vatos deportes

When the thousands of fans who had packed Maple Leaf Square on Monday night woke up from their nightmare on Tuesday, the baseball season had finally started in Toronto just two city blocks away at the Rogers Centre.

The night before, the city witnessed their tormented hockey team suffer a heartbreaking and almost unimaginable exit from the playoffs.

Up 4-1 in the third period in Game 7 of their opening round series, the iconic Original Six franchise that hasn’t won the Stanley Cup since 1967 somehow surrendered three goals in the final 11 minutes before falling in overtime.

And thus it was now officially baseball time in Toronto.

The horde of potential reborn Blue Jays fans were greeted on Opening Day Redux by their team sitting dead last in the AL East, nine games under .500 and facing the defending champions the San Francisco Giants.

Yet, the Jays embraced a clean-slate approach to their revised opener and did what they were expected to be doing since the real season opening back on April 2.

They jumped all over Barry Zito in the opening inning for an instant 6-0 lead, if only the Leafs had scored six goals in the opening period against the Boston Bruins the night before they might still be alive and overshadowing the Blue Jays’ struggles.

The Jays’ false start to the season all started with R.A. Dickey on the mound against the Cleveland Indians 43 days prior.

Dickey was now given a chance to spark the resurgence in Toronto and had already inherited a lofty lead to start the game.

However in Toronto, great leads come with great responsibility as there was almost a sinking feeling that the Blue Birds would somehow replicate the Blue Leafs’ late meltdown to the tune of the same blues.

Zito gave those concerns some life by smoothing things out over the next four innings, while his team scrounged together a pair of runs.

Toronto found new life in the sixth when former Giant Melky Cabrera initiated a handy two-out rally with his third hit of the game, he scored their seventh run on Edwin Encarnación’s double before the Jays scored two more in the dig to make it 9-2.

The next inning, Cabrera knocked in Toronto’s tenth and final run on his fourth hit of the night.

Brandon Belt’s RBI double in the eighth made it 10-3, with the Blue Jays seemingly home and hosed, how could the Giants possibly pull this one out?

And then the World Series MVP Pablo Sandoval smacked a three-run home run in the top of the ninth with two outs.

As it turned out, those six runs in the opening inning weren’t enough to win, but Dickey, Cabrera and the rest of the Jays found a way to triumph in their makeshift season opener.

Back in reality, they’re still nine games back with 122 to play.

15 Mayo 2013

The Golden State Warriors turned over a new page in Game 2 of their second round playoff series against the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday.

And the Warriors superstar marksman Stephen Curry marked the occasion by creating a new shot.

Curry’s one-legged three-pointer early in the opening quarter extended the crafty old ‘runner’ that we know and love, into a new long-range weapon, adding another ingenious facet to his already incredible repertoire of offensive tricks.

It was the combination of both Curry and his backcourt running mate (and ‘Splash Brother’) Klay Thompson’s scoring barrage that finally welcomed the Spurs to this year’s playoffs in the 87th game of their season.

The Spurs were unchallenged in four games during their would-be opening round series against the Lakers, and they hadn’t been beaten at home against the Warriors since Valentine’s Day 1997.

That was the infamous 20-62 Spurs, who experienced one of the greatest ‘bad seasons’ in the history of sports, a season that was instantly turned around and saw the franchise transformed when they landed Tim Duncan in the following draft.

And the Warriors played their part in helping the Spurs win the draft lottery, by accounting for four of their 62 losses during the 1996-97 season.

Back then, the Spurs played at the Alamodome, a converted indoor football stadium that provided an awkward backdrop for hosting NBA games.

By the 2002-03 season, the Spurs had moved into a new venue and their current home the AT&T Center, where they had enjoyed an incredible undefeated run (22-0) against the Warriors until Wednesday. 

The first time Golden State played at AT&T, their starting five featured a handful of recently drafted Warriors in Gilbert Arenas, Antawn Jamison, Troy Murphy and Jason Richardson.

In contrast of how the two clubs have faired since then, in that same game the Spurs fielded the familiar nucleus of players that still fuels them today.

11 years later, it took the fresh new crop of Warriors draftees in Curry, Thompson, Harrison Barnes and Draymond Green to finally claim the breakthrough victory over Duncan, Parker and Ginobili.

