Sports Talk

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It has been a great weekend for New York teams with both the Bills and Giants winning. And just to make things almost perfect - the Cowboys lost to the Eagles.

Cruz, Giants' defensive line step up in 20-17 win over Miami Dolphins.

The New York Giants were on the verge of falling victim to a classic trap game on Sunday, trailing the Miami Dolphins all afternoon until quarterback Eli Manning—with his team down 17-14—threw a go-ahead, 25-yard touchdown to receiver Victor Cruz (7 catches for 99 yards) with under 6 minutes left in the fourth quarter. Eli Manning led two fourth-quarter scoring drives, helping the Giants win a game despite getting zero help from his running game (58 yards) and not much help from his receivers, who dropped at least five perfectly-thrown balls on the day. Still, Manning finished 31-for-45 for 349 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions.

Bills draw cheers in Canada; beat Redskins 23-0.

Turns out Canadians can warm to a winner. Ryan Fitzpatrick quickly made his expensive new contract pay off, and the Buffalo Bills finally gave their adopted -- and sometimes indifferent -- fans north of the border something big to cheer about. Fitzpatrick hit tight end Scott Chandler for two touchdowns, and the Bills once porous defense had nine sacks and two interceptions to batter the already injury-riddled Washington Redskins 23-0 on Sunday.

EAGLES SHRUG OFF COWBOYS WITH EASE

Vick, McCoy virtually unstoppable as Philly rolls to 34-7 victory!!

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BREEDERS' CUP RACES

Flat Out trainer gets to first Breeders' Cup at 70.


(Flat Out winning Jockey Club Gold Cup)
Flat Out is taking Scooter Dickey places the 70-year-old trainer has never been. He's hoping their next trip is to the winner's circle after the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic. Flat Out is the best horse of Dickey's nearly 50-year career and the first to win a Grade 1 stakes for him. He came to Dickey as a promising 2-year-old in 2008, and the trainer has seen Flat Out through a history of foot problems to reach North America's richest race.
"It hasn't really sunk in yet," Dickey said, standing inside a stall piled with bags of feed. "Come Saturday, I'll get nervous about the time we start putting the saddle on." Dickey will have family and friends on hand Saturday at Churchill Downs, where he's based. Dana, his wife of 48 years who has an incurable liver disease and has waited years to receive a transplant, will gather her strength to attend.
At 6-1 on the morning line, Flat Out earned a spot in the Classic by winning the $750,000 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont last month over Drosselmeyer and Stay Thirsty, two of the 11 horses he'll face in the 1¼-mile Breeders' Classic race. Flat Out has been one of the most consistent handicap horses in the country this year, finishing 1st or 2nd in five of his six starts. He lost to filly Havre de Grace (another Classic contender) in the Woodward Stakes and finished 2nd to Tizway in the Whitney Handicap at Saratoga.
In a sport rife with jealousy, Dickey is well-regarded for his perseverance and hard work during a career in which he's never had a horse in the Triple Crown races and only now has one in the season-ending Breeders' Cup. "I told him, 'Enjoy the ride and have your wife dress you so you look presentable,'" joked Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, a friend since their days running horses at bush tracks in Kansas and Nebraska. In recent years, Dickey's stable twice dwindled to one horse and he was forced to take a job as a farm manager to pay the bills. Then along came Flat Out, who was included in a group of 2-year-olds that Dickey was in charge of taking to Saratoga. "I didn't realize how good he was," he said.
Now five, Flat Out is a relatively fresh horse because his previous foot problems and a shoulder injury have limited him to 12 starts. He's finished in the money in eight of those and earned $1.1 million. He'll be ridden by Alex Solis, a 47-year-old jockey enjoying success again after a long drought.

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NCAA Football

Another game for the ages looms in Tuscaloosa.

