ESPN Adds A Much Needed Nice Touch

ESPN has added a cool new navigation feature on its front page. Instead of clicking on the sports to go to that particular page, a mouseover event gives the user a neat little dropdown box, listing all the key links for that page, hence saving a step. Take a look:

I visit ESPN multiple times a day, so this is a welcome step. Cool thing is that the dropdown box also displays your favorite teams for quick access to their respective pages. Nice design touch, ESPN!

How Tiger Woods Is Like Kobe

How will the Tiger Woods story play out? If the tabloid media has its way, the story will end badly for Tiger—his total and complete destruction. I doubt this will happen. Tiger Woods will survive this setback stronger and better, albeit with plenty of scars.

The tabloid media is treating Tiger like he’s a child molester, who also likes to club baby seals in his spare time. But what was his crime? Honestly? He cheated on his wife and then he lied about it? Wow. Another celebrity/athlete caught in an act of infidelity. Nothing novel about this! In fact, a scientific argument can be made that infidelity is a character trait, or even a genetic flaw. Yes, he looks like a jerk because he is a jerk, but being a jerk is not a criminal offense.

If there is a relevant example we can look at, it is the triumph of Kobe Bryant. He, too, was caught cheating on his wife. He, too, faced the music, so to speak. He, too, lost endorsement deals, public adulation, resulting in a seriously tarnished reputation. This was in 2003. Today, no one cares or talks about that dark moment. Now Kobe sits atop of the NBA like basketball royalty, making money and hawking products. In fact, he face was splayed on a recent issue of GQ magazine. Oh yeah, before I forget, he was also accused of rape. Tiger Woods has been not accused of rape yet the tabloid media is treating him as if he did.

I have no doubt Tiger Woods will rise again. Like Kobe, he’s an unflinching competitor who thrives on winning.

But first, he must get his life in order: get his head on straight, make a decision on his relationship with his wife, and, ultimately, just play the damn game of golf and win. And like Kobe, people will forgive his transgressions. But only if he wins. Nothing more, nothing less.

Why The Cleveland Brown Aren't Going Anywhere

Why the Cleveland Browns will suck this year (they are already off to a 0-and-3 start!): the players hate head coach Eric Mangini. Why? For crap like this:

First there were the reports of Browns coach Eric Mangini requiring a mandatory bus trip to work for free at his football camp. There were the rumors that Mangini slapped a curfew on players attending "voluntary" offseason workouts. And there was the talk that Mangini screwed Josh Cribbs out of an agreed-to contract renegotiation.

Now Yahoo!'s Michael Silver is reporting that the Browns fined a player $1,701 for drinking a $3 bottle of water out of the hotel minibar during a road trip without paying for it at the front desk upon leaving.

Mangini has practiced poor leadership here. Players have already filed grievances against him. There is no reason to treat professional football players like children. A $1,701 fine over a $3 bottle of water? Come on!

And it doesn’t help that he doesn’t name his quarterback until the last minute.

A coach is like a general. If soldiers cease to listen or respect him, he is useless and must be replaced by someone who inspires confidence. Obviously, Mangini has lost the confidence and respect of his players. It’s time for him to go.

How Brett Favre Is Like A Girl...

Want to know why the Minnesota Vikings have put up with Brett Favre’s passive-aggressive behavior?

It’s quite simple, really. Think of Favre as a really, really hot-looking girl who not only has issues – both physical and mental – but has the maturity of a petulant teenager. It’s funny what some guys will put with if the girl solely if she is hot.

This is the Minnesota Viking/Brett Favre relationship in a nutshell.

2009 NCAA College Football Rankings

College football season is a mere few days off from kick-off, and both the AP and USA Today polls have been released:



[via ESPN]

No real surprises if you ask me, but things never turn out the what these pre-season polls predict. In 2008, for example, Georgia was ranked number one in both polls, only to quickly falter as the season progress. This can be chocked up to the fact that Georgia plays in the powerhouse SEC, where every game is a toss up.

Enough of this chitchat. Let’s play some football.

Will We Ever Know Who Did It?

