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October 27, 2012

Jeff's Sports Corner: Baseball season winds down, as WVU slumps

By JEFF HARVEY Princeton Times

PRINCETON — Well, it’s another end of baseball season in New York and another round of “let’s blame Alex Rodriquez for every thing which went wrong with the team.”  

Alex Rodriquez isn’t the hitting coach of the Yankees, but his being benched several times and pinch hit for made him stand out in a sea of hitting futility. As a result, he gets blamed for the team’s slump. There’s no way around it, he has to be traded because he’s no longer viable as a Yankee.

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WVU had its second consecutive rough week in the Big XII against Kansas State, as the offense hit a tough stretch and the defense failed to compensate. Again, a WVU team floundered when expectations got too high among fans. I don’t know what it will take to get things going again.

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Concord went on the road against a higher classification team and narrowly lost in a game which they could have won. I’m not going to criticize them because they are playing to the peak of their ability as I see it.

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My World Series prediction will be halfway correct this year, as the Detroit Tigers made it, thanks to their starting pitching. Of course, a Yankee/A-Rod obsessed media only gave credit to that pitching in a passing way, but Justin Verlander and company shut down the Yankees, completely. My other prediction, the Reds, went down in the first round, leaving me with the Giants, because of the pitching, as my default choice.

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It’s time for some NBA predictions, starting with the Northeast Division. I still see it going the Boston Celtics’ way, despite the moves made by the Brooklyn Nets and Philadelphia 76ers, but it should be close.

The Celtics let Ray Allen, their best outside shooter, go and brought in Jason Terry to replace him. The team will go as far as Rajon Rondo, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett will take it, though.

The 76ers added a legitimate center in Andrew Bynum, who pushes last year’s center Spencer Hawes to power forward, giving the 76ers two seven-footers in the starting line-up, Jrue Holiday heads up the backcourt which is effective.

The Nets avoided the franchise-crippling trade for Dwight Howard, but added Joe Johnson and resigned Deron Williams, giving them the best backcourt in the division. A healthy Brook Lopez is their best hope to move forward.

The New York Knicks got older in the off-season, letting Jeremy Lin go and bringing in Raymond Felton and Jason Kidd to play point guard and signing Rasheed Wallace, coming off a two-year retirement. They still have Carmelo Anthony and A’mare Stoudemire up front, but I don’t see them any higher than fourth.

The Toronto Raptors improved at center and point guard, but have too many holes to move up in this division.

Let me know what you think by writing me c/o Jeff’s Sports Corner, P.O. Box 1199, Princeton, WV, 24740. I can also be reached at delimartman@yahoo.com or jharvey1@frontiernet.net or on Facebook.

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