November 2nd, 2015

Ok, we are 3 games in and we can conclude the Lakers are going to suck.  However, are we going to do this 79 more times this year? Every night people look at the box score from a 76ers game and see Jahlil Okafor having a nice game, are they going to bitch about D’Angelo Russell being a crappy #2 pick? Look people, I’ve said I wanted Okafor just as badly as anyone, but let’s not pretend like Russell is going to be some stiff.  He’s 19 years old, and frankly, he’s already showing some signs of being effective in the last two games, but you’re not going to know for a while.  I also love those people that want Byron Scott fired because this is all somehow his fault.  It’s not going to be long before Byron realizes that wins don’t matter this season, and that player development does.  He should be judged solely on how well Russell, Jordan Clarkson, and Julius Randle develop this year.  Even if you hate all 3 kids, think they suck or need to be traded, this is the best and only play to move the franchise forward.

As for the Clippers, they are off to a strong 3-0 start, even though they haven’t exactly played the cream of the crop in the West.  Nevertheless, Lance Stephenson is fitting in nicely thus far, and Blake Griffin looks like an MVP candidate.  The real bomb though was dropped by Mark Cuban, who basically said what we already knew, that the Clippers are still “the Clippers”, despite all the changes from the top down.  It’s fair to say that Cuban saying that was just sour grapes since DeAndre Jordan didn’t sign with him.  However, until the Clippers actually get farther than the 2nd round of the playoffs, what Cuban said is 100% spot on.

Elsewhere around the NBA, TNT should fire the intern that accidentally scheduled the Knicks to play on national TV last week.  Who wouldn’t want to see 82 games of Thunder vs Spurs, after that epic showdown last week.  Russell Westbrook plays every game like his house is on fire.  Kevin Durant doesn’t seem to have any issues after his foot injury last year.  It’s hard to imagine that Karl Anthony-Towns won’t be anything less than an all-star.  Only Blake Griffin and Lebron James have put up the type of numbers he has at that age, in their first two NBA games.

To college football, where the Trojans appear to have gotten their act together for the time being, as they took down Cal 27-21.  Clay Helton appears to have stabilized things with his commitment to running the ball, and developing a better game plan than we ever saw from Sark.  Still, everyone needs to stay in their shoes.  The talk is growing louder among the fans that this is the man for the job.  I get it, he’s keeping the team in contention, but let’s be real….he’s not the guy you picture as the head football coach of the USC Trojans.  The luster will wear off over time.  I feel like I entered a time machine and went back two years ago to when people were banging their monkey’s for Ed Orgeron.  Funny….Orgeron still isn’t a head coach anywhere today.  I guess the Trojans saw the exact same thing that everybody else saw.  USC needs to get as far away from the Pete Carroll tree as possible to rebuild this football program the right way.  USC is always going to have talented football players.  It’s about developing them the right way, executing a solid game plan, and representing the university with class and integrity.  Don’t let a couple of wins with smoke and mirrors fool you into thinking Helton is the guy for the job.  I doubt it will fool Pat Haden, but stranger things have happened.

Over at the Rose Bowl, the Bruins nearly blew it against Colorado, but hung on to win.  I don’t even think the UCLA defense had to shower after this game, giving up 554 total yards to Colorado.  The Bruins have simply lost too much on defense to win the Pac-12 South.  Josh Rosen looks like he’s getting better and better with every snap, but this probably isn’t his year yet.  They’ll need to win their final four games to play in the conference championship game, but their final two are at Utah and at USC.  Neither one of those games should give Bruins fans a warm and fuzzy feeling.

Who let a bunch of middle schoolers dressed as referees onto the field in the Notre Dame vs Temple Game? Big play by Will Fuller at the end of the game to keep the Irish’s playoff hopes alive.  That may have been the worst officiated game I have ever seen.  Had Stanford lost, that would have been bad news for the Irish since they play them a couple of days after Thanksgiving.  Say what you will about Brian Kelley and how much he pisses you off, but it would be quite an accomplishment just to get this group of walking wounded into a BCS Bowl game.

