The Arena League Football Playoffs have begun and the Columbus Destroyers have tied the Tampa Bay Storm early at 7-7. QB Matt Nagy hit WR Damien Groce with a long TD pass to tie the score at 7 as both teams have scored on their opening possessions.

The Cleveland Indians pulled off yet another come from behind win as they won in their final at-bat for the second time in four games. Rookie Ben Francisco, making his first major league start, contributed with his first career hit in the 4th and followed that with his first career homerun in the 9th as Cleveland won 2-1. Indians’ closer Joe Borowski picked up the win thanks to Francisco’s heroics as Shawn Cap got the loss for Tampa Bay. With the win, the Indians are now 47-32 on the season and lead Detroit by a half game.

Let’s face it Reds fans. The Reds’ bullpen just plain stinks. In what seems to be a broken record, the Reds had a late-game leads only to lose when the bullpen failed to hold the lead. Tonight saw the St. Louis Cardinals score two off of Marcus McBeth (7.00 ERA) and one off of Jon Coutlangus (4.78 ERA) to pull off the come from behind 4-2 win. The loss helps the Reds further solidify their spot in last place in the NL Central and puts them on pace for 100 losses this season as they are now 30-50.

It’s a big night for fans of The Ohio State University as the NBA Draft will kickoff at about 7:30pm Thursday Night. ESPN writer Ric Bucher has reported that former Ohio State Center Greg Oden will be picked first by the Portland Trail Blazers. Fellow OSU star PG Mike Conley could go as high as pick #3 to the Atlanta Hawks. Rumors have whispered that Greg Oden has been lightly prodding the Blazers to trade up and grab Conley too, but it’s unlikely that Portland has enough chips to make that sort of trade and Conley and Oden both know that the days of them playing together (the two have been teammates since junior high) are reaching an end. Adding to the usual draft drama are the trade rumors involving Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, the Suns, Bulls, and Celtics. It should be an incredibly interesting draft this year and I’ll be live-blogging it over on the Sports Shop Blog. Expect updates every 30 or so minutes.

2007 seems to be the year for the big homerun. Barry Bonds is approaching Hank Aaron’s all-time record, Frank Thomas hit #499 a few days ago, Sammy Sosa hit his 600th homerun, and Ken Griffey Jr. has been passing numerous all-time greats as he vaults up the list. Griffey’s most recent milestone came as he hit homeruns #583 & 584 to pass Mark McGwire for 7th place on the all-time HR list. Needing just 2 more HR to tie Frank Robinson at 586, we should expect to see Griffey, who is on pace to hit 47 homers this season, pass Robinson by the all-star break.

After watching almost every inning of the Indians vs. Reds series on SportsTime Ohio, I saw the Labatt Blue Deer Commercial several times. Enough times to really tick me off at both SportsTime Ohio and Labatt Blue for their lack of class. While watching the Indians postgame tonight that same “we get the fawns up at 5″ commercial with the poorly bleeped-out “you got that f&%#in’ right” comment aired yet again. I’m not even 30 years ld yet, but that is just plain uncalled for and classless. There is no need to imply that language and it’s a shame that many of you seem to find this acceptable. It says a lot about our country (or maybe about Canada since Labatts is a Canadian beer…).

A little message for SportsTime Ohio and Labatt Blue. The more I see your commercial, the more I am gonna bash you both. Until you pull this commercial from the SportsTime Ohio airwaves I will gladly bring you negative attention. It’s that simple. Clean up your airwaves by removing the Labatt Blue deer commercial, and get a little class SportsTime Ohio!

C.C. Sabathia has become the ace of Cleveland Indians pitching staff that everyone had hoped as he is now 10-2 after yesterday’s win over the Philadelphia Phillies. The Indians rode 13 hits to 10 runs in a 10-6 win as C.C. was able to keep the Phillies in check despite not having his best stuff. Five different Indians drove in 2 runs apiece as the Indians improved to 42-29 on the season and maintained their tie atop the AL Central with the Detroit Tigers.

How come all the teams I’m passionate about have coaches/managers who look like they could be asleep during games?  

Who am I talking about? Marvin Lewis, Tim O’Shea, and worst of all Jerry Narron! 

These guys subscribe to what I call the “golf announcer” method of coaching. They are calm, cool, collected. They show very little emotion on their faces during a game. They rarely – if ever – get ejected arguing a bad call. In fact, if you only watched their faces, you would have very little idea of what was actually going on in the game play. 

Like when the latest Bengal is brought in by the po-po, Marvin either issues no comment at all, or a very nonchalant statement about how they don’t tolerate that sort of behavior (though the Bengals’ lack of action says otherwise). 

Tim O’Shea, coach of the Ohio University Bobcats basketball team, has only had 1 technical foul in his career. I was there, it was well deserved and SO great to see out of him.  This guy would have been surprised too.

 

(Photo Courtesy of OhioBobcats.com)

 Or when a relief pitcher has just pitched his 4^th grand slam ball of the year, I’d like to see a little bit of emotion from Jerry Narron. Instead, he has a bored and slightly pleasant look on his face, as if he’s visiting with his grandmother in the retirement home. 

WAKE UP NARRON! Take some lessons from Lou Piniella and get fired up! Get the team fired up! You are not at the retirement home – you are managing one of the worst teams in baseball!  

Clearly, the “I don’t really care if we win or lose” face that you’re putting on for the public isn’t really working. 

Ken Griffey, Jr. began the 2007 season tied for 10th place on the all-time homerun list with Reggie Jackson. Thanks to some good health and good old fashioned Griffey hitting, the Reds outfielder passed Jackson, Rafael Palmeiro (569) and Harmon Killebrew (573) earlier this season. The next big-bopper on the radar? Mark McGwire who hit 583 career homeruns and currently sits in 7th place all-time. With 2 HR last night, Griffey trails McGwire by just 2 HR and now has 581 career round-trippers.

Looking ahead, 6th place belongs to Frank Robinson (586) , a former Reds players and former Indians coach. Meanwhile, 5th place may be a bit more tricky as Sammy Sosa came out of retirement this past season and is playing well for the Texas Rangers. Sosa currently has 599 homeruns after hitting a grand slam against the Reds on Friday night. Willie Mays (660) is in 4th-place, and Babe Ruth (714) is 3rd all-time. Then we have the controversial Barry Bonds in 2nd seeking to break Hank Aaron’s 755 mark this season.

It’s not every day that a Cleveland team has a chance to win a championship in it’s respective sport, so I decided to blog tonight during the first ever NBA Finals game in Cleveland, OH.

It would obviously be a lot more fun if I was at the Q, but I’m going to take a page out of The Sports Guy’s book and blog while I watch the game on the tube. Expect a post at the end of each quarter. Maybe it’ll even be entertaining. If you’re interested to read my take, check out the Sports-Shop blog during the game.