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.

Draft Notes

The NBA draft is now done and I felt like it was not a deep draft. It was decent at the top and the trade activities made it a little fun, but overall it wasn't great. The trades started early with the Pacers sending Jermaine O'Neal to Toronto for T.J.Ford and center Rasho Nesterovic. This is a good gamble for Toronto. The Raptor fans should love the thought of O'Neal and Chris Bosh in the same front-court. I used to have great expectations for Jermaine O'Neal before he became a serious and regular injury A-lister who played basketball once in a while. And every time he came back, his game seemed to take a step or 2 backwards. I sure hope it works out for the Raptors. I like what they are doing there with CB4 and the gang. I also like them sending T.J.Ford and turning over the keys to Jose Calderon. Jose is good, real good. Pacers are clearly rebuilding and T.J.Ford is a good gamble for them as well.

The trade that shocked me was the one between the Nets and Bucks. Richard Jefferson to the Bucks for Yi Jianlian and Bobby Summons. The shocking part was the Bucks sending away Yi. I thought Yi was an untouchable cash-cow. Didn't the Bucks draft him despite his initial refusal to be there and didn't his game against Yao and the Rockets outdraw the Super Bowl World-wide? I thought they were trading everybody but Yi, and then Scott Skiles shows up in town and they decide to ship off Yi. Getting Jefferson might help them basketball wise. In the LEastern conference, teams should go for it and thats what the Bucks are doing here. But I still can't believe it from a business perspective.

The other big trade was Memphis and Minnesota swapping O.J.Mayo and Kevin Love and a whole bunch of expiring and bad and bloated contracts. Memphis got Marko Jaric, Antoine Walker and Greg Buckner along with Mayo and the TWolves got Mike Miller, Brian Cardinal and Jason Collins along with Love. I almost forgot Antoine Walker was in Minnesota. By the way, is Brian Cardinal the worst signing ever by the Logo? I mean the Custodian had one semi-good season with the Warriors and Jerry West broke the bank for him. It was all downhill from there in Memphis both for the Logo and the Custodian. In any case, these moves are far-reaching and we wouldn't know how they work out until a few years down the road.

Derrick Rose went first and I completely support that move by Chicago. I like Michale Beasley, but I think Derrick Rose is going to be better. This is the era of point guards and he is one of the true PGs. Chicago has too many assets in the back-court but Rose is better than anything they got and hence they had to go for him. Now they just have to trade some pieces and if they play the trade-game right, they can make something special out of this team. Vinny Del Negro was a stretch as a coaching choice, but he might end up coaching a very talented team. The Miami Heat got a good player in Beasley and with DWade and Marion, it should be fun to see that team.

The other big news of the first round was both the Lopez twins being drafted in the first round. That should be an amazing day for their mom. Robin Lopez is really the lucky one of the two. Brooke is really good, but this guy ends up going in the first round anyways - just 5 spots behind Brooke's number 10. Plus he goes to the Suns, a much better team and a much better basketball town than New Jersey. And Robin is dating Michelle Wie. How many NBA first-rounders are dating hot 19 year old girls whose earning potential is higher than theirs? Good job Robin!

As for my Suns, I don't like this pick, but this was not a deep enough draft for them to work any kind of magic at 15. We have to live with a true 7-footer with decent athleticism. I still can't believe how bad the Suns luck has been the last year or two and how that Atlanta Hawks pick they got along with Boris Diaw for Joe Johnson finally ended up as Robin Lopez at 15. Wasn't this supposed to be a 4 or 5 last year in a deep draft? Hawks lucked out and got their top-3 protection last year and ended up making the playoffs in the horrible LEastern conference with a 37-45 record only to screw up the Suns pick this year. Thats life in the draft-lane these days for the Suns. At least I am happy they kept it all in the Pac-10 family as they also drafted Malik Hairston out of Oregon in the second round. San Antonio was involved in this transaction as they gave the Suns another future second rounder. I am hoping this turns out as good as the Barbosa deal for the Suns, another late draft pick traded to the Suns by the Spurs.

At least the Suns still got Shaq, his big-ass contract and his stupid-ass Kobe rap.

Time to stick a fork

Now that Boston has had another parade and the NBA season is over and done with and we figured out Kobe is not the next MJ, we are officially entering the dead-zone on the sports calendar. All we got going on right now is baseball. That brings me to inter-league play thats happening now. Can we all agree it's time to stick a fork on this idea? It's not fresh anymore, it's not exciting, it's barely news these days. And I am not just talking about the Blue Jays - V - Pirates or Astros - V - Rays match-ups. I mean does anybody get excited anymore even for a Yankees-Mets of Cubs-White Sox? Not me.

