Going, Going, Gibbons

The clock has started ticking on manager John Gibbons' tenure with the Blue Jays. With his recent dust-up with pitcher Ted "An Eight Run Cushion? That's Nothing" Lilly, that brings his total of club house brawls to two, which of course is two too many.

Whatever the reason is, perhaps the players don't respect him, perhaps they're all pissed off at wasting the season, perhaps whatever, the point is, Gibbons is done. We like that the front office showed restraint in not doing it right away though, it would send the wrong message to players and fans to can him now. But rest assured there's no way he's coming back for another season.

Speaking of the Jays, they sent Roy Halladay to the mound today, league leader in wins, against the Kansas City Royals, league leaders in crappiness. Halladay had a gem of a game, allowing only two runs and four hits while throwing a beauty of a complete game. Oh yeah, he lost too. Whoops.

Halladay was outpitched by Runelvys Hernandez, he of the 3-8 win-loss record, and 7.5 ERA, who threw a spotless complete game of his own for the win. We assure you, that's the last time you'll ever hear his name on this site.

What's up Jays? Losing to Kansas, with Roy Halladay on the mound? Is this your way of throwing in the towel? Telling everyone to give up and go home?

Don't worry, everyone figured that one out long ago.

Jason

15 Reasons Why The Jays Won't Make the Playoffs

Following the Toronto Blue Jays spectacular, 15 nothing loss at the hands of Baltimore today, we here at 63 Years have officially given up on them. In honour of the occasion, we present fifteen reasons you should do the same.

(1) Because the front office has. We were fine with the Jays dealing away a middle reliever the other day. No problems there. But to trade away Eric Hinske, one of the Jays' key bench players to a division rival? The Blue Jays' brass has given up on the team.

(2) Their division is unwinable. The Jays are eight games back, and need to leap frog two teams, the Red Sox and the Yankees, in order to win the division. To put it bluntly, that is not going to happen.

(3) The wildcard is unwinable. The Jays are seven and half games back, and need to leap frog three teams, the White Sox, the Red Sox and the Twins, in order to win the wildcard. To put it bluntly, that is not going to happen.

(4) Their starting rotation is looking thin. Operating with three-fifths of the original projected starting five, with Gustavo Chacin still another week away, and Josh Towers not likely to get on a Toronto mound for a long long time. The fourth and fifth spots have been filled by an unconvincing collection of relievers and rookies.

(5) Their bench is looking thin. The Jays started with too many players on the bench, and not enough spots on the field. Now Shea "Play For Yourself" Hillenbrand and Eric "Rookie of the Year" Hinske are gone, and the Jays have nobody to come off the bench to make a difference.

(6) No key rookies. Unlike everyother team in the majors, the Jays have not had a single rookie come up and turn heads. Casey Janssen looked like the real deal for awhile before crumbling. Guys like Shawn Marcum and Fransisco Rosario have been mediocre at best.

(7) J.P Ricciardi can't keep his mouth shut. The Jays GM finds the worst possible times to criticize his team, calling out Vernon Wells, even though he's putting up solid numbers. Stay out of the locker room, J.P

(8) Troy Glaus is hurting. The power hitting third baseman has been limping around for a bit now, but with Jays' depleted depth, there's nobody to replace him with. He's going to have to play through it.

(9) This team can't seem to get hot. The Jays have been consistently ok all throughout the season. With the exception of their recent seven game swoon, the Jays rarely lose in bunches, but conversely, rarely win in bunches. Their best effort so far was a fiver a month or so ago. If they want to do something, they're going to have to pull a page out of Minnesota or Los Angeles' book and start winning big and often.

(10) This team can't sweep. Stemming from the above, or rather, causing the above, the Jays are woeful when it comes time to apply the pressure and sweep away a team. This season is riddled with series where the Jays squandered sweeping opportunities. The Jays have lost their broom.

(11) Because... um... fifteen is a big number, did you know that? So we only got to eleven, but frankly, we didn't even think we'd get to six, so we're on top already.

