It started with the Fourth of July, which we spent in Cambria watching the waves and fireworks at Moonstone Cove. Both were sick. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my board or get a piece of the waves.

Although a day later we got the stoke.

Then, on Wednesday, we headed up to Oakland to take in the New York Yankees-Oakland Athletics game.

Great ballgame. Got to see Reggie hang with Ricky, and Jeter with A-Rod. All in all it was a good night.

Cap that with all the LeBron drama, now he and the Miami Heat are being hated on like the New York Yankees, and the death of longtime Yankees announcer Bob Sheppard – the only Yankees employee never criticized by George Steinbrenner. He was the gold standard of PA, and he will be missed.

I was lucky enough to visit the old Yankee Stadium in 2004 for our one-year anniversary. The Yankees were in Anaheim, site of today’s home run derby (which will be without Yankee Robinson Cano), during our trip, but because they were out of town we were able see a lot more of the stadium (including the locker room and press box) during our tour.

I’ve included a shot of the view from Sheppard’s “office,” which I must say might have been the best gig of all time. Consider the lineup of the first game he ever called, which included eight Hall of Famers: Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Johnny Mize, Yogi Berra, and Phil Rizzuto for the Yankees, and Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, and Lou Boudreau for the Boston Red Sox.

His first game was also the debut of Mickey Mantle – not a bad guy to come into the profession with. If only we were all so lucky.

On Saturday, to cap it all off, picked up a NY Yankee Gnome at Ross and got to crack the bottle with Ryantific on one of our finest homebrewed batches of beer – a chipotle red ale that’s as good as any other batch we’ve brewed thus far.

WCBias Brew, coming to a store near you.

All in all a good week. Let’s hope this one is half as solid.

- All pics by the Slim one.

I made the random Yankees-Heat parallel to Ryantific earlier today before the announcement, and after James made it official tonight I think the fuzzy analogy started to make sense.

(I also went up to the Yankees-A’s game in Oakland on Wednesday, so Yankee Haters are fresh in my mind.)

Bear with me a moment while I try to explain.

So when Amare Stoudemire announced he was New York bound, and Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh announced they were teammates in Miami, I thought, “OK, that leaves LeBron in Cleveland.”

But the more I thought about it, and learned from Ryantific that no contract numbers had been released by Wade/Bosh and that Jim Gray had landed an exclusive interview, the more it made sense to me.

Miami had encouraged Wade and Bosh to make their announcements a day earlier so that they wouldn’t be overshadowed by James’ hour-long special.

Here’s where the Yankees parallel begins.

Wade, like Yankees SS Derek Jeter, has played his entire career with the same team. He brought a championship to town. They’re the Jordans of their sport, literally, even sporting MJ’s elite brand in recent years.

They are the captains. The towns they play in and teams they play for are theirs.

Bosh? Well, he’s the second-fiddle free agent the Heat picked up because he was the best-available player. Think Bobby Abreau, and most recently Nick Swisher (an ex-Athletic who Oakland fans really rode hard on Wednesday, even though he nearly went for the cycle: and then was voted into the All-Star game) or Mark Teixeira.

Then there’s James, who in Miami and everywhere else in the country will never been a real Miami member. Just like Alex Rodriguez will never be a real Yankee. A-Rod went to New York for one reason, even gave up his true position to do so, for a championship: and a boatload of dough.

Same thing LeBron is doing, minus the dough depending on who you believe. And people are going to hate him for it, particularly in Cleveland where they’re burning his jersey and doing all sorts of crazy stuff just like Seattle did when they lost A-Rod. Only Cleveland cares a lot more because of the curse. Seattle really doesn’t care about anything other than brewing good coffee. And they sure don’t care about the NBA enough.

Two other reasons to make the LeBron-A-Rod comparison, and for Joe Fan to hate on them both? Athleticism and capitalism. Both have more talent than anyone in their respective sport (thanks in part to performance enhancers, but that’s another story), and more money for that matter, too. And all the talk about LeBron taking a pay cut to go to Miami is crap considering the lack of a state income tax in Florida, on top of the added endorsements he’ll be bringing in with more exposure and victories.

Power + money + confidence/cockiness = hatred by fans. Just look at Barry Bonds. Look at what Kobe went through in Los Angeles.

But what makes some of that hate go away? Championships.

• See: Kobe Bryant, going from the outhouse to the penthouse in the eyes of LA fans after winning back to back titles, without Shaq.
• See: A-Rod. I saw a dozen people with A-Rod jerseys in Oakland the other night. I had seen A-Rod jerseys before, I had just never seen anyone (even die-hard Yankee fans) who didn’t like him enough to wear one, especially in Oaktown. But after winning a championship last year, sure enough.

Bonds, however, who never won that title, is still arguably the most hated man in sports.

That was until tonight, when Kings James may have dethroned the now retired Bonds as the most hated man in sports.

