Rays Winter Meetings

The Rays fans are worried that the rays look like they are thinking about rebuilding after a disappointing ending to the season were we ended up with the AL best record and division champs by losing in 5 games in the ALDS by the rangers or mostly Cliff Lee. So now this winter meeting the rays are powerless to stop the coming storm which will cause all of free agents to leave Tampa for better opportunity. The free agents are Carl Crawford, Rafael Soranio, Carlos Pena, Joaquin Benoit, and Grant Balfour. Crawford, Pena, and Benoit have all accepted offers from other teams to play for them for a huge amount of money and good for them. Good news the Rays have Desmond Jennings a top 10 minor league prospect to fill the void in left field with Carl there and the Rays are making trades to strengthen or bullpen when we traded Jason Bartlett to the padres for Adam Russel and Cesar Ramos. These guys are both potential bull pen guys as well as Jake Mcgee in our minor league system could be an potential closer. The problem I think is a first base because putting Zobrist there would be a waste of a great utility player where he can play anywhere and im not a believer on Dan Johnson potential to be a everyday 1b men. But he rays GM Andrew Friedman is going to figure out a very clever way of filling the 1rst base role with a possible trade of Matt Garza who can get some serious value in return. And are starting pitching is the one thing we have quite a bit of because if Garza gets traded then we can just put in the Minor league pitcher of the year Jeremy Hellickson.

Crawford

One of my favorite players every Tampa bay history of sports is the left Fielder for the Rays is the silver slugger, Gold glover, 4x all-star, and our most beloved and consistent player in the history of the franchise. Since late last night he was signed by the Boston Red Socks for seven years and 142 million which is 20 million a year which is well deserved. He will have great stats playing in the band box at Fenway with the talent around him. Like Dustin Pedroria, Kevin Youklis, Jacoby Elisberry, Adrian Gonzalez, David Ortiz, and other studs. He will eat up all of the flyballs that go out to left field in between the green monster and the infield. By the end of the 7 years with red socks he could be a fringe hall of famer with a strong possibility of getting 3000 hits. I wish him all the best with the rest of his career he has been  unbelievable player for Tampa and as a person around the community. He deserves every penny of his contract and will get more all-star apparences and silver sluggers and gold gloves (if derek Jeter can get one Carl should get one for the rest of his career) and his stats will continue to expand in steals, 2b's, 3b's, HR, hits, and runs prevented. He is a class act and he will win a ring by the end of his career.

Thanksgiving

Once again it was a nice thanksgiving with family. I had plenty of food and catching up with family members I see maybe 4-5 times a year. Sure most of my family members have there annoyances but when its only a couple times a year i can deal with it for a 8 hour stretch. Of course the best part is eating and being lazy while watching all the football games that are traditionally on thanksgiving day. Most of the games were competitive most the game and it was just generally entertaining. Of course now its back to reality and back to the rest of year in school. With this class im getting a little restless because of how there is not class to go to. I dont know what my grade is and i haven't heard much from the teacher so im just waiting to find out if i survived another semester. All my other classes im not worried about Im not even thinking about them right now because its all good. Maybe im just obsessing because of finals coming up and if i will be ready for that. Which i think i will be but in the case that i do fail any classes i will be extremely disappointed. Probably frustrated as well.

HP7 part 1

Went and saw the new harry potter movie on opening night. While I waited for the most part outside in the cold with very few layers and filled up with frustration with the system that Hollywood theaters decided to use to organize the lines outside of harry potter. As was most people that had to wait outside and put up with the ridiculous hard core fans of Harry potter but i guess you cant complain because you went opening night. Regardless of what time it was when i went to see the movie i didn't need these harry potter elitist letting me know that they were better than me when they are middle aged and are up at three in the morning. The movie though was excellent especially compared to the previous movies of the harry potter series. All of the actors are coming into there prime and the directing was tremendous. The movie was extremely detailed which helped all the hard core addicts to pay attention and not goff. The art work was excellent in the scenes that it needed to the best which it was when it mattered. The whole part one of the movie was impressive and it was also frustrating because this is what the movies could of been if the would of made them two parts every time and it was just a distant reminder of what could of been. With that consider everything about the movie was right were it needed it to be and when it was sad it was sad. There was plenty of comic relief in the movie especially when the movie itself was pretty dark which it should of been. But all of this considered this is just the warm up the first half of a season they have to finish strong with the next movie which i strongly believe they will. 

