I didn't really intend to post tonight. After last night's slightly delayed defense of Terrell Owens, I figured I could wait a day and then post what I intend to post tomorrow night. But a friend emailed me this story, and I can't let it pass. This story almost makes me want to read the Metro, that way I could get a free post at least once a week in response to what ever you would call this (I am afraid to give it a genre lest it grow stronger).

I never would have guessed that Daisake Matsuzaka was the victim in his contract negotiations with Boston. But that's what Bob Halloran would have us believe. He says that Matsuzaka may be the best pitcher on the planet, and as a result is grossly underpaid under the terms of the contract he signed recently. If this is the case, he is the first player to be grossly underpaid by the Boston Red Sox since Ted Williams signed his initial contract in the late 1930s.

I sincerely doubt that Matsuzaka is the best pitcher on the planet. I think there is a guy in Minnesota by the name of Liriano who may or may not recover from his arm surgery that has an infinitely more impressive resume in major league baseball. Even if Liriano never throws another pitch in competitive play, he has won multiple games against major league talent in the regular season. That is considerably more than any one can say for Daisuke. And Liriano isn't even the best pitcher on his team.

If we are to believe this claim, we place much more importance on WBC games than any of the participants from MLB did. Daisuke Matsuzaka could only be the best pitcher on the planet if the planet has somehow been reshaped in the last several weeks to the point that Detroit and Minnesota are no longer part of the Earth. The current AL Cy Young Winner is the best pitcher on the planet. Some of the runners-up must be included in that discussion, since they have a multiple game track record against top flight competition. To build a pitcher's Hall of Fame resume on the World Baseball Classic is even worse that thinking that two decent games expunge two seasons of humiliating failure from Jeff Garcia's CV.

Perhaps the World Baseball Classic would carry more weight if it had included series play instead of one game encounters between the power teams. What if the hitters on the Dominican team had had a second look at Daisuke? Would the gyroball have been quite so formidable? If that is a question with merit, what will happen when teams have 3 or 4 cracks at Matsuzaka this year? Obviously, the answer is Matsuzaka will find ways to dispose of opposing hitters that just might boggle the minds of Red Sox Nation if the average Red Sox fan were endowed with the innate capacity to while away the hours talking with the flowers.

Leaving aside the questions that surround Matsuzaka's talent, let us consider the bidding process. Halloran believes the Red Sox thought that Matsuzaka was better than any other available pitcher (hence the $51.1 million bid for the negotiating rights). A more cynical commentator might think the Red Sox out-Heroded Herod (both NY teams, but most directly the Yanks) out of fear more than intelligent management. After all, the Red Sox ended up spending at least more than $18 million the Evil Empire bid to negotiate with Matsuzaka. The Sox were also about $8 million ahead of their closest competitor.

This whole process has been a smokescreen on behalf of Red Sox Nation. They spend fantastic amounts of money to compete with Steinbrenner, but they don't deliver on their promises. Their payroll goes up and up, but it gets no younger. Like the board itself in some ways. But Matsuzaka is the victim here. Imagine that. A guy who has thrown no pitches, recorded no outs, logged no innings and won no games in MLB, but he is the victim in all of this, after he signed a $52 million contract.

Technorati Tags:
Daisuke Matsuzaka Bob Halloran Red Sox

Again, I feel I have to apologize to both of my readers for my inconsistent updates. I keep meaning to post, but things sometimes intrude. It took me some time to adjust this week to a serious miscarriage of justice. I'm only now strong enough to sit up and take soup. Other than that, I have been bedridden with horror since Saturday night.

I cannot believe the NFL did not listen to a luminary like DeAngelo Hall. I mean, when one considers the great experts on American jurisprudence, Mr. Hall should rank among the towering figures like Marshall (John or Thurgood), Holmes, Jay and the rest. After all, he built a reputation as a great cover corner on the strength of a handful of games in his brief career. Of course it helps that very few cryptofascist reactionaries like me can remember that his bad games far outnumber the good, but thankfully the American people listen to ESPN and only two or three lone gunmen stray on to my site.

Terrell Owens spat on Mr. Hall, and yet TO is not facing the firing squad. Surely spitting on a overrated defensive back is the elusive second capital crime specified by the Founding Fathers in the small print of the Constitution. $35,000 is not nearly enough money for a crime of that magnitude. If the powers that be cannot find legal grounds for execution, perhaps we can find a way to banish him from the land without sinking under the weight of our disappointment.

Perhaps the league has something more suitable in mind. It occurs to me that this Sunday night will find the Dallas Cowboys on the losing end of a hellacious beating. The Eagles have already won this contest. I heard a reliable rumor that placed DeMarcus Ware in his bathtub in the fetal position weeping at the prospect of facing the real best running back in the NFL this week. That person in San Diego is a media creation who is nowhere near as talented as Brian Westbrook, whose durability issues are a product of the Bush Administration and some misguided black magic scheme on the part of Texas Christian alumni, desperate to see a graduate succeed in the NFL for the first time since Bob Lily walked the Earth.

I don't know if you've heard, but Jeff Garcia is back in Philly. Back with a vengeance. He's put together two good games in a row, so the last 2 seasons of something that would have resembled mediocrity, provided some one changed the meaning of mediocrity to abysmal, have been expunged from his record. Garcia will go in to Texas Stadium a bit like Eastwood entered the billiard parlor at the end of Unforgiven. If things work the way I think, Jerry Jones will be forced to surrender the playoff berth already clinched by the Cowboys to a more deserving team, like Atlanta.

Obviously, I watch too much ESPN, and I overreact to what I see. It's not good for my long term health. It sets my blood pressure rising, and gets me grinding my teeth. I really shouldn't watch it so much, but I'm not very bright. Lately, I have been hearing a lot about how Garcia has the Eagles rolling right now. They're a juggernaught. But I'm not sold.

They beat the Giants by 14 this week, but it wasn't a blow out. One can interpret things two ways. A much improved Eagles defense stonewalled the Giants 3 times in the red zone, forcing field goals, or Tom Coughlin and his offensive coordinator will soon enter an offseason that will be Thunder Dome for bad coaching. Two of them will enter the offseason employed, at least one of them is getting fired.

Of course there is always the lingering TO story when the Eagles and Garcia return to meet the man that should have genuflected before the team and the QB. Yes, he should have been the first player in NFL history to be suspended for spitting on another player. Spitting is 10 million times worse than the Albert Haynesworth situation combined with the Miami-Florida International riot. But the player has been allowed to play against his former team and the QB he tried to out so that his humiliation can be complete.

I think $35,000 was too much. Spitting is filthy, and he should have been ejected, but I guarantee that there was at least one other offense that warrants ejection that went uncalled this season. As for DeAngelo Hall, he needs to man up. After a backhand, spitting is the most humiliating thing a man can do to another man on an athletic field. If a guy spits on you and you exhibit the restraint not to cost your team with a retaliation penalty, kudos to you. But it's your job as a man to find the spitter and settle the score by kicking his ass. Whining to the commissioner to have the spitter suspended is even more emasculating that being spit on in the first place.

Perhaps DeAngelo Hall can take cold comfort from the fact that he is a Pro Bowler and Owens is not. Everybody knows Owens should have been voted in; he came in third in fan ballots. He caught more TDs than Anquan Boldin and Steve Smith combined. There is a simple stat that offsets that disparity, however. It's not dropped passes (of which TO had far too many). It's theoretical TDs. Steve Smith caught 30,000 of them.

By theoretical TDs, I mean how many he would have caught had Jake Delhomme been healthy all season and not dropped off in performance, had Keyshawn done more and less to help the team at the same time, had more trash receptacles been available for more vomiting when the camera was on him, had Carolina lived up to expectations, had a butterfly in Beijing flapped its wings and caused a rainstorm in New York and had the Moon been in the third house when Jupiter aligned with Mars.

Unlike everybody else in America, I like TO. I have no problem with him throwing McNabb under the bus. If a world class athlete is sick in the huddle and can't call plays in the biggest moments of the biggest game of the year, there is something wrong with him. Maybe it's the Chunky soup that accounts for Donovan's history of awful clock management. I also have no problem with him calling Jeff Garcia a fag. It's stupid, childish and immature, but he's a grown man playing a child's game for millions of dollars, not a civic leader.

If you look to singers, actors and athletes to set the moral compass of the greatest nation on Earth, you're a moron. It's not my fault, and it's not TO's fault that he isn't what a generation of young males need in a role model. I don't know what they need. Maybe they don't need role models at all. Maybe the rest of us can expect them to figure out where they need to be to function in society by holding them accountable for their actions.

I don't mean TO shouldn't be held accountable for what he's done, just that I don't think he deserves to be placed in the stocks in the public square for being childish. He has that right, or at least he did when this was a free country. Maybe if people listened to him and responded to him earnestly and kept the soapbox speeches and shame on you lectures in check for a moment, he might not act out for attention the way he does.

I don't know whether he sleeps in meetings. I don't believe him when he says he takes plays off. I think he said that knowing it's what the media wants him to say so he can stay in the limelight for another news cycle or two. Watch the tape of the Saints Cowboys game. You'll see TO sprinting down the field with Julius Jones on the 70 yard TD run. He certainly didn't take plays off.

I've said a lot, and wandered off course even more than usual, to say that he should have been fined for the incident, but less than $35,000. He should have made the Pro Bowl. He had the best season of any NFC receiver, drops and all. And maybe, next time he shoots off his mouth, one reporter can ask him if he really wants the negative attention. After all, he's going to retire one day, and how will he find the spotlight then?

