Sean Avery

If you haven't been following along, NHL's current bad boy, Sean Avery, was recently suspended for 6 games. No he didn't have another rule after him (see the Avery rule based upon his goalie screening tactics) or his constant trash talking. Well it was his trash talking, except this time about a former girlfriend, Elisha Cuthbert. Elisha Cuthbert is a talentless hack who relied on her (extremely) good looks to get a few roles in 24 and The Girl Next Door. Sean Avery calling her his "sloppy seconds" only added some publicity for someone who hasn't had any in...years.

There are a few things I find wrong with this. Is calling someone sloppy seconds really that bad? I use it not frequently but certainly when the timing is right and have never found it to be severely insulting, nor has anyone I have said it around. All it does, and in a succint way, is that you were with someone first and are no longer on great terms with that person. How does this result in a 6 game suspension from a league where fighting and checks bring ratings and cheers? Granted, Sean Avery talks a lot of trash,probably more than some teams combined and he has been warned about his antics by Gary Bettman (league commissioner and someone I consider to be one of the least fun, based solely on looks, on earth but I digress) and he probably had a suspension coming his way. But really Mr. Bettman, this is where you make your stand? Over sloppy seconds and Elisha Cuthbert? For shame.

The Blue to Your Face Media

If a recent bipartisan report released by the government is true, we should expect a biological or nuclear attack on US soil in the next five years. Now here is a matter we should look ahead to rather than Lebron James' free agent status. Or is it? I understand the need to keep sources and intelligence secret, but why is this threat becoming more believable/credible? Is it simply more access to the materials and more anti - Western sentiment? A blanket statement like this or the "unsubstantiated" report about a potential attack on the New York City subway system just continually funnels fear into our faces.

No doubt, a chemical attack on our soil, or any soil for that matter, would be catastrophic; not only to the area immediately affected, but to the flood gates of retaliation and the breaking the seal mentality for this type of attack. But it is this very tactic that is causing us more harm than good. Am I any more likely to prepare myself for an attack like this with purchasing some sort of bio suit or gas mask because of this report? No. Am I more fearful I am going to die by asphyxiation while my skin melts off? Yes. Do I look like a small wide receiver going through the middle of the secondary on the subway now? Yes. Will I stop riding the subway? No. So what's the point? The "I told you so factor" when one of these suckers goes off? It is this type of information that should be kept classified. It is this type of intel that media outlets go gaga for and it is this sort of thing that should be kept off of everyday Americans' radar screens. This type of "news" only plays into the fears people maintain and it is this sort of news which solely feeds the problem. It is only worse with our current economic climate.

As someone who is finding more hairs on my pillow each morning, to reduce stress I have maintained ongoing efforts to avoid negative coverage of everything from the terrorist attacks in India to the ongoing tanking of the economy. This has proven incredibly difficult as both were played/are playing out in the media with a constant bombardment. Hell, even watching Sportscenter is no refuge anymore as the economy has brought rare frugalness to baseball's free agency this offseason. As I have always heard, "No news is good news." The down your throat attacks through newspapers, TV and the Internet of the day to day layoffs, bankruptcies and bailouts caused by the economy's downward spiral only add to the problem. A good chunk of the economy is based on people's belief in the economy and in the capitalist system. With constant updates on the volatility in the stock market, massive layoffs and production output declines, the media is simply feeding the fire that is deepening a year old recession.

What do I expect from companies that make their bank from shock and terror stories? Well certainly not a kitten saved by a firefighter from a tree on a daily basis. But would it hurt to bring up good news every once in a while? John McCain was not far off when he proclaimed that "The fundamentals of our economy are still strong" back in September. Productivity is steady, innovation is still there and we aren't lacking in any resources or commodities (oil is even down to below $50 a barrel). There is a lot of bad debt to deal with and the housing and stock markets need to settle themselves but the biggest thing we lack right now is confidence and it is only being hurt by the constant negativity that the media brings.

Merry Commercial X-Mas

We have finally reached December but it feels like we have been in the midst of Christmas week for over a month now. Was it the quick changeover from Halloween candy to the red and green wrapped Hershey's kisses? Could it have been the supermarket decision making we needed to choose Apple Cider or Egg Nog to quench our thirst from raking? The answers, yes and yes, are not alone. The biggest tell tale sign that Christmas has become an over commercialized beast is the radio station switchovers to all Christmas music all the time. One Boston station (ahem WROR, ahem) switched to this format way back in early November.

