Last* Word On Some Overcooked Stories

I have been gone all week, with the only sports channel available being ESPN Deportes ("deportes" apparently means "only soccer" in Spanish), and came home to find that really not a damned thing happened. But some of the sports world's favorite re-tread stories were apparently back in the news this week, and I didn't have my chance to add my rant to the cacophony of morons screaming about them...till now.

Alex Rodriguez is a cheater and lied about when he cheated. So you're telling me a guy that ballooned up like...well, like a guy on steroids, was using steroids? And he lied about it too? Did anyone believe that he had only used drugs on those random days when they happened to test him as he said? Did anyone really believe that he only used in Texas because the pressure was so great on him, but that the pressure of a larger contract on the largest stage (New York) made him go clean? Did anyone really believe anything he said on the issue after he'd already been caught lying and fessed up because he was caught? Guess what, the dude is a lair and cheater. Move on.

Brett Favre wants to unretire. I never thought I would say or write these words, but screw you, Brett Favre. First you blew your chance to ride off into the sunset with your legacy in tact and after a season for the ages. Then you whined like...well, like a professional athlete that you weren't getting what you wanted and shouldn't have to be held to the contract your signed. So then you got what you wanted, had some laughs (7 TD's in a game), but generally were a bad quarterback and had the chance to ride off into the sunset with most of your legacy in tact (since the Jets wear green, most people would have forgotten that you weren't a Packer forever). Now you allegedly want to come back and to play in Minnesota. This whole things makes me sad. (Thanks to Cory Hollenhorst for the above image. Google "Favre Vikings" images...some people are reall good at Photoshop.)

The U.S. Congress is taking time out of their busy pre-campaign campaign schedules to hear a bunch of jackasses argue about the validity of the BCS in college football. Let's not mince words here, the BCS is a money-making scheme that works really, really well. The bowls are too. And while many of us fans like to say we love the bowls and would be sad to see them go, we'd forget that within 2 years of a tournament-style championship. And they could still call the tourney games bowls anyway, so everyone gets his or her way regardless. If the NCAA wants to crown a champion for each of its sports instead of all-but-one, they need a tourney. If they want cash, they keep the BCS. And even that is stupid because let's face it, a football sweet 16 game would get far better ratings than the Holiday Bowl does, which would mean more TV ad dollars, which means more naming-rights dollars and more stadium ad dollars as well. I watched 3-4 bowl games beginning to end this year and I wouldn't miss a playoff game. As for the argument that a playoff would invalidate the regular season, I have two points: who cares how good your regular season is if your postseason is more a pageant than a sporting event, and if you lost 2 regular season games, your chances of making an 8-team playoff would nearly vanish. So how is that different that now?

The San Jose Sharks blew a great season and left the postseason with their potential unfulfilled. And the sun rose in the east this morning.

NBA teams had great playoff games with really exciting 4th quarter finishes. Unfortunately, they had to play the first three quarters first. Plus the Lakers and Cavs are sitting at home waiting for all of their toughest foes to beat one other to death to find out out who will be swept next.

The NFL and Comcast are still fighting about whether the billions of Americans who do not want the NFL Network should have to pay for it on their basic cable bill. Or if the millions of Americans who do want it for about 10-12 hours a year should. Or if the 10's of Americans who want it year round should get it on a premier sports-tier. Why was this so easy for MLB to make happen when supposedly no one in America likes baseball anymore but everyone likes football? And why is the NFL trying to say they're fighting for the right of the people to watch their games when they signed an exclusive deal with DirecTV to charge $11,000,000** a year for the season pass, rather than having such a deal on all TV providers.

**-approximate

The NFL Draft happened. Lots of guys I have never heard of or can't remember made a lot of money and I will never hear of, nor remember most of them. But the Giants got a dude that made the craziest catch in college football history, so that's cool. I will do a draft post-mortem at some point, which will allow me to make fun of people who made mock drafts, so that will be fun.