This is the new Warriors with virtuoso scorers inventing new ways to attack, against the old cagey Spurs, tried and tested in their methods of success.

These aren’t your father’s Warriors, but they’re desperately trying to work out how to conquer your father’s Spurs. 

9 Mayo 2013

Joined by his big brother B.J. in Atlanta this season, so far Justin Upton has been the real ‘Bossman Junior’ through April.

What’s made Justin a genuine boss is that all 12 of his booming home runs in the opening month of the season flew over 400 feet off his bat according to hittracker.com.

His initial blast on opening day against the Phillies’ Cole Hamels was crushed 460 feet, making it the longest of his dozen and the fifth longest shot in the majors so far this year.

In the second game of the season, Upton touched up Roy Halladay for 410 feet in the first inning to pave the way for a 9-2 victory.

Three nights later Justin smacked a walk-off homer against the Chicago Cubs, combining with his brother B.J., who tied the game with a solo shot to lead off the ninth.

Justin launched two bombs in the game to stretch his powerful start into five dingers in the first five games, and his first 11 home runs featured in wins for the Braves.

During the Braves’ early ten game winning streak, Justin went 14-for-36 at the plate with six long-balls, nine RBI and ten runs.

Against the Rockies on April 23, the Upton’s then became the real ‘Bash Brothers’ when they combined for back-to-back jacks on consecutive pitches by Jon Garland in the fifth inning.

B.J. led off by pulling a 404 foot shot to left field and opened up a 4-1 lead, before Justin powered the next pitch 425 feet the other way to right-center, as they became the first pair of brothers to crush consecutive home runs since 1938.

Justin Upton and the Braves closed out the month with a pair of victories against Mean Vato of the Month candidate Bryce Harper and his Washington Nationals.

In total, the real Bossman produced 21 hits, 19 runs and 17 RBI in 17 wins for Atlanta as they shot to the top of the National League East.

1 Mayo 2013

These aren’t your father’s A’s; they were juiced.

These aren’t even the Moneyball A’s; they had Miguel Tejada and Eric Chavez on the left side of the infield, who were good for 68 home runs, 140 RBI and the 2002 MVP award.

Heck, the Moneyball A’s might have been juiced too?

Those old A’s are long forgotten, Hiroyuki Nakajima wears Chavez’s number 3, Coco Crisp wears Tejada’s number 4, Josh Reddick wears Jason Giambi’s number 16, Chris Young has Big Mac’s 25 and Fernando Rodriguez has the other Bash Brother’s 33.

So who are these A’s?

Since somehow blazing their way to the 2012 American League West Division title, the frugal Oakland Athletics have continued to flex their steroid-free muscles into the opening weeks of the 2013 season.

They lead the AL in runs scored and are on par with their Bay Area neighbours the $142 million defending champion San Francisco Giants and the high-rolling $228 million New York Yankees, while also being well ahead of the $159 million Phillies and $142 million Angels.

The 2013 Athletics are only troubling the billfolds of team owners Lew Wolff and John Fischer to the tune of $68 million, the fifth-lowest paid roster in MLB.

The bulk of that total goes to newly acquired Chris Young ($8 million), Yoenis Céspedes ($8.5 million), Coco Crisp ($7 million) and starting pitcher Brett Anderson ($5.75 million).

For the same price of those four players combined, the Yankees will pay Alex Rodriguez to rehab and ride the pine this year.

So far these A’s have been buoyed offensively by a pair of former Boston Red Sox in shortstop Jed Lowrie and outfielder Crisp, who was a member of Boston’s last championship team.

If you believe the motion picture version of Moneyball, in that the John Henry owned and Theo Epstein operated Red Sox were early adopters of Billy Beane’s sabermetrics approach to scouting, then the A’s are simply reaping the rewards of their own system in a roundabout way.

However, the primary difference between the Red Sox and the Athletics is that the Sox failed to adopt the chief economic principle of Moneyball; minimal spending.

Last year it was breakout performances by Céspedes and another former Red Sox prospect Josh Reddick that helped carry the A’s.

This year those star outfielders have missed several games and are yet to fire, but the team has still been able to excel.

Their young starting pitching rotation of Anderson, Tommy Milone and A.J. Griffin have shades of the incredible star-studded staff of Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito.

Somehow those names went completely unmentioned in the Hollywood adaptation of 2002 AL West champs’ season.

