Luke's Blog

I'm taking part in the annual City to the Shore MS 150 bike ride this month down in South Jersey.  I did one about 15 years ago on a mountain bike.  Decided to do this one on a road bike.  I've been doing more running than biking until very recently.  I started running on a corporate team for 3.5 milers in central park.  I had never run before so I concentrated on that for a couple of months to get a half-way respectable time in that event so I've been slow training on the bike.  I've been taking spin class a few days a week but not as much road work as I need to so I'll probably be really sore after day 1 leading into day 2.  If you want to donate here's the link:

MS RIDE DONATIONS

I feel like I'm about to jinx the Cubs but I really feel like this team is for real this year.  I like this team better than the one that was 5 outs from the World Series.  I know it's very early in the season to be talking about post-season baseball but this team seems to always find a way to win.

They are just about unbeatable at home.  If they win home field advantage they will be hard to knock out.

They hit when it was cold.  That's key in the drawn out playoffs.

Their relief pitching has been very strong.  Marmol and Wood has been impressive in the 8th and 9th.

They won without Soriano.  When he went out for awhile the team kept winning.

Their starting pitching seems to be the only real weak point on this team.  Hopefully a trade near the deadline will add that extra quality starter to the mix.  The other thing is the true injury bug has not hit this team.  If Lee goes down for a considerable length of time it would be bad and if Zambrano's arm gets hurt, forget about it.

Being a Cubs fan, this week was my first real exposure to the 2008 Mets.  Wow, where is your offense?  2 runs in 18 innings?  Especially facing Ted Lilly, who has been more like a batting practice pitcher or a tee depending on who you ask.  You don't need Pedro back, you need a couple of hit and run guys in the order.  I know it's very early in the season but you need to right your ship.

(And by-the-way what is Arizona's magic number to clinch in the West?)

After the great win you can watch the Giants victory parade in New York City live on Fox 5 or right here on MyFoxNY.com.

It starts at 11 a.m. on Tuesday.  Until then you can stay caught up on the Super Bowl victory news at the:

BIG BLUE FAN PAGE

OK, it's time to "retire" the throwback jerseys.  It was kind of a novelty the first few times I saw them but it's getting old.  The last straw was watching the Jets play and seeing the T for Titans on baseball caps on the sidelines.  If you're going to watch the Jets game, you should see Jets jerseys on the field.  If this keeps up we can have the Baltimore Ravens wear throwback Colts jerseys or maybe the Ravans can play the Browns and the can both wear Browns uniforms.

I just watched Pavlik dismantle Taylor on HBO boxing and I had to laugh.  I've been able to experience a lot of events up close as a member of the media so I have seen the cheese passed off as gold up  many times.  TV sets are often duct taped junked hidden by black cloth.  Things are not what they seem most of the time.

Tonight, I watched a live boxing match on a big screen HD television for the first time.

In the ent, the belt that they fight over had a very clear hole in it. as the new champ wore it.  There is a spot where a former champion's picture appeared to be meant to be held, but it was empty, like an expensive ring with a missing stone.  I would have never seen that on the old 27 inch TV.

It was a new low for sponsorships in professional sports for me today at the Jets game.  The singer for the national anthem was announced as a professional singer and some sort of pro wrestling something or other...  that was fine.  But as soon as the song was over it became an obnoxious ad with the public announcer pitching her album title and adding a suggestion to buy it as it was for sale this week... it was topped off with her album cover shown on the video screen.   Forget showing the armed forces parading off of the field with the colors and reminding fans to remember our troops in combat.

Can't we let the national anthem stay out of the endless sales pitches at professional sports arenas?