There are probably more but I am sick of thinking of stories that I am already sick of. This will be the last time I address them. Until next time.

Rivalry Week Hasn't Exactly Been What You'd Call Riveting

When ESPN calls it “Rivalry Week” I definitely feel that that means there will be a few larger-than-normal matchups and that I will be spending a lot more time than normal watching sports. So what happened this week?

Sure Duke hosted North Carolina on ESPN and USA hosted Mexico in soccer Wednesday night (two of the Best Rivalries In Sports that I named last February on CBS2.com – I will update that list here soon). But other than that, what big rivalries are there?

Louisville vs. Notre Dame and UCLA vs. ASU are supposed to excite me? Besides being league opponents and being pretty good, are either of these games actual rivalries? Is this the best they could do? Michigan State vs. Michigan was a decent one on Tuesday, but did anyone outside of Michigan care?

And even UNC-Duke and USA-Mexico were both a little lackluster.

Watching basketball at Cameron Indoor is often worthwhile and watching UNC play there is nearly always worthwhile. But this one never really grabbed your attention and refused to let go. It was a game of spectacular streaks (UNC’s red-hot start and then Duke’s I-wonder-if-they’re-cheating-somehow answer from behind the arc). But in the end, Carolina just out-ran Duke and slowly wore them down. No big shot, no real drama down the stretch. Great basketball, but nothing for the history books.

USA vs. Mexico was similar. The U.S. team was just better. They controlled the time of possession and wore down the Mexicans methodically. Mexico had a few decent chances to get a dumb-luck goal and steal a tie (exactly why soccer blows), but ultimately there was very little drama. There wasn’t even any of the normal US-Mexico unbridled hatred. Sure, the Mexican captain made one half-assed dirty play to kick our goalie and got red carded, but that was it. It was very hard to hate Mexico and normally that is really easy. They didn’t go for cheap shots and they didn’t take dives on every other play. In fact an American (Dempsey) was the most obnoxious player on the field. There weren’t even any really good soccer hairdos. Boring.

Is the Daytona 500 supposed to fire me up for the rest of the week? It isn’t even a sport and the only story I have even heard coming out of this is that Jimmie Johnson is going to drive without a brace on his injured finger. Really? Unless you have a broken leg, a broken arm, or a bladder problem, there really is no physical problem that a racecar driver should complain about.

The rivalry between Elgin Baylor and reality is a decent one. Right now, the two are set very far apart from one another. Seriously Elgin, we all appreciate what you did as a player (on and off the court). We all think that your firing was a little unceremonious. But ageism? Racism? You were underpaid during your tenure? How many winning season did the Clippers have in your 22 years? How many sub 30-win seasons? They had more sub-20 win seasons play playoff appearances. You should have been fired years before you were and thus were overpaid in that you even had the job!

Brett Favre vs. Retirement has been quite a rivalry over the past four years. It appears that while Brett was 2-0-1 going into this year, but retirement finally got a win. Last year he retired and unretired, so that counted as the tie.

Manny Ramirez vs. the Dodgers is a good rivalry playing out this week (though that will likely not go final by week’s end). For a while now it had begun to look like Manny had waited himself into a shorter, smaller contract but after Bobby Abreu and Adam Dunn have now both signed elsewhere and the Dodgers are left with just one slugger on the market, it looks like Manny may get closer to what he wanted all along. Was this Scott “Satan” Boras’ plan all along?

Speaking of Manny, Tommy Lasorda said yesterday that the Dodgers will be fine with or without him. I would like to follow this up with a snappy, funny comment, but it is pretty funny in and of itself, so I will leave it alone.

The L.A. Galaxy vs. Some Team In Europe. I don't really know what team David Beckham wants to play for because it is soccer and I can't believe I am bringing up two soccer stories in one post. Anyway, apparently he can't handle playing in the U.S. and wants to go back to play in Europe. What will American sports do without him?