The point is, we've given up on our baseball team, with a month and a half to go. We'd change the site's name to "64 Years and Counting" right now, but we figure we owe it to the Jays to at least wait until they've been mathematically eliminated. And because we still have a whole whackload of business cards. More the latter than the former.

Jason

Blaspheme!

According to TSN.ca, who have it on good authority from the Boston Herald, who totally heard it from a friend of the lady who does Vernon Wells' hair, the Jays have sent spare part and key benchwarmer Eric Hinske to the Red Sox.

We here at 63 Years World News Centre refuse to believe these reports. Why would manager J.P Ricciardi deal a key player to a division rival, and a team that they would have to leapfrog in order to get to the postseason?

Hinske was the 2002 AL rookie of the year, though he seems to have forgotten. He had a tough season last year, but coming off the bench this year, he's been a solid contributor.

To his credit, Ricciardi has denied the reports, for whatever that's worth. On the other hand, Hinske was scheduled to start tonight (an 8-3 debacle at the hands of Tampa Bay) but was scratched twenty minutes till go time.

We seriously hope that these rumours are untrue, or at the very least, that the Jays have not shipped Hinske to the Red Sox. At the very least...

To quote TSN.ca, "More details to follow."

Jason

Scho Long, Schoeneweis

The Blue Jays lightened their bullpen today, sending lefty reliever Scott Schoeneweis to Cincinnati for um... well, not much actually. "A Player To Be Named". Oh, and the penny conscious Blue Jays save about 600 thou on Schoeneweis' contract, which is up this year anyway.

Let's be honest, we here at 63 Years don't really care about the Jays' bullpen shuffling. MLB relievers are as permanent as that tattoo that came with our box of Froot Loops. This entry is just a slim facade for today's title, which came to us in a flash of inspiration as we read of Schoeneweis' departure.

Come on, "Scho Long, Schoeneweis"? It's virtual poetry.

Back to the story, we might as well make something out of it. Grafted word for word off of TSN.ca are Sho's stats for this season.

"Schoeneweis, 32, appeared in 55 games this season, posting a 2-2 record and 6.51 ERA but hasn't been as effective since the all-star break, in part because of a nagging leg injury. Overall, the six-foot, 190-pound left-hander allowed 39 hits in 37.1 innings, while walking 16 and striking out 18"

Nothing special, in other words. He was a pretty faceless guy in a pretty faceless bullpen. He didn't have great sideburns, like Bryan Tallet, great hair, like Scott Downs, or a great first name, like Jason Frasor.

He just was.

Scho long then, and thanks for all the memories. Like that time when you...um... you know what? Let's not ruin the moment.

Good luck with the Reds,

Jason

ADDENDUM: We would also like to extend an apology to half man, half machine, Roger Federer. It would seem that we jinxed him. A day after writing this,

Also unrelated, we feel we should devote a few inches to tennis, what with the Rogers Cup taking place in our backyard. Roger Federer won the men's side. No shit, Sherlock. Of course Federer won. Yawn. Moving on.

Federer goes and actually, get this, loses. Woah! Yeah, that's what we said. Wanna know something even freakier? It happened in Cincinnati!

So we'd just like to say to Federer, we're so sorry, and that from now on, we'll put our strange voodoo powers to use for the greater gooder.

For example: Those Toronto Maple Leafs, they're never going to win a Stanley Cup again. Never. Ever.

Are you listening, Voodoo gods? Never.

Wildcard Dreams?

The Jays are still, by the slimmest of margins, in the AL's wildcard hunt. They sit 7.5 games behind the current wild team, Chicago. Coincidently, that's also the margin of games that separate them from the AL East leading Yankees. There's no easy way in for these Blue Jays.

Realistically, the wildcard race is a three horse show, with the Jays looking in from the outside. But as long as they continue to win games, like they did tonight, sliding by the slumping Devil Rays 4-3, we here at 63 Years and Counting can continue to hope.

It looks bleak, it does, but as long the Jays can keep putting notches in the W column, we can keep pretending. All we ask is that Toronto stays competitive, at least until, say mid September. You know, make a good show of it. That should carry us into the NHL pre-season, which should help pick up the slack.

