So many of our old friends have been up to so much, it's hard to know where to begin. Daisuke Matsuzaka was trounced by the Indians and chased from the game in the 6th. Kobe Bryant has found himself sinking into a morass of his own creation in Los Angeles, but he's mad as hell and he's not going to take it anymore. And to top it all, there is a rumor of a new football league in the developmental stage and the Benefactor is involved.

After so many wins, I am cautiously optimistic that the Red Sox are due to fall back to earth. With any luck, they'll go straight from dizzying height to terrifying low, bypassing the creamy middle. But for a change, I'm going to do my level best not to jinx this one. After all, Carl Pavano's to do list probably reads like this now: 1). have Tommy John Surgery. 2). track down and apply savage ass whooping to pseudonymous anti-Red Sox blogger who predicted 18 win season in 2007. 3). rehab from Tommy John Surgery. So no more on the Sox for the moment.

I really hate jumping on bandwagons at late stages, but I really do not like Kobe Bryant. For those of you who have been reading this space from jump street, you know that. You also know that I am a big Elvis fan. So when I heard the series of interviews with Stephen A Smith and Dan Patrick today, it reminded me of a relatively obscure country song Elvis released in the early 70s. The song's title is "It's Your Baby, You Rock It" and it includes the following line: "You made that bed you're sleepin' in and I'm tired of hearing about it friend."

Kobe really, really, really wanted Shaq out of LA. Since Bryant was the younger of the two superstars, management obliged him and sent the Big Aristotle to Miami. Shaq has gone on to win a championship with the Heat. Kobe has yet to carry the Lakers to the second round of the playoffs. And now Kobe says team management promised to build a title contender around him in the immediate future. Bryant's hurt, he's betrayed and they lied to him. And yet I am not in tears.

It seems incredibly unlikely, but I guess there is a remote possibility that Kobe Bryant doesn't know basketball. You'd think that he might, since he's played it since childhood, his father was a pro ball player and he chose it for his career. But that might not necessarily mean he knows the game. After all, if management told him they were looking to compete at the highest level in the wake of the Shaq deal, and he believed them, Kobe is either ignorant or full of something unpleasant, particularly in the heat of summer.

The Lakers traded Shaq for Carom Butler and Lamar Odom. Shaq, at that point in his career, was a veteran of 5 NBA Finals and a three time champion. Carom Butler and Lamar Odom may have won any number of titles playing NBA Live on X Box, but neither has played so much as a minute of basketball in the NBA Finals. Moreover, they're both power forwards. They play the same damn position. How could any one not see that as a bad deal for LA?

It is true that the Lakers parlayed Carom Butler into Kwame Brown, who was supposed to be the center of the future. At the time, in literary parlance, that was rather like the Ancient Mariner from the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner trading in the albatross around his neck that weighed him down for a large metal anchor. Since then, the trade has gone on to look much worse, as Butler made the Eastern Conference All Star team this season (yeah, the East kind of blows, but it is still an All Star team) and Kwame Brown is stuck in neutral. He might not be getting worse, but he surely isn't getting better either.

None of the Lakers other moves have panned out since they let Shaq go. Lately, the "brains" of their operation have been taking a lot of heat for failing to deal for Jason Kidd at the deadline. I don't see why. Can you honestly tell me that Kidd would have made the Lakers markedly better than any of the other seven teams that qualified for the playoffs in the West? I just don't think that would have been the case.

So I'm sick of Kobe whining. This was never about winning, this was about getting away from Shaq's shadow. Now Kobe has been jarred back into reality because everything that was his now belongs to LeBron and D Wade. Wade has a ring, and LeBron is fighting the Pistons to a standstill. They're younger and more dynamic than Kobe. Kobe needs to do something or he'll lose his league.

The trouble is, fans everywhere believe he forced management to sell Shaq for pennies on the dollar. Fans have been convinced after the scoring binges of the past two years that Kobe cares more about his numbers than his team. Kobe is in danger of becoming the answer to the trivia question: "Who scored the second most points in a single NBA game?" Would that he had chosen a more dignified route around his present course to oblivion.

Then there's the Benefactor. He's already on board with the proposed venture known as the UFL. Because the American landscape needed another professional football league. Because the USFL and the WFL and the XFL were all unqualified success stories. Because the NFL is much bigger, wealthier, more powerful and infinitely better prepared to adapt its product to the environment in which it exists than it was when the AFL challenged it in the 1960s. That's why the UFL is such a good idea.