On to Week 8 of the NFL, where the Chargers are done.  The Bolts couldn’t even beat the lowly Ravens, and have too many injuries to stay competitive the rest of the season.  The only question now is whether or not they’ll be playing in LA next year.  Meanwhile, England has informed the U.S. that if they ever send the Lions to London again, it will be considered an act of terror and they will respond accordingly.  If you played a team with Drew Brees yesterday in fantasy football, you probably lost.  I guess with Jason Pierre Paul back in the lineup for the Giants, their pass rush figures to be more “explosive”.  I wonder if Tom Brady could lead the Patriots to the AFC East title while playing blind folded?  The Steelers get Big Ben back then they lose Le’Veon Bell.  It’s clearly not their year.  We might actually have to stop making Raider jokes….they look like a halfway decent team for the first time in ages.  Colin Kaepernick is an NFL quarterback? The guy should be working at Starbucks.  Check out the bottom of the screen……

I think the Dodger front office doesn’t really want a “manager”.  They want a guy who should be sitting in a suit and tie in the stands, who will just hand the lineup cards to the umpire and meet the press before games.  Meanwhile, they’ll have a data nerd in the dugout with a laptop, directing the players electronically before every pitch, based on some super computer with a highly technical mathematical formula put together by Andy Friedman.  This is where Dodger baseball is going.  A big  market franchise run by small market thinkers.

The baseball season came to an end last night with the Royals defeating the Mets in five games in the World Series.  Kansas City was easily the best team in baseball since April.  There are also fewer things in life more satisfying than seeing sad New York sports fans.  This is worst thing to happen to New York since Carmelo Anthony showed up.

The LA Kings have caught fire.  They’ve won 7 in a row and are in 1st place in the Pacific Division in the early going.  Thank god for Tyler Toffoli! He’s the guy that should be making $7 million a year.  Not Dustin Brown, who’s contract might cripple things Kings shortly.  The same might be said for Anze Kopitar, if the Kings cave in and give him the $10 million per year that he’s asking for.  LA is better off waiting this one out until the end of the year when it will be obvious that his price tag should be much lower.

Meanwhile, The Ducks earned just their 2nd win in 11 games last night with a victory over the Predators.  Anaheim finally found some offense, but it still hasn’t come from any of their top offensive players.  It’s pretty hard for me to imagine a team as talented as the Ducks, staying in last place in the Pacific Division for very long.  Hockey is a weird game sometimes, and it’s been pretty cruel to Anaheim in the early going.  Funny thing is that they’ve gotten great goaltending from Frederik Anderson, but haven’t been able to score at all.  The hockey gods must be angry that Disneyland closed down Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and are taking it out on the Ducks.

Finally, let’s talk about The Walking Dead.  Spoiler alert for those of you who have yet to see last night’s episode.  You didn’t actually think that we’d find out what happened to Glenn in this particular episode did you? I’m not even sure we’re going to find out what happened to him in the next episode either.  This episode was great, but the only downside to it was the fact that it went 90 minutes without a conclusion to the Glenn saga.  The story about Morgan and the man that was essentially his yoda was good television.  The first three episodes of the season were at a blistering pace, so naturally, the show had to slow down, and it was done in a way that engaged the audience.  We get it now…..Morgan learned that all life is precious from Eastman, and now he’s trying to convert the Wolves the way Eastman converted him.  Unfortunately, that’s probably not gonna work on these demented individuals.  However, this humanitarian like way might actually work on Rick and Carol in the long run.

October 26th, 2015

Does Andrew Friedman think we’re all idiots? He really expects us to believe that there was a “mutual parting” between Don Mattingly and the Dodgers? The fans and the media may be that gullible in small markets like Tampa, but not in LA.  It’s pretty hard to hold Mattingly accountable for the lineups he put on the field when it’s Friedman who was telling him what to do.  Someone needs to hold Friedman accountable for all the horrendous moves he made this year.  The bottom line is that this nerd is driven by analytics, while Mattingly isn’t.  Mattingly saw the writing on the wall that Friedman is ultimately going to lead this team into failure, despite having more resources than anybody else in the game.  That led to Don Mattingly and the Dodgers “mutually parting ways”, especially since teams like Florida and Washington are lining up for him.  Too bad Friedman’s analytics are going to tell him that the Dodgers are better off without Zack Greinke, and a bunch of stiffs pitching behind Clayton Kershaw.   Small market GM’s don’t belong in big markets.  By the time Guggenheim realizes this mistake in hiring Friedman, it will be too late, and the Dodgers will be even further away from a World Championship than when we were in the Frank McCourt era.