no d in heat

During the summer of 2010 there was a lot of buzz of were some free agents would go but the leading man in this soap opera would be Lebron James. As most people know he and Chris Bosh signed deals to play with Dwayne Wayne in Miami. This team made the NBA relevant during the off season which really hadn't been done since Michael Jordan's era. Now there was a lot of talk about the character of James for going to a place were it looked like they have been planning this since the 08 summer Olympics. Cleveland media absolute crucified him for leaving his home town. Even though he was born in Akron. Now obviously the way he went about it was poor and a bit showy for sure but the intentions were right on the money. He wasn't going to win in Cleveland with that situation, it was an extremely bad organization and the right thing for himself was to get to a better place. So once the season started there were extremely high exceptions as there should of been with three all-stars in the prime of there careers and two potential hall of famers on the team as well with pat riley as the GM. So on opening night they looked like a team that hadn't played most of the pre-season due too injuries, a busy off season and almost completed project. So now fast forward to present day the heat lose again by being exploited at there two weakest positions and indecently the positions without an all-star player. So how does the heat cure this ailment of a weak point guard and center position. Well Erick Dampier is a free agent and a well below average offensive player, but he will play defense as well as any center in the east and he's not afraid to hack.  

The walking dead

I'm going to get on my soap box and talk about something that always puts a smile on my face when it comes to an apocalypse and that's zombies. Recently a new show has come on AMC which historical has hit or miss tv series, but this new one from the director of the Shawhank redemption and the green mile has made something special on AMC. The show takes place in Georgia were a viral outbreak has consumed the nation and the world and has created a war between the living and the dead. So far the storyline is very interesting as well as how the characters are related to each other and the main ties they have to the plot structure. The show starts very much like 28 days later, which is the main character wakes up from a traumatic injury in the hospital which is completely deserted and ransacked. So far the character has to piece together what happened to his family and to the world. The show has everything you would want in a zombie tv/movie series which is ridiculous one liners and head shots with gore. So far i really enjoy this show and I think it has a lot of potential to be really entertaining.

week 8 of the nfl

This is the time of year were the good teams polish there craft. This is a season in the NFL with tons of parody there are no really weak teams in the NFL. The Buffalo bills is suppose to be the worst team in the NFL gave the Ravens all they could handle and the Chiefs. So in a league for of similarity who is going to come out on top. I believe that no matter what happens in the NFL this year the Superbowl champion is either coming out of the AFC North or East. The Ravens, Steelers, Jets, Patriots, and the Dolphins are all more the capable to winning a Superbowl. But I am a bias fan and I will make an argument that the Buccaneers could at least go all the way to the Superbowl. First reason is the schedule for the buccaneers is incredibly easy, the only remotely tough teams are the Ravens and maybe the falcons a couple of times. The rest of the teams they play are all dysfunctional teams. The second reason is the we have a future Mike Tomlin as our head coach named Raheem Morris. He is not the tactial brilliance of a Belichick or a reid, but he is players coach he has the respect despite being only a few years older than ronde barber the veteran on the team. The last reason and maybe a bit premature one but as far as im concerned he has passed the eye ball test is the teams Quarteback named Josh Freeman. He is what alot of football experts say is a futuristic John Elway.       

Collisions

Lately some hits in the NFL are getting some attention and eventually has led to more severe punishment for players who head hunt. Now could the NFL be over-reacting due to the amount of injuries late week because of head hits, its entirely possible and now especially that we might have a lock out at the end of the season. This conflict between the players union and the NFL representatives don't look like its going to be cured in the near future. Although it should be noted that I think owners are smart enough to realize that NFL makes so much money that they dont want to ruin it.
With the injuries though due to helmet to helmet collisions are pretty avoidable as evidence by the College game players in college dont head hunt but once they get on the big stage they decide they should put guys in the hospital. So Im sure what all the sudden made them decide they want to play dirty. Maybe its the coaching, money, highlights, and endorsements.
The thing though is the most ridiculous and absurd part about this whole week is the over-reaction of defensive players. Like James Harrison the Steelers Line backer who completed retirement at age 29 because he didnt like getting fined for giving a guy a concussion. The funniest part of that was he was nobody till Dick Lebeau the defensive coordinator made him into defensive player of the year. Now he thinks he's worth something that he has leverage to give up millions of dollars he didnt have before he became a Steeler. Most people watch quarterbacks and great offenses in the NFL, I like defense but the numbers dont lie and they say that people would rather see offensive players not get killed.

BO

Last Saturday I couldn't wait for the stand up special of Bo Burnham. So later that night I watched what was incredibly inappropriate, offensive, and freaking hilarious. Ive listened to alot of different artists and there are some very clever ones out there. Most comics and singers are really only good at one thing and anything else they try and do they fail miserable. This kid Bo is probably the most talented, creative, brilliant, genius, and lyrical master.
His special was on Comedy central was hilarious and he created some of the most addicting songs to listen to on his CD. I think he got a great future in comedy, music, and just being on TV in general. He is a breath of fresh air in a industry that has too much parody. So would strongly advise people to watch his special "words, words, words" and enjoy it. 

