So, the 2008 NFL Draft is over and done. The Patriots needed to get younger and better on defense. At the moment, they appear to have gotten younger. Whether or not they're better remains to be seen. Even if the young players step in and contribute on defense, it's hard to see the Patriots not taking at least one step back next season.

It seems highly unlikely that the AFC East won't improve at all in the coming season. Adding Jake Long should make the Dolphins offensive line (which was probably their biggest weakness among many, many, many weaknesses) considerably better. Granted, they still have a long way to go to be good in that area, but it's a start. Buffalo and the Jets should be slightly better than they were last season as well. All this points to the Patriots cruising to another division title, but it should be a tougher run and 16-0 isn't happening again.

The mid to late first round was the most interesting part of the draft, what with the trades and the run of mediocre offensive line prospects coming off the board the way they did. If I had to pick one team to blame for that crime against good taste, I think I'd have to blame the Lions. I don't see the sense in their trading down two spots to take Gosder Cherilus four rounds too soon. But that's just me. Apparently it was vitally important that they give Boston College something to brag about with two Eagles going in the first round.

After the Notre Dame game, I posted something to the effect that Cherilus had played himself out of millions of dollars in guaranteed money with the way Kerry Neal and Brian Smith blew past his feeble attempts to handle their speed rushes. Granted Cherilus was playing left tackle when people assure me that he is a natural right tackle. But if two true freshmen linebackers from an historically dreadful Notre Dame team cruised by him repeatedly as though he were Matt Light with a perfect season riding on his ability to block Justin Tuck or Osi Umenyura, how long will it take NFL defenses to exploit this flaw in Cherilus' game? But what would April be without the Lions making an inexplicable and indefensible pick?

I also think Atlanta gave up an awful lot to trade into the first round to draft their left tackle of the future in USC's Sam Baker. It is essential to protect a rookie QB's blind side, or any QB for that matter. But Baker wasn't so dominant in college that he was worth that risk and his injury history is a cause of some concern.

But the Falcons must be praised for picking up a temporary fix at QB until Ron Mexico clears up his legal issues and resolves his indefinite suspension. As I watched the draft coverage, I found myself unimpressed by the deep throw over the middle Matt Ryan completed against Maryland and Ron Jaworski broke down from two angles. And yet the same clip had to have been shown something like 20 times.

The first problem I had with the clip is that Maryland wasn't exactly a dominant team in the ACC last season. Then no mention was made of the fact that Maryland's defense was shifting around and looking very confused before the snap. Finally, with all the talk of throwing the receiver open, Jaws didn't bother to mention that NFL middle linebackers drop into their zones with a lot more precision and much better technique than the Maryland defender showed on that play (his shoulders were turned in such a way that he could do everything but cover the receiver on the play).

With the receivers and offensive line awaiting him, I don't see a very promising future in Atlanta for Matt Ryan. Yes, he was head and shoulders above the rest of the quarterback class of 2008, but that could just as easily be due to the weakness of that position group as a whole as opposed to a ringing endorsement of Ryan's potential.

I think the Cowboys dropped the ball big time when they passed on Rashard Mendenhall to draft Felix Jones. When the dust settles on this choice, I think we'll all be amazed that they passed on a better runner to draft a guy named Jones from the University of Arkansas because they were owned by a moron named Jones who went to the University of Arkansas. And I don't want any nonsense about Jones having breakaway speed. After watching the Rose Bowl, it should be readily apparent that Mendenhall has as much speed as any back with a ball under his arm.

Maybe the Steve Youngs of the world couldn't see why Brian Brohm plummeted the way he did. Personally, I think it's due to the fact that most teams didn't want to risk their future on a 23 year old with a receding hairline, a creepy pink shirt that made him look like he was auditioning for a dinner theater version of St. Elmo's Fire and bowl cut to top it off. He and Aaron Rogers would be set for the weakest QB competition in recent memory if it weren't for Miami taking a QB in the second round for the second year in a row. Chad Henne and John Beck are going to be a running punchline this season, just wait and see.

The Bears draft started fairly promising, at least they finally tried to get younger on the offensive line. Why they drafted a running back in the second round when they had much more critical needs at quarterback and wide receiver is beyond me, however. Yes, Cedric Benson hasn't produced the way the team desperately needs him to produce. But part of that has to be due to the inferior offensive line play last year and the fact that the team wasn't a serious passing threat.

I won't deny that I have probably been Cedric Benson's biggest supporter. Nor will I deny that he's disappointed my prediction that he would become a 1,500 yard rusher in the not too distant future. But no matter how you feel about Benson, it doesn't change the fact that the Bears top three receivers are Mark Bradley, Marty Booker's preserved remains and Devin Hester (who is at least another year away from being something beyond a novelty act in the passing game). And the less said about Bears' QBs the better. But maybe their later picks will turn out better than I think.

As a final note on this draft, why did the top two picks from Notre Dame have to go to teams I hate? I like John Carlson as a football player, or at least I did. Now I have to root against him because no one in their right mind wants to see anything good happen to the Seattle Seahawks. And why did Trevor Laws have to go to the sinking ship that is the Eagles? Putting a quality run stopper on a team like that is like putting a lace doily on a bowling ball. One can only hope he becomes an excuse for Donovan McNabb's inability to put the team over the top and he goes on to a team where he can thrive.

In other matters, it's been too long again since I've ripped Bill Simmons. First, I need to point out something from his piece on the Bruins Canadiens series. This is the verbal indictment of the Boston sports fan I've been waiting for, and true to form that jerk Simmons thinks it's a good thing, but here's a sentence he wrote:

We won an emotional Game 3 in overtime, followed by a number of postgame brawls on and around Causeway Street between Boston and Montreal fans, at least 50 of them involving guys named Sully and Murph teaming up to beat the hell out of someone named Pierre.

That's one more reason Boston sports fans are overrated. It takes two of them to beat down a French Canadian named Pierre. General Patton would be rolling over in his grave if he gave a damn about Red Sox Nation. If it takes two to beat up a lone Canadiens fan, how many does it take to throw a piece of pizza off the back of a Canadiens fan's head? On the plus side, I suppose I should thank God for the shanty Irish, otherwise Irish Americans might look like they make a contribution to American society instead of being degenerate drunken bullies. Thanks for bringing our ethnic group down once more, people of Boston.

