Suns are rolling

The NBA season couldn't be going better for me. The Suns are looking awesome. They are 6-1 and that win on Friday against the Celtics in Boston was huge. This might be the best Suns team of this era actually. It is slightly better than the D'Antoni teams of 2004-2008. They took a step back last year under Terry Porter and the window seemed shut, but they seem rejuvenated and the new pieces fit them perfectly like a glove. So they have improved significantly because of the intangibles and chemistry though the talent has not been upgraded a whole lot since last year. In fact, on paper, the team lost a lot of talent with Shaq. But with this team and this system, give me Channing Frye over a 37 year-old Shaq any day of the week and twice on game days. Frye is just perfect for this system. He is tall, he can run and he can shoot the 3. He gives them much needed size after a long time.

Jared Dudley is the other piece thats fitting in nicely right now. He is averaging 8.5 points and 3.7 rebounds off the bench and plays good D and brings a lot of energy. Kudos to Alvin Gentry for playing the bench. Thats the difference between D'Antoni and Gentry and this is exactly why this team seems better than even D'Antoni's Western conference Finals teams. Of course Steve Nash is still the heart and soul of this team. He is playing better than ever. He is raining assists all over the court and is playing even better than his MVP years. Grant Hill and J Rich are doing good as well. Amare is getting back into shape and this team will get even better if Amare gets more explosive. Lets see how this team does long term. It is still the best show in the NBA. It's fun to watch these guys run.

I was watching the Warriors game the other day and I realized it was not even a NBA standard game. It felt like a crime to charge people 70, 90, 110 bucks for those tickets to watch a product like the current Warriors - bad talent, poor chemistry, horrible coaching and sub-par shooting. Of course watching Nash and the Suns everyday on TV doesn't help my perception of other teams. It' just a huge drop-off when you watch Nash do his magic and then go watch a dysfunctional team like the Warriors. Nelly might be destroying that team for the second time in 15 years and I think he should be fired. He doesn't have the talent in that roster to continue with his zero-coaching, one-on-one, jump shooting system. They seem legitimately confused and seem to have no plays or sets to execute. They came out of a timeout in one game with a shot drawn up for Mikki Moore. Are you kidding me?

This is no way to run a young team which doesn't have a legitimate point guard, but actually has some talent that could be coached and improved. There is no Nash or Baron Davis to run the show for Nelly on the court and no Nowitzki to hit the jumpers. He has a rookie point guard for God's sake, but Nelly still doesn't get off his butt and coach a lick. I love Nelly and I love the fact he always makes the game exciting. But at this time and place, with this particular Warrior team, he is a horrible fit and needs to be fired. No way around it. As for the rest of the league, the Lakers and the Celtics are rolling and so was Denver before losing 2 straight. Melo has started the season white-hot and so has Kobe. The King and the Cavs have started a little slow, but are playing slightly better now. May be that game in New York will wake him up for good. They should be fine when it's all said and done.

You get what you pay for

The Yankees proved again that you get what you pay for. They are scratching the check for the league's most expensive first baseman, third baseman, short stop, catcher, starting pitcher and relief pitcher. And yesterday, they won their 27-Th championship after a break of almost a decade behind all those horses. We expected the Yankees to win it all from day 1 of this season - or any other season for that matter. And then we spend the rest of the season hoping they won't win. This is what the sport of baseball has come down to these days. Yankees and 2 or 3 other teams spend all the money and accumulate all the talent. If that talent comes through, they win. If not, they go out and spend more money and accumulate more expensive talent next year. The rest of us just watch this spectacle with a profound sense of detachment.

This year, the Yankees stars delivered in the playoffs and they closed the deal. C.C.Sabathia and A-Rod were awesome. Mo, Jeter and Pettitte were their usual self and only Tex was a little down in the World Series. Hideki Matsui became the first Japanese-born player to win the World Series MVP award and we almost forget this guy in that roster. I guess he only hit .615 in the World Series and why would anybody talk about him? The Phillies played well and gave us some interesting moments, but Chase Utley could only take them so far all by himself. Ryan Howard was no good in this series and they absolutely need the big guy. Their pitching was good, but not as good as the Yankees outside of Cliff Lee. In game 6, Pedro had nothing to offer. Everybody was his daddy on this day. Cole Hamels finally got his wish and the season ended.

It was an interesting season for A-Rod for sure. He started with a full-blown steroid scandal and hit rock bottom in terms of his image and popularity. Ironically, this is the season he finally comes through in the playoffs and the Yankees win it all. Now the fans will finally start embracing him as a hero. Thats how unpredictable life is. Finally the half a billion dollar man has one championship. Lets see if he gets more. The new Yankee stadium has also come on board in style. In other MLB news, San Francisco Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum is facing misdemeanor marijuana charges following a traffic stop in his home state Washington. I am normally not too exited or surprised by such news about athletes, but his one is shocking! Lincecum looks like a 12 year old and I can't believe he actually drives a car.

In the NBA, I am happy with what I have seen so far in the Phoenix Suns. They are 4-1 and are looking good. Steve Nash is carrying the team and he might be playing better than even his 2 MBA MVP seasons. They were undefeated, but then Orlando on the road on a back to back night killed them. This team will probably be bad on most of it's back to back nights given the age and the playing style. But so far, everybody is doing great. Hill and Nash are looking very good, Amare is coming around and Channing Frye and Jared Dudley are godsend for this team! Frye will probably never be as good as Shaq, but for this team he is a much better fit. This team might be better than what experts were saying initially. Tomorrow, they are playing one of the 2 undefeated teams, the Boston Celtics. If the Suns want to make statement, this is the game to do so. The other undefeated team in the league is Denver and they are good too. The Cavs are just 3-3. A .500 record is probably good enough to get into the playoffs in the L-East, but thats not what the Cavs are playing for. They better start putting up some numbers.

Packers worst nightmare

I never thought I would see the day when Brett Favre gets lustily booed on entering Lambeau field. Brett Favre is sitting pretty at 7-1 and might even make it to the Super Bowl this year, but one has to wonder how did he ever mismanage things to the point that he is the most-hated man in Green Bay. The dude used to own that town and state, but now they have to deploy additional security for his games at Lambeau. I visited Green Bay couple of years back and I wrote about Favre and Green Bay (http://goodcynicsports.blogspot.com/2007/09/green-bay-rocks.html). I feel weird quoting myself, but in that note, I said "The other striking part of the trip to me was how Brett Favre absolutely owns Wisconsin". Boy, how quickly things have changed. Today, the Packers wanted to beat Favre and the Vikings badly. But their worst nightmares came true. Favre threw for 4 TDs and played a great game. He has now thrown for 500+ yards and 7 TDs in the 2 games against Green Bay, both wins. He clearly gets up for these games and I can see how the Packers hate his guts now after these 2 losses. He is just being a massive pain in the butt for them. Aaron Rodgers probably wanted to win these games badly too, but he fell short again. The Vikings are clearly better than the Packers in most phases of the game, but not by much. I feel like the Pack could have won one of these games if A-Rod had taken some more risks and didn't hang onto the ball a little too long. That boy needs to roll the dice a little more. The objective of the sport is to win and not to throw 0 interceptions. In any case, the circus is over, but the Packer fans are even more pissed now. It is what it is I guess.

Speaking of interceptions, look at Kurt Warner - 5 ints and one fumble. Instead of bating Jake Delhomme, Warner became Jake Delhomme today! Cardinal's inconsistency is amazing and for the most part, it just seem to mirror Warner's inconsistency. If he is in rhythm and is given time to throw, he is one of the best in the league. But every now and then the bad Warner shows up and he can clearly compete for the worst in the league. After beating the Giants at NY last week, they lost to the lowly Panthers at home. The Panthers have pretty much handcuffed Delhomme and I think the coach has a heart-attack every time he steps back to throw the ball, but they didn't even have to pass today. They ran all over the cards. It's good the cards play in such a bad division. They will probably win the division with a 9-7 record just like last year. The second best team in their division - Niners, went in to Indy and almost pulled off an upset. But they fell short because the coaching staff didn't trust the passing game enough. Alex Smith drove them down for a TD just before half-time in a 2-minute drive. But it felt like the coaches wouldn't unleash him the rest of the way. They should have because the defense had bothered Peyton Manning enough to keep in check. Its amazing I am saying this because Peyton had 347 yards passing. He is one of those greats like LeBron or Kobe. We often say Kobe had a bad game, but you look at the box-score and you'll see 30 points and 6 boards. Same deal with Peyton. He looked a little off, didn't finish many drives and didn't even throw a TD, but he still had 347 yards. The Niners lost a golden opportunity to make a statement today. Indy is still undefeated. Denver lost today to Baltimore to drop out of the undefeated status and the Saints play tomorrow. At the other end of the spectrum, Rams won today after a loooong time and so did Tennessee.

Another frustrating game in the World Series. The Phillies fought hard and played catchup all night. They finally tied the game in the bottom of the eighth, only to give up 3 more runs in the top of the ninth. Brad Lidge looked awesome to start the ninth, but the Yankees mounted an attack after 2 outs. A-Rod drove in the winning run and Posada added 2 more to finish off the Phillies. They are now done and it doesn't really matter what Cliff Lee does tomorrow. The guy to blame to me is Cole Hamels, who really let them down yesterday. Spotted an early 3-0 lead, if only Hamels was even half as effective as the ace he was last year, the Phillies would have won yesterday. They played a great game today, but the Yankees came through in the ninth. Chase Utley hit one more HR against C.C.Sabathia. Thats now becoming a serious "ownage". But the series is pretty much over and the Yankees will win. On the bright side for the folks in Philly, the Eagles crushed the Giants in the morning as Eli and the boys have lost 3 straight. DeSean Jackson - the pride of Cal is awesome and this Eagles team is officially dangerous. No wonder they have turned it around. You lose to the Raiders, you get a serious wake-up call. Speaking of Cal, they beat ASU on Saturday. Devils lost a close one and was frustrating to watch the final few minutes. The Pac-10 now is firmly in the hands of the Oregon ducks. They crushed USC yesterday and the Ducks have recovered from their season opening loss at Boise State. If you really think about it, Boise is no mediocre mid-major. It's a legit top ranked team and the same can now be said of Oregon. Lets see how high they can get with their ranking.

