Hoodwood salutes Louisville's Kevin Ware who was up on crutches less than 24 hours after his gruesome leg injury.

Greetings from the Hoodwood, where everyones bracket has been destroyed.

College Basketball: And then there were four

You had these four teams didn’t you? No? You had three cause no one saw Wichita State. Ok, you’re bracket was a lot like the millions of others who pick a bracket and curse repeatedly when it comes apart. But I was trying to figure which one of the higher seeds would get through. I wanted to pick Michigan and did so in one of my brackets, since picking Kansas is always a dicey proposition. But look at the four teams that are heading to Atlanta they are all teams that are worth watching. Michigan with their exciting backcourt of Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway Jr. You have Syracuse with their lockdown defense in their soul crushing zone that just eviscerated both Indiana and Marquette in the regionals. You have the yeoman Wichita State Shockers who have been dogs in every matchup so far this tourney but have sent Pitt, Gonzaga, LaSalle and Ohio State home wondering what hit them. And you have the blueblood of the group Louisville who went from grudging favorite to heart tugging lunch-pail squad after they rallied round their fallen teammate Kevin Ware who suffered a sickening leg injury yet was imploring his teammate all the while to win.  Four on the floor in Hot-Lanta. I think that the Cards are the best team left and wouldn’t it be ironic if the two teams left to battle it out were the teams departing from the dying embers of the once mighty Big East?

NBA: Heat’s big payback

Earlier in the season I railed long and hard about the Spurs sending their three best players home before a big game against the Heat. The Spurs were at the end of a long eastern roadie, Pop decided to send his three best players home though none of them were injured. B-Ball fans cried foul while Pop and the Spurs shrugged it off. The B-squad Spurs played the Heat tough and nearly pulled the game out which Pop played up as even more a reason why there shouldn’t be a fuss. The NBA didn’t agree fining the Spurs $250K for not putting their best squad on the floor. The Heat and Spurs are two of the NBA’s best and the Easter rematch was highly anticpated especially with the Heat ripping off one of the NBA’s longest winning streaks at 27, the Spurs looked to be one of the teams that could legitimately stop the rampaging streak. But a couple things got in the way. The Bulls handed the Heat their first loss in better than a month on Wednesday and two of the Heat’s big three sat out the game. Dwayne Wade who has been nursing a bad knee for some time and tweaked it in the loss to the Bulls and surprisingly LeBron James who asked out with a hamstring pull. Pop and the Spurs tried to play it off with mock outrage, but truth be told they were ten types of pissed. The Spurs had been playing up the match as their chance to put down the bad boy Heat and further burnish their image as the clean-cut, do it the right way team. The Heat not only ruined that, but behind the usually benign Chris Bosh’s 23 points edged the Spurs. I think that was just rewards to the Spurs whom everyone knows I detest.

MLB: Getting PAID

As the 2013 MLB season shoves off from the dock a couple big name players became big paydays. Buster Posey who overcame a gruesome injury of his own to go from hot young player to established superstar and now is getting paid like one. His 9 year $167 million deal will likely make him a Giant for the rest of his career. But that wasn’t the biggest blockbuster deal of the year or hell even the week. The Tigers locked up their ace Justin Verlander in a $180 million deal that could vest to over $200 million. I don’t want to hear shit about MLB crying poor anytime soon if they are handing out loot like this. Even though the newly moved Houston Astros entire roster is being paid less these superstars, but given their roster might not win 55 games that might not be such a bad investment.

College Basketball: Observations. rumors and whatnot

Former Minnesota head coach Tubby Smith didnt stay unemployed for long as he gets the head job at Texas Tech. The Red Raiders had a bit of respectabilty under Bobby Knight but after he retired and his overmatched son couldnt keep up, the Red Raiders turned to Billy Gillispie with disastrous results. He  went 8-23 in his lone season and was under investigation for how he treated his players, whicch many said the hard driving (and hard drinking?) coach had done at his previous stops. This is a bit ironic since Gillispie succeeded Tubby Smith at Kentucky after Smith left for Minnesota

The stellar career of Brittney Griner is over as Louisville raced out to a huge lead then held on for an 82-81 win in the Women Regional Semis. Griner had been the main cog on the undefeated national champion team last year and the Bears had lost but one game over the course of two seasons. Heading to the WNBA as the top draft choice of the Chicago Sky, Griner will graduate as the #2 all time scorer in women's basketball history and far and away the #1 dunker.

