Every baseball fan is eager to see the Philadelphia Phillies and Atlanta Braves get the 2009 season started on Sunday night, for many reasons.
Spring training got extended due to the World Baseball Classic. Not only does that make for a late season opener, it drags the World Series into November, where a weather catastrophe is more likely. Oh yeah, and the off-season was nothing short of a drag, between the A-Rod steroid saga and the way a bad economy could affect the game’s present and future.
So it’s high time to actually talk about the game on the field...

CATEGORY: Baseball

TAGS: MLB, 2009 season, outlook

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When North Carolina took to the floor at Ford Field on Nov. 30 against Michigan State, barely 20,000 were in the building. And most yawned through the affair as the full-strength Tar Heels crushed the less-than-full-strength Spartans 98-63.
Fast forward to tomorrow night, and the sound those same Carolina players will hear in that same building when they run out to that same court for the NCAA championship game.
Now it will number 70,000, and most of them will be in green, booing - at least until their Spartans show up, at which time the roar will be impossible to imagine unless you're there.
For this title game has leaped past the boundaries of sport...

CATEGORY: Basketball

TAGS: Final Four, North Carolina, Michigan State

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Really, did we need to go through the whole darn college basketball season when the team on top at the start ended up on top?
Of course, the story is more complicated than that, but North Carolina left zero questions on its way to the NCAA crown Monday night in Detroit.
On the board, the final score in Ford Field read North Carolina 89, Michigan State 71 - but watching it unfold, it felt about 15 points more lopsided, even when the Spartans tried in vain to erase the big deficit in the second half.
While Carolina won it all in 2009, the seeds of this crown were planted 12 months earlier, in San Antonio. The Tar Heels went into that Final Four hesitant - and Kansas jumped on them 40-12...

CATEGORY: Basketball

TAGS: North Carolina, NCAA champions

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Some who follow golf, and others who don’t, will convince you right now that the 73rd edition of the Masters is already over, that it concluded March 29 just after sunset in Orlando.
For when Tiger Woods completed his Bay Hill comeback with his latest tournament-winning 72nd hole birdie putt in the gloaming, the wags already began to construct his Augusta National victory speech. No need for anyone else to show up, right?
Well, sad news to report – the Masters will still commence Thursday morning when Arnold Palmer hits the ceremonial opening drive the way Gene Sarazen, Byron Nelson and Sam Snead used to do in decades past.
But wait, you ask...

CATEGORY: Golf

TAGS: Masters, 2009, Augusta National, preview

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Two weeks of action might be enough time to start assessing what we might have in high school boys lacrosse for 2009.
Things are strong here, as always. There's West Genesee with its 16 state titles, LaFayette celebrating 50 years of lax tradition, and a lot more depth in terms of programs ready to take the next step.
Of course, the Class A story starts with those Wildcats of Camillus, who have not been budged from their sectional crown since 2002 - seven straight years, in other words.
Having Jordan Rogers and a deep group of attackers in front, plus the usual stout defense and the underrated Steve Mahle in the net, means Mike Messere is nearly certain to get to 700 career wins before the spring is done.
But another championship? That isn't so certain...

CATEGORY: Lacrosse

TAGS: High School, Section III season, boys, preview

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We've spent the last two seasons in girls lacrosse working toward the exact same conclusion, at least from the Section III standpoint.
That meant Skaneateles conquering Class C, though the number of legitimate challengers grew. That meant Carthage handling the Class B load, though the playoff field was small.
And it meant West Genesee achieving perfection, twice over, in Class A - 48 games, 48 victories, back-to-back state championships...

CATEGORY: Lacrosse

TAGS: Section III, girls lacrosse, Baldwinsville, West Genesee

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A single day of golf. One round, 18 holes. Not enough time to spin something deep and literary, right?
Yet that's exactly what the 73rd Masters delivered on an Easter Sunday that belonged on a postcard. Two megastars seized the imagination and charged to the top as the Augusta National masses lost their minds. A quiet Texan and a nice guy from Kentucky pushing 50 duked it out at the top most of the afternoon.
And none of them won.
Angel Cabrera, forgotten at the turn, behind most of the round, found himself accepting the green jacket as the sun set behind the Georgia pines...

