Name it-they’ve got it, and they’re going to get it again.

No one could have predicted this.  A team in a free-fall, gets hot at the end of the year.  A team on the brink of extinction, comes back from a 3-0 deficit to stay alive.  A team, with its backs to the wall, wins 3-straight Game-7’s on the road.

The LA Kings are 3-periods-60 minutes away, from winning the NHL Stanley Cup again, if they take out the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden tonite.

The Kings, with a “Cowboy” leader of a coach, Darryl Sutter, bounced out of Calgary, who brought passion-respect-and hard work to the room, about to win another Stanley Cup.

You think it’s rough watching this team…you should be there watching that team.

The city of brotherly love, or something like that.  Philadelphia, where the summers are hot and humid, the winters-cold and raw, and the fans and media brutal.

San Diego Padres fans may not be pleased with the product on the field, nor the 87M payroll on a team supposedly flush with TV revenue.  But it’s worse where the Friars play later today, Philadelphia.

It’s pretty bad baseball back there.  Losers of 22-of-32, with an injured old pitching staff, and an older everyday lineup, paid well, but not producing well.

What are you going to do?  You have a mess.  I don’t think there are any answers.

Some home stand by those Padres.

Some week by the Friars.

Some serious discussions should take place. Today is a travel day for the Padres, after a weekend of awful hitting, shaky pitching, and anger from the manager.

The Friars head out on an 8-game road trip with holes in the batting order, and hurts on the mound.  And little help on the way.

It will be quiet-solemn-serene sad today…there…not at ballparks or in the arena or on the tennis-golf course or race tracks.

Step away this morning from all the sports storylines, the Spurs-Heat, Kings-Blackhawks, baseball, NFL, the French Open-Golf, the Belmont Stakes or auto racing.

Close your eyes, see the grainy black and white video.  Listen closely and you might hear the sound of artillery, imagine the roar of engines.

70-years ago at this hour, men were landing and dying at Normandy.  D-Day, the day they sacrificed so much.  

Baseball is all about history… the stats… the teams… the personalities.  We lost one last night.

Popeye has left us.  Don Zimmer, the tobacco chewing, pepperpot 3rd baseman, turned coach, turned manager, turned baseball ambassador. passed away last nite in Floirda.

Zim spent 66-years in the game.

He was a grinder as a player, a star in the Dodgers farm system, who got beaned in the head, and was never quite the same again.  .  They put a metal plate in his skull to help the healing in the 1950s, and he said no problem, there’s not much there anyway.

He played with Jackie Robinson in Brooklyn; played for Casey Stengel on that (40-120) Mets team, won rings, and lost lots of games too..