Movie

This last few weeks there have been some movies coming out with actors and directors who were unproven and really horrible at what they do as a whole. Ben Affleck simply a horrible actor just awful but he comes out and does "the Town" as an actor and a director. This movie got some great reviews and could be up for a few Oscars nominations when the time comes. Justin Timberlake I think is still an over- rated talent overall but he was very good in the movie the "Social Network". I use to think that Jesse Eisenberg was a poor mans Michael Cera, but he has surpassed Cera in sure awesomeness that is his performance in the "Social Network". The point being eventually people find there niche and these guys have done better than I ever would of expected espcially Justin Timberlake.

Fall Break

A much needed relief and will be taken advantage of by myself to sleep and basically be lazy. I think my friends and I are going to be watching a lot of movies and playing a lot of video games and watching  some football. I do have to work a lot but thats ok with me. The big thing though is sleeping till 11:30 will be simply glorious it will be my little slice of heaven. I think I am in a scary movie mood maybe ill watch some Silent Hill which is pretty bad-ass. Although once Wednesday comes it will be back to the grind stone with school work and work-work.
Then after this break we have to wait till thanksgiving till the next break in school. So lets enjoy this time now and have a wonderful fall break.

Expansion of the mens NCAA basketball tournment

About a year ago there was serious discussion about expanding the NCAA basketball tournament from 65 teams to 96 teams this was a hot topic during spring then was abandoned by the committee. There was some hot debate that went along with it and alot of people were screaming at each other for expansion and anti expansion.
It was a curious debate in that I feel like the call for expansion was an overreaction to what happened that season in basketball. The traditional powers like North Carolina, Connecticut, UCLA, Indiana (but thats nothing new), Arizona, and even though Kentucky made it last year they struggled a couple years ago. These teams all either didn't make it or have had trouble lately. College basketball doesn't make near as much money as football but the traditional powers generate pretty good revenue for the tournament. They want to prevent this by expanding the tournament so just about all the teams that are the money makers get in the tournament.
The problem with this is that they way it will affect the regular season. Regular season basketball is already pretty irrelevant just because there is too many games to figure out what we already know for the most part which is what teams make it. The board did eventually expand the tournament to 68 teams which made a lot of programs very happy but this is messing with something that's already perfect.

almost half way done

As week 7 closes and week 8 begins I have to begin buckling down to get caught back up in school. I have a tendency to be lazy the half of the school year and at the beginning im like this isn't going to be the case this semester be just as consistent as death and taxes I am in the same position.
I think I just need to realize that unless there is no TV, internet, and sports going on I will postpone things I need to get done. This blog is really about nothing at all I'm just drawing a blank on what to put up on the internet so here it is. If the teachers would just fast foward me to week 8 with my anticipated grades and just let me start from there I will be in much better position.

Qb Success

In the NFL there are many theories to why some quarterbacks are successful and why some of them crash and burn so badly. So people point to there work ethic and as people themselves. Others might point out race and maybe the coaches who teach them. Some say its the college teams they played for and which schools have better prepared there players to take the next step in the game. Maturity level could be a factor and so could the inability to be a team player.
So out of all these different scenarios on why a quarterback is successful which one of them is consistent to the makings of a great Quarterback. I would say just about everything anybody came up with to correlate a reason to boom or bust could be proven false. If you were take the top Quarterbacks ever and compare them you could find nothing to indicate what was the factor to making them successful besides being in the right place at the right time.
I think though if you look at each one of there stats and look at two things one how they preform after a terrible game. The other one is what there third down conversion is. They say you measure a Quarter backs greatness in what he does in the playoffs and the Superbowl. If you look at the top third down completion stats last year in the playoffs they were both the Colts and the Saints. All the current elite Quarterbacks in this league are great in third down conversions.

The herd

As far as media personality there are few I enjoy on a regular basis at any given time. This goes with any politic, sports, or even entertainment of any other kind. I find most of them to be scripted very generic or completely unbelievable. Thats why I am completely sincere when I talk about my favorite radio/TV personality as being my favorite and the best at what he does. He is controversial and maybe a bit cold but he believes what he believes because he looks at from a non emotional stance. Colin Cowherd on ESPN radio from nine to twelve Mondays through Fridays is the best part about driving during that time. He takes a different perspective from most other radio guys and TV pundits for that matter. Even if I dont agree with everything he says about sports I know its based on some logic and his own true belief system. 

