The field for this Saturday’s Run for the Roses – the 137th Kentucky Derby – with post position, horse’s name and Read more »
Before 2010, if someone in the room said the word: “Spanish,” the immediate reactive associations were:
About 3 folks on earth might be able to connect Spain with Miguel Indurain, who won the Tour de France for five straight years (1991-1996), but athletic dominance was not a Top Ten association with Spain. That all changed in July 2010 when Spain defeated the Netherlands on Andrés Iniesta’s goal in the 116th minute of the World Cup, and since that historic tally, Spain has been on a competitive tear.
Spain is ranked 27th in world population at 46.7M, just above the Ukraine and Sudan. The US is estimated to be at 313.2M (3rd). Spain is the 52nd largest country in the world with just under 506,000 sq. km and is 5% of the size of the US.
Soccer, Tennis, Cycling and an up and coming Golf contingent. Pau Gasol on the LA Lakers and Marc Gasol on the Memphis Grizzlies – both in the NBA playoffs. Pound for pound, looking at population size and geographic area, Spain has quietly become a player in the sporting world.
Fast Fact: – Rafa has played Ferrer 17 times in his career, leading the series 13-4. Nadal’s last loss to Ferrer came in the Quarterfinals of the Aussie Open in January 2011 which destroyed Nadal’s chance at four consecutive Grand Slam victories (Wimbledon, French, US and Australian).
Two heavy favorites move on to the second round, the upstart Preds surprise the Ducks, 3 lower seeded teams must win at home to stay alive and 2 series (so far) await a deciding 7th game.
Stanley Cup Playoff hockey is in full swing. The Flyers have cycled through all three of their goalies (Bobrovsky, Boucher and Leighton) in the 6 games with the Sabres thus far. In the other 3-3 series, Roberto Luongo, who helped lead the Canucks to the President’s Trophy and is finalist for the Vezina Trophy has twice been pulled in favor of Cory Schneider. Loungo’s .750 save percentage over the last 40 Blackhawk shots is causing some panic in the mean streets of Vancouver.
If you look at the last 20 years of Stanley Cup history, winning the Cup is about Read more »
With the NFL draft looming, The Bench Jockeys did a little research on the top 10 picks over the last 12 years to determine from what draft board selection position was a draftee most likely to start and remain a factor in the NFL. We looked at the player selections from 1999 to 2010 and ranked the draftees based upon their NFL longevity versus standard player career of four seasons and whether they were a starter or role player. Players were graded A thru D with an A rating receiving 4 points and a D rating counting as only 1 point. For all the talk about draft positions and the escalating salaries for certain selections, it is our firm conclusion that Read more »
It’s Spring and it’s warming up (even in Boston) and that’s the logical time to grow a nice itchy beard,… more specifically, a “Playoff Beard.” Denis Potvin and the members of the New York Isles – who owned the Stanley Cup from 1980 to 1983 – take credit for the development of the playoff beard. But when Gretzky’s Oilers wrestled the Cup away from the Islanders stronghold, the beard took a hiatus until the Devils made it a mainstay in hockey post-season culture. So from Vancouver to DC…. hockey fans,…. this is the week that shaving becomes optional (for up to 7weeks), employers consider revising their standards for staff appearance and men sleep alone as hockey fans grow their facial hair in support of their clubs.
There are many rules for the playoff beard but Rule #1 is: Read more »
I have to come clean; I was one of the MANY Phillies phans that enjoyed smack talking my opponents in the off-season. Generally, I try not to jinx my team or make predictions before the season starts, but with the starting rotation the Phillies put together for 2011 (Halladay, Lee, Oswalt, Hamels) I couldn’t help myself. I got caught up in the wave of excitement, and yes, I may have said, on more than one occasion, that I would be surprised if the Phillies don’t win 4 out of every 5 games this season. But here’s the thing… Read more »April 10 – In the first Boston-Miami hoops game in the post-Fenway Sports Group/LeBron James period of the unholy alliance, the Heat destroyed the Celts 100-77. Don’t say we didn’t warn you, Boston.