Technorati Tags:
Terrell Owens DeAngelo Hall Cowboys

I woke up this morning wondering whether Dan Shaughnessy would tell us what his own words taste like. After all, last week he came out and told us that the two best teams in their respective conferences were the Cowboys and the Patriots. Of course that was a rash statement, made more to anticipate a potential "now the student has become the master" scenario which might be ripped from the script of any one of a thousand martial arts films or Star Wars Episodes II, III and IV in the Super Bowl in the unlikely event that Dallas and New England should advance to the title game. He didn't. Instead he wrote two articles on the same subject, it seemed.

After this weekend's action this much is clear: at this moment Dallas is much worse than New Orleans and Miami is much better than New England. With the way this NFL season has progressed, that could change at any minute. Of course one ought to watch more teams play more games before making pronouncements of any kind. Then again I have been wrong with alarming frequency and in spectacular fashion when I have made predictions this season.

San Diego right now looks 1,000,000 times better than New England. Their offense has been better than any one dreamed it would be in the hands of Philip Rivers. Yes, Tomlinson is an amazing back and will likely win the MVP. Their defense has weathered some strange times. Linebacker Steve Foley was shot by the San Diego police, safety Terrence Keil was arrested on the practice field by federal authorities and the man, the myth, the legend Shawne Merriman sat out four games after a positive test for performance enhancing drugs. They crushed Denver (which looks like a sinking ship, to the point where the boys might want to put Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead on their Netflix list), and right now look like they might not lose again, ever.

It brings me to an interesting question. Can Shawne Merriman really win the Defensive Player of the Year trophy this season? I have a friend who lives in San Diego and happens to have a giant man-crush on Merriman. He is convinced that Merriman is the defensive MVP, but then he tried to convince me that Marcus McNeal (the current Chargers left tackle) should win rookie of the year. Now that is patently absurd on several levels. First, no offensive lineman will ever win that award. Second, Colston and Vince Young have had incredible seasons and Reggie Bush has show flashes of brilliance. Third, my friend was kidding. I could provide a few more reasons, but it's late.

I think Merriman has had an amazing season. It's great to watch him play. Few players have ever had the amazing combination of size, strength and speed that he brings to the table. But there is the fact that he tested positive for a banned substance. He sat out four games, and still managed to put up impressive numbers. But he tested positive. I am not comfortable with awarding the defensive most valuable player trophy to a guy who lost a quarter of the season for a steroid violation. I don't know who else deserves it, outside of maybe Jason Taylor. But I'd rather see Taylor get it, even though the Dolphins won't make the playoffs.

Then there is the issue of Tony Romo. As tonight's Bears-Rams game came to a close, ESPN informed us that Sportscenter would be answering the question: "is Tony Romo regressing?" I've complained about this media trend several times in this space, and I'm sure I will have many more chances to do it again in the future. We live in a world of 24 hours news coverage, and people need to fill the programming lineup with something. So we have instant and incessant breakdown of every single thing that happens in news, politics, sports and entertainment. A little moderation and time for reflection would be nice, from time to time.

Tony Romo finished the game with 250 yards passing, a TD, 2 INTs and 2 sacks. It wasn't a horrible performance, but he wasn't very good either. His throws weren't as crisp as they had been in past games. He wasn't quite as lucky as he had been (although that TO TD was very lucky indeed). But is it regression or simply one bad game?

Joe Montana had at least one bad game in his career. Tom Brady was dreadful against Miami. Young, Elway, Marino, Manning, Unitas, Namath and Bradshaw had a game or two they would like to forget. But Tony Romo is outplayed by Drew Brees (by a vast margin, certainly), and all of a sudden it's all over for him. People need to let him have a couple of bad games before this talk starts. The great game he dropped on Tampa on Thanksgiving didn't make him a Hall of Famer and the egg he laid last night isn't a career ender. Let him build a resume before we carve his status in stone as great or terrible.

Consider this: who should know more about Tony Romo than his former offensive coordinator and quarterback coach? So it seems likely that Sean Payton had an advantage as he drew up a game plan to beat the Cowboys, knowing Romo as well as he did. The Saints outplayed the Cowboys, and outcoached them too. The Cowboys were manipulated by Payton and Brees, hence the massive beating the Saints put on them. Romo may or may not be regressing. Time will tell, provided we don't place too much emphasis on one game.

Take a look at Rex Grossman. After last week, people were demanding the appearance of Brian Griese. Then Grossman played fairly well in St. Louis tonight. So I imagine the heat might be turned down for a time. One thing that I did not see mentioned as folks broke down Grossman's breakdown is the fact that this is essentially his rookie season. It's the first time he's been healthy for a full season. He has played more games this year than at any other time in his life.

Maybe fatigue was a factor. Maybe he had a little less on his deep throws, which led to the interceptions. Maybe he's learning how to deal with that fatigue and protect the football at the same time. Maybe tonight was a brief return to normalcy, and the mistakes and turnovers are coming back with a vengeance in the playoffs. Who can tell? So maybe a bit more time is in order before we condemn or praise Rex too much.

Technorati Tags:
Dan Shaugnessy Patriots Chargers Shawne Merriman Tony Romo Cowboys Rex Grossman

I suppose I ought to apologize for my long silence to both of the people who read this blog regularly. I had a pretty bad cold, so I was either goofy from cold medicine or miserable (more so than usual), so I didn't get around to blogging. Too bad that I didn't, what with all that happened over the last week or so.

First, the Red Sox signed JD Drew. I could not be happier about this. Yes, Drew has produced fairly impressive numbers for each game he plays. Too bad for Red Sox Nation that Drew is good for somewhere on the order of 30-40 games on the shelf in any given year. And there's the fact that fans in every city he's played seem to hate him, as well as Philly fans where he was drafted but refused to play.

Throw in the two highlights from 2006, when he was the second guy thrown out at the plate on one play in a playoff game and when he stabbed the Dodgers in the back after they let him out of his contract. He'll be a perfect fit with the culture of greed and incompetence that have been the hallmarks of this Red Sox team since its birth. He'll fit in quite nicely, and Red Sox Nation will hate him for it.

Unfortunately, this just might be the last mistake Theo Epstein ever makes as GM of the Red Sox (or perhaps ever). Dan Shaughnessy called for the Manny trade at the top of his lungs. Theo didn't make a deal. You do the math. Not even a gorilla suit will protect Theo from the wrath of the CHB. I mean the deal made perfect sense (if you're the CHB). Think about it. Trade him and you make the team worse, so the CHB won't have to break a sweat to rage against the dying of the light. There was no way the Sox would get anywhere near what they'd lose from any of the teams.

Even though the young players on the Dodgers will make Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig look like chumps, there is just a small chance that they might not deliver. Manny will have a psychotic episode or two during the next season. He will be maddeningly inconsistent while he is maddeningly consistent at the same time. He'll hit 35 homers, drive in 120 runs and bat .300. So keep him, and deal with him. Manny is, at this point in his career, pathologically incapable of being happy anywhere. Better to have him on your side and unhappy than anywhere where he has a chance to hurt you.

Then there is the Andy Pettitte saga. It's not a big deal that he's going back to the Yankees. It is unclear, however, exactly why the Red Sox showed little interest. Part of it might be that Theo is currently hiding in a safehouse somewhere until the holidays lest the CHB tear him limb from limb for missing a golden opportunity to weaken a nation, Red Sox Nation that is. Then there is the fact that the Red Sox are all set in the starting rotation. They don't need a lefty. Schilling, Beckett and Papelbon have it covered. I know they're all righties, but they are just so awesome that each could throw lefty and dominate if the situation should require it.

Then there were the college football awards this week, culminating in the presentation of the Heisman as I write this. I missed most of the award show, not because I didn't have a chance to watch it but because I tuned in and within 3 minutes had to change the channel. Chris Fowler might have broken the record for most awful jokes made in the shortest conceivable time. Troy Smith won the Heisman, as we all expected. I wanted Brady Quinn to win, not that he deserved to beat out Troy Smith, but because I am a Notre Dame fan.

I also think it's time to shut it with the BCS complaints. College football is a business, and the powers that be decided Florida would be a more interesting matchup for Ohio State than Michigan. That's the way it goes. Michigan should take care of business against USC and wait for Florida to lose to OSU before the complaints start. Lots of teams cry about being jobbed out of a big time bowl. Many of them are humiliated in the game they played, making them look doubly ridiculous. Think Oregon last season, crushed by Oklahoma after crying that they were shafted by the BCS. Prime candidates this season include Michigan and BC.

BC felt slighted that they have to play Navy in the Meineke Bowl. Also, Tom O'Brien has left the team to take the coaching job at NC State. All this seems to set the Eagles up for a fall. As for the team being slighted, perhaps wins over Central Michigan, Maine and Northeastern simply weren't impressive enough to offset losses to NC State and Miami. I think Michigan might learn to focus on the task at hand and forget what could have been the hard way when they run into USC who might be very, very angry after brooding on the UCLA game costing them a berth in the BCS championship game.

In other news, I don't know if you've had the chance to see the new TBS show My Boys. If you haven't, don't worry you missed very little. It seemed to me a combination of Sex and the City and Sports Night. If you liked either of those shows (or both), then you might like My Boys. If you hated them (as I hate them), then you might agree that just as two wrongs don't make a right, two bad shows don't combine to make a good show. Rather they combine to form a Rosemary's Baby of bad shows.

I think we need a moratorium on the idea that sports is a metaphor for life for a generation or so. Sports is entertainment, life is life. Another thing to think about is the underlying premise of the show, at least in so far as it has 0ne: the ultimate object of desire for the average American middle class male is a beautiful woman who is one of the guys and really knows sports. Perhaps that is the case, but it's not what the smart man wants.

