Baseball Awards, College Hoops, Athlete Whores, and A-Fraud

And you guys thought I can't prognosticate effectively when it comes to baseball! AT the end of the season, I said the NL Manager of the Year should go o Bob Melvin, with Jolly Chollie as the least talented runner-up in history and Hurdle third. I also said Wedge shuold win in the AL. And I said Carmona shuold win CY Yound over Beckett and Lackey, with Pedroia winning the AL Rookie of the Year. Bam. Got em all. The only one I missed so far was when Ryan Bruan was scandalously given the NL Rookie of the Year after turning in 2/3 of a one dimensional season nistead of the two way star Troy Tulowitzky.

The evil empire (not the Yankees, the Tar Heels!) barely escaped with a win over a really good Davidson team last night. Bob McKillop and his Wildcats were in a position to knock off Maryland in the first round of the NCAA tournament last year before fading late (and only pushing a 7 ponit spread, ugh!), and they look to be even better this year. They hung right with the alleged #1 Tar Heels the entire game before coming up just short in the end. Stephen Curry, son of Dell, is the real deal, and the 'Cats could get over the hump and win at least a game in this year's dance.

Overall in college hoops, there seems to be great talent and great parity this year. And how about the Atlantic Sun conference! Gardner Webb beat Kentucky in Rupp by 16, Belmont beat Cincinnati (which may not end up being that big a deal) in the Bearcats home opener, and Mercer (yes, Mercer!) ruining O.J. Mayo's impressive debut by beat the Ttrojans of USC. And, by the way, none of those teams were favored to win the league in the preseason forecasts. East Tennessee St. is supposed to be teh team to beat, while Gardner Webb was picked at or near the bottom of the pecking order. Good times! Unless you are Billy Gillespie...

There should be some great college basketball all week next week, as there are the traditional tournaments in Alaska, Hawaii (go Duke), Puerto Rico, etc. It will be wall to wall college sports on ESPN next week. Treee-men-dous....

My friend AJ sent this list to me. Click here to see a blog posting devoted to athletes that have spawned illigitimate children. Funny and fascinating.

The only thing good about A-Rod besides his regular season performance is that he finally seemed to realize that his agent Scott "Bore-us" is an ass and put him on the back burner. Why he doesn't fire him I am not sure. Anyway, A-Rod went crawling back to the Yankees, who unfortunately are eagerly talking about a new $275 million deal. My buddy Kevin New described this situation best:

I guess all that matters is that ARod has not delivered in the playoffs
for the Yankees. Period. He's not alone, and does not deserve all the blame,
but I would rather see the team go in another direction, knowing full well
that you can't replace his regular season numbers.

I've never met him either but you have to be living under a rock, or
outside NY, to not want to throw up every time you hear the guy talk. Everything
is so scripted, nothing seems genuine. He clearly isn't liked in the clubhouse
and I think that the chemistry has been off since he got here. Could blame Jeter
for that b/c I think he could have made it a lot easier on Arod but chose not
to, I think that speaks volumes.