While I Certainly Tip My Hat To Green By for It's Football Team...Here's Why It Is Not Title Town At This Time.....

The Green Bay Packers are at BEST an average football team in the post Favre world....With Favre in his MVP prime they managed a single Super Bowl win.....from 1967 to today the Pack have won one Superbowl....Yes you have won 12 "championships" but the first three 1929, 30 and 31 were awarded based upon regular season end of season standings....The NFL did not start playing playoffs until 1936 and yes from that point until the idea of a "Super Bowl" was started for the 1966 season the Packers were clearly a top team in the 1930's and a Power House in the early to mid 1960's.....ok....so let's ask the really pressing question....WHAT HAVE YOU DONE LATELY....after Lombardi left,  the Packers went into a three decade swoon....from 1967 to 1995 the Packers had two seasons where they posted 10 or more wins (1972 and 1989), in that span the team had 15 losing seasons! When Holmgren and Favre arrived the team became a contender but still managed only to win the big game once and then they really sort of choked in the second appearance in a stunner of a loss to Denver....

I point this out because some giant of a mind has informed me in response to an earlier posting that Green Bay is "Title Town" until someone takes that away....in 41 years YOU HAVE ONE TITLE in a one sport town....that takes away any ability to claim Title Town....using your logic the following Cities have a much stronger claim to the moniker....here goes my list for cities with a substantially stronger claim to title town than you Cheeseheads....

1.  Boston-15 Titles since 1967 ....(Celtics 8, Bruins 2, Red Sox 2, Patriots 3) and since the start of the century no city has been close.....

2.  New York 11 Titles since '67...Yankees 6 WS wins since '67, the Giants 3 Superbowls, the Jets 1 Superbowl, and the Rangers 1 Stanley Cup win

3..  Los Angeles- 11 Titles with 9 NBA Titles for the Lakers and 2 World Series Wins for the half watched Dodgers LA. I do not count the Angels win because they did not identify themselves as the LA Angels.....

4.  Detroit 9 titles  (Red Wings 4 titles; Pistons 3 Titles; Tigers 2 WS Titles)

5.  Pittsburg, 9 titles( Steelers 5, Pirates 2, Penguins 2)

6.  Chicago 8 titles  (Bulls 6, White Sox 1, Bears 1)

Honorable mentions include San Francisco, Dallas, Denver, San Antonio (a one horse town) Baltimore, Philadelphia, Toronto, Minnie, St. Louis, Montreal,  Miami, Oakland, all of whom have won the golden ring MORE than you blockheads in Green Bay....

Of course were we to do what you have done...count the records since the dawn of time...then the Yankees, Montreal Canadiens, Boston Celtics and Lakers alone would smoke you guys by HUGE margins....

So my dear little cheddar heads....Green Bay is not and cannot claim title to anything beyond being a really cold and very average footbal town....I would urge you to resubmit your application in a few years...in order to make the top 6 the Pack will have to win 7 more tiles and with 1 in 40 years that should happen sometime in the year 2288...give or take a few decades....Green Bay Title Town ....that's a hoot...but thanks for playing and try again in about 280 years......

Here's our question for the day:  Will Green Bay win more than 6 games in '08?  I say yes, they win 7....I mean it's very hard in that division not to win 7....Detroit, Minnie and Chicago are all horrible so they should come out of that with a minimum of 4 wins....they also get Atlanta, Carolina, Seattle, Houston and Tampa Bay....You will know what kind of season you'll have right out of the box in Green Bay....Minnie at home and the on to Detroit....if the Pack loses both then they tumble into the abyss...if they split...then they have a shot at 7-9 or 8-8 which might give them 1st place in this crappiest of all NFL Divisions.....This squad gets croaked by Dallas, Jacksonville, Tennessee, Indy and New Orleans....Who will lead this team that you could count on to do anything significant...Aaron Rodgers?  Listen closely....Senor Rodgers has thrown for a total of 111 yards over his three years in the league....clearly not his fault given that he was playing behiind the great one....but...that does not mean that he should be given any credit as a proven replacement because he has not established that he can play in this league.....Additionally, who in the name of all that is cheesey are the back ups?  Add to that the fact that Rodgers entire body of post high school work has consisted of playing in 25 college games and you have what?  In his life after high school this guy has played in 30 games....if you're counting on much here you may end up with a bad taste in your mouth when he's staring down the throat of that Jacksonville Defense or when Dallas comes to town.....he may well turn out to be a great player like Peyton Manning or Tom Brady or, but history tells us that he'll  more likley be another David Carr or Byron Leftwich...plus the guy needs a haircut...Green Bay is in for a long cold winter...unless BF comes out of retirement....

