New Day, Same Result

Christmas day was as usual a big day in the NBA today. ABC kicked off it's season with 2 great games. Unfortunately for the Suns, it was a new game, but the result was the same. They played as well as they can against the Spurs and lost at the buzzer to a 3 pointer. Lately the Suns are losing to the Spurs via the dagger 3. Who can forget the stupid 3 that Timmy hit last playoffs. But then again, the dagger 3's have killed the Suns since the days of Mario Elie. This time it was someone called Roger Mason. Pop put him and other 3 point shooters in and the Suns should have played it safe with the 3-point line. Instead J-Rich left Mason to help Grant Hill on Parker's penetration and Tony found Mason for the open 3. Amare was as always ready to let Finley hit a open 3 too, but the ball went to Mason instead. You could say it was bad D, but it does take more than one guy to stop Parker and what are you gonna do? It is what it is and just another loss for the Suns.

The prime-time game was Lakers-V-Celtics. ESPN has been pimping this game forever and I guess it lived up to it. The Lakers team and the fans were ready for revenge after the Celtics embarrassed them in the Finals last season. It was a lot more important for the Lakers to win this one, especially since they were at home. But give them credit. They did win and stopped the 19 game winning streak of the Celtics. Thats no joke. Kobe was great and he repeatedly setup Pau for basket after basket at the end of the game. Of course Pau's ability to score and finish is really what has put this team over the top since his arrival. He is probably the only guy Kobe trusts on offense. Pau even got a key block, which is really not his deal. This is probably a finals preview and it should be a better series this year given that both teams are even better than they were last year. Lakers might have closed the gap, but the Celtics are still better. But of course you need a body or two to guard Kobe.

Cleveland won again at home against the weak Wizards team. They are 15-0 at home. They are a legit contender and the Celtics-Cavs games this season should be as good as the Celtics-Lakers. The Cavs can definitely hang with anybody. LeBron didn't have a great game, but he is a load. It's amazing how many 3-point opportunities he gets in a game. Like Barkley says, when something that big and strong comes at you at full speed, you can't kiss it, you have to hit it! A lot of fouls are like somebody kissing him and has no impact on his shot. Dallas won the night-cap on TNT at Portland. Dirk was impressive, but it's amazing to watch little J.J.Barea do so much for this team. That guy killed the Blazers late in the game. Brandon Roy ran out of magic finally and this was a tough loss for the Blazers. Looks like the Mavs are back to being the Mavs of old. Interesting Christmas day overall. It started with Roger Mason and ended with J.J.Barea.

Yankees are making it rain

The Yanks signed Mark Teixeira today to a eight-year, 180 million contract. Thats looks a bargain if you compare it to C.C.Sabathia's 7 year, 161 million contract and it's an outright steal next to A.J.Burnett's 5 year, 82.5 mill. Between the 3 players, the Yankees have spent more than 420 mill this off-season. Amazing. I like AJ, but has he ever pitched more than 2 consecutive starts without getting injured? CC is good, but why overpay the guy when they knew he didn't have many options? Plus they are assuming a huge risk signing a fat pitcher to such a long-term deal. Considering this and other deals the Yanks have signed over the last few years, I would say Teix is probably one of the better signings for them. He is still young and is a very reliable bat.

Even though I understand the business of new stadiums and why every team wants them, I am still amazed at the amount of money the real big market teams generate out of these mega-stadiums. There are two stadiums thats making a lot of news right now. The new Yankees stadium and the Cowboys stadium in Dallas. These 2 teams are just minting money and I don't understand how people and/or corporations are paying 100 K+ for seat licenses in Dallas. That too in this economy. This whole stadium business is getting out of control. Pretty soon, only the millionaires are going to be able to attend games in person in most parts of this country.

The RedSox are again looking like the Kansas City Royals in front of the Yankees after few years of near-parity in the expense department. You better believe that their ownership group is going to start complaining pretty soon. They were not happy even when they spent 180 mill a year and the Yanks spent 200 a year or something while the rest of the league averaged a robust 60 mill or whatever. Now the Yanks might double the Sox payroll at this rate. The MLB might as well cancel the Yankees V Royals and the Yankees V Baltimore games starting next year. There should be a payroll differential law in Sports. If a team spends more than 3 times the other team, they can't play against each other. That might pretty much mean the Yankees and the Sox have to play each other 162 times a year. ESPN will be happy for sure if that happens.

Speaking of Boston, it's amazing what the Celtics are doing. They keep on keeping on and they are becoming almost as big as the RedSox in Beantown. This team is just too good and I can't wait to see them play the Lakers on Christmas day.

Dallas Lose

Good game this NFL Saturday. Baltimore at Dallas to close down the Texas stadium. The Ravens running backs spoiled the party for the boys singlehandedly. The game was close late in the fourth quarter with the Ravens leading 19-10. The Cowboys scored to make it 19-17 and the crowd was all pumped up for a Romo-powered comeback. But within 18 seconds, the Ravens scored a 77 yard rushing TD. Romo answered back with just 1:36 left in the game to make it 26-24. But guess what. The Ravens scored again in 18 seconds with Le'Ron McClain rushing for a 82 yard TD to put the game away and suck the air out of Dallas. This is not like the Bartimore Ravens at all. They usually don't score this much or this fast. I guess the Dallas D is this bad. This game puts the Cowboys in a tough spot as far as making the playoffs go.

If the Ravens can do this even semi-consistently, I won't be surprised if they go all the way and win the Super Bowl. There are many teams that seem to be coming on late this NFL season. The Indianapolis Colts and the Carolina Panthers come to mind as 2 other teams that may be legitimate contenders after a shaky start to the season. Peyton is in full form right now. He threw for 364 yards and 3 TDs on Thursday to take care of the Jacksonville. I am not sure if anybody wants to play the Colts in the playoffs especially if they get their running backs in gear. The Panthers are another interesting team. Their game tomorrow against the other 11-3 team in the NFC, - the Giants, should tell us more about where both these teams are headed. This is a fun time of the year as we try and get the playoff lineups all figured out.

Deja Vu

It's good to be back blogging again after a short break. I have just been busy with a couple of random things. Many interesting and weird things happened while I was away, but there are 2 things that I find very odd. I could have gone away for 3 years and it's like nothing has changed. I am talking about TO fighting with his QB, offensive coordinator, WR coach and anybody else who comes his way in his own locker room. This is like a flashback of what happened in Philly, which was a flashback of what happened in San Francisco. I feel like TO has been single-handedly keeping the sports media busy for 30 of the last 60 months. ESPN should send him a paycheck instead of sending Screamin' A Smith to ask him some dumb questions. On the bright side, at least TO will not be calling Tony Romo gay like he did Jeff Garcia. Or at least lets hope so because if he did do that, he would be implying Jessica Simpson is a man !! That would be stupid even by TO standard.

The other deja-vu story of the day is Brett Favre starting to talk about retirement again. Enough already !! Shut up and play, make the playoffs and throw an interception to end that playoff game like you always do. I have no use for his retirement story - not until 3 games into the season after the supposed retirement. Unless he stays retired 3 games into the next season, I don't consider Brett Favre gone. He can come back any time to any team and would any of us be surprised? This guy is worse than the poor 60 year-olds who thought they were retiring this year and thanks to the financial meltdown, they can't for the next 8 years. Brett has been trying to retire for 5 or 6 years now. Somebody check what's going on with his 401 K or something! May be he should stop going to Mississippi during the off-season. Of course he wants to get out of there after 6 months and he wants a job in "big cities" like Green Bay. But to be fair to him, he has played really well and I can't believe the Jets can potentially keep the Patriots off the playoff. Thats impressive.

In the NBA, the Suns got J-Rich from the Bobcats for Boris Diaw and Raja Bell. I love the trade for the Suns and I have no idea what MJ is doing there in Charlotte. This gives the Suns some much-needed athleticism and scoring power. They lose the defensive prowess of Raja Bell, but the returns have been diminishing on that front anyways given Raja's advancing age. He'll always be fondly remembered for clotheslining Kobe and may be his jersey should go up on the rafters just for that, but he has not done much in a couple of years. Even his trey was not falling at the same frequency last season. I think Kerr pulled off a good one with this trade and apparently these guys were causing some trouble for the new coach Terry Porter. The Suns defense, if anything, is worse now than it was under Mike D'Antoni and thats a clear indication that the cats are not trying hard enough. There was stretch couple of weeks back when every guard and his mother came into Phoenix, scored 40+ and went back home a winner. I am sure Kerr wants to fix this culture with some new bodies. I like J-Rich. He is a true professional who has gotten better every year he has been in the league. I wish him good luck. Hopefully he can be at the business-end of some of them alley-oops from Nashty!

But the league as a whole is on a roll with the Lakers, Celtics and the Cavs. These 3 teams just don't lose.

Somebody stop the Fakers!

It's amazing how good the Lakers are. In just over 13 months, the NBA power-structure has been turned upside down. The Lakers, who were barely making the playoffs for many years, have gotten to the top of the mountain over the course of just one season. They started the 2007 season as just another team and they ended up in the Finals in June. Now they can't lose this season. They are so good, Kobe is not even in the top 3 scorers in the league and they are still 13-1. Though, to be fair to Kobe, he is still jacking up the same number of shots :-) He is playing 5 minutes less per game, shooting less 3's and taking lesser number of free throws per game.

In any case, Mitch Kupcake has really built some team. He might have gone from the laughing stock of the league to a perennial Executive of the year candidate. It started with his commitment to Bynum and things really came together with the Gasol trade. Since that trade, it seems like the Lakers truly believe they can't lose to anybody. Goes to show you how much of the game is mental. The same guys have been playing much better since last year, though some of it is young guys getting better. Of course having a personality like Kobe on the team sometimes doesn't help the confidence of the kids, but ever since they started winning last season, this team has just been firing on all cylinders. I mean, Lamar Odom comes of the bench and Luke Walton doesn't even play much anymore. Thats how good this team is.

I can't believe I am saying this, but I don't think there is anybody in the West thats in the same class as the Lakers. The Champs are a robust 16-2 in the East and we may be looking at another Lakers-Celtics finals come June. The East is no longer the LEast and the other true contender may also be playing there. King James is the other big news of this season. Dude has been awesome and is probably a year or 2 away from overtaking Kobe as the best player in the league. I mean he may already be the best player in the league and if you were to draft one player for your team, he is the clear choice today. But it's hard to argue against the sheer scoring dominance of Kobe and you still have to say Kobe is the best player in the league. But the evolution of LeBron is going in the right direction for sure. And his exposure to superstars like Kobe in the Olympics has made a better defender and helped make him a more complete player. Cleveland is 14-3 and they may ride the King all the way to a championship this year. Thats how good he is.

