Rants and Raves

The USC's means Basketball team's season basically came to an end tonight as they were eliminated from the Pac-10 tournament. They were beaten in overtime 94 to 87 by the Oregon Ducks. Only 8 teams from the Pac-10 conference get to go to the tournament and USC is going to end the season in 9th or 10th place.

What a miserable season -- and I wasn't even in the country for most of it. Our longtime Head Coach Henry Bibby was fired only a few games into the season. Another coach was hired with much fanfare, only to back out 24 hours later. Our interim coach, Jim Saia's, only previous experience was as an administrator -- not a coach. He's fun to watch, but very ineffective. He's very lanky and when he gets excited during a game he reminds me of a marionette with the strings caught in an overhead fan.

During tonight's game the score was tied 77 to 77 and USC had the ball. Trojan Gary Pruitt ran the entire length of the court and, with 1.5 seconds left in the game, made a shot that went in. Unfortunately, the officials called Pruitt for an offensive foul and the basket didn't count. The crowd went ballistic and Saia looked like he was going to jump out of skin. That's how close the Trojans were to remaining in contention for the Pac-10 tournament.

I went back to Hamburger Mary's today to correct yesterday's mistake. And then I had one of THE BEST chicken pot pies I've ever had. My experience is food rarely tastes as good as you think it will when you see it go by on its way to another table. Not the case here. Great flaky crust, lots of chicken and no mushrooms. What more could I ask for?

Tonight I heard a broadcast of a Dodgers spring training game for the first time this season. (I heard it at night because KFWB delays the broadcast rather than running spring training games live -- but that's a whole different rant.)

The Dodgers have fired longtime broadcaster Ross Porter and have implemented a new format. For decades Dodger games have only been called by one broadcaster at a time. Walter O'Malley's theory was this created the atmosphere of a conversation between the broadcaster and the listener. Well that's out the window and now we have (new) Charlie Steiner calling balls and strikes and (old) Rick Monday providing "color commentary." Rick Monday can barely call balls and strikes let alone make intelligent comments on the game unfolding before him. I fear his use of stupid puns and babbling about inconsistent thoughts is only going to be worse under this new format.

I'm already practicing the bitter comments I'm going to make to the team's new owner, Frank McCourt, when I bump into him at Dodger Stadium this season.

Harrumph!