Category: Sports

Oh Lord, Stanley: A Modest Proposal to Save the NHL

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago Blackhawks, NHL Hockey, Sports7 Comments

Poor National Hockey League. The ratings for this year's Stanley Cup Finals have been breaking all kinds of records for futility, from losing head-to-head matchups with women's college softball and a baseball game that rained out (in St. Louis, a better than average hockey town, the ratings for game 1 were so low that it wasn't even registered by Nielsen) to narrowly avoiding the worst rating in the history of prime time network television on Saturday. (To put this size of this abyss into perspective, the Stanley Cup Finals on NBC on Saturday drew approximately 1.3 million viewers. In comparison, "Emily's Reasons Why Not", which was cancelled before the credits starting rolling on its only episode, drew 6.2 million viewers.) While it's not surprising that there has been low interest in a series featuring two small markets (one of them being Canadian) coming off of a shut-down season, it's pretty sad to observe the NHL and the proud game of hockey taking such a beating.

As my three or four regular readers have probably noticed, I haven't written more than the occasional blip about hockey. That's because personally, I've never been much of an NHL fan (I'll explain the reason for this later in this post), and therein lies evidence of a major problem: if a person, such as myself, who devotes the majority of his television time to watching sports events of all stripes can't sustain much interest in the NHL, the hopes to attract a larger audience beyond hardcore hockey fans will be almost impossible.

The thing is, my non-NHL fan status has nothing to do with an aversion to hockey as a sport overall. In fact, I'll grant anyone the argument that hockey is the most exciting of the four "major" sports to watch live. I've been to plently of Blackhawks games (back when they actually fielded teams consisting of players that weren't Canadian Junior League rejects) along with being an Illini hockey regular and loved every moment of those experiences. Even more importantly, EA Sports NHL Hockey is neck-and-neck with Madden as the best sports video game for Playstation 2. (Sidenote: Back in college, my buddy Danny M and I made the greatest create-your-own athlete in the history of video games, which was a hockey player named "Ass Whooper". To give you a mental picture of what he looked like, he was essentially Shaq on ice skates. We actually got the Whooper to check a referee through the glass in the middle of a game, which was certainly the pinnacle of my video gaming career.) It's a fast-paced game with tons of hitting – what's not to love, right?

The NHL's problem over the past few decades, though, is that it has been a poorly run from the top league level all the way down to local franchises. While David Stern has been a brilliant commissioner of the NBA to turn that league into an international phenomenon and the NFL has had great stewards in Pete Rozelle and Paul Tagliabue (the entrenchment of baseball in the American psyche has allowed Major League Baseball to survive under the ineptitude of Bud Selig), the NHL has suffered from terrible vision and leadership from Gary Bettman, which is the death knell for a league that doesn't have the built-in interest of basketball, football, or baseball.

Therefore, here's my plan for what the NHL needs to do in order to even have a chance in this fragmented sports world:

1) Get Back on ESPN Somehow – This might not even be possible as ESPN has figured out that cheap softball and poker programming is killing the NHL in the ratings. Still, as long as the NHL doesn't receive exposure from the Worldwide Leader in Sports, where the lack of games on the ESPN family of networks has trickled down to only cursory coverage of the league on SportsCenter, it's going to continue to die a slow death. Coverage on OLN, which is in approximately 30 million fewer homes than ESPN, is not going to work for if the NHL ever wants to be considered a "major" sport again.

2) Sell the Franchises in Chicago and Boston to Owners That Care – The Blackhawks and Bruins are two Original Six franchises dripping with history and tradition and located in huge media markets that have fanatical sports fans. They ought to be the teams that the NHL can count on to bring more attention to its product. Yet, they have been saddled with quite possibly the two worst owners in all of sports with Bill Wirtz in Chicago and Jeremy Jacobs in Boston (when ESPN.com called upon readers to write in letters regarding the worst owners in sports, Jacobs and Wirtz were respectively the #1 and #3 vote-getters).

Without question, Bill Wirtz is the biggest reason as to why I never became more than a less-than-casual Hawks fan. While I have been watching multitudes of White Sox, Bears, Bulls, and Cubs games for as long as I can remember, I was never exposed to Hawks games in my formative years. That's simply because I couldn't be exposed to them even by accident. Not only do the Hawks, to this day, not broadcast its home games on television under the guise of "protecting its season ticket holders" (funny, having 162 Cubs games over-the-air on WGN didn't exactly hamper their season ticket base), but they were one of the first franchises in any sport to completely move all of their local broadcasts to cable. That wasn't good for me since my family, like the majority of families up until the late-1980s, didn't subscribe to cable at all. Therefore, the only hockey games I ever saw on television up until I was a teenager were the NHL All-Star Games, which featured no checking and 17-14 scores.