Now consider this paragraph from Simmons' playoff awards column:

The Brian Fantana Memorial "Hey, Champ, Maybe You Should Stop Talking For Awhile" Award
To Charles Barkley for declaring last weekend that Rasheed Wallace is the most talented player in the league and could have been the greatest player ever if he wanted it. Chuck Wagon, we love you ... but you can't possibly believe that, right? Rasheed couldn't handle the responsibility of being great every night, true, but part of being great is that you've made a conscious choice to accept that everyday responsibility and live up to a different standard of pressure and expectations. It's like a chicken/egg thing. If Vince Carter was wired like Michael Jordan, he would have been Michael Jordan. If Derrick Coleman was wired like Kevin Garnett, he would have been the greatest power forward ever. If Sam Jones was wired like Jerry West, he would have been the NBA logo instead of what he was -- a top-50 player and one of the NBA's memorably clutch shooters. Rasheed was much closer to the Sam Jones camp than the DC/Vince camp, but all of them had one thing in common: They didn't totally want it. And that's part of being great.

Is it just me or did he rip Barkley and then go on to make exactly the same point Barkley made which made Simmons rip him in the first place?

Happy trails to Pat Riley, who has given up his coaching duties in Miami. When Dwayne Wade becomes this generation's Michael Ray Richardson three years from now, I'm sure every one will blame Star Jones, but a few of us might wonder what might have been had Riley given up after the 2006 title run or at the very least hadn't acquired spare parts like Shawn Marion and Ricky Davis (two very talented players but more concerned with stats than wins or team play).

And way to go Roger Clemens, thanks for having an alleged ongoing affair with a mediocre singer starting when she was 15. That really helps my effort to defend you against all logic. At least TO has been well behaved lately, so I have that going for me. Which is nice...

So, Congress finally got around to asking the Justice Department to look into whether or not Roger Clemens committed perjury. It seemed fairly obvious that this was going to be the end result of that he said-he said fest into which the hearings of two weeks ago degenerated in short order. The only surprise was the delay between the hearings and the request.

Personally, I think it had something to do with the fact that Congress was desperately searching for some other charge to file against Clemens. Alas, interrupting a legendary orator like Henry Waxman in the midst of a contralto harangue full of sound and fury but signifying nothing is merely a violation of Robert's Rules for Order. Even though Robert's Rules are the tools which do little more than protect the elected officials from the electorate, an ordinary citizen can't be punished for breaching them.

This case should be fairly interesting in so far as what the result will be. But I am sure that the process by which said result will be obtained won't be tremendously interesting. Yes, no side in this sad little mess has any reasonable claim to credibility. But I don't think I'll be flying to my set to see if Andy Pettitte's story on his own HGH usage habits changes for the third time since his name was included in the Mitchell Report. I would like to see whether the NYPD service record for Brian McNamee sees the light of day any time soon, but I'm not big on hoping for miracles.

Of far greater importance and interest to me at the moment is a nugget in Peter King's Monday NFL column this week. Generally, I avoid Peter King like the plague because he's a New Jersey d-bag and one of the less than shining lights of NBC's dismal NFL Sunday Night studio show. But the guy I go to for my Red Sox info told me that there was an interesting little tidbit about the Dom Capers hire.

I am unhappy with myself for missing the Capers hire on the tickers when it was announced. To me, this is a great sign. It's a panic move on the part of the Patriots. It looks superficially like an insurance policy, a possibility which Peter King is quick to dismiss, in case Belichick should be forced to step down or face suspension for his role in the ongoing signal taping soap opera.

On that level, it would make some sense, since the Patriots had no one on staff with head coaching experience and McDaniel would have caused the knuckle-dragging troglodytes who root for the Patriots to mutiny had he inherited this team. Dean Pees may or may not have potential, it's hard to say as the presence of Belichick overshadows any fair understanding of what he's brought to the table as defensive coordinator. And who knows when this situation will resolve itself?

One thing is sure, it didn't make very much sense for the Patriots to enter the official NFL league year 2008 (starting with free agency and the draft process) without a viable candidate in house. Even if Capers isn't on any one's short list for a quick fix or permanent replacement, his presence means they won't have to make a panic move should Belichick have to leave town for a while.

The reason I like this move is that it shows the Patriots organization is scared at some level. Whether they are afraid of the end result of Arlen Specter's half-assed witch hunt or afraid that it's "Katy bar the door" time for the dynasty is another matter. Hiring a defensive assistant with experience with another branch of the 3-4 tree to serve under a less experienced defensive coordinator cannot bode well for the current coordinator's confidence.

The defense isn't getting any younger in the front seven. Assante Samuel is out the door, and some Pats fans aren't too upset considering he didn't intercept Eli Manning when he could have salted the game away. But that leaves you with fearsome shutdown corners in Ellis Hobbs and Randall Gay (who might be leaving town himself). Yes, in the piece I mentioned, Peter King proved with the case of the 49ers this past season that cornerbacks aren't a great investment compared to a solid pass rush.

When you think that Richard Seymour has quietly become the Manny Ramirez of the Pats defense and that Vrabel is getting older and much more likely to submit a season like he did in 2006 than another like he did in 2007, things all of a sudden look a little bleak in Foxboro. Of course, Adalius Thomas is still around and maybe he can get his statistical production mojo back if the Pats are forced to use him more like the Ravens did.

In another Pater King related comment, I want to address another column he wrote recently, predicting that Matt Ryan will be a better pro than JaMarcus Russell. I find that particularly amusing. One of the rationales for King's claim is that Ryan played and produced his impressive stats with a supporting cast that will not play pro football while Russell played with some of the best players in the nation and several future stars. That is a weighty argument.

However, doesn't it produce it's own weighty counterargument? Even if Matt Ryan played with players that won't make it to the NFL, should he not be expected to play at a high level any way, given the nature of his competition? For the last few years, as much as I hate to admit it, the SEC has been, top to bottom, the best and most competitive conference in college football. The ACC has been in a down cycle.

