Cheech Tremendous

I used to love Around the Horn when it first started, but now it's just painful to watch. Plaschke is an absolute moron. The fact that he was able to put enough pressure on Dodgers management to get rid of DePo is a travesty. Mariotti, Page and the rest are a bunch of loud blowholes who say nothing of consequence and are never called out for the trite that they spew each day. And while I am ranting, can we please get rid of Screamin A Smith, Skip Bayless, and Merril Hodge? It's not just the fact that they are wrong most of the time, but that they have to yell it at you as loud as possible. Seriously, just shut them up please.

The Sox thought that they could train an in-house solution to the Wakefield problem. It became obvious after just 5 games that Bard was more of a problem than a solution so they admitted their mistake and cut bait. In the end they wound up with Loretta to show for it all, so I still say thumbs up. But to each his own, I guess.

Why is it stupid? Mark Loretta is an upgrade at 2B and they gave up a 35-year-old backup catcher to get him. Once they realized that Bard couldn't catch the knuckleball they moved on and got Mirabelli back for almost nothing.

But they got Loretta by trading Mirabelli in the first place. They were able to get him back by giving up Meredith and Bard. They need a catcher who can catch Wakefield, and Bard couldn't do that. It's a good trade.

Phew. That was a rough couple of weeks... So essentially they traded Meredith and Bard for Mark Loretta. I can live with that.

I haven't read the salary cap rules in a long time, but I think the guaranteed money is spread equally over the life of the contract. In the event you release the player, that money that is still owed over the life of the contract goes against the cap that year. I could be way off though.

Sex and the City is everything I hate about women wrapped up in a nice, neat, little package.

I don't get the D'Antoni love. It seems like he just lets Nash do his thing.

Life's gotta suck for Leinart right about now. He was the concensus no. 1 pick last year before deciding to come back to pad his records. He doesn't get the Heisman, loses the big game and now seems to be free-falling in the draft, with many new mocks having him at 9 or 10 overall.

Give him 50. No, 100. That's inexcusable.

Except for the fact that by all accounts, he has given up marijuana. He was taking diet supplemens that contained a banned amphetamine, of which he was unaware. I'd say the guy caught a tough break this time around (not excusing the three original failed tests).

Screw Kevin Mench. I drop him from my fantasy team, he figures out his shoes are too small and bam, he homers in six consecutive games.

There were a lot of good players out there this year, many who had phenomenal numbers or led sub-par teams to the playoffs. But I still can't see any argument against Nash for MVP. Maybe part of it is playing in the right system for the right coach, but that team would be terrible without him. I honestly think if Kobe and Nash switched places the Suns would have been much worse and the Lakers a little better. We now have two years worth of proof that Nash makes everyone around him much better. They lost 3/5 of their starting team from last year and are still an outside contender for the NBA championship (or at least one of the 5 best teams in the league).

Crude math time Howard's contract is 5 years for $500 million, or $100 million per year Sirius Radio is $12.99 month 4 million new listeners x $12.99/mo. x 12 months = $623,520,000 per year $623 million > $100 million I'd say that he has more than justified his amazingly ridiculous salary, at least in year 1.

Umm, Insane Clown Posse.

I think that Stern can be attributed to the 4 million gain. When he made his announcement, there were 500,000 Sirius subscribers. Even if those 4 million aren't all Stern fans, he might have provided enough market recognition to convince people that Sirius was the better choice than XM. I don't have the numbers here, but haven't the number of XM subscribers tailed off significantly since Howard's announcement?

Why would Stern be pissed? He had a core audience of about 9 million (up to 12 at times) people. Approximately 4 million have joined in 3 months. That's a significant amount of people jumping to a new medium no matter how you spin it. I don't think it's a bad move for XM. I don't really know anyone who would purchase a radio because of O&A. It's just that they are even less likely now that they get the show for free. If Howard plugging Sirius for a year only brought x number of people, why would there be any indication that O&A could do the same?

