I guess I should clarify a statement from my last post. I never meant to include TheKobraKommander (the reader with whom I've conducted a running debate on the Roger Clemens saga) in with whiners like Simmons and Shaughnessy. At least TheKobraKommander has focused more on the facts of the case as presented in the Mitchell Report and avoided whining and pandering about what Clemens may or may not have done.

Since he went through the trouble of commenting on the post, I figured I'd throw this clarification up tonight.

TheKobraKommander has left a new comment on your post "It's not very often I find myself changing my mind...":

No doubt about the CHB and Simmons. I never said that Clemens doesn't deserve a fair hearing, I've merely said that: 1) The Mitchell Commission has reason to be suspicious and they didn't just pull Clemens' name out of a hat 2) Clemens has put himself in a dangerous legal position by accusing McNamee of lying.

The best thing Clemens could have done was to refuse to speak to the media or anyone about anything; just keep his head down, play ball, and let the truth take care of itself. You never win by playing the media's game, as you yourself seem to admit here.

I kinda like Seau's hat. He looks pretty dapper in them Sunday going to meeting clothes. Besides, it's cold out; don't you know that 90% of body heat is lost through the head?

BTW: can't Brady afford a tie and cufflinks?


The Kobra Kommander

I do think that Clemens may have embarked on a risky venture, but he really had no choice. To borrow an adage from political campaigning, a charge not answered is a charge believed. And if Clemens is telling the truth, he should have very little to fear in a court of law. After all, he ought to be able to buy better lawyers than McNamee can, and it ought to be enough to get by in a civil proceeding.

As for his sentiment that Seau looked good in that sporty little hat, I guess all I can say is that he would think a ridiculous get up like that looked good. I think Al Czervik said it best when he said: "Oh, this is the worst-looking hat I ever saw. What, when you buy a hat like this I bet you get a free bowl of soup, huh?" I, however, cannot extend to Junior Seau the simple sarcastic pleasantry that Al offered the Judge when he saw him wearing the same hat.

As for Brady, there's just something about him that bothers me. He has absolutely no charisma. That's why he doesn't get the national ads that go to Peyton Manning, it has nothing to do with however many B-list actresses he's knocked up or not. There's a reason why he does print ads for Stetson, who knew they were still in business, by the way? He's a pretty boy with the IQ of a turnip and the stage presence of a bad mime in South Station at rush hour. Say what you want about Manning with his "Aw, shucks" Junior Simple mannerisms, but apparently it resonates in red states.

Brady did look like a tool without the tie and cuff links. If you're going to rock an ensemble like Brady was rocking the other day, it has to be complete. A guy in a Savile Row suit without a tie and in a French cuff shirt without cuff links might just as well show up with unshined shoes. I am not much of a fashion plate, myself, but when I take the trouble to dress up, I try not to do things half-assed.

Not that any one in New England necessarily cares, but on this date in history in 1921, the Decatur Staleys relocated to Chicago, where they became the Chicago Bears. I bring this up because I think, given average luck, the Bears will bounce back in a big way next season. Even in spite of my ghastly track record.

Over the last five weeks or so of this past season, the Bears defense started to look like the defense we all came to expect after 2005 and 2006. Nathan Vasher and Charles Tillman ought to be back in form after an injury plagued season. Darwin Walker started to look like the player he could be and not a dead weight in the middle at the end of the year.

Of course there are some problem areas. Most notably, with Kyle Orton as the best QB on the team, it might be time to give up football and look into other career opportunities. Then there is Cedric Benson. I still say he looked a lot better in his last two games before the injury and was on the verge of something good. Plus, after this unfortunate season, Bears fans needn't worry, Benson will not be joining the Pork Chop Express (my fantasy team, I stole the name from Big Trouble in Little China) for the rest of his life.

It's not very often I find myself changing my mind on any given issue. Some say I'm stubborn, some say I'm a contrarian, some say I'm any one of a number of unpleasant and unprintable things. Sadly, I've been thinking they might be right. But what can one do?

Today, I think I just might have to change my mind on the whole Roger Clemens saga. With the 60 Minutes piece and that creepy, Richard Nixon-esque press conference where he played that taped phone conversation, I stuck by him. I think, in part, because I couldn't put a human face on those who were hurt by Clemens' alleged cheating. Now I have that human face.

Bill Simmons provided that human face in his most recent contribution to ESPN the Magazine. Roger Clemens and the other cheaters must be punished not because of what they've done to make a mockery out of the baseball record books, but because they have hurt Bill Simmons' feelings. He used to treasure memories of some of Clemens' great days in Boston, but now he doesn't know how to feel about them any more.

I can't help but wonder if Dr. Phil is racing over to Simmons' house to help talk him through this grave emotional crisis. I realize that this is a sad, selfish and oftentimes stupid country in which we live. But the thing is, no matter what he did or what he didn't do, Roger Clemens doesn't owe any fan of any team a damn thing. Nor has he been proven to have done anything.

And what happens if he clears his name before Congress and in a court of law? Will Simmons, Shaughnessy and the rest apologize? Or will they still whine about what damage these allegations have done to Clemens' legacy and to the pure sport of baseball? I'm betting on the latter. Especially since they won't have to admit that they did as much damage in the rush to judgement on Clemens as he did in being accused.

In other news, the Patriots had their send-off as they left for Arizona in Foxboro. At the risk of sounding old and bitter, am I the only one who remembers a time when a team went to the Super Bowl without a rally? Are we really that bored and hard-up for ideas on how to spend our time that we now have to go out and say good bye to our team as it departs for the Super Bowl? I know 19-0 is historic, but it's not like they landed on the Moon or discovered a new continent.

So we have a tool of note for today, or more accurately, 15,000 tools of note. That's how many people showed up to listen to Tom Brady speak and watch the team get on busses. In January. In New England. In the snow. And honorable mention goes to Junior Seau for wearing that ridiculous hat.

Every now and then, I need to be reminded why I started this colossal waste of my time in the first place. I suppose if I had to pick one underlying motivation for this blog, it has to be the average Boston sports fan.