Much like the MJ-era, I want to watch Sportscenter everyday just to see LeBron's monster blocks and nasty dunks.

Brand Roy

I am a big fan of Brandon Roy. He is a very unique player who went to college and who came to the league a finished product. He is smart, very versatile, knows how to play the game and makes his teammates better. He is not uber-athletic or a superstar scorer like Kobe or LeBron, but there is this quite efficiency about his game that is almost non-existent in the game today. Plus he is clutch like he showed today at Portland.

NBA is in full flow now and there was a great game between Portland and Houston today. It started off bad, but heated up towards the end. Roy was bottled up for the most part by Ron-Ron, but then he came alive in OT. He made Ron Artest look stupid on one drive to the hoop and then hit the last 2 shots for Portland including the long buzzer-beating 3 from Corvallis, Oregon. Between his 2 shots, Yao hit an amazing jumper that should have won the game for Houston if only T-Mac knew what he was doing when he was defending Roy during that last sequence. Great game and Roy was awesome.

T-Mac did have a great game. I have always liked Aaron Brooks since his Oregon days and he is contributing now for the Rockets. Dude is laser quick. Suns pick Rudy Fernandez had a great game for Portland as well. Good to see the new blood in the league. But the "old" blood ain't doing too bad either. Some huge numbers yesterday for superstars. Our own Amare dropped 49 on Indiana. Tony Parker went nuts with a 55-7-10 night and the King broke out with a 41-9-6 night despite some injury action early in the game. Good stuff going on in the league early.

AI got traded to Detroit for Chauncey Billups. AI had a great presser at Detroit with some funny lines about "practice". I like the trade a lot for Denver. They finally got a PG and someone who might fit with Melo. Speaking of Denver, the NFL thursday games started this week and Jay Cutler lit it up with 447 yards and 3 TDs. Brady Quinn wasn't too shabby either as he threw for 239 yds and 2 TDs. It was good to see the Sun Devil Ryan Torain rush for the Broncos. But the real question is, why is Denver struggling to beat teams like Cleveland? Is this the same team that looked like a Super Bowl contender at the start of the season? That whole AFC West looks shaky this year. Lets see what happens. Tennessee might actually go all the way the way things are right now.

Audacity of Hope

Historic election night in America today. A true watershed moment in history as America welcomes it's first black president-elect. Nobody thought this day was ever going to come. Now it's here and it's real and this is a proud day indeed for America. It tells anybody and everybody that this is still the land of opportunity and in the words of a delirious Kevin Garnett after his championship -"anything is possible!!". I can't imagine how much this means to a new generation of minorities in this country. They can now aspire to be anything they want to be including the President of America. Congrats to Obama and his brilliant campaign for bringing this change and hope and we expect many more changes.

Speaking of hope, the Suns are still hoping to be an elite team. They are 3-1 and today they crushed the Nets. But then again thats neither here or not there. The Spurs are surprisingly 0-3. They lost to the Mavs tonight. A tough schedule so far, but still it's odd to see the Spurs 0-3. Of course they will start their rodeo trip eventually and thats probably when they'll start winning and go on some sort of a run. They'll be fine, especially when Ginobli comes back. Until then, I'll just enjoy the increased scoring I am getting from Timmy for my fantasy team.

The football weekend was good, though I was distracted by the election fun a little bit. Texas Tech upset Texas and kicked them off their number 1 ranking. The longhorns almost got out of their brutal 4-game stretch unscathed, but they stumbled at the last hurdle. Now Tech is ranked all the way up at 2 leap-frogging Penn state. Penn state is pissed, but they need to focus on their schedule and just do their job because Texas Tech will probably lose given their brutal Big-12 schedule. Alabama is at LSU this weekend and thats no walk in the park. So this thing is long from over and I expect several shake-ups in the BCS standings before it's all said and done. If Penn State wants the right to get blown out in the championship game, they just need to hang in there and win their easy games. They'll get their wish.

Phillies win

The weather played havoc with the World series and it finally ended yesterday with the Phillies winning. At least thats what I am told! I didn't watch the later part of this series and neither did America. Between the rain delays and Obama's infomercial, the World Series had nowhere to go and ended up with the worst rating ever. Bad times for Fox with these ratings and with their favorite republicans sinking in the polls. I guess Philadelphia doesn't care. They are getting ready to throw a parade on Friday. Pedro Feliz drove in the winning run and he will be a hero in Philly forever.

Bye bye baseball for now. NBA is in full flow. The Suns are 1-1. They beat the Spurs, but where clearly inferior to Chris Paul and the Hornets. This is what I mean by the Window closing. They may be finally good enough to beat the Spurs, but both of them are not as good as the Lakers or even the Hornets. The defense is still as bad as it has ever been. Suns can't stop most of the guys and that gives confidence to everybody to the point these guys start shooting 3's and never miss. The threes were raining and the home opener went under the loss column. Dallas lost their home opener as well with Houston and Ron-Ron looking good. This should be an interesting season in the West. And East doesn't look too shabby either.

Welcome Back

NBA came back today and not a day too soon. These are good times as the World Series, NFL and the NBA are all on simultaneously. Boston hosted King James and opened the festivities. It was odd to see Paul Pierce cry during the ring ceremony. It's not like he just won the championship today. He has been a champion for months and I can't imagine he is still so emotional about it. But he did have a great game and the Celtics kicked off the season in style. Loss 1 for King James as the Cavs are hoping his growth, team chemistry and Mo Williams will put them over the top this year. Unlikely, but anything can happen with the king.

Kobe and the Lakers kicked off the West coast activities. The big news was the debut of Greg Oden that lasted about 12 minutes. He hurt his foot and had to leave the game. Hope it's not too serious. Lakers and Kobe looked good and won the game. Looks like it's their conference to lose. The Suns have a few interesting games this week and are on TV a lot. But honestly their window is pretty much closed. So is Dallas's and may be even San Antonio. The changing of the guard happened last year when the Lakers and the Hornets came out of nowhere to take the torch from the Suns, Mavs and the Spurs. The Spurs are probably the best placed among the 3 oldies and the Suns open the season against them. Lets see if the games are still fun with the Suns under the new coach.

The weather is playing havoc with the World Series. I lost track of when the previous game ended and when the next one is scheduled. It's a mess, but Philly is sitting pretty anyways. They should wrap it up soon, in the next 3 months. In the NFL, the new Niners coach Mike Singletary is the story. He kicked Vernon Davis off his bench during the game and gave an emotional, impassioned speech after the game. I feel like he is burning too hot right now. At this rate, he will be tuned out by the players by week 14 especially if they don't win more than they lose. He needs to handle himself very carefully. It's easy to coach a winner. It's that much harder to coach a losing team with little talent. He better play this thing tight.

World Series

The World Series has started and not sure how many people care or are watching. Both the Rays and the Phillies are deserving participants and are great teams and have both won a game. As expected, Cole Hamels won his start, but the rest of the rotation is really "advantage Rays". The gritty, gutty Rays were not just going to go away after they lost game 1. They came back in style and won game 2 rather easily. David Price and the the Rays bullpen closed the door on the Phillies. Now the scene shifts to Philly.

In the NFL, just way too much drama surrounding the Dallas Cowboys. It's amazing how ESPN and the 24 hour sports outlets are just creating news out of anything and everything. They want to make this Cowboys story bigger and messier than it really is. The real story of the league should be the mediocrity of the Colts and the Chargers and the resurgence of the Titans and the Bills. Luckily for the Chargers, the Broncos are not pulling away either. The Colts on the other hand are already 3 games behind the Titans. Go figure!

Rays shine through

Game 7 today was a thrilling baseball game that went just like you would expect any game 7 to. It was well-pitched, tense and very well-played and managed. More importantly, it saved us all from watching the stupid Sunday night football game between Seattle and Tampa Bay. Big sports day all around in Tampa, but which moron picked this game for Sunday night? I mean, even if Seattle was as good as originally thought and even assuming we didn't have to endure Seneca Wallace at QB, this was not a marquee match-up in my book.

Anyways, the Rays trailed 0-1 for most of the early innings, but got to Lester in the middle innings and scored just enough runs to win this game 3-1. Matt Garza out-pitched Jon Lester, but barely. The Rays bullpen did what it had to and David Price got them a 4-out save. It was all good in Tampa and it was strange to see all 30 year old front-office dudes on the stage. A modern-day, money-ball era team with a manager who is in to new-age stuff and flawed math. Nice to see them win. What the hell does 9 = 8 mean anyways? Now 9 = 2. Also great to see a new face represent the AL-East in the World Series. I thought this day may never come. Toronto has always been my hope for parity in that division, but Tampa surprised everybody this season. Now onto the World series.

Roach-Sox

Gone are the days when the Red Sox were anything but clutch. We were so used to seeing the Red Sox choke away all their talents and opportunities in the most crucial late season or post-season games year after year. The weight of 86 years of the curse always came crashing on the Sox and their fans at the worst times and they always lost when it mattered the most. The fans then wallowed in their sorrow and wore that curse proudly like it was some sort of a badge of honor. They blamed everybody else for their team's ineptitude and they got to a point where they didn't expect or even want to win. The pressure of the whole situation was too much for the players and the coaches much like it still is for the Cubs with their curse.

Then 2004 happened. As always, they fell to 0-3 against the hated Yankees, but a bunch of players who called themselves "idiots" somehow found a way to stay lose, play well and win the series 4-3. Then they went on to eliminate the curse and win the World Series for the first time in forever. Now you can even kill a roach, but you just cannot beat these guys in an elimination game. They are 9-0 in elimination games lately and thats just amazing. They won 4-2 today behind Josh Beckett to force a game 7. But I still can't believe they won game 5 at Boston after trailing 0-7 in the 7-Th inning. They better lose game 7 tomorrow. Otherwise I am not sure if I can handle the realities of this new World thats been going on for 5 years now. Plus I wanna see MLB and Fox deal with a Philly-TB World Series.

