Well for what it's worth, here are my Suburban Council baseball predictions for 2008:

Blue Division
1. Colonie Garnet Raiders. There's enough pitching depth to keep them on top of the division, and if the big bats come alive, they should be a serious threat for the Section II, Class AA title

2. Shenendehowa Plainsmen. There's no way that they will miss the playoffs for a second consecutive season, especially since there's no way they will lose eight one-run games again. There's too much talent on this team to have that happen.

3. Shaker Blue Bison. If the defense improves over last season, there's every reason to think they can challenge for the division title... Continue Reading

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As some of you may know, I am not only a sportswriter but also a songwriter (I'll leave the singing part out of it, since I still question whether what I do while performing my songs constitutes singing).

As such, I have a strong opinion about what songs should be played during sporting events and what songs should be shelved for good. For instance, playing Queen's "We Will Rock You" is perfectly acceptable... Continue Reading

CATEGORY: General Sports

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I’ve been writing this column for several years now, and sometimes I feel I don’t know what area sports fans are passionate about.

I keep looking for some indication by what people attend. By that logic, it would seem people are more interested in Siena College men’s basketball than any other team in the region, professional or collegiate. But then, I make a statement like, “Siena has no chance to beat Vanderbilt in the first round of the NCAA Tournament,” and no one bothers to throw it back in my face when the Saints trounce the Commodores. Maybe it’s because Siena got trounced by Villanova in the second round.

I try to light a fire under area hockey fans by complaining about the lack of attendance at Albany River Rats’ home games... Continue Reading

CATEGORY: General Society

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There are some good Web sites for local high school sports these days ... beyond this one, of course.

There's section2harrier.com and finishright.com for cross country and track and field, section2swim.com for swimming (naturally), capitalregionsoccer.com for boys soccer (no girls soccer, though) and cdhshl.org for hockey. They all offer scores, schedules and leaderboards so you can follow what's going on in Section 2.

However, there are some sports that are under-represented on the Web, and that needs to be fixed. For instance, there's a Web site for Section 2 football that offers schedules and news, but no results or statistics... Continue Reading

CATEGORY: General Society

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