(Alabama's Trent Richardson)
Johnny Rodgers (1972 Nebraska Heisman winner) remembers a day when the two best teams in the land played a game for the ages. Forty years later, he can go over the winning drive as if it happened yesterday. Gino Torretta (1992 Miami Heisman winner) can still feel the hits he took in a different game. They were harder than most, and didn't necessarily end when the whistle blew. For Ara Parseghian (Notre Dame head coach), the most vivid memories are of Super Bowl-like hype before there was even such thing as a Super Bowl, leading to a showdown that demonstrated the enormous potential of No. 1 vs. No. 2.
All were key figures in a so-called Game of the Century, those landmark contests that helped define the sport. And all will be tuned in Saturday night to catch the latest chapter in this ongoing saga: top-ranked LSU vs. 2nd-ranked Alabama. "Absolutely," said the 88-year-old Parseghian, who guided Notre Dame to a pair of national championships during his coaching career. "That's exactly what you want to see."
While 1-2 matchups have become commonplace in the Bowl Championship Series, they're a rarity in the regular season. This will be the first scheduled matchup of the top-ranked teams in The Associated Press poll since 2006, when No. 1 Ohio State defeated No. 2 Michigan 42-39 in their traditional season finale. Since the AP poll was launched in 1936, there have been only 22 regular-season games pitting the two best teams as determined by a panel of media voters. If history is any indication, the 23rd could very well be a classic. More often not, the game lives up to the hype, from a banged-up Torretta leading Miami to a 17-16 victory over Florida State that became known as "Wide Right," to Parseghian's must-debated call to settle for a 10-10 tie with Michigan State, to perhaps the greatest 1-2 showdown of all — Nebraska's 35-31 victory over Oklahoma that will forever be remembered for Rodgers' thrilling 72-yard punt return.
While coaches preach over and over about keeping everything the same, no matter who they're playing, it's only natural to take a different mindset when so much is on the line. Even the trainers get hyped up. "I came to the sideline and my ankle was pretty bad," Torretta said. "So they retaped around my shoes, then said, 'Give me your other shoe, we're going to tape that.' I asked them why, and they were like, 'We don't want them to know which ankle it is.'"
While the winner Saturday night will have the inside track to the national title game, there's no guarantee that a Game of the Century will actually settle things. In 1993, top-ranked Florida State lost to No. 2 Notre Dame late in the season, but the Fighting Irish were upset the following week by Boston College. The Seminoles got a 2nd chance to claim coach Bobby Bowden's first national title. Even so, that lone defeat stings a bit. "We've still got our rings," said William Floyd, who was a fullback at Florida State. "But we have that one blemish we'd like to wash off."
Top-ranked Florida also got a do-over after losing to the 2nd-ranked Seminoles in 1996. Due to a fortunate turn of events, they got a rematch in the Sugar Bowl and romped to a 52-20 victory over then-No. 1 Florida State to claim their first national title. With that in mind, former Gators coach Steve Spurrier isn't so sure the LSU-Alabama loser will necessarily be out of the picture. "I keep reading there's going to be no rematch for these two teams," said Spurrier, who now coaches at South Carolina. "I'm not sure if that's the truth or not. I'm not so sure there won't be a rematch if they both win out the rest of the way through. And there's nothing wrong with that."
So who are you going to root for - Alabama or LSU. Personally, I hope LSU wins. Of course, I NEVER root for Alabama ever since the days of Bear Bryant oh so long ago.

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MLB


Dodgers headed to bankruptcy court auction[/b].

Maybe a "For Sale" sign should be erected outside Dodger Stadium. Team, ballpark, land and television rights available. Price: $1 billion and up.
The process of finding a new owner for the Los Angeles Dodgers began early Wednesday when current boss Frank McCourt and Major League Baseball released a joint statement saying they had agreed to a court-supervised sale of the once-glamorous and now bankrupt franchise.
In the long-term, the deal will allow the Dodgers to move ahead and try to get back to baseball's elite. But the club's fans may well have to endure another season adrift as the sale works itself out. While the sides hope for a quick deal, giving McCourt the money to pay his divorce settlement by April, MLB sales sometimes drag on for six months to 1½ years. Once bidders are identified, the court is likely to conduct an auction. "Baseball can choose to have their approval process move like molasses in winter or like Castor oil through a baby," said Marc Ganis, president of Sportscorp, a Chicago-based consulting firm.
The price likely will break the record for a baseball franchise, topping the $845 million paid by the Ricketts family for the Chicago Cubs in 2009. Investors will be solicited by the Blackstone Group, McCourt's investment banker. Dallas Mavericks co-owner Mark Cuban and Pittsburgh Penguins co-owner Ron Burkle, who lives in California, have been mentioned as possibilities. Asian investors have made inquiries. Former agent Dennis Gilbert, a friend of Chicago White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, hopes to put together a group.
Former Dodgers Steve Garvey and Orel Hershiser have said they might be interested, as has former general manager Fred Claire. Claire is aligned with former Oakland Athletics President Andy Dolich and former Dodgers batboy Ben Hwang, who brought in the financial backers. Claire, the Dodgers' GM from 1987-98, assumes the price will be $800 million to $1 billion and up. "I've been working on this venture since early July," Claire said. "My motivation is to see the Dodgers be what they need to be in the community."
Winners of six World Series titles but none since 1988, the Dodgers have been in various states of turmoil since October 2009, when Frank and Jamie McCourt separated and Frank fired her as the team's chief executive officer. A California judge invalidated a postnuptial agreement last December, allowing Jamie to seek half ownership of the team. Given the disarray, the Dodgers finished third in the NL West at 82-79, had just three sellouts and fell short of 3 million in home attendance in a full season for the first time since 1992.