In the campus today, no major upsets except for the 9-Th ranked BYU losing to TCU. Texas beat Missouri easily and USC beat WSU 69-0. Texas now moves on to the next challenge and USC probably has no more challenges left. The best play of the entire day was a ref tackling the South Carolina QB in the LSU game. The QB was running straight into the ref and may be he wanted to protect himself or something, but he clearly lowered his shoulder and leveled the poor QB. May be the ref had some money in the game and was trying to pull a Donaghy on us. Who knows, but it was an awesome tackle.

Speaking of awesome, the Ozzie Guillen skit on Mad TV on Fox is a must-see. Pretty funny.

Dallas in trouble

The Cowboys lost a fascinating game yesterday to the Arizona Cardinals. I like it every-time the Cards win and every-time the Boys lose, but this one was especially sweet. Both Warner and Larry Fitzgerald were awesome and the Cards lost the toss in OT, but still won the game. In fact they won the game on a blocked punt. It was not even a blocked punt. They got the hands on the ball even before the ball hit the punters feet. It turns out the Cards also broke Tony Romo's pinky. Now Dallas is in a serious grip.

I don't know why Dallas seems to think they have to win every game, but seems like thats what they expect this season. Much like their idiot receiver TO who thinks every pass in every game should go his way. Now both TO and his fans have to re-calibrate their expectations with Romo out for 4 weeks or so. Romo is also getting some criticism for potentially losing too much time for a pinky injury. Lets see when he actually comes back. Brad Johnson will take over and I like him, but I am not sure how much he has left in the tank. I feel like I am also a star like Romo since I broke my thumb playing basketball and I have a grotesque cast on my hand much like Romo's. Now all I need is a Jessica Simpson to take care of me. And a few million dollars of course.

Dallas still has 4 wins and they should be fine. They are part of one of 2 divisions with 3 teams with 4 wins each. The other division surprisingly is the NFC south with Atlanta, Tampa Bay and Carolina. Matty Ice is a stud. I can't believe this guy is a rookie. I don't remember seeing too many rookie QB that are this poised and under control. He obviously has the physical talents, but it's amazing to see how good his "mental game" is in just his 6-Th game -check that, actually since game 1. Matt Cassel on the other hand sucks and seems to be going the other direction with every game.

Cassel and bunch of other QBs are DESTROYING my fantasy season. I am in multiple leagues and between Matt Cassel, Matt Hasselbeck, Jack Delhomme and Derek Anderson, I am dead. I have never been this off with all of my QB picks. Derek Anderson finally had a good game tonight as the Browns beat the Champs in MNF. Eli had a bad interception at a crucial time that finished the game off for the G-men. His brother Peyton finally seems to have got back in the groove as he and Marvelous Marvin shredded the vaunted Baltimore D. It looked like 2002 all over again. Manning-to-Marvin was cooking and the DOW was in the 8000's!

In the baseball playoffs, Tampa Bay evened it up against the reliable Jon Lester. Dodgers on the other hand let a great opportunity slip though their hands. Now they are down 3-1 and in trouble. I wish both series were tied 2-2.

Typical A.L.

Tampa Bay evened up the ALCS today in 11 innings. Every post-season you have several games like these which go on forever with a bagful of runs scored by either side. In other words, a typical AL game, only slower because of the playoff pace and more frequent pitching changes in the post-season. This game went on for 5 hrs and 27 mins and surprisingly, a sizable number of fans hung around. Both Josh Beckett ad Scott Kazmir were getting hit all over the park and were still allowed to hang around a little too long. The Bsoton bullpen was a lot more effective than the Rays (yes, I have to stop calling them DevilRays now that they are in the playoffs), but still the Rays pulled this one at the end 9-8. Great drama and this series just got a lot more interesting. Now it's up to the Dodgers to make a contest out of the NLCS.

In College today, Oklahama and Texas played a memorable game. Lot of scoring in this game and the Horns actually had to come back from behind in the 4-Th quarter to win this one 45-35. Great win for the Horns and it qualifies as an upset because it's 5 over 1. This set the tone for another day of upsets. Number 1, 3, 4 and 20 lost. The biggest shocker was Florida embarrassing LSU 51-21. Missouri lost to Oki State and Auburn to Arkansas as well. So Texas should be on top come Monday. The team thats moving up silently is Penn State. This could be a huge comeback year for Joe-Pa as they beat Wisconsin 48-7 today. Lets see where they end up in the polls.

Phillies come through

The Phillies won game 1 of the NLCS against the Dodgers 3-2. It was another one of those typical, well-pitched, NL playoff game. Cole Hamels was awesome. He is fast becoming a superstar ace. America should keep an eye on this kid. Derek Lowe was not too bad either. He was shutting fools down for 5 innings, but then the train came off the tracks a little bit. Chase Utley and Pat Burrell went back-to-back jack to put the Phillies up for good. Man-Ram had another solid game and went 2-4. He almost hit one out off Hamels. It was weird to see Greg Maddux pitch in relief. It might be time for the professor to retire.

This game followed a unique day in the Sports calendar. There was absolutely nothing going on yesterday (Wednesday) because of the day off during the MLB playoffs. NBA pre-season was the only major sport going on and of course pre-season doesn't count. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some college football game somewhere because it does look like they have made College football a 7-day a week sport, but nothing that mattered happened yesterday. I think they had a college game Tues and Thurs, but nothing Wed. This kind of a "dead day" is usually confined only to the day after the MLB all-star game in the summer, but it was noticeable yesterday.

Sports Radio of course needs something to yap about on such days and Adam Pacman Jones readily obliged. He fought with his own "body-guard" in the bathroom and broke some glass. I find it odd that Jerry Jones had employed people to accompany Pacman and keep him straight. Unfortunately Pacman apparently didn't like one of the guys and might have found trouble through the very same guys hired to keep him out of trouble. Excellent ! May be Jerry Jones should accompany and shadow Pacman himself. Might be worth his time. Now it's up to Roger Goodell to make another call on Pacman. Seems like Jerry Jones has bought people off and kept the cops off of Pacman, but I am not sure how he's gonna massage the Commish. For the Cowboys, at least Pacman is keeping TO off the news. I am sure TO will bounce back strong with his own act of stupidity.

Live Another Day

The Angels and the White Sox won today to live another day. The more impressive win was the Angels since they did it on the road in extra innings. It took them 12 innings, but at least they get to play another 9 tomorrow. They almost gave this away as they let 3 runs get in on a pop-fly single. A fly ball that fell in-between 3 guys and none of them went for the ball. Thats freaking 3 runs in a tight playoff game. Thats like gifting 3 TDs in a football game or 30 points in basketball. Poor Joe Saunders was slapped with 3 earned runs because of his idiot teammates. The Angels have to thank Mike Napoli for winning this game. He hit 2 majestic home-runs off Josh Beckett to save the day.

It should be an interesting game tomorrow as John Lackey and Jon Lester are on the mound again after their impressive game 1. In the NL, the Phillies dispatched the Brewers today. I am kinda sad to see the young, exciting Brewers with an energetic fan-base go away, but the Phillies were clearly the better team. I can't believe how good they pitched in this series (or was it the Brewers hitting?) and their hitting is top-notch with J-Rolls, Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Pat Burrell, who had 2 homers today. It should be a fun series against the Dodgers who are also on fire right now.

In the NFL, I was disappointed with Chad Johnson not scoring in Dallas. I wanted the whole "kissing the star" drama to go down today, but we were all not that lucky. TJ Housh had 2 TDs and for Dallas, TO scored and had a strange news conference after the game. In Houston, Sage Rosenfels had a horrible day. He was getting the job done and Houston had pretty much won the game when he fumbled the ball twice and let the Colts score 21 points in less than 3 minutes. He went for a dive instead of a slide for one fumble and held on the ball way too long for another. Colts still look shaky as they are repeatedly snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

The other elite team that looks shaky is the San Diego Chargers. LT looks completely shot and the Chargers are inconsistent at best. They lost today at Miami. Can somebody figure out how to stop the direct snap to Ronnie Brown? Thats seems like the most potent play in the entire game right now and I have no idea why. Arizona Cardinals are leading the NFC West after beating the Bills today. Adrian Wilson crushed Trent Edwards and gave him a scary concussion early in this game. It reminded me of another Cardinal secondary, Aeneas Williams, blitzing and ending Steve Young's career few years back. That injury to Trent killed one of my fantasy teams today. Matt Hasselbeck and the dogs called the Seattle Seahawks are destroying my other team. The Seahawks absolutely suck. They were crushed by the Giants 44-6 today. The Giants and the Titans are the only un-defeated teams in the league. Who would have Thunk.

Here's a news flash. Big Ben is a stud. He steered the Pittsburgh Steelers to another big win today. He is getting killed back there, but he always seems to pop back up and calmly score touchdowns when they need them the most. He is fast becoming the most reliable QB in the 4-Th quarter when the game is on the line. The Steelers are one of the top favorites in the AFC since the injury to Tom Brady. The Pats did win today though at San Francisco though they didn't look dominating or anything. Too many mistakes by JTO for SF and Casssel seems to be learning how to find Randy Moss consistently for the Pats. Eagles lost again, this time to the Redskins who just seem to win games for some reason. I don't know what's the deal with the Eagles. Their offense is just too good for them to be just 2-3 at this point. Hope they figure it out.

Busy Saturday

October is a busy month in Sports. Football starts in September and we all focus all our energies on it for a month and forget about baseball. But then when October starts, football is already in full flow, but you got to keep an eye on the baseball playoffs as well because playoffs are always fun. Today was the first weekend of the baseball playoffs and I felt like there were way too many things to watch on TV. Fortunately or unfortunately, some of the football games ended up being blowouts and I watched a lot of playoff baseball.

I was very curious to see Manny in the playoffs at home. He got a hit, but it was not a home-run. But he scored a run with a spirited sprint home from first base. Dodgers swept the series anyways and put the dying Cubs to rest. Second straight sweep for the lovable losers and at least last year, they lost the first two games at Arizona. This year, they won 97 games and had home field throughout the NL playoffs. Still they couldn't even win a game. As for the Dodgers, they look real good. It's amazing how they are doing this behind Manny and a bunch of guys without much help from the "name" guys like Jeff Kent, Nomar Garciaparra, Brad Penny, Jason Schmidt and Anduw Jones. Guys who take a lot of the "green" from the Dodger blue and almost got GM Ned Coletti fired at one point.