Get past the QB mess and this team clearly has talent with little depth....If Ryan Grant stays healthy and can repeat his '07 performance they will still need a lot more help for the long haired freaky dude calling signals....he could have T.O., Marvin Harrison and Chad Johnson and this team might still stink if Rodgers plays as soft as I suspect he will....

Early season favs include the obvious picks....Indy, NE, Dallas, Jacksonville and then it's a bunch of unknowns....will Tennessee continue to improve....has the Jets spending spree landed them a team (still need the QB me thinks)....bet on this Atlanta will slowly start to improve, Baltimore will be horrible, along with AZ, San Fran, Cleveland and I would not bet the farm that Oakland, Miami, Tampa Bay or the Niners have figured anyting out.....

Divisionally the NFC East and AFC South are the two to beat, Pats should clinch a playoff berth by about the middle of September and Indy and Jacksonville should be the best divisional games this year....I think Dallas is right there talent wise, I am no fan of Tony Romo because despite all of the hype that has surrounded this guy he has shown a disturbing trend as not being clutch in playoff games....I have a lot of doubt that he is the answer....but the NFC should fold up nicely foor Dallas to breeze....in the AFC it once again comes down to New England, Indy and Jacksonville....this year I think it's a jump ball in light of all of the secondary turnover the Patriots have had.....

The take.....

Since 2001 NO city, I mean NO city has Come Close To this City's Teams.....

THERE CAN BE NO LEGITIMATE DEBATE ABOUT IT....BOSTON IS TITLETOWN.....

Let's give Detroit it's due...the Red Wings and Pistons are awesome teams....but let's be clear....Detroit has NO claim to being title town....Hockey Town ----probably but that's it....the Tigers suck, the Lions are worse and the Pistons won only one as that team is presently configured....

How about New York....the Giants deservedly won their Superbowl but beyond that let's see....the Yankees are a good team with an aging but still powerful lineup and NO pitching staff. The Spanks have not recovered from the single most humiliating defeat in organized professional sports history....you may remember that 2004 ALCS....I know all of you suddenly quiet Yankee fans remember it don't you?...how about those Knickerbockers.....they may well be the worst franchise in organized team sports given their money and the absolutely horrible teams they have paraded onto the Garden floor...oh wait...how can the Knicks be the worst franchise ever when they play in the same market as those Mets....the second highest payroll in baseball and they lay all of the blame for their '07 colllapse on a manager and not the dipstiick who overpayed Pedro, Santana, Glavine (we know he's gone but he took a lot of $ while he was there and didn't do ####), Beltran, Delgado and that ace Wagner....wanna fire someone who IS to blame....schedule a 3:00 a.m. meeting with Omar while you still have a fan or two left....and then there are the Rangers and who really cares...

How about L.A.?  Well the Lakers had a nice run until they played a complete team and they promptly crapped out....I remember just two short weeks ago a lively interview with Kobe and Stephen A. Smith where Steven A. pressed Kobe as to why it wasn't fair to compare Kobe to MJ and at the time I wrote it off as a good reporter just asking the questions because many many people had started to believe that Bryant deserved such a lofty comparison....and maybe Kobe will still someday be able to be compared to Michael...just not at this time....Kobe was so outplayed by the Celtics trio of Pierce, Allen and Posey that he was barely the best offensive player on his own team....he was clearly out played, out hustled and outschemed by tthe Boston Celtics to the point where his legacy has been tarnished to a great degree..Michael Jordan would have carried his team to a win over Boston this year, there is NO question about that...but back to my point...LA is never really eligible to be Title Town without a real baseball team and without an NFL franchise....Christ even Charlotte and Jacksonville have teams.... what? you say that the Dodgers are a real baseball team because they signed Joe Torre?  To that I say, grow up...as good a manager as there is in the game does not make the Dodgers are real team.  Fans don't care, teams NEVER win (Kirk Gibson ain't coming through that door kids) and did I mention that people in LA have NO passion for sports....How many titles have the Dodgers won?  Nah, LA is not close to a candidate for Title Town USA....and what did Shaq say...."Kobecouldn't do it without me...."  Love it, LA blows.

How about Chicago....although the Blackhawks such #### and the Bulls are a disgrace, and the Bears are moving backwards again.  They do have the White Sox who have won a World Series and the Bulls of Michael and Scottie were all world....but what have done for me lately....you KNOW the Cubs will screw up somehow and someway and while Ozzie will probably get the Southsiders a legitimate playoff shot...even if they win they really don't matter...even in Chicago...what's that old line...."there's nothing lonlier that being a southsider in a city of northsiders"....so The ChiSox are not given any credit here until their own city backs em just a bit....so Nyet to Chicago...and Philly, Saint Louis, Dallas, San Antonio (one team sports towns just don't count), Saint Louis, Baltimore, Tampa Bay, Miami, Cleveland, Cincy, Oakland, KC, New Orleans, Houston or Seattle....nope not one of these cities can say that they have won world champioships in Football (3) Baseballl (2) and Basketball (1) since 2001....only one place on the planet can say that and that's Boston.

