Baseball and Basketball Thoughts

The Seattle Mariners canned GM Bill Bavasi on Monday and manager John McLaren was shown the door on Thursday. It’s really no surprise, when your team has the worst record in baseball, are unlucky 13th in batting average, runs scored and earned run average. McLaren was thought to be a rah-rah sis-boom-bah guy for a veteran team that swung and missed far too often. This style is thought to be like ordering black coffee at Starbucks for this club. Why Seattle ever hired Bavasi was a mystery to begin with, since his career has mostly been a failure with his running the show. At least McLaren will have history to forever be remembered. If you were a manager and had Richie Sexson and Jose Lopez on the right side of the infield, you would be pissed too.

A few final thoughts on the Lakers and Celtics series. I’d written about how Boston could not be NBA champions, based on how they were playing at the time. I believe that assessment was accurate when I wrote it, just didn’t turn out to be true. In Game 6, the ABC announcers were talking about how the Celtics came together after beating Detroit on the road in Game 3, 94-80, which gave them the confidence needed to move on. What I believe was more true was losing Game 2 at home to the Pistons. After winning nine straight playoff games in Beantown, their air of invincibility was broken at TD Banknorth Garden, leading them collectively to play with far greater sense of urgency. Nice job by the C’s who actually ended up covering the spread in all eight games this season against the Lakers. WOW!

Went to A’s and D-Backs Wednesday night and Oakland’s Joe Blanton should be a dart thrower, since he never missed an Arizona bat in allowing eight runs in three innings. He was throwing in the low 90’s, but sitting behind the plate, his pitches were straight as a string, lacking ANY movement. His 3-10 record is well-deserved.