Monthly Archives: October 2014

Monday Morning Coffee

Nash and Kobe

October 27th, 2014

You didn’t really think Steve Nash was going to stay healthy and play again did you? Once you have nerve damage in any part of your body, I’m pretty sure that you don’t just heal from that over time.  Nash knew he had no chance to play this year, but simply came back to collect a $9 million social security check from the Lakers.  This is actually a good thing the way I see it.  Jeremy Lin is now going to get a ton of minutes to pump up his stats and increase his value by the trade deadline, which can return some valuable assets for the team.  It’s a sad way to go out for Nash, but it’s still a trade that at the time, it was a no brainer to do.  Thanks for the little you contributed to the Lakers Steve, and the little value you might still bring before it’s over.

I’ve gotta address that stupid article that ESPN writer Henry Abbott wrote about nobody wanting to play with Kobe.  This is a very tired storyline, that people have unsuccessfully tried to write about for twenty years.  Abbot wrote a story just to get some clicks without any balance, and lacking some critical information.  He uses Shaquille O’Neal, Andrew Bynum, and Dwight Howard, as examples of players that had issues with Kobe.  He also failed to mentioned that Shaq had issues with Penny Hardaway and Dwayne Wade, Bynum had issues wherever he went after the Lakers, and the fact that Dwight Howard had accountability issues in Orlando and Houston.  It’s also funny that he got unnamed agents as sources for his story, yet he didn’t ask Pau Gasol, Matt Barnes, Steve Blake, Derek Fisher, or Rick Fox how they felt about Kobe.  That’s because all those guys loved playing with him.  Even Paul George and Carmelo Anthony, free agents that didn’t sign with the Lakers, thought that the story was ridiculous.

Also, for Abbott and everybody else that keep focusing on how “terrible” the Lakers decision was to  pay Kobe $48 million over two years, you are all missing a valuable piece of information.  The Lakers TV contract with Timer Warner includes a provision that says the ratings must remain at a certain level to receive a certain share of profitability.  Without Kobe Bryant, those ratings drop immensely.  In fact, they would drop to a level that ultimately make it much more costly to lose him, than to pay him the $48 million.  It was just as much as basketball decision as it was a business decision.

To college football, where the UCLA Bruins are finding new ways to embarrass themselves.  The Bruins blew a 17 point lead against Colorado, yet pulled out a 40-37 win in overtime.  Colorado?? You can’t be serious right?  These guys shouldn’t even be in Division I football, let alone the Pac 12.  UCLA is setting themselves up for some serious failure over the final month of the regular season.  They appear to be in serious decline, and are putting themselves in position to be embarrassed in their final four games of the season, including a game against the Trojans.  Not only do they have to win out to have a chance to win the Pac 12 South, but they need to hope Utah and Arizona State start losing some conference games as well.

Meanwhile, those Trojans really know how to break your heart right?  USC gave up another lead late, and lost at Utah 24-21.  The Trojans got some good luck at Stanford and Arizona.  This game felt a lot like those games, but USC was due to come up on the short end of one of these road games in conference after those two lucky wins.  Most of you Trojan fans want to murder Sark, but it’s really on the players to make more plays and win more of these close games.  Sark did the right thing by going for it late in the game, since Andre Heidari was banged up.  Heck, if Nelson Agholor stayed in bounds, the Trojans probably would have won.  I also don’t understand why Utah fans rushed the field after winning the game.  They do realize they were actually ranked ahead of the Trojans coming into the game right?  You could even see one of the Utah players utter the words “we’re going to a bowl game” when it was over.  That guy would get slapped if he were playing in a lot of programs.  It just goes to show you the vast difference between these two athletic programs.

On to the NFL where after 7 weeks, the story lines have completely flipped.  I guess Tom Brady and the Patriots aren’t that old and washed up anymore.  Gronk hadn’t done that much damage since the last time he was in Vegas.  I guess that Chargers might not actually be able to compete with the Broncos after.  I guess the Rams and Falcons are actually that bad.  The Seahawks may have beaten Carolina, but their locker room problems suddenly make them nothing like the team we thought.  Can anyone actually take control of the AFC North?  Ben Roethlisberger is the first QB with multiple games of 500 or more passing yards and only two rapes.  Meanwhile, the Saints are filing a petition with the league to play every game at home.  And finally, the Bills and Jets are just full of laughs.  Sammy Watkins cracked the champagne a little too soon on this one…..

