Fantasy Players of the Week

Sorry to all of you who have been eagerly anticipating some new posts from me these past few weeks. The past two weeks have been very busy with celebrating senior week, walking at graduation, saying goodbye to friends and attending the most kick-ass graduation party (think My Super Sweet 16 but for a graduation party). However, I am now back and ready to role again with this thing and what better way to start than with the fantasy players of the week.

Position Player of the Week -- Justin Morneau, Minnesota Twins
The reigning AL MVP had one of those weeks that fantasy owners drool over. Morneau hit .400 this past week while belting four homers and driving in 13 runs. All four of his home runs came in victories for the Minnesota Twins and Morneau extended his hit streak to 10 games.

Pitcher of the Week -- Jake Peavy, San Diego Padres
Peavy, having two starts in one week, took full advantage of it. In his first start, Peavy shut down the Cubs, (which these days really isn't that hard) going six innings, striking out six and only allowing one run. For his second start, he went seven innings against the slumping Brewers while giving up only two hits and surrendering no runs. Peavy ended the week with two wins, 14 strikeouts and a razor-thin ERA of 0.69. If you have a pitcher with two starts against two teams from the "Comedy Central," then I would suggest urge you to start that pitcher (unless, of course, he plays for one of those joke teams).

On Vacation for Senior Week

Sorry to those who have come over here this week to find a few posts and the fantasy players of the week. It is Senior Week here at Notre Dame and I have been pretty busy getting drunk doing things with my friends and preparing for graduation. Yes I know I'm not officially graduating until December, but I am taking part in the graduation activities/ceremonies this spring. I will be back in full force on Monday.

Craig Biggio Could Have A Pretty Sweet Year

Houston Astros catcher centerfielder second baseman, 41 year-old Craig Biggio, is looking to reach one milestone and break another record this year. To date, Biggio currently has 2,963 hits; only 37 shy of the elite 3,000 hit club (currently at 26 players).

Also, Biggio has been hit by a pitch 283 times during his career in the majors. The current record of 287 HBP is held by Hughie Jennings, who played in the majors from 1891 to 1903. That means Biggio is four away from tying and five away from breaking his record.

I'd just like to make note that I'm not sure how legitimate his breaking of the HBP record should be. For as long as I can remember, he's been wearing that robo-arm padding which easily has helped him take some pitches off the arm. Then again, you still have to stand in there and let a ball coming at you at around 90mph hit you, which is not easy for anyone.

With that being said, good luck to Craig as he goes for both of those elite numbers this year.

Racism Study Among NBA Officials: Pointless and Stupid

There has been a lot of news as of late on the issue that the white referees in the NBA are using race as a factor for making foul calls. Personally, I think this study is stupid and really serves no purpose (but I'll get more into that in a second). What I found even more interesting is a little piece I read in the Chicago Tribune yesterday. Richard Jefferson (of the New Jersey Nets) asked an interesting question about the study. He said, "What if you are half-black, half white? Because there some mix in my family. I wonder how that works." Jefferson's teammate Jason Kidd was counted as black while Yao Ming was counted as white. Pretty ridiculous if you ask me. Also, the people who did the study did not know the racial identity of the referees making the calls, unless it was a crew of referees that were all the same race. Again, pretty ridiculous.

However, I want to step aside from criticizing the way the study was done, and instead move on to how studies like these continually remind us that race is always seems to be a factor in everything. In a country with so many races and ethnicities, isn't about time we stop doing surveys and studies to see how different races think? Personally, I am sick of hearing that white referees are racist or that more whites think Barry Bonds used steroids than blacks or whatever other study is being done to remind us that we are different colors.

Instead of pointing out that one race favors something more than another race, why can't we just take polls or analyze referees (or whoever) as a whole. We always want to use skin color or ethnicity to separate people, when in reality, we should be working to get rid of that mindset. We should be paving a path for the next generations to forget what race your neighbor, co-worker, classmate, etc. is and instead just acknowledge everyone for who they are as a human being.

I know this doesn't have much to do with sports, but it's something that has been bothering me for a while. And with that recent study of referees, it set me off. In the end, too many things come down to the issue of race/ethnicities and I would like to hope that we are trying to get past that. Unfortunatley, I don't think we are.

Fantasy Players of the Week

This past week was a very exciting week for Cubs fans everywhere. Like I mentioned in my previous post, the Cubs seem to be hitting their stride right now and I don't think the Brewers can keep this up all year. However, this past week was a great week for some Brewers players as well; which is why they have swept the fantasy players of the week for this week.

Position Players of the Week - J.J. Hardy & Prince Fielder, Milwaukee Brewers
These two both had tremendous weeks this week, helping the Brewers win 6 of 7 and hold steady their 5-game lead over the Cubs in the NL Central. Hardy hit .536 this past week with 2 HR's and 9 RBI's. His 15 hits during the week led the entire league. Fielder, Hardy's partner in crime, hit .440 over the past 7 days with 4 HR's (including 2 on Sunday) and 12 RBI's.

