HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A MISSPELLED WORD ON RADIO?

December 27, 2011; Tampa FL, USA; Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Mathieu Garon (32) makes a save during the first period against the Philadelphia Flyers at St. Pete Times Forum (Kim Klement-US PRESSWIRE)

A few days ago a subject was broached to me about the recent first round FSL playoffs in Lakeland and Dunedin.  It concerned the use by Dunedin of major league players rehabbing injuries.

It seems that the fans were upset that the assigned Class-A players weren’t allowed to compete for the honor they had worked for all season long.  Instead they had to sit while three major league players took their spots on the field and at the plate.

Well Dunedin dropped their final regular season game to Clearwater them both games to Lakeland in the best of three Western Division playoffs with the major league rehabbers and here is how they did.

1B David Cooper only played one game going 1-5 with a strike out while 3B Brett Lawrie also played only the one game  going 0-3 at the plate and a walk.

Catcher J.P. Arencibia played in all three games in question, two behind the plate and one as the DH putting up 2-13 numbers at the plate with a walk, three strikeouts but he did have one double.

Now to the fans delight the combined numbers for these three is an astounding 3-21, three walks and four strikeouts for an electrifying .143 average overall.  At least they made no errors in the field I understand.

The jest to all this is that major leaguers never used to be able to rehab during the FSL playoffs but that appears to have changed.  The other is that the fans want to root, at least during the playoffs, for the kids they have seen all season not those from the show.  They like it when the rehabs appear but not during the playoffs.

As an aside to all this Lawrie did go down and play a game with the Lansing Lugnuts going 3-4 but “The Nuts” still lost the series to Ft. Wayne 2-0.

Now to a short and less than sweet bit about the NHL and its labor problems.

All one has to do is remember the mid 90’s and what then MLBPA rep Donald Fehr did to the sport of baseball.  Well campers he is doing it again to the sport of ice hockey.  Enough said!

Okay now campers, yours truly attended his 35^th annual USA Hockey Referees Seminar on Sunday and to say it was delightful would be an outright lie.  This not counting about 70-80 I have taught.

Yes 99% was fine but the one-percent near the end only showed why some officials might get in trouble officiating a contact sport.

The bottom line was when one referee answered an asked question in about 10-15 seconds but the instructor didn’t like the answer and spent five minutes trying to prove the answer wrong.

Unfortunately the instructor ended up proving the referee’s answer right but wasn’t smart enough to realize it.

Now in closing on this fans here is the real smack, not once did any instructor(s) bring up about preventing penalties.  Gee who wants to see a referee blow his whistle and put a player in the penalty box, we are not the reason the fans are there.

Okay campers enough said, so until then…