Spread the Word Baby, Omar Back

It's been quite some time since my last post, and a whole lot has changed. I went from living on a couch in Battery Park City to a air mattress, then futon in Harlem, and now have a crib in the East Village. Unemployed to intern to full time employee. Cheering for Durant at the NBA Draft to Felix in the Bronx to the Seahawks in Green Bay. Added a few Facebook interests (cheese, Kenny Mayne hosting SportsCenter), found a few new bars to frequent (Lucy's, Mudville 9), got hooked on a few TV shows (The Wire, Lost). I missed over half of 2007 here in Cyberspace. I guess that's what happens when you get a job.

Despite my job, I still managed to get out and experience one of my favorite things in life: Live sporting events. Here's a rundown of what I've been up to:

• NBA Draft, Madison Square Garden: Sporting my Chris Wilcox t-shirt, I was in the front row of the back section of the MSG WaMu Theater, and was officially the first Seattle Supersonics fan in the world to shake the hands of Kevin Durant and Jeff Green. I also gave props to fellow Washingtonians Spencer Hawes and Rodney Stuckey. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.
• Yankees/Angels, Yankee Stadium: When a few of my buddies from Boston came to town and we had extra tickets to a Yankees game, naturally we all put on Red Sox gear and made a trek out to the Bronx. One of us had a few too many beverages beforehand and nearly instigated a riot, as the entire stadium booed us and tried to get us kicked out. It was arguably worse than it would have been had the Yankees actually been playing the Sox. Remind me not to do that again. I'm not even a Sox fan.
  
• Yankees/Devil Rays, Yankee Stadium: On a nice Friday night in July, I got to see the Yankees get crushed by Tampa 14-4. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.
  
• Yankees/Mariners, Yankee Stadium: I got to see King Felix pitch for the first time in my life, and he delivered: 7 innings, 1 run, 5K in a 7-1 Mariners victory including an Ichiro! home run. The hopped on the subway to go to...
  
• US Open, Queens: Roger Federer defeating Feliciano Lopez, 3-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-4. We got hooked up with incredible seats. What a day of sports.
• BC/FSU, Chestnut Hill, MA: The beginning of the end for BC Football, this is when the wheels came off. I should have learned my lesson and not attended any other games.
• BC/Maryland, College Park, MD: If the wheels came off against FSU, the whole thing caught fire and burned to the ground at Maryland. Not even my Jesus piece could help us.
• Sonics/Knicks, Manhattan: Kevin Durant's first trip to the Mecca, and boy did he impress. Led the Sonics to a 117-110 victory with 30 points, including key buckets down the stretch and a thunderous jam right on David Lee. I loved it. Spike Lee would disagree.
• Blazers/76ers, Philly: After meeting Greg Oden and spending a day with reporters demoing College Hoops 2K8 (I love my job), we posted up 7 rows back on the baseline for the Blazers/Sixers game. I was excited to see my boy Brandon Roy play, and by halftime the game was an embarrassment: 45-27, advantage Portland. But the Sixers came out hot in the 3rd quarter and eventually completed the improbable comeback, winning the game by 4 points. It was the first time I had ever seen Louis Williams play. I added him to my fantasy team the next day. The kid is going to be good.
  
• Mavericks/Jazz, Salt Lake City: After I missed my connection in SLC back to NYC from Sun Valley, I rang up my one friend from Mormon Country and he had a spare ticket to the game. I have honestly never seen an NBA crowd quite like Utah--every single person was engaged, the place got LOUD, and everyone stayed until the finish. Deron Williams is going to go down in history as a great point guard. Mark my words.
• Seahawks/Packers, Frozen Tundra, Wisconsin: This trip truly deserves its own post, but I'm not sure that'll happen or not. The abbreviated story: 14.5 hour drive from NYC to God's Country, freezing weather, snowflakes as big as softballs, lots and lots of cheese, and the best experience you could ever have while watching your favorite team lose a playoff game on the road. Simply amazing. Until that 14.5 hour drive home.
• Clippers/Knicks, Manhattan: Typical Knicks game, they stayed in it for nearly 4 quarters before letting the game slip away with 3 minutes left. It was great seeing David Lee dunk on Chris Kaman, exclaiming "That was out of this world!" after a Sam Cassell drive, and discussing how he was an "All-Universe" guard, representing Mars.

