I am a true blue Yankee fan and usually to casual a sports fan to watch if my team isn't involved. This year I started watching more avidly and so when this series started I actually watched a good deal of both games, including the exciting later innings. I'm loving it, and I'm shocked. I'm not surprised no one else is watching though. There are only a few national teams in each sport and in baseball, you're talking Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, St. Louis and of course, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays - hahaha. Fox's vomit inducing presentation has something to do with it, but the ratings might not be as bad as people think. How do we get the ratings anyway? How outdated is the way the numbers are generated?

Also, it is worth mentioning the death of Wellington Mara, longtime owner of the New York Giants. He was a hell of an NFL owner and a beloved figure across professional football. He's the kind of man that deserves to be remembered and talked about upon his death.

King's apology was great. The first thing I've read or heard about T.O recently that didn't give me a "mall headache" (you know, the headache you get the instant you realize how miserable you are being stuck in a mall with your girlfriend or wife and a million other people who seem to be wandering around aimlessly). I am so sick of this soap opera. At some point T.O may realize that the problem is every time he has something he wants to say to his team, he holds a press conference instead of telling the people involved. T.O. actaully seemed pitiful yesterday, but then as soon as he finished Rosenhaus got up there and ran his mouth off, talking trash about the very people T.O. just apologized to!

As to the Beatpaths, that site is hilarious! The graphs are fun and I wouldn't be surprised if they were completely made up. My favorite thing is on the explanation page where he has some crazy, ultra-busy graph with lines going every which way, then says, 'remove the beatloops and you get a much simpler graph' and the next graph is just as nuts as the last. Awesome. I was upset to find out that my NY Giants managed to climb higher in the rankings with this weekends win, but didn't close any of their beatloops! DAMN!

The final race for the SBX was fantastic. I agree with the fact that Americans can't get into subjectively judged sports like the snowboard halfpipe. It's so damn tedious. Maybe if four people went down at once it would be worth watching. But the speed and tension of the SBX makes it exciting and entertaining. King is completely right, though, that the snowboarders bring a refreshing dose of normality to the games. They all seem very genuine. Probably because 10-15 years ago, no one was paying attention to their sport, and they were just doing it as a hobby on the weekends. Oh, and to the person who quoted "Get r done", I don't think you can accurately call Larry the Cable Guy a "comedian". He's more of a philosopher.....

This is about baseball wanting one thing. MONEY. These guys are the same people we see playing in the majors, split into different teams, wearing newly made jerseys that can be bought for a mere $250! We'll see how many Leiter-USA jerseys get sold. This is just another example of a sport catering to people other than their core fan base, like, Scooter, the irritating and repetitive baseball/puppet. These games are intended to get people to wrap themselves in their country's flag watching meaningless games, while spending cash on jerseys, hats and tickets to see mostly lackluster players. If Jeter or A-Rod drops out of this thing, they might as well cancel it. Also, how does this market baseball to other countries when the biggest stars from those countries, like Matsui and Guerrero aren't playing? And why do people keep saying do it at the end of the season in November? King, are you nuts? Players are dead tired after playing a full season, especially pitchers! You think they want to fly all over the world to play in exhibition games? Plus there's another little rival sport called the NFL that people are paying attention to by then.

This thing is silly, and pointless. I'll ignore it as much as I usually ignore spring training games. The thing that ticks me off about it, is MLB's promoting it like its as important as the Olympics. Selig invented this thing, which is as good a reason to hate it as any. Baseball needs to start paying attention to the dwindling fan base they have now, instead of concentrating on overhyped exhibitions intended to generate some cash for the greedy MLB. Someone must have incriminating photos of ESPN executives to get them to broadcast this crap during their college basketball championships!