Random Thoughts and catching up

Wow, has it been this long since my last post?!? I guess I got too involved with my fantasy baseball games plus my Giants blog...

Let's see, here are my thoughts off the top of my head:

San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers are in good hands with Nolan. I was not too happy that they didn't give Rice a chance to make the team nor that they have not given Bill Walsh some role with the team. However, he handled both the death of a player and the QB controversy well.

Especially with the QB situation. Even though most teams would have started Rattay with the first team in the pre-season - as the games showed, he was way ahead of Smith - Nolan gave Smith a chance to show off his stuff, or rather his lack of stuff, with the first team against other team's first team. But if he did the usual thing, Smith would have been on the second team and that would have invited some questions during the season about bringing Smith in, because, frankly, the team is not that good yet and Rattay was sure to look bad at points in the season. So this killed any idea on the part of the fans or the media of trying to start up a QB controversy because if Smith cannot do anything in the preseason, how is he going to do anything in the regular season.

Golden State Warriors

Warriors looking good still, no longer looking like the GSW that I made fun of in one of my first posts. No big free agent signing that I can remember, but I liked their draft picks of Ike Diogu, Monta Ellis, and Chris Taft. Taft was a great pick because a lot of the pre-draft talk had him going around the Warriors pick and thus a lot of pundits picked him as the Warriors first round draft pick. That the Warriors got Diogu - who sounds like a great inside force - plus Taft, who has great size, a missing element for the Warriors and a point guard project in 18 year old Monta Ellis, made it a great draft. They also have a $5.2M trade exception (which I think they picked up in a trade) which could allow them to pick up someone else.

Baron Davis is healthy, stronger, and raring to go, according to a recent article in the Contra Costa Times, and that just makes me drool: he did all the stuff he did for the Warriors, with the same players now as he had then to support him, while not totally healthy, so one could assume that things can only get better than the 18-10 record since he was traded to us and his 19.5 PPG and 8.3 APG that he averaged as a Warrior. And he seems like a very good guy, being one of the players taking over for Magic Johnson's charity stuff in LA and recently helping out with raising funds to help the people hurt by Hurricane Katrina (seems unfair to all Katrinas in the world to not add the "Hurricane" part), which I did too (and so should you) by contributing to the Red Cross.

San Jose Sharks

The most important thing is the strike/lockout is over and there will be a 2005-2006 season after the 2004/2005 season got cancelled. Not that anyone really noticed, unfortunately for the sport, lets see if they can recover from it. I think they are now broadcasting games on the Home and Garden cable channel or something crazy like that. Still in the preseason, the Division winner Sharks return with most of their key players, except for a key defenseman, whose name escapes me now, but I was impressed with the number of good defensemen (don't know the sport, but read all about the team in the newspaper) they had, so he probably won't be a huge loss, not that he wasn't very good, but I think the team has a number of players ready to step up, particularly a recent 1st round draft pick (dang, been away so long I've forgotten all their names except for Marleau and Nabakov). I think they should be in good shape to compete for the Stanley Cup this season.

San Jose Earthquakes

Sorry but I'm not a big soccer fan, even though I loved playing the sport when I was young (size and hand-eye coordination wasn't as necessary for a broomstick body like mine to do well, just desire to get down the field in as fast a time as you can). I don't really know anything about them. But I will give props to them for playing well down the stretch, from what I heard on the radio. I think that they are in the playoffs and just got back one of their better players, Mark Chang.

California Bears

Pardon an alumnus' indulgence: GO BEARS!!! Wow, their two key offensive players - starting QB and running back - expected to go wild this year and both go down with injuries but their backups came in and didn't miss a beat. The Bears are undefeated in the season so far, 4-0 (1-0 in the Pac 10) and are ranked 13th and 14th in the AP and USA Today polls, respectively. Not all is rosy, as they had some defensive problems with a non-ranked team last week, but when you win 41-13 and don't give up a defensive TD, sometimes you are reaching when looking for negatives.

Leland Stanford Jr. University or Stanford University Cardinals (S.U.C.s)

Well, what do you expect from a Cal graduate? All I can say is this: how can they lose to the U.C. Davis Aggies? Is that how low they have sunk?