The main staple of The Roundup has been sports, especially attending games live. Doing so is one of the things in life that I truly value. Sure, I grew up watching Michael Jordan on NBA on NBC, but I'll never be able to tell my kids that I saw him in person. But over the last 7or 8 months, I've added some good new ones to my list. Crawford, Felix, Federer, Ryan, Durant, Green, Roy, Igoudala, Louis, Dirk, Deron, Favre... and of course, the only extra terrestrial playing professional sports, Sam Cassell.

Bombed in the Bronx

Just as I did with Madison Square Garden, I made a point to get to Yankee Stadium this season because I live in New York. A weekend series against my Seattle Mariners was a perfect excuse. After the game Friday night (a 15-11 Seattle win that I did not attend) I was thinking there could be 100 runs scored in the 4-game series, with the problems the Yankees had been having with their rotation and the Mariners lack of good pitching in general with Felix Hernandez on the DL. Boy was I wrong.

Saturday started off with a nice little reunion on the roof of a parking garage with a few of my friends, as we enjoyed some beers and sunrays. With Jeff Weaver pitching for Seattle, I made a couple bets that the Yankees would hit a first inning home run. Keep in mind, Weaver was entering the game 0-4 with an ERA over 18. We found our seats and settled in with an $8 beer to enjoy America’s pastime.

Surprisingly, Jeff Weaver didn’t get shelled in the first inning as I had expected. Or the second. Or the third. In fact, it took until the sixth inning for Weaver to let the game get away. You know it’s bad when you go five and two thirds of an inning and give up six runs, and your ERA actually goes down.

On the other side of the ball, it was a completely different game. Chien-Ming Wang had been perfect. No hits, no walks, even aided by a couple great defensive plays by A-Rod. At this point, I became a very annoying person to all the Yankee fans in our section, continually asking out loud, “Is it bad that I’m talking about this being a perfect game? Am I going to jinx it?” Sure enough, in the eighth inning the Mariners finally got to Wang as Ben Broussard pulled a misplaced changeup over the fences in right. Perfect game, huh? Almost made it.

I returned to the Bronx on Sunday, two glorious days in a row to watch a baseball game. It wasn’t quite like watching a perfect game unfold, but it was fun nonetheless. In the fifth, as Yankees first baseman Josh Phelps scored New York’s first run, he went out of his way to railroad Mariners catcher Kenji Johjima, even though Kenji had left home plate wide open for him to slide through because he knew the throw from Ichiro would be late. The following inning, as Phelps came to the plate, Jarrod Washburn plunked him in the back in retaliation. Because it was Yankee Stadium and not Safeco Field, the fans didn’t even realize that Phelps had made a dirty play and this retaliation was inevitable. So when Scott Proctor threw at Yuniesky Betancourt’s head in the seventh inning and got tossed, the benches cleared and the crowd came to life. Comments like “David Justice wouldn’t have let this happen” and “Where’s Paul O’Neill when you need him” poured on much to my amusement. Unfortunately for us, no brawl ensued, but it sure would’ve been fun to watch A-Rod get pummeled by Richie Sexson and Ichiro have a kung-fu battle with Kei Igawa.

Even though I saw the Mariners gather only six hits and one run in the two games I attended, my trips to Yankee Stadium were great. I saw a nearly perfect game, a near brawl, and Roger Clemens announce that he is returning to the Yankees. It truly is a wonderful ballpark, and it’s a shame it is being torn down. I’m sure the new stadium will be great, and I hear they are keeping all the same dimensions, but there’s something about the history of a ballpark that I love, like at Fenway Park, that I never had in Seattle. The Kingdome wasn’t a historical ballpark, and as beautiful as Safeco Field is, it doesn’t have that same feeling as Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium. So I’m glad that I got to see some baseball in one of the game’s historical playgrounds before it is gone forever.