The inter-league schedule was kinda new and interesting for a few seasons. It helped switch things up a little bit and infused some excitement into the dog days of baseball summer. But now, it's not adding any value. Granted it's not taking anything away either. Who cares if the Pirates play the Cincinnati Reds or the Toronto Blue Jays. Same difference. But, it's definitely not doing what it was intended to do in the first place. I think the fans would rather have a few more divisional games. It at least keeps schedule sane for all the teams in the same league.

The geographic rivalries are still interesting in the local markets, but even those are not moving the needle nationally. Plus these local rivalries are few and far between. Of the top of my head, I can name only 3 good inter-league rivalries - Yankees-Mets, Cubs-WhiteSox and Giants-As. Does anybody care about games like Boston-Atlanta? Fox had it on national TV and got crushed at the ratings game. The only interesting part of this year's inter-league version was hearing that nut Hank Steinbrenner trash-talk the NL after his ace Chien-Ming Wang got hurt running the bases. While the rest of the World is trying to get rid of the stupid DH, Hank is saying NL is stuck in the 1800s since it's asking pitchers to hit. He wants the NL to adopt the DH. Good luck with that Hank. So Brother Bud, tweak it or pull the plug or something. Inter-league play in it's current format is dead.

In other news, Jevon Walker was found lying unconscious on the streets off Las Vegas after a supposed robbery. The only thing more ridiculous than this was Jevon's version of the story. He claims he was robbed at his room in the Bellagio and was physically dragged on to the streets. Why would the robbers do that? Aren't they better off leaving him in there in his room? Amazing story, but nobody is buying it. The other question is, why does all this happen to guys as soon as they become a Raider? Seems like the Raiders are a cursed franchise right now. The other big news is all the trade rumors swirling around Melo. Apparently Detroit may get him. Looks like Joe Dumars is trying to fix his mistake from that draft when he passed on Melo and picked Darko Milicic. Too late mate!

Game, set and match Boston

The Celtics clinched their 17-Th championship in style yesterday as they made sure the Lake-show does not force a game 7. It was an impressive performance as the Celts blew the Lakers out. I mean, it was a no-contest and they won by 39 points! I never thought a Kobe Bryant team coached by Phil Jackson will ever lose a Finals game by 39. It was a complete dismantling of the Lakers and nobody, including yours truly saw this coming. We were all a little blinded by the supposed superiority of the Western Conference, but Boston is for real. We should have at least realized that when they beat Detroit in the L-Eastern Finals. I don't think any Western team could have beat them either. May be San Antonio because they could have matched Boston punch-for-punch on defense and the match-up would have been significantly different from the Fakers. But I am going to say Boston would have taken that series as well out of respect for what they did to the Lakers - the best team from the West.

To be fair, Boston didn't help their reputation any by going to 7 games against the Atlanta Hawks. Who goes 7 against the Hawks? The Warriors - who didn't even make it to the Western playoffs, probably would have swept the Hawks. NBA playoffs are all about match-ups and that might explain what happened to the Celts against the Hawks. More importantly, thats what happened to the Lakers against the Celtics. It was just a bad match-up. They didn't have enough big wings to deal with Paul Pierce. On the other hand, the Celts were so good defensively that they neutralized Kobe effectively. There lies the story of the Finals. M-Jack had an interesting point on ABC yesterday. Apparently Doc Rivers asked him for his prediction before the Finals and Jackson told him he likes the Lakers to win. Doc replied that even if he was not the Celtics coach and if he was just a neutral observer, he would actually pick the Celtics because of their defense since the Lakers were just a good offensive team. I guess Doc knew what he was talking about.

Thats the part about their defense we all missed. In fact, I thought they had nobody to guard Kobe, when actually they had everybody guarding him plus the other 4 Lakers all at the same time. Kobe had a disastrous series. No MJ references for him for at least another year. In any case, good for the C's as they win their 17-Th when I am sitting here as a Suns fan waiting for my first. Speaking of the Suns, the season is done now. It started with a lot of hope for the Suns, but ends with a stupid boat parade in Boston. Who would have thunk! Thats why we love Sports. Like coach Jim Mora once famously said. you think you know, but you don't and you never will! Now the question on everybody's mind is, can the Celtics repeat? Of course they can. Did anybody watch these 6 games? I am not saying they will, but they sure can. I don't see KG or Paul Pierce dropping off too much. Ray-Ray might, but then again he just might wake up for the Finals like he did this playoffs. The Celtics biggest challenge might actually be the Lakers again, who will close the gap with both maturity and the comeback of Bynum. Hornets may improve as well, but the Lakers might still be the favorites in the West.