Quick thought on the Dodgers and their managerial situation this past week.  When Joe Maddon left the Rays this week, everyone immediately thought it was a foregone conclusion he was going to the Dodgers.  I’m sure Andy Friedman knew all along that Maddon could leave the Rays.  The fact that he immediately told everyone that Don Mattingly was going to manage the Dodgers next year tells you everything you need to know here.  If he thought that Maddon was a better fit than Mattingly, he would have immediately hit the eject button on the LA skipper.  Friedman made the correct choice here.  Don Mattingly may still be improving as an in-game manager, but he is absolutely the best person to manage the egos of the Dodger players, rather than Maddon.

Let’s go to the ice, where the Kings are rolling, but they got a huge scare yesterday.  Anze Kopitar left the game after a collision behind the net.  Make no mistake about it, the Kings cannot actually lose Kopitar for any length of time, or else they will suffer at both ends of the ice.  Coach Darryl Sutter downplayed the injury, but then again, he downplays everything.  Oh yea, the team has also won six in a row, and for the first time in history, they had a 6-0 homestand.

Finally, another great episode of The Walking Dead last night.  Spoiler alert for those of you who have yet to see it.  Quick summary: Bob tells Gareth and his friends that they are idiots because he’s been bitten, so they ate infected meat.  Gareth and his friends leave Bob in front of the church where Rick and the gang find him.  Bob tells Rick what happened.  Gareth and the cannibals try to ambush the group at the church, but Rick is ready for it.  Rick and the crew kill Gareth and his entire group.  Sadly, Bob dies.  Then, Michonne finds Darryl at the end of the episode in the woods.  She asks “where is Carol?” Darryl says “come out.”  Except we don’t know who he is telling that to when the episode ends.

I definitely thought the Gareth saga would last a lot longer than it did.  I gotta admit, he had kind of a charismatic side to him that we saw early in the episode.  On a more disgusting note, he is basically a cannibal “foodie”, as he talks about his taste for women.  His fate had to be celebrated by all fans of the show.  I’m actually shocked that Gabriel is no mastermind, and is actually just a really big pansy.  I also don’t really know why Bob had such a long ceremonious like death.  There were other characters in the show that had more significance, yet their deaths were not as long and drawn out.  Lastly, I’m not really sure why Maggie acting so cool since her sister was kidnapped by a bunch of strangers.  I guess we’ll find out more on that in the next episode.

Rick Roof Episode

 

 

 

 

 

Monday Morning Coffee

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October 20th, 2014

The Dodgers have taken quick and sudden action after being eliminated from the playoffs just over a week ago.  As we expected, Ned Colletti paid the price, as he was demoted to a special advisor, while Rays GM Andy Friedman was hired as director of baseball operations, and he will hire a new General Manager.  Ok, I get it.  Friedman accomplished a lot in Tampa with few resources, and at face value, this could be a good move.  However, I think the LA front office is badly overreacting to this entire situation.  Just because the Royals are a small market team that made it to the World Series, that doesn’t mean the Dodgers need to operate like one to get there.  The Red Sox and Tigers have consistently been in the hunt the last few years, and they’ve been spending plenty of money.  It’s about spending money in the right places, while also developing your farm system.  Hopefully Friedman and the rest of the Dodgers see it this way before blowing up the team, otherwise the Dodgers could be a lot further away from winning the World Series than they are now.

On to some college football, where watching UCLA football makes you want to jump off the Santa Monica Pier.  The Bruins barely beat a horrendous Cal team in the Bay Area on Saturday by a measly two points.  Cal Quarterback Jared Goff clearly lost his mind at the end of the game, putting the ball in the air and throwing an interception, when all his team needed to win the game was a field goal.  We’re halfway through the season and it’s very clear now, UCLA’s talent is much better than the level of football it actually plays.  Four of their five wins have been close games against teams they should have blown off the field.   They’ve only put together one complete game, which was against Arizona State.    Even Brett Hundley looks overrated, as he should have shredded this crappy Cal defense to pieces.  His 330 yards are deceiving, because we didn’t see much of a vertical attack, against a defense that had the worst secondary in the nation.

Brett Hundley, Darius Allensworth

Over at the Coliseum, Cody Kessler threw a ridiculous 7 touchdown passes in a blowout against Colorado.  The last time he did that, he was playing Playstation against his roommate in his dorm room.   This win was fools gold for the Trojans, and Kessler in particular.  Since I was there in person, I can’t think of a single one of those long passes that wasn’t lobbed up in the air, that wouldn’t have been intercepted by a halfway decent defense.  Then again, that probably explains why Kessler has only one turnover on the season.  Sark simply doesn’t let the guy throw down the field, and wants him to be more of a game manager.  Kessler isn’t going to single handedly win games for USC, but he’s solid enough to be their starter.  The Trojans still haven’t had their annual slip up in conference play against an opponent they should beat.  That would make me weary going into their games against Utah, Washington State, and Cal.

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There’s no doubt the best game of the college football season thus far was Notre Dame vs Florida State.  Apparently, none of you had any idea that Notre Dame was capable of beating FSU, and should have.  That’s also probably because most of you forgot that Everett Golson is 16-1 as a starting quarterback.  I know most of you Irish fans want to strangle the referee that made that offensive pass interference call at the end of the game, but it was the right call, even though you hate to see a great game end that way.  Besides, as long as ND wins out, they should absolutely be in the playoff, and who wouldn’t want to see a re-match at the Rose Bowl in January?   I can’t tell you how much I laughed out loud when i heard Jimbo Fisher tell the media how much of a “high character” program he has.  Still, this Jameis Winston autograph scandal doesn’t make any sense.  How is he supposed to sign autographs if he can’t even spell his own name?

To the NFL, where my hopes and dreams have been shattered, because the Jaguars actually won a game by beating the Browns yesterday.  Was that Sunday Night Football on NBC last night? Or an SEC non-conference game?  The Seahawks are probably ready to send Pete Carroll to the Jaguars for a 9th round pick after losing to the Rams.  Meanwhile, Percy Harvin is still weighing the pros and cons of being traded to the Jets.  The pros include no more touchdowns being called back.  The cons include no more touchdowns.  Southern Californians needs to do everything they can to make sure the Raiders do not move back here.  Apparently nobody wants to win the NFC South.  The Cowboys are making it really tough to keep making jokes about them.  At one point in that Charger-Chiefs game, I was wondering why Alex Smith is even on the field. The Chiefs might as well have been snapping the ball directly to Jamal Charles.  Still, the Chargers faced a real team for the first time in a month and failed.  The Jay Cutler implosion is in full effect in Chicago.  Are the Redskins really going to start Colt McCoy next week?  Terence Newman made the worst tackling attempt I have ever seen in an NFL game yesterday too….

We’re just two weeks into the NBA pre-season, and people are already freaking out about the Lakers and how bad they might be.  I never said they were going to be good, however, I’m not going to draw any big conclusions after the team was blown out in their last three pre-season games.  I don’t see anybody commenting on the fact the Clippers and Spurs have the same preseason record as the Lakers either.  Byron Scott is absolutely right: this team shouldn’t be jacking up a bunch of three pointers every night.  They don’t have the shooters, and they are going to be much more effective slowing the pace of the game down, while focusing on the defensive end of the floor.  Their personnel doesn’t lend itself to playing any other style folks, regardless of whether or not it’s more entertaining.

On the ice, the Kings are off to a very impressive start, and they are hardly playing their best hockey.  LA is taking advantage of a cushy 6 game home stand early on, and they’ve won 4 straight.  I always say, the sign of a great team is one that can win when they aren’t at their best.  The Kings are winning with dominant play from Jonathan Quick, and one line that is scoring, better known as “That’s 70’s Line”.  They are also allowing more shots than a UC Santa Barbara frat party, and can’t seem to do much on the powerplay.  All that and they’re still off to one of the fastest starts in the conference.  Also, good job by Dean Lombardi to re-sign Jake Muzzin, except I’m not sure where that leaves Alec Martinez, Justin Williams, and Jarret Stoll when their contracts are up at the end of the season.

Great news guys!  I finally got the IPhone 6 Plus.  It looks like this…….

