The World Comes to Fargo...

....And it's not for flood protection! No, the IIHF U-18 Tournament begins tomorrow here in town at the brand new Urban Plains Center. Eight nations represented, the headliners from the United States, Canada, Russia and Sweden...these players will be showing off for scouts, all 30 NHL teams will be here, these guys you'll see getting selected in June's draft. Great chance for Fargo to get on the hockey map over the next ten days, it's going to be a great tournament!

The time has come....

It is that time for the North Dakota State men's basketball team. Five years of waiting has now come down to three days...and three wins. All the Bison need to do is win 3 games in four days and they'll secure the school's first ever trip to the NCAA Tournament. There's a great blog about NDSU's trip by Andy Katz here on ESPN.com...

When Is Enough Enough??

It's been a while, but it'll be worth it trust me...word just came in that Manny Ramirez has just rejected the latest offer from the Dodgers..2 years, 45 million dollars. Would have paid him 25 mil this year, 20 the next..and it was a player option for 2010, which means Manny could have opted out of the deal and went for more money next year! I know Ramirez is a bit off his rocker, but this is a bit much...his agent is what all baseball GM's fear, Scott Boras, he of Alex Rodriguez fame..the same agent that got A-Rod his first 10 year, 252 million dollar deal. Boras believes that in this economic climate he can get a better offer for ManRam...it ain't happening...and I'm glad to see that Boras and Ramirez now share the same weird galaxy...cause it's nowhere near this Earth. Manny is a fantastic ballplayer, he put up great numbers with the Dodgers, singlehandly got them to the postseason and 3 wins shy of the World Series. But Manny needs the Dodgers more than the Dodgers need Manny. They'll go on this spring with whatever combination of players in left field and Manny will sit and wait. The crazy thing is this...there are no other teams bidding for him!! I know Scott Boras is a faithful reader of this blog, so I hate to break the bad news to him, but there's no else calling.Yankees..nope...Mets..nope...Giants...nope(they got outbid by the Twins for Joe Crede for pete's sake!) Can we please have someone in baseball stand up and have some sense? Please! It's good to be back!!

It's Christmas Day!

Well at least for some of us it is as the NHL season begins in North America tonight...the NHL just keeps trying overseas, 10 years ago it was Japan, last year England, at least this year they got hockey playing countries like Sweden and the Czech Republic. They'll play an outdoors game again on New Year's Day at Wrigley Field of all places as the up and coming Blackhawks will host the defending champion Red Wings.

Fearless Prediction for the Final 4 Time:

Eastern Conference Finals- Montreal over Pittsburgh
Western Conference Finals- Detroit over San Jose

Stanley Cup Finals- Detroit over Montreal, 4 games to 3

There ya have it..check back in mid-June!

Now on to the big events...the major league baseball championship series get underway tonight in Philadelphia, it's hard for me to pull for the Phillies since they've dispatched the Mets each of the last two years, but there's a big time reason I'm pulling for them this year:




I've interviewed Coaster several times, he's a local legend here in Fargo and there's the outside chance I'd be heading to the World Series to cover him, so.....

Philadelphia 4-3 over Los Angeles
Boston 4-2 over Tampa Bay

There ya have it...let the fun begin!

Bonehead Moves

In Honor of the name of this blog, a few samples of baseball blindness...in a moment. First a hearty congrats to the Detroit Red Wings winning the Stanley Cup, the 4th title in the last 11 years, making them a dynasty in the way pro sports are these days. The Wings have done it with several of the same components from the late 90's team and the 2002 squad. But they've also done it with suave drafting like Pavel Datsyuk in the 7th round, Henrik Zetterberg in the 8th round. There's no reason to think that they couldn't come back and do it again next year.

Now on to the point of today's rambling...great cover story article in last week's Sports Illustrated on Josh Hamilton, if you haven't read it here's the link:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/albert_chen/05/27/hamilton0602/

Great article on the 1999 top pick who's currently hitting .321 with 17 homers and 68 RBI's...I remember hearing that he was traded last year to Texas from Cincinnati for two no-name pitchers, one has become a name Edinson Volquez, who's teamed with Johnny Cueto to become a pretty good one-two punch for the Reds. Anyway, that doesn't qualify as bonehead, each team got pretty good value, much like a hockey trade of a few years back: Dany Heatley for Marian Hossa. Both the Senators and Thrashers liked that deal a lot, and the Thrashers liked the new deal they got for Hossa, fleecing a No.1 pick and Angelo Esposito from the Penguins for Hossa. But the real reason for the rambling tonight..