What exactly are O&A like? I've heard that they are just cheap Howard Stern ripoffs, but others really stand by them. Oh, and I wouldn't really say that Howard is pissed at all. He thinks its great that CBS has already thrown in the towel for his replacements, not to mention that XM is giving away one of its exclusive properties to free radio when they are supposedly trying to compete with Sirius for subscribers. Carolla is absolute shit. I've been giving him a try in the mornings since January and just hasn't found any sort of rhythm. The show is so boring and none of the sidekicks or bits have really developed themselves. I like Carolla too, just not as a radio personality.

I did say that a card should consistently build from start to finish, but I didn't mean to imply that the worst match goes first, second worse match second, etc. Matches shouldn't be thought of isolated events, but pieces in constructing an entertaining and memorable card. I think you said you believe in a system of peaks and valleys, which is probably the best way to describe it. You don't put tag matches back to back, or three garbage matches to start a show. It shouldn't be inundated with specialty matches. Think of it like reading a book or watching a movie. There are climaxes and developments along the way that set the tone for an ending, but they don't overshadow it. How often have you heard how a movie was bad because the ending was anticlimactic. Same thing with building a wrestling card. I'm a big fan of shows that have a great match, super hot angle, or memorable moment right in the middle of the show. Give the fans something great, but give them time to come down and prepare for the main event. I, myself, am not a fan of the bathroom break match, especially when it comes late in the show. Throwing out a women's match or filler match directly before the main event kills the momentum, in my opinion. I think it was Crockett who was famous for ending his shows on a constant build in terms of importance (TV, US, Tag, World). I like this style because it gives each match its time to shine and build with a crescendo coming at the end. But overall, there is no exact science. WM X worked beautifully. Think about how highly regarding that show is, when in reality it had two great matches and a lot of crap. Nevertheless, the entire card worked and by the end you felt a sense of satisfaction and closure. That's perfect booking.

Thanks Rudo for making my point much better than I could. This whole discussion really shows what a winning formula WCW had with the cruiserweight division. Being able to put a hot, entertaining match on first that doesn't threaten anyone on the rest of the card is a formula that WWE could learn from.

I'm not sure if that post was directed towards my posts or not, but if it was you completely missed the point of what I was saying. I said that the opener shouldn't be the best in the sense that it should not overshadow the rest of the card. It's job is to to set the tone and engage the crowd for the rest of the show. First, I said that Bret-Owen was great as an opener because it didn't exhaust the crowd and make the rest of the show a letdown. It fit into the story they were telling and made the Bret win (i.e. the main event) seem more important. Second, I said nothing about the best match having to be in the main event. I said the show should builds toward a main event, which should stand above the rest of the show in terms of importance and crowd heat. Steamboat-Savage took nothing away from Hulk-Andre. By contrast, Rock-Hogan stole the show at Mania 18 and the card suffered because of it. That's the fault of the booker.

While that is true in a sense, it's the booker's job to arrange to the card and construct it in such a way that it builds tension throughout a show. You don't give two great workers 25 minutes to open a show then put clunkers on the rest of the way. The main event should be the "best match" on the show, maybe not in terms of pure workrate, but in heat and importance. If it's an afterthought on its show, it's a failure to everyone involved, from the guys in the opening match all the way down.

I am shocked that a Gold Glove infielder, a man who plays the game the right away, would to do this. Are you sure it wasn't somehow A-Rod's fault?

I actually 100% agree with cabbageboy on this point. A PPV should build from beginning to end. The opener should not blow away the rest of the show. It should get them going, not fry them for the rest of the show. Now with that said, I disagree on Bret-Owen. It was an excellent choice for an opener in the context of that PPV. Shawn-Razor was still the blow-away match and the Bret angle carried nicely into a super hot main event with a memorable finish. It completely served its pupose as an opener.

I agree, I think the song is fantastic. But I'm not one of these stuck-up indie rock snobs, so apparently I have little to no taste in music.