Think about it, each person needs personal space and their own interests. It's good to have things in common, but if you share all of the same hobbies it will be bad in the long run. Most people don't seem to like themselves very much, so why would you want to live with a partner who is very much like yourself? Plus a woman with more male friends than female friends is a bit strange. Either she can't get along with women, or she has a ready made stockpile of people with whom to cheat should the opportunity arise.

While I am putting moratoria on things, I think it's time we gave man-child a rest. It's not clever, or funny, or even remotely intelligent to use that when referring to a football or basketball player. So no more man-child, please, and a few less man law ads.

On a sad note, we have a tie for tool of the week. The reasons for this author's inclusion should be readily apparent on reading this. What a loser this car is. If the style of this essay is at all representative of the author's mannerisms and conversation, all I can say is I want to party with this guy. Consider this sentence:

I believe the mass media place under attack our capacity for self-reliance by
emptying out our capacity to experience our childhood as our own; that is, a
childhood that provides us with memories and associations that take total
precedence over the fabricated nostalgia of movies and television.

Would it have killed him to break that claptrap down into two or three concise sentences? It might have killed the spirit of the piece, since everybody might realize that the author has no point but tries to conceal that sad reality in a haze of awkward constructions. Here's an idea, don't try to write like some great figure of the dimly recalled past until you show that you can write like a normal, average person.

And I have to include myself in the tool of the week category for reading this piece and understanding it. I am afraid that I can get carried away with that kind of writing in my own blog. I really hope not, but I'm too lazy to go through the past posts to check it out.

Technorati Tags:
JD Drew Theo Epstein Dan Shaugnessy Manny Andy Pettite BCS Boston College My Boys Tool of the Week

Sorry I haven't updated this blog in almost a week. The holiday turned into a bender that would rival anything Ray Miland did in the film Lost Weekend. It started off well enough, with Tony Romo, LJ, TO, Jason Witten and Ronnie Brown netting 78.2 points for my fantasy team on Thursday. Of course, I should have realized that there were ominous signs out there too.

For instance, I benched Lawrence Tynes in favor of Joe Nedney thinking that the 49ers in the Dome would be more likely to pick up points than the Chiefs against Denver outdoors. Tynes kicked four field goals. I also sat the KC defense, in favor of Jacksonville. And the Chiefs let up 10 points and won. The Jags let up more than 10 points in the process of losing to Buffalo. Of course I also psyched myself into benching the Jags D vs the Giants thinking the Chiefs would generate more points against Oakland.

Of course, BC lost to Miami in the Orange Bowl even though it was 22 years to the day that Doug Flutie threw the miracle pass that brought BC ever so close to being the major college program their fans believe them to be. To put into perspective just how bad Miami has been this season, there were 22,000 fans at the Orange Bowl. It's not just that this season cost Larry Coker his job, but the stadium was 1/3 full to face a ranked conference opponent with a mathematical chance at a BCS bowl berth. A fitting stage for the Eagles to fold.

Things were looking pretty good, up until Saturday night, of course. I think we all know what horrors transpired that night. USC played a very good game. Notre Dame played a very bad game. A lot of that had to do with USC having more speed. Who knows what might have happened if Rhema McKnight held the ball for what could have been 2 very important, drive prolonging first downs? Or what if Charlie Weis had played the percentages and not taken the risk to go for it on fourth down twice? Alas, for the would have/could have/should haves.

Notre Dame will probably still end up in a BCS bowl. Yes, they have two bad losses, but they came against two of the top three teams in the nation. The Irish, for all the talk of their weak schedule, will be the only team that can make that claim, until Ohio State plays USC (barring an epic, earth shattering upset by UCLA). For all the ink spilled over the mighty SEC, there is still the blot on their record in the form of USC's mauling of the Razorbacks, who just might end up as a BCS team this year. I am not sold on Houston Nutt, as I may have mentioned a time or two.

I am also not entirely convinced that a 1-loss Florida team will emerge from the SEC championship game. I don't know about Urban Meyer in the big game situation. I don't think he's the wartime consigliere that can push the Tebow/Leak mess past the high pressure atmosphere that will reign in the Georgia Dome. Of course any one who reads that ought to run out and bet the ranch on Florida with my track record as a prognosticator (legally, of course, I can't condone any illicit activities).

Boise State will be a BCS team. Rutgers has a decent shot, provided they can beat West Virginia. Oklahoma and Nebraska will fight for a berth in the big money games. Wake Forest or Georgia Tech will represent the ACC. And in all of that, there isn't room for Notre Dame. Their bad loss at USC was slightly better than Arkansas' bad loss vs. USC. There is the seamy economic side of the game which makes Notre Dame an attractive choice because Irish fans travel like crazy.

It's not like it's hypocritical to criticize the BCS for bringing in the Irish for economic reasons. After all, the BCS isn't set up to thwart a playoff which might distribute revenue more equitably among the schools which competed than the current system which overwhelmingly favors the major conferences. The whole system is a mess, and it's unfair. But why should Notre Dame have less of a chance than another two loss team that lost to lesser schools than Notre Dame did?

Then there was Sunday's debacle in Foxboro. I was there. I can't believe Rex Grossman and Ron Turner were able to get as far as they did in this life being so dumb. For the love of everything good and sane in the world, you'd think they would have stopped throwing the same deep pattern after Assante Samuel proved he could cover it twice. At least certainly not on first down with time enough to try some shorter routes to work the ball down the field. But that's what happened. And it made me look ever so slightly dumber than I had up to this point.

I suppose I ought to come up with the lyrics to the Night Chicago Died, as I said I would. That will have to wait at least a day, since it's late and I'm tired. Before I sign off, I do want to provide my tools for the week. I know there's supposed to be only one, but I found two in the same source that deserve mention. Actually, this could very nearly be a four for with the tools that are present.

The source is the most recent mailbag from Bill Simmons. The first noteworthy tool is the guy who writes in to complain that he was next to a table where a guy ordered a sirloin and then drank it with Bud Light. Last time I checked, this was a free country. If you want to order a steak and drink it with moderately priced domestic lager, that is your right as an American. Also, kudos to the guy because he can't rest comfortably in his own opinion without validation from the Sports Guy. And I thought I had no life.

Honorable mention goes to DeVito who wrote in to ask if some sort of Trading Places between Dane Cook and Dave Chappelle had taken place. I don't really understand all this anti-Dane Cook backlash. I know people who love him and people who hate him. I have no opinion on him one way or the other, which is shocking for me as I have very strong opinions on almost everything under the sun. Maybe this Slate piece helped Dane Cook in my eyes more than his "talents."

That was the problem all along. Dane Cook hasn't been threatening enough to the establishment, man. That's why Vladimir Lenin slipped through the cracks. He wasn't cracking jokes at the St. Petersburg Chuckle Hut, so the Tsarist secret police overlooked him. The first to man the barricades are always the stand ups. Dane Cook does what he does and people like him. What's the problem there? I think the real problem is that Dane Cook has hoodwinked the people through cheap pandering, whereas the true comedic genius of the author of Slate's Middlebrow column has gone unrecognized because its essence is a riddle wrapped in the enigma of subtle humor.

As for Chappelle, I don't know how talented he was actually. Yeah, there may never be another "Is Wayne Brady gonna have to choke a bitch?" But if you watch Inside the Actors Studio with him, you'll see that the funny parts might have been the exception rather than the rule in his career. Maybe if he hadn't been so busy crying about what happened to Half Baked, he might have come out and admitted that he played a substantial role in Robin Hood Men in Tights.

But the real tool of the week is the last contributor. Not only did he introduce himself to our consciousness by referring to Simmons as Billy Boy, but it seemed like he derived entirely too much pleasure envisioning Bill Simmons dancing in makeup and a Colts jersey. Plus he was from Providence, which is another strike against him. I have nothing to say about the cat with the Lori Loughlin fixation, he already threw himself under the bus. What more can you say about that?

Technorati Tags:
BCS Boston College Notre Dame BCS Patriots Bears Rex Grossman Tool of the Week

So we meet again. After last week's flurry of activity, I imagine I spoiled my "legion" of readers. I probably shouldn't have posted so many times in such a short span, but I was bored and had nothing better to do. But that's life. And kind of a lot has happened since my last post.

First of all, Rutgers was not merely beaten but killed by Cincinnati last weekend. Should Rutgers beat West Virginia, they should earn the Big East championship and the concommitant trip to a BCS bowl. Unfortunately, the Scarlet Knights would need some Division 1-AA teams to lose to get back into the national title picture. So I face the Thanksgiving holiday with egg on my face on several accounts.

After watching a fair bit of football this fall, I've learned more about football than I did in four years of playing the sport in high school and a lifetime of watching the sport with the respectful detachment of the intelligent observer. The main thing I've come to realize is that the SEC champ deserves to play Ohio St. if the pollsters deem Michigan unworthy of a rematch. Shoud USC beat Notre Dame this week, the Trojans will put such a hurting on Ohio State that the entire unversity will lose its accreditation and the current players wll forsake football as a career. There is the possibility that USC coluld lose to ND or UCLA, but we ought to discount that, since Pete Carroll woud have coached his team up to the point where they could defeat Caesar's legions.

I must say I regret my pronuncement that we would be spelling BCS without BC again this season. I never imagined Wake Forest and Maryland choking to bring BC back into the picture. Of course if I were coaching Maryland, I would not have called another option after the first one produced a defensive TD. But then everybody but me knows that Alumni Stadium is the best homefield in any kind of football (including high school, college and international). There are pro teams who can't win in Alumni Stadium.

