Sports Time Radio

Batting Order: 1. Rickey Henderson- LF 2. Bert Campaneris- SS 3. Al Simmons- DH 4. Jimmy Foxx-1B 5. Reggie Jackson-RF 6. Home Run Baker- 3B 7. Rick Monday- CF 8. Mickey Cochrane-C 9. Max Bishop-2B

Bench: Wally Shang-C (LF), Mark McGwire-1B, Danny Murphy-2B (RF), Miguel Tejada- SS (3B), Sal Bando-3B, Jose Canseco- RF (LF), Dwayne Murphy-CF.

Starting Pitcher Rotation 1.Lefty Grove-TL 2. Jack Quinn-TR 3. Eddie Plank-TL 4. Tim Hudson- TR 5. Rube Waddell- TL.

Long Relievers: 1. Eddie Rommel- TR 2. Charles Bender- TR 3. Vida Blue-TL

Set Up: Huston Street.

Closer Rollie Fingers.

Feel free to leave your All-Time A’s lineup.

We’ve all seen teams in every sport try to buy championships. Of course, with the introduction of the salary cap in the NBA, NHL and NFL it’s made it harder for teams to what would be looked at as buying a title. Now over in Major League Baseball they don’t have a salary cap, but a luxury tax and if your favorite team’s owner is willing to pay the penalty for going over that luxury tax that team can spend as much money as they want to.

If a certain team does spend a lot of money the question, then turns into how many championships does it take for it to be worth it.

If you’re old enough you’ve seen a team, try to do this in MLB before. When George Steinbrenner was running the New York Yankees, he would spend whatever money he thought he needed to on players to try and win the World Series.

In some cases, the strategy worked for Steinbrenner and the Yankees. New York won four out of five World Series in a row from 1996 to 2001. The Yankees also won back-to-back World Series titles in 1977 & 78.

Of course, these Yankees World Series wins where before the luxury tax was introduced in Major League Baseball. Since the luxury tax was introduced in MLB there hasn’t been a team to win back-to-back World Series.

Even though there’s a luxury tax in MLB and it seems to have added a sort of parity to the game it hasn’t stopped teams from spending their money and going over the luxury tax.

I think the team that jumps to the head of the pack when it comes to going over the luxury tax to try to win is the Los Angeles Dodgers. Since 2002 the Dodgers have finished in 1st place in the National League West 12 times including winning the division 9 of the last 10 seasons.

Even though the Dodgers have won all those division titles and have made it into the playoffs as a wild card team on two other occasions the Dodgers have made just three trips to the World Series and have won the World Series just one time.

I don’t think that winning just one World Series title would be considered spending your money wisely, but it hasn’t, and it won’t stop teams from doing it.

The New York Mets were one of the teams that had everybody talking about the contract and the money they were handing out since they were sold to Steve Cohen.

The Mets have two players that are paid over $40 million dollars per season, one that’s paid over $30 million dollars a season, one that’s paid over $20 million dollars per season and then eight players that make between $10 and $19 million dollars a season. The Mets estimated payroll for the 2023 season is $359 million dollars.

Since Cohen bought the Mets just before the 2021 season the team has made just one playoff appearance as a wild card team last season. In that wild card game, the Mets lost to the San Diego Padres 2-1.

After some more off-season spending coming into this season a lot of people were on the Mets bandwagon and they were a trendy pick to win the World Series. A lot of the media that were high on the Mets coming into this season have now jumped off their bandwagon and probably wouldn’t even admit that they picked the Mets to win it all this season.

It’s unclear why they always seem to deny making a pick, but it’s understandable why they got off the Mets bandwagon.

With a win yesterday the Mets are 9 games under .500 at 37-46. The Mets find themselves 18 1/2 games behind the 1st place Atlanta Braves in the National League East. The Mets are also 9 games out of a wild card spot in the National League.