But the off-season just started today. We got all summer to see how the NBA landscape changes before the next season.

Lakers dodge another bullet

Lakers won a big game 5 and forced a game 6 on the road. Boston again played very well and erased an early deficit as big as our budget deficit. Paul Pierce was once again unstoppable as the Lakers have nobody to guard him. Kobe is the closest they have to a Pierce-stopper and even Kobe can't do it because Pierce is a little too big for him. As a matter of fact, the first time I was very impressed with Pierce was a few years back when he completely dominated Kobe in a game when Kobe tried to defend him. Plus he is also doing a decent job of defending Kobe at the other end though the help is always there in the paint with this Boston defense.

Kobe started on fire as expected, but then surprisingly the Celtics shut him down pretty much the rest of the game. Gasol came up big with a 19-13-6 game and Lamar had a 20-11 game himself. Both were helped by the injury to Perkins and the early foul trouble that KG was in. Despite all that, the Celtics hung in there and just would not go away. Pierce put in a 38-6-8 game as he probably overtook Ray-Ray as a potential Finals MVP candidate. He was terrific until the end when Kobe the knocked the ball out of his hands for a game clinching steal and dunk. To be fair, it could have easily been called a foul on Kobe considering that he reached in from behind. But it was a good play by Kobe and I think it was a decent no-call all things considered.

Now the Celts go home after 3 good performances on the road. A few years back, when the Pistons beat the Lakers in 5 games with Kobe hitting a buzzer-beating game-wiiner for the Lakers sole win, people called it the first 5 game sweep since Pistons were better than the Lakers in all 5 games. I feel like this Boston team is in a similar spot and is looking at a 6 or even a 7 game sweep. The problems the Celtics are having are exactly with things we all expected. They don't have a closer, they have not been together long enough and the chemistry in the clutch is suspect. This is evidenced by the number of turnovers and bad plays they have had in the 4-Th quarters in game 3 and 5. Lakers should consider themselves lucky they are not playing this Boston team with 2 or 3 years of cohesive experience under their belt. With all that said, the Celtics are still the favorites to close this out in game 6, but the pressure will be on them. They have to try and avoid a game 7 at all costs and that makes this game 6 an almost must-win for the Celtics.

If it goes to game 7, it Kobe will be on everybody's minds and thats just too big a gamble.

Next MJ or the next PJ?

When we are immersed in the moment, we don't usually understand the historic significance of certain events. We appreciate history when we are removed from it better than when we are actually part of it. Game 4 on Thursday of the finals was a historic game. I am not referring to one of the biggest Finals comeback on the road" story. I am more interested in the significance of this game from Kobe Bryant's perspective. The next MJ conversation is officially dead - at-least for a game or 2. As a Lakers and Kobe-hater, I am obviously happy about it. I am sure Kobe is pissed beyond what meets the eye. He is way too smart to miss the significance of this game on the big picture.

MJ doesn't lose that game 4 - not in a million years. You spot a 24 point lead to a 50 year old Jordan and he probably will find a way to seal the deal and win by 2! He is just a cold-blooded killa! So is Kobe by all indications, but he just lacks something. And that something is a better basketball head. Kobe is so self-absorbed at times that he is prone to more bad decisions at the clutch than MJ. Jordan just had the will and the smarts to do the right thing when it mattered the most. He also bought the best out of his teammates. Both were/are ruthless with their teammates, but Kobe just seems a lot more disconnected with them than MJ ever was. All of this adds to a MJ knockout of Kobe in this head-to-head comparison.

Now what happens to Kobe? Like I said, he is probably seething inside that he took such a career-altering blow on Thursday. He will probably come out smoking on Sunday in game 5 and try to show he is still in the running for MDE - Most Dominant Ever (to steal a Shaq phrase). But the damage is done. The only way he even restores some equilibrium is if he wins this series in 7. Lakers can definitely do it, though this Boston team looks awesome and have got 2 more games at home. I expect Kobe and the Lakers to take game 5, but 2 more on the road? Not sure if thats gonna happen. Plus Boston has been so effective, would anybody be really surprised if they wrap it up today and start planning their parade?

