The Yankees continued their dominance of sub par teams last night with an 8-0 win over the Cleveland Indians. The win brought the Yankees to 64-36, the best record in baseball and 2 games better than the Rays in the AL East. The 28 games over .500 ties the high water mark for the season. The Yankees have managed to get to this point by taking advantage of the bad teams at home and on the road. In July the Yankees have taken 2/3 from Toronto 3/3 from Oakland, 3/4 from Seattle. 3/4 from KC, and now 2/3 so far from Cleveland.
Last night the Yankees got what they have been craving for almost 2 weeks, a quality start from their starter. The Yankees have been winning games despite short and poor outings from the entire staff. This Cleveland series, that has changed. Javy was stellar on Monday, CC was solid on Tuesday, and AJ was good AJ on Wednesday. The ability to give the bullpen a day off is esxpecially crucial with Andy Pettitte on the DL and replacement starter Dustin Moseley expected to start on Thursday. It is unlikely we will see 7 innings from Moseley and the best hope for Yankees fans is for him to keep us in the game. That will then lead to the bullpen playing an integral role in tonight's game.
The other news from last night was a fan at the game was ejected for wearing a LeBron james Heat jersey with the number 6 on it. Being in Cleveland and showing off the jersey proudly, there was no doubt he was going to get berraded. Fans all over the country and especially in Cleveland are not fond of LBJ right now. His move to leave home and play with studs Dwade and Bosh did not sit well with Cavs fans or fans of the NBA. This left me thinking, is there any difference between what LeBron did and what the Yankees do? Is it hypocritical of Yankee fans to be on LeBron for his actions when we ourselves are responsible for buying the best talent and creating situations like the LeBron debocle.
I think there are elements of hyprocracy here and it really comes down to the fact that because there is a salary cap in the NBA and not in baseball, no one expected this to happen. It's as if baseball for years has already allowed the sport to be run by the major city centers and it's just tradition. Whereas in the NBA there are rules from David Stern and a salary cap, which is all intended to maintain that equal playing field. Well the playing field is no longer equal and is LeBron to blame? Can we scream and yell at the guy for being the first person to want to win so badly he'd take a pay cut? Doesn't it seem odd that we respect the guy who stays in his home town but it's because he gets more money, where as leBron is more interested in winning than money and we are hating him for it? Maybe it's not that he wants to win so bad it's the mannor in which he is going about doing it. Jordan even said, he would never have played with Magic or Bird to win a title. He wanted to beat those guys not team up with them. So LeBron decided he'd rather win on Dwyane Wade's team than win being the man on his own team. Sounds like the guy doesn't have a huge ego like Jordan or Kobe, but can we fault him for that either?
When you get down to it, we are all whining about this because we know it makes the Heat a powerhouse and that's dissappointing to NBA fans. We don't want to see the league turn into a 3 team dominated league like Baseball. We have set up rules and regulations to make sure it doesn't happen, and yet it still is. That's why we are frustrated, but I think we have to spare LeBron the criticism because he was not the messiah of the game, he's just a 25 year old talented basketball player who chose to play with friends on the beach and win a title instead of fighting it out in Cleveland. So get over it Cleveland fans, I know things couldn't be worse in any of your major sports, but this is life, it's sport, move on.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment