Today brought good news and bad news to the loyal subjects of Red Sox Nation. The good news - Wily Mo Pena cleared waivers so he can be traded up until August 31st. I didn't expect a donnybrook involving all the teams that surely want a player of his caliber, but a mild scuffle should have been in the works, right? Which brings us to the bad news - Wily Mo still sucks.

Of course, as a resident of New England, it is my solemn duty to gloss over his abysmal performance since he joined the Red Sox by attributing said sucking to his overall lack of playing time. The prevailing theory there is Wily Mo would suck less if he played more and got into a groove. Of course this leads to a chicken vs. egg debate with more rational people who attribute Wily Mo's lack of playing time to the fact that he has shown no capacity to justify more ABs or starts because he sucks.

The trade that brought Wily Mo to our little corner of paradise has inherent value for the Red Sox organization, even if the on-field performance has been atrocious. It got Bronson Arroyo out of town. First, Arroyo had to go because I couldn't help but think of the Simpsons' episode where Homer, Marge, Lisa and Maggie end up in Bronson, Missouri on their way to Branson. I just didn't need to visualize a town full of people saying things like: "No, palie, this is Bronson, Missouri" in a Charles Bronson voice every time he took the mound or played a gig.

But the main reason Arroyo had to go is that he didn't know his place. He dared to outshine Theo at the Foundation to Be Named Later's Hot Stove Cool Music Festival. Granted common sense and rational thinking were never chief among Arroyo's virtues, but if you're a no-talent fraud with musical pretensions, and your boss is also a no-talent fraud with musical pretensions, the smart play is to let the guy who signs the checks rock the house. But what do I know?

To be fair to Theo, at least he wasn't the guy who signed Scott Pollard. It's always good to have a backup center who managed to play in only 21 games last year and is know more for his idiosyncrasies than his on the court play. But on the plus side, the Celtics are now dangerously close to having the number of players under contract required by the NBA. So they have that going for them, which is nice.

I haven't posted much about it, but I find myself hooked on episodes of The Bronx is Burning. And I'm not very pleased with myself for it. The show is good, or at the very least it's better than most of the sorry drivel that is on TV these days. But it's main problem is that it tries to set the turbulent Yankees season against the backdrop of Son of Sam, the big blackout, the 1977 NYC mayoral election, the general decline of American society and the inevitable collapse of a Red Sox team lacking pitching and moral character. That's just too much for a one hour show on once a week.

It got me thinking, though, what would happen if some producer thirty years from now were to do a similar show about the 2007 Red Sox who seem poised to vomit up their lead in the AL East as their predecessors did back in '77. Will we be asked to look back and laugh as Tom Warner very nearly made the last mistake of his life when he dressed in the Wally Suit to pull a prank on Larry Lucchino? Will the silly little debate on whether Youkilis was in fact faster than Dustin Pedroia seem even sillier? Will we be expected to burn with righteous indignation that no action was taken against the Mariner Moose when he made his cowardly and dastardly attempt to injure Coco Crisp? Or will we merely think how did we not see it coming?

Ladies and gentlemen, I didn't realise until a moment ago that this is the 100th post in the history of Sedition in Red Sox Nation. I was hoping that some interesting would emerge from spring training in Fort Myers, but no such luck. I don't want to be the guy who writes about split squad games until people want to track him down and beat him with a bag full of oranges because of the citrus metaphors in the column.

Thankfully, there have been a few moves of note in the NFL free agency period. I'm not sure how the Joey Porter signing will work for the Dolphins. Based on his past performance, the amount of money involved and his age, this will either be a huge coup or a catastrophic mistake.

Personally, I think it's not going to work. I don't like the idea of switching Jason Taylor from defensive end in the 4-3 to OLB in the new 3-4 scheme. Then there is the performance history of linebackers who have left the Steelers. For every Mike Vrabel there is a Kevin Greene, Chad Brown, Greg Lloyd or Jason Gildon who did not live up to their past performance when they signed the big free agent contract.

Then there is Rich McKay, Atlanta Falcons GM and the man who frantically searches the main streets and back roads of Tampa for the mojo he left behind when he came over from the Bucs. I think it was his signing of Joe Horn that made the Bears panic and deal Thomas Jones. Pairing Ron Mexico with a 35 year old wide receiver makes the Falcons the prohibitive favorites in the NFC next season.

If I were smarter, I wouldn't do this. Joe Horn is overrated. He has done excellent things, as the face of the Saints in their year in exile and in the triumphant return this season. Unfortunately, the NFL is a business where an aging, but media savvy player is a luxury few teams can afford at the rate of $3.3 million per year. I don't think this was as personal a matter as Horn has claimed. It seems like a wise business decision to cut him.

Looking at his career statistics, Joe Horn is a particularly expensive commodity at $3.3 million. He played only 10 games last season, and caught 37 passes. In 2005, Horn caught 49 passes over 13 games. On average, he's caught about 50 passes and 5 TDs a season over his 11 year career. That really isn't #1 receiver production, in spite of his pay. Horn's best season as a pro came back in 2004 (94 catches, 11 TDs), but he's coming back from a serious groin injury and he's 35.

