Love 'Em or Hate 'Em, The Heat Are Living Up to Expectations

When LeBron James and Chris Bosh decided to join up with Dwayne Wade last summer, the entire basketball world was thrown into chaos.  The state of Ohio reeled into the depths of depravity.  At least they still have the Ohio State Buckeyes!  Wait, no, check that – there’s nothing to be cheering about there.  But the world’s basketball fans strained to find a definition for what they were feeling about this incredible collusion of skill.

That straining ended pretty quickly.  Everyone figured out what they were feeling:  HATRED.  But why?  The laws that protect basketball players are the same laws that protect all workers in this country.  The real question is why it took so long for three guys to realize that basketball is a team sport, the best teams win championships, and so it makes perfect sense to find other talented players, and say, “Hey, we should all go play for one team together.  We’d be awesome!”

First, let’s talk about double standards.  No one has uttered a word, at least to my knowledge, about how Chris Bosh turned his back on Toronto.  Bosh was a lifelong Raptor before making his decision, but somehow LeBron turning his back on Cleveland and the rest of Ohio was some great crime of the century.  Please people.  What millionaire in their right mind is going to choose to spend winters in Ohio?  It’s a moot point, though; everyone knows what the Cavaliers would have looked like if James resigned.  The runs they made showed to everyone, most of all LeBron, that one guy can’t win the Finals.

But we can still hate because that’s what a good sports fan does.  But the hatred is really jealousy and that is immutably plain now.  Who wouldn’t want these guys on their team?  Suffering has a way of bringing people together and the Heat sure suffered this year.  Immediately after James’ announcement last year, the media proclaimed they would have to win the Finals next year or this venture would be a failure.  Some of the more “objective” commentators adjusted that to “they will at least have to make the Finals to avoid failure.”  I believe David Bowie and Freddie Mercury would call that being “under pressure.”

Never mind that they all signed multi-year deals.  Any nitwit with half a brain can tell you it takes a little longer than that for a team to gel.  Yet, after watching their various ups-and-downs this season, I can admit that I didn’t give them much of a chance at the outset of these playoffs.  Well, boy was I wrong.

Their dedication to winning is evident in their style of play.  Few expected an offensive powerhouse like this to win games and playoff series’ by playing suffocating defense.   Few thought coach Erik Spoelstra was experienced enough to handle these players and this pressure.  But he is, and on top of that he’s made some key moves like increasing the minutes of Udonis Haslem in the Eastern Conference Finals.   I think the only reason the Heat struggled to finish games during the regular season is because these guys all respect each other immensely, as basketball players and human beings.

But starting in the Semis against the Boston Celtics, LeBron James took it upon himself to assume that role.  With defense and big 3’s, he’s starting to look truly scary.  James having done that is rubbing off on Bosh and Wade, who has made plenty of game-winners before.  Bosh made a clutch block down the stretch against the Celtics that all but destroyed the last chance they had of winning that game and forcing a Game 6.  Down 12 points late in the fourth quarter last night, the Heat when on an 18-3 run to secure a spot in the Finals.  Eight points for James, eight points for Wade, and a couple free throws for Bosh who finished with 20 points and 10 rebounds.  

Rather than lamenting this, I hope young stars take it as a lesson that you can’t go deep in the playoffs without a great team and that starts on the defensive end, as it does with almost every other team sport.  For the basketball fan, the best part of it all is the Miami Heat are running into an incredibly hot (no pun intended) team in the Dallas Mavericks.  They are also playing great team defense.  Let’s not forget that most of the world still favored the Los Angeles Lakers at the outset of the 2011 playoffs.  On top of vaulting the Lakers, the Mavericks just handily beat an arguably more talented, albeit much less experienced team in the Oklahoma City Thunder.  And they have a great player named Dirk Nowitzki who is proving, like James, that he will not take no for an answer.

I’ll be pulling for the Mavericks because I’d love to see Nowitzki and Jason Kidd get a ring.  They are an older team with decreasing chances, whereas the Heat are just getting going.  No one feels like this Miami thing is going away anytime soon, but there is a sense that the Mavericks’ chances with the unit they have are fading fast.  Let’s just hope the referees let it be the great series it serves to be!

Cabrera Brings Winning Vibe To The Tribe

Baseball season is so long that it’s difficult to make long-term predictions.  At the same, significant and unpredicted developments can’t be disregarded.   If you asked most experts who would have baseball’s top record roughly 45 games into the 2011 season, I bet few would have answered the Cleveland Indians.  After winning just 69 games last year, that answer seems completely justified.