The average Boston sports fan is intellectually challenged. The average Boston sports fan is incapable of carrying on a serious discussion of any of the local sports teams without resorting to profanity and/or nonsensical non sequiturs. The average Boston sports fan is a bully.

In short, the average Boston sports fan is such a sterling paragon of those admirable qualities we call virtues that I continually reevaluate my belief in evolution, my belief in a Higher Power and the possibility that the Founding Fathers were wise to entrust any portion of power to the people.

Two days ago, I posted and I mentioned that it was much more difficult to root for the New York Giants than it has been to root for the Yankees because the Giants do not have a rivalry with the Patriots. A fair specimen of the average Boston sports fan as described above elected to weigh in with an inspired comment seemingly ripped from the transcripts of the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1854. Here it is, in all its unexpurgated form:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The sports world just keeps getting more depressin...":

Suck a dick. Who do you think cheers for the Patriots, moron? 90%of Patriots fans are Red Sox fans too.

Interesting, isn't it. Because 90% of Patriots fans also root for the Red Sox, somehow the Patriots and the Giants are natural rivals in the NFL. I should, myself, have assumed that the New York Jets would be more likely rivals, given that the Jets play in the same division as the Patriots while the Giants are in the other conference. But that's just me.

I also find it rather amusing that I am the moron because I failed to see the logic contained therein. More astonishing, perhaps, to some reader less familiar with the limited vocabulary for invective found in that curious subset of the human race that is the Boston sports fan is the opening statement. Or perhaps it's just wishful thinking on the part of a segment of my readership.

For years, I have been told that New England residents stand out from the rest of America because they are more intelligent and better educated. As I look back on that sentiment now that I am older and more cynical, I seem to recall every one who told me that being from New England.

Based on the egregious examples of personal misconduct exhibited by Boston fans and Bostonians in general (the infamous episode of pizza throwing at Fenway Park and the fight at the Boston Pops last April leap to mind), I find a disturbing preponderance of evidence against the notion that New Englanders are more intelligent than the rest of America.

I have, to this point, been somewhat unfair. I have a number of friends who root for the Red Sox, the Patriots, the Celtics and a few who even root for the Bruins. They aren't typical Boston fans as generalized here tonight. They are capable of carrying on rational discussions about any and all of the local teams, they do not resort to petty name calling and sophomoric bullying from behind a pall of anonymity. In short, they leave that sort of thing to me. So I apologize to any of my friends who may have been offended by tonight's post.

The sports world just keeps getting more depressing, doesn't it? The Patriots are now 18-0 and only Eli Manning, Tom Coughlin and a very inconsistent Giants team stand in the way of perfection. And so, barring some sort of unforeseen catastrophe, it seems like 19-0 is more real than it was even as recently as the third quarter of the NFC Championship Game this Sunday.

I don't see the Giants being deeper, appreciably healthier or much better than they were in Week 17. Yeah, Sam Madison and Sean O'Hara are back, but Aaron Ross has a bad shoulder and who knows exactly how healthy Rich Seubert will be coming off his knee injury against Green Bay. In Week 17, they may have played the Pats very well for three and a half quarters, but that was in Giants Stadium. In Arizona, weather won't be much of a factor, unless, of course, Al Gore's global warming triggers that ice age between now and the Super Bowl. But if that happens we'll probably have bigger problems than whether or not the Patriots go undefeated.

On last Sunday's game with the Chargers, I have to commend the San Diego secondary for playing much better than I thought they could. Fat lot of good it did them, however, when the offense stalled out inside the ten three times and had to settle for field goals. With LaDanian Tomlinson unable to play, I thought the Chargers could have done a little more damage to the Patriots running the ball, so I suppose I owe some sort of apology to the Geritol set currently playing linebacker in New England.

That said, I noticed a disturbing trend in Sunday's game. Whenever I saw Mike Vrabel taking a shot at Philip Rivers, he never seemed to be hitting him above the waist. I had never really thought of him as a particularly dirty player, but I guess I just never noticed what with Harrison playing in the vicinity and outshining all other cheap shot artists.

Over the last two days, I have spent a few minutes here and there trying to imagine scenarios in which the Giants could pull off the unthinkable. It's very tempting, given how close they were in Week 17 and how well they've played in the playoffs, beating Dallas and Green Bay on the road, both of whom had defeated the Giants soundly in the regular season. However, sooner or later, all good things come to an end. And this time, it's almost assuredly the Giants impressive run to end the season and make it to Phoenix.

Having to root for the Giants is going to be a bit problematic for me. It's not quite so difficult to root for the Yankees, since they are the direct rival of the Red Sox and with the historic tradition of excellence and class, they stand head and shoulders over the Sox. There is no link like that between the Giants and the Patriots. Just because Giants fans are a small margin above Jets and Patriots fans with respect to comporting themselves like reasonable facsimiles of human beings, doesn't mean the Giants are worthy of much respect.

I suppose it comes down to one thing which will make it easier for me to root for the Giants. Every minute of this playoff run must be a mortal agony for Tiki Barber. Funny how we haven't heard much from him lately (although maybe we have, I don't watch the Today Show because it's too early and a waste of air time) since Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin are apparently proving themselves under pressure for the first time.

Interesting, isn't it? That Tiki Barber retires prematurely (in what seemed like his one shot at the Hall of Fame, retiring with some sort of mystique to offset his perceived fumbling problem), bashes Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning in his silly little memoir and on the air, and after an up and down season the Giants pull it all together and beat three teams on the road (two of whom were more talented than the G-men on paper). Would that I were the sort of person to believe in a coincidence. It's also kind of funny that the Giants knocked Tiki's twin out of the playoffs in the process. Don't look know, but it's a good thing someone woke Bill Simmons up to get him to milk the Ewing Theory for one more column.

Before I wrap this post up, I have a couple of things that I want to have out there if the Giants pull off the second biggest upset in Super Bowl history. The 1983 Washington Redskins broke the single season team scoring mark (granted, they didn't have the individual records Brady and Moss set this season). They smashed their way through the NFC playoffs en route to a rematch with the LA Raiders, whom they beat in Week 5, on the road by two points. The Raiders won that Super Bowl in a rout.