The real question in the BCS comes down to this: should an SEC champ have a greater role in the BCS than the winner of the SC-ND game. Obviously the lowest SEC team should have a better bowl appearance than Notre Dame. For instance, should ND and Arkansas finish with one loss, Arkansas would go to a BCS bowl and ND would be donated to oran thieves. The record against common opponents would dictate it. After all, a one loss Notre Dame tea would have beaten USC while Arkansas lost to USC by 36.

If only Charlie Weis had the good sense of a great coach like Houston Nutt, perhaps he would have the presence of mind to shine Pete Carroll's shoes with his face. Also, in response to the article which gave rest to Charlie Weis the legend against Ty Willingham the coach, note that Charlie Weis has a shot to beat USC whereas Ty Willingham never managed to do that.

Recently, I made a huge mistake. I bet a person I know that the Bears would beat the Patriots. Of course, I did not realize that Lovie Smith would spend this past week hiding and cowering because Bill Belichick outcoached Smith in this game three years before this game was even scheduled. Not only that, but the Bears defensive line is, at the moment, refusing to take the field this Sunday. I must say that I think Grossman might play the worst game an NF fan coul conceive from an NFL QB and the bears can still beat the Pats but we'll see (especially those tools who won't admit the dynasty is dead).

If I had an appeciation for the dramatic, I would keep this fact quiet until the Bears remove the "pride" from the Patriots and their fans. Since I have been so wrong about so much for so long, Pats fans who might read this might forgive me. I wasn't the first to point out the connection between Bill Belicheck and Flowers forAlgernon. Kevin Mannix spotted it, or at least mentioned it in 2002 (by my admission, two years too early).

Technorati Tags:
BCS Boston College Notre Dame Patriots Bears

A number of things have surprised me this fall. Among the things that I never would have believed:

1. 30 Rock would be better than Studio 60.
2. Studio 60 would be the worst Aaron Sorkin episode ever.
3. 30 Rock would be watchable.
4. At this point in the season Tony Romo would be my fantasy football QB, and I'd be happy with that.
5. I would miss the most obvious explanation for the sudden demise of the New England Patriots.

Somewhere in the back of the Patriots training facility, a quiet, somber ceremony marking the burial of a laboratory mouse named Algernon. The pieces all fit so nicely now. Bill Belichick went from a catastrophic failure in Cleveland to a surprise champion to a fully fledged genius to the man steering the Titanic into the ice field while trying to set a trans-Atlantic speed record in the span of five years. The reason for this seems obvious: Bob Kraft and his team of scientists subjected Belichick to some sort of experimental surgery which turned him from chump to champ, but now it's all falling apart.

For those of you who might not have noticed the oh so subtle allusion in the preceding paragraph, it's Flowers for Algernon, the classic Daniel Keys novellette which then became a classic novel and then classic film. It's the story of a mentally handicapped man who underwent an experimental surgical procedure and for a time became a genius. He developed an affection for a mouse named Algernon who had also been a subject of the experiment. When he realized that his old friends had mocked him and now resented him, he became depressed. Then he discovered that the effect was only temporary, the mouse died, he reverted to his former state and became more depressed.

While my application of this story to Bill Belichick's as yet unexplained loss of mojo is a bit cruel and certainly insensitive, I think it's the only plausible explanation for the decline and fall of his Patriot empire. I can't believe I didn't see it before. It seems much more likely than a defensive coordinator passed over for the immortal Ray Handley and a catastrophic failure in Cleveland suddenly turning it all around only to lose it all so quickly without outside interference.

For Patriots fans who might read this, the somewhat obscure reference of the day is from the novel Flowers for Algernon. For those who aren't Patriots fans, I figured I'd repeat myself so that the Patriots fans might get it. While I did a quick google search to make sure that I wasn't ripping some one off by accident (I got no results that came to the same conclusion I did, they might still be out there, so I apologize), I came across this dude's myspace page. His page has inspired me to add a tool of the week segment to this blog. Hell, he might win the award for the next several weeks. Yikes. I hope you'll all join me in praying this genetic code does not infiltrate the next generation.

I know I'm going to hell for this post. That's one of the reasons why this blog has been updated six days in a row. I'm also taking a very large risk in posting this content at this time. I am getting on a plane on Sunday, flying for my holiday getaway. So I have this bad karma going for me, which is not nice. It won't work well with a fear of flying, and a fear of dying with 150 tools. I assume there will be at least that many tools on the flight, as the American tool is one of the world's great wonders. It is the great cross-cultural leveler, and one of our only renewable resources. Wish me luck. Flying is very hard for a misanthrope with aviphobia, but it beats driving, the bus or a train.

I have bad news for you, sports fans of America. The powers that be in Major League Baseball are currently debating whether the next 15 or so seasons should be played. There is no point in risking injury playing games when the end result for the foreseeable future is no longer in doubt. All records as we know them are obsolete. The whole game as we know it will shut down and retool its format to offset the single biggest development since Abner Doubleday added base to ball and created the sport we know and love in the 1840s.

The Red Sox acquired the exclusive right to negotiate with the greatest pitcher the world will ever know, Daisuke Matsuzaka of the Sebu Lions in Japan. Matsuzaka has yet to win 20 games in a season in Japan, even with his famous gyroball. He was the MVP of the World Baseball Classic, for what that is worth. The price for the right to negotiate with Matsuzaka is $51.1 million dollars, a princely sum indeed. There is a chance that this negotiation might not end with Matsuzaka signing a contract to pitch for the Sox, but I doubt it.

The good news is that the Red Sox cannot be penalized in luxury taxes for that chunk of money. The bad news is that five teams went into the season which just concluded with payrolls that did not exceed the sum the Red Sox spent to secure the right to negotiate with Matsuzaka. Only one team paid its players less than the Yankees reported 33 million dollar bid for the negotiating rights. It kind of makes me wonder if the Evil Empire resides in the Bronx these days.

I am not the only one to wonder that, either. Writing for Fox Sports, Michael Rosenberg takes the organization to task for its hypocrisy. He has no problem with the Red Sox spending freely, squeezing every nickel out of their revenue streams and dealing in illicit substances (OK, I made the last bit up), as long as they aren't hypocrites about it. I don't mind the Red Sox spending money, so long as they do it foolishly.

I do have a problem with the Red Sox efforts to increase their revenue streams, or at least some of the methods they choose to employ in that quest. Just because people are dumb enough to pay $9.95 for the privilege of being and official citizen of Red Sox Nation and $12 dollars to take a guided tour through empty relic of a stadium doesn't make it right to take advantage of them. God knows, if I came up with a pyramid scheme like Red Sox Nation, I would go to jail, but Lucchino and his boys get away with fleecing the ignorant.

Sean McAdam of the Providence Journal also has problems with the Red Sox crying poor mouth in this post from ESPN's website. He points out that the Red Sox will likely join the Yankees above the luxury tax threshold if they sign Matsuzaka and fill the remaining holes in their bullpen and outfield. McAdam also points out that the Red Sox will spend far more to bring Matsuzaka to the US than the Yankees spent to import Hideki Matsui. All fair points.

Then there is the gyroball. No one seems to be clear on exactly what it is, how it's thrown and if it's legal. There is also no guarantee that Matsuzaka will be all he's reported to be. There is the pressure of pitching in front of fans and media people who can turn into Shark Week in a blink of an eye should an athlete fall short of lofty expectations. There is the vast amount of money major league teams spend to analyze every little weakness of their opposition. Perhaps the gyroball will be less impressive the fourth time around a lineup.

More encouraging, at least for me, is the recent track record of Japanese players in the major leagues. Pitchers like Hideki Irabu and Hideo Nomo have not fulfilled their initial promise. Irabu was a huge disappointment (on multiple levels). Nomo has had flashes, but overall has not delivered on the promise he showed as a rookie. Outside of Ichiro, have any Japanese players become what we were led to believe? Even Hideki Matsui has fallen short of lofty promise. While he has been very good for the Yankees, he has hardly been "Godzilla."

One of the ancillary arguments to Matsuzaka's potential has been that it will enable Red Sox Nation to plant the proverbial flag in the Asian market. That is true, or at least it will be if the team and the player work well together and success follows. If Matsuzaka does not perform as he has been billed, or the team just isn't good enough to win the division, will the Asian market embrace the Red Sox? I think not.

In the end, there is one reason the Red Sox made this move (for those Red Sox fans scoring this at home, you know deep down in places you don't talk about at parties that this is a Duquette move, not a Theo move). Panic. Pure, unadulterated panic. With the second highest payroll in the league, one might feel compelled to do something to distract an impressionable fan base from the fact that the team finished in third place in its own division. With the highest ticket prices in baseball, one might feel some pressure to make a big splash in the offseason push to sign free agents. Simply put, the Red Sox front office needed to do something spectacular to put a season in which they were swept in five games by a Yankees team that was humiliated in the first round of the playoffs behind them.

Perhaps the fans might not notice that they have no closer if there is a big interesting story right before the holidays. After all, people will be dulled by tryptophan next week. Then there is the mad rush to celebrate the December gift giving holidays. Of course 90% of Red Sox fans will be thoroughly intoxicated on New Years Eve, and hung over on New Years Day. Then comes the BCS and the NFL playoffs. Then a few days later, pitchers and catchers report.

In all of that bustle, one doesn't have to be all that cynical to imagine the Red Sox brass hoping the fans won't ask difficult questions like are we sure Papelbon is ready to pitch 200 innings? God forbid any one have the temerity to think Papelbon's fantastic stuff might lose a little something in translation when opposing batters see him four times a game rather than four times a series. Did the team fix its offensive problems? If the team stood still long enough to let people ask these questions, then maybe the fans would have no cause for optimism going into another season.

