Please, there are more important things to rage against than Thom and Psyco. Like Tim McCarver for instance! Here is the real "expert" giving out insightless insight, year after year in the post season. Do you notice that the non-media savy ball players that frequent his booth rarely agree with a thing he says. Full of hot air. He was a great catcher, durring his era. Tim McCarver has long since jumped the shark.

It's a bit of a shame that Gold Gloves are only awarded to players who are primary position players and not utility men who play a whole host of infield and outfield positions as everyday players. The best defensive play I have ever seen in my lifetime, and I witnessed it this year, was Ryan Freel of the Cincinnati Reds robbing Albert Pujols of an RBI extra base hit in Center Field of Great American Ball Park. Ryan ran like the devil was after him for a country mile to layout like a frozen rope and catch the ball about a foot off the ground. He hit the ground so hard, I felt it up in the cheap seats! As if that wasn't enough, he gets up immediately throwing a strike to his cutoff man.

The thing of it is, Ryan plays this way every day. He's a total maniac, and has more hustle in his little finger than most Golden Glove candidates have in their careers. I have seen amazing defensive plays from him at every position he plays, RF, CF, 2B, 3B, SS. So if Bud Selieg is listening (to anyone but himself) create a utility Golden Glove award for guys like Freel. It would be more meaningful to the game than the various other pointless awards, like the Hometown Hero award*, that MLB has created for marketing dollars.

*Which by the way Pete Rose won for the Cincinnati Reds. I guess that backfired for Selieg, not that anyone noticed.

Red Leg

OK, so get picky with my point. Feel might not start every game, but he plays like I described every game he is in, and this season much of that was in CF/RF. Being a utility player, he does not get 90% of the starts, and he has to share time with over the hill (Griffey) and down right poor (Dunn) starting outfielders. And he is doing this while leading the team in stolen bases for most of the season. Im sure he is just one example from around the league, but I challenge someone to find a more outstanding play that that catch against Albert P. Of course that is subjective, as are these awards unless your a statistician.

This was not Kings sports column of the day, just some supplemental writing he must be doing at Salon. Sports fans look to the usual place for his sports column. Hopefully by tomorrow he will put all his energy into a good article about tonights NFL game.

It's as if the NFL game I was at last night never existed. It's not in your picks list, and not a mention about the fantastic defensive effort the Bengals gave to nearly shutout the Ravens. This game kept the Ravens from clinching the playoff berth and kept the Bengals Wild-Card hopes very much alive. Not like anything important happened, like say... another locker room soap opera.

Why cant the BCS go away forever and in its place be a coherent schedule that collimates in division champions, wild card champions -> conference champion -> college super bowl champions like the NFL does? Is college football really so different? So there are a lot more teams, make up a lot more divisions. Teams that are really good and go far will have to prove how good they are by playing a lot more games.

This business of inviting teams to the playoffs the way the BCS and the NCAA basketball tournaments work is so not about the players (who are students by the way) but all about revenue. I am a huge football fan, a bigger baseball fan, and both of these sports make millions in TV revenue every year. But I simply boycott watching college sports on TV because of how manufactured the "championships" truly are. The means to the end is in the advertising revenue, not in the efforts of the players on the field.

Even if you really think selling the house is the best thing to do, and you sound confilicted, now is not the time. The market is very soft right now, and I suspect that interest rates will come down again in the next year which will motivate the buying base. It is hard to sell a house now for much of a profit, and even though your neighborhood is on the fringe of a re-boom, its not yet ripe for the picking.

Your house is a money pit, so is mine. So you have two options. Continue to fix up the house, putting more into it or do the bare minimum to keep it in shape. Do not do any more big upgrades. You love your house enough as it is right? Then when your neighborhood is really flipping over and all the houses around you have sold at big profits when the market is hot and the rates lower, then you should consider selling at that time. You don't really want to be on the leading edge of this boom, it will not pay as many dividens.

If you can consolidate your second morgate by refinancing, I would reccomend doing that, but again, rates might be more favorable in the comming year. Also, I would strongly caution you against using your second mortgage for buying anything not related to the house. I have seen friends fall on this sword before.