No doubt the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in the Pakistani city of Lahore is an act of pure terrorism, but questions remain: who and why?

Everybody, including the entire desi blogosphere, will be bandying their own pet theories; and, naturally, I have a few of my own. The pro-Pakistani bloggers will blame the attacks on a known enemy of Pakistan. This is code for India (and its intelligence agency RAW), of course. The pro-India bloggers, on the other hand, will blame Pakistani-based jihadis and their supporters (primarily the ISI).

Most people are in a fog of information regarding these matters. And we bloggers are no exception given that we get most of our information from second-hand or third-hand sources, which is hardly ideal to get at the truth. So we filter these new sources through our biases, prejudices, stereotypes, etc.

Honestly, will anyone know the truth behind this attack?

Best Super Bowl Ad

Enjoyed watching the Super Bowl this year; the Cardinals kept it close but lost it in the end. Anyway, the second great thing about the Super Bowl are the ads, and most of them were stupid or dull as dirt, except for this one:



Alec Baldwin can't fail in my eyes.

Indians To Play Baseball?

You might be seeing some desis playing major league baseball:

The Pittsburgh Pirates hope Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel really do have million-dollar arms.

The two 20-year-old pitchers, neither of whom had picked up a baseball until earlier this year, signed free-agent contracts Monday with the Pirates. They are believed to be the first athletes from India to sign professional baseball contracts outside their country.

Singh and Patel came to the United States six months ago after being the top finishers in an Indian reality TV show called the "Million Dollar Arm" that drew about 30,000 contestants. The show sought to find athletes who could throw strikes at 85 miles per hour or faster.

It's gimmicky, to be sure, but it would a nice thing, indeed, to see desis play professional sports in a country where there is a paucity of brown professional athletes.

The Better Team Won

The Red Sox season is over, beaten in the ALCS by an obviously superior team, the Tampa Bay Rays. The Rays are superior in that they had better pitching and batting then the Red Sox, both of which were lacking, especially during games three and four in Boston.

Could things have been better? I believe game two was winnable if Francona didn't leave Beckett in as long as he did, but Red Sox's woes can hardly be reduced to one game. The offense, at times, was anemic, and the pitching was simply awful; yet the Red Sox took the series to seven games, a testament to their toughness and experience. They just didn't have enough to win it all, making this series quite disappointing if not exciting.

But if we are to give praise at all, it should be given to the Rays, who many doubted would survive the season let alone make it to the World Series. But they have prospered. And given the Rays are a young team, and regardless what happens in the World Series, they will be around for some time to come. I take my hat off to them for a great season and a dramatic ALCS.

Finally, I'll be rooting for them in the World Series (sorry, Phillies).

Beijing Olympics: Smooth As Expected

I've been reading editorials about the recently-concluded Beijing Olympic games all day, and I'm surprised to read that many are surprised China did so well, both off and on the field. I'm not. When you spend $40 billion, not including billions spent on a state-supported athlete factories, and the ruthless ability to control every aspect of the games with little or no dissent, things should go smoothly. It would be a shock if things didn't go smoothly as planned.

No Luv For Celtics from ESPN

The Celtics are being disrespected by practically all of ESPN's NBA analysts:



I sure hope these guys are proven wrong. I'll be bleeding Green starting Thursday

Red Sox On Top While Yankees....

Here are the standing for American League East as of this morning:



Hank Stienbrenner must be having fits of rage right about now, knowing that his all-star team is dead last.

China And Olympics: A PR Stunt

I don't know how the rest of the world feels about the Olympics, but it has no charm for me whatsoever. The Olympic spirit, so to speak, has been suborned by crass commercialism and political expediency.

China is using the Olympics strictly as a public relations gimmick: to propagandize its achievements; a sort of gaudy coming out party. They want the world to know that China has arrived. So it pains them to see their efforts sullied by silly protests over Tibet. So, in response, China has attacked the Dalai Lama, who has been nothing but supportive of China. China has also attacked the West, the usual standby, for its neocolonial mindset: they can't stand the idea of China succeeding. That old chestnut.

