Baseball Awards 2012

Here is something that I still don't understand about baseball and the way that they reward their regular season awards. You would think that they would have some sort of showcase or at least a small tv or online special that they could champion the faces of baseball and also grab a little coverage for the sport during the off season  At the very least it would or could add some decent publicity and programming time to the MLB Network or one of the many other sports specific networks. NBC sports has a new channel, CBS Sports has a new channel, obviously there is Fox Sports and the mothership ESPN.

Another point that shows that they are throwing away an opportunity to help promote the game of baseball and keep the sport in the front of mind when they are in the off season  I understand that holding off announcing the winners 2 weeks after the end of the World Series helps do that but announcing 1 a day for 3 or 4 days does a disservice, plus it is annoying and more likely to be lost on the casual fan. These are major awards for your sport why would you not want to celebrate the best of the best in your game? You play 162 regular season games and these guys are the faces of your sport, promote them, promote the game.

The Gold Glove awards were announced yesterday and there were a few interesting choices and also a few of what you will expect.There were 9 first time award winners. It is nice to see that the voters seemed to make an effort to get a correct list and not just give it to the same guys every year just to be lazy. It was also  good to see Braves right fielder Jason Heyward grab a Gold Glove. For a full list click HERE

                                           

One interesting point that I noticed was the fact that the Orioles managed to have 3 players get the nod. A good achievement for sure in sheer volume but what sticks out isn't even the players that won but the positions that they played. The Orioles were a surprise team this year in the AL East and qualified for the Wild Card Play-In Game and it is clear that defense played a role in them getting there. People always say that pitching and defense win championships, those same people also say that you want to be a team that is strong up the middle. If that is true then the Baltimore team followed that blueprint. The 3 Gold Glove winners were Catcher Matt Wieters, Shortstop J.J. Hardy, and Center Fielder Adam 'Don't call me Pac-Man' Jones. That is solid D in all field general positions and probably why they were as good as the team as they were. It was a bit surprising that Mike Trout did not get the nod as he is one of the games most exciting defenders and it is not easy to stand out as a defender. That could be the first of a couple of snubs to Trout. He will be assured the rookie of the year but may fall short on the MVP front. Miguel Cabrera's Triple Crown season may have slipped past Trout's achievements. 

It would be interesting to see what the results would be had MVP voting came after the post season. I am sure some votes would be changed. Poor batting in the World Series in combination with his less then warm demeanor may have changed the vote by some of the writers. I think the feel good rookie story would have been rewarded more for that reason, plus, Trout seems to be a more approachable guy. Popularity always plays a part whenever anyone is in a position to vote for anything.

Quick Hits

National Football League star Albert Haynesworth is being sued for $10 million by an exotic dancer who claims he impregnated her and then abandoned her, the New York Post reported.
The NFL is not catching a break during the off season again. Each year it is almost worth the effort to get into, as the comish calls it, "personal conduct" pool. Between this story the Rothlesburger situation and the regular drug issues the NFL continues to be shown in a bad light. Luckily it is the one sport that fan’s don’t care what happens as long as the product on the field is still good...the cheaters and bad guys are usually the ones that get rewarded.

Reigning champion Roger Federer was a second-round winner Wednesday at the French Open. One can only presume that this is setting up for yet another showdown between himself and the clay specialist Rafael Nadal. Nadal’s dominance on clay is only matched by his record vs Federer something in the neighbourhood of 14-7.

The Ottawa Seantors have signed Brodeur!!! Correction, Senators have re-signed goaltender Mike Brodeur to a 2 way contract. Hey it is something at least. Gotta find the silver lining as it looks like the team will be losing Anton Volchenkov as a free agent July 1 unless rights get traded but that is unlikely to happen. Lets just hope that the youngsters Patrick Wiercioch and Jared Cowen are able to make the team and be an unlikely surprise.

Thanks to NBC for not allowing the Stanley Cup to start until Saturday night. Seems like a network that has no "real money" invested in the NHL holds so much power on when it starts. This experiment to get it in view of more Americans may be better off to try and mend the fences with ESPN and ABC family and get some coverage that way and away from Versus and NBC. A Thursday start would have made sense, which is why it is starting on Saturday...Logic and common sense is not the network or Leagues strong suit.

