Wayne Gretzky is the greatest hockey player of all-time. Heck, he is also the greatest athlete of all-time. But I think it is safe to say that right now Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins is the best hockey player in the world right now.
On Friday night, Crosby showed just why he is so great. In a dominating performance, Crosby had a hat trick by the early portion of the second period in a 4-3 win over the Ottawa Senators in game two of the Eastern Conference semi-final that put the Penguins up 2-0 in the best-out-of-seven series.
Crosby will now have the opportunity to showcase his skills north of the border this weekend as Pittsburgh travels to Ottawa for game three of the Eastern Conference semi-final (Sunday, CBC, 5:30 p.m.). I know the Penguins are loaded with talent that includes Evgeni Malkin and Jarome Iginla, but the bottom line is when healthy Pittsburgh is Crosby’s team.
Here are the other events I’ll be watching:
Saturday–MLB–New York Mets @ Chicago Cubs–WPIX–11:00 a.m.–Two teams in fourth place in their divisions play today at Wrigley Field. The Cubs are 17-24 in the National League Central, while the Mets are 16-23 in the National League East. First baseman Anthony Rizzo, who represented Italy at the World Baseball Classic, with nine home runs, 29 runs batted in and a .522 slugging percentage. While so far this season, the Mets have been led by third baseman David Wright, who leads the team with a .312 batting average, .418 on base percentage and a .536 slugging percentage.
We’re coming to the second busiest sports month of the year. April. Where has March gone? I know.
Anyways. It is a huge weekend for the Edmonton Oilers as they will be hosting their two western Canadian foes– the Vancouver Canucks tonight (CBC, 8:00 p.m.) and the Calgary Flames on Easter Monday (Sportsnet, 7:30 p.m.).
With 15 games left on the schedule, the Oilers are three points back of the St. Louis Blues for a playoff spot. That means every five games, they will have to pick up a point on the Blues, and hope they are slightly better than three other teams that are in front of them– the Columbus Blue Jackets, Dallas Stars and Nashville Predators.
Here are the other events I’ll be watching this weekend:
On Monday the Edmonton Eskimos will play the Calgary Stampeders at McMahon Stadium in the Labour Day Classic.
Even though the Eskimos are two points ahead of the Stampeders in the CFL Western Division, my gut is telling me the Stampeders will be coming away with the victory. Why am of I of this opinion? Well three reasons.
Home teams have done better this season to date. The teams that have hosted games are 20-13 so far this season.
The Eskimos never do well on the second game of a two game road trip. The second worst game the Eskimos had this season was in Winnipeg after the team won an impressive game in British Columbia. This factor smells trouble.
This week on a special NHL Trade Deadline edition of 15 Minutes of Fame, we try to pick out the winners and the losers of the big day and do our best to analyze the one trade pulled off by the Edmonton Oilers. We also look at the biggest pre-deadline trade and non-trade, which was Jeff Carter to the LA Kings and Ales Hemsky re-upping with the Oil.
In the GABBYs: Chicago Cubs fans, CC Sabathia, Jeremy Lin, Greg Oden, Rajon Rondo & Tommi Virtanen. The Punchline this week is MMA fighter Dan Lariviere!
The Baseball Writers’ Association of America has made their choice on who will be inducted into Cooperstown at the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
A month after the Veterans Committee elected Chicago Cubs third baseman Ron Santo posthumously, the Committee elected Cincinnati Reds shortstop Barry Larkin today.
Larkin, played from 1986-2004 with the Reds, winning a World Series in 1990 over the Oakland Athletics.
His best year was in 1995, when he was named the National League MVP. He batted .319 that season and helped the Reds get to the National League Championship Series. He was also a 12-time all-star.
Santo played with the Chicago Cubs from 1960-1973 and with the Chicago White Sox in 1974. His finest season came in 1964 when he led the National League with 13 triples and a .398 on base percentage.
Another person that is going to be recognized at Cooperstown this year is the brilliant Toronto Sun sportswriter Bob Elliott, who is a recipient of the J.G. Taylor Spink Award, presented as the highest honour for any member of the Baseball Writers Association of America. No writer has written more interesting stories about Canadian baseball in my lifetime than Elliott, and it is great to see the recognition he deserves.
The Miami Marlins have acquired another big name player. On Thursday the Marlins acquired starting pitcher Carlos Zambrano from the Chicago Cubs for right handed pitcher Chris Volstad.
Zambrano has been a major part of the Cubs starting rotation for the last decade. From 2003-2008, he won over 13 games baseball games every season, highlighted by an 18-win season in 2007.
Another major attribute over Zambrano’s career has been his endurance within games he pitches. He has thrown nine complete games in his 1826 innings of work.