And on top of that, while both teams play cupcakes in the nonconference schedule, LSU plays Championship Subdivion powers and BC plays teams from the notoriously weak Northeast. And let's not forget, Russell torched an ND team in the Sugar Bowl that managed to send several players on to the NFL (Ndukwe and Landri among them). Matt Ryan struggled to lead BC to a win over a very depleted ND team this year, even though he threw outlet passes to his tailback that reminded people of a very old Joe Montana (the one in those terrible NFL Network diner ads, not even the one who played for the Chiefs).

If I were to give you ten things I think, items one through eight right now would be that Peter King is a d-bag. Item nine would be that anyone who actively reads Peter King to gain insight into the seamy underworld of the coffee nerd should be disenfranchised. And last but not least, item ten would be: "I hoped you enjoyed the dynasty, Pats fans" because it's over.

Here's some Roy Orbison music to help cushion the blow.


The song is called The Comedians. I particularly like the line: "It's always something cruel that laughter drowns." In this instance, the cruel thing will be the decline and fall of the Patriot empire and the laughter drowning it will come from me and the overwhelming majority of NFL fans who have grown tired of the Pats and their fans.

And in one last note, we need to join forces with Sports Guy Nation in a new crusade. Bill Simmons is launching a mock-campaign to replace the GM of the Milwaukee Bucks. I'm not taking the side of the trade that says a guy has to come from an NBA background to run an NBA team. I'm taking the side of the trade that this loudmouth who has never slid into second base in his natural life (not including that rich, full life he leads in his own mind a la Walter Mitty) ought to put his money where his mouth is just one time before he dies.

As a bonus, here's a tools of note feature. I inadvertently typed in Roger's Rules instead of Robert's Rules when I googled the parliamentary procedure portion of what I wanted to talk about tonight. I guess I had Clemens on the brain and I was still chuckling from the Simmons piece. But I happened to stumble across this goldmine of sayings that are too obvious and banal to be considered cliches.

This fellow, Roger J. Wendell, has a website defending 3.8 billion years of organic evolution. And on this website, Roger J. Wendell has his own quaint rules for order. After reading them, it's just too easy to make fun of him. So all I have to say about them is this: if he's the last line of defense for 3.8 billion years of organic evolution, then 3.8 billion years of organic evolution is in for a world of pain.

Bill Simmons just might be the greatest basketball mind in the world today. I doubt it, but I am obliged, as a Catholic, to believe in miracles. But here's the thing, let's say a team were to give him a shot, since he boasts that he has at least some of the answers to fix each and every team in the league at the moment. What happens when he picks up the phone or approaches a GM from another team at league meetings? Are they really going to forget his arrogant columns? Are they going to be impressed by his soprano twittering? Are they going to be intimidated by J Bug and D Bag and Joe House and the rest of his insane clown posse? I doubt it, and I hope I get to see him fail.

If time were not a moving thing
And I could make it stay
This hour of love we share
Would always be
There'd be no coming day
To shine a morning light
And make us realize our night is over

That's how the Elvis Presley version of It's Over starts. In case you're wondering, it is not a cover of the Roy Orbison classic which I included in my post celebrating the death of the Patriot dynasty in the Arizona desert. They just share a title. I included it in tonight's post because today's hearings ended as they began, with a whimper.

While they didn't go as well as I would have liked, they certainly did not go as poorly as McNamee apologists will claim. The only real damaging revelation came when Roger Clemens shocked me, and the rest of the world, by throwing his wife Debbie under the bus unceremoniously. It's hard to believe that a team trainer injected a player's wife with HGH for an SI shoot when he wasn't doing the same for the player.

I was livid when I heard that statement from Mrs. Clemens read into the record. I can't remember a time when a guy threw his wife under the bus to try to save himself. It was bold and shocking, like good modern art (to borrow a phrase from Joseph Heller, and if such a thing exists), but shameless, just the same. It makes it hard for me to defend him, but then, half the posts in this space seem to be devoted to defending the indefensible.

The guy I go to for my Red Sox info considered that to be a smoking gun when I spoke to him this afternoon. It does look bad, but all I can say is this - just because your wife runs your life doesn't mean Roger Clemens and his wife can't pursue independent courses of action vis-a-vis growth hormone. But it looks bad, nonetheless.

As for those who regard Andy Pettitte's testimony as ironclad proof of Clemens' dishonesty, I can't see it that way. Yes, Andy Pettitte is a born-again Christian. But when he admitted to using HGH way back in the aftermath of the Mitchell Report, Pettitte was adamant that he'd only used HGH for a very short time in 2002. Now, his deposition tells us that he also injected himself in 2004 with HGH he got from his father. I can't help but wonder where this story will lead us when Andy is done spilling the beans in bits and pieces.

I thought Roger looked convincing under the questioning. He stumbled a bit, and seemed to falter in places. But he looked like a regular guy under intense pressure in an unfamiliar setting. After all, had Clemens ever testified under oath, on camera before a Congressional committee before? Of course McNamee looked more polished, he's had plenty of experience with this sort of thing.

In the glut of after the fact coverage, I noticed that Congressman Watkins of Maryland got rave reviews for his hard-hitting cross examination of Clemens. Personally, I thought Congressman Burton of Indiana stole the show. And the rep from Connecticut, Congressman Shays, did a great deal of damage to McNamee's credibility when he forced McNamee to admit under oath that he was a drug dealer. It wasn't so much the admission, but the way McNamee failed to weasel out by saying that's your opinion a half dozen times.

McNamee, to me at any rate, looked like a small, devious, petty weasel in his good moments. In his bad moments, particularly under Burton's questioning, McNamee looked like a guy who has already admitted to having lied to police and investigators on a few occasions. I am most interested to find out exactly what is in McNamee's service record from his time in the NYPD.

I don't understand why the NYPD denied a Freedom of Information Act request to release the McNamee records. Knowing the mentality of big city police departments, it's clear they are protecting something embarrassing to some one. The question is to whom is it damaging? It's got to be covering a secret in his past because his father was one of their own or it's protecting superior officers who stand to lose their careers or pensions because they swept something under the rug.