And if the Jays do manage something, it will be largely thanks to Roy "15-3" Halladay, who became the major league leader in wins today with his little number against Tampa. This guy deserves way more love than he gets from the US media.

Also, Gustavo "I Have My Own Perfume" Chacin, he of the three month long disabled list sojourn, is set to return on Saturday against the Baltimore Orioles. He owned a sparkling 6-2 record before he went down, which did a good job of sweeping his unsightly ERA under the rug. No matter though, because this means that the Jays will have four of their original five projected starters on the mound. Don't hold your breathe on Josh Towers though...

Sidenote: Former Leaf Owen Nolan has finally landed on another team, after a year's absence. He's in Phoenix now, and we'd like to say that we have no hard feelings towards the guy, even if he did try to shaft the Leafs' salary cap ambitions last season. He's coming fairly cheap (1.25 mil) and he's only 34. Good job by the Coyotes.

Also unrelated, we feel we should devote a few inches to tennis, what with the Rogers Cup taking place in our backyard. Roger Federer won the men's side. No shit, Sherlock. Of course Federer won. Yawn. Moving on.

We also feel we should mention that we totally dig the whole "chick sports" thing. Totally. Yep, we're all about that. Which is why we didn't even bother watching the men's tournament, the overpaid, chauvinist pigs that they are. That's right, we boycotted the men's half in favour of the women's half. Please, your praise is not necessary.

Maria Kirilenko, seen here at the Rogers Cup in Montreal. She can cup our Roger anyday. Giggidy!

What Are We Going To Do With You Buffalo?

We don't think it needs to be said, but that is an ugly logo.

Incidently, it's also the Buffalo Sabre's new logo. Did we mention how ugly it is?

We here at 63 Years and Counting are just a little bit too young to remember the Sabre's old jerseys, you know, the one with a buffalo, and couple of sabres on it. Straight forward, if nothing else.

Then they went through their black phase, which, despite what old-school Buffalo fans might say, we thought were pretty cool. Anyways, despite being a decent jersey, the fans weren't crazy about it. Something about tradition, yada, yada, yada.

So the front office has decided to bring back the old colour scheme, blue and yellow, along with a new logo, the affectionately dubbed, "Buffaslug". Which has us scratching our heads. Blue and yellow? Our knowledge of fashion is admittedly lacking, but blue and yellow? And as you may have noticed, their new logo is no looker either.

Here's the problem as we see it. Buffalo fans are hung up on a jersey, that was essentially, bad. Their blue and "gold" number that they rocked since inception may be what Buffalo fans grew up on, but let's face it, as jersey's go, it was an 8.7 on the Blah scale.

And if they were really set on going back, they could do worse than to listen to this guy. Actually, those are pretty slick. I think that would be a jersey that every Buffalo fan could agree on.

Speaking of things that all Buffalo fans can agree on, that buffalo slug is one ugly mother. Seriously. Do you realise that someone was actually given money to come up with that?

There's a petition around somewhere to change it, but we all know you can't fight the man, so we won't bother linking to it.

There are a lot of other ugly jerseys in the NHL (like anything Nashville has ever worn) but that will be a battle for another day. Until then, fight the good fight Buffaloheads.

Jason

Oh Hockey, Where Art Thou?

It was pointed out to us the other day that the NHL is two months away from kicking off. Still two months? It feels like forever since Brind'Amour skated around the RBC Arena, Stanley Cup held high.

We're in a serious case of hockey withdrawal over here. The shakes haven't started yet, but...

We blame it on the Blue Jays mostly. When they were good, they were able to stave off the worst of it, and the World Cup helped take our minds off it. But with Toronto's, scratch that, Canada's baseball team in a serious swoon, our attention has wandered.

After swallowing a seven-game losing streak, the Jays are out of it in a bad way. Even Roy Halladay is struggling. What's going on here? The Jay's once held contender status has quickly widdled away to merely pretender.

