Geoff Decker’s whereIstand blog

Certainly the Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman should have been more aggressive in getting his GOAT third baseman Alex Rodriquez signed earlier in the season or even before the season began.

Still, I don’t think there’s any question that A-Rod should and will be back with the Yankees in 2008. He’s going demand a lot of money…even more than the record-breaking contract that he signed with the Rangers back in the 20th century. When he signed that one, he was already considered the best in the game. Now? He’s even better.

Luckily, the Yankees can afford it and they’ll pay everything Rodriguez and his no-nonsense agent Scott Boras demands. They have to.

Look, signing him won’t make the Yankee’s annual salary look any lighter and if there’s anything I’d like to see more of, its parity in Baseball team’s salary.

Ugh, I just realized they’ll also have to re-sign Jorge Posada, who is coming off a MVP-worthy season as well and Mariano Rivera, the team’s MVP in the last decade. One thing’s for sure: this off season, the Yankees won’t curb their spending habits.

But there’s no one who can help my team win more than Alex Rodriguez. No one. Call me selfish, but if for no other reason than to appease the Yankees Fans’ desire to win, he should be re-signed

whereIstand Tags

• BrianCashman
• NYY
• Should Alex Rodriguez sign a contract extension with the Yankees?

Whatever happened to fairness? Just because New England Pats fans have a loyalty to their franchise does not mean they have a mandate to ignore their moral ground and defend an indefensible act.

Like Chris Russo always says, Be fair now. If you were criticizing the actions of Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire…you know what? Forget about sports. If you’ve ever criticized the CEO of a publicly-traded company for cooking the books or even your friend using a cheat code in a video game to win, you’re responsibility is to be fair and acknowledge that when someone cheats — that is, knowingly use something forbidden (performance-enhancing drugs, video camera, illegal accounting procedures, etc) — they’re fundamentally wrong.

So I don’t want to hear any of this “Everyone’s doing it” nonsense or that “Belichick and the Pats are still a dynasty — they don’t even need to cheat” because its a pathetic attempt for a fan of a disgraced team to justify their loyalty.

whereIstand Tags

• BillBelichick
• NewEnglandPatriots
• BarryBonds
• Was the NFL’s punishment of Patriots head coach Bill Belichick appropriate?

For the same reason that Fantasy Drafts should be held as close to the regular season as possible, maybe blogging about fantasy predictions should be as well.

Kylesmith’s blog entry on August 19 is a classic example of how the high and lows of preseason can lead and mislead an otherwise intelligent team manager down a treacherous path.

Kyle boasted that Torry Holt is this year’s top wide receiver on the board for your drafts. On the surface, can you blame him? He has top-tier quarterback throwing his way, he’s playing opposite a still productive Hall of Fame deep threat in Isaac Bruce and he’s still in the prime of career. A career that has seen him become the fastest receiver ever to 10,000 receiving yards.

Unfortunately, Kyle overlooked his own reason numero uno for why Holt should be the first drafted:

Holt should post even better numbers on his way to becoming the top fantasy wideout. There are plenty of reasons why.

- Health: As mentioned, Holt was not fully healthy in 2006. A knee injury limited what he could do, and he still posted fantastic numbers. After an off-season of rehabilitation, Holt came to camp healthy and ready to go. He won’t be limited in what he can do, and that means he will be as dangerous as ever.

Well, as it turns out, that off-season of rehabilitation is not complete and Holt is not healthy. Just last week, Holt admitted to the St. Louis Dispatch something that no new fantasy owners should ever have to hear:

He says the joint is “about 70, 80 percent.”

“It’s just one of those deals where I’m not recovering as quick as I used to,” said Holt, 31. “I have to get used to that and stay patient. … I don’t know if it’ll ever heal all the way, but I think it will heal enough where it will allow me to go out and play.”

Hear that? That’s the faint sound of owners’ mouse pads as they furiously propose cheap shot to unload Holt before their fellow league owners learn the same news.

The fact that he’s admitting this and that its dealing with his knee is immediate cause for concern and drops him considerably on the draft board. CBSSportsline dropped him to 5th on their wide receiver board.

Of course, we’ve been here before. Last year, the guy was Clinton Portis. He injured his shoulder in a preseason game but claimed he’d be back to full strength by Week 1. In that game he played and had a couple more productive starts, but by mid season his shoulder was bothering him and he missed the remainder of the season.

Others that come to mind are Daunte Culpepper, Priest Holmes, Terrell Davis — fantasy studs who tortured their owners all season.

Hey, far be it for me to tell you to hold off on drafting Holt. I finished out of the playoffs of my fantasy football league for three years running. All I’m saying is make sure you’re aware of the risks and are up to date on all information on your potential top picks .

whereIstand Tags

• kylesmith
• NFL
• ClintonPortis
• Who will be the top fantasy wide receiver of 2007?

You want to know when I finally accepted that Americans could never fully embrace soccer the way they have the “Big 3″ American sports?

It was May 23, 2007 and I was wavering half drunk from a bar stool in Prague. The European Super Bowl of Soccer — the Champions League Final, Liverpool vs. AC Milan — was on TV. Even among the most passionate of soccer fans with whom I’d been drinking for some time in anticipation of the match, I still couldn’t get excited for what I was ultimately bearing witness to: a game of soccer.

It was then that I realized, If this didn’t do it for me, an inferior American league wouldn’t either. Say what you will about Beckham’s invasion (no, not you, ladies), but I don’t think he’ll get me off either… even if he does do it with that curve of his.

(Sorry, went too far with that last sexual innuendo).

Here’s my point, dude: I don’t think Americans are conditioned to handle a sport like soccer. It is two 90-minute halves of uninterrupted action, but the action is low-scoring and anti-climatic. I’ll avoid the cultural commentary, but will say this: Americans love excess and happy endings. A 0-0 tie that ends in a shoot-out just won’t cut it.

More to my point, I love Football/Basketball/Baseball because I was born into it. My fanaticism for these sports is by default, not by design. Call me shallow and marketable, but I’ve fallen for these sports because their respective leagues did the best to promote themselves. Is baseball tangibly more exciting than, say, Golf or Tennis? Then why is it exponentially more popular?

And now that I’ve sold my soul to the status quo, there’s no going back … and there can be no substitutes. Fall/Winter means Football; Winter/Spring means Basketball; and Spring/Summer/Fall means Baseball. Simple as that. I have no time for another sport. And my TV guide can prove it.

Don’t get me wrong — I am capable of embracing soccer to some extent. There were, after all, some outstanding plays in the game I watched: this one Brazilian bloke from Milan who goes by the name of Kaka juked a Liverpool lad out of his knickers on a breakaway and it was dazzling even to the untrained eye.

But then something and nothing happened. Another defender swooped in to break up the run and no one scored…again.

So here I sat, my buzz wearing off and the bar too packed for a fresh pint. No commercial breaks were on the horizon so I forced my attention back to the game. Why was it so hard for me to concentrate while the the bar patrons next to me — the same ones who were seen drinking from a shoe moments earlier — were so deeply focused on the game?

Months later, I sit in an American bar and gaze up at the enormous Plasma. It had taken me a trip to Europe to learn the value of American Sports. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! Two Bud-scented tears ran down my cheeks. But it was alright. Everything was alright. The struggle was finished. I loved the “Big 3″.

Yours in sport,
Winston Smith

whereIstand Tags

• DavidBeckham
• Will the Los Angeles Galaxy’s acquisition of David Beckham increase the popularity of Major League Soccer in the U.S.?