Adam Morrison vs. Vladimir Radmanovic. A showdown for the ages. I think you have to say that Morrison wins this matchup because he was traded from basketball purgatory to the best team in the league on the virtue of being a terrible defender and an average shooter.

Perhaps the rivalry coming this week that will affect the most people for the longest period of time is Fantasy Baseball vs. Free Time. With pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training, many fantasy sites have opened for business and I for one have already opened my league. I opened up the league within hours of Yahoo!’s page going active and my league is #46065. I don’t know if that started at #0 or not, but either way, this amount of man-hours spent researching can’t be good for the economy.

Favre-Watch 09 Hits ESPN, And MLB Blows Its Awards Season

Well, you can write it down. Week 11 was the first time that ESPN mentioned Brett Favre's future in the NFL and also the week that Mercury Morris was first mentioned in relation to the undefeated Titans. November 19 was the date of the Favre article and November 17th for the Morris article. Let the hype begin.

Sports Illustrated took a different tact in hyping the World Series champions. To be honest, I didn't really notice this when it happened because I was a little bitter that the freaking Phillies won the Series, but yesterday I got the NFL's official catalogue (35 shopping days till Christmas) and in it were quite a few Super Bowl items for the Giants. After subtly circling about 30 items in it and "accidentally" leaving it open on my wife's nightstand, it occurred to me that SI never did a "Phillies Win!" World Series edition.

I went back through the magazines from this month and found that I was only sorta wrong. The November 3rd edition features Rocco Baldelli colliding at home plate with a catcher with red protectors on - I assume that was the Phillies catcher. The headline is "The World Series" - not "The Phillies Win!" The article inside was a tribute to a well played series that no one watched, not to the champs' season. No where in the entire magazine was there a sentence that actually said that the Phillies had won the World Series - the assumption being that you already knew that. If I was a Phillies fan, I would be freaking pissed about all of this! But I would probably also be illiterate, so I wouldn't get SI and it wouldn't matter.

The November 10 edition kinda made up for this oversight. It did say "Phillies Win!" on the cover, but that article wasn't really about the team either. Rather it was about how to fix the Series, not a glorifying recap.

When did the World Series Champ start getting second-billing to the NFL's Midseason Report on fat guys getting paid more than they used to? If baseball is slipping into the background of the major American sports consciousness, the way they announce their awards doesn't help. They announce the managers of the years, Golden Glovers, Silver Sluggers, Rookies of the Year and MVPs weeks after the season ends. By this time, the NFL has taken complete control of ESPN, the NBA is in full swing, college basketball is already started and baseball fans have already put last year behind them and are already bitching about next year's roster.

And they don't even have press conferences where the winners are given trophies and get to thank their dads and high school coaches! They get interviewed over the phone most of the time. Clearly the intent is for baseball to stay in our collective consciousness between the Series ending and free agency beginning, but it doesn't work. It trivializes the importance of these mens' accomplishments, and being that these are the most accomplished men in the Game, it trivializes the Game.

As does the fact that most of the time, the MVP award is give to the best player, but not necessarily the Most Valuable one. I would pick Albert Pujols to start my fantasy team, or my real franchise, over anyone else in the National League, but how valuable was he to the Cardinals this year? They took 4th. I don't think he should have been eligible because he didn't play enough games, but Manny Ramirez was eligible and was third in the voting - how did he not win? The guy joined a team struggling to play .500 that was slowly withering and never going to put it all together and carried them to the NLCS. And keep in mind as you read the following argument that I hate the Dodgers and think Manny is overrated.

So the Dodgers only finished a few games over .500 - the moment he arrived in L.A., the West was won and everyone knew it. Then he went out and hit .400 for two months just to make sure. He made you think James Loney, Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier could be All Stars. Sure, Pujols carried the Cardinals, but he carried them to a crappy finish. The measuring stick for MVP is this: if you took the guy in question out and replaced him with any other above-average player of the same position, what is the difference?