Who the hell would keep them dialed in for 2 months a year for the same music that is forced down our throats in stores, restaurants and on the air waves every single year? There are no new Christmas "classics" (except comical parodies such as "Deez Nuts Roasting on an Open Fire", but I digress) churned out on a yearly basis. Instead, we are forced into listening to Jessica Simpson's rendition of O Holy Night or some other remake that only brings down the quality level each and every year. When will it all end? Do we have a date with destiny that will have us preset at least one station that will give us Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow in June?

It has been abundantly clear for some time now that Christmas and the holiday season in general is commercial insanity. Slap down $20 and you can sit on Santa's lap in the mall, only $15 more for a picture! Lights that go up after Thanksgiving and stay up until Memorial Day are growing
in popularity. Gift lists that include the post man to teachers to relatives and everyone in between. Hell, a person died at a Wal Mart because of people trying to get the best gifts on the mother of all Christmas jerk offs, Black Friday. People refused to leave the store even after being told someone had been killed, clamoring for that marked down flat screen or hottest toy. How far are people willing to go to get in tune with their inner "Christmas Spirit"?

There are a few reasons (outside of boozing and days off from work) that make a holiday great. It's a time to get together with family, eat some good food and relax. Christmas possesses these characteristics, at least on the actual day. It is the buildup to the 25th that worries me. Lining
up at 4am to shop for everyone on my list, hanging lights on your house while precariously hanging from your gutter and arranging travel all sound like the nightmare before Christmas to me. How does wrapping hundreds of gifts and putting on 10 pounds of cookie and egg nog weight
celebrate Jesus' birthday (that is the original reason for the day, you know) exactly?

I don't hate Christmas or the holiday season. There was a time when it was manageable and only surrounded me for a week a year. I would get some new stuff, light some lights, eat some good food and relax with family. Now we are stretching the day into 2 or 3 months of music, food
and gifts. I hate what has become of this time of year. Gross excess, the non stop, in-your-face action that has creeping closer and closer to Labor Day by the year. These are not what its all about, but what it has become all about.

Dear ESPN:

Please stop talking about LeBron James' "impending" free agency (in July of 2010). There is still 3/4 of the current NBA season, in which Lebron's Cavs are looking like a true contender. Then there is another FULL season to go through and then he will become a free agent. That is, of course, he doesn't use his player option in 2010 or he signs an extension with Cleveland or is traded and signs an extension with that team. Just because he happens to be playing in NY against the Knicks and the Knicks have made two trades that scream cap space clearing for that summer's free agent market doesn't mean you have to cover it ad nauseum. They even sent Rachel Nichols to talk about it courtside. Is there no other story than a potential one 2 years from now? Thank you in advance.

All Day, and this Morning

I want to go down as being the person that coined the phrase "All Day, and this Morning." It has a variety of uses, mostly applicable while watching sports. When Joe Buck or Mike Tirico starts talking about how "Manning had alll day, and this morning" when he had abundant time to make a play. In a sentence: "Eddie House had all day, and this morning to shoot that 3." Mark it down its gonna be huge.

Boston's Blueprint

Warning: This will be a major jerk off of Boston sports. I will also provide, however, a persuasive argument to support the following claim. Boston sports teams have become the model of excellence in 3 of the 4 major sports. The Patriots, Red Sox and Celtics all have the attention of the rest of the class. We will start with the longest and most replicated but never quite duplicated example.

The New England Patriots burst onto the scene in 2001 with an unknown quarterback taking over for the face of a franchise and arguably the league (he was the highest paid player with a $100 M contract), Drew Bledsoe. The two touchdown (re. 14 point underdogs) beat the high flying Rams after an improbable late drive (Kneel that John Madden) and a legendary kick. The Patriots had shocked the world but it wasn't the first time that night they did. After the long drawn out introductions for the Rams, the Patriots "electing to be introduced as a team" came out of the tunnel as a unit. So began, the emulation of a dynasty. Your Super Bowl pregame is much shorter thanks to the Patriots, as this has become the status quo for every Bowl since.