Only 60 more days till the puck drops at the Air Canada Centre, Ottawa at Toronto. Early prediction? 12-1 for Toronto, with Mats Sundin eclipsing Darryl Sittler's single game point record with an impressive quadruple hatrick.

Until October 4 then,

Jason

"I Love Trade Deadlines. I Like The Whooshing Sound They Make As They Fly By."

We assume that's J.P Ricciardi's take on it at least. Another trade deadline past, another year of no deals. Does J.P Ricciardi have something against the trade deadline? Maybe it was on a trade deadline many years ago that Ricciardi first had his heart broken, or perhaps it was on one fateful deadline day that his faithful dog Sparky ran away to join the circus.

Who knows. We certainly don't. What we do know is that the Jays are in trouble. They've chosen an inopportune time to swoon, as the Yankees and Red Sox continue to surge ahead. The Jays deficit currently stands at six games behind the aforementioned Yankees for first in the division. That's a tall order for a team that considers it a huge achievement if they can string three wins together.

The Yankees made a move though (of course the Yankees made a move), picking up Bobby "I Won the Home Run Derby Last Year, Honest" Abreu and pitcher, Cory "Former Blue Jay" Lidle. They also spanked A.J Burnett around last night, winning 5-1.

The Jays are struggling, and these are the games the Jays have to win. Every game against Boston and New York is huge now, and they can't afford to waste them.

In other news, and you can file this under "There's Something in Detroit's Water", the Red Wings have signed Dominik Hasek. Again. They didn't learn their lesson the second time?

Apparently he's going to get the starters job, which bodes poorly for this franchise. And let's not forget that this is the same team that was thinking of handing Eddie Belfour a contract.

So what, at the beginning of the off-season did the GM sit down and say, "Ok guys, let's go out there and sign the oldest, fragilest goalie we can find!" because that certainly seems to be the game plan.

And what exactly was wrong with Manny Legace? He had, by all accounts, a very solid season. So what the team goofed in the first round, you're going to lay all the blame on Legace?

63 Years is skeptical, to say the least.

Also, Raptors GM Brian Colangelo has fufilled his promise of completely overhauling the roster. He just forgot to mention the part about him building the team to compete for the Euro League title.

Toronto hasn't seen this many European immigrants since they were giving away free land out west.

The Raptors will be better this season, it won't take much to top last year's effort, but we have yet to be convinced that this is a team that will make the playoffs.

Until then,

Jason

If There Were Any Justice in The World

Women's Beach Volleyball would be the most popular sport in the world. Those (very) fine ladies would be the ones signed to the multi-gazillion dollar contracts and the multi-gazillion dollar sponsorship deals. LeBron who?

Have you ever watched Women's Beach Volleyball? I mean, really watched it? Just try telling me that that is not the most perfect sport in existance. I dare you.

That's really all for now,

Jason

You Go Away For A Week And Everything Falls to Pot

What a week to decide to shut oneself on an island with no electricity, under the proverbial rock. You go away for seven measly days and not only does Middle East explode, so does the Blue Jays clubhouse (Not that we're comparing the very, very serious situation in Lebanon to the just slightly silly debacle at the Roger's Centre. No sir).

So we come back to find that Shea "What Do You Mean You Signed Overbay?!" Hillenbrand is gone, after almost starting a fight with manager John Gibbons. The whole thing started over some stupid messages written on a board. Come on guys, what is this, kindergarten?

Well, Hillenbrand isn't that big a loss, he didn't get much playtime, and was unhappy here anyways. Not to mention his contract was up after this season, so the Jays saved themselves some big bucks.

He's in San Fran now, and we hope he's happy. For their trouble, the Jays picked up a reliever, which is always handy.

The best part is that this soap opera coincided with a visit from the Yankees, and they took three of four games from them. The Jays should start some clubhouse drama more often.

In other news, the Maple Leafs' off-season apparently was not quite done, as they picked up former Edmonton Oiler Michael Peca. The media seemed to be largely in favour of Peca coming home, due to his effort in the playoffs, which saw him significantly pick up the pace.