Kobe is in a tough personal spot right now. If he loses this series, thats officially 2 finals losses against MJ's zero. One featuring this ugly game 4 and the other even with Shaq on his team against the Pistons. So where does he turn now? He can smoke Phillip's peace-pipe like he suggested yesterday and hope (and pray) Sasha and Jordan Farmar help him out. Or he can try and go superman and face more criticism if the Lakers lose this series. I mean Kobe going superman is no guarantee for success anyways. We have seen that act before and I am not sure if the Laker-fan wants to see it against this maniacal Boston D. So Kobe is caught between a rock and a hard-place - between Lamar and Pau Gasol, between Sasha and Radmanovic. Not a good place to be if you had been watching this series so far.

Speaking of Kobe's teammates, what's the deal with Pau and Lamar? I can't remember 2 guys who have consistently gotten less results out of more talent than these two dudes. These 2 are the exact opposite of Leon Powe and Eddie House and that might singularly explain why the series is 3-1 in favor of Boston. And how much of his teammates' issues are Kobe-induced? There are reports that Kobe is just mean and relentless in his criticisms of his teammates on the court and on the bench. Even Curt Schilling had to write about it in his blog about Kobe's behavior having seen it up-close at the Boston Garden. I hate to quote Schilling of all people and loved Kobe's "Go Yankees" retort, but still Kobe has to clean-up his act. The only people who probably hate him more than the Laker-haters should be his teammates.

Take it easy Kobe - unless you want to be remembered as the next PJ now that the next MJ thing is done. I am speaking of P.J.Carlesmo, the guy known for berating his team constantly like they were some high-school kids until Latrell Sprewell almost choked him to death. Pau and Vlad-Rad would choke Kobe too if they were not busy choking themselves. In any case, Boston is beating the Lakers on every aspect of the game right now. Much to the chagrin of Suns fans like me, they are once again proving defense wins championships. I couldn't believe how they almost won game 4 with Pierce and KG doing nothing on offense. They better keep the defensive intensity going because I have a feeling Kobe is going to come out firing in the next game or 2 or 3.

Finals heating up

Boston looked impressive in game 3 though they lost. I was expecting them to get blown out after watching them play like garbage on the road the first two rounds of the playoffs. I guess they have gotten better on the road as the playoffs have gone deeper. They really had a chance to win this one and put the series away. You go 3-0 up in the NBA, it's over. You can dribble the ball only with your left hand the rest of the series and you will still win a game to close out the series. This after an impressive blow-out win at home where they lead by 20+ points most of the game. Of course it got all the way down to 2 points and it was surreal. The Celtics could have actually lost that game after leading by 20 in the fourth! I can't imagine the pain that would have caused to those chowder-heads.

Luckily that collapse didn't happen, but they actually played real well in the third quarter and half of the fourth quarter in game 3. Then they started making too many mistakes. Paul Pierce turned the ball over and so did the other guys and Sasha hit a huge 3 for the Lakers. This three forced Doc Rivers to choke and make a crucial mistake. For some inexplicable reason, he decided he had to single-cover Kobe in the last 2 mins of the game with Ray Allen on him. I have no idea why and Kobe sank 2 straight jumpers to close the deal. Too many mistakes down the stretch in the 4-Th quarter on the road. That was the story of this game for Boston. But Boston should be happy with their performance. They did pretty well to almost win the game. But then again, one more loss, this is a 3 game series with the other team featuring a guy called Kobe Bryant. Of course thats what the NBA wants and it might do something to get a game 6 and/or 7. Bennett Salvatore apparently is the league's favorite guy when it comes to extending playoff series!

Speaking of the NBA and the refs, Tim Donaghy is releasing some uncomfortable statements about the NBA. He is saying the NBA fixed game 6 of the Lakers-Kings series in 2002 through the refs. NBA definitely screwed that game up and forced a game 7. We all know that. No IFs or buts about that. A lot of people like yours truly have spoken about the officiating in that game repeatedly even years after the game. It was one of the worst officiated games ever. The refs were definitely part of that game 6 in more ways than one. The Kings were the better team in that series and were good enough to wrap it up in 6 games even after losing game 1 at home (if I remember right). But Donaghy's statement doesn't prove any of these suspicions. After all, Donaghy knows these games and the associated controversies too well. So this game is an easy target for him if he wants to throw some dirt on the NBA. His lawyers know that this game will strike a chord with the fans. The officiating was so bad that even Ralph Nader got involved. So I wouldn't put too much into what Donaghy is saying. Part of me wants Donaghy to be right and expose even more scandals. I want the NBA to once and for all cleanup it's act - get rid of makeup calls, superstar calls, home court calls, rookie calls etc. etc.