Time is Killing The Radio Star

Is there anything better then sitting out on the patio in the summertime with a nice cold beverage listening to America’s Pastime (even if you are Canadian...don’t be so PC!)? There is something soothing about listening to the theatre of the mind with the context of a sporting event. If done well it is very entertaining and relaxing. That unfortunately is beginning to be more and more difficult. Sure with Satellite radio and laptops equipped with MLB on demand you can get just about any game if you were so inclined to sign up and pay for the service. The Only real problem with that is the quality of broadcast that you will get. Most are done well, professional and informative but it isn’t like the past. Sure what is anymore I guess. With the recent passing of legendary announcer for the Detroit Tigers, Ernie Harwell at age 92. He was part of the crew that called Bobby Thompson’s "shot heard ‘round the world" in the 1951 playoff game that determined the winner of the National League pennant. The number of all time greats are getting smaller and smaller, the Vern Scully’s for the world and the like. These were the guys that came up calling the game some before widely viewed TV and before the boom of not only all sports radio and TV but also the internet. It is that technique that we are beginning to loose. A lot of the announcers are from the new school and call games like they were doing tv, the style lacks the descriptive nature and a kind of storytelling style that made all these older guys great. There are a few out there that I really do like, I am used to hearing Jays games so I grew up on Tom Cheek and Gerry Howarth so because of that they rate decently for me. I don’t get to hear a lot of out of market games to judge them all but based on being a Braves fan I liked and was always impressed with Joe Simpson, Peter Van Wiren, Don Sutton and the Late Skip Caray. Of the newer guys I think the best I have heard is ESPN’s Dan Shulman, his is probably one of the best in the biz. The fact that he can go seamlessly between basketball and baseball is a credit to his versatility but also his ability.

Ramon Has Retired

Mr. Mia Hamm has hung up his cleats for the final time after signing a one day contract with the Boston Red Sox. After a 14-year career in which he was a six-time All-Star and two-time batting champion he has decided to hit the mic as an analyst for ESPN.

Nomar Garciaparra was the 1997 rookie of the year and had many good seasons with Boston until his departure in 2004 when he was traded mid-season to the Cubs. Nomar rejected a four-year, $60 million offer from the Red Sox that helped Boston GM Theo Epstine make the decision to ship him out of town. Nomar left town and the Red Sox won the World Series for the first time since 1918.

- SI Cover from 2001 -

I was never a big No-Mah fan and never understood why people thought he was as good as they did. He put up some god numbers for a short span but I never would put him in the league with ARod and Derek Jeter. He was a good player, not a great player. When the 3 of them were the big 3 shortstops in the game I saw a big drop off between DJ and ARod to Ramon. Maybe it was the way he carried himself, maybe it was that redonkulous finicky gimmick/superstition that he had at the plate with his gloves and toe-tapping. After he left Boston it seemed that he was never 100% healthy again and never was able to reach the numbers that people rightly or wrongly expected for him to produce. Is seemed like he was always injured and just kept getting rewarded with big contracts that I didn’t think he deserved in the first place let alone after his string of injuries. It seemed like he should be wearing a mask because he was stealing money from the teams that were paying him.

It was good of the Red Sox to sign him to the minor league deal and show that there were no hard feelings between the two parties. If nothing else the divorce between themselves and Nomar seemed amicable and this is a nice send off to a players that was popular with Red Sox Nation (just remember it became "Nomar Who" as soon as that last out was made on that groundout to Keith Foulke)

3D TV- The Future Of Sports Viewing?

There already looks to be a new wave coming to the way we not only enjoy TV and Movies but also the way that we will be able to watch sports. Just when you begin to get a taste of HD and see how superior it is to the SD that we have been accustom to they decide to take it one step further. Samsung and Panasonic will start selling 3-D TVs in U.S. stores this week, inaugurating what TV makers hope is the era of 3-D viewing in the living room. Samsung Electronics Co. announced Tuesday that it is selling two 3-D sets. Combined with the required glasses and a 3-D Blu-ray player, the prices start at about $3,000 for a 46-inch screen. Now this is just at the inception of the technology and it is very limited to the content that would be available right now but is it worth getting now if you are in the market for a TV now? Hard to tell, it is always an issue be the first to upgrade, the first of anything is a risky proposition. Bugs and issues have yet to be found or worked out and you never know if it will catch on (see BetaMax, Laser Disc or DVD HD).