What really ought to happen in the wake of this hearing, which was nothing more than a colossal waste of time, is really quite simple. Instead of perjury indictments, we ought to go back to the way the Pilgrims did it. Clemens, McNamee, all the Congressmen and women and every American who watched it ought to be put in the stocks and pelted with rancid produce. Except me, of course, I am far too valuable for that.

For the moment, I'm still on Clemens' side. I think this hearing did more to damage McNamee's credibility than it did to hurt Roger. I think the expanding revelations hurt Pettitte's capacity to hurt Clemens. I think the Debbie Clemens story is the last thing that remains that can kill Clemens on this issue. And I think that if Clemens had signed the prorated $18 million deal with the Red Sox in May, his name stays out of the Mitchell Report (Sen. Mitchell is on the Board of Directors of the Boston Red Sox)

Now that the post Super Bowl euphoria is passing, it's time to get back to serious business. I didn't take the time to comment when the Red Sox added Sean Casey to the team in the not too distant past for three reasons. First, the NFL playoffs were much more important at the time. Second, I really don't know what to make of it. And third, I'm not too worried about what he can bring to the table.

Casey is, in theory, an interesting addition to the 2008 Red Sox lineup. He's a left handed bat, who can serve to spell Mike Lowell and Kevin Youkilis at stretches during the season. I am not anticipating that he would play third, but with him in the lineup it would free Youkilis to play third and Lowell to rest, or DH according to the whim of Francona.

That said, he's not tremedously young anymore. Casey won't be a character problem, since he's been very well liked by teammates, fans and the media everywhere he's played. But he's slow, even by the standards of these Red Sox who are (with the exception of Ellsbury and others) a particularly slow team, both mentally and physically. Also, I don't see him getting enough at bats to make a big impact on the team's fortunes. But who knows who might get hurt.

In other news, Brian McNamee took the stand in Congress today. His battle with Roger Clemens has taken an interesting turn. And one must wonder how it will impact the more important battle being waged between myself and theKobraKommander for the hearts and minds of my readers. This is, indeed, a strange turn.

Brian McNamee turned evidence including syringes, gauze pads and vials over to the IRS Special Investigator allegedly providing the substance behind the earlier accusation that he had injected Roger Clemens with steroids, HGH and everything but the kitchen sink. At first blush, this looks very bad for Clemens, who testified in his own deposition on Tuesday that he had never taken performance enhancing substances.

If Clemens is proved to have perjured himself, it is, ironically, the only way he can fairly and legally be punished for what he is alleged to have done in the Mitchell Report. As baseball had no comprehensive policy banning performance enhancing substances prior to 2004, all of the allegations against Clemens would be moot otherwise, since one cannont be punished under a law written ex post facto.

As a defender of Clemens from the first appearance of the Mitchell Report, I am not tremendously worried about the material that has been handed over to the government investigators. This comment provided by the doping expert ESPN consulted for their story eases my mind somewhat:

Doping expert Don Catlin said steroids could still be detected in a sample that old.

"But if you don't find it, it doesn't mean it wasn't there before," said Catlin, who added there are sure to be chain of custody issues.

He said HGH would be much less stable.

Any reasonably competent lawyer should be able to get around that, provided that there is anything around which to get in this story. Granted, there isn't a great deal of detail in Catlin's comment, but it doesn't seem strong enough to damn Clemens, either. Time, however, will tell.

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.

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.

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.

I had intended to post about the inconveniences of holiday travel and a bit on the Celtics-Pistons game this evening. And then I checked email and looked at some of today's headlines. From that brief venture, I have come away with the conviction that Curt Schilling does indeed intend to seek elective office after he retires from professional sports. And thankfully, according to what ought to be the first law of democracy in practice, whatever benighted muckers elect him to represent them will get exactly what they deserve.

Schilling was recently quoted calling on Roger Clemens to give back the Cy Youngs he won since 1997 if Roger cannot clear his name in the wake of the Mitchell Commission report. I don't know if they taught Curt this one little point in any of the courses he's taken on the way to becoming the self-proclaimed voice of truth, justice and the American way, but a person is held to be innocent until proven guilty under due process of the law.

This isn't an American concept. This concept predates the founding of the United States by over 570 years. It predates the first permanent European settlement in North America by some 370 years. It comes from the Magna Carta, which (to put it in terms the average Red Sox fan can understand) is basically the OG of documents establishing the legal tradition for the English speaking world.

I will admit that I have been otherwise occupied over the last several days. Apparently, I must I have missed the proclamation which handed over ultimate authority over matters of common and constitutional law to a cat who looks like Humpty Dumpty and is one trip to the DL away from being a has-been.

So far, the chain of evidence against Clemens seems to include a former trainer who is, himself, under federal indictment and the admission of Andy Pettitte that he used HGH on two occasions. Now, I'm not a legal scholar, but it seems to me that extrapolating any illicit use of banned performance enhancing substances on Clemens' part must then rely on hearsay and conjecture. If I'm not mistaken, it can be devilishly tricky to build a case in a court of law on hearsay and conjecture, what with the fact that that sort of evidence is (at least de jure) in admissible in a court of law in this country.

Provided, of course, that the rule of law still rules in this country, there is no way a responsible court can punish Clemens. If no responsible court can punish Clemens, then there is no reason on the face of God's green earth to take the Cy Youngs back from Clemens outside of the fact that Curt Schilling has opened his mouth and spoken with the voice of God.

If Curt Schilling had an IQ sufficient to chart on any sort of reasonable test, perhaps he'd have realized by now that he does more damage to his image each time he flaps his gums on this sort of thing. Something tells me that John McCain might not be to thrilled that one of his foremost celebrity supporters just can't stop being a total douche for the benefit of the media. Perhaps Schilling should do us all a favor and abandon public life in favor of playing more Everquest.

Hell, he's already half a LARPer at this point. He might as well go all out and dress like an Orc and run around with the world's biggest tools and argue over who hit whom with what in some sort of hideous live action version of Dungeons and Dragons. The only reason I'm not demanding that he do so instantly is that it would make the CHB a very happy man, and that's not good for America.

