Seven Thoughts

There are a lot of thoughts on my mind that don't call for posts. Because 7 is my friend Margot's favorite number, I'll dish 7 of them at you. I made that up, but if you follow on twitter, I'll should you out on the blog. Margot said she would send me stuff, but hasn't sent it yet. I did notice someone taking pictures of me when I was showering, so I think I know what her real intentions were. Then again, I was showering with a hose in the middle of a busy intersection. It was probably all the ladies wanting a picture they could keep forever. 

I don't really follow college baseball. The major problem I have with it are the aluminum bats. They seem so high schooly. I'm of the camp that they should use wooden bats, because that's what professionals use. You don't see college basketball players using a women's ball. You don't see college football players playing with a nerf ball. Those were unbelievably lame examples that do more to hinder my point than to support it. The ping sound immediately makes me think of little league. As someone who played and coached little league, I'm quite familiar with the sound. It didn't happen a lot with my bat until my 6th grade year. That's when I started steroids. Our team went undefeated, and I was the second best hitter. The next year, I ended up on the 8th grade team, and like a Greg Vaughn, who probably used steriods I'm guessing, I fell off a cliff. The sweet ping was no longer heard. The ping was heard many times the past couple days when the Bearcats played Miami. UC won a slugfest on Tuesday 9-6. Yesterday, they were pounded 10-4. I talked to one of the players after the game (I absolutely did not) and he told me that all the J. Crew and Abercrombie threw the team off. He said he also heard someone playing the Cranberries, and thought it was 1995. The Bearcats have to finish in the top 5 or 6 in the Big East to make the BET to then make a run at the CWS. UC is 26-22. They've got a shot. The Bearcats play a crucial 3 game set with Seton Hall this weekend. There is a double header on Saturday if you want to make the trip.

Like many of you, I was a little conflicted in who to root for in the Celtics/Heat series. That was until they started playing. God, I hate Boston. I always have. The green uniforms don't help. I don't like the Heat either, mainly because of LeBron. But, in this series, they were the lesser of two evils in my book. I can root for Dwyane Wade. I can't root for Kevin Garnett, or Paul Pierce or Rondo. I hope to hell that the Bulls close out the Hawks tomorrow, so they are the ones playing Miami. I have an intense dislike of the Hawks as well. A lot of it has to do with me being a bandwagon Bulls fan in the age of Jordan, and they played the Hawks a couple times. The Hawks had the god awful uniforms with the hawk with it's wings spread that I hated. It also had the double colors, which are ugly. Judge for yourself.
 
This exercise in hate has made me think of other teams I don't like rationally, or irrationally. Here is a small list, and reasons why.

• Celtics - covered
• Heat - covered
• Hawks - again
• Lakers - They are the Lakers
• Clippers - Hate the name, logo and the fact they share an arena with the Lakers
• T-Wolves - Stupid uniforms and logo
• Astros - Bagwell and Biggio
• A's - Their stadium
• Mets - Their uniforms are like Yankee rip offs and Mike Piazza
• Yankees - Duh
• Cubs - They suck
• Pirates - They are so bad that I just don't like watching them ever
• Orioles - I have no idea why I hate the Orioles
• Cardinals - They suck just as much as the Cubs
• Tigers - They were my team in RBI baseball, but I just don't like them now
• Rockies - It might be the purple
• Chargers - I didn't like Tomlinson ever. And I always rooted for the Colts
• Patriots - They are team hate in the NFL
• Dolphins - Their helmets
• Jets - They are the Jets. 
• Redskins - The fact everyone thinks they are always going to be good and they don't win
• Steelers - Fuck the Steelers
• Browns - I liked Eric Metcalf, but have not liked a Brown since. Maybe Josh Cribbs. 
• Ravens - They stole a team, and they are just stupid jerks
• Jaguars - Jacksonville doesn't like them, why should I? 
• Saints - Overhyped to the point of my annoyance and dislike. I was happy Seattle beat them. 

There is a pretty giant game 7 in the NHL playoffs tonight. It's the Detroit Red Wings at the San Jose Sharks. I mentioned a week ago that I was rooting for the Sharks in these playoffs. That changed when they went up 3-0. For some reason, I switched over to Detroit. Probably because of Justin Abdelkader. I love his name. Adbelkader. It's just awesome. I wish my last name was Abdelkader. It sounds kick ass. Anyway, the Red Wings have come from 3-0 back, to tie the series. Games 5 and 6 were dynamite to watch. The Red Wings erased a 3-1 deficit to win 4-3, and came back from down 1-0 in the 3rd period to win 3-1. It should be a tremendous game. My second favorite player in the playoffs is Devin Setoguchi. Also because of his name. I have no idea if Abdelkader and Setoguchi are good, but they are the official players of Bearcats Blog. 

 
Like many of you, I'm a fan of the Cincinnati Reds. Like many of you, I have a couple of problems with the team. Renteria not playing third while the best option of shortstop is at third is annoying, Jonny Gomes not hitting at all is annoying, but the number one thing is the way Dusty Baker is handling the pitching staff. He's pulling all the wrong strings. I don't know why Leake was out there in the 9th against the Astros. It made zero sense. The way he brazenly used Chapman by throwing him 4 times in 5 days has ruined him. He hasn't gotten anyone out in his last 2 outings. Billy Bray is great, but is only facing one batter at a time. Cordero is a mess it seems 30% of the time, which is too much for a closer, and Dusty does nothing about any of this. There's only so much a man can do, but that man is getting paid a lot of money to do it better. Get your head out of your ass. Also, there is a fake John Fay twitter and it retweeted one of my comments after the game. It made me laugh. 

Chris Mack signed on for 7 more years at X. If he's gonna coach Crosstown Shootouts like he did last year, I'm all for it. I think Mack is a very good coach, and will take Xavier places. My intense hate for Xavier has faded over the years into a respect. While that sickens younger me, older me is happy to see that Cincinnati is a place where players come if they wanna ball in the spotlight. The Bearcats are on their way back. Xavier has established themself. It's only a good thing. I would love that rivalry to heat back up to nuclear proportions. I don't think it'll happen unless Tu Holloway and Cashmere Wright get in a fist fight this summer that starts a brawl in a summer league game, but I can hope. Top flight Shootouts are a thing that need to happen again.

Speaking of Shootouts of the past, twitter pal Bucky wrote a piece on his blog about Bob Huggins. He brought up a couple of things I didn't think about. I don't agree with his claim that Huggs would have won a title, we've seen him get outcoached many a time in big games, and not so big games. But, I think the part about recruiting was very interesting. UC could have pulled a lot of 1 and done guys who had success at other places. OJ Mayo could have been a UC guy. As could Bill Walker. Mike Beasley is another one. If he could have brought in top flight recruits with the normally solid guys he developed, who knows what could have been? It appeared that UC was on a slight decline when Huggins left. Could he have gotten the White, and Hicks team to the tournament when Kennedy only got them to the NIT? Probably. It's hard to say after that, because there was nothing left. It wouldn't have been great times forever. Unfortunately, Huggins happened off the court. The way things could have been is a fun game to play, but wishful dreaming is, in fact, dreaming.