The real million man March

Okay, I'll admit my title is cliched. But today Barack Obama announced that one million individuals had donated money to his presidential campaign. Unbelievable.

Today I had a bit of an epiphany about why exactly Obama has run such an effective campaign: his supporters directly refute Hilary's main line of attack against him.

Hilary has staked her entire campaign on the idea that she is experienced, hard-working, and committed to helping the American people. She portrays Obama as a shallow figurehead, a man who has attracted people because of who he is and what he says and not because of what he will do in office. Hilary is the one who voters can count on "to get things done," he is a "hopemonger" who has attracted college students, black people, and rural residents too stupid to see past the facade of his brilliant speeches to the empty (policy-wise) space inside.

Yet when it comes down to it, at least in terms of campaign organization, Obama is the one who "got things done." While Hilary was grabbing maxed out donations from the Democratic establishment, Obama was building a nationwide network of small time contributors that now numbers over one million. While Hilary was focusing on using that money to dominate in the big states on February 5th, Obama was building up networks in smaller states around the country that helped him win more delegates than she did on that day, despite the fact that she carried New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and California by comfortable margins. The simple truth is that Obama is winning this campaign precisely because he has paid attention to the little things...Hilary thought that she could coast on her name and experience, which cost her when she ran into the organizational juggernaut that is the Obama campaign.

I remember back in September my buddy Joey was out in New York visiting me and went to the Obama rally at Washington Square Park in the Village. When I met up with him after Obama's speech he told me then that he thought Obama was the "real deal", primarily because he flat out said "I need your help, I need you to fight for me now, we can do this together." At the time that sounded like a relatively routine things to say, every politician tells you that they need your help if they're going to win. But looking back six months later, it's very clear that Obama was serious about that statement, and now over a million people (and counting) have responded to that call.

Whether or not Obama is able to live up to the promises and expectations he's creating now, his ability to inspire people to work for him and with him to get things done bodes well for both the upcoming general election and, potentially, his administration. After all, if you had told me (and every single professional political commentator out there) six months ago that on February 27th, 2008, Obama would be leading Hilary in delegates, have a donor base of over one million people, and be up by 10 points on the Republican nominee in the polls, they would have asked for some of whatever you were smoking.

Hilary's argument for her candidacy over Obama can be broken down simply as "he promises what is impossible, I deliver what is possible." Clinton ran a very solid, successful campaign for president, raising record amounts of dollars and building a very impressive organization. Unfortunately for her, Obama showed up and rewrote the textbook, blowing the old definition of "successful campaign" clear out of the water. Skeptics take note: Obama has already delivered the impossible, a viable African-American candidate for president who has shattered almost every nomination campaign record out there in terms of voter turnout, fundraising prowess, and youth participation. The Republicans would be wise to learn from her mistakes and not underestimate Obama's appeal come November.

Youtube link of the day: More proof that Gary Busey is a total All-star. Someone really needs to give him his own TV show.

An MVP candidate goes down in the west.

Various media outlets are reporting that Rockets center Yao Ming is out for the rest of the season season. This is great news for the Warriors and every other team in the western conference. I find it really hard to see how the Rockets are going to make the playoffs without the big guy...even when healthy McGrady is probably not enough to carry this team, and he's inevitably going to miss a few games here and there down the stretch. The Rockets have a bunch of great role players, but besides T-Mac and Yao they don't have anyone who can really create their own baskets, and their going to have a tough time staying afloat in the hyper-competitive western conference.

The Rockets are a team built around slowing things down and playing half court sets, which works great if you can throw the ball inside to Yao for an easy two (and have is vastly improved defense shutting down the opponents inside game on the other end). But since the Rockets backup plan at center is a 41 year old defensive specialist who has played exactly 19 minutes in 2008 (yes, Dikemebe Mutombo is still in the NBA), I don't see them making up for this huge loss and continuing the run of success they've enjoyed over the last couple of months. Its hard to play half court basketball when your best inside threat is Luis Scola.