Think back to October of 2007.  The Indians were one of the best teams during that regular season and finished tied with the Boston Red Sox atop the MLB with 96 wins.  So it was only fitting that they met in the ALCS.  With a 3-1 lead in the series, the Tribe was under control and it appeared the makings of a potential dynasty were in place.  People forget that Cliff Lee SAT during that series.  Yes, the most coveted pitcher in the last two years – the pitcher who’s (prematurely) being talked about as the greatest postseason hurler of all-time – was passed up in favor of Jake Westbrook and Paul Byrd.

No, I did not make a typo.  That seriously happened.  Josh Beckett dominated Game 1 and the Sox scored 8 runs off of C.C. Sabathia.  Then the Indians handily won the next three games, and to Westbrook’s and Byrd’s credit, they actually pitched very well.  The Indians held the Sox to just 5 runs combined in Game’s 3 and 4.  But the series turned around in Game 5 when Beckett outdueled Sabathia again.  Boston would not lose another game that year.

As amazing (and nail-biting) as that series was for a Red Sox fan, as a baseball fan I’m constantly reminded of how good that Indians team was.  GMs from all over the league were vying for the players they let go from that team.  It’s too bad.  Cleveland is a hard luck town.  They watched one great squad get dismantled in the 90s.  Mark Shapiro came in, made some important trades and draft picks, which led to another great team in 2007.  Yet Cliff Lee, C.C. Sabathia, Victor Martinez are among some of the names of players no longer with the Tribe.  Oh yeah, and there was that whole LeBron James “taking my talents to South Beach” thing.  Different sport, but damn.

One could easily argue those three guys were destined to play in other parks.  But they were all let go in trades, so it would stand to reason the Cleveland brass never thought they could contend with wealthier teams in the free agent market.  And in 2007, Fausto Carmona appeared to be the next great dominant pitcher.  On top of that, they were able to keep All-Stars Grady Sizemore and Travis Hafner, even though both have had subsequent injury problems. 

But somehow, people like Mark Shapiro have creative ways – mainly an eye for talent – that keep teams afloat.  So it probably seemed insignificant when the Tribe picked up Orlando Cabrera this past offseason, but it appears to be the best move they could have made.  This year’s Indians not only have the MLB’s best record, they’ve won a bunch of close games already.   But more importantly, they’re winning as a team.

Asdrubal Cabrera leads the team with 34 RBI, but he is one of seven regular players that has 20+ RBI already, including Orlando.  Carmona is starting to shape up, but its been Josh Tomlin and Justin Masterson dominating at the front of the rotation.  Masterson was acquired from the Red Sox as part of the Victor Martinez trade.  You don’t see catchers like Martinez every day, but Masterson (5-2, 2.50 ERA) appears to be worth it.  Tomlin (6-1, 2.41 ERA) has been even more impressive, coming off his 12 start debut in 2010.  We’ll see how they fare as the season drags on and Tomlin specifically is asked to throw way more innings than he ever has.  But for now, losing Sabathia and Lee doesn’t look so bad.

Something tells me that Orlando Cabrera’s presence in the clubhouse has been a positive impact on a roster of relatively young players.  In terms of baseball experience, his presence should be invaluable.  A long time Montreal Expo, Cabrera was traded to Boston at the deadline in 2004.  He won a ring then.  His teams have been playoff teams ever since, with the sole exception of the 2006 Angels.  He helped the 2008 White Sox back to the playoffs, and after playing 101 games with Athletics in 2009, he was traded at the deadline again to the Minnesota Twins.  Yep, they made the playoffs.  And last year guess who played shortstop for the breakout Cincinnati Reds?

Some athletes just know how to win, but more importantly, they know how to act like winners, to carry one’s self like a winner.  Cabrera’s age and wisdom didn’t stop Shin-Soo Choo from getting a DUI, but there seems to be an attitude shift from a team that lost 93 games a year ago.  Choo was one of the few positive notes for the Tribe in 2010 and if he can get back to where he was, it will only further help a team that’s been pounding out hits and runs.

Indians manager Manny Acta was the third base coach for the Expos from 2002-2005, so he and Cabrera go back.  They seem to be on the same page.  There are not too many cases where a Gold Glove shortstop takes a starting position at 2^nd base and you don’t hear about it.  That must have had an influence as well. Younger guys should take a lesson from Orlando because how many players with a World Series ring and two Gold Gloves have willingly gave up their position in the hopes of making the team better?