The 3-D effect will require the viewers to wear relatively bulky glasses. You will need to have multiple glasses as well because they need to be recharged and you are going to always want to have a pair ready to go and also have enough if you ever have company over. They’re not like the cheap throwaways that have been used in theatres since the 1950s or available in a box of Lucky Charms Cereal. When you’re wearing these 3-D TV glasses, room lights and computer screens may look like they’re flickering, making it difficult to combine 3-D viewing with other household activities.
From all accounts though, I have heard reports from people who have seen NFL games in 3-D and they have said it is like being at the game...but better because you have better angles, viewpoints and of course convenience. The only thing it can’t give is the atmosphere of the crowd. It is supposed to be so good that it may be too good and may take away from fans wanting to go to games live and just take it in on their own home theatre system. ESPN has said it will start a channel that will broadcast live events using the technology, starting with FIFA World Cup soccer in June. I know this may be a bit of a deterrent to the technology as people may want to check out soccer in 3-D, but that would mean that they would be forced to watch soccer. I can only imagine that a lot of those special glasses will be tossed at those TV’s enraged by unwatchable soccer.

The Coverage Of Sports

As many may be aware TSN, as part of their 25th anniversary has been on the road with their Sportscenter broadcasts hitting different city’s and towns across the country.
Kraft signed on as the title sponsor and is giving $25,000 to each stop on the trip to help in funding for various sports facilities. Great for TSN and great for the cities that were involved.

Today marked the day that TSN hit the "airwaves" for the first time in 1984 at 12 noon. This changed the way that people in this country could follow and watch sports. September 1 is a very significant day for all sports programming across the board. It is 30 years to the day for ESPN to hit the air as the first all sports programing network on September 1, 1979 as well as the 20th Anniversary for TSN’s french sister station RDS which came on September 1, 1989.

We may take it for granted now, having all this coverage of events and information at our fingertips but imagine a time when that wasn’t so. We can get a Jays game almost every night of the week and if there isn’t a game you can probably find a Red Sox or Yankees game picked up. Long are the days where you were lucky to get 1 game a week on a Saturday. Wide world of sports was where you would get to see a game and not always in its entirety. During the winter there is close to a game a week thanks to these channels. I don’t much care for the blackouts that they have for regional games. I think that If I am paying for 4 Sportsnet channels I should be privy to everything that they show just because I am in the Sens region doesn't mean that I don't appreciate watching a Calgary Flames game.. Just another of my major issues with some of the sports leagues and the CRTC. Having the option to see these events is still great to have even with the restrictions.

For the sports lovers out there, this is an anniversary that you should not miss and continue to honor each year!

Erin Andrews - A Victim Of Beauty

In a sad commentary about today’s society there has apparently been a great injustice done against a very popular sports "celebrity". ESPN reporter Erin Andrews was secretly videotaped in the nude while she was alone in a hotel room and the video was posted on the Internet, Andrews was reportedly filmed by a peephole spy camera . The blurry, five-minute video shows a nude blond woman standing in front of a hotel room mirror. It was confirmed by the network and her attorneys that it was in fact Andrews. The violation of her privacy that was unknowingly recorded and the video uploaded has since removed from most video sharing sites but which continues to live in a cached version on the Web, and has topped Google searches for the last few days.

Andrews plans to seek criminal charges and file civil lawsuits against the unknown cameraman and anyone who publishes the material. Her attorney has stated "While alone in the privacy of her hotel room, Erin Andrews was surreptitiously videotaped without her knowledge or consent," "She was the victim of a crime and is taking action to protect herself and help ensure that others are not similarly violated in the future."

Erin is one of the most popular and recognizable people at ESPN and has been referred to as "Erin Pageviews" for the amount of attention she gets from photo’s and video clips. She was a A former dance team member at the University of Florida and has been named by Playboy as the "sexiest sportscaster" in both 2008 and 2009.

To be honest I am both a fan of her and her work, and why not? She is a beautiful woman but also she is very good at what she does for ESPN as a sideline reporter. I feel bad that she was put into this situation. Sure she may use her sex appeal to help et ratings in her work covering sports but that is no reason for her to be subjected to all this. Just because she is popular and sexy that she doesn’t have some right to privacy.

All Star Games - Good, Bad or Ugly?

