COMMENTS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY - MIKE IN DA - NOVEMBER 2, 2010

COMMENTS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY

Written by: Mike in DA
Date posted: 11/2/2010


THE GIANTS WIN THE WORLD SERIES!
THE GIANTS WIN THE WORLD SERIES!

The Peanut Gallery congratulates the San Francisco Giants. If you ever find yourself needing to explain what “opportunism” means in baseball, simply refer your interrogator to the 2010 San Francisco Giants throughout the playoffs and the World Series. This was no “fluke outcome”; the Giants played their best baseball in the months of September, October, and even November and deserve to be World Series Champions.

TIGER NO LONGER NUMBER ONE!
 Though I have no problem with it, there are still plenty of people who continue to complain about college football’s system for choosing who is number one. That brings me to a story with a headline on Page C2 of Tuesday’s (11/2) Houston Chronicle that read, “Woods Not Surprised to Lose No. 1 Ranking”.

Because of the past dominance of Tiger Woods, no one had a reason to try to understand how and why golf selected its world number one player. However, thanks to Tiger's ''distractions'' he no longer wins golf tournaments, which is why he no longer is on top of the golf standings.

Lee Westwood, who is the proud owner of zero career majors and only two PGA Tour victories, has replaced Tiger as the world's number one player. Westwood finished runner up this year in the Masters and British Open and tied for fourth at the Players Championship. According to whatever math calculations are used, these finishes are good enough to drive Westwood up the charts, and replace Tiger as number one.

It's a place where Tiger was for the past 281 consecutive weeks going back to 2005. For his part, the 37-year-old Westwood took a page out of Rickey Henderson's book when he accepted his new honor by saying, "I'm the best in the world right now."

I haven't heard such cockiness from a golfer since Shooter McGavin (Christopher McDonald) talked trash to Happy Gilmore (Adam Sandler) in the 1996 flick, "Happy Gilmore".

Enjoy the honor Mr. Westwood. What you are doing is borrowing the designation of Number One until the guy who truly wears the pants on the PGA Tour has a full season of keeping his pants on.

COOL ATHLETE NAME:

QUESTION OF THE DAY:

Where does God point to when he hits a home run?

YATES TO HOST FINDLAY PREP!

The high school basketball season is just two weeks away. One of the local highlights of it will be when last season's National Champion,  the Yates Lions, host the 2010-11 pre-season #1-ranked and 2009 National Champion, Findlay Prep Wolverines, on December 16 at Texas Southern University's H&PE Arena.  

The game will open ESPNU's 2010-11 schedule of high school basketball games. 

THE CRIER'S BCS ELIMINATION TOURNAMENT:

Going into Playoff Week #5, the Crier’s playoff elimination tournament is now down to seven teams from the original 28 teams with Oregon and TCU in the lead to meet in the Crier’s version of the BCS Championship Game.

 

For the 21 teams that have already been eliminated, according to tournament rules, they are out of the hunt no matter how well they play the remainder of the season.

As mentioned previously, the purpose of these rankings is to determine the top two teams standing at the end of play on December 4. Hopefully, the BCS people will have the same two teams as "The Crier" for their championship game when all is said and done.

Below is this week’s rankings and the each team’s opponents:

Rank – Team – Record – This Week’s Game
1 Oregon (8-0) vs. Washington
2 TCU (9-0) at Utah
3 Stanford (7-1) vs. Arizona
4 Auburn (9-0) vs. Chattanooga
5 Boise State (7-0) vs. Hawaii
6 Utah (8-0) vs. TCU
7 Wisconsin (7-1) at Purdue


Last week, there were no head-to-head match-ups and the Crier remains at 5-5 SU and 6-4 ATS in head-to-head match-ups on a cumulative basis.

There is one head-to-head match-up this week of the teams remaining in the tournament (TCU at Utah). The write-up on the game is below:

TCU at UTAH*

Two years ago, TCU gift-wrapped the game in Salt Lake, which ended their perfect season and propelled the Utes to their own 13-0 mark. Whether it’s hot or cold this weekend, revenge will be served. TCU won’t give Utah the “hidden” special teams yards that they are used to getting. Instead, they’ll force the home team to drive the football, something that nobody has done consistently vs. TCU all season. Utah’s schedule has been Cupcake City for the most part, with the toughest games being Pitt and Air Force. No coincidence that they won those games by an average of just 4 points. TCU, 24-14.


TEXAN STAT OF THE DAY:

The Texans, who lost to the Colts, 30-17, on Monday night (11/1), are the first team since the 1989 Cowboys to allow at least 24 points in each of their first seven games of a season. That team finished with a 1-15 record, in what was the first year for Jerry Jones, Jimmy Johnson, and Troy Aikman in Dallas.