Zack Morris Phone

On to The Walking Dead, which turned out to be way better than I thought it would this week.  I was completely expecting a much slower episode, but this episode was intense.  Spoiler alert for those of you that haven’t seen it yet.  Let’s summarize quickly.  The group is out in the wilderness and back in survival mode when they run into Gabriel, a priest who was being ambushed by Walkers.  The group saves Gabriel, who then led them to a Church, and later on a food bank, where they had to fend off some more Walkers.  Rick and the rest of the group do not completely trust Gabriel and his motivations yet, and make it clear to him by telling him “You’re hiding something.”  Near the end of the episode, Bob is letting some emotion out in the woods, and is attacked by Gareth.  Bob is tied up, and when he regains consciousness, Gareth admits that he and his group and cannibals.  Bob’s leg is also missing, as Gareth and his group have begun bbq’ing and eating him (wow, writing that was even more disturbing than reading it).

I don’t trust this Gabriel guy at all.  There’s no way anybody could live in a world with Walkers for this long and be afraid of them, so Gabriel has to be a villain.  I’m thinking he might have made a deal with the cannibals.  I’m still trying to figure out why Bob was crying in the woods, prior to being attacked by Gareth.  I think it might have been because he was actually bitten by a Walker while he was in the food bank.  I wonder what that means for Gareth’s group, since they might be eating infected meat.  Wow, that Gareth guy makes you want to punch him in the face when you listen to him talk.  I’m also dying to find out what happened to Beth, and who is in the mysterious car that swooped her up.  This season is getting good real fast!

Cannibal episode 2

 

Monday Morning

Kershaw AgonyOctober 13th, 2014

If you’re a Dodger fan, you’re probably in the latter stages of grieving.  Be prepared to grieve some more, as we kick-off Monday Morning Coffee by discussing the Dodgers disaster last week.  LA was eliminated from the playoffs by the Cardinals, and the reality of it is, the blame starts with Clayton Kershaw, the $215 million man.  He knew he needed to win games 1 and 4, and collapsed in the most critical moments of the Dodger’s season.  The Cardinals simply own Kershaw, who has lost his last 4 playoff starts to St. Louis.  Then there’s the useless pile of crap that is the Dodger bullpen.  The Dodgers spent a total of $45 million on Brandon League, JP Howell, Brian Wilson, and Chris Perez.  Not a single one could be trusted late in a playoff game, which forced Don Mattingly to stick with his starters as long as possible.  Mattingly isn’t off the hook either, as he benched his most dynamic player in Yasiel Puig in a must-win situation, in favor of a guy who probably doesn’t even remember how to play baseball, Andre Ethier.

Spending lots of money guarantees you get to the playoffs, but that’s it.  The playoffs are a crapshoot in baseball.  Rumor has it that Ned Colletti could take the fall for the Dodgers playoff failures, which is absurd.  This is the same general manager who should have been arrested for shoplifting in the McCourt era, as he had limited resources yet put together playoff caliber teams.  Many of the most critical personnel decisions like the Hanley Ramirez and Adrian Gonzales trades were all done at the ownership level.  The Dodgers have plenty of money to fix some of the easier problems to fix: A bullpen and a better defensive shortstop.  That’s it.  After that, it’s on the players to step up and get it done.  Yes, I’m talking about you Yasiel Puig and Clayton Kershaw.  If those guys do their jobs, the Dodgers are still playing, and ownership isn’t arbitrarily assigning blame to Colletti.

So the Angels and Dodgers were eliminated and on Saturday, the Bruins continued the Southern California losing streak that has taken place for more than a week now.  Things haven’t been this bad in SoCal since the Real Housewives of Orange County started airing.  The Bruins got destroyed by Oregon, in a game that was not nearly as close as the final score.  The worst part is, the Bruins had plenty of chances to score, but Oregon controlled the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball.  This was exactly my fear at the end of last season.  The Bruins quickly went from a team that was on the rise, to a team that is overrated and can’t compete with the big boys.  They are no better than last year, possibly even slightly worse.  Brett Hundley is a good quarterback, but still has moments of inconsistency, which doesn’t make him a Heisman Trophy candidate.  This is who the Bruins are: a good team, but not the great team for some reason everyone thought they could be.  There’s still time to win the Pac-12 and take down their cross-town rival, but even that would be amazing for this group.

