The Best Time of the Year

by Jimmy Russotto - 9/10/07

If you could possibly forget the dismal showing yesterday of our two "football" teams (football assumes some defense will be played), this past weekend had to be the best weekend of the year.  Baseball, football, tennis, this weekend had it all. And soccer and basketball are about to take a prominent spot in the headlines very soon with the Women’s World Cup and the unfortunate sexual harassment suit against Isiah Thomas.

Highlights:

In baseball, it was the 2nd coming of Pedro.  He threw his heart out for 5 innings and got out of a nasty jam at that.  And came away with the WIN!  My Metsies are way ahead of both the Phils and Braves and look like a shoo-in (shoe in?) to make it back to the playoffs and win the NL East as well.  That performance came off a terrific outing by Tom Glavine and it now looks like a damned good rotation with El Duque, Pedro, Glavine, Perez and Maine.  Throw in Pelfrey for long relief.  Wright's been Great, Beltran's coming on in a big way and Moises Alou is turning it up.  What's not to like?

The Yankees Arod is performing like Mantle or DiMaggio, and Joba Chamberlain is showing the rest of the Yankee pen how it's done.  Pettite looks re-born, Wang is steady and could win 20.  Clemens is still Clemens so he's the wild card in the mix.  Hughes, Mussina, hmm, things could get very scary in the Bronx.  And how 'bout that Posada?

And there's playoff races galore, with the Cubbies, the Brewers and even the Cards fighting it out in the NL Central.  How good will it be to see Prince Fielder in the playoffs, or Alfonso Soriano, or even sweet Lou !!?  And in the NL West, there's the upstart Arizona Diamondbacks fighting it out with the pitching-rich Padres and the Dodgers hanging tough.  And the Yanks are still looking over their shoulders at the Mariners and Tigers.  What happened to the White Sox I will never know.

In football, if you could forget the Jets and the Giants, both of whom have no defense to speak of, especially the Giants, whose new GM Reese found no reason to upgrade a woefully deficient secondary from last year and paid the price big-time vs. the Boyz.  Everything Romo put in the air was complete, and these corners think that to cover a guy means to run behind him.  The heralded Brandon Jacobs carried 6 times and got hurt.  ELI WAS heroic in a losing cause, and, seriously, this team won't win many with THAT secondary, THAT GM and THAT coach (Coughlin the befuddled, gimme a break).

The Jets didn't look much less pitiful, but at least they can say they played maybe the best team in the league in the Patriots.  But let's see, they can't stop the run (still), they can't rush the passer, they can't run the ball, pass the ball, um, what's left?  I'm sure happy the Mangenius and Tannenbaum saved that million dollars on Kendall because, after all, money is money and hell, it's just a game, right?  J-E-T-S STINK STINK STINK!

But enough about New York, I just won't watch anymore.  I can just as easily follow some real teams like the Steelers, duh Bears, the Chargers, well, hell, any team that doesn't begin with NY !!  They all play at least SOME brand of defense (unless you count the Bengals who play tonight vs. the best defense on the league, the Ravens D).  Some of them even have coaches who care about players and don't run an army camp.  Imagine a team in NY that looks like they still like playing the game.

Nice to see some rookie surprises too, like Adrian Peterson (the Viking RB, not the Bear RB of the same name) and like Marshawn Lynch of the Bills.  And nice to see some retreads come back, like dandy Randy Moss of New England and Donovan McNabb in Lambeau, who, while he didn't win the game, really had no chance with the way the rest of his team played.

And LaDainian !!  What can you say?  After getting pretty much schneided by duh Bears on the ground, he comes back in the 2nd half to score a rushing TD on a nifty 7-yard scamper, this after throwing a beautiful pass for a TD to give the Chargers the lead.

Some interesting disappointments too, like Fantasy Favorites Larry Johnson and Stephen Jackson, who couldn't get out of their own way, too much mouth and not enough legs.  But Terrell Owens scored 2 TD's (should they count against the Giants though?) and Big Ben Roethlisberger seemed well over his motorcycle injuries in a pretty fair thrashing of the Browns.  (Some things remain the same, like the pathetic Browns).

In tennis, another Serb, Novak Djokovic, scared the perennial US Open favorite Roger Federer before going down in 3 closely-contested sets of hard-hitting tennis. I have seldom seen a guy have worse luck in a match, but he was fun to watch throughout, reminding one of the fiery McEnroe vs. the stoic Borg so many years ago. The other dynamic Serbs are of course the fiery Jelena Jankovic and the lovely Iva Ivanovich. We got to see another up-and-coming Russian too in the shot-making Muscovite Anna Chakvetadze, who, for looks alone, gives Maria Sharapova a run for the money. The worst part of the tennis coverage, though, was a totally needless and un-entertaining interview with Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David during a critical point of one of the Venus matches. Disgusting really.

But NOBODY could even come that close to upsetting the little fireball Justine Henin, who just hits hard and keeps coming! Neither Serena nor Venus had a chance against the little Belgian, but at least Venus was gracious in defeat. Serena once again exhibited her well-known disdain for her opponent, good manners and class. She gives “ugly American” an entirely new dimension.