Adding on to that is when the Hawks finally looked as though it would breakthrough in the early-1990s with stars in their primes such as Jeremy Roenick, Ed Belfour, and Chris Chelios (peaking with a Stanley Cup Finals appearance in 1992), Wirtz did everything in his power to drive those players away. As a result, the Blackhawks have made the NHL playoffs only once since 1998 (this isn't even counting the fact that they haven't won the Stanley Cup since 1961, which is the longest championship drought of any franchise in hockey). Not only that, this is in the midst of the diluting of NHL going through expansion overkill, which brings up the following point.

3) Contraction of the NHL Back to True Hockey Cities – Back in the day, the Blackhawks would play the Original Six teams along with the Blues and old North Stars (when they were in Minnesota) for a majority of their games throughout the season. Now, as opposed to having a schedule filled with dates against the New York Rangers and Toronto Maple Leafs, Hawks fans get to see plently of insomnia-curing tilts with Columbus and Nashville.

Back in the early-1990s, the fashionable thing for all sports leagues to do was to look southward and westward for fast-growing markets as expansion and relocation targets. I'll grant that there were a number of open markets that were too large for the NHL to ignore, such as the San Francisco Bay Area, Dallas, and Atlanta. However, the league's obsession with new-wave warm-weather towns such as Nashville, Raleigh, and Tampa led it to abandon a number of cold-weather towns in Canada and, for a period of time, Minnesota (an absolutely crazy move since Minnesota is the only place in the United States where its residents' obsession with hockey is on par with Canada – the North Star State is to hockey as Indiana is to basketball) that were passionate about hockey. What looked like great moves to growing markets turned out to be a removal of the game from the areas where people care about it the most.

From my view, there are six teams that should easily be axed: Columbus, Nashville, Carolina, Tampa Bay, Florida, and Anaheim. We could probably cut it down even more, but I believe that the remaining 24 teams keeps the most desirable markets, franchises, and rivalries.

4) Realign, Forget About Geography, and Bring Back the Wacky Names – The next step after contraction is realignment. While geography ought to still be a factor in placing teams in conferences and divisions, the NHL should bring back an important part of its history. Despite the fact that Chris Berman annoyingly insists upon calling the NFC North the "Norris Division" every single freakin' week during the NFL season, the pre-1993 NHL names for its conferences and divisions which gave no references to geographic locations were a unique aspect of the game that should have never been eliminated.

Here is how I envision a new NHL:

WALES CONFERENCE

Adams Division: Montreal, Boston, Toronto, Ottawa, Buffalo, Atlanta (gets the nod over Florida only because of Lil' Jon)

Patrick Division: New York Rangers, New York Islanders, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Washington, Pittsburgh

CAMPBELL CONFERENCE

Norris Division: Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Minnesota, Colorado, Dallas

Smythe Division: Los Angeles, San Jose, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Phoenix (the Coyotes need to stick around as long as Wayne Gretzky has a stake in that franchise)

5) Reemphasize Rivalries by Returning to Unbalanced Schedules and the Divisional Playoff Format – It wasn't too long ago that the Blackhawks-Red Wings rivalry was considered to be the fiercest and most important intercity rivalry on the Chicago sports landscape – even more than Bears-Packers or Cubs-Cardinals. These days, however, a random Bulls game against the Grizzlies attracts more attention than what is arguably the NHL's greatest rivalry. A large reason for this occurring (besides the Blackhawks supremely sucking at the same time that the Red Wings have been putting together championship teams) is that the NHL made the decision at the time that it renamed and realigned its divisions geographically that teams would play "balanced" schedules that pared down the number of intradivision games along with eliminating the divisional semifinals and finals from the first two rounds of the playoffs and going to a straight seeding of all teams in each conference irrespective of divisions.

So, we now have a situation where the best thing that the NHL had going for it – great rivalries – is now deemphasized to the point that it's hardly registers any interest to the average sports fan anymore. Therefore, I'm proposing that the NHL brings back unbalanced schedules where each team would play those outside of its division only twice (once at home and once on the road) while having the rest of its schedule filled with intradivision matchups. This would then make it fair to also go back to the divisional playoff format, where rivalries truly come to fruition. Imagine if the Bears played the Packers or the Yankees played the Red Sox in the playoffs every season. That's essentially what the NHL used to have and it could have it again.

