World Series starts today

The World Series finally starts today. It’s only been a three-day wait, but it seems like it’s been longer than that. It amazes me that the Rockies have lost only once in the last 39 days, but are still perceived as the underdogs to the mighty Boston Red Sox.

Yes, the Red Sox have been great lately. Yes, they have the postseason experience. Yes, they have the players we’ve heard of.

But people haven’t been watching the Rockies apparently. Everything is going right for them, and they’re getting Aaron Cook back to start Game 4. Cook was one of their better pitchers during the season, but has been out since August due to injury.

The Red Sox may have Josh Beckett going tonight, but the Rockies have beaten both Brandon Webb and Cole Hamels during the playoffs, so they’re used to beating aces by now.

And it will be the Red Sox who have to adjust more than the Rockies. The Red Sox will have to bench either David Ortiz, Kevin Youkilis or Mike Lowell when they go to Colorado because there’s no DH there (or have one of them play out of position, which could be a disaster at Coors Field).

The Red Sox may be the favorites and be the team most sports fans know about the most, but don’t count the Rockies out. As last year’s World Series showed us, anything can happen in a short series.

Another side reason to root for the Rockies — a Rockies World Series title would give baseball eight different champions in eight seasons — a feat no other major pro sport can come close to saying. And it’s baseball that has parity problems?

Ryan out as U.S. women’s soccer coach

Greg Ryan has to have one of the best records ever for a coach who was fired (or contract was not renewed).

45-1-9.

Obviously, he wasn’t fired for his overall won-loss record. He was probably let go for one or both of two reasons:

1) His team couldn’t win the Women’s World Cup and the U.S. Soccer Federation has high standards
2) His handling of the recent Hope Solo controversy

#1 is understandable. The U.S. should have high standards for women’s soccer, as we’re one of the few countries in the world that gives women anywhere close to equal chances as men to play organized sports. (Obviously, I mean at the non-professional level.)

#2 is fair. Ryan handled that situation pretty horribly. Hope Solo definitely shouldn’t have disagreed with her coach publicly about being benched despite playing well in the World Cup, especially saying that the only people who would have made the decision didn’t understand the sport of soccer.

But Ryan overreacted by exiling her from the team. A more intelligent coach would have diffused the matter internally by saying something like “I want her to be upset, I want all of my players to want to play every game”, or shifted the blame to himself, saying maybe he was wrong for starting Briana Scurry in the 4-0 loss.

Bonnie D. Ford at ESPN.com said it best:

The larger point is that discord is inevitable on real teams, and real teams are elastic enough to cope with dissent. That’s what Ryan should have told his players, rather than putting the goalkeeper in solitary — or Solo-tary — confinement.

Take the Solo-Ryan-Scurry scenario and substitute two NFL players and a coach. You think anyone would be talking about forgiveness? The players would take sides, the reporters would take notes and write stories, and the coaches would criticize the reporters. Then, most Sundays, those same players and coach would run out of the tunnel with the unified goal of kicking the other team’s butt.

Exactly. This is America for crying out loud. We regularly hear mainstream athletes say things that are far worse than anything Hope Solo ever said. But they aren’t kicked off of their teams the first time they second-guess a coach. It takes significantly more than that.

U.S. Soccer says they’ll be picking their next coach in the next 30 to 45 days.