Sports Icons of my Childhood

My dad recently mailed me an article from the Seattle P.I. about Sonics play-by-play announcer Kevin Calabro, and it made me realize how much I loved watching the mid-90s Sonics play. As entertaining as Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp, Detliff Schrimph, and Sam Perkins were to watch, it would not have been the same without Calabro. I began to think about the sports icons I looked up to as a kid in Seattle… and here are my top ten:

1. Ken Griffey, Jr. – “Junior” as he was called burst onto the scene and took the Mariners from cellar-dweller to one of the most exciting teams in Major League Baseball. The "Refuse to Lose" 1995 season was one of the best summers of my life, going to games and listening on the radio as Griffey ironically had his first injury plagued and worst year of his young career. But he came up big in the playoffs, hitting .391 with 5 home runs against the Yankees. One of the great sports images in my mind is his picture-perfect swing. But the memory that will always stick with me of Junior was the image of him under a pile of teammates after scoring from first base on an Edgar Martinez double to win the ALDS. I’ve never seen someone run as fast around the bases in my life. It was the most amazing sporting event I have ever attended.

2. Marquis Tuiasosopo – The Washington Huskies option-quarterback from 1997-2000, he was one of the most exciting players I have ever watched. His freshman year he was forced into a game against eventual national-champion Nebraska due to an injury to the starting quarterback and threw for 270 yards and 2 TD, and that season became the first ever true freshman to start a game at quarterback for the Huskies. His career highlight came his junior year, where he became the only player in NCAA history to pass for over 300 and run for over 200 yards in a game, a 35-30 victory over Stanford. I remember watching that game, and I have never seen a performance like it. It was even more impressive than Vince Young’s Rose Bowl. No joke. In his senior season in 2000, Tuiasosopo led the Huskies to the Pac-10 title, an 11-1 record, and victory over Purdue and MVP in the Rose Bowl.

3. Shawn Kemp – The Reign Man, as Calabro called him, was a force to be reckoned with. He teamed with Payton to be one of the great guard/forward dynamic duos of all time. Like Payton, Kemp left Seattle on bad terms and ended his career even worse, but while he was in the Emerald City, he was king. I think only Ken Griffey, Jr. surpasses the excitement that Kemp brought to the Seattle sports scene. Like Griffey’s swing, Kemp’s dunks captivated an entire city during his reign.

4. Kevin Calabro – An amazing play-by-play announcer, with catch phrases such as “and Shawn Kemp takes it down THE BOULEVARD!” and “million dollar move, five cent finish.” His talents on air led to his simulcast of games on both TV and radio. Not many broadcasters can cater to both mediums at the same time.

5. Edgar Martinez – “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedgarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!” I’m not sure who started it, but some crazy fan decided he would yell Edgar’s name for as long as he could when he came up to bat. It caught on and every time he came to the plate, fast scattered throughout the Kingdome (and later, Safeco Field) would compete and try to have the longest yell. I remember one time I almost passed out from trying to yell so loud. I also remember Edgar Martinez hitting the double that drove in Joey Cora and Ken Griffey, Jr. to beat the Yankees in game 5 of the 1995 ALDS. Edgar was a clutch performer and a class act, as well as a pleasure to watch play.

6. Randy Johnson – The mullet, the slider, the fastball, and the intensity all took a major part in my love for Randy Johnson. A few Randy moments stick out in my mind above the others… the 500ft bomb he gave up to Mark McGwire while he was on Oakland, when he came out of the bullpen to face the Yankees in the 10^th inning of Game 5 of the 1995 ALDS, and even his first game back in Seattle at the newly opened Safeco Field in 1999, when he shut us out and struck out 10 in a complete game, and received a standing ovation after each inning.

7. Dave Niehaus – The voice of the Seattle Mariners, I would listen to him every night until we got satellite TV (cable couldn’t run out to our house). I could never ask for more than the Mariners loading the bases, because if someone hit one out of the park it was time to “GET OUT THE RYE BREAD AND THE MUSTARD, GRANDMA! IT’S GRAND SALAMI TIME!"