The guy just wants to win and have fun.  That’s why I’ve loved Orlando Cabrera since his days in Montreal.  It makes perfect sense because the Expos were downright terrible in almost all the seasons he played there.   Ever since he was traded, he’s had the opportunity to play with more talented teams, and he hasn’t wasted it.  The parameters for the MVP awards in baseball are such that a player has to put up big time offensive numbers to be considered.  Cabrera probably won’t do that; he’s never been that type of hitter.  But he’s always been clutch because he knows how to win.  If the Tribe claim a playoff spot this year, he gets my vote.

What the NFL lockout says about America

As I snuggled into bed last night, slightly inebriated and feeling elated over the Bruins decisive Game 3 victory over Tampa Bay, I stumbled across a rather interesting – and slightly disturbing – headline.   “Power brokers discuss paying NCAA athletes.”  To summarize, the brass some of the largest (and wealthiest) college athletic conferences have been mulling over the idea of trying to “aid” college athletes, to get them “a bigger slice of the pie.”

The article references, among other things, the large salaries commanded by coaches as indicative of an unfair trend where the college or university is seeing large financial gains due to the success of one or more of their teams.  This idea is absolutely absurd, and goes against everything that the NCAA, but more importantly going to college stands for.

It’d be silly for me to sit here and say that all college kids are poor.  My own experience at Colorado College showed me as much.  I’ll admit that I was jealous of some of my classmates who had access to a seemingly limitless bank account, but at the same time my loving parents supported me for almost all of college.  That support allowed me to do the fun things college kids are supposed to do, but it was nowhere near the level of some of my peers.  But I digress:  the point is college kids should be poor. 

Because of lax rules and enforcement, on the part of both schools and NCAA, athletes receive some type of “aid” through various mediums every year.   And it’s pretty obvious that the majority of cases, and the most severe ones, come from men’s basketball and football.  These are the most popular college sports and therefore have a much higher economic standing.  Interestingly enough, those are also two sports that lack good (or in football’s case any) minor professional leagues.   Basically, Division 1 in those sports is the minor leagues, and young athletes know that, which is why they don’t feel any remorse in taking money from wherever it comes.  Because they feel they should be paid.

That gets to the heart of the problem, and it’s the same reason why there is a lockout in the NFL right now.  Don’t get me wrong, the one thing that aggravates me most about the NFL is the attention it receives even during its offseason, but it just goes to show how much it means in dollars and cents.  In the football world, summer dawns with a cloud of confusion and uneasiness.

The word I’ve heard tossed around the most is greed.  The owners are being greedy, the players are being greedy, hell, everyone’s being greedy!  But I think it’s deeper than that and it goes down to something that’s been ingrained in our societal consciousness over the last two decades.

We’ve become a nation of expecters.  NFL players are looking around and seeing that baseball players and basketball players earn more money than they do, even though the NFL’s profit margins have been rising steadily.  So they expect more money.  The owners look at the fabulous salaries and bonuses commanded by other titans of industry and expect (because after all they do own the team) to keep a higher share of their profits.  And as the entire nation sits here and whines during an economic recession, expecting things to get better overnight, something about the character of being American is lost.

I remember asking my grandfather once what it was like to live in the Great Depression.  To summarize, he said it sucked.  But that really wasn’t his point, it was this: you didn’t sit around and whine and complain and cry that the President wasn’t fixing the economy.  Let the papers do that – normal people had to make do with what they could.  Let’s not forget that in the same time period, the practice of Jim Crow was very much alive through the South and many other parts of the country.  I’m not black, but I found it downright insulting when Adrian Peterson compared the modern NFL to slavery.   If there is some kind of after life, rest assured Frederick Douglass is waiting there to slap Peterson in the face.

Does it look like this man expected anything?

Now, I do genuinely feel bad for a good number of NFL players.  What they do is incredibly dangerous, and as we learn more and more about the human brain, it stands to reason that they should receive financial aid for health care after their playing days.  But because of the nature of the sport, football rosters are huge, and most of those guys don’t make a lot of money.  That being said, I still don’t feel bad for anyone – professional athlete or not – that was living outside their means when the economy turned.  You were living on expectation.  You bought a house on loans with a mortgage based on the expectation (in reality allusion) that more money was inherently coming your way.

The feeling of being wronged is often a mask for greedy expectation.  Have we been wronged by what’s happened to the economy over the last few years?  Absolutely not.  People that were living in their means took a hit, but they can live with that, because for the most part they’re still fulfilling their life’s goals.   They’re OK.  Maybe some of them adjusted their lifestyle; maybe some of them are going to settle for something less in retirement. 