I also find myself once again defending Terrell Owens. I think it's a good thing that TO suggested that Jessica Simpson give Texas Stadium a wide berth for the time being. Now I might be a very cynical person and a terrible human being, but I have the nasty suspicion that Jessica Simpson just might be in this budding relationship with Tony Romo to see and be seen more than out of any altruistic romantic motivations. But that's just me.

Consider this: what has Jessica Simpson done lately? Ostensibly, she is a singer and an actress. The only problem - she hasn't been in a film or released an album in a while. Of course, I could very well be wrong there. I didn't see Dukes of Hazzard or Employee of the Month, so I haven't been following her film career. I also pay very little attention to the ways and means of contemporary pop music, so she could have released 50 albums in the last year, for all I know.

What I do know is this: sooner or later, some kind observer usually finds his or her way clear to tell me when some momentous development in the entertainment industry breaks. Lately (as in since about 2004) none of these bulletins that have reached me under my rock have involved Jessica Simpson. Preening in a pink #9 jersey in a luxury box in Texas Stadium seems to be the only way she can get herself in the media, short of downing bottle after bottle of pills or turning herself into a train wreck.

As for the other side of this sordid little problem, there are those who can say that Tony Romo ought to be above this sort of distraction. It shouldn't matter how many of his celebrity girlfriends are in the stands at any given moment. But I say this, Tony Romo has really only been a celebrity for about 13 months now. It's still something he's trying to learn to live with.

Sure, Tom Brady didn't have the same type of problem with the confluence of his personal and professional life. But, at the same time, he wasn't as big as star as fast as Tony Romo has been. Dallas is still America's Team, and the Patriots didn't really get that kind of media exposure until they were well on their way to a second Super Bowl title. Plus Brady played at Michigan, as opposed to Eastern Illinois University.

Furthermore, Romo might not be a regular Alfred Einstein, but he is somewhat brighter than Brady. Where Tom Brady has barely enough grey matter to master the playbook and game plans of the Patriots, Romo is just bright enough to let the media distract him. And it's not exactly as though TO forbade her to enter the grounds of Texas Stadium. He just pointed out that she could be a distraction and wished that she wouldn't come to the games.

If any other player on any other team in the league had said this, it would have been a mildly amusing flap that would have died down within about 12 minutes. However, TO dared to be relatively quiet and blend in with his teammates as much as he possibly can this season. And for that, the media had to punish him. After all, TO's job isn't to excel on the football field, nor is it even to catch passes for the Cowboys. Rather, TO's solemn duty is to provide countless path of least resistance stories to the legion of media drones who don't want to break a sweat when they cover the NFL. And if that means mountains must be made of molehills, then mountains shall be made.

Consider this piece, suggesting that TO is responsible for the Cowboys' problems. First of all, how many teams would trade problems with the Cowboys any day? They are 12-2. They may have identical records with the Green Bay Packers, but they beat the Packers soundly, not three weeks ago. They have the inside track for home field throughout the NFC playoffs until someone takes it away from them. And yet they must be on the verge of collapse, at least until the media needs yet another new angle this season.

I'm getting kind of tired of prefacing each of my increasingly rare posts with an apology. But it gets kind of old after a while, sitting here in front of the computer trying to invent reasons why a given team has a chance to beat the Patriots. And should I indulge in speculation on what team will give up which prospects and position players to get Johann Santana away from Minnesota? It's just not all that interesting to me at the moment.

I suppose I could take a sort of grim satisfaction from the fact that the Patriots have become everything which they were not supposed to be two years or so ago when every talking head and his brother insisted on holding them up as the model of virtue and excellence in professional sports. But even that gets old after a while.

I must confess, I was disappointed to see the way the Patriots reacted to Anthony Smith's "guarantee." It was disgusting to see Tom Brady go out of his way to get in his face after the first TD pass. Brady is, regrettably, a Hall of Fame quarterback on a record setting pace. Anthony Smith is a second year nobody whom the media exploited to generate more interest in a non-story.

There was a time when Brady was supposed to be a paragon of how to succeed with class and dignity. There is very little that smacks of class and dignity in going out of your way to put down a guy who barely even ran his mouth. Could you see Joe Montana or Terry Bradshaw doing that? Hell, Bradshaw never seemed to go out of his way to talk trash to Hollywood Henderson, who said considerably more insulting things about Bradshaw than any one has ever said about Brady.

Now the Patriots are playing the Jets again. Thankfully the media has an easy angle courtesy of the whole taping signals scandal to justify hours of coverage devoted to a very mediocre game. Conventional wisdom tells us that the Jets have no chance to win this game. Unfortunately, I can see no reason to disagree everybody and his brother for a change.

In other news, George Mitchell has finally delivered his report on steroids in Major League Baseball after 20 months of what surely was a exhaustive and ethically conducted investigation. In a blaze of vindication for those who have dragged Roger Clemens' name through the mud on this issue for the last two years or so, his name is at the top of the list of high-profile players who are named.

If you had told me earlier that losing to an unknown despite running not only as an incumbent but the sitting Senate Majority Leader to boot would end up not being the most embarassing professional failure of George Mitchell's career, I wouldn't have believed it. And then he had to go and release this report.

If sources like discredited and terminated former Yankees strength and conditioning coach Brian McNamee are at all typical of the informers who are expected to provide the Mitchell Report with its substance, then I am willing to bet guys like Clemens, Tejada and Pettitte will have little to fear from these proceedings.

This report which tells us many things we already knew (like MLB dragged its collective feet on the steroids issue) amid its hearsay and innuendo about respected players and choice nuggets about players who have already been caught cheating like Giambi, will likely go down in the annals of justice with hard-hitting and epoch shaping events like the Red Scare, the Army-McCarthy hearings and the Salem Witch Trials.

Curiously, outside of Eric Gagne, no one of consequence from the Boston Red Sox was named in this document. Thankfully, and perhaps conveniently, Brendan Donnelly was not offered a contract today. Interesting....

What with the way the Cleveland Indians seem desperate to save Major League Baseball from the indignity of a World Series that somehow lacks a major market team despite the fact that both Denver and Cleveland are much bigger cities than Boston, I spent a lot of time searching for something to watch. The Illinois vs. Michigan game would have been a great candidate but for three serious questions.

