As expected

Two ace pitchers in opposition, two runs scored, two losses, too predictable.  Once again the Twins exit Seattle with their tails between their legs, it's been a bad run against the Mariners these last few years, which is confusing given the fact they typically stink.  This year's version featured a blown call leading to a loss on Wednesday (another 1-run outburst) and general offensive ineptitude from the second game onward.  Final tally: 1-3 record, 8 runs scored, about 6 hours that would've been better spent sleeping.  On to Oakland and hopefully some stirring in the bats.

Speaking of things that offered little intrigue, the NBA Finals started with a rout last night.  I was mildly interested by the fact the Lakers were playing the Celtics, the one truly worthwhile NBA rivalry; but that quickly dissapated when I realized that the Celtics blew their wad in the Eastern Conference Finals.  Kevin Garnett has the vert of a poor YMCA pickup player at this point, and his teammates aren't that much better.  Unless they can find one of those alien pods from "Cocoon", this one will be over quick.

What has been intriguing?  The NHL Finals.  In case you hadn't noticed, and, to borrow a line from Bob Uecker, judging by the TV ratings you haven't, we've got the best final round series in a long time developing between Chicago and Philly.  Full disclosure, I want Chicago to win in a big way, they have taken over as my surrogate team during these lean Wild seasons, due to the presence of my favorite all-time college hockey player (Toews) and that fact I know several diehard Blackhawks fans who deserve a title after all they've been through.  Coming into this thing, I wanted a Blackhawks title, any way, any how, the faster the better.  However, at the risk of having my seat on the bandwagon revoked, I'm really enjoying this series so far and was only mildy perturbed when the Flyers pulled out Game 3 in OT, thus guaranteeing at least a 5th game.

Does that mean I've wavering at all on wanting Chicago to win?  Hell no, just saying if they can do it in dramatic fashion, well that's always better, right?  This might be a playing-with-fire approach to things, the sports gods do not look favorably on getting greedy with playoff series, but any hockey fan (save the aforementioned Blackhawks diehards) has got to want 6 or 7 games out of this thing, it's been too good not to!  (It's a shame that 80% of America missed Game 3 because it was on Versus, but they probably weren't interested anyway, pretty sure the ladies softball gets better ratings.  The lesson, as always, people are stupid.)

Going into Game 4 tonight, this Stanley Cup Finals is also bordering on the historic, after starting the series with 3 one-goal games, to quite from this story on NHL.com (http://blackhawks.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=530929):

"A fourth consecutive one-goal game would move the Blackhawks and Flyers into rarified territory in terms of playing tight games. Not since 1968 have teams started a series with four one-goal games (Montreal won all four games against St. Louis in the only series sweep comprised of one-goal victories). The only other time it's happened was 1951, when Toronto beat Montreal in five games -- all of which went to overtime."

Here's hoping for another one-goal contest, perhaps some more overtime, then 3 more just like it, with the Blackhawks coming out on top of course!

Odds and ends

First off, who were those guys wearing Twins jerseys against the Yankees last night?  Winning by 6 runs over the Pinstripes is unheard of, a couple more outbursts like that and we can actually start calling Jason Kubel a legit Yankee killer, two HRs and five RBI will do that.  But lest you think I'm going to get all fired up over this one win, think again.  As I wrote about a week ago, there's still not much to indicate that the Twins could take a postseason series from one of the teams in the AL East.  Last night's firepower doesn't change the fact that this most recent run-in with the Yankees still ended in a 2-1 series loss; if you want to take a warm fuzzy from the fact that the two losses were by a single run and the Twins scored more runs in the series, that's your business, I'll just say this is America's pasttime, not England's, so total score means jack, and move on.

(I will however agree that there is a silver lining to this season's 2-4 showing vs. the Bombers in the form of 6 quality starts from Twins pitching.  The rotation looked a bit shaky coming in, and has certainly had it's wobbles so far, but good games against probably the best lineup in baseball is an indication that they at least have the stuff to compete.  As far as the mental makeup to pitch in New York in October, hopefully we can avoid having to answer that question this season...but I doubt it.)

As for the big event on the horizon, if you're anything like me, there's only one thing on your mind heading into the holiday weekend: Hockey.  Well that's not entirely true, I am thinking about powerwashing a deck, working on my golf game and various other summer pursuits, but once the sun starts to fade I will be glued to my TV for the most-anticipated Stanley Cup Finals I can recall in a long time.

You see ever since covert operative Gary Bettman (henceforth know as 00-Gary) was sent by NBA commissioner David Stern to infiltrate the NHL and end it's run as a upstart competitor to the NBA, the league has been infatuated with shunning Canada and the Northern US in favor of warmer climes.  This was allegedly intended to grow the league into a nationwide presence in the US, but has instead had the effect of alientating fans and watering down the talent level league wide.  This wasn't a huge problem for the average fan (save for Winnipeg, Quebec, Hartford and of course Minnesota fans, who had their teams stolen to fuel the warm-weather gambit) until something awful happened: The warm weather teams got good.  Now those of us trying to casually watch a playoff game had to deal with half-full arenas full of clueless fans watching teams with no history.  In short, it was a trainwreck, kind of like everything else attempted by 00-Gary before or since (see Versus TV "deal").

At any rate, after the nauseating succession of Cup champions who couldn't sell out Finals games (Tampa Bay), had fans who'd rather be watching NASCAR (Carolina) or were basically just killing time between Angels games (Anaheim), it's nice to have a good, old school rivalry this season.  (Omitting Detroit vs. Pittsburgh, due to the sychophantic obsession of the TV networks, was burned out on them by February, so couldn't really enjoy the Finals either season.)  Chicago is an Original Six team that hasn't won a Cup since 1962, Philadelphia is a Second Six team that hasn't won it all since 1975; in terms of history it doesn't get much better than this.  In fact, I think it's time to dust off a bit of NHL lore and reference this clash between the champions of the Campbell Conference (Blackhawks) and Wales Conference (Flyers) in the proper terminology (yet another awful casualty of 00-Gary's Reign Of Terror).

So there it is, I'm pumped.  The crowds should be awesome, the ice shouldn't be crap (because it's not a million degrees outside) and the games should be fierce, if you're a hockey fan, you can't ask for much more than that.