Bits & Pieces

By Kim J. Harmon

It’s a slippery slope, my friends.

I knew I was heading down hill a couple of years ago when I couldn’t even beat my son at a backyard Whiffle Ball© game. But this past weekend I was dealt two bigger jolts when my 10-year-old son whipped me twice in NBA Live 2006 and my eight-year-old nephew defeated me in Tigers Woods 2006.

It’s a slippery slope and I have no traction left on my shoes.

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How is it possible to go through an entire high school basketball game – that’s 32 minutes – and shoot only two foul shots? Well, it is possible because the Immaculate girls only shot two free throws last week in their 37-35 win over Newtown.

Lots of fans scream about the discrepancy in foul shots as a clear indication of the one-sidedness of the officiating. What is kind of funny, at least in this particular game, is that the Newtown girls took 20 foul shots and had players hammered three times in the final minute with nary a whistle being blown.

No matter how good officials are at their job, basketball officiating still has that sense of arbitrariness and it can be very perplexing – and maddening – at times.

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I believed it could happen – I really did.

I drove up to Southbury on Tuesday afternoon thinking I would see the Newtown High School swim team defeat Pomperaug … possibly for the first time ever (if you want to leaf through 40 years of newsprint to be sure, be my guest).

I was disappointed, but only a bit.

It’s not that the Nighthawks performed poorly. It’s that Pomperaug is so good. How they continue to be so dominant year in and year out is beyond my meager understanding, but standing on the pool deck you have to appreciate a team like that.

Plus, the ‘Hawks put together some really good swims – like Brendan Deveney’s first-place finish in the 200 freestyle and Max Barrett’s first-place finish in the 100 freestyle. The 200 medley, 50 freestyle and 100 freestyle were thrilling races – what high school swimming should be all about.

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Every day I get reminded of how old I’m getting – and I’m not getting that old (43), for crying out loud.

I think about this every time I go to a Newtown-Pomperaug swim meet, but the head coach of the Pomperaug High School team is Fran Pentino and I remember interviewing him when he was swimming – under head coach Russ Davey – at Watertown High School.

I run into that kind of thing all the time, though. I can’t say how many times I’ve run into a former Newtown athlete and asked, “So – how is school?” And, of course, the answer has often been, “Uh, Mr Harmon, I graduated three years ago.”

Time is moving too darn fast for me.

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After EA Sports won (or, rather, hijacked) exclusive rights to the National Football League license, Blitz – that great arcade game that glorified on-the-field violence (I know, I know … that’s bad) – released the newest version of its franchise last October.

I only recently picked up a copy and for any former Blitz players who have yet to get a copy, run out and do that right now.

The last couple of versions of the game were getting kind of lame, but this newest version – without the NFL looking over the shoulders of the developers and clucking in their ears – takes the havoc to a new level. The game incorporates a new story mode not unlike the Playmaker series on ESPN and fully embraces the concept of steroids (although the use of performance enhancing substances definitely helps your players, serious injuries and suspensions can and do result in the game – so there are repercussions).

The action is furious and definitely “arcade.” While the Madden franchise better captures the “real” NFL, Blitz: The League gets right to the heart of the very thing which attracts a lot of people to the sport.

My only complaint is that I can’t even allow my kid’s to watch me play (my older son loved the original NFL Blitz game) and while some of that has to do with the on-the-field violence and the off-the-field glorification of the steroids, there are a lot of cutscenes which suggest illicit behavior and a LOT of gratuitous swearing.

Why is that stuff even in the game? Does it enhance it in any way? No! I like the game a lot, but I’m 43 and I am a little disturbed that there are kids out there who have their hands on this game and play on a regular basis.

That’s sort of my own little quandary, I suppose.

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With that performance (467 total yards and three touchdowns) in the Rose Bowl, Vince Young of the University of Texas probably made himself an extra $30 million – going from a top 10 pick to a top 3 pick.

Wow – what a show.

It reminds me of Carlos Beltran and what he did in the playoffs for the Houston Astros.

Through his short career, Beltran was a .280 hitter with 25-home run power who may knock in 85 to 100 RBI a season. But he went absolutely nuts in the 2004 playoffs. He hit .435 with eight home runs and 14 RBI in 12 games and he easily earned himself $35 million with that performance.

If he only conforms to his average output during the playoffs, does he get a seven-year, $119-million deal ($17 million a year on average) from the New York Mets? No way! He would have gotten – at best – a seven-year, $85-million deal ($12 million a year on average) and Mets fans would have been far less disappointed at his numbers in 2005.

Considering the $119 million, his .266 average, 16 home runs and 78 RBI were a disaster. According to baseball-reference.com, over a full 162-game season Beltran is a .282 hitter with 25 home runs and 101 RBI.

Hopefully, Vince Young – probably the 2006 quarterback of the Houston Texans or the New Orleans Saints – can live up to the superhuman numbers that everyone will remember so well.

 

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The Goose gets cooked ... again.

The 2006 National Baseball Hall of Fame honorees were announced on Tuesday and reliever Bruce Sutter has gotten the call.

Sutter deserves it, no question, with his 300 saves and a long-standing reputation as the first great closer in baseball history.

But Goose Gossage gets left out in the cold again. While Sutter was the most dominating closer of the late 1970s and early ‘80s, Gossage was right there alongside of him and actually finished with more career saves (310).

I remember a game against the Seattle Mariners. The Goose - in his stint with the New York Yankees - gets called out of the pen with runners on second and third and no one out and all he did, my friends, was strike out the side on 11 pitches.

That’s right - 11 pitches.

If I remember correctly, he threw 10 strikes (one was fouled off) and just one ball. I vividly remember the Goose throwing a vicious hook that had the Seattle batter LEAPING out of the box only to see the ball drop across the plate for the strike.

Gossage was a dominating closer and deserves to be in the Hall along with Sutter.

And don’t forget Jim Rice of the Boston Red Sox, who once again gets stabbed in the back by the writers. As a Yankee fan, I’ll tell you we feared no one more than we feared Rice, the most devastating hitter of his era.

From 1977 to 1986, there was no one better and with a .298 career average and 382 home runs, I can’t figure out how he didn’t get in.

Someday.