Still, last season he struggled by only going 9-7 with a 4.82 earned run average and a 1.44 WHIP.
Volstad was 5-13 last season for the Marlins with a 4.89 earned run average.
Zambrano is just the latest addition to a Marlins team that has changed their name, their ballpark, their manager and their on field product. Since the end of the World Series, the Marlins have also brought in shortstop Jose Reyes from the New York Mets, starting pitcher Mark Buehrle from the Chicago White Sox and closer Heath Bell from the San Diego Padres.
The Pittsburgh Pirates are taking their chances on Canadian left-hander Erik Bedard.
The Pirates confirmed the signing of the southpaw from Navan, Ontario to a one year deal worth $4.5 million on the weekend. Last year, Bedard went 5-9 with 125 strikeouts and a 3.62 earned run average with Seattle and Boston. The Pirates are hoping Bedard can rekindle his magic with the Baltimore Orioles, where he won a combined total of 28 games in 2006 and 2007. Unfortunately, he has ran into an abundance of arm issues since, but can be a productive pitcher if healthy.
In other moves, the Toronto Blue Jays acquired outfielder Ben Francisco (.244, 6 HR, 34 RBIs) from the Philadelphia Phillies for a minor leaguer. Don’t expect Francisco to be in the Blue Jays’ lineup everyday.
The Milwaukee Brewers, who lost Ryan Braun for fifty games to steroid use and are expected to lose Prince Fielder to free agency, signed Aramis Ramirez to a 3 year deal worth $37 million. Ramirez, a third baseman, batted .306 with 26 home runs and 93 runs batted in with the Chicago Cubs in 2011.
Also on the weekend, the Oakland Athletics traded starting pitcher Trevor Cahill (12-14, 147 K, 4.16 ERA) and reliever Craig Breslow (67 G, 0-2, 3.79 ERA) to the Arizona Diamondbacks for three minor leaguers who are expected to play a key role in Oakland in 2012.
The Boston Red Sox have named Bobby Valentine as their franchise manager, replacing the fired Terry Francona.
The Red Sox are coming off a disastrous September where they blew a nine game lead over the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League Wildcard chase and failed to hang on.
Valentine, who most recently was an analyst for ESPN Sunday Night Baseball, has extensive managerial experience in the past–eight years with the Texas Rangers and seven years with the New York Mets. Valentine also spent seven years managing in Japan.
In other recent baseball news, the Tampa Bay Rays signed Jose Molina to a one year deal worth $1.8 million this past weekend. Molina doesn’t have a lot of power in his bat, but did hit a career high .281 this season, and has worked very well with younger pitchers on Major League Baseball rosters in the past.
In two other key free agent signings so far, the Texas Rangers signed closer Joe Nathan this past week to a two year contract worth $14.5 million from the Minnesota Twins. Nathan, who is now 37 years old, only had an earned run average of 4.84 last season after missing 2010 due to Tommy John Surgery. From 2004-2009, Nathan was one of the most elite closers in baseball, collecting 246 saves over six years.
Also, the Chicago Cubs signed David DeJesus to a two year contract worth $10 million from the Oakland Athletics. DeJesus batted .240 with 10 home runs and 46 runs batted in last season.
The Chicago Cubs made their first significant move with new Director of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein at the helm.
On Wednesday, the franchise fired manager Mike Quade went 95-104 with the Cubs in just over one season as the franchise’s manager.
Epstein, who left the Boston Red Sox with a year left under his contract, has also hired Jed Hoyer as the team’s General Manager. Hoyer spent the last two years as the San Diego Padres’ GM.
The Cubs struggled in the National League Central last year, going 71-91, and 25 games back of the division winning Milwaukee Brewers.
The three names that are considered as the favourites to take over from Quade are Terry Francona, who worked with Epstein in Boston, Hall of Fame second baseman Ryne Sandberg, who has managed in Chicago’s minor league system and former Montreal Expo Dave Martinez, who spent last year as the Tampa Bay Rays’ bench coach.
Epstein is credited for turning the Boston Red Sox around, and leading them to two World Series in 2004 ans 2007, and their first World Series Championship since 1918.
Touchdown Atlantic goes for the second year on Sunday and for the second consecutive season a CFL team from Alberta will be involved. In Moncton, New Brunswick on Sunday, the Calgary Stampeders (7-4) will play the Hamilton Tiger-Cats (5-6). The game is a home game for the Tiger-Cats, who are coming off a lackluster performance against the Edmonton Eskimos in a 38-23 defeat. The Calgary Stampeders also struggled mightily last week, falling to the B.C. Lions 32-19.
