Buh- Bye Dameon

All of the people were sick of hearing that Dameon Mason was the second coming of Dwayne Wade, have nothing to fear any longer. The sophomore guard announced that he will transfer effective the end of this semester.

I for one am not going to miss hearing people compare him to Dwayne Wade. I am however not happy he decided to leave the school. Mason would be the focal point of the offense next season, for good or bad, and is the only returning player who can create his own shot. Even though he struggled mightily at times last season (see Feb 9. vs TCU), he still showed the ability everyone wanted him to have every once in a while.

Now, the Eagles will be without someone who was to be a key figure in their offense when they move to a more difficult conference next season. Marquette will be worse off without Mason in the Big East. The only returning starter they have for next season is Steve Novak and we all know how good of a player he is (throwing up right now). As bad as Marquette was probably going to do in their inagural Big East season anyway, chalk up another 5 or 6 losses to the record. Losing a veteran is never easy. The silver lining is the team knows it is coming well before the season starts, so hopefully Crean can strike gold twice, and find another jem no one wants to take a chance on.

-Until next time...

And Then There Were Two

Two things on my mind tonight (well three if you count the 2 second power outage which knocked out my internet, making this the second time I have written this).

First is this Gary Sheffield ordeal which has been talked about for the past 4 days. We had to wait about 5 months to see what effect the incident in Detroit had on the rest of the sports world. Gary knew if he went back after the guy he would be hurting himself and the team, and showed restraint. I wish fans like this would just knock it off, though. I don't care if he was trying to hit Sheffield or not, the fact that he even reached over the wall while a ball was in play is just stupid. Any fan who does this should be thrown out of the stadium. I feel very strongly about punishing people severely for interfering with balls in play. The people who run out onto fields and do things like this should be allowed to do these things with the following stipulation: any player on or off of the field at the time of the intrusion is to have free reign on the fanatic who enters the field of play. Allowing athletes to pummel whoever is stupid enough to come out onto the field during a game would stop that ridiculous activity quickly.



After last night's Cubs debacle, I almost didn't want to even watch the game online tonight. I was going to take a day off from the team, but since we are trying to get everyone to think positively this season, I knew I needed to step it up and believe the Cubs could rebound. Thank God for Mark Prior. After getting hit hard in the first inning (although it was for only 1 hit), he pitched a marvelous game, went 7 innings, struck out 8 and allowed only 1 run. It was a sight for sore eyes for us. Patterson and Lee also continued hot streaks by belting another homer each. The only cause for concern in this game is the continued poor hitting of Nomar Garciaparra. 0-5 in this game and is batting less than .170 for the season. But hey, it's early and Prior is pitching well, thank God.

Note to Todd- sometime we'll get to The Keg together and all will be well. Wether or not we actually walk inside the stadium will be left to be seen.

-Until next time...

The Keg

Well, my experience at The Keg on Friday was pretty good. Chris and I got to the stadium, parked, and got to our seats about one minute before the first pitch, so good timing there. The seats we sat in that night and I will sit in 8 more times this season are located about half way down the third base line, in the loge (second) level, the second row, and right at the end of the aisle. The seats are really nice.

However, I of course have some problems with these seats. Like every single seat at The Keg, they face straight forward. If I sit straight in my seat and don't turn my head at all, I see the visiting bullpen. I have to either turn in my seat (which is almost impossible) or turn my neck for the entire game. I don't like this one bit. Why can't they just design stadiums to have the seats turned ever so slightly towards the middle of the field? I don't get it. The other thing I don't like about the seats is that the peanut guy doesn't throw the peanuts at us because we are right at the end of the row. Instead, he just set the peanuts down on the back of the chair in front of us. This is something that may bother me all season.

Other than these things, I enjoyed myself thoroughly. The $24 I spent on two beers, two hot dogs, and nachos wasn't as bad as the inability of Ben Sheets to throw the ball to first base. The game was played very well by both teams except for Sheets' two errors and the ill-advised throw from left field to home by Geoff Jenkins when there was absolutely no chance of getting the runner, and it allowed the batter to move to second base and eventually score.

The game lasted 2 hours and 13 minutes, perfect time for a ball game. I had just finished my nachos when the bottom of the ninth began, and Chris and I were both ready to leave when the game ended. I know I won't see short games all season, but the first one was nice.

Season record with me at The Keg: 0-1
Weiner race winner: Italian
Next Game: Tuesday, May 3- Cubs.

-Until next time...