Smallthoughts: Rants and Raves

Rants: Colin Cowherd…On his show Thursday, Cowherd while talking about the Miami Marlins and ended up proclaiming that baseball can’t be “too complex” since it’s played by so many Dominicans. His actual quote is the following:

It’s too complex? I’ve never bought into that ‘baseball is too complex.’ Really? A third of the sport is from the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic has not been known in my lifetime as having world class academic abilities. A lot of those kids come from rough backgrounds and have not had opportunities academically that other kids from other countries have. Baseball is like any sport. It’s mostly instincts. A sportswriter who covers baseball could go up to Tony La Russa and make an argument and Tony would listen and it would seem reasonable. There’s not a single NFL writer in the country who could diagram a play for Bill Belichick. You know, we get caught up in this whole ‘thinking-man’s game.’ Is it in the same family? Most people could do it. It’s not being a concert pianist. It’s in the same family.”

When I can I listen to Colin Cowherd on the radio and sometime catch his show on tv. Most of the time he is enetertaining and fun and smart enough to make more sense then most. But in this case he so waaaaaayyyyyy off base with this one. JOse Bautista stated the following reply to Cowherd on Twitter:

“Dear Mr. @ESPN_Colin before i rip you a new one i would like for you to explain what u meant to say about baseball and dominicans, please”

6:55 PM – 23 Jul 2015

Sounds like Cowherd has some explaining to do.

Rants:Lou Lamoriello…it’s hard to rant on someone who has survived and thrived in the New York market for 28 years and won 3 Stanley Cups but to leave after all this time??? I’m sure the Devils were caught off guard by his departure to Toronto. If his reason for leaving Jersey for Toronto was because he wouldn’t have total control like he did for the past 28 years then this is a head scratcher. Toronto has front office in place that runs by committee …Lamoriello runs alone …we will see how this works out.

Rants:J.R. Smith …Gambled on himself and lost. Smith opted out the final year of his contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers, worth $6.4 million, to hit free agency this summer. However, he has lingered on the market perhaps longer than he, or anyone else, expected, so now he has to basically take less than he expected when he opted out. Two things hurt Smith his performance in the playoffs(starting with a two-game suspension for hitting Jae Crowder of the Boston Celtics, and shooting just 31% in the Finals) and his timing for free agency. Had he not opted out and played this year on a one year deal, he could have then been a free agent at the end of this upcoming season and with the salary cap wide open could have signed for big money.

Raves: Pittsburgh Steelers…This is a franchise that knows how to stay stable. They re-signed head coach Mike Tomlin to a 2 year deal. He is only the 3rd coach the Steelers have had since 1969… the other two ? Chuck Noll 1969-1991 and Bill Cowher 1992-2006 and Tomlin has been the coach since 2006. All three coaches have won at least 1 super bowl.

Raves:Clayton Kershaw… if there was any doubts if he was off his game the last three games should have answered that nicely… He’s the 1st pitcher ever with 3 straight GS of 10+ K’s, 0 BB & 0 runs. And he’s just getting warmed up. Wow.

Raves:Kansas City Royals …Take a wild guess who is in first place in the American League Central ? Tigers? nope…Twins? Nope….Royals? Yes …they lead the American League central by 6.5 games over the Twins. Proving that last season was no fluke the Royals are back to being the Royals from the George Brett era which means they are back to winning consistently.