Photo courtesy of DugoutHats.com. One of the main events of the week will take place in Omaha with the opening of the College Baseball World Series.
By Josh Kramer
It is another Monday in the wide world of sports. Another great week has passed. But we have a great week to look forward too. Here are the items you should be keeping an eye out for this week.
5. Can you imagine the celebration that is going to ensue in Dallas? Mark Cuban has stayed quite the entire playoffs. He deserves this moment. Very well deserved for a franchise that he brought into the spotlight and relevance in general. Also the majority of the country is smiling. Good defeated evil. The Miami celebration will have to wait at least one more year.
4. The Jeter quest for 3,000 hits continues. It is hard to believe that the most storied franchise in baseball history does not currently have a member of the elite 3,000 hit club. Well they quite possibly will by the end of this week. The Yankee “Captain” is zeroing in and finds himself just 7 hits away. Very soon, the Yankees will finally boast a member of what will be the 28 man club.
3. Welcome to Omaha! One of college athletics best traditions gets under way in Omaha with an opening ceremony on Friday, and first pitch on Saturday. As usual, it appears the field will be dominated by teams from the South and the West. Go figure in that these are the areas which have the best weather all year around. But this is always a very exciting sporting spectacle that brings a close to college athletics every year (school year).
2. The MLB is still chugging along. It is very hard to believe that we are already well over 60 games into the year. That means that we are well over a third of the way done. Key storylines currently creating buzz around the League are the recent woes of the Cleveland Indians, Jeter’s quest for 3,000, AL East dominance, and the clusters in both the AL West and NL West. It has been a great year thus far to say the least. My primetime matchup of the week occurs in Detroit.
Cleveland Indians at Detroit Tigers: I will admit it is very unusual for me to highlight the same team in the matchup of the week consecutive weeks. Well the Indians are the lucky team to accomplish the feat. This is as big of a matchup that you can get in the middle of June. Two teams that are neck in neck fighting for the division. One team that is on a horrific downward spiral, and another that is on the upswing. This is a much bigger series for Cleveland than Detroit in my eyes though. The Indians are a very young team dealing with their first set of growing pains. Many are calling them a fluke, including myself. Detroit on the other hand is a more experienced group, that has gone 500 or better four of the past five years. This is familiar territory for them. And I fully expect them to take advantage of Cleveland’s nerves and inexperience. Plus the Indians have not been a good road team by any means. Look for Detroit to take 2 of 3 from the Tribe and have sole control of 1st in the Central when this series concludes.
1. Lord Stanley will find its new home very soon. We will know by the end of this week who the 2011 NHL Champion is. It is looking very likely that the Cup will be making its first trip back to Canada since 1993. This series has been extremely entertaining and has reminded me very much of the 1960 World Series. In the Fall Classic over 50 years ago, the Yankees outscored the Pirates 55 to 27. Yet they lost the series in 7 games following Bill Mazeroski’s legendary Game 7 walk off shot. Thus far in the 5 games played in this year’s Stanley Cup, the Bruins have outscored the Canucks 14 to 6. Yet they are down 3 to 2 in the series. I see the Canucks taking it home, even if they do not score half as many goals as the Bruins in the series.
Stay tuned for the next edition of TheSportsKraze.
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