Baseball-Football Roundup
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by Niteowl049
Baseball Notebook
Hot Stove League Roundup
Free Agency Season Opens Soon
As of Tuesday midnight free agents will no longer be restricted to making deals with their present clubs but will be able to negotiate with any team they wish. This is when the hot stove league really gets interesting as the players start changing teams which gives fodder for media to chew over during the offseason.
Of paramount interest is who will sign Alex Rodriguez and at what salary. His agent Scott Boras famous for playing hardball will probably not sign Rodriguez with anyone anytime soon unless they get an offer immediately in the $350 million range.
Larry King Says Kent Will Play for Torre
Larry King recently talked to Jeff Kent on the phone and Kent told King he is excited about playing for Joe Torre in 2008. Looking at the stats of the 2007 Dodgers it is clear to see that the offense needs some improvement with Kent leading the team in home runs with 20 despite missing 36 games. Russell Martin led the team in RBI's with 87 with Kent second with 78. When you compare their stats with Rockies who had five players with more than 90 RBI's and see the Dodgers only had two players with more than 68 RBI's you can see how reliant the Dodgers were on their pitching.
James Loney deserves to stay in the majors all season in 2008 after only getting 344 at bats last season in majors. Juan Pierre finished ninth on the team in RBI's with 41 which is terrible considering the NL lets pitchers bat and finished 13th on the team in OBP with a .331 mark. Nobody expects him to hit a home run since he hit none in 668 at bats but having only 32 extra base hits was a major disappointment. Pierre fell four hits short of having 200 hits and stole 64 bases. Pierre is a two tool player at best and it explains him being with three teams in the last three years.
Football Weekend to Remember
Tennessee 34 Arkansas 13
Tennessee Volunteers who slowed down Darren McFadden defeated Arkansas Razorbacks by a 34-13 score here in Knoxville in front of 104,459 fans. McFadden who rambled for 321 yards the previous week was held to 118 yards and Arkansas scored only one touchdown to go with two field goals.
The win moved Tennessee from 24th to 19th in the AP Top 25 poll and kept their chances of appearing in the 2007 SEC championship game alive. Vanderbilt is coming off a 27-10 loss to Kentucky and will be playing Tennessee in Knoxville next Saturday. Tennessee is 6-0 at home this season with their only losses on the road to California, Florida and Alabama and the Vols allowed 145 points in their only three losses.
Wisconsin and Illinois Win Major Upsets
Wisconsin and Illinois both went into last Saturday's games unranked despite both having 7-3 records but by the end of day Wisconsin had upset the Michigan Wolverines 37-21 and Illinois had upset No.1 Ohio State by a 28-21 score. Both teams boosted their chances of being in a bowl game now that they are both 8-3 on the season.
The Ohio State loss gave the LSU Tigers who defeated sacrificial lamb Louisiana Tech 58-10 the No.1 ranking in both the BCS and AP Top 25 polls and has them in line for the national championship game unless they falter against Mississippi or Arkansas in their remaining two games. LSU has played Louisiana Tech 18 times and has outscored them 616-42 in those games. It raises the question of which teams play the most sacrificial lambs in a season.
LSU has played three sacrificial lambs this season in Middle Tennessee, Tulane and La. Tech who were outscored by LSU 136-19. It is safe to say that most major teams have at least three games in which they only have to show up to post a win although an Appalachian State may sneak in for a win like they did against Michigan.
Nick Saban has to have lost some of his luster after losing back to back games against LSU and Mississippi State. They almost have a guaranteed win this weekend playing against Louisiana-Monroe with a 2-8 record but the way things are going for Saban he can't be too sure of anything. They beat Mississippi by only 3 points and Mississippi is 0-6 in SEC play.
Alabama's only rout in SEC play was their 41-17 win over Tennessee. With the Auburn game looming in two weeks they need to win both of their remaining games to finish 8-4 on the season. Three of their four SEC wins have come against Vanderbilt, Arkansas and Mississippi all of whom are currently unranked. He may have Alabama playing better than in the past but still is not earning the $4 million he is being paid.
Pro Football Weekend
Saints Upset By Rams 37-29
Saints continued their tradition of losing to a bad team when it looks like they were getting untracked from a horrific 0-4 start by winning four games in a row. Saints lost to the Rams who came into the game with an 0-8 record by a 37-29 score. Only the Colts have scored more points against the Saints when they beat the Saints 41-10 in the opening game of the season.
