Prospects Plus: Freddy Galvis

In our continuing series on top prospects in baseball, the OTWT scouting staffs breaks down the game of Phillies second baseman Freddy Galvis. The group saw him play on Saturday against the Mets.

Stat line Saturday against the Mets: 1 for 3 with a strikeout. Video of his only hit is below.

Positives: Galvis has been in the Phillies system since he was 16-years old. The first thing that you notice is that his glove is already at all star levels. According to Baseball American, Galvis has "incredible instincts" on defense. Galvis was the 6th ranked prospect in the Phillies system at the start of the year.
Negatives: The biggest is his bat. As a major league he has struggled with the bat and his minor league numbers show that is going to continue. During his minor league career he hit only .246. There is some debate on if Galvis will be a full time player. According to Baseball America: "Most scouts think his defensive wizardry will make him an everyday player, but some think he's no more than a second division regular." Not exactly the biggest endorsement.

Professional Tailgating: A return to the ballpark

Nothing beats your first baseball game of the year and on Saturday the crew headed to the Mets and Phillies game. Here are some of the sights and sounds from the game. The Mets beat the Phillies 5-0.

Buffalo Style Sunflower seeds what could be better

Everyone gathering before the game

After being a jerk, this Mets fan is escorted from his seat

Top of the division

I know it's nine games in but look who is leading the NL East, yes the Nats. Come on boys lets keep this up.

A perfect combination: NASCAR and a liquor store

Going to Daytona might be the goal of most NASCAR fans, but a simple trip to the liquor store might just do the trick. During a recent trip the liquor before WrestleMania, I noticed the number of NASCAR themed displays. Below are two of the them featuring Kevin Harvick and Special K. 

Shearer hanging with the Amish

While visiting the Strasburg Rail Road on Tuesday I noticed something that I did not expect to see in Pennsylvania Dutch Country. There was a guy wearing an old school Newcastle United Alan Shearer jersey complete with Barclaycard Premier League patch, yes Barclaycard. Good to see a Gordie fan hanging out with Amish.

Cover Story: Bobby P. out at Arkansas

In Arkansas there is no bigger story then the firing of football head coach Bobby Petrino. Here is how two of the newspapers in the state covered the story.

Prospects Plus: Yu Darvish

During the course of the baseball season, the OTWT's scouting staff will take a look at different prospects, from minor leagues, colleges and big leagues,  that we have seen either on TV or in person. We start our series with Rangers pitcher Yu Darvish. Darvish made his debut on Monday night and struggled early but showed some signs.

Stat line against the Mariners: 110 pitches; 5 2/3 innings, 8 hits, 5 runs, 4 walks and 5 k.

Positives: After a rough first two innings, Darvis slowed down and showed commands of his pitches. Pitch speed range from 95 mph fastball to 69 mph curveball. Average fastball was clocked at 93.5 mph, not bad. Watching him face Ichiro was really cool, two of the best players of the last two generations in Japan. Ichiro got three hits off of Darvish. Beisdes his stuff, Darvish showed his toughness by overcoming a first inning in which he gave up four runs, he could have packed it in but did not.

Negatives: The first inning has to be a concern. Darvish seems like the type of pitcher that is going to throw a ton of pitches, which is something that the Rangers will have to watch.

Overall: He has really good stuff and the Rangers may have one of the best imports ever.

Money does not equal trophies

For three high profile clubs around Europe, having a ton of money does not mean success or trophies. The Independent takes a looking at what happen. Money does not equal happiness for Manchester City, PSG, Malaga.

Great football tattoos

Here is a list of footballers who love the ink. Raul Meireles joins Daniel Agger, Djibril Cisse and co in tattoo hall.

Who is this toolbag

During the main event at Wrestlemania between The Rock and John Cena the OTWT Crew noticed this toolbag in a green Cena shirt. During the match the was an emotional wreck.

Then the next night the same guy was in the same spot for Raw. He was again an emotional wreck when Cena was given the F-5 by Brock Lesnar.

The only person to have a worst weekend then Cena was this super fan. If anyone has any info on this guy please contact us.