Put Conor Jackson, Joey Votto, Loney, Adrian Gonzalez, Prince Fielder, Carlos Delgado, Lance Berkman or Derek Lee in St. Louis, and they still finish fourth. But put any left fielder from any team in baseball in L.A., and the Dodgers miss the playoffs and possibly wind up behind Colorado.

If The Jets Beat The Patriots, And No One Was Watching...

Thursday night, the Jets got to get a real look at Brett Favre for the first time since he joined them. Sure, they've won six other games Favre threw six touchdowns in one of them and won another by 44. But this was one of the bigger games in regular season franchise history: on the road, tied for first, at New England, in the latter half of the season. And from what I've read, Farve was his usual spectacular self. Of course it wasn't on TV, so how would I know?

This was the second of the NFL network's eight televised games this season. Few people really noticed that they missed the Browns and Broncos last week, but this one hurt a little. You may remember from last year (when the debate got hot) and the year before that the NFL network is not carried on most cable companies so a huge majority of football fans cannot watch their programming.

The reason for the debate is that the NFL wants its network to be carried on basic cable like, for instance, ESPN. If placed there, they maximize their viewership and can charge boatloads more for advertising. However, the cable companies do not think that the channel is a viable choice for their basic packages since it is niche programming, it will fit better in their sports packages, and it is too expensive. The cable companies will have to pay the NFL network for the programming, so they will have to raise rates for their customers. Their argument is that rates should not raise for all basic cable customers, rather only the customers who want this channel. Clearly at some point, someone will notice that the way to solve this is a la carte pricing for cable. Until then, we are stuck.

Dish and DirecTV both bought into the NFL network and offer the channel on their basic services. But only around 20% of homes in the U.S. have satellite (and that number is a high estimate).

As a pretty big sports fan, I can say whole-heartedly that I do not want to be forced to pay extra for the NFL network and am thrilled that the cable companies haven't bowed to the NFL's pressure. So I missed last night's game. Bummer. But if I was paying for this network, that would be three-and-a-half hours of program I watched, followed by 164.5 hours till next week's game that I wouldn't watch. And next week is Cincy vs. Pittsburgh which I wouldn't watch. In fact, the only other game this season I might watch on NFL network is Arizona at Philly, but it is on Thanksgiving day, so I'd probably miss it anyway.

The NFL network folks like to say that for the price of a cup of coffee a week, you could get 24-hour NFL coverage. The problem is that makes 3.5 hours I want, and 8756.5 hours I don't this year. No thanks. Either put it into the sports package and let sports fan pay the bill or just put the games On Demand and I'll buy them individually (which is also where TV programming is going).

The funniest part of this debate is last season in Week 17: the Giants played the Pats with the undefeated regular season on the line, the Giants playing their starters in a "meaningless game," New York vs. Boston, etc. etc. There was so much of a stink raised around the country about that game only airing on 1-in-5ish TVs, that Congress stepped in and told the NFL network that they were being stupid and forced them to air the game on network TV as well.

So the moral of the story is that while most of us can't get this channel, if we really cared we would make it happen and still not have to pay for it.

A Bad Day For Predictions

When the Bulgarian women's hockey team took to the ice yesterday against Slovakia in an Olympic pre-qualifier, they probably didn't think they had a great shot. After all, they were playing the #1 team in the region and had been completely drubbed by each opponent leading up to this point.

But 82-0? There is no way that they (or anyone) expected an 82 goal deficit. But that's what they got and that is one of the great things about sports: almost every time your expectations will be confounded. It is the unpredictability that makes trying to predict it so fun (and lucrative if you're good at it).

Just look at the last few days. The second* best team in NFL history comes off of a nearly perfect season with basically the entire team returning, but guns blazing in a whole new way because they were pissed they lost. First drive...bang! Tom Brady goes down and they may not ever be a playoff favorite anymore. And not only has his replacement never started an NFL game, he never started a college game either!

