I'm glad I took the weekend off

So this weekend I just focused on relaxing and pretty much not paying attention to anything. My life has been a little hectic the past few weeks so I skipped out of town with my mom to San Diego and we did the spa thing. There were occasional moments where I did turn on the television to find that the Dodgers were losing or Forest Griffin got his ass handed to him and I just turned the tv off and either went back to the spa or bar. I didn't really feel like facing it this weekend. The good news is that the Yanks pulled out a four game sweep and shut those annoying New Englanders up - god they are so obnoxious. I got home from my trip just in time to see Damon and Teixeira hit back to back homers with two outs, bottom of the 8th, and start a come from behind rally. It was a very nice ending to my relaxing weekend. Unfortunately now it's Monday and I have a whole work week ahead of me, I think.

What was even cooler was that the first pre-season football game was held yesterday. Listening to Colin on my way in from work, the ratings were over a five (just as an fyi, the ratings for the Yankees/Red Sox Series were a little over three). You think people are a little excited to see some football? I for sure as hell am. For the short time I did watch sportscenter this weekend some dude had the Raiders having and 8-8 season. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahhahaha!

If only Joe Joe listened to me 100%

When there are two on, two outs, I know it's tempting to take one of the best players off the bench and have him pinch hit - especially when the last time that happened he hit a grand slam. But when I said to bench Manny a couple blogs ago, I meant for the entire game. Not for 6 innings. And Joe Joe put him in, down by 3, two on, two outs and he grounded out. Needless to say, the Dodgers have lost seven of their last eleven games and taking on Derek Lowe this evening and the hot hitting Braves. You know that the hitting is good when Lowe has over a 4 ERA and 11 WINS! It's time to turn this around boys. The NL Central is starting to look a lot better than you guys and the yucky Giants are starting to gain speed on us.

In Raiders news, and according to CBS sports, the New England Patriots have obtained two-time Pro Bowl defensive end Derrick Burgess. Burgess had held out of training camp with the Oakland Raiders in hopes of being traded. On Thursday, they obtained undisclosed draft considerations for him.

Ha! He didn't want to go to camp hoping that another team would pick him up. God. It's like the time I went to the sleep away camp from hell. I should have just not shown up. Good move buddy, it worked!

College football begins in a month people!!!!

I truly believe that every time Manny stepped up to the plate he was saying to himself "I'm out to prove Jessica wrong." He sort of did. He went 2 for 4 with a bomb in the 5th inning. Of course I'm not 100% convinced. Lets see what happens when two are on in the bottom of the 9th, two outs, Dodgers down by one in game 5 of the NLCS and Manny is up to bat. We'll see......

Ok, so college football is a month away and I'm so fucking excited I can't even tell you. Today I have been going back and forth with my Baton Rouge gang just confirming up plans for the Florida/LSU game. For those of you who are up for a fun vacation, Los Angeles will be taking over Baton Rouge that weekend. For those of you who haven't experienced an LSU tailgate, a writer from Sports Illustrated will be doing a piece about my families tailgate that weekend. That's some pretty impressive stuff. And for those of you who think I have a hard on for LSU, I will also be attending U of Arizona's homecoming against WSU a few weeks after that - as a good alumn, I'm all about getting drunk, crazy and cutting up a shirt to wear as a dress in Tucson!

But now to the more important talk - the actual football part. Let's start with LSU. They have quite the road ahead of them. Yes, they have a very easy non conference schedule but they need to save up come time for SEC play - nothing new there. The game vs Florida is going to be outright impossible but if by some miracle they can pull it out (because I'm there) they still only have Auburn, Ol Miss, Bama and Arkansas left. If they aren't dead by the end of the season I really think they can hold their own. They are somewhat rebuilding a bit defensively however the only way for LSU to go with defense is up. Most importantly, they have improved at the Quarterback position and they still got Mr. Scott! He's a machine.

Now as mentioned before, USC has an amazing recruiting class year after year. We will see how amazing they are since they lost a slew of defensive players and have quite the schedule this year. As a USC hater, I have no problem finally saying that this team has quite the schedule this year. At Ohio, at Cal, at ND, at Oregon. Yikes! I have a weird suspicion that SC is going to lose to Ohio State but I think that weird suspicion is me 'hoping' they lose. The odds aren't out yet but SC is going to win that game. And at 7 to 1 odds of them winning the National Championship, I see no harm in taking that bet. The other gut feeling I have is that they are going to play a flawless season then lose to my Wild Cats in their last game :)

A couple of other bets I like for National Championship wins are: Cal - 45/1 (that's the longshot), LSU - 25/1 (if you bet with your heart), Oklahoma - 6/1, Texas - 8/1 (my favorite).