CATEGORY: Golf

TAGS: Masters, final round, Tiger, Mickelson, Perry, Campbell, Cabrera

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Just imagine it now, if you will. The two weeks of hype are over. Millions around the world tune in. Commercials cost $3 million per 30 seconds. Pearl Jam plays halftime. Two tough, gritty football teams will battle once more for rings and memories that will last forever.
Yes, it’s hat most decadent of American sports rituals, the Super Bowl. And it might be played after Valentine’s Day.
No doubt, the retailers would be thrilled. A flurry of flowers, heart-shaped candy boxes and romantic dinners one week, an orgy of pizza, wings and potato chips the next. About the only thing healthy would be the first-quarter profit margin.
This is no mere fantasy...

CATEGORY: Football (American)

TAGS: NFL, longer season, arguments

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Somewhat of a big deal was made a few years ago when the Class AA schools in Section III, looking to run their own ship, broke away from the Onondaga High School League.
They formed the CNY Counties League, and while it stretched north to Oswego and Central Square, and west to Auburn, the league centered itself in Onondaga County with the city schools, plus five big suburban outlets - West Genesee, Baldwinsville, Liverpool, Cicero-North Syracuse and Fayetteville-Manlius.
Oh yeah, you also had those two schools well to the east, Utica's Proctor and Rome's Free Academy.
As long as they were playing home games, it was great. But that was just half the time.
The road trips ranged from long (to a place like F-M or Henninger) to longer (Oswego) to longest...

CATEGORY: General Society

TAGS: Utica Proctor, Rome Free Academy, move, Tri-Valley League

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We've spent a great deal of time in the last week in the sports world saying farewells we didn't want to give.
The first one was the most cruel, by far, for it involved youth and talent robbed too soon. Everything that followed involved older men and longer legacies, but it still was sad to see them depart.
One night, the Angels' Nick Adenhart was pitching six scorless innings against Oakland. The next night, he was dead at 22, in the most heinous manner, as a passenger in a car struck by a drunk driver running a red light just a few miles from the ballpark in Anaheim.
Just when the Angels' franchise appeared to escape from decades full of shadows (see Lyman Bostock or Donnie Moore), this happens...

CATEGORY: General Sports

TAGS: Nick Adenhart, Harry Kalas, Mark Fidrych, John Madden

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So we're a week from the NFL Draft, which means soon enough men with names like Kiper and McShay can go away for a while, plus instant draft grades - wait, I thought it takes two or three years to grade these things.
Still, this is a useful time to try and summarize what the 32 teams had to deal with since Pittsburgh claimed ring number six in Tampa. This will save you months of catching-up until the real games start in September.
Arizona lost its coordinators, kept Kurt Warner, but is likely to see Anquan Boldin traded away. Atlanta mostly kept quiet, a welcome sight after all the turmoil of years past. Ray Lewis found his way back to Baltimore - hard to imagine him anywhere but in a Ravens jersey...

CATEGORY: Football (American)

TAGS: NFL, off-season, what happened

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True, it's just two days of NBA playoff activity, but of the first six games, four road teams won. Only the overwhelming favorites, Cleveland and L.A. won in front of the home fans.
Hold on here. Everyone that follows this game for a living has already skipped ahead to June so Kobe and LeBron can have their little one-on-one, with other players, good as they are, only serving as incidental characters even though it's allegedly a team game.
Are the other NBA teams too willing to step aside? Boston doesn't have Kevin Garnett, and the Bulls have a pulse. Orlando blows an 18-point fourth-quarter lead. Portland doesn't even enter the argument against Houston, and Dallas comes back in the fourth quarter to win at San Antonio.
Hey, maybe this isn't so bad...

CATEGORY: Sports News

TAGS: NBA, NHL playoffs, baseball, Greg Paulus

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April 20, 1999, and after another exhausting day at work I trudge back home and nap for a few minutes, only to wake up, switch on the TV and witness pure horror, right in my own country.
Yes, at that point mass shootings at schools, in locales from Oregon to Arkansas, had become common and a bit numbing to the soul. But what took place in the Denver suburb of Littleton, at a school called Columbine, seared into my soul, and has never left.
Through the deadly work of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, 12 teenagers and one teacher lay dead in the library and cafeteria, and others were wounded. The image of kids and teachers frantically escaping the school still brings cold chills.
What’s more, the wound to our society remains open and unhealed...

