4 posts tagged “nba”
2 violent episodes raise questions about safety at Angel Stadium
After two violent incidents at Angel Stadium this season, one in which a man died while in a fight, and now an off-duty cop shot two people who were allegedly attacking him with bottles, there is a growing perception that the slimebag criminal and thug element that infests Dodger Stadium like a cancer is spreading to games in Anaheim.
Is this true?
Too soon to tell, and probably not. The fight that occurred earlier this season where a man died, was not between fans of different teams. It was, "Angel on Angel" violence so to speak, and the death was a freak accident that was not intended. The man hit his head on the concrete and died as a result. He was not stabbed nor shot, and while being punched in the face doesn't make things better, it's not quite the same thing.
The incident that occurred on Wednesday night is tragic, but still unclear as to what was going on. It is not believed to be a matter of Rockies fans attacking an Angels fan or vice versa. But what exactly happened, we only have the cop's version of. His story is that he was being attacked by two men with bottles, and he shot them to protect himself and his family. Both men are in the hospital, so it should be interesting to see what their side of the story is.
But these are extremely isolated incidents.
Violent events are not isolated at Dodger Stadium, and it is well-known that if you go to Dodger games rooting for the opposition, you are taking your safety into your own hands. Especially if you're a Giants fan.
America saw what kind of fans the Lakers had the night the team won the NBA Championship as they rioted and destroyed downtown Los Angeles. If you saw footage from the victory parade at the Los Angeles Coliseum 3 days later, you could see a lot of those same "people," just better-behaved due to the overwhelming police presence and "zero tolerance" criminal behavior policy they had in effect for the parade.
The Dodgers share that same element of fans and if they ever won the World Series, Los Angeles would be decimated.
The Angels do not typically attract the same type of fan because most Angel fans have class. There will always be people who are the exception to that, but the organization has a well-deserved reputation for being family-friendly and having a fanbase that is primarily well-behaved. The same cannot be said for Dodger fans.
Longtime Angel fans quoted in the L.A. Times article above may fear that things are getting worse at the Stadium, but that doesn't seem to be a valid fear at this stage. Hopefully it never will become legitimate.
Face it.
What a sports-intensive weekend. Unlike a lot of American men, I don't spend my Sundays worshipping the TV when it's time for the NFL season. I prefer college football, but even then, I can only watch so many college football games on a Saturday before my brain fries.
But April is a great month for sports, which would be a lot better if the NBA wasn't part of it. Basketball is truly the most...boring...sport....ever. Yes, I'd rather watch toddler bowling.
However, we got baseball, and we got hockey playoffs galore. And then there's always a plethora of MMA to be found.
I won't get into too much detail about all of the games, considering a lot of it is old news at the point I'm writing this, so a brief summary should suffice.
So, this weekend began on:
Friday, April 24:
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim vs. Seattle Mariners at Angel Stadium
Shane Loux took the mound for the pitching-decimated Angels against Mariners ace Erik Bedard.
Loux pitched pretty well for 4 innings, only getting stung by a Russell Branyan solo blast in the 2nd inning.
Then
the 5th inning came, and Loux just died. Ichiro led off with a single.
Endy Chavez, single. Griffey, single. Beltre just missed a grand slam
with a double off the left-centerfield wall, scoring Ichiro and Chavez.
Russell Branyan then walked to load the bases. Jose Lopez hit a chopper
towards 3rd for a single, scoring another run.
By this point, it was 5-0, there were no outs, and Loux had come apart. Manager Mike Scioscia went to the bullpen, but another 2 runs scored before the Angels could get out of the inning.
Erik Bedard pitched fantastic for Seattle, only giving up 1 hit in the first 4 innings, a double to Erick Aybar which was also the Angels' sole baserunner. He gave up a dinger to Mike Napoli in the 5th, and the Angels scored twice more in the frame to bring the score to 7-3, but Bedard still had a healthy lead and pitched into the 7th inning before Shawn Kelley finished out the game for the Mariners.
So the Angels lost by a score of 8-3, and here are some photos from my less-than-good seats in the rightfield loge.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox
What was supposed to be a pitchers duel was anything but. But what a wild exciting game. The Yankees sent AJ Burnett to face Boston's Josh Beckett, and this was one of those games you figured would be a low-scoring affair. If only.