Split is all the Phillies get

Whenever a team you like wins the first game of a playoff series on the road, you immediately get greedy and want a 2-0 lead going back home. I don't necessarily like the Phillies, but I hate the Yankees enough to be a full-fledged Phillies fan in this World Series. Cliff Lee was tremendous in game 1 and dominated the "Cleveland bowl". Both game 1 starters were ex Cleveland Indians and both pitched very well. But CC was no match for Lee on this day. I loved Lee's nonchalant plays on the field too with a couple of come-backers and popups. But in game 2, the tables got reversed. Pedro pitched good, but A.J.Burnett was better. He pitched 7 innings of 1 run ball and Girardi turned the game over to Rivera for the last 2 innings. Seems like Girardi has no faith in his bullpen outside of Mo and Mo shut the door on the Phillies. All things considered Phillies are probably happy to go back with a split and even happier to have beaten CC in game 1. Now onto Cole Hamels and Andy Pettitte. Great pitching match-ups and evenly balanced teams in this series. I think this is going be heck of a World Series.

NBA is rolling and Cleveland is 0-2. Thats the headliner. They lost at home to Boston and then lost again at Toronto despite the King's triple-double. Shaq is doing OK, but the team doesn't look sharper or better than last season. They better start winning soon or Cleveland will be in all sorts of trouble with LeBron's impending free agency and all other distractions. The teams that are looking good so far are the Celtics, Nuggets and of course the Fakers. Reggie Miller is saying the Fakers will be 20-1 after their first 21 games. That will make this NBA season a living hell for me. Hope they don't do that well and rather settle for something more mediocre like 17-4! Melo is playing like a man possessed for the rich and creamies. Following the footsteps of Kobe and LeBron, this guy has also become a truly committed professional with an eye on the prize. Of course KG is always a "man possessed" and his Celtics are one of the several serious contenders this season. With all that said, we need the Cavs to get in the mix and do their thing. The Suns are 1-0 after a close win against the paper-clips. Nash looked great in the money quarter. They open the home schedule tomorrow against the Warriors.

In the NFL, another Favre versus Green Bay weekend coming up. Thats always fun and never gets tired. I hope they meet again in the playoffs. I think A-Rod and the Packers take this one. Tennessee has named Vince Young their starting QB and the Niners have turned over the keys to Alex Smith. I am happy for Alex Smith. I don't know him personally, but from all accounts, it seems like he is a great guy. Of course he has not been a great QB up to this point, but he is going to be better now. How much better we will see. Denver-Baltimore, Atlanta-New Orleans and Giants-Eagles are the other premier match-ups of the weekend. We have never had 3 undefeated teams this late in to the season and 2 of 3 might win again this weekend. Denver might lose, but then again we keep under-estimating them and they just keep winning. There are still 3 winless teams as well in the league. The good news is one of the 3 teams will definitely not lose this weekend. Tampa Bay has a bye this weekend. Good for them and even better for us the fans,

NBA is back and so is Alex

The NBA starts tomorrow. Wow, time just flies! It just feels like yesterday that the 2008-2009 season ended. The good teams this year are loaded. They all got better. Cavs got Shaq, Lakers got Ron-Ron, Boston got Sheed and the Spurs got RJ. Even Magic minus Hedo plus Vinsanity should be interesting. These teams are going to fight it out from day one. There are truly 4 serious contenders and they are going to be focussed from day 1. And so should we as fans. The next week or so is the best part of the sports calendar. The World Series is beginning. NBA is starting and the NFL is in full flow. All 3 pro leagues that matter are in play and so is college football. Good times indeed. The Suns open their season Wed against the Clippers. SI has picked the Suns to be the 8-Th seed in the West. I expect them to be 6 or 7. They are going to score a lot a win a lot of regular season games this year. But I guess thats why I am called a fan.

Alex Smith is the other guy who is back. He subbed in for the Niners against the Texans and is now named the starting QB for next week. I think he is going to be much better this time around. There were way to many blowouts in the NFL last weekend. Too many bad teams these days. The Rams, Lions, Jaguars, Titans, Raiders, Bills, Redskins, Panthers, Bucs, Seahawks and the Chiefs are all horrible. And the Bears are fast joining this list. They got pummeled by their old friend Cedric Benson and Carson Palmer at Cincinnati. The league is so bad that the Jaguars lost 0-41 to the Seahawks a couple of weeks back and are still 3-3. Among he good teams, Favre and the Vikes finally lost against the Steelers at Pittsburgh. Now Favre is going to Green Bay next week and thats gonna be fun. The one surprise result of the weekend was Dallas beating Atlanta rather convincingly. I guess the boys came out of the bye week well prepared. They controlled Matt Ryan pretty well and Romo was awesome. Miles Austin is probably the find of the season for them. The two plays of the weekend were Adrian Peterson absolutely leveling that Steelers DB and Reggie Bush jumping and covering 6 yards in the air laterally to get to the end zone.

The Yankees took care of the Angels and are now in the World Series again after a few years. This is the first trip for A-Rod. He is on fire and is getting the ultimate respect on the field with things like the opposing team walking him in the ninth inning when leading by just a run. It's him and CC and Mo and Andy Pettitte and Jeter doing their thing - a healthy mix of the veteran Yankees and the new ones getting it done. But the Philles are no joke. They are loaded with guys who hit 30 home runs or more during the regular season up and down their lineup. And they wont be star-struck because they were in the World Series last year and they won it and they totally expect to win it again. I want the Phillies to win, but I am afraid the Yankees will win. Either way, I think the series goes 6 or 7 games.

Anyways, time to go get the NBA league pass on TV.

A-Rod is a Yankee God

On a rainy and chilly night at the new Yankees stadium, A-Rod continued his post-season heroics. What a difference a month makes. A-Rod went from being a choker to Mr.October in a matter of a couple of weeks. Rodriguez hit a tying homer in the 11-Th inning and the Yankees won the game in the 13-Th on a Maicer Izturis error. Angels are making a lot of errors these days. They better start catching the ball when they get back to Anaheim. They are playing a team thats loaded top to bottom and you can't give them many chances. Yankees are so loaded that even A-Rod doesn't seem to feel the pressure of carrying the World on his shoulders anymore and that may be the reason for his success. Mark Teixeira has been a God-send for A-Rod and every time they walked Tex to get to A-Rod during the regular season, I think A-Rod relaxed a little bit more. He was not expected to be the man anymore and he liked it that way.

But the truth is, there is no real basis for the "clutch player" and the "choke artist" tags. I understand sports, and even life for that matter, is mostly mental and guys handle pressure and the stress in different ways. But the bottom-line is, if you are good, you are good and if you are bad, you are bad. And A-Rod is very good. So it was just a matter of time before he came through in the playoffs. This is also why I think Derek Jeter is good, but over-rated. He plays for the Yankees and plays 10+ playoff game almost every year. Of course his post-season stats are going to be on-par with his career stats with such a large sample size. Most guys in other teams can't get to play in these many playoff games and their sample size is very small. So the stats are going to be hit or miss, but mostly miss because the playoffs also brings you good pitchers and great competition. Chances are, you are not going to have great stats if you just play 5 or 6 playoff games in your career. But if you play 100 games or so, things even out. So A-Rod's numbers will only get better as he plays longer for the Yankees and gets more and more post-season opportunities.

A-Rod and C.C.Sabathia are carrying the Yankees in these playoffs and A.J. Burnett was not too shabby today either. The Angels needs a masterful pitching performance in a game or two if they want to turn this thing around against A-Rod and this offense. May be Jared Weaver in game 3 can be that guy. Actually Teixeira is hitting just .100 and both him and A-Rod combined for a 1/11 night today. But that 1 hit was A-Rod's homer. If Tex gets going as well, the Angels will be in trouble. They lost a golden opportunity today and they can't afford to do this again and lose game 3. The Dodgers and Phillies play game 3 tomorrow. It's Cliff Lee against Hiroki Kuroda and you have to think the Phillies are the favorites. But thats why they play the game and lets see what happens. This might be a good time for Manny to come out of his .111 funk.

Pretty Passes

Another Monday night, another fun game. This one featured the Jets and the Dolphins and their 2 young QBs. They combined to score 5 TDs just in the fourth quarter and there were many pretty long bombs from both. Chad Henne is not as highly rated as Mark "Sanchise", but he has a strong arm and throws a pretty ball. I am not sure how good he is gonna be, but he sure looks like the QB of the future for the Dolphins right now. Couple of weeks back I wrote about the Dolphins being completely incapable of big plays and that hurt them against the Colts though they ran the ball great. With Henne, the same team looks different. Henne has a live arm unlike Chad Pennington and with Ted Ginn Jr. lined up wide, they have a legitimate deep threat now. Both Henne and Sanchez threw several deep balls in this game and both looked good. It felt like this could be a rivalry in the future and I am glad the Dolphins won. I love their wildcat. Once again, it couldn't be stopped and the Jets defense got killed. The rookie QB on offense was least of their problem. It was their defense that got pummeled in this game.

Speaking of pretty passes, the Manning brothers threw several more this weekend. Another 300+ yards for the older one and a filthy 36 of 44 passing night. Eli pretty much had an off day playing the horrible Raiders. But one of his long passes to Steve Smith in this game was the best pass I have seen this year. Both the Mannings are undefeated and so are Vikings, Saints and the Denver Broncos. Unusually large number of undefeated teams right now and there are also many bad teams in the league. The bad teams this season look really horrible and thats probably why so many of the top teams are undefeated. The Bills, Browns, Chiefs, Raiders, Titans, Ram and the Bucs are all HORRIBLE! This list doesn't even include the Lions and thats how bad these teams are. The Lions at least show up and compete and give people good games these days. The Browns beat the Bills 6-3 last weekend and put everyone of us to sleep. But the top-line in the league is great right now and I can't wait for the Saints-Giants game next weekend. The winner of that game probably will be in the Super Bowl, but the Vikings are very much in the NFC mix as well. So are the Falcons. They looked great last weekend crushing the Niners 45-10.

