As June hits the sports calendar Tree.com will have you covered. The pennant races are just heating up in baseball, while the NBA and NHL seasons are coming to an end. The NFL will continue to grab headlines as both sides creep closer to a deal, and on the links the U.S. Open will be center stage. Great topics, big stories, and we look forward to discussing them with you on the sports channel.
"There's nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you." -- Woody Hayes, old school football coach.
At the Church of Baseball, soul-cleansing is guaranteed.
Baseball kicks the stuffing out of ballplayers, if not their bodies their egos. Batting champions meet failure more than half the time. Most division winners absorb 60-plus defeats.
Talk about an awful year for the New Jersey Nets. After finishing the 2009-2010 season as easily the worst team in the NBA, there wasn’t as much success during the 2010-2011 season as new owner Mikhail Prokhorov had hoped for. Despite a few promising roster moves and a front office facelift, the team looked almost as bad as it did the season before. They struggled to win any games throughout the first half of the season and made a desperate attempt to spur some wins with a blockbuster trade
Soak it in people, because this may just be the last bit of NBA action you get before another lockout takes down another major league sports organization for an indefinite amount of time. It’s understandable that the draft may not be the most exciting thing to watch on television on a Friday night, but it’s a good way to gauge the direction your favorite NBA team is headed in.
There hasn't been much news on the NFL labor front. In this case I believe the no news is good news saying holds true. They are actually working on the real numbers in revenue sharing and rookie pay scale and with the deadline for getting preseason games rapidly approaching they have more and more reason to make it happen. Other news around the NFL is sparse, but it's still there! And here is some of it!
In one fell swoop, okay, more like two, the Philadelphia Flyers kicked off the summer by subjecting themselves to a self-administered facelift. Just 24 hours ahead of the draft the Flyers traded away two players who just a couple years ago were viewed as franchise building blocks. In fact, GM Paul Holmgren felt so strongly about these cornerstones that he handed them contract extensions totaling 23 years and $127 million, both within the last couple of years. Today however, Holmgren moved team captain MIke Richards to the Kings and Jeff Carter to Columbus in exchange for prospects, draft picks and more importantly, cap space.
The 2011 NBA Draft is finally over and what a draft it was. There were plenty of big surprises, some good and some not. With the draft process now over, these players can get to work with their respective teams and start working towards the 2011-2012 season. Here’s a rundown the picks and my thoughts on how they fit with the team that drafted them.
The best college basketball player in the West also happened to be the best player in the recent NBA Draft, even if the Cleveland Cavaliers and most pundits decided otherwise.
Said player, Derrick Williams, the University of Arizona forward, went to the Minnesota Timberwolves second. Cleveland took Duke point guard Kyrie Irving first.
With American League teams traveling to National League cities this week, we all get the treat of seeing pitchers who do not hit regularly attempting to make contact. But there's also the flip side of seeing teams that don't usually play each other square off, which is where most of the appeal of interleague play lies.
Here are some notable recent stories from the junior circuit over the past week or so, including a couple solid candidates for Player of the Month.
The cities of the National League are playing host to their American League brethren this week, as they look to turn around their dismal record in interleague play this season.
Two National League East teams are heading in opposite directions, as 80-year old Jack McKeon has returned to the struggling Florida Marlins and the Washington Nationals have risen up a few spots in the division with a recent hot streak.
Here are a few of the more notable stories from across the National League during the past week.
Is Jimmer Fredette another Tim Tebow?
First Tebow, the Florida quarterback, then Fredette, the Brigham Young basketball whiz, evolved into college stars whose fame mushroomed well beyond each school's fan base.
Fans who wouldn't know a shovel pass from a halfcourt trap couldn't get enough of them. Nor could the media.