Just call the damn game as per the book or go to jail!

Big win for Boston

Boston got a big win in game 1 and made sure they don't lose home-court at the very start of the series. Now the Lakers have to win 4 out of 6 to win the series. Definitely doable for this Lakers team, but it's just a little harder, given they have 3 straight home games in the middle. Thats more pressure on the home team. Not sure what the Celtics did to Kobe, but Kobe was a non-factor in game 1. A 24-3-6 game with 4 turnovers and a -13 +/- differential for Kobe. Those numbers are ugly considering this guy was unstoppable coming in to this game. If the Celts can manage to bottle him up like this 3 more times, it's over. But I fully expect Kobe to bounce back. So the Celtics should work on containing the other Lakers players just like they did in game 1.

Lakers got nothing from their bench or from Lamar and Pau. Basically the Lakers were shut out up on all fronts. Pretty impressive from the Boston side of things. Game 2 will be very different in terms of feel and flow as Kobe and the Zen-master will come in with some adjustments. Phillip is already speaking of playing his bench longer minutes. All this just makes for good TV. The ratings for the NBA was better, but nowhere near what I would have expected. It was just as good as the Lakers-Pistons in 2004 despite featuring the Celtics. I guess the NBA has fallen so far down, it's an uphill climb right now. Speaking of Boston, I hate the East coast teams usually, but against the Lakers, I am all about Boston. Go green!

The Suns hired Terry Porter today. Not a bad hire, but nothing too exciting either. The Suns didn't have many good choices either. Porter definitely deserved another shot since I thought he was fired too soon in Milwaukee. But not sure if this is the right place and time for him. I sure hope Kerr knows what he is doing. Or may be he is just hoping to run everything through a coach that'll listen to him everyday. They were teammates at one time. It'll be interesting to see what he does with the offense. It'll also depend on how many assistant coaches stay and how many goto D'Antoni in New York. Good Luck Terry. We will be looking for big results soon.

Season of change

The finals are almost here. We have Celtics and the Lakers while we were expecting Celtics and the Spurs or the Suns at the beginning of the season. Suns lost to the Spurs 4-1 while the Spurs barely got past the Hornets. And then Spurs happily lost 4-1 to the Lakers. They were once again stung by the "curse of the Fish". They lost a series a few years back and probably a chance to win a championship when D-Fish shot that ridiculous 0.4 sec buzzer beater. Now in Game 4 at San Antonio, Fish fouled Brent Barry and denied the Spurs a good look at the buzzer beater. It was an obvious foul, but the refs swallowed the whistle. I was going to scream conspiracy from the roof-tops but just the possession before, Lakers recovered the rebound on a D-Fish miss, but the refs didn't reset the clock though the shot grazed the rim. I guess that was a bad call in favor of the Spurs without which the last possession may or may not have even mattered. But the refs did miss the call. In any case, the Spurs fell to 3-1 and got eliminated on the road in game 5. That game 5 was not hard to see coming.

The funny part is, this was supposed to be a drag-out, knock-down Western playoffs, but the Lakers cruised through it 12-3. Are you kidding me! The Lakers are real good. Finally they are cashing in on having the game's best player. It's all coming together around him, though having Pau Gasol and an improving supporting-cast doesn't hurt one bit! This team is probably going to make the Lakers revival official by winning a ring in the next two weeks, but lets see how the Celtics fare. The Pistons got rid of Flip Saunders and are probably going to make some big changes. The Celts should be able to contend for a year or three. God knows what's going to happen with the Cavs. The rest of the L-East is not worth talking about right now. I am sure a team or two like the Hawks or may be even the Heat with their high pick and an healthy Wade might bubble up to the top.