The big game of the weekend was Broncos hosting the Patriots. Denver came up big and shocked the Pats. Kyle Orton actually threw for 330 yards and outplayed Tom Brady. Wes Welker had a good game, but Randy Moss was nowhere to be seen in this one. The Pats are nothing great this season and I think the hoody might have out-smarted himself with his roster moves in the off-season. Too many shake-ups on the defensive side and now Junior Seau is coming back from retirement for the third time. Even Brett Favre is saying "Come on!". Cincinnati shocked Baltimore and the Bengals are now leading the AFC north. Carson Palmer is driving them down the field in the clutch every week and they are for real, especially given Pittsburgh's inconsistency. As long as Palmer is healthy, they will only get better and more consistent and confident. Arizona won and are beginning to look good. So did Seattle with Hasselbeck coming back and throwing for 4 TDs. Cards should now have a shot at winning this division given the Niners shocking embarrassment against the Falcons. But I expect the NFC West to be a 3 team race all the way to the end. In the East, Donovan McNabb came back from his injury and won in style - his very first pass was a TD. The Cowboys on the other hand needed overtime to beat the lowly Chiefs. The Boys are in trouble.

Sweep, sweep, sweep

The MLB playoffs are full of sweeps. 3 strong teams - Yankees, Angels and Dodgers swept three mediocre teams - Twins, RedSox and the Cards. The Eagles finished the quartet with a 3-1 win over the Rockies today. There have been some interesting finishes in these playoffs so far. The best and the most satisfying end was to see the RedSox and Papelbon blow the save in game 3 at home. The Angels scored 5 runs in the last 2 innings as Papelbon converted a 2 run lead into a one run loss. The inconsistent RedSox just picked a bad time of the year to have another one of their bad stretches. Now they are done and the TV dudes don't get their Yankees-Sox ALCS. Even I would have loved to see it. It's been a while.

As for the aforementioned Yankees, A-Rod is living large right now. Between dating Kate Hudson and batting .455 in the playoffs and the 6 RBIs in one series, it's hard to question this guy. All the doubters and haters have to be quiet right now. He is known for disappearing in October, but now he is the best player in the playoffs. Of course, he needs to be at least half as good as what he has been so far in the next 2 rounds to really cement his place in October, but he has started strong and without him, there would not have been a sweep. In game 3, he tied the game up with a homer in the 7-Th. Carl Pavano of all people was pitching a shutout in to the 7-Th, but A-Rod turned the tide for the Yankees.

Another 9-Th inning miscue happened today as Houston Street blew a save against Ryan Howard and the Phillies. Street had saved 35 out of 37 games, but now he has to deal with this loss the entire off-season. He lost the game on Saturday too and the Eagles stole 2 playoffs games on the road with 9-Th inning wins. Street has blown 3 saves this year and all of them are against the Phillies. Hope these 2 games don't affect his head permanently. It's tough being a closer in this sport. He probably feels like if not for his mistake, the Rockies could have forced a game 5 and even advanced. Matt Holliday probably does and should feel the same way too. His error in game 2 was a killer. The Cards never recovered and were eliminated at home. I was expecting a lot from that series, but the Dodgers cruised rather easily. Now on to the Eagles for the Dodgers. The Yankees have to face the dreaded Angels and they are hoping the result will be different this time around.

Clutch Troubles

The Yankees have been walking off on the the Twins at the new stadium all season long. Today in game 2 of their playoffs series, they did it again. This was the Yankees' fourth walk-off victory over the Twins this season and ninth win in nine games. Thats amazing to me. A-Rod has some serious post-season mojo going for him right now. He hit the game tying, 2-run bomb against Joe Nathan in the 9-Th to send the game to extras. The other stud, Mark Teixeira, hit a line-drive home run in the 11-Th to one of the shortest parts of the stadium to win the game. That thing reached the fence is no time. It was a short and low ride for that baseball. Suddenly A-Rod is a post-season savant. It would be interesting to see how the haters handle his success now. Me personally, I hate the Yankees more than I hate A-Rod and I can handle his success. The Twins are now in trouble. Down 0-2 and nowhere to go, but back home.

The Angels on the other hand are doing great against the BoSox. They are up 2-0 after 2 strong pitching performances by John Lackey and Jared Weaver. Both Lester and Beckett have now lost and the RedSox nation should be gripping big time. The Angels always lose to the RedSox, but win against the Yankees. May be it's going to be the reverse this post-season. In the NL, Matt Holliday was both the hero and the goat as the Cardinals lost a game they almost won against the Dodgers. He hit a home run in the second, but dropped a game ending catch in the 9-Th that turned out to be a rally-starting error for the Dodgers who ended up winning the game 3-2 instead of losing it 2-1. Brutal game for the Cardinal fans. In the other series, the Rockies and the Eagles are tied up and the series should be fun as it moves to Denver. I mean fun for us, but not for the players or the fans in the stadium and the temperature there is supposed to plummet to the thirties.

Tomorrow in College, Florida @ LSU. That should be a good one.

Game number 163

We always say the MLB season is a marathon and not a sprint. I guess Detroit and Minnesota decided the marathon was not long enough. They extended it by one more game today and then they extended today's game number 163 beyond the usual 9 innings. Minnesota finally won it 6-5 in 12 innings. Both teams let many chances slip away before Minnesota clinched it in the 12-Th on a hit by Alexi Casilla who is batting .198 for the season. Perfect end to a disastrous slump by the Tigers. I thought this race was over a while back. But the Tigers found a way to miss the playoffs after leading the division by 3 games with 4 games to go. Miguel Cabrera didn't help by partying with the enemy between games during that final weekend series and then coming home drunk and fighting with his wife. Too many controversies for one weekend. At the end of the day, or rather the season, Tigers loss ends up being Twins gain and they won the tie-breaker this year unlike last year when they lost to the White Sox. This is the third straight year with a one-game playoff in baseball. It's an interesting way to get us primed for the real playoffs.

The playoffs start tomorrow with 3 games. Twins have to go into the Bronx and face the game's top lineup less than 24 hours after winning an extra-inning game. I always thought the league was tough on these teams playing the one-game playoff by scheduling the real playoff game the very next day. But only today I learnt that the Yankees actually have the right to choose when they start their playoff - tomorrow or the day after. Of course they chose tomorrow because that puts the most pressure on the Twins. Not that the Yankees need these things on their side to win it all. They should be able to handle the Twins pretty easily. They have won all their 7 games this season against them and they should win 3 more though they may lose one game in the process. They better win the series. After all, they have the game's highest paid catcher, first baseman, third baseman, shortstop, starter and reliever ! No wonder the Yankees always say anything less than a championship is a failure. What a stupid system MLB is running. It's like a football team having the highest paid QB, RB, WR, linebacker and cornerback in the same team or a NBA team having the highest paid point guarrd, shooting guard and power forward in the league. I don't think that'll happen in those sports, but anything goes in baseball. It's not all about the Yankees though. The Rockies play the Phillies and the Dodgers play the Cards tomorrow as well. I pick the Cards, Rockies, Yankees and Boston to advance.

Bring on the playoffs anyways. Best way to spend the time between the NFL games is to watch playoff baseball. And did I mention the NBA pre-season has started too! Nothing wrong with that.

Mannings and Favre dominate

The NFL is slowly but surely becoming the personal property of the Mannings. Looks like the little one might be almost as good as the elder one. But then again nobody is as good as Peyton Manning these days. I love good QB play more than anything else in the NFL and I look for it in every game. I was a huge Dan Marino fan because he was the ultimate, pure QB. He still might be and I thought he will always be the best pure passer ever, but Peyton Manning is shaking my commitment to Dan-da-man. Manning is on top of his game like no other right now. His mastery of the mental aspect of the game is next to nobody. We have seen many great QBs and there are still a few good ones in the league. It's fun seeing Tom Brady and Brett Favre play and be in control, but nobody seems to know everything the defense is trying to do quite like Peyton. He seems to know what's coming even before the defensive coordinator on the other end calls the play. He often audibles and confuses the defense and gets what he wants out of them. It's usually the other way around with the defense confusing the offense, but not with this guy.

Peyton's physical talents are comparable to any of the other great QBs, though clearly slightly inferior to Dan Marino and the likes, but his mental capacity seems to be way beyond everybody else. It comes from hours and days and weeks of film study. It's no accident. It's a pure joy watching him play. Of course if you are puling for the other team he is playing against, then it's the ultimate torture. Like it was for me last weekend when the Colts played the Cards. Of course the Cards took it easy on me by completely sucking. That game deteriorated to a point very quickly where it didn't matter what Peyton did. I was not hanging on to his every pass. In any case, both the Mannings are undefeated and look unstoppable right now. Peyton is making stars out of Pierre Garcon, Austn Collie and Donald Brown and Eli is making stars out of Mario Manningham and the other Steve Smith. Archie should be a proud papa. Eli got a scare with a non-contact injury that looked bad. I think he should be fine.

Brett Favre had a breakout game today against his Packers. He looked awesome and after downplaying the game all week, he gave conflicting answers after the game which kinda proved the obvious - that this game meant a lot more than he would admit too. But he was awesome on the field - 24-31, 271 yds, 3 TDs. This team looks scary right now as the young receivers are learning to play with him. The Vikings D harassed Aaron Rodgers all night. Neither team could run the ball, but the Vikings D made it hard for the Packers to consistently mount an attack. A-Rod is very good and he still passed for 384 yards, but he needs better protection. He also needs to get rid of the ball quicker sometimes. He holds on to the ball a little too long. The Packers were still in the game and a critical 4-Th down call in the second half I think hurt them. They should have taken the 3 points instead of going for the TD and failing when they were trailing 14-28. That made it harder for the Pack. Of course Donald Lee could have and should have still caught that TD pass and A-Rod could have thrown a slightly better ball too. No such issues with Favre. He was on the money and was hitting everything. I also liked Sidney Rice going way up and catching both those on-side kicks. Thats some real athleticism right there and goes to show you how much of a team sport football is. While Favre gets all the press, it's little plays like that which clinches these football games. I am a big A-Rod fan and am disappointed for him and the Packers, but as always A-Rod looked good, but it was not enough. Favre looks more than enough right now for the Vikings.

