Caught in the Draft

Here are some random thoughts about this weekend's NFL Draft:

* Given that the draft was devoid of a surefire stud quarterback, I thought that the 49ers should have taken the best available player, Braylon Edwards. But in the minutes leading up to the pick on Saturday morning, I talked myself into being optimistic about the Alex Smith pick. It's like Torry Holt was saying: if you're going to rebuild, you might as well put your money behind a quarterback because he can be the face of the franchise. Plus he has the body, the brain and the track record to be a succesful pro. Given that draft picks are always a crapshoot, I guess I can be satisfied with the fact that Alex Smith has no red flags.

* My plea to players who get taken at the top of the draft: Get off the cell phone! It was cringe-inducing to see guys like Braylon Edwards and Cadillac Williams concentrating on their cell phone conversation as their names were being read. What possible need is there to stay on the line during the most important moment of your life? Wouldn't it be more rewarding to actually listen to Tagliabue call your name and then maybe hug your mother?

* There's a draft tradition of taking the "#1" jersey of your new team on your way up to the podium. However, while most jerseys are blank, I did notice that certain draftees had their names stitched on to the jersey. How many different jersey-name combinations went unused backstage. I would love to see a "B. Edwards" 49ers jersey turn up on eBay.

* The best players who went undrafted: Virginia Tech's Bryan Randall, Oklahoma's Jason White, West Virginia's Kay Jay Harris, and Purdue's Taylor Stubblefield.

* With Stanford's O.J. Atogwe's selection in the third round, I can finally say: I know an NFL player. (There's a chance he may not remember his former RA, but that's besides the point).

* I'm normally not a fan of athlete interviews (they're usually cliche-filled and uninsightful) but I was blown away by Cedric Benson's tearful post-draft interview. Benson candidly discussed the unfair comparisons to Ricky Williams that had haunted him in the pre-draft process. Benson said that he was "degraded," "talked down-to" and that the entire pre-draft process was "a slap in the face." Other than Michael Wilbon, nobody has discussed the racial-profiling that made teams question whether Benson would turn out to be just like Williams: another dreadlocked U-Texas head-case. I hope that a good number of NFL scouts heard what Benson had to say.

* Speaking of racial profiling, I couldn't belive that Mel Kiper Jr. actually said, "you see a lot of Doug Williams in Jason Campbell." Huh? It's OK Mel, all black quarterbacks don't need to be compared to other black quarterbacks. And if you insist on doing it, couldn't you have picked a player who has been active in the past 15 years?

* SI.com's excellent scribe Stewart Mandel asked a provacative question before the draft: which colleges are actually the best NFL-factories? There's no argument that Miami is in a class by itself when it comes to producing pros. That's why I wasn't worried when the 49ers selected the oft-injured Frank Gore yesterday. You have to feel confident when the last three running backs produced by The U were Edgerrin James, Clinton Portis and Willis McGahee.

* You have to think that the nickname helped "Pac Man" Jones raise his draft stock. How else could he be drafted ahead of Antrel Rolle?

 
On the Diamond

Sure it's two weeks into the games already, but now is as good a time as any to start writing about the baseball season. We've had a few interesting storylines, some exciting debuts and my fantasy team is already shot to hell. Here are some random thoughts:

* Going into the season I was pefectly fine with all of the noise about the Yankees and Red Sox. After all, Boston's win meant that it had turned into a real rivalry, rather than just a fan- and media-based feud. But with the rivalry dwarfing coverage of all other teams and every Sox-Yanks incident being hashed and rehashed on PTI, I've had enough. The Sheffield fiasco on Thursday was most ridiculous for the fact that nothing really happened. The fan never ended up affecting the play and Sheffield never actually struck the fan. But the media simply can't restrain themselves when it comes to wall-to-wall coverage of Yanks-Sox.

* I'm not worried about the Giants at all. Even if Barry is out of the lineup for another month, the team is balanced and deep enough to tread water in the weak NL West.

* It's great that baseball is back in Washington and I'm glad to see that the Nationals have been embraced by the city. But the one thing nagging me about the Nats is thier uniforms. To me, their home unis make them look just like the Angels and their road jerseys are just like the Giants' jerseys.

* As for my aforementioned fantasy team, everything looked blissful after my draft. I had a lineup stacked with sluggers like Tejada, Ortiz, Blalock and Matsui. But as a rotisserie novice, I didn't pay enough attention to creating a balanced lineup. For example, none of my guys can steal bases and my pitching staff is severely struggling in the ERA and strikeouts. The good thing about baseball is that each season lasts about three decades, so there's plenty of time to wheel and deal.