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Then there’s the Trojans, who were one Southern California team that actually came up with a victory on Saturday.  USC got by Arizona 28-26, in a game that looked like the Trojans were going to lose by another devastating last second loss.  For all the moaning and groaning most of the USC faithful has experienced over the last few weeks, the Trojans are actually in 1st place in the Pac-12 South, and actually have a decent chance to go to the conference championship game.  The next four games will also be the softer part of USC’s schedule, before taking on UCLA and Notre Dame.  Sark needs to make sure he’s putting the ball in the hands of Javorius Allen as much as possible the rest of the season.  Allen has been running wild of late, and he’s SC’s best chance to win the conference.

Elsewhere around college football, The Fighting Irish of Notre Dame survived a trap game against UNC, with a 50-36 win.  Everett Golson is beginning to solidify himself as a Heisman Trophy candidate.  That sets up a huge showdown next week against #2 Florida State, in Tallahassee.  The Irish undefeated string will likely come to an end, but I fully expect a close game against FSU.  Mississippi State looks like the most complete team in college football.  That Baylor-TCU game looked like an arena football league game.  The Big Ten stinks, but don’t sleep on Michigan State climbing back into the playoff, as all those SEC teams beat up on each other.

To the NFL, where it was a tough night for the Giants last night against the Eagles.  New York fans hadn’t been that embarassed since early Sunday afternoon when the Jets played.  The Bucs should be demoted to the Big Ten.  I’m thinking Jacksonville has an excellent chance to go 0-16, but they are really going to have to do something to keep that morale down, or else my hopes and dreams will be shattered.  In case there were any doubts, Tom Brady and the Pats still run the AFC East.  If the Chargers had lost to the Raiders, most San Diegans would be getting ready to jump off the Coronado Bridge.  Branden Oliver looks like the Chargers best running back, and it took 3 others to get hurt to learn that.  The Steelers are more terrible than their towels.  I think we all owe the Cowboys an apology until they find a way to collapse in December.  The Redskins are taking a beating like our forefather’s gave them years ago.  While Jay Cutler did a nice job hitting the referee in the nuts with this left handed pass….

I’m not a big believer in extracting anything significant from pre-season games.  However, I have to say that in limited action, Kobe Bryant still looks like a very good player.  That’s great to see, but that’s just about all the enjoyment we will get out of Laker games this year.  As great as Kobe looks, he still won’t have the ability he used to have in controlling a basketball game at both ends of the floor.  That is the Kobe this Laker team will need to have any chance of even making the playoffs.  Not to mention Julius Randle becoming the next Tim Duncan.

It’s amazing that the NHL Season has already started up again.  In typical opening night fashion after raising their Stanley Cup banner, the Kings laid an egg against the San Jose Sharks.  How pissed was San Jose? They get beat by the Kings after taking a 3-0 series lead last spring, they have watch the Kings raise their banner on opening night, and wait for a whole extra 37 minutes for the game to start.  Of course they were angry.  Glad to see the Kings finally find the win column last night.  It already looks as though “That 70’s Line” with Carter, Toffoli, and Pearson have left off where they were last spring.  Meanwhile, the Ducks have a brutal schedule to open the season.  Their 4 game east coast trip to start the season feels like the ultimate screw you from the league, and coming back at .500 would be a reasonable goal.

Finally, last night was a phenomenal season premier of The Walking Dead.  What an edge of your seat first episode.  Spoiler alert for those of you who have yet to see it.  To recap quickly, the episode begins with a flashback to Gareth, the somewhat sadistic leader of Terminus, trapped in the same train car as Rick’s group is in the present.  He explains to the others in his group that “we were trying to do something good.  We were being human beings?”  One of Gareth’s friends responds “What are we now?”  We come to find out that Terminus was once a “good” community that was twisted into deceit and cannibalism.  In the present, Rick, Glenn, Darryl, and a few others in the group are taken inside, and 4 group members throats are slashed over a trough.  Before anyone else is killed, Carol shoots a propane tank from outside Terminus, causing an explosion, and Walkers overrun the area.  Rick, Glenn, and Darryl, get free amidst the chaos, kill a bunch of Walkers and free the remaining group members.  The group escapes to meet up with Carol.  She then takes the group to meet Tyreese and Judith, who survived a violent struggle of their own.

