Friday, May 16, 2008

McArthur's impressive return

I'm no college baseball nut, although I'm probably going to wind up calling Jeff Cardozo of the Gator Baseball Network today at 12:05 just out of habit. You have to love a story like last night's Gator victory, though. For Brandon McArthur to hit the clutch homer in a come from behind win that ensures at minimum a non-losing SEC record as well as nearly securing a trip to the SEC tournament is just too good. McArthur is playing with a ruptured ACL in his knee. As someone who had to have a torn ACL repaired just to go through my mundane daily activities, I have no idea how he's doing that and performing at such a high level. The guy's been through so much in his UF career, he deserves more moments like that.

If your dream scenario to show just how far FSU football has fallen was to see them forced to line up on Boise's Smurf Turf at the Humanitarian Bowl, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you are running out of time . The ACC's number eight team might end up in the Congressional Bowl in DC or in lovely Mobile. Whether FSU falls far enough to wind up in Boise or not, we'll always have the memory of Miami squeezing out a narrow win over Nevada there a couple of years ago. Speaking of FSU, good to see that Chris Rix has found work. His first lesson to the kids will be about the temptations of handicapped parking.

MLB is busy hyping it, but do you know a single soul who truly cares passionately about interleague play beginning today? Neither do I. Maybe it's matchups like Tampa Bay-St Louis and Florida-Kansas City that aren't getting people riled up, or maybe it's just that the novelty wore off a long time ago. This idea should be dropped for a decade and then brought back for two years at a time. That might actually make it meaningful again. By the way, former Gator and current Cincinnati Reds pitcher Josh Fogg was the victim of a pretty good Ken Griffey Jr. prank earlier this week.

I know Charles Barkley can afford to pay Wynn Las Vegas the 400 grand he apparently owes them. Even if the guy was waking up penniless this morning, he could make that much just by doing a couple of sports card shows and signing autographs. It still blows my mind, though. Once you've lost a quarter million dollars, you'd think some sort of internal signal that it's not your day would kick in. If nothing else, at that point stick with a friend of mine's approach - when he's getting crushed he leaves and goes to a strip club because he knows he'll get some enjoyment for his money.

Speaking of stripping, whoever told Vince Young of the Tennessee Titans this was a good idea did him no favors. Both he and Leinart have had offseasons that make people wonder how serious these two guys are about wanting to actually be NFL quarterbacks as opposed to playing them in nightclubs.

I'll post a mailbag sometime between now and Monday so send anything you want to ask about or get my take on to heath@gator.net over the next couple of days. Thanks and have a great weekend.

1 comment:

Jeremiah said...

Brandon McArthur = Stud.

Has there ever been a player of any sport at UF that has had to endure so much physically and yet, when it's all said and done, will end up having put up pretty good career numbers and been a huge part of two overachieving teams during a time period when UF baseball has been inconsistent, to say the least, and mediocre to say the most.
This team will not get nearly as far as the 2005 team did. This year's team just doesn't have the pitching depth and their bullpen will be their downfall. However, if McArthur can continue his amazing play,he's going to have a happy ending to his career, and nobody deserves that more.