OSU Beavers National Champs!

I thought I would never say this, but congratulations to the Oregon State University Beavers baseball team on winning the universities' first major sport national championship. If you have read my profile you should know I am a University of Oregon alum, and as a Duck it is a virtual sin to root for the rival Beavers, but I can justify it in baseball since the Ducks don't have a team. I think the Beavers should thank the Ducks for letting them have the best in-state baseball talent in Oregon, which helped them win their championship.

I was glad to see them make it back to Omaha for their second straight College World Series appearance. They got the experience last season and had the talent to win it this year, but it wasn't easy they had to win three elimination games and came through the consolation bracket to advance to the Finals.

After the University of Miami Hurricanes manhandled them in their first meeting 11-1 in game 1 of the Beavers CWS run, it immediately put them in the losers bracket where they could lose no more in the double-elimination format.
In the rematch the Beavers turned the tables and eliminated the Hurricanes 8-1 winning with ease. They then had to face the 2004 College World Series Champs Rice University, who came into the tournament as the favorite and ranked #1. The Beavers pitching was dominate winning the first game 5-0 and then eliminating the Owls in another shutout the following night, 2-0. The Beavers won four straight games in four days to advance to the CWS Championship Series. They now faced the University of North Carolina (at Chapel Hill) Tar Heels in a best of three for the title. Neither school had made it to the college baseball title series before. I would have been happy either way as I have been a long-time Tar Heels fan too, but they have won many basketball championships it meant more for OSU to win.

The Tar Heels snapped the Beavers win streak winning a close Game 1, 4-3. The Beavers battled back to tie the series at 1-1 winning a high scoring game 11-7, and in a classic Game 3 pitchers duel the Beavers prevailed 3-2, as the Beavers capitalized on an error to score the winning run. The Beavers proved how important experience is as their senior dominated lineup beat the young Tar Heels.

The Beavers set a school record winning 50 games this season. The CWS is usually dominated by southern, warm climate schools, such as teams in California, Texas, or Florida. The Beavers became the first northern-climate team to win the NCAA Division I baseball championship since the University of Minnesota Gophers in 1964 (1st time in my life time). It also was OSU's 1st national championship since the men's cross country team won in 1961.

In his 12th season at Oregon State, coach Pat Casey (391-253-4) achieved his dream of bringing Beavers baseball to the collegiate pinacle. The Beavers won the Pacific-10 Conference Championship for the second year in a row for the first time in school history. Pac-10 baseball is very strong with Arizona State, Arizona, Stanford and USC bringing home the College World Series title many times. Casey has had a winning season in 10 of his 12 seasons at OSU. Notre Dame University tried to steal him away, but he kept his loyalty to the northwest signing a new 10-year contract with the Beavers worth $3 million. Casey was named the 2006 Collegiate Baseball newspaper National Coach of the Year and also Baseball America magazine's 2006 Coach of the Year.

Even before the Beavers made it to the College World Series, Major League Baseball noticed the talent of the OSU players by drafting nine of them to help fill minor league rosters. Starting right hand pitcher Dallas Buck was the first picked by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the third round. Outfielder Cole Gillespie was also selected in the third round by the Milwaukee Bucks. Left hand starting pitcher Kevin Gunderson was selected in the fifth round by the Atlanta Braves, and right hand pitcher Jonah Nickerson was the final Beaver selected on the first day of the draft in the seventh round by the Detroit Tigers.

Second day picks included outfielder Tyler Graham in the 19th round by the San Francisco Giants; second baseman Christopher Kunda also in the 19th round by the New York Yankees; third baseman Shea McFeeley in the 28th round also by the Arizona Diamondbacks; catcher Mitch Canham in the 41st round by the St. Louis Cardinals, and right hand pitcher Jon Koller in the 48th round by the New York Mets.

Hurricanes win Stanley Cup!

I know I'm a little late, but wanted to add my congratulations to the Carolina Hurricanes on their 1st Stanley Cup Championship in the National Hockey League. They also brought the first professional sports championship to North Carolina, and the Carolina region collectively.

I'm sure original fans of the Hartford Whalers and Hartford, Connecticut are celebrating too as the original location of the franchise before it moved to Raleigh, North Carolina in 1997. To add a local spin to it, Portland, Oregon had a reason to celebrate for Glen Wesley, a former member of their Western Hockey League Portland Winterhawks from 1983 to 1987. I'm sure I saw him play in one of those games during that time. He finally won his first championship in his 18th season in the NHL. He played 1,479 NHL regular season and playoff games, eighth most in NHL history before finally getting a chance to hoist the Cup.

