Random Thoughts on 'Sheed, Dibble and Houston's Hill of Death
June 15, 2004
We diehard Hawks fans (I say "we," though I'm pretty sure everyone on the planet, myself included, absolutely hates the Hawks) never could have imagined that ATL's finest could play a prominent role in the outcome of the NBA finals, but there it was: one-time Hawk Rasheed Wallace was integral in Detroit's 4 games to 1 lambasting of the Lakers. I say "one-time Hawk" because 'Sheed literally suited up for the Hawks one time -- on February 18, he dropped 20 points and swatted 5 shots before being promptly shipped off to Detroit the following day. The sad thing is, for that one night, he actually made the Hawks look like a real basketball team. Even sadder is the fact that his Hawk teammates spoke of 'Sheed after he was traded away as though he were some sort of basketball deity. They talked of seeing him do things in practice they had never seen before. And I don't think they were talking about him pegging a ball full speed off an unsuspecting teammate's back, as Rasheed once did to Ruben Boumjte-Boumjte in Portland. They were talking about a set of basketball skills they had never seen before. It was as though Rasheed, who could not get a single good word written or spoken about him during his entire tenure in Portland, had suddenly been transported to a new basketball universe, one where the basketball and morale were so bad that a man thought for years to be a team cancer could suddenly become a bright beacon of hope.
And maybe all that team cancer stuff about Rasheed in Portland was nothing more than the media portraying him a certain way, and him being just...let's say, quirky enough to live up to that image. Because ever since Rasheed put on that Hawks uni on through the decisive game 5 of the NBA Finals, he sure looked like a good teammate to me.
A few other things on my mind....
-I'll come out and say it -- Rob Dibble is officially the biggest lummox on sports television. Stephen A. Smith is undoubtedly the most pompous windbag on sports TV, and Tom Tolbert may be the most obnoxious, but in terms of spouting pure nonsense, no one has Dibble beat. The other day on Baseball Tonight, he was doing a short segment on what he liked about Mike Lowell. As a quick reel of Lowell highlights rolled on screen, Dibble commented, "Beat cancer...one of the great people in the game...6-3, 210...doesn't complain." What? I was with you there as far as "one of the great people in the game," but "6-3, 210...doesn't complain"? Is there any relation between those two observations? Do most 6-3, 210 people frequently complain? Why would he have any reason to complain in the first place? He's the starting third baseman on the defending World Champion Marlins. I personally don't have anything against Dibble; he seems like a reasonably good guy who is genuinely enthusiastic about his job. But watch him for a few minutes, and you're guaranteed to hear something along the lines of what I heard him say about Lowell. You'd really like to think that the experts on the world's pre-eminent baseball analysis show at least give some thought to their commentary before they start spraying it all over the place.
-Speaking of making absolutely no sense, is there anything more ridiculous than that stupid hill in center field at (Orange Juice Sponsor Name) Park in Houston? If you saw the Cubbies-Astros game on ESPN last night, you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you didn't see it, and if you don't know what I'm talking about, it won't take me long to explain: at the Houston Astros' home stadium, for some reason there is a gigantic steep hill in front of the center field fence that appears to have only been designed to injure players. Making matters worse, there is a huge flagpole jutting out of the top of it, so if a player somehow manages to scale the mountain at full speed without blowing out his knee, he might be lucky enough to impale himself on the pole. I mean, seriously, watching 39-year-old Astros' centerfielder Craig Biggio try to climb that hill time and again last night, the absurdity of the whole thing really hit home for the first time. Why don't we just lob grenades at the outfielders whlie we're at it? Or maybe it would be funny to dig a huge ditch out there in center field, cover it up with a thin layer of grass and then watch the players plummet into it. Maybe we could wire the players up and give them an electrical shock prodding at the exact moment they're about to track down a ball hit into the gap...
I guess it kind of undermines my stance against the hill in the outfield that I'm finding all of these scenarios kind of funny. So be it. The hill stays...
-Matt Stroup Copyright ©2004 instant-replays.com