At the same moment that Brady's knee twisted and bent out of shape, the New York Jets (4-12 last year) became the potential division favorites because they signed Brett Favre in a brilliant P.R. move that wasn't really expected to bring in any banners (right?) but was going to sell a lot of tickets, win a few games and send the team off to their new stadium.

The biggest question all summer was what was Favre's successor going to go in the spotlight. So on Monday Night Football, against his team's arch-rival (no brighter spotlight until January), Aaron Rogers went out and threw the second highest completion percentage for a QB in his first start in history. We all assumed he would be fine back there, but this was pretty special.

The same day, Lance Armstrong, whose biography is the greatest story in the history of Sports, allegedly (and shockingly) added a chapter by planning to come out of retirement to ride five races next season for Kazakh powerhouse team Astana (including the Tour of California and Tour de France). Astana is the remnants of Armstrong's U.S. Postal/Discovery teams. He would join stars like Americans Levi Leipheimer and Chris Horner, Andreas Kloden, and '07 Tour de France winner Alberto Cantador and his old team manager/strategy mastermind Johan Bruyneel. Hours later, Astana refuted the story. Armstrong has not commented at all. Who knows what to expect?

Also on Monday, the Mets lost their star closer to a season ending surgery...and a 2009 season endings surgery as well. Wagner had a little tightness in his shoulder last month and sat for a few days. He came back and pitched again (not too well) and said it had returned. The expectation was that he would be rested for as long as possible and then ramped up for the playoffs. Maybe that's true, but it will be next year's playoffs.

I suppose Boston fans should have seen at least the Brady-shocker coming, given their history. Maybe the tide has turned. The Sports Gods gave some of the most obnoxious loser-fans an amazing stretch with Super Bowl wins, World Series wins and an NBA title, but they (predictably) weren't grateful and turned into some of the most obnoxious winner-fans. I'd hate to be David Ortiz right now, because you can almost certainly predict he's going down next.

All that said, it is nice to know that there are some things in Sports that are as regular as the sunset. Like the Raiders not just losing, but being an embarrassment. Thank you Oakland Raiders, for a little stability in a shaky world.

*the best team would be the one that beat them, your Super Bowl Champion New York Giants.

Recapping A 'Magical' Weekend In Sports

Magic Numbers are now being posted in baseball standings, which means the about 80% of the games played don't matter anymore. Thankfully the NFL rushed into the void to make Sports Center worth watching, because otherwise there would only be about five minutes of worthwhile highlights spread over the 60 minute show.

Sunday would have been quite a show to produce! What stories do you pick to squeeze into it? NFL week 1 and its myriad off-field stories (Brady's knee, Favre, Vince Young out, Panthers' finish, rookie QBs, etc.). NCAA Football and the USD Toreros holding the longest home winning streak in Division I. The U.S. Open and Captain Fist-Pump knocking off Nadal to make the Final against the "slumping" Roger Federer. Serena Williams' continued masquerade as a woman and her winning another Grand Slam. And then there was a high stakes weekend in MLB where five of the six divisions are separated by four games or less.

Here would have been my rundown:
NFL: Patriots 17, Chiefs 10 + Tom Brady is out possibly for the season. Trent Dilfer cited an anonymous but "very trustworthy source" within the Pats who said Brady is done for the year. But my question, is who the hell knows since his MRI wasn't completed until Monday? But if he is out, are the Jets the team to beat in the AFC East? I'd still go with the Pats because the gap between them and everyone else was so big last year and the Jets are starting all over. Sure Matt Cassel is new, but what better way to get comfy that with that offense?

NFL: Jets 20, Dolphins 14. The Brett Favre magic works outside of Green Bay as evidenced by the Jets scoring a touchdown on one of the worst pass-decisions or executions I have ever seen.

MLB: Mets and Phillies split a doubleheader. The Phillies had won the first two games of the series, crawling to within a game of the lead, but Johan Santana and Carlos Delgado pushed the divisional lead back to two and Jimmy Rollins went 0-5 and struck out to end the last game the Phillies will ever play at Shea. The Mets' Magic Number is 18. And Mike Schmidt is a huge ass.

