Daily Roundup- Wednesday, February 4th

Now that the Super Bowl is over and football fans are slowly removing themselves from the couch, its time to move on and pitchers and catchers will report in a little more than a week. YAY! So let your wives and better halves know that just because football season is over, does NOT mean that its time to clean the garage or do any other long term household chore that involves any kind of heavy lifting because baseball is coming.

But that doesn’t mean that the NFL season is over. No, now its time to look forward to the draft and the free agency period. One major recruiting week is the Pro Bowl week. Peyton Manning is doing his best to recruit and make sure that coaches from the Ravens and the Eagles don’t get a lead on any of the free agents among the Pro Bowlers.

I’ve always said that Peyton Manning is one of those guys I can see myself hanging out with regardless of what team he’s on. He’s so different from his brother Eli that if they didn’t look exactly like one another, you would have a tough time believing they were related. As far as the recruiting goes, I hope that Albert Haynesworth goes to the Giants but that won’t happen I know. I’m afraid that the Cowboys may make a run for him because Uncle Jerry has a new stadium opening up and he may just pony up the money and Tennessee is not helping their own case by taking their sweet ole time with contract negotiations.


Dan Shaughnessy writes a few thoughts that he’s had stored underneath that lump of white hair.

Typical Boston homer and I’m starting to understand what Bill Simmons means when he writes sarcastically about the Boston press. They are delusional sometimes and gives misguided information and opinions to the masses which makes the fan base just as delusional. How would I know? I live in New York and I’ve suffered through that same disillusionment. It was a proud moment in my life when I decided to have an opinion of myself.
However the Larry Lucchino and Tom Werner story was just plain hilarious. Gotta love Ricky!


Speaking of the New York media, Mike Lupica, big time columnist for the Daily News shares his thoughts on the whole Joe Torre book fiasco. He says, Joe Torre deserves his day to be honored and the Yankees should just calm themselves down.

I’ve gone back and forth on this whole Joe Torre story. On the one hand, Torre just seemed like one of the nicest guys on the planet and carried himself with dignity and class while the front office was anything but in New York. Before coming to the Yankees and hitting the jackpot, he was a mediocre manager and seemed like a transition guy after Buck Showalter had built up the Yankees pretty good. He of course went on to win four World Series titles in his first five years.
Meanwhile, on the other hand, here’s a guy who preached locker room sanctity and how the game has this unwritten code and he’s breaking it, it seems, to settle some score he has with the Yankees. I’m convinced now that he didn’t appreciate how the Yankees handled his contract last year.
But if the book was started in 2007, while he was a Yankee head coach and the ownership group knew about it, then why the big fuss over it? Because he unearths some hidden nugget that we didn’t know? What, we didn’t know that David Wells was a drunken bafoon? That A-Rod is the most insecure superstar ever? That Mike Mussina was a prick? Wake me up when Torre explains his theory on relief pitching.


Wallace Matthews has a pretty good idea for Met fans who clamor for Manny Ramirez, use the bailout money that Citigroup is obviously using to pay off the marketing deal they have with the Mets and sign Manny.

I’m not a big Wallace Mathews fan, but from time to time he has a good article and this is one of his better ideas. Right now this whole Citigroup deal is just bad P.R. for a Met team that needs to stay as far away from bad PR like Amy Winehouse needs to stay away from the local crack house. Getting rid of them and calling it the new Shea Stadium or perhaps Jackie Robinson field would be a proper tribute as opposed to the Citi emblem being a constant reminder of our economy’s lackluster performance. As much as I’d love to see Manny, like most teams, they are just dropping out of the race and figuring he’s just too much money and too much headache to be involved with.


Drew Sharp of the Detroit Free Press blames the “canonization” of stars for all the fuss created over a picture of Michael Phelps smoking out of a bong.

I really liked this article because it doesn’t justify Phelps’ behavior like Bob Ryan’s article clearly did, but calls him into account. He does however blame the American public for looking for heroes in the sporting profession. I like most of the population do not believe everyone is perfect, so a hero that does good all the time will never exist for me. We call a person a hero for a heroic act. But he shouldn’t be forever labeled a hero because he was an imperfect person who did a heroic thing. Even Captain Sully will readily admit he’s not perfect yet we can say that he did a heroic thing. So before you go and label every person a hero, let’s just remember that perhaps that phrasing can be better.


In honor of National Signing day for Colleges, Trae Thompson decided to write about what it takes in the recruiting game and how difficult a process it can be.

Its one of the most difficult things to project. How do you lean? Do you go with character more than physical ability? How do you rate a player who has gone to 4 different schools in 3 years yet has the athletic tools to be an amazing athlete? Do you overlook those things? How do you compare his skills in a weaker high school division than say players who didn’t pan out in the tougher Texas and Oklahoma leagues? It’s a tough sell for people to say that smaller MAC colleges like Buffalo are better places to go than bigger programs. I heard yesterday how there are a lot of recruits turned off by the USC program because they don’t know if they’d ever get a chance to play and they’d sit on the bench for the first three years because USC has always had a terrific incoming class. There are way too many things to consider and I commend any kid who makes those decisions.