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The Week That Was: Bench Warmers Edition
A weekly review of the past week in sports and maybe not sports. Everyone else has a weekly list or 8 so why not us?
(Editor’s note: Wally went ’up nort’ this weekend ’cause he couldn’t wait any longer to see snow so this week’s edition is a joint effort by The BigSnakeMan and The Man Who Is Not BigSnakeMan.)
1. Packers pee down their collective leg in Tampa. Sadly, that wasn’t just perspiration from the Florida heat. Protection problems continue to be an issue. Someone needs to call in those wise guys from the Miller Lite ads that got yanked from the Brewers broadcasts last summer. (Whoa!)
2. Fear and loathing in Packerland about the loss to the Bucs. Bloggers and callers to sports-talk radio lighting torches and gathering pitchforks, anarchy in the streets, dogs and cats sleeping together…and the offense has a “come to Jesus” session. If that meeting doesn’t show results, the team is thinking about calling in Dr. Phil.
3. The Bucks munch on Denver’s Nuggets and prance to a quick 4-2 start. Rookie guard Brandon Jennings getting early R.O.Y. run from none other than Sir Charles. How can this possibly end well?
4. Ryan Braun wins second straight Silver Slugger, but no Gold Gloves — again — for the Crew; now 27 years and running. That’s a record of defensive futility that might help explain only 2.5 playoff appearances in 40 seasons of existence. You’d think they’d have had at least one Gold Glover by accident in all that time.
5. The Brewers hope to be no Lackey in hunt for pitching help as GM Doug Melvin meets with John’s agent. Let’s hope they can land him: Free agency is flush with poor prospects populated by pitchers just short of AARP eligibility.
6. Badgers cagers (homage to the late Stevens Point Journal scribe Don Friday) wrap the exhibition season by thumping a far less Superior team and ink three recruits for the 2010-11 team. I am delighted that Evan Anderson was named second-team All-Cloverbelt Conference — Lionel Crawford is impressed, too.
7. Steve Stricker is Madison Magazine’s Person of the Year. After that honor, who cares about being PGA Tour Player of the Year.
8. Football Badgers hang on in Bloomington and return home to face the reeling Wolverines. Amazingly, BADgers only one game out of first, not having beaten a good team since maybe Fresno State; underscoring the “quality” of the Big(11)Ten.
9. Soon to be former MLBPA leader Don Fehr has been hired as a consultant to the NHL Players Association in its effort to find a new executive director. That should be the death knell to a largely after-thought league that’s already been marginalized as a professional sport.
10. Notre Dame Fighting Irish lose at home to Navy for 2nd time in last 3 seasons. Feel free to stick a harpoon in Charlie Weis’ coaching tenure in South Bend.
4 Comments
11.) Late honorable mention goes to Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler, who threw 5 INT’s in leading his team to a 10-6 loss Thursday night in San Francisco. To borrow from that noted philosopher Denny Green, Cutler is who we thought he was.
The Mike McCarthy v. Assistant to the Assistant Groundskeeper controversy epitomizes the current lack of focus on the task at hand. Cowboys 30 Packers 14.
Unfortunately, I’m afraid you’re right. This is one game I’m glad I’m not attending in person. It could get ugly; both on the field and in the stands.
I think the chances of ugliness are greater than the chances of seeing a crisp Packer performance. I have it at DAL 34 GB 20. I will be happy if the Packers show some balls, play hard, look sharp and make a game of it, but I don’t like the way this one is setting up.
You know, for all the shit he took, this is the sort of game that Mike Sherman seemed to win. In 2000 and again in 2004 the team was at a junction point when the season seemed to be taking (5-7 in 2000; 1-4 in 2004) and both times Sherman’s teams responded with strong stretches. I think McCarthy is at a similar moment of truth.