Pitcher of the Week - Jeff Suppan, Milwaukee Brewers
It's alwasy an advantage in fantasy for a pitcher to get two starts during a one week span. What's even better is when they take advantage of those starts. In his first start of the week on 4/30, he threw a complete game against the Cardinals scattering 8 hits while only giving up one earned run. His second outing didn't last as long, only 5.2 innings, but he only gave up 2 runs while giving up 8 hits again. His final stats for the week were: 2 wins, 1 complete game, a 1.84 ERA and 10 strikeouts.

So there it is. The first complete sweep of fantasy players of the week on this site. Let's see if some Cubs can do this next week.

Sweep and Read 'Em The Riot Act

The Cubs are on fire the past week and a half, winning games pretty much every way possible. From close games to comebacks to blowouts, the Cubs look to be hitting their stride. Today's comeback win is their 5th in a row and they've won 8 of their last 9 to propel themselves to back above .500 (15-14) for the first time since when they were 3-2.

The game today was most definitely a team effort with almost everyone contributing in some way or another, but my MVP has got to go to Ryan Theriot (aka The Riot). He only went 1-5 today, but his at bat in the bottom of the ninth was spectacular. With a count of 1-2, he had enough plate discipline to take a close pitch on the outside corner and follow that up with four straight foul balls, before finally delivering the game-tying hit to right field. Obviously, I'm not going to forget that Daryle Ward had two hits, including the game winner in the 10th, coming off the bench, but Theriot's approach in his last at bat was phenomenal.

I am getting more and more excited about this team as of late. You just have to love how they've been playing this past week and a half. They get to enjoy a day off tomorrow before the Pirates come into town for a three game set. I am happy to say I'll be in attendance on Wednesday night to watch the Cubs hopefully pin down their 7th straight win.

(Note: I was at yesterday's game too in the first part of the upper deck directly behind home plate and got a foul ball. I've now caught and thrown back an opposing player's home run at Wrigley and got a foul ball. Gotta love time spent at Wrigley Field!)

Boom Goes the Dynamite!!

I know this video is a couple years old and most of you have seen it at least a few times, but I just watched again for the first time in a year or so and died laughing. This is one of the all-time great meltdowns in television history; and for those of you who haven't seen it, well, get ready to laugh like you've never laughed before. And for the rest of you who are like me and who have seen it, take 4 minutes out of your day (especially if you're having a bad one) and laugh at this poor sole yet again.

Baw Wit Da Golf Clubs

A set of decent golf clubs these days usually costs somewhere between $300-600. So when a six sets of clubs were stolen from a high school girls golf team in Michigan on Monday, they were in a pretty big financial hole; that is, until Kid Rock heard about the incident. Rock (aka Robert Ritchie) called the coach of the team on Wednesday evening and offered to replace the stolen clubs with custom golf clubs.

After talking with the coach, Rock made a call to (his buddy?) John Daly and inquired about who he should get the clubs from. Daly suggested TaylorMade Golf. So Rock called up TaylorMade and they arranged to have the six sets of new clubs sent out to the coach and her team today.

This is a really great gesture by Kid Rock to help out some unfortunate high schoolers. The even better part of the story is how Rock called upon John Daly for advice. Does that mean that these guys are friends and party together? Because if they do, those are two guys I would love to party with because they definitely know how to party.

(Note: Kid Rock's Devil Without a Cause might be the greatest album ever created....it went platinum seven times.)

It Only Took a Month!

Considering I (and every other Cubs fan) have been waiting for this all year, I feel it deserves it's own post. Alfonso Soriano FINALLY HIT A HOME RUN!!! Soriano hit his first blast of the season just a few moments ago off of Tony Armas. I hope this is the start of a 6 or 7 game streak where Soriano goes yard.

Felix Pie Does It The Right Way

Edit: The video is working again! Hooray!

On Friday night, Chicago Cubs outfielder Felix Pie hit his first home run of his career. Pretty sweet stuff for a Cubs fan. But what's more is how he handled himself after he hit the ball and finally saw that the ball had cleared the fence in right center field. The video below is somewhat low quality (because all others of his first home run were taken off YouTube for copyright violations) but you can see what I am talking about.



I wish more players in the Majors handled themselves like Pie did. Granted it was his first home run, but I see this guy handling most of his home runs the exact same way. Running hard right out of the box and only slowing up (a little in Pie's case) when the ball actually clears the fence. Too many times I've seen major leaguers hit long drives that they think are home runs, only to see them wind up just short and see them held to a single or thrown out at 2nd or 3rd because they didn't hustle out of the box. Seriously, with all the money the get paid, is it that much to ask to run hard for 5-10 seconds once every 2-3 innings?

Now don't get me wrong, some players have the ability to hit absolute bombs and know when they're gone when they hit them. If you know it's gone, then I suppose you can watch it leave the yard. Gary Sheffield put it best last night after hitting his game-winning home run when he said, "I was always told by Dave Parker, when you hit it like that, you can look at it."

If you're 100% it's gone, then watch it. If not, run hard til it leaves the yard.