I’d be interested to know what you think the reason for the Mets failure is. Clearly, they went out and signed talented players. Edwin Diaz is the only serious long-term injury that they’ve had to deal with, but spending money hasn’t translated to wining for some reason.

With a little less than half a season to be played do you see the Mets rallying and finding their way back into the playoffs as even a wild card team?

Don’t forget to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.

Yesterday we went through the Dodgers, so today we’re moving on to the Braves. Same set up as yesterday, so here goes.

Batting Order: 1. Lonnie Smith-LF 2. Rafael Furcal-SS 3. Chipper Jones-3B 4. Hank Aaron-RF 5. Eddie Mathews-DH 6. Freddie Freeman-1B 7. Andruw Jones-CF 8. Joe Torre-C 9. Tony Cuccinello-2B

Bench: Fred Tenney-1B, (RF), Glenn Hubbard-2B, Rabbit Maranville-SS, (2B), Felipe Alou-RF, (CF), (1B), (LF), Dale Murphy-CF, (RF), (1B), (LF), Sid Gordon-LF, (3B), (RF).

Starting Rotation: 1. Greg Maddux 2. Warren Spahn 3. Phil Niekro 4. Tom Glavine 5. Kevin Millwood.

Bullpen: Long Relievers, 1. John Smoltz 2. Ed Brandt 3. Vic Willis

Set-up man: Gene Garber.

Closer: Craig Kimbrel.

There you go. Let me know what you think and feel free to chime in with your own lineup.

I’m not quite sure how my friend Jennifer Waters started down this rabbit hole. Apparently, she was just going through some statistics including WAR which by the way I don’t like as a stat. She ended up sending me what her all-time starting lineup for the Dodgers would be. I countered with what mine would’ve been. From there I asked her to tweak it a little and give me a 26-man roster of what would be her all-time Dodgers. She sent me to starting lineups, one with a DH and one without, but to contour to today’s game we’ll use the one with the DH in it.

The construct of the roster is 5 starting pitchers with the option to have five or six pitchers in the bullpen. Starters can be used in the bullpen to fit the overall picture of a long man who didn’t make the starting rotation. That leaves 14 or 15 position players to fill out the roster.

Jennifer also decided that she would only use a player one time.

Here’s her all-time Dodgers roster.

Batting Order 1. Jackie Robinson-2B 2. Pee Wee Reese -SS 3. Zack Wheat -LF 4. Duke Snider-CF 5. Mike Piazza-DH 6. Gary Sheffield-RF 7. Roy Campanella-C 8. Gil Hodges-1B 9. Ron Cey-3B

Bench in no particular order. Dolf Camilli-1B, Jim Gilliam-2B(3B,LF), Maury Wills-SS (3B), Justin Turner-3B(2B), Willie Davis-CF, Dixie Walker-RF(CF,LF), Jimmy Sheckard-LF(RF).

The Starting rotation: 1. Sandy Koufax 2. Don Drysdale 3. Clayton Kershaw 4.Don Sutton 5. Dazzy Vance

Bullpen: Long Men 1. Orel Hershiser 2. Kevin Brown

Set-up men: 1. Jay Howell 2. Jim Brewer

Closer: Kenley Jansen

Feel free to let me know what you think as well as leaving your own all-time lineup for the Dodgers.

It’s to the point where it doesn’t matter what type of numbers any other American League player puts up Shohei Ohtani is going to be the Most Valuable Player and he’ll probably win the award unanimously.

Last night Ohtani was the starting pitcher for the Los Angeles Angels as well as hitting 2nd in the batting order. As a pitcher Ohtani had a good outing. He pitched 6 1/3 innings. He gave up 1 run on 4 hits while walking 2 and striking out 10.

As a hitter Ohtani went 3 for 3 with 2 RBI’s and a walk. Two of his three hits were solo home runs and he accounted for half of the Angels hits in the game as Los Angeles only tallied 6 hits in the game.