Last night Major League baseball held the Home Run Derby as part of their All Star Festivities. An event that is really not as exciting as one would hope, even with Chris Berman’s "Back, Back, Back, Back, Back, Back...Gone". Sure there have been a few memorable moments in the past. The Josh Hamilton show that he put on last year was a treat when he just went off for 28 in one round, Bobby Abreau who lit it up for 41 and last night when Prince Fielder, the winner, who slugged one 503ft. Other then that there isn’t a lot to it. It is just glorified batting practice. It would be cool to be in the bleachers in person for the event but it doesn’t really play that great on TV. It is way more pageantry then anything else. They even went old school Fox and had the electronic trailer on some of the balls hit to track the flight.

Truly the highlight of the show wasn’t even the Home Runs, it was Erin Andrews, sideline reporter for ESPN doing interviews with competitors and other Major Leaguers. I must say she is very talented in what she does. I would classify myself as a fan. Yet another reason why we should be able to have the opportunity to get ESPN and other American stations like Fox Sports and the like.

All the major North American sports have bits and pieces that are great about their All Star Breaks but none have the whole package.
Baseball has the best game and the most true to an actual game. The game just lends itself well to being able to play at a high level where there is much less chance of someone getting injured. There "skills event", the HR Derby is where they fall short.
Basketball would rank at the second closest to actual game play but it is more a show time atmosphere where there is little or no defence and a lot of over passing and show time- ally-oop style play. Occasionally you might get a moderate 4th quarter if it is still close but it is still a far cry from 100%. There Skills competition is by far the best because basketball lends itself well to their fundamentals being shown in a showcase form and the Slam Dunk Competition is still enjoyable to watch. There guys are so athletic that it makes for an entertaining show.
Hockey may look like hockey light there is a lot of free skating but there is no edge because of the risk of injury. With the fact that there is a goalie and guys with sticks it is still difficult to do anything spectacular. There same criticism goes for their skills night. Even the breakaway challenge is boring and that is the most exciting part of actual games during the regular season...if there is nothing on the line the interest just isn’t there.
Football is just brutal. Always has been always will be. It is strictly a vacation to the players and nothing more. It is a violent game that played at less then 100% is more dangerous then at full speed.


Tonight is the game and hopefully it will be some what entertaining. The president will be there to throw out the first pitch which is always interesting to see if he will throw a strike or not. Fortunately it is on Fox and we get to hear Joe Buck call the play-by-play and interview the President Barack Obama. Unfortunately it is on Fox and we have to hear Tim McCarver provide colour and there will be no Erin Andrews, just Ken Rosenthal.

Rodney Dangerfield Gets More Respect Then The NHL

Could you ask for any less respect then what NBC is giving/has given to the NHL and the Stanley Cup Playoffs? They force the league to play 2 games back to back for the first time since the 1950’s. They have them start the series with virtually no rest for the teams who earned the right to play for the cup. They only show the first 2 games at which point they decide to hand over the broadcast to Versus for games 3 and 4. These are usually critical games when trying to decide a champion so one would think they would want to show that. Being on Versus where all year they struggled to get people to tune in. 1) because it was hard to find and 2) because it was so limited to how many subscribers actually had access to the channel through their cable or satellite providers.

While game 3 was being played, somewhere in the states on a channel nobody knows exists NBC was airing an episode of "I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here" and a non time sensitive special on Inside the Obama White House. NBC can not claim that it had any better programming that forced the games out of a prime time network time slot, there was no need for these shows to be on instead. They caught a break that Pittsburgh won game 3 and prolonged the series at lest enough for one more weekend broadcast.

Can you imagine if FOX decided to put the World Series on FX because they wanted to show an episode of "I Want To Mary A Millionaire" and an old rerun episode of the X-files. People would be up in arms. Maybe if CBS decided to put the Super Bowl on the Food Network instead (football... tail gating it is a perfect mix). It would never happen. Partly because the leagues wouldn’t bend over like the NHL does, actually respects the league and the game and because they actually pay to broadcast these games where as the NHL gets virtually no money and little or no exposure from NBC and Versus coverage. For the greater good it looks like the league needs to go crawling back to ESPN and pray that they can get something...anything and not come out looking like amateurs.

NHL Finals

I would like to thank the Detroit Red Wings for disposing with the Blackhawks last night and punching their tickets to the Stanley Cup Finals versus the Pittsburgh Penguins. Had they not won last night the Finals would not have started for over a week. Even to the hard core Canadian fan that is on the verge of being too much time and runs the risk of making it an irrelevant viewing option. I was almost starting to worry that the NHL Draft may come and go before the NHL’s Champion was crowned. July 1st Free Agency may have already started and teams may have lost players that were still playing. Clearly I say this in jest but they may have been cutting it close to draft day had they delayed the beginning of the Cup Finals.