8. Gary Payton – The Glove burst onto the Seattle scene from Oregon State and quickly made a name and reputation for himself throughout the league as a trash talker and defensive stopper. He ran the Sonics of the 90s, who will probably go down as one of my favorite bunch of balers of all time. He left Seattle on poor terms, but while he was there, it was nothing but love for GP.

9. Jay Buhner – “The Bone” was famous for his bald head, high strikeout rate, power at the plate, “the catch” in Boston where he went over the wall in right, his rocket arm, and my favorite, Buhner Buzz Cut Night. One year as a promotion, the Mariners gave free tickets to anyone willing to have their head shaved. Each year, Buhner Buzz Night became more and more popular, even attracting women to participate. Every team needs a character and a tough guy. Buhner was both, and I loved him for it.

10. Cortez Kennedy – It is kind of sad that there is only one Seattle Seahawk on the list, and that he ranks tenth, but they were a straight AWFUL team throughout my childhood. Not to say I didn’t root for them and follow them, but there just were not a whole lot of players to become attached to. Shawn Springs was the only other guy who came close to making the list. Besides, the 1990s were a great decade for the Mariners and Sonics. Regardless, Cortez was a pleasure to watch, and was good enough to win NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 1992 on a team that won only two games.

Long Live the King

A few years ago, I was reading an article about the top prospects in the Seattle Mariners farm system, and read about a 17-year-old pitching prodigy named Felix Hernandez, or "King Felix." I told myself not to get too excited about him, until about a year later, when as an 18-year-old he was tearing up the minor leagues. By the time he was 19, the Mariners were having an awful season, and talk began of calling Felix up for the end of the season. In his third career start, still as a teenager, Felix went 8 innings, struck out 11 Kansas City batters, and gave up one run. He had arrived.

This season, Felix became the youngest opening day starter since Dwight Gooden. Learning from the mistakes of Gooden and the Mets, the Mariners have been careful with Felix the last two seasons, keeping him on innings pitched counts and monitoring his arm, being extremely cautious and not wanting to wear his young arm down. They'll have to keep him away from the coke as well. That shouldn't be too hard, as Felix has recently shown increased dedication.

If there was one major knock on the 21-year-old it was his weight. Felix looked more like CC Sabathia than Pedro Martinez. The Mariners were concerned, but not overly so. Then Felix showed up in spring with the rest of the pitchers and catchers having dropped 20 lbs and put on some serious muscle.

Felix has been absolutely dominant in his two starts this season. He mowed down Oakland on opening night, striking out 12 and giving up 3 hits and 2 walks over 8 innings. Then, in one of the most anticipated pitching match ups I can remember, Felix stole the spotlight from Daisuke Matsuzaka in his first game at Fenway Park, throwing a complete-game one-hitter, with a dazzling array of fastballs and breaking pitches. I was at a Red Sox bar watching the game (only way I knew I would get audio on the game) and talking to a couple Sox fans as Felix was throwing 85-mph curve balls and 91-mph sliders. "How is that possible? How can someone throw a pitch with that much movement that fast?"

In 17 innings so far this season, Felix has only given up 4 hits in 53 at-bats. That comes out to opponents hitting .075 against him. These numbers put him in pretty good company... the last time someone had thrown that many innings while holding opponents to a batting average that low in the first two starts of a season was 1970, when it was done by two players: former Associated Press Pitcher of the Year Tom Phoebus of Baltimore, and one of the best pitchers of all-time, Nolan Ryan. Like I said, pretty good company.

I've been onto Felix for a few years now. After Wednesday's performance on National Television, the rest of the country has started to take note. Felix Hernandez has arrived. Long Live the King!

Served by Bobby Kielty

My last night in Seattle, I was fortunate enough to attend a Seattle Mariners game with my buddies Ben and Randall. Randall's tickets are in right field, about 10 rows in from the foul pole in foul territory, right on the field. In other words, everything I yelled with my booming voice could be clearly heard by whoever was patrolling right field. I would've killed for these seats back when Paul O'Neill was on the Yankees. Actually, I would've been too young to really heckle Cry Baby Paul, but I'm sure others around me would've been. But that night, the Oakland A's sent Bobby Kielty out to right field.

