I wonder if the Irish will be turning down that bowl bid this year.:-^
                                   ****
What gets me is that in one breath, the pollsters whine about a team running
up the score and they penalize them by voting them lower in the polls. Of
course, IF the team DOESN'T beat up their opponent by 40 or more points, they
turn around and vote them lower in the polls.
                                   ****
Dismal Howard still hasn't caught a pass this year and his returns aren't
setting the world on fire. Considering that he doesn't make much this year,
I wonder if he's planning on only working as hard as he's being paid. Since
he gets a lot more in the next 4 years, Al might have a lot to look forward
to, IF that were true but let's get real, it's not. Green Bay offered Dismal
pay more than equal to his contributions to the team (past and future) and
Al Davis, as has been the case for the past 10 years, was bamboozled into
signing yet another dud. I suppose that when Davis finally does release
Dismal, there'll be someone out there willing to listen to his "I wasn't
given a chance" speech once again.
                                   ****
As the NBA season gets closer, I begin to laugh even more at the foolishness
that is the NBA. The owners and the Sterno allowed the writers to fool them
into moving the 3-point line back because it was their contention that it
was the reason that scores were dropping. If you take a REAL look, you'll
see that while 3-point attemps did go up in the last 6 years by 7 attempts
per game per team, 2-point attempts DROPPED by 17.5! The writers kept saying
that the closer 3-point line allowed defensive players to crowd the shooters
AND double-down quicker. Of course, folks, if this were true then why is it
that 3-point field goal percentages in the past 3 years have been .359, .367
and .360 while they were .332, .336 and .333 in the 3 years BEFORE the line
was moved. Oh and did those morons even remember that the very same year
that they moved the line in, the NBA began to enforce its illegal defense
more and players were having to stay above the foul line when they got away
with dropping below it in the past. This actually HURT teams because they
weren't able to utilize the kinds of defenses that they had employed in the
past.
Since the defenders were more often in the netherlands, guys like Fratello
decided that the best way to help them was to begin to give them less time
to have to defend. They used up more of the 24-second clock and cut down
the number of possessions by their opponents and they applied more pressure
in the backcourt to cut down the time that they had they WERE on offense.
This is why shots are down so much and why scoring is down NOT the 3-point
line. Oh and to top it off, the NBA is thinking about backing off of its
ban on players below the free throw line when their man is above the 3-point
line. *IF* 3-point percentages drop to the levels of where they were BEFORE
the 3-point line was moved in AND teams continue to apply pressure, this will
only help to lower scores even more as players begin to apply pressure down
low and force it out to the 3-point shooters. The NBA really screwed up on
this one and they're going to compound their mistake.
                                   ****
Oh and Sterno hinted that the NBA owners might reopen negotiations with the
players over their contract. The players, in anticipation of this, recently
voted Patrick Ewing as their president. Look for him to lead the union
toward decertification of the union if the owners try to remove the Larry
Bird clause.
                                   ****
BTW, while I doubt that it'll ever get any consideration, I did fax Sandy
Alderson, the A's GM, two proposals for realignment:
1. Even leagues
AL East          AL Central          AL West
Baltimore        Chicago             Anaheim
Boston           Cleveland           Houston*
New York         Detroit+            Oakland
Tampa            Milwaukee           Seattle
Toronto          Minnesota           Texas
NL East          NL Central          NL West
Atlanta          Chicago             Arizona
Florida          Cincinnati          Colorado
Montreal         Kansas City*        Los Angeles
New York         Pittsburgh          San Diego
Philadelphia     St. Louis           San Francisco
+ - Changed divisions
* - Changed leagues
2. 14/16 Leagues
AL East          AL Central          AL West
Baltimore        Chicago             Anaheim
Boston           Cleveland           Oakland
New York         Detroit+            San Diego*
Tampa            Milwaukee           Seattle
Toronto          Minnesota
NL East          NL Central          NL Midwest          NL West
Atlanta          Chicago             Kansas City*        Arizona
Florida          Cincinnati          Houston             Colorado
Montreal         Philadelphia+       St. Louis           Los Angeles
New York         Pittsburgh          Texas*              San Francisco
+ - Changed divisions
* - Changed leagues
I think that if you look at my plan, it works out pretty good with very
little movement across leagues (3 teams) while creating some pretty good
rivalries AND it preserved most of the AL/NL structure.
Oh and I also included my replacement for the DH.:-)
                                   ****
When asked about Jerry Jones' recent comments, most of the Cowboys laughed
them off.
--- TrekEd 1.00
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