Of course, the one upside to this shake the rattle in front of the baby school of management is that it is the only thing that might stave off the inevitable run of we are descended from Puritans therefore we are pessimistic sports fans stories from the CHB. So maybe I should stifle myself. Sorry.

In honor of Coach Belichick's amazing contributions to this blog in the last 24 hours, I have decided to spell his name correctly from here on. It was announced that the team will convert Gillette Stadium from natural grass to field turf before the next home game. And then a couple of hours ago, I got a call informing me that the team went out and pulled out the free agent coup of the millennium. Who would have thought that Vinny Testaverde would still be available at this late date? Well, he was and the Pats are going to have him as an insurance policy.

First, the field. Why convert the field at this point in the season? Yeah, the grass was a mess and the mud a bit of a problem, but it seemed like a problem that would impact both teams equally. More importantly, is this legal? I've heard of fields being resodded (as the Gillette Stadium turf was resodded earlier this season), but never a complete conversion like this. Where is the precedent?

One could argue that it serves the team right for sharing a stadium with a soccer team. Not to mention using the facility ot host the Rolling Stones and Kenny Chesney. A more cynical person than I might suspect that this a bush league ploy to psyche out the Bears. Or a ploy to boost the home team's sagging morale after their first losing streak since 2002. Of course, I would not believe that for a minute. It's not like Belichick resorts to silly little mind games like fooling around with the team's injury report, after all. Oh wait...

And as for the man, the myth, the legend Vinny Testaverde, surely another person in the wide world must be better qualified to serve as the emergency quarterback for the New England Patriots. Let us not forget that the Jets dragged Testaverde from his quiet retirement last season after Chad Pennington and Jay Fiedler were knocked out for the season.

In the course of his season with the Jets, Testaverde started four games. He threw one touchdown, which made him the first player in NFL history to throw a TD in 19 consecutive years. Set that impressive accomplishment against six interceptions, and the accomplishment is suddenly less impressive. Testaverde was eventually replaced by Brooks Bollinger. Bollinger is now backing up Brad Johnson in Minnesota, in case you care.

If you'd read the ESPN article above, you'll know that the team is coming off of consecutive losses for the first time since 2002. You'll also know that Tom Brady hasn't been his best against Indianapolis and the Jets. A lot of that is not Tom's fault. His teammates, in particular Kevin Faulk, have not been much help. But the team is now faced with a situation. If Brady is hurt, or ineffective, the only quarterback left on the roster is Matt Castle.

Castle has very little game experience since he left high school. At USC he backed up Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart. Obviously those were two great college quarterbacks who have succeeded at the NFL level (or at the very least, in Leinart's case, shown great promise). If Castle is not a capable backup, someone must be blamed. I guess Patriots fans might as well blame me.

I have never worked for the team in any capacity. I have certainly never made any personnel decisions for them, but Bill Belichick can't be wrong. Not in this case, not for this reason. Not in any case, for any reason. He is a genius According to the media (who know all things), he is the embodiment of all the qualities that made Vince Lombardi and George Halas coaching legends and then some.

The NFL is very much a what have you done for me lately league. For everybody except Bill Belichick. Yes, he won three Super Bowls, and proud we are of all of them (apologies to Maude Lebowski). But since 2004, things have changed. Belichick and Paoli built the Patriot empire, and apparently they've earned the right to preside over its decline and fall. Make no mistake about it, that's what we're seeing. The Patriots simply aren't good enough to compete with the Broncos and the Colts.

Yes, the played the Colts somewhat close 10 days ago. But they relied on two missed field goals from the greatest clutch kicker in the history of professional football to keep it within one touchdown as the game came to an end. How often will something like that happen again? The old Patriots won those games when fortune smiled on them. The older Patriots just aren't good enough to beat a better team, even when luck is on their side.

Letting Vinatieri go, chasing Deion Branch out of town and pissing off Richard Seymour all fall under the prerogatives of the genius. Maybe they will pay dividends in the long run, but I doubt it. In the meantime, enjoy facing the Bears on the new field turf with old Vinny Testaverde waiting to throw into coverage should something happen to Tom Brady. But no one in the media with the minerals to ask Belichick why his team found itself in a position with no experienced backup at the most important position in sports.

No one has dared ask what happens if Brady is hurt? It was good scouting and good fortune that Tom Brady was there when Bledsoe went down (yes, the Pats were smart enough to recognize what they had, but a lot of teams had a few shots at him before that, and Lloyd Carr should have played him more at Michigan). What are the odds that Matt Castle is another Tom Brady? Not very good, I am afraid. What could last season's Monsters of the Midway have been with a better backup than the legend in Skip Bayless' mind, Kyle Orton? But why should Belichick have planned for that eventuality?

I've watched these Bears play a few times this season. They looked bad against Arizona and Miami, but they have a killer instinct that comes out against good teams. They murdered the Seahawks (without knocking a certain bald QB out of the game, like Minnesota did) and the Giants. If they smell blood, no new turf or ancient backup will stop them. I think they will devastate the Patriots. This is a very important game for the Pats, if they should pull of the upset the old days might return for a little while. If they get blown out, it's Crowded House time in Foxboro. They might make the playoffs (the Jets just aren't ready for prime time), but they won't win. And the dynasty is gone.

The New England Revolution lost the MLS championship game, and I am heartbroken. Not because I like the Revolution, or the MLS in general, but because I had hoped that league was a fad stemming from the nation hosting the World Cup in 1994. I was wrong. It's here to stay, but I (and the silent soccer hating majority) can hope.

As the countdown to the most anticipated and therefore biggest college football game of the season goes on, I see more and more talk about what teams should play for the BCS championship. Obviously, the winner of the Ohio State-Michigan game will be there. Since the universe and the fates have conspired to deny Boston College the opportunity to play for the title they so richly deserve (based on their impressive schedule, a down year for the ACC as a conference and the fact that they have only lost twice to this point), some undeserving team will meet the Big 10 champion.

Of the undeserving teams, there are a few possibilities. Right now, it looks like either the winner of the Notre Dame vs. USC game or a one loss SEC champion will make the big game. If you've read this blog over the last 3 months, you probably will have noticed that I am a big Notre Dame fan. I would love to see this team compete in the national championship if they deserved it. That huge loss to Michigan at home should be enough to eliminate the Irish from consideration.

I don't think USC should get in either. Yeah, they beat Arkansas who has been a big surprise this season. But this really hasn't been that great a year for the Pac 10. UCLA played tough against Notre Dame in South Bend, but they haven't been that amazing the rest of the season. Who knows about Cal? Maybe they got caught overlooking Arizona going into the big game against the Trojans. But they still lost to an inferior team. Losing to a terrible Oregon State team has to hurt them.

As for the one loss SEC champion, should there be one, I think they will get more consideration than they might deserve. If Florida wins out and wins the SEC title game, they will almost certainly get into the BCS championship game as I see it. But Florida hasn't been very impressive throughout this season. They had a very good chance to beat Auburn, which would have given them an undefeated season to this point. The Gators had a chance to break the game open and couldn't do it. The Gators should have routed South Carolina at home on Saturday, but they let the Old Ball Coach and his team hang around and nearly beat them. South Carolina would have pulled that game out, but for the blocked kick in the final seconds. I don't see Florida matching up well with the Michigan or Ohio State defense.

If Saturday's game turns into an epic battle, the BCS championship should be a rematch between Ohio State and Michigan. This has to happen if Michigan should come out of Columbus with a win, since Ohio State was at the top of the rankings for the entire season. One late loss should not hurt a team like the Buckeyes more than USC loss to Oregon State, unless Michigan blows out Ohio State. USC did get the shaft when Oklahoma lost the Big 12 championship but still made the title game three years ago, but Oklahoma fell victim to a big underdog not the number 2 team in the nation.

I think that if the Michigan-Ohio State game is decided by double digits and Rutgers beats West Virginia, the Scarlet Knights should play in the BCS championship. I never would have imagined typing that sentence before this season. But that's how I feel. Rutgers will have beaten two top 10 teams. They will be playing well at the right time. They look more consistent and impressive than Florida. Obviously they won't have an embarrassing loss on their resume like Notre Dame and USC, since they would be undefeated.

There is a perception that the Big East had its heart ripped out when its two best teams and BC defected to beef up the ACC in 2003. Considering that Rutgers, Louisville and West Virginia have all risen in the national consciousness since the conference realignment, there is some truth to that sentiment. However, take a look at the ACC now. No ACC teams are in the top ten. Wake Forest controls its own destiny to win a berth in the conference championship.

Wake Forest. They used to be the conference doormat. Imagine if none of the teams defected from the Big East. Is there any guarantee that Miami Virginia Tech or BC could compete with the speed of West Virginia, the Louisville passing attack or Rutgers defensive speed? To paraphrase Norman Dale, you should evaluate the Big East for the conference that it is, not the conference that it isn't. So if Rutgers goes undefeated, I hope you will join me in a "Let them play" campaign as though we were the fans in the Huston Astrodome and the Scarlet Knights were the Bad News Bears in the second installment of their film series.

I think we all wait with baited breath for the press conference Justin Verlander is due to hold at any minute to demand that Jonathan Papelbon receive the AL Rookie of the Year trophy which the voters mysteriously awarded to the Tigers hurler instead of the single best pitcher of every conceivable era. No word yet on a target date for the Cy Young Award being renamed the Jonathan Papelbon Award, but it has to be within 2-3 years. In case you didn't hear, Hanley Ramirez won the NL Rookie of the Year award. As Bob Lobel would say: "Why can't we get guys like that?"