The other great game of the weekend was Baltimore at New England. As always, it was close and as always, it was a frustrating, heart-breaking loss for the Ravens against the Pats. This time, Flacco was driving them cooly and assuredly towards the end zone when Mark Clayton dropped a pass on 4-Th and 3 deep in Patriots territory. The ball hit him between the numbers and he flat our dropped it. Lucky Patriots and Brady, who also got bailed out a couple of times with absolutely ridiculous personal foul calls. NFL needs to take another look at these stupid QB calls. In other games, San Francisco shut out St. Louis and Jacksonville embarrassed Tennessee. JaMarcus Russell still sucks and Derek Anderson showed us again that he is better than Brady Quinn, though neither of them can save the Cleveland Browns. San Diego and Dallas are still two of the most over-rated teams in the league, though Philip Rivers is a much more consistent QB than Tony Romo. Denver of all teams is 4-0 and I have to admit, I thought they'll absolutely suck. I guess I was wrong. They beat Dallas and if I was Wade Phillips, I would be getting ready to find another job next season. Dallas seems to be going nowhere and I am not sure what's Romo's problem either. Wonder if he is longing for TO in his team now.

Frustrating Loss

It was painful watching the Arizona State Sun Devils play on Saturday against the Oregon State Beavers. The Devils seem to have no problems moving the ball or eating yards in chunks. But they couldn't get the key yards when it counted on third downs and made too many mistakes. It was frustrating to watch them get 12, 15, 18 yards and then just stall. They out-gained the Beavers 413-299 yards and had 27 first downs to the Beavers 16. But the Beavers won the game almost by an identical number, but in the reverse - 28-17. It was Oregon State's first road win over the Sun Devils in 40 years and the Devils didn't need it after that close loss at Georgia last week. Not the best way to start the Pac-10 season and I am not sure where Dennis Erickson is taking this program. The Pac-10 seems wide open this year, but seems like the Devils will be looking in from the outside again.

Miami was once again the big newsmaker this Saturday. They went into Oklahoma and beat them 21-20 in a classic. They ran all over them and bounced back from a bad first half. Miami's QB Jacory Harris is a mature dude who recovered well after a bunch of early mistakes. Miami lost badly to Va Tech last weekend. Otherwise they will be in national championship contention after playing four straight ranked opponents to open this season. They are doing good even now with 3 wins considering they were not expected to do anything this season. As for Oklahoma, this defeat pretty much eliminates them from the national title contention. They may still bubble up the Big 12 standings and create some noise, but they won't be playing in the national championship game.

I was a little surprised by the Michigan loss to Michigan State. Tate Forcier looked good as always, but his pass in OT was deflected and intercepted and State cashed in. Tough loss for the kid, but he had a great 4-Th quarter once again. This was one of the few upsets this week which was not upset heavy. I guess the big upset might be next week when Florida visits LSU. Not that LSU Is any kind of powerhouse, but I am not sold on Florida either especially if Tebow is hurting. LSU was lucky winning against Georgia 20-13 and are hoping this will continue next week. It should be a great game. The big game this weekend turned out to be a clunker as USC blasted Cal 30-3. Pac-10 as usual is done in the eyes of the experts and the only savior left might actually be Oregon, who are now doing very well after the season opening loss at Boise State. They might even reinstate RB LeGarrette Blount and that would be the right thing to do. The week was quiet otherwise with Houston losing to UTEP being the only other "upset". No big deal.

In the MLB, Detroit somehow managed to turn a comfortable 3 game lead into a one game playoff with the Twins on the road this Tuesday.

Favre, front and center

The Favre hype is all over your TV. He is going to play the Packers next Monday and that should be awesome. But on top of it, he is coming of a game-winning TD last Sunday. It was a great throw and a better catch to beat the Niners who played a great game and should have won it. He was the story of the NFL weekend and the talking heads on TV were all sucking up to him big time. These were the same fools who were ripping him during the off-season. Of course this only proves my usual adage that two things that sound contradictory can both be true. I guess I can't blame these TV guys all that much. Favre's act during the off-season was stupid. But he is a great player and he is doing for the Vikings what they exactly want him to do. I am pretty sure they don't win that game last weekend without Favre. Regardless of what the other Vikings QBs would have or could have done during the course of the game, they definitely wouldn't have been able to do what Favre did with that fiinal drive.

I found that play still very interesting. As sports fans, we live and die by inches. If that throw was a few inches off or even if the throw was the same, but the receiver landed a few inches further away or if his defenders were a few inches closer to the ball and tapped it away, we wouldn't be hyping Brett Favre's performance in that game all that much. But the play worked out and we can't stop talking about him. Sports is such a bottom-line business that makes you the hero if you win and you are nothing special if you lose. Rest of it are mere details. The other thing that struck me with that play was, how one's reputation and who he or she is matters to the exclusion of everything else. Favre threw to Greg Lewis - good throw and a great catch. But Favre still walks away with most of the honors in our eyes. I was wondering what if it was Trent Edwards to Terrell Owens? TO would have garnered most of the kudos because he is TO. The sports world is strange like that sometimes, but we love it because real life can be even stranger.

Anyways we get to see Favre V Aaron Rodgers next Monday. Can't complain. Last weekend, Detroit won after a long time. It might get some people fired in Washington. The Lions had to win sometime since they can't keep losing for the rest of eternity. So I don't see why the Redskins are taking it so personally! In college, ASU lost a tough one at Georgia. It could have been a great win, but it was not meant to be. The only guy who is probably more hyped than Favre right now is Tim Tebow. Dude suffered a concussion last weekend and there's 24X7 coverage on him since then. In the MLB, the season is winding down, but the usual drama is missing. Teams have big leads and there is no real pennant chase. Where's the parity in baseball? The only drama the last couple of days has involved Detroit and Minnesota, but thats not very interesting as Detroit is leading by 3 after today's game. Time to bring on the playoffs already. MLB playoffs are fun, especially for me when the RedSox and the Yankees play each other and I am pulling for both of them to lose! In other news, the NHL season is starting already. Not that I care, but this means the NBA can't be that far behind. Good times!

Weekend of the Mannings

The Manning brothers owned week 2 of the NFL. They showed us once again why they are the number 1 football family in the World. Peyton Manning is one of the best ever and Eli is charting his own course and building his own legacy. First it was Eli on Sunday night cooly and calmly guiding the Giants past the Cowboys at that mega-stadium out there in Dallas. Romo helped him out by playing horribly, but Eli did have to drive them down the field for a field goal in the last 3 minutes. He threw for 330 yards and 2 TDs in the game and made stars out of Mario Manningham and the (other) Steve Smith. He proved once again that good QBs do more for the receivers than good receivers ever do to help QBs. That stadium and that scoreboard look gorgeous and they look even better when the Boys lose. I wish I can watch a game there one of these days. It was an event and LeBron was there prompting Chris Collinsworth to remark "it's not a party unless LeBron shows up these days". interesting. Is LeBron over-exposed? Thats a conversation for another day and time.

Peyton Manning owned Monday night as he won the game against the Dolphins under very unusual circumstances. Miami dominated the time of possession to the tune of 45.07 minutes to 14.53 minutes and still lost. How is that even possible? I guess Peyton's brilliance is the primary reason for this. He threw for a 80 yard TD to open the game and a 48 yard game-winner at the end, which meant the Colts scored 14 points in 44 seconds. The rest of the way, Miami ran and ran and milked the clock. Their wildcat ran to perfection again. Brian Billick calls it a gimmick and Steve Young calls it a fad, but the way Miami runs it, it seems to work every-time. The Dolphins are even selling jerseys with "wildcat" on the back! I wouldn't mind owning one of those. But when the time came for a big play at the end, Miami just had nowhere to go. I like Chad Pennington a lot, but that final 2-minute drive must qualify as the worst 2-minute drill ever. In fact, it was not even a 2 minute drive, he actually had more than 3 minutes to go, not to mention the 2 timeouts. But they ran a play a minute until Chad suddenly seemed to realize he was in the 4-Th and not the 3-Rd quarter. But to me, the Dolphins lost the game the previous drive when the game was tied and they were in field goal range. They had a 3-Rd and 6 and after Chad and Ted Ginn Jr. had converted on a trillion 3-Rd downs all day, they called a run and settled for 3. Even the Raiders with JaMarcus Russell would have called a pass play at that point. I don't know what the coaches were thinking and it serves them right that Manning scored a TD soon after (in 32 seconds) to take the lead back for good.

Great Monday night game again though. NFL has been even better than advertised so far. John Feinstein made an interesting point that a 0-2 hole in the NFL is like a 20 game losing streak in the MLB. Thats true if you consider the fact that the NFL season is 16 games long and MLB is 162 games long. Another data point to illustrate how and why the NFL is so intense start to finish. There were a lot of interesting games last weekend. I was happy to see Kurt Warner and the Cardinals get back on track. Warner completed 24/26 passes and thats just insane! There are some murmurs about L-Fitz not getting the ball enough, but I think it will all be fine soon. Jacksonville apparently can't sellout these games and they seem to be in a bigger blackout hell than the Raiders. Speaking of the Raiders, they beat the KC Chiefs 13-10 behind JaMarcus Russell who was his usual self completing just 7/24 passes for a robust 109 yards. Matt Cassel should have been depressed and completely shocked after this game. On the positive side, if Cassel can recover from this disaster, he can handle anything the rest of his career. New Orleans and San Francisco continued from where they left off last week and won their 2-Nd game. Saints are for real and the Niners will let us know next week when they go outside their division and take on Adrian Peterson, Brett Favre and the Vikings. I can't think of another runner quite like AP when it comes to seeking out contact. The guy just takes defenders head-on and never shies away from contact. And considering the speed at which he is coming at them, it should be a nightmare for the guys in the secondary.

The best result of the weekend was of course New England losing to the J-E-T-S. Those guys talked trash all week and then backed it up by crushing the mighty NE Patriots with ease. I can't believe how good they are and how strong Mark Sanchez is. Dude seems to be from the Matty Ice school of rookie QBs and he looks a lot more mature than the Jets QB last year - Brett Favre! The defense came after Brady and shut him down. They kept Moss bottled up too with just 24 yards. Impressive! The Pats are a stupid Buffalo fumble away from being 0-2. NFL can be an upside down World sometimes. Off the field, Niners are accusing the Jets of some tampering with Michael Crabtree and now the Jets coach is saying they want to play the Niners! These guys are not kidding around. They want to crush everybody. The other AFC superpowers - Chargers and the Steelers, both lost as well. Cutler played much better as the Bears beat the Steelers and Ray Lewis made an amazing game ending tackle to make sure the Chargers lost despite the 436 yards passing by Philip Rivers. More great early season games. Houston and Tennessee played a good one as well as the Texans got back on track. Chris Johnson had 284 total yards in the loss, but he couldn't overcome the Matt Schaub-Andre Johnson connection. This game featured some of the most wide-open receivers I have ever seen in the NFL. I am not talking "NFL open", I am talking "there is nobody within 20 feet of the receiver" open. Both defenses looked like San Jose state against USC in certain plays and in one play, Houston completely forgot about Chris Johnson and he was all alone running by himself along the sidelines. Tennessee is in trouble and @ NY Jets is the last thing they need. We will see what happens next week.

