The Man in Blak

Al should crop that last cell down to the angry Phillie face and use it as his avatar.

Nope - when they signed him, they said that he'd be holding down third base. Remember - this is the Devil Rays we're talking about here.

Fair enough - comparisons against teams in different eras is probably a fruitless point, so I'll give you that. I won't budge, however, on the intelligence gap between the Patriots and the rest of the league. Now, some of that undeniably has to be credited to the Patriots staff, from the personnel director to the head coach - this team is the best coached team of the decade, and they're so far ahead of everybody in the league that it's almost laughable. But you can't deny that part of that gap lies in the fact that the other coaches in the league have been pretty lousy in critical situations. If the Patriots are smarter than everybody else, then that means that everybody else has to be dumber than the Patriots, and it's been very evident in clock management (hello, Mike Martz) and other facets of the game. The best win that the Patriots had came last year because the Panthers gave them an absolute ride all the way to the finish. With Philadelphia and St. Louis, the opposing teams' effort was marred by terrible mistakes in judgement - inexplicable turnovers in the red zone, the first ever Six Minute Drill, etc. With Kasay's blown kickoff, it was a simple mistake and, while it was still an inexcusable one, it wasn't necessarily a coaching blunder. For Rams and Eagles fans, it's a sore forehead and scratchy throats, all wounds from openly wondering how exactly they could piss away a game so efficiently. The Patriots are a dynasty, no argument there. Their legacy, however, lies in their coaching and their organization's brilliance (and the lack thereof in their competition). They weren't faster, stronger, or bigger than any other team in the league. They were just smarter. The Patriots are smarter than everybody else in the league and, three Super Bowl rings later, any argument to the contrary should really be put to rest.

Because the Eagles are dumb, dumb, dumb. Clock management and situational football (the onside kick was an embarrassment) ain't exactly their forte.

It feels really icky to say so, but I'm in the Skip Bayless camp on the Patriots, especially with last night's win. The Patriots are a great team who've built a dynasty on the virtue of the rest of the competition being remarkably stupid. Donovan McNabb, John Kasay, and Mike Martz (and others) have all had a fair hand in choking away the games for their respective teams, which the Patriots still barely won by a field goal. They're a dynasty and a well-coached machine but, while I think they'd make a game out of it, I don't think they'd win against any of the other "dynasty teams" of NFL's past.

If they don't fix (i.e. remove) the inane goal system that drives the franchise mode ("Steal 200 bases three years in a row!"), I'm not interested, even with the kickass in-game engine.

"On the mound today, making his pitching debut, Aramis Ramirez!"

After a brief but phenomenally successful taste of fantasy baseball last year, I want to go full bore this year and join back into some leagues this year. However, other than Yahoo, I don't know of any other fantasy baseball services. Does anybody have any recommendation for other online leagues? Are there any out there that offer different styles of play (salaried, keeper, etc)?

You're comparing apples with hand grenades, though. The PS2 was riding off of the fact that the PS1 had basically taken a great deal of the market share out of Nintendo and Sega's collective hands. In the portable market, Sony is breaking completely new ground. They can't leverage off of the success of a prior entry into the field because they don't have one. Therefore, they've got to attract as many customers as they can to establish that the PSP can even be competitive with the DS/GBA and they need to keep the entry price as low as possible to achieve that goal, IMO. It's disturbing to see those manufacturing costs, and then see all of the manufacturing glitches and defects that have came from the PSPs released in Japan. Even more of a reason for me to suspect that this could potentially be an embarrassment.

That's an outrageous price. GBA, which is about a third of the price, is the current market standard for portable gaming and is part of a product line that has been that standard since...well, since ever. Hell, the DS, which recently came out (and that Amazon.com has sold out of), is a cool $100 cheaper than the PSP. Even throwing out the hardware malfunctions and manufacturing glitches that have been reported, this is a titanically stupid idea. Sony should be trying to attract as many customers as possible, rather than pricing themselves out of the market, which is exactly what they're doing. If the PSP is a success at that price, then Nintendo should be crying themselves to sleep over all of the lost revenue that they could have had from higher prices.

Well, the Graman v. Halsey debate is kind of toast now, since Halsey was traded to Arizona in the Vasquez deal. And, being that Matt Cain is the only San Francisco prospect I've heard of, who are the other prospects in the Giants system that propels them up into the #13 slot?

Yankees, Red Sox, Patriots, Lakers. Which, truth be told, are probably the favorites anywhere you go.

We could be proven wrong, but I foresee a sales/quality divide on the scale of Enter the Matrix on the horizon for this one. Of course, I've been trained to automatically be skeptical of movie-licensed games, since there's maybe five or six in the last fifteen years that have even approached mediocrity.

You could always try selling drugs.

That won't be a problem - he'll be able to slide into the cleanup role that he loves, batting after Roberts, Mora, and Tejada. Nobody else on the O's (unless Palmeiro makes a huge comeback) really fits that hole in the lineup.

Hey, me too! Slint - Spiderland Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One King Crimson - USA: 30th Anniversary Edition

I miss Bobby Valentine.

Final Fantasy VII is simultaneously the best and worst thing that ever happened to the RPG genre. My favorite RPGs (as of right now): 1. Chrono Trigger 2. Phantasy Star IV 3. Final Fantasy VI 4. Final Fantasy IV 5. Dragon Warrior III

The best thing that could happen to the Pirates would be for the A's to finish below .500.

Hairston's not a bad player (when he's healthy - ha ha), but I think the Cubs need to get Aubrey Huff out of this exchange for this to be considered a good deal for Chicago.

What's the difference between Jaxl and UseTheSledgehammerUh again?

Or the fact that he's made the playoffs with four different teams and led three of those teams to the Super Bowl. There's not really anybody else that has that kind of resume in the NFL, you know? Tom Brady was sacked 25 times this year, the fifth best total in the league. Dillon was able to pile up 1635 yards behind them. Somehow, I can't see them being off a top 5 list, let alone a top 10. The way I see it, the Patriots have a bunch of "B grade" receivers. There's no clear cut No. 1 receiver and that works to New England's advantage. Sure, Branch, Givens, and Patten aren't as good as, say, Randy Moss individually, but they collectively outclass Randy Moss, Nate Burleson, and Marcus Robinson by a fairly substantial margin. And, when you have a bunch of capable receivers like that, it makes it difficult to plot a defensive gameplan around them. Criticizing the receiving corps for not having a 1000 yard season is a little inaccurate, though. As you admit in a later comment... ...the system doesn't really allow for each one of them to individually shine, but they're not stiffs. New England receivers averaged 12.8 yards per catch, which was fourth best in the league. Better than the Rams and their "speed merchants." Better than Minnesota, with Randy Moss and the "home run" offense. They may not have 1000 yards each, but they make plays at an obscene rate. On a side note, I really enjoyed the Bayless article. He's an absolutely idiot 99% of the time and the opening to the article is more mindless ranting, but he does a pretty mean hit on the New England "dynasty."

Here's the link. No money amount was listed, but it is a one-year guaranteed deal, if I'm reading the article right.

Here's a scathing little ditty from Skip Bayless at ESPN.com that I thought might be worth a read:

The Devil Rays look to have had the best run, though given the competition (Denny Hocking? Dean Palmer?), that's not saying much.