First, why do the Marching Illini wear capes? Are they super heroes? Even the silly helmets on the USC band (the real USC not that disco with books that stands out for its subpar academic repute in the desert of ignorance that is the SEC) look far less ridiculous than the capes.

Second, could Brent Musberger be more biased in favor of the Michigan Wolverines? Ryan Mallet fumbled two snaps, and Musberger still raved about him as though he threw for 300 yards and 5 TDs. In the drive to respond to the Illin field goal which tied it at 17, Musberger raved about Mallett as though he led a drive reminiscent of Joe Montana's game winner in Super Bowl XXII. The only differences between the two drives, Michigan gained the bulk of its yards on the ground, not through the air, and the drive ended in an interception not a TD.

Third, why is it that no one talks about Rashard Mendenhall from Illinois as a potential Heisman candidate? I know Matt Ryan has the inside track because BC plays the very best Division 1-AA has to offer and a very bad Notre Dame team. Just because Illinois will have to wait until it plays Ball State to hope for some crumbs of attention in a Jason Whitlock piece doesn't mean Mendenhall hasn't earned some consideration.

I would be remiss if I didn't talk about the Red Sox game to some degree. There is some consolation for a person with my viewpoint in Curt Schilling's performance. It means that he basically can dictate his contract terms to Theo Epstein. Of course Theo lost any slight degree of leverage he had when Schilling put his house up for sale in September and started saying that he'd like to play in a place like Tampa. There is no way that Tampa is an empty threat. Schilling would definitely go to a team that will likely lost 90 games next season to pass the twilight of his career.

Of course no one can fairly blame Theo for being manipulated and outmaneuvered by a fraud who plays Everquest for hours on end. After all, getting into a bidding war with the Yankees for the services of Roger Clemens couldn't possibly hurt the club as it makes its decision to pursue or not pursue Schilling. There's no way offering a prorated $18 million to Clemens will embolden Curt Schilling.

In part, it made sense to offer Clemens that type of deal. Why not? There was a chance they could sign him. And making the Yankees go all the way up to $28 million (prorated, to be sure) was a big dent in the vast, vast, vast resources of the Bronx Bombers. After all, Boston had a lot of appeal to Clemens, with the patient, tolerant and very nearly but not quite human media and all. And Clemens really needed to break the tie with Cy Young for most wins in club history to cement his legacy right.

The question now becomes, given the humble bearing and equanimity with which Schilling approaches every situation, whether Schilling will be avaricious enough to demand certain concessions from the team. After all, it wouldn't surprise me with the way the team bent over backwards to throw money at guys who had nowhere near the track record Schilling brought with him when he signed in '04, if Schilling felt himself entitled to demand that his General Manager clean his pool or serve as human foot stool. Could it really be any more humiliating than paying JD Drew the remainder of his $70 million over the next four years, because the grand slam tonight didn't really wipe the slate clean?

Even if the Red Sox come all the way back to go to the World Series, is it going to change the fact that Julio Lugo was paid $8.3 to be 1/2 of a baseball player? Will their be no repercussions for that little anomaly? Will Jacoby Ellsbury pushing Coco Crisp out of the lineup be sloughed off as a curious but not unpleasant quirk of the game? I understand that Red Sox fans are hypocrites, but Red Sox Nation might want to think twice about ripping the Yankee spending machine, even if it might be more intellectual activity than would kill a Red Sox fan or two million.

And speaking of hypocrites, it's been too long since I ripped Jay Mariotti. There is something very sickening about this recent column Mariotti wrote ripping the Bears for the Adrian Peterson performance last week. It seemed to me as though Mariotti was implying that the Bears somehow passed on Peterson despite Mariotti's urging and giggling while he did it. Perhaps I'm not as intelligent as Mariotti is, but I just don't see how the Bears could have drafted Adrian Peterson.

In a sense, it's possible to say that the Bears passed on Peterson by not taking a trade with the Washington Redskins which would have given the Bears the sixth overall pick in return for Lance Briggs. Mariotti did call for the Bears to trade for that pick, but he called for the Bears to acquire that pick with the express purpose of drafting Ohio State wide receiver/kick returner Ted Ginn Jr.

Ted Ginn is not playing particularly well right now, to be charitable. Moreover, he would provide the Bears with an adequate player whose skills might overlap with Devin Hester and Bernard Berrian without providing an upgrade on either player. Perhaps Adrian Peterson would do a better job running behind this offensive line than Cedric Benson, but there is no way to prove that. However, given the fact that Mariotti is a douche and universally loathed, perhaps it would serve his ends better to praise Cedric Benson than to bury him. Then, perhaps Benson would be benched.

Start spreading the news. The Yankees aren't quite dead, at least not for the moment. Maybe it was George Steinbrenner and his statement that Joe Torre would be looking for something to do with his time other than managing the New York Yankees if the team did not prevail in this series. Or maybe the announcers were right when they compared the Yankee offense to a 2 liter bottle of soda that had been shaken and shaken and was due to explode at any moment. Whatever it was, it happened. The Yankees won and they play again tomorrow.

Unfortunately, the Angels lacked the will of a warrior and fell victim to Humpty Dumpty and the Boston Red Sox. So now the Red Sox have a chance to rest and reset their rotation as they wait to see whether the Yankees can come back or the Indians will win their divisional series matchup. If this were another team with another group of players, perhaps one might worry that this lag time might dull their wits and adversely impact their readiness to play.

However, with this version of the Boston Red Sox, one needn't worry about any situation having an adverse impact on the wits of these players. In fact, with titans of the intellect like Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia and Jonathan Papelbon in prominent roles, one could fairly say that the wits are this team's least vulnerable spot.

It is a good thing that the Yankees came back tonight, if for no other reason than it redeemed Roger Clemens, at least until his next turn to pitch. Unlike a certain element of Red Sox fans, led by Bill Simmons, I harbor no resentment for the way Clemens left town. I don't believe athletes owe the fans a damn thing. Especially after winning a few Cy Youngs, having a couple of 20 win seasons and setting the MLB record for Ks in a game.