The NBA season starts tomorrow night! The Lakers open up on Wednesday at home against the T-Wolves, but they are going through their final round of roster cuts.  I’m still extremely disappointed that the Lakers chose that stiff, Robert Sacre, over Robert Upshaw, who will be joining the Lakers D-League affiliate.  Upshaw blocked 80 shots in 20 games in college and has potential.  Sacre has about as much potential as I have of dating Jessica Alba.  The Lakers are rebuilding and can afford to take a chance on Upshaw, despite his personal problems.  He sure would be a nice building block to put next to Julius Randle.  As for the team, they better be at least .500 or better in their first 10 games, because only one of those opponents is expected to make the playoffs.  I think the Lakers win about 33 games, assuming Kobe stays reasonably healthy and effective, while Clarkson, Randle, and Russell make progress.  That should put the around 12th in the West, but the development of those young players is far more important.

As for the Clippers, they have become that obnoxious team that everybody now wants to kill.  They’ve given the Warriors all kinds of extra incentive to dominate them since Doc Rivers implied that Golden State’s title was “lucky”.  They’ve also pissed off Matt Barnes, who claims that Doc Rivers couldn’t wait to get rid of him.  The Clipps are as talented and deep as any team in the league, but at this point, it’s hard to trust them in the big moment.  I see another great regular season, #3 in the West, taking down Memphis in the 1st round, then getting punked by the Warriors in round 2.  The biggest test for the Clippers throughout the season will be how they fare mentally, especially against the elite teams.

The Clippers aren’t the only talented team I don’t trust in the big moment.  The same can be said for the Rockets as well.  The top 8 in the West should go Spurs, Warriors, Clippers, Rockets, Thunder, Grizzlies, Pelicans, and the Jazz.  In the East, the top 8 should be the Cavs, Wizards, Bucks, Bulls, Hawks, Raptors, Heat, and Pacers.  Cleveland has another cake walk to the NBA Finals, but then Lebron wants to hang himself when he has to play the Spurs again, who should win the title in 6 games.

To College Football where the Trojans showed their fans why they are one of the most frustrating teams to watch after Saturday’s win against #3 Utah.  USC hammered Utah 42-17, in a game that truly made the Trojans look like they were the #3 team in the country.  If anything, USC fans should be lined up outside of Pat Haden’s office with pitch forks and tiki torches, demanding an elite head coach, since that is what they needed to live up to their top 10 preseason ranking.  USC has 3 losses, and they still actually have a chance to win the Pac-12 South, despite everything that’s happened.  However, after this win, there’s two different types of Trojan fans that just blow my mind.  The first is the Trojan fan that wants to hire Clay Helton as the permanent head coach.  These are probably the same people that wanted to hire Ed Orgeron two years ago when Lane Kiffin was fired.  These aren’t the leaders you need to get your program where it needs to be. Don’t be prisoner of the moment after a couple of nice wins.  Then there’s the dude that is somehow hoping that Pete Carroll will come back and coach the program.  Why would Pete Carroll leave a powerhouse NFL team that has become a Super Bowl contender to come back to college football? Besides, he was so good last time, I can’t imagine that he could recreate something that good with the energy he brought.  The sooner the Trojans break away from this ridiculous Pete Carroll coaching tree, the better off they will be.

Meanwhile, the Bruins got back on track with a win over Cal on Thursday.  Good to see Jim Mora not making any excuses about midterms or homework in this one.  Josh Rosen made me once again think that he can be an elite college quarterback down the line, and the Bruins aren’t quite dead yet.  Considering that they still have to play at Utah and at USC, UCLA still has a good shot at playing in the Pac-12 Championship game.  The Bruins are back in the Top 25, but it’s nothing to get too excited about yet.

Notre Dame had a bye week, and it couldn’t have gone better for them.  Georgia Tech upset Florida State, Clemson dominated Miami, and since Utah tumbled, the quality of the Irish strength of schedule just went up.

