FanHouse WildCard

Elie Seckbach, the Embedded Correspondent, brings his exclusive video reporting to FanHouse. Check back regularly for more videos.

Boxing star Manny Pacquiao is working hard to get ready for his upcoming May 2 championship fight against British boxer Ricky Hatton. In this exclusive video we hang out at the very gym where Manny works out, the Freddie Roach Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood. We also find out what Mel Gibson movie Manny loves to quote, and how courteous and funny Manny really is with friends and strangers alike.

Check out the video after the jump.

As we baseball fans reside, happily, in the realm of the playoffs -- really, you gotta love this time of year -- it's probably a pretty good time to reflect on the wild card. I, like many, believe the wild card has been a huge success, one that has made stretch regular season runs that infinitely more exciting. (I think MLB should add playoff teams ... but that's for a different time.)

Still, in the interests of fairness, it's important to note the existence of dissenters to the "Wild Card is R0x0r" point of view, even if said dissenters are almost unanimously curmudgeonly old men obsessed with the game as it once was. And their names may or may not be George W. Bush:

"I MADE my arguments and went down in flames. History will prove me right." George Bush on Iraq? No, that was George Bush, the then owner of the Texas Rangers, a major league baseball team, after voting against baseball's new wild-card system in 1993. The owners' vote came down 27-1 against Mr Bush. History, meanwhile, has proven him quite wrong-most players, owners and fans (including myself) consider the wild-card system, in effect since 1995, a tremendous success.

Now that's the kind of leadership and foresight we need in the White House. If only someone would give this guy a chance to run for our nation's highest office! Like the failure of the wild card, his success as president is all but guaranteed.Sorry, No Photos

Ten wins and a wild card berth. Heck, sign me up! Like AJ Smith says, just get in the tournament.

2. * San Diego, 10-6. I really loved the defense -- until Steve Foley got shot three times after being chased by a cop Saturday night. Foley's a physical, 265-pound pass- and run-stopping fiend who was perfect in Marty Schottenheimer's heavy defense, and now we don't know if he'll play this year. Until Foley's incident, the biggest worry was whether Philip Rivers could reprise Brees' last two seasons. I'm bullish on Rivers, but he hasn't done it yet.