We all know that the NHL is not the USA’s #1 viewing choice. In fact the Scripps Spelling Bee will probable shame the NHL in the ratings department. Had it slipped to next weekend to start it could have been a disaster for the league and the networks. I find that it is sad that despite the poor ratings that the NHL still bends over for NBC and will do just about anything to appease them. When they do show the 1 game a week they do a good job but this isn’t 1988 and the Saturday or Sunday game of the week just doesn’t cut it. If they were actually getting some good revenue from them that would be one thing but I don’t think there is a lot of money pouring in from that deal. If there is any way to get back on ESPN and away from Versus or even share some rights amongst the 3, they may need to seriously look into it. Just take whatever you can get and don’t think that playing hardball is a good strategy

More Then Just A Playoff Series

The Washington Capitals versus Pittsburgh Penguins second round playoff series has all the makings of being a classic. If not just for the two teams involved that are matched up fairly evenly but each possess some of the best raw offensive players in the game. This was more then proven yesterday when the Caps beat out the Pens is an epic battle where Alexander Ovetchkin managed to score a hat trick and Pens captain Sydney Crosby equalled that feat. Crosby was probably excited, Ovetchkin is always excited and you have to figure the Gary Bettman was more excited then the two combined.

In the US and A hockey is still trying to get any little bit of market share that it can and having the 2 most notable players facing off together and both bringing their “A” game can’t help but make a difference. Even the guys on PTI (an ESPN show shown in Canada on TSN) hit on it. Maybe this will help ESPN in taking another flier on the NHL and actually get it out to the public where people can actually see it.

The longer this series goes the better the league will be for it. This is the one series that doesn’t just have a regional appeal it is much bigger then that. There is more at stake then just 1 team advancing another round in the quest for a championship.

Hockey on TV In The USA Still The Red Headed Stepchild

Saturday the NHL is on NBC again for their game of the week broadcast. Just the sounds of that takes us back to the early days of cable when that is what you would get is a Baseball Game of the Week, Football Game of the Week, Basketball Game of the Week, heck even then you could only get The Superstars of Wrestling on at noon on a Saturday.

The funny thing about the NHL and the deal with NBC that pays the league just about nothing or may even charge to get on TV (which wouldn’t surprise me), is that in the event that the Capitals vs Penguins game goes longer then 1 overtime NBC will drop it in all markets except Washington and Pittsburgh to make way for the Kentucky Derby. This has happened before and it did not play well, especially to fans who didn’t know that they were going to do it.

I understand that the Kentucky Derby is a big deal in the States and as a rights holder they pay a lot and get huge ratings for it. They need to carry the event there is no doubt about it. We get that and know that it is all about money. Sure the likelihood in today’s NHL that a game would make it to double overtime is slim you just wish there was a better plan for the 2nd class sport in the US to be shown. It is hard to grow a sport and make it look important if you are willing to break away at the most exciting part of the game....sudden death...or sudden victory to the optimist.

You would think that with the amount of channels out there that 1 channel could at least pick up the feed or have it run uninterrupted on another "sister network". It is deals like this that make you almost wonder why the league bends over backwards for them. Even though we don’t get it in Canada it may be time to get it back on ESPN at least that way the chance of people stumbling upon it is there and they have at least 8 channels that they can move games to.

Changing Channels Not An Option In Canada

After my last post it has lead me to make a comment on the state of TV in Canada and the US as it relates to sports. Now I have little problems with Canada’s existing sports specific channels, those being TSN (The Sports Network), Rogers Sportsnet and to a lesser extent The Score but I want more. Being a Bell Express Vu subscriber I have a respectable selection of live sporting events to choose from. Now that TSN has come out with TSN 2 allowing for both the ability to show 2 live sporting events at the same time (in the winter usually either 2 hockey games or a hockey game and an NBA game or perhaps tennis, maybe even curling) nationally as well the ability for time shifting showing programming on a 3 hour delay to allow you to watch the complete games of both matches if you so choose or if you missed the original broadcast...a nice option o have. Sportsnet does well with regional hockey but shows far less live games as it used to when it held the rights to broadcast NBA games but makes up for that with most Jays games during baseball season.