The Yankees went up 6-0 on Boston by the time the 4th inning was over, and there was no reason to think that the fairly solid AJ Burnett would surrender this lead. Then Boston began their comeback, scoring 5 runs in the bottom 4, with 4 of those runs coming off a Jason Varitek GRAND SALAMI.
But this game was only getting started. In the 6th, Boston scored 3 runs going up 8-6 on the Skanks.
Then in the next inning, Johnny Damon hit a 2-run homer to tie the game at 8.
Boston then goes ahead 9-8 in the bottom of the 6th.
And then the lead switched AGAIN in the top of the 7th when the Yankees went up 10-9.
With all the back and forth in this ballgame, it was just super fun to watch. Mind you, I love a pitcher's duel more than anything. The best games are the 0-0 games that go into extra innings, but when both teams score a bunch of runs back and forth in every inning, that's pretty damn exciting as well.
When it was all said and done with, Boston outslugged the Yankees by a final of 16-11. There were 28 hits in the game, 6 of them home runs (3 for each team).
NHL Playoffs:
Game 5: Anaheim Ducks vs. San Jose Sharks
With the Ducks already possessing a 3-1 lead in this best of 7 series, every game was now a "must-win" for the Sharks, and with their backs to the wall at home in the HP Pavilion (aka: Shark Tank), the Sharks put up the early 1-0 goal at 7:25 in the 1st from Co-Captain Joe Thornton. The Sharks went up 2-0 in the 2nd.
But hold on, the Ducks came back with 2 of their own in the 3rd period thanks to Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, and the game went into OT.
The Sharks stayed alive in the series when Co-Captain Patrick Marleau jabbed in a goal past Anaheim goaltender phenom Jonas Hiller at 6:02 of the first OT period to win the game 3-2. Even still, the winning goal was ultimately pushed past the goal line by the leg/skate of Hiller. Unfortunate, but so it goes.
This was another great game in what has been a thrilling series, thanks to the unlikely 8th seed Ducks taking it to the team that had the best record in the NHL regular season.
Sunday, April 26th, 2009
NHL Playoffs:
Game 6: New York Rangers vs. Washington Capitals
With the Rangers up 3-1 in this series, they didn't have Coach John Tortorella on the bench because he was serving a one-game suspension for losing his mind and throwing water at Capitals fans behind the Rangers bench.
What followed from Rangers' GM Glen Sather was one of the most laughable reactions in the history of the sport. Sather complained that Washington Capitals security should be disciplined. Why? Because Washington Capitals fans were verbally harassing/abusing the Rangers bench from their seats, and CHILDREN were able to hear this.
Apparently Sather has never been to one of his own team's games, or at least never sitting in the MSG seats, where this kind of behavior, and FAR worse, occurs every single game. The Rangers proved themselves to be a classless organization from top to bottom. A coach who benches Sean Avery (the scummiest player in all the league) because he wanted to set an example about keeping your emotions in check during the game, loses his cool because of the verbal taunts from Capitals fans. Sean Avery may be a giant piece of shit, but he can be pretty effective when he's able to taunt and agitate the opposition into taking stupid penalties, so as long as Avery doesn't take them himself. In Game 4, he did. But for Tortorella to go after Caps fans, who never threw any objects at the Rangers bench or did anything PHYSICAL to provoke Torts, proves he's as big of a dick as Avery. And then Sather's letter, hoo hee! Whattalaff!!!!
I hope the Capital fans rip the Rangers bench (verbally, of course) even moreso during Game 7 so they can make Tortorella's head literally explode.
The Rangers got destroyed on MSG ice this game by a final of 5-3, and while the final score sounds close, it's misleading. The Capitals made Ranger goalie Henrik Lundqvist look very very mortal, going up 3-1 in the first. 5-1 in the 2nd, and held on to a 5-2 lead until a 3rd Rangers goal scored with 6 seconds remaining in the game.
I can't wait until Game 7, even if I won't be able to actually watch it. The Capitals will have home ice, and they're not losing to this joke of a Rangers team, who should never have won 3 games in this series to begin with.
New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox
This ESPN Night game was actually the pitcher's duel that we were supposed to get on Saturday between Beckett and Burnett. This time it was Andy Pettite against Justin Masterson. Masterson, normally a reliever for the Red Sox, pitched a second start for Boston in place of Daisuke Matsuzaka. And he pitched brilliantly.