The Stampeders defeated the Tiger-Cats 32-20 on August 6. Henry Burris threw for 341 yards.
Last year in Moncton, the Eskimos hammered the Toronto Argonauts 24-6 in an outstanding defensive performance by the entire club.
The game can be seen on TSN at 11am. Here are the other events I’ll be watching this weekend:
Records in baseball are few and far between because of the rich history of Major League Baseball dating back to 1869.
But on Tuesday night, New York Yankees’ first baseman Mark Teixeira got into the record books and is now all alone in first place.
Teixeira hit a home run from both sides of the plate in the same game for a record twelfth time in Major League Baseball history as the New York Yankees shut out the Chicago White Sox 6-0.
He passes long time switch hitter Eddie Murray (who played eleven seasons with the Baltimore Orioles in his 20 year career) and Chilli Davis who played the majority of his career with the San Francisco Giants and California Angels.
In other baseball news, Canadian Matt Stairs of Saint John, New Brunswick has decided to retire after a 19 year career that started in 1992 with the Montreal Expos. Over time, Stairs was known as one of the best pinch hitters the game has ever seen. His 23 pinch hit home runs is a Major League Baseball record. Since starting with the Expos, Stairs has been a Major League Baseball journeyman, having also played with the Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Oakland Athletics, Pittsburgh Pirates, Milwaukee Brewers, Kansas City Royals, Texas Rangers, Detroit Tigers, Toronto Blue Jays, Philadelphia Phillies, San Diego Padres and Washington Nationals. In 2008, he won a World Series with the Phillies, and hit a key home run against the Los Angeles Dodgers in game four of the National League Championship Series.
Former Montreal Expo pitcher Hideki Irabu is dead at the age of 42.
According to Robert Jablon of the Associated Press, Irabu died of an apparent suicide yesterday in Los Angeles, California.
Irabu starred many years in the Japanese League before joining the New York Yankees in 1997. He played three years with the Yankees, winning two World Series in 1998 and 1999, before being traded to the Expos in another extremely lopsided trade that was not in Montreal’s favour.
On March 22, 2000, Irabu was traded from the New York Yankees to Montreal Expos for pitchers Ted Lilly, Jake Westbrook and pitching prospect Christian Parker.
Parker only went on to play one major league game, but Lilly and Westbrook have had very strong careers. Lilly won 17 games for the Chicago Cubs in 2008 and Westbrook has won 82 games in his career with with the Cleveland Indians and St. Louis Cardinals.
The San Francisco Giants significantly improved their outfield late last night with the acquisition of outfielder Carlos Beltran from the New York Mets for pitching prospect Zack Wheeler.
After an abundance of injuries, mostly knee issues over the last few years, Beltran has performed admirably in 2011, batting .289 with 15 home runs and 66 runs batted in. He is getting up in age a little at 34, but has shown this year he still has offensive skills.
Beltran should fit in nicely in centerfield where the Giants haven’t received great production this year from Andres Torres (.235, 3 HR, 18 RBIs) and Aaron Rowand (.244, 4 HR, 20 RBIs).
The Giants currently lead the Arizona Diamondbacks by three games in the National League West.
With Wheeler, the Mets are receiving a top prospect that has an effective curveball and a fastball at 95 miles per hour. But my motto is Wheeler is only a prospect. There was a lot of hype about Stephen Strasburg a year ago too.
In another move Thursday, the Cleveland Indians have acquired Japanese outfielder Kosuke Fukudome (.273, 3 HR, 13 RBIs) from the Chicago Cubs for prospects and cash. The Indians have struggled lately, going 3-7 in their last ten games, and were no-hit yesterday by the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim starter Johan Santana.
Ricky Romero, the ace for the Toronto Blue Jays, has been added to the roster of the American League for tomorrow night’s mid-Summer classic in Phoenix, Arizona.
Romero replaces Jon Lester of the Boston Red Sox, who is currently on the disabled list because of a back injury.
Romero, deserved to be an All-Star in the first place. Despite his 7-8 record, he had a strong 3.09 earned run average, to go along with 101 strikeouts and 45 walks in 122 1/3 innings. He has also given up fewer hits (106), than innings pitched, another indicator for a solid start to the season.
The Blue Jays’ first round pick in the 2005 Entry Draft, Romero has pitched well despite missing some time with an oblique injury.
In other baseball news, former Toronto Blue Jay Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia Phillies (11-3, 2.45 ERA) will start for the National League and Jered Weaver of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (11-4, 1.86 ERA) will start for the American League.
Carlos Beltran (.285, 15 HR, 58 RBIs) of the New York Mets has been selected as the starting designated hitter in the National League.
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