The Patriots won with a mix of scouting/drafting, inexpensive veteran free agents and great coaching. They have shown time and again they know where to invest their cap money (Brady, Seymour) and when not to (Lawyer Milloy, Deion Branch). They know when a guy has more left in the tank (Rodney Harrison, Corey Dillon) and when its time to let go (Bledsoe, McGinest). They win with coaching, preparation and the luck any team needs to sustain winning. This is the model of excellence in the NFL. Every team wants to be the Patriots with their superb front office and scouting, superior coaching and a team first attitutde. The 9-0 Titans and Jeff Fisher would probably agree with me here.

The Boston Red Sox are a bit of a hybrid of this example. They have the money to toss around so not only can they sign big free agents and keep their homegrowns from leaving when arbitration/free agency hits, but, and this is something that gets overlooked by most, they can scout in far reaches of the world and drop bonus money to sign high draft picks that other teams stray away from because they simply know they can't cough up $5M for uncertainty. Revenue sharing is starting to buck this trend, as evidenced by the Rays success this year, but it certainly is still a factor in the success of the Red Sox.

The Red Sox have put a lot of money and effort into their scouting. They are looking where lots of teams haven't (China, Taiwan and Latin America) and they are drafting a mix of raw talent and finished, college type players. Their team this year, while falling short of the World Series, was evidence of the Red Sox scouting and development prowess. Pedroia won a gold glove and there is a good chance for him to be named MVP next week. Papelbon was dominant at the end of the bullpen and Lester looks like an ace. Throw in production from Youkilis, Ellsbury and Masterson, the Red Sox have a promising future filled with these homegrowns and some key trade/free agent acquistions (Bay and Ortiz). The Red Sox have traded their prospects wisely (such as Hanley Ramirez, a stud no doubt for Lowell and Beckett) for certain results and when to hang on to them (such as Lester and Ellsbury for Santana this past offseason. They have their bad ones (see Gagne last year) but again, they have the money to make up for this.

You have seen the price of minor leaguers go way up and it started with the Red Sox. You have seen an increasing number of foreign players in areas where they hadn't been taken from before. A premium has been put on scouting and development and the Red Sox have led the field in the MLB.

The Celtics have the most recent recipe for success that has been emulated. Teams saw what tenacity on defense could do for a team. Holding opponents around 90 points a game gave you a great chance to win, regardless of if there were hot hands on offense. You can already see this emphasis around the league early this season. Teams spent the offseason acquiring defensive minded players and the cliche the name on the front is more important than the one on the back has made a comeback. It will be interesting to see how this trend develops with the Celtics at the helm.

Three teams, three sports and three highly respected teams in their individual leagues. The Patriots have had the longest reign on top as they are still proving they can win with a team attitude and great coaching even as injuries ravage their squad. The Red Sox have pioneered several new attitudes in the MLB although they are certainly rivaled but many teams in their execution. Defense will be the increasingly emphasized for this season and beyond because of the Celtics' success last season. It will be interesting to see these teams and their counterparts take into the future seasons.

Digital Age

We just witnessed a presidential race that went on for more than a year. No incriminating story or photo about each candidate that was available was kept private. We had pictures of Mr. Obama with Mr. Ayers, we had pictures of John McCain drinking at his base and everything in between. As everyone one under 40 (its biggest increase in users is in the 30-39 range) takes to Facebook and other social networking sites, indiscriminately posting pictures of themselves doing dumb things, at what election year do we reach the inevitable photos from Facebook that ruin a candidates image?

We have been hearing how hiring managers are looking to these sites for more insight on candidates they interview or are looking to interview and how these sites ruin/promote a persons chances. When is the saturation point of social networking site users being the majority of the pool for political candidates? My guess is it will start at the local level, Mayors and the like and steadily move into state representatives and then on the national level, eventually to the President and/or his Cabinet members. How long before I get to see One of Our Future Leaders smoking a giant blunt or funneling a beer naked from a Facebook photo or an old friend's cell phone camera?

I feel its getting to the point where there are people recording all sorts of dumb things people do and storing it on their tera byte hard drive until they need leverage against someone in power. One of the thousands of creepers and paparazzi out there is bound to be hanging onto video or pictures just waiting for the right moment to cash in on their prize. People will pay good money to save their reputation or magazines will pay good money to get the inside scoop to destroy them.

Be wise all. You are almost always on camera in a big city such as NYC, at least in public areas. And you never know when that guy with the Iphone is going to snap that picture of you pounding beer out of a shoe.