On to Week 7 of the NFL where the Chargers played so badly against the Raiders yesterday, the city of LA is banning them from moving there next year.  What a disgrace that was, and in typical Charger fashion, they racked up a bunch of meaningless touchdowns late when it didn’t matter.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned after 7 weeks, it’s that this league sucks.  It’s Green Bay, maybe Arizona, New England, and everybody else.  Everyone calm down and wait for Chip Kelly to get his system in place though.  I’m sure once that happens the Eagles will just crush everybody.  Greg Hardy is turning into the disaster I thought he would be in Dallas.  You know how I know the Texans are terrible? They got destroyed by the Dolphins.  After yesterday’s win, Kirk Cousins has a question for RGIII and the rest of us….
If There’s one thing Rick Pitino has to be really upset about, is the fact that he’s getting in trouble for throwing all these parties involving hookers, yet he wasn’t even invited to them.  The fact that he is still employed tells you everything you need to know about college basketball.  The recruiting environment is one of the dirtiest out there.  This is all the fault of AAU Basketball!

It’s incredibly early in the hockey season but let me give you a few quick thoughts.  The Ducks are in last place in the division and collapsing faster than Lamar Odom at a brothel.  They definitely should not be this bad.  It’s one thing to go through scoring droughts, but this team is just going through the motions, not even hitting people or winning the battles for loose pucks on the ice.  Kings forward Tyler Toffoli has scored more goals than the entire Ducks team this season! I guess coach Bruce Boudreau figured he should start slowly, then peak in the playoffs, instead of crashing and burning in the playoffs like in past seasons.  The problem is he might be fired before this road trip is over.  Meanwhile, the Kings have turned things around, winners of 5 straight games after Jonathan Quick’s brilliant save in the final seconds last night.  More importantly, their Hall of Fame play by play announcer Bob Miller told a story with quite a sexual innuendo in it after the end of the 1st period last night in Edmonton.  He explained that years ago, Kings goaltender Mario Lessard broke his stick in a game against the Oilers.  Goaltenders can play with a broken stick, the Oilers were bringing the puck up the ice, and in the midst of Bob’s excitement he said the following……
Finally, let’s talk about a shocking episode of the Walking Dead last night.  Before I go any further, major spoiler alert for those of you who have yet to see it.  Read no further if that is the case.  Let me say this, in all of our favorite television shows, we grow to love a number of different characters.  In our minds, we tell ourselves that certain characters are “untouchable” and could never be killed off.  You told yourself that in The Walking Dead, but I told you it was gonna happen.  I told you months ago that we were gonna lose either Maggie, or Glenn, or Daryl, or Carol.  Sure enough, we lost Glen last night, who was my personal favorite character.  You have to give the writers of the show credit, they have guts.  The’ve given us 3 explosive episodes to start the season, and even for a second I thought they were going to kill off Rick too.  At this point, I think I hate Nicholas more than I hated The Governor, or the people of Terminus, or Shane.  Glenn should have killed him, or let him die, when he had numerous chances to do so.  And for those of you who think that he’s still alive, I find that hard to believe.  Even if that was Nicholas’ body on top of his, how the hell is he going to get out of that situation alive? I don’t know that we’ve seen the last of him.  I’m thinking he might end up being shown as a Walker.  I’m curious to see where it goes from here, but before you people go burn down the houses of the writers and producers of the show, remember, this had to happen.  Props to the writers for having the balls to do this.  It sucks for us, but it’s inevitable, otherwise the show gets stale.  Another interesting storyline to keep an eye on is whether or not Rick is infected.  He got cut by a machette that was sticking out of a Walker, and maybe he got some of it’s blood in his wound? He looks concerned, and it makes me wonder.  I’m upset, but I’m riveted.  Don’t get angry people.  It’s good television.