The NHL should give up on its hopes that it will ever come close to the NFL, Major League Baseball, NBA, college basketball, college football, or NASCAR in terms of national interest. There's absolutely no reason, however, for such a historically-rich league to get beaten in the ratings by fishing shows, the WNBA, and John Stamos TV pilots. The sports world will be a lot better off if the NHL can get back on its feet to be a respectable league once more.

Dick Vitale is on Suicide Watch

On By Frank the TankIn College Basketball, Sports1 Comment

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When J.J. Redick gets arrested for a DUI, an emergency post with his mugshot is not just warranted, but necessary.

(Photo from Deadspin)

(Update: In a classic case of being careful for what you wish for, there's speculation that Redick would drop down in the NBA Draft to where the Bulls might take him with their second pick at #16. Now I'm on the suicide watch.)

Land-o-Links – 6/13/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Land-o-Links, NFL Football, Random Thoughts, Soccer, Sports1 Comment

A post on a sport that I never write about is on tap for tomorrow. Hint: it's not about soccer, which Minneapolis Red Sox has already eloquently addressed. By the way, I'm in search of new country to root for in the World Cup as the U.S. and Poland were inept in their opening games and won't make it to the final 16 unless they can pull off upsets against some superpowers. Also, I believe Las Vegas oddsmakers have put the over/under for the number of days after the World Cup ends that it takes for that guy from Paraguay who headed the ball into his own net this past weekend to "disappear" at negative 3. Anyway, here are today's links:

1) Multiple Injuries, Few Injuries for Roethlisberger (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) – WTF, Big Ben?! As my buddy B-Diddy mentioned, Ben Roethlisberger wore a helmet everyday to work, so why would he not wear one riding a motorcycle going 60-plus miles per hour? I was in a catatonic state for days after Jay Williams wrapped his motorcycle around a pole on the North Side of Chicago (throwing the Bulls back into a hole that they were just starting to come out of at that time), so I can only imagine how Steeler Nation is feeling right now after seeing this happen to their star quarterback that's coming off winning a Super Bowl in only his second season in the NFL.

It isn't too strange that Pennsylvania doesn't have a helmet law for motorcycle riders. What is wacky to me, though, is that it used to have a helmet law until 2003, when it was then repealed. So, enough Pennsylvania politicians were actually convinced that the law was such a bad idea that they had to get rid of it. The biker lobby must have joined forces with Charlton Heston and the NRA to get that type of result.

Let's just hope Big Ben comes out of this okay.

2) For Some, Online Persona Undermines a Resume (New York Times) – Word to the wise: remove any references as to how you "smoke blunts" off of your MySpace personal profiles. As one fellow Illinois grad found out (thanks for making us look like schmucks, dude), that's probably a bad idea when you're looking for a job.

3) Worst-Case CTA Scenarios (Chicago Tribune) – No mention of what to do if you're trapped on the El with Ronnie Woo Woo, which has happened to me on multiple occasions.

And finally… 

4) How To Brainwash Your Baby Early (Deadspin) – Do I think this is the latest sign of the apocalypse? Yes. However, do I also believe that there should be a statute enacted making it mandatory that every hospital in the State of Illinois provide an Illini version of this, whenever it is released, to go home with every baby? Absolutely.

NCAA Tournament Expansion? Don’t Mess With Success

On By Frank the TankIn College Basketball, SportsLeave a comment

Gregg Doyel has presented some interesting perspectives as to how the major conferences are actually the biggest proponents of expanding the NCAA Tournament from 65 teams to around 80 (the column also goes into separate conflicts over non-conference guarantee games). The rationale here is that the major conferences would be the most likely beneficiaries of additional at-large slots. Illini head coach Bruce Weber says, "[I]t's not a surprise that the big guys are clamoring." The high mid-majors that have been receiving multiple bids recently such as the Missouri Valley Conference and CAA are also for it (albeit with a little less enthusiasm), but the smallest conferences don't believe they would benefit from an expansion at all.

For the record, even with my admitted major conference bias as a Big Ten guy, I'm completely against expanding the tournament to this level. In my opinion, the tournament should only be expanded to a maximum of 68 teams, where there would be 4 play-in games involving the 8 lowest seeds playing for the right to a matchup against each of the number one seeds. Anything more than that would severely dilute the prestige of the event overall.