The Yao injury also gives me the opportunity to talk about my dislike for the way the NBA MVP gets picked every year. Too often writers pick the award based on a vague determination of which player on a good team had the best statistical year or made an already good team "great." They'd much rather name an MVP who made a 45-50 win team turn into a 60-65 win team (Steve Nash) than name an MVP who made a twenty win team into a 50 win team (Lebron).

Anyway I bring this up because I think people underestimate how important Yao is to the Rockets: they are going to SUCK without him. I'll be very surprised if they even get to 45 wins this year, which sounds like a decent number but which only requires them to go 9-16 over the rest of the season. With Yao the Rockets were on pace to win 55 games, without him they'd probably win 30-35. He's certainly not the MVP, as that honor clearly goes to Lebron. But besides King James and Dwight Howard, Yao is probably one of the most valuable players in the NBA, a guy worth 20-25 wins to the Rockets. The only other players in the league who come close to that this year are Chris Paul, Kevin Garnett, and maybe Kobe. Baron Davis? The way Monta's been playing the Warriors would still win 35 games without him. Dirk? Steve Nash? Not this year. Tim Duncan? The Spurs are still winning 45 without Ginobili and Parker.

Youtube link of the day: 5'9" Nate Robinson blocking Yao (yes, I know this goes against everything I just wrote about how Yao is a top 5 MVP candidate, but its awesome enough that I have to post it anyway).

Gary Busey is the man...

For anyone who hasn't seen it already, check out this video of Gary Busey putting in a Joe Namath-esque performance in creeping the shit out of Jennifer Garner and Ryan Seacrest before the Oscars last night. I don't even want to get started on how ridiculous red carpet shows are: many other people have smugly critiqued or angrily attacked the celebrity-obsessed culture we live in with far more eloquent and funny words that I can ever hope to write here. But I will say I loved it when the overproduced crapfest that is the Oscar preshow got interrupted by some good old spontaneous weirdness.

As for the Oscars themselves, I thought they were pretty underwhelming overall: would it have killed them to throw Eddie Vedder up there with a guitar to perform a couple songs from the awesome soundtrack he wrote for Into the Wild? We really needed three terrible songs from Enchanted? I won't say it was an awful show, John Stewart had a few good lines (I thought the Yom Kippur/Atonement joke was funny at least), but overall I think underwhelming is the best way to describe the night, Gary Buscey aside.

And yeah, I know this is supposed to be a sports blog, and I've kind of been slacking on that lately, but I think that's largely because we're caught in the February doldrums right now. February really is the worst month on the sprots calendar: the NBA and NHL are months away from the playoffs, football is done, we're still a month from anyone really starting to pay attention to baseball, and the Big Dance is still a few weeks away. Its looking more and more like the presidential nomination will be wrapped up int he next couple weeks, so look for more sports stuff going forward, but for now I might keep throwing up Gary Busey videos until we start seeing something interesting in the sports world.

Important/Current event/serious link of the day: great piece about the war in Afghanistan in this week's NY Times Sunday Magazine. My buddy Rob forwarded me this article, it really is one of the better (and more depressing) pieces I've read about what it's like to be an American soldier fighting in the Middle East. We need to be reading more concrete examples like this and less rhetorical bullshit spewed out by pundits and politicians (on both sides of the aisle) thousands of miles away from the front lines. Wherever your views might fall on the political spectrum, I think its hard to argue with the fact that, in recent history, America's foreign policy has been shaped and influenced far too strongly by ideological dogma than by the actual situation on the ground.

Light-hearted link of the day: Manatees have to be the stupidest animals in the world. Kudos to my little bro for this one.

Playstation Numbers

"Playstation Numbers"

I had never seen this phrase until BP (that's Baseball Prospectus for those of you aren't huge baseball dorks) writer Kevin Goldstein used it to describe a Padres prospect in his column today.