Oliver Wendall Holmes once called Boston the "Hub of The Universe" because the city is the eductaional center of the Country with no fewer than 100 colleges in the city and its thriving suburbs....and those colleges include Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Northeastern, Emerson and Boston College to name just a few.  Add to that an extremely low crime rate, a bevy of world class hospitals, four gorgeous seasons and the birthplace of our democracy and you have a city that is truly the best place to live on the East Coast. 

It is almost unfair that the Red Sox are by far the best team in baseballl over the last 5 years, that the Patriots are still the best team in football and that the Celtics have now resumed theiir rightful place atop the NBA and won their 17TH title....a feat that no other team has ever topped....to put that in perspective.....that is 17 more titles than Cleveland, Denver, Charlotte, New Orleans, Dallas,  Utah, LA Clippers and New Jersey Nets have combined to win....

Then there are the Red Sox....again in first place, again with the best rotation in the game, again with out any hole in their entire lineup, great manager, great closer, sold out EVERY game for decades.... wealthy and committed owners and a fan base that dwarfs the Yankees...if you doubt that for one minute try to buy a single game ticket for next season from the Red Sox ticket office....it will take an act of Congress and a great bit of luck.  Then go to Baltimore (AKA Boston South) and see how the BoSox fans outnumber O's fans  ...they have utterly destroyed the Yankees who simply will never recover from the beat down they took in '04....manager's gone, owner's feeble and his nit wit replacement is managing the team, they hired a manager who is so obnoxious that he got himself fired in the same year as he was named Manager of the Year in the NL and then there's the GM who must bear reposnibility for Kevin Brown, Carl Pavano, ElDugue, Alphonso Soriano, Roger Clemons third comeback tour and the whole notion that Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes were legitimate major leaguers....what you ask have the Red Sox done with young talent????  Jonathan Papelbon, Dustin Pedroia, John Lester, Jacoby Elsbury, Jed Lowrie, Clay Buckholtz, Justin Masterson, Manny DelCarmen, Craig Hansen are ALL playing and the team won last year's Fall Classic by destroying the Rockies....are you kidding me?  It is amost unfair....the Red Sox are still in firts place and Curt Schilling is out, David Ortiz is out, Daisuke Matsuzaka is out...Manny is out...Coco is out....the Cubbies lose Zambrano and they WILL collapse....This is the most talented team of young players to play in 25 years....

I will not offer any excuses for the Patriots....they lost and they deserved to lose to a team that is now a long shot to return to the playoffs.  The Pats are again favored to return to the Superbowl and only a fool like Tom Jackson would seriously question that...they have quietly reloaded a secondary that was not very good last year and they picked up three solid linebackers in the off season...anybody wanna wager with me?  I say they win 12-14 games and retuirn to the ALCS where they will beat Indy, or Jacksonville....as usual.

Now there are the Celtics who have a real small window because they have not shown that they can figureout how to draft NBA players from the lower end of the first round....but...for noow they will likely return to the Conference finals next year and unless Cleveland can figure out how to win on the road the C's should return to the finalls to face NO, Utah or San Antonion...it won't be the Lakers...Kobe will see a lot of Tom Thibodeau's defense next year the way that Kurt Warner got figured out after Bellichik figured him out in 01....Let's face facts...Luke Walton, Vukocic, and Radmanovic are not legitimate NBA players....they were useless in the Finals and then their is the quickly aging and slowing Dereck Fisher and the riddle that is Lamar Odom....plus can someone tell me why Pau Gasol gets such high praise....he's is everything we expect from a European player...he no like hitting...him no like physical ball....him no play defense.....so the Lakers won't be having to worry about another Boston Beat down next year....if New Orleans gets a better 2 they will be the team....or at least I hope they will.....

So my little pinheads....Boston simply rules the sport's universe and yes I did not mention College sports because there is not a single college team that can beat even the weakest professional team at anything so it don't count.....

The Indictment of Barry Bonds Is Long Overdue But He Should Have Several Co-Defendants...

For those of you who do not know, an indictment or "true bill" is a finding by a grand jury that there is sufficient evidence to believe that the defendant has committed a crime.  In this case, Barry Bonds is the defendant and the crimes alleged are "perjury" and "obstruction of justice"  The indictment — four counts of perjury, one of obstruction of justice alleges crimes that would carry a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.  That is an extremely deceptive statement because NOBODY gets the maximum unless they are classified as a career offender.  The government will negotiate with Bonds' lawyers and you should all expect that some negotiated plea will be worked out for a lesser sentence, I suspect a substantially lighter sentence and some significant period of "supervised release" (federal probation for all of you state retrobates).  Bonds will, though, likely do some term of incarceration and it may be substantial....and maybe he deserves all of it and maybe baseball should wipe his records from the books but he should not be the only one going long on this.

