TheLounge
12-26-2007, 02:17 PM
Here it is, Christmas Eve and I’m pounding away on my keyboard. Dinner at my parents’ house is on tap as is the opening of presents later in the evening. And of course Santa will make his annual visit.
I don’t expect to get anything that I asked for —*as I’ve gotten older, my requests are more expensive.
But like they say, ‘tis better to give than to receive. With that in mind, here are some Christmas gifts I’d like to see distributed.
• For the players identified as steroid and/or HGH users in baseball’s Mitchell Report: A better alibi. Most of these guys are using the “I was trying to recover from injury” bit. If that truly is the case, why don’t you have a doctor’s prescription? And no, your dentist does not count as a “doctor.” Why go to the Mets’ clubhouse attendant?
• For Patrick Walsh, Serra football coach; Steve Sell, Aragon football coach and Philip DeRosa, Burlingame girls’ soccer coach: A spot in the Central Coast Section finals. The Daily Journal sports staff determined these three coaches have the worst luck despite having some great teams over the years. Serra has suffered more heart-breaking playoff losses than any team should have to endure while Aragon just can’t seem to get over the hump. DeRosa, despite beating Carlmont for the first time in 10 years, still is looking to advance to a CCS semifinal despite having one of the best teams in the section the last several years.
• For the San Mateo Union High School District: Artificial turf for Aragon, Capuchino, Hillsdale and Mills. The district plans to install synthetic track surfaces and re-do the football fields — using natural turf. In a perfect world, this would be ideal, as long as the fields are only used for games. The reality is, these fields are hammered by usage all year long. Replacing the natural turf with more real grass is just a bandage.
• For the Mavericks Surf Contest: Perfect contest conditions —*sunny, light breeze, glassy 30- to 40-foot swells and no injuries or worse —*deaths.
• For the Oakland A’s baseball team: An influx of cash. Want to know why the team is irrelevant in the Bay Area? They trade away all their stars and when replacements finally step up to replace them in the long, they’re traded as well.
• For the San Francisco 49ers: A coach that knows how to develop a quarterback and offense. The Niners don’t need a new head man as long as the guy in charge realizes that he has no concept about quarterbacks and offenses and hires an offensive coordinator that knows what he’s doing.
• For Peninsula Athletic League wrestling: Kids and coaches that care about the sport. There are pockets of strong wrestling around the county —*Half Moon Bay, Terra Nova and Serra quickly come to mind — but for years wrestling has been pretty much a non-entity. Every year I inevitably cover matches in which seven or eight matches are forfeited because teams can’t fill those weight classes. The coaching turnovers is pretty bad as well. It’s hard to develop continuity when teams are changing coaches every year.
I don’t expect to get anything that I asked for —*as I’ve gotten older, my requests are more expensive.
But like they say, ‘tis better to give than to receive. With that in mind, here are some Christmas gifts I’d like to see distributed.
• For the players identified as steroid and/or HGH users in baseball’s Mitchell Report: A better alibi. Most of these guys are using the “I was trying to recover from injury” bit. If that truly is the case, why don’t you have a doctor’s prescription? And no, your dentist does not count as a “doctor.” Why go to the Mets’ clubhouse attendant?
• For Patrick Walsh, Serra football coach; Steve Sell, Aragon football coach and Philip DeRosa, Burlingame girls’ soccer coach: A spot in the Central Coast Section finals. The Daily Journal sports staff determined these three coaches have the worst luck despite having some great teams over the years. Serra has suffered more heart-breaking playoff losses than any team should have to endure while Aragon just can’t seem to get over the hump. DeRosa, despite beating Carlmont for the first time in 10 years, still is looking to advance to a CCS semifinal despite having one of the best teams in the section the last several years.
• For the San Mateo Union High School District: Artificial turf for Aragon, Capuchino, Hillsdale and Mills. The district plans to install synthetic track surfaces and re-do the football fields — using natural turf. In a perfect world, this would be ideal, as long as the fields are only used for games. The reality is, these fields are hammered by usage all year long. Replacing the natural turf with more real grass is just a bandage.
• For the Mavericks Surf Contest: Perfect contest conditions —*sunny, light breeze, glassy 30- to 40-foot swells and no injuries or worse —*deaths.
• For the Oakland A’s baseball team: An influx of cash. Want to know why the team is irrelevant in the Bay Area? They trade away all their stars and when replacements finally step up to replace them in the long, they’re traded as well.
• For the San Francisco 49ers: A coach that knows how to develop a quarterback and offense. The Niners don’t need a new head man as long as the guy in charge realizes that he has no concept about quarterbacks and offenses and hires an offensive coordinator that knows what he’s doing.
• For Peninsula Athletic League wrestling: Kids and coaches that care about the sport. There are pockets of strong wrestling around the county —*Half Moon Bay, Terra Nova and Serra quickly come to mind — but for years wrestling has been pretty much a non-entity. Every year I inevitably cover matches in which seven or eight matches are forfeited because teams can’t fill those weight classes. The coaching turnovers is pretty bad as well. It’s hard to develop continuity when teams are changing coaches every year.