Anyway I instantly took a liking to the phrase, because I get tired of using the same few adjectives to describe an athlete putting up great stats: my go-to is usually ridiculous, though I'll occasionally throw in an amazing, outstanding, mind-boggling, or outrageous if I'm feeling it. So, whether or not Goldstein came up with it originally, its nice to have a new phrase to describe someone putting up outrageous/amazing/mind-bogglingly good stats. A few athletes who I think fit the bill: Barry Bonds 2001-2004 (steroid aided or not), Alex Rodriguez last year, Lebron James this year, and Wayne Gretzsky throughout the 1980s. This might turn into a full column with definitions later, but for now I'll stick to the obvious ones.

I also like the video game tie-in because it reminded me of my initial reaction upon seeing Baron Davis hit yet another game winning shot for the W's against the Celtics last night: he's on fire when it comes to last second shots. Not sportscaster talking about someone going 6-8 from downtown on fire, not John Kruk talking about the Yankees winning 10 of 11 on fire, legit, old-school, NBA Jam you literally are not going to miss a shot on fire. Is there anyone else in the NBA you would rather have taking a shot with the game on the line right now? Kobe and Lebron are good, Agent Zero had some success over the last couple of years, but right now Baron Davis is the most clutch player in the NBA, no questions asked. Baron isn't on fire with making last-second shots, he's OOOOONNNNN FIIIRRRREEE (in the NBA Jam crazy announcer voice) when it comes to game-winners.

Note: after watching this clip from youtube I decided that the announcer's voice was nowhere near as loud or awesome as I remembered it. Amazing how our perception of video games changes so quickly, I remember being amazed at the original Playstation's graphics, which look atrociously bad compared with the stuff on the newest systems. But the point still stands...Robert Horry doesn't have shit on Boom-Dizzle, the most clutch player in the NBA right now.

Also one more thing I noticed about the NBA Standings this morning. At 33-22 the Warriors would have the 3rd best record in the Eastern conference. Right now they have the ninth best record in the west and would not make the playoffs if the season ended today. Exactly two teams in the eastern conference have a winning record against the west: the Celtics (who the Warriors beat last night) and the Pistons. I legitimately believe the Warriors would be a 55-60 win team if they played in the Eastern conference right now.

Youtube clip of the day: something I found while searching "nba jam on fire" on youtube. And further proof that my generation is absolutely retarded when it comes to coming up with drinking games.

Election catch-up and random thoughts

Spin it however you will, but Obama just drained that killer three. Hilary needs a miracle to get back in the race...not only does she need to win both Ohio and Texas, but she needs to win them by relatively large (we're talking at least 10%) margins, and even doing that she will probably still be behind Obama in delegates. Barring a huge scandal or some other sort of catastrophic collapse on Obama's part he should get the nomination.

Hilary has staked her campaign on the idea that she is the candidate best prepared to resist the republican attack machine, but look at the latest general election matchup poll put out by Reuters/Zogby:

McCain 50% Clinton 38%
Obama 47% McCain 40%

Hilary talks about how change doesn't really mean anything unless you can actually get stuff done while you're in office, but you have to get elected to office in order to bring about any change at all. If Hilary can't defeat a junior senator from Illinois with four years of experience in Washington how is she going to defeat a war-hero with over 20 years of experience in the senate and a reputation for reaching across party lines? Hilary once whined about being the victim of a "vast, right-wing conspiracy", and the truth is American voters from both parties want somebody who is willing to compromise to get stuff done, not rehash the old fights from the 1990s. This is why Mitt Romney Version 2.0 (Conservative Avenger Edition) got his ass kicked by John McCain, and this is why Obama is all but assured of being the Democratic nominee.