Election '08

Well, with election day tomorrow, I guess it is time for the wRite, Rinse, Repeat official endorsement for president, no doubt trumping that of the WSJ or New York Times or even PerezHilton.com. We all know (or should know) the facts, policies/(empty) promises that each candidate possesses as this campaign has gone on for essentially (at least) twelve months. With all that in mind, I am endorsing Mr. McCain for president. Not McCain/Palin, John McCain. Let me throw my simultaneous endorsement with the people who are terrified of Sarah Palin becoming president. I am simply going to assume that with the best doctors in the world, he can be kept functional at least until its time for reelection and that he doesn't already have any number of degenerative diseases that could make him less "there" than Ronald Reagan was for at least his last two years when Alzheimer's was setting in.

My reasons for this are varied but can be succinctly expressed this way: For a position that should require a resume that goes on longer than a Best Buy receipt, Mr. Obama's is exceptionally thin while Mr. McCain's is double sided and lamenated. The next president will be elected into an atmosphere that has no rival in American history, at least on the global scale. (Lincoln's election prior to Fort Sumter could be argued because it would have severely altered the shape of America and the Americas during the age of imperialism and through the World Wars. However, after globalization and the double headed monster of an unparralleled attack on belief in Capitalism and a deepening worldwide recession and the reclosing of the Iron Curtain across new global lines this one could be much more perilous. Sorry to sound like a doomsdayer, but for the purposes of this crude blog, I will make this fact from here on.) Mr. Obama provides too much unknown and far left thinking for the role he is going to need to play on both domestic and foreign stages. As a small microcosm example of some unknowns he could steer us to, his tax reductions and the increased spending his agenda would cause would put us even further on borrowed time until the bill collectors from China and even old friends such as Germany and France come calling. His plans are just too risky.

Mr. McCain will provide more known course. I would compare it to your investment portfolio. The more risk you are willing to take on within that portfolio, the more extreme your results will be, both good and bad. This is what you have with Mr. Obama, one with lots of start up companies and a whole lot of that risk. Mr. McCain is like your 401K (this most recent plunge withholding), you have more manageable and forseeable growths and peace of mind that those treasury bonds and other slow growth investments are backed by the federal government. With that example, I do think Mr. Obama could be better than Mr. McCain. However, at this juncture in my life with it already being a transition out of the fantasy land that is college, I want to keep the future on a steadier course than Mr. Obama offers.

Rodney Harrison

I was reading this article (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=fleming/081029&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab6pos1) about who is the dirtiest player in the NFL now that Rodney Harrison's career may be down the toilet. For those that didn't see it, Harrison crumpled over himself attempting to make a play, was on the ground for a long time and was then carted off the field with a splint for his entire leg, waving to the crowd as he headed down the tunnel. That is never a good sequence for a 35 year old, 100 mph player with more than a decade of smash mouth football under his helmet. He tore his right quadriceps muscle (ouch) and is now on injured reserve.

Harrison hasn't been without injury in the past, already recovering from tearing his ACL, MCL and PCL in 2005, his shoulder (and subsequently his other knee) were injured in 2006, limiting his playing time. To start 2007, however, Harrison was suspended for four games stemming from his admittance to purchasing human growth hormone. Afterward, Harrison claimed it was "accelerating the healing process from injuries [he] sustained playing football," and "never to gain a competitive edge."If that is a sincere case, is he now being doubted to come back for fear of tarnishing what may still be a Hall of Fame career?

Harrison was written off by the Chargers 5 years ago when he was released before singing with the Patriots. Was his ability to come back from devastating injuries (three ligaments in one knee, a shoulder and another knee) less his heart than his, ahem, regimen? I have always like Harrison, he anchored a two time champion secondary for my favorite team, but never gave him a free pass for the HGH, regardless of his end game with them. Injuries are a part of the game and why should you have an easier return than the guy in the pool and in therapy for months working it out.

I would love to see Rodney back in the lineup, equal for his personality as for his talent, but not at the cost of having to devalue him any further for another positive HGH test.

World Series

World Series
Tampa Bay Rays vs Philadelphia Phillies

The world series starts tonight and it should be the first non sweep in a couple of years. The Phillies and Rays are evenly matched when it comes to offense. However, the pitching and momentum favors the Rays. The Phillies have been sitting on their hands for nearly a week now while the Rays staved off a Red Sox comeback and played until this past Sunday. Home field also favors the Rays where they were 57-24 during the regular season.