One Shining Moment

Nothing is better than One Shining Moment at the end of the NCAA Tournament and here it is for 2012.

Cover Story: The National Title Game

 Kentucky has been crowned National Champions. The Wildcats beat Kansas last night in the national championship game to claim their 8th title. Below are some of the newspapers in Kentucky and Kansas and how they cover the events in New Orleans last night.

A post Wrestlemania back page

Wrestlemania was last night, I don't know if that played into this wrestling themed back page of the Philly Daily News but it was cool.

Live Blogging Wrestlemania 28

And here we go. After almost a year of talk the WM28 is here and we will take you through the night. A cast of weirdo's in my basement will give you our thoughts on the biggest wrestling night of the year.

Happy Wrestlemania weekend to all

Wrestlemania weekend is here. OTWT will be live blogging the event tomorrow night. A basement full of drunk fans will give there thoughts on what is expected to be a dramatic night.

Fun Atmosphere, Terrible Football

On Sunday, I decided to watch the Old Firm Derby on Fox Soccer. I wanted to take the in the passion of the game. Sure the passion and atmosphere were fantastic but one that was lacking was quality of play.

The quality of play might have been equal to a Major League Soccer game. Terribly weighted passes, terrible shots and not to mention terrible miss timed challenges. Nothing says a quality soccer match like three red cards.

The highlight of the match was the call by the announcer when Sone Aluko scored for Rangers earlier in the first half, "A goal for Aluko, A goal for the fans, A goal for the cause.'' Perfectly said.

I understand the history of the two clubs but if you changed the names of the clubs people would be complaining about how terrible a match it was and not praising it for the terrific atmosphere.

Cover Story: The Final Four

Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio State and Louisville are headed for the Big Easy for the Final Four this weekend. Here is how some of the newspapers around the country cover the Elite Eight this weekend.

These kids are valuable

An interesting list of the 30 best young players in the world of soccer, put together by Futebol Finance. Very interesting to see the value of some of the players.

Kendall Marshall's wrist is a social media star

While North Carolina fans continue to hold their breathes over Kendall Marshall wrist. The injury has become famous on social medial. Around the country people are supporting Marshall on twitter with the hashtag #PassFir5t.

Cover Story: Selection Sunday

Selection Sunday is one of the most stressful days for a college basketball program and this years was no different. A couple of years ago, we posted front pages from around the country detailing Selection Sunday, today we revisit that idea.

Its move in day in Bracketville

In honor of the field of 68 being announced, here is my favorite ad campaign developed for the NCAA Tournament. In 2000, Nike developed the concept of Bracketville and I loved it.It's a whole town dedicated to March Madness

 


The Bracketville Fruit Stand.
 

The Bracketville Hardware Stand

A Day at the Big East Tournament With Jay Bilas, what could be better

Over the last couple of years ESPN's Jay Bilas has grown into one of the best color guys in college basketball. Some people hate him, other love him and many other find him annoying. The Big Lead, a sports blog, spent a day at the Big East Tournament with Bilas and boy is it interesting.

Lights Out goes after CM Punk

First it was Chris Brown that had an issue with WWE Champ CM Punk, now its oft-injured Buffalo Bills linebacker Shawne Merriman. On Twitter, Merriman trashed CM Punk saying wrestling has gone soft. I just wonder if this is all setting up to have Merriman get in the ring with Punk at some point in the future.

Lenny Cooke: The best that never was

He was supposed to be the first one, not an oversight. Lenny Cooke was supposed to be a superstar on the basketball court, now he is a has been. Famous New York Times reporter Harvey Araton takes a look what has happen to the form New York City start in his story : Lenny Cooke, From Star-to-Be to One Who Never Was. Amazing story.

Really Lee Evans is trending

At one point today wide receiver Lee Evans was a trending topic nationwide on twitter. It proves that anything is possible on twitter.

You know baseball season is almost here when this is in your mailbox

Now this is old school

A shirt I found in my closet. The shirt is now 14 years old, I have no idea why I still have it. Go Heels.

