That stunning, spectacular burst of summer we received on this first weekend of April just begs us all to put away our parkas and head outside, take a walk, swim – or go swing a bat.

Yes, baseball is starting again. In the wake of a 2009 that was entirely conventional, right down to the 27th Yankees title, perhaps this season will more resemble 2008, when Tampa Bay surprised everyone and proved money doesn’t always triumph.

Here’s a look at each Major League Baseball division, with clever bits and only partial wisdom..

AL East – Weep not, Yankee fans. Even if the Jeter-Rivera-Posada core is closer to the end than the beginning, the likes of Curtis Granderson should allow for continued pinstripe preeminence...

CATEGORY: Baseball

TAGS: MLB, 2010 Preview

Permalink Comments (View)

Gordon Hayward was in the right position for the rebound, and grabbed it cleanly. He turned and started dribbling, reaching just past mid-court as teammate Matt Howard laid a wicked screen on Kyle Singler that, at this moment, certainly wasn’t going to merit a whistle.

Then Hayward, the native Hoosier, let it fly. The ball sailed on a long arc toward the net. About 30 players on both sides, 70,000 in the stands at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, millions more across the country and two big crowds gathered in classic old college gyms – one across town, the other far away on Tobacco Road - inhaled, and waited.

Ask all the players, on both sides, and they thought it was going in...

CATEGORY: Basketball

TAGS: NCAA final, Duke, Butler, classic

Permalink Comments (View)

Though in early April, those that play high school spring sports in Central New York have already experienced all four seasons.There's been heat up to 87 degrees one week, snow the next week, and most of the stations in between.

Whatever the climate, though, the fact remains that girls lacrosse, especially in Section III, runs as hot here as it does anywhere else.

Yet something unusual happened in 2009. No one finished the season cradling a state championship trophy on the turf at SUNY-Cortland...

CATEGORY: Lacrosse

TAGS: Section III, girls lacrosse preview

Permalink Comments (View)

Here in Section III, when the topic is boys lacrosse, the conversation inevitably jumps toward June, and to whether the powers-that-be in this area will end up claiming state championships.

With West Genesee around, that possibility is always distinct, but after it rallied past Fayeteville-Manlius to win its eighth straight sectional title in 2009, something odd happened.

The Wildcats did not even get out of the regional round, often a formality, stunned by Ithaca. The other sectional champions went further - Jamesville-DeWitt to the semifinals in Class B, LaFayette to the championship game in Class C.

People fully expect J-D and LaFayette to be great again in 2010...

CATEGORY: Lacrosse

TAGS: Section III, boys lacrosse, preview

Permalink Comments (View)

Of course Phil Mickelson’s last putt would fall. Augusta National never fails as golf theater, and the 74th edition of the Masters could only end this way.

It had to conclude with Mickelson’s hands in the air on the 18th green, the crowd (sorry, patrons) in full throat, a big hug for caddy “Bones” McKay and, most meaningful, a long and tearful embrace with wife Amy, battling breast cancer. Try and not get moved by such a sight.

And from the moment Phil slipped on the green jacket for the third time, the postmortems emerged, most of them making the whole story a morality play – Good Guy Phil won, Bad Guy Tiger Woods did not, family guy beat philanderer, so on and so forth.

That’s true, to a degree...

CATEGORY: Golf

TAGS: Masters, Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods, golf

Permalink Comments (View)

Many people have already believed that hockey's main highlight of 2010 has already taken place - Canada vs. USA for the gold medal in Vancouver, overtime, Sidney Crosby beating Ryan Miller.
Maybe so, but the NHL decided to keep going anyway and, in June, some team, through hard work, execution and no small amount of good fortune, will accept the coolest trophy in sports, Lord Stanley's Cup.
So who wins it? Whoa there, getting way ahead of ourselves. Want to take Washington over Chicago? San Jose over Pittsburgh? Go ahead...but you've got to get through the first round. And as the Sharks know, that's never easy.
Look at the whole season, and only one great team emerged...Washington, the Caps of Alex Ovechkin. But it's not a one-man show...

CATEGORY: Hockey

TAGS: NHL, Stanley Cup, playoffs, preview

Permalink Comments (View)

Tired of the ping?

People who, otherwise, would love the energy and passion of something like high school or college baseball, would tell you, often, that it's those darn aluminum bats that bother them so much.

Romantics they are, preferring the crack of wood. Besides, they'll tell you in the next breath, it's also safer. Line drives off those Eastons can be downright scary - just today in the CBA-ESM game, a liner went off the shin of a pitcher, and thank goodness it wasn't anything more than sore.