Plus, the largest knock against college basketball is that it has the least important regular season of the major sports. At least with the current tournament format, the last month of the regular season provides a ton of excitement in weeding out the teams that are on the bubble. Expanding the tournament to around 80 teams would pretty much allow every team that would have been on the bubble in present times into the dance. That might add a couple more days of tournament interest for those who don't start paying attention to college basketball until March, but it would come at the expense of eliminating what is now the most valuable and entertaining aspect of the regular season. As a monster college basketball fan, that's definitely not worth it to me.

Big Loss for the Windy City and a Bigger Loss for the Big Ten

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Basketball, Sports2 Comments

Groucho Marx once said, “I wouldn't want to be a member of any club that would have me as a member.” If sports leagues and conferences had any brains, they would apply Groucho's skeptical train of thought to cities that throw an overwhelming number of incentives to woo them. However, despite being a conference that generally makes solid and grounded decisions for its members (i.e. standing firm on not taking bastardized television time slots for conference football games), the Big Ten just made a huge mistake by choosing Indianapolis over Chicago as the permanent home of its annual conference basketball tournament (and this has nothing to do with my loyalty to the Illini, where I admit that I love our complete homecourt advantage at the United Center).

In this case, Indy was willing to throw a multitude of incentives that Chicago wasn't going to match. The Big Ten's move here smacks of the short-term decision by the NFL to put a team in Jacksonville as opposed having a club in the nation's second-largest television market of Los Angeles. From an immediate dollars and cents standpoint, I can understand the Big Ten's reasoning for choosing Indy, but this is not a positive long-term business move for the conference (in addition to this post, I went through a number of other reasons for this back in March).

The Big East used the locale of its tournament at Madison Square Garden to propel its entire conference to national prominence. That association with New York City provides extra intangible value to the perception of the league across the country. Using the Big Ten's recent logic, however, the Big East should move its tournament to Hartford, a town that's rabid for college basketball compared to New York and where the event would take over the entire city for the weekend. Something tells me that Mike Tranghese would seriously (and correctly) question the sanity of anyone who would suggest such a thing.

Yet, the Big Ten is essentially doing what pretty much any other conference would consider to be ludicrous. Now, is Indy proportionally a bigger college sports town than Chicago? Sure. Does Big Ten Tournament completely dominate Indy while it's treated as just another event on the full sports calendar in Chicago? Of course. However, we could say the same so-called advantages for Indianapolis about Hartford, Tucson, and Birmingham. The entire allure of holding an event in a large and sophisticated city is that people actually would want to visit that location even if there wasn't a tournament going on. It's the reason why the Big East chose NYC for its tournament, the Pac-10 planted itself in LA, and the SEC and ACC fight over turf in Atlanta as opposed to picking "intimate" cities where their respective events would be much bigger deals.

This isn't meant to slight Indianapolis, which is a fine town and by every account that I've heard and read has a fantastic basketball facility in Conseco Fieldhouse. However, just as the NFL was short-sighted in putting a team in Jacksonville as opposed to one in LA, the Big Ten not trying to do everything to tie itself to the nation's third largest media market (not to mention being a major base for alums from EVERY school in the conference as opposed to the Hoosier-Boilermaker oligopoly in Indy) is a failure in basic logic. I have previously argued that the Big Ten ought to try to become the beneficiaries of large market biases as opposed to being the victim of them. The Big East has New York, the Pac-10 has Los Angeles, and the Big Ten should have Chicago. Unfortunately, the Big Ten took a step backwards toward provincialism as opposed to solidifying the link the greatest conference in the nation to the greatest city in the world.

Basking in My Otioseness

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago White Sox, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, Random Thoughts, SportsLeave a comment

May sweeps might be over, but that didn't stop me from some hardcore vegetating on the couch last night:

1) Samir Goes Down – I doomed Samir Patel with my “MJ in 1991” comment yesterday. He wilted like a flower suffering from eremacausis and didn't even make it to the prime time final of the National Spelling Bee. Patel is already looking toward a recrudesce next year after he takes some time off to play in the White Sox farm system. The winner Katharine Close, however, was a machine last night. While every other contestant had to stoop to the standard stalling techniques of repeating the same questions about the definition and country of origin over and over again at one point or another, she just proceeded to pound out every word without a hint of hesitation. It was like those days in the late-1980s when you would pay fifty bucks to watch a Mike Tyson fight on pay-per-view and then he would pummel his opponent in 45 seconds. She knocked those words back to Bolivia.