Now the Dodgers wait for the winner of the other series thats now a contest. The Brew-crew won their game at home and tomorrow, they can actually tie it up. They didn't hit all that well in game 3 either, but they did enough to support Dave Bush who bottled up the Phillies. Tomorrow should be an interesting day with both the AL series resuming as well. BoSox have a chance to do exactly what the Dodgers did today and sweep the team with the best record in their league. How awesome would it be if Manny and the Dodgers play the RedSox in the World Series. I want that to happen badly, though I am always pulling for the Sox to lose. I will make an exception this year if somebody assures me they'll get to play the Dodgers in the World Series.

Another busy day ahead tomorrow as NFL comes to a living room near you along with the 3 playoff games. Many good NFL games as always, but the one I am looking forward to is Cincinnati @ Dallas. Not so much for the football, but because Ocho Cinco has said he would kiss the star if he scores a TD. I sure hope he scores, because I would love to see that even more than Manny at Fenway. The only thing more ironic than Ocho doing this in Dallas after what TO did there many years ago is the fact that the Dallas fans are now cheering for the same TO and he is one of the biggest stars in town. So now what? Why are the Dallas fans even upset? Speaking of TO, that boy is stupid. He got the ball 20 times last week and still complained about not getting the ball enough. Jerry Jones better fix this thing soon like he fixed his face a few years ago.

College today was kinda quiet. ASU lost as usual and there were no shocking upsets. The best game was the Miami-FSU game, but too bad nobody cares about these 2 programs anymore. The surprise of the day was Vandy beating Auburn and leading the SEC East ahead of Florida and Georgia. Lets see how long they last up there. Alabama almost lost to Kentucky, but survived. The bad news of the week was the Suckeyes beating the Wisconsin Badgers 20-17. That was a minor upset much like South Florida losing to Pittsburgh and Fresno State losing to Hawaii. Number 4 Missouri dismantled Nebraska 52-17 and coach Bo Pelini apologized to the fans. I guess Bill Callahan was not the only problem at Nebraska. In other Big 12 action, both Oklahoma and Texas cruised to big wins today. The red river shootout next Saturday between these 2 teams will be the news all of next week.

Of course the bigger news will be the economy if another 26 financial institutions collapse.

Sabathia loses

MLB playoffs is in full swing and in 2 days we have seen a little bit of everything and a lot of bad defense by the Cubs! The Cubs kicked the ball all over the yard and did not give the Z-man any help. Zambrano is a shaky "concept" at best and he did not have a great day, but then with the kind of work the Cubs did on the field, he had no chance. The Cubs have not won a single game since the Bartman game. Poor guy, he is still shouldering the blame for all of the Cubs ineptitude. Dodgers are sitting pretty at 2-0 and going back home. Man-Ram is crushing a home run a day and life is good in Torre-land.

Philly is also up 2-0, but they have to now go on the road to Milwaukee. The Brewers are really struggling and their savior CC finally came down to earth. It was bad timing for the Brewers as they need him to win a game or 2 in this series to advance. Sabathia didn't get past the 4-Th inning and wife-beater Brett Myers won the game for Philly after Cole Hamels did the same yesterday, only Hamels did it with a even more impressive showing. Brewers need a shot of energy from the home crowd to turn this around, but I hope the team doesn't show up expecting the crowd to do all the work. Brewers have a lot of work ahead of them and they need a spirited performance to stay in this thing.

Both AL series are at 1-0 with Boston winning behind a superb performance by Jon Lester. This is what I love about the playoffs. - you get to see the best pitching out there every day. Jon continued his great regular season with an even better game 1. Game 2 tomorrow should be interesting. In Tampa, Evan Longoria showed us once again he is an absolute stud. The 3-Rd baseman went 3-3 and hit 2 HRs to stop the 2-game "almost-playoff" winning streak of the WhiteSox.

Awesome Climax

The MLB season ended in style today as the WhiteSox and the Twins played a gem of a game that ended with the Sox making the playoffs with a 1-0 win. Typical playoff baseball with playoff tension and it set us all in the mood for the real playoffs starting tomorrow. Jim Thome hit a home run for the only run in the game, though he did look and sound like a 50 year old coach during the post-game interview. Two dudes called Blackburn and Danks pitched a hell of a game. Too bad, one guy had to lose. The Twins were in the playoffs for 2 days, but then they were "unplayoffed" today. Great season anyways for them given all the stars they lost.

Now on to the playoffs. We get to hear the goofy psycho Ozzie Guillen for a few more days. Brewers and Philly kick it off tomorrow. CC can't pitch because he pitched Sunday, but it should still be a good game. Dodgers and Cubs will also be at it tomorrow and the night-cap will feature the RedSox and Angels. Jon Lester - V - John Lackey should be a good one. The Dodgers look like the RedSox-West as Derek Lowe is starting and of course Manny will be the center-piece. Derek Lowe can actually win this game. Well if he is not busy cheating on his wife with some news reporter!

The biggest and weirdest news of the day involved Al Davis and the Oakland Raiders. Al came out today and finally fired Lane Kiffin, He refused to pay the remainder of his salary and made it look like he was firing a scum-bag liar. These 2 are definitely not parting as friends and I have no idea who is lying. Al is saying he spoke with Lane all the time, but Lane keeps claiming he never spoke to Al. He also read some letter that he sent to Lane. High drama in the Bay Area, but who cares since the Raiders have become the laughing stock of the NFL for a few years now. This episode seems like Mike Shanahan all over again - Al firing a young, offensive minded, first time head coach and refusing to pay him. Lane Kiffin sure hopes he ends up just like Shanahan with the rest of his career. But I really doubt if Lane Kiffin will even get a head coaching job anytime soon. As hard as he tried, Al failed to be the first owner to fire a coach this season. The Rams kicked out Scott Linehan even earlier and Jim Haslett takes over in Saint Louis.

Fun has started

It feels like the college season just started yesterday, but it's already 5 weeks old. This season has been kind of quiet on the upset front until now and then this weekend happened. I felt like I was a year younger and it was 2007 all over again. One top 10 team after another biting the dust and some of them looking totally outclassed against so-called lesser opponents. The biggest shocker was what happened in Corvallis on Thursday. Just when Pete Carroll was starting to prepare for his near-guaranteed Championship game in January, the Oregon State Beavers took them to school. They shut them out 21-0 in the first half and won the game 27-21. Freshman Jacquizz Rodgers ran all over the Trojans and made them look silly. He pretty much sealed the USC's season at least for now.

This was followed by an eventful Saturday topped by the stupid blackout in Athens, Georgia. The Georgia Bulldogs went for the black unis and made sure all 90000 fans were clad in black. This was supposed to scare Alabama or something, but the Tide turned the so-called blackout into lights-out for Georgia. They dropped a 31-0 beat-down on the 3Rd seed Georgia in the first half and won the game 41-30. I am sure Nick Saban is still denying that he is coaching at Alabama and might even be pretending like he is still coaching the Dolphins, but he sure is doing a good job at Alabama. He has them ranked all the way up at the 2 spot. I am sure the Bama faithful is thrilled at their coach. SEC is not the conference for safe predictions, but I think their game at LSU on Nov-18 might be the de-facto national Championship. Lets see how it plays out.

Number 4 Florida and number 9 Wisconsin lost to Mississippi and Michigan respectively. Florida probably thought they were now the favorites after the USC loss. So close yet so far. But in this day and age of parity in college football, one loss teams can still go all the way. Last year, it felt like a circular ranking scheme where the top teams lost, dropped down and then again the new top teams lost and the team that dropped down earlier percolated up again to the top. This season could very well be similar. So teams like Florida, Georgia, USC and may be even the Suckeyes could work their way up again if upsets galore. But as of now, Oklahama, Alabama, LSU, Missouri and Texas make up the top 5. Thats some strong showing for Big-12 and how about that Texas-OU game? Can't wait for it. Bring it on!

Great Rental

The real-estate market has been down for a while. House prices have been collapsing and renting sounds more and more like a good idea these days. One rental that was a brilliant idea was the Brewers buying C.C. Sabathia at the trade deadline. The Brewers probably won't retain CC or Ben Sheets next season, but they achieved what they wanted to with that trade - make the playoffs after 26 years. Amazing that they made the playoffs even after firing their coach Ned Yost recently. You see these trade deadline rentals all the time, almost every year. Teams in contention go get somebody for the short-term from the "clearance sale" section of other teams. Oakland A's Billy Beane used to be the expert at this.

It's never obvious how good or bad these rentals work out. Even if the guy puts up good numbers, you can never conclusively say this is why the team made the playoffs and they would have missed it without him. Even with a super successful rental like Manny in LA this year, you can't really put a number on his impact. But there is no way the Brewers make the playoffs without CC - no way in hell ! Forget all the intangibles and the emotional lift he gave the team with his domination every 5-Th day, the raw numbers are just too good. He is 11-2 with a 1.7 ERA and 7 complete games in half a season. Brewers won 14 of his 17 starts - thats .823 baseball. Tell me who else could have done it for them? Even if the guy who CC replaced had been good and pitched .600 or .700 baseball (highly unlikely), the Brewers would have still missed the playoffs considering they beat the NY Mets by just 1 game for the Wild Card. I am not even talking about the fact that CC took the ball today in a must-win game on 3 days rest and pitched a complete game for a playoff-clinching win. CC has been an absolute stud this year and the best rental ever!

I am happy for the Brewers. This took them 26 years and thats way too long for a good fan base. As for the team they eliminated, the Mets shockingly choked away their division lead for the second consecutive season. The NY tabloids are killing them and they dont even care Brett Favre threw 6 TDs for the Jets today. The Mets went 4-6 in the last ten to lose the division to the Phillies. Now Phillies meet the Brewers. Should be a good series except for Network TV. Thats 2 small markets fighting it out. At least the other 2 NLDS features huge markets - LA Dodgers V Chicago Cubs. That should be fun with Manny and his .396 average being the major attraction. In the AL, the White-Sox have a make-up game tomorrow against the Detroit Tigers which will tell us if they need a one game playoff against the Twins for the right to play the DevilRays in the real playoffs. A little convoluted, but should be good drama.