As a pitcher Ohtani has made 16 starts this season, He has a 7-3 record with an ERA of 3.02 over 95 1/3rd innings. He’s struck out 127 batters while walking 39.

As a hitter Ohtani is currently has a batting average of .304 while leading all of Major League Baseball with 28 home runs and 64 RBI. Matt Olson is the current National League leader in home runs and RBIs with 25 and 60.

At this point you have to wonder what other American League player actually deserve consideration for the MVP award.

You’d Bo Bichette belongs on an MVP ballot as he is leading the American League in batting average right now at .323. There are a couple of Tampa Bay Rays players Randy Arozarena and Yandy Diaz who are ranked highly statistically. It should help both Arozarena and Diaz that they play for one of if not the best team in all of baseball. Luis Robert of the White Sox has also put up some good numbers so far, but unfortunately for him the White Sox have been one of the bigger disappointments so far this season.

Now even though there’s a little over half of a season to play it’s doubtful that anyone would be able to put up the type of numbers needed to surpass Ohtani as the leader for MVP. It appears as though the only thing that can stop Ohtani from claiming his second MVP award in the past three season would be an injury that cost him to miss a lot of games.

Ohtani did have some injury issues in his first three seasons with the Angels, but in the past two seasons he’s stayed healthy. When Ohtani won the MVP award in 2021, he played in 155 games and last season when he finished 2nd in the MVP voting to Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees he played in 157 games. This season Ohtani has played in 79 of the Angels 81 games.

The one thing that I’ve yet to mention with the great season that Ohtani is having is the fact that he’ll be a free agent at the end of this season.

There is still a lot of speculation about what a contract for Ohtani might look like, but there was a rumor out their early this week. There was a report that the Colorado Rockies would be interested in signing Ohtani this off season and the report mentioned that the Rockies would offer him something like a 3-year $300 million dollar deal.

That would actually be double the salary that most of the rumors had him receiving. A lot of the talk before this season started was that we’d see Ohtani get a 10-year $500 million dollar contract from one of the big market teams.

I guess will have to wait and see how the rest of the season goes for Ohtani and where and what he ends up signing for this coming off season.

Alright, let me know who you’d have on your American League MVP ballot right now. Also chime in what you think about that rumored offer Ohtani might get from Colorado.

As always don’t forget to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.

Is there a way to tell if a Major League Baseball team is just off to a slow start or if it’s just going to be a bad season? Obviously when you look at teams before the season starts you can kind of tell who should be a contender and who shouldn’t, but how do you account for a team that just seems to have all of the breaks go against them. This has nothing to do with injuries either just teams that should be in better positions in the standings than they are right now.

The St. Louis Cardinals might be the first team that comes to a lot of people mind. On paper the Cardinals look like the best team in a weak National League Central division, but here we are coming up on July 1st and St. Louis finds itself in last place at 31-45 9 1/2 games behind the division leading Cincinnati Reds.

For whatever reason this season every time the Cardinals find a way to win some games in a row and look like they’re turning things around they end up going right into a multiple game losing streak. Just last week the Cardinals put together their second four-game winning streak of the season, but St. Louis has now dropped their last two games and will try to stop this current losing streak when they wrap up their two-game series in London against the Chicago Cubs. That game actually starts in just a little over an hour.

St. Louis isn’t the only team in MLB that hasn’t player up to what was expected before the season started. You could throw in teams like the New York Mets, San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners and the entire American League Central division.

Humorously you could almost toss the Los Angeles Dodgers into this conversation. However, the Dodgers have played well and are 10 games over .500 at 43-33 and are currently on a four-game winning streak. Oddly even with a record that good the Dodgers find themselves sitting in 3rd place in what is turning out to be an interesting N.L. West division race.

The Arizona Diamondbacks are leading the N.L. West while the San Francisco Giants have moved past the Dodgers and into 2nd place. Fortunately for the Dodgers even though they find themselves in 3rd place they’re just 2 games out of 1st place.

