The Front Row: The ref’s big hit

WATCH OUT, GARCIA: How is this not a bigger news story?

In Saturday’s 24-17 LSU win over South Carolina, Gamecocks quarterback Stephen Garcia took off on an option play and cut it back toward the center of the field.

Referee Wilbur Hackett Jr. saw Garcia coming and instead of moving out of the way (like every other official in the history of football) he lowered his right arm and delivered a pretty decent hit, knocking a stunned Garcia to the turf.

Some have said that Hackett was simply protecting himself, but the video clips circulating through the Internet tell a different story. It appears as if Hackett sized up Garcia and took him down.

Whatever happens, this clip ranks among the Shaquille O’Neal freestyle rap as the most inexplicable sports-related clip of 2008.

Neither Hackett nor Garcia will ever live this one down, yet Hackett hasn’t receive nearly the grief that Ed Hochuli did for messing up the Denver-San Diego game last month.

For the record, LSU coach Les Miles and South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier both believe the contact was inadvertent.

“We told him, ‘Listen, you’ve got to use your flipper. You’ve got to use your forearm. But then you have to wrap up,’” Miles joked earlier this week.

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THE WORLD SERIES: While coastal baseball fans and every media member rooted for a Red Sox/Dodgers World Series, an unexpected match-up snuck in through the back door.

The Tampa Bay Rays and Philadelphia Phillies will square off tonight in Game 1, with this series ultimately producing one of the most unlikely baseball champions in recent years.

There is no way to predict a series like this. Tampa Bay nearly blew a 3-1 lead to Boston, only to hold on by the skin of its teeth in Game 7. Philadelphia sports fans are teetering on the edge of madness after rooting for perennial underachievers.

Name an outcome, and I’m prepared for it. I could see either team sweeping the other. I could see every game going into extra innings. I could see Game 7 lasting 18 innings, forcing every last pitcher on either roster to throw at some point.

In a series like this where trends and history aren’t in play, there is only one question that needs to be answered: Which team has the best guys?

As much as I love Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins and Cole Hamels, there simply isn’t anything that can measure up to the B.J. Upton/Evan Longoria one-two punch this postseason.

Throw in Matt Garza’s emergence into a legitimate stopper, and I’m picking the Rays in seven.

nprevenas@gvnews.com | 547-9747