Better early than late?

Every year, USC looses a game that they are not supposed to. It's always to an unranked Pac-10 team. Yesterday, it looks like they decided it's better to get this obligatory yearly loss out of the way early in the season rather than late. They lost their Pac-10 opener on the road to Washington 16-13. Washington is unranked. As a matter of fact, they are just happy to be still in Division-1 football given that they went 0-12 last year. Now they have beat the big and mighty USC. This loss has dropped USC to number 12 - behind schools like Boise State, Miami, Oklahoma and Va Tech and way behind Cal. I wonder if USC is thinking that they can recover from an early season loss better than a late season loss when it comes to BCS berths. Unfortunately, such courtesies are only extended by our beloved voters to East Coast schools like Florida! If you lose to an unranked Pac-10 team, you are pretty much done.

But this goes to show that Pac-10 is usually better than advertised. Why would USC keep losing to unranked teams in Pac-10 even though they routinely crush Big-10 big-dawgs like Ohio State and Penn state. I think the Pac-10 teams are hard to beat especially on the road. Most of them have decent offenses, though this particular contest was a low scoring one. Also, while the West Coast has "weak" sports fans in general, that description fits California and Arizona more than the North Western states. They have higher levels of passion for college football since most of the Oregon and Washington schools are located in small, campus towns with very little professional sports interests and lots of rain! So going into those hostile environments and coming out with a W is easier said than done. Of course, there is something wrong with USC's mindset and their coach that this happens every year. For all the credit Pete Carroll gets for resurrecting the program at USC, I think he has under-achieved with what he has got. May be he should have 4 or 5 rings instead of the 1.5 he's got if only his teams played with the same focus every game.

Great win for Washington even though USC played without quarterback Matt Barkley and defensive star Taylor Mays. Now let's see if USC gets it's act together against a good Cal team in a couple of weeks. Speaking of Cal, my main (Heis)man Jahvid Best ran for 131 yards and five touchdowns in a 35-21 victory at Minnesota. He is on track. The other great game of the week was Virginia Tech V Nebraska. Va Tech's mediocre QB Tyrod Taylor clinched the game for them with a game-winner. Great win for the Hokies - 16-15. The other surprising results of the week were Oregon upsetting Utah and Florida State over BYU.
I knew FSU was good, but I was surprised that they crushed BYU on the road. Tennessee and Lane Kiffin had a good day. They lost 13-23 to Florida, but weren't they supposed to lose 60-3 or something? Not sure what happened to Florida there. I am now thinking they are going to lose a game this season if not 2. If they and Texas stay on course, the Championship game is all theirs as of now. Lets see what happens.

ASU beat Louisiana-Monroe 38-14, but they start their season for real at number 23 Georgia next weekend. I am nervous!

Is the U back?

Miami won again today. They played an interesting season opener against Florida State on Labor day and won the game at the end just like the good old days. And today they beat the 14-Th ranked team in Georgia Tech. I like their QB Jacory Harris. Both Harris and their coach Randy Shannon seem to have a decent and classy demeanor thats so rare at the U. More power to them. They are now ranked and should be moving up next week. I am already getting a little tired of USC and Matt Barkley. ESPN is constantly talking about him after just one good game. I said the hype machine will be all over this kid, but I didn't know it would be this bad this quick. The other story of the week in college is Tennessee @ Florida. Lane Kiffin's trash talking earlier in the year is the story here, but unfortunately, the game should be no-contest and a non story.

In the NFL, Monday night gave us two great games. We were reminded once again why NFL is the king in this country. These games are close, they are played at a high level and they matter. Every game - 1 through 16, matter. The offensive execution in game 1 is sometimes bad, but teams still play hard and give it their all for a W. Thats the beauty of a 16 game season as opposed to a 82 or a 162 game season. We were also reminded last Monday of the luckiest guy on the planet - Tom Brady. In addition to bagging supermodel Gisele Bundchen, he won his season opener at home last Monday when he had no business winning. Buffalo had that game locked up when they fumbled a kickoff return with a couple of minutes to go in the game. It's a cliche to say "you do not want to give that guy another chance", but you just do not want to give Tom Brady another chance like that. He went to Ben Watson again and won the game with a sweet TD. The Bills lost the game in the last 3 minutes after dominating the game all through. I am sure the Bills fans were thrilled about this loss.

In game 2, the Raiders were surprisingly competitive and even dominant in the trenches. They bottled up the Chargers for most of the night and ran all over them in the first half. But Philip Rivers took the Chargers down the field for a game winner. This has been an interesting sidebar of the early season football this year. A lot of offenses did nothing all game, but went down the field for a victory at the end. From USC to the Packers to the Chargers, it was the same story. Disappointing loss for the Raiders, but they have something to cheer about. They look much improved, but they still have a long way to go. JaMarcus Russell needs to develop a lot. He is quite raw and can't carry them to victories yet. They have to win despite him and not because of him and thats going to be tough. But to be fair to him, he did his job in this game and put the Raiders ahead in the 4-Th quarter but the defense let the Chargers score and win.

There seem to be many interesting off the field stories in sports the last few days. First there was the "Serena-gate" where she went ballistic on a line judge and got penalized a point on a match point. It sounds tough, but she earned it. She went nuts and deserved to be docked a point. Then Federer misbehaved during his finals on Monday. He used an expletive and got fined later and coming from Federer, it was a little surprising and became big news. He seemed frustrated to the point that he looked out of sorts after that argument and lost the Finals. It happens to the best I guess.

Michael Jordan is getting some grief too for his act in the Hall Of fame ceremony. People are saying his speech was bitter and angry. He went on and on about all the perceived or real insults he had to endure throughout his basketball life and thanked those guys for motivating him! That sure is an odd hall of fame speech. I thought the only interesting point was about Byron Russell. Mike told us how Russell met him during Mike's first retirement and claimed that he could have guarded him if he was still in the NBA. I didn't know about this and how ironic is it that Russell had to guard Mike in the NBA finals, not once but twice. Overall, the feeling is that Mike didn't give a classy speech. Stockton and Robinson on the the other hand gave us the usual humble speech. I especially remember Stockton saying that he was never the best player in his team his entire life. Thats humility and thats what we need more of in the Hall of Fame speeches.

Week 1 is a Brees!

Week 1 of the NFL is in the books, except for the 2 Monday nighters tomorrow. The story today was definitely the Brandon Stockley TD in the final seconds of the Denver-Cincinnati game. Denver ended up with one of the luckiest wins you'll ever see in the NFL. The Bengals were completely in control of this game with just seconds on the clock with Denver backed all the way deep and trailing by a point. Orton stepped back to make another one of his mediocre throws towards Brandon Marshall, who looked clueless most of the day and was not even in same book, let alone the same page as Orton. In addition to all this, he was double covered and since Brandon Stokley was also around the same area, Stokley's defender followed the ball and left Stokley alone. This came back to bite the Bengals in the butt, though you can't really fault the defender for aggressively going after ball. Marshall's defender jumped up and tipped the ball away and just when you thought it was going to fall incomplete, it went straight to Stokley. Stokley caught it and was wide open. There was nobody between him and the end-zone and he scored the game winning, 87 yard TD rather easily. The most interesting part of the play to me was Stokley taking a detour before stepping in to the end-zone since there were no defenders anywhere near and he wanted to burn some more clock. Some guys are just smart like that. Of course his coach Josh McDaniels has been kinda making dumb moves all off-season, but he lucked out with a huge win.

Jay Cutler on the other hand lost the Sunday nighter to Green Bay on a 4 interception night. Aaron Rodgers gets a big 4-Th quarter win and he sure looked like Brett Favre throwing that game winner to Greg Jennings. GB's offense looked horrible, but A-Rod closed the deal at the end. Then Al Harris finished Cutler off with an interception which looked eerily similar to his game ending interception in OT a few years back in the playoffs against Matt Hasselbeck and the Seahawks. The offensive stud of the week though was Drew Brees. This guy is a spectacular QB. It took him a while to kick-start his career, but he has been super lately. I didn't like it when the Chargers let him go in favor of Philip Rivers, but Rivers ain't bad either. I sure hope Rivers aint bad, because I have him in my fantasy roster. But Brees made his fantasy owners very happy today throwing for 358 yards and 6 TDs. Some of his throws are so crisp and on target, it' awesome to watch him play. Speaking of fantasy stars, Adrian Peterson helped his owners today with 180 yards and 3 TDs. AP is the top dog in fantasy these days, but we have been talking about LaDainian Tomlinson like he had a horrible 2008 and he is way past his prime. But you know what, he had 1500+ yards from scrimmage and scored 12 TDs last year. How much were we really expecting from this guy last season? Granted, he didn't run for 1900 yards like AP or close to 2000 yards like he himself did the previous 3 years, but he still had a good season despite the injury and all. He might do great again this season too. He starts off against the Raiders Monday night and of course he kills them. The poor Raiders will start tomorrow and hope not to lose to the Chargers for the 800Th straight time.

Favre didn't look spectacular today, but he didn't have to against the Cleveland Browns. I feel for the Browns fans. The light at the end of the tunnel seems to be from another oncoming train. I don't know about this Brady Quinn dude. He didn't look good at all. Speaking of QBs who didn't look good, Kurt Warner looked very shaky today. The reigning NFC champs lost to the Niners, whose defense looks pretty robust. Their coach Mike Singletary seems to have really improved the team and he is getting a lot of run this season in the Bay Area. He has become the face of the franchise and it will be interesting to see how the Niners do. Matt Hasselbeck and the Seahawks seem to be healthy and good too this season. Cards and Warner better get their act together soon. Looks like the NFC West might be a three horse race. Mark Sanchez looked awesome today. I think the culture of rookie QBs are changing these days. After Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco did well last year - especially Ryan, Sanchez looked on target today (18/31 for 272 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT). May be more college programs are running real pro style offenses these days that prepares these talented guys. Matthew Stafford looked more like a typical rookie though. But he's got an awesome arm for sure. Both Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco did well today. They seemed to be continuing from where they left off. The other QB who seems to be continuing from where he left off is Big Benjamin Roethlisberger. I used to say he is over-rated, but he has become a great QB and in the season opener on Thursday, he did his 4-Th quarter thing again against the Titans after sucking for the first 3 quarters. He is fast becoming as big as the big boys Peyton and Brady. He is good! His pump fakes are awesome. Lets see how Brady does tomorrow coming back from the injury.