It's always great to see a new team win a championship for the first time, the southern NHL teams have dominated the past two season with the Tampa Bay Lightning winning the championship in 2004 and got to hold the Stanley Cup for two years due to the unfortunate labor dispute that cancelled the 2005 season.

On my list of teams I like you may have noticed there are a lot from North Carolina. I have never in the Carolina's but have visited there. I probably have been facinated with North Carolina since I found out Richard Petty lives there. On my cross country vacation in 1995 I stopped by Randleman, NC and saw the original little white house and homestead of the Petty family and took a picture from outside the fence. It was a Sunday and they weren't open for a tour of Petty Enterprises. I have also always liked the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Tar Heels, mainly the basketball team. Their powder blue and white was the same color as my high school team. The Tar Heels have such a strong heritage in college basketball including players like Michael Jordan, James Worthy, Brad Daugherty, Sam Perkins, Vince Carter, the list goes on and on who ended up playing in the NBA and winning championships. North Carolina is also the heart of stock car racing and I am a big racing fan.

Blazers future looks bright!

The Portland Trailblazers went into the 2006 NBA draft on June 28 without a General Manager, but proved they didn't need one. The Blazers top 3 in the front office: team President Steve Patterson, coach Nate McMillian and director of player personnel Kevin Pritchard set an NBA record by pulling off six trades during the draft to get the players they coveted. I watched the draft on ESPN and their "so-called" experts were criticizing the Blazers for the moves with their East coast bias, but I was proud of their moves and their ability to acquire two of the top four players in the draft.

The Blazers pulled off a trade with the Chicago Bulls moments before the draft aquiring the #2 pick in the first round for Portland's #4, forward Viktor Khryapa and future considerations. With the #2 pick most Blazer fans expected Portland to "draft the stache" and select local favorite Adam Morrison out of Gonzaga, but instead they took 6'11" forward/center LaMarcus Aldridge out of the University of Texas. I whole heartedly agree with the Blazers move. I believe Aldridge will be a stronger player in the NBA and the Blazers needed a good young center. Aldridge is a better defensive player than Morrison and a more well-rounded player. Aldridge has been compared to Rasheed Wallace, without attitude, which is a perfect fit for the Blazers. He was named Big-12 Defensive Player of the Year this past season, and a member of the First Team All Big-12.

The Blazers also were able to acquire the guard they coveted in Brandon Roy another local talent out of the University of Washington and Pac-10 Player of the Year. Roy will get NBA experience at point guard on the Blazers summer league teams.

Portland made a surprising move trading point guard Sebastian Telfair and veteran center Theo Ratliff, and a second round pick in 2008 to the Boston Celtics for center Raef LaFrentz, guard Dick Dickau the #7 first round pick and cash considerations. With the #7 pick the Blazers drafted Villanova point guard Randy Foye with the intention of trading him to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Roy. Roy was considered the fourth best player in the draft, so the Blazers were able to get the top two players they wanted.

Trading Ratliff for LaFrentz was a good move as they get a younger and more talented center in LaFrentz, also bringing back fan favorite Dickau was a good move, back to his home team as his family lives in Vancouver, Washington, that should put more fannies in the seats.

This most likely will be Paul Allen's last NBA draft as owner of the Blazers and he was willing to spend extra money to help improve the team and get the draft picks the Blazers needed, essentially they bought the #6 and #27 draft picks in the first round. With the #27 pick from the Phoenix Suns they were able to get one of the best point-guards out of Spain Sergio "Spanish Chocolate" Rodriguez, a flamboyant 6'3" 20 year old. Then with the last pick in the first round the Blazers drafted 6'10" forward Joel Freeland from England, who may struggle to make the team.

The Blazers have already signed Aldridge and Roy, and made another good decision by re-signing free agent center Joel Przybilla to a five year $30 million contract. For the most part the Blazers have all good character players now, except Darius Miles, who I was surprised wasn't traded during the draft. He probably will not be traded before the season starts. Now that he has a good team around him, and if he decides to play well and listen to Coach McMillian, Miles still could contribute to the Blazers, but he may whine if he isn't the starting small forward. Travis Outlaw should get more playing time at small forward, entering his fourth season. He provided a lot of energy for the team when he got on the court.

