Mr. Hanton's

Today I opted to venture out to the 5th & Race food truck area to pick up a burger from Cafe de Wheels. Parked next to The Burger Truck was a food truck I had never seen before. The food truck craze is relatively new to Cincinnati so there are new trucks popping up frequently. This truck is named Mr. Hanton's and they specialize in a wide variety of sandwiches and hot dogs, including Cincinnati style cheese coneys. Mr. Hanton's will now be added to the quest and joins Mr Gene's Dog House Weenies on Wheels as the 2nd food truck on the quest.

I chatted with the owner for a minute and he informed me they can be found at 5th and Race on Thursdays & Fridays and are at Party at the Park on Wednesdays. Judging by their twitter feed (@MrHantons) they are occasionally in Mt Adams late night.

We both like a lot of the food trucks that have opened in the past year and look forward to trying Mr. Hanton's.

New Blog Up, Time to close the pub

I have officially launched the new blog. Although right now it could still be considered in a beta stage. I might make some tweaks here and there, but for now I am happy with the look of the site. The new name is "The Triple S Xpress" which is explained in the welcome posts and I now have posts about the Final Four and the Cyclones.

The Triple S Xpress

new blog update

After toying around today in the "blogosphere" I have decided that I will likely host the new blog on wordpress.com. Blogger.com and wordpress.com both have its benefits and drawback, but overall I feel that wordpress is the best. Eventually I would like to have my own domain and use wordpress.org.

The next step will be creating a new name for the blog. And after that I don't see any reason why I shouldn't be able to officially re-launch next week, but we shall see.

Final Four Game 2 Preview

*Note- this is a test blog from my cell phone
 
Game 2 tonight features North Carolina and Villanova. There should be some exciting guard play in this matchup. Ty Lawson has played great despite his toe injury. Scottie Reynolds has had an up and down career for the wildcats so a lot could depend on which Reynolds shows up.
 
My Pick: I have Carolina winning it all and am sticking with that pick. I was hesitant before the tournament to make that pick but now that Lawson is lighting it up I have a lot more confidence in the heels. Tyler Hansbrough will also be extra motivated to make up for last years loss vs. KU and he came back his senior year to win a title. UNC 86 Nova 73

Final Four Game 1 Preview

*NOTE- This is just a test, I am testing out the various blog hosting sites on the internet for my new blog.

Tonight from Detroit the Final Four tips off with Michigan State and UConn facing off in the first game and Villanova and North Carolina in the late night matchup. First I need to brag as I correctly picked 3 out of the 4 teams, only missed out on UConn (picked Missouri). So for once I will have a rooting interest, if MSU-UNC make the championship I will win the big pool I am in, if UNC wins it all but its against UConn I finish in 2nd. So GO HEELS! With my luck UConn and Nova will win tonight, so if you are gambler put your money on the Cats and Huskies. Now that I am done patting myself on the back, time for a short preview of Game 1.

#2 Michigan State vs. #1 UConn

Out of the 4 teams left in the tournament, UConn has looked the strongest. However one could argue they have also had the easiest road to Detroit. They have also had to deal with some off court issues regarding the recruitment of Nate Miles. Michigan State on the other hand has had a tougher road. They squeaked out victories vs. USC and Kansas, but dominated the 2nd half in their Elite 8 victory over the overall #1 seeded Louisville Cardinals.

There are two matchups that I will be keeping an eye on tonight: Gorat Sutan-Haseem Thabeet and Kalin Lucas-AJ Price. Thabeet is the best defensive big man in college basketball, but Sutan has been very impressive in the tourney against some stiff competition (KU's Aldrich and UofL's Samuels). I actually like Sutan in this matchup because of the range in his offensive game. He has a good outside shot which will have to draw Thabeet out from under the basket which should open up the lane for his Spartan teammates. But if Sutan's shot isn't falling MSU could be in deep trouble. Kalin Lucas is the Big 10 MVP and has also had a good tournament thus far. So far his toughest competition has been KU's Collins, while Lucas didn't shoot well he did a good job of getting to the line (7-7 from the line) and finding open teammates (7 assists). AJ Price is a score fist point guard (has scored in double figures in 18 of the last 19 games) but also has good vision (averages 4.8 assists per game). I like Price in this matchup as Lucas doesn't have as much expereince going up against agressive and savy veteran PG's like Price. The only game where Price struggled this tournament was vs. Mizzou, but MSU favors a slower, half court pace while Mizzou likes a full court, pressing style.

MY PICK:

Even though UConn has been quite impressive so far this tournament, I picked MSU to get to the championship and I am not backing off now. I like Sutan to have a big game which will open up a lot of things for his teammates and with the game being in Detroit the crowd could be a big X factor for the Spartans. Michigan State will need to force their slower style of play and if they do they will be moving on to the championship. MSU 68 UConn 64

don't call it a comeback?