           

But that’s not the majority of people.  It takes more than a few years to climb out of a recession, and it will probably take several more to clean up the 14 trillion dollars of debt were in.  Was this week’s ruling supposed to shock anyone?  Pick up a history book about our courts and you will find, for the most part, that our legal system supports the Goliath, and not the David’s.  In the end, if the players concede it will probably be viewed as a vain and greedy move by the owners to make more money.  And that’s true – but the overarching point is that the act of conceding removes the players from the class of expecters.

If they concede, they’ll show they at least have the decency to recognize they have a job at time when roughly 26 million people don’t.  They’ll recognize that their job is to play a sport!  The operative word there is play!  I am by no means absolving the owners of guilt; on the contrary, it is painfully obvious that it is entirely their fault. But social awareness is a good thing.  It may not be the players’ fault, but would having no football next year be better for the country?  Just as well, student athletes need to recognize their fortune in receiving a free (or mostly free) college education, not seek ways to earn money because “I’m making the college money.”

If you take a look at our social history, our labor history, for the most part you’re going to find that the battle between those with less and those with more has raged since the dawning of this nation.  And while there have been historic victories on the part of those with less, its clear even today that our capitalistic society favors those with more.

There’s something uniquely American about making the best out of what you can and feeling blessed about what you have, rather than feeling wronged about what you have not.  At the end of the day, the NFL is such a large economic beast because of regular people.  Regardless of should be and shouldn’t be, the fact is NFL players only make what they make because of fans.  There is nothing uncommon or new about what the owners are doing, and sure, that doesn’t make it right.  But if the players can swallow their pride, they’ll avoid what happened to baseball players in 1994.

They’ll avoid being cast as the greedy expecters.   They’ll avoid looking like a bunch of rich guys that took a whole year of football, and a Super Bowl, from the country just to be richer.  And sure, if that does happen, they’ll be bitter because as I said, it is all actually the owners fault: they’re the ones that locked the players out.  But regular people won’t see it that way and that’s the bottom line.  Because we watch, you guys make all this money – so in the end who is being wronged?  We are.

Sports make it easier to get through tough times.  That’s why Franklin Roosevelt ordered the MLB to continue during World War II.  We couldn’t expect the owners to do the right thing – they wanted to shut down the league because a great number of its stars volunteered or were drafted into the services.   Luckily, the country had FDR.  I’m not suggesting President Obama get involved with this, far from it.  I’m just trying to point out that we should never expect the inordinately wealthy to do the right thing, or have any semblance of social consciousness when it comes time to assess profit margins.

So many professional athletes, football included, come from a childhood where expecting was just plain silly, save those who grew up with the silver spoon.  One would think that this would allow some of the players to remove themselves from this situation and perceive how it appears to regular people.  But that’s not the case, at least, not until we stop having greedy expectations about what is due.  We’re not “due” anything.   We need to remember that our American character derives from being an immigrant nation – a nation of people who came to this land and realized what a privilege it was.  We need to be grateful always of what we have, and not lament what we don’t.  That’s what it means to be American.

Sources:  http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=6566975
http://bbsvaluetour.ning.com/profiles/blogs/black-in-time-a-moment-in-our-438

Red Sox - Rockies Report (May)

Boston Red Sox:  20-20, 3^rd in the AL East, 3.0 GB from Tampa Bay Rays

Upon completion of a weekend sweep in the Bronx, the Boston Red Sox have finally crawled back to .500 after a dismal April.  It’s never easy to start the season on the road, much less against the defending American League champion Texas Rangers.  The Sox lost their first 6 games in a row.  Returning home seemed to be the answer, as they took two of three from the New York Yankees.  Yet that was quickly soured by dropping the next three games, two to Tampa Bay in a rain-shortened series, and the first of a four game set with the Toronto Blue Jays.

           

Sitting at 2-10, the Red Sox bounced back, taking the final three games against Toronto.  After splitting a two game set with the Oakland A’s, they headed down the Pacific Coast to Los Angeles.  This was the shot in the arm Boston needed, as they swept a four game series against the Angels, their perennial punching bag.  That paved the way for the 18-10 record they’ve put up since the horrific start.