China is on the verge of being a superpower (something it always aspired to be), it has the world's second biggest economy, yet it is offended by harmless protests. It's only going to get worse. China would to like the world to see China strictly on its own terms. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. When you put yourself on display like China is doing, the whole world will see everything, good and bad. It's the price of being a superpower. Deal with it.

The Wise Man And The Fool

Compare and contrast these two young baseball players, both in the same boat experience wise, in how they cope with their weak bargaining positions regarding contracts. First, Prince Fielder:

The Milwaukee Brewers renewed the slugger's contract for $670,000 on Sunday after he finished third in NL MVP voting last season, when he made $415,000.

"I'm not happy about it at all," Fielder said. "The fact I've had to be renewed two years in a row, I'm not happy about it because there's a lot of guys who have the same amount of time that I do who have done a lot less and are getting paid a lot more."

And second, Jonathan Papelbon:

Jonathan Papelbon may be young, but he knows how the business of baseball works.

He knows that, with a little more than two years of major-league service time, he has no contractual leverage with the Red Sox. Not yet eligible for arbitration, Papelbon has little recourse at the bargaining table.

But he also has a benchmark for what he should be paid in 2008, and if the Red Sox don’t come close to his figure, he would rather they renew him at a lower salary figure, without further negotiation.

It's obvious Papelbon is the wiser of the two. Papelbon knows full well he can't do anything about his contract, the collective bargaining agreement between the owners and union exclude him from the negotiation process, so he'll concentrate on being the most dominant closer in the game, knowing full well come arbitration time he'll get his money one way or the other.

Fielder, on the other hand, needs to take a reality check.

Non-Apology Apology

Eric Gagne, who proved to be a stiff in his brief stint with the Red Sox, apologized to his Brewer teammates today for being a “distraction”. Gagne was named in the Mitchell Report for taking Human Growth Hormones, or HGH. He doesn’t apologize for taking the drug—the cheater—but for being a distraction. Big difference, no?

The Sweet Sounds Of Baseball

Saturday is Truck Day in Boston, when the Red Sox sends a truck filled with equipment to their spring training site in Fort Meyers, Florida. It’s an annual ritual that is well reported by the Boston media, and it's also a sign that spring will soon be upon us, and with it the 2008 baseball season. Will the Red Sox repeat? Let’s hope so. Some key dates:

• Feb. 14 -- Pitchers and catchers are due to report to Fort Myers.
• Feb. 16 -- First workout for pitchers and catchers.
• Feb. 20 -- Reporting day for Sox position players.
• Feb. 22 -- First Red Sox full squad workout.
• Feb. 28 -- First Red Sox spring training game.

The entire Red Sox Spring Training schedule can be found here.

The Better Team Won

The Super Bowl was an utter and complete disappointment for me. Living in the New England area as I do, it was only natural that I’d be rooting for the New England Patriots even while most of the country rooted for the New York Giants because, as we all know, everybody likes an underdog.

I give credit to the Giants for playing a great game. Their defense was suffocating, which essentially won them the game, in my opinion. And let’s be honest, the Giants had a lot of luck on their side too. But they had one thing the Patriots clearly did not: the indefatigable spirit to win, which clearly manifested itself in almost every play.

Congrats to the Giants! And to the Patriots: better luck next season.

Johan Santana Goes to Mets. Thank God!

Johan Santana being traded to the New York Mets is the second-worst thing that can happen to the Boston Red Sox. The first? If Santana was traded to the New York Yankees instead.

I can understand the reluctance of both the Red Sox and Yankees to pull the trigger—the price was just too high. First, the Twins would rightly demand, and receive, a basket of either team’s top prospects. Second, both teams would have to agree to pay Santana his 7-year, $140,000,000 asking price. Definitely too rich for the Red Sox, who often eschew long-term contracts; and it’s even too rich for the New York Yankees, who already have the highest payroll in the leagues even though they could use Santana’s arm.

As a Red Sox fan, it’s better that Santana ends up in the National League, where he’s out of sight and out of mind.