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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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