Masterson scattered 6 hits over 5.1 IP, walking 1, striking out 4, and giving up 1 earned run off a Hideki Matsui sac fly.
Boston's bullpen of Hunter Jones, Michael Bowden and Takashi Saito (pitching in place of closer Jonathan Papelbon, who needed some rest) stymied the Yankees for the rest of the game.
But the real story of this game?
Jacoby Ellsbury STOLE HOME! I would put the video up here but MLB will just yank it off YouTube, so... you should be able to find it quite easily in other places. :-)
In any case, with a 2-1 score in the bottom of the 5th, Andy Pettite pitching to J.D. Drew with a 1-0 count and bases loaded, Ellsbury stole home in what has to be one of the craziest plays in this early season. But Ellsbury is so fast, Pettite is a lefty pitching from the stretch, third-baseman Angel Berroa wasn't holding Ellsbury on, and the Yankees were caught completely off-guard. Posada made the tag on Ellsbury just after he had touched the plate, and the Red Sox went up 3-1.
J.D. Drew then doubled to rightfield, scoring David Ortiz, and that was all the offense the Sox needed to SAHHHHWEEEP the New York Yankees in 3 games.
With the Rangers and Yankees losing, Sunday was a very very very good day.
And finally, to top it off:
Monday, April 27, 2009
NHL Playoffs:
Game 6: Anaheim Ducks vs. San Jose Sharks
Hiller if ya hear me!! The Ducks won by a final score of 4-1, taking the series from the NHL-best San Jose Sharks in 6 games, and most importantly, doing it on home ice in front of a rabid crowd at the Honda Center (aka: The Pond).
You knew this was going to be a helluva physical game when 2 seconds into the game, immediately after the puck was dropped, centers Ryan Getzlaf and Joe Thornton went at each other in a fight. Thornton may have won that fight, but he did not win the war.
The Sharks took the 1-0 lead in the middle of the 1st period, making one wonder if Hiller was going to be ok this game. Luckily, that was the only goal that Jonas Hiller let in. Hiller outclassed San Jose goalie Evgeni Nabokov during the entire series. In this game, he stopped 36 of 37 shots. While Hiller has emerged as the top goalie on the Ducks team, with J.S. Giguere now serving as his backup, Nabokov still had far superior statistics with the Sharks during the regular season.
But finally with this 1st round series of the postseason, Jonas Hiller proved that a hot goaltender with a defense that has never looked better (Pronger, Niedermayer, Whitney, Beauchemin, Wisniewski), is going to be able to stop a high-powered offense that outshot Anaheim the entire series by a ridiculous amount.
Despite all that, Jonas Hiller posted two shutouts during the 6 game series.
A fantastic series, a huge upset, and perhaps a sign of things to come. Still, the Ducks have a tough road ahead of them as they'll face the Detroit Red Wings in the Western Conference semis. The Red Wings are well-rested, having easily swept the Columbus Blue Jackets in 4 straight games. But the Ducks could just be the Cinderella team once again.
Once the final bowl takes place Monday night between Ohio State and Florida, we enter a world where college football is over.
There is basketball, which bores the everliving fuck out of me. I will never ever ever understand the appeal of basketball. I've been to live games, I've watched it on TV, and it bores bores bores me.
There is hockey, which I love, but I can't see my Islanders play on TV unless they happen to be on VS. So I'm basically limited to the Los Angeles Kings (I hate them) and the Anaheim Ducks (I like them), and whatever games are on VS, but they usually air too early and I never see them to begin with.
There is the NFL until the Super Bowl, but the NFL has never really intrigued me the way college football does. I realize it's the same sport, but I've never found the same level of connection to pro football as I have to the college level. I know the Jets and Giants are in the playoffs, but damned if I know if they're any good. I just know they didn't win their respective divisions, so I'm assuming they'll both get eliminated in the 1st round.
When I watch the Super Bowl, it's not for the game, it's most definitely for the ads.
So basically, until MLB Opening Day in April, and the occasional hockey game I get to catch, this is going to be a very empty sports blog for a while. Maybe I'll start talking about MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) in here more, since that's year-round and there's always something to be said about that.
For those who don't know, MMA is the sport of Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC), Pride, K1 Hero's, IFL, EXC, amongst other promotions in the United States and Japan.