U.S. Open: Serena Williams beats Jelena Jankovic to win the Open and Andy Murray hangs on in a rain-suspended match from Saturday to beat Rafael Nadal and advance to Monday's Final against Roger Federer. Murray is suffering from fatigue in his fist-pump muscles and the outlook for the Final isn't pretty. Roger Federer is in the worst slump of his career in 2008 and has only made it to three of the four Grand Slam Finals. Poor bastard.

NFL: Panthers 26, Chargers 24. I was getting ready to leave the house yesterday afternoon and turned on the TV just in time to see the Panthers lining up to go for the win with two-seconds left on the clock, down by five, on about the Chargers' 10-yard line. Instinctively I sprinted to the stereo to switch the audio from the TV feed to A.M. radio and tuned to 570. Alas, all I got was static, but I would have loved to have heard the Chargers' announcers, easily the worst in football, swallow this loss.

Actually, come to think of it, those are the only stories I care about in the least. I guess there were still only about five-minutes of highlights worth watching. Which is why I watched the show straight through three or four times.

I suppose including the Dodgers' sweep over the DBacks is big news. During the Mets-Phillies game last night, ESPN ran a commercial that showed Manny Ramirez with the title "1 Man: The Difference." I will give you that Manny has been fantastic and the team seems to believe and the fans are engaged, and they are in first place. But it has been six weeks since he's been in L.A. and are 19-16 in that time. Before we give the NL Pennant to the Dodgers after this eight-game win streak, let's remember that they are .500 in their last 16 games.

I'm Back...What Did I Miss?

So it has been nearly a month since I last added any new posts to this site but that is just because not much has really been happening in the sports world, plus that photo of the guy getting hit with a soccer ball was too spectacular to replace as the top story photo. Here's a quick, cursory glance at the insignificant stories and events that have taken place since my last post:

The Summer Olympics
I suppose that the fact that NBC is airing 216 hours of coverage per day (I did not make that up, that is their official number) means the Olympics are kindof a big deal. A few months ago, I wrote that the best Olympic rivalry is the U.S. and Australia in swimming. After Michael Phelps (ever heard of him?) tied the Aussies with eight gold medals through the end of the swim meet, I think the rivalry may be no more. Ian Thorpe looked more and more pissed every time they showed him on T.V. as the meet went along. It was wonderful.

Team Handball has once again become my favorite Olympic sport that no one knows about. In the Winter Olympics, it is usually the biathlon because the fact that they race around while armed, having the full capability to shoot their competitors gives me a great thrill. There should be an open-water swimming obstacle course in which the athletes are armed with harpoon guns. That's how to make the most out of those underwater cameras. Tell me you wouldn't watch.

Chris Kaman has taken a lot of flak for playing for the German National Basketball Team in the Olympics from seemingly everyone in the United States, including the Clippers and his own father. But at least Kaman is of German descent. Becky Hammon is playing for Russia because she was a free agent!

Because there is no women's professional basketball league anymore, you may not know about her, but the 2007 WBNA MVP was not selected to the U.S. National Team. (Wait, 2007? Oh, I guess the WNBA does still exist. Oops.) Hammon, who has been about as big a star as anyone not named Lisa Leslie, wasn't chosen to be among those trying out for the U.S. team. She plays for the WNBA's San Antonio Feminine Sounding Mascots, but in the off-season played for a Russian team coached by their National Team coach who offered her a chance to play with them for cash.

Hammon defends herself saying that athletes have competed for other countries than their native homelands quite commonly and that naturalization is a common practice. I agree. The U.S. track team's best milers are from Sudan and Kenya and I root for them. The problem I have with Hammon's situation is that it was purely a financial thing. She doesn't live there. She doesn't even really speak Russian. She has no connection to Russia. She wasn't oppressed or forced from her war-torn homeland. She just wasn't good enough to make it here anymore. Basically, she was an aging free agent and signed a deal to play for a club, and that is what is sad about the Olympics now.

