Game Over

For the hardcore loyal Denver sports fan, today was not a good day.

I'll work from the night's main event on down to the change of the guard at Coors Field.

The Nuggets' incredible run finally ended tonight with a 119-92 beating at the Pepsi Center. The most sickening part about this loss is the thought of being forced to watch the vaunted LA Lakers play in the NBA Finals...for the second consecutive year. The officiating in this series should prove to fans that the NBA is all a show, and it's goal is to get the Lakers as far as possible. Then why don't they win it all every year? Their teams are too mediocre for the NBA to hand them the title year in and year out; it would be too suspicious for David Stern to handle. Apparently this Laker squad fits the bill for the Finals, even though the Nuggets were by and large the BETTER team! This is probably why the Heinys don't watch pro basketball. We'll stick with the college stuff:)

The saddest news of the day, however, comes from the office of Rockies' General Manager, Dan O'Dowd. The Rox officially fired Clint Hurdle. In some ways, it's obvious that change was inevitable: at the time of the firing, we were 18-28 (10 games under .500) after 2 months of baseball, we were 14 1/2 games behind the NL West-leading Dodgers, our bullpen is in shambles after untimely injuries, and some of our best hitters simply forgot how to make contact (both Atkins and Stewart are hitting under .200, which is unacceptable, and Tulo is batting .083 with RISP...a blind retarded monkey could hit better than that).
I don't agree with Hurdle being ousted, especially since O'Dowd is still in office, but I agree that we needed to do something to light some sort of fire under our players. I seriously hope this will ignite this underacheiving squad. If it doesn't, expect a firesale at the end of the season.
From a selfish point of view, I'm going to really miss Hurdle. IMO, he was BY FAR the best manager in the Rockies' short history. The numbers are greatly deceiving; yes, he had a losing record in the 8+ years at the helm, but most of those years were dedicated to the youth movement. If we still had Don Baylor or Buddy Bell as our skipper, we would not have made the playoffs in '07, much less the World Series! It's pointless to argue that he "only had one winning season as manager." That's true, but that's just as good as Baylor and Bell, and a hell of a lot better than Jim Leyland! Hurdle even has the advantage over Baylor and Bell because Hurdle took the Rox further in the playoffs than Baylor and Bell never led the Rox into the playoffs.
This goes down as one of the hardest Rockie departures for me (watching his press conference was flat-out depressing); in fact, I would rank it right behind the Larry Walker trade in '04 and the Matt Holliday trade last offseason:(.

In other, more uplifting news, I found out that I will be able to pay my rent at Wolverine Crossing up front, so I don't have to worry about paying rent when I move to Orem! It makes looking for a job that less stressful...although I also learned that I might not have to look hard; my Grandpa's nephew works in the Corporate Offices for Dick's Sporting Goods and it sounds like he'll be able to transfer me to the store in SLC! This whole moving-away deal is starting to get easier and easier and look better and better:) Also, the Regionals for the College World Series began today, so, naturally, I was up all night last night filling out brackets:D.

Of the 32 games played today, I precited the outcome of 21 games. Not too bad for not watching any college baseball this season!