Last season they eased us into things.  This season is the total opposite.  It also gives me the feeling that this season is going to be far more gruesome and dark than other seasons.  I love that after Rick escaped, he immediately transformed from “farmer Rick” to “everyone must die Rick”.  This episode was also another reminder of what kind of transformation Carol has made since the start of the series.  She began as a battered house wife, now she’s practically a war hero.  The moment where Carol and Daryl meet and embrace is also one of the most emotional moments in recent memory for the show.  Seeing 4 throats slashed in the first five minutes, gruesome Walker scenes, along with some really unappealing pictures of human flesh, all made this an episode that probably can’t be topped for a while.  In any case, can’t wait to see what else is in store this season.

Rick Season Premier

Monday Morning Coffee

2013749_SP_1005_angels_RCGOctober 6th, 2014

What a terrible weekend it was for our Southern California sports teams.  The Angels were swept, while the Dodgers, Bruins, and Trojans suffered losses that were the equivalent of getting kicked in the balls.  What did LA do to deserve this?  Is it because we have palm trees, fake large breasted women and nice weather? (Which really isn’t that nice right now because it’s 100 degrees).  For the most part, it was just a reminder that being a sports fan requires enduring 99% kicks to the balls, and only 1% glory.

In just one quick weekend, the Angels flushed their wonderful season down the toilet.  You all thought playing the Royals was going to be like an NBA team playing a WNBA team.  You were badly mistaken.  Apparently, all CJ Wilson is good for now is selling cars at his dealership.  Wilson and his $77 million contract couldn’t even make it out of the first inning of yesterday’s elimination game.    That game was over when Alex Gordon blasted a three run double off CJ.  After that the Angels continued to come up empty at the plate.  Mike Trout flopped like a fish out of water, and Josh Hamilton played like he just got hammered at the bar.  It’s pretty tough to win when three guys who are supposed to be your best players don’t show up.  In the end, this series was lost in Anaheim off a few great defensive plays that the Royals made, while the Halo sluggers disappeared like David Copperfield.

It hurts.  However, this season went way better than we thought it would for the Angels.  They found pitching, they fixed their bullpen, and throughout the season they had the majors best offense.  Now that the Angels are back to an elite team, they need to consider how to put themselves over the top.  That means without Arte Moreno making some stupid emotional, and irrational decisions.  Getting Garrett Richards healthy, adding another starter, and finding some more production at 3rd base should be top priorities.  The bad news is that the Angels are stuck with the contracts of Hamilton and Wilson for the next couple of seasons, and potentially little production for them.  Prepare for an off-season of pissing and moaning Halo fans.  This is going to hurt until your team gets back on the field in spring training.

Meanwhile, the Dodgers may be headed back to St. Louis with a split, but they should be up 2-0 after Friday nights collapse.  What the hell was Don Mattingly thinking?  You have managers so that they can manage players, especially superstars.  Mattingly failed to do that on Friday night by letting Clayton Kershaw stay in the game when he started to come unraveled.  As great as Kershaw is, he couldn’t just bully his way out of the inning.  Even he has his limits, and with the amount of innings he has thrown, you have to wonder if he’s starting to wear down, or if the Cardinals just own him.  Even Saturday night was a near disaster when JP Howell blew a 2-0 lead in the 8th.  When Don Mattingly actually does use the pen, he can’t even use the right reliever.  If it hadn’t been for Matt Kemp, who you all wanted to trade for a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, the Dodgers would be planning their trips to Cabo……

I can’t say I like the Dodgers chances heading back to St. Louis.  Hyun-Jin Ryu hasn’t pitched in a month, which means the Dodgers will have to go deep into the pen, which is trash.  Will they go back to Kershaw in game 4?  He sucked on three days rest last year, and wasn’t even good on plenty of rest in game 1.  Then again, do you trust Dan Haren?  At least the offense is clicking.  I like how AJ Ellis suddenly looks like the 2nd coming of Johnny Bench after a crummy regular season.  However, I hate how Matt Carpenter looks like the 2nd coming of Ted Williams, and has been the devil against the Boys in Blue.  It’s going to come down to which bullpen can hold their shit together.  Poor Ken Rosenthal.  His nice suit took a beating while interviewing Matt Kemp after game 2……

In other baseball news…..the Baltimore Orioles sweep of the Detroit Tigers marks the first time in history that the city of Detroit has actually been swept…..