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:DWell, another day has come and gone and LSU is No. 1 in the country.
::)Did anyone watch that game all the way through? I couldn't. I turned on #3Oklahoma St beating Kansas St for some excitement. It also went down to the wire, but over 90 total points (52-45) were scored!
>:(As for a rematch between LSU and Alabama - I really hope not. An overtime game with a score of 9-6 just doesn't excite me. When defenses dominate a much-hyped game such as this, I find it BORING. I'm sure that aficinados of the game don't feel the same, but I bet the average viewer does.
???Now I wonder if #5Boise State's 34-14 shellacing of UNLV will allow it to move up into the top 4. You think? Or will #6Oregon's beating of Washington 34-17 move it past Boise?
Incidentally, #4Stanford beat Oregon St 38-13.
My poll of one:
1. LSU
2. Oklahoma State
3. Stanford
4. Boise State
5. Oregon
6. Alabama


--#3 Cowboys of Oklahoma State survive 52-45 against @17 Kansas State
Brandon Weeden threw for a school-record 502 yards and four touchdowns, and Joseph Randle scored the final, tiebreaking 23-yard touchdown with 2:16 remaining to lift No. 3 Oklahoma State to a 52-45 victory against No. 17 Kansas State. While top-ranked LSU was edging out No. 2 Alabama 9-6 to get a leg up in the SEC's part of the BCS picture, Weeden and the Cowboys (9-0, 6-0 Big 12) won their own version of a wild one that came right down to the end. The Cowboys matched the best start in school history - accomplished only during the 1945 team's perfect Sugar Bowl season - and survived quite a scare from K-State (7-2, 4-2), which had three shots at the end zone from the OSU 5 in the final 12 seconds.

--And to put a finishing touch on this game, minutes after the game ended, the stadium shook from a 5.6 magnitude earthquake.

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]b]Paterno engulfed in growing furor over scandal[/b][/color][/i].
Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly said Paterno is not a target of the investigation into how the school handled the accusations. But she refused to say the same for the university president, Graham Spanier. Two Penn State officials, Senior Vice President Gary Schultz and Athletic Director Tim Curley, surrendered on charges that they failed to alert police to the complaint about Sandusky. Schultz and Curley are also charged with lying to the state grand jury that indicted Sandusky. Both stepped down from their posts Sunday, Curley taking a temporary leave and Schultz retiring. They appeared Monday in a Harrisburg courtroom, where a judge set bail at $75,000. They weren't required to enter pleas. Kelly and Noonan encouraged anyone who would accuse Sandusky of sexual assault to step forward and talk to police, with Kelly specifically asking that the child reportedly assaulted by Sandusky on March 1, 2002, call detectives.