But before we start planning parades down Yonge St., let's not forget that for most of the regular season he was invisible. Our new second line centre didn't even put up twenty points last year. Not that we're against Peca playing here, we're just saying hold your expectation in check, just a little bit.

Also Eric Lindros followed the money down to Dallas, which offered twice what Toronto was willing to pay. We love Lindros, we do, we just hope that he doesn't get burned down there by over-hyped expectations. What exactly do the Stars expect out of him?

That's all for now,

Jason

State of the Canadian Game

All of the Canadian NHL teams have been busy little bees this season, Montreal becoming the last to jump on the bandwagon today with a flurry of signings and trades of their own. Let's take a look at what the more northernly teams have been up to, accompanied by our expert (snicker) commentary. From east to west, here we go.

Montreal
In: Sergei Samsonov, Mike Johnson
Out: Richard Zednik

Montreal was good last year, without being great. Next season looks to be more of the same. They don't have a number one goalie; Aebischer and Cristobal Huet will have to duke it out for that honour. Samsonov is a nice addition, though he kind of went MIA in Edmonton last year at the end, he still has his goal scoring touch. Saku Koivu and Alexei Kovalev are just another year older though. And why do they still pay Radek Bonk?

Ottawa
In: Martin Gerber, Joe Corvo, Tom Preissing
Out: Zdeno Chara, Dominik Hasek, Martin Havlat, Bryan Smolinski, Tyler Arnason, Bryan Pothier

Unlike Ottawa GM John Muckler, we're not so keen on his new-look Senators. At best, this team is merely as good as the one that preceded it, but we're skeptical that it's better. We like their move in net, signing Carolina's Gerber, which gives them a legit number one, and an end to the Hasek circus (How did signing him ever seem like a good idea?). They also completed one of the more confusing trades of the off-season, sending Havlet and Smolinski to Chicago for San Jose's Preissing. We're told that Corvo and Preissing are both underrated defensemen, but do they equal one Chara? We're skeptical. We're also from Toronto. Go figure.


Toronto
In: Andrew Raycroft, Hal Gill, Pavel Kubina
Out: Eddie Belfour, Tie Domi

Our beloved Maple Leafs are looking younger and better than ever. They have a former rookie of the year in net, plus four legitimite defensemen. And GM John Ferguson has shown the door to the old Leaf policy of hiring old timers well past their prime (Sorry Gary Roberts, not this time). The future is bright in the centre of the universe. Oh, and how many more chances does Nik Antropov get before the Leafs' brass give up on him? Four, minimum, is our guess.

Winne...oh, right.

Edmonton
In: Daniel Tjarnqvist, Marty Reasoner, Joffry Lupul
Out: Chris Pronger

It doesn't matter what the Oilers do now, they've lost Pronger. That's an imbalance no amount of signings is going to fix. Lupul is no slouch, and the handful of draft picks are nice, but they don't add up to one Pronger. And Dwayne Roloson has suckered them into giving him a three-year contract. We suspect that by the end of that, somebody is going to regret signing that contract, and it's not going to be Roloson. On the other hand, the Oilers have a bunch of great young guys, so it's way too early to write them off.

Calgary
In: Alex Tanguay, Jeff Freisen, Andrei Zyuzin
Out: Jordan Leopold

Dare we say it, but Calgary is shaping up to be a team we could actually cheer for. Our main sticking point last season was that they played old-style defensive hockey in the new goal-happy era. Mikka Kiprusoff was the very deserving Vezina winning goalie thanks to that system, which saw the Flames take one goal leads and then shut down the game. But now with another goal scorer or two on the team not named Iginla, this is shaping up as a very interesting team. Also, coach Darryl Sutter (and not, as I almost typed, Darryl Sittler) resigned as coach, for better or for worse. He's still the GM, and the new coach (the hilariously named Jim Playfair) was his old assistant coach, so we all know who's pulling the strings.

