AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2005 > October > 27
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Sorry Dogs, but Gators gotcha covered
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
WEEKEND PREDICTIONS, COLLEGE DIVISION
As we prepare for this week’s big SEC quarterback showdown between Florida’s Chris Leak and Georgia’s Really Really Good Kid, it’s worth noting that Tommy Tuberville managed to make news this week without dissing slow whitey or coming out of the closet.
(Coming soon: ESPNStupid. Reserved for just such moments.)
Tuberville, apparently not realizing that the statute of limitations for bitterness over Auburn’s BCS snubbing has expired, this week said a USC-Texas Rose Bowl has been pre-determined because that’s what the media wants. He went on to rip ESPN, its “GameDay” show for exerting too much influence on things and Lou Holtz, who as it turns out is still alive. Sort of.
Let me just start by saying that, as agendas go, mine involve only the BCS and plutonium.
But I certainly can take this better than ESPN, whose primary mouthpiece, Dan Patrick, heard of Tuberville’s rantings, straightened his hair and actually said: “You’re biting the hand that feeds you.”
Please sir. Don’t hurt me.
May I have more porridge?
In other news, ESPN has taken over China, South America and parts of Farmington and plan to set up a new government in Patrick’s own private Idaho. You can read all about it in, “ESPN: The Magazine,” two pages after the Sheryl Swoopes I-am-loud-and-proud, especially-since-I-just-got-this-really-cool-cruiseline-endorsement interview.
So back to Georgia-Florida. It’s big. It’s so big, even “GameDay” is here. (Tuberville needs to time his material better.)
It’s all about timing. Last year, Georgia played Florida right after Ron Zook’s firing. The Dogs won for only the second time in 15 years. This year, the teams play right about the time Gator fans are wondering why Urban Meyer didn’t take the Notre Dame job. But I digress.
Actually, the timing stinks like yesterday’s “Cold Pizza.” Dogs quarterback D.J. Shockley is out, meaning Joe Tereshinski XXXVIII will make his first start. Last season, Tereshinski was the shadow behind David Greene and Shockley.
If the Dogs were Beatles, he was Ringo. Except now Ringo is singing lead, and how many times can you hear, “A Little Help From My Friends”?
The Gators haven’t been great but I read that Chris Leak has 17 touchdown passes against top 25 teams. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but it sounds better than anything I hear about Tereshinski.
A third-generation Bulldog. Great guy. Works hard. Gee, great. I’m having Little League flashbacks to, “Good cut!”
Georgia thinks it can win a low-scoring game. Yeah. 3-2. Florida is giving 5.
Hear me roar. Gators cover.
FAMILY VALUES MENU
Clemson at Tech: The Miami game last week was postponed, so the Jackets are still on a one-game winning streak. OK. Calm down. Now the Miami and Georgia games are stacked up at the end of the season, meaning Tech can’t afford to be Tech-like in three winnable games (Clemson, WakeUp, Virginia). So welcome to Chan Gailey vs. Tommy Bowden in Résumé Bowl I: Jackets win but take Clemson and 3.
South Carolina at Tennessee: Steve Spurrier’s minor tweak of Phil Fulmer stated the obvious: “Sometimes you think teams are loaded at all positions but they just don’t quite jell.” And just piling on here: the Peach Bowl will scout the game. Oh, Rockhead Top. Vowels win but take Poultry and 14.
Air Force at BYU: So after this game, does Fisher DeBerry complain, “We need more Mormons”? Flyboys go down again.
Club Rouge: In the next two weeks, LSU plays North Texas and Appalachian State. Add some sand and you have a resort. LSU has won two previous games against the “Mean Green,” 101-7. Hope they have an HMO. Tigers cover 44.
Utah State at Alabama: What is this, Dump the Chumps week? Utah State has given up 98 points in the last two games — and the opponents were Fresno State and Boise State. Still, 34 points? No. Bammy wins but take the flotsam and 34.
Wake Forest at Duke: Kidding.
Old Ms. at Auburn: And another thing. When you lose your opener to Tech, you lose all rights to complain. But Tigers cover 20.
Maryland at Florida State: Terps coach Ralph Friedgen said of the ACC race, “If you do the math, we’re not out of this thing.” Further evidence why one should never try to transition from HoHos to mushrooms. FSU covers 17.
SCORECARD
Straight up: 4-2 last week, 41-10 overall.
Against the line: 4-2 last week, 31-20 overall.
Picks left in scoring position: 6.
Permalink | Comments (105) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
Another reason to blame Selig
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
I’ve been doing this for a while now, but what happened Tuesday night (Wednesday morning, actually) was a first. An event ran so long that I didn’t have a paper to write for.