When it comes to pro athletes advancing in years, I tend to think along the same lines as Marsellus Wallace (the Ving Rhames character from Pulp Fiction). Athletes do not age like wine, in the sense that they improve with age. Athletes age like wine in the sense that they grow bitter and turn into vinegar. At age 35, a wide receiver is more like champale than Dom Perignon. Yeah, Jerry Rice played into his 40s, but if you're honest with yourself, you'll admit that he was just a shadow of his former self.

In spite of all of this, and the fact that Ron Mexico seems to continually regress rather than progress personally and professionally, we are expected to take the Falcons seriously as contenders? At the risk of using the editorial we, let me just say...we are not amused. Horn may solidify a shaky receiving corps, provided that he's healthy enough to stay on the field and contribute, or he may not. But the Falcons still cannot protect the passer very well, and their defense has holes galore. So I will short the Falcons until they prove me wrong.

For those of you who are new to this blog, you might not know it, but I spent much of the last season navigating the trials and tribulations of the Bears bandwagon as though I were the Ringo Kid from the John Ford classic Stagecoach. During that process, I became emotionally invested in the team. Even though this offseason has been a nightmare so far, I am not ready to give up on the Bears for next season.

I have tried not to let the Thomas Jones trade bother me too terribly. Make no mistake about it, I am sorry to see him go. I like him as a running back, and he's a proven commodity. But the team put a lot of money and a high draft pick into the development of Cedric Benson, and that was never going to come to fruition with Thomas Jones on the team.

One of my problems is that I am a football fan with a very long memory. I can remember the 1999 NFL draft. The Arizona Cardinals drafted a running back from Virginia with the 7th pick of the 1st round. He didn't develop into the player they had hoped he would, so the team traded him to Tampa Bay for Marquise Walker. Even though providing the link in this paragraph kills what little drama was building, I'll pretend it's still a surprising revelation. That running back was the same Thomas Jones.

That paragraph points to two possible interpretations. First, the Cardinals and the Bucs regret letting Jones go, so will the Bears. That is the line this blogger takes. The other, the Cardinals made a mistake choosing an older back of a younger one (they signed Emmet Smith before they dealt Jones) who had shown promise but not produced to the desired extent. That's the way feel about this situation.

Running backs in the NFL burn out at a younger age than other athletes, except for boxers (maybe). Most running backs hit 30 and fall off a cliff. Thomas Jones might be one of the rare exceptions, but then again he might not. It makes more sense to go with the younger back with fewer miles on him than it does to give Jones a long term extension. With no long term deal, Jones would be leaving town as soon as his deal ends. It makes sense to get what you can for him before he's gone.

And then there's the fact that I know several of the other owners in my fantasy league read this blog. And they know I know this. And I know they know I know this. So there's a chance that I could be talking Benson up so that they fall all over themselves to draft him early, thus allowing me to swoop in and draft some other player they should be looking at.

Ever since the incompetent tools who named themselves Banner 17 took over the Boston Celtics and entrusted the most storied franchise in professional basketball to a man who dabbles in brain typing, I never thought I'd look forward to a Celtic win streak. But now that the team has followed its epic losing epidemic with a nice four game win streak, I am surprised that I am happy. It makes things so much more interesting for me.

With Greg Oden and Kevin Durant all but locks to go 1 and 2 in the draft this year, it seemed like even the immortal Danny Ainge could not find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory this time out. But if the mishmash of spare parts that is this edition of the Boston Celtics wins enough games, the Celtics could lose for winning. Imagine what Ainge could do with the third pick after the two mortal locks are gone. I can't believe it, but since I am almost certain the ownership group won't pull their heads from their rear ends and terminate the contract of Mr. Ainge, I'm rooting for the Celtics to win enough to lose the lottery.

One more bad draft will cost Ainge his job. It has to. Or at least it would be a mortal lock, but then I'd have to assume the cretins who run the Celtics are not as incompetent than I think they are. Against all odds, Ainge has seemed positively bulletproof in his capacity as Celtics GM. Of course, I've been attacking him for the nearly 11 months that I've been writing this blog but since somewhere on the order of 20 people read this space on a very good day, I attract only so much attention.

But the tide has turned, it seems. First, about two weeks ago, Jackie MacMullan had an excellent piece in the Globe detailing the appalling state of the franchise's business plan. I might not know very much about running a business, but I know that when your business is winning basketball games and your team is losing much more than it wins, you're not running a good business. When you run a team in a salary cap system and you're $11 million over the cap, you're not doing the right thing. Unfortunately, when both things are true of your franchise, basketball isn't the business for you.

I have been attacking Ainge for the Walker-LaFrentz deal strictly from a basketball standpoint. He took away one of the core pieces of a team that had reached the conference finals for the first time in over 10 years and received an inconsistent center more comfortable on the perimeter than the block and a terrible defender to boot. Much worse than that, Antoine was due to make just over $28 million over the two years left on his contract at the time while Raef was signed for six years and due to earn almost $63 million.