On a more serious note, CBSSports. com is reporting that the Pac-12 head of officials Ed Rush is being investigated about comments that he made regarding Arizona coach Sean Miller. Rush allegedly told his charges that he would give $5000 or a trip to Cancun to whoever gave Miller a technical foul during the Pac-12 tourney in Vegas last month. Wasnt it fishy that Miller got a tech arguing about a highly suspect call? Rush has been quick to deny the allegations saying that his comments were made in jest but there are just somethings that you dont joke about. It also confirms a long held suspicion by your humble scribe that some officials just have it out for some coaches. I coached an alumni-senior game at my high school a couple times and after getting rung up and then thrown out of one game managed to get techs in the next four games I was coaching in by the same ref. And he was looking to T me up every year. Now I will admit the first time I got the 2 techs I deserved them. I shoved a chair out on to the court with my foot after the ref told me to take a seat. But after that this same ref was looking at me every year for me to say something and he would hit me...quick. After the who Tim Donaghy incident, basketball just doesnt need any question of its integrity.

NFL: Romo gets paid and other observations

I read this and couldnt stop laughing. Tony Romo signed a 6 year extension with the Pokes for $106 million dollars $55 million of it guaranteed. Tony Romo who has all of one playoff career and twice has had the Pokes on the verge of winning the NFC East in the last two years and have choked it away. He got $106 Million. Are you kidding me? I think Romo is an average quarterback at best, more on the lineage of Danny White and Drew Bledsoe than Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman. But Jerry Jones is convinced that Romo is the franchise and will win him a Super Bowl, I wonder what Romo has on Jerry? He has to have some kind of incriminating pics or info to get that kind of loot.

Speaking of overpaid quarterbacks, the Raiders are looking to dump their supposed franchise QB as the Carson Palmer experiment just never really seem to click. After the Raiders raised some eyebrows with a blockbuster trade with the Bengals with whom Palmer had allegedly retired from playing with, the Raiders came close to making the playoffs in 2011 falling a game short then badly regressed in 2012 with Palmer throwing bushels of interceptions and making the Bengals look like hustlers for snookering the Raiders with the trade that garnered them high round draft picks. The Raiders are finding no interested takers in Palmer for a trade and have went so far as to trade for Matt Flynn from the Seahawks. Flynn, who was supposed to start in Seattle but got beat out by Russell Wilson and rode the pine as Wilson firmly established himself as the franchise quarterback is now on his 3rd team in as many year. This in turn may have the Raiders outright cutting Palmer who has refused to take a paycut. An interested party for Palmer may be the Arizona Cardinals who are still trying to recapture the brief glory days of the Kurt Warner era...stay tuned.

Phat Dap Head Slap

Phat Dap

A couple daps on a related subject. Phat Dap to CBS for wisely not showing the replay of Ware's gruesome replays endlessly. I didnt see the injury when it happened, I had just returned home and saw that play had stopped for an injury. I thought initally that Ware had blew out his knee or had injured himself like Nerlens Noel had done. When I saw the air cast on his leg I was taken back to when Kenyon Martin of my beloved alma mater Cincinnati had broken his leg and knew it was much more on that level, but CBS only showed the replay twice right after it happened choosing to focus on his teammates horrified and devastated look. Greg Gumber of CBS stated flatly at halftime that CBS would not show the replay anymore. I had to hunt it up on YouTube see and understood why. Also dap goes to Joe Theismann, someone Ive never been fond of but knows all to well what its like to have their leg broken on national TV as his career ended after his leg was snapped on a hit by Lawrence Taylor in 1985. Theismann has reached out to Ware and has offered encouragement and is one of the few that could truly sympathize with what Ware is dealing with.