Carl Crawford’s slow start has been a sour point, but as with any baseball team, the main concern vis-à-vis securing a playoff spot is the pitching staff.  Boston’s starting rotation over the last couple seasons has been somewhat of a mixed bag, and I mean that in a good way.  Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, and Clay Buchholz are all starters who should be aces, and in different seasons have pitched as such.  Daisuke Matsuzaka has never been able to replicate the numbers he put up in 2007, when he was 18-3 with 2.90 ERA.  Yet he still seems capable and shows flashes of his old self now and again.

But it’s clear that Beckett is the ace of the staff.  Most people think the ace is just the best starter on the staff.  That is generally true, but more importantly, it means the one guy you have the most confidence in, in one game, to take the hill and give the team a great chance to win.  So far, Lester has been getting more run support and is currently 5-1.  But Beckett has been the man for Boston. He’s already shut down the Yankees twice and seems to relish that role.  He only has three wins right now, but has allowed just 10 runs in 51+ innings.

Crawford has yet to find himself in Boston.  This is a recurring theme.  It takes a certain character and mental frame of mind to handle the pressures of playing in cities like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.  In these towns, both the media and fans are highly demanding, and want great results – every night.  John Lackey is off to another terrible season (2-5, 8.01 ERA, 35 runs allowed in 39+ IP).  He seems eager and willing to accept the role of the MLB’s most overpaid player.  Sure the Sox are paying him, but after a slow start, how many times can manager Terry Francona run him out there before enough is enough?

Adrian Gonzalez, on the other hand, is on a mission to prove to New England, and the rest of the baseball world who didn’t know him as a San Diego Padre, that he is one of the top sluggers in the game.  He leads the Red Sox in almost every offensive category, and leads the AL with 34 RBI.  Struggling with the long ball early, he has belted 6 home runs in his last 7 games.  As advertised, he’s also playing great at first base.  Jacoby Ellsbury, who missed most of last season to injury, has had a hot bat to start the year as well.  Kevin Youkilis, also lost to injury in 2010 for a large chunk, started slow but has picked up the pace.  He was pivotal in this weekend’s sweep of the Yankees, coming through in the clutch.

The pitching is coming around.  The “protect the lead” combination of Daniel Bard and Jonathan Papelbon is looking better after some early struggles.  If Crawford and Dustin Pedroia start playing at their usual pace, the Red Sox should finish May playing well, and be primed for a hot June.

Colorado Rockies, 20-18, 2^nd in the NL West, 1.5 GB from San Francisco Giants

Starting the season well has been tricky for Jim Tracy’s Colorado Rockies.   They started slow in 2009 and only secured the National League Wild Card by putting together great runs in August and September.  Last season’s start proved to be an insurmountable hole, even though a good finish had them at least mathematically in it until mid-September.

Staff ace Ubaldo Jimenez has struggled greatly to start the season and spent time on the DL in early April.  Jimenez had a breakout season in 2010, going 11-1 with a 0.93 ERA in his first 12 starts.  In that stretch, he also threw the first no-hitter in Rockies history.  He ended up with fabulous numbers for the season (19-8, 2.88 ERA, 214 K), but was noticeably less effective in the second half.  Those struggles have worsened to start 2011 and one wonders whether he threw too many innings in the first half last year.  This is a common theme, especially with younger pitchers, and this will remain a concern going forward for Colorado.

Nonetheless, Jhoulys Chacin and Jorge De La Rosa have picked up the slack in his wake.   Chacin broke out last season, pitching effectively all year and ending with an unfair 9-11 record and 3.28 ERA in 21 starts.  De La Rosa won 16 games in 2009, but was up and down with injuries last season, and made only 20 starts.  So far he leads the staff with a 5-1 record and 3.70 ERA.  Jason Hammel and Esmil Rogers round out the rotation and each have 3 wins already.

The Rockies bullpen, led by closer Huston Street (12 for 13 in save situations) and set-up man Rafael Betancourt have also been effective.  Timely pitching has been the Rockies bar to having a good kick offs to the year.  Having found it earlier than normal, Colorado got off to a hot start going 17-8 in April.  But they have hit a rough patch lately and are 3-10 to start the month of May.

Not having your ace pitching the way he should is definitely a factor here.  But the answers can be found in the offense, as the Rox have lost a number of close games, several to division rival and defending World Series champion San Francisco Giants.  All-Star shortstop Troy Tulowitski (.253 BA, 10 HR, 24 RBI) has his power bat working but isn’t generating the kind of tear we all know is coming.  When he is on, it is truly scary, and makes me recall this line from Led Zeppelin: cryin’ won’t help ya, prayin’ wont do you no good. 