Not that you can blame the guy. Who wouldn’t want to leave Cleveland for South Beach (really L.A. East if you think about it). It’s the playa lifestyle, with more beaches, bikinis, bars and booze than you can shake a pimp cane at. AND, they’ve got DWade, who – when healthy – is the best all-around player in the game next to Kobe. Add Bosh and you have a formidable three-headed monster that rivals the Lakers and is probably favored in the East over the aging Celtics.
Will they be better than the Lakers? Tough call. Right now, I, Vegas and much of the country (according to polls on ESPN) say no.

Will they be better come playoff time, when injuries and chemistry make or break teams. Could be. They’re young (all three were drafted in 2003 as underclassmen, or in LeBron’s case, as a prepster), talented and hungry. And any questions about their chemistry may have been answered back in Beijing in 2008, when they first started talking about the possibility of playing together.

Maybe he follows the same path as A-Rod and goes another season or two without a title, but at some point you figure if LeBron and DWade can stay on the court, The King is going to win his ring.

But winning in the court of public opinion, that’s going to take some work.

Time to bring back the pinstriped kicks, LeBron.

If the shoes fit, wear ‘em.

Yo Joe, how 'bout a start once in a while? Mo Rivera is perfect again this season, with a 0.00 ERA in 10 games.

Props to Oakland’s Dallas Braden tonight for chucking a perfect game against the Tampa Bay Rays (in case you missed it, since it came on Mother’s Day and all: and nobody showed up in Oakland to watch it anyway (12,228 fans, really? That stadium was 2/3rds empty, for a perfect game?).

Note to A-Rod the A-Hole: Stay off Dallas’ mound yo. Check that, keep stomping on that mound, so the A’s can keep stomping the AL East.

I don’t want to stomp on notsellingjeans’ beat here, so I’ll keep this post on The Cutter, The Closer, and The City of Dreams.

Putting my West Coast Bias aside for a minute: great upcoming piece by EastSidePN’s E:60 this week on New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera.

While watching a preview tonight on SportsCenter, and smacking the floor with my jaw after seeing his stats – 0.00 ERA this season at the age of 40, 0.74 ERA in the playoffs, 13 runs in 133.3 postseason innings, 39 postseason saves, and recording the final out in four World Series! – I couldn’t help but ask myself the question:

No, not “is Mariano one of the greatest New York Yankees of all-time?” like ESPY asked.

Or is he the greatest reliever in MLB history?

Is Mo the best right-handed pitcher we’ve ever seen?

Not even close. Panama City’s finest was never given an opportunity to be that guy.

But what if he had been used by Joe Torre as a starting pitcher after learning how to throw that disgusting cut fastball in 1997, by accident, in a bullpen session with good ol’ Dodgers catcher Mike Borzello (yeah, so at least he’s been part of something in his MLB career, along with being Torre’s godson I guess)?

What if?

A few overlooked stats about this somehow overlooked/soon to be hall of famer (not sure if only the second player to record 500 saves can go overlooked, but still): Mo made his debut 15 years ago this month, May 23, 1995, to be exact, and went on to start 10 games that season.

Number of starts since? Zip, zilch, zero. Nada. Not a single start for the inventor of the nastiest pitch of our generation. A pitch everyone and their mom (it’s Mother’s Day, pardon the cliché) knows is coming at the end of every ballgame.

Oddly enough, this is a question that isn’t brought up by the mainstream media, not a shocker I guess, or in the blogosphere for that matter. Maybe it was asked a long time ago, before the Internets, but the best thing I could find nowadays was this take by a NYTimes blogger on changing the role of the starting pitcher and making The Closer be The Opener.

Interesting conversation.

I know I’d rather have Mo trot out to the mound for a start than Javier Vazquez, and his 1-3 record and 9.78 ERA in five starts, but that’s just me. Maybe it’s the Left Coast state of mind.

Speaking of the Westside, I’m also looking forward to Straight Outta L.A. on Tuesday, the story of the LA Raiders.

ESPN be getting it done like Dallas Braden this week. If only they could remain close to perfect like Mo after all these years.

The defending champion Yankees blew a late 7-5 lead to fall to the rival BoSox 9-7, but that’s not why I’m writing about it.

I’m writing about it because Seattle’s 7-1 win over the San Francisco Giants wasn’t televised.

Yeah, I know, here I go again. East Coast bias, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Nah, EastSidePN is getting better. After all, they have SportsCenter from the West Coast now, right? Everything’s peachy, ESPN’s doing great. It’s just a left wing nut trying to make some noise on the West Coast.

BUT, the numbers don’t lie, and national TV stations covering MLB this season are still slanted toward the right (coast that is).

A look at MLB.com’s latest national broadcast schedule, of games televised by ESPN, ESPN2, Fox, TBS and MLB Network, shows what I’m talking about.

Team                                       TV Games

New York Yankees               24

Boston Red Sox                      24

Los Angeles Dodgers           15  (1 vs. NYY, 1 vs. Bos)

L.A. Angels                              13  (3 vs. NYY, 1 vs. Bos)

S.F. Giants                                10

Oakland Athletics                   3

San Diego Padres                    3

Note: The Red Sox and Yankees play each other on national TV at least seven times this season (expect more), which is more than the Athletics and Padres will be on TV combined. ESPN and Co. better hope those teams suck this year.