* The fact that two players have already been busted for steroids tells me that the problem isn't going to disappear nearly as quickly as baseball would like. Players still have the mentality that even though there are tests, they won't get caught. The implementation of new testing policies are admirable, but it's going to take several years before players view the tests as a deterrent.

* Speaking of steroids, remember when Juiced was released on Valentine's Day and everyone was dismissing Jose Canseco? "This book is trash!" we all cried. "You can't take anything he says seriously because he's obviously just a sellout who's looking to throw his teammates under the bus. Don't pay any attention to him- he has zero credibility."

Well, two months later and Canseco has gotten substantially wealthier, initiated a Congressional steroid crackdown and successfully torn Mark McGwire's reputation to shreds. So I guess Jose Canseco was given a lot more credibility than anyone intended.

Mr. Predicto

NL MVP: Albert Pujols
NL Cy Young: Tim Hudson
NL Manager of the Year: Frank Robinson
AL MVP: David Ortiz
AL Cy Young: Roy Halladay
AL Manager of the Year: Tony Pena

Playoffs:

Angels over Yankees
Red Sox (Wild Card) over Twins
Angels over Red Sox

Marlins (Wild Card) over Cardinals
Giants over Braves
Marlins over Giants

World Series: Angels over Marlins

 
Unforgettable Fire

I had the pleasure of attending the U2 concert last night at the Shark Tank in San Jose. I'm not a fanatic about live concerts (I prefer my songs with a studio polish) but U2 has been on my List of Bands I Must See for several years. I love all of their classics, I know their two most recent albums well and then there's the fact that they're the biggest rock band in the world.

Going into the concert I had a wishlist of five songs that I would most like to hear: "With Or Without You," "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "One," "Beautiful Day" and "Miracle Drug" (the best song off of the new album). They played all but one of them and needless to say, I was a very happy customer. Understandably, the setlist last night was heavily weighted towards songs from Atomic Bomb. This actually wasn't as big of a problem as I anticipated, since they stuck with the best songs off of the record. I was a little surprised with how many fairly obscure songs they played from the mid-80s (and yet they couldn't squeeze in "With Or Without You"?!). And I agree with the Sports Guy, who attended their LA show a few days ago: "City of Blinding Lights" was the wrong choice to start the show. Why not go with a well-known anthem like "Beautiful Day," or "Pride (In the Name of Love)"?

The highlight of the show was "Sunday Bloody Sunday," a song that the band has been perfecting for over 20 years. The crowd went nuts as soon we heard the opening drum solo, and the band just got down to business. The Edge was most animated during this song, stomping his foot, bobbing his torso up and down and playing an angry, snarling guitar riff. When you contrast him with the heavy-handed, overly-theatrical Bono, The Edge looked like the coolest rock star on the planet.

The stage was terrific, with concentric-circle lighing on the floor, and background curtains made of thousands of flashing light bulbs. The lights were perfectly synced up with the dramatic changes in each song, and it created a dazzling spectacle throughout the concert. Given the magnitude of the band, my familiarity with the songs and the fantastic set, I can say that it was easily one of the best concerts I've ever attended. If you missed it, I highly recommend that you check them out on their second North American go-around this fall.

 
Bear Looks Like a Lady

After Baylor won the women's NCAA championship on Tuesday, I was left with one question: why is the team called the Lady Bears? Calling themselves "The Bears" would be more than appropriate. Isn't 50% of the bear population female? I've never liked the added "Lady" moniker or any other gender-specified name. Are the women at USC so inferior to the male Trojans that they must be called the Women of Troy? It's especially ridiculous to add the "Lady" handle to animal mascots: bears, be they male or female, are equally ferocious.

 
My Shining Moment

Well, it took ten years of filling out brackets but it finally happened: I won an NCAA pool. Hand me the scissors- I'm about to cut down the nets.

Going into tonight's game, there were three people with a chance to win the 22-person pool. I was tied for first place with another guy who picked UNC and the guy in third place picked Illinois. As I watched the final five minutes of the game, I was of course riveted by Illinois seemingly unstoppable resilience, but I was also thinking about the other competition of the night. While the announcers kept us abreast of Carolina's dwindling margin of victory, I was also keeping an eye on the overall point total because not only did I need the Heels to win, I needed to win the tiebreaker. I had picked a 72-69 score and the 75-70 final was enough to push me over the top.

All credit for my victoy goes to the Crown and Retrace strategy, as this was definitely the right year to fill out the bracket inside-out. Not only did I get both teams in the title game, but I also correctly picked Sean May (who had the best birthday in the history of birthdays) as the Most Outstanding Player. Mr Predicto has gotten the monkey off his back.