In addition, All-Star Carlos Gonzalez is not off to the start Rockies fans wanted to see either.  It is unclear just how streaky Gonzalez will be.  He showed last year, over two stretches, that when he is on, he’s just about as good as anybody.  But Cargo still lacks discipline at the plate and scouts for opposing teams have definitely picked up on this.  He’s prone to taking wild hacks at high fastballs and letting a bad at-bat early in a game affect him for the night.  This shows in his numbers, as he’s hitting just .234 with 4 homers and 20 RBI.  Not the start you’d expect from the defending NL batting champion.

But Rockies fans can handle some early struggles from Tulowitski and Gonzalez because those two are so talented and so prone to going on a 15 to 20 game tear.  What’s been a pleasant surprise is the reemergence of veteran first baseman Todd Helton, who leads the team with a .325 batting average.  He’s also found his power stroke again and already has 6 home runs (he hit 8 all of last year).  Jonathan Herrera and Seth Smith have also been swinging a nice bat, reducing the impact of the Gonzalez/Tulowitski struggles.

It remains to be seen if letting Miguel Olivo go was the right move.   This was definitely a questionable move in the eyes of Rockies fans.  Chris Iannetta has always proven frustrating when at the plate, even if capable of handling the pitching staff behind it.  Olivo swung a great bat for the Rox last year, played with passion, and handled the staff – particularly the Spanish speaking pitchers – very well.  In my opinion, Iannetta has some large shoes to fill, and so far is doing about what I expected (.225 BA, 5 HR, 14 RBI, 30 K in 89 AB).

If Colorado’s big hitters get going like they can, some of those close losses will start to go their way.  The NL West is stacked with pitching but Tulo and Cargo are the type of guys that win a game with one or two at-bats, even if the likes of Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, or Clayton Kershaw are on the mound.  And if Jimenez can get going, you can start feeling comfortable about penciling in a W every fifth game.  Having had a great April, it will not hurt so much if they struggle until summer starts.  But the best should be ahead, in the dog days, the time of year Tracy’s boys like to win.

NHL Playoffs are sweeeeeeeeet

Aren’t the NHL Playoffs the best?   We sit now with just one game left in the second round, but that one game with be the fifth Game 7 of the playoffs.   If you’re a San Jose Sharks fan, this is the last thing you wanted.   And yet Sharks fans should not relent.  Not only do they have Antti Niemi, the goalie that helped the Chicago Blackhawks to victory last year, he is playing out of his mind.  By my count, the score should have been something like 11-1 last night – without the empty netter at the end.

When the Sharks improbably went up 3-0 on the Detroit Red Wings in the Western Conference Semifinals, a little tick went off in my head.   I’ve seen this before, I said.  Being a lifelong Boston Bruins fan and Red Sox fan, I know this script from both sides of the stage.  In 2004, I watched the Red Sox do the impossible.  They won four in a row after being down three games.  And they didn’t just lose those first three to the Yankees, they got their asses kicked.  You have every right not to believe me, but I promise you, I have no reason to lie.  I said, Detroit will come back and force Game 7.  They’re too talented, even with Jimmy Howard in net.

Conversely, I had to stomach painfully watching my Bruins drop four in a row the Philadelphia Flyers in the 2010 Eastern Conference Semifinals.  In Game 7, the Bruins again had the lead, by three goals, only to see it slip away.  Revenge is the sweet taste of victory, my friends.  But, let’s face it, every avid sports fan has a host of insecurities and superstitions that dictate how they view and digest each development with their favorite teams and players.

My Jiminy Cricket was telling me to be afraid, be very afraid.  The only thing that could make what happened last year even worse would be watching a more improved, more experienced Bruins team lose again to the Flyers in the Semis.   But my objective half got the better of me.   Ryan Miller was nowhere near the top of his game, yet he and the Buffalo Sabers still took the Flyers to 7 games.  And then there was the whole revolving door in Philly’s net.  Which begs the question, would an actual revolving door have stopped more pucks than the lackluster combination of Brian Boucher, Michael Leighton, and Sergei Bobrovsky?

What followed were four of the best games I’ve seen Boston play this year, sweeping Philadelphia rather handily.  This didn’t come as a shock to me.  Their first round match up with the Montreal Canadiens was a classic hockey playoff series.  Except, it didn’t follow script.  The Bruins finally got that French-speaking monkey off their back, and did not let a lower seeded, less talented Canadiens team upset. 