Having said that, if Cole Hamels can shut down BJ Upton, Evan Longoria and the rest of the Rays offense in Game 1, he could slow the upstart Rays and the Phillies could take the series. I think Hamels is a stud and perfectly capable of doing so.

Result: Phillies in 6
MVP - Cole Hamels

A Novel Defensive Plan

The biggest problem in the majority of NFL secondaries today is a lack of height. 6' 4" receivers are snagging balls from 5' 10" defensive backs. It seems that any fast player with leaping ability and hands is seperated into two pools at the high school level, receiver or DB. If you were to force all teams to play all of their DB's at receiver and their WR's in the secondary, opposing defenses would get a huge, immediate boost. So why is it more teams don't utilize a WR in the secondary more. Granted, playing both ways is an extremely tiring task, as anyone who played high school ball can most likely attest, but a receiver who poses a deep threat to defense with no one to deliver the ball to him would undoubtedly be more beneficial playing on the opposite side of the ball.

Extrapulating that (as my mind becomes head football coach of the New England Patriots), why not play Randy Moss in the secondary? You're team is hurting in the wake of injuries to both Tom Brady and Laurence Maroney and you're defense is pretty good but not keeping you close enough in games. You move Moss into the secondary (substituting Deltha O'Neil, who was horrendous against the Chargers) and across from Ellis Hobbs. You match him against not necessarily their best receiever, rather their taller one, who is often their best (see Burress, Plaxico and Wayne, Reggie). This puts someone with immense acceleration, tremendous hands and leaping prowess that is unmatched in the NFL into a position to pick off and defend a lot passes.

What happens to Moss on the offensive side of the ball, you may ask? He will still play several downs with the offense. True, this will be a personal sacrifice by Moss for the greater good of the team. For him, however, it will be worth it to come back with a big contract and play with Brady again in 2009. For the Pats' secondary, you suddenly have a sound squad and a better defense. You will still have Warren, Wilfork and Seymour up front and Vrabel, a great rookie in Jered Mayo and a Pro Bowl season from Adalius Thomas at Linebacker. You then have a much better coverage team with Moss, Ellis Hobbs, Harrison and an up and coming Brandon Meriwhether in the secondary. Your defense becomes a much stingier one.

Moss doesn't have the caliber in quarterback with Cassell to exploit his greatest strengths. Cassell manages a simple offense and passes past the 15 yard mark are worse than hit or miss (with the awful third option of INT). As is evident by the first few weeks this season, Cassell and Moss are not on the same page and when they are, Cassell cannot deliver the football and Randy has not been helpful with his traditional highlight reel catches. The offense will excel with a focus on running/pounding/swinging the ball to Sammie Morris and Kevin Faulk and the WR screens to Wes Welker rather than Moss' sulking streaks down the sidelines to wish for a ball 30 yards downfield from a mediocre quarterback. The offense becomes more manageable for Cassell and thus more productive and the defense becomes more reliable and possibly even better with big plays (any plays really at this point).

It is a very risky idea to actual put into action. What if Moss becomes even more irritated or worse, injured on the defensive side of the ball? What if the lack of his offensive production hurts the offensive to the point stagnant? It cannot be worse than the lackluster team they are throwing out at this point in the season.

Baseball Predictions Part 2

Well, since it is my blog I guess I can show a bit of hubris. If you scroll a measly one post down, you will see my predictions for the baseball playoffs. These are indeed predictions and not results, although they 75% could be. It is true, that I picked 3 of the 4 division series winners and how many games they would need to get things wrapped up. The lone standout is I picked the Dodgers in 5, not being pessimistic enough about the horrible Cubs team that got absolutely wrecked in the opening series against the boys in Blue. That's better than the "expert" picks I read in the days leading up to Game 1's.

Back to living in the now rather than my past glory.