Reggie Bush only had 17 yards rushing with only 7 carries and Saints only had 43 rushing yards. This is why 0-8 teams can be dangerous having nothing to lose and everything to gain and they caught the Saints offguard like the Saints were caught offguard a few years ago when they apparently were headed to the playoffs then lost to Lions and Browns teams they should have beaten and fell out of playoff contention. The Saints will break the hearts of their fans everytime and have been doing it for 40 years now. Saints are 4-5 and yet only a game behind Tampa Bay in NFC South and six of their seven remaining games come against teams who currently have losing records so they need to beat Tampa Bay when they face them on December 2nd and win most of the other games they have remaining on schedule.
Favre Leads Green Bay To 2 Game Lead Over Detroit
Brett Favre led the Green Bay Packers 8-1 to a 34-0 shutout win over the Minnesota Vikings who were expecting another big rushing day from Adrian Peterson who had set a NFL record last week with 296 yards rushing against the Chargers. Instead Peterson was held to 45 yards and only 4.1 yards a carry. Even worse he is scheduled to have an MRI exam today to examine his right knee which was injured on a tackle by Al Harris. The win moved them to two games ahead of Detroit.
Favre threw for over 300 yards for the sixth time in the last seven weeks and his day was made easier by the balanced attack Ryan Grant gave them Sunday with him rushing for 119 yards. Favre passed the 60,000 yards mark and needs 1105 yards to pass Dan Marino who has 61,361 yards for the all time mark.
Favre was 33 for 46 with 351 yards passing and threw no interceptions and was not sacked. Favre leads all NFL passers with 2757 yards with Tom Brady second with 2686 yards. Brady does lead in touchdowns with 33 while Favre is 5th with 16. After having 47 interceptions over the last 2 seasons Favre only has 8 this season in 9 games.
The way Favre is playing at the age of 38 there is no reason for him to retire unless the Packers wind up winning the Super Bowl and he wanted to finish on top. Packers host Carolina who they should be able to beat next Sunday then play Lions on Thanksgiving Day in Detroit. For once the Lions game on Thanksgiving Day will mean something. So many of those games lately meant nothing to the Lions since they were already out of running by Thanksgiving.
Mannings Take the Day Off
Peyton Manning Throws Six Interceptions
Peyton and Eli Manning may have been on the field yesterday but they just as well have been on the bench the way they played. Neither one brought their A game with them on Sunday.
Peyton Manning passed for 328 yards while the opposing quarterback Phillip Rivers threw for only 104 yards but Manning threw six interceptions. Despite all the interceptions the Chargers only won by a 23-21 score because LaDainian Tomlinson could only total 76 yards rushing and only has two 100 yard games this season and six times has been held to less than 80 yards rushing.
Manning had five interceptions in the first half which ended with the Chargers leading 23-7 but Manning threw a touchdown pass in second half which combined with the Colts recovering a fumble in the Chargers end zone moved them to within 23-21 but a missed field goal by Adam Vinatieri with 1:31 left in the game enabled the Chargers to win the game and move into first place in AFC West a game ahead of Denver and Kansas City.
Eli Manning Has 6 Drives Of Less Than 8 Yards
Eli Manning just can't seem to win the big one. Cowboys and Giants were tied 17-17 at the half but the Giants could only muster a field goal in the second half and lost to Cowboys 31-20. Manning threw for 236 yards but he couldn't get the team in the end zone in the second half except for the field goal by Lawrence Tynes with 13:18 in the fourth quarter.
Cowboys scored on last possession of the first half and the first two possession of the second half and played solid defense holding the Giants to three points in the second half.
Manning had led the Giants to a six game winning streak before yesterday but all six of those teams are currently sporting losing records. Their three losses have come at the hands of Green Bay and two losses to the Cowboys. The game with Detroit on Sunday is crucial for the Giants to win since they have four consecutive games after that with teams that have current losing records before facing two AFC East opponents with winning records as of yesterday in Buffalo and New England.
Manning is 20th in quarterback ratings with a 78.6 mark. He is 27th in completion percentage at 59.4. Manning is 14th in passing yardage with 1820 yards which is 937 yards behind the leader Brett Favre with 2757. He is 27th in yards per catch percentage with 6.43 yards per catch and is next to last in interceptions with 11 with only Drew Brees worse with 12.
Manning may have made a mistake by demanding to be traded after being drafted No.1 by the Chargers who he was too good to play for. NFL needs to make No.1 players play at least one season with the team they were drafted instead of making exceptions like they did for Manning and John Elway. Elway refused to play for the Colts so he could be traded to the Broncos. It was a good move for him but not fair to others who didn't have the clout to keep from playing for the worst teams.
If Manning had stayed with the Chargers he would be in first place instead of looking up at the Cowboys in first place.