October 19th, 2015

Let’s start with the disappointment that is the Dodgers. Just because I told you all they were gonna fall short in the playoffs, doesn’t make it any less frustrating. The Boys in Blue had every opportunity to put away the Mets in game 5 at home, and didn’t do it. Zack Greinke pitched well enough to win, but in the end, the Dodgers had a lineup that scored less than Steve Urkel on Family Matters. This has nothing to do with Don Mattingly, or Clayton Kershaw, and everything to do with Andy Friedman. Mattingly can’t be blamed for having a crummy bullpen, or not having a reliable 3^rd starter, or a lineup that couldn’t hit when it mattered. Kershaw did his job and pitched well when his team needed it. Friedman is a small market GM who’s computer is telling him that a bunch of inferior parts are better than stars like Hanley Ramirez, Matt Kemp, and Dee Gordon. This stupid philosophy won LA less games than last year, and advanced them no further in October. Now I’m really dreading what’s coming up in the next two months. He’s never signed a pitcher to a $100 million deal, and he’s going to have to in order to keep Zack Greinke. There’s simply no excuse not to. Nobody in there right might would argue the Dodgers are better without him, and unless they sign David Price, there is no comparable replacement. If he doesn’t, his act has no place in a large market, where the bar is much higher and championships are expected. The Boys in Blue just need some tweaking and they are a World Series winner. Instead, Friedman seems to keep pushing them further and further away from that.

I’m not sure how much longer the Cubs are going to last in these playoffs.  Daniel Murphy is doing more damage to Chicago than gangs.  The Mets last two victories are the closest Carmelo Anthony will get to winning anything in New York.

From one disaster on to the next with Trojan Football. USC actually put up a pretty good fight against my Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. Lots of people pointing the finger at Cody Kessler after he threw a couple of picks, however, one of those was tipped, and the other was the result of phenomenal catch by a Notre Dame defensive back. In typical USC fashion, most of the offense came on a couple of huge plays from scrimmage, by some incredible athletes. However, those huge chunks of yardage that led to big scoring plays dried up late in the game, and the Irish defense was finally able to slow down the Trojans. Those big plays from big time athletes on the USC side tell you everything you need to know about where their football program is at. They have incredible individual talent that simply doesn’t have the right leader to harness and develop it, or a solid game plan week in and week out. It’s pretty tough to win football games, let alone rivalry games, without a good coaching.    I’ve gotta think that’s gonna come soon enough for the Trojan football program, who can’t possibly have ANOTHER bad hire with a program as attractive as theirs.  Also glad to hear that Pat Haden is ok after having a brief health scare on Saturday night.

As for the Irish, the real tragedy for them is that USC was unranked by the time they played them, marginalizing the magnitude of their victory in the polls. Notre Dame is going to have to win out to have a chance at making the College Football Playoff, but that will be tough given that they’ll have to face Stanford in their final game of the season in Palo Alto. Even with two losses, that’s still pretty impressive for a team that has now lost seven starters to season ending injuries.

Speaking of injuries, they’ve finally caught up to the Bruins. UCLA got smoked by Stanford on Saturday in Palo Alto. The Bruins were simply outmuscled, outclassed, and outplayed in every way shape and form. Barring a miracle, the Pac 12 South Title is gone, as are the Bruins hopes for a BCS Bowl game. Funny how it was just two weeks ago we thought UCLA was going to be a threat for the College Football Playoff, and now they just look like a bunch of complainers when their schedule got tough. I still like Josh Rosen long term, and think he could be an elite QB as soon as next year. However, Myles Jack is making a huge mistake dropping out of school to go rehab and get ready for the NFL Draft. I have no problem with anybody pursuing their dream, but Jack is just rehabbing a knee injury, and not even training for the NFL Combine.  Whose he getting financial advice from? Bernie Madoff? Finish your education, which you are ever-so close to completing, and then pursue the NFL.

Texas A&M may have lost to Alabama, but they would like to point out that they have synchronized cheers.  That was one of the greatest choke jobs in the history of choke jobs on Saturday in Ann Arbor.  That was the worst thing to happen to Michigan since Detroit came into existence.  I think this sums up how Michigan fans are going to feel for the next few weeks after blowing it against Michigan State…..