The Celtics lost their third consecutive game tonight, dropping their record to an anemic 1-6. Doc Rivers' days might be numbered. And yet Danny Ainge will be with us forever, it seems. Vlad Tepes, better know to history as the Impaler and to literature and film as Dracula, did more for the people of Wallachia than Ainge has done for the Celtics. Actually, the historical record shows that Vlad was not the monster that Bram Stoker described and he is a national hero in Romania today, but either way Ainge must go.

After tonight's Bears-Giants game, it looks like the bandwagon is back in business. Good thing I stayed with it, even though it took a little while for the sprains, cuts and abrasions some of us suffered during the pileup last week to heal. Unfortunately, the performance of Thomas Jones proved to be a double-edged sword. While he killed the Giants, he also undid the excellent contributions my fantasy football team received from Terrell Owens and Tony Romo.

One thing that bothered me came up in the postgame show. Tiki Barber came up to Thomas Jones with a big smile and hugged him. I can appreciate a certain level of sportsmanship, congratulating a winner. I also realize that both guys played for the University of Virginia so there is a bond between them. I don't think a guy should be smiling and hugging his opponents after the game, especially after a loss.

That game could be devastating to the Giants. Each game in the NFL is huge. One NFL game has the same impact as 11 baseball games on the final standings and winning percentage. Now the Giants are only one game ahead of the Eagles and Cowboys (both of whom the Giants have beaten already this season) in their division and two games behind Chicago for home field throughout the NFC playoffs.

I think that one scene, Tiki smiling and hugging Thomas Jones might explain his lack of success in the playoffs. I don't mean statistics, necessarily, as much as winning the ultimate prize. He seems like a really nice guy, but he doesn't seem like a winner. I wonder what Vince Lombardi would say seeing one of his players hug an opponent after a big loss with a smile on his face. There is more to life than football, but if you can do something like that at the highest level and make a great living doing it, I think you should have more passion for it. So I won't be sorry to see him retire prematurely.

The question on the table about Tiki Barber is will he be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I don't think so. I don't think he deserves it. He has good numbers, but was he really ever dominant? Did he ever really seem like he was truly awesome? I have to say that I don't think Curtis Martin and Jerome Bettis belong in the Hall of Fame either. They'll probably get there, or at least Martin will. But I'm not sure they deserve it.

There might be an impulse to vote Tiki in because one could argue that he had a lot of potential when he retired. Those who take that line will likely point to Gayle Sayers who got into the Hall as much for what might have been had he not suffered devastating knee injuries as for his on the field brilliance. There might be something to say for that, but Tiki Barber never had that sort of brilliance. If you watch highlights of Sayers, he jumps out at you the way only Barry Sanders did. Tiki Barber has been good, but never really jaw dropping.

Plus he hasn't won a ring. OJ, Barry Sanders and others made it into the Hall of Fame without winning a Super Bowl or, in the case of people from before 1966, a league championship. But Tiki Barber doesn't have the football accomplishments that some of the backs achieved. When you think about Tiki Barber what comes to mind? For my part, I'll always remember him as a fumbler. Yes, since Tom Coughlin came to the Giants, Barber has changed his running style to better protect the football. He fumbles a lot less now than he used to, but that's what I'll remember his for, fumbling.

Rex Grossman looked pretty good tonight, for a change. It would be great to see him play this well on a more consistent basis. I am not too comfortable on the Bears Bandwagon with Rex keeping the keys. Things could get really ugly really quickly. After the near miss in Arizona and the disaster in Soldier Field last week, I have my seatbelt fastened and I'm bracing for an impact that could come at any minute.

The Patriots might not be the formidable obstacle to the Bears' season we were led to believe. After all, they lost consecutive games for the first time in over 3 seasons today. And the Jets are not a very good football team. I understand that Mangini knows the Pats very well, having coached on the New England staff for as long as he did. It also did not help that Bellicheck caused some controversy with his comments (or lack thereof) in the press this week. But the Patriots should have beaten the Jets.

For those who don't read Slate, Charles P. Pierce and Stefan Fatsis have been conducting a running exchange on the state of the NFL. It's amazing that a guy who wrote a Tom Brady biography and a guy who tried out for the Broncos could miss the point so much in such a short space. Football is one of life's simple pleasures. It shouldn't be analyzed to death. Also, the NFL is doing something right. Of all America's professional sports leagues, the NFL is by far the healthiest. One good way to end that is to let Stefan Fatsis and Charles P. Pierce get in and start running amok with the league's operations.

In other news, the Yankees traded Jared Wright to the Orioles. I'll have more to say about that move later on this week.

Sometimes, you tune in to Celebrity Jeopardy and see a panel of actors from the seventeen different Law and Order shows accidentally restaging one of the SNL sketches with Will Farrell as Alex Trebek. Other times, you tune and see Curt Schilling looking like a jackass and getting entirely too giggly with the mother from Malcolm in the Middle.

I must say, Big Schill looked a little better in his brief stint on Jeopardy than he did on the mound this season. Yeah, he finished with $0, but his charities still got some money. He certainly looked better than he did after the big home run Giambi hit off him in April. That is, he did until the final Jeopardy answer left him and Lois from Malcolm in the Middle (it's way too hard to spell her name) with the same stupid question and a creepy semisexual tension.

More importantly, it provides us with a convenient jumping off point to return to the purpose of this blog as stated in the title. Outside of a brief aside on the team picking up Wakefield's option, I really haven't had a lot to say about the Red Sox since August. With the team falling apart the way they did, you'd think I would have more to say, but the health scares for David Ortiz and Jon Lester, I felt a little guilty about rubbing salt into wounds. Plus I watch a lot of My Name is Earl, so while I don't necessarily believe in karma, I'm not taking any chances. With a thousand mile flight in my immediate future, I'm not tempting fate.

Now the story has come out that the Red Sox are the leading bidder in the Daisuke Matsuzaka sweepstakes. I don't really know what I think about this. Yeah, he pitched really well in the World Baseball Classic, for what that's worth. Allegedly, he dominated against the best MLB has to offer. I'm not sure I believe that. The WBC wasn't that good. All the teams we expected to be great (the US and the Dominican Republic among them) were much better on paper than on the field.

Then there is the question which must be asked. How will he handle a shift in environment and culture from Japanese baseball to America? There is a huge culture shock in store for him if he comes to Boston. What is the over/under on the first booing in Fenway Park should he sign with the Red Sox and pitch more like Tom Tucker from Family Guy than Tom Seaver? How will he handle the gently insightful and earnestly perceptive media in the Boston market should his performance fail to equal the promise? Maybe we ought to think about these things before we get all kinds of crazy picturing him in a Boston uniform.

Of course, it is just possible that this is a rumor spread by Scott Boras, the agent for Daisuke Matsuzaka, to induce the Yankees to come into this bidding process like Colonel Kilgore in the Ride of the Valkeyries scene from Apocalypse Now. I'm not sure I beleive that, not because Boras isn't a snake in the grass, a low profile Drew Rosenhaus of sorts, but because the Red Sox need to make a big splash in this free agent market to show fans that they're doing something to justify the highest (and getting higher by the day) ticket prices in the league. I know that sentence runs on just a bit, but who has the time to fix things like that?

Another reason to discount the misinformation theory is the source from which I heard it. I was talking to a Red Sox fan I know (the name withheld to protect the guilty) who said that Boras played Buster Olney. Of course all free Americans know that you have to get up very early in the late mid-afternoon to put one over on the likes of a Buster Olney. That aside, the Red Sox fan in question has appeared in this space as the guy who assured me in mid-April that he would be satisfied with a 12-7 spilt against the Yankees in 2006 in favor of the Sox. I think we know how that one worked out. The Unknown Sox Fan might be right about this rumor, but I have to discount his Sox stories since he comes out with WEEI info as though it were fact.

I must say I was disappointed to see Gary Sheffield go to the Tigers this week. I was really hoping that he'd be coming to Boston. What a disaster that would have been. He would not have fit in with the team and its overall concept (which I think is not good, based on last year's results). He also would not have fit in with the fans and the media. Too bad, we might have seen the CHB flee in terror from the Sox facility for the first time since Carl Everett called him the CHB. And how I would have loved it. Alas, that was a Dan Duquette move, not a Theo Epstein move.

If you were reading this blog in the early summer, you might have noticed that I like basketball. I watch the NBA and on occasion, I comment on it. I was a Celtics fan once, and maybe I will again. But Danny Ainge changed all that by trading Antoine Walker. In the post Walker era, the Celtics have made just one playoff appearance (which they earned after reacquiring Employee Number Eight in midseason). Now people expect fans to get excited over a team that cornered the market on players trapped between the 2 and the 4, while not really filling any spot.

According to Bill Simmons and his minions, the problem is Doc Rivers. While I agree Doc is a bad coach, I think he's also a bad coach coaching a fatally flawed team. Say that five times fast. Maybe Don Nelson could turn this nightmare around, but while we're dreaming of that scenario let's not wake up and count the titles Coach Nelson has won just yet. That might result in a "if you die in your dreams, you die in real life" Nightmare on Canal Street for Celtic fans. But in the misdirected (at the time, and at her target target) words of Sinead O'Connor, fight the real enemy.

Maybe I might have missed something here. Unless my nearly photographic memory was out of film that day, Doc Rivers did not take a team of mercenaries into the team offices and seize control of the Celtics like Hans taking over the Nakatomi Building in Die Hard, did he? There is a man out there in whom the power to hire and fire the head basketball coach of the Boston Celtics resides, right? Danny Ainge may not be the devil, but like the devil he has tricked mankind into believing he doesn't exist.

