Sunday Edition

Welcome to the Sunday Edition of Big O Sports Blog. Luckily for you this is a sports blog and not a newspaper so the Sunday Edition will not be twice as long and three times as expensive. Today we have kind of a hodge podge of topics including, a plea to Roger Clemens, how the NBA Finals have become ESPN's dead horse that it should stop beating, and a real life version of a player from "Major League", so let's get started.


Hello, Roger? It's Retirement, We Need to Talk

Roger Clemens made his return to Major League baseball yesterday in stint number two with the New York Yankees. Now just to get this out of the way, I am a Yankee Hater, but this isn't about that. This isn't even about the ridiculous amount of money he is being paid. I mean honestly, if someone was going to pay me $17.4 million over the course of four months (it would be five but lets be honest, the Yanks aren't playing in October this year) than I would take it too. This is about the fact that Roger Clemens is old enough to be the father of Phil Hughes, Tyler Clippard, Jeff Karstens, and Chase Wright. If you don't know, those are the names of four players who along with Clemens have also started games for the Yankees this year. Clippard and Hughes actually were both born AFTER Roger made his first Major league appearance some 24 years ago. This is about Roger Clemens latest bout with a terrible disease called The Michael Jordan Syndrome or MJS. Almost every great boxer suffers from it as well. It is when great athletes just don't know when to quit, and therefore force us to purge their last exploits in their particular sport from our memories so we are still able to enjoy their legacy. MJS symptoms include, white knuckles from holding on too long, frequent injury because the body has already transitioned into celebrity softball game mode and golf mode, and the worst symptom of all is the athlete performing as a shell of them former selves.

To be fair, with his last few go-rounds with this illness, Clemens has been lucky and has escaped disaster. The only symptoms visible on Roger are the white knuckles, and lately (last season with the Astros and early this year) the injuries. The only reported issues have been the hamstring and groin issues but if you have been watching his rehab starts this year you may have noticed Clemens flexing his hand and clenching his fist. Make no mistake, this is ALWAYS a bad sign for pitchers. I had a shoulder reconstructed and had complications after a broken elbow during my pitching career, so believe me; flexing of the hand is bad news. With two of the three symptoms of MJS already in place for Roger, the third, decreased performance, is sure to follow. So please Roger, from a baseball fan to a baseball great, I am asking you to hang it up. Leave the rest of your $17.4 million on the table and walk (gingerly, don't want to aggrivate anything) into the Hall of Fame where you belong. You are going to end up in Cooperstown no matter what you do (as long as you don't pull a Pete Rose), but don't disgrace who you are and what you have accomplished by having to be wheeled into the Hall. Just for the record, I am not a Roger Clemens fan at all, but I don't want baseball fans to have to go through what basketball fans did when Michael Jordan tried to rescue the Wizards . . . And yes even mentioning that gives me horrid flashbacks. Excuse me while I assume the fetal position.

After 3 Days, Stephen A. Smith Still Only One Excited about NBA Finals

The score of Game 1 of the NBA Finals could have easily been mistaken for a WNBA score. The Spurs are always boring to watch, that is not news to anyone. Really the only chance of this series becoming interesting is if Lebron busts out for another performance like he did in Game 5 against the Pistons, this is also not news to anyone. However it has been three days since the Cavs and Spurs played to kick-off the Finals and ESPN still demands that at least half of every Sportscenter is committed to covering the series. OK, maybe not half the show, but honestly Game 1 can be summed up in approximately 30 seconds, time me. Both teams played good defense. Lebron had a bad game. The rest of the Cavs still suck. How's my time? I am pretty sure I still have 15 seconds left. If I really felt it necessary I would use the remaining time begging Tim Duncan to grow a personality or for Manu Ginobli to stop acting like its the World Cup so maybe he should try to stay on his feet for more than four consecutive steps. Here is what I want; for the love of everything good and holy, don't drag out and over-dramatize the NBA Finals. Every time I see highlights from Game 1 they are accompanied by background music which I am pretty sure they stole directly from the battle scenes in Gladiator. These highlights are directly followed by Stephen A. Smith screaming at the top of his lungs for several minutes without even accidentally managing to construct a coherent thought through the course of his rant. Even if the series was thrilling it would be difficult for this to be acceptable, in a defensively dominated series ESPN's antics have left fans searching for a good wall to bang their head against as a suitable substitute for the entertainment they once got from basketball.

The solution to this problem is very very simple. Don't play a seven game series (or mostly likely four or fives games in this case) over the course of three weeks. Game 1, Game 2, travel day, Game 3, Game 4, Game 5, travel day, Game 6, Game 7, victory parade. I did not think it was physically possible but I am fairly certain I just unveiled a plan to get the NBA Finals done in a week and a half. Seriously, this needs to happen otherwise people are going to start rioting outside of ESPN studios demanding they stop beating the dead horse which is the NBA Finals.

Batting 7th for the Boston Red Sox . . . Pedro Cerrano?

In the 1989 comedy "Major League" there is a player named Pedro Cerrano (aka the Allstate insurance guy and the president in "24") who is depicted if my memory serves me as Dominican. During the movie Cerrano says something to the effect of "Me hit straight ball very far, me no hit crooked ball." Each time Cerrano bats in the movie, it confirms this statement; fastballs he crushes, curveballs not so much. While watching a Red Sox game the other day I witnessed the real life incarnation of Pedro Cerrano, his name is Wily Mo Pena. I saw Pena take batting practice once and he has more power than David Ortiz or Manny Ramirez, there is no doubt in my mind about that. Every once in a while this power translates to in game situations but most of the time his at bats go something like this: Slider starts on the outside corner, Wily Mo swings with all his might, slider darts and ends up a foot and a half off of the plate, Wily Mo falls down. I don't really have a real point in bringing this up. I actually love Wily Mo Pena (yes mostly just because of his name), so I am not trying to bag on him or anything. I just thought it needed to be brought to the publics attention that Wily Mo Pena is Pedro Cerrano. Thanks to Justin Norvig for bringing this to my attention.

That's the Sunday Edition everybody. Hope you had a great weekend, and as always check back for new posts and leave your comments.