Red Sox vs. Rays
Sox in 6
As a Sox fan, this series scares me. The Rays are in uber cocky, there's nothing going to stop us mode that you hate to see. Then again, the Angels had that same idea and failed to execute again (although they seem to think they were the better team, yet lost 3 of 4 (that's a .250 winning percentage) Keep dreaming L.A.). I am interested to see if Lester starts game 1 (on 3/4 days of rest depending on how you count it), or if it will be the chip artist Dice-K or the legend Beckett. I think that is a big decision for Terry and he may only want Lester to be the one to do it, which would help explain his logic of pulling in the 7th last night on some bogus split second reaction Lester had to getting the final out of his night. I like the Red Sox "been there before" look they seemingly bring to the park each game a bit more than the Rays mentality that I detailed above so I will take experience over youth but look out for the Rays over the next three years.

MVP - John Lester

Dodgers vs Phillies
Dodgers in 5
Remember when the Rockies went on a tear to the World Series last year? While the numbers weren't as impressive (like 20+ game winning streak to end the season), but they were mind boggling since the Ramirez trade. They have the hottest pitching in baseball, a great bullpen (Lidge can't take the 7th - 9th every night) and a guy who just flat out hits each October. If the Phillies can slow them down with a strong Cole Hamels start in Game 1 and that lineup starts catching some fire and wins some 7-6, 9-8 types of ball games, the Phillies will take this one in 7. Unfortunately I dont think anything is stopping Manny and Torre's return to Fenway Park in the biggest series of the year.

MVP - Manny Ramirez

Frank Deford insults Bill Belichick

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/frank_deford/09/24/belichick/index.html

I have always enjoyed reading Frank Deford articles. They were intelligent, well written and unique. However, I find this one to be remarkably unfounded. His basic argument: Bill Belichick is a bad coach who is merely a "button pusher" for great players like Tom Brady. He rides the coattails of his players. Deford's reasoning? The Patriots missed the playoffs in 2002 when Brady "struggled" (with 28 TDs, 14 INTs and a 85.7 passer rating, by the way) that season. The rest of his argument? While fairly difficult to discern, it seems is because the Pats lost to the Dolphins last week and sit at a piss poor 2-1 record after their bye week and that Charlie Weis has been a "flop of a head coach" at Notre Dame (after 25-15 record in 3+ seasons) without Brady to push buttons for.

No mention of Belichick's 36-44 record as head coach of the Cleveland Browns head coach (leading up to their move to Baltimore), which would have been his best argument piece and made completely toppling his belief easy enough.

For every Charlie Weis "failure" without Brady, their is a Romeo Crennel failure as a head coach without Belichik really coaching the defense. Crennel was the defensive coordinator for some Patriots defensive that lacked marquee names but always found a way to be stingy and dominant, at times when the Patriots offense was much more conservative and the team relied on stingy defenses for their success. Crennel rode on the coattails of Belichick's defensive mind to a head coaching position in Cleveland.

The Patriots, but namely Belichick, have made a living feasting off of other teams' defensive castoffs (Rodney Harrison and Roman Phifer come to mind) and turning them into low risk, high reward guys that came up in big spots time and again. Belichick has turned scrap heap pickings into a solid defense throughout his time with New England. Not only that, he has been able to draft Pro Bowl talent on the defensive side such as Richard Seymour, Vince Wilfork, Jered Mayo and Ty Warren. It has been his schemes that have made overachievers like Mike Vrabel and Tedy Bruschi into stars. He has made decisions when to pay a guy (Seymour) and when he was a product of the system as much as of their own talent (Lawyer Milloy, Ty Law and Asante Samuel).

He has long been noted for his schemes by many in the game, much more knowledgable than myself, perhaps most known for his derailing of the St Louis Rams' offense in the 2001 Super Bowl. He has made great players look awful, Peyton Manning most notably in a couple of AFC Championship games and he clearly has the respect and heads of his players (evident by Wes Welker's interview here: http://sports.espn.go.com/espnradio/player?context=audio&id=3596502.

This is a weak argument that is simply not true. He mentions two basketball coaches (Auerbach and Jackson) who did have Hall of Fame players for them, but in a sport when 1 player can lead a team, very different from football. He mentions Joe Torre and the Yankees, who's success came when they relied on home grown talent and lost their swagger when they started heavily spending in the free agent market and their payroll skyrocketed over $200 million. Torre's Dodgers now are sitting at 8th in payroll at over $118, far from frugal. Maybe it is time for Deford to retire.