On to Week 6 of the NFL, where the Chargers almost did the most Charger thing ever by almost defeating the Packers.  I could swear Philip Rivers has made a career piling up statistics when the Bolts are trailing by massive amounts.  That was no different yesterday.  Meanwhile, the city of Detroit is going to throw a parade after the Lions finally got their first win of the season by beating the Bears.  Joe Flacco did an excellent job keeping a play alive long enough to find a wide open defender in the Ravens loss to the 49ers.  The Seahawks finally found a way to get Jimmy Graham involved, but also found a way to blow their 4th quarter lead against Carolina.  Peyton Manning’s loved ones must be urging him to move into a retirement home.  Despite that, the Broncos are somehow still undefeated.  I think the Patriots demonstrated last night that they don’t win because of deflated balls, but rather having a better football team.  The Colts on the other hand made one of the dumbest special teams plays ever.  Even the University of Michigan football team thought that play was horrible.  To be fair though, that wasn’t even the dumbest thing the Colts did in the last couple of years.  It was trading a 1st round pick for Trent Richardson.  This is a close second though…..

I’m glad to hear that Lamar Odom appears to be doing much better in his recovery from an overdose last week. Most people that know him say that Lamar is a great person and a pleasure to be around, which is obvious from all the people that have come to visit him at the Las Vegas hospital he is staying at. However, if the guy has that many people around him that love him and care about him, why can’t he get his life together again? Three days in a brothel? He’s obviously had a great deal of trauma in his life, including the loss of several loved ones, and a father that’s a drug addict, however, his life sure seemed a lot better when the Kardashians weren’t a part of it. Every person they touch seems to get screwed up. Whether its Lamar’s life, Reggie Bush’s football career, or Bruce Jenner’s sexuality, nobody can keep their shit together when those women are around. I’m very fearful that this isn’t going to be the last time we see LO get himself into trouble.  He did however, show more life yesterday than the Philadelphia 76ers have in the past three years.

Did anybody watch the Democratic debate? It wasn’t nearly as entertaining as the Republican debate.  Did anybody even get to speak other than Sanders or Clinton?  O’Malley, Webb, and Chafee were more disrespected by CNN than Tupac was to Biggie.  I don’t even feel like Hillary took a real stance on anything.  She would rather let the polls do the talking for her.  “Hillary what’s your position?”  Her reply….”My position is that my position will be whatever position it needs to be to get my position positioned to make me President.”

That was an excellent 2nd episode of The Walking Dead last night on AMC.  Spoiler alert for those of you who haven’t seen it yet.  I definitely did not expect an episode this early in the season where the villain just massacres so many people, and it’s also rare that so many people got massacred, and none of them were our favorite characters.  I was somewhat right in my prediction that it was the Wolves who caused that loud horn we heard at the end of last week’s episode.  Ok it wasn’t entirely the Wolves, but it was the result of their attack on Alexandria.  More than anything, the attack demonstrated how unprepared the community was for an attack.  Had it not been for Carol acting like she was Ninja Gaiden, everybody might have died.  The real creepy part of the episode though was Enid, who has some sort of connection with The Wolves.  Either she is one, or has encountered them before.  My guess is she is one, because she played it way too cool during the attack.  I was even beginning to think she might stab Carl when she was visiting him.  Morgan is going to realize eventually that he’s going to have to start killing people.  That was one hell of an episode, and I can’t wait to see what happens next!

October 12th, 2015

It took a wild slide from Chase Utley, but the Dodgers narrowly avoided a disaster at the Ravine on Saturday against the Mets.  LA is fortunate to be going back to New York with the series tied 1-1.  The most overused term in sports is that something was a “dirty play”, or we should consider someone a “dirty player”.  It’s terrible that Ruben Tejada broke his leg, but Chase Utley was just doing his job, trying to break up the double play, and had no intention of injuring Tejada.  Sure that slide might have come a little late, but that doesn’t make it dirty.  If you have a problem with it, your issue should be with the rule, which doesn’t protect the infielder covering 2nd base.  Utley should not have been suspended, even with the late slide.  With that being said, they need to change the rule.  As for the series, Clayton Kershaw pitched well enough to win game 1, but the Dodgers just couldn’t give him any run support.   Don Mattingly probably should have given Kershaw the chance to clean up his mess in the 7th inning, but based on the disasters of the previous two seasons, I know why he made the choice he did.  It’s like choosing which Kardashian sister you have to sleep with…..you know you’re going to come out with an STD either way.  I can’t say I like the Dodgers chances tonight having Brett Anderson go against Matt Harvey.  However, if the Dodgers don’t have to face Jacob deGrom in game 4, this should go 5 games.  Jimmy Rollins and Kike Hernandez need to be in the lineup while Joc Pederson and Corey Seager need to take a seat.  I still like the Boys in Blue to finish it off at home in that 5th game….but just barely.

