Jim Rice gets his due,Questionable call costs Devils in Anaheim

Jim Rice finally got what he deserved today-Enshrinement in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Rice was elected in his final year of eligibility with 412 votes from a possible 539 and a percentage of 76 %.
The 1978 MVP was an eight time All Star and was the dominant American League hitter of his time.
Rice will be joined by the all time leader in stolen bases and the consommate leadoff hitter,the well traveled Rickey Henderson in his induction in August.
Looks like we will have to move onto a new cause candidate on the regular ballot as the Veterans Committee seems to have little chance of inducting anyone that played past 1951......

The New Jersey Devils lost in Anaheim in a choppy and uneven effort 4-3.
The game was tainted with a bit of controversy as a third period goal by Anaheim's Chris Kunitz was declared a goal despite no one actually seeing the puck cross the goal line.
Replays showed the puck was not into the net,but did not show the pucks location and therefore the call of a goal could not be overturned.
Devil goals to Zach Parise (24),David Clarkson (8) and Bobby Holik (2).
The Devils travel to Vancouver tomorrow for a game against the Canucks.

Hell Raisers

1) This game turned in the first period after the Devils took a lead on Holik's redirection of a Mike Mottau shot.
George Parros came out on the ice and started hitting every Devil in sight without retribution.
The Ducks tied the game shortly thereafter and seemed to control the tempo of the game thereafter...

2) That reason is why I believe that the fans of finesse' hockey miss the boat.
Hitting and intimidation is part of the game and Parros did his job for his team.
Take the hitting out of hockey and you have ice dancing with sticks....

3) The Ducks took the lead with seconds to go in the first period when Travis Moen centered a pass to Sami Paulsson that beat Scott Clemmensen shortly after.
My problem was that Moen beat Paul Martin to the puck.
To me,it looked like Martin was counting the seconds to the periods end and was not going all out and paid the price.

4) The Devils had only 21 shots on goal against the Ducks and Jean-Sebastian Giguere,but the save that made the difference was when Giguere stopped Jamie Langenbrunner on a shorthanded breakaway.
I wish Langenbrunner had tried to lift the puck,but he didn't and Giguere was able to come up with the blocker.

5) During intermission,MSG+ had Sherry Ross from the radio booth as their guest and Ross said something that made me think a bit about the Brendan Shanahan signing.
Ross admitted that she thought little about the rumors of an imminent signing of the veteran as she didn't think they were realistic,but afterwards she said that this could be the first domino of deals to come to add the often wished for attack minded defender or another player of note.
Ross knows her stuff and is honest enough to admit when she is wrong as well....

Bonus Rounds
Anaheim's uniforms are just awful......

But the Ducks Bobby Ryan sure isn't.
I was quite impressed with both the rookies abilities and that he seems to have some grit to his game as well.

Bullpen Notes

Now that football season is officially over,we can focus on spring training coming up soon.
33 days to go!

A few words on the retirement on Tony "roll over" Dungy.
One,my dislike for the Colt coach is not personal,he seems like a very nice man.
Two,he leaves the Colts with a World title,but one could argue that Indianapolis could have had one or two more considering their talent laden roster.
Three,Let a year or two go by and Dungy's name will come up for every open job like Bill Cowher's does now.

Until tomorrow when I hope to finally write about some things that I haven't had time to!!

Photo Credits
Rice:Unknown
Rupp:AP Photo

Buckeyes fall in title game,LSU wins Sugar Bowl

The Ohio State Buckeyes scored the first ten points in their game at LSU.
However, they allowed the next 31 pts to be scored by the Tigers on the way to a 38-24 loss.
Other than the long early run by Chris Wells, the Buckeyes generally seemed to be a day and a dollar short on offense.
I don't want to get into the game details, but I would like to share some thoughts on things that should be looked at Jim Tressel and the staff to continue to upgrade the program and look at the current personnel.

Three things stood out to me as the difference between these two teams.

One-The Ohio State offensive line is not big enough or quick enough to handle top teams pass rush.
By this, I mean that the Buckeyes have some big, slower road paver types and a few undersized, finesse blocker types and neither type match up well with the larger, yet speedy pass rushers that seem to populate SEC football.
This needs to be addressed in recruiting and it cannot be fixed overnight, but needs to begin the process of changing the type of offensive linemen that are recruited by Ohio State.
The line has been very effective in Big Ten play, but has been overmatched in bowl play against a different type of team.

Two-The constant talk before the game was the "speed difference" between the two teams.
I really only saw one area that affected the game.
The OSU corners simply could not keep up with the LSU receivers and that too is a recruiting issue.
Ohio State needs to add more speed and athleticism to the secondary to better combat the smaller, speedier SEC pass catchers.
As with the offensive line, this will not be a quick fix, but subtle recruiting changes need to begin ASAP.

Three-Whether or not Ohio State lands the heralded freshman passer Terrelle Pryor or not (the Bucks are considered the favorite, but are far from a lock) Todd Boeckman needs to be at least challenged for the quarterback job by Pryor (if they land him) or Antonio Henton.
In the three biggest games of the season, Boeckman looked confused, overmatched and generally looked and played lost.
Boeckman seems like a very nice young man, but next year, when the Buckeyes will play USC (no more schedule complaints), OSU will need a mobile passer that can make plays.
Boeckman fails that test on both marks.
Jim Tressel is known for his loyalty to his players, but there needs to be competition at the minimum next season.
This was a disappointment for sure, but to achieve this much in what was supposed to be a reloading season made a great year.
Kudos to the Buckeyes and here is hoping for a great 2008.

Bullpen Notes

Later today, the baseball hall of fame announces the 2008 inductees.
As we wrote last week in the HOF ballot post, here is hoping that today is finally the day for Jim Rice.

A brief note from the sour grapes files.
All these southern football fans that revel in their spread option offenses etc that cannot be stopped etc should remember that every offense has its peak periods.
Ryan and I had this discussion last night and recalled the days of the "unstoppable" Wishbone in the '70s, Flexbone in the '80s, Run and shoot in the '80s and early '90s.
Every new offense has its heyday until the defense figures it out.
Sooner or later-that day always comes...

June Jones leaves Hawaii for SMU.
5 years and 10 million.
But this is not the typical blasting of a coach leaving while the getting is good.
Jones has an expired contract at Hawaii and is not breaking a deal to leave, plus he is going to a program with great new facilities and boosters that want to restore SMU to gridiron glory.
He had probably done all he could at Hawaii and if anyone gets blamed, it should be Hawaii.
They seemed to not even try very hard to retain Jones.....

A nice read from Yahoo on our favorite NBA player, former Xavier star David West.
West is a poster ad for staying in school for 4 years, getting your degree and improving your game for the next step by playing instead of sitting on the bench.

Another interesting interview comes from Australia with WWE champion Randy Orton.
Orton likely got himself into some political hot water in the company after expressing these views with an Aussie newspaper.

And finally, today is the New Hampshire primary.
Looks like Barack Obama and John McCain are favorites in their respective primary heats.

Photo Credit
Chris Russell-Columbus Dispatch