Archive for the 'Sports' Category

Former England captain David Beckham will leave Real Madrid at the end of the season and sign a five-year deal for MLS side Los Angeles Galaxy, he told Reuters on Thursday.

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The theme song portion of both NBC’s Sunday Night Football and ESPN’s Monday Night Football are similar:  They both portray a fictitious football stadium in the middle of a city.  Even though NBC has Pink (and I stare at her prominently displayed chest through the whole song), it’s better.  ESPN’s theme song ‘video collage’ is awful.  Afraid to choose one team to represent the show every week, a nonexistant team with blue jerseys and white helmets (not quite the throwback Chargers) is shown.  It’s ugly.  They almost look like the Steelers — why not just go with last year’s Super Bowl champ?  countless video games have gone that route.  Every football fan would see a Steelers uniform before the game and — regardless of the Steelers’ record — would know exactly why ESPN picked that team to play out the intro every week.

Instead, ESPN went with the fake team and bad CGI special effects.  Helmets appearing over a guy’s head, followed by the facemask?  It all sort of looks like goop, and none of it looks good.  One guy gets that (ugly-ass) giant, silver and black Motorola coach’s headset.  It does the same thing:  manifests out of the ether.  Still looks like goop.

Yes, NBC’s Pink makes me cringe a little, but ESPN’s intro makes me groan.

Another holy crap moment: Yankees sign Red Sox Center Fielder and Leadoff Hitter Johnny Damon to Four-Year, $52 Million Deal.

This fills the obvious need at center field, and improves the devastating Yankee lineup, but they still need pitching.

I just read this story on Fox Sports.com: Rangers might want to trade for Ramirez. Are they crazy? Do they remember what happened when they got A-Rod? Nothing, that’s what. They lost financial flexibility (even though A-Rod deferred money every year) and they sucked each of those three years.

Sure, Texas might make a deal with Boston that leaves the Red Sox responsible for, say, half of Manny’s pay. Let’s say that happens, and they still have reasonable financial flexibility. But the deal reportedly would send Alfonso Soriano to Boston in exchange for Ramirez. I don’t like this deal on paper or on the field.

Manny’s got better numbers than Soriano. But Manny bats right in the heart of that monstrous Boston lineup (see: David Ortiz). Put him in a no man’s land like Texas, and teams will pitch around him. On the other hand, Soriano might blossom in Boston, even more than he already has.

Manny is also four years older than Soriano. Sure, we’ve seen hitters like Barry Bonds go crazy after turning 36, but Manny Ramirez doesn’t appear to take care of his body the way Barry Bonds does (steroid speculation aside). Manny in Texas would likely experience an offensively-depressed transition year, followed by one or two years in which he finds some of the magic from his glory years in Boston (but still won’t reside in a Boston-caliber lineup), then sees his stats drop off. At that point you’ll see more “Manny being Manny” clips on Sportscenter and/or Ramirez will ask to be traded in July.

Meanwhile, Soriano would also likely experience a transition year after going to his third team in four years. After that, he would at worst be a solid lead-off hitter, and at best move to third in the lineup if he develops into more of a power hitter.

If I were Texas’s GM I would avoid this deal. But it’s Texas, and they’ll probably go for it. If I were Boston’s GM (Why not me?), I’d jump at this deal — to rid myself of the annual Manny headache and to get a younger player with talent and speed.