Time for some rants and raves from the last week in sports:
Rant: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's plan to add another game to the regular-season schedule and have each team play one overseas game a year. This may be the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard. The European countries have their own version of football, and they enjoy theirs more than ours, as the following of NFL Europa suggests.
Adding another meaningful game to the schedule is just going to further strain athletes. Add in any results from jet lag and I'm sure you won't see top-notch football. Plus, how many fans are going to be able to make a trip to follow their favorite teams? My guess is not many.
This is a public relations maneuver more than it is an effort to improve the game. While I've agreed with Goodell on his stance concerning off-the-field problems, I think this idea needs to be nipped in the bud immediately.
Rave: Props to my second cousin, Yankees pitcher Matt DeSalvo, who earned his first big-league win Saturday night in Seattle. DeSalvo collected his first strikeout of his career in the sixth inning against Richie Sexson ' not that big of an accomplishment when you think about it.
DeSalvo also made a little bit of history. His streak of 12 consecutive innings without a strikeout to start his career is the longest of its kind dating back to 1957. (Box scores from earlier than 1957 were not available.)
Rant: Somewhere, NBA Commissioner David Stern is pushing the panic button.
Stern faces a possibility of the most boring conference finals in quite some time. If Detroit, New Jersey, San Antonio and Utah all advance to the NBA's Final Four, the league's two most exciting teams (Phoenix and Golden State) and its biggest-name superstar (LeBron James) will be gone, and television ratings will plummet.
Here's to the Cavaliers and Warriors advancing, at the very least.
Rave: The Ohio softball team made a few ripples by advancing to the second day of the Mid-American Conference Tournament last year. Those ripples turned into a 20-foot-high wave with an upset of No. 1-seeded and then-defending champion Kent State in this year's tournament, which eliminated the Golden Flashes.
Credit Jill Matyuch for getting her players to overachieve in the postseason for the second straight year.
Rant: Ricky Williams tested positive for marijuana ' again. Why teams continue to give this guy chances is beyond me. He's made it obvious he'd rather form the Triplets with Cheech and Chong than Daunte Culpepper and Chris Chambers, so let him go already. It's so sad to see a promising career go up in smoke ' literally.
Rave: Brett Favre got angry at the Packers for not trading for Randy Moss. As much as I don't like Favre, the guy's getting old and having Moss in his receiving corps could have given him one last shot at a playoff appearance. Maybe he'll get the hint and actually pick up when retirement comes calling after this season.
17 Archives
Jason Fazzone
Kudos to Ohio softball, Yankees pitcher; shame on NFL, NBA