And way back in 2001, an unheralded team with a quarterback who hadn't proved himself yet (remember Bledsoe led the Pats on as many TD drives as Brady did in that playoff run) came into the Super Bowl as a massive underdog to a team that had beaten them in the regular season. The 2001 Rams not only beat the Pats in the regular season, but they had beaten them in Foxboro. So they had all the more confidence going into the Superdome for that memorable clash. Coincidentally, that was probably the last really memorable upset in the NFL playoffs, except maybe Tampa beating Philly in the NFC championship game the next year.

In case you're wondering, here's what I watched to cheer up after this disastrous football weekend. I watched Grizzly Man on Animal Planet. It's just as funny as it's always been, but here's a youtube clip of Timothy Treadwell whining and swearing at a fox who stole his hat. Good times. By the way, it's probably not safe for work, so earmuffs.

So, we're counting down to kickoff, and the inevitability of 18-0. It's not an inevitability that I particularly enjoy, but one that I have come to accept. I am tired of convincing myself that there are any one of a number of vulnerabilities on this Patriot team that any one of a number of opponents could exploit in any one of a number of ways.

It doesn't matter how slow and decrepit the Patriot linebacking unit is. It doesn't matter how dirty Rodney Harrison plays this week. It doesn't even matter that I don't think Laurence Maroney is a legitimate big time tailback in today's NFL. All that really matters is that Quentin Jammer, Antonio Cromartie, Marlon McCree, Clinton Hart and Eric Weddle have a better chance of being elected Pope than they do of containing Moss and Welker this week. And even if they could contain those two, what of Ben Watson, Stallworth and Kevin Faulk (who has been coming up big in situations where I didn't want him to come up big since he was at LSU under Gerry DiNardo's reign of terror)?

Yes, the Chargers managed to lead the NFL in takeaways this season. They also managed to beat Indianapolis twice this season, even winning in the RCA Dome last week. But they also suffered humiliating losses to the Patriots and the very, very, very average Minnesota Vikings this season. Playing on the road and in the cold in New England against the undefeated team that every one loves to hate, it's just not happening. I only hope LaDanian Tomlinson manages to be as entertaining with this year's round of postgame whining as he was last year.

Since this blog is supposed to be about the Red Sox, I would be remiss if I didn't pass along Mike Lowell's statesman-like response to potential testing for HGH in baseball. Mike Lowell is willing to take the test, provided that it's 100% accurate, but he's out if the test is only 99% accurate. I can't help but wonder if there's any room for negotiation there, since it seems very unlikely that any test for any substance will ever be 100% accurate.

Lowell also brought up the double standard issue. Baseball players, writers, coaches and so forth have been quick to point out the fact that Shawne Merriman was suspended for four games and still went to the Pro Bowl last year, and Rodney Harrison missed the first four games of this season for being implicated in an HGH scandal. But it is baseball that is in the cross hairs.

It's simple, as Lowell himself conceded in that article. Baseball looked the other way for a long time, refusing any kind of testing. The NFL, on the other hand, has had a ban on steroids for years. It might not be perfect, but at least football players have been suspended for violating the NFL ban on performance enhancers for years.

Mark McGwire admitted he took andro in 1998, when it was not banned according to the rules of Major League Baseball. It was, however, a banned substance in the NFL at the time. Roger Clemens is alleged to have taken steroids in years when none of the substances Brian McNamee and George Mitchell accuse him of taking were even banned in baseball. Baseball didn't even start testing or developing any kind of comprehensive policy until Congress got on their case.

I don't think there is a double standard here. Rodney Harrison and Shawne Merriman lost a quarter of the season and four game checks. Four games doesn't seem like much at first, but when you do the math it is the equivalent of 40 and a half baseball games. Considering the NFL developed and implemented this policy on their own, long before baseball got religion thanks to a Congressional hearing, I think it's more than reasonable.

I do think Merriman shouldn't have gone to the Pro Bowl, but I wasn't one of the people who voted for him. I think out of common decency, he should have declined the invite, but that's his business. It is, or at least it was, a free country. If people are dumb enough to vote to send a cheater to the Pro Bowl, that's their misfortune.

In other news, in my ongoing effort to make this blog more interactive, here's another gem of a comment from an anonymous reader. In a recent post I happened to bid the Seattle Seahawks a less than fond farewell from the 2007 season. As a part of it, I ripped Seahawk fans for ripping off traditions from Texas A & M and suggested they should play a song to commemorate every early exit from the playoffs the way A & M plays Taps across campus when an alumnus (or alumna) dies in the line of duty serving in the Armed Services.

I suggested "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" as Seattle stole the nickname Emerald City from the Wizard of Oz (Not very funny, but then I just might have overindulged with respect to beer at the time). Reader KobraKommander (in one of his rare instances of bringing things to the table) improved the suggestion with one of his own, offering "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," which is pretty funny.

To make a very long, and pretty unnecessary story short, the anonymous commenter suggested "I'm an @#$hole" by Denis Leary. I bring it up because this is a bit ambiguous. I assume the commenter meant that I, the blogger, am the @#$hole. But it is open to the suggestion that the commenter himself could be the @#$hole. Or any Seahawk fans who might play that to bid their team adieu from the playoffs could be the @#$hole. And let's face it, the odds are that if you live in Seattle or root for the Seahawks, you probably are an @#$hole.

I received an interesting comment on last night's post:

Alan has left a new comment on your post "The other day, I got a snide little email from a f...":

If Derek Lee had teared up after the Cubs got swept this year, I would have never heard the end of it. Never. But of course, when it happens to TO, it's barely worth a mention.

First, and foremost, there is no fair barometer to compare a team that lost an NFL playoff game by four points to a baseball team which was bounced from the playoffs as quickly, brutally and unceremoniously as this year's Cubs were. Don't get me wrong, I don't tend to like picking on Cubs fans (unless they happen to be close friends of mine because I am a horrible person). But the Cubs were outscored 16-6 in their three game travesty against the Diamondbacks.

As for Derrek Lee, yeah he managed to hit .333 for the series against the Diamondbacks, so he has that going for him, which is nice. Too bad for the Cubs fans, all of his four hits were singles and not one of them drove in a run. And on top of that, he struck out four times. Better still, if you look at his postseason stats for his career, Derrek Lee has one more career postseason homer and four more RBI against the Cubs than for the Cubs.

