ATL Sports and My Impending Retirement

A little sports talk for a beautiful Thursday evening in the High Country. The "stache" a.k.a. "the matt in black." That's TMIB for short.

A lot is going on in the ATL sports world this time of year. Its unfortunate the end of the school semester has to conflict with all the sporting events on TV, something has to give here and you know it won't be the sports. First, the Braves, my long time love and passion. I have to be careful watching their games so as to not to get so worked up about them, its difficult but I am trying to mellow out as I get older. Its frustrating when you see a team with all this talent and you feel like they are underachieving. Does it come from the manager? Do we have the wrong mix of players? I think the answer to the first question is yes, I think we need to seriously look at letting Bobby Cox go into retirement. The spark does not seem to be there. Look, to me he is one of the best managers ever in the history of baseball, but the time may be up for the long time skipper of the Bravos. I hope I am wrong on this and the team can turn it around, but I have seen this team go into a precipitous downhill slide the last few years and I do not see much hope for this year other than a .500 record or so. I think we have the right mix of players with some reinforcements on the way in the next year or two to see who fits in well and who does not. We should also just get rid of Terry Pendleton, the hitting coach, because where do guys go when they are struggling with their swing, not him, but Chipper Jones or some guy from another organization. Heck, Jeff Francouer went to Rudy Jaramillo of the Texas Rangers to fix his swing. What does that say about the competence of Pendleton? Chipper talks to his dad, Brian McCann talks to his dad, I don't see many talking to TP. The offense has been too inconsistent this year, while the starters are above average and the bullpen finally seems to be coming around (knock on wood), but we cannot seem to put all phases of the game together for more than a game at a time. The defense has been suspect in some cases as has the baserunning. Something is not clicking, I do not want to begin to seriously talk about football until at least June, they might force that occurrence to happen by mid-May if they do not get it together.

Next team: The Hawks. The series currently sits 1-1 against the Miami Heat with the series heading to Miami for two games this Saturday and Monday evening. The first game we played was fantastic, holding the Heat to a measly 64 points. They basically made them quit and only Dwyane Wade and Micheal Beasley scored in the double figures. A complete team effort by the Hawks on both sides of the floor as we put six guys into double figures in points, while holding the Heat to 25 points in the second half. Outstanding performance followed by a very average performance last night as the Heat lit us up in 108-93 game that saw Miami make 15 three pointers (Dwayne Wade and Daequan Cook with 6 a piece). We could not seem to find the defensive touch that we had in game one as they jumped on us early and never really looked back. They had five guys score in double figures. The key to stopping the Heat is to shut down the other guys and kind of let Wade do his thing. Also knocking down some free throws would be nice as well (19 for 30). Joe Johnson and Al Horford will be the keys in these games in Miami. They need to play big or we are going to be heading home for good sooner than we would like.

Next and final team: Atlanta Falcons. You may ask isn't it a little too early to be talking about football in April. Oh on the contrary my friend, the 2009 NFL Draft is less than 48 hours away. Cannot wait. For a stats and football junkie this is one of the highlights of the sports year for me. For some it is a snoozer, but I enjoy nearly every minute of it. So many intriguing possibilities. Now I will admit that I am not into as much as I was last year when the Falcons set at #3 and we were under our first year with Thomas Dimitroff and Mike Smith calling the shots for the draft. We were not sure what they would do or who they would select, but I trusted these guys from the start to make the right pick. I never really seriously questioned (my friend did) the selection of Matt Ryan as the QB with the first pick, that has turned out fabulous so far. I am intrigued with what they will do with their 1st pick at #24 this year. I have a feeling it will be a defensive player, whoever their highest rated player is when it is time for them to make their pick. Defense will be the major theme this year, but I do expect them to address the Offensive Line as well sometime in this draft. With the recent addition of Tony Gonzalez at TE, I think we are as close as we can be to be set on the offensive side of the ball for 2009. Gonzalez had a solid year last for the Chiefs, hauling in 10 TDs and racking over 1000 yards in receptions. Good numbers, lets hope he can come close to that this year and become the missing link to our offense.

One last tidbit before I let you go. Tomorrow will be my last practice as a Lees-McRae Bobcats (pause for mourning.............). It just might have to be an all black day tomorrow on the run. This also will probably be my last day running here at school as I plan to take about about a month off from running. This will be the longest time I will go without running, non-injury related, in 8 years. I am looking forward to the break to rest my mind and body and prepare myself for the next phase in my life. As I have mentioned before I plan to continue running on a semi-regular basis, barring anything catastrophic. I have given a lot of thought to this matter and was not sure how seriously I was going to take running in the future. Obviously it will be less serious as I will only have to worry about myself and not my place on a team. I will not over stress trying to squeeze a run in. I will do it more because of a want than a need. I am scheduled to run the Peachtree Road Race(10k) in Atlanta on July 4. So I would like to be in some reasonable kind of fitness for that and plus I have to have something to keep up my appetite and retain my dominance as the most fit member of my family. The rest of the family has started up running, so I can't slack too much. It serves as a lot of my motivation to keep running, can't let the little sister out do me. Be looking for a retirement speech sometime this weekend as I run my last races as a collegian on Saturday. Sorry that was longer than a tidbit, but now I am done so you can stop reading, no seriously you can stop reading I am done for the day. Peace.

Mb