Switching gears, a few other random thoughts on the sports world:

The Chris Webber signing is not looking good for the W's. He's old, decrepit, and only put up 9 points against the Jazz last night. In my take on the signing I mentioned that I didn't think Webber would help against the big guns in the west, making him a non-factor in the playoff run since the W's were only going to beat quality teams by playing their own run and gun style. which Webber can't keep up with. So far Webber has sat out a game against the Suns and been a non-factor against the Jazz....he might just be getting into playing shape still but I think its time to start the Brendan Wright movement. If Nellie wants to give playing time to a big man he might as well give a young kid the chance to show what he can do.

Great dunk contest this year.

I'll talk about this more in my baseball preview, but the A's are not going to be as bad as a lot of people think they are this year. By getting rid of Kotsay and Kendall they've jettisoned a good chunk of ridiculously bad offense, and there is no way they suffer from the same injury problems they did last year. They're not making the playoffs, but they could win 75-80 games.

Roger Clemens: who cares. Lets play ball. Though he does give me my youtube clip of the day, check out this awesome NESN commercial from the 80s features the rocket when he wasn't trying so hard to keep his distance from the long arm of the law.

Race for the Dem. Nomination: the basketball analogy

There can be no mistaking the fact that Obama laid an absolute smackdown on Hilary last night. He certainly does not have the nomination wrapped up, but for him to win Virginia and Maryland by the margins he did (and do as well as he did among women, whites, older people, stoned hippies, independent business owners making between 50,000 and 52,000 dollars a year, and just about every other group the political pundits care to come up with) is a very good sign for the Obama campaign. He is definitely in the driver's seat right now.

Since sports and politics are my two favorite things to write about these days, I think using a sports metaphor here is appropriate:

Obama is the NCAA tournament underdog taking a six point lead and possession into a timeout with around two minutes left to play against a top-seeded squad that plays some of the best defense in the country. Obama fills the role of team leader: everyone knew he was good, but nobody thought he could explode for 34 points and several clutch threes against this fundamentally sound favorite who has shut down every other opponent they've played so far this season. Sure, he might give them a run, but everyone just knew this favorite was going to go all the way and had filled out their brackets accordingly.

But now the underdog has the favorite on the ropes, the student section (Obama's longtime supporters) are going absolutely batshit crazy, the neutral crowd who just want to see some basketball (the Democratic establishment) are jumping on the bandwagon because they love seeing an underdog win and are tired of the same old boring basketball powers winning the title every year, the arena is rocking at a million decibles and Gus Johnson's head is about to explode he's getting so excited about the possibility of this upset.

Meanwhile the favored opponent, which got to the tournament on the strength of their fundamentals and defense (they don't do anything flashy but inevitably wear teams down over time with their general competence and solid play) is in all kinds of trouble. Their hardcore fans (people like Charles Schumer, Ted Strickland, Tom Vilsack, etc) have that "I can't believe this is happening, we were supposed to be a lock for the Final Four, we have three seniors who are guaranteed NBA first rounders starting!!!" look on their faces. The coach is desperately subbing in guys of the bench (Hilary firing her campaign manager) to try and light a fire under the team. Their game all year has been playing fundamentally sound ball and forcing other teams to make mistakes, but now they need fire and creative energy, someone to step up and start making plays to get them back in the game.

So coming out of this timeout (the break between yesterday's Potomac primaries and the upcoming contests in Wisconsin and Hawaii) Obama is dribbling down the court with the ball with an six point lead and just under two minutes left in the game. This possession (the Wisconsin and Hawaii primaries next Tuesday) isn't do or die for him: after all, he's up by six. But a couple things can happen during this trip down the court.

1. Obama turns the ball over and Hilary takes it coast to coast for a quick dunk to cut the lead to four. Real world equivlent: Obama losing in Wisconsin. He still is up by four, but the crowd has been temporarily silenced and Hilary's team is up off the bench and shouting again. Its very much still a game and the underdog needs to respond.