Laker Schedule is out!!!

http://www.nba.com/lakers/schedule/index.html

Of course I will be on an airplane during the Christmas day game. That's standard though for my family. We always head someplace tropical on XMAS Day and catch the highlights on sportscenter. I'm not worried though. We will see either the Cavs or the Celts again in June.

Plaxico Burress ain't playing football anytime soon

So this stuff I was saying about Manny before? I'm still sticking to it. For those of you who didn't turn the tv off before the 9th inning of the Dodger game last night you got quite the treat. As soon as the Brewers put in Trevor Hoffman I knew the Dodgers had a great chance to tie this game up even though we were down by four runs. That is until Manny stepped up to the plate, bases loaded, two outs, Dodgers down by a run (we just rallied to score 3). I think it was two or three pitches in, he flied out - game over. Bench his ass! And no, that doesn't mean give him the night off.

To switch gears a little, yesterday Plaxico Burress was indicted by a New York grand jury on charges of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree. Now I've been listening and reading about a few different takes regarding this situation but I'm still not going to give Plax the benefit of the doubt. He brought a gun into a club and shot himself. Enough said? There are so many things wrong with that. The state of New York has a very strict policy about concealed weapons and Plaxico abused that policy. Now I highly doubt when he grabbed that gun to go out he said to himself 'self, this might not be a good idea because the mandatory sentence for having a concealed weapon is 3 and a half years in NY'. He brought it for his own safety. But do we know why he accidentally shot himself? What if he accidentally shot someone else? Has anyone ever spoken about why the gun went off? Did he accidentally sit on it? Or did he actually reach into his pocket to grab the gun for 'some' reason. Maybe he wanted to shift a little. Or maybe he saw something he didn't like and grabbed that gun for security purposes - which only means he might have had intentions to shoot someone.

There have been many discussions concerning a high profiled figures safety but the fact of the matter is that people get robbed or held at gunpoint all the time. I would think an average Joe or Jane walking down the street can just as easily be held at gunpoint as an athlete hanging at the club. If I'm about to turn a street corner and it doesn't look safe to me, I'm not walking there. So if Plaxico feels the need to bring a concealed weapon to a club for his safety then he shouldn't go. I can think of a 101 other ways to have a good time. Plus they charge you $500 for a bottle of Grey Goose that I can get at Ralphs for 20 bucks.

Hahahahahahahahahahaha!

This just in from Arizona Cardinal Camp: Former USC Quarterback Matt Leinart will be competing against Brian St. Pierre for the 2nd string quarterback job. For those of you who aren't familiar with St. Pierre, he has thrown one pass in six years at the professional level. Impressive. I hope Matty-O can keep up!

Sorry, Leinart was amazing in college and he's gone all Jamarcus Russell on us. But instead of reporting back to camp fat, he's just got different priorities. He has better people to do instead of play football.

Forget the South Beach Diet, lets go Patron

NFL camps have begun and I can't tell you how excited I am as the camp news keeps coming in. So many players are signing, so many players are getting injured, so many players are reporting in shape, and of course we got the fatty's over at the Raiders camp.

A story that struck me this morning was that LenDale White reported to camp 30 pounds lighter because he dropped the tequila from his diet. Now since he is an SC alumn, I'm not giving him any benefit of the doubt.

So if he dropped 30 pounds from last year then does that mean he was on his tequila diet during last season? 30 pounds is a lot of tequila, especially if you're playing in a professional football game for many weeks in a row. 773 yards last year is pretty impressive on a patron diet. I take 2 shots of tequila and the last thing I want to do is play football - I just like to make out. It's a good thing he decided to shape up as this is is 'contract year'. For all you fantasy people out there, Mr. White might be a good addition for your team. It sounds like with the weight drop, he's on track for 1000+ yards this year.

Speaking of someone who has NOT been on track - Good ol Manny Ramirez. While I was watching the Braves game and he came up to bat with two on, two outs his stats appeared on screen - 1 for his last 19. Needless to say, he struck out looking (yes he got a hit later on which was followed by a bomb from Kemp). Should Torre maybe sit him out for a game or two? I remember back in the day when the Dodgers had Jew power Shawn Greene on their team and he was in a ridiculous slump. I think Jim Tracy was the manager at the time and benched Shawn and gave him time to grieve. When Shawn was given the green light to get back on the field, he went nutz - something on the lines of 49 homeruns for the season. Just a thought.

On a happier note, Jason Schmidt came out to play on Friday. I'm a little bit more convinced but not totally. Jason had 6 scoreless innings, giving up one hit and 3 strikeouts. Unfortunately he had 5 walks but the bottom line is that he kept one of the hottest hitting teams in the month of July scoreless. I'm in shock. I still need to see another game, however.