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While we're all still sitting here waiting for Manny Ramirez to give in to the fact that nobody is going to give him the four-year deal he seems dead set on signing and just sign with the Dodgers or Giants already, Manny wants us to know that he's still pretty confident that things are going to get done and work out.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times' Dylan Hernandez, Manny said that he's in no rush to get a deal done and that he's only "in the seventh inning and I'm waiting for my pitch." He also wants his prospective employers to know that he's not going to dog it if he gets a multi-year deal. He has goals, man.

Well, at least, those are somebody's words, and he's in the picture doing that Urban Meyer pointy thing. At right is what appeared in yesterday's Los Angeles Times. Notice the big, bold, capital OVER. Now technically this isn't so much a shot across the bow as a call to an end to USC's hegemonic grip on football success in Los Angeles. But we all know the other message implied here: I'm coming for you, USC. Cue the High Noon audio.

Bold. And idiotic. Pete Carroll being Pete Carroll, he'll laugh this off in public and promptly save it for bulletin board material at suitable leisure. It's not that the ad is wrong in anyway, as the mandate for any football coach at UCLA is to achieve parity with and if possible exceed USC. But one can't laugh at how ridiculous it sounds given the position USC is in, having gone places UCLA simply can only imagine in its football history.

As a USC alum it is assumed I should be typing the obligatory IT.IS.ON. But that's not how we roll, UCLA's the irritating kid brother when it comes to football. This is quiet reflection and amusement time. Then its off to the memory hole to be recalled sometime around early December before the ritual stomping. At least, we hope.

(Orange County Register via WildWest)

The Los Angeles Times can do better than this. In a special story about "unlucky" moments in Los Angeles sports history, this is what the Times had to say about 2005's Rose Bowl:

USC held a 7-3 lead in its BCS title game against Texas when Longhorns quarterback Vince Young seemed to touch his knee down before throwing an option pitch that went for a touchdown. The play was screaming for a replay review, but on college football's biggest stage of the season, the replay-review system malfunctioned, depriving officials of the right play to review. The illegal touchdown stood, setting up Young's final scrapbook moment - fourth-and-five from the Trojans' eight, an obvious passing situation. USC plays it that way, looking for a pass that never comes, as Young pulls the ball down and sprints for the pylon for the winning score. Texas fans and the national media immediately declared Young "unstoppable," but here we saw it differently. Here we are aware of the truth. Here we know that twice in that big game, Young was nothing but awfully lucky.

Oh puhleeeze. Let's talk about that game a little bit, after the jump.

Well, that didn't take long. A few unanswered questions and tense moments in the locker room, and Gary Matthews -- he of the $50 million contract and HGH suspicions -- went and pissed off T.J. Simers of the Los Angeles Times:

Matthews, now occupying Darin Erstad's locker, which is a disgrace when you consider what a stand-up guy Erstad was here, begged Modesti to ask a question after I said, "Do you think you have to earn the fans' respect here after being Mr. HGH" this spring?

...I asked Matthews whether he was familiar with Ryan Leaf, since Matthews reminded me of the punk, and got nothing. I asked him whether the questions were too tough, and got nothing. Now he began to remind me of Mike Garrett.

He told Jenkins, "Growing up in this game helps me deal with things," and so I said, "Didn't growing up in this game help you to deal with tough questions?"

"I've got nothing to say to you; you started off on the wrong foot," said Matthews, who signed a $50-million contract to spend the next five years filling up Page 2. "Maybe next time you will start off on the right foot."

As you can imagine, none of this went over well with Simers; he proceed to rip Matthews and the Angels organization for another 20 paragraphs or so. As much as I appreciate his desire to be every bit the tough journalist his first metro editor knew he could be, the column comes off more petulant and bitter than it does measured and informed.

Don't get me wrong: Simers has the moral high ground here, and has every right to ask the needling questions Matthews doesn't like, just as Matthews has the right to decline questions without taking a verbal beating for it. Still, when you write a column like you're a teenage girl composing a "Burn Book," well, you don't exactly state your case well.

I mean, Ryan Leaf? Low blow, dude.