Boys are for Real

Week 3 in the NFL established a few things. The Cowboys are clearly the team to beat. Romo is good, but then again he is always good in the Summer and Fall. When Winter starts and the playoffs roll around, thats when he disappears to Mexico as his game disappears into thin air. But all kidding aside, he is one of the top QBs in the league and he and his offense put on a show last weekend against the Eagles. Their defense looked shaky against McNabb and the gang and we didn't know if that game featured 2 great offenses or 2 bad defenses or both.

It turns both Philly and the Cowboys are not that bad defensively. The Cowboys slowed down A-Rod and the Packers at Lambeau. The Packers offense has been on fire until this game and this game was a little bit of a "come back to earth" situation for A-Rod. By the way, it's funny how the Jets and Favre came down to Earth too this weekend as the Chargers took care of the Jets pretty easily. Anyways, the Cowboys defense did what it had to and stifled the Pack. NFC is the Cowboys' conference to lose right now. NFC East looks unstoppable. The Giants are also on a roll and even the Skins are not bad. What the Eagles D did to Pittsturgh was even more impressive than the Dallas D. They abused Ben Roethlisberger and made Pittsburgh look ordinary. Big Ben spent half the game lying on his back.

The other shocker of the weekend was Miami and Ronnie Brown running all over the Patriots. The Matt Cassel experiment is not going well for the Pats. They miss Tom Brady and they lost 38-13 to a horrible Miami team. Cassel has done nothing for them yet and we are a week or 2 away from Randy Moss going "operation shutdown" on the entire New England area. It might very well be an end of an era in the NFL as the Patriots defense has not looked this ordinary in years. Also the Colts are 1-2 and are looking mediocre right now. They can't stop the run just like a few years back and with Peyton returning from a surgery, the offense looks just a little off. It's amazing how the Colts D tanks every time Bob Sanders doesn't play. These 2 teams defined this era in the NFL and they both may not go far this season. However, I am not ready to bury Manning and the Colts yet. He'll at least get the offense fixed soon.

The new kids on the block are the Tennessee Titans and the Buffalo Bills. Not sure how legit they both are, but they are both 3-0. The Bills almost lost to the Raiders at home, but the Raiders couldn't close the deal. Trent Edwards woke up in time to win this game. I was really impressed with this young QB. The Titans are going to be fine as long as Kerry Collins starts. No guarantees if and when Vince Young comes back. The stories of his emotional problems and mental instability are really bizarre. It goes to show how everybody has their daemons and the rich and the famous are not as happy as we think they are or they should be. Life is challenging regardless of what place you are at. Hope he gets his head fixed and gets back on the field, but the truth is, he is not a good QB yet.

The other bizarre story is this thing going on with Lane Kiffin and Al Davis. Al wants to get rid of him, but is still waiting for him to resign so that he doesn't have to pay him the reminder of his contract. But Lane is saying he will never quit. There is a report everyday about how Kiffin will be fired tomorrow, but tomorrow never comes. This is another one of those "only in Raiderland" type stories. Al Davis looks real old these days, but he looks determined to kill the Raider organization before he passes away himself. In other games, Minnesota won it's first game as Frerotte started and played half-way decent. In Denver, Cutler and the Broncos continued their winning ways though the Saints and Drew Brees almost out-scored them in an offensive contest of epic proportions. Tampa Bay won a game behind Brian Griese's 67 passes and 407 yards.

Mike Martz and the Niners took care of Detroit rather easily as JTO is fast becoming the new rage in SFO. Sweet revenge for both JTO and Martz. One of the younger Fords promptly came out and said he would fire Matt Millen if he had the authority - a direct shot at his dad (and Millen of course). But he is about 6 years too late. The only thing more shocking than W being allowed to run this country for 8 years is Matt Millen running the Lions for about the same period. Definitely makes you wonder if there is some truth to Charles Barkeley's theory for such situations - "this guy should have a picture of his boss's wife having sex with a monkey!".

10 is better than 9

Yankees are 9 games behind the Tampa Bay Devilrays. This sentence is such music to my ears I wouldn't mind saying or typing it a few more times. And yes I'll stop calling them the Devilrays only when they make the playoffs, which interestingly enough, is going to happen this year in all probability. The only thing better than the Yanks trailing the AL East leader by 9 might be them trailing by 10. That could happen as early as tomorrow. It's an interesting end to their existence in the Yankee stadium. The last game in the legendary stadium is this Sunday and the Yankees are going to leave their old digs without a playoff game.

The other good thing about the Yankees struggles is that it'll shut ESPN up a little bit. If the Yanks were also good this year, ESPN might run a tribute to the stadium 24X7. Now it'll still be on, but just a little subdued. Personally, I would have liked to watch a game at the old stadium. I guess I missed it. Actually, I was kinda surprised the Yankees even decided to move out. This will never happen to Fenway or Wrigley. But then again the Yankee stadium is quite historic and legendary, but as a stadium, it's not quite the icon that Wrigley or Fenway is. I have not been to any of those stadiums, but I have hung out for a while outside Wrigley and I fell in love immediately.

The lovable losers of Wrigley won another big game today. They came from behind in the 9-Th, tied and then beat the Brewers for another bad loss for the Brew-crew. "Yost is toast" as Yahoo sports put it, but they still have issues. By the way, I love that heading for some reason, though it was very predictable and quite unimaginative. If the Brewers miss the playoffs again, its going to be very disappointing for the Wisconsinites. Luckily for them Aaron Rodgers in his first 2 starts has looked like Dan Marino and Joe Montana rolled into one. The Brewers still have a shot and I hope they cash it in. If not, they could be in trouble soon as CC and Ben Sheets are looking to break the bank in free agency this winter. Of course most of our banks might be bankrupt by then or we the tax payers might be owning them. but thats neither here nor there.

Anyways, back to sports, my DBacks are hovering around .500 threatening no one. They did win against Tim Lincecum today as the Giants wasted another great start from this dude. I have not seen him pitch a bad game all season. He is a true ace. The Giants are doing to him what the Minnesota Vikings are doing with Adrian Peterson. Which brings me to the NFL. I hate saying "I told you so", but I did tell you so. The Vikings have finally benched Jackson and are starting Frerotte just like I asked them to a few days back. It's a no-brainer after Jackson's performance the first 2 weeks. It should be interesting to see this team now if Adrian in healthy. He is missing some practice time this week. Hopefully it's nothing major. The Chiefs are starting somebody called Thigpen at QB. May be they should just request USC's Mark Sanchez to play for them on Sunday after his college games on Saturdays.

McNabb blows it

Another week of football is in the books. College Saturday was a disaster as ASU lost to UNLV long before the so-called "big game" next week against Georgia. They may have been looking ahead, or they may just be bad. It's probably the later more than the former. It was a pretty bad week for the Pac-10 as Cal lost at Maryland and UCLA got blanked 59-0 by BYU. The only good news of the week was the Trojans crushing the overrated Ohio State Suckeyes 35-3. That'll shut them up for a week or 2. The surprising result of the week was Notre Dame beating Michigan 35-17. I mean they are both bad, but I am surprised every time the Domers win these days. Auburn beat Mississippi State 3-2. What? Is this football or baseball from the 1960's?

In the NFL, another interesting week. For the second straight week, Minnesota showed us how to waste the prime of a great running back. They lost 18-15 to the Colts since they couldn't score TDs. Adrian Peterson ran for 160 yards and all the Vikings could do with it was score field goals. Of course if you stay close to Peyton, he is going to pass you by sooner or later and thats exactly what he did. The Vikings D was so good, but you can't keep Peyton down for that long. You got to score TDs and put some distance and pressure on him. I think it's time for Gus Frerotte to step in. It's not acceptable that the Vikings are 0-2, the same record as Kansas City with 10 times the talent except for one QB.

How bad is Kansas City if they are losing 23-8 to the Oakland Raiders? McFadden rushed up and down the field for 164 yards and Justin Fargas and Michael Bush combined for 133 more. For the Chiefs, Larry Johnson looked listless. If he loses his job today, he might not even get a job as Michael Bush's backup. I would set 8 as the over-under for the number of games before Herm Edwards gets fired. His team is pathetic. Another coach in trouble could be Marvin Lewis as the Cincinnati Bengals continued their slide from last season with a 24-7 loss to Tennessee. How can the Bengals score just 7 points with Ocho Cinco, TJ Housh and Carson Palmer?

As for the good teams. Aaron Rodgers is a stud! He had a dream first half in his game against Detroit. He threw for 328 yards and 3 TDs in the game. The Giants won again, but then again it was against the Rams, another rotten team. New England won against Favre and the Jets as they scored just 19 points and won with an all-around game. Thats the new Patriots for you. Matt Cassel is not going to throw for 50 TDs this season and Moss may not run wild, but he'll win enough games as their starting QB. By the way, Sammy Morris had stats of 0 yds rushing and 1 rushing TD. Makes me very happy as the fantasy owner of Lawrence Maroney! Kurt Warner had 361 yards and 3 TDs as both Fitzgerald and Boldin went nuts for the Cards.

The games of the week were clearly the San Diego-Denver contest and the Monday nighter between Philly and Dallas. Philly blew a great chance on the road as they did everything right on offense for a while, but self-destructed late in the game. Donovan McNabb is great, but I got to say, he is still missing something. He doesn't seem to come through at the end. He muffed 2 hand-offs to Westbrook late in the game and the second one came at a very bad time. He seemed to have confused himself and faked a handoff to Westbrook only to actually try and handoff to him after a double-clutch. Of course they didn't connect and the fumble was lost. McNabb looked as good as Romo and the boys, but he just could not finish.

Romo is clearly one of the best QBs in the league. It's amazing how suddenly many of these young QBs are turning out to be very good. Aaron Rodgers, Jay Cutler and Philip Rivers being the other good ones. The surprise to me is Philip Rivers. He was shaky even late last season and he seems to have grown leaps and bounds since the playoffs last year under Norv Turner. Both him and Cutler were near perfect in that Denver-San Diego game. Shanahan pulled a big one when he went for 2 at the end. You almost never see this in football. May be in College once a year, but never in the NFL. Thats shows you his confidence in Cutler and the offense.

But the story of the game were the 2 bad calls that went against the Chargers. The non-call on the fumble at the end before the Denver TD, which even Cutler accepts was a fumble, was a horrible call. It was so obvious that I walked away from the TV when that happened and completely missed the ending because I thought the Chargers have sealed the win with that fumble. I was shocked later when I learnt that Denver won that game. Denver also got the ball on a supposed San Diego fumble in the first quarter which was not a fumble. Turner challenged it in time, but they couldn't overturn it because the replay machine did not work. What the hell is going on with the NFL? I don't know why bad luck always seems to chase Norv Turner. But at least he has a good team and a good QB. They should be fine eventually though LT looks a little hurt.