Speaking of baseball, I love how Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia checks himself into rehab for alcohol abuse right before a playoff game, and he’s practically viewed as a hero in the New York media.  Meanwhile, former Angel Josh Hamilton relapses and checks himself back into rehab, and he’s completely crucified by owner Arte Moreno, who did everything in his power to get rid of him and even not pay him.  Neither one of these guys are living up to their contracts, but the same situation handled completely differently.  I’d sure like to hear Arte Moreno’s explanation for this.

Speaking of alcoholics, let’s move on to the train wreck that is the USC Football program.  We saw the final episode of “Sark Tank” on Thursday night, when the Trojans got punked by Washington at the Coliseum.  Another instance of a talented USC team that was out coached, out muscled, and out classed by an inferior opponent.  That game seems small now in comparison to what lies ahead for the program.  Steve Sarkisian is simply not healthy enough to coach the team, and Pat Haden announced yesterday that he’s taking a leave of absence.  How bad is it? It’s so bad that Sarkisian couldn’t even come in and speak to the media about it and fake it.  It’s all leaking out now…..Sark showing up drunk on campus yesterday, getting lit up before the game at ASU, and the divorce he’s going through.  Now offensive coordinator Clayton Helton takes over as the Trojans are about to go through their most brutal stretch of the schedule.  Not only is a coaching change inevitable, don’t be surprised if Pat Haden loses his job as well.  Haden had the chance to put Sark on leave months ago, yet made an even bigger embarrassment of the program in the process by keeping him on.  The good news for the Trojan faithful however, is that the Chip Kelly to USC rumors make too much sense.  Kelly is probably dying to get to USC just as bad as USC wants him.  I don’t think recruiting is going to take too much of a hit because USC is always going to have something to sell.  In the meantime however, the rest of the season could be a rough ride, starting with next Saturday at rival Notre Dame.

I think we should start calling him Jim “Mid-Term” Mora.  He claims that his UCLA football players are negatively being impacted by the start of classes and mid-term exams, even suggesting that is to blame for their loss to ASU last week.  Oh my goodness…..to think that these guys actually have to go to class and not just play football? I guess the Bruins are really going to be screwed later in the season when final exams come around.  I would have thought by now Jim Mora wasn’t naive enough to think that the Pac 12 or the NCAA cared about “student athletes”.

Elsewhere around college football, those Notre Dame vs Navy games always make me nervous as hell.  Navy’s gimmick offense always keeps them hanging around for longer than they should, as was the case on Saturday.  Fortunately, the Irish were able to handle business in the end.  I’m looking forward to being there for the big Irish-Trojan showdown next weekend in South Bend.  My only fear is that the Irish will let up knowing all the drama going on at SC.  I think Oklahoma lost to Texas to insure that Charlie Strong would stay employed a while longer.  After Oregon’s loss to Washington State, Nike has placed Oregon on the trade block, and is looking to move them to another uniform maker ASAP.   The best tackle of the weekend was made by this security guard, who had perfect form taking down this fan……

On to week 5 of the NFL, where the Colts have earned their 3rd win of the season, clinching the AFC South Division.  The Matt Hasselbeck-Ryan Mallet QB showdown in Thursday’s game would have been a nice high school football matchup.  The Seahawks have fired the officials from Cincinnati for failing to seal a victory for them with a 17 point lead.  After getting benched for Dan Orlovsky in the loss to Arizona, Matthew Stafford has now retired, saying he’ll never be able to show his face in public again.  JFK could finish a drive better than the Lions could.  Greg Hardy and the Cowboys are the only thing in the world that can make people cheer for the Patriots.  I don’t think the Cowboys thought it would go this bad when Dez and Romo went down.  The Giants always seem to come up with the most insane catches.  DeMarco Murray had an amazing 9 carries on 44 yards yesterday, or what Trent Richardson would call “a great career”.