As a fan, it really did feel like the hockey gods were pulling another fast one on Boston.  The game in hand, Patrice Bergeron had a complete mental lapse (divine intervention?) and inexplicably, unforgivably took a high sticking penalty in the final minutes.  Here we go again, I said.  So it seemed only fitting that a rising blast from the stick of P.K. Subban would find it’s way past Tim Thomas.  And then he taunted the crowd, and angered the gods.  Enter Nathan Horton.

The Bruins will face a talented, but more importantly, hot team in the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Eastern Conference Finals.  The Lightning have won 7 games in a row after being down 3-1 to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round.  Goaltender Dwayne Roloson put up spectacular efforts against a potent Washington Capitals offense in the Semis.  It serves to be a great series.  The Lightning have a host of flashy forwards, most notably Martin St. Louis and Steven Stamkos.   But the Bruins are by far the best defensive – and defensive minded – team in the NHL this year.   And they have Tim Thomas, playing as hot as ever, and coming off maybe the greatest regular season a starting goalie has ever played.

Claude Julien has been an invaluable asset to the Bruins as well.  In his first year in Boston, he won the Northeast Division with a team that wasn’t supposed to make the playoffs.  He has a roster committed to their system, and their style of play.  The most poignant moment for Julien was the timeout he called in Game 4 against Montreal.  Down 3-1 in the 2^nd period, with all the momentum on Montreal’s side, he called the timeout (in hockey you only get one, so you’d better call it at the right time) and calmed his players down.  They responded by tying the game up before the period’s end, and persevered to win the game in overtime.

The playoffs are a long and difficult battle.  No matter where you finish at the end, there will invariably be different ups and downs.   The Sharks and Red Wings both know that.  The winner of tomorrow night's Game 7 will face the Vancouver Canucks in the Western Conference Finals.   The Canucks barely survived a first round onslaught from the defending champs and played a hotly contested six game series with the Nashville Predators.

No matter what happens, one thing is clear to me.  The NHL Playoffs are awesome.   The level of play is unmatched and the drama is simply genuine.  Only four the seven games in the Bruins-Canadiens series were on cable outside local markets, and only because NHL Network decided last minute to carry CBC’s broadcast to American viewers.  This is a shame.  Hockey players locked out several years ago, in most part to save the league, which they did.  The rule changes have brought us the game we watch now, and it’s as good as ever.  If we keep demanding broadcasts as fans, it will only be a matter of time until the national networks carry more games.  Start by watching Game 7 of Sharks-Red Wings tomorrow night, it will not disappoint.

Will this year be the return of the Tiger?

So far, the 2011 PGA Tour season has been full of stories.  Surprisingly, most of them do not concern the world’s most famous golfer, Tiger Woods.   At the forefront is the rise of a young class of golfers from all over the world.  These gentlemen grew up watching Woods, and this gives them a mental edge that the field did not possess in the days of Tiger v.  The field.

Woods dominated the game in the early 2000s for lots of reasons, but by far the most visually striking was his power.  His singular ability to carry driver over 330 yards left him with approach shots that had golf course architects rolling in their graves.   His emergence, at the 1997 Masters, when he finished a record -18 under par, literally had Augusta members in uproars.   One was literally, “Oh my god, did you just see that?!”  And the other was, “Even the best golfer ever shouldn’t be able to average nearly a 67 over four rounds on the hardest golf course in the world.”

And yet, he walked away from the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach laughing.  He finished -12, while Miguel Angel Jiminez and Ernie Els tied for 2^nd at a measly +3.  Yikes. This may have actually been the tournament that tipped the scales for everyone, resulting in overhauls of basically every quality championship course in the States, and prompting similar adjustments at famous layouts across the pond, such as the Old Course at St. Andrews.   In the following year, Woods won his second Green Jacket at -16, just two shots shy of his record.

So it stands to reason that Augusta saw this as the moment to step up the game.  After all, for every possible scenario one might think of – even in a match play event – golf inherently remains the same challenge.  It’s the player vs. the course.  So in 2002, the best in the world arrived at that special neck of woods in Georgia to find that nine of the holes had been lengthened by a combined 345 yards.  It would play over 7000 yards for the first time in its history.  All Tiger did was win again, but at a much more stomachable -12.

Critics of the changes at Augusta?  Oh, only the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and Gary Player – three of the best golfers of all time, and three superb course architects in their own right.  But alas, as Sir Nick Faldo points out (rather annoyingly) almost every tournament, the game has simply changed.   Most golfers, like Faldo, who were nearing the end of their careers as Tiger emerged on the scene lamented that improvements in alloys and club design were the main reason.  I found that difficult to accept.  It really just looked like he was swinging harder, and wanted it more.