We’re actually close to the point in the season where you might also have to add the Houston Astros into this situation. Just like the Dodgers the Astros have a winning record 41-36, but unlike the Dodgers the Astros are 6 1/2 games out of 1st place.

The Texas Rangers are currently leading the American League West and the Los Angeles Angels are in 2nd place, but they are just 1/2 a game ahead of the Astros.

The Astros have lost their last two games and have lost seven of their last nine games. Houston will try to break that losing streak tonight as they wrap up their series against the Dodgers.

It’s difficult to rule any of these teams out of potentially turning things around, but as it’s gets later and later into the season you have to wonder how long it will be before it’s too late for them to turn things around.

If you remember just last season the Philadelphia Phillies struggled out of the gate and there was a lot of talk about how disappointing their season was. Well, the Phillies turned things around and captured one of the N.L. Wild card spots and made it all the way to the World Series.

The difference between last year’s Philadelphia team and the teams we mentioned earlier was the fact that the Phillies started turning their season around about a month earlier on June 1st.

Back in 2019 the Washington Nationals struggled until just about this point in the season. The Nationals were 38-40 and 8 games out of 1st place on June 25th, 2019. From that point on the Nationals went 35-29 the rest of the season and went on to win the World Series.

Now it’s unclear if will see a team turn things around like Philadelphia did last season or that Washington did in 2019, but how big of a surprise would it be for one of these teams disappointing teams to turn things around and get into or win the World Series this season.

Remember to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.

The NBA draft is tomorrow and while there’s no question who the #1 pick will be there still seems to be some question on which player is going to go at #2.

The San Antonio Spurs hold the first pick in the draft and there’s no doubt whatsoever that they’ll be drafting Victor Wembanyama the 7-foot 4-inch wing player from France. It would probably be the biggest shock in NBA draft history if San Antonio picked someone else.

The Charlotte Hornets currently hold the 2nd pick in the draft. If Charlotte keeps the pick, it appears that they’ll select either Brandon Miller the small forward from Alabama or Scoot Henderson the point guard who played for the G-League Ignite last season.

It’s apparently been reported that Charlotte has interest in both players, so their selection may come right down to the wire on who they end up going with.

The Portland Trailblazers are the team with the 3rd pick in the draft and it seems as though the Trailblazers will select which ever player that Charlotte leaves for them.

Like any draft in any sport, you just never know how these top players will work out, but they appear to be the best three players in this draft and will go #1, #2 and #3 in some order tomorrow.

What seems to be a topic of conversation lately is will any team find a late round draft pick that will turn into a top tier NBA type of player.

The reason that this conversation started was because we just had two later round picks met in the NBA Finals. Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets was the 41st pick in the in the 2014 NBA draft. Besides the recently won NBA title Jokic was named MVP of the NBA Finals he also won back-to-back regular season MVP awards 2021 and 2022. The comical aspect to Jokic being drafted is the fact that the Nuggets pick was announced on the crawler while a Taco Bell commercial was on.

Jimmy Butler was also a later round draft pick, but he was still a 1st round pick. Butler was the 30th pick of the of the 2011 draft. Butler has been to two NBA Finals and was named MVP of the Eastern conference finals in these past playoffs.

It seems as though it’s tougher to find a gem later in the NBA draft than it is in the other drafts, but Jokic and Butler have both turned into top NBA players despite their later draft selections.

Do you have plans to watch the NBA draft? Since it’s just two rounds it’s one of the easier drafts to watch. If you are going to watch, will you watch the entire draft? Since I’m not the biggest NBA fan I’ll just check in from time to time to see who’s picking and catch up on who’s been drafted on the crawler at the bottom of the screen.

Don’t forget to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.

When Dan the Man and I were doing the Sports Time Radio podcast every now and then it would come up that we used to be professional wrestlers. Since I’m going to discuss the debut episode of AEW’s new Saturday night show Collison I wanted to go into a little more detail about my wrestling career.