Let’s talk some NBA.  Look…..the Lakers are going to suck.  Anybody that tells you otherwise should be slapped and have their cable watching priveldges revoked.  However, they’ve finally got some young players you can get excited about watching.  D’Angelo Russell has some amazing vision.  Julius Randle is already playing like an animal, and is fun to watch when he gets the ball in transition.  I also really liked how the other night Roy Hibbert came to the defense of Randle when Trevor Booker started to get physical with him.  Booker slapped Hibbert, and was hit with a $250 K fine.  In a related story, Kobe sent Booker a check for $250 K, along with a thank you note, explaining that he’s been dying to slap Hibbert since he arrived in LA.  As for Randle, stuff like this has to get you excited….

As for the Clippers, Doc Rivers is already running his mouth like he usually does, and it’s already getting noticed by Klay Thompson and the Warriors.  Doc referred to the Warriors run last year as “lucky”, which Thompson took exception too, citing the fact that the Clippers blew a 3-1 lead to the Rockets, who the Warriors handled in the following round.  So the Warriors were “lucky enough” not to play a Clippers team that wasn’t even good enough to advance to the next round? This just seems like another instance where the Clippers are coming across as cry babies to the rest of the league, and people are taking notice.  Doc Rivers also didn’t do much to take the pressure off his team last week by basically saying that if this team can’t get it done, they are going to blow it up.

On to some hockey.  Guys….it’s been a while since I’ve seen the Kings play, but someone refresh my memory: is giving up 9 unanswered goals to two non-playoff division rival teams from last year a bad thing? The Kings look like crap.  We waited 6 months for the Kings to come out and “avenge” missing the playoffs, and instead they took a dump in the first two games.  Have these guys tuned out Darryl Sutter? Milan Lucic already looks like a bust.  Kopitar doesn’t even look close to worth the $10 million per year he’s asking for, and the defense is nothing like it once was.  It’s only two games, but there’s some real concern for Kings fans.  Then there’s Dean Lombardi’s ridiculous statement to the media, explaining how he was “played” by Mike Richards.  Richards may be an ass hole for his substance abusing conduct, but you’re a fool for not cutting ties with him when you should have.  The notion that Dean was the victim here, which is what he’s trying to sell us, is ridiculous.  As the General Manager of any franchise, you have to be objective.  As great a job as he’s done putting together a couple of cup winning teams, his judgement may also lead to the rapid decline of this franchise once again.

Some good TV was on last night, starting with Homeland on Showtime.  Spoiler alert in case you have yet to see it.  Quinn has obviously been given assassination orders from Saul.  Am I crazy to think that his next target might be Carrie? The writers of the show are really trying to create this Edward Snowden like storyline with the leak in CIA documents.  I thought for sure that During was going to be killed in Lebanon, but then I remembered that Carrie is skillful enough to protect him.  I love that we got an action packed episode early in the season, but there’s just so many questions as to what direction the plot is going.  In any case, hope the show keeps up the blistering pace it started with this season.

Finally, the season premier of The Walking Dead went down on AMC last night.  Spoiler alert for those of you who have yet to see it.  Rick and his group have taken over Alexandria, and doing things in their own way.  I liked the episode, but came to some stark realizations.  I’m a little tired of the new character that Rick has become.  He’s bitter, he’s reckless, and eager to get things done regardless of input.  It’s become exhausting watching him, and the fact that he thinks Jessie will still fall for him after killing her abusive ex-husband (but father of her kids), shows me how skewed his worldview has become.  He also couldn’t be any more of a hypocrite when he says he won’t bury Pete in Alexandria because he’s a killer.  Morgan points this out by telling Rick he’s a killer too.  Then again, the people of Alexandria just don’t like Rick, but they are obnoxiously cowardly and weak.  Let’s be honest….they are all just food for the Walkers at some point.  Just like Carter was.  Abraham seems like something’s been knocked loose after Pete died.  What was with that pesky horn at the end of the episode? I have a feeling it’s coming from those evil Wolves, who are inevitably this seasons’ villain.  I’m content with the start to the season.

Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes, Danai Gurira as Michonne and Lennie James as Morgan Jones – The Walking Dead _ Season 6, Episode 1 – Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC

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.