Vancouver
In: Roberto Luongo, Marc Chouinard, Willie Mitchell
Out: Todd Bertuzzi, Bryan Allen, Dan Cloutier, Ed Jovanovski

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Vancouver pulled off an amazing trade in getting Luongo, and dumping Bertuzzi. The Canucks have all the pieces now. They have the scoring, the goaltending, and most of the defense, though losing Jovanovski never helps. This team badly underachieved last year, somehow managing to miss the playoffs. Marcus Naslund needs to shape up, Anson Carter needs to come back, and Luongo needs to put up the same numbers he did with the Panthers. Vancouver should do much, much better this season. Or they could crash and burn, again. You know, whatever's easier.

So could this be the year that all six Canadian teams make the playoffs? You better believe it. Not only that, but this could be the year that the Cup comes home. A Canadian team to win it all this season? Why not.

With eleven months to go until the Stanley Cup is next awarded, we're going to go out on a limb and predict that the Leafs will win it all. Let's say in a four game sweep of Calgary, no wait, Detroit, no, no, we got it: Columbus. Yeah, Columbus. We'd be willing to put large sums of money on it, in fact.

Until then,

Jason

I Guess Zizou is French For Dumbass

The World Cup has been decided, on penalty kicks no less. Not the most satisfying way to award it perhaps, but definitely the most heart attack inducing.

It was a good game, as World Cup finals go, a solid and unsurprising finish to what has largely been a solid and unsurprising World Cup. Did anyone really expect this game not to go to penalties? At this Cup, that's simply par for the course.

We here at 63 Years were cheering for the French, unfortunately, more from lack of anyone else than because of any overwhelming desire to see Les Bleu lift the trophy again. We sure as hell aren't about to cheer for any damn I-tals in our lifetime. (Hah, we kid, we kid. We would never cheer for them in a million years)

We thought France would come out on top after sticking it to the Italians for most of the second half and extra time, but Buffon isn't paid the big money for nothing.

We should mention something about Zinedine Zidane, who choose a very innoportune time to show Italian defender Matterazi how smooth his head was. Pardon our French here, but what the fuck was he thinking? What could Matterazi have said to provoke that? Has no one ever told Zidane that they've slept with his mother before?

So instead of capping off a brilliant career with perhaps a World Cup, he gets to celebrate from the dressing room, not even alowed to pick up his loser-place, er, second place medal. Bravo Zinedine, bravo. We used to think you were cool.

Anyways, for those not who might not have been cheering for the Azzuri, we have this to cheer you up. It did wonders for us.

Italy Practicing



Cheers,

Jason

Free Agency, Huzzah!

The free agent season started on July 1st, and what a week it's been since then.

The Leafs got in on the free agent pie, thankfully, landing two decent defencemen in Pavel Kubina and Hal Gill. So for the first time in as long as we care to remember, the Leafs actually have a solid group of blue-liners.

John Ferguson Jr. has been doing well this offseason, probably trying to make up for last year's non-offseason, in which he signed Eric Lindros, Jason Allison, and Jeff O'Neill, who promptly all got injured.

Of those three, only O'Neill is under contract for this season, and we here at 63 Years expect him to put up significantly better numbers than last year (38 points, 74 games). Or else.

Allison, the only one who actually put up numbers (60 points, 66 games) is likely to take his unsightly -19 somewhere else this season.

Eric Lindros, nee The Big E, might be back again, on the cheap of course. We would not be against Lindros returning. He was a key figure last season while captain Mats Sundin was out early on, though he eventually dropped off the radar and ended up missing most of the season with a wrist injury (22 points, 33 games). This obviously isn't the Lindros of the mid-nineties, and nobody expects him to put up those kind of numbers, but we feel that he would bring something intangible to this squad.

Side note: Eddie Belfour seems set to sucker the Red Wings into giving him a contract. Didn't Detroit learn their lesson with Hasek? 40+ goalies are not the way to go. This will end badly for both sides.

Side note: Gary Roberts is trying to wrangle a trade back to Toronto, which unfortunately only sounds good in theory. We here at 63 Years love Roberts to bits, we do, but Florida signed him to way more money than they should have last year, and that's not money the Leafs have to throw on aging veterans. Though, you have to think, if the Leafs were still under old management, Roberts would have been back in a heart beat, and Tie Domi and Belfour would still be wearing the Blue and White as well.

