The Sports Review

There are a couple interesting points in baseball news that I want to highlight. Obviously, the biggest story is that the World Series between the Phillies and Yankees will be beginning this week. For anyone not on the East Coast, this is a little bit boring perhaps, even though there will be a lot of great play with two strong offensive teams in the running. Another interesting piece of news is that the St. Louis Cardinals will bring back Tony LaRussa for next season, and he was able to get the team to bring in Mark McGwire as hitting coach. This will hopefully give the team bigger batting averages than before. McGwire is still partly mired in controversy from his potential dealings with steroids and such. But if he can show that the team is able to get better with his help, he might be able to pull his reputation back.

Last night, the Phillies beat the Dodgers 10-4 in Game 5 of the NLCS. This is the end of the series and the Phillies are headed back to the World Series. Philadelphia is rejoicing at the possibility of a two-peat for their team that hadn’t won in decades. They held their team together and were very steady throughout the year. The Dodgers, however, ended up with a big disappointment. They had bulked up their team over the offseason, and added Jim Thome and some other tough players during the year. Some of this team will be back next year. Manny Ramirez might not. Thome probably will not. But they have a lot of young players and they’ll be back. The Phillies play on, and will probably meet the New York Yankees in the World Series.

Mark Sanchez is having his pro football growing pains now. His team started out at 3-0 and has now lost 3 in a row. The latest meltdown was his disappointment in the Meadowlands against the Buffalo Bills. Sanchez threw 5 interceptions, leading the Bills to a 16-13 win. It especially stings because it was against a divisional rival and because he hadn’t had such a poor performance in the NFL yet. He knows that he let the team down, in a sense, but his coaches are no doubt telling him that he will have other bad games in the future. Every QB has tough games and most of them bounce back. We’ll get to see how well he takes it next weekend and in the following weeks. Unfortunately, the team doesn’t have that extra cushion of a 3-0 start any longer, so they will have to push back against the Patriots and other teams.

You might not have noticed it, what with all the interest in the baseball postseason and the NFL’s opening weeks, but the NHL season has already begun as well. There are several teams with high expectations going into the long season. Get cheap hockey tickets to be part of the action this year. The Detroit Red Wings are one team that has some big plans this season. But they will have to get their goalkeeper position back in order before they can make it back to the finals. The San Jose Sharks are another team that hopes to finally have a break out season. They looked to be on the verge of going deep into the playoffs at the end of last season, but they got dumped by the surging Anaheim Ducks. Both teams expect to have extraordinary years, so don’t be surprised if there’s a rematch. These are only a few of the amazing teams that we will get to watch this season. Make sure to secure your tickets and enjoy hockey live in person!

We are down to the final four in the MLB playoffs. In the American league, we saw two sweeps in the divisional series. The Yankees made quick work of the upstart Minnesota Twins in three games. There weren’t any big surprises there. The Angels swept the Red Sox, which was unexpected, but with Boston playing at the level of AAA baseball, it was a normal outcome. This pits the Angels against the Yankees, which will be a very interesting series and New York may finally meet their match. On the other side, the Dodgers and the Phillies will have a rematch of last year’s NLCS. The Phillies won it last time, but the Dodgers have more firepower this year than they did last year. It’s only teams from the coasts remaining in the playoffs. We could have an all-California series or an all NYC-Philly series. Or it might be several long flights for the World Series. Keep watching to see who gets it!

With a few weeks finished in the NCAA Big 12 North, we have a little bit of an idea how the teams are doing. Kansas did a great job last year, though they weren’t as good as their expectations were at the beginning of the year. This year will be similarly difficult for them, but they have more experience. They have won back-to-back bowls now and are expected to be at the top of the conference. As of yet, they haven’t played any games within the conference, but are undefeated outside of it. Although the Jayhawks have one of the more difficult schedules that you could imagine, it will be an impressive year for them, by all good guesses. They will play against Oklahoma. Texas, Texas Tech and some other very difficult opponents. But they have a proven QB and some strong defense that will probably carry them through. KU football tickets will be in great demand this year, so if you want to see a game, you know where to get them!

Last night, the Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings took each other on in a classic NFC North fight. It was a hard-fought game, staying tied for most of the first half. But then Favre started to light it up against a weak Packer defense. He started to read the defense better than most people and was able to chuck the ball right out. There were mistakes in coverage and bad pass protection and lack of catching on the part of the Pack. Aaron Rodgers played an outstanding game despite all these things. He orchestrated more than 300 yards of offense. The Vikings had somewhat less, but they were able to get big plays done. The Vikings are now 4-0 and the Pack is 2-2

The Olympics might have been able to come to the US in Chicago in 2016, but today the four bid cities, Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janiero and Tokyo put forward their final proposals. These are some of the best cities in the world and it was great to hear their proposals. Chicago’s, unfortunately, was a little bit more focused on the benefits to the city, rather than towards the world and the games. When it came down to it, Chicago was the first city to be bumped from the voting and Tokyo shortly thereafter. In the end, it was Rio that won the games and they will immediately begin to build and develop all the plans that they had put together. Chicago, alas, didn’t win, but hopefully they will have gained something good from the process.