A-Rod looks good

NFL's week-1 came to an end with the Monday night double-header. Aaron Rodgers looked terrific. Not a surprise to me at all since I have had great hopes for this guy since college. He was accurate and poised. Played mistake free and his work with his legs were an added bonus. It must have felt real good for him when he did the Lambeau leap after a rushing TD. But I was more impressed with his throw low and tight for the passing TD. He went through his reads and threw it to his 3-Rd or 4-Th option at a spot where only the receiver could lay his hands on the ball. Good start, but this is just one game.

On the other side, I can't believe the Vikings went into this season with all the talent in the World, but Tarvaris Jackson at QB. That guy sucks and AD can carry the Vikings to great places if only they get even decent play at QB. These days, teams are just too obsessed with youth and potential and they don't realize that talent, even if old, can take some teams places. This is a side-effect of sky rocketing salaries and the desire of teams to find the next big thing often ignoring the current "good thing" that can help you win now.

Coming back to A-Rod, I always thought he was the better QB in that 2005 draft. The Niners made Alex Smith the number 1 pick and that flawed marriage seems to be finally over. He lost his starting job this season and now he is out for the season with his shoulder problem. What's remaining now is for the Niners to cut him next summer to save some cap and for Alex to end up in the bench somewhere else. He deserves one more shot but it's unlikely he'll get it in San Francisco. In fact, a change of scenery is always good and he is better off somewhere else. Good luck to him. He has some physical tools and lets see what he does with it.

Speaking of injured QBs, Tom Brady is out with both a torn ACL and MCL. Can he come back and do what he is used to doing? I would guess so because he is not much of a runner. He can always hang in there in the pocket and make throws like Dan Marino or something. But it's still going to be tough because the last big-name QB to have this same injury was Daunte Culpepper and we all know what happened to him. He has disappeared into thin air and he is actually retired as of last week. Lets just hope his career continues at a high-level.

On Monday night, we also had the misfortune of watching the Oakland Raiders. They looked horrible. JaMarcus Russell looked real bad too. He can throw long, but has no touch or accuracy and his decision making is suspect. But he is very young and raw and I don't want to beat him up too much yet. But the product that the Raiders put on the field is horrible. Russell actually ended with decent stats, but they couldn't score on offense or stop Denver from scoring on defense. I am not sure how good Jay Cutler and the Broncos are going to be this season, but the Raiders sure made them look like the best team in the league.

Fun, fun week 1

NFL was in full flow today and I am sure a lot of Sports fans gladly welcomed it into their living rooms just like I did today. Many games, many stories, but these are the things that stuck with me.

Obviously the injury to Tom Brady is the biggest news. Reports are saying he is out for the season. Thats a shocker for the New England fans and is also a loss of a bankable superstar for the NFL. Thats too bad. I wonder if Matt Cassel can take over and do very well and dent Tom Brady's legend a little bit. I doubt it though since Matt is very inexperienced and Tom Brady is pretty good. Gone or the days when I used to think Brady was over-rated. He has definitely worked his way up the QB rankings pretty well.

Vince Young left his game with an injury as well, though he is expected to return soon. Tennessee also surprisingly beat Jacksonville.

Chad Pennington started for Miami and was is 1/6 for -1 yards at one point. It looked ugly, but he turned it around later. Ricky Williams also started and I am glad about that. NFL can use more vegan yogis.

Jim Nance was totally confused when Pennington completed a pass to David Martin. For some reason, he thought that was Favre to Bubba Franks and talked about how these 2 guys have done this many times before. Or not! To be fair to Nance, it was a confusing game with both QBs at new places. Even I was sub-consciously thinking Chad Pennington every time I saw Brett Favre take the snap in a Jets uniform because I am so used to seeing Chad at that spot.

Speaking of Favre, he did well. He connected on a bomb to Jerricho Cotchery and then threw the ball up for grabs on a 4-Th and 13 play that conveniently ended up in a Jets receiver's hands. Typical Brett Favre. Fun to watch. I was surprised to see very little from Laveranues Coles though.

Atlanta had a fantastic season opener. Matty Ice's first pass in the NFL was a TD bomb. That should have felt great for the Rookie. Michael Turner ran all over the Lions D and I guess Matty didn't have to do much after that pass, Both these new-comers looked very good for ATL.

McNabb was awesome. He looked healthy and unstoppable. Their Wide Receivers were catching balls all over the field and that has not happened a whole lot in Philly during the McNabb era except for TO. Speedy rookie from Cal, DeSean Jackson had a great game both receiving and returning.

The other half of the Philly game was the horrible St. Louis Rams. I was really sad to see the STL Rams offense. The "greatest show on Turf" days are long gone and they look very ordinary these days. I miss those days with the ball flying all over the place with Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt reeling in 40 yard passes from Kurt Warner or Marc Bulger. Torry Holt caught just one pass in this game and their supposed number 2 receiver, Drew Bennett caught one pass and was hurt right after that catch. It's going to be another long season in STL.

Speaking of the old Rams, Mike Martz has come west to the Niners and has brought a QB with him. J.T. O'Sullivan was not bad. He seems to be very poised and did make some throws that Alex Smith can't or won't. Frank Gore had a great game too. But the Cards just would not give them the ball. The Niners defense had no answer to the Cards run or pass game in the second half and the Cards killed the clock effectively. Seems like Ken Whisenhunt at least for a day was able to bring the Pittsburgh Steelers football to the Cards. The Niners turned the ball over 5 times. Typical Martz offense.

Chicago went in and shocked the Colts as did Carolina at San Diego. The Colts opened a new stadium, but had to go home disappointed. I think they'll be fine, but they didn't look all that sharp today. Big win for the Bears and they may have something special in that rookie Matt Forte.

Here comes the NFL

NFL kicked off the season with the now usual Thursday night kick-off. Two problems this time though. One, the game was earlier than usual because of the stupid Republican National Convention. So it missed prime-time in most parts of the country. Secondly, I would have also scheduled a better game than the Giants-Redskins match-up. The Giants, I have to say, are one of the weakest returning Super Bowl Champs. They were lucky and they peaked at the right time last year to knock off the Patriots. I am glad they did, but still they were not a great team then and they are worse now. Plus, the Redskins have been average to garbage for a while now. I know they have a great football tradition and all that, but I would have definitely kept them out of a national TV season opener.

With all that said, this game signaled the start of the 08 NFL season and we are all better off because of it. The Giants won after an rather impressive start. Eli led them to a TD on their very first drive and it looked impressive. But things slowed down after that and it was pretty much a defensive struggle. In fact, there was no scoring whatsoever in the entire second half. It was a decent game, but nothing exciting. I am expecting better games this Sunday. I am looking forward to many games including Carolina @ San Diego, Dallas @ Cleveland, Minnesota @ Green Bay and Denver @ Oakland. Lets see what happens. The second week of College Football seems to have a relatively flat schedule - kind of an appetizer for NFL this Sunday and the college schedule next weekend. Though Vandy already upset the Ole' ball coach and South Carolina to kick-off week 2. There is Florida-Miami though it is not what it used to be.

Good to have football back

This is a great weekend since we got to welcome football back. Football is the best and the only good thing about the end of summer. It's a sad day when we realize the summer days for the year just flew by, but then we have football to console us. First college and next week the big daddy - the NFL, is coming to our living rooms. How can you complain? We get to play our fantasy football too, which is almost a parallel sporting universe these days.

My fantasy drafts are always pretty late. So I personally flip the switch from no-football to all-football within a couple of days and that elevates my excitement level higher and sooner than a gradual escalation would. Yesterday I got to see some football on TV and today I started my fantasy draft preparation and I am excited as you can tell. After the season we had in college last year, I can't wait to see what'll happen this year. I can't possibly imagine it being better than last year, but I'll take a season half as exciting actually.

Plus Arizona State is ranked 15-Th and they get to play No-1 Georgia at home early. I am both terrified and excited by that game. As for week 1, ASU won easily and so did most of the top teams as you would expect. I thought it was hilarious that Michigan lost their season opener again and this time to Utah after last year's Appalachian State disaster. Different coach but the same result at the Big House. Virginia Tech got upset by East Carolina in another shocker. ACC these days is not what it used to be. I wonder if they want to kick Va Tech and Miami back to the Big East :-)

The other major upset of week 1 was in the biggest game of week 1 - num 9 Clemson V num 24 Alabama. Once again, Clemson disappointed it's fan-base and convinced them that the Tigers and their coach Tommy Bowden are some of the biggest under-achievers in the sport. Bowden may not survive this season. Expectations were real high at Clemson. They may still win the ACC, but losing to Alabama like they did can't help their national title dreams. I guess thats why it's called a "dream". It would be weird if both papa Bowden and Tommy Bowden are pushed out after this season. Could easily happen because Florida State is real bad these days and they need to rebuild.

USC looked impressive on the road at Virginia and the other USC - University of South Carolina under the ole' ball coach didn't look that impressive. Looks like Steve Spurrier is not going to do all that well with SC in the SEC this year as well. But the bottom line is , the scores don't matter, the results of week 1 are just a side-bar. The real story is that football is back in our lives.

Olympic Fever

It's the dog days of summer and the MLB season is meandering along. No disrespect to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays or the Rays or the Buccaneers or whatever else they are called these days, but when they are on top of the AL East, something is upside down in the baseball World and fans need some time adjusting to the new realities. I am not complaining since my long-term dream might finally come true - no Yankees and no RedSox in the playoffs. The Yanks are done, but the Sox might still make it. I am going to keep an eye on for that.

But this is the best time for the Olympics. I mean I have not seen a single complete baseball game since the Olympics started and the games have been very good theater. It's always the same story with the Olympics. Most American mainstream sports fans think "who watches the Olympics" before it starts. But then when the games begin, it's hard to not follow it. Especially these games with all the Michael Phelps hype. While the Phelps-hype did get to be a bit too much at times, his finger-nail finish was amazing. NBC ran the Olympics coverage like Phelps was the only guy in the entire games for a couple of days, but I guess he deserved it. Now that swimming is all done, it should be interesting to see how the Olympics do on TV now.