TO didn't have his best statistical game by a long shot, but at least he managed to get his team on the board in Dallas' loss to the Giants. Not only that, but a wide receiver in football is much more bound to his quarterback's performance, offensive line play and his coaching staff's follies than is a first baseman in baseball. Lee got 12 official at bats against the Diamondbacks, but the Cowboys didn't exploit the mismatches available in the Giant secondary the way they should have in the second half.

Two of the missed connections between Owens and Romo in that second half, the long pass down the left sideline where a Giant d-back (I believe it was Corey Webster, but I might be wrong) tipped it away at the last moment and the pass inside the ten where the ball was behind Owens likely would have been TDs. The Cowboys should have gone back to those plays, or at the very least wasted a lot less time in their two minute drill. Can you really say that any of the GDPs Derrek Lee threw at us in the playoffs would have been run scoring plays?

To make a long story short, with the way he played and his team played, Derrek Lee forfeited the right to have any kind of emotional response to the Diamondbacks sweep this fall. TO produced one of his team's two TDs, so he earned the right to be a little frustrated with the Cowboy's failure. And be grateful I chose to overlook the fact that you misspelled your hero's name when you brought that foolishness up in here. I am the only one allowed to misspell words here.

In the giving the devil his due category, Bill Simmons came up with a fairly interesting and surprisingly well thought out comparison of the 1986 Celtics and this present Patriots squad. As far as comparing apples and oranges can be done, it was reasonably successful.

I do think that he is looking a little to hard at the present at the expense of the past, but then I've never been a Patriots fan while I was a Celtics fan before Danny Ainge came back to town. I think the Cs win going away in this comparison, since they neither sold their soul nor (perhaps, given that Moss is both a character problem waiting to happen and in a contract year) mortgaged the future for their epic run at history.

And I think Simmons also fails because he is even slightly afraid of jinxing these Patriots. Maybe Green Bay can catch lightning in a bottle, but I fear that this season is already over.

The other day, I got a snide little email from a friend of mine who just happens to be a big Patriots fan. At the best of times, it can be particularly difficult to be friendly with Patriots fans but being from New England, and all, it's also very difficult to find normal friends who watch sports and aren't fans of the local teams to befriend. This year, however, it has been particularly difficult.

My friend wondered how I felt when I saw TO crying at the end of the Dallas debacle this weekend. I told my friend the truth, I said I generally have no problem with a person expressing their genuine, honest emotional response to a given situation provided, of course, that I happen to like the person in question.

I didn't mind TO crying at the end of the game. It had to be incredibly frustrating to see Dallas waste an entire season by playing a second half without any semblance of urgency. Even in the two minute offense, it seemed like they either counted the game-winning TD they never actually scored as already on the board or they just assumed the Giants would realize that Dallas was much better and would simply forfeit.

I thought Dallas didn't make a concerted effort to get TO the ball in the second half. I thought Dallas seemed to assume that the Giants wouldn't make any adjustments in their pass rush and coverages. I thought Dallas assumed they could simply run the same plays that worked in the first half because the Giants couldn't or wouldn't change their game plan. And with Tom Coughlin on the other side, it might have looked like a safe bet. But I got the sense that Dallas didn't approach the second half of the biggest game of the year with a unified vision to win the game. And I don't know whose fault that was, but I doubt that it was TO's.

It could be worse, right? After all, it's not as though TO became embroiled in a strange personal scandal in the week leading up to the biggest game of the year. I don't know what the truth is, in this situation, if there is any truth on any side of this strange story. I am inclined to think that there have to be a few simpler ways of extorting $100,000 from a guy than this restraining order con.

I am upset by this whole stupid little mess. Why did it come out now? What is the point of wasting what might be a perfectly good distraction on a week where the Chargers couldn't beat the Patriots if they got to put 15 of their best "men" on the field against the regulation 11 from the other side? It just sets up so well, to have the team with the revenge angle from the grace and dignity the Patriots displayed beating San Diego on the road last postseason coming to Foxboro to play the team with the unblemished record in all but the moral dimension of the game.

Of course, just about every thing that looks so well scripted is bound to unravel spectacularly in reality. Especially if Philip Rivers can play this week. I'd feel more comfortable with Billy Volek under center. You know Rivers is due for an dismal performance of epic proportions, especially with Eli Manning still playing and the inevitable comparisons between the two of them. Plus, LaDanian Tomlinson is a great player when the breaks aren't beating the Bolts, but who whines better when the breaks go the other way?

And finally, the Chargers deserve to lose. For all they cried about how classless the Patriots were last season, and with some measure of good reason, you'd think they might have emerged from the upset in Indianapolis with some measure of dignity. Alas, that wasn't the case. Not since Emmett Smith walked the Earth in the first half of the 1990s have I seen such a shameless display of helmet removal as I saw when the Chargers defense stopped Indy on fourth and goal in the late fourth quarter.

And it's a damn shame. 17-1 might not sound quite as good as 16-1 would have, but I could have found the strength to live with it.

While I have been trying to avoid posting in the middle of a bender, tonight it seems as though I have no choice. Our long national nightmare just keeps dragging on as the Patriots refuse to do the right thing and lose. Even as the core of their defense ages in dog years, with Bruschi, Seau, Harrison and Vrabel winding down at the wrong time, they still manage to win week in and week out. And it's a damn shame.

I must confess, I was amazed to see two personal fouls called on Rodney Harrison in one season, let alone one game. He is a great player, and although it hurts me to say this, a sure-fire Hall of Famer. That said, he is now, and has always been a dirty player whose playmaking capacity, strength and toughness grow impressively in inverse proportion to his opponents' abilities to deal damage in return. In that sense, he is the evolutionary Jack Tatum, a kinder, gentler cheap shot artist for the Bill Clinton era in America.

I am coming to the conclusion, to borrow a phrase from an old episode of the Simpsons, that the Patriots suffer from Three Stooges Syndrome. If you remember, a doctor at the Mayo Clinic explained Mr. Burns longevity was a result of that condition, that there were so many diseases and conditions attacking him at once that they cancelled each other out. The Patriots have so many dueling vulnerabilities that they just might be invulnerable. And what a shame that would be for the Republic.