Ohio State's worst nightmare - USC and Michigan win!

The newest USC stud I guess is Matt Barkley. The true freshman, who was a surprise pick to start at QB over Aaron Corp JR. and the erstwhile superstar recruit Mitch Mustain, went into the shoe and beat Ohio State 18-15 behind a game winning fourth quarter drive late in the game. It was an impressive drive in the money quarter, though it was not all easy for Barkley. USC started strong and scored on a fourth down, but the buckeyes answered back. USC had trouble moving the ball after that. They seemed to a little more comfortable on offense than the buckeyes, but clearly the freshman had trouble moving the ball consistently. The USC offensive line looked impressive anytime there was a 3-Rd and 1 or a 4-Th and 1. Barkley could sneak behind them for a couple of yards whenever they wanted. But still things didn't all come together for the Trojans.

The game stayed close and in the second half, Ohio State actually started to control the field position battle. USC was constantly backed up and Barkley just could not move them forward. But finally he did what he had to and moved them 95 yards for the go ahead score. USC's shifty running back Joe McKnight was a big part of that drive and USC went home happy. They are legit and whether you like it or not, you are gonna start hearing about Matt Barkley as much as you did about Mark Sanchez, Matt Leinart and Carson Palmer. Dude is too young and sounds a little bit like a moron, but he became a star today. Kudos to Pete Carroll for rolling the dice on a true freshman and he was rewarded with a win today that took his record against the Big 10 to 7-0. I am happy every time the suckeyes lose and it's even better if they lose to a Pac 10 team.

Barkely was not the only true freshmen doing his thing today. Michigan's Tate Forcier was even more impressive in his second college game ever against the Domers. It was an instant classic as the Wolverines beat the Irish 38-34. Both offenses were spectacular and the game was tight most of the second half. This dude Forcier is an athlete. He can move and can make plays outside the pocket. It's fun to watch him. Not a bad loss for the Domers either. It was close and they looked good even in a loss. It might be another major bowl for Notre Dame and probably another embarrassing loss when all is said and done this season.

In other games, Oklahoma state beat Georgia last week and jumped to number 5 in the ranking only to lose to Houston this week 45-35. I love upsets and parity in college football and this game showcased both. This was Houston's first win over a top 5 team in 25 years. It's interesting to see many unheralded college programs crack the top 25 or beat top 25 teams - BYU, Boise State, TCU, Utah, UNC, Cincinnati and Houston. Of course Boise State is becoming a regular these days. The other interesting result of the day was UCLA beating Tennessee 19 -14 on the road. Good day for the Pac 10. Speaking of Pac 10, I am pulling for a Pac 10 Heisman this year as well - Cal's Jahvid Best. This guy is a stud. He is Usain Bolt in football gear. He has got pure sprinter speed and is averaging about 10 yards a carry so far this season. Of course number 10 Cal has not played anybody yet. I'll be keeping an eye on him all season long.

J.H.O.F

Jordan is in the news again. ESPN always goes to him once in 4 months or if the news cycle is slow, whichever is earlier. Nobody can keep the people glued to their TV quite like MJ even today. But this time the news is about him going to the Hall of Fame. This should be the biggest no-brainer ever. Is this really even news? The only news here is that they are moving the ceremony to a bigger place to fit all of the fans. This is one of those rare inductions where the guy coming in adds more to the hall than what the hall can add to him. MJ's entry elevates the guys who are already there. He lends them more credibility. I was thinking he probably deserves a different recognition - an even more exclusive club that should only allow people of MJ's calibre. This club should be named after Jordan himself. Let's call it the Jordan Hall of Fame for all of sports - JHOF.

The JHOF should be restricted to the creme de la creme of pro athletes - superstar athletes who transcend their sport and totally define their era in their respective sport. Their "era" should at least be 8 to 10 years long and these guys and gals should be in the all century teams in their sport. I am sure I will overlook some names here, but the JHOF should only accept people like MJ, Muhammad Ali, Joe Montana, Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Pete Sampras and Roger Federer. I would have added Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus to the list if only they played a real sport. Even Kobe, Shaq and Tom Brady should only be considered in their third ballot several years after their retirement. And Tim Duncan and Troy Aikman should be outside looking in along with the rest of us. The JHOF should only vote for this thing once in 5 years. It should be built distinct from all other hall of fames in the middle of nowhere. I even have a spot for it - right on the "four corners" north of Arzona where 4 state lines supposedly meet. It sure is in the middle of nowhere and the JHOF will at least help the tourists feel less stupid about driving for hours to see two intersecting straight lines. The JHOF should be a small room and given it's exclusivity, they wouldn't have to expand this room for about 100 years or so.

The only thing left to decide is, does Anna Kournikova belong in the JHOF? Just kidding folks. But seriously though, MJ is special and some videos on Yahoo sports reminded me once again of how good he was. These are clips from his rookie season and the early years of his career. A few things stood out for me. First and foremost his large hands, which according to Phil Jackson is a big difference between him and Kobe because Kobe can't quite squeeze the ball like MJ. Even 25 years later, MJ's hang-time and athleticism looks impressive. Given the combination of improvements in health sciences over the last 20 years and the wannabe-Jordans trying to fly like him, todays stars should be as good as MJ if not better athletically. But his hang-time still looks unbelievable. But aside from all those physical and athletic characteristics, his pure basketball skills you see in these videos impressed me the most. His understanding of the angles on the court, the use of the back-board and the ability to exploit the soft spots on defense combined with his aggressiveness and relentlessness made him pretty unstoppable even in his rookie year. And I was surprised to see him attack on defense and play that well on that side of the ball even in his rookie season. Sorry guys, Kobe and LeBron are great, but they are not even close to this guy yet. And they are not even in the same planet if you just compare the earlier years of their respective careers (even after adjusting for the fact these two came out of high school). So do check these videos out.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_dont_lie/post/Vintage-video-Young-Michael-Jordan-highlights;_ylt=ApUI6Rx7k5SubSVEv_oEivK8vLYF?urn=nba,187344

First Saturday

One of my friend, who is not a big sports fan, says he likes football but he does not like the all-encompassing nature of football. I beg to differ and I am sure most football fans will agree with me. We love football precisely because of it's all-encompassing nature. For instance, I had two fantasy football drafts today and yesterday was the first Saturday of the College football season. I was in and out Saturday morning, but I made sure I was in front of the TV for the Va Tech-Alabama game. I turned on the TV at 5 PM and football kept me company all evening and all night as I was doing my fantasy research as well. It was almost 11 PM by the time the West coast games on TV ended. There was a few good ones too, which is very rare this early in the season. The Alabama-VaTech game was good all the way and the LSU-Washington one was good too. It's exciting times for football fans as we get to watch college ball on TV and wait with bated breath for the NFL and the fantasy season.

Virginia Tech hung in there and made an interesting game out of it. But honestly, they were not talented as Alabama, especially on offense. They competed thanks to "Beamer ball" on special teams and some good defense, but Bama pulled away late in the game and put them away. Most other top 5 teams had a field day crushing their opponents - Florida, Texas and USC. Of course I am all about the upset. The big one was number 3 Oklahoma losing to BYU. Heisman winner Sam Bradford was injured and had to leave the game. With him went their chances of winning this game. His return is still uncertain and Oklahoma's title hopes are in serious trouble. But then again, they lost to Texas and still ended up in the championship game ahead of them last year. Number 6 Ohio state sneaked past Navy 31-27. Navy lined up for a 2 point play that would have tied it, but the suck-eyes intercepted the ball and took it the other way. Now they can get ready for their huge game against USC next week and get embarrassed as always.

The season actually started with a bang on Thursday as Oregon went into Boise and got embarrassed on the blue field. They were supposed to take revenge for the loss at home last season, but the Ducks ended up with another L in this rivalry now. To make matters worse, RB LeGarrette Blount punched a dude in the face and almost went Ron Artest on the crowd. Luckily he was restrained from attacking the crowd, but the punch has got him suspended for the year. Thats harsh! I can see a 3 or 4 game suspension, but I don't think it deserves a full-season. After all, the Boise State dude provoked him with a tap to his shoulder and some trash talking after the game. Who does that after the game? But I guess Blount's past caught up to him more than the present and he got punished hard. Trying to get into the crowd is never a smart idea and that made his situation worse. Blount has since called Boise State defensive end Byron Hout and coach Chris Petersen to apologize for the punch. I hope they reduce his "sentence".

Welcome back football

The college football season starts tomorrow. It sure makes the disappearance of summer less painful to handle. South Carolina is kicking off the season against N.C.State. Seems like the Ole' ball coach gets to start the football season on the kickoff Thursday every year. I don't like the very early season games mostly because they tend to be one-sided. Case in point - Charleston state at Florida. The point spread is a robust 63. It might be a good investment to put 10 bugs on CSU. But still the fact that the season is starting is exciting in and of itself. The game of the weekend is number 5 Alabama V number 7 Virginia Tech. That should be a good one. Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, USC and Alabama round out the pre-season top 5. Lets see how it looks in January. I hate pre-season rankings. They should wait until week 2 before ranking anything.

Pro football is on its way into your living room too. Brett Favre had a good pre-season game 2. Much better than his first pre-season game. Now his ribs are hurt. Somehow this feels like it's going to end badly - much worse than how it ended with the Jets. I sure hope he plays through the season and keeps the Vikings exciting to watch. They are a good team. The Broncos and their rookie coach are now in trouble with Brandon Marshall. He wants out and I am not sure what they are going to do with him. That team is in deep trouble. Michael Crabtree is still holding out and the 49'ers are the only team that has not signed it's top pick in this year's draft. Makes no sense whatsoever for Crabtree to be doing what he is doing. I thought the rookie holdouts in the NFL rarely extend into the training camp these days. Crabtree is going "(semi) old school" on the niners.

Bizarre game!