The only guy who is a bigger freak than Phelps is probably Usain Bolt, the World's fastest dude. I couldn't believe that this guy just gave up after 80 meters and still crushed the competition and set a new World Record. This 21 year-old is going to dominate this sport for a while. I wonder what's the best time he could have clocked if he had broken a sweat in this race. Bolt is a great name for a sprinter too! The other person of interest for me is Nastia Liukin. This cute-looking gymnast is too good on the floor and also carries herself with a lot of class. I was very impressed with the way she carried herself after the tie-breaker with the Chinese chick. Speaking of Chinese, they are crushing the Americans in the Gold medals tally. This has truly been a coming-out party for China in every which way and it's pretty impressive how they have completely turned around their sporting fortunes in the last 10 or 20 years. The other country thats making headlines is Jamaica with their World-class sprinters. The Jamaican girls went 1-2-3 in the Women's 100. Impressive. Lets see how the games end for China. It has definitely started real well for them.

Saga is over

Brett Favre is finally wearing a football uniform and getting ready for the season. The Packers got rid of him and shipped him to NY of all places for an incentive based draft pick thats at a 4-Th round level right now. Based on how well Favre and the Jets do, it goes up and it'll be a first round pick if the Jets make it to the Super Bowl. Of course thats not going to happen. Not a bad deal for both sides all things considered.

ESPN and the media tired us all out for weeks with this saga. Favre was coming back and then it was the Packers not wanting him, then Favre wanted a release, the Packers refused, he wanted to go to a division foe, the Packers were talking to the Bucs and the Jets for a trade, then the Packers wanted to pay him to stay retired, finally he was re-instated, he was going to compete for a starting job for the Packers and finally he got traded the very next day to the Jets. All this gave the sports-shows something to talk about for several weeks.

It was a weird saga throughout. Never has a superstar, who has been this good the previous season, been so unwanted by his own team. We see it once in a while as stars age and the team wants to move on. Bulls for whatever reason didn't mind MJ retiring when he did retire the second time. Dan Marino was kinda pushed out the door too and ironically, he was wooed by the Vikings as well. But better sense prevailed and he retired and stayed retired. But the Packers just did not want Favre back. I guess they like Aaron Rodgers so much and they were sick of Favre's retirement drama for so long, that they literally have had enough.

It seems like the self-absorbed Favre just could not believe the Packers didn't want him and that they had plans to move forward with A-Rod. So he came up with weird requests like "trade me to the Vikings" or "release me so that I can go play for the Bears". The rift between him and Ted Thompson was just too deep for a reconciliation. The best part of the story was clearly the "bribe" the Packers went to Mississippi with. It was called a "marketing deal" for 25 mill over 10 years or whatever under the condition he stays retired. Wow! How badly did they want this guy out of their system?

To be fair to the Packers, there were some significant salary cap and financial implications of him coming back that I think was not adequately understood by the common fan on the street. They had truly moved forward with all that money and there was no going back in their mind. The other issue that didn't get covered here was the Commish getting too involved with this and even delaying the re-instatement so that the Packers and Favre could figure something out. What the hell is his job? I mean the excuse always is "I am doing what's best for the game", but that doesn't mean the Commish can go and shine Brett Favre's shoes. He has no business getting this involved in this mess like he was an agent for Favre or something.

As for the football angle of all this, I think this is a great trade for the Jets, but not necessarily for Favre. Jets had to do it. They had nothing to lose and everything to gain. But Favre doesn't get much out of this. He will have a good game here and there, but it's going to be a mediocre season for him and the Jets. They are not that good with or without Favre, though they are better with Favre. Bucs would have been a better fit all-around, but I guess the Packers wanted to keep him out of the NFC. It would be funny if the Jets turned around and traded him to the Viking. I am sure the Packers put in some verbiage to prevent such things. The bottom-line is, this is going to be a lot of hype and not much else for the Jets and Favre. But it would be fun to see him play again and in another setting. Lot of pressure on the Packers, Ted Thompson and A-Rod, but I think A-Rod will do just fine if he stays healthy.

Manny comes West

Man-Ram hit his first homer in Dodger blue today against my DBacks. Thats exactly why he is there for - to help the Dodgers beat the DBacks and take the division. Aint' nobody winning the Wild-Card from NL West. So it's the division or bust for both these teams. Manny is a huge addition and the Dodgers got him for cheap too. They apparently will just pay the million dollar trade bonus and the Sox will pay the 7 mill salary for the rest of the year. They also waived the team option for the next 2 years and that makes Manny a free agent after this season. Of course he is gonna want a long-term contract, though he wont get the 20 mill per that he was getting in the older contract. Not sure if the Dodgers will give him the long-term security that he wants at age 36. As for Boston, they are literally paying him to go away. This thing got ugly real fast between the two sides after 8 years of good living.

After 80 years of futility, the Manny era has brought Boston 2 championships in 8 years and still the marriage ended very badly. As usual Curt Schilling is yapping away now about Manny not playing hard etc., but manny-being-manny had gotten old in bean-town. His numbers have definitely declined as he has aged, but I still thought the Sox-fans were not giving him the love he deserved the last couple of years. Big-Pappi took home all the love and Manny became an after-thought. I know that the younger Pappi's numbers have been more impressive than Manny's the last few years, but I am very interested in seeing how he does without Manny in the lineup. Manny may not be Pappi-level clutch, but he is pretty clutch. His record against the top pitchers in the league is off the charts. I consider Manny to be one of the best hitters of our generation. Now the Dodgers have him. Unfortunately, Manny may also be one of the worst fielders of our generation and I wonder if his next contract with a NL team like the Dodgers makes sense. I always thought he should retire as a DH in AL.

The trade deadline was huge this time in MLB. 3 hall-of-famers, with more than 1100 home runs between them, switched teams in a matter of 24 hours. Pudge Rodriguez went to the Yankees. Great trade for the Yanks to compensate for Posada's injury. Ken Griffey JR went to the WhiteSox. I like that trade too for the Sox. Griffey can help them the next 2 months. But the Dodgers getting Manny was the headliner. Manny will probably be re-energized by the new locale, plus he has to perform if he wants the big, last contract of his life. The better he does the last 2 months of the season, the more money he will make. As simple as that. Lets see if LA gets more out of Manny than Milwaukee is getting out of CC Sabathia, who is dominating for them right now. LA is suddenly becoming a big baseball hub with the Angels having the best record in the bigs and they also got one of the biggest names in the trade market when they got Mark Teixeira a while back. Always happy to see the Left coast do well in anything.

Artest is changing teams, Childress is changing countries!

Ron Artest is now in Houston. Another seismic-shift in the West as Houston tries to follow the blueprint and get it's own big-3. They sure have the big-3 with T-Mac, Yao and now ron-ron, but the question is never about his talent. He is a baller for sure. But his head is messed up and he is not great for your chemistry either. He can decide to hog the ball any given possession, go 1-on-5 and mess everything up for his coach and the team. When he gets into that mode, nobody else in the team can talk sense into this guy, not T=Mac and definitely not Yao for sure. If Rick Adelman, who will be coaching him for the second time, figures out how to keep him in check and if ron-ron decides to stay in his shoes, this trade will elevate Houston to a good spot in the West. May be top-4. Pushes the Suns further down.

In other NBA news, Tim Donaghy was sentenced to 15 months in jail for his gambling crime. I am sure Commish Stern probably wouldn't mind banishing him for life, but Tim will be back in 15 months (or less) and probably write a tell-all book for some big bucks. Stern should love that. The other guy who has a lot of explaining to do is referee Scott Foster, Donaghy's only real friend among zebras. NBA is not letting him speak. That doesn't seem like a good strategy. To me, the big story in the NBA is Josh Childress signing a 20 million euros deal for 3 years and going to play in Europe. This is unprecedented. Looks like Josh is using his Stanford education and taking some smart financial decision. Given the slide of the dollar and the US economy and the strength of Euro these days, thats a very financially rewarding decision.

This news should ring alarm bells all over the NBA HQ. This is the first time somebody is spurning a NBA career to go play in Europe. Josh Childress is not a superstar, but he was not a bench warmer either. He was a decent NBA player who had a guaranteed career in front of him in the NBA. For him to make this move means many things. Not to go too political, but this could be another sign of a declining super-power status of the US of A. Players always wanted to come here and play in the NBA, but now things are starting to move in the other direction. This means the Lakers and the Suns will not only be competing with the Spurs and Cavs for the services of some NBA players, but they have to compete with a whole bunch of European teams.

Or may be the situation is not that bad. It's just that Josh Childress has figured out a way to get out of the semi-slavery called the rookie salary scale. The rookies really don't hit the open market until the 4-Th or 5-Th season and they can now go make money in Europe in the meantime, That could be a big problem for the NBA because this means they have to change the rookie scale to compete with Europe. Not sure if the Commish will like that. Except the Superstars, everybody can do this and make just as much or more than the NBA and even the superstars can make more money in Europe in their first few "rookie" years. Josh Childress might have just opened a new can of worms. There were also rumors that more players, especially young Euros like Andris Biedrins, will go there as well. Andris ended up signing a 62 mill contract with the W's to stay here, but it should be interesting to see how many players will do what Josh Childress did.

New Rivals

The Packers-Bears has always been a great rivalry in the NFL. This is because of the geographic proximity of those 2 markets and the historic relevance of those 2 franchises. The Cubs-Brewers has never had the same ring to it. Until now that is. Today and this week they are playing a fun and hot series that is almost playoff-like. They were both separated by a game for the division when today's game started and the Milwaukee crowd was in to this game from start to end. The Brewers fan-base has had great expectations this season. They are coming off a decent season fueled by young, home-grown talent and nothing energizes a fan-base quite like that combination. The Cubs on the other hand are having a good season for the second straight year and they are always a big ticket as everybody's lovable losers. So this is good theater if you are into some baseball action during the dog days of summer.

The state of Wisconsin is dominating the sports news these days. NFL is all about what Favre is going to do next. He is supposed to put in his re-instatement papers soon and the Jets and the Bucs are rumored to be in the running. It was funny to see Jeff Garcia today trying to protect his starting QB job. So now Brett Favre is officially a major distraction for many franchises and not just the Packers. Most fans are done with his act and that includes even some Packer faithful. The bottom-line is, he is back and the NFL is a better place for it. If he ends up in a good team, that makes it an even bigger news. Even otherwise, it would be fun to see him in a new place, new jersey. I kinda like the Packers and Favre but not a big-time fan of either. So why do I care about him looking weird in a new jersey or spoiling his legacy? All I know is, when I wake up on a NFL Sunday, it's a much better show waiting for me on the TV if number 4 is back there. You are just wondering if the next pass is a 80 yard TD or an interception going the other way. Fun all the way around. But Favre should handle himself better. He thinks the World revolves around him and thats pissing fans off.

