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CALLING SIGNALS |
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 JASON CAMPBELL ...he's big--and he loses big! |
Rookie Lions QB trounces
pathetic Redskins effort
of TheColumnists.com
If you follow the Washington
Redskins like I do, you saw it coming: their 19-14 loss in Detroit
Sunday.
They deserved it, pure and simple.
In the exhibition season, the Skins’ hottest quarterback
was Chase Daniel. Their thanks? They cut him.
Mizzou fans like me didn’t take kindly to that. OK, so Daniel
is short. But all he did as a Tiger was win, giving us our greatest
standing in half a century.
The chucked Chase found a job in New Orleans as the Saints’
practice QB. And I guarantee he will arm some NFL team in the
next couple of years.
Meanwhile, the Skins are stuck with Jason Campbell. He’s
tall, but so what? All he does is lose.
Campbell looks like he should soup up the Skins, but he constantly
misses on third down.
Which led to Sunday. A rookie, Matt Stafford, quarterbacked the
Lions to their first triumph since 2007.
Yes, Detroit hadn’t won in all 2008. Played just like General
Motors. Amazing the government didn’t take over the team.
Don’t put it past Obama to miss this next chance. The way
Washington is playing under Jim Zorn, the hometown prez could
be replacing him as coach any day.
Dressing down. Enough with the retro uniforms.
I couldn’t stomach them before, but Sunday in New York set
the standard for little league. You had the Tennessee Titans
wearing Houston Oiler outfits. And the New York Jets in New York
Titan garb.
Confusing? You bet. My sister called to say she and her husband
didn’t know what the team in baby blue was about.
Besides ugly, that is. Jeff Fisher made it worse by coaching
Tennessee in an Oiler jersey. In the rain, he looked like a water-logged
Bill Belichick.
Red October. The 2009 World Series champion Angels have a colorful
enough team. They wear red, white and blue and sport solid pitching
and hitting.
But they’re a head case when they go up against the Green
Monster. And there’s the rub. Since Boston sank in the past
couple of weeks, it made the playoffs only as a wild card. Thus
its first-round match is with the Angels.
Beating the Sox is a code red proposition. The Angels could've
done it in 1986, but pulled Mike Witt. They could've done it
in 2004, but served one up to Ortease. They could've done it
in 2007, but pitched to Mannroid. They could've done it last
year, but squeezed right out of it.
That's not a trend. That's history. These Angels have new orders:
beat Boston, win the pennant, capture their second championship
since 2002.
The right tone: While at Angel Stadium recently, 'twas marvelous
hearing the organ. Never noticed it before, and even griped that
the park could use that old baseball feel of Dodger Stadium.
This time, the player tickled the keys to Gershwin's "'S
Wonderful." All Angel Stadium has to do is play a second
verse of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," and I'd say
's paradise.
What?
Too bad broadcasters and baseball writers get sucked in to using
command to describe how hurlers are spotting their pitches.
The word is control. That was part of the lexicon for eons. Don't
know when it morphed into command, but that word needs a beaning.
Speaking of terms: Heard a cool one the other day. During the Angel
radio broadcast, Rex Hudler said of taking a pitch, "Spit
on it."
Now we know. Remember when Pete Carroll bitched about the flight
of Mark Sanchez to the NFL?
The Southern Cal coach knew:
1. Sanchez is an ace of a quarterback. The Jets also spotted
that rocket arm and drafted him faster than an F-16 flyover.
They look brilliant after On The Mark made New York 3-0 Sunday.
2. The Trojans had the equivalent of a corpse behind Sanchez.
At least that's what Aaron Corp looked like in that burial in
Seattle two weeks ago.
And do I care about USC's demise? No. It's only that we get radio
blitzed in L.A. over all things Trojan. And I haven't been so
stoked about my Jets since the '60s. So to USC I say: Bite On.
Focus, blue. What can the umpires possibly be seeing? A pitch
goes right down the middle. And the guy behind the catcher calls
balls.
The other day I'm watching the Angels' Jered Weaver firing pitches
perfectly. Ball three, ball four.
Where else should he have thrown? One millimeter higher?
I'm hardly nitpicking. This is an epidemic. Umps simply let batters
get away with watching pitches in the meat of the strike zone.
Ball two, ball three.
Batters foul off everything else, making for snoozeroo baseball.
Message to the men in blue: Tighten the strike zone. Make batters
do what Doubleday drew up--swing.
Speaking of delays: These replays to decide football calls are killing
the sport.
Where's the flow? Gone the way of the head slap.
Sideline catch. End zone dive. Fumble. Stop the game for five
minutes so the refs can watch 15 angles.
The solution: Make the process entertaining the way tennis does.
A computerized replay shows the ball and line. The crowd goes
nuts.
©2009 by Bucky Fox. The illustraton is courtesy of the Washington Redskins. This column first posted Sept. 28, 2009.
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