What no one on the outside of the football business looking in on it's riches seems to understand is that the AFL succeeded for a reason. It wasn't because the upstart league was able to sign huge college stars like Namath or Mike Garrett, or develop guys like Len Dawson, Lance Alworth and so many others into household names. Those factors helped, but look at the USFL who went for broke luring Herschell Walker, Jim Kelley, Steve Young, Doug Flutie and others into their league and got pretty damn broke pretty damn quick.

The real reason no football league will ever compete against the NFL the way the AFL did is simple. Because there were no collective bargaining agreements, minimum salaries and pensions back in the 1950s and 1960s, there was room for a second league to come in and start a bidding war for the solid, dependable veterans that make up the guts of a professional football team. Now the NFL has all that infrastructure in place for all 32 of its teams.

Can you imagine how much capital would be necessary to start 8 new teams at once? Not to mention creating a league office to codify the rules, set up a draft, schedule all the games and make sure that each new team has a home city and a home stadium? And on top of those headaches deal with the fact that the 2,000 best football players in the world are currently under contract to NFL teams? Any one who thinks they can do that with 8 different billionaires who have no experience in football beyond watching a game or two here and there, no current common bonds and Mark Cuban involved is dreaming.

If this new league tries to get off the ground playing in the fall on Friday nights, they'll be destroyed. Maybe they'll get a few high profile college draft picks, some older stars looking for one last big score like an aging thief in a crime drama and some other assorted has-beens and never-will-bes. That might be enough to challenge for a Grey Cup or two, but not to take money out of Jerry Jones' pocket.

People don't often realize, since it takes a little more thought than the average tool is willing to put in to the sports he or she watches on the TV, but Namath made the guarantee and his teammates won the game. Randy Beverly and Johnny Sample were two former NFL defensive backs and they made huge plays in the Red Zone to stop big drives for the Colts. In the old days, guys like that were on the open market. It's just not the case any more.

And what is the Benefactor going to do? Spend like Dan Snyder? We've all seen where that has gotten the Redskins lately. I suppose I ought to shut my mouth. If he wants to waste his money on a colossal failure in the making, that's his business. And the sooner he gets back to his new favorite pastime of hiding and trembling lest David Stern smack him down again, the better for us all.

I really don't like posting twice in one day, but I just couldn't get the post I wanted to finish last night done until the middle of the day today. These things happen. I thought about waiting until tomorrow to post again, but I decided I ought to go ahead and write this while the subject was still fresh in my mind.

After watching ESPN baseball coverage last night and tonight, with apologies to Charles Dickens, it was the best of quality starts and the worst of quality starts. The best - Curt Schilling overpowering the mighty Texas Rangers. The worst - Carl Pavano squeaking past the lowly Twins. The Yankees are in bad trouble this year.

When you look at the stat line alone, Schilling would seem to have an edge because he allowed only one run over his seven innings of work. Pavano also went seven against the Twins tonight, allowing two runs in the process. Pavano only struck out two batters, but he didn't walk anybody. Schilling struck out six, walked only one and allowed only four hits. It was indeed one for the ages and much, much, much better than Pavano's effort.

After all, it's not like Curt Schilling allowed a home run to an overrated bum like Frank Catalanato. Oh, wait... Minnesota had to manufacture one run against Carl Pavano with a single and stolen base by Tori Hunter and then a base hit to drive him in. Then Morneau doubled and two batters later, Hunter drove him in with another double. Both balls were well hit, very well hit. But Pavano recovered, got out of the inning and got a big win.

Before any Red Sox fan decides to remind me that the Rangers play in a notorious hitters park, think for a second and see if you can't remember the nickname for the MetroDome. Before you sprain something from the unaccustomed mental effort, it's the Homer Dome. I am aware that the Twins aren't built to hit home runs the way the Yankees can, but can you really make the claim that the Rangers can hit with the Sox?

To this point in the season, I think Pavano has been more impressive than Schilling. It is true that the Devil Rays produced several runs against Pavano on Opening Day in the Bronx. But the Devil Rays offense is considerably better than the Royals who put a man-sized beating on Curt Schilling in Kaufmann Stadium. I will have more to say on the Devil Rays later this week, because they're going to be a team to watch this season.

While Texas has some big names like Michael Young, Hank "Yes, my production declined at a strangely suspicious time" Blaylock, Mark Teixeira and The Man Who Once Was Sammy Sosa, they have fallen into a rut as a team. They put up decent offensive numbers, but as the guy I go to for my Red Sox fan's perspective said to me today, the Rangers look great on paper without ever bringing that to the field when it matters.