I heard Scott Kazmir's name about five times over the past few days, more than likely because of yesterday's baseball draft. Kazmir was a rising star in the Mets organization in 2004, he was pitching lights out for Binghamton when the Mets brass decided to make a move at the trade deadline and send Kazmir to the Devil Rays for Victor Zambrano. The Mets collapsed down the stretch in '04, while Kazmir has went on to great success in Tampa. Now the counterargument to my rambling, "but Dom if the Mets had Scott Kazmir, they wouldn't have had to trade for Johan Santana!" Possibly, who knows the Mets collapse last September could have been avoided...we'll never know. Just another bonehead move...that's all for now, Mets at Padres tonight, Santana on the mound! Belmont Stakes tomorrow, let's see if Big Brown can finish it off!

Rumblings.....

Big sporting weekend is almost over this Memorial Day, but needed to touch on a few things:



First, Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals did not live up to the hype going on, the Red Wings dominated the Penguins basically from the opening faceoff, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin had terrible games, they'll need to be really good in Game 2 if the Pens want a split. Many writers keep referring this matchup to a callback to the 1983 Cup Finals between the Islanders and the Oilers..the Isles swept Edmonton in four games, that was the Islanders 4th straight Cup(which is crazy now to think about)but that Oilers team was loaded. Thanks to the good people at hockeydb.com
for these stats:
G A Pts
Wayne Gretzky 71 125 196
Mark Messier 48 58 106
Glenn Anderson 48 56 104
Jari Kurri 45 59 104

All four all Hall of Famers, the Oilers went on win 4 of the next 5 Stanley Cups...the Penguins are loaded with young talent, but perhaps they've got to lose to learn how to win. We'll see.

The Indy 500 was raced today, one of my favorite sporting events on the calendar..Scott Dixon won the race, a lot of attention was focused on Danica Patrick trying to win the race after she won in Japan.She got tangled up in the pits with Ryan Briscoe, thought there might be an incident there, luckily cooler head prevailed, but that look from Danica would have cut thru stone. Now under normal cicrumstances she'd be the most important female at the race, but not yesterday my good friend Brooke Palmieri was at the race, hope to have some visual evidence tomorrow.

One last thought..Mets lost 4-1 to Colorado, finish road trip 3-6. Two games under .500 at Memorial Day..let's go!

Uh Oh

I hate it when I'm right..it happens so infrequently but here's a little tidbit from my last blog entry in late March:

"But if the Mets start slow this spring, Willie Randolph could be in serious trouble."

I would consider 22-23 a slow start. Especially on the heels of a four game sweep by the hated Braves in Atlanta. Now it's off to Colorado where the Mets got crushed last year. Willie's in trouble, he might not make it back to New York on Monday. I really like Willie Randolph but the team is not responding..this is a team that was supposed to run away with the NL East after getting Johan Santana...trouble is Santana got beat last night..But we haven't reached Memorial Day yet so there's still a lot of time left...just not for Willie Randolph.

Couple of other items...the Stanley Cup Playoffs start Saturday night. The NHL is hoping for a long series, to showcase Sidney Crosby the non-hockey fan. I've got news for the NHL, the non-hockey fan isn't watching the Stanley Cup Finals, because they can't find the Stanley Cup Finals! Until the NHL and ESPN kiss and make up the league won't even make it back to it's pre-lockout status, which wasn't very high, but at least some people were watching. Keep your fingers crossed that it's a fantastic series.

Lastly, saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull last night.Without spoiling it, it was very good...not great...but very good. I'm still in shock that they actually went back and did a 4th Indy, Harrison Ford can still pull it off. The question I have is not counting Star Wars, Indiana Jones or the Jack Ryan movies, what other movies is Harrison Ford good in? Till next time!


Addendum:
To the Harrison Ford item...The Fugitive and Witness