College Football, you so crazy

The Rockies have turned into the best baseball story since the McGwire-Sosa home run duel (prior to it being ruined for everyone, of course). This win streak that they're on is something that I never thought I would have seen, and is something we'll probably never see for a long time. At this point, despite my being a diehard Indians fan, I'm almost sucked into the Rockies story. Almost.

Meanwhile, the Indians are a step closer to the World Series with their win over the Red Sox and Dice-K. Paul Byrd and Tim Wakefield face off in a battle of mediocre white pitchers. Boston's not out of this yet, as they're still a great team capable of winning three of four, but it is nice to see these events come about when most were already putting Boston into the World Series.

I don't even know what to do with college football any more. It's like an endless stream of upsets, which has created a morass of teams piled at the top. No longer is it a season-long single elimination tournament, but a mess of teams that might be lucky enough to avoid getting upset. I cannot recall a season with so many great upsets.

Hawaii has to be the worst BCS buster team ever. They have looked less than impressive in putting their points up on the board.

New England is looking like one of the best NFL teams ever, but I'm getting real tired of them running up the score at the end of games. In every single game this season, they've scored a touchdown in the last few minutes of the game when said score was completely unnecessary. Sometimes your team just scores, despite your best efforts otherwise, but I can't believe that is what's happened in every Patriots win so far.

And finally, it's this week's top 25.

1. Ohio State (was #3)
2. South Florida (#4)
3. Boston College (#5)
4. Oklahoma (#7)
5. Virginia Tech (#6)

6. South Carolina (#8)
7. Kentucky (#15)
8. Louisiana State (#1)
9. West Virginia (#9)
10. California (#2)

11. Florida (#11)
12. Southern California (#13)
13. Oregon (#12)
14. Arizona State (#16)
15. Texas (#21)

16. Kansas (#23)
17. Missouri (#14)
18. Auburn (#24)
19. Cincinnati (#10)
20. Alabama (UR)

21. Clemson (#19)
22. Hawaii (#20)
23. Illinois (#17)
24. Tennessee (UR)
25. Virginia (UR)

Falling out: Nebraska (#18), Florida State (#22), Connecticut (#25)

Last five out: Georgia, Texas Tech, Rutgers, Florida State, Kansas State

Off until Monday

I'm taking today off from updating and will return on the 15th.

10/10 - Just Links Today

After a terribly slow sports day yesterday, I'm going to opt on a collection of interesting links over talking about pre-season NBA play or the idiocy of the A-Rod and Torre situations.

Mike Lupica, who I normally don't like, does a tremendous interview with Anucha Browne Sanders of the Knicks sexual harassment trial.

Deadspin highlights the main reason why I have problems getting into soccer.

A couple weeks old, but 100% Injury Rate highlights the best quotes of MMA's Quinton "Rampage" Jackson.

Finally, the Indiana Pacers have apparently found that their fans prefer being associated with their old, white coach over their young, black players. Henry Abbott, god of basketball blogging, does a really good write up here.

Dallas wins, Cleveland wins

Two major sporting events yesterday, and both were equally notable. Cleveland eliminated the New York Yankees from the playoffs on the strength of Paul Byrd's arm and the brilliant decision to start Chien-Ming Wang on short rest. I'm certain the latter decision was made for reasons beyond Joe Torre's desire to keep his job. All in all, the best team won, George Steinbrenner tried to return to his old fashioned ways of intimidating his teams into winning and ESPN is ignoring Cleveland's win. Just like things ought to be.

How in the world can the Cowboys still win last night after that terrible performance by Tony Romo? That has to have been the worst performance by a winning quarterback in the NFL's history. Just amazing.

One story that needs a little attention is Mike Vrabel's being called out for going after a Browns player's knees on Sunday.

Tonight is... uh... well, hrm. No football, no baseball, only one NHL game (Carolina at Toronto, if you're of that persuasion). Slow sports night.

Apologies for the rushed post. We'll do better tomorrow.

October 8, 2007 - Yanks, Pats and Trent Green's skull, oh my!

Yesterday in the NFL, we had Norv Turner try to salvage his career with the Chargers in a win against the hapless Broncos, Jacksonville had the second greatest defensive performance against the run by allowing just ten yards in a 17-7 win (good job Larry Johnson) and Brett Favre break Chris Berman's heart by failing to continue the perfect season against the Bears.

Matt Leinart's collarbone has terrible timing. A week after getting bumped by Kurt Warner for the starting job, Leinart went down at the end of the first half, allowing Warner even more of an opportunity to show off how good he is.