Is there too much time spent on fantasy sports

I love fantasy sports especially football I sometimes find myself cheering for players to do well even if its going against my own team. I spend about 3 hours a week looking up players stats or reading experts opinions, but with the amount of free time I have I feel like I'm justified. Really three hours isn't a lot of time to spend on fantasy football and I'm not bad at fantasy football but I'm not great. The amount of time spent by other people though is astonishing and is costing business productive time.
Now I love fantasy sports, but some hard core players spend nine hours a week reading and mixing and matching the roster before Sunday. Now this might be hypocritical to say, but good lord that is way to much time spent on fantasy football. A good gauge of this is if you win fantasy football you lose at life. Now that companies have potential slowed down that happening in the work at all.
So I guess the basic thing with this post is there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. People look constantly to hobbies to occupy there time but most of the time a hobby cant be a job.  

Scorcese

Scorsese arguably one of the best directors ever to come out of Hollywood. His ability to make great movies consistently is absolute stunning. If you go through the list of movies he's done its amazing how few award he's won for them. In fact until the departed came out he had never won a best picture and best director. He's been nominated plenty for movies but never won the big one. Now he has a mini series on HBO called the Boardwalk Empire which is really good from what Ive seen and read about. I think this is going to be he's next masterpiece and who would of thought that it would be a TV show that would be his next greatest hit. His ability to recognize talent and guide actors and actress careers in the right direction is paramount.
For a while it looked like his directing career would end up like Kubrick career were he would created great movies, but never win the award that they deserved more than anything. 

A smart Move for baseball

Like most Americans I always look forward to football season the most out of any other sports season. With football season starting it takes away a lot of viewers away from other things and especially baseball. If you look at the ratings for Sunday night baseball game of the Yankees and Red Soxs vs a random players of the Cowboys vs Bengals point being preseason football blew baseball out of the water in ratings it wasn't even close and it was baseball rivalry. People in America find football more entertaining than just about anything else on television.
Ratings in the World Series basically hinge if the Yankees and Phillies play this year because all the other teams don't have big enough markets to make the world series profitable especially during football season being in the thick of things. They Yankees basically carry ratings in the post season as well as the Red Soxs.
Mike Scioscia the Angels Manager offered some very good ideas to shorten the regular season have the playoffs in august and September when football is still getting the feet wet and wont be cutting into there ratings terribly much espicially if you have the games on Tuesday through Friday. With a shorter season also means better weather for baseball as well it will improve the quality of the games played. Also it makes the regular season a little more important with less games to win. We really didnt need 162 games to find out the Yankees will be on top.
The main thing though with this whole thing is to try and get baseball rating respectable again when it matters and not in April and June.

Tampa bay rays baseball

The season is finally concluding in the MLB and that means the post season in October. My team is the Tampa Bay Rays now maybe five years ago I might have been hesitant to release this information to the public especially with Yankee and Red Sox's fans all around the country. They back then know Devil rays were so unbelievably bad that watching the game was like watching Water World multiple times. The organization just handled everything very badly in the beginning and some other things that were out of the control went badly. There main problem was the inability to allow prospects to grow in the minors especially pitchers they were the death of some pitchers careers.
Now though the Rays have a great chance to not just go to the post season, but to win the World Series against my pick in the NL the Giants. The reasons being the rays pitching can match up and beat any team in the leagues starting pitching and that includes the bullpen. Behind David Price the rays ace there is gonna be some god like performances by the Rays staff. Everyone knows pitching wins in the post season if you don't have at least two legitimate pitchers in the playoffs you will eliminated painfully and quickly. The other thing you have to have is clutch hitting which behind my favorite player Evan Longoria the rays for sure have.
With all these elements in a team that could very well get to one hundred wins this season I have great exceptions for the Rays to be doing some Yankee killing this October.

Commercials during games

Last night I was watching the season opener of the NFL season and I was pumped up ready for a great game which was kind of sloppy and messy instead. The game was still and enjoyable and although I wish that Brett Farve would go to training camp and practice with his receivers so I don't get one point of fantasy for my starting receiver. Anyway I came across an old foe that I despise so much and its so annoying  is the commercials during the games.

The game of football has always had a soft spot for me, but last night I remembered that they sandwich two five minute commercial breaks in between ten seconds of a kick return. This is with out a doubt the worse commercial spot in the entire sports world. Robert Seidman wrote on his site that Commecials have almost made watching the NCAA tournament unbearable when they actually call TV timeouts when the coaches aren't calling for stops its absurd. I know when I'm watching a football game at the stadium the players are just standing around waiting for the commercials to get done its ridiculous.