But after a certain point, how can one maintain interest in ripping a functionally illiterate quarterback, a sunshine soldier at lead wide receiver and a decrepit defense? Especially when they seem hell bent on getting stronger and faster and healthier with each swipe I take at them. I know they are a very good team, and I think I'm devoted enough to intellectual honesty to give the Devil his due when I criticize them. It just seems that they are so eminently beatable that this little thing of theirs has to come to a screeching halt at some point. I just wish it had been tonight, 16-1 had such a lovely ring to it.

The real story of today, however, is the savage beating Green Bay applied to Seattle. I have always expected to be a minor villain in the local sports scene, what with the fact that I harbor deep-seeded irrational antipathies to every local team and all. I didn't expect to become a minor villain to a lunatic fringe group of Seahawks fans because I dared provide a rational analysis of their team, their town, their "traditions" and their QB.

Seahawks fans, or at least the few that tripped over this blog in the dark, took umbrage at the fact that I called Matt Hasselbeck the fifth best QB in the NFL. I think the real thorn in their side came out of my assertion that the gap between 1-4 and 5 was bigger than the Grand Canyon. And yet as we sit here tonight and look back on the mauling they received at the hands of the Green Bay Packers, I could very nearly take a small measure of solace from the fact that I was more right than they were. Favre, Romo, Brady and Manning aren't in the same league as Hasselbeck.

I just wish the Packers had had the chance to utterly humiliate Seattle in the Emerald City in the vicinity of the 12th Man. Since they have a proclivity for stealing traditions from Texas A & M, I have a suggestion for Seattle fans. Texas A & M plays Taps across campus when one of its alumni who serves in the military dies in the line of duty. It occurs to me that the Seahawks fans could construct a similar ritual for this time of year when the Seahawks' Super Bowl hopes are crushed.

They shouldn't play Taps, since that would insult the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces, but they should be able to create a parallel tradition for their own minor tragedies. Yeah, Seattle has loud fans. So do most NFL towns. And most of them didn't boost their nickname from the town in the Wizard of Oz. So maybe Seahawks fans could gather and play Follow the Yellow Brick Road to mourn yet another year of Seahawk failure when the chips are down.

And as for the 12th Man, I haven't the time or the inclination to do the research right now but we all know they ripped of Texas A & M. In point of fact, I have the time, but I am a bit buzzed right now and working real hard on a full-on drunk, so I just won't do it. But I can, through the imperfect medium of my memory, trace Texas A & M 12th Man references back to the 1986 bowl game where the 12th Man selected to cover a kick from the Texas A & M student body tried to steal a towel from Heisman Trophy winner Tim Brown as a souvenir. I can't trace the Seattle 12th Man back past the turn of the century. Case closed.

Before I conclude yet another meandering window into my own tormented mind, I want to say one more thing. In the past, Tom Brady has come under fire in this space for being a balding metrosexual. Perhaps I ought to have been more sensitive, since it must have been difficult to blaze that trail as publicly as Tom Brady has, but sensitivity isn't my strong suit.

That said, Tom Brady seems to have more hair now than he did at this time last year. Now, I wouldn't be much of a Catholic (and Lord knows, I'm not) if I didn't allow for the possibility of miracles, but I don't believe in this particular miracle. Never having set an NFL record myself, I don't know if setting the touchdown mark cures minor physical ailments, but I think old Tom Brady might just be on the Rogaine or at the very least sporting hair plugs. Could this be some sort of under appreciated performance enhancer? Would that I knew enough science to investigate.

Rest assured that my running debate on the Roger Clemens story with the KobraKommander will be resumed in the not too distant future, if for no other reason than this is my blog and I'll be damned if I let him have the last word.

So, it is January 8, a day of great historical significance in American. True, Elvis was born on this date in 1935, but while I love his music, I harbor no illusions as to the overall importance of a music mega star in the grand scheme of things in American history. With or without Elvis, we'd probably stand in about the same spot historically, I think, at this moment.

I do have some grievances to air with other so-called Elvis fans. There's been a lot of talk going around claiming that Viva Las Vegas is both the best Elvis film and an underrated song. Neither of those statements is accurate. Viva Las Vegas is a beat movie, it's very much like Speedway, but with a prettier co-star and a slightly less ludicrous premise.

I don't see how one could claim that the song is underrated. It is one of the most recognizable Elvis songs, more so even than #1 hits like His Latest Flame, Devil in Disguise, Don't and Fool Such As I among others. If you want to listen to an Elvis song that is genuinely underrated, I would suggest Elvis' versions of Gentle on My Mind, Memphis Tennessee or Snowbird (which are all covers of songs by other artists, but still excellent efforts and better than Viva Las Vegas). Or maybe you could really reach and get I've Lost You or It's Over (not a cover, but it does share the title with that great Roy Orbison song) or The Girl I Never Loved from Clambake, which was a terrible film with two underrated songs on its soundtrack. I could go on all night...

As for Elvis' best film, it's hard to choose one since his films were, in the main, terrible. They're light, frivolous, intellectually dangerous (as the insipid, treacly premises may in fact kill brain cells) and a disgusting waste of the poor man's talent. But I think Jailhouse Rock stands out from the crowd. In fact, I think it's a good film. Each time I watch it, I find myself thinking that if he'd been given different sorts of scripts and overseen by a manager who cared more about the talent than the bottom line, Elvis might have actually been able to act. But that's just me.

The real reason January 8th is important occurred all the way back in 1815. Andrew Jackson stopped a numerically superior force of British regulars led by the Duke of Wellington's brother-in-law at the Battle of New Orleans. Most Americans tend to overlook this battle because it took place after the Treaty of Ghent, which officially concluded the War of 1812, was signed.

It is true that the terms of the treaty called for the United States and the British Empire in North America to restore any territory conquered in the war to its previous owner. That said, if the British, who were still in their expansionist mode, found themselves in possession of a city at the mouth of the Mississippi River after the war, would they really have simply given it back? Or if they were willing to return it, would they have done so for free?