Playoff Time

It's pretty easy to see why every season around week 4, Sunday football loses its luster and I can turn my full attention to NL baseball again. This year, I got the added bonus of having an AL race to follow, making today a very good sporting day. Coupled with the crazy college football and the typical drama of the NFL, the networks had a good weekend of TV.

C.C. Sabathia...err the Brewers, took care of the Cubs in the final game, coming back after everyone thought they had lost their steam just as the season was nearing an end. The Mets, meanwhile, were busy losing to home runs to pinch hitter Wes Helms (really bullpen?) and Dan Uggla as Delgado grounded into a DP with 2 on and 1 out in the bottom of the 8th. The faces of the fans at Shea stadium screamed "again!?" as the Mets managed to blow another late season lead, far less monumental than last year's historic collapse, but deflating all the same. I don't want to be at that Shea stadium memorial or at any bar in Queens tonight. The only question left unaswered is, if the Mets had won and forced a playoff tomorrow, would they have lost to C.C. on one night's rest?

Meanwhile in the AL, the Twins were finally able to take one over the mighty Royals to keep their lead in the AL Central. Lucky for them, the ChiSox were even more pathetic, going 5-5 in their last ten, not including a big loss of Javier Vazquez's psyche, forcing a makeup game in Detroit tomorrow. If they take care of the Tigers, a one game playoff awaits them against 'Sota on Tuesday. Yuck, talk about limping into the playoffs for both of these teams.

Predictions for the AL

Angels vs Red Sox
Sox in 4
I have to favor the Sox in this one with Beckett and two of the top 10 Cy Young candidates in Lester and Matsusaka going against the likes of Lackey, Jered Weaver and Ervin Santana/Joe Saunders. This presumes Beckett has been saving his arm (and fingers) for the playoffs and Matusaka doesn't lose the strike zone in his start. If this goes 5, I have to favor the home team and assume Beckett hasn't been Beckett, I'll take the Angels in that scenaro.

Twins/Sox vs Rays
Rays in 4
See above

Predictions for the NL

Phillies vs Brewers
Phillies in 4
-It took too much effort from the feel good Brew Crew. Sabathia's arm has to come undone sooner rather than later. Brewers will be scrappy and the longer this series go, the more they will believe it can be done. I think Cole Hamels and such an absurd lineup will take this one.

Dodgers vs Cubs
Dodgers in 5
-This is the hardest of the bunch to pick. There are simply too many factors to go into it. The Cubs, the best and most consistent team in the NL if not in all of baseball this season take on a rejunevated Dodgers team with Torre at the helm and Manny mashing at an MVP pace. Derek Lowe has been the best starter over the last couple of months but is countered by Big Z and Rich Harden. Despite a worse record, I think the Dodgers will upset the Cubs in the first round.

Subway Etiquette

After a shade more than two months living in NYC, I do not claim to be an expert on subway manners, morals and the like. I do, however, believe I have a fairly strong grasp on what people shouldn't do and the little things that leave me shaking my head and that I am not alone in those feelings.

For one, those people that crowd the doors before they open in an attempt to get onto a crowded train. You can't get on until people get off, it is quite simple and you blocking the exit only hampers that simple process. Double negative for those people that do this then get on and proceed to block the doors once on the inside. In an already cramped and stressful process, these people only add to the misery of riding the MTA.

These people pale in comparison to those people (typically male suits reading (important) documents. You might recognize them as the ones who turn sideways in front of the door in their brand of courtesy to help people get on and off, then turn their backs to their doors once they close. These people hold onto their territory in the exact opposite way of our American Indians, refusing to relinquish any control in the name ease of ridership.

These aren't the only types of people who make my daily subway commutes more difficult than they already are (riding the overcrowded Lexington line trains is a pain any way you slice it), but they are the strongest examples of the selfish acts occuring underground each and every day beneath the streets of Manhattan. Sure, there are the people who stand on the left side of the escalators in a defiant manner to keep me from getting some exercise/to the top or bottom in expediated fashion who I occasionaly come very close to putting the shoulder down and hammering through. There are hundreds of little nuances contribute to riding the MTA at rush hour a migraine, but these are the ones who we should all let know that their actions are not appreciate nor necessary.

Next time you see one of these perpetrators, I encourage you to act. Shake your head in a disapproving fashion, give them the sarcrastic thumbs up or clap or simply dethrone them from their perches with aggresive action of your own. Conflict may be the only way to take back the rails.