Then there was the disappointment at the Rose Bowl for UCLA.  The Bruins went back to being the team that plays down to their competition, and it finally caught up with them against Utah.  Yes, that’s right…..Utah.  UCLA had no business even having a chance to win the game, since they played so poorly throughout.  Utah did whatever they wanted on offense.  Somehow, the Bruins had two chances to win the game on field goals in the final seconds, yet blew them both.  The Bruins can now kiss their hopes of a National Championship or football playoff goodbye.  UCLA badly needs to beat Oregon next week at home, which won’t be an easy task considering the Ducks had their own disaster against Arizona last week.  At the moment, UCLA football looks like nothing but a bunch of hype.

Over at the Coliseum, the Trojans choked harder than the Dodger bullpen.  USC was up by 9 points with less than three minutes to go.  When I checked my phone 10 minutes later, I thought it was broken because it said the Trojans had lost 38-34 to ASU.  Unbelievable.  USC’s defense got torched all game, giving up 541 yards, including a 46 yard hail mary to Jaelen Strong to win the game.  It was devastating for Trojan fans, but this is who USC is.  They aren’t some national championship or even conference championship contender.  The loss to Boston College shouldn’t have happened.  The loss to ASU should have happened, just maybe not in the way that it did.  Sark is rebuilding, and it’s gonna take time.  I know when I saw this I was thinking “Fight Oh…hahah”….

Elsewhere around the college grid iron, it was black saturday for teams in the top 10, as 5 of the top 8 were upset.  That means that after my Fighting Irish of Notre Dame got by Stanford, they are now 5th in the country.  The Irish can make you bang your head into a wall for the majority of the game, only to make you wanna chest bump that same wall when its over.  Katy Perry on ESPN’s College Game Day was actually pretty hilarious for those of you that missed it.  Equally hilarious were the losses by LSU, Michigan, Alabama, and Oregon.  I think this sums up the weekend…

LMAO

On to the NFL, where we had another Thursday night beat down with Minnesota getting destroyed by Green Bay.  Vikings fans hadn’t seen a beating that bad since they let Adrian Peterson babysit their kids.  The Chargers might be one of the best teams in the NFL, while Jets fans are longing for “the glory days” or Mark Sanchez.  I guess the Giants and Cowboys might not be as bad as we thought.  The Saints are a sorry bunch for barely getting by Tampa Bay at home.  The 49ers have definitely come back to the rest of the pack, and much of it has to do with the players getting tired of Jim Harbaugh.  And last night is a perfect example of why you shouldn’t write off the Patriots from winning the AFC East once again.

Great start to training camp for the Lakers.  Nick Young tore ligaments in his thumb, and he’ll be out for the next 6-8 weeks after having surgery.  You do realize that Nick Young is actually going to be the Lakers 2nd best player this year right??? No really, this is what it has come to.  On the bright side, Steve Nash hasn’t gotten injured in the last five minutes, which has to be some kind of record.

The NHL season begins this week for the Kings and Ducks.  I see the Ducks having another great regular season and coming up short again in the playoffs, in typical Bruce Boudreau fashion.  The Kings will pace themselves during the season, since they partied their asses off all summer, and be a force to be reckoned with come playoff time.  However, all of those playoff games the Kings have played over the last three years will likely catch up to them and hurt their pursuit of another cup.

Finally, the season premier of Homeland took place last night. Spoiler alert if you haven’t seen it yet, but it had what appears to be a very promising story line.  I was skeptical of the show without Brody and his family, however, it’s looking like it will pull fans back in.  As disturbing as this scene was, when Carrie momentarily thought about drowning her baby, I felt like that demonstrated a great deal about her psychological state.  Why haven’t Carrie and Quinn hooked up yet?  You know that is coming next.  I’m looking forward to seeing how the plot develops now that Carrie is once again going back to Pakistan.