TDL’s Sports, Wrestling, & Otherwise

L/L - Raiders +2.5 over Chiefs, 23-8, Chiefs cover: This just in - the Chiefs are epically bad. Ain’t no one that can kill a franchise like Herm.

L/L - Bengals -3 over Titans, 24-7, Bengals cover: Have we reached the point where we can officially call the AFC powerhouses “dead”? I strenuously argued this pick with Hulse, convinced the Titans would be screwed playing through media scrutiny and the QB Trinity Of Suck. He argued that the Bengals are exactly the type of team that Tennessee destroys and they were playing without major offensive weapons. I lose.

W/W - Packers -1 over Lions, 48-25, Packers cover: Didn’t understand this spread when I saw it and it, unsurprisingly, was blown out. All that stuff I said about how Aaron Rodgers kinda sucks? I lied. I’m on board now.

L/L - Redskins -1 over Saints, 29-24, Saints outright. As it turns out, betting against the NFC East this year is done at your own peril. The NFC East will have the remarkable ability to make each other look foolish and will probably crush the rest of the NFC.

W/L - Colts -3.5 over Vikings, 18-15, Colts cover. Gods above I hate half-point lines. To note: The Colts didn’t play much at all with the 1st string squad over pre-season. Apparently, it takes about 8-12 quarters to sync up. The Colts will have a favorable line next week.

W/T - Panthers -3 over Bears, 20-17, Panthers cover: So, apparently the Panther’s alternating year rule still exists, which means pencil them in for 10 wins this year.

W/W - Giants -8 over Rams, 41-13, Giants cover: As I’ve mentioned in other places, the Giants’ schedule through the first six weeks is kind of easy. This made me nervous as someone who has followed the team for years. Blowing out the Rams, while not a big deal on the surface, kind of is a big deal for a team that tends to struggle to get by bad teams and elevating their game for good teams. With their upcoming schedule (Cincy, Bye, Seattle, @Cleveland, San Francisco) they can keep playing the “no one believes in us” card when they hit the tough part of their schedule (@Pittsburgh, Dallas, @Philly) as the “product of their schedule” stories start coming out. I, for one, look forward to this.

L/W - Bills +6 over Jags, 20-16, Bills +6. Whatever I thought about the Jags was apparently rendered moot when their runningback got arrested.

W/L - Bucs -9 over Falcons, 24-9, Falcons +9. The Falcons are going to be a really annoying team this year, likely joining the club with the Titans for “team I hate picking and lose every week.”

L/W - Niners +9.5 over Seahawks, 33-30, Niners +9.5: As it turns out, the Seahawks aren’t even good enough to WIN, much less cover the spread. The Seahawks have said their receivers are out until after the bye week. Expect spreads on them to come way down.

W/L - Cardinals -7.5 over Dolphins, 31-10, Dolphins +7.5: I’m still not taking the Cardinals with more than a touchdown, but the Dolphins are looking to frustrate me for another entire year by saying “they gotta win one here eventually, right?

W/W - Patriots +3 over Jets, 19-10, Patriots outright: If the Patriots can beat the Jets on the road, I’m pretty sure they’re still going to make the playoffs. It’s shaping up such that the AFC East is going to be as interesting as the NFC East.

PPD - Ravens/Texans - Best wishes to all those affected by Ike.

L/L - Broncos +3 over Chargers, 39-38, Chargers cover: Could have been a win… it’s not. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer group of guys. In other news, the Bradyless Ms. L Superstars survived their first week vs. Tomlinson on the backs of Eli Manning and Santana Moss. Who knew?

W/L - Steelers -5.5 over Browns, 10-6, Steelers cover: I really wish I could see even a clip of a Steelers game so I had some concept of how they’re playing.

W/W - Cowboys -7 over Eagles, 41-37, Eagles +7: Could someone explain to me how Donovan McNabb can manage to flub not one, but two handoffs in crunch-time? Could that same person also explain to me why on three consecutive downs under two minutes, McNabb scampered around the backfield and ran toward the sideline and, rather than running toward the 10 open yards of field between him and the sideline, instead chose to take sacks? Someone could. His name is Rush Limbaugh.

5 point: Saints +1 over Redskins - L
4 point: Packers -1 over Lions - W
3 point: Colts -3.5 over Vikings - L
2 point: Chargers -3 over Broncos - L
1 point: Dolphins +7.5 over Chargers - L

Yikes.

Standings:

Straight Up: 9-6 (17-14)
Spread: 6-8-1 (!) (15-15-1)
Point Pool: 4/15 (14/30 - .467)

You may have heard of Buster Olney as a frequent “contributor” to Fire Joe Morgan. Olney is a writer deeply entrenched in classical baseball stuff — Wins are important, OBP is dumb, VORP is something evil dreamed up by people who hate the sport. In fact, the only reason I read this book is because my buddy Hulse told me it was very good. The Last Night Of The Yankee Dynasty tells the story of Game 7 of the World Series… only if it was dramatized with Lost style flashbacks giving you history on all the Yankee players. Olney takes the game, describes it inning by inning, and describes the players in building the dynasty and, ultimately, how it ended.

If anything, I was pleasantlly surprised at how engaging it was. I’m not a huge fan of Olney and I’m not a huge fan of the Yankees, but Olney describes the game in a way that anyone who is a baseball fan can get into. Unlike most Met guys, I’m not an active Yankee hater — though frequent-commenter Doug tells me that I IMed him after this game to goof on him which I don’t recall, but I’ll take his word for it. I remember this game primarily because it was the first championship game of any sport that I watched in a bar. Previously, all World Series games were watched in a college dorm room. This was the only World Series that happened when I was at RPI and the school isn’t really known for its jocks. In fact, only one guy I knew there was a baseball fan of any kind. My friend Matt and I watched this game at Peabody’s, a bar known for (at the time) being the only actual sports bar in Saratoga Springs, having the best wings in town, and being the place where we went on an unprecedented 4-hour run at a pool table. The book describes the game in such a dramatized fashion that two things happen 1) You start thinking this might have been the greatest baseball game of all time and 2) I really, really wish I could watch it again. Oddly, I can’t find it in the Yankees Classics rotation on YES.

As someone who lived in New York outside the Yankee thing, it’s also a pretty good revisiting of just how good those Yankee teams were. Like, as he was describing the 1998 team, I had pretty much forgotten how absurdly awesome that team was. I had forgotten it had taken them until late May to lose their 10th game and that they’d run away with the division by mid-July. I’d also forgotten how agonizingly hard Mike Piazza crushed the ball that led to the last out of the 2000 World Series*.

I’d also kind of argue with Olney’s contention that this particular World Series was the end of the dynasty. The Yankees would go on to win the division every year until 2007. I think you could successfully make the argument that the dynasty ended with Josh Beckett and the Marlins in 2003 or, even worse, with The Comeback in 2004. For artistic reasons, I understand why he chose this game — neither of those elimination games were particularly dramatic. In 2003, Beckett just made them look bad in game 6. In 2004, the doors were blown off game 7 by the 3rd inning. Only in 2001 did you have the added drama of most of the dynasty guys (Scott Brosius, Paul O’Neill, David Cone, etc) still on the team and playing in their last game, a gem of a game from both Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling, a team full of guys who were not expected to do much against this juggernaut, and, most damning, the best closer of our era giving up a crap hit to sneak in the winning run.

Recommended if you’re not a Yankee fan.

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* - cheated