Time and again, questions about an alleged cover-up of a sex abuse scandal at Penn State circled back to one name: Joe Paterno. Major college football's oldest, winningest and perhaps most revered coach, was engulfed Monday in a growing furor involving former defensive coordinator and one-time heir apparent Jerry Sandusky, who was indicted on charges of sexually abusing eight boys over 15 years.
The Pennsylvania state police commissioner said Paterno fulfilled his legal requirement when he relayed to university administrators that a graduate assistant had seen Sandusky attacking a young boy in the team's locker room shower in 2002. But the commissioner also questioned whether Paterno had a moral responsibility to do more. On the Happy Valley campus and in the surrounding town of State College, some were even asking whether the 84-year-old coach should step down after 46 seasons on the sidelines. Paterno has long had an image as a leader who does things by the book and runs a program that has seen far fewer off-field troubles than other major college football teams. Doubts about his judgment in handling the Sandusky matter quickly began to emerge. Facebook users, including those on a newly created group called "Joe Paterno should resign," expressed outrage and disappointment in Paterno. Many said Paterno should have gone to police after the 2002 incident.

Men's Tennis

Federer ends drought with Swiss win.

3rd seed Roger Federer returned to winning ways after a 10-month title drought with a convincing straight sets victory over Japan's Kei Nishikori in the Swiss Indoors championship in Basel. Former world number one Federer delighted his home fans by powering to a 6-1 6-3 success, his 5th in the last six Basel events. The triumph also ended a relatively barren 2011 for Federer, whose only other ATP Tour title this season came in January's Qatar Open in Doha.
Nishikori, who had stunned world #1 Novak Djokovic in the semifinals, had no answer to 30-year-old Federer, who was reaching his first final since losing to Rafael Nadal in the French Open at Roland Garros in June. Federer, who was securing his 68th career title, told reporters: "It's great to win at home once again. It was a perfect match for me and now I have big hopes for Paris and London this month." Federer continued: "I've known, ever since I hit with him as a teenager, that Kei could have a good future. He has had some injuries but he's playing well now. It was a good match and I'm very happy for the win."
Nishikori added: "I tried to fight, but Roger would not let me into the match. I'm very glad to have played the final, it has always been one of my goals to play Roger."
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1. Andrew Luck, QB, Stanford
....Luck shook off an uneven first-half performance at Oregon State that saw him throw his fifth pick of the season. He picked up steam after the break, throwing two third-quarter touchdown passes to help Stanford to a 38-13 win. A shot at redemption awaits the Cardinal with next week's visit from Oregon.

2, Trent Richardson, RB, Alabama
....Richardson WAS Alabama's offense vs. LSU. Although he failed to score a touchdown against the vaunted Tigers defense, he did show his versatility, running for 89 yards on 23 carries and catching five passes for an additional 80 yards.

3. Kellen Moore, QB, Boise St.
....Moore became college football's winningest quarterback, willing Boise State to a win over UNLV on the strength of five touchdowns. Despite not playing most of the fourth quarter, Moore finished with 224 yards on 18-of-31 passing.

4. Case Keenum , QB, Houston

....Another game, another NCAA record for the prolific passer. Keenum broke Timmy Chang's career record of 17,072 yards passing, finishing the game with 17,212 yards while leading Houston to its first 9-0 start. Keenum completed 39 of 44 passes with two touchdowns, no interceptions and no sacks.

5. Landry Jones, QB, Oklahoma
....The Sooners won their 2nd straight vs. Texas A&M since their loss to Texas Tech. Jones passed for two touchdowns but completed less than 50% of passes. Worse yet, his favorite target, Ryan Broyles, saw his illustrious career come to an end due to a knee injury.

6. Also possibilities:
....Brendon Weden, QB, Oklahoma St
....Ryan Broyles, WR, Oklahmos (lost for the season)
....Sammy Watkins, WR, Clemson
....Russell Wilson, QB, Wisconsin
....Justin Blackman, WR, Oklahoma St
....Tajh Boyd, QB, Clemson

7. Recent Heisman Trophy winners (2000-2010):
2010 Cam Newton, QB, Auburn
2009 Mark Ingram, RB, Alabama
2008 Sam Bradford, QB, Oklahoma
2007 Tim Tebow, QB, Florida
2006 Troy Smith, QB Ohio State
2005 Tim Tebow, QB, Florida
2004 Matt Leinart, QB, USC
2003 Jason White, QB, Oklahoma
2002 Carson Palmer, QB, USC
2001 Eric Crouch, QB, Nebraska
2000 Chris Weinke, QB, Florida St