2) WTF Sox Bullpen?! – I'm extremely disappointed in the White Sox on this 3-game losing streak since they (a) couldn't take advantage of the Tigers finally having to play someone other than the Royals (much less the Yankees) and (b) completely let the Indians back into the AL Central race as opposed to killing them off. What's even more worrisome is the status of our bullpen, which is a glaring weakness that has been covered up so far this season by the hot Sox offense. I'd seriously rather have the Cubs bullpen out there over what we have on the South Side for the stretch run. I'm hoping Kenny Williams is burning up the phone lines to address this situation ASAP.

3) Dirk Rolls Over the Suns – How spectacular has Dirk Nowitzki been for the Mavs during the playoffs? Not only is he a 7-footer that can drop 50 points in a game both inside and outside of the arc, but his Governor of Cal-i-for-ni-a postgame interviews have been classic. You know he's stepped up to another level when every tall white European draft prospect with a halfway decent jumpshot from now until the end of time will be described as possibly becoming the “next Dirk Nowitzki”. Shaq vs. Dirk in the NBA Finals is exactly the matchup that I long to see.

4) They Wouldn't Do This to Catherine Zeta-Jones – Why does the T-Mobile commercial centering around an arena full of fans (presumably all Pistons backers) cheering and waiting for Ben Wallace to come out during his pregame introduction show the Miami Heat home floor at the beginning? And why does Vince Carter have a bulimic dog? These are the things in life that really bother me.

Happy Friday and enjoy your weekend!

Land-o-Links – 6/1/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Land-o-Links, NBA Basketball, Random Thoughts, Sports1 Comment

Damn Pistons.  After Ben Wallace packed Shaq in last night's game, I now have a really awful feeling that we're going to be denied a Dwyane Wade and Shaq NBA Finals for the second year in a row even though the Heat only need one more win.  Anyway, here are today's links:

1) Who Will Win?  We Handicap the Spellers – Samir Patel is going to finally bring it home tonight.  He's on the cusp of cementing his greatness like MJ in 1991.

2) Suburban School Board Rejects Book Ban – Freakonomics, Slaughterhouse-Five, Beloved… all books that a District 214 board member attempted to ban. Of course, she never actually read any of these books in their entirety (a common theme among book burners). Thankfully, northwest suburban Chicago isn't located in Kansas and cooler heads prevailed.

3) Not Heard 'Round The World – Instant karma's gonna get you.

4) Pimp My Grill – My eyes are popping out of my head like a Looney Tunes character right now.

And finally…

5) He Believed He Could Build – R. Kelly to Olympia Fields: I want to piss on you. 

A Tale of Two Managers

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Major League Baseball, SportsLeave a comment

Let's see if you can match up the following actual quotes from this past Sunday with the appropriate Chicago baseball manager:

1) Manager A: "We have to get better as a team… It's not about individuals. We have to get better with the little things."

2) Manager B: "I'm proud of how the team battled back, especially the way things have been going… We don't quit."

Interestingly, Manager A's remarks came after his team won 7-5 and continues to roll on with the second-best record in all of baseball. In contrast, Manager B's quotes were in the wake of his team losing its sixth game in a row by giving up a franchise record 8 home runs in a single game and their third baseman letting a routine pop-up bounce off of his head that allowed a Braves player onto base (who would subsequently score Atlanta's winning run). Is there any wonder why Ozzie Guillen (Manager A) is the most beloved coach in Chicago history this side of Mike Ditka while Dusty Baker (Manager B) is questioning whether he's going to still have a job by the All-Star break?

I'll be the first to admit that the Cubs' problems run a whole lot deeper than Dusty Baker. There are the injury problems, the naive belief over the offseason by Jim Hendry that there wouldn't be injury problems, and the lack of financial commitment by the Tribune Company to spend the money that is commiserate with a franchise that draws over 40,000 fans a game. However, Dusty's attitude that he and his team are merely the victims of bad luck doesn't address why he doesn't bench a veteran such as Neifi Perez when he drops a cut-off throw and airmails a ball over the catcher's head… on the same fucking play! I wouldn't expect Dusty to yell and scream when it's not in his nature to do so, but I do expect him to hold his players accountable rather than constantly giving them free passes.