Losing New Orleans would have been a major blow to the American ability to hold the lands of the Louisiana Purchase. Losing control of the mouth of the Mississippi would also have made the westward expansion of the United States a much more difficult task. Now maybe that might have been a good thing from an environmental and human rights perspective, but we probably wouldn't be in a position to debate those merits had Jackson lost.

So we should still mark January 8 on the calendar for that reason, if nothing else. But enough of the history lesson. This is after all a sports blog. And the first battle line of 2008 was drawn between Sedition in Red Sox Nation and Red Sox Nation over the potential election of Jim Rice to the Hall of Fame. And for a change, Sedition in Red Sox Nation prevailed. Jim Rice won't be going into Cooperstown with a mandate. If he gets in, it will be through the charity of the Veteran's Committee. And I can live with that.

I have covered my objections to Jim Rice's induction to the Hall of Fame at length in previous posts, I won't do it again. I will say this, though. It is a victory for common sense that a man will not enter the Hall of Fame with his strongest credential being the fact that baseball people from his era remember him as the most feared hitter. As long as we have more objective criteria and fewer subjective criteria, it's a good thing.

Unless, of course, you happen to be Dan Shaughnessy and feel compelled to punish the world with prolix prose because you happened to have been born without talent, wit or charm. The CHB couldn't resist wrapping the Rice defeat up with the swirling Clemens saga. I wonder whether Clemens and his attorneys just might look up Shaughnessy should he be vindicated in court or in Congress.

Among the many questions I have on reading that piece, I guess I'd start with this: if virtually every player who played in the Rice era feels that he belongs in the Hall of Fame, where is the outrage? Hell, where is the second guy available for a quote after the shameless mouthpiece of Red Sox Nation, Jerry Remy?

And again, on the Clemens side of the argument: how can you justify not voting for Clemens if he is cleared in court or in Congress? If he is not proven under due process to have cheated, it's not the same as Pete Rose who pled guilty to gambling, then finally fully confessed to betting on baseball years later. Clemens deserves to be in the Hall on the strength of his 213 wins and 4 Cy Youngs before Brian McNamee alleges he injected Clemens with anything. A responsible journalist might feel compelled to shoe-horn that in to a column.

So, the BCS National Championship Game was played tonight, and still all any one can talk about is this Roger Clemens story. To respond to the lone gunman's comment on last night's post. It is an interesting point that Clemens could have been injected by a team doctor or trainer if he weren't receiving an illicit substance. However, I would counter that by wondering aloud what sort of nitwit pays someone to do something illegal with a check?

I disagree with the notion that Clemens put himself in the position where he has to prove himself innocent. When he stayed silent, every moron with a press pass wrote, talked and shouted that Clemens had to answer these charges. Had he not gone on 60 Minutes, would that somehow have gone away, or would the CHB and Jay Mariotti and Bill Simmons have screamed more bloody murder?

And if I'm not mistaken, Brian McNamee was an employee of the Toronto Blue Jays when he met Roger Clemens and injected him with whatever he was injected in 1998. It was only later that he served as Roger's personal trainer.

Then, there is the CHB's dismal insult to his readers' intelligence masquerading as a column in this morning's Globe. The press conference this evening where Clemens played the tape of his phone conversation with McNamee should have been stage managed better. If you read Jay Mariotti's "thoughts" on the situation, you might get the impression that Clemens ducked the question McNamee posed frequently "what do you want me to do?" I thought Clemens was crystal clear in his answer "I want someone to tell the truth."

Perhaps one can assume that Clemens meant the Pope or Mike Huckabee or Dallas Cowboys nose tackle Tank Johnson, but I was convinced that Clemens was telling McNamee to come clean. Perhaps there are those people out there who would have been more explicit in language and in tone, perhaps responding to McNamee's curses with similarly strident language. I wonder, though.

The worst thing Clemens could have done was been harsh with McNamee. He would have written a even less favorable story against himself for the legion of press drones out there. After all, McNamee introduced the topic of his dying ten year old child. The media would have burnt Clemens at the stake if he'd spoken harshly to the father of a dying kid. So I had no problem with that particular answer.

I'm not sure what taping that conversation gets Clemens in the long run. It makes him look a lot like Richard Nixon. Now, I'm as big a fan of Nixon as the next guy, but he did have a few issues with paranoia. And embroiled in a he said he said scandal like this, looking like Nixon probably isn't the way to go.

I don't see a problem with Clemens comments that Andy Pettitte's case is a separate issue. Why does it necessarily follow that because Pettitte admitted that received HGH injections from McNamee on two occasions in 2002 then Roger Clemens must have also been injected by McNamee? The transitive property only applies in algebra class, and it is not admissible in court as evidence, as far as I can tell.

This section of Shaughnessy's analysis of the Clemens interview bothered me most of all:

Asked what McNamee gained by lying, the best Clemens could do was, "Evidently not going to jail."

In fact, "not going to jail" was McNamee's reason for telling the truth (McNamee cooperated with Mitchell as part of a deal to avoid federal prosecution). McNamee faces going to jail only if he lied to Mitchell. Wallace then asked Clemens why McNamee would go to jail and the Rocket responded, "Well, I think he's been buying and movin' steroids."

Wallace then failed to ask a follow-up.

Not going to Federal prison, or any kind of correctional facility is pretty high on just about every sane person's list of priorities. Or maybe the CHB hasn't seen OZ. Perhaps the Massachusetts Department of Corrections could let him take a look at their facilities in Concord or Cedar Junction to educate him on what life in prison even in these enlightened times is like. Let's just say there's a good reason the Red Cross won't take blood donations from people who've spent more than 72 consecutive hours behind bars in the past year.

Maybe the CHB has seen the Untouchables or perhaps On the Waterfront a time or two too many. Not every person who oversees investigations into various crimes, misdemeanors and other such violations of the public trust is an altruist. Say McNamee stretched or bent the truth a time or two but provided the information to put some people behind bars and earned a few headlines for the occasional ambitious civil servant, might that not influence that ambitious civil servant to help McNamee out in return? That's how the justice system works in this country.