2. Obama runs down the clock but bricks the shot, giving Hilary the ball back still down by six. She needs to make some baskets, but the crowd has quieted down a little bit and she still has some hope. Real world equivlent: Obama winning Wisconsin by a narrow margin, giving Hilary some hope. She still needs to make baskets quickly (win in Ohio and Texas) to catch up, and with good defense and a made shot or two Obama still should win, but things are certainly not over.

3. Obama runs the clock down to about 1:30 left, then drains a three Boom-Dizzle style in Hilary's eye to make it a nine point game. The crowd goes absolutely insane, Hilary's coach disgustedly calls another time out, and things are looking very, very dire in Clinton-land. Real world equivlent: Obama cleaning up in Wisconsin like he did in Virginia and Maryland. This scenario makes things very tough for Hilary: now down by 9, she needs to both start making threes (winning in Ohio, Texas, and probably Pennsylvania) and start fouling Obama (going negative) if she has any chance of winning now. At this point the only way the underog (Obama) is losing is if they cant make their free throws (winning in the remaining states that favor him and staying on message) and Clinton's desperation threes start falling: if he stays on his game it should be all over.

So there you have it: Obama (a huge basketball fan, for those of you who don't know), is walking the ball up the court, up by six, with a chance to all but put the game away. Does he have the killer instinct to drain that three? We'll find out next Tuesday.

The Internet and the Death of Sportscenter

Sportscenter sucks. So does Baseball Tonight. These things should be blatantly obvious to anyone who has watched either show for more than the past couple of years: they used to give you highlights with occasionally funny and insightful commentary. Now both shows give you the occasional highlight with a heaping serving of crappy features, retarded running segments that serve only to give the announcers another avenue to repeat the same crappy, shallow analysis they give out during the rest of the show, and a gigantic shitstorm of stories involving involving steroids, scandals, athletes getting arrested, or even which celebrity Tom Brady happened to bang last week. If I want to watch Sportscenter I want to see sports, not hear Scott Van Pelt breaking down an NFL quarterback's sex life.

ANyway I go on this rant not to state an obvious point (otherwise how would i be any different than every anchor/analyst currently on the show), but to make a prediction: Sportscenter, Baseball Tonight, and every similar highlight show will be off the air within 5 years.

Why? The answer, of course, lies with the internet: when Sportscenter was in its heyday in the mid-90s the internet was just getting going, and while you might be lucky enough to find box scores or game summaries online you sure as hell weren't finding streaming video highlights (can you imagine how long it would take one 30 second youtube clip to load on a 28K dial-up) online. Sportscenter and Baseball Tonight used to be awesome because they were the only place to go to see a genuine wrap-up of the day in sports besides the next mornings paper or the 6 minute segment on the local news.

Now, however, you can find almost any highlight you want within hours (if not minutes) of a game ending, negating the need to check out sportscenter if you wanted to actually wanted to see what happened outside of your local teams. This is one of the reasons theyve moved towards the vapid crap that now characterizes each show: the hardcore fans left a long time ago, so they need to appeal to the casual sports fans who might actually want updates on Tony Romo's lovelife. The hardcore fan who cares about how Romo performs against different defensive packages left a longtime ago to go read Football Outsiders.

The same thing holds true for in-depth analysis by experts: it used to be that Peter Gammons was the end all and be all of baseball reporters, with the occasional yearly statistical summary book produced by someone like Bill James or Ron Shandler. You watched Baseball Tonight because it was one of the only places to get analysis of your team beyond the local newscaster making bullshit small talk with the anchor about how excited people are for another Barry Bonds home run (and yes, I'm talking to your A's hating, biased ass Gary Radnich: I hope you enjoy KRON getting railed by every other tv station in the bay).

Now, however, with the rise of Rotoworld, Baseball Prospectus, Hoopsworld, and, yes, espn.com (which has smartly hired some of the best analysts, bloggers, and writers in the world), you can get in-depth coverage on any important (or not so important) development within hours of whatever happens without having to wade through loads of crap you don't care about. With sportscenter I had to watch an hours worth of highlights to get 30 seconds about one of my teams, so whatever was said was inevitably simple, shallow, and something I already knew because its hard to really say something when you've only got 30 seconds. Now, I can just go to athleticsnation or Golden State of Mind and find instant links to every story about the team and every expert opinion about what how the team is doing and where it needs to go from here.