I was an independent professional wrestling for just over 25 years. I was lucky enough to wrestle all over the United States and even wrestled a time or two in Canada. I’ve also owned two wrestling companies along the way. One of the companies stayed in business for many years in the Chicagoland area while the other company still runs shows from time to time, but I’m no longer involved with that company and sadly it didn’t do very well when I was one of the owners. I’ve also trained quite a few wrestlers, and some have gone on to work for the wrestling companies that you might know like AEW, WWE and Impact. I was also a matchmaker at quite a few wrestling companies through the years and that gave me a lot of insight into the wrestling business and how wrestlers are as people.

With that out of the way let’s get into the new AEW show Collision. The show was held in Chicago at the United Center, and it featured the return of C.M. Punk.

In case you don’t remember Punk was on hiatus from AEW due to a backstage incident that came about after he made some questionable comments about other wrestlers in the company at a press conference. After his comments there was a locker room fight involving Punk, Ace Steele, The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega. The Young Bucks and Omega were three of the people Punk singled out in his press conference even though I don’t think he used their names. I believe he just called them EVP’s which stood for Executive Vice President which is title that they hold in AEW.

Anyway, Punk returned to AEW in his hometown and of course he started the show off with an opening promo segment. He didn’t cover any new ground here and he tried to pass himself off as someone who always tells the truth and wouldn’t lie. He did manage to take a shot again as he used the term “counterfeit bucks”.

Punk also brought a red sack to the ring with him and mentioned how this was his and he was going to keep it until someone either beat him or submitted him for it. You’d have to think that Punk was talking about the AEW world title that he was stripped of. Maybe they’ll play Punk off as the uncrowned champion.

Honestly this was one of the more boring show opens that I’ve seen and if it hadn’t of taken place in Chicago, I doubt that the fans would’ve been anywhere near as into it as they were.

The first match in AEW Collison history was for the TNT title as Wardlow defended against Luchasaurus who was accompanied by Christian Cage.

I thought these two big men had a very good match, but the finish was weak. Both men showed really good athleticism and did things that men of their size don’t do very often. Cage also did a good job of being a distraction when need, but that wasn’t a big surprise as Cage is one of the best in the wrestling business. In the end it was Cage who cost Wardlow his title when he hit him twice with a camera allowing Luchasaurus to hit him from behind with a clothesline and get the win.

The post-match angle could be of some interest depending on how they play it out. Cage grabbed the title from the referee and acted like it was his, so will have to see if they follow up on this.

Match #2 had the returning Andrade El Idolo vs. Buddy Matthews from The House of Black.

Andrade was out with a shoulder injury and there were lots of rumors that he wouldn’t return to AEW and would end up back in WWE, but here he is.

Both men focused their attacks on the others old injuries. Matthews went after Andrade’s should while Andrade worked on Matthews knee. I enjoy when wrestlers do this in a match as it helps tell a story and it makes complete sense that you’d try to take advantage of an opponents weakness. Interestingly both men used the move of their significant other in the match. Matthews is dating Rhea Ripley and used the same inverted Texas Cloverleaf submission that she uses. Andrade is married to Charlotte Flair and got the submission victory using the figure-four leglock.

After the match the lights went out and when they came back on Andrade offered Matthews a handshake. Of course, Matthews stablemates from The House of Black were in the ring and Brody King laid out Andrade with a clothesline.

Match #3 had another returning AEW superstar as it featured Miro vs. Tony Nese.

I was afraid that this was going to be a complete squash match, but fortunately Nese did manage to get some offense in, but the winner of this match was never in doubt. Miro looked very good in his return and Nese deserves a lot of credit for that. Mark Sterling found his way up onto the ring apron at some point during the match and Miro landed a punch to take care of him. The match ended as you expected it would Miro got the submission victory with the camel clutch.

Match #4 had 2/3rds of The Outcasts Ruby Soho & Toni Storm vs. Willow Nightengale & Skye Blue.