It has not ceased to amaze me that this papier-mache Mephistopheles is still employed by the Celtics. On the off chance that some Celtic executive reads this, or a reader knows a Celtic executive please read this section as many times as it takes to sink in: Danny Ainge took over a team that had made the playoffs both seasons prior to his hire, including making the conference finals in 2001. I know this. I was at the games. Since he returned to the Celtics, they made the playoffs exactly once.

He traded Antoine Walker for a group of players whose NBA career success inspire more comparisons to the squirt gun full of jelly, the train with square wheels and Charlie in the Box rather than Russell, Heinshon, Cowens, Bird and the other ghosts of Celtics past. He married a coach who can't win with his team to a team that can't win with its coach. And he still has a job running a franchise in the NBA. I guess I must point out that terrible executives have roamed the NBA landscape with impunity since the league began. A man did trade the rights to Bill Russell for the Icecapades, and did not face the firing squad.

By the way, I thought part of the reason that Antoine Walker was expendable after his second stint with the Cs was the devlopment of Al Jefferson. And now, if you read the piece in the minions link above, you'll find that Bill Simmons has given up on him. I won't depress you further by telling you exactly how many of the players obtained for Antoine are still wearing the green.

I never thought I'd be so virulent in my criticism of a guy who had won titles for the Cs, but I never thought I'd live to see the day I would have to leave the Celtics behind either. Thank you Danny Ainge.

And now for the postscripts...

I imagine those of you who read this blog might be surprised to see a post like this roll up in the early evening when I usually post in the middle of the night. Today was a special case, with the Fighting Irish of the University of Notre Dame playing their game against Air Force on CSTV. I do not have CSTV on my cable package. Nor do any of my friends. Nor do any of my casual acquaintances from work. I went to great lengths to watch this game, but I elected not to add the channel to my cable service, since it wouldn't be worth it for one afternoon.

TNT decided to throw a terrible movie lineup at Notre Dame fans reeling from their team's bizarre absence from a widely available national network for the first time since I can remember. Gone in Sixty Seconds and Walking Tall. Two movies that never should have been made in the first place, but were remade for some strange reason. A pair of reasons for the CHB to wet himself, after all he said God forbid ND should make the BCS title game on Rome is Burning this week. And that is why I vent on the blog.

And in case you're wondering, in addition to the Apocalypse Now reference, there are Heart of Darkness, Baudelaire and Island of the Misfit Toys from the claymation Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer special references in tonight's post.

You will be relieved to know that I escaped from the wreckage of the Chicago Bears bandwagon with only minor injuries. While somewhat humbled by the devastating defeat the "Monsters" of the Midway suffered at the hands of the underachieving Dolphins, I am not quite ready to abandon the Bears this season. I still think that they can win it all.

The Colts are still undefeated. Some might attribute it to their play, others might say that the game was there to be had for the Patriots. I think it was a bit of both. Maybe if the tipped balls fell harmlessly to the turf, the Patriots win the game. Maybe if the Patriots show a stronger commitment to running the ball with conventional plays (as opposed to the traps and wham blocks they seemed to favor), the Patriots win the game. Alas, that did not happen and the Colts prevailed.

Indianapolis looked very beatable this week, but the Patriots did not look like a team prepared to win that game. Kevin Faulk had his hands on two passes that bounced into a Colt's hands. Things like that had a way of favoring the Patriots in the early stages of this rivalry. The ball seemed to bounce their way, and when it did, they made the Colts pay dearly.

Last night, Vinatieri missed two makeable kicks (at least he always seemed to make them in these kinds of games), but the Patriots never really capitalized on it. It's not that they did not parlay the missed kicks into points. What I mean is that if some commentator guaranteed that Vinatieri would miss a kick in the game, almost all of us would think big win for the Pats. Not a blow out, but a signature Bellicheck/Brady win. Well, the greatest clutch kicker in NFL history missed two kicks and the Colts still left Gillette Stadium with the win.

I don't think the Colts will survive another game like this. I think Dallas will present an interesting matchup for the Colts. DeMarcus Ware should be a handful for Tarik Glenn as he challenges Matt Lepsis circa 1997 for the unofficial record for the most uncalled holds in the history of NFL linemen. The Cowboys have been up and down all season, losing games they should have won and beating Carolina on the road when no one thought they would. The Cowboys might be this year's San Diego (if you know your recent NFL history, the Chargers beat Indy in the RCA Dome last year, really derailing the Colts and their title hopes).

As for the Bears, as I said, I'm not ready to abandon them. They looked like Terry Francona in a battle of wits this Sunday against the Dolphins. People are now thinking that Grossman will be on a short leash. Some even think he should have been benched in the second half. They might have something there, although I am not crazy about Brian Griese. Grossman did look bad, but even the great Tom Brady looked more like Joe DaVola than Joe Montana this week.

The Giants vs. the Bears is shaping up to be the most intriguing matchup in the NFC playoff run to date. The Bears looked bad and lost. The Giants looked bad and won. Chicago lost to Miami, who lost to Houston, who beat Miami earlier this season but lost to the New York Giants this week. So that either means the Giants will beat the Bears, or that the NFL season is a long, strange campaign and lost of strange things can happen.

Michael Irvin reminded us tonight that every NFL roster has enough talented athletes to win on any given Sunday. Yes, that is a very old, very tired cliche. But, unfortunately there is a reason that the old, tired cliches linger. And it's not just Chris Berman. There is a strong element of truth to each of them. Strange things happen in football games. It's a game of inches. The season is a marathon not a sprint, and all that. That's why the Bears aren't dead yet.

As for the New York Football (I think we ought to have a moratorium on that term, at least until Chris Berman addresses the "You're with me, Leather" question openly and honestly) Giants, have they really looked all that impressive in any game this season? Yeah, they got after Dallas and brought about the end of the Drew Bledsoe era as we knew it. Yeah, they came back against Philly. But they barely beat Houston, and the Mario Williams flap has become the third biggest story (behind the just shut up and retire already Tiki saga and Jeremy Shockey and Tom Coughlin need to kiss and make up soap opera).

If you didn't hear, there was a serious problem because Mario Williams and David Carr dared mock the lame jumpshot celebration Giant defenders have done to death some 1,500 time over as this season has progressed. The way I see it, it's like colleges teams trying to defend their fifty yard line against a visiting team in a postgame celebration. If you want to defend your field, win the game. If you want to defend your silly little celebration imitating a rap video, keep Eli Manning from getting sacked (I don't go as far as the author of the link does, I don't think it's the bane of high school sportsmanship, just a dumb thing to do). Yes, the Texans lost the game, but the Giants were far from impressive in victory. So they should man up and accept the fact that they gave the Texans life they should not have had.

In my way of thinking, Mario Williams hasn't been a big disappointment. He has more sacks than Reggie Bush has TDs. Perhaps he would be a better pick if a defensive end could be an expensive decoy the way an offensive player can. You don't have to be William Faulkner to realize that Reggie Bush has been sound and fury signifying very little to this point. Yes, the Saints are a much improved team, but they have a new coach, QB and a surprise rookie of the year candidate at WR.

The Texans have Mario Williams, Gary Kubiak and a mess at RB, with the injury to Dominack Davis in training camp. There are no guarantees that Reggie Bush would have fixed that mess. Maybe if they drafted Bush instead of Williams and Davis had stayed healthy, the Texans could have a 1-2 punch with Davis and Bush that would rival the tandem of Bush and McAllister. Maybe I wouldn't have spent all Sunday miserable watching the disasters unfolding in front of me with a massive hangover if I had been more responsible in my alcohol consumption Saturday night.

There's no point in speculating about such things because they are out of the realm of possibility once the initial decision has been made. It is fair to say that the Texans should have drafted Bush instead of Williams, but it is not fair to say that an entire chain of events would have unfolded a certain way had they taken Bush. For all we know, Bush could have taken one look at the Texans' offensive line and practice facility and had some sort of freak out and joined the Hari Krishnas leaving the Texans with nothing. Maybe we ought to wait until the end of the year before we decide for sure who was right on draft day.

For the two of you who read this and might suggest that my alcohol consumption was in my control on Saturday night, I had a lot to celebrate. As strange as it seems on a strictly literal level, this season we'll be spelling BCS without BC. It is not outside the realm of possibility that the Eagles could climb over Wake Forest and Maryland to win their division and earn a spot in the ACC title game. Then, if they made the conference championship they could win the ACC and the automatic berth to a BCS bowl. That is certainly possible, but so unlikely that I risked a premature celebration Saturday night and some premature gloating tonight.

I understand that as a Notre Dame fan, I have no business gloating over BC losing ground in its quest to play in a real bowl game (the blue field bowl in Boise doesn't count). After all, Notre Dame will have played all three service academies when it's all said and done, along with North Carolina and Stanford. Penn State, Purdue and Michigan State weren't exactly burning up the Big 10 competition this year. UCLA came much closer to beating the Irish at home than they should have.

The ND schedule wasn't that impressive, but the schedules are made so far in advance that no one could predict the down seasons for all of the major conference schools listed above. The only way the Notre Dame schedule could have been weaker is if they played in the ACC Atlantic Division, scheduled 3 Division 1AA teams and helped fund their football program through the sale of dangerous narcotic diet substances to shallow, insipid Long Island sorostitutes. Then that would leave BC out of luck, since that was there season in a nutshell (except for the third one, I made that up).

I waited a few hours before I decided to go ahead with this post. I waited for a pair of press conference that have yet to come. I think these press conferences have been delayed because it takes a while for information to filter into and back out of Middle America. The most vital is the one Lovie Smith is to hold any time now. For those who may not know, Lovie is the coach of the Chicago Bears.

