Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Two more links...

Silly Joey Votto and your first All-Star appearance....

Tonight is another great opportunity to remember the passing of a legendary coach.

Lunch Links

Some things to look over...

Demarcus Cousins had 19 points and 12 rebounds for the Kings in a 90-84 victory over the rival LA Lakers.

Buster Posey was rewarded for his hard work prior to the All-Star Break.

The Sacramento Kings lost a critical piece to the puzzle in rebuilding the franchise.

Pac-10 powers UCLA and Cal highlight the 2010-2011 UC Davis men's basketball schedule

ESPN Finally Caught On

My mistake in calling it a terribly irrelevant day in sports. Well, it still is an awful day for watching sports, but ESPN finally got smart and at least planned something today.

The ESPY Awards, broadcasted by ESPN annually to celebrate their existence, take place tonight at 6:00pm PST. The show will air live in the ESPN network, hosted by actor/comedian Seth Meyers.

ESPN salvaged this boring day of non-sports by getting something for prime time TV coverage, so that we don't have to watch Home Run Derby replays from 2003 or see Kenny Mayne do Sportscenter six straight hours, trying to talk to us about something relevant.

The Most Irrelevant Day in Sports

Well, what to discuss on the most irrelevant day in sports?

There are no baseball games, as the MLB has the day off following the All-Star game...there is minimal NBA chatter, as free agency hoopla is dwindling....the Brett Favre saga has yet to stake its claim to 54 minutes of Sportscenter....what is there to discuss?? Granted on the ESPN "all scores" page, there are a handful of tennis matches currently taking place, and on the WNBA scores page I tragically learned that WNBA plays mid-week day games....I still can't find myself to discuss those, at least not too much.

WNBA day games???? Please....I want an honest man's answer to how many people attended today's Chicago Sky vs. San Antonio Silver Stars 11:30am tip-off. Granted the ESPN claims that a shade over 6,000 paid to be there, I really want to know how many people showed up. I'm speechless after going on the Silver Stars' home page and finding out I'd have to pay $50.00 to sit in the lower bowl to watch a game....blasphemy! I mean, I know the NBA Kings are bad in Sacramento, but they don't even hit my wallet that hard to sit in the lower bowl.

By technicality, there is golf today, in that a few dozen guys tee off at this weekend's Open Championship across the pond at about 11:00pm tonight, West Coast time. Additionally, the AAA Minor League All-Star game starts at 4:00 local time, but only those with the MLB Network will be lucky enough to catch that. Moral of the story, sports are quiet today.

The All-Star game was intriguing last night, with pitching overtaking the spotlight, until Brian McCann and his bases clearing double took over. The National League won 3-1, their first win since 1996, giving them home-field advantage in the Fall Classic later this year. It was a joy to watch all today's star pitchers dominate great hitters like Albert Pujols, Ryan Braun, Ichiro, Joe Mauer and Ryan Howard. All were hitless last night, with all but Mauer striking out in some ugly, foolish fashion courtesy of one of the upper 90's fastballs we saw, or some filthy offspeed pitch. Overall, the National League pitchers' stat line was 9 IP, 6 H, 1 unearned run, and 8 K. The American League wasn't quite as stellar, but did post 10 K against some of the league's best.

Until next time, keep on simmering on the concept of a boring sports day....I can't wait to see what tonight's Sportscenter is going to talk about, other than Tiger Woods.