Sully Baseball offers the NHL a suggestion

The Winter Classic once again was great.

Seeing hockey in Fenway Park was nothing short of surreal (and if anything was messed up in the outfield, they have months to fix it.)

We’ve now had outdoor hockey in Edmonton, Buffalo, Chicago and Boston which is very cool (in all meanings of that word.)

But I think the NHL should add a second outdoor game… call it the Valentine’s Day Special. It will be a love letter to big hockey fans.

Here’s how it works:

Take two franchises that play in warm weather cities (and are probably keeping their noses barely above the unfrozen water.)

For purposes of this suggestion, let’s say the Atlanta Thrashers and the Nashville Predators… two teams that aren’t exactly packing them in.

Schedule a game on February 14th between the Thrashers and the Predators.

But not below the Mason – Dixon Line… in fact don’t even put it on American Soil!

Find a hockey starved city in Canada.

At first I was going to say Winnipeg or Quebec City, whose teams were taken away.

But then I thought a team that NEVER had an NHL team would go bananas for a regular season NHL game.

So say it with me…
WELCOME TO MOOSE JAW!!!

That’s right. I am proposing for one game, two Southern teams who could be contracted are welcomed like heroes with a parade down the heart of The Friendly City!

After a parade and a rally where fans pick which team they’ll root for it will be time for the game.

But NOT at the Civic Center, home of the Moose Jaw Warriors…

The teams will travel 35 kilometer away to Old Wives Lake… which should be frozen solid on February 14.

And yes, we will play NHL hockey on a pond, as it was meant to be!

Yeah I know it is a wild life preserve, but the birds can make room for screaming Moose Jaw fans for one day! Besides, the smart birds will have flown to Atlanta or Nashville for the winter. Consider it a swap with the Thrashers and the Predators!

And if there is a crack in the ice and a player falls in… or a bear attacks Ilya Kovalchuk in the penalty box… SO BE IT!

Come on… Valentines Day with the people of Moose Jaw watching NHL hockey on Old Wives Lake.

HOW CAN THIS NOT SUCCEED????

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Hey Giants… sign Johnny Damon already!

Seriously. Sign him.
It looks like he isn’t going back to the Yankees.
The Red Sox aren’t bringing him back and chances are the Angels, Mariners and Cubs aren’t in the running.

Where is he going? St. Louis?

The guy is a winner, he would be a great spark plug and this would be a new challenge for him after winning on both sides of the great Red Sox/Yankee rivalry to win in San Francisco.

He already made a Bay Area cameo with the A’s in 2001… he’ll fit right in.

Besides, he is exactly the kind of offensive player they need. They aren’t getting a big power hitter to come to San Francisco and see their home run totals tumble.

They need a guy like Damon who can hit a ball into the gap and take two. (Don’t be fooled by his inflated home run total last year… he was taking advantage of the wind tunnel in the new Yankee Stadium.)

He’d be a perfect fit in San Francisco. And spare me any concerns for his defense. The Giants trotted out Barry Bonds all of those years when he had worse range than the statue of Willie Mays outside of the ballpark.

Giants, sign him already. Offer him a 2 year deal. Who exactly are you bidding against?

And Johnny… go to the Giants. You are a perfect fit there.
Who knows? You might be able to grow your beard back!

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Happy 2010

And it is the beginning of a new decade of baseball and for Sully Baseball.

And please spare me any nonsense that this ISN’T a new decade. It is. The numbers turned over in the “Tens” column. That’s how you know it is a new decade.

When the numbers turn over in the “Hundreds” column it is a new century.

When they turn over in the “Thousands” column it is a new millennium.

I had to hear all of that silliness that the year 2000 wasn’t the start of a new millennium and I am not about to listen to it again.

Yeah I know the argument. There was no “Year Zero”, so the first decade AD ended at AD 10… but I’m still not buying it.

How do we know there wasn’t a “Year Zero?”

Some Monk named Dionysius Exiguus figured out when Christ was born. But here’s the thing… there isn’t a historian or even a religious figure that you will ever meet who thinks he was right. He was off by at least 3 years. Maybe even more.

So we are going to be a stickler for accuracy based on the mathematics of someone who got the math wrong?

That’s insane.

I remember getting into an argument with someone over this at the turn of the millenium (which took place on January 1, 2000… when ALL the numbers changed.)

I asked my friend (who is educated and smart on most matters) “Do you consider 1990 to be part of the 1980s? Was 1980 part of the 1970s?”

He answered yes to both… which of course is “smearing fecal matter on the wall” level nuts.

I now declare there WAS a “Year Zero.”
It was an uneventful year. Nothing worth remembering.

And it was a good 1,846 years before the first recorded baseball game was played… so it’s not worth looking up any stats from then.

It’s a new decade.
And for Dionysius Exiguus’ sake let’s move on from his little mistake.

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