Oakland is now home to the recycled Moneyball A’s and this is Green Collar Baseball.

And speaking of sustainability, some of those old iconic A’s products and former highly-paid Yankees like Giambi and Nick Swisher are still rocking today - but in Cleveland.

26 Abril 2013

Por Asa Schuster 14 Abril 2013

As the news broke about Kobe Bryant’s broke Achilles tendon, several reports cited that NBA greats such as Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal saw their careers ended by similar injuries.

In Dave McMenamin’s initial story for ESPN, he mentioned that Barkley and O’Neal’s careers came to an end due to similar Achilles injuries to Bryant’s.

This tidbit on Sir Charles and Shaq was subsequently regurgitated on many reports that followed from several media outlets that all neglected to conduct any basic research.

First and foremost, Barkley didn’t injure his Achilles tendon, he ruptured his left quadriceps tendon; a similar piece of mechanics, albeit clearly in a different compartment of the leg. 

Barkley was 36, playing for the Houston Rockets against his former team in Philadelphia on December 8, 1999 when he jumped to block Tyrone Hill’s shot and lost his balance on the landing.

At the start of the season he announced it would be his last year and it immediately seemed over when he was helped from the floor and required surgery and a six month rehabilitation period.

However, Barkley refused to leave the sport in that fashion, he rehabbed for four months and was able to play in the final game of the season for an encore appearance in which he walked off the court on his own power.

As for O’Neal, he didn’t rupture or snap the tendon, but rather suffered from tendonitis in his sore Achilles and missed 27 games late in the 2010-11 regular season.

Shaq was hit with several leg injuries during his final NBA season with the Celtics, he returned for one final regular season game, in which he strained his calf and was shut down until the second round of the playoffs.

He returned to the lineup for bit parts in Games 3 and 4 of the Celtics series against the Miami Heat, at 39 Shaq played three scoreless minutes in his final appearance in the NBA on May 9, 2011.

17 years earlier, a fresh-faced and lively O’Neal was playing against the Detroit Pistons as a rookie in what turned out to be Isiah Thomas’ last game in the NBA.

Thomas was set to retire at the end of the 1993-94 season, but in the Pistons’ final home game of the season he bowed out of the sport prematurely after inflicting a compete tear of his right Achilles.

At 32, Thomas had been slumping through the worst season of his career as the ageing Pistons won just 20 games.

Two months before his injury, Thomas had faced Dominique Wilkins for the last time in a 44-point loss to the Atlanta Hawks.

Wilkins and Thomas both finished with 17 points in the encounter, however two years prior Wilkins had snapped his right Achilles in a game against Charles Barkley and the Philadephia 76ers.

Wilkins was averaging 28.1 points per game on the season at the time of the injury and returned the next season to put up 29.9 points per game in 71 games at age 33.

Seven years later Charles Barkley would snap his quadriceps tendon, 14 years after that it would be reported as an Achilles injury when Kobe Bryant injured his and you get the picture.

See it’s all part of a cycle, and no matter how many years pass; the Achilles tendon is never quite the same after being ruptured, and if you’re really unluckly sometimes your ruptured quadriceps injury can even mysteriously turn into an Achilles injury over a long period of time if it’s not reported correctly.

Notre Dame’s Skylar Diggins was never a Cinderella, and now the two-time bridesmaid at the Big Dance exits the college game as a queen without a crown.

Her path to the title had seemingly been cleared once defending champs Baylor led by the formidable Brittney Griner had been eliminated by Louisville on the opposite side of the bracket in the Elite Eight.

Riding a 30-game winning streak, the Fighting Irish still needed to slip past the UConn Huskies for the fourth time this season to reach the championship game.

In the three previous encounters the Irish had run their luck with three slim victories; including their epic triple overtime bout in early March.

Breanna Stewart had other plans at the Final Four, as the UConn freshman racked up a career-high 29 points with four blocks and five rebounds.

As Diggins and Griner graduate to the WNBA, the college game now moves forward without two of the most influential and polarizing role models of the sport.

Diggins may leave college without a title, but the Dame and media darling seems poised for greatness as she takes her talents and share of the spotlight to a bigger stage.

Griner spent her final two years in college redefining the sport and physically dominating her opponents along the way, until she was dealt with some of her own medicine in her last game during a bruising encounter against Shoni Schimmel and the Louisville Cardinals.