Nation is Favred out!

The off-season has been buzzing in both the NBA and NFL. The whole Elton Brand saga created some excitement in the NBA free-agency. First he opted out and helped the Clippers sign Baron Davis. He apparently said I'll re-sign for 75 million. Then he seemed to have pulled a Carlos Boozer on the Clips if you believe his ex-coach Dunleavy. His super-agent David Falk seemed to have convinced him to take the 85 mill offer from Philly.

"Very Ouch" for the Clippers! And Baron Davis too. They are back to being the Clippers. If Brand is healthy - which ia a very big IF, it's a great deal for Philly. They get their own Big-3 now with AI-junior and Andre Miller and that should take them a long way in the LEast. Brand had to do a lot of rounds on the radio on the day of his signings to protect his image, but I think Dunleavy's version of the story is definitely more believable. The only interesting thing to me is, Brand was offered even more - 90 mill, by the Warriors and he seem to have picked the Sixers probably because he can have a bigger impact in the LEast. The Sixers-Clippers has become an amusing rivalry now.

In the NFL, it's all about Brett Favre. Dude is at it again with his un-retirement now after crying like a baby a few months back. He is losing a lot of respect and is really looking like a dim-witted guy. What's up with him talking to Greta Van Susteren? He was sitting with her and bashing the Packers GM. Totally unnecessary. I understand he is a little upset that the Packers don't want him back, but he is asking for an unconditional release. Of course they are not going to just release him. Why doesn't he ask the Packers GM to fire himself too while we are at it. They need to figure out a team and trade him. Thats the only end to this and Favre needs to understand that.

From Favre's perspective, I see it's simple. He is telling the Packers that you let me play or let me go. But they gotta trade him. They can't just release him and let him goto a division rival, which is apparently what Favre wants to do - join the Vikings. Favre should have announced he is coming back and let the Packers handle the tough part about what they do with him. Instead he is messing it up in the media. In some sense, he put the Packers in a tough spot by retiring (and crying) and the team probably made a while bunch of promises to Aaron Rodgers. Now they can't go back on all of it. So they seem to have decided to let him go and they will eventually trade him.

It's an entirely different question for the Packer fan as to whether they are better off with Favre or Rodgers. Even I am surprised the Packers are so committed to Rodgers. I would think they can do better with Favre this season given how good they were last season. But the Packers management seem to think this is the right time to turn the page. Thats their call and I don't agree with it and the Packer fan can disagree with that too. But the point is, Favre is still mismanaging his return. He is fast becoming the Roger Clemens of the MLB and thats not a good thing. He needs to shut up and let the chips fall where they may. Especially in the dog days of summer when ESPN is looking for stories and it's either Brett Favre or "another day in Michael Jordan's life".

The Packers need to take it easy too with their tampering charges against the Vikes. Apparently Favre made several calls to the Vikings using the Packers phone. Lets get all of this over with and move on. The NFL nation is Favred out.

MLB gets it right.

We had an interesting MLB all-star break last week. It was in some sense a changing of the guard with some fresh, new faces in the game. The old roiders are out and the new blood is in. Whether or not the new "blood" is squeaky clean, who knows, but at least it has a chance at being clean! The feel good story started on Monday with Josh Hamilton crushing the ball in the early rounds of the usually stupid home run derby. He hit a record 28 home runs and that from a guy who went from being a high draft-pick to a drug-junkie back to the All-Star game. Though he lost the derby to Justin Morneau, Josh was clearly the story of the week.

The game itself featured a lot of freshers like Hanley Ramirez, Geovany Soto, Kosuke Fukudome, Brian McCann, Edinson Volquez and Tim Lincecum (who didn't pitch) on the NL side and Josh Hamilton, Dioner Navarro, Ian Kinsler, Evan Longoria, Joe Saunders and Justin Duchscherer in the AL. Heck even Joe Buck didn't know some of these guys and he thought "Dukesher" was pronounced "Ducksher". Inexcusable, but goes to show you how new these guys were at the national stage.

The All-Star game on Tuesday was a 15-inning thriller and unlike the last time, brother Bud let this thing complete and did not stop it when the score was tied. Once again, not screwing up is usually a great win of MLB. People don't expect anything more from this league. Just don't screw up and stay out the way. AL won once again 4-3 and they get the home-field for the World Series. What kind of moron decides the home-field for their championship round on an All-Star game! Only in MLB and only under the stewardship of Brother Bud! I am just happy it's not decided based on the Spring Training record I guess.

MLB All-Star break

Its been an interesting MLB season so far. How else would you characterize a season in which the Devil Rays are leading the Yankees by 5.5 games at the break! The Rays - thats apparently their new name and I am sure some morons think they are winning only because they removed the "Devil" from their name, could have led the AL East if not for their 7 game losing streak going into the break. They turned over the lead to the Red Sox because of that.

The Yanks seem to be still playing decent ball amidst all the Madonna-A-Rod rumors and his divorce proceedings. Baseball seems to be least relevant topic when you talk about the Yankees these days. I hope the Rays hang in there and don't let these Devils from New York get back into the race. I am still far away from my dream of both the Yankees and the Red Sox missing the playoffs, but I never thought the Rays of all the teams would be my only hope for achieving at least 50% of that dream this season.

In the West, I am disappointed with both my NL and AL teams. The D-Backs, after a hot start, are slipping and are leading the division with a sub-500 record. It still looks and feels like it's their division to lose, but they should be running away with it by 15 games right now. Instead, they are leading Joe Torre's Dodgers by a game and even the Giants with one legitimate talent in the baby-faced Tim Licecum are just 7 games behind. This division has been real bad a couple of times over the last few years, but this was not supposed to happen this year with 2 playoffs teams returning from last year. Hope the D-Backs get it done in the second half. Right now the NL is all about the Cubs who are sending like 80 players to the all-star roster!

In AL, the A's are over-achieving, but are not able to keep up with the Angels. They are now 6 behind and Billy just traded Rich Harden. It looks like Billy desperately wants to make it tougher and tougher for his team to win and they still keep winning ! He keeps increasing the degree of difficulty with these "rebuilding" trades. But he always gets good players in return and the team keeps it interesting. They desperately need the new yard. They can't be in this eternal rebuilding mode, though half of MLB is in this state except for the wealthy few.

Anyways, now onto Chris Berman's annoying "back, back, back" squeals during the home run derby.

Free agency is not that free after all

NBA free agency is in full spree. The official deals can start tomorrow, but a lot of players are already signed, sealed and delivered. The major shake-up started out West when Baron Davis opted out of the Warriors contract and had an under the table deal already signed with the paper-Clips. It was a shocker because it appeared like the West just got tougher with that deal. It appeared like the Clippers were all set for a playoff spot with Elton Brand being the other free agent (their own), they were supposed to lock up next.

The assumption going in to this off-season was that there was not enough money in the market for high-paid guys like Boom-Dizzle to opt out. In fact, Shawn Marion decided nor to opt-out a while back confirming that notion. But seems like the Clippers were willing to go the extra mile to get the home-town stud. The Warriors were a little pissed and they said we are going after Elton Brand to even the score with the clip-joint. There was also all kinds of noise about Andre Iguodala, Josh Smith and Corey Maggette. Finally the 76'ers get Brand and the Warriors supposedly get Maggette.

This means the Clippers are back to being the paper-clips. Baron is probably worried now. Without Brand, they are just Baron Davis, his 60 million bucks and a bunch of wannabes, The Sixers on the other hand are for real now. They made the playoffs last year in the LEast and now with Brand, their upside is huge. I love Andre Miller and with Iggy and Brand, they have their own big-3 of repute. Corey is a good pickup for the Warriors too. I am not sure if he can fill the shoes of Boom-Dizzle. Baron for all his faults, was still a true, talented PGs. There are not many guys like that in the league and the W's may realize it when they turnover the keys to their kingdom to Monta. He is awesome, but he is not a true PG. Similar issue with Corey. Good talent and a great scorer who also plays hard, but can't quite replace all that Baron brought to the table.

Overall I am happy the West didn't get too bad. As of today, both the Ws and the Clips have taken a small step backwards. In any case, another interesting off-season in the association. Is it me or is the NBA off-seaon really more interesting than the regular season? I know the hot-stove is pretty big in the MLB, but it's always the same 6 teams stealing talent from the other 20+ team. NFL is really not known for free-agency and trades though the draft is HUGE. So the NBA off-season is interesting and fun to follow with all the money changing hands. Or may be its just that America has lost so much interest in the NBA regular season that free agency feels like an upgrade!

CC for sale

The Brewers of all the team are apparently close to acquiring C.C.Sabathia. I should say I am a little surprised as I was expecting the usual suspects to make a run at C.C. Also we are all used to seeing Brewers being sellers this time of the year rather than being buyers. Plus I was half expecting them to off-load Ben Sheets who is a free agent at the end of the season. Instead the Brewers acquired another big name pitcher who will be a free agent at the end of this season.

But I guess the Brewers are going for it this season. It's been a while since the Brew-crew went to the playoffs and I hear the expectations are rather high in Milwaukee after last season. After all, what else do the Milwaukee fans have to look forward to? Number 4 is too "favre" in the rear view mirror and the Bucks have no clue what they are doing. So the Brewers decide to go for it in the central with the Cubs just 3.5 games ahead of them and the Cards right there with the Brewers chasing the lovable losers.

The Brewers might now have 2 star pitchers walking away this off-season. They may be OK with it because they end up with draft picks which they have been doing a good job of converting in to good players. This is what Billy Beane has been doing for years in Oak-town. Acquire stars for the pennant chase. Let them walk at the end of the year and pick prospects for the future. Brewers are trying to perfect this and good luck to them. I seriously doubt if they'll pay both C.C and Ben next year.

As for Cleveland, I guess they are giving up on this hugely disappointing season. They are 14 games behind the White-Sox and 13 games behind the Twins. How can one division have 2 such disappointing teams? The Indians are making the Tigers look good by comparison.