And closing his little piece of drivel with this cute little epigram: "And we've heard too many lies from those who came before and wound up guilty as charged" did very little to calm me down. What bearing does any other person accused in the previous round of Congressional hearings or in the Mitchell Report have on this case? It doesn't matter one bit for Roger's case whether Mark McGwire or Rafael Palmeiro lied or told the truth. For that matter, it doesn't have any impact on this case if Mark McGwire dressed in a damn tutu and stood outside an elementary school punching every seventh child in the face or jumped on Oprah's couch like Tom Cruise. Good work with the responsible, honest journalism. I bet Grantland Rice is real proud.

Quite a bit has happened since I last posted. I know, I really meant to update more frequently, but I had to go on a bit of a bender what with Illinois taking the beating it did at the hands of the hated USC Trojans and all. So there is much to talk about in this post. If I were the sort of blogger that succeeds at blogging, I'd have posted tonight's material in three or segments and most of it a long time ago.

First, I really thought Illinois could have won that game. I don't think USC was that much more talented than Illinois. Unfortunately, the Trojans were much more experienced and every single break of the game and bounce of the ball went their way. That bounding backward pass was a hell of a play by McKnight, but when does that ever turn from disaster into a 60 yard gain? And once it became a passing game, Williams just couldn't bring them back. That said, I thought Mendenhall was the best back on the field that day and I was very pleasantly surprised to see how well Vonte Davis tackled. I assumed he was just a speed cover corner, but he made some Darrell Green-esque tackles, and not just when he ran down McKnight on that nightmare play.

As for yesterday's games, so what if Seattle won? I still think they're massively overrated. Against any other team, those two gift INTs Hasselbeck threw to Landry would have sent the pride of the Emerald City and the 12th Person home crying. Which reminds me, did Seattle rip off their nickname from the town at the end of the damn Yellow Brick Road in The Wizard of Oz, or what?

I was very impressed with Mike Tomlin, even though the Steelers won't be joining us until mini-camps open. I like the fact that he allowed his defense to fight to the bitter end and not pull that lame stunt that Holmgren pulled allowing Denver to score a TD at the end of Super Bowl XXXII to save time on the clock for a potential tying drive, which just fell short anyway.

I believe that the NFL is (or should be) the last bastion of the old ways of doing things. No one ever gave a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed, according to General Patton. Playing for the tie or playing to set up a comeback may work out, but a man with pride ought to be happier taking a shot at winning as opposed to planning to be scored on, pushed around or some other such humiliating eventuality.

As for today's games, I didn't really like any of the four teams playing. Tampa would have been the closest to a team I could have rooted for, what with that amazing shade of dark grey in their helmets (not to get all Bravo Network up in here, but that is a damn cool looking color, so cool that it defies syntactic and grammatical correctness) and a very good defense (I thought Gaines Adams was overrated, I was wrong). But they have Jeff Garcia, whom no true TO fan can stand and they are the last bastion of Barber-ism in the NFL.

For the most part, I thought that Ronde Barber's comments were overblown. But there was more than a bit of me that thought he was nearly as out of line as his brother had been when he released his silly little autobiography this summer. Tampa shouldn't have been terribly worried about the Giants, but for the fact that Tampa themselves managed to prove very little this year.

The second game was close, and it was interesting to watch. But it struck me as a lot of wasted effort. Neither team could have won in the next round, I didn't think. I thought the closeness of the score was more indicative of two half-decent but overrated defenses playing against two shaky, suspect offenses. Maybe Vince Young could have given the aging linebackers of the Patriots fits with his mobility, but then again he could have given Samuel, Harrison, Hobbs and co. several gift INTs too. So better, in the long run, that San Diego advanced.

The real story of the day was the long awaited Roger Clemens interview. I believed him. Red Sox fans probably won't, but that's life. Yeah, Clemens blinked more than I'd have liked. But who can say how the CBS crew lit the interview area? And more importantly, could you sit there, across from Mike Wallace and look him in his wrinkly, pruny face and not blink? A lesser person than Clemens might have seen Wallace for that extended period of time and decided to forgo the joys of senectitude (advancing advanced old age, for Red Sox fans) for euthanasia.

Why I believe Clemens is, I think a fairly simple explanation. McNamee accepted a deal to provide Federal prosecutors with information in exchange for not going to jail for his involvement in a steroid ring. There are those who can believe that a man who accepts the government's beneficence with a rejuvenated sense of right and wrong and will provide the prosecutors with the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I, however, believe that any character slimy enough to accept a plea deal to save his own skin has lost sight of the value placed on truth, justice and what once might have been described as the American way.

I can see the logic in statements that put Barry Bonds' alleged use of performance enhancers down to his envy over the accolades heaped on McGwire and Sosa and a desire to break big records. I don't really believe them, but I can see how these factors might have come into play. I just don't see it for Clemens. He'd already won four Cy Youngs before McNamee claimed to have injected him for the first time in 1998.

It is true as Red Sox fans love to point out that Roger did say he wanted to play closer to his home in Texas when he left Boston in 1996 only to sign with Toronto. So he was, in that instance, slightly less than honest. But going for the money the way he did is something that we all would have done given the opportunity. Steroids is a whole different animal. Clemens was a Hall of Famer when he left Boston, he didn't need to reach any more milestones, he didn't need to do more. He was already the best pitcher of his era.

And the thing about McNamee's story is that it rings false to me. I realize, as my reader the KobraKommander pointed out when the Mitchell Report first dropped, McNamee has certain physical evidence in the form of bank records and cancelled checks to show that he received payments from Roger Clemens. Alas, these documents don't show injections of performance enhancing drugs in the Rocket's handwriting in the checks' memo spaces. So it's a he said, he said situation.

What really bothers me about the story is that McNamee has admitted under oath (or at least I assume he has as he testified against his associates) to some form of involvement in a steroid distribution ring. And yet in the yarn he spun for the Mitchell Commission, McNamee stated that the steroids he injected into Roger Clemens were purchased and brought to the scene of the injection by Clemens himself. It doesn't make sense to me. And as Roger challenged in the interview tonight, let the unnamed and unknown purveyors of steroids who sold to Clemens come forward to damn him.

