of the division, the turmoil has been non-stop.  The latest issue came from CJ Wilson, who most fans would prefer if he and his contract were ejected from the universe.  Wilson has struggled on the mound, and now is claiming he will shut down his season to have elbow surgery.  Reports are however, that his teammates are angry with him, and think he can play through the pain.  Sounds to me like CJ is really getting backlash for a number of things.  It’s either that he publicly supported that bum Josh Hamilton, that he takes artsy photos, or that he seems more focused on his car dealership.  In any case, sounds like there’s a good chance CJ won’t be with the Angels next season.

Elsewhere around the MLB trade deadline, David Price was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays, which will allow him to unique opportunity of being able to miss the playoffs in another country.  The Mets’ Wilmer Flores was caught on camera crying during a game when he heard the rumor that he had been traded.  That rumor ended up not being true.  It’s hard not to cry when you realize that you can’t escape from the Mets.  Speaking of the Mets, they acquired Yoenis Cespedes from the Tigers.  I guess Billy Beane must have known something when he traded him from Oakland 2 years and 47 trades ago.

On to the Olympics, where I would like to thank the city of Boston for pulling out the running for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games.  This was a mistake from the start, awarding the games to a city that had little to no desire to have them, and had no financial plan in place for them.  Meanwhile, Los Angeles is a city that is perfect for them, and far more economically viable than any other city in the running.  We could be ready for the Olympics in the next 5 minutes if it were necessary.  The existing venues and infrastructure are that good, and they will be even better in 2024 if and when a privately financed NFL stadium is built.  However, I still have no idea why the IOC continues to award the Olympics to countries that simply have no business hosting the games, like Brazil.  It was revealed last week that many of the bodies of water that the athletes will compete in are contaminated with dangerously high levels of viruses and bacteria, and that there is no way they can fix this problem by the time the games start next summer.  The athletes who spend much of their lives training for this moment should not have to make the decision of whether or not to compete, but many of them probably still will.  I’d like to see many of the IOC committee members get into that water before any of the athletes do if they think it isn’t a problem.

Byron Scott says that Kobe Bryant will likely see some time at the Power Forward position this season.  Say what?  Will this also be complementing Roy Hibbert when he is running the point? Congrats so Sasha Vujacic on returning to the NBA, after signing a one year deal.  The former Laker and “That Machine”, as they call him, once dunked on Lamar Odom in practice, and trust me folks, Phil Jackson had to shut the practice down and send everyone home.  How on earth is Josh Smith going to feed his family on the measly $6.9 million he is scheduled to make this season from the Clippers and Pistons?  Everybody should text “Smoove” to 12345 to donate $5 so his family won’t have to suffer.

We’re getting closer and closer to football season folks.  That means we are 6 weeks away from Tom Brady’s appeal of his appeal of his appeal of his suspension; Russell Wilson being unhappy about being paid $22 million per season; Browns fans looking forward to the NBA season after being 0-1; the Raiders winning…….the coin toss and then losing the game 41-6; Trent Richardson finishing with a career high 17 yards on 11 carries for his new team; and Chip Kelly trading DeMarco Murray for a bag of chips after a week 1 loss.  Speaking of Tom Brady, his 38th birthday just past, and Jock Talk LA was able to get a copy of his birthday wish list:

Finally, Ronda Rousey is unbelievable.  I’m not even an MMA fan, but her dominance is astounding.  Her fight against Bethe Corriea over the weekend was like watching a sledgehammer vs an ant.  Rousey finished her so fast, I felt like she could have won 12 more fights that night.  As for Corriea, she should be invited to play a walker on the upcoming season of The Walking Dead, since that’s about all that’s left of her.  Honestly, my only intrigue of watching Rousey at this point would be to start putting her up against men and see how long they can last in the Octagon against her.  I don’t think many would do well against her….