Pretty Girl 11.12.10 - Gabrielle Anwar

Sometimes plastic surgery works out for the best.

Whistle Stops

So... Cam Newton's dad, Cecil, demanded between $100K & $180K from Mississippi State in return for his son signing a scholarship offer from the school.  Although Auburn maintains that Cam is still eligible, expect some serious backlash from this very soon.  Let's see... Cam Newton played for (and plagiarized at) Florida as a freshman, was nearly sold to Mississippi State and is now leading the Heisman race for #1 Auburn.  What do all of those schools have in common?  Wait... one second... Yes!  They're all in the SEC (Surely Everyone Cheats).  This is the conference that gets all the accolades, all the respect.  This is the with the #1 team, the highest ranked 1-loss team (#5 LSU), the highest ranked 2-loss team (#12 Alabama) AND the highest ranked 3-loss team (#22 Florida).  Stand there with a straight face and tell that the BcS doesn't favor the SEC, intentionally or not.  Everyone would be that proficient if they could partice in the sunshine 12 months a year.  Flush 'em all away.  Sanction the whole conference.  This former judge running the show should just take his teams out of BcS contention for a year and wait for the dust settle.  It would be the best year ever.  And the chicks are hot.

TP swears that he'll be back on campus for his senior year.  I would assume any "superstar" college quarterback who has no hope to play position at the next level would do the same.  Terrelle has also made it clear that he won't ballin' with basketball team, ever.

According to my Magic 8-Ball, all signs point to the Tigers signing Victor Martinez.

The White Sox are shopping Gordon Beckham and the Indians are in the mix.  If Antonetti can just talk Kenny Williams into trading within the Central, Beckham would be sight for sore eyes at third.

Ooh Rexy, You're So Sexy

Uh, there might be a bit of a sibling rivalry building into the Browns/Jets game.  This is what Rex Ryan thinks of his brother, Rob.  Rex also called Rob fat.  Hello pot, this is the kettle.

The Indians are "grooming" Jayson Nix to play third base in the spring.  File this under "we're cheap and we don't care if we win next year."  Despite reasonable pop out of his bat, Nix's defense at the hot corner is atrocious.  Last season, in 434 innings at third, Nix committed 16 errors for an .883 fielding percentage.  The league average was .959 in 2010.  Fielding percentage is not the be all and end all (see Derek Jeter's gold glove) and some of the meta-stats are arguable, but, by baseballreference.com's measure, Nix cost his team 12 runs with his defensive ineptitude at 3B.  And now he is option #1 for the Tribe.  He is playing winter ball in Puerto Rico to "sharpen" his defensive "skills."  How long does it take to hone an egg to a fine point? 

The Indians have 5 open spots on their 40-man roster, which must be filled by the 19th to protect those 5 from the rule 5 draft.  5 5 5 5 5 5...  IPI suggests that LHP Nick Hagadone and RHP Corey Kluber are locks, so I'll jump on board with that.  My guesses at the other three: RHP Adam Miller, 3B Jared Goedert, and... RHP Josh Judy.

Tickets for the Indians/Clippers exhibition game (03.30.11, 1pm @ Huntington Park) go on sale tomorrow morning at 10am.  Avoid TicketMaster fees by calling the Clippers ticket office at 614.462.2757.  I'll be getting 4 seats myself.

Cheers.

Pretty Girl 11.11.10 - Anne Hathaway

Pretty Girl - Def: See above.

Pretty Girl 11.10.10 - Carla Bruni

Dude, this is the First Lady of France!  Oh Mon Dieu!

Ultimate Rant

No rant here, but if you enjoy the dark side, click on the Arsonist's Daughter tab above for a deeper look into the abyss.

Cheers.

Brownie Bits

I have heard some lament how few wildcat touches Josh Cribbs gets per game.  With Peyton Hills' history of injuries and the mammoth workload he has undertaken in the past 5-6 games, it is now even more important to shift some of the attempts toward Cribbs.  It might even be necessary to gameplan the scrubbish Thomas Clayton into the offense.  The goal is for Hillis to avoid breaching the 370 touch threshold that most consider to be upper boundary regarding keeping a running back healthy season-over-season.