Speaking of Warner, Trent Green's career might be over after he basically rammed his head into the knee of Houston Texan defensive lineman Travis Johnson, earning himself his 284th career concussion. Johnson pulled a jerk move and taunted him while Green was off in la-la land, but you have to sympathize with the DT - Green, intentionally or not, went after his knee. I can't blame Johnson for being so angry, though I can and do blame him for his idiot behavior. Still, I hope Green recovers well and, if necessary, retires before he ruins his life post-football, Mike Webster style.

On the collegiate level, USC falls hard after their inexcusable loss to Stanford Saturday night. So much for being the greatest team ever.

In baseball, the Yanks manage to move past being dominated by C.C. Sabathia and a horde of insects being sent to devour Joba Chamberlain's flesh to actually win a game in their Divisional Series thanks to Jake Westbrook forgetting how to pitch in the major leagues. The Red Sox, Rockies and Diamondbacks all swept their series, which sadly will make this week a little less baseball filled.

Tonight, we have Dallas vs. Buffalo on Monday Night Football and Game Four of the ALDS with Cleveland at New York. Paul Byrd will be starting for the Tribe, Chien-Ming "Don't Tell Them You're Jewish" Wang for the Yanks.

And finally, here's my top 25:

#1 LSU (last week was: #1)
#2 California (#3)
#3 Ohio State (#5)
#4 South Florida (#7)
#5 Boston College (#9)

#6 Virginia Tech (#13)
#7 Oklahoma (#10)
#8 South Carolina (#18)
#9 West Virginia (#12)
#10 Cincinnati (#14)

#11 Florida (#8)
#12 Oregon (#17)
#13 Southern California (#2)
#14 Missouri (#22)
#15 Kentucky (#6)

#16 Arizona State (#21)
#17 Illinois (#25)
#18 Nebraska (#11)
#19 Clemson (#15)
#20 Hawaii (#23)

#21 Texas (#20)
#22 Florida State (UR)
#23 Kansas (UR)
#24 Auburn (UR)
#25 Connecticut (UR)

Holy crap I need to start doing this again

Well, it's only been half a year. It's not like I've actually missed anything...

Okay, so I'm going to bring this live again. One post a day.

MLB announces some rule changes

... and seemingly no one picks up on it.

Major League Baseball published a press release this past Friday detailing new rules that are being put into place. Among the changes are how tie games called due to weather are handled, the scoring of errors, the addition of an appeal process for scorer decisions, pitchers must have recorded one out to be credited with a save, and a minimum plate appearances rule to qualify for the on-base percentage title.

While nothing major was announced, it's just surprising that baseball made an announcement like this and it didn't get much of a reaction. I just expected a little more coverage of this since it happens so rarely.

A Tale of Two Bills

I apologize if anyone is actually reading this and is disappointed by the lack of recent updates. I've had a combination of issues with writing a new update, which is mainly due to an inconsistent Internet connection and a lack of inspiration.

The truth is I've somewhat zoned out on the world of sports for the past three or so days. This all started on Monday, as while I was working out I saw on ESPN's Jim Rome Is Burning a group of talking heads do their daily contest of seeing who can argue louder than the others. The then-breaking news of Bill Parcells resigning as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys came up, and multiple people agreed that his resignation was selfish because it was announced the day after the conference championship games. As soon as this show ended, it went into Around the Horn, where it was further argued - albeit not unanimously this time - that Parcells was an egotistical fool who used the NFL to garner his own person some fame by leaving the Cowboys at that time.

Now, I'm not a huge Parcells fan. I think he does have issues with his ego, most notably with his poor handling of Terrell Owens this year. But I think that if the sports media wanted to be angry at a head coach, they should have looked at a one-time successor of Parcells: Bill Belichick.

A bit less than 24 hours before Parcells resigned, we had Bill Belichick refuse to shake hands with his greatest rival of the Patriots' Super Bowl era, Peyton Manning, after Manning's Colts defeated the Patriots for the AFC Championshp. The week before, his players took the San Diego field and did a rendition of Shawne Merriman's celebratory dance, causing LaDanian Tomlinson to call out the Patriots over their behavior. The week before that, the drama between Belichick and his former assistant and current New York Jets head coach Eric Mangini continued over if Belichick would actually acknowledge Mangini's presence. Also, Belichick shoved a reporter out of the way while walking to Mangini.

Despite all of these events - some of which actually do bother me (the Manning and reporter incidents), some of which do not (the Chargers dance) - the media continue to treat Belichick as the second son of God. Even Parcells, typically a media favorite, catches grief on a regular basis from the media. I just wonder what it would take for Belichick to be justly criticized for the things he does wrong.