So farewell to Sportscenter and Baseball Tonight, you guys gave it a good run while it lasted, and I'm sure Chris Berman can still find someone to pay him to come up with godawful nicknames for sports figures. Enjoy the twilight years, I'll be on Fire Joe MOrgan, where Ken Tremendous skewers columnists with posts 50 times funnier than anything that ever left the mouth of John Kruk.

Youtube magic of the day: How much would you give for your team to win a championship?

Diesel to the Valley of the Sun

I would give analysis of the Shaq-Marion trade, but i think my buddy Aaron summed it up best when I was talking to him earlier today: the Suns gave every basketball writer in the country the opportunity to write their easiest story of the year. As the AP story proclaimed:

Phoenix, the NBA's fastest team, acquires slow, once-mighty giant -- Shaquille O'Neal

You know this trade is terrible when even the always sure to be neutral AP refers to Shaq as "slow" and "once-mighty."

This evens things out for the Warriors in the Pacific division. The Lakers' trade for Gasol makes them the prohibitive favorite, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Warriors pass the Diesel powered Suns (don't the Suns know their offense runs best on high-octane? Sorry, that was atrociously corny). Though i will say I'm somewhat excited for a Shaq C-Dubb matchup so we can pretend its 1995 again.

Your youtube magic of the day: Shaq welcoming Yao to the NBA

And in all fairness I love Shaq and his sense of humor, I just think its riduculous the Suns are trading Marion for him.

Election Wrap-Up

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Super Tuesday

I'm taking a day off from sports to talk about Super Tuesday and the presidential primaries. In the interest of disclosure I'm an Obama supporter, so my already dubious predictions are going to be that much more skewed, but here's a shot at what I think is going to happen today.

General Storyline: Obama surpasses expectations, especially in the west, Clinton wins enough states to fight on.

Obama wins:
Alabama 55-42
Alaska 55-40
California 47-46
Colorado 49-46
Connecticut 47-46
Deleware 48-44
Georgia 54-39
Idaho 48-40
Illinois 65-30
Kansas 46-43
Minnesota 47-45
North Dakota 48-44
Utah 54-40

Clinton wins
Arizona 49-46
Arkansas 62-35
Massachusetts 51-47
Missouri 46-45
New Mexico 44-42
New Jersey 50-44
New York 56-41
Oklahoma 58-35
Tennessee 54-41


I would put the delegate counts here but with the way the Democrats assign delegates its a pointless exercise because its going to depend on individual congressional districts, etc. This result would provide huge momentum for Obama but wouldn't be enough to knock Clinton out yet, especially because a number of Obama's states don't have many delegates.

And for the Republicans, McCain knocks Romney out in a landslide. West Virginia already went against him, if Romney takes much beyond Massachusetts, Utah, and maybe a couple of the other small states in the west (Idaho is a definitely possibility since its 23% Mormon) I'll be shocked. Anyone thinking California is going for Romney is smoking a little too much of Cali's finest.

Funny link of the day (we'll switch away from youtube for a second): Hip-Hop Graphs.

Biggest Upset Ever?

Some general thoughts on Super Bowl 42, the Santana trade, the Gasol trade

Point differential and why this is the biggest upset in NFL History:

Everyone is (correctly) highlighting the fact that it seems incredible that the 16-0 Patriots could lose to a 10-6 Giants team that most people didn't expect to get past the first round of the playoffs. But I like to look at point differential as a true measure of a teams greatness, and doing this makes the Patriots loss even more ridiculous than it does when looking at records alone.

