What year is it, 2007? It sure feels like it. That year, the Colorado Rockies won 21 of their last 22 games to force a one game playoff with the San Diego Padres for the National League Wildcard. We all know what happened. The Rockies won the game in extra innings and went on to embarrass the rest of the NL en route to a World Series appearance. The story didn’t have a Disney ending though, as the Boston Red sox swept the Rockies in the Series. But, 2009 seems eerily similar to 2007.
The Rockies, who were once 14.5 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers had pulled within two games a few days ago. Two straight losses to the Dodgers has dropped them four behind, but at 72-56, they still lead the NL Wildcard by three games over the San Francisco Giants.
The Rockies have put themselves into postseason contention with surprisingly good pitching for the air at Coors field. Closer Huston Steeet has 33 saves and a 3.02 ERA and has only blown one save all season and Jason Marquis is 14-8 with a 3.47 ERA. They are also doing it with clutch hitting, including seven players with more than ten homeruns. Troy Tulowitzki and Clint Barmes are leading the way with 23 and 21 homers respectively.
Since I’m a San Diego Padres fan (in the NL), and they have stunk it up ever since the one game playoff in ’07, I’ll be rooting for the Rockies for the rest of the year and the playoffs.
College Football: The NCAA Division I college football preseason rankings came out this week. It’s no surprise that Florida was the #1 team in every poll. The surprise was the fact that they got 58 of the possible 60 first place votes in the AP poll. That’s the most ever #1 votes since the inception of the AP poll. Rounding out the top five are Texas, Oklahoma, USC, and Alabama. My Notre Dame fighting Irish are #23 entering the season. Let’s see if they can play to that level or better. If not, you can wave goodbye to Charlie Weiss.
MLB: Boston (73-54) leads the American League Wildcard race by 1.5 games over the Texas Rangers. The Tampa Bay Rays are the only other team with any real hope at 3.5 back. The Seattle Mariners are more or less out of it, barring a late season push, at 7.5 games back. In the National League, the Rockies are leading the Wildcard race. They are 3 games up on the San Francisco Giants, 4.5 on the Florida Marlins and Atlanta Braves, and 7.5 games up on the Chicago Cubs. Does anyone dispute the fact that the Cubs and the Mets are the most disappointing teams in baseball?
NFL: Michael Vick took the field for the Philadelphia Eagles and received a standing ovation from the crowd. He didn’t play very long and ended passing 4-4 for 19 yards and ran once for one yard. Terrell Owens still hasn’t played since the Bills’ Hall of Fame game and won’t play this weekend against the Steelers. He’s expected back next week, just in time to play in the team’s preseason finale. Chad OchoCino kicked an extra point in a Bengals’ recent preseason game. Now all the has to do is punt and play some quarterback to officially hit up all centerpiece offensive positions.
Major League Lacrosse: The Major League Lacrosse playoffs were this past weekend. In the first game, the Denver Outlaws barely defeated the Boston Cannons 11-10. Josh Sims led the way with four goals in the win. In the second game, Toronto came from behind to beat Long Island 14-13. Merrick Thomson led Toronto with four goals in the triumph. In the championship game, Toronto once again came from behind to win a low scoring affair 10-9. Jeff Zywicki was the leading scored for Toronto with three goals and one assist. 
*Do you like any sports that you want me to cover next week or any sports stories you want me to mention? This is your article, not mine. Have at it. Throw me an email cosburn@thefatherlife.com
Image credit: Kriss Szkurlatowski
30 year old freelance writer and The Father Life‘s resident beer columnist and sports editor. He also writes about fine beverages for drinkingmadeeasy.com and Chilled Magazine. On top of that, he writes about college and professional lacrosse for insidelacrosse.com. He’s also written for Genesee Valley Parenting Magazine, the Democrat and Chronicle Newspaper and ESPN.com. “Osburn on Tap” appears monthly in THE FATHER LIFE. For questions, comments, or if you have a story idea for Chris, throw him an email cosburn@thefatherlife.com. Also, follow him on twitter http://www.twitter.com/chrisosburn