Blue is from Chicago and her mother was at ringside just like she was on Wednesday night. Storm is the AEW women’s champion while Willow in the New Japan Strong Woman’s champion.

The match started with all four women brawling which makes sense if you followed the storyline from Dynamite on Wednesday night. There are always complaints about how the AEW woman are booked, but this match came off really well and might’ve been the best match on the show.

The biggest question I had coming into this match was if they’d actually put Blue over on two veterans in her hometown and they did. The finish set up very similar to how a lot of The Outcasts finishes set up. Storm was going to spray Blue with paint, but Willow cut her off and Storm actually sprayed Soho allowing Blue to hit her finishing move and get the win for her team.

Main Event time as C.M. Punk & FTR (Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler) took on Bullet Club Gold (Jay White & Juice Robinson) & Samoa Joe.

There was a lot of build up for Punk’s in-ring return and it didn’t live up to the hype. Punk spent very little time in the ring as FTR carried the majority of the match. When Punk was in the ring, he looked old, slow and out of shape compared to the other wrestler he was in the ring with. The other five wrestlers in this match did a very good job of making Punk look like a star, but he definitely wasn’t one in this match. Of course, it came as no surprise when Punk hit his GTS finisher and got the win for his team.

I’m not sure if it was just ring rust or what, but it should’ve been clear to anyone who saw this that Punk was easily the worst wrestler in that match.

If you watched AEW Collision let me know what you thought of it.

Don’t forget to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.

On Tuesday we crowned a new NBA champion and then last night we crowned a new Stanley Cup winner. It was the first championships for both the Denver Nuggets and the Vegas Golden Knights.

On Tuesday the Nuggets were able to close out the NBA finals with a 94-89 win over the Miami Heat. Nikola Jokic was named the series MVP and in the clinching game he posted a double-double scoring a game high 28 points and grabbing a game high 16 rebounds.

Last night the Golden Knights cruised to a 9-3 win in Game 5 to take the Stanley Cup. The Golden Knights never trailed last night as they scored the only 2 goals of the 1st period. Then they added 4 goals in the 2nd period and topped things off with 3 3rd period goals. Jonathan Marchessault was named the Conn Smythe trophy winner which is the award given to the MVP of the playoffs. Marchessault finished the postseason tied for first with 13 goals and ranked second with 25 points.

So, with the NBA and the NHL seasons all wrapped up that just leaves sports fans with Major League Baseball until the National Football League starts up. Of course, every sport is year-round now, so there will be reports from every sport moving forward, but as of now Major League Baseball is playing the only games that count.

So as of right now the division leaders are the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League East, the Minnesota Twins in the American League Central and the Texas Rangers in the American League West. Over in the National League it’s the Atlanta Braves who are currently leading the National League East while the Pittsburgh Pirates are in 1st place in the National League Central and the Arizona Diamondbacks are leading the National League West.

The Rays and the Braves have the biggest division leads at 4 games. Texas is right there with a 3 1/2 game lead while the Diamondbacks have a 3-game lead. The Twins have a 2 1/2 game lead while Pittsburgh has the smallest division lead at just 1 game.

Now it’s unclear how long these teams will stay in 1st place or even if they’ll factor into the playoff race when everything is said and done, but I have to tell you it’s had to not root for the Pirates and the Diamondbacks to hang around in the playoff and division races.

I’m not sure how you’re feeling about these two teams, but I think it’s nice to see an underdog like the Pirates hanging around in what is a bad division while the Diamondbacks seem to be a young and up and coming team that might be playing a little over their head right now. Of course, if Arizona continues to play as well as they have, they’ll start to believe in themselves and being a young team won’t be the negative that some people look at it as.

I think the biggest question for both Pittsburgh and Arizona might be if they’re willing to try and add top tier players at the trade deadline.