Another Superstar off the scrapheap at WPUNJ

When I was at William Paterson a small dynamic guard named Horace Jenkins lead the Pioneers to the Division III Final Four, now they have a star with a similar story. Junior Guard Corey Chandler's journey to redemption has taken to William Paterson and as a graduate I could not be happier. I hope Chandler story ends the same way as Jenkins with a trip to the Final Four. 

The Flyers should just stand pat

For the last couple of days Philly has been abuzz over the idea of the flyers trading for Rick Nash. While most are in favor of it I'm totally against it. The price that has been rumored includes a package that includes: JVR, Sean Couturier or Brayden Schenn, Sergi Bobrovsky, and a first rounder. That is a huge price to pay for a 27-year old that had never played in a big time playoff series.

Who is to say that the Flyers would be trading away two player that could be better and cheaper than Nash. JVR, Coutrier, and Schenn are the next generation and need to stay in orange and black.

Mike Vick is ready

Mike Vick is ready for the new season to start. This is a stuffed Mike Vick my son got for his birthday.

College Baseball would have a different look if MLB followed the NFL Draft rules

So what would happen if baseball required players to go to college for at least three years, it would look very different then it does now. BaseballAmerica.com's Jim Callis takes a look at it and breaks it down. This is all you need to know Bryce Harper would be at South Carolina, now that would be scary.

Same type of Culture LFC & PSU

During the last couple of months, the culture at Penn State has been questioned. The Penn State culture is very simple. They are a tight knit community where everyone is from there and outsiders are usually not brought in. In that culture things are kept quite and they try not to let it out. For years, incidents at Penn State where handled in house and anyone who suggested they were handling things wrong were shunned.

Across the pond, there is a similar culture at Liverpool Football Club and that showed this weekend when manager Kenny Dalgish stood up for Luis Suarez not shaking Patrice Evra's hand before the United Liverpool game. During the course of the last two months, Suarez and Dalgish have been fighting with everyone over racism claims against Suarez.

Liverpool is a lot like Penn State, people in the club believe they know what is right for everything and how dare you question them. I'm not comparing the Suarez racism mess to the PSU Jerry Sandusky sex abuse allegations, but rather how they handled things. Anything that happens involving Liverpool is always someone else's fault, they also think that they can handle everything their way and sometimes it blows up in their face, like their handling of the situation this weekend.

Lets hope the Suarez situations makes Liverpool Football Club look in the mirror and re-examine the culture of the club and what they stand for.

This Map Explains Everything

This map breaks down all that is good with America.

Look out when Aaron Ramsey scores

Aaron Ramsey is in the process of being a good player at Arsenal. Over the last couple of years he has scored some important goals. But some are questioning the timing of his goals. Ramsey in goal link to Whitney death, according to The Sun. Every time he scores a world renounced personality dies.

Rutgers Signing Day Sprint

Sports Illustrated does a great job breaking down the chaos that surrounding Rutgers recruiting class. Signing day could have been a mess for Rutgers, but it turned out ok, according to Sports Illustrated.

Live Blogging: Duke vs. North Carolina Round 1

ESPNU and 247Sports rule National Signing Day

National Signing Day has come on gone and people are debating who had the best class in the country. The only true winner on National Signing Day was ESPNU and 247Sports. Its amazing how much college football fans care about 18-years signing scholarship papers. 

Lets start the hype machine for Super Bowl XLVIII

So Super Bowl XLVIII at the Meadowlands is two years away and already the hype machine has started. In Sundays New York Times' sports section the committee that brought the game to the Met Life Stadium took out an ad counting down to the game. If you think that this years hype was out of control, wait till Super Bowl XLVIII, its should be out of control.

A bad day for Chelsea all around

If you think throwing away a three goal lead is a bad day at the office, it got worst for Chelsea Sunday morning. Chelsea spelled their own website URL wrong, on their advertising boards during their game against Manchester United, according to 101 Great Goals. Now that is a bad day at the office and it only happened with a billion people watching.