Major League Baseball should have been indicted as well because the evidence of steroid and HGH use being rampant among its players is overwhelming.  Baseball was on seventh heaven when Sammy and Mark were smacking baseballs alll over the country.  They paraded Roger Maris' family out to games so that they could legitimize this fraud.  How much pressure was applied to Henry Aaron to watch and graciously accept Barry Bond's phony assault on his record.  If I were him I would have called him the lying cheating #### that he is and I would have callled Bud Selig and the rest of the owners the same thing. We have a generation of players who look like linebackers, we have second basemen who #### 25 dingers every year, we have pitchers throwing into the 100's, we have pitchers with grey hair throwing in the 90's..... These people know and have known who is using because the evidence is simply overwhelming.  Are we to believe that after 100 years of Major League Baseball that we are just blessed with a plethora of pitchers who seem to grow stronger and throw harder as they age.  Are we to siimply accept that guys like Nomar Garciaparra and Brady Anderson just became power hitters because they hit the weights and really loaded up on protein?  Are we to believe that Bonds' head grew and his power numbers increased exponentially as he entered his late thirties?  What are we ALWAYS told...."I did not intentionally take performance enhancing drugs".  Is there anyone who for a moment can accept that a world class athlete would alllow anyone to inject them with something without knowing what it is?  These guys won't change their underwear or shave when they are going good...yeah sure they'll allow us to inject them and won't know why they have gained 20% of muscle mass in two months. 

Baseball teams employ doctors and staffs of highly trained trainers, they can tell you the tendencies of every player in the game, they know for instance what hitters like, what they hate, who can go left...etc etc etc...but "Honest, Senator, we had no idea that any of this was going on...."  No they only knew that these guys just developed massive muscle growth and began to change the character of their game while gaining size, weight and losing fat...Hell, Bonds' hat size changed!  They were told that they had a problem and their solution was to imlement a testing policy that only tested for the then outmoded steroids, and even then the tests were announced and scheduled for so long that only the real mental midgets got caught.  They then proposed to test ONLY minor leaguers because they knew that the problem was so prevalent at the Major League level that testing would have been disastrous.    

Paul Byrd is a perfect example of just how prevalent the use of performance enhancers is, here's a 36 year old journeyman, he's with his seventh team in a 12 year career (.434 career era)  who purportedly purchased HGH for years.  He spent on the order of $20,000.00 on the HGH.  How about Mark McGuire? That #### made a complete #### of himself in front of Congress, why wasn't he forced to take the fifth or to answer the damned questions?  Does anyone on the good planet Earth believe that he was clean, look at Rafael Palmiero, Ken Camminitti, Jose Conseco, Jason Giambi, Jose Guillen, Matt Williams, Ismael Valdez, Toronto's Troy Glaus, outfielder Jay Gibbons and Mets pitcher Scott Schoeneweis...these are just a smatteriing of players and for a decade now baseball and its players association have conspired to keep this under wraps. I assume that the Feds will be soon be going after Palmiero for his blatant lie to Congress.  Sammy Sosa should be peeking out of his windows for federal agents as well....

 I will say this, in my opinion you would have to be out of your cotton picking mind NOT to use enhancers if by doing so you prolonged a career, were able to have one in the first place or were able to rise to level of an elite player.  So we cannot expect to see the players or his union take any action to address the problem...there is just too much money involved.  Look for just a second at Nomar's SI cover and tell me if he doesn't look like he just a little bit jacked up...then look at his weight when he broke in or the early scouting reports that described him as a skinny, slick fielding banjo hitter.  Ahh yes the Quintissential infielder's body...if your playing baseball with spiked ballls and trolls trying to club you to death maybe.  I think he just got a Gold's membership and was a really hard worker.

The hypocrisy of this is that now that the head blowhard, Selig, will condemn Bonds, he will proclaim that MLB has been proactive in rooting this scourge out and then he will state that he hopes we can just get back to our National Pastime...pure and simple baseball...blah blah blah blah blah...

The only proof you need to know that MLB is complicit in the use of illegal drugs is this....test everyone and make the penalty life suspension and when a drug is declared "prohibited" it doesn't matter which #### doctor prescribed it....wow what a radical idea, why hasn't anyone thought of this to this point?  Hey wait, the Olympic Committee does exactly that, in fact over the counter cold medicines are banned as well....hmmm, interesting.