We are giving ourselves another “Pat” Riley. The Bench Jockeys saw this coming a mile a way. Or rather, the rest of the hockey-covering media just gave up a shortie to the upstart Bench Jockeys who posted….
http://thebenchjockeys.com/2011/03/30/blackhawks-down-and-almost-out/
Tonite the Dallas Stars almost stole the 8th and final playoff spot from the Chicago Blackhawks. All the Stars had to do was get a win against the Minnesota Wild. Toews and the boys better send a case of bubbly to Jose Theodore and each of the Minnesota goal scorers who played an inspired game and prevented the Stars from displacing the Blackhawks from the 2011 Stanley Cup playoffs. The schedule could not have been more friendly to the Stars and more ripe with stumbling blocks for the Hawks. Earlier this afternoon, Chicago gave a lackluster effort in a 4-3 loss to Detroit which was all too happy to do their part in trying to knock out the 2010 Stanley Cup Champs. Dallas could not keep up with the lowly Wild and lost 5 – 3 playing from behind all evening. The Hawks escape the regular season, back into the playoffs and will play President’s Trophy winner, Vancouver, in the first round of the Western Conference Playoffs.
Karma Factor: Medium High. Dallas’ opponent, Minnesota, was once represented by the North Stars franchise which was sold to Dallas in 1993 and became the Stars.
The Developer of The Bench Jockeys always talks about sports Karma. Streaky-hitting, baseball players and Major League franchises rise and fall with the karmic tides. After all, the Boston Red Sox endured 86 years of bad juju associated with a curse. So what better time to talk about Karma than eight games into the 2011 season; a season where the folks at Fenway Park printed Red Sox World Series Champs – 2011 T-shirts on March 30th. And why wouldn’t they? Virtually every sportswriter deemed the Sox a lock to win the AL East and 75% of the ESPN pundits were certain they will be in the Series. The only problem is Read more »
If the members of the Tampa Bay Rays were not questioning their season already, they surely have to be deeply concerned now. Manny Ramirez, the sunshine state’s savior, has elected to retire in lieu of facing a 100-game suspension for violating the league’s PED policy. The Rays were counting on Manny to hit .300+ smash a few ding-dongs at the Trop and drive in some runs to offset the position player losses they sustained in the off-season. The MLB statement announcing his retirement concluded, “Ramirez has informed MLB that he is retiring as an active player. If Ramirez seeks reinstatement in the future, the process under the Drug Program will be completed.”
Call-up replacement, Casey Kotchman has some mighty big, floppy shoes to fill.
We are giving ourselves our 1st “Pat on the Back.” AOL was a full 8 days behind The Bench Jockeys who reported way back on March 30th the Blackhawks potential playoff drama and the likelihood that the 8th seed will not be decided until the last game of the season. The Stars are now 2 points back and play two non-playoff teams this weekend while the Hawks face the Wings for a home-and-home. Dallas needs all 4 points to grab the final slot in West and some help from Detroit.
April 7 – The Masters begins today with an array of tasty pairings. Unlike many of the tournaments on the Tour, which pair players based upon a random draw, the pairings at Augusta National are purposeful and deliberate. The club committee tasked with developing the pairings for the 1st two rounds of play has complete discretion to group players as it sees fit. The only exception to their unfettered sovereignty is the one traditional pairing: the current US Amateur Champ (Peter Uihlein) is paired with the defending Masters champion (Phil Mickelson). And no one messes with tradition at the Masters.