Rutgers State Champs

A couple of years, the idea of Rutgers being crowned State champions of recruiting for New Jersey was a joke, but now it appears to be a reality. Recruiting service, 247Sports, crowned Rutgers the state champion of recruiting. 


According to the story, Rutgers got 10 of the top 32 prospects in the state. This was the sites verdict on Rutgers recruiting performance in the state: "Keeping Devin Fuller at home would have made the Scarlet Knights feel a lot better at their relative domicile domination. Still, they deserve credit for fending off the vultures amid their 11th-hour coaching change,'' the report stated. 


It's amazing how things have changed over the years. In 2005, Rutgers was able to get one of the top 30 players in the state to come to the State University of New Jersey. In 2008, Rutgers made progress securing commitments from seven of the top 30 prospects in the state. 


This year, Rutgers did a great job keeping the top prospects in state. Their success in state helped Rutgers get the top ranked class in the Big East.

Fox will continue to grow the game

In September, I wrote how Fox Sports choice to show Barclay's Premier League games on tape delay was a brilliant idea. Two weekends ago, Fox took it the next level by showing Manchester United vs. Arsenal live as a lead into the NFL Conference Championship Games. Sure the rating where not great. According to ESPN, the match was seen by 1.3 million views. 

This week Fox is at it again as they show Manchester United vs. Chelsea on Super Bowl Sunday at 11 a.m. I personally expect the numbers to increase and this to be more of a rating success. I would not be surprised if there was a couple of more Premier League games show on Fox before the end of the year.

Fox has to stay committed to showing top flight soccer over the next couple of years. In October, Fox won the English-language U.S. television rights for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, outbidding incumbent ESPN and NBC for soccer's showpiece tournament. Fox agreed to pay around $425 million for the two-tournament package, a person familiar with the bidding told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because the figure was not made public. It also secured English-language radio rights. If they are going to make these tournaments work they are going to have to continue to show soccer to gain the respect of fans.

Fox should have learned a lesson from doing the BCS Bowl games a couple of years ago. During that time, Fox just did the bowl games and did not do any regular season games. During the  BCS games Fox had people who had no real college experience doing the games and it made for a terrible TV product. They have to stay connected to soccer before these events to ensure fans that they are committed to doing things right.

Our Biggest loss, Our biggest gain

A week ago the Rutgers Football program had their biggest loss, when head coach Greg Schiano left for the Tampa Bay Bucs. Now they have their biggest gain as Don Bosco's 5-star defensive tackle Darius Hamilton commits to Rutgers earlier tonight.

The commitment has a chance to keep the class together and make this the best class in the history of the program.

Nothing beats dancing with a Mascot

Nothing beats knocking a Premier League side out of the FA Cup when you are a lower league side. Brighton did that by knocking out Newcastle 1-0 over the weekend. The fun of the Cup was shown by Brighton's Adam El-Abd as he dances with an FA Cup mascot after the win. This is my favorite moment of the weekend.

Standing Up for Schiano

A week ago, I was exchanged tweets with JC Shurburtt, a recruiting guru for 247 sports, on Rutgers upcoming recruiting class. According to Shurburtt, Rutgers was set to make a huge recruiting splash on National Signing Day.

Fast forward to Thursday morning and that has all changed, as Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano made the jump to the NFL to go the Tampa Bay Bucs. Now people are going on message boards and screaming about Schiano's salary, his lack of Big East champions and his game day coaching skills, but I will be one of the few that comes to his defense as a loyal season ticket holder.

Before Schiano got here the Rutgers football was a complete dumpster fire. No one wanted any part of it, in state recruits never looked at going there and it was a joke to everyone. During his tenure at Rutgers, Schiano helped oversee a complete redesign of the school football facilities and make them some of the best in Big East and on the East Coast.

Sure Schiano left the school at the worst time possible time, six days before National Signing Day, but he has not left the school in a bad position. Rutgers is coming off a bowl win and a nine win season. The team has a ton of talent coming back and should be one of the best in the Big East and might find themselves in BCS Bowl at the end of it. If that happens much of the credit should go to Schiano after all it will be his players that took them there.