Head Slap

To Rick Reilly who decided to take Nike to task for its ad campaign for Tiger Woods who has recently ascended back to the #1 golf ranking. Reilly doesnt like the ad Winning takes Care of Everything. Reilly decided that he would be the moral police about Woods' questionable conduct during his fall from grace over the past five years. Now I grant you that Tiger is smug, condescedning and can act like a general boorish ass at time. But his private life is his own and he is back on the course winning and that should be all that matters. Winning doesnt "take care" of everything but to those that follow Woods and want him to dominate its the only thing, Ive never understood the diochotomy of the love hate relationship that the media has with Tiger, they want him to win and dominate like he did in the late 90s early 2000s but they want others to take him down from time to time. I dont get it do they want him to win or lose. I usually like Reillys writing but this article just rubbed me the wrong way.

That the view from the Hoodwood, until next post fellow Sports Fans!

Opening Day - Are there two words in sports that carry with it so many memories?  Is there any more certain sign that warm weather and spring are just around the corner?  It is the annual spring rite that brings renewal to so many sports fans.  As proof that hope springs eternal, ask any Cubs fan this weekend whether this is "THE Year" and all but the most cynical will point out that even the blind squirrel finds the occasional acorn...but it has been a long time for that squirrel - it may be on permanent hibernation.    

It is hard for me to believe, but this Monday will mark the first Opening Day that I will attend in person.  Looking back on it, after the Senators left town in mid-70's, I had no place to go.  I was NOT going to Baltimore even if the O's were good back then and going to Chicago seemed like a lot to ask once we had kids...so finally, in my 55th year of Opening Days, I get to go - and I am excited!  There is nothing like being at a live sporting event...things that cannot be captured on a big screen high def TV....there is the sounds and the discussions in the stands after a play, the smell of popcorn, pretzels, half smokes and such...and the field is always so green and so perfect...well, it makes for quite a memorable day.

Events like Opening Day trigger memories like no other sporting event...oh, sure I remember where I was when the Redskins won their first Super Bowl...and then lost so unceremoniously the next year to the Raiders killing a perfectly fine SB party.  But Baseball triggers life memories.  I remember my sandlot...a church sits on it now, but come the first warm day, our group had gloves, bats and balls at the ready to bring the sandlot back to life.   And as the spring went on, we would switch between baseball and wiffle ball...games with 4 a side or just one - on - one wiffle ball.   We would play with baseballs, tennis balls, no bats ("hot box"), no field (bounce the ball off the curb), stick ball and then there was League Ball.  I remember a scene from The Natural when Roy Hobbs asks Max Mercy, "Have you ever played ball, Max?"  There is a special understanding to having been in the arena, no matter how small the stage.  And with that little stroll down memory lane as my intro, let's take a look into my crystal ball for the 2013 MLB season....

When you get right down to it, you need three key ingredients to have a winning season:  strong pitching, a solid lineup and perhaps most importantly, good health.  The fourth ingredient no one can control - Lady Luck - is rarely the deciding factor but can turn a teams season from just another run of mediocrity into something special - just as the 2012 Orioles who won an unprecendented number of 1 run games.  Good luck repeating that run, boys.  So here we go:

Division Champions:

AL East:  I think Tampa Bay has the right mix of pitching, which is strong, and in the field talent to hold off the Blue Jays.  It has been a long time since both the Red Sox and the Yankees were not in the mix for the title.  Not only are they not in the mix for the AL East, they should be also-rans for the Wild Card spot as well.   Times are changing in baseball...it is not enough to throw money at stars and expect championships.  It is for that reason, that I pick Tampa over the Blue Jays.  I like the Jays, but I think it may take a little bit for that team to gel.  

AL Central:  The easy pick here, and maybe in all the divisions, is the Tigers.  They have Verlander backed by a loaded lineup.  Verlander is an old school pitcher with all the tools to have pitched in any era.  I also like what the Royals have shown so far in Spring Ball.  Could they finally have what it takes not be a doormat team?  I think they are at long last on the rise.  The Indians and White Sox are the answer to Hodgepoge for $1000....the Answer is, "These Teams do not know what the hell they are doing."  "Who are the Indians & White Sox?", Alex.  As for the Twins, small town ball has finally caught up with them.  Where did all their pitching go?