The Masters offers only 19 ways to recieve an invitation to compete for the Green Jacket. Unlike many PGA Tour events, the many of the qualifications involve world play performance which promotes a more well-rounded international field. (See the Fast Facts below for qualifications.) The committee typically ties the high profile players together into super pairings with the lesser-followed players and many internationals grouped into the time slots between these all-star threesomes. In this manner, the Committee can control the gallery so that players are able to move though the course, limit noise so that the fan-base is spread throughout the 365-acre grounds, and most importantly for ESPN, assure that television coverage in the morning and afternoon features players who will draw viewership.
Some of the more interesting or comment-worthy pairings are detailed below:
The complete pairing list can be found at http://www.masters.com/en_US/scores/pairings/
James Chadwick Pennington cannot catch a break. In what must seem like an April Fools’ nightmare, Pennington, who has rehabbed his shoulder, not once,… not twice,… not thrice,… but four times after game related injuries during his career, sustained an anterior cruciate ligament tear in his knee while playing pickup basketball on Thursday. Pennington has played all 16 games of the football season only twice in his career.
Chad made his first real mark in the NFL when Read more »
Why, in fact,… it has. Japan’s March 11th earthquake shifted the earth’s axis by 6.5 inches, thereby speeding up the day ever so slightly and causing a slight wobble in the spin of the planet. Knuckleballers rejoice – your junk should seem a smidge faster and have even more movement. Scientists maintain that these changes are inconsequential and bear no relevance to the continued existence of earth’s inhabitants; however, I think otherwise. First of all, there is just not enough chatter about the impact of this ominous axial move (which in and of itself causes me to pause); and secondly, how could a shift of the earth’s position be anything but bad. I speculate that this axis shift will hasten baseball’s mutation from a sport dominated by east coast franchises to one where the left coast teams carry the swagger, a trend that began to emerge last year.
Which leads us to this year’s predictions. The easy pick here is the Red Sox versus the Phillies in the 2011 World Series. All 44 of ESPN’s pundits forecasted Boston to win the AL East, 39 of them predicted that Boston would represent the AL and 33 of those folks expect the Sox to win the World Series. That’s really going out on a limb gang. Even Harpo – the silent Bench Jockey – is of the opinion that we will be watching Lester against Halladay in the Fall Classic. However, I say, when something seems so obvious, do the opposite. I like the young arms in Oakland to emerge from a weak AL West and shock the so-called “experts.” Need I say anything other than the Texas Rangers in 2010? In the NL, San Francisco is essentially the same team that won in 2010 except now they have some self-confidence in their ability to win. Half the US doesn’t even remember they won it all last year, and the other half think it was a fluke. Even in winning, they have a chip on their shoulders.
So what does this mean for baseball in 2011? The earthquake series redux. It just seems like a fitting end.
With 6 games remaining in the regular season, the Chicago Blackhawks cling to the 8th and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, three points ahead of a Dallas Stars team which cleaned Chicago’s collective clocks on St. Paddy’s Day. Chicago wraps their season up with two games against central division rival Detroit which would surely relish knocking the defending champs out of the playoff picture. Should the Hawks – who days after the 2010 Stanley Cup awards ceremony were chopped up like a 2006 Honda Accord – fall short on their 2011 playoff bid, they will be just the 9th club since 1915 to fail to qualify for the post-season after winning the Lord Stanley’s Chalice the prior year. As true competition withers into league parity and dynasties dissolve in favor of bottom lines (even in the formerly immune NHL) it is interesting to note that there has not been a back-to-back Stanley Cup winner since the Red Wings in 1997-98 after decades of multi-year championships by the Canadians, Leafs, Flyers, Isles and Oilers.
It’s Bartolo Colon vs. Freddy Garcia. See our Sidebar Faceoff for your thoughts. Choose wisely.
By a count of 9 to 1 Bartolo Colon outdueled teammate Freddy Garcia to take the team weight title. However, it was Freddy who secured a spot in the 2011 rotation as the 5th starter whilst Bartolo will be relegated to mop up duties out of the bullpen. I think one, if not both of them, will be off of that team like a prom dress by the all-star break.
Good luck, Yanks. What were you thinking?
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