In this case, the changing of the guard was played out over the course of one of the most physically gruelling contests in the history of the women’s tourney, as Griner was literarily shoved out of the sport in her final college appearance.

The torch was not passed, but aggressively snatched away without an apology.

Schimmel and her younger sister and teammate Jude both grew up on the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon, representing a rarity among Native Americans in collegiate Division I basketball for both males and females.

The Schimmel sisters sudden exposure to the national audience makes them the newest role models in a sport that happens to have two freshly vacated positions under the brightest lights.

Looking past the indelible marks Diggins and Griner left on the sport, it’s now time to look to the future as Breanna Stewart’s Huskies meet Shoni Schimmel’s Cardinals for the national championship and a piece of our attention.

8 Abril 2013

The Chicago Blackhawks’ streak was impressive (apples).

The Miami Heat’s streak was also impressive (oranges).

Now that both streaks have ended, the pundits can comprehensively compare the contents of both punnets to their delight.

But, what do you get if you radically combine these apples and oranges?

You get the present Pittsburgh Penguins, or rather something similar to a peach.

And things were particularly peachy for the Penguins over the course of March, until their perfect 15-0 record during the month was met with a sour ending.

They had just acquired the heart and soul Calgary’s team, the fire that gave the smouldering Flames any chance of flaring again.

Apples, oranges and even peaches are nice, but the Penguins imported Alberta Prime Rib to bolster their already star-studded offense.

Jerome Iginla was on hand for the Penguins’ 15th win, a gritty 2-0 affair over the New York Islanders, that saw Sidney Crosby leave the ice after wearing a puck to the mouth in the first period.

Back on March 2nd Crosby and Brandon Sutter had starred for Pittsburgh in a 7-6 overtime victory in Montreal that triggered their current streak.

The luxury of adding Iginla, along with the return of Evgeni Malkin is immediatley paying dividends as the Pens enter April with Crosby now set to miss some action with a broken jaw.

The last time Iginla passed the puck to Crosby in a game, the pair combined for the gold medal-winning goal at the Olympics, they’ll now have to wait for the Kid to recover before linking up for more highlights.

In the meantime, Crosby won’t be chomping on many apples as gets accustomed to his fresh new tooth implants and waits to rejoin his new-look team.

And as long as the Penguins can stop eating pucks down the stretch, come June it could be all smiles in Pittsburgh.

1 Abril 2013

Back In 1876, eight teams comprised the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, two of those teams would later become the modern day Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves, while two other teams bore the names of future MLB teams; the Reds and Athletics.

Along came the American League and the Yanks and Sox and for as long as we can remember the heart of Major League Baseball was deeply rooted in the east.

These days east coast baseball has gone to the birds, specifically to the Blue Jays north of the border and the Orange Orioles nested in Baltimore.

The displaced New York Giants and relocated Brooklyn Dodgers now duel for the National League West Division, as the epicenter of Major League Baseball is now firmly pulsating from California.

When we last left the California Baseball League, the funky San Francisco Giants had won the state championship, and somehow subsequently won the World Series.

Somehow the green collar Oakland Athletics had won the American League West on the last day of the regular season, and somehow the loaded Los Angeles Dodgers and Angels of Anaheim didn’t make the playoffs.

During the Hot Stove League we were left with two wealthy SoCal teams agitated by failing to make the postseason due to the good fortunes of the two wacky NorCal clubs.

The Giants had once again rode a band of merry misfits, such as Marco Scutaro, Pablo Sandoval, Hunter Pence, Barry Zito and Sergio Romo to the World Series, while the Dodgers had acquired pricey misfiring superstars.

The cinderella A’s scraped into the postseason with surprise packets Josh Reddick, Yoenis Céspedes and an exciting youthful starting rotation, while the big spending Angels were stuck in the mud.

The Angels have now spent an even bigger levy to get out of the bog by adding the big bat of Josh Hamilton, while the action-packed A’s are another year wiser and experienced.

The California League kicks off with the Giants and Dodgers doing battle in the opening week, followed by the Angels and Athletics meeting the next week.

Four teams from the Golden State are about to embark on their six month campaign to reach the postseason and become the coveted state champions.

Meanwhile, the forgotten San Diego Padres will start their season over in New York, where Major League Baseball’s home used to be.

28 Marzo 2013