THE STAT GEEKS ON THE WORLD SERIES (ESB):

1. The 2010 San Francisco Giants are only the second team in the last 30 years to win three World Series games in which they held their opponent to one run or less. The other was the 1985 Kansas City Royals, who rallied from a 3-1 deficit to beat the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games, while limiting St. Louis to no more than one run in all four victories.

2. Texas, which led the major leagues with a .276 team batting average during the regular season, batted only .190 during the World Series. Among the 31 teams to play in the World Series after leading the majors in batting average that season, the only others that batted under .200 in the Fall Classic were the 1948 Indians (.199) and the 1995 Indians (.179).

3. The Rangers had an 18-inning scoreless streak spanning Game Three to Game Five, after their longest such drought during the regular season was 15 innings. From 1969 through 1972 three teams had longer scoring droughts in the World Series than they had during that entire regular season: the 1969 Orioles, 1971 Orioles, and 1972 Athletics. But since 1973, the only other team to do that was the 2001 Yankees.

4. Edgar Renteria, whose 11th-inning single won the 1997 World Series for the Florida Marlins, is the first player with a game-winning RBI in the 7th inning or later in two World Series-clinching games.

5. The Giants clinched the NLDS in Atlanta, the NLCS in Philadelphia, and the World Series in Arlington. Since the current three-tiered postseason format was first played in 1995, only one other World Champion ended all three postseason series with road victories: the 2005 Chicago White Sox.

6. Road teams had a 19-13 (.594) record during the 2010 postseason, the highest winning percentage for visitors in the 16 years in which the current postseason format has been played.

7. Giants' batters did not draw a walk and produced only one extra-base hit (Edgar Renteria's three-run homer) in Game Five. The only other teams that combined for no more than one extra-base hit or walk in a World-Series clinching game were the 1926 Cardinals, who had none of each in a Game Seven win at Yankee Stadium, and the 1913 Athletics, who had one walk and no extra-base hits in a Game Five victory against the Giants at the Polo Grounds.

8. The Giants won both of the Tim Lincecum vs. Cliff Lee match-ups in the 2010 World Series, taking Game One in San Francisco and Game Five in Arlington. The last nine times that the same starting pitchers opposed each other for a second time in a World Series, the team that won the first meeting also won the second.


 Flub of the Day! 

Speaking of the World Series, John Granato on 1560 KGOW's Tuesday (11/2) Morning Show referring to the World Champion San Francisco Giants’ said, “It was 54 years in the making.” Actually, it was 56 years in the making, as the last time the Giants won a World Series was in 1954.

John Lopez of SR610 continues to screw up the birthday segment on his show by not doing his homework. On Tuesday's (11/2) Morning Show, he mentioned the birthday of Burt Lancaster who actually passed away in 1994. Then co-host Josh Innes suggested that Burt played in "The Wizard of Oz". That was Bert Lahr who played the "Cowardly Lion".

CRIER’S CORNER



NBA ACTION


Yesterday’s Record ATS: 1-0
Cumulative Season Record ATS: 12-5


Today’s Games (for reading purposes only):


ATLANTA (-3.5) over CLEVELAND*
If the Hawks are going to make the next logical move, they are going to have to beat teams they should beat, like the Cavs. The boys from the ATL survived a 28-point outbreak by Wall to beat the Wiz on Saturday and they did it with a pair of double/doubles by Horford and Smith and 40 combined by Joe Johnson and Jamal Crawford. Byron Scott has to try to keep Anderson Varejao out of foul trouble and will play an up-tempo game that falls right into the hands of Atlanta, who have an excellent chance to start the season 4-0. ATLANTA, 110-95


BOSTON (-6.5) over DETROIT*
The Pistons completely fell apart in the 4th quarter of last game scoring just 9. Experienced Celts team very good SU on the road last year only a game worst than their home record. Motowners are not getting any younger and Rod Stuckey, who took over for Chauncey Billups, has not delivered fully on the hype just yet,but he’s off to a good start this year. Shaq may not play important minutes here, so expect Garnett to hold down the fort in the middle. BOSTON, 110-92


*MIAMI (-16.5) over MINNESOTA
Pick a number here. Wolves horrible on the road last year winning just five games and they really don’t have anybody that can handle either Wade or James. Mike Beasley will try and he may have a chip on his shoulder as the Heat got rid of him, but Chris Bosh should be able to control the center spot going against Darko Milicic. MIAMI, 123-94

 

MIKE IN DA

HMW


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