Before that game, I really didn't care about Bobby Kielty at all. I never had him in fantasy baseball. I never traded for him in MVP Baseball on my XBox. He was just another below average switch hitter. Bobby Kielty, as you can guess from his name, has bright red hair. He's also a below average right fielder. Both of these points would be the basis of my heckling throughout the game. If only I had known that he was only owned in 0.1% of ESPN MLB Fantasy leagues. I would've had a field day with that little known fact. Kielty began the game 0-2 with four runners left on base, two stranded in scoring position. Around the 4th inning, I began asking him if I could call him "LOB," much to the amusement of the fans around me. I believe it was earlier that inning, when the A's were up to bat, that a fire alarm went off in Safeco Field for a few seconds. So I also yelled at Bobby to keep his hat on in the dugout or he'd set off the fire alarms again. Bobby made a few good plays in the field, and I informed him that he better be good with the glove because he wasn't doing it at the plate.

After a walk in his 3rd at bat, Bobby was still 0-2. Upon his return to the outfield, I cheered my glass of Guinness towards him, stating "Bobby, I bought you a Guinness! A taste from the old country!" He was not amused. Inning by inning, he began to pay more attention to me, glaring at me after my comments. I finally broke through late in the game when I noticed that he was going to be one of the first three batters in the following inning. "Hey Bobby," I yelled, "at least you won't be leaving anyone on base next inning." He slowly turned to me, and gave the universal "suck-it" symbol. Jackpot. I was in his head. This guy was mine.

Boy was I wrong.

Some players respond poorly to heckling. Then there are those players that thrive on it. Jared Dudley has stated he prefers to play games away from Conte Forum, where the opposing fans really lay into him. It gives him fire. Well, aside from his red hair, Bobby Kielty gets his fire from heckling fans like myself. His next at bat in the 9th inning, he bunted for a single, and came around to score on a 2-run triple that tied the game. In the 10th, he came up again. With a man in scoring position. This was his chance to say to me, "Hey kid, you just got Punk'd." And, he did. He doubled in Hiram Bocachica (of hirambocachica.com fame). One of Randall's friends who was at the game came to our seats for the bottom of the 10th, and chewed me out. Blamed the loss on me. My last words to Bobby were yelling, "I HATE YOU BOBBY KIELTY! BUT GOD DAMNIT DO I RESPECT YOU!." ESPN.com's headline of the game read, "A's rally past M's behind Kielty's RBI double in 10th."

Maybe I was the motivation that Bobby Kielty needed to have a good game. Maybe heckling isn't a good idea. But if I learned one thing from being in Boston for four years, it was heckling. Red Sox fans are some of the best. My fondest sports memories are from showing up to BC football, hockey, and basketball games early and yelling at opposing players, trying to get them off their game. Ted Dunlap once told me that the men's hoops team talked about me in the locker room, saying how they loved that I got in the heads of their opponents. Is it wrong that I asked Charlie Villanueva where his eyebrows were even though he has alopecia areata? Probably. But I got into his head. I almost got kicked out of a BC football game vs. West Virginia sophomore year, an hour and fifteen minutes before kickoff. And if you've been to a BC hockey game and sat in the student section, you've heard the things I'll say about the opposing team's goalie. It's what I do.

Besides, it was a meaningless game. Oakland had clinched the night before, rested two thirds of their starters, sat Barry Zito, and even the manager handed the reigns over to his bench coach for the night. I'm not saying I'm not mad the Mariners lost. But if they had, it may have been just another game. But I made the most of it, and because of that I will remember that game forever. And, unfortunately, I will remember Bobby Kielty forever as well.

Bobby Kielty, who before September 27th was just a below average player, is now my most hated player not in Yankee pinstripes.