AL West:  The only sure thing in the AL West is that the Astros will finish last.  When the most notable thing about your team is that the entire payroll is less than A-Rod's annual salary, you know you have problems.  I guess MLB must have given them a sweet package to leave the National League...did that include a rebate for the fans?  Was this team really in the World Series in 2005?!   In the three way fight between the A's, Angels and Rangers, one has to believe that all the talent that has been assembled in Anaheim translates into victories...in a way a lot like the Yankees of year's past.  It's a team that will steamroll most of the league during the regular season and then be challenged in the post season.

AL Wild Card Teams:  Blue Jays & A's...there is more than enough pitching and team talent for these two teams to get in the playoffs.  I think the Jays win the one game playoff.  

AL Champion:  The Blue Jays will be the first wild card team in the new format to reach the World Series.  Nobody can hit Dickey's knuckleball and he can pitch on short rest...he will be the key for Toronto.  Toronto needs something to cheer for, Lord knows the Leafs can't be counted on.

NL East:   It is hard for me to pick against the Nationals.  They have such a great rotation and so much young, emerging talent, it seems as tough the biggest obstacle is the expectations that they have set for themselves.  What if they get off to a slow start?  Will Davey Johnson be able to keep them focused?  Bryce Harper hit almost .500 in Grapefruit League ball - can he continue his torrid pace after April 1?  In my mind, the answer is "Yes" - they can hold off the Braves and Phillies, both quality contenders, and establish themselves as a force in the National League for the next few years.

NL Central:   It is equally hard to pick against the Reds in the NL Central.  They have fewer rivals than the Nats with only the Cardinals as serious challengers.  What is the deal with the Pirates?  A team that bad for so long should be loaded with young talent (like the Nationals).  Their refusal to sign top young stars keeps them from developing...a shame considering their ballpark is one of the nicest I have ever seen.   And will somebody please buy the Cubs a goat?

NL West:  The Giants have won 2 of the last 3 World Series - they deserve respect and get it here in the form of my pick for the NL West.  The Dodgers doing their best Steinbrenner imitation have assembled a lot of high priced talent - does it translate into a division title?  I think it is 50 -50.  The rest of the division is mediocre at best, so these two long time rivals can look forward to a very entertaining season.

NL Wildcards:  Braves & Dodgers...they should garner enough wins to get to the playoffs, with the Braves winning the 1 game playoff.  Unlike the Jays, I think the one game hurts the Braves rotation enough to cost them a serious run at the title.

NL & World Series Champion:  I am going with the Nationals and there big time arms to carry the day in October.  And...with a little luck, Washington will have its first Championship banner flying for the first time since 1924. 

Over the last 30 years and nearly 1 million miles in the air, I thought I had seen the full array of things that could disrupt your travels from weather to mechanical issues to over-booking.   That was until my return trip from Barcelona Thursday...a true 27-hour (non) sports extravaganza.   My first leg from Spain to Amsterdam was at 6:15 AM, so I arrived at checkout at about 4:30 and promptly became embroiled in a dispute among the taxi drivers for my fare.   I am not sure how things ended at the hotel, but finally one driver managed to get control of my bag and away I went to the airport.  The driver was wearing a 49er jacket and told me he played American football for the local team for a few years..."they" (the locals) do not understand it," he said, "but I think it is the BEST sport."  An amazing comment considering I was in the home town of FC Barcelona, a team that had just crushed AC Milan 4-0 with two goals by Messi on Tuesday night.

Then the real fun started...I arrived at my gate and waited in line with my boarding pass in hand, only to be denied boarding by the gate attendant.  "The plane is overweight," I was told by the supervisor.  So without any recourse, me and 10 other passengers were singled out as unimportant and now labeled "el gordo" by the KLM team.  I will grant you I could stand to lose a few pounds - who couldn't? - but I found it hard to believe how a collective 2000 lbs. from the 10 of us rescued that flight from oblivion.  As a traveler, you have no choice but to accept your unfair fate - the alternative is off to jail, I suppose by trying to crash the gate...so now I am stuck in Spain.

