Wake-up Call: Angels, Rays, Soccer, Kings, Sparks
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First things first: I still can’t believe it this morning but what Mike DiGiovanna says is true. Angels owner Arte Moreno has no plans to boost the payroll next season. As Digi writes:
The upshot: Don’t expect all five of the Angels’ potentially pricey free agents -- first baseman Mark Teixeira, closer Francisco Rodriguez, outfielder Garret Anderson, pitcher Jon Garland and outfielder Juan Rivera -- to be back in 2009.
Not again. Why is it just when fans begin to expect the remarkable from a wonderful owner the bottom falls out? Arte, I love watching Frankie. I tune in to games because of him. And Teixeira and Garland were like surprise gift bonuses. Just re-reading Digi’s piece on Frankie yesterday makes me wonder what would the Angels have been without him....
From first things to first place: The Tampa Bay Rays drop the word devil from their name and just look at them. Over the weekend, a friend of mine who is nuts for the Red Sox (is there any other kind of Red Sox fan?) was hyper-worried about the Rays. I said Boston is too good a team, even without Manny in the lineup, so stop worrying. Well, Tampa Bay beat Boston 2-1 last night, walking off with a one-game AL East lead courtesy of ex-Dodger Dioner Navarro’s RBI single in the ninth. Says ESPN’s Jayson Stark, if you’re counting, that’s 54 straight days in first. Believe it. And I’m afraid to call my friend.
If at first you don’t succeed: OK, they’re putting together a women’s pro soccer again. You ask when was the draft? There wasn’t. It was a dispersal of players. Olympic gold medalists Shannon Boxx, Aly Wagner and Stephanie Cox are on the L.A. team (still unnamed -- should we have a contest? -- but owned by Galaxy owner AEG so look for double-headers). Where are my two favorite players who make women’s soccer exciting to watch: goaltender Hope Solo and the amazing scoring machine also known as Abby Wambach? Solo to St. Louis and Wambach to Washington D.C. Grahame Jones fills us in. Hope Solo’s MySpace page, by the way, says there is one person she wants to meet: Muhammad Ali. And if you don’t believe Wambach is a scoring machine, check out this YouTube offering.
Speaking of goaltenders: The L.A. Kings open training camp later this week, with veterans reporting on Thursday. But the Kings (so woeful for so long now) still have that problem of who’s minding the net. They finally dumped Dan Clouthier but hung onto Jason LaBarbera, who has had flashes of being pretty good, but only flashes. Will the Kings ever get it right? On Thursday, Helene Elliott will weigh in (in the paper and on the Web) on the latest version of the Kings and their new coach, Terry Murray. And the new team slogan? Pride=Passion=Power. Uh-oh.
Speaking of goals: The Sparks are preparing for their game Friday against Seattle in the best-of-three series. Dan Arritt says Candace Parker put her game face on in Sunday’s game, part of how she works up to playoff mode. After watching her win the NCAA championship with a dislocated shoulder I know she can take any team to a higher level. It will be fun to watch, won’t it Coop? But that slogan the Sparks have on their website, ‘good things happen in 3’s’ (as in 3 WNBA titles)? The popular phrase is bad things happen in 3’s. Just ask the obituary desk. The Kings and Sparks slogans need work.
-- Debbie Goffa