Although there is still a lot of commercials in aspect of the Television world and I understand that they pay good money to advertise in between shows or timeouts in a game, but its come to the point where its getting ridiculous. Especially during big season or series finales of shows like LOST. They say basically the same thing we understand the need to make revenue, but there has got to be another way to market your products either with product placement or just do most of your commercials before and after or even during halftime of games or shows.

There is also another solution with marketing in the NFL, NBA and some other sports and that's too do what soccer does in the EPL. They have company's and business names on there jerseys and no commercials while they are on the field. Ads on jerseys are what I think is the next logical step in sports especially in the NFL and NBA. This should shrink commercials down dramatically and still keep the owners and stock holders happy with the money still coming in.

Football season

This is is a great time of year in sports right now the FIBA basketball championships are going on, baseball has some excellent division and wild card races climaxing towards October. The US open is on if your in to tennis, and for the select few people Nascar starting to wind down as well. With all these great sporting events winding down the most popular sport in America is just about to start.

Football season no other sport in America gets more people juiced and ready to get drunk and scream till there lungs get sore. I prefer the NFL myself over college football but this weekend has some great college games that I will be watching "The U" or Miami University of Florida will be going against Ohio State and I have that game circled like twenty times.

My favorite part of the pro football start is fantasy football. I love fantasy football, odds are im going to be talking about it a couple more times over the course of semester so if you don't like it then that's tough. We had are fantasy football draft at my house with eleven other owners and we all dressed the mandatory dress shirt, slacks and tie. We had our draft I like my team chances Ive got a couple of nice players, I took a few high upside players and maybe it was a bit risky to take a chance on Malcolm Floyd and Louis Murphey neither one have proved to be anything but I have a good feeling.

This time of year represents all that is good and sacred in America. As you can tell im ecstatic for Sunday afternoon. 

Should College athletes receive finiacial benefits.

Since the time of agents and multimillion dollar professional paid athletes there has always been the debate and the constant battle against agents paying student athletes under the table. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/2004-08-31-top-ten-number-7_x.htm Kelly Whiteside presents an argument that really illustrates the problem and the attempt to try and make it better.

The argument I would use is that the whole system would be simplified if you pay each sport according to profit made. For instance Football makes the most money out of all the other sports so each in player should get paid an equal wages. This would eliminate agents ruining players careers because they cant afford to be living on there own. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=shanoff/lipsyte/050316  this link talks about how March Madness made a ridiculous amount of money during March Madness and now they are expanding the tournament to attract more sponsors. The players deserve a piece of the action because there the ones attracting fans and paying them enough to live away from home isnt going to kill any of there profit margin.

The other side of this argument is illustrated through http://www.imprintmagazine.org/sports_and_recreation/other_side_college_athletes_shouldnt_be_paid if anything this should prove that college kids should get some sort of cash incentive. Scholarships are great and should continue but if a kid is going to college and practicing every hour of every day and is only getting enough money to last him the weekend while the University are just draining the profits dry for themselves.

M. Night Shyamalan

Here's my rant and it has to do with a director/writer who continues to create horrible movies. He has created an ulcer in me that continues to grow every time I see a movie trailer with his name in it. 

At one time I did enjoy Shyamalan's movies the Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs wasn't half bad either. Then the Village came out an it looked great and it had such potential for a director whose stock seemed to be on the rise. The Village was such a huge screw up that I didn't know how to react after I watched it. The plot twist was so out of the blue so random that I just get pissed off thinking about how that movie ended.

Then I regained my composure and I justified Shyamalan's screw with that he will just bounce back with another movie that would be great. This was not the case he somehow got worse with "Lady in the Water" which he said was a bedtime story that he told to his daughter when she was younger. I wonder if she thought it was as crappy as I did.

Then he created the "The Happening" which the trailer looked awesome and I was so pumped to see it only to find out that it was actually when plants attack. He took a cool scientific discovery and made it into a Hollywood flop. They were running away from the wind the entire movie how can that be a plot.

Then probably his crown jewel of his movie downfall. The Last Air bender got an eight percent on "Rotten Tomatoes" that is so astonishingly bad that you couldn't break ten percent. Even Peter Hammond Hated it and he loves everything literally.

Shyamalan got me hooked again on his awesome trailer of that movie "Devil" which looked so good until it said "from the mind of M. Night Shyamalan." I got so super depressed that im probably going to see this movie and be disappointed. So my suggestion is this to Shyamalan, stop making movies.

myself

Hello my name is Stefan Klute i am 19 years old I graduated from Carl Junction High School in 09 i was originally born in Tampa, Florida. I love all things Tampa and i have no idea what im majoring in.