On the Raptors side, they shipped up and down rookie Charlie Villaneuva out of town for point guard T.J Ford. Score another one for Brian Collangelo. These Raptors are starting to look like an actual team. Pinch us, we might be dreaming.

Also, the Raps are starting to phase the purple out of the team colours, in favour of the more patriotic red. Now, Collangelo probably had nothing to do with this move, but ever since he came on board, the news about this team just keeps getting and better.

And finally, the Jays are in a funk right now, having just lost their series to...um, Kansas.

Yeah...

Well, the All-Star break is right around the corner, so perhaps that will help. And speaking of all-stars, the Jays have five, count 'em, five of them, the most since 1993, and you know what that team went on to do.

Of course, none of them are starters (though Vernon Wells assuredly deserves to be), but hey, cracking the AL all-star starters is no easy task, especially when you don't play in the centre of the baseball world, Boston or New York.

Later,

Jason

Of A.J's, Draft Days and Blue Jays

The NHL and NBA recently held their rookie drafts, and because the Toronto Raptors had the first overall pick (!!!!), we'll start with them.

Now, leave it to the Raptors to land the first pick in a year when there was no consensus number one. But this was a happy day, so none of that.

Three or four players could have gone first, and the Raptors went with an Italian kid, Andrea Bargnani, dubbed Il Mago and Nowitzki Jr. We can only hope, after watching the Italians flop and dive their way into the semi-finals of the World Cup, that this guy can stay on his two feet long enough to put the ball in the basket.

The Raps' pick was overshadowed by a raft of draft day trades. Portland ended the day with (give or take) eleven of the top ten picks. Seriously, everybody and their grandmother got in a trade with the Blazers. They were like the drunk chick at a frosh party, except that Portland probably came out on top by the end of it...and without the syphilis.

Moving to hockey, the Leafs, believe it or not, actually did something right.

Yeah, we needed a moment too. They shipped a Finnish goaltending prospect (Tuuka Rask) to the Boston Bruins for former Calder Trophy (that's the one for top rookies) winner Andrew Raycroft. And just today, the Leafs made it official that they will not be employing Eddie Belfour next year. So the Leafs have, in a word, solved their goaltending problems, for cheap too. And quickly. The usual antithesis of the Leafs, quick and cheap.

They also signed defenseman Bryan McCabe to the kind of contract that will ensure his family never goes hungry. Ever.

So the Leafs have decided that that their top two defense men for the next five years will be McCabe and Tomas Kaberle. We hope the big brass knows what they're doing here.

Other minor stuff: Vancouver now has a legitimate numero uno goalie in Roberto Luongo, and Roberto Luongo now has a legitimate numero uno team in Vancouver, so both parties have now officially run out of excuses for their failure.

Vancouver missed the playoffs last year despite being overstuffed with talent. They blamed their goaltending, or lack there of for their shortcomings.

In Luongo's five years in Florida, despite putting up solid numbers for a crappy team, he never once made the playoffs.

So now the two are together, for better or for worse. No more excuses.

For the Blue Jays, A.J. Burnett is (finally!) back, giving the Blue Birds an almost legitimate starting rotation. With Roy Halladay, Ted Lilly and now Burnett, the Jays can start making some noise. The other two pitchers who were projected as starters all those months ago, Gustavo Chacin and Josh Towers aren't going to be doing anything soon. Chacin is still two months away from playability, and Towers is in the minors, trying to forget about his 1-9 record.

The Jays have also (finally!) started to take advantage of their interleague games, sweeping both the Nationals (Note to MLB: The Nats no longer play in Montreal) and the Braves.

The recent sweep of the Nats is important, because it saw Burnett, Lilly and Halladay all pitch in succession, letting the Jays flex some of their pitching muscle. Burnett won 6-0, followed by Lilly's 6-1 smadackering and capped off by Halladay's 8-4 piece. For those scoring at home, that's an aggregate score of 20-5 over three days.

