I am happy the World Cup is over. Really I am. Yes I am a soccer fan and have enjoyed many of the matches, but for some reason this tournament seemed to go on forever and ever.<\/p>\n
In addition the final was well boring as anything with both teams playing as conservatively as possible. I was begging that one of the teams would score before the 90th minute in order to save me from sitting\u00a0through another 30 minutes of slow torture.<\/p>\n
At least it didn’t go into penalties and Andres Iniesta\u00a0scored. Yes it was a beautiful goal no doubt about it, but the game was a far cry from being a beauty.<\/p>\n
The referee handed out yellow cards like they were going out of style, one after another on horrible tic tac\u00a0fouls. Ejecting a player for his second yellow late in the extra time period was ludicrous and ridiculous.<\/p>\n
Can the referees please let the players play the game and also, NO MORE DIVING, ENOUGH! Players, please stop going down as if you were shot.<\/p>\n
If soccer wanted a showcase event yesterday, unfortunately they did not get it.<\/p>\n
What’s really amazing is that the domestic leagues already begin training camps this week and some major qualification games for the Champions League are rolling next week. When will these guys get a vacation?<\/p>\n
Thoughts from the Pulpit<\/p>\n
1) Cliff Lee was on the move from Seattle to Texas over the weekend. I believe that he will be the Ace that will take the Rangers all the way to the World Series this year past the New York Yankees. What a great trade. I wrote about this last month and boy was I right. Even tough he didn\u2019t have a great 1st outing I would not be too concerned.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that the Yankees really needed Lee. They didn\u2019t. Their pitching with Andy Pettitte, Javier Vasquez, yes that Vasquez who the whole city of New York wanted to see out of town\u00a0and fast, CC Sabathia, Phil Hughes has been sensational. No problems in that department. Though one of the cardinal rules of baseball is, you can\u2019t have enough pitching. I still believe this was one trade the Yankees did not need to make and could have pilfered their minor league system, but GM Brian Cashman\u00a0stayed put and will look to upgrade their offense which definitely needs a little work. Though Mark Texeira is on a .419 tear in July and is heating up, the Yankees can always use a another bat.<\/p>\n
Or Cashman\u00a0can go after another reliever if Joba Chamberlain falters as he did on Saturday. But the Yankees did what was best for them.<\/p>\n
2) There is still fall out over the Lebron\u00a0signing in Miami. Shirts being burned, signs being taken down, the City of Cleveland is looking for blood and boy will the Arena be packed next year when the Heat visit. What gets me is that did these 3 clowns think we are all so stupid? They tried their best especially Wade by visiting Chicago twice, but these 3 jokers all along were going to play in Miami for Riley. Wade was going nowheres\u00a0and Lebron will be taking his talents down to South Beach. Bosh was really the third wheel, but what these guys have to realize is that it takes more than just the 3 of them to win a championship.<\/p>\n
Kobe will be ready for the challenge and boy has his stock risen! He is now the most loved superstar put there. Kind of ironic that he is, but he is. Very basketball fan will be looking to root for any team playing the Heat and see if they can knock them off. So that should be fun.<\/p>\n
I again credit Cavs owner Gilbert for making those statements, he has created some nasty friction between teams and you know what? That is good for basketball. Mark Cuban agreed that this was a good letter, so who am I to argue with Cuban. Just as NASCAR has allowed tempers to flare, what it does is creates more fans and more interest. And the NBA did just that.<\/p>\n
On one hand\u00a0David Stern must have been super ticked off as to what Lebron was doing, on the other hand the ratings went through the ceiling and the league will ultimately benefit from the whole charade with a countdown until the exhibition season.<\/p>\n
There are a lot of people licking their chops and the NBA has now made its regular season meaningful. After all the complaints about such a long season, such a boring season with few storylines until the play-offs, well that has all changed and Stern must be thrilled.<\/p>\n
In addition the Toronto Raptors and the Cleveland Cavaliers will not file tampering charges with the NBA so hopefully we have heard the end of Lebron for now…<\/p>\n
But of course that’s not the total end of the story with our good friend Jesse Jackson now putting in his 2 cents about how Dan Gilbert wrote about Lebron. Please\u00a0Jesse, go away, no one wants to hear from you and no one cares about you.<\/p>\n
And lastly, JA Adande\u00a0writing for ESPN.com said that Wade, James and Bosh are not conspirators, collaborators and tamperers. Well JA, then what are they exactly?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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