Now where I have an issue again is with the CRTC and the fact that there is no way that I can get everything that I want. Sure I could pay in excess of $100 for different packages covering sports like NHL Center Ice, NFL Sunday Ticket, NASCAR Hotpass, MLB Extra Innings or the NCAA package but that adds up pretty quick and there is a lot of overlap of crappy games that I wouldn’t want anyway. No, what I want is more choice, more options and most of all more variety. I guess in an effort to preserve Canadian content there is no way to legally get the programming that I want and what I want shouldn’t be that tough to get. Give me the option of having ESPN(s), some of the Fox SportsNet channels, NESN, Versus, YES Network TNT among others. As a fan of watching volleyball I would like to have the option of watching some matches. NBC will show 1 match a week of the AVP tour but the rest of the tournament is not shown, nor are any NCAA indoor games. I understand why Canadian programming doesn’t pick up these games as it is a very niche market but if the games are being televised I would like to have the option to watch them. I don’t need it on a Pay Per View basis just let me purchase the entire channel as I would if it were a specialty channel in Canada. If it comes to a case of matching the numbers in a total package of Canadian to US programming so be it, I may be willing to taking on some crappy Canadian channels in order to keep the ratio where it needs to be. All I am asking for is the ability to choose, ability to watch what I want , and ability to get some different perspectives. The only channels made available in Canada show nothing but crap. They try to fool people with ESPN Classic Canada, but not ESPN Classics so we get Classic CFL games (if there is more of an oxymoron title i’d like to hear it) Matches on Fox Sports World shows Footy (soccer), rugby, Aussie rules football and things of that nature....not entertaining and a weak effort to show “World Sports”.

I want Wednesday Night Baseball in the summer, weekly NBA games, Volleyball games. It is being broadcast, I don’t think it too much to ask that I have a chance to enjoy it, whether I live in Canada or the USA.

Around the Horn

ESPN has a show called Around the Horn
Not only did they steal the name from me but the show is not good and diminishes this Friday feature. If i had legal ground I would sue, and all I would want is that they send me ESPN programing here in Canada without CRTC regulations screwing me over

Great response from tennis player Andy Roddick regarding the injuries or phantom injuries that Novak Djokovic seems to en cure increasingly more often in matches
"I’ve got to feel good because (Djokovic) has got about 16 injuries," Roddick told the crowd, adding fuel to the fire of their ongoing fued when asked about a Djokovic ankle injury....It is just too bad that he lost to Djokovic later on.
"Isn’t it both of them? And a back? and a hip? And a cramp... bird flu... anthrax. SARS, common cough and a cold.

Olympic hammer throw medallists investigated for doping
Is nothing sacred anymore? How can the purity of the hammer throw be tainted?

Rafael Nadal played Mardy Fish at the US Open in a match that began at 11:30 pm and ended at 2;11 am..the third latest finish at the Open
Even the allure of the #1 player couldn’t keep me up for this one. The late sessions are cool but come on, your crushing your own potential ratings.
At least it wasn’t like the match in Australlia that went to near 5am.

It went Supersonic to Thunder in record time. The former Seattle team relocated to Okalhoma City and have now been named Thunder
In a shocking move at the press conference they played AC/DC’s Thunderstruck.
The potential for a good marketing logo was there but alas they came up short. When I played for a team called Thunder we actually had a cool logo and it was far from a professional team.

Tatum Bell lost his job as running back with the Lions, Rudi Johnson gained a job as running back with the Lions, but lost his underwear
Bell apparently took two Gucci bags that Johnson had received as a Pro Bowl gift, included was about $200 in cash along with his ID and the credit cards. He got the bags back empty, and this is the NFL not the CFL..I just hope that they wern’t his "LUCKY DRAWS"

The Montreal Canadiens are looking at playing an outdoor game at Olympic Stadium as part of their 100th anniversary celebrations.
Great cash grab if you can get 39,000+ in at most likely a somewhat inflated price point.
Opening up the roof at the Big O is like opening Pandoras Box, once it is open you may never get it closed again. Get the hardhats out because you know the concrete is going to fall like rain!

Daunte Culpepper has retired, gone after 9 seasons at only 31
A former MVP and one half of one of the best QB/WR tandems ever can’t even hold a clipboard anymore. A shredded knee has taken him off the map and out of the league.