If you are going to watch only one regular season game this entire baseball season, I would recommend you get the tape of yesterday's Giants-Rockies game. It was one of the most unique and exciting baseball games I have ever see and I have seen my share of extra inning games over the years. Extra inning games are always fun because a single swing can end a game. It's baseball's version of sudden death. But this particular game had a lot more drama and excitement. I don't even watch that many baseball games these days and somehow I tuned into this one. Boy am I glad I did. It was riveting to say the least. First off, the game was tied 1-1 at Coors. Hows that even possible? Both Jason Marquis and Barry Zito pitched a beauty. Zito is really pitching well these days. I am not sure what got into him. He was the laughing stock of the Bay Area for a couple of years and a local scribe even recommended the Giants should release him earlier this season. But he has been pitching like a Cy Young candidate the last month or so. But both teams failed to capitalize on a bunch of opportunities and the game was tied as the bullpen started to get into the game. This is when the game got even more interesting.

The Rockies left a bunch of guys on the bases in the extras and a couple of times they stranded guys at second and third bases. Once Troy Tulowitzki committed a huge base running blunder and the Rockies lost a golden opportunity to end the game. The Giants were hanging in there through all this and pitching their way in and out of trouble. Finally in the top of the 14-Th, Eugenio Velez got them the big hit and the Giants ended up taking the lead. They added one more run and went into the bottom of the 9-Th leading 4-1. It should have been a comfortable lead anywhere else, but this is Coors and even the Giants announcers were not entirely comfortable. To make matters worse for the Rockies, the first batter hits one of his leg and was in pain and looked to be injured. He finally got up and earned a walk. They eventually loaded the bases, but they had to send the pitcher Adam Eaton to the plate. You would think this was just bad luck and timing for the Rockies. But the Giants pitcher lost his strike zone and walked the pitcher Eaton and Rockies scored a run. Then Ryan Spilborghs hits a walk-off Coors grand slam to wrap up the game. Unbelievable drama! Soul crushing defeat for the Giants and they fell 4 games behind the Rockies.

The Rockies came back today and won against the Dodgers and it was again in extras - 10 innings. I have no idea how their bullpen handled a 14 inning game followed by a 10 inning game. Despite all the concerns, the Giants also recovered well to beat the DBacks. But then again who doesn't beat the DBacks these days. The Giants almost lost it in the 9-Th as the DBacks got back 2 of the 3 runs they gave up in the 8-Th, but fell short by a run. I have to say, it would have been fun if the Giants had lost this one too in a heart-breaking fashion. Ironically, both the Rockies and the Giants won the game 5-4. The Rockies still stay 4 games ahead of the Giants, but they are only 2 games behind the Dodgers. They are on a roll right now but strange couple of days for both these teams.

Vikings get their man

Amazing turn of events today. Brett Favre came out of nowhere and signed with the Vikings. We heard some Brett Favre chatter yesterday after a couple of weeks break. Fox news was reporting how some Vikings players were assuring them that Favre will play for them this season. I knew right away something was cooking. It turns out these players had some inside information. I was getting ready for another tiring bout of Favre talk, but this time it was swift. Before you knew it, Favre was in a private jet flying in to the twin cities. He was signed, sealed and delivered within hours today and was even at practice by late afternoon. I give him credit for at least saving us from more speculation and chatter. He is now a Viking whether you like it or not. The Packer fans are obviously pissed and they are calling him a "selfish hillbilly". Awesome! What's not to like about this? Especially if you are like me and are not emotionally invested in either the Packers, Vikings or Favre. Looks like he did all this flip-flop just to avoid being in a training camp. He is some piece of work! Apparently Coach Childress called him yesterday and he decided to show up today - now that the training camp is over.

I think the Super Bowl is the second most important game of the upcoming season. The most important game right now is Vikings at the Packers on Nov 1-St. I can't wait for that game. Neither can the Packer fans. The fact that Aaron Rodgers is good makes this a lot more interesting. That allows the Packer fans to look forward rather than backwards and they are not longing for Favre anymore. They have moved on and away from the "hillbilly". Of course all of us are tired of his act, but I like the NFL with him rather than without him. Good QBs make these games fun and he is still a decent one. He is now part of a great team and I think the Vikings can go places. I do believe in karma and it's hard to think Favre can go far this season with the Vikings behaving like this, but the talent is definitely there on both sides of the ball. I was really pissed with the Vikings last season for wasting away Adrian Peterson's talent. They desperately needed a good QB and they have got a decent one finally. I feel sorry for Sage Rosenfels though. The last few months has been the worst roller-coaster ride of his life. He even played well in their first pre-season game. Now he is Favre's backup stating with this Friday's pre-season game. On the other hand, it should be great being Brett Favre. Do what you want, when you want and still get whatever you want in life and be treated like a king. I wish I can be that guy.

Game over for Pitino

We won't look at Rick Pitino the same way anymore. The media has a habit of deifying successful coaches, especially college coaches. They are portrayed as the classy, disciplinarian, fatherly figures who supposedly mould the "kids" playing for them. This story-line takes center-stage especially during the NCAA tournament day in and day out. Of course this is America and we are talking baout Sports. So obviously winning is the most important thing and the winning coaches walk away with all these honors and credits. That part never made sense to me. I am sure there are great coaches who really mould these guys in to great men and serve as a great role-model. But winning has very little to do with that. It's totally orthogonal to the kind of people and mentor these coaches are. You could be a scum-bug human being and still win bowl games and NCAA championships because you are a great coach. You know your X's and O's and you know how to push the right buttons. Doesn't make you the next Mahatma Gandhi, but you sure can win the Fiesta Bowl. But the media always mixed these two things up.

Honestly, there's a racial angle to this like anything else in our culture. The media consciously or sub-consciously likes to tell you this story that middle-aged white men mould, coach and mentor young black men and make them in to something worthwhile! The coaches are reason these kids succeed and win. They would like you to believe or may be they themselves believe that without a Pitino or a Bowden or a Knight or a Paterno these black kids would have no direction and would end up being streets thugs. Thats racist and unfair to a loft of these athletes, but thats how America thinks when it comes to race. I am not saying none of these coaches deserve any credit. If I paint all these guys with the same broad brush, I would be making the same mistake as the media, only in reverse. For instance I like Michigan State's Tom Izzo. I don't know him, but he seems like a decent, classy dude. All I am saying is that, don't make them saints just because they win basketball games. Always remember that the NCAA football and basketball are running some of the most corrupt systems in the World. It'll put third world political systems to shame when it comes to corruption and lack of integrity. And of course these "legendary" coaches are neck-deep in that system.

That brings me to Rick Pitino. He cheated on his wife, impregnated a woman and paid for her abortion. A neat trifecta if there ever was one, This started off as an extortion case against the woman, but last week all the other details exploded on us. Finally, Pitino had to admit to the affair and the fact that he paid her 3000 dollars. When I heard the news, the abortion was part of the story in my eyes, but it was a footnote to the fact that he cheated on his wife and slept with a random woman and impregnated her. But apparently, the sticking point in this whole thing is the abortion. The fact that he paid for the abortion and possibly encouraged it is what is going to get him fired - this according to a guy on ESPN radio. I heard him say this and it made sense considering he is coaching in Kentucky and this is definitely how conservative America thinks on this issue. America in my opinion is shockingly conservative and even stupid in some sense. I guess everybody understands sex and cheating on their wives, but they can't accept abortion!

The next day Pitino spoke to the media and he claimed that he gave her 3000 dollars for buying insurance. He is basically trying to tell you that he had nothing to do with the abortion. It was her decision and she exercised her "right to choose" if you will. All he did was get her the health insurance. This is all probably a lie, but it proves the point that it's the abortion thats the sticking point here. I find that fascinating. In any case, another celebrity bites the dust. He will survive this and will be fine at the end of the day - the millions will still be in the bank. But the loss of face and the fall from grace will be difficult to deal with. I always feel for the family, especially the kids in such situations. But it is what it is and the Pitinos have to deal with it. I wish them Good luck. As for the basketball, I know he will still be coaching somewhere in the future. I don't care whether it is at Louisville or somewhere else. It's all the same to me.

Hall of Fame

Bob Hayes, Randall McDaniel, Bruce Smith, Derrick Thomas, Ralph Wilson and Rod Woodson were enshrined in to the pro football hall of fame today. It was great to see Bruce Smith in there. He has always been a very classy and eloquent athlete and his speech today was great as usual. He spoke about how it almost feels like yesterday that he came into the league and how time flies. I couldn't agree with him more. I remember seeing him play and now he is a hall of famer already - a deserving one at that. The HOF ceremony also means that the games are here to start. While I don't watch the pre-season dance in any sport, it is good to know the first football game of the season will be played tomorrow - Buffalo versus Tennessee. I guess T.O makes this game interesting - kinda, sorta.

There was a mini-scandal in the NBA last week as Rashard Lewis was busted for steroids. NBA has always been assumed to be clean though there has been isolated suspensions over the years of players like Matt Geiger. But Lewis is the biggest name so far and it raises some serious questions. While it's fair to assume that steroids are probably not as rampant in basketball as it in baseball because of how directly they can help a baseball player, it is still naive to assume it in non-existent in the NBA. The NBA tests the players, but apparently the policy is pretty slack in the off-season when the athletes actually are prone to take these PEDs. Enough bankers, clerks and fireman walking on our streets are on steroids just because it makes them look good or helps them pickup chicks or whatever. So why wouldn't the NBA players, who do live off of their body and strength and speed, not be tempted to use them?

It is true that steroids don't help the NBA players with the primary objective of the sport, which is to put the ball in the hoop. But all the peripheral benefits of steroids that we have heard of in baseball like recuperation, quick recovery from injuries etc. are all applicable to the NBA too. As a matter of fact, NBA is a lot more grueling and some of those benefits are probably even more relevant for the NBA than MLB. But of course the culture of an environment and a given ecosystem is always a major factor in what people do and how they behave. I think this is one of the major reason that I believe that NBA is relatively free of steroids. Why do a lot of baseball players chew tobacco and why do 80% of NBA players have tattoos? It's just the culture they live in. I do hope and think the steroid culture is not pervasive in the NBA, but I hope commissioner Stern tightens the policy and tests these guys more aggressively. I have always been joking LeBron is on steroids. Guys like him and Dwight Howard and Corey Maggette are sure built like they are on something. Now these jokes feel a lot more real and I hope these guys are clean.

