Cardinals, Rangers Deserve More Respect

Despite this being potentially one of the bes World Series in the history of MLB, viewer ratings are not up to par for this year's fall classic.  Reports are that television ratings are way down compared to just two years ago when the Phillies met the Yankees in the World Series.  It was estimated that about 22 million people tuned in to watch that year's series clinching game 6 while this year's game 6 garnered a little over 17 million viewers.  Much of this can be attributed to the markets each team plays in compared to the markets of the 2009 teams.  The St. Louis Cardinals and Texas Rangers operate under a much smaller market for baseball viewers than that of the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies.  Still, with all the excitement of last game 6 and games prior, this World Series should be producing equal or better ratings that that of the 2009 Series.  It is disappointing to think that baseball has shrunk to the level that it has.

Carson Palmer: Answer To Radiers Struggles?

The Cincinatti Bengals finally shed their angry franchise player, Carson Palmer.  Palmer was retired and finally traded to the Oakland Radiers today for a first round pick in this year's draft and a conditional first round pick two years from now.  Is this the player the Radiers have been missing?  They haven't had a true quality quarterback since Rich Gannon took them to the super bowl almost a decade ago.  They had the widely publicized bust of quarterback JaMarcus Russell out of LSU (first overall pick).  I believe Palmer will undoubtedly help the team.  But is he what he used to be before the Steelers tore his ACL the first play of the game during the playoffs a few years back?  On that play he threw a 60 yard bomb for a huge opening play of the game by the way.  I don't view Palmer as the elite quarterback he once was, yet he is still dependable.  I'm just not sure he is two first round picks dependable.

Red Sox Dysfunction Just a Microcosm of Sports Today

Ever since the Boston Red Sox failed to make the playoffs this season, experts have been searching for reasons for their monumental September collapse.  A team once on pace for 100 wins and a trip to the playoffs stuttered big time, going 6-18 down the stretch and losing a nine game lead in the wild-card race as of September 3rd.  Reports have been coming out that arguably the team's top three starting pitchers (Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, and John Lackey) were drinking beer, eating fried chicken, and playing video games in the clubhouse during games instead of being on the bench.  To me, this is absolutely ridiculous.  It shows so much dissrespect to the game of baseball and to Americans in general.  It seems like athletes and sports in general these days are getting more and more dissrespectful and lazy every year.  Players are getting illegally recruited, using performance enhancing drugs, saying innapropriate things during interviews and social media, along with countless other examples that can be seen every day on ESPN.  Athletes don't care as much as they should and are just in it for the money.  They care more about themselves and their statistics rather than winning their game.  This specific Boston Red Sox incident is just a microcosm of sports today.   

Verlander Making History, Again

Detroit Tigers star pitcher Justin Verlander is adding his name to the record books, again.  He has already thrown two career no-hitters and is the heavy favorite to win the AL Cy Young award this season for the league's best pitcher.  On Sunday he  put his name in another historical category by becoming the first pitcher in 33 years (Ron Guidry, 1978) to record 24 wins and 240 strikeouts in a season.  He is only the seventh AL pitcher since World War II to accomplish this.  The win yesterday marked his 12th straight, the first time a pitcher has done that since 2004 (Johan Santana).  His 24 total wins is also the most by a MLB pitcher since Randy Johnson won 24 in 2002.  Overall, Verlander stands at 24-5 with a 2.28 ERA with one start remaining in the regular season.  If he wins his next one, he will become baseball's most winning pitcher since 1990 (Bob Welch, 27).  There is no reason why he shouldn't walk away with this year's AL Cy Young award. 

Pirates Collapse After All-Star Break

Well that was fun wasn't it?  Your Pittsburgh Pirates were in first place not too long ago in the middle of the summer.  But if you thought they would finish the season there, you were sorely mistaken and probably mentally unstable.  But for the team to collapse like it has since that 19 inning game in Atlanta is embarassing and brings Pirate fans back down to earth.  The team has gone something to the tune of 15-40 or so after the all-star break and is in a free fall in the standings.  This is mostly due to the decline in performance by the pitching staff and the continued year long struggle of the offense to produce runs.  Maybe next year the team can build upon it's success it had this season and sustain it next year.  Hey, it's good to dream right?

NFL Should Once Again Take Over Sports World

While MLB baseball has been the talk of the sports world most of the summer, it should take a back seat to the NFL once again.  According to a USA Today article by Michael Hiestand, a regular season football game between two 1-3 teams last year (Dallas & Minnesota) nearly tripled the ratings the NLCS playoff game between the Phillies and eventual MLB champion San Francisco Giants.   This shouldn't come as a surprise as the NFL is by far the most popular sport in the US.  And nobody should expect this to change this year either, especially after that thrillng NFL opener thursday night between the defending Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers and New Orleans Saints.  Another factor that will almost certainly sink any chance the MLB had to stay even with the NFL at this point in the year is the lack of close pennant races this year.  The Yankees/Redsox battle and the race between the Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are the closest thing to an interesting pennant race and thats a 2.5 game difference.  All the other division leading teams are at least 7.5 games ahead of the second place team.  The combination of the two (NFL being traditionaly overpowering and lack of MLB pennant races) could doom the MLB.  Ratings could fall to an all-time low this year and who knows what might happen with the current Collecctive Bargaining Agreement expiring after this season; but only time will tell.  We all know what happened with the NFL and their lockout situation, but in the meantime, the NFL appears to be ruling supreme once again.

Introduction

Hello everyone my name is Marcus Cashell and I am a Sport Management major and also a Business Administration minor.  I am from Saxonburg, Pa and Knoch High School.  I am a huge sports fan but concentrate heavily on the Pittsburgh based team obviously (Steelers, Penguins, Pirates).