Thursday, July 03, 2008

Thursday 07/03 A.M. Quickie:
Favre, A-Rod, Longoria, Maggette, More

It's a good day for rumor-mongering, which is why I lead my Sporting News column today with some of the choicest:

Brett Favre unretiring? Come on! Who DIDN'T see this coming? He can deny all he wants (and he isn't even denying it!), but you know it's happening.

A-Rod and Cynthia splitting? And not just over A-Rod being with Madonna, but C-Rod is supposedly rocking out with Lenny Kravitz (between A-Rod's dabbling in Jewish mysticism and Cynthia hanging with Kravitz, the two Rods SO love the Jewish thing).

The Rays bandwagon should reach epic proportions, following their sweep of the Red Sox in Tampa. (0-6 at Fenway? Who cares: If the season ended today, the Red Sox would have the bigger problem, sitting behind the Rays in the standings and 0-6 at the Trop.) I'm not sure if the Rays are the best story in baseball this decade, but they are the MLB story of 2008 for sure.

Meanwhile, you have to feel awful for Seattle NBA fans, who officially lost the Sonics when the city sold them out to Clay Bennett for $45 million and the hope that the NBA will put a team there again someday. Good luck with that. It sucks for Seattle fans, with the only solace being that they have had months to prepare. But it sounds like now the team moves virtually overnight. (On the other hand, congrats to Oklahoma City, a fan base that earned its cred with its unconditional support of the Hornets while the team was relocated.) It will be wierd not to have the green and gold Seattle Sonics anymore, though.

Katie Hoff is awesome.

Everyone suddenly loves Corey Maggette, because he can't make more than the MLE, so he has the freedom to pick a contender (my money is on the Spurs, and he helps them continue their on-again, off-again, on-again championship run).

No Sporting News column tomorrow (or over the weekend, as usual), but I will be blogging all three days, if you have any interest in popping by. Otherwise, have a safe and relaxing long weekend. Another post or two coming this morning, I think.

-- D.S.

3 comments:

murf said...

i am torn here. i am a lifelong sox fan who lives in florida and grew up in florida.

i am glad to see the rays doing good and i like a lot of their players. i have always wished they would have been in a different division.

that said, there is no way they should have played "sweet caroline" after last night's win over the sox. that was totally classless and reeks of "we're way too happy to be leading at this point in the season" immaturity.

like i said, i actually like the rays somewhat but that was classless. just be happy after the win and point to the scoreboard and standings.

Brendan Smith said...

As a Red Sox fan I'm actually happy for the Rays (still seems weird not to have "Devil" in front of that)

Look, I'm might be a huge Red Sox homer (and I am,) but let's face it. Teams like Tampa and Colorado (last year anyway) playing well, building their franchises from within is fantastic for baseball. Any other Sox fan who can't see that is a dolt.

Also, while it's nice to see your team blow someone out everyonce in a while, to do it 15 out of 19 times a year gets boring.

Even though we are 0-6 at the trop, we are 6-0 at Fenway and real rivalry, that actually means something is brewing. That's fatastic to watch.

If Tampa can turn the franchise around long term, this could be especially great for younger Sox and Rays fans who now have the possibility of growing up and growing old with a rivalry of their own. They won't have to rely on their father's stories about Yanks and Sox. They will have something that belongs to them.

That's just my 2cp

Oh btw, just remember the Sox may get the biggest trade deadline aquisition of all and not have to spend a dime. Big Papi will be back. This could get interesting down the strecth!!!

Cy_Kazmir said...

Go Rays! I can't call myself a Tampa fan but as someone who actively roots against the Yankees and Red Sox.... Go Rays!

Will Seattle ever have a basketball team again? Expansion seems out of the question for the foreseeable future so who could possibly relocate? Maybe Memphis? That way you could put Oklahoma City in the Southwest division and the new Seattle franchise in the Northwest. But that doesn't seem too likely.

How about the ever-compassionate Commissioner Stern? "We love you Seattle, you are a great NBA city.... But if you don't build us a new super arena we're never coming back."