For an example of why point differential is a better measure of dominance than wins and losses alone, take two hypothetical teams: both play the same schedule, one goes 14-2, one goes 16-0. The 16-0 team wins every game by a score of 23-20, the 14-2 team outscores its opponents 56-0 in every win while only losing by a score of 14-13 in its two losses. Its pretty clear that the 16-0 team got lucky in winning all of its game by close margins and probably isn't as good as its record indicates, while the 14-2 team, despite its inferior record, is probably the better team, as it absolutely dominated all season outside of those two close losses. Obviously there are other variables that need to be considered (injuries, style of play, ability to close teams out), but usually teams that win games by a lot are better than teams that squeak out a lot of close wins.

Anyway this hypothetical scenario is obviously a little extreme compared to what happens in an actual season, but the general point is that point differntial provides a better measure of a team's quality than win-loss record does. This matters for Super Bowl 42 because the Patriots had the biggest point differential in the history of the NFL (589-274), making their 16-0 season that much more ridiculous, while the Giants (373-351) had the worst point differential of any playoff team from the NFC. The Giants may of had a better record than the Redskins and Bucs, but according to point differential the Giants were the second worst team in the playoffs, and one of the worst teams to ever make the Super Bowl (much less win it) in the first place. So when Brady threw that incompletion on 4th down last night, you weren't just witnessing the end of the Patriots quest for an undefeated season, you were witnessing the greatest upset in the history of the NFL.

So congrats to the Giants for their incredible win, and thanks for saving the sports world from the potential Boston three-peat where the Red Sox, Pats, and Celtics could have all been the reigning world champions come this spring. The cockiness coming out of New England was going far beyond that of New York fans after the Yankees late 90s series runs, and I'd rather put up with more crap coming out of ESPN about the New YOrk-Boston rivalry than have to listen to my Boston friends tell me about their more than slightly homoerotic man-crushes on Tom Brady any longer.


The Santana trade, the short version of the analysis: Great trade for the Mets, the Twins got shafted (especially when compared to what the A's got for Danny Haren), I'm not entirely sold on the contract but considering it isn't that much more ridiculous than what the Giants gave Zito in terms of the raw figures I have to say its not too terible. If Zito can get 18 million a year for throwing up an ERA over 4.50 in the NATIONAL LEAGUE last year you have to figure Santana is worth 22-23 million a year for being the best pitcher in baseball over the last three seasons. If Santana stays healthy the contract looks golden, if he gets into trouble (a possibility with any pitcher) than the contract looks a little overpriced but the Mets are one of the few teams in baseball (the Red Sox, Yankees, and maybe Angels and Cubs) that can afford to eat big contracts while still staying competitive. Finally, the Mets are now far and away the favorites to win the National League, despite the fact that you could make the argument that the three best teams in the National League all play in the NL East (Mets, Phillies, and Braves).

Gasol trade: Awesome, awesome trade for the Lakers, if Bynum comes back healthy you have to figure that they're now the favorites to win the West. Obviously I'm pissed about this as a Warriors fan, since it makes the W's road to the playoffs that much harder, but it should provide for me great basketball for the second half of the season. I still think the Warriors have a great shot at getting the 7 or 8 seed because I don't think the Rockets are that good and the Blazers can't keep up their hot pace, but I wouldn't be surprised if it takes 47-48 wins to make the playoffs in the west and the Warriors find themselves on the outside looking in. Also, check out the first round matchups in the West if the playoffs started today:

Golden State (8) vs. Phoenix (1)
Denver (7) v. New Orleans (2)
San Antonio (6!!!!???) v. Dallas (3)
Lakers (5) v. Utah (4).

Every single one of those series looks incredible, especially when compared with the utter crapfest that is the Eastern Conference this year besides the Celtics and Pistons. After actually watching the Wizards and Cavs play recently I'm convinced that not one of the Eastern conference teams would make the playoffs in the west besides Detroit and Boston. Not one.

Your youtube magic of the day: Regis farting live on tv. The look on his face before he lets it out by itself makes it worth checking this out.