There’s no question that Tiger single handedly changed the game of golf.  This would become most evident in the year 2007.  Woods played through the first “slump” of his career in 2003-2004.  He won six tournaments in those two seasons, but no majors.  He had gone through a couple swing changes and critics wondered to what end.  He responded by winning 14 tournaments, including four more majors, over the following two seasons.

But 2007 was clearly a different year.   Augusta National played incredibly hard that year.  The fairways were so fast that it actually hurt the long hitters.  The greens were so fast that even Woods, considered the best putter at the time, struggled immensely.   Instead of letting the course play him, Zach Johnson played the course.  The quick fairways helped his short drives.  But it was his gall – doing the unthinkable at Augusta – in laying up on every par 5, which he played at -11 all week despite winning at +1, the first Masters winner to finish over par since Gary Burke, Jr. in 1956.

The “Tiger-proofing” trend had clearly caught on.  Angel Cabrera won the 2007 U.S. Open at a rather melodramatic +5.   Oakmont C.C. played so hard it was almost like watching amateurs play.   The USGA had set as its goal for the U.S. Open to be “the toughest test in golf.”  They want the winner to be even par.   While Augusta holds that privilege of being the one course where a major is held every year, there’s been enough evidence in recent years that the right golfer, in the right conditions, can dominate that course.

That’s what made Tiger’s win in the 2008 U.S. Open at the Torrey Pines South Course so incredible.  It wasn’t just that he had a torn ACL and a fractured shin bone, audibly screaming in pain after certain shots (most notably his patented power-fade, a necessity for righties at Torrey Pines). It wasn’t the two impossible eagle putts he drained on Saturday.  It wasn’t that Rocco Mediate decided to reach another level and match him shot for shot.  It was that it took ALL of those things, over 90 holes of golf, just to sit at even par.   Guess what score won the 91^st hole and the tournament: par.

I remember feeling very ambivalent about going to work on that Monday.  I was working for the Grounds Crew at Colorado College.  I felt like I was about to miss out on the conclusion of what still, to this day, stands as the greatest athletic competition I have ever witnessed, and probably ever will.  About 30 minutes before Rocco and Tiger were set to tee off, a day long torrential downpour of rain began falling in the foothills of Pikes Peak.  God had indeed answered my prayers.

And yet since that day, it has been a tumultuous ride for Woods fans.  OK, it’s been a lot worse for Tiger.  All by his own making, he still had to face what every public figure has the fear and potential of facing: the complete unraveling of any sense of privacy, and private life.   After all, the hallmark of Tiger’s game – the reason he IS who he IS – was his ability to maintain the highest level of mental focus.  In 2010, I got really tired of hearing Jim Nantz point out that Tiger just looked like another Tour player.  Thanks Jim…we were all able to gather as much.

I spent most of this winter ruminating on the stories from last year.  Phil’s incredible third win at Augusta that featured three rounds of 67.  Dustin Johnson’s horrific meltdown at Pebble Beach.   And that disastrous Sunday at Whistling Straits which featured another horrific meltdown by the 54-hole leader, Nick Watney, but was ultimately overshadowed by Dustin Johnson grounding his club on the 72^nd hole, to lose, and Bubba Watson hitting his second shot in the water on the playoff – literally giving Martin Kaymer the win in a playoff…with a bogey.  Wah wah wahhhhhhhhh.

At the Masters this year, it seemed trends were continuing.  Another young, extremely talented, golfer held the 54-hole lead (actually he held the 18, 36, and 54-hole lead) only to have a horrific meltdown.  But there was Tiger.  His 31 on the front nine on Sunday was ultimately soured by the three putt bogey on 12, and the missed 5 footer for eagle on 15.  But it was really the 74 on Saturday that killed him.  And he was still right there, with a share of the lead for at least part of Sunday.

Tiger got a taste and that’s all he needs.  His first “slump” lasted two years, so it stands to reason that this one will too.  For all the talk of the young guys having no fear to step up and play Tiger’s game, they have yet to prove they have that IT factor – that extra dose of focus required to finish it out.  Tiger plays for the first time since the Masters in the Players Championship this week at TPC Sawgrass.  But I’m sure he has his sights set on Congressional C.C. – the site of this year’s U.S. Open – and the same course he won the 2009 AT&T National.  Something tells me he’ll be ready.