Opening Day and the Final Four

Yesterday marked a huge day on the sports calendar with the opening of baseball season and the NCAA Men's Basketball championship game. A very exciting day of baseball culminated in the Yankees throttling of the Athletics 15-2 in Oakland. Led by Alex Rodriguez's second inning grand slam and a three run shot by Hideki Matsui, the most potent offense in baseball was firing on all cylinders. Newcomer Johnny Damon added three hits in seven at bats and Randy Johnson hurled seven innings of one run ball.
In either the saddest or funniest moment of opening day, depending on how you feel about Barry Bonds, a fan in San Diego threw a plastic syringe at Barry Bonds as he came off the field. Initially I thought the fan should be applauded for his creativity and the comedic value he produced. However, I've backed off on that after watching Bonds' reaction and the actions MLB has taken to increase security. Well I certainly do not hide my disliking of Barry Bonds, even prior to steroid allegations, fans may have begun to cross the line in their efforts to chide him. You can tell in his post game demeanor this event got to him, even though he claims it did not. Fans certainly have the rights to rag on players, and any athlete should be able to withstand most of what fans can yell at them, but they should not have anyone run on the field or have anything thrown on to the field in their direction. I'm sure the fan had no intention of hitting Bonds with the syringe, but irregardless nothing should be thrown on to the field of play. This may seem hypocritical after I loudly applauded Yankees fans' decisions to hurl bottles on to the field in protest of the scandalous Rodriguez-Arroyo play in Game Six of the 2004 ALCS, but that was before taking a step back to evaluate the bigger issue. Fans throwing objects at players has become a serious issue since the Pacers-Pistons brawl and must be curtailed by whatever means necessary. The syringe flinging covered up Bonds 1 for 4 debut in a Giants loss to division rival San Diego. Mike Piazza homered in his Padre debut, as did shortstop Khalil Greene to support Jake Peavy's strong outing.
In other games around the league, Curt Schilling seems to have rebounded from the injuries that affected him last year as he smothered a dangerous Texas lineup through seven innings. The Boston offense struck its big blows through the bats of David Ortiz and Jason Varitek. Mike Lowell homered in his Boston debut as the Sox held on for a 7-3 win. Japanese import Kenji Johjima homered in his first ML game, but Seattle dropped a 5-4 decision to the Angels. In the National League, reigning MVP Albert Pujols homered twice as the Cardinals pounded the Phillies. Jimmy Rollins extended his hitting streak to 37 games with an eighth inning double. Out in Los Angeles the Braves outslugged the dodgers 11-10 behind homeruns by Andruw Jones, Ryan Langerhans, and Adam LaRoche. Atlanta's division rival New York Mets held on to a 3-2 win at home against the Nationals behind a strong outing from Tom Glavine and a homerun by David Wright.
Finally, last night's championship game capped off a weekend of unexciting basketball in Indianapolis. This weekend was an eerie flashback to the last time Indy hosted and hopefully will change when it returns there in 2010. On a brighter note for Gator fans, they were able to redeem their 2000 Finals loss with a 73-57 victory over the UCLA Bruins. Led by Most Outstanding Player Joakim Noah, the Gators dominated from start to finish and the Bruins never made it close. Billy Donovan became just the third person in NCAA Men's history to play in a final four and coach a team to a championship. He joins Bobby Knight and Dean Smith, two of the greatest coaches of all-time. That is a very exclusive company to join and bodes well for the second youngest coach to win a championship (behind Bobby Knight). So often in the tournament the better team does not win, but it is safe to say the best team won last night.