Game 3 of the World Series ended at 2:20 a.m. EDT. Our last print deadline was 1 a.m. Usually, no matter how late something goes, there’s always another edition coming up. (For the uninitiated, we have something called the 4-star, which goes around 10:30 p.m.; the 5-star, which goes around midnight, and finally the replate, which goes around 1 a.m.) Game 3 sailed past — well past — all of the above.
So there I sat, helpless and forlorn. I pride myself on being pretty deft on deadline — I might not be any good, but I’m fairly quick — but this time there was nothing to do. There’s no point writing a column that doesn’t reflect the outcome, and I’d already written what we in the trade call an “early” column. (Sometimes we call it a “plug,” because that’s what it does — it fills space until the real thing gets done.) The plug was about the roof at Minute Maid Park and how it should have been opened during Game 3 of the Braves’ Division Series but wasn’t, and that one stood up in all print editions.
Luckily, though, we now have the Web. Dave O’Brien and I wound up filing strictly for AJC.com that night/morning, which beat sitting around doing nothing. But, speaking only for myself, I’m still conditioned to print. I’m trained to Get Something In The Paper, and this time I couldn’t. And I felt really bad.
And then I did what I do when I’m feeling really bad about something: I blamed it all on Bud Selig.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
Dye casts winning fate for Sox
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Houston — On the South Side of Chicago, there’s jubilation. On the North Side, there’s even more angst than usual. If they could bring themselves to watch Wednesday night’s Game 4, forlorn Cubs fans know now more than ever that the fates are arrayed against them.
Two years ago, the North Side Cubs lost an NLCS in large measure because a spectator — a lifelong Cubs rooter, of all people! — took a foul ball from Moises Alou’s grasp. On Wednesday night, the South Side White Sox won a World Series, their first since 1917, in large measure because shortstop Juan Uribe snatched a foul ball from the paws of an opposing crowd.
The Cubs fan’s anguished lament: “Where’s their Steve Bartman?”
And the Braves fan’s similar plaint: “Why’d we ever trade Jermaine Dye?”
The Braves keep losing in October because they can’t hit in October. A former Brave, wouldn’t you know, was the MVP of this World Series because he got the hit that got the Sox started — a homer off Roger Clemens in the first inning of Game 1 — and also the one that finished it. Dye’s simple single through the box drove home the only run of Game 4, the only run needed to subdue the beaten Astros, who’d given up the ghost in the elongated Game 3.
After three games won by Pale Hose homers, the clincher was a case study in Small Ball. It was scoreless after seven innings, Brandon Backe and Freddy Garcia having matched one another and overmatched both sets of hitters. Then Phil Garner, who had described his team’s Game 3 performance as “embarrassing,” pinch-hit for Backe with two out in the seventh. Jeff Bagwell, the Astro hero who is a shadow of his robust self, grounded out to end the inning, and now Garner turned to Brad Lidge.
It has been a frightful 10 days for the fearsome closer, who’s known as “Lights Out Lidge” in these parts. He surrendered game-losing homers to Albert Pujols and Scott Podsednik — hitters great and small — and now he couldn’t manage a clean inning with the season on the line.
Lidge was touched for a leadoff single by pinch-hitter Willie Harris, who’d had one postseason hit. Podsednik bunted Harris to second and, one out later, Dye sent a roller up the middle, the MVP-to-be clapping his hands as he ran to first base. “I wasn’t trying to do too much,” said Dye, who played for the Braves in the 1996 World Series but was traded to Kansas City in the Michael Tucker-Keith Lockhart deal the next spring. “I had a game plan.”
Too often the Braves lose because they simply hack away. Dye, who hit .438 in the Series, had a huge single off Roy Oswalt in the five-run rally that turned the interminable Game 3. Dye is a professional hitter, and professional hitters are at a premium come October.
The poor Astros, by way of contrast, came across as amateurish. They hit .203 in the Series, scoring one run and managing six hits in the last 19 innings. The Sox simply pitched around Lance Berkman, the one true Houston threat, and let the flailing Morgan Ensberg (.111) get himself out. It was a clinical performance by a clever team managed expertly by Ozzie Guillen, himself an erstwhile Brave.
“Fans in Chicago have showed so much patience,” Guillen said, “for what — 80 years?”
Eighty-eight, to be precise. A year after the Red Sox, who hadn’t won a title since 1918, broke through by sweeping the Cardinals, the White Sox, who hadn’t won it all since 1917, ended their drought by sweeping the Astros. From this we can only deduce: It’s a great time to be an American League team named after hosiery.
And it’s the worst possible time to be a Cubs fan.
Permalink | Comments (53) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Mark Bradley
