THE WEEK IS OVER ALREADY? AUG 12-19

By sjacobs • August 19, 2007

Scott Jacobs

We’re handing out gold stars, rare soccer compliments, and revisiting some ol’ 2007 baseball picks in the first ever edition of The Week is Over? Dog Days of Summer Edition

What a week for the American sports fan. So much to look back on during this hectic, crazy seven day period, where more was discussed about what happened off the field than what happened on it. We went an entire week without Sportscenter shoving Yankee bandwagon material down our face, and Steve Phillips even stood by his playoff picks that the Yankees and Mets would both miss the playoffs. Has hell frozen over? Or was it just another week, out of 52. The first in a new weekly column “Wow, the Week is over already?”

This week’s irrelevant Soccer bit of the week:

David Beckham is finally showing why the LA Galaxy spent all that money on him. Now, I’m not a soccer fan, nor a believer that he is going to revolutionize the sport in America, but I will give him credit for drawing 66,000 butts to the Meadowlands, leading me to ask: Is New Jersey the only place that has that many fair weather soccer fans, or is Giants Stadium the only place where that many people want to watch a soccer game in America? Enjoy it while you can Becks, because come football season, and baseball stretch run, you’ll be nothing but a side note on the back page of the sports section.

So I guess we all agree then?
The USC Trojans, coming off a terrific Rose Bowl win over Michigan, are so far and away the unanimous number one team in the land that I’ve yet to find a person, never mind a publication that thinks otherwise. Then again, I have yet to poll people from Baton Rouge, Blacksburg, or even Morgantown, so maybe that feeling isn’t mutual throughout the country. One thing is for certain though: USC is not a lock. You hear that America? USC is no lock to win it all. After all, they lost to UCLA in an ugly struggle the last game of the regular season, and beat a deflated Michigan team to pad their record heading into 2007. They’re very good, and will be tough to beat, but they’ve got kryptonite. Someone just may figure it out before that Sugar Bowl in New Orleans is played too.

This week’s “why we need the NFL more then ever” one minute thought:

Tim Donaghy, Michael Vick, Barry Bonds. Um, that’s a wrap on the summer folks. If you wanted to summarize the three biggest stories of this embattled summer sports calendar, that would be the three. Those stories are the reason the NFL needs to start their season already. Day in and day out it is just overkill on all three of these stories, though Bonds seems to have faded into oblivion in the public since breaking the record. I want these other two stories to not only resolve themselves, but to go away entirely. Nothing good is coming out of either of these stories, and just like the news, Sportscenter is the same: we’d rather focus on criminals and cheating, then great stories and fair play. And that’s all there is to it. Once the NFL season starts however, and baseball hits their stretch run things will be better, and there will be more things to block out these annoying not to mention disturbing distractions from our playing fields.

Revisiting an old friend, my baseball picks from the start of the year, and what I said then compared to what I think now (in italics):

NL EAST: 1. NYM 2. ATL 3. FLA 4. PHI 5. WAS
Marlins start slow, finish strong, as big expectations await them for 2008
(I had the Mets winning the division and I stand by that. As for the Marlins finishing third, well I put way too much stock in a team too young and still a good year or two away. Braves and Phillies will fight it out for second)

NL CENTRAL: 1. CHI- 2. STL (WC) 3. HOU 4. MIL 5. CIN 6. PIT
Cubs spending spree pays off (Get it? Pays off? Cause they spent all that money)
(I don’t want to see nothing, but, Cubs first! They’re in first now. As for the rest of the division I messed up. Milwaukee, I didn’t think you’d be very good, kinda like the way you’ve been playing these last few weeks)

NL WEST: 1. ARZ- 2. LA 3. SD 4. SF 5. COL
Youth is served? Well, in the open NL West hell just froze over
(I’m just going to pat myself on the back right now for a bold pick that appears to be holding up. The D’backs own the largest division lead in the NL and the best record in the NL too. In fact, I think Hell just froze over. Again, rest of the division, a work in progress as far as my picks are

concerned)

AL EAST: 1. NYY 2. BOS 3. TOR 4. TB 5. BAL
Yankees win division again. (Big surprise people. Now go back to whatever you were doing)
(I vowed I wouldn’t pick the Yanks to lose the division until it finally happened. Well, here is the first of many steps to proclaiming I think the reign of power has shifted. There is still time for the Yanks to make up five games, but I think it is really questionable if that pitching staff can hold up once the hitting comes back to earth)

AL CENTRAL: 1. DET 2. CHI 3. MIN 4. CLE 5. KC
Tigers win division barely, by eeking it out over White Sox (Don’t you just love that word: eek?)
(I still love the word eek, and as of now my pick was perfect (I meant in terms of having that division race being really close). I think if you swap the White Sox and Indians, and then move the Indians ahead, my picks would be on the money right now. O wait, that doesn’t say much does it?)

AL WEST: 1. ANA 2. SEA 3. OAK 4. TEX
This is going to sound intelligent: Any one of the four teams in this division could win the division. In other news: The team that scores the most runs in a nine inning game has the most likely chance of winning
(Brilliant! Four for four right now going into the last six weeks. As stupid as my reasoning sounded at the time, it doesn’t sound so dumb now. Think about it? How many people had Seattle two games back at this point? Uh, no one? No, no, Seattle fans don’t count)

Thanks for reading everybody, and come back next week when we talk about Brady Quinn’s rise to preseason stardom. Yay! (I mean, not).

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