Monday, January 5

Milton Bradley Gets Long Overdue Payday?
Milton Bradley just signed a 3 year contract with the Chicago Cubs for 30 million dollars. 1o million per for Milton Bradley!! The Gods must be crazy.
Bradley is coming off the best season of his career, in which he hit 22 home runs and drove in 77. His second best season was three years ago when he had 19 dingers and 67 rbis.
He is a sub par defensive outfielder. He's only played 2 one hundred game seasons in a nine year career, and one of those was 101 games.
Bradley's two most significant achievements have been embarrasments. First, he got into a bottle throwing altercation with Oakland Athletic's fans about four years ago. Second, he strained his ACL and missed the rest of the season by arguing with an umpire when he was a San Diego Padre. As manager Bud Black tried to settle Bradley down, Milton fell and twisted his knee.
10 Million for Milton Bradley!
The Cubs will be Bradley's 7th team in 10 years. Bradley is not a threat on the basepaths. He is a horrible "clubhouse guy". There is not a fan in the country that would pay the prcie of a ticket just to see him play. There is no way that Bradley is one of the top 100 players in the game.
1o million for Milton Bradley.
Unbelievable.

College Football Bowl Games
I love College Football. Love it. As much as the NFL? I don't know, the NFL is pretty special. But it's close.
Although, if there is a highly anticipated National Championship game, like this week's Florida/Oklahoma game, I'll make absolute sure not to miss it. I've had a memo on the fridge for about a week telling Alissa to not make any plans for me on thursday night, because I'm not doing anything except sitting on the couch watching that game.
4 years ago I missed the USC/Texas championship to go out with a friend who was leaving town. The game turned out to be legendary. I promised myself that would never happen again.
I love the bowl games. I wrote in an earlier post about how much I love the smaller bowls, featuring smaller schools. Tomorrow night's GMAC bowl should be great. But the big bowl games are very special.
So far the bowl games have been a little dissapointing. The media tried to convince us that Penn State could play with USC in the Rose Bowl. By the end of the first half it was 31-7 for the Trojans and the jig was up.
The Sugar Bowl was alot of fun, watching the underdog Utah Utes beat SEC powerhouse Alabama. The only problem was that Alabama never had control of the game and Utah won by 14. If Bama had gone ahead at some point, it could have been reminicent of Boise State's classic win over Oklahoma 2 years ago.
The Orange Bowl was a bore (Virginia Tech and Cincinatti in the Orange Bowl on new year's day?)
Tonight's Fiesta Bowl was a great game. Texas beat Ohio State 24-21 on a last minute td drive. The Buckeyes have lost a BCS bowl for the third straight year, but gave a much better showing than the 2 previous losses. You have to feel for the Buckeyes. But if they would have made 1 big play on defence on the last drive, especially on the 4th down and 4, they would be Fiesta champs right now and back on the road to being respected.

Why I love College Football
First, I love the bands. Tonight was a great example. Ohio State's marching band on the field prior to the game, spelling out Ohio with the traditional dotting of the I. A marching brigadeer leads the tuba player out to the spot where he takes his post. It's great.
Or the Texas band, after every big Longhorn's play, doing a different dance and play the schools fight song.
Second, I love the atmoshere. It's different than the NFL. NFL crowds are alot of noise, but it's kind of chaotic. College crowds are alot more cheerful, with out the aid of alcohol. The stadium is divided into school colours, each student, alumnus, and parent proudly wearing burnt orange, or crimson, or baby blue. The cheerleaders are awesome. The aforementioned bands, the mascots, the flag carriers. The roar of the crowd when their team takes the field, " Here come the 'Horns!" Love it.
Third, I like the different types of offence. The NFL is so much of the same; QB, RB, FB, TE, and 2 Wide Recievers. The coaches all run the same stuff. In college, you have the option, the spread, the wishbone (classic). Tonight, Ohio State put their starting qb at wide receiver, brought in the back up, and had him throw a fade pattern for a touchdown pass to the starting qb! Awesome.
Plus the trick plays. Remember Boise State vs Oklahoma. Boise State tied the game on a hook and lateral from midfield to send it to OT. In OT the running back took a pitch and threw a td pass. Then they went for 2 and won the game on the statue of liberty play. The Boise State Broncos beat the mighty Oklahoma Sooners! Then, the star running back who scored the winning 2 point convert (Rob Johnson?), while being interviewed surrounded by crazy fans, proposed to his girlfriend, a Boise State cheerleader! She said yes.
That kind of thing only happens in College Football.
Fourth, the kids make mistakes. Sure NFL players make mistakes, but not that many. These kids make the kind of mistakes that just break your heart. Complete mental breakdowns that can only happen to a 20 year old kid playing the biggest game of his life in front of 100,000 fans, not too mention the millions watching on TV (see Chris Webber). It adds to the drama and makes the sport that much more human.
Finally, there are lots of big plays. Far more big plays than in the NFL. In a typical NFL game you may get 3 or 4 plays over 30 yards. In a typical college game you're likely to get over 10 plays that go for huge yardage. In a college game, teams can put up 20 points in a heartbeat. In college you can get scores like 61-41 (Oklahoma vs Oklahoma State in December).
I haven't even mentioned the rivalries. Ohio State vs Michigan, Florida vs LSU, Notre Dame vs USC, Oklahoma vs Texas. These are football games that the student body will camp out all semester to get tickets for.