Ok it has been a long, long, long time since I have blogged. I doubt anyone still has an RSS feed for this, but figured I would post an update anyway. Unfortunately I had to suspend operation of The Olde 320 Pub a couple of years ago due to having a busy job where I just didn't have time to keep up with the sports world during the day and when I came home the last thing I wanted to do was spend time in front of a computer. But now I have a new job where I have a little more time to keep up with the outside world which has led me to think maybe its time to re-open shop. I am going to do some restructuring though. First of all not sure if I will stay on blogger or go elsewhere. I will probably do a whole redesign (new name and look). Also I will have some contributors so on days where I am slammed at work and have no energy, my contributors can pick up the slack. Nothing is set in stone yet, I am going to work on this over the weekend and hopefully sometime Mid-late April I will be fully back into the sports blogging world.

Out of Hibernation

Tomorrow the Olde 320 Pub will reopen and come out of hibernation. Just one thought about tonight's Reds game before the official return tomorrow: was anyone surprised that Felipe Lopez hit the game winning grand slam? I am pretty sure every Reds fan knew this would be the outcome as soon as Felipe came to the plate.

Bengals cut Sam Adams

Today the Bengals announced they have cut DT Sam Adams. Adams was in the middle of a 3 year contract. Today the Bengals also announced the signing of DT Kenderick Allen.

I am a little surprised by this news. With the draft pick of Matt Toeaina and the free agent signings of Allen and Michael Meyers, I figured someone would be cut but I thought it would be John Thornton not Adams. I also thought Adams and Thornton would get a chance to compete for a spot in training camp. This raises questions about the status of Adams' knee and if him not being in the best of shape played a role in this decision.

The Hunt for a Red October 5/14

I didn't think things could get much worse than they were in last weeks Hunt for a Red October, unfortunately things are getting pretty bleak in Redsville. Last week the Reds dropped 3 of 4 to Houston and went to Los Angeles and were swept by the Dodgers. The Reds record now stands at 15-23 and are in the cellar of the central division 10.5 games back of the Brewers.

I think Reds fans have officially started the Homer Bailey watch. Many would have liked to seen Bailey brought up for Sunday's game at LA (to replace Eric Milton who is on the DL). The Reds however went with Bobby Livingston, who had an ok first start going 5 1/3 IP and gave up 4 ER but gave up 10 hits and 4 walks. I am not sure how soon we will see Bailey. Before the season I predicted mid to late July. However if the woes continue I have to believe we will see him up before the All Star Break.

Time to take a quick look at the good and bad of the past week.

GOOD

• Ken Griffey Junior. Junior remains on fire and has won NL Player of the Week honors. When healthy Jr usually produces unfortunately being healthy has been his big problem since coming home to Cincinnati. Hopefully he can stay healthy the rest of the year because he is fun to watch when he is playing like he is right now.

BAD

• Bullpen. I don't really need to go into too much detail since its been the running theme of the season. The bullpen is struggling and continues to be the main reason for the Reds struggles. I really don't understand why Todd Coffey continues to see the mound.
  

Player of the Week

• Ken Griffey Junior. This is the 2nd week in a row that Junior gets my nod for Player of the Week and as stated above he won the NL Player of the Week. Griffey has hit .405 with 4 homers and 10 RBI's in the last 10 games. Also here is another reason why Griffey gets my vote for Player of the week: In Saturday's game in LA, Junior gave a heckler a special gift. Nicely played Junior!

Upcoming Week

• The road trip for the Reds continues as first they travel to San Diego for a 3 game set then to intrastate rival Cleveland for a 3 game weekend series. Once again, I am not too optimistic about the upcoming games. I predict the Reds lose two of three to the Padres (I think they will win the Harang-Wells matchup. The finale with Arroyo and Peavy going at it should be a great pitchers duel but Peavy will get the win) and I think the Indians will sweep the Reds. If this happens it would mean the Reds will have gone 1-8 on the 9 game road trip and I have to believe that Castelini will do something and not just sit around while the Reds stink.
  

Reds win finale vs. Stros/Edwin sent down

I was busy at work today but I knew it was a good day for the Reds due to the ammount of fireworks I could hear from my desk. The Reds avoided being swept by Houston with a 9-5 win today. The offensive stars were Ken Griffey Junior and Adam Dunn who both homered and Dunn even had a triple. Aaron Harang got his 5th win of the season by going 6 2/3 IP with 2 K's and gave up 5 ER. The Reds will now hit the road and face the Dodgers.

The other big news of today is the Reds have sent down 3B Edwin Encarnacion and brought up IF Jeff Keppinger. This is off the heels of a two error game by Edwin that resulted in 3 runs for Houston. I am a big Edwin fan, but this is the correct move. He has had many problems in the field and at the plate so far this year and its obvious he lacked confidence in himself. Edwin is still young and a hard worker so I think he will be ok and back to being one of the best young third basemen in the MLB.