For all of them, a bit of nirvana could be found Wednesday and Thursday in Lowville, in something called the Wood Bat Tournament...

CATEGORY: Baseball

TAGS: Section III, baseball, outlook

Permalink Comments (View)

You must be looking forward to this weekend - they say it might snow on Saturday night.

Okay, maybe not. But we have zero right to complain since it's been as high as 87 a couple of Fridays ago and much of this week was bathed in gorgeous sunshine and blue skies. We'll take our medicine.

And so will the various Section III softball teams that haven't escaped south for spring-break warmth and (hopefully) good, clean fun. Traveling or staying at home, everyone can look forward to a spring full of possibility.

As always in softball, it centers around that girl in the pitcher's circle...

CATEGORY: Softball

TAGS: Section III, softball, preview

Permalink Comments (View)

Okay, Yankee fans. Since there's been a dearth in recent literature about your favorite team and they haven't been on TV that much recently (okay, full-blown sarcasm at work here), it's time to scan far and wide - perhaps even go to a library, spare the thought - for the latest offering about your favorite team.

Then again, the offering, Tom Clavin and Danny Peary's "Roger Maris: Baseball's Reluctant Hero", may not exactly cast the Bronx denizens in the most favorable of lights...

CATEGORY: Baseball

TAGS: Roger Maris, book, biography, overview

Permalink Comments (View)

Ah, late April, spring, the temperatures warming up, the grass returning, the trees sprouting leaves, baseball, golf, playoff hockey, playoff basketball, the World Cup is nearby.

So naturally it’s time for the NFL to hit center stage. Then again, when do these guys ever leave center stage?

The draft is suffocating enough, with the endless mocks, endless analysis and instant grades we give to guys whose true value is measured out over two or three years, not two or three minutes...

CATEGORY: Football (American)

TAGS: Ben Roethlisberger, scandal, quarterbacks, NFL, commentary

Permalink Comments (View)

So a few months ago the whispers and rumors began to, dare we say, bubble up (and you thought we were safe from the term bubble until next March).

Talk was that the NCAA wanted to increase the field of its crown jewel, the Division I men's basketball championship. Proponents (Jim Boeheim one of them) and opponents lined up.

As what usually happens when any change is proposed in any aspect of our society, it's the opponents that got the most air time and attention. Cries of "blasphemy" and "greed" got thrown around. How dare they mess around with the most perfect sporting event of the year, the argument went...

CATEGORY: Basketball

TAGS: NCAA Tournament, expansion

Permalink Comments (View)

It didn't escape our notice when, a week ago, the North Carolina women's lacrosse team ended Northwestern's 41-game win streak and moved to the top of the national rankings.

Why would a game between a school from Tobacco Road and a school from Chicago be relevant to Central New York? When those Tar Heels have a West Genesee Wildcat (Sarah Kuonen) and an F-M Hornet (Kristen Taylor). When a true freshman named Kara Cannizzaro emerges from Cazenovia to be an instant contributor...

CATEGORY: Lacrosse

TAGS: Local lacrosse, top teams, college players

Permalink Comments (View)

So they saved the biggest moment, and biggest surprise, of the NHL playoffs' opening round for the final night.

Game 7, Montreal vs. Washington. Certainly the Habs' magic, which began to manifest itself when the team was down 3-1, would dwindle in the nation's capital. Certainly Alex Ovechkin would be The Man. Certainly the hockey gods wanted their proper, official, mandated Ovechkin-Crosby playoff epic...

Except for one thing - the Canadiens won. Hockey's one-time-lords-turned upstarts rode the amazing net work of Jaroslav Hacek (who only took over in the net in Game 5) to a 2-1 win and set up a chance to go after Stanley Cup no. 24, an intolerable 17 years after Les Habitents got no. 23.

Basically, the East blew up in the first round...

CATEGORY: Hockey

TAGS: NHL, playoffs, recap, conference semifinals preview

Permalink Comments (View)

With the sun beaming down, the sky blue and the wind howling, Vernon-Verona-Sherrill and Oneida got together Thursday afternoon for a key game in the Tri-Valley League.

They started at 4:15. They didn't end until close to 7:30. And that was six innings.

Okay, so it partly had to do with the fact that the Red Devils scored 30 runs and the Indians put up 11. Still, it was baseball, not football. No touchdowns, no extra points, no flags thrown by the umpire- and no clock, either.

Just ponder, for a few terrifying seconds, a 29-11 game in the majors. Worse yet, think if it happened to the Yankees and Red Sox. If started early in the afternoon, it would end close to midnight...

CATEGORY: Baseball

TAGS: Baseball, pace of the game, speed, slow

Permalink Comments (View)