EAST TENNESSEE MEDIA

TSWA Award-Winning Kevin Barnard

June 3, 2010

Since the time that Sports Illustrated did a feature on LeBron James when he was still only a junior at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School I’ve been incredulous to the hype. The kid is a really good player, but other than high school what has he won? Three Division III state titles in Ohio and a Division II runner-up is what he’s accomplished. He also managed to get the Cavaliers to the NBA Finals in his fourth season only to get swept by the San Antonio Spurs.

On Tuesday night he offered up little in the way of a defense (much the way the Cavs did the entire Game 5 in Cleveland) on how he played (using that term loosely) against the Boston Celtics in what was the pivotal game of this Eastern Conference Semifinal. He put up dud.

It was beyond bad and if James can’t get 30-plus in most games the Cavs play…well they are the Cavs for Pete’s sake. This was a look into the future for Cleveland fans. LeBron is gone this off-season. He’s going to have more money thrown at him than can be contemplated. All this based on the premise that he’ll put fannies in the seats and maybe, just maybe he’ll win someone a title.

I would bank more on the former than the latter. Until he proves he can win something…much the same way that current teammate Shaquille O’Neal had to…there shouldn’t be any bets placed on any team he plays for, be it Cleveland, New Jersey/Brooklyn or the Knicks.

All this coming from a guy that somehow got the nickname “King” for winning in high school…which makes him more of a Prince…but that name is being used already by a guy who’s name is actually Prince. However “Clown Prince” sounds like it fits given his penchant for his poor ability to handle a loss and his general lack of humbleness. In short, he’s been given all this stuff prior to turning 30, without winning anything of note, and he has a sense of entitlement (as do the Cavs as a team).

Yo LeBron…I can see that you’ve never grown up, so in the interest of the fans in the northeast section of Ohio will you please figure it out by the trade deadline? I for one could care less, but so the folks that live in “the mistake by the lake” don’t start committing mass suicide when you leave town before winning them a championship.

Not that you’ll win one anyway…

Perfection…and not perfect

This young baseball season we have already seen a pair of perfect games and had one botched on Wednesday night by a bad call from an umpire. There have only been 20 total as of this posting which means ten percent of the total perfect games all time has happened in the first 2-plus months of the 2010 season.

It’s the one that was blown that is now the hot-button issue for expanding replay in Major League Baseball.

Jim Joyce, a 21-year veteran umpire, fielded questions following the game and admitted he “kicked” the call. He didn’t evade the media, nor did he try to pass it off as a “bang-bang” play. He owned up to missing the call. Now he’s getting blasted from here to the other side of the world for messing up the 21^st perfect game in MLB history.

Armando Galarraga began the season in AAA Toledo. The 28-year old pitched a gem regardless of it ending up as a perfect game. Dallas Braden and Roy Halladay will have to wait until later in the season to see if anyone else can get all 27 outs before anyone reaches base like they have already this season.

And no…replay should not be expanded because of this incident.

An ode to “The Kid”

Ken Griffey, Jr. hung up his cleats on Wednesday after 22-plus seasons in the big leagues. Junior was at one point thought to be a lock to smash Hank Aaron’s home run mark (without the use of performance enhancing drugs no lees) until a string of injury-plagued season while in Cincinnati cut down on his playing time.

Finishing with 630 career homers, Griffey will settle for being fifth all-time behind Willie Mays, Babe Ruth, Aaron and the steroid cheat Barry Bonds.

I got to see Junior play once while I’ve been here. He was definitely a shell of his former self. However he didn’t hurt the team while in that configuration…one wonders how well he could’ve done had he had competent managers and a lot more luck with the injury bug.

Fare thee well Junior. They don’t make ‘em like you in your prime anymore.