I get that the games need to feature pros now because there is too much money at stake for countries to send people they know are not their countries' best. Advertisers would never pay for a college all-star basketball team. The ironic thing is that sports like baseball and tennis are in danger of disappearing from the Games for good (baseball is already out for 2012) because the best athletes...that is, the pros...don't see the value in playing and often sit out in favor of prepping for their professional leagues (baseball playoffs and U.S. Open). So because they may only get amateurs to play in the future, they will be dumped from the Olympics.

In other Olympic news, the U.S. soccer team stunk so badly, and interest has dipped so deeply, that they weren't even on T.V. Well they were on T.V. because again, there is 216 hours of coverage per day, but they were relegated to the midday time-slots on Oxygen or something. Where have you gone Cobi Jones?

Did you know that little girl who sang the song near the end of the Opening Ceremony (I don't really know what I am talking about because I didn't watch it) was lip-syncing? Government censors stepped in minutes before the Ceremony and forced the 'ole switcheroo because the girl actually singing wasn't cute enough and they didn't want an image of Chinese people possibly being ugly beamed out to billions of people around the world. I have seen some of their athletes and I can say that that ship has sailed.

The New York Bretts
The embarrassing Brett Favre mess finally ended with an abrupt and surprising trade to the Jets. That along with a Mets win that day made for the best day in months for my brother Steve. And he got married a week ago! Favre was traded for a conditional draft pick which means that the more he plays, and the better the Jets do, the higher the pick that the Packers get becomes. The thing is, the Jets still would only have to give up one first round pick next year if they make the Super Bowl. Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think there is a single sports fan or front-office person for any sport on earth who would not give their next 3-5 first round draft picks for a trip to their league's championship (besides people in Boston who have completely forgotten what being a real fan is like).

Manny Goes To Hollywood
The Dodgers traded nothing for the best hitter in baseball, thus making their need to sign Barry Bonds disappear. Manny has been spectacular since joining the Dodgers, hitting .424 with 6 homers and 21 RBI in 16 games. He has done everything right, including saying he wanted to finish his career in L.A., invigorating a completely stagnant offense, and saying he'd even gladly cut his hair as per team rules (still waiting on that one). And best of all, they have pulled into a tie for the Division lead with the D-Backs. Of course, they were only one game back when he was traded. So after two weeks of everything going their way, they have gained a game in the standings and have only been playing four-games over .500. They'll miss the playoffs and he'll sign with the Yankees for five-years and $100-million.

Late-Season Baseball Packages
For the last few years, I have waited for the last month of the baseball season or so, and then signed up for the MLB.tv package where I get to watch all the Mets games live online (besides the 4-5 games per week that are blocked out because the whole system is corrupt). I wait on this because the entire season is far too expensive at the start and typically I would not have been able to watch 100+ games, thus making it worth it. But they prorate the package and you can get the last month for $15-$20 (right now it is $30 for the premium package, $20 for the basic with 1/4ish of the season to go).

Before signing up, I decided to try the cable company to see what their prorated price is for the same package on TV instead of the internet because I'd rather sit on the couch than in this chair. They don't prorate it after midseason! That's right, for the low-low price of $130, you too can watch the last 38 games for the same price as if there were 81 games left. What a deal! And Major League Baseball wonders why they're losing fans? I can't afford to go to a game or watch it on T.V. anymore. And the games I get for free are mostly on Fox, which means they take twice as long as they're supposed to and I have to deal with fancy space-themed sound effects and graphics every time Tim McCarver misreads a stat sheet.

My Holy Grail Of Sports

Next Wednesday I am going to what I believe is my first mid-week day game when the Mets play at Dodger Stadium. I am pretty excited about this, to say the least, because it just seems like this is where the magic of baseball lives. Every other professional sport plays at night and on the weekends, but Major League Baseball hangs on to one of its better traditions with the get-away day game.