The West is now very interesting. The Lakers are back at the top and they look like they are there to stay. The Hornets are young and good and have a hall-of-fame type star in CP3. So they are going nowhere. Same with the Jazz. Young, talented and feature a super-star point guard. So what's going to happen to the Spurs, the Suns and the Mavs? Seems like their era is over for now. The Spurs are definitely in the picture. They got their big 3 and the championship pedigree that should keep them at the top for a few years if they add the right pieces around that Big 3. People are calling them old and slow and they did look that way at times against the Lakers, but this is always what we say about the Spurs in the years they lose and they come back with exactly the same team and win it all the next year. This has been going on for a while. I have a feeling they will be fine. Just don't expect them to repeat! The Mavs on the other hand are toast. They got a couple of young guys and Nowitzki is not old yet, but they shot themselves in the foot with the Kidd trade. They'll be a decent team, but nothing spectacular the next year or two.

That brings me to the Suns. It's basically been a season of change and transition for the Suns. Shaq is in, the coach is gone and so is the Matrix. The coach's departure closes the book on the run-and-gun for now. Steve Nash is not getting any younger. He had some tough games in the playoffs and he lost his "best point guard in the league, period" status to Chris Paul - a worthy successor I might add. Nash now has to adjust to another succession as this team slowly became Amare's even during this season and it should be all Amare's this time next year. Amare deserves it the way he played since Shaq arrived in town, but more importantly, thats the direction the new coach will probably take this team. In any case, they are not that good as constituted right now with all the aging stars, I am not sure where they go from here. Seems like the Suns window is slammed shut with all the young teams west of the mississippi. As blasphemous as it sounded to my ears at first, my friend's suggestion that the Suns should trade Nash might have some merit to it. His point is, Nash has one or two good years in him and the Suns might get something in return for him right now while the rest of the roster is not of much value to anybody. You can trade Amare, but the Suns probably are better off keeping Amare themselves. Of course there is some talk that they can trade Amare too and start over because he doesn't play good defense and they can get something big in return.

Wonder if Steve Kerr will be willing to roll the dice that wildly. Interesting question indeed! The fact that Doug Collins is more willing to take the Bulls job than the Suns job tells you all you need to know about where the Suns stand in this brutal, deep West.

NBA gets what it wants

Boston-LA, big markets in the finals, Kobe, a glorious rivalry renewed, East Coast-V-West Coast. This is exactly what the NBA wanted. I would be very interested in seeing what the ratings are for this one. I know it'll be better than usual, but how much better is the question. Kobe is a huge draw all by himself. He has clearly become the biggest name in the sport. His recovery from the Colorado rape case seems to be complete. He is clearly the next MJ and his game might even be better than MJ. I am not a Kobe fan, but I have been saying that forever because this guy can shoot the jumper and MJ never really had that. But MJ is still the best because of 2 reasons - he was unique, he was a pioneer and a trend-setter. He is the reason there are Kobes and LeBrons these days. Secondly, the intangibles. Kobe is almost there, but is still not quite MJ.

Kobe is an interesting super-star. Unlike Jordan or even Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, he is not just the most popular star in his game but is also quite widely hated as well. I wouldn't call him the most-hated, but he may be one of the more hated, popular stars, if that makes sense! Kobe may be the biggest name in all of sports despite all of his problems and all of NBA's problems the last few years. It's something about the NBA and it's star-making capabilities that makes it's stars bigger than the stars in other sports and bigger than the league itself. It is and it always will be a star driven league. Another championship, and Kobe will be the poster-boy again. This will be all his unlike the first 3 "Shaq" rings. Not too deserving to be honest with you because he has way too much talent around him actually. He is still the MVP though and hence will get all the credit.

As for the finals, I can't see how Boston wins this one. It was great for them to get this far. They took care of the Pistons fairly easily, but LA is a whole another animal. The way Kobe roasted Bowen and the Spurs alive, I can't see who from the Celtics can even slow him down. The Big 3 are doing fine. Even Ray-Ray is beginning to hit some jumpers now. But the Lakers are just too good, too potent and too deep. Plus they have Kobe to close the game. Paul Pierce needs to have a huge series for the Celts to even compete. In any case, the city of Boston should be buzzing for this one. They go from worst to best in a year and they get to see Kobe and the Lakers in the finals. Good deal. Boston's success probably has all by itself improved NBA'a popularity this season. Boston is not that big a city, but for some reason is a big, impact-full market. I think it's because of 2 reasons - it represents the entire New England region and not just the city. Secondly, it's an historic, old city with transplants all over the country and since these people are pretty parochial and passionate, they never switch their loyalties away from their beloved Boston teams.

Anyways, Lakers in 5, may be 6.