CATEGORY: Commentary & Debate

TAGS: Columbine, 10th anniversary, memories, thoughts

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Admit that you were intrigued when word leaked out, a week or so ago, that Greg Paulus, done with Duke basketball, had undergone a workout with the Green Bay Packers. As if his four-year hoops career had never taken place.
Okay, so maybe the NFL was not realistic. But a year of college fine-tuning is possible. Since Paulus is graduating, he can go anywhere and play on the gridiron for a year.
A whole lot of people are interested, Michigan included. But the buzz is picking up that, maybe, Paulus will work in the Carrier Dome next fall. And the story would come full circle.
Go back four and a half years, to the fall of 2004, when Paulus was leading CBA to the state Class AA football title...

CATEGORY: Football (American)

TAGS: Greg Paulus, SU, returning?

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Right about now, the majority of teams in Section III lacrosse, boys and girls alike, have reached a midway point in the regular season, which is a good time to evaluate the scene.
We'll start with the girls, and change was in the air before the season even began as Carthage, rulers of Class B the last two seasons, found themselves in Class C this time, joined by a full boat of contenders, all trying to knock off the Skaneateles crown.
That might have already happened...

CATEGORY: Lacrosse

TAGS: Section III, boys and girls lacrosse, midseason

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Another late April Sunday afternoon, another spring race at Talladega, another Big One unleashed itself. No, make that two - or better yet, three.
And it's the last one, where Carl Edwards, spun out and sent airborne by Brad Keselowski before the checkered flag flew, that has both NASCAR gearheads and non-fans engaged in vigorous debate over just what the heck to do next.
Surprised? Why? Talladega was built in the middle of Alabama farmland 40 years ago, and upon first sight of this 2.66-mile, 33-degree banking-in-the-turn monstrosity, the drivers, fearless good ol' boys 51 other weeks of the year, staged a strike...

CATEGORY: Motor Sports

TAGS: NASCAR, Talladega, risks, crashes

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Two press conferences, on the same Monday, about 60 miles apart in terms of physical distance – yet worlds apart in terms of mood and message.
They were quite happy in Cortland, with the announcement that the New York Jets would be setting up its training camp at the sparkling SUNY-Cortland football complex. Business leaders gloated and the governor, David Paterson, turned up. It could bring thousands of fans and millions in revenue.
Just an hour away, in Corning, the mood was glum and grim. More business and community leaders on hand, announcing that the Corning Classic, an LPGA Tour staple for three decades, would fold after one more tournament next month...

CATEGORY: General Sports

TAGS: Sports, costs, economy

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And you thought that you were going to be spared from a Barack-Obama-At-100-Days column...
Actually, that was the original plan. Forget hours of cable TV news blabber or op-ed pieces, left and right, saying the predictable things, for it really can be summed up in a sentence or two.
The new president is trying a lot of things to prop up the economy and restore America's standing in the world...

CATEGORY: Government

TAGS: Obama, 100 days, Arlen Specter, switch

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On this fine Wednesday morning, somewhere the New York Rangers are flogging themselves. But that's downright tame compared to how the New Jersey Devils feel.
Really, the Rangers lost to Washington when it got blindsided in Games 5 and 6 and Henrik Lunqvist startd to look normal. The recovery to play a tough Game 7 floundered when Sergei Federov (!) put home the winner late in regulation.
New Jersey? Painful is too nice a word...

CATEGORY: Hockey

TAGS: NHL, playoffs, second-round preview

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In the 10 seasons he prowled the Syracuse sidelines and conquered Central New York with his New England charm, Dick MacPherson won 66 games, lost 46 of them, and tied four. One of those ties was rather infamous around these parts.
Think of it 66-44-4. Good, yes, but the stuff of legends? The kind of effort that merits a call to the College Football Hall of Fame?
Well, yes, that was today's happy news - though it didn't make much for Coach Mac to smile.
Many around here don't even remember that Coach Mac made his first name at Massachusetts in the 1970s, owning the Yankee Conference.
Then came 1981...

CATEGORY: Football (American)

TAGS: Dick MacPherson, SU, College Football Hall of Fame

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