In Last but Looking Forward

The Seattle Mariners have, like they have each of the last five seasons since winning 116 games in 2001, missed the playoffs. In '02 and '03, they were in the hunt for a playoff berth, winning 93 games each season. The following two seasons were a mess. 99 losses in '04 and 93 losses in '05. The Mariners are currently standing at 72-79. An improvement over the last two seasons, and looking towards the future. The future could be very bright for the Mariners, and they know it; they have been stockpiling young talent over the last few years, and have one of the best under-25 talent pools in the League.

If you are going to talk about the future of the Mariners, the conversation begins with Felix Hernandez. "King Felix" has had his ups and downs, but he is only 20, throws in the high 90s, and has a disgusting curve when it's on. He is arguably the best pitching prospect in all of baseball... and he's been in the big leagues for two seasons now. The rest of the starting rotation wont even warrant my writing, except that Gil Meche would be a decent #4 starter but some team will stupidly pay him too much this offseason for the Mariners to match.

The bullpen seems very strong. JJ Putz has emerged as one of the top young closers in the game. Raphael Soriano is amazing in a setup role. George Sherrill, who is lights out vs. left handed bats, and Jake Woods can be the other two top arms in the pen.

The middle infield seems set for years to come, with Yuniesky Betancourt and Jose Lopez emerging as a great double play tandem for the Mariners. Lopez made the All-Star team, and Betancourt has hit near .300 ball with a ton of doubles this year. But what he is known for is his exceptional glove. They say he could be the best defensive shortstop since Ozzie Smith. I've seen him play... the prediction isn't that crazy.

Ichiro is going to keep doing what he's doing... hitting for a high average, scoring runs, playing stellar defense. But the Mariners need to move him to center field permanently next season (he is playing there now) to make room for Chris Snelling. Snelling has been a top prospect in the Mariners farm system for years, and has already made a few big league stints with the M's. He also has a serious case of the injury bug. But if he can stay healthy for the full season next year, he could very well hit .300 with 20-25 home runs. And he plays plus defense in right and holds nothing back. Think Trot Nixon.

At catcher is Kenji Johjima, who at 28 is old for a rookie. He has shown the ability to swing the bat for average and power, but the jury is still out on his throwing arm behind the plate, and his signal calling. He still may be the best offensive catcher the Mariners have ever had, and that's saying something for a rookie.

Then you've got the two biggest free agent signings in Mariner history, Adrian Beltre and Richie Sexson, who will be entering their third season with Seattle. Beltre has shown improvement over his horrendous 2005 campaign, and Sexson has done what he's being paid to do... .258 with 29 HR and 98 RBI for the team that scored the second fewest runs in the majors. And don't forget Raul Ibanez, who has been the most consistent Mariner over the last few seasons. He really should be moved to full-time DH, but he can play in left.

Basically, that sums up 8/9 of the 2007 Mariners lineup, with an open spot in left or at DH for the Mariners to go shopping. Jeremy Reed, who missed this season due to injury and is an outfielder, hasn't shown that he can be an every day starter offensively for a team that is in serious need of power. Adam Jones, the 21 year old phenom center fielder, isn't ready for the majors yet. And Ben Broussard, who could play DH, can't hit lefties and doesn't hit righties well enough to warrant a starting spot. So this offseason, the Mariners should look to sign a LF or DH not named Carlos Lee. Other than that, the lineup is set. The bullpen is set. The Mariners need to focus on getting some legit starting pitching. With available free agents taken into consideration, I think the 2007 Seattle Mariners could push for the AL West crown if they looked something like this:

Batting order:
1) Ichiro CF (L)
2) Snelling LF (L)
3) Beltre 3B (R)
4) Raul Ibanez DH (L)
5) Richie Sexson 1B (R)
6) Kenji Johjima C (R)
7) Pedro Feliz LF (R)
8) Jose Lopez 2B (R)
9) Yuniesky Betancourt SS (R)

Pitching Rotation:
1) Felix Hernandez (R)
2) Jason Schmidt (R)
3) Daisuke Matsuzka (R)
4) Jarrod Washburn (L)
5) Cha Seung Baek (R)