In the wake of last night's sublimely amazing victory over the Vikings, the New England Patriots achieved something no other team has achieved in the history of the National Football League. They beat a team 27 days prior to the scheduled start of their game. As I first suggested a few weeks ago, the time has come to refer to the Bears as a one loss team. There is no way, barring some sort of Jim Jones Kool Aid episode, that the Bears can come into Gillette Stadium and compete with the mighty Patriots. That is, unless Ron Borges could have placed too much emphasis on last night's win over a very flawed Minnesota team.

Maybe Ron Borges and I read different articles and watch different TV programming, but I had not heard Minnesota mentioned among the class of the NFC until his article. They have a shot to make the playoffs, but not a very good one. Most national coverage of the National Football Conference seems to favor the South and East divisions rather than the North. The Cowboys, Eagles, Falcons and Panthers all have better shots to end up with the 2 wildcard playoff berths than the mighty Vikings.

Ron Borges makes a big deal (pun not intended) about the two massive Minnesota defensive tackles. Perhaps he would have done well to make it clear to his readers that Pat Williams, one of the pair, is still more famous for his bizarre feud with Bears center Olin Kreutz than for his play on the field. Apparently, Kreutz single-handedly formed a cabal that kept Williams out of the Pro Bowl. That sounds about as ridiculous as this poor cat looks.

For those who insist on the proprieties, I got the picture from the AP via the Daily Telegraph and Jed Carlson. I did not take that picture. I do not own a cat, and if I did, there is no way in the world that someone would dress that cat in a costume of any sort. Look at it. Any fool can tell that the cat is livid. So you're a loser, live with it. Don't take it out on a cat, or dog. But I digress.

I know that it has become every reader's favorite thing that nearly resembles a feature in this blog, but it's time for another of my sporadic musings on the Bears and their title hopes. At this point, I still don't know that they can win the Super Bowl. They beat the 49ers in resounding fashion on Sunday. But I'm reluctant to call it an impressive win.

Yes, the Bears were ahead by forty one points by halftime. So they had that going for them, which is nice. They went on to win 41-10. I am not saying that they should have played as hard to preserve the shutout as they did in the process of building the big lead. Nor am I saying the Bears should have tried to run up the score (even more than they did). I am merely not overly impressed with them beating a team savagely when they were expected to beat that team savagely.

I am fairly convinced that the Bears can venture into Gillette Stadium and compete with the Patriots. I believe the Bears can win the game. I am not willing to say anything more definite on the subject at this point for two reasons. First, there is the menacing presence of Rex Grossman. I think he got the bad game out of his system in Arizona, but what if he didn't? Then there is my prediction that Dallas would beat Philly. That didn't go so well.

So I would say this to wrap up this stream of something (not quite consciousness) with this advice to Lovie Smith. Don't forfeit just yet. After all, the Patriots have the Colts this week. While they have had some success against Peyton Manning in the past, the New England defense hasn't been tested the way they will be on Sunday night all season. If the Patriots lose that game, according to Ron Borges logic, the Bears will only lose by 30. Then again, if the Patriots win, Brady and the boys will win the Bears game by somewhere on the order of a trillion points (give or take an order of magnitude). In that case, I'd best start rewriting the Paper Lace opus "The Night Chicago Died."

The other press conference I expected this afternoon should have come from city officials in Boston. Since the Red Sox picked up Tim Wakefield's option, I assumed that the city would have announced its preparations for the victory parade to celebrate the World Series championship which is now in the cards for the 2007 edition of the Henrymen (the CHB's expression, not mine). Maybe they're waiting until after the election, maybe they were too hung over from celebrating the Patriot triumph or maybe they await the big name signings that are currently in the works. I'm rooting for them to engineer a trade for Gary Sheffield, and I think you know why, Red Sox Nation.

PS - I don't know if you happened to catch Cold Pizza today, but for the first time ever, I thought Dana Jacobson looked a bit frisky in her Halloween costume at the end of the show. Of course, I might not have noticed it before in her more professional attire. Maybe I was a bit prejudiced against her as a graduate of Michigan. I think we all know by now that Ann Arbor (and the northern Midwest, in general) is pretty much Xanadu for the unattractive female. As with most of the insulting and offensive things that appear in the blog, I hope you realize I mean it in the nicest way possible.

I know it's been a while since I last updated this blog. I've been more than a little depressed by this World Series. The Cardinals winning is not good for any one. I think we can all agree that no one in St. Louis really deserves to be happy. When your chief landmark is a big freestanding arch with no particular significance (I know the arch represents the gateway to the West, but it's still pathetic), you live in a loser town. No way around it. Given the choice between living in Missouri and death, I'm taking death.

A lot of people wonder why the World Series ratings are so low. Part of it may be the fact that the Tigers and the Cardinals did not get the national TV exposure during the season that the New York teams received. Part of it may be the fact that the Cardinals were dreadful this season. They finished two games over .500, and they went on an amazingly boring run in the playoffs. Part of it might be that baseball is no longer America's pastime. The NFL is the big sport now.

One thing that has not received enough attention is the network itself. FOX does an atrocious job of packaging and presenting baseball as a television sport. It is difficult to make baseball work as a TV sport, there is a lot of dead time in a baseball game. Do we really need to see managers spit and scratch themselves while the pitcher and catcher sort out the sign, the hitter steps in and out of the batter's box and boring announcers try to be amusing and fail miserably? But that is what we get. There are those who maintain that the beauty of baseball is that there is no clock. I disagree. With a clock there might be more consistent urgency, more motion and more action. Is that a bad thing?

Joe Buck and Tim McCarver have no business broadcasting games, together or separately. Think about it. Ask your friends (provided, of course, that you have any). Find some one who is willing to admit that they like these guys calling games. Is there one person in America not related to Buck or McCarver that looks forward to their brand of broadcasting? They have no charisma, they are boring, predictable and dragging the games down. The network attempted to bring some life to the booth for the championship series by including Luis Gonzales. That was a colossal failure.

Then there is Scooter, the annoying (to say the least) animated baseball endeavoring to explain the various pitches to the casual fan. Will any of us who saw it ever recover from Jeff Suppan's ill fated appearance with Scooter, rebroadcast during Game 3? I think not. I know he was trying to be funny, but I can't forgive him for failing so drastically. And if my name were Suppan, and you called me Soup, there would be both consequences and repercussions.

Baseball is really dying before our eyes. Yeah, they set an attendance record this season. That's nice, but when your marquee event's TV ratings decline year after year you have a serious problem. Crowning 7 different champions in 7 years may point to parity and competitive balance, but have teams leveled up or leveled down? I think baseball has leveled down. There are no great teams, and very few great players. There are even fewer compelling stories. When we look back on this postseason, will we remember it for having one of the weaker champions of all time, or for it bringing the demise of Steve "Psycho" Lyons?

As I type this, FOX put a fitting signature on this evening's broadcast. Joe Buck finally revealed the ultimate mystery of baseball. His final thought: "There can be only one champion." No way! Really? I was under the impression that there could be 13 or 14 or an infinite number of champions. And as the credits roll, what does FOX play? A cover of U2's One. And a very bad one at that. Apparently they couldn't get the Kenny G cover of Juicy by the Notorious BIG (I am aware that was also a cover).

This World Series was terrible because the media built up the Tigers until we were sick to death of them. And then the Tigers, whether because of the layoff, the team buying into the media coverage and letting down or a combination thereof, bombed and bombed badly. Now we have the Cardinals as a reigning World Series champion, and who cares? No one likes the Cardinals because they are eminently dislikeable.

Maybe Albert Pujols is the best hitter in the world, but he has no personality. He's not marketable the way Jeter or Ortiz or even Manny can be marketed to the masses. He has all the charisma of the Frankenstein monster in the original cinematic version. Then there is Jim Edmonds, the least likeable centerfielder since Ty Cobb. Duncan, Taguchi, Belliard, Molina, Rolen, Spezio. Those names don't exactly leap off the page, do they? Even with that stupid red beard on Spezio.

David Eckstein, the All American boy (Jim Leyland's words, not mine)? More like that hall monitor that always ratted you out for breaking whichever of the insipid rules elementary schools use to thwart the creativity of the individual (I was less than a model student as a youngster), without, of course, the bear mace and religious fervor that made Cartman such a success in a recent South Park. And if proud NH product (as though that weren't a massive contradiction) Chris Carpenter ever despairs of living free, I won't miss him should he try the other half of New Hampshire's glorious motto.

If you can't tell by now, I wanted to see the Tigers win. Alas, Placido Polanco didn't want to hit. The Tigers pitchers didn't want to field their positions correctly. And Curtis Granderson wanted to play centerfield like a drunken sailor in Game 3. There is more blame to go around, as is always the case with a catastrophe of this magnitude, but there isn't enough time to get into it now. I'll just have to deal with my disappointment.

Before I sign off, I think this point must be addressed. Jim Rome, among others, has discovered a disturbing trend in America today. Shawne Merriman tested positive for steroids, and it isn't as big a deal as the baseball steroid witch hunt. This double standard exists for two reasons. First, we expect more violence from our football players so we are willing to look the other way when they enhance their natural gifts with banned substances. We also focus so much of our energy on our fantasy teams and football gambling that we look the other way in these cases.

There is another way to look at it. Perhaps we reacted to the Merriman suspension the way we did because the NFL has a history of suspending players for steroid use that goes back more than two decades, and not until Congress wasted time and millions of dollars in a farce two years ago. I'm sure I'm wrong though, because my way of thinking would require Jim Rome and his followers to step down from the soap box and spare us the anger of the righteous. I don't think any of us want to live in world like that.