A Hall of Fame Kind of Day

Fellow readers,

Welcome back! You will never believe where I went today. Well, unless you follow me on Twitter, Instagram, or are friends with me on Facebook. But if not, my family and I went to Cooperstown to the Baseball Hall of Fame. That is right, the mecca of the finest players in Major League history. We are currently taking a vacation to New York where on Saturday, we will be attending the Yankees game against the Red Sox-courtesy of my AWESOME sister who bought us all tickets to the game. But let us not get ahead of ourselves. Back to the Cooperstown. We embarked on this little adventure of ours at 6:15 PM CST yesterday (5/29). After a quick pit-stop at Wally World for a few last-minute items, we were on our way. Our plan: drive non-stop from Hendersonville, TN all the way to Cooperstown, NY, roughly a 14-hour drive. What an adventure it turned out to be. It took slightly longer than expected with all the stops we had to make for gas and the bathroom. It took until at least 1:30 AM for everyone to fall asleep, and if you have never driven through Ohio, no matter how long you sleep, you will wake up still in Ohio. It took FOREVER. But, we finally made it to Cooperstown and were overcome with joy, literally like a kid in the candy shop. If you are a baseball fan, GO to the Hall of Fame. You will not regret it. The atmosphere of being in that tiny town full of love for the game is incredible. The museum itself, amazing (I will post some pictures on here later). There is so much rich history there including at least five actual lockers from players such as Ruth and Honus Wagner. It is definitely an experience I hope to share with my kids someday. After the Hall, we walked a little ways down the street and grabbed some authentic New York-style pizza. It was very tasty. After enjoying the pizza and a few souvenir shops, we were on our way to New York City, a drive that seemed like forever. We finally checked into our hotel and are now watching the Yankees game.

The downside of the whole trip was my lack of access to any sporting event. Luckily, I did not have to witness the ugliness that was the Yankees performance last night. More on that in a little bit. I also missed the overtime thriller between the Red Wings and Blackhawks. What, at one point, looked like a definitive series win for Detroit, turned into a captivating 3-3 series tie heading into the hockey fan's dream, a game 7. Like I said, I had no access to the game being on the road but Chicago came out on top in overtime 2-1. From what I have heard, it was an incredibly thrilling game to watch. So, the conference finals are set with the Western Conference Final between the Chicago Blackhawks and the reigning Cup champs, Los Angeles Kings, and the Eastern Conference Final between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Boston Bruins. Both series begin on Saturday starting at 5:00 PM EST. Halfway through the season, I called for a CHI vs PIT Cup and after watching the Penguins domination over the Senators, as well as the Bruins series against the Rangers being as close as it was (three games decided by one goal), I see the Penguins winning the series 4-2 and moving on to the finals. As far as the Western Conference goes, I still like Chicago, but it will be a very close series. If Chicago plays like they did the last three games of their last series, they will win. However, there still is always a chance when you have Quick as your netminder. I will say we will see Chicago win another game seven to advance to the finals. Because it's the Cup!

In other news, NBA Eastern Conference Finals is a tight one. Entering tonight it is tied 2-2 and Indiana is showing that having a solid inside game can overcome the "Big Three."  Chris Bosh, as I have always thought, is a liability down low. His game is 15-20 feet out and beating opposing big men with his finesse. He is a tall small forward in my opinion. If the Heat end up moving on, Bosh will struggle mightily against the greatest power forward of all-time in Tim Duncan. On the other end of the spectrum, if Indiana moves on, Roy Hibbert will produce a great matchup again Duncan and the Spurs other big men. I have not watched too much of these playoffs, but last time I checked, if Tiago Splitter is their starting center, Hibbert should easily win that matchup. The series is still anyone's game, and as long as the Heat still have LeBron-and last time I checked, they still do-then the Heat have to be favored to move on. I believe the Heat will win in a very closely contested game seven.

Now, back to the Yankees. After their loss tonight, they have lost 5 straight and 7 of their last 9 games. At face value, it looks like something to begin to worry about. But, if you look closer, you will find that only two of those losses were by more than three runs, including three games lost by one run in the eighth inning or later. That is, however, surprising considering how outstanding their bullpen has been this year. But, you can't win them all. The upcoming weekend series against the Red Sox will be that much more important now that the Yankees have dropped to 2.5 games behind first place Boston (assuming they don't give up their 7 run lead on Philly). The two teams stack up neck-and-neck against each other with Boston just edging out New York in hitting, but the Yankees have the slight edge in pitching. The pitching matchups will begin with the two former aces of each staff (Sabathia vs Lester) tomorrow night, and ending with two of the best pitchers in baseball period this year (Kuroda vs Buckholz). In order for the Yankees to win this series, their offense needs to pick it up in a big way. Looking at their last 12 games, they scored 32 runs in the first 6, but just 14 runs in the last 6, being held to 3 runs or less in 5 of those 6 games. The struggle has been across the board with no exceptions outside of a random jack here or there. Cano had a solid game tonight going 2-4 with his homer accounting for their only run. Hopefully, this will be a turnaround for him after struggling the past week. He has been their best hitter, by far, this season jumping off to a great start, attacking pitchers. As I watched him this past week, he seems to have been a little less aggressive, including taking the first pitch almost every at bat. The Yankees other leading batter this season has been Vernon Wells. His April was one of the best in the AL with an OPS of over .900 and second on the team in homeruns. However, the resulting confidence has seem to make him overly-aggressive, with him swinging at the first pitch almost every at bat. His numbers have dropped significantly because of this with his average dropping from .300+ to .258 and his OPS is down to .755. The Yankees need him to get back to those April numbers if they want to continue first place success. A brighter note has been Brett Gardner. He has not only been stellar with the glove, but he has really begun to pick up the bat. In his last full season with the Yankees (2011), Gardner hit 8 HR and had a .369 SLG%. This year, Gardner has already hit 5 HR and is Slugging .421. This increase in power is due to his selectively aggressive hitting. What do I mean? If you watch closely, when Gardner gets behind in the count, he will sit on a pitch a little longer and go opposite field most of the time. However, when he gets ahead in the count, he will try to jump on some pitches and pop a line drive over the right field wall. If he continues this approach, his average might not jump too far past .275, but the slugging numbers will be there, which will really help in run support for a staff who is third in the AL in ERA. Lastly, for the Yankees to get back in the winning column, Sabathia will need to lock it down and get back to the numbers we are used to seeing from him, as well as Phil Hughes continuing to get better and Kuroda to continue his dominance this season. All in all, Yankees fans, there is no need to worry about this recent skid. Once their bats get swinging again, they will be right back in the W column.

In other baseball news: On Wednesday, Jered Weaver made his first start since his injury that had him out for over a month and was fantastic. He pitched 6 innings giving up only 1 ER while striking out 7. As for the other team in Los Angeles, the Dodgers placed Matt Kemp on the 15-Day DL today due to what seems to be a reoccurring hamstring issue. Kemp is having anything but a stellar season this year as well as the rest of the Dodgers team. Something you don't see to often, a pitcher, Travis Wood (Cubs), hit a grand slam today to help he and his team pick up the win.

That is all for today's post, readers. Thank you for reading. Be sure to follow this blog on twitter @SportsWorldAROB to always know when a new post is up, as well as updates from around the sports world. As I said earlier, I will hopefully be putting up pictures from the Hall of Fame day, as well as the rest of this trip. Until next time.

Signing off.