This got me thinking of all of sporting events I have been to and all those I would still have to, which seemed like a ranked list, so a ranked list there shall be.

Best Sporting Events I Have Been To Live

1. Game 7 - 2001 World Series: A month and a half after 9/11, a Stealth Bomber buzzed the stadium and then it got good: Curt Schilling faced Roger Clemens in each of their hey-days. Both threw 8-inning gems before turning it over to their ace relievers. When Randy Johnson began warming in the 8th inning to pitch the ninth, it was one of the greatest reactions I have ever seen in a crowd. Mariano Rivera came in for the save and Luis Gonzalez hit that little squibber to win the World Series.

2. Game 3 - 2006 NLDS: Not only did I get to see the Mets play in a playoff game, but it was 15 minutes from home, they won it, it was a blowout, they clinched the series at it, and it was a sweep over the Dodgers. Perfect.

3. Monday Night Football: Rams at Packers. My sister-in-law was a trainer for the USC football team, so when she mentioned that she, my brother and I were going to a Packers game at Lambeau, USC's equipment guy called his buddy Red, the Pack's equipment guy. Long story short: we got a free dinner in the fancy restaurant inside the stadium before they opened the building to the public, we got about $100 of Pakcers gear each, we sat in the second row in Ahman Green's family's seats (he wasn't suiting up that game), we stood at midfield after the game, we toured their training facilities, dining room and locker room, and we each took a picture standing in Favre's locker wearing his helmet. And it was Favre's 200 consecutive game, in which he crushed the Rams.

4. USD vs. #24 Gonzaga: The Richie Frahm, Matt Santangelo, Casey Calvary led Zags came to USD on a Thursday after having moved into the national rankings for the first time in a decade three days earlier. The game was live on ESPN. Afterwards, Stuart Scott coined the name for the old USD Sports Center "High School Gym." Also, because of the TV coverage there was a good Greek showing (till halftime of course). The ladies of Alpha Phi hung a poster in the gym that spelled the name of our own mascot incorrectly, which gave way to my second favorite prank I ever pulled.

5. Game 5 - NBA First Round: Clippers vs. Nuggets. Carmelo Anthony's post-season impotence was in its infancy, and the new look Clippers with Elton Brand, Chris Kamen, Corey Maggette, Quiton Ross, and newly acquired Sam Cassell, Vlad Radmanovich and Cuttino Mobley carried the Clippers to the franchise's first series win in history.

Others in contention: my only game at Shea (Mets beat Houston 4-2 and Armando Benitez did not blow the save!), Notre Dame High School vs. Saugus High School (teams traded four game winning drives in the fourth quarter), UCLA football over Alabama at the Rose Bowl (and my friend who painted "A" on his chest had an "A" tan line for months), seeing Jordan, Bird, Magic, Gretzky, Ripken, etc., Piazza's grand slam in his return to Dodger Stadium as a Met, McGuire homered at Busch Stadium on the Fourth of July, free (donations requested) Monday Night Football in Tempe when they actually ran out of beer in the stadium (note: college kids + free admission = order more beer), the finish of the 2006 Boston Marathon, Wrigley, PacBell Park (or whatever it is called now), "Jeter Sucks" chant at Fenway during a Red Sox-Devil Rays game, Ducks eliminated the Stars.

Sporting Events I Need To See (Even Though Some Are Probably Better On TV:

Playoff Football, Final Four, Super Bowl, Hole-In-One (hitting it would be great), No-Hitter, Perfect-Game, Hitting for the Cycle, NBA Finals, Stanley Cup Finals, all four Majors, all for Grand Slams, Olympics (swimming, downhill skiing, bobsled, hockey, track and field, baseball, tennis), Tour de France (Alpe d' Huez, Col de la Colombiere), Ryder Cup, Davis Cup, College World Series, BCS title game, the Rose Bowl, World Cup final, Triple Crown win at the Belmont, MLB All-Star game and Home Run contest...to be continued...