It hasn't meant diddly in their quest for top spot in the AL East though, due to Boston's twelve game win streak, largely greased by crappy NL teams.

The Jays are going to have to win the division if they want any post-season pie; the wild card is most assuredly going to either the Tigers or White Sox.

That's all for now,

Jason

A Triumphant Return

Now, we were going to apologize to our faithful readers for the severe lack of recent updates, but then we realised that that would first require actually having, you know, faithful readers.

So with that out of the way, we can get to the plethora (that's a nice word, plethora) of sports stories that have had the audacity to occur during our impromptu sabbatical.

Firstly, the Stanley Cup. As we predicted, Carolina took it, waiting until game seven to do it against a plucky Edmonton team. Despite our Canadian citizenship, we here at 63 Years couldn't help but cheer for the Canes. They were the better team, let's face it, and they were stacked with a bunch of vets who were quickly running out of time on their Stanley Cup clocks. Guys like Rod Brind'Amour, (former Maple Leaf) Glen Wesley, Aaron Ward, and Doug Weight.

So good job Carolina. Keep on proving all those haters wrong. Keep on showing them that hockey can be played in cities where snow is as rare as the sun is hot.

And it was a hell of a game seven too. The score may have only been 3-1, but it was chock full of end to end rushes and chances galore. And how perfect was it that Edmonton scored at the beginning of the third? It injected a much needed dose of kick ass into the final period, and sent a nervous buzz through the whole thing.

So Carolina, a team no one picked to win it all at the outset of this season, went on to win the cup. I don't think we need to tell you how uplifting this is for fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Secondly, Miami won the NBA title. Whoop-de-doo? We choose Dallas to win, and we have to admit, we watched all of twenty seconds of the entire championship series. So we'll just say that, as Raptors fans, we will always have a special corner of Hell for Alonso Mourning, and that we really, really don't like Shaq. That is all.

Nextly, the Jays are on the interleague swing from hell. With their recent sweep at the hands of the Marlins (the Marlins!) that puts them winless in six tries in NL ball parks.

Well, actually, they beat the Braves yesterday, and barring some mishap by B.J Ryan (Mishap? B.J Ryan? Hah) will beat them tonight as well. So things aren't so bad. And A.J Burnett (remember him?) is back tomorrow, giving the Jays something that resembles a pitching rotation. That's a welcome change from the combination of rookies and closers that have made up Toronto's five starters over the past month.

The Jays are ready to make some noise.

Briefly, we would like to mention the Chicago White Sox's manager Ozzie Guillen. Now, we used to think Ozzie was cool. Please note the use of the past tense.

Baseball has its traditions, or so we're told. One of them appears to be retribution. Ozzie sent some poor kid out onto the mound with explicit instructions bean the batter in the head. Instead, the rookie struck him out. That...bastard? Well, Ozzie chewed the guy out for doing his job, and handed him a one way ticket to triple-A.

Afterwards, they made something else up as justification; obviously, you can't tell the media that you sent him down because he refused to try to kill another man, but it was obvious what had really transpired.

But Ozzie couldn't let the issue just die like that. During a press conference, he insulted one member of the press who had been particularly harsh on him, calling the guy an, ahem, "fag".

We could have sworn that Ozzie was once cool, but that memory is quickly fading.

Lastly, we have the World Cup. We here at the 63 Years' offices (saying "offices" beats calling it our living room) have been glued to the TV, and have logged a seriously unhealthy amount of time in front of it's comforting green glow.

The group stage is almost complete, and things are more or less going as we predicted. There have been some hiccups, Ecuador got in over Poland, Trinidad achieved everything without scoring a goal, Ghana is now the real deal, but otherwise, it's been smooth sailing.

It's also been great soccer. We have officially fallen in love with Argentina. They play soccer the right way. The ball is always moving, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, shoot, score. Lionel Messi, Tevez, and Riquelme make them our picks for the World Cup.

That's all for now,

Jason