In baseball today, C.C.Sabathia shutdown the Redsox today. This guy is 12-7 now and is doing exactly what he was brought in for. The game of the week was yesterday when the Yankees won 2-0 after 15 innings. It's amazing to even imagine nobody scoring for 14 long innings at the new Yankees stadium. The ex-Florida boys Josh Beckett and A.J.Burnett pitched great for their respective teams and A-Rod won the game in the 15-Th with a homer. Apparently that made him a true Yankee - whatever that means. As for the Redsox, they have not scored in 24 straight innings. Thats almost 3 straight games. In the NL, I can't believe the San Francisco Giants are still going strong. They are 61-49 and even Barry Zito is pitching better now. He has not given up more than 2 runs in 5 straight starts. Thats Cy Young stuff right there. Not sure what's in the water out there in the Bay. This team is over-achieving out of their minds.

Anti Climatic

Brett Favre apparently told the Vikings he is not coming back to play for them this upcoming season. NOOOO !!! I am so disappointed and shocked. I would have bet my house last month that he was coming back for sure - if I had a house that is. He went under the knife for the Vikes, but still finally gave up. I was as sick of his waffling as anybody else, though I was surprised by how openly the talking heads were ripping him on ESPN this season. I have been sick of his retirement routine even 4 years back or whenever he started it. The media was totally sucking up to him back then and only last year, it became a little too uncomfortable even for the ESPN nuts to support him. And this year, people have been openly bashing him and rightfully so. But to me, it' all part of the NFL entertainment. I am not a big Favre fan and I don't really care about his legacy or his image. Plus who doesn't like to see him play? I think he is still pretty good. So I would have been perfectly fine if he had come back.

A good QB gives me the best reason to watch a team. If Favre is in the league, thats another team I am interested in watching. Vikings were good last season and Favre would have been an intriguing addition for sure. Now he is just a major off-season distraction. The Vikings QBs should be dancing in joy today. They got their job back. As for the rest of the team and the coaching staff, this should be deflating. Thats why you better be careful when you touch Brett Favre. It can go either way. Vikings pursuit of hall of fame QBs always seem to end bad for them. They went after Marino after his last year with Miami and Dan was also very tempted. That team was probably not this well-rounded, but it had Randy Moss and Chris Carter at their peak and they wanted Marino to throw to them. It never happened and now the same result with Favre. But the bottom-line is, I am really excited about football. We are less than 6 weeks away from the season opener and I can't wait - Favre or No Favre, Vick or no Vick, who by the way is conditionally reinstated.

Mark Buehrle threw a perfect game last week. It is always great when that happens. Truly historic to see a perfect game. Dewayne Wise's catch in the 9-Th was AWESOME!! Great managing too because Wise was put in the game for defensive purposes in the 9-Th and he had to step up right away. Buehrle continued his great pitching today and he went onto retire 45 straight dudes between the 2 games. Unfortunately, he took a turn to negative town in the 7-Th inning and ended up losing the game. But it was still an amazing 2 starts for him. He got a standing ovation on the road. That should tell you how impressive he pitched today. The other pitcher in the news these days - Roy Halladay, is still in Toronto. Apparently Boston is dangling some good meat in front of the Jays. When did the Sox become the Yankees? They get everything these days.

In the NBA, New Orleans traded Chandler to Charlotte for Emeka Okefor. Surprising, considering the Hornets were supposed to cut costs and dump Chandler. They actually acquired a better player and a longer term contract, though Okefor is not overpaid. The bad news here is, the West got better because the Hornets took a step back last year and many expected them to decline further this year. Now, I am not sure about that. Okefor is not a super star, but I'll take his 13-10 with 2 blocks at the center position any day of the week over Chandler's injures. The Suns signed Nash for 2 more years for 22 million. Thats great news! Who doesn't like Nash? He is one of those guys who fit any team, any time anywhere even if the Suns go full rebuild mode on us. I also like it from the standpoint that this also means the Suns are not going to go full rebuild. Nash is getting old and would like to stay in a competitive team and I am sure they spoke about the team and contending etc. So this means the Suns have some sort of commitment to at least staying competitive. Amare is also saying he is happy with the moves they made. Thats positive. The Suns missed the playoffs last year, but they are actually not that far off from making the playoffs again. The Suns went 18-13 under Gentry despite losing Amare Stoudemire and scored 117.7 per game. That will win you a lot of games in this league next season especially if Amare is solid.

That makes me excited for the upcoming NBA season too! I guess this is why I am an incorrigible sports fan.

All Star break

MLB is back after the all star break. Manny got a good reception in LA, but thats no surprise. The all star game was good. AL won it as usual. It was close and the game was quick too for an all star game. Tim Lincecum and Roy Halladay were the starters. I loved the fact Halladay was named the starter for AL. He has always been an under-rated superstar in this game because he is in Toronto and every year, they got no shot against the Yankees or the RedSox. He is also now rumored to be on the trade block. I am sure fans of all the contending teams are asking for their team to trade for him on their local radio stations. Both Halladay and Lincecum gave up runs, but it was all good at the end.

The previous day was a big day for all vegetarians as MLB's only vegetarian slugger Prince Fielder won the home run derby. That guy has a violent swing. The derby is kinda lame, but it was good to see some new names and faces this season. The ESPYs was on the Wednesday after the all star game - the only "dead" day in the sports calendar. What a waste if time that is. ESPN seriously needs a competitor. The big news at the ESPYs was that Matt Kemp of the Dodgers got drunk out of his mind and fell down. I guess this is the kind of news sports stations cover to keep themselves busy around the all star break.

In other news, Blake Griffin is looking good in the NBA summer league and Brett Favre is almost back, but not quite. The Lakers apparently have taken the offer off the table for Lamar Odom. He wants 5 years and the Lakers want to give him a 3 year contract. It's interesting that they gave Artest a 5 year deal, but are not willing to do the same with Odom though both are of the same age. He may be expecting more money that Artest, but the Lakers are probably worried about Odom's effort level and motivation once he signs a 5 year contract. Most experts and fans are now saying the Lakers will take a step back without Odom. I agree. Odom is good. But even if they lose Odom, I think the Fakers will be good with Artest. Artest will not be as "easy" as Odom on tam chemistry though. Odom probably is not gone yet anyways. The market is soft because of the economy and Lakers may luck out at the end and sign him after all.

Big news all over the place

The sports World has been incredibly busy the last week. Steve McNair's murder was a shocker. He was playing in the league until very recently and we have all seen him play. Now he has been shot dead and it's hard to believe. It's also a scandalous story involving a persian girlfriend with money troubles and her suspicion that he was involved with another girl. Of course neither of these girls have anything to do with his wife! Weird circumstances for him to go, but it is what it is. He seemed like a good guy, but celebrities and sex go hand in hand and I guess he is not an exception. Whenever guys who have been in your fantasy teams start passing away, something is wrong. Initially I thought he was shot outside a club or something by tough guys, but the story here was much weirder. This was not your normal "athlete goes to a bad club wanting to keep it real, and some thugs take him out." story. Not that thats should be normal, but unfortunately it is more common. But McNair seems to have been involved with some weird, unstable chick. It's sad.

NBA is still a major story in the news. The trade winds have been blowing non-stop. Artest going to LA as a free-agent is HUGE. Between him and Kobe, wing players in the league are going to have an hellish time trying to score on the Fakers. He has swapped places with Ariza, which is interesting because Artest is better, but Ariza is a lot cheaper and younger. I am sure Houston thinks they got a good deal too in locking up Ariza. But actualy he is a much better fit for the Lakers which has an alpha-dog in Kobe. The Rockets on the other hand can use a semi alpha-dog like Artest given that they want to get rid of T-Mac and Yao's career might be in trouble. It's also interesting that LeBron is still recruiting Ariza for Cleveland. He will be a great addition to a talented team like the Cavs. He will be good in Houston too, but Houston may not be good enough to use him right if Yao is hurt.

Shaq finally arrived at Cleveland and was his usual charming self in the interview room. Of course, his performance on the court is what we are all interested in. Boston responded by signing Rasheed Wallace. Thats a great addition. Celtics will be a contender the moment KG comes back healthy. But to have Wallace as an insurance policy behind him is just great. The only issue with Sheed is, he can be too content at times playing the 4-Th fiddle. But he can defend some bigs and if he at least steps up when KG is on the bench or if he is hurt, they should be awesome. The Magic traded away Hedo after trading for Vince. That to me is iffy. A 100% healthy and committed Vinsanity will help them contend, but then again, when was the last time we saw that Vince? I am not sure if Air Canada has even showed up this decade.

So basically the rich have gotten richer - Spurs, Lakers, Cavs and the Celtics are all better. The "rich got richer" cliche is also very true if you consider the fact that most of these trades and player-movement are all money related. Basically only the better teams are making money and hence they are able to add talent and get even better and make even more money. The middle-tier teams and the clipper-teams are all busy dumping salary and talent. Sadly, even the Suns are in that list. The Magic has moved sideways and Dallas got Marion. That should inject some athleticism and energy into the Mavs. Sad to see a true-blood Phoenix Suns guy like the Matrix go to the Mavs. I am not sure how much better they are though. He doesn't solve a lot of their core problems and plays the 3-spot where the dope-head Josh Howard also balls. If his head is screwed on right, Howard is better for that team than Marion. But they will get some consistency with the Matrix. He shows up every night and handles his business.

I noticed something shocking in baseball. Guess who has the second best record in all of NL? It's the San Francisco Giants. How did that happen? This team was riding some great pitching to a few wins earlier in the season and that has given them a boost of confidence and they are winning more and more games now. It seems like a vicious cycle. With a load of mediocre teams in NL, it suddenly looks like they may even make the playoffs. There will be enough teams competing for that wild-card spot, but the Giants are definitely ahead of schedule when it comes to their post-Bonds rebuilding plans thanks to Tim Lincecum. That dude is a stud and Matt Cain aint no joke either. If only they had not paid a boat-load of cash for Barry Zito, they'll look even smarter. But Zito has been pitching half-way decent this year as well. I am surprised and shocked by their performance. In other news, there was a Andruw Jones sighting the other day. He hit 3 home runs in one game for the Texas Rangers after dong nothing at the plate for a couple of years. Lets hope things turn around for Andruw. May be he might even finally realize his name is misspelt and fix it one of these days.