There have also been rumblings (have another pill Bernie) that if Mangina retains Colt McCoy as his starting QB when/if Seneca Wallace and/or Jake Delhomme are healthy, it would break the unwritten NFL rule that a player should never lose his job due to injury.  Granted, I've never been in an NFL locker room, but shouldn't the only, THE ONLY, metric that determines a starter be his ability to produce wins.  Some might argue that statistically, it's a toss up and that Wallace might be the better option for the rest of the season.  Are the Browns going to make the playoffs?  I'm not going to say no, but it's damn unlikely.  Colt McCoy is now clearly the future.  Any reps that he might lose due to the social graces of the league are unacceptable.  If Wallace wants to whine about it, I don't care.  Allow me to repeat -- I.  Don't.  Care.  Neither should you.  Neither should Mangenius.  Neither should other veterans playing well enough to keep their jobs.  In fact the only people this should concern are the under-performing as it might lead to a youth movement & the termination of their careers.  There is no quarterback controversy at this moment.  Anyone who disagrees is, with the utmost of respect, an idiot.

Whistle Stops

How to beat the Cover 2.

Cliff Lee's suitors -- Yankees, Rangers, Red Sox, Cubs, Angels, Astros, Phillies & Dodgers

The A's won the bidding to negotiate with Japanese stud right-hander Hisashi Iwakuma.  They paid $17mil to negotiate with the 30-year old starter.  Sheesh.

Cam Newton is a damn, dirty cheater.  I don't care.  Read it here.  (Is it weird that FoxSports is part of the Microsoft network?  Does that mean FoxNews:MSNBC::Colbert Report:Daily Show?)

There is conjecture (not mine) that the Tribe is pursuing ManRam as a free agent.

Jason Garret, fellow University School alumnus and brother of my freshman football coach, is now the Cowboys head man.  Let's see how long that lasts.  Cough... cough... Cowher... cough.

New Indians Unis

Note that the grey jersey with the block C cap is now the official road uniform.  The all-blue jersey with the all-blue small Wahoo is now an alternate, just like that awful cream jersey and odd red hat.  Chief Wahoo is dying my friends.  What a shame.  Soon he'll be relegated to the oblivion of the left sleeve like the Devil Ray in Tampa.  I do dig that block "Cleveland" though...

Time For St. Jude

I know, I know, the Buckeyes had a bye.  Yes, I am aware that there are still 4 unbeaten teams, all of which are due to have their tickets punched before OSU.  But I will tell ya, I'm getting pretty sick of this leapfrog BS.  The latest example?  Stanford.  Last week they were ranked 13th in the BcS.  They beat Arizona, who was ranked 15th.  Result?  Stanford is now 6th.  What?!  I can buy LSU jumping to 5 after they knocked of Alabama, but where is the logic of moving the Cardinal up 7 spots, jumping over 2.5 Big10 teams (Nebraska).  Another point of contention (I might post on the Big10 3 team tie-breaker system, but not today): conventional wisdom deems that Wisconsin should be ranked above Ohio State because the Badgers beat us.  Ok, but Michigan State beat Wisconsin.  True, the Spartans got throttled by Iowa, who lost to the Badgers.  The Bucks play the Hawkeyes in 2 weeks.  Does this mean that if we beat Iowa (currently #13), we then jump Wisconsin, Nebraska and Stanford?  Yes?  Probably not.  The fact of the matter is that the Big10 was done indelible damage by Ohio State's back-to-back ugly losses to SEC teams in the national championship game.  Until the conference proves that it can hang with the big boys on that kind of stage, the disrespect by the pollsters will continue.  Don't even get me started again on how we need to completely remove the repugnant subjectivity from the system.  Start rubbing those medals, kids, it's just not gonna happen this year.