The Bible has arrived

On Thursday, I got home to a nice surprise the 2012 Baseball American Prospects Handbook had arrived. For prospects geeks like myself, this is the bible. My book shelf in my office has them dating back to 2002 and its sometimes fun to take a look through them. 

Super Sunday EPL Style

Trim the Fat

The movement to get rid of Andy Reid is gaining momentum. While walking through the Hamilton Mall today, I found this shirt in a t-shirt shop. If a make your own t-shirt shop has a shirt calling for your head, then things are bad.

Rugters making a statement

There was a day when I thought I would never see this: seven former Scarlet Knights in Conference Championships games; three starters. This shows how far the program has cover the last decade.

The defining Sunday of the Season

Fox Soccer has been promoting this Sunday Premier League games as "Epic Sunday,'' for once this is not over hype. The doubleheader of Manchester City vs. Spurs and Manchester United vs. Arsenal will go a long way toward telling us who will be lifting the trophy in May.

A City win in the early game and a Arsenal win in the late game could all but end the title race. If that happens, City would have a 6 point lead over United and an 8 point lead of Spurs. If Spurs and United both win the title race could still have a long way to go, then United would be level with City on points and Spurs would be two points back of the top two.

I can't remember a day of games that has the potential to impact the Premier League title race like this one can. This is shaping up to be a classic day. At the end of the season, we will look back on Jan. 22 as either the day the title race ended or the day it was blown wide open.

Oilers = the New Blackhawks

For the last five years the Edmonton Oilers have struggled on the ice, but that appears to be changing. Over the last couple of years the Oilers have struck it rich in the draft and are ready to break out. Could the Oilers be set to rival the Blackhawks. The Oilers rebuilding plan seems to mirror the Blackhawks, according to the Edmonton Journal..

High School Football All Star Game Recap

The high school football All-Star season has ended. Over the course of the last two weeks, the OTWT Scouting Department has been watching the three majors national games that where played and making a list. Here are some of the players that we where impressed with during the games.


Semper Fidelis Bowl:

• DJ Foster, RB/DB, Arizona: He is a lock down corner who is very comfortable playing against the other team's fastest receiver, and he's very confident with a smooth backpedal and he can turn and run with the best of them. One of the nation's premier cover corners, he also showed great hands, burst, and displayed outstanding moves in the open field at WR.
• Jayodon Mickens, DB/RB, California: One of the more explosive ball players in Los Angeles. He shows the speed, quickness, hands and burst needed to become an impact WR at the next level.

Under Armour All American Game 

• Chad Kelly, QB, Buffalo (pictured above): The nephew of former Bills great Jim Kelly is headed to Clemson. In the skills challenge Kelly arm strong was really shown, he can make any throw out there. Will be a perfect fit in Chad Morris's Clemson offense. 
• Ifenndi Odenigbo, DE, Ohio: The one that got away, instead of picking Ohio State, Odenigbo will be headed to Northwestern. I can not remember the last time the Wildcats had an athlete like this on defense.

US Army All American Game 

• Cyler Miles, QB, Colorado (pictured right):  Miles is a dual-threat quarterback, but he uses his feet more as a weapon than a priority. He has a strong arm and can make all of the throws. Miles, who is heading to Washington next, will be the perfect replacement for Kevin Price in a couple of years. Miles will probably red shirt next years, which will help his development in the future
• TJ Yeldon:, RB, Alabama:Yeldon is an instinctive runner with excellent speed and acceleration. He has a great initial burst, which allows him to hit small windows and attack the defense. His balance and vision allow him to set up tacklers and break tackles. During the game the 'Bama recruit showed his athletic ability hurdling defenders not once but twice. For a larger back he is incredible athletic.

Sometimes getting a 5-star is not all its cracked up to be

In college football, getting 5-star recruits is the name of the game but sometimes it does not work out. Rivals.com took a look at the five years of 5-stars and the results are a mixed bag, for every superstar there is a bust. 

President Cantona has a nice ring to it

Wow this could be epic. Eric Cantona wants to be French president. Could you imagine him meeting with Obama, we need this to happen.