The Pirates are a small market club, but would they be willing to add a “rent-a-player” type of veteran for a run at the division title? If the team that the Pirates make a deal with would be willing to pick up a big chunk of a player’s salary that make help Pittsburgh add something they need.

The Diamondbacks have a pretty good minor league system, but would they be willing to move a few pf those players to add what they might need to compete with the Los Angeles Dodgers and hold off the other teams in their division.

As we move closer and closer to the trade deadline will have to see were the Pirates and the Diamondbacks are in the standings and if adding to their existing roster could help them find their way into the playoffs.

Pittsburgh hasn’t been to the playoffs since the 2015 season while the Diamondbacks last playoff appearance was in 2017. Is it possible that either or both of these teams find their way into the playoffs. Maybe they don’t get in as division winners, but don’t forget that there is an extra wild card spot now, so maybe one or both of them could find their way into the playoffs that way.

Let me know what you think. Are you rooting for the Pirates and the Diamondbacks to make the playoffs? If so, how do you think they’ll get in as division winners or as wild card teams?

Don’t forget to look me up on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.

Both the NBA finals and the Stanley Cup finals are just one win away from ending and the teams that need that win to end these series are going to be playing at home in Game 5.

Now as you know from reading the blog before I don’t watch very much NBA, but I have watched more of the finals than I have of all regular season games combined. I have managed to watch quite a bit of the Stanley Cup finals though and I have to say I haven’t been all that excited about either series.

I think that the majority of the games have been pretty good, but for some reason I just haven’t been able to immerse myself into either series and I’m not really sure why. I guess it’s possible that since I don’t have a horse in the race as they say that I’m just not that into either series, but that hasn’t stopped me before.

Now I’ve always been more of a baseball guy and now that the weather is nicer out and the baseball season is in full swing, I’m just not paying as much attention to the NBA or NHL finals.

Or who knows maybe I’m just getting old.

Anyway, the NBA has the first chance to crown a champion as the Denver Nuggets host the Miami Heat on Tuesday in Ball Arena. Do you think that Denver closes out the series?

The NHL is taking an extra day off, so Game 5 of the Stanley Cup finals won’t be played until Wednesday. The series returns to T-Mobile Arena as the Las Vegas Golden Knights look to end the series with the Florida Panthers. Do you think that the Golden Knights will win Game 5?

If both these series end in their next game, it would kind of ruin the runs that the Heat and the Panthers went on during the playoffs. Both teams were considered 8th seeds even though Miami had the 7th best record in the Easten conference. I don’t want to get into that again, but for the sake of this will say they were an 8th seed.

I’m not sure if two lower seeded teams like the Heat and the Panthers have ever won championships in the same season, but I’m guess they haven’t. It’s very rare that a lower seeded NBA playoff team makes it as far as Miami did and I think it would’ve been nice to see both teams win championships, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

If there was a team that could come back from being down 3-1 in a series, it would be the Panthers. In the 1st round of the NHL playoffs, it looked like Florida would be going home as they were down 3-1 to the Boston Bruins. Yes, this was the Bruins team that set all kinds of regular season record, but the Panthers came back and won three straight to advance. Starting on Wednesday will see if the Panthers can win three straight games from another #1 seed.

Once the NBA and the NHL wrap up their seasons it will be baseball and just baseball until the NFL kicks in. You do have to wonder if these seasons overlapping each other hurt the leagues. I’m not sure if that’s diminished my interest in the NBA and Stanley Cup finals, but I’m sure it hasn’t helped. Unfortunately, there’s no way to avoid this as leagues aren’t going to shorten their regular seasons or playoffs and they’re not going to move the start of their seasons to avoid competing with each other.

It’s just one of those things that sports fans have to deal with and have been dealing with for many years. I’d like to know how you handle the overlapping seasons. I’m sure that there’s one sport for you that you prefer to watch over the other like I do. Can you skip a game that your favorite team in your favorite sport is playing in to watch a playoff game from another sport.

Don’t forget that you can also find me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.