It seems like a strange decision to make as a general manager of a basketball team. I don't understand why you'd trade a better player due to earn less money over a shorter time for a worse player due to earn more money over a longer time (yeah, other players were involved, but these two were the centerpieces). Maybe if Jiri Welsch panned out, it would have been different. But then, to paraphrase an old saying, if grasshoppers were armed to the teeth with automatic weapons, birds wouldn't make such a habit of eating them. Of course, we all know how the Jiri Welsch era in Celtics history worked. He wore number 44 (as Danny Ainge did in his time in Boston), and that's about it.

One would have to admire the tenacity with which the Celtics ownership group has stuck by Ainge if one did not want to see a winning team play in the TD Banknorth facility (I still won't call it a garden). I imagine I should clarify that last statement by adding the caveat that said winner should happen to be the home team. After all, a number of winning teams have helped the Celtics to the worst home record in the NBA.

I thoroughly enjoyed this quote from Steve Pagliuca from the MacMullan piece:

You can't make a judgement on Danny right now. It's only been four years. If Delonte becomes Bibby and Al Jefferson becomes Karl Malone, I'd say Danny Ainge has done pretty well.

Where should I begin with this gem? First, the Founding Fathers believed that four years was ample time to evaluate the President's job performance. General manager of a basketball team is a serious responsibility, much more difficult than running a nation. Second, it might have escaped Pagliuca's notice, but I did some serious research on Karl Malone and Mike Bibby. You might not know this, but neither one of them has won a championship in the NBA. Bibby has never even made it to an NBA Finals.

The problem with that statement is that taking a wait and see approach in the fourth year of an ongoing rebuilding process that seems to be stuck in reverse is about as effective as the ostrich who sticks its head into the sand to escape a predator (as far as I know, that is a myth, but still an enduring and appropriate image here. Also, there is no indication that Al Jefferson will become dominant. Finally, with the way Bibby fell off the face of the Earth these last two seasons, I wouldn't wish that on Delonte West. Actually, I would since I want the Cs to lose, but one of the owners shouldn't, unless he's using a losing franchise as a tax write off like the lady from Slap Shot.

In case you care, Theo Ratliff is the third highest paid Celtic, and the who earned a little bit over $1 million for every four minutes of basketball he played this season. His final total came to a whopping 44 minutes before he called it quits for the season. Four and five on the list of highest paid Celtics are Kendrick Perkins and Brian Scalabrine respectively. Between the three of them, they earn just over $19 million. For those of you who don't do much math, that's just south of 40% of the salary cap. For those of you who might be a bit slow on the uptake 40% of the Celtics salary cap is devoured by a carcase who can only charitably called a has-been, a damn good third center in Perkins (too bad they don't have a number 1 or 2 center) paid damn good starter money and Brain (not a typo, deliberate error) Scalabrine.

Bill Simmons was disappointed by the lack of trades at this season's trading deadline. I was unpleasantly surprised. As I'm sure you must have noticed because the media covered it thoroughly, there was no way a big deal was going to be made unless a third team stepped up to get hosed. Ainge did that to facilitate the Rasheed Wallace trade to Detroit in 2004. Maybe he learned his lesson.

I thought this passage from his the trade deadline piece was interesting:

BOSTON: F
I'm relieved they didn't do anything -- especially a Pau Gasol-Al Jefferson deal, which would have been an enormous mistake when you consider the age difference (five years), the salaries (Gasol makes six times as much), the stats (Jefferson's a better rebounder, and they're equally mediocre defenders, so they would have been picking up an extra 4-5 points a game and that's it) and the fact that Gasol could have inadvertently knocked them out of the Greg Oden/Kevin Durant Sweepstakes.

Still, I'm giving them a retroactive "F" for the hideous Sebastian Telfair trade, in which they passed on Brandon Roy or Randy Foye to acquire a shoot-first point guard who can't shoot. I know they saved $20-25 million in the deal (a big consolation for my dad, who's paying something like $360 a game for his seats) and acquired Theo Ratliff's eight-figure contract as a potential trade chip ... but Danny Ainge hasn't swung a deal in four-plus years that could be considered a home run, much less a triple or double (I'll give him a single on the first Ricky Davis trade), but he managed to hit into two triple plays (the Telfair deal and the Raef LaFrentz/Antoine Walker deal). Will Danny be able to parlay Ratliff's contract into something substantial? I'm dubious.

I give you the passage because it reminded me of something I wrote just after the draft. The date on my post was July 3, 2006. I questioned the wisdom of choosing Telfair over Roy/Foye. I don't mean to allege or imply that Simmons reads this space, I'm just saying that I knew this back in July. Why didn't he?

I do attack him a bit in the blog, so I guess I also must give credit where it is due. His retrospective on Dennis Johnson was excellent.