Ramble On

“But I know I’ve got one thing I’ve got to do, Ramble On”

Jimmy Page, Robert Plant – Led Zeppelin

Just an opportunity for me to ramble on about some various things in sports, and a chance to utilize one of my favorite Led Zep songs as a title. Lots of things going on.

Hockey Playoffs

The hockey picture has narrowed down to a final four, with the Chicago Blackhawks and the Anaheim Ducks fighting for the Western Conference, and the New York Rangers and the Tampa Bay Lightning battling for supremacy in the East. One of those four teams will be skating around with the Stanley Cup.

All along, it has pretty much seemed like the Blackhawks and the Ducks were the best two teams in the West, if not in all of hockey. The Ducks had the best record in the entire NHL, and the Blackhawks simply know how to win, having been in the conference finals now in five of the last seven seasons, with two Cups already in their trophy case to show for it. It should be a GREAT series, with the first game starting today.

The other series pits the Rangers against the Lightning, and the Rangers already have a 1 to 0 lead on Tampa Bay after beating them 2 to 1 yesterday. The Rangers have had EVERY playoff game this season (their wins AND their losses) decided by a single goal. To quote the name of an old TV show from yesteryear, THAT’S INCREDIBLE! You would think there would be ONE game in there where one team or the other would score an empty netter or something, but let’s just say, the Rangers are getting REALLY used to playing tight, close games, AKA playing PLAYOFF HOCKEY. They made the finals last year. They COULD win it all this year. We’ll have to watch the games and let this all play out.

NBA Playoffs

LeBron James and his Cleveland Cavaliers are in the Eastern Conference finals. Again. (they just knocked off the Chicago Bulls to advance) He was there in an earlier Cleveland Cav version, of course, and he’s there again. His team will probably be favored to beat the Atlanta Hawks, who knocked off the Washington Wizards. The Hawks play really good team basketball and they had the best record in the East during the regular season, but, does ANYBODY really think they are going to beat a LeBron James team and make it to the Finals?

If LeBron’s team wins, that will put him in the finals for the sixth time (I think he just turned 30 or so). That is starting become the same pattern that the other GREAT players have also followed. That is, most of the best PLAYERS of all time also got into the finals the most often. He would join Bill Russell, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Larry Bird, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, John Havlicek, Jerry West and a few others who spent most of their seasons in the league as being so good, they GOT their teams into the finals seemingly all (to be honest, the accurate word is MOST) of the time. The cream rises to the top during the playoffs. The STARS are there in the finals.

The thing about LeBron James is, you could put him on almost ANY other team in the league, and he would be so good at making everyone else play better, that he could probably get THAT team into the finals.

The Western Conference is down to the Golden State Warriors, who are led by Steph Curry, another transcendent player who makes everyone else around him better, against the winner of game seven of the L.A. Clippers vs. the Houston Rockets. The Clippers, who won such a stirring series against the defending champion Spurs, led this series 3 to 1 and let big lead late in game six at home slip away. Another GAME SEVEN! The best thing in sports. Should be awesome.

The Preakness

This would probably be filed under the category of, “Who cares,” but the fact is that yesterday, the horse American Pharaoh won the second leg of the Triple Crown, the Preakness, in dominant fashion. Now, American Pharaoh is famous, and joins a long list of others who have won the first two legs and have threatened to be the first horse since 1977 and Affirmed, to win the elusive Triple Crown of horse racing. The sports world will HAVE to stay tuned to this development in about three weeks.

Deflategate

News Flash – There is still an army full of New England Patriots fans that are still going crazy trying to defend their team’s actions all over the Internet. Many of these are the same fans who vigorously defended New England Patriot tight end Aaron Hernandez throughout the Internet for the first several weeks after his arrest for murder. “oh, no, I don’t think he could have done anything bad. He’s a Patriot.” I repeat, these fans who are screaming the loudest would be saying the complete opposite if the exact same situation were happening to a different team and not theirs. They are not objective, they are just defending their home turf.

Baseball

I’m sorry, but you have GOT to hand it to the Houston Astros. They have been such a laughing stock for the last several years that I can’t believe ANYBODY saw a start like this season’s one coming. As of this writing, they are 24 and 13 and leading the AL West over the favored Angels and A’s (and Seattle and Texas). For the last few years, they have been losing over a hundred games a year. It seemed like they were trading away all of their talent to other teams, but this was a team that had a plan. They may have gotten first picks in the amateur draft for those pathetic seasons, but they have been winning their games so far this season with those high picks still in the minors. This is a triumph of good organizational planning, some good trades and a simple case of them fielding a team that has hitters who are hitting and pitchers who are pitching. Kudos, Houston Astros. You are doing yourselves proud.

Golf

Rory McIlroy just shot a 61 at Quail Hollow to seize control of the lead at the Wells Fargo. That’s a 61 where the next best scores that day were one 65 and two 66’s. That’s a round with 11 birdies, seven pars and no eagles in there. During one stretch, he had nine birdies in ten holes.  That’s on a quality PGA course that will be hosting a major in a few years, not some lousy pitch and putt course. What Rory is doing, and what he is capable of doing, must be frightening to his other competitors. Kind of reminds you of Tiger Woods about ten years ago, doesn’t it? If Rory is on his game, HE wins, and there is nothing anybody else can do about it.