Minnesota, on the other hand, has a very good team. They're a small market team, and they can't throw money around the way the Sox and the Yanks do. But they compete year in and year out. Santana is probably the best pitcher in the AL, but they also have the reigning MVP in Morneau and the reigning batting champ in Mauer. Holding them to two runs after a shaky start on Opening Day is an important confidence builder for Pavano.

Carl Pavano now stands 17 wins away from the 18 I predicted for him before the season started. I realize that it's only two starts in, he's only won four games in pinstripes in a little over two seasons, he has bad karma hanging over his head from lying to the team about his injury last year and he has a hell of a long way to go to earn his teammates' trust once more. He took a step in the right direction today, and he better take 17 more steps like that because I really want to be right for the first time in a while.

As for other baseball matters, or at least matters peripherally connected to baseball, I have yet another problem with Bill Simmons. In his running diary on Daisuke Matsuzaka's first start, there was a very disturbing subplot. He reacted to the excessive grundle grabbing exhibited by Julio Lugo with an enthusiasm that was slightly less than decent. I leave you to make of that what you will.

But if I were the kind of writer given to bestowing movie quotes as awards, like the Sports Guy, I'd have to go to the cinematic tour de force Planes, Trains and Automobiles to the scene where Del Griffith (John Candy, in what might be his best role) takes Neil Page (Steve Martin) to task for his grundle grabbing. The purveyor of shower curtain rings hits him with this epithet: "Larry Bird doesn't do as much ball handling in an entire night as you do in an hour."

If I were the kind of person who tampers with perfection, I might be inclined to update that quote now that Bird has been retired for well over a decade. But I'll let it stand, because it has a Boston connection and there's no one on the Celtics that's worth elevating by connecting him to that film. That quote will also serve as my memorial to the golden age of John Hughes movies, since he lost his fastball after Uncle Buck.

On a completely unrelated note, at the risk of bringing my unique brand of insensitivity to an issue that should be handled with the utmost sensitivity, I have to laugh at MSNBC and CBS for handling the Don Imus situation with neither courage nor balls. If they don't have the courage to kill the golden goose (the coveted demographic that makes up his audience has considerable buying power, after all) and fire him for his incredibly stupid insensitive remarks on the Rutgers women's basketball team, they at least could have had the balls not to weasel out of the situation with a slap on the wrist.

I don't know what is the right way to handle this situation, I only know it's not a slap on the wrist suspension. Without going to the lengths that the South Park episode that dealt with Kramer's career suicide went to make the same point, there is no way that I could, as a white guy, understand how comments like Imus and his guest made resonate in the black community. I do know that CBS and MSNBC can't be all things to all people in this situation. They should have either fired him or stood by him. I think this suspension insults us all by trying to offend no one.

Tonight, I find that I don't have one single topic to fill a post. I guess after last night's long rant on the upcoming Oden-Hibbert matchup, I'm tapped out. There are a few things that I've been meaning to say, and none of them inspires me enough to write a standard length post. So tonight is a sort of moveable feast of negativity.

First, I don't really know why I think this, but I am going to go out on a limb and predict an impressive season for Carl Pavano, the Yankees likely opening day starter. I think he's going to win 18 games, and more to the point, I think he's going to win more games than Schilling and Matsuzaka. Yes, Pavano has only won 18 in a season once and he's lost more than he's won in his career, but I believe in him. He has a forgiving lineup to support him (much more balanced than the Red Sox hitters, who only scare me if they're named Ramirez or Ortiz).

The Yankees defense behind him should be much better since they added Mientkiewicz to fill in for Jason "Oh My God, Please Let This Infield Throw Be Right On The Money Or We're Looking At An Advancing Runner Instead Of An Out" Giambi at first (I'm aware that his offense numbers from this spring need to increase dramatically for them to be considered pathetic in the regular season). I just have a sense that Pavano will win 18, and I'm usually wrong, but get ready for the I Told You So from me when it happens.

As I guy who loves fantasy football, so much so that I blog about it and drive my readership down in the football season and bore my friends who don't care about it so much that they want to smash a chair over my hear like as though it were pro wrestling, it might surprise you but I hate fantasy baseball. And it's not a hypocritical stance, on my part. I have no problem with the giant waste of time that all fantasy sports are. It does bother me when people talk to me about it, but it bothers me when most people talk to me about most things.

