So here are some of the more noteworthy updates from around the MLB (yes, this is still the same person with posts about baseball, but for personal reasons, I’ve changed my posting name … Brendan, if there’s an issue, please call me!)

For starters, neither A-Rod nor Steriod Barry have been signed yet, though the Yankees are supposedly talking to Rodriguez again (which, from a PR standpoint, makes both the team and the player look bad).  The rumor is that if the deal goes through, he’ll make about $275 mil over the next 10 seasons.

But the big news of the day …

(more…)

Some huge ACC games today–a few of which with national implications.

For starters, I just got home from the BC/Maryland game (Maryland 42, # 8 BC 35)  Maryland’s now 5-5 … One more win (@ FSU or @ NC State) to be bowl eligible.  Let’s GOOOOOO MAR-Y-LAND!

All of the other nationally-ranked ACC teams won today (#11 Virginia Tech, #19 Virginia, and #21 Clemson all won).

Even though that was the only real upset today in the ACC, BC’s loss and Clemson’s victory over Wake Forest today puts Clemson in first place in the ACC-Atlantic Division … And Clemson plays BC at home next week.  Since that’s Clemson’s last ACC game this season (they finish the season against arch-rival South Carolina), it’s a must-win for Clemson to make it to the ACC championship game against either Virginia or Virginia Tech (who play each other on the 24th in Charlottesville).

Will Joe Torre go to the Dodgers?  (And equally important, will he bring those Yankee Free Agents like A-Rod, Posada, and Rivera with him … and Don Mattingly, too?)

Update: It’s official: Torre will take the position vacated by Grady Little (may Red Sox Nation curse his name forever).  Now to see what Yankees staff he brings with him to LA. 

In other news: Joe Girardi has taken the number 27 because the Yankees have won 26 World Series, and he wants to be manager during #27.  Dumb.  His former number with New York, 25, is currently being worn by Jason Giambi (though he war #52 when he was a coach with New York in 2005)

Here’s what’s going on as of today in baseball.  If you thought that baseball was going away until spring, you were wrong.  :-) 

Have no fear, I’ll be keeping you all updated throughout the "off" season.

(more…)

With A-Rod probably leaving the Bronx and Torre already gone, the B*stards have reportedly offered Joe Girardi the job as manager.

So they fired the always-playoff-ready Torre to replace him with a guy whose only job as manager left the Marlins just shy of the Wild Card?  I may not like Torre as a Yankee, but as a manager, he’s solid; I doubt that the Yankees can do much better than him.  I might end up eating my words, but replacing Torre with Girardi doesn’t seem right.

(You know what else doesn’t seem right?  The fact that the guys I grew up watching play the game are now old and are employed as either commentators or coaches!)

Scientists are now saying that there were some Neanderthals that were probably redheads.  Some have even claimed that those redheads have begot today’s redheads.

We post, you decide.

So I can’t figure it out: is NFL commish Roger Goodell a cultural imperialist, or is he just missing the point?  Says Goodell:

Our goal is to translate America’s obsession to the world’s passion," he told reporters on Friday, two days before the Miami Dolphins face the New York Giants at a sold-out Wembley Stadium. "This Sunday is clearly just the beginning."

This is after the NFL’s expansion league, NFL Europa (formerly known as NFL Europe) folded in June. With an average attendance of just over 20,000 per game in 2007 and only 6 teams, this translates into about 60,000 people per week who were actually interested in going to these events … for the entire continent of Europe.  And the lowest attendance was held by the Amsterdam Admirals–the only team outside of Germany.  Maybe if Goodell had arranged for this game on Sunday between Miami and New York to take place in Germany, I wouldn’t feel this way… But why continue to try to get the rest of Europe to go along with this sport?

Maybe they could have sold out the stadium 10 times over, but extended American Football experiments in Europe have failed.  And I don’t know why Goodell seems to think that this is the best way to keep cramming American football down the throats of the rest of the world.

Now I understand what’s going on with those folks in West Virginia.  Residents of Maryland, take note: we now know what our neighbors to the west are doing to make themselves the constant butt of our jokes:

WV mommas smoke while they’re pregnant.

And I was approached by a sheep the other day.  It told me that it was seeking asylum, because it had been the victim of sexual harrassment in Morgantown.

In a recent poll, 49% of adults in New Jersey said that they would rather be living somewhere other than New Jersey.

As anyone living on the East Coast will tell you, New Jersey only exists to get people from New York to Philadelphia (or in my case, Washington D.C. to Hartford) anyway.  This just proves it.

Usually I try to ignore Ann Coulter, but I can’t ignore this:

… Apparently we Jews need to be "perfected," and America would be better if we were all Christians.  (My favorite quote: "And Falwell himself said that."  Like Jerry Falwell is deserving of the moniker "Falwell himself"). 

Of course, Hitler also saw that Jews needed to be perfected too, but his version of perfection was forced-labor camps and gigantic ovens.

Well, that’s what the Marines are saying, anyway.

The spin given by the Corps is that the Army can take care of Iraq, but it’s messing up in Afghanistan.  By sending in the Marines, at least they claim, the Marines can help fix up Afghanistan.

The other spin (that is, the antiwar spin) is that Iraq has gotten so bad that the Marines just want out.  I couldn’t find a link on that, but I heard this argument on the Bill Press show this morning.

Forgive me whilst I gloat over this. 

Next Round–Indians and Red Sox // Rockies and Diamondbacks.

Let’s go Sawx!

As loyal readers of the Irish Trojan, we know that he is soon to become a daddy.  In fact, mommy-to-be Becky officially starts her third trimester today!  So, in the spirit of the Brendansphere, it’s only reasonable that we have some sort of contest. (And yes, I have permission of the mommy- and daddy-to-be to do this!)

Here’s how it will work.  Submit, in comments on this post, your guess for when Becky will have the baby.  (Remember, she’s due on New Year’s Eve.)  The winner will be selected based on whomever is closest to the exact day, hour, and minute.  If there is a tie, the tiebreaking categories will be weight and length of the little one (weight is the first tiebreaker, length is the second tiebreaker).

In other words, just submit your guesses like this:

Date:
Time: (hour & minute)*
Weight: (in pounds)
Length: (in inches)

*Please note: "Time" is based on wherever Becky is when she has the baby–the local time of the city that the kid is born in.  You pick the time, the mommy (or the baby) chooses the time zone.

Please include a name or at least a pseudonym, so we know whom to congratulate once the baby is born … other than the parents, that is.

Naturally, if we’re going to have a contest, it’s only right that we give the winner something.  Therefore the winner will get the exact same amount that s/he would get from any other pool on this website: bragging rights. :-)

Good luck!

PS: This post is for well-wishers only.  If you have something else to say, or perhaps something negative to say about the baby, your post will be deleted and you will be removed from the site.  This is your first, last, and only warning.

The broom is out again–first for Arizona and Colorado and now for Boston.  Might Cleveland be next?

All of a sudden, I feel a compelling urge to root for a team that come Friday, I will hate almost as vehemently as I hate the Yankees during the rest of the year…

If I’m George Steinbrenner and have more money than God, and I use it every year to buy the best team that I possibly can, and they can’t win their division or make it past the first round of the playoffs… it must be the manager’s fault.

Right, George.  Blame Torre because your bought team can’t win the championship every year.

Oh, and Go Sox!  Spank that Rally Monkey!