Cheech Tremendous

The heel turn didn't work out, but it wasn't the worst idea in the world. He was one of the most over wrestlers on the roster during the Spring and Summer of 2000. But heading into the fall he was behind the Rock, Austin, and HHH on the face side (and probably Jericho too). I think the feeling was that there was an open main event slot for Rikishi on the heel side. Things obviously didn't work out that way. The biggest problem with the heel turn was that there was really no motivation. He wasn't even in the company when Austin was hit, and there wasn't any foreshadowing or motivation. Couple that with the fact that he had to put Austin over big in his return program and really, there was no place for him to go. Bad timing and bad booking.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3742934 Tommy Tuberville gets canned

This has been coming for a long time. I'm sure Colangelo wanted him out from the moment he took over the team, but there wasn't really a justifiable reason until now. He should have done it in the offseason so that he could have gotten D'Antoni. They already had the history together and Toronto would have been a good fit.

According to Ken Rosenthal, the Red Sox signed second baseman Dustin Pedroia to a six-year deal worth about $40.5MM. The deal buys out two years of free agency and also has a club option for 2015. Credit: mlbtraderumors.com

What a bunch of misogynists! Can't you just appreciate her for her beautiful music? Yeah, but didn't you have a thing for the ugly singer with the extra Jew-y nose? I can't really speak to your judgment in these matters.

According to espn.com, Javier Vazquez is headed to the Atlanta Braves in a five-player deal. That gives them one of the two starting pitchers they are supposedly looking for this offseason. I'm not much of a Vazquez fan, but it's a low-risk deal for Atlanta. Lillibridge has lost a lot of the luster he had a few seasons ago.

No, rock died a long time ago. This is just pissing on the grave.

It would totally depend on the language of the original lease. Most leases have a clause that rolls the agreement over to a month-to-month basis after the lease expires. However, in most cases, the original terms still apply unless otherwise stated. Therefore, the 30-day notice would still be binding. I think it's a lost cause to try and get the deposit back.

Color me very surprised by the low number of sales for this album. I agree that a new G 'n' R album would probably have limited staying power in 2008 (especially with lackluster reviews), but I thought that general interest in Chinese Democracy would easily push it over a half million. It was certainly the most talked-about album of the year. Too bad that didn't interest album buyers.

Did Czech really reference that stupid Just For Men commercial in every single round? I've never even seen that commercial on tv.

Ted Rogers, owner of the Toronto Blue Jays, passed away yesterday. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3738984

GROUP A "Respect" by Aretha Franklin vs "Sunshine Of Your Love" by Cream "The House Of The Rising Sun" by the Animals vs "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" by Marvin Gaye GROUP B "Hey Jude" by The Beatles vs "Fortunate Son" by Creedence Clearwater Revival "A Day in the Life" by The Beatles vs "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison GROUP C "Can't Help Falling In Love" by Elvis Presley vs "My Generation" by The Who "Purple Haze" by The Jimi Hendriz Expierence vs "God Only Knows" by The Beach Boys GROUP D "Venus in Furs" by The Velvet Underground vs "Like a Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan "Gimme Shelter" by Rolling Stones vs "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong

This board is filled with twenty-somethings that grew up as professional wrestling fans. Long before we ever got our Smark Cards and started rehashing every Meltzer tidbit, we read the Bill Apter family of magazines. I would go so far as to say that the monthly trek down to the local newsstand to pick up Pro Wrestling Illustrated was just as important as watching WCW Saturday Night or Prime Time Wrestling. Let's talk about our memories of PWI, The Wrestler, and Inside Wrestling. Looking back, what they did was truly remarkable. Taking a journalistic approach to kayfabe seems so bizarre now, but I never thought twice about it back then. To me, those PWI 500 and Awards issues were gospel. Whatever Apter said was the truth. I also get totally nostalgic for the little quirks the magazines had. The rankings in the back that always seemed to perfectly match with the storylines and pushes on television, the "interviews" with wrestlers that all sounded the same, the house show reports that reprinted the same cards a half dozen times and the "letters" that all seemed suprisingly coherent for pre-teenage wrestling fans. Does anyone still have their old issues around? I know that I have a box somewhere at my parent's house (if they haven't disposed of it). It would be great to pull out some of those old issues and talk about the articles.

Czech is the anti-Marvin.

The Royals now have DeJesus, Crisp, Guillen and Teahen in their outfield. Unless this paves the way for a Teahen trade, he's still in limbo. There's no way they acquired him to sit the bench, but as of today it's not that clear.

Don't know if I like this deal that much, but I'm willing to give it a chance. Coco Crisp is not exactly an all-world talent, but on a team that relies on Ellsbury and Drew in the outfield, he had a lot of value. It was clear last year that Jacoby wasn't ready for the big show and Drew is always an injury risk. Having a starting-caliber CF on the bench was always nice as a fall-back option. The one thing I will say is that this gives the team a lot of flexibility. While they now must find a competent 4th OF, they have the set-up man they've been looking for. This allows them to move Masterson or Buchholz in a trade for a C. It also freed up about $5 million. Don't know if that's just going in the pot to sweeten the offer to Burnett or what, but it's a decent sum of money.

I used to theorize about doing this. Do you know ended up happening? Seemed like a good way to get around paying for postage. How would the Post Office really know that the return address was the place that you wanted the mail to end up.

Apparently Don Wakamatsu (who?) is going to be the next manager of the Mariners. Link: http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/mari...ndex.html#34425 I was reading somewhere that the new GM of the Mariners is trying to build an all-sabermetric friendly organization. That includes the front office and managers. Could be interesting.

Receiving corps - lots of people making this mistake lately

This is the second time now that Mauer has had an MVP season and not only missed out on the award, but finished behind his inferior teammate. But we all know that the voters fall in love with the big power numbers and neglect looking at at the other things these players do so well. Even in a year when a non-traditional player won (and deserved) the award, it had more to do with his height, attitude and team (intangibles!) than his actual play on the field.

Pedroia wins the AL MVP. Link Complete voting results can be found here. Some guy put Jason Bartlett fifth on his ballot. Another left Pedroia off entirely. Oh, and Raul Ibanez got a vote. It's always hilarious to read these results.

Word is that the A's Fremont Stadium plans are now dead. They are going to try and pitch an alternate plan to pay for the stadium, but it doesn't sound like it will pencil out. Shame. The A's are a decent organization and they have the worst stadium in the league.

Did anyone hear about Jim Fassell writing a personal letter to Al Davis expressing his interest in coaching the Raiders? I don't know why, but I find that totally hilarious.

Cy Young Results: Lincecum Webb Santana Lidge (no first place votes) CC Dempster NL MVP (by pitcher): CC Lidge (2 first place votes) Santana Webb Lincecum Does that make sense to anyone? I think some people get way too into trying to find the meaning of "valuable."

He's always good for a decent soundbyte? Yeah, I know that's the reason. I just don't know why anyone would care to hear from Mercury Morris. It's not like he is *that* compelling. Is it really necessary to drag out the corpse of Morris every time some team wins their first few games? He's such a douche.