Fun fact: Yankees manager Joe Girardi has as many wins in November as Giants coach Tom Coughlin, Jets coach Rex Ryan, Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni and Nets coach Lawrence Frank combined. His loss total pales in comparison, however, which is probably why the Knicks invited him to Madison Square Garden to be honored during Sunday's loss game against the Celtics.
They're giving him the (quite possibly made up) Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton "City Spirit" Award, ostensibly because he stopped on his way home from winning the World Series to help the victim of a car accident flag down help from the police. It was a kind act, but it's not hard to imagine Knicks brass is desperate to liven up the grim Garden scene these days.
To no one's surprise, Jason Bay has decided to see what the 29 other teams in the big leagues have to offer before deciding whether or not he wants to return to the Red Sox. Jon Heyman of SI.com reports that Bay turned down a four-year contract offer worth approximately $60 million just before free agency officially kicks off a minute past midnight on Friday morning.
It would have been quite a surprise if Bay had decided to skip the free agency process, something that Red Sox GM Theo Epstein admitted to Heyman.
"It's not a surprise that a player that's gone this far wants to see what's out there."
Bay, who hit 36 home runs and posted a 921 OPS in 2009, figures to draw a lot of interest on the open market. The Red Sox offer was decent, but the paucity of other strong bats on the free agent landscape would suggest that he could get either more years or more money once several bidders are in the mix.
Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2010.
Take your hat off to the Angels for the way they weathered the dual gut punches of Nick Adenhart's death and a raft of early-season injuries to advance all the way to the ALCS this year. The biggest reason why was an offense that defied its reputation for playing small ball all the way to a franchise-record 883 runs. That, in turn, led to a much better than expected record and helped hide the fact that their pitching staff was fairly average.
That makes two straight years where the Angels wildly outperformed expectations, and general manager Tony Reagins will be hard-pressed to put together a team that does it a third time. Chone Figgins, Vladimir Guerrero and John Lackey are all free agents who figure to have a lot of callers in a weak year for free talent, which means that the team will likely be dealing with at least one significant change to their core group.
With the Rangers on the rise, the AL West could be ripe for a changing of the guard in 2010.
Another week, another pair of close calls for the two teams at the top of our Power Rankings. The Saints and Colts both survived, though, and that means they maintain their spots for another week. Since both teams have seen their victory margins dropping, it's a good time to discuss which team should give their fans more reason for concern going forward.
We're going to go with the Saints, simply because their penchant for turning the ball over is the kind of thing that can catch up to you at exactly the wrong time. The Colts, by virtue of Bill Belichick's aversion to punting, have a two game edge on homefield in the playoffs. That gives them more margin for error than New Orleans enjoys with the Vikings breathing down their necks.
Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2010.
When you're the Yankees, the only acceptable end to a season is one that ends with a dogpile on the pitcher's mound and a champagne-soaked locker room. The 2009 season had quite an acceptable ending, then, although it isn't one they'll be able to celebrate for too long.
The nature of expecting a championship every year is that the work toward building the next champion begins before Broadway is cleared of confetti. This year's decisions will revolve around a trio of aging stars from the title squad as well as figuring out how they'll use their leverage as baseball's richest team to improve themselves for run at a 28th title.
As always, the latter means that you'll be seeing a lot of Mad Lib headlines with "The Yankees are interested in _______," and, as always, just about any one of them could wind up being true.
Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2010.
The man in charge of personnel may be new -- Alex Anthopoulos replaces his former boss J.P. Ricciardi as general manager -- but the two crucial questions for the franchise remain intact. How do you contend in a division stocked with the behemoths in Boston and New York as well as the young and talented Orioles and Rays? And, perhaps more pressing, what to do with Roy Halladay?
The answers to the two questions have some common ground. The only way the Jays will be able to compete with the Sox and Yankees over the long haul is to stock every level of their organization with talent, like the Rays did, and then use those pieces to build a consistent winner. When Halladay leaves, whether by free agency or trade, they need to maximize the return by either paying above slot for the top available draftees or acquiring high-quality players at positions where talent is scarce.
Easier said than done, to be sure, but so is competing in the AL East.
When Eagles tight end Brent Celek scored a touchdown on Sunday night, he celebrated his touchdown by putting his hands on his hips and raising his right leg off the ground. You may not have thought anything of it at the time, but now you'll understand why you spent the rest of the night craving a glass of spiced rum.
Celek's celebration was actually a pretty nifty bit of guerilla marketing by Captain Morgan, which offered to donate money to charity anytime a NFL player celebrated a score by striking the pose made familiar in commercials and on liqour bottles. The NFL didn't find it quite so nifty, however, and reached out to the charity and the company to tell them to put the kibosh on the stunt.
There's been a lot of discussion this season about the lack of parity in the NFL. The league has always been very proud of the "Any Given Sunday" thing, and there have been plenty of seasons where that's proven to be true. Because several teams have gaudy records balanced out by a handful of serious laggards, the conventional wisdom is that parity has taken a vacation this season.
The CW is wrong in this case, however. Parity still exists and it exists in the worst way possible. Just take a look at the teams ranked between 12 and 24 and try to come up with any real way of separating them from one another. It's awfully difficult to do because all of them are, at best, mediocre teams who stand no more chance of winning the Super Bowl than the Browns or Redskins. That's going to make for an ugly stretch run as there are only three divisions with fewer than two games between the first and second place teams.
As the divorce drama of Dodgers owner Frank McCourt and his wife (and, depending on the courts, co-owner) Jamie plays out in Los Angeles, speculation has started that the team may hit the market. That's what happened with the Padres, you'll remember, when John Moores sold a stake in the team to pay off his ex-wife. If it plays out that way further up the California coastline, Cuban told the Los Angeles Times that he'd be interested in buying the team.
On the eve of a Sunday night NFC East showdown in Philadelphia, the Cowboys have gotten some bulletin board material via a comparison of their franchise and the Eagles. Strangely enough, the inflammatory statements weren't made by anyone with current ties to the Eagles, but by Ravens head coach John Harbaugh.
Harbaugh, a former Eagles assistant, was asked for a new book what made the Eagles more successful than the Cowboys over the last 10 years. Matt Mosley of ESPN.com shares the answer.
Fun fact: Yankees manager Joe Girardi has as many wins in November as Giants coach Tom Coughlin, Jets coach Rex Ryan, Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni and Nets coach Lawrence Frank combined. His loss total pales in comparison, however, which is probably why the Knicks invited him to Madison Square Garden to be honored during Sunday's 
To no one's surprise, Jason Bay has decided to see what the 29 other teams in the big leagues have to offer before deciding whether or not he wants to return to the Red Sox. Jon Heyman of SI.com reports that Bay turned down 
Footprints in the Snow
Another week, another pair of close calls for the two teams at the top of our Power Rankings. The 
Footprints in the Snow
Footprints in the Snow
When Eagles tight end 
There's been a lot of discussion this season about the lack of parity in the NFL. The league has always been very proud of the "Any Given Sunday" thing, and there have been plenty of seasons where that's proven to be true. Because several teams have gaudy records balanced out by a handful of serious laggards, the conventional wisdom is that parity has taken a vacation this season. 
Mark Cuban
On the eve of a Sunday night NFC East showdown in Philadelphia, the Cowboys have gotten some bulletin board material via a comparison of their franchise and the Eagles. Strangely enough, the inflammatory statements weren't made by anyone with current ties to the Eagles, but by Ravens head coach 
