Weekend Update

Ohhh Annexation nation it has been far too long... After a week on the road without sports, I feel terribly out of touch. The Celtics signed Rasheed, Federer beat Roddick (again), Wake is an all star, all kinds of players are swapping teams in the NBA, and my summer league basketball won its first game in the absense of its only 6 foot plus player- clearly I bring a lot to the table.

Lets get down to business... in the form of a list of revelvant topics that need some touching upon.

1. With the signing of Rasheed Wallace the Celtics are the team to beat in the east. Obvioulsy. Though he is clearly qualified, nobody expects Rasheed to start. Why? Because Kendrick Perkins is a certified defensive beast, and his power hook shot isn't too shabby either. Eat that Dwight Howard. Anyways-- Sheed will be one of the best big men in the league coming off the bench and should give that group the scoring punch it lacked all of last season. If either Leon or Baby, or Marbury or Eddie resign with club-- our bench will definitely be improved over last years squad. Also-- don't forget about weapon X, Brian Scalabrine.

2. Let's resign Phil Kessell. Please.

3. Madden 10 comes in just over a month. This is a big deal. Recognize this.

4. What's up with the AL east? A lot. More than ever this division is stacked, and I couldn't tell you what is going to happen-- not at all. Peter Gammons is saying the Rays will win the division by 5 games. The Sox are currently in first, and the Yankees are playing pretty well as of late. The Blue Jays over .500 and (with Halladay especially) certainly steal some wins from the big three.

I hate the Yankees, so I will automatically and irrationally disregard from contention. I'm still amazed that Tampa is even good. They aren't going anywhere, and we've got a lot of tough games left to play against them. I know the Rays have got James Shields, Matt Garza, and Scott Kazmir (though he hasn't been himself this season), but Josh Beckett and Jon Lester have been absolutley tearing it up the past six weeks or so. Lester is freakin unhittable. I definitely did not see him being THIS good- way to be Theo.

The Sox (Papi too), Yankees, and Rays can all hit- that isn't the question. It all comes down to pitching. Cliche, cliche, cliche I know, but the Sox have the best bullpen in the bigs, and a dominant one two punch. Come on now....

5. While travelling about the lower left corner of our nation I dropped into (figuratively) into a Padres game. My ticket cost $7. Less than 1/3 of the seats were full. Embarrassing. The stadium was full of teenage and college aged girls, which was great-- but kind of weird. The only people I'm used to seeing at Fenway are the diehards with nothing else to live for, and the rich people who are trying to seem less out of touch with normal life by going to a ball game. I don't blame the San Diego general population for this failure to support their team because, well, they're just plain terrible. I see why they needed to trade Jake Peavy to bring back multiple players--- becuase they don't have anybody! The #3 hitter for the Pads in the game I attended was Scott Hairston- Scott Hairston!!! He was so expendable he was shipped off to Oakland the next day. Never mind the rest of that lineup-- I honestly don't even know if they could beat the Nashua Pride.

It was great that the tickets were cheap and that I got to visit another stadium, but the atmosphere was so pathetic I had to fake having a good time after the forth inning.


Later!