I'm not sure I'm ready to see Clemens retire. He's been such a big part of my memories of watching baseball for so long, I just don't remember a time when he wasn't pitching. I think Bill Simmons is just a total d bag. After all, he whines about the Yankees bringing Ronan Tynan in to sing God Bless America in the seventh inning stretch. Even if it is a long version, it's still the best rendition out there now.

Perhaps the Yankees should trot out 14 year olds who couldn't carry a tune if their lives depended on it, as the Red Sox have been known to do. Or maybe they could resurrect hard rock has beens who haven't had a decent song since Carter was President like Steven Tyler. Speaking of Aerosmith, I wish someone could explain their comeback. Outside of Dream On, their songbook is weak, to say the least. If Run DMC hadn't covered Walk this Way, would anyone have remembered them to stick a banal song on the Armageddon soundtrack?

To make a long story short, I still have hope that a team can step in and stop the Red Sox. And the Indians, even with Carmona and Sabathia don't seem to be the team to do it. I realize that Colorado and Arizona had success against Boston earlier this season, but that was a long time ago now. Plus I don't see the Red Sox folding like the Cubs. Nor do I see the Colorado lefties laughing at Ortiz and the other Sox lefties the way Howard and Utley did.

No matter what Red Sox fans tell you, you know that they fear the Yankees a little bit. 2004 is ancient history. Beckett might have been lights out in Game 1 against the Angels, but there's no guarantee that he can do it again. And if Matsuzaka pitches the way he did in Game 2, something tells me the Yankees might do a tad more damage than the Angels did. And Schill might want to sit this one out, unless he can whip up another ready-made "blood"-stained garment for the occasion.

As for this weekend's football games, Notre Dame finally won. Say what you want about the UCLA quarterback situation and their offensive ineptitude, but the Irish won a game no one thought they could. This could be the start of something interesting. I'm not holding my breath, but it's possible.

The Patriots continue to roll, but then who really thought the Browns would be the team to end the streak. The Chiefs and their subpar offensive line continue to drag my fantasy team down because they can't block for LJ. Far more vexing is the fact that I shall soon lose Travis Henry to his pending suspension for violating the league's substance abuse policy for the third time.

I'm not going to be the guy to pile on him when he's down. I just have to laugh a bit at his grand sense of timing. Henry was due to rotate out of the substance abuse program on October 1st, and he had to get high in September. I realize that a guy might need a little pick me up to take the edge of the whole 9 illegitimate kids situation. But it might have been nice if he thought of me and my fantasy team in all of this.

I think the real story of the NFL weekend came from the Seattle Pittsbugh game. It was a very good thing that the Seahawks were motivated by the outcome of Super Bowl XL. Otherwise the 21-0 beating the Steelers hung on them this afternoon would be quite humiliating. Perhaps this was some novel strategy of Mike Holmgren's. After all, letting Denver score a TD to get the ball back in Super Boxl XXXII worked so well, maybe letting Pittsburgh score three unanswered touchdowns today is just setting them up for some vague game to be played in the not too distant future.

I hate to see guys like Matt Hasselbeck and Shaun Alexander unhappy. They have done so much to elevate the profile of the NFL the way they whined about the officiating in that Super Bowl, they deserved better than what they got today. I think the only way to evaluate that officiating, which did leave a lot to be desired, is to ask whether Seattle would have objected had calls like that gone in their favor. If they would have been quiet if the calls went against Pittsburgh, then they should let it go at this point.

In tonight's Bears vs. Packers game, I was interested to hear John Madden mention that the Green Bay Packers expect AJ Hawk to start having a bigger impact on their defensive performance. Perhaps they need to find the man who wielded the ugly stick to such great effect on Hawk's wife, the sister of Brady Quinn and the fleabag who sported the trashy makeup and jersey tailor made to show her divided loyalty when the Irish met the Ohio State Buckeyes in the Fiesta Bowl two years ago. Surely he could motivate Hawk to perform up to expectations.

I have been defending Cedric Benson for so long now, it has become a habit. He did get plenty of carries tonight, for a change. And he didn't gain enough yards to justify his salary, or the Thomas Jones trade today, even though Jones didn't exactly reverse the rotation of the Earth in the Giants Jets game. He had some very promising runs, but he wasn't consistent.

I thought the offensive line was better tonight than they were against Detroit, and better than they have been in any game this season, for that matter. That said, this group still hasn't been good enough at any point in 2007. For what the Bears do in running the ball, relying on play action passes and using deep drops in the passing offense, the offensive line needs to stay on their assignments longer and generate more push up front. So I'm not ready to turn on Benson yet. I think I'll wait until Mariotti praises him.

Even though Griese finished with 2 TDs and came out on the winning end, I'm not thrilled about him as the Bears try to dig their way out the hole that they still haven't escaped. It was good to see both TEs involved in the game plan. The Bears still have albatrosses around their neck and will have them as long as the O-line underperforms, and they need much more production from the wide receivers. Tonight the best wide receiver on the team was Mark Bradley, and that just can't happen every game if the Bears are to get back to where they were last season.

For all the Bears did, and with Benson's decent numbers, I still need a very good game for Tony Romo and Terrell Owens tomorrow night. So I have a lot on the line, with the Yankees playing for their lives, with the Cowboys playing for my hopes of a Patriots humiliation and my fantasy life (I am one game back in a playoff race, with a log jam at 2-2). So I'll either be very happy, or very unhappy tomorrow. Even if the Cowboys are outstanding, but the Yankees fail, I will be disappointed, in case you care.

I should, while I think of it, address the recent comments on my posts. To answer Alle, yes Guerrero might have left on account of the pitch that hit him. But unless he needed some sort of critical operation, there is no reason a guy should leave a game his team desperately needed to win. If he can hold a bat, he has to stay in that game.

And to the author of the anonymous comment pointing out that I was mistaken when I attributed the song "Uncle Albert" to the Beatles instead of Paul McCartney, I would apologize, provided that I gave a damn. I guess the only reason the song impressed me as having any merit is that only one of the Beatles was involved in the project so the collective power of the suck factor couldn't taint the entire song. So my bad.