Before I could further allow KLM to ruin my day, I got my friends at United on the phone and they had me re-booked through Frankfurt and then onto to Dulles...only a 4 hour delay.  But wait, there's more because now it is snowing in Germany.  The Lufthansa flight into Barcelona is 60 minutes late and now that connection is in jeopardy.  We finally get out of Spain and onto Frankfurt where it is indeed snowing, but it seemed more like a snow shower than anything else.

With nothing made easy this day, I had to cover the length of the airport and customs in about 45 minutes...I missed out on the duty free shopping but did grab one of their unbelievable pretzel bread turkey sandwiches along the way...and made it to my United flight.  OK, good deal, I would still get home in time to see the end of the Capitals game (a much needed miracle win).  Achtung....it is still snowing friends. In a model of German efficiency, it takes them at least an hour and a half to de-ice the plane.   I could have done it 45 with an ice scrapper and a squeegee.   So *FINALLY* we get in the air and have an uneventful flight to Washington Dulles.  Our late arrival means the arrival area at customs is empty and through Customs I go, free at last on home soil!  However, there remains one last indigity as the good people at Maryland close off all of I-270 to change a road sign!  So finally, at 12:30 AM the next day, I roll into the driveway...27 hours after I started my day to get home.

...And that friends, is why I so LOVE business travel!

Sorry for the rant, but it was a story that had to be told....now onto business:

As you may have seen from my post earlier this week in Racing, Mitch Seavey won the 2013 Iditarod.

Mitch, the 53 year-old former champion, slogged it out in a bit over 9 days.  A good time considering some of the very tough sledding conditions in the warmer Alaskan winter.   His son won last year to become the youngest ever champ, so now they have the bookend for that record in their family with the elder's win as the oldest champ.  You can say what you want about Bo Jackson, but Bo don't know dog sledding...and those dogs are great!

The NFL According to Goodell becomes my Saturday Face-off Issue...

This week we learned that the NFL is considering a rule change that would flag a running back for lowering his head during contact on a running play.  So here is where Goodell is leading the NFL - to a flag football league.  The QB is so sacred now that an oncoming linebacker is penalized for not being able to freeze his motion mid-jump what the quarterback is preparing to throw without being flagged.  Don't even sneeze on him or risk the consequences.   And don't try to break up that pass with a solid hit to the reciever on the crossing route...he gets to catch it and start running so he's not "defense-less." 

Now that the passing game is ruined, on we go to the running game.  Can you imagine a running back bursting through the line and into the secondary seeing a safety ready to take him on and being flagged for illegal contact for running him over like a good power back will do?   Jim Brown, please don't cry.  This is not your NFL anymore.

The only good news is that the NFL is considering dumping the so-called Tuck Rule.  A more ridiculous rule does not exist, so let's do one good thing for the league.

So I ask you, is the NFL better under Goodell, with all its hyper-merchandising, its wear a dress style of play, with its Bountygate and Uncapped Year penalties or did you prefer the era of Pete Rozell with Dynasties like the Packers or Steelers, with the Super Bowl and NFL - AFL merger.  Yes, Pete gave us parity, but at least we know we have a shot every fall for our teams.  

I love Power Football...it looks to be dying a torturous death.

And these few notes:

...Baseball season is only 2 weeks away come Monday, April 1.   Remarkably, March Madness does not end until April 8, the following week.  Is baseball too early or has the commercial side of March Madness taken it too long?  Right into Masters week I might add.

...I appreciate the opportunity to add to my legendary fantasy league futility with the March Madness bracket.  Since I am only smell fumes in the NASCAR Challenge, how bad can I do?  I vow to have the original Bracket of Futility!  

...I mentioned earlier about FC Barcelona...Messi is really quite a talent scoring 2 goals during the European Championship game with Milan.  He has some incredible goal scoring streak going.  If I was a big fan, I guess I would watch the modern day Pele play more often.

Well, I am going to take my jet-lagged bones off to bed again.  I am home this week, so I can be on time - yea!