In contrast again, when the White Sox looked complacent for a moment and lost only two games in a row, Ozzie was right there to wake them up with a profanity-laced tirade. Guess what happened afterwards: the Sox have come back and bashed in runs for two straight wins. Even after that success, Ozzie still believes that the team needs to have more practices regarding fundamentals when they get back home.

Ozzie has instilled the attitude that nothing is taken for granted on the South Side. His team knows that they need to go balls-out everyday or else they're going to be sitting on the bench. Dusty, however, still thinks this is just an unfortunate stretch for the Cubs. The problem is that this unfortunate stretch has lasted over 98 years, so Cubs fans have the right to be losing their collective patience.

Land-o-Links – 5/24/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago Bulls, Chicago Cubs, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, Random Thoughts, SportsLeave a comment

Soul Patrol! Taylor Hicks is taking it home tonight. Until then, here are the links for the day:

1) Report Says High Gas Prices Not Caused by Gouging – Really? Gas prices fluctuate according to the normal rules of supply and demand as opposed to being controlled by the Pentaverate consisting of the oil companies, Karl Rove, the Queen, the Vatican, and Col. Sanders? I still don't believe it.

2) Three 6 Mafia to Peform During WWE's 'Smackdown' – Let's take a look at that Oscar scoreboard again: Three 6 Mafia 1, Martin Scorsese 0.

3) Thomas, Aldridge – or Maybe a Trade? – Isiah Thomas is the gift that keeps on giving. With the Bulls securing the #2 pick in this year's NBA Draft, we're guaranteed either Tyrus Thomas or LaMarcus Aldridge to fill our need for size or there's still the possibility of parlaying this pick into a trade for Kevin Garnett. Now, if we can only get Isiah to taking over the coaching reigns in New York, we can send Greg Oden a non-refundable plane ticket from Columbus to Chicago for June 2007.

And finally…

4) Another Win Bites the Dust – How many more blown saves will it take for Ryan Dempster to achieve LaTroy Hawkins status? I say another 2 and he's there.

Feeling Punchy Today?

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, Sports4 Comments

A few thoughts on the world of sports from the past few days:

1) Punchless Cubs – I'll spare everyone an excessively long diatribe on Michael Barrett's cheap shot on A.J. Pierzynski. However, I will point out that I enjoy the North Side spin that this will somehow fire up the Cubs, as if having their starting catcher and best hitter since Derrek Lee's injury getting slammed with a suspension that could run a week or more is going to do a lot to "fire up" an already putrid offense. Just what the Cubs needed – Henry Blanco and his .051 batting average while the Cubs play Atlanta this weekend and then 16 straight NL Central games after that! Plus, regardless of team allegiances, the sight of Neifi Perez as a cleanup hitter should be mortifying to any baseball fan. Look, I know A.J. is an asshole, but Cubs fans need to take a step back and look at how Barrett's groundless punch has the potential to sink that lineup into an even greater abyss at the worst possible time.

2) Sox and Hound – The thing I love about this White Sox team is that I expect them to make a comeback every time that they fall behind. Regardless of how large of a deficit, they always keep applying pressure to the opposition. Even after Frank Thomas returned to the Cell with revenge on his mind with two homers (for a guy hitting under .200) that would have sucked the life out of a lesser team, the Sox pressed back and won on a suicide squeeze play executed perfectly by Pablo Ozuna in the 10th inning. Great teams make those types of great plays.

3) Great NBA Playoffs, But No More Bron-Bron – I haven't enjoyed watching the NBA Playoffs this much since the Jordan Era. The Mavericks pulling it out in overtime over the Spurs in game 7 last night was a fitting end to a classic series. This sets up a Mavs/Suns Western Conference Finals matchup, where the over/under on total points per game is going to be 300. However, I was disappointed in LeBron James and the Cavs failing to get a defensive rebound for the last minute of Game 6 against the Pistons on Friday night. That guaranteed that Cleveland's Curse of MJ Making Craig Ehlo His Bitch would continue for another year – everyone who watched that meltdown on Friday instantly foresaw the Pistons' throttling of the Cavs in Sunday's Game 7. I have no personal love for the Cavaliers, but as a basketball fan I relished the prospect of LeBron facing up Dwyane Wade and Shaq in a best-of-7 series. I'll just have to take comfort in the fact that we're not going to see a snore-inducing repeat of a Pistons/Spurs NBA Finals. Regardless, this postseason proves that the NBA is back this year.