Tonight marks the 200th post in the history of Sedition In Red Sox Nation. Truly, it was a fitting occasion with Roger Clemens pitching against Josh Beckett in Yankee Stadium on national television. With an atmosphere like that, you just had to know that something verging on the miraculous would take place. And it did. No matter what Red Sox fans will believe, it wasn't a humdrum miracle, like the team losing to the Yankees for the second time in two days.

I don't mean something as trivial as Clemens taking a no hit bid into the sixth. With four walks and a hit bats-person (I'm not convinced that Pedroia is a man), a little bit of the bloom slides off that particular lily. And even though the David Ortiz upper deck shot to the shallowest part of the yard which ended the no-hitter and provided a fit foil to set against the Reggie Jackson three homer performance in Game 6 of the 77 World Series celebrated in the finale of the Bronx is Burning, that was not the miracle.

The miracle came in that very same inning, when there was a man on base and the immortal JD Drew stood at the plate. Even though no one believed that the most disappointing $14 million man could hit an aging legend like Clemens with a man on base, Drew got a base hit. True, he didn't drive in the runner, but he took a step in a positive direction. After all, the Dr. Leo Marvin program in the cinematic tour de force What About Bob? was called baby steps, not giant adult strides.

This was an important base hit for JD. If he didn't get that hit, could you imagine how badly the Yankees own resident big ticket outfield disappointment would have shown up his former team over these two games? You might remember that guy, he used to play for the Sox, wear number 18 and go by the name of Johnny Damon. He might be dropping the ball as far as big picture production goes, but he now has a homer and 4 RBI against the team that wouldn't pay him $52 million over four years, but threw a $70 million chunk into procuring the "services" JD Drew until 2011. And the Yankees have managed to win 14 of the 16 games in which Damon has played in left field of late.

One thing should be abundantly clear following tonight's pitching performance. Josh Beckett should win the AL Cy Young, the NL Cy Young and whatever awards correspond to the Cy Young for AAA, AA, A and winter ball. And he probably would have salted away the corresponding pitching award for the Japanese league had he only allowed 11 hits tonight. Even that home run for A Rod should barely count against him, as it was a line shot to the opposite field and barely went out of the yard.

In fact, I think we ought to be fair to Beckett and go ahead and chalk this one up as a win anyway. After all, the Yankees left 7 men on base, including six in scoring position against him tonight. And they only had 13 hits in 6 and 2/3 innings. That's almost as good as a shutout, at least in the mind of the average Red Sox fan. Just because he didn't win the game doesn't mean it should affect his statistics adversely.

There is a school of thought that a manager probably should have taken his starter out after 100 plus pitches over six innings and a dozen hits. Of course, some might think Francona is trying to rest his bullpen after that taxing series with the White Sox this past weekend and an off day on Monday. Then again, perhaps it is unfair to blame Francona for his decisions. He may have been bored into catatonia by this piece in which Dan Shaughnessy managed to miss the point to a degree I would not have believed possible, even for an epic misser of points like the CHB.

I think Francona might be dumb enough to think that Shaughnessy was right. But I think even a mind as sharp as Tito's could have been dulled by the impressive array of bad puns, bad jokes and bad logic that made up this farce of a column. One day, a courageous editor might want to whisper to Dan Shaughnessy that whatever he is with ceased to be it sometime in the waning days of Ty Cobb's career. Just because you are dimly aware of recent developments in popular culture like the Bronx is Burning and Superbad, doesn't mean you sound cool or clever when you try to throw them in to spice up a vanilla piece.

A more intelligent and perceptive writer might have drawn from a classic film like Patton, which features an excellent scene in which George C. Scott as the great general enumerates the myriad of woes besetting the German army right before they launch the offensive known to history as the Battle of the Bulge. The weather is terrible, the supplies and morale on the German side are virtually non-existent and on top of everything, the Germans had not mounted a major winter attack since the time of Frederick the Great (he ruled from 1740-1786, for those who aren't history buffs). For all those reasons, it looked like the Germans wouldn't attack, and it was for all those reasons Patton knew that attack was imminent. That would have really classed up a comparison between this Yankee team and the Red Sox in 2004.

Unfortunately, the Yankee bullpen was something of a cloud on this victory. Kyle Farnsworth reminded every one why he's been given so many chances for so many teams. He had the velocity that has kept him in the majors, and the inconsistency that has kept his bags packed. That two run homer Farnsworth surrendered to Youkilis really hurt. Thankfully, JD Drew was able to put a silver lining on that dark cloud by striking out feebly.

Unfortunately, I subscribe to the theory first advanced by Jerry Garcia, that every silver lining has a touch of grey. That touch of grey: Mariano Rivera got his second save of the series. It's always good to see Rivera pitch more like he did in his prime than he pitched at the beginning of the year. But the thing about that is, Rivera is not a young man any more. So there is not a very high likelihood of him being available should it get to that point in tomorrow night's game. Of course, Joba Chamberlain will be available tomorrow, and who knows what might happen. But it would have been nice to see the Yankees have a shot at a sweep and have all of their weapons ready to go against the hated enemy.

From the "there's a method to my madness" category, it might not have made for a well structured post with the two Drew criticisms sandwiched around the long Frederick the Great/Patton digression. In my defense, I hoped to mitigate the bad karma and reverse jinx potential I have bestowed on JD Drew. I remember that game where he hit two three run homers against the Diamondbacks not too long after one of my long diatribes against him. Nor have I forgotten the hot start to this season he put up after I spent the better part of the offseason railing against his signing, even though that seems like a more distant memory than the Prussian monarch I referenced tonight.

PS - I don't know if you recall the post in which JD Durbin was lampooned as tool of the week (back when there was a shot that I might actually have the discipline to post a tool of the week segment on a weekly basis). Since that time, the tool of the week segment has been modified to a tool of note segment. And more astonishing, the tool JD Durbin has pitched effectively for the Philadelphia Phillies. Kudos to Theo and the mental giants on Yawkey Way for letting him go for absolutely nothing. At least they managed to dream up Sox Appeal. Nothing like exploiting the inability of modern men and women to connect on an interpersonal level to perpetuate the subspecies of troglodytes who root for the Red Sox to undermine our societ. But I digress far to far, and I must sign off for the night.