Juan Dixon was a happy surprise at shooting guard last season, putting up some big scoring games. Martell Webster should get some more playing time and will push Dixon for the starting job at shooting guard. I think Raef LaFrentz will be a good addition to the team and provide some veteran leadership the team desperate needs.

It should be fun to watch the Blazers mature this season and we have a good bunch that should play well together as a team. The Blazer chemistry is back, we may even be able to make a run at at playoff spot and a winning record this season and turn Portland into Blazermania again. It also would help the franchise to have local ownership. I'm glad the city was able to work out an agreement with Portland Arena Management and Paul Allen to be able to sell the team and the Rose Garden Arena as a packaged deal. The only way a new owner can make a profit with the team is if they also own the arena.

Never a dull moment with the Blazers, even in the off season, we'll see what happens next, hopefully it will be good riddens to Paul Allen. Thanks for trying to buy us a championship, but like most owners have found, it isn't possible without character and team chemistry.

John Nash Blazers scapegoat

After Bob Whitsitt, the Blazers hired John Nash as their General Manager before the 2003-04 season. He was brought in to start the "clean-up" process. Fan support was starting to dwindle as they were embarrassed by the actions of the players off the court. Character does matter in Portland as we don't want our fine city's reputation ruined across the nation by our only professional sports team. Bob Whitsitt must have flunked chemistry as he could never figure that out and only looked at players talent on the court.

It was Nash's job to unload the baggage on the team. On paper some of his trades may have looked bad, but they were good character moves. The NBA considered his trade of Bonzi Wells on December 3, 2003 to the Memphis Grizzlies for guard Wesley Person, a conditional first round pick in 2004 and cash, as a bad trade. Wells was an up-and-coming star in the NBA, but he had wore out his welcome in Portland with his off-the-court drug antics. This was a welcome trade to Blazer fans. Person was a good character veteran, and the team needed some veteran talent to go with all their young players.

On January 21, 2004 he did make a controversial move by trading two good character players in guard Jeff McInnis and center Ruben Boumtje Boumtje to the Cleveland Cavaliers for forward Darius Miles. At the time it looked like a good move as the Blazers were able to get a high scoring forward in Miles, who looked like a future all-star for next to nothing, but he had wore out his welcome in Cleveland and the Cavs were trying to unload him and his big salary. He had some character flaws too, which Portland always brings out the worse in people. He took #23 in Portland, and Blazer fans tried to imagine him as the other famous #23 Michael Jordan we passed up in the draft.

Nash's best trade was getting Rasheed Wallace out of town trading him and guard Wesley Person to the Atlanta Hawks on February 9, 2004 for guard Dan Dickau (bringing him back to the Northwest his family lives in Vancouver, Washington), forward Shareef Abdur-Rahim, and center Theo Ratliff. The Hawks later traded Rasheed Wallace to the Detroit Pistons and he got the last laugh on Portland winning a championship in Detroit.

In the 2004 NBA draft Nash made a pretty good move selecting high school phenom guard Sebastian Telfair with the 13th pick overall in the first round. He would become the Blazers future point-guard as they did not re-sign Damon Stoudamire as a free agent and let the Memphis Grizzlies sign him in 2005.

Nash was given the difficult task of bringing Blazer spending in order. Paul Allen was no longer handing out blank checks to try and buy a championship. The closest he came to that was in the 2000 season, which I already commented on in the previous post. Nash had to bring the Blazers salary down by bringing in young players and trading or cutting the expensive veterans. I won't get into all the moves he made as I'm sure they are documented on Blazers.com. The Blazers went from a-then-NBA record of $105 million in salaries in 2003, to just $60 million last season.

I have to give Nash credit for getting the tough job done. The bottom line doesn't look like he did a very good job as general manager as the Blazers missed the playoffs in all three season he was GM of the Blazers, but by the Blazers getting progressively worse (41-41 in 2003, 27-55 in 2004, and the NBA's worst team at 21-61 this past season) also raised their draft picks and the Blazers were able to build for the future.

This probably was John Nash's last General Manager job in the NBA. The Blazers haven't signed a new one yet. They went into the 2006 NBA draft without a GM. Who will the next one be? The Cleveland Cavaliers let Jim Paxson go, it would be nice if he could come back to Portland's front office as a former player. Kiki Vandeweghe, also a former Blazer, could return to Portland as their next GM. We'll just have to wait and see.