With the NBA Finals beginning tonight, most of the talking heads on all the major networks are making thier predictions on who is going to win the series and how many games it is going to take.

But I am having a problem...I have no idea who has the edge in the series.  This finals is the biggest pick'em series I have seen in any sport for a long time.

I am going to attempt to break it down, but I may tear my hair out before I am finished.  Maybe if I get my thoughts down on paper, my pick will be revealed.

Boston Celtics

Positives: Three simple words, "Boston Three Party".  Paul Pierce is Paul Pierce, KG is KG, and Ray Allen has finally joined the party and has reverted to his old self.  We have an emerging star in Rajon Rondo who has turned into a decent point guard, and you are getting contributions from the bench with Kendrick Perkins and James Posey and the rest of the Celtics bench will shine at home.

Also Doc Rivers is a good coach who has gotten the most out of his players over the entire season and brought them from basement dwellers to penthouse sellers.  Most of that is because of the Big Three, but Rivers had to find a room big enough for the egos that come along with them. They also have homecourt advantage which has been such a big thing in the NBA playoffs this year.

Negatives: Who is going to cover Kobe Bryant?  Who is going to make sure that Kobe doesn't go off for 50 in every game in the series?   Will the real Ray Allen stick around for an entire series?

Just a few questions, but the same goes for the Lakers

Los Angeles Lakers

Positives: Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol.  Since the Memphis Grizzlies "traded" Gasol to the Lakers for a rack of basketballs or Kwame Brown, whichever has more value, the Lakers have been excellent and been largely unstoppable.  I started watching more West basketball with the Lakers and all the other good teams out West.  Lamar Odom has finally had his coming out party, since he hasn't been forced into a role he could not excell at.  He can finally just play his game.

Also the rest of the Laker have been playing excellent basketball with Derek Fisher leading the way.  Then they have one fo the greatest coaches in NBA history, the Zen master Phil Jackson, who is arguably a top three coach in NBA history.

Negatives: Who is going to cover Kevin Garnett?  Does Gasol have the strength to consistently bang with Garnett for what I believe will be a long series?  Finally, in hearing that Radmanovic will be covering Pierce, that made me cringe, Pierce might go off for a ton of points.

Well, as good as I tried, this Finals is still as clear as mud.

But I think that I will say the Lakers in seven, with the home team winning every home game except for the deciding game.

This series looks like it could be a really fun one to watch, and its about time.

The upcoming EliteXC MMA event this Saturday will be the first time that Mixed Martial Arts will be broadcast on a major television network.  Maybe MMA has finally shaken itself of its old image and is now a main stream sport, rather than its life before the modern UFC when it was seen as a cult sport.

This sport has come a long way from its days of allowing eye-gouging and shots to the business.

Since the sport was first introduced, it was shunned by all major media people, and it was attempted to be shut down by a current presidential candidate.  But now with the regulation of the events, how the fighters represent themselves and the sport, and grass roots shows like Spike TV's The Ultimate Fighter how could this sport not be considered with the stick and ball sports of Football, Baseball, Hockey and Basketball.

Even respected sports networks like Sportsnet in Canada and a certain four letter word, lets call them PSEN, have had spots on television dedicated to this sport.  Sportsnet even employs thier own MMA talking head.  Not to mention most sports websites now have entire pages dedicated to the covering of not only the large events like the UFC, but also others like WEC, MFC and EliteXC.

Now  politicians are trying to influence these young viewers of these events, as evidenced by the commercial during TUF last night where various UFC stars are encouraging people to vote.  People who once poo pooed the sport, are now trying to take advantage of its popularity.

But even with the popularity of MMA, people still see it as they did when Royce Gracie was breaking people's arm.  They refuse to take a look at this sport now and see how far it has come.  But, then you can't influence how people perceive thier sport when thier mind is already made up.

With the first MMA event being put on "free" TV, Maybe MMA has finally arrived.

This morning news came from a source that former Houston Astro Jeff Bagwell may have used performance enhancing drugs during his 14 season Major Baseball career.

On the surface, this sounds crazy, considering what a great person Bagwell was when he was mashing homeruns for the Astros, when he was a part of the Killer B's with Craig Biggio.

When you go beyond the surface of Bagwell's nice personality, take a look at the statistics from Bagwell's career from the minors to the majors and see for yourself.

From 1989 to 1990, Bagwell had 710 AB's in the Minors, Bagwell had 6 homeruns over three years.  Bagwell was strictly a contact hitter.  Then his first year with the Astros in 1990 he hits 15 homeruns, off better pitching.

Not really that earth shattering, because stranger things have happened.  But it goes on from there.

The next three years Bagwell's homerun total was 18, 20 and 39.  Again not that earth shattering.  The year he hit 39 homeruns, Bagwell only played in 110 games.  RED FLAG!!!  After those years, Bagwells homerun totals ranged from as low as 21in 1995 to as high as 47 in 2000.  His average also ranged from .266 in 2004 to .315 in 1996.  Just some numbers to take a look at.  The numbers I used can be found here.

I also saw that toward the end of Bagwell's career that he was looked like a better built baseball player, he looked in better shape than most other baseball players I have seen.  Even though he didn't look like a lot of the bulked up homerun hitters like Barry Bonds or Mark McGwire, but neither did Rafael Palmeiro and looked how that situation turned out. 

When this post was made, Bagwell had yet to provide a response to the allegations.

I like Jeff Bagwell as a player, especially in the final years when the Astros were competitive and were winning National League pennants.  But you have to look at the numbers and wonder.

I hope that Bagwell never did these things, but I won't be surprised if he did.