This sad, sordid story has reminded me of one of my favorite films. It's called Quiz Show, about the corrupt game show 21 in the late 1950s. Congress, in one of its nobler efforts to protect us from phantoms and demons, launched a lengthy and expensive investigation into the TV game shows on the allegation that the shows were rigged, which they were.

The two biggest winners in the show were Herbert Stempel, an unattractive know-it-all of a loser, and Charles Van Doren, a young, handsome, clean cut member of a prominent American intellectual family. Both had received the answers, both had profited from the rigged show, but Van Doren ended up with a future in TV and Stempel went right back to being the ugly tool whom no one liked. So Stempel made a stink, testified before Congress and brought the show and Van Doren down with him.

Before the analogy spins even further out of control, in this little farce, Curt Schilling (or America's conscience as he styles himself) is Stempel and Roger Clemens is Charles Van Doren. Where the analogy breaks down is that Van Doren was guilty and Clemens isn't. But all of America, for the sake of catharsis, needs Schilling to come out in one of his ten million press conferences and say something on the lines of "Look, I admit I am insanely jealous of what Roger Clemens has accomplished in his career. I'm sorry, but I am a terrible person and massively overrated. As a penance, I'm retiring quietly, oh and by the way, I faked the bloody sock." Alas, it will never be.

Three more thoughts on the Clemens interview. First, Roger made a hell of a point when he asked Mike Wallace how exactly a person proves their innocence. Outside of the fact that one isn't required to do so in a law court, no one has ever adequately answered that one. Second, what would it prove to hook Clemens up to a polygraph? They measure physiological responses, so one would assume a superbly conditioned gentleman like Clemens would stand a good shot of beating it if he were lying.

And finally, was it ironic that Clemens' interview should follow a story featuring noted killer Johnny Mattarano? For whatever sins he may have to answer to Saint Peter and the Lord, Mattarano is, himself, a victim of a rat in the service of the US Department of Justice (namely James "Whitey" Bulger). And here I am, a guy who just doesn't want to believe in coincidences.

By the way, I didn't have time to do it tonight, and I was too intoxicated last night (and the night before), but I was at the Cs game on Friday and I watched them play Detroit last night. So I have some thoughts to relate about the game experience and the future of the team. I probably won't get to them until Tuesday, though, with the BCS title game tomorrow.

But before I wrap up, I have one more thing to say. I generally try to avoid politics in this space, but I need to say something about Mike Huckabee. I think he should be required to campaign with a midget, a broom and a big banner proclaiming him to be the friend of the little man. Whenever I see him at a campaign event, I can't help but think of Homer Stokes, the reform candidate for governor in O Brother Where Art Thou. But that's just me.

Oh, and as a postscript, I have this to say to Chuck Norris. You sucked as an actor and you suck as a political activist. Here's the realest of the the real Chuck Norris facts for you, 90% of Americans want you to drop dead, they're just too polite to say it.

The vast majority of people seem convinced that the USC Trojans will win the Rose Bowl today. At the risk of cementing their anticipated victory, I am going to disagree. I am not tremendously confident, however, that Illinois can get it done. God knows, as an ND fan, I have picked against USC enough over the last few years to embarrass dozens of people with more pride than even I have.

The real trouble with this pick I've made is that it hinges on how good Ohio State actually is. Yes, the Buckeyes have been to what seems like 23 BCS bowls in the Jim Tressel reign of terror. Yes, OSU is the only 1 loss team of any consequence still roaming the Bowl Subdivision landscape. And yes, they beat Michigan (on the road while the Illini lost to them at home). But the Buckeyes looked like a high school defense when Juice Williams went to work in the spread option on them.

I don't think the USC defense is quite as good as it has been in the past. And it is coached by Pete Carroll, so it is full of inferior character guys who may or may not have parents already living in condos provided by agents (Reggie Bush). The trouble is, the only accurate frame of reference for the speed and capacity of the USC defense is the game they played against a subpar Notre Dame team.

Based on the way OSU failed to defense Illinois in November, it seemed that the goal was to put the game in Juice Williams' hands. That was a laudable goal, since he's been supremely inconsistent since he hit the ground in Champaign two years ago. He has games where he looks like he could be the next Vince Young and he has games where he make the guy who sank the Vikings ship look like Joe Montana. Too bad for OSU, Williams had a career day in Columbus.

The best asset, and the best player, going for Illinois today is Rashard Mendenhall. He's a slightly shorter, perhaps more talented and infinitely more above reproach version of Darren McFadden. And this game could decide his future. He's a junior right now, and he has to choose between going to the NFL and trying to improve his draft position by sticking around one more year. I'm betting he goes pro, rather than take the chance of getting hurt for nothing. But God knows how often I'm wrong in this space.

As an aside, in case you might not have noticed, that kid from Boise State who electrified the nation last year against Oklahoma didn't exactly have a banner year. Yeah, he proposed to that cheerleader and that was so wonderful. And they didn't accept any wedding presents that might have compromised his amateur status. But perhaps they should have. Ian Johnson had a step back season and managed 11 yards rushing in a bowl loss to East Carolina this year. That just isn't going to get you drafted in the first round.

I think Illinois can do some damage to USC because the Trojans don't seem to be that much better than OSU as far as defending a running QB goes. If USC commits to stopping Mendenhall the way OSU did, Williams will kill them running out of the spread. Williams might even be able to beat them with his arm, provided that the long layoff and big stage don't overwhelm him. Yes, Williams isn't Vince Young. But this USC defense isn't as fast or talented as the one Young killed two years ago.

I also think that Illinois' defense is massively underrated. J Lehman, the Illini middle linebacker, should be a first round pick. But their best defensive player is defensive end Will Davis. Two years from now, he will be the second coming of Mario Williams (whose 14.5 sacks earned a trip to the Pro Bowl for several frauds and Richard Seymour). He will crush Jon David Booty to the point where I don't even feel comfortable making any sort of Pirates of the Caribbean reference here.

But the best part of Illinois sneaking up on USC isn't that people can make a half-assed ironic reference about the Trojans being victimized by a trojan horse. It's that you heard it here first.