What really irritates me about fantasy baseball is that it is the fantasy sports equivalent of writing blank verse poetry, not that I write blank verse poetry, and I damn sure don't want to read any more blank verse poetry than I have to. Robert Frost described it as playing tennis without a net. That's what fantasy baseball is. For instance, Mike Piazza can be counted as a catcher in most leagues despite the fact that he won't be playing catcher for the As this season.

By that rationale, any player should be able to be classified at any position. For instance, Ichiro catches balls in right field, so he is on some level a catcher. Or he hits a number of singles, so he spends a fair bit of time at first base. If you need a first baseman, Ichiro should count. Or even better, he beats out a lot of ground balls for infield hits, so he ought to be considered for any of the infield positions.

Maybe this trend could carry over to the other fantasy sports. Terrell Owens lines up in the slot in certain formations and situations, tight ends like Dallas Clark line up in the slot in certain formations and situations. Therefore I ought to be able to classify him as a tight end if I need help there. While that sounds completely ridiculous, I just don't see how it is more ridiculous than letting a DH be considered a catcher because he played the position at some point within the last X number of games.

Tonight, due to a lack of interesting viewing options, I came across one of Mel Gibson's early films. It's called Tim, and according to digital cable it's about a May-December romance. I couldn't tell if it were an Australian movie with an American actress or an American movie with an Australian actor. The one thing I could tell from the few minutes I watched, is that is was dreadful. I bet Mel goes bananas like he did in the South Park Passion parody when he sees that it's on TV. I don't know how to adequately describe how awful it is save to say that it's like they took the basic elements of porn (bad lighting, bad sets, bad wardrobe, horrific script and dreadful acting) to make this film, but left out the eroticism.

One more thing I have to complain about tonight is the commercial for the lost pet lojack service. I don't know if you've caught it. I happened to be watching Most Extreme Ancestors on Animal Planet when I saw it. There is a hideously, horrendously awful cover of the Peaches and Herb song Reunited. I understand that this wouldn't bother most people, but it bothers me.

I like a lot of 1970s soul and R&B. I usually try not to talk about it much, because most single, straight guys don't make a habit of admitting that they've listened to a track by Peaches and Herb lately. But I like the song, and I'm not afraid to admit it. And after all, it's not like I'm listening to WHAM or Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

But as far as I know, Peaches and Herb aren't in a financial position to turn people away when they come calling to use the song in a commercial. After all, while there's only been one Herb, he's on Peaches number 5, I think. So the pet locator service people probably didn't save much money when they went with the cover version that sounds like a sickening blend of Up With People and Muzak. I'm not in marketing, nor am I acquainted with the demographic audience of Animal Planet (I am, however, willing to bet that the average Animal Planet viewer isn't all that cool), but there's no way that you'll ever convince me that the commercial wouldn't have more impact with the real version of the song in it.

And I realize that I admitted to watching Animal Planet and went out on a limb and offered my opinion that the average viewer of said network probably isn't cool. That said, I'm not an average viewer of Animal Planet. Or at least the network better hope I'm not, as I only tune in when there is a dire programming emergency.

Finally, there is the rumored trade which could have sent Lance Briggs and the 31st pick in the first round to the Redskins in exchange for the sixth overall pick. This might not be a bad deal for the Bears, since the Redskins love to butcher the draft and that's probably as much value as the Bears will get from this nightmare. That said, I also don't blame the Bears for putting the kibosh on it after either the Redskins or Rosehnaus released the details before formal negotiations had even begun.

Briggs is building up a hell of a lot of bad karma in this situation. If he sits 10 games as he's threatening now, and comes back for the last six, I don't think the situation will work out the way he wants. His timing will be off, he'll disrupt the team and he just might hurt his value going forward. If the bridges can be repaired and he goes to Washington, he's tempting fate there too. Yes, he'll get paid by Dan Snyder, but Washington is the NFL's place where careers go to die.

No one who signs big deals with the Redskins ever plays up to the potential they showed before they got there. I guess it's possible that you could throw Portis and Santana Moss in my face on this one, and I'd have to give you Moss. But Portis has more 1,500 yard seasons in Denver than Washington. To be fair, I must concede that his career is hardly over. But going to Washington is much better for the wallet than the Hall of Fame resume. I guess it comes down to what Briggs really wants, and if the Bears suddenly undergo a transformation like Scrooge experienced in A Christmas Carol and become forgiving enough to deal him.