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Clawing their way back: Bears 30-Eagles 24
The Bears' surge continues. Chicago (5-3) scored 13 unanswered points to rally past the Eagles on the road to win their 3rd straight and push Philadelphia further back (3-5) in the NFC East. Matt Forte, who leades the NFL in yards from scrimmage, ran for 133 yards and had 17 receiving in the Bears' victory. Jay Cutler threw a go-ahead 5-yard TD pass to Earl Bennett in the 4th quarter. But the Bears remain 3rd in the NFC North behind Green Bay (8-0) and Detroit (6-2).
It was a crushing loss for Michael Vick and the Eagles,who blew a 4th quarter lead for the 4th time this season. The defending NFC East Champion now trails the New York Giants (6-2) by three games.
The beloved former Eagles head coach Buddy Ryan, battling cancer, was onored at halftime. He was Chicago's defensive coordinator under Mike Ditka during their Super Bowl championship n 1985. He came to Philadelphia as head coach the next year and led the Eagels to the playoffs in 1988-90. He got a loud ovation and fans chanted "Buddy! Buddy!" He is the father of Ron Ryan, Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator, and Rex Ryan, NY Jets head coach.

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Penn St. trustees fire Paterno, school president.

Penn State trustees fired football coach Joe Paterno and university president Graham Spanier amid the growing furor over how the school handled sex abuse allegations against Jerry Sandusky, an assistant coach. The massive shakeup Wednesday night came hours after Paterno announced that he planned to retire at the end of his 46th season. But the outcry following the arrest of former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky on molestation charges proved too much for the board to ignore.
One key question has been why Paterno and other top school officials didn't go to police in 2002 after being told a graduate assistant saw Sandusky assaulting a boy in a school shower. Paterno says he should have done more. Spanier has said he was not told the details of the attack. Sandusky has denied the charges. Defensive coordinator Tom Bradley will serve as interim coach while Rodney Erickson will serve as interim school president.
Earlier in the day, Paterno said in a statement he was "absolutely devastated" by the case, in which Sandusky, his onetime heir apparent was charged with molesting eight boys in 15 years, with some of the alleged abuse taking place at the Penn State football complex. "This is a tragedy," Paterno said. "It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more."
John Surma, the vice chair of the board of trustees said, "these decisions were made after careful deliberations and in the best interests of the university as a whole."

The scandal is apt to ruin Penn State's program for yearst to come.

(Penn St presient Graham Spanier with Joe Paterno)
Ironically, there's not much the NCAA can do to the university for the alleged child sex-abuse incidents, but it doesn't have to. The Nittany Lions probaby will need a long time to recover. The NCAA only has power over fule-breakers, not criminals.
"The NCAA is not going to have to do anything," said a BCS official speaking anonymously because of the sensitive nature of the situation. "They can sit back and watch the house burn down." There is no patching Penn State back together. The program will have to be rebuilt from scratch, maybe from the Board of Trustees on down.
"It will be a pretty clean sweep it appears," former Penn State quarterback Todd Blackledge said on ESPN. "A lot of new faces, new policies, new processes put in place, which will be good in the long run … it's going to take time." Penn State has received the Almost Death Penalty — it just doesn't know it yet.

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MLB

1. Report: Wilson Ramos kidnapped from home in Venequela.

Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos has been kidnapped from his home in Valencia, Venezuela by four gunmen. There aren’t many details available at the moment and it might be hard to come by accurate information as this situation plays out, So far no one has been contacted the Ramos family.
Ramos batted .267/.334/.445 with 15 home runs and 52 RBI in 113 games this past season for the Nats. The talented 24-year-old was playing winter ball back in his native country for Tigres de Aragua BBC.

2. Jorge Posada confirms he will not be back with the Yankees.

According to the AP, free agent Jorge Posada before his annual dinner for his charitable foundation that he will not return to the Yankees in 2012. He hasn't completely ruled out retirement, but he has drawn interest from "five to six" MLB teams.
“I feel I’m undecided,” said Posada. “I don’t know if I want to play. I don’t know if I want to stay home. I’m having fun with the kids and with the family, but I don’t know what I want to do. I don’t want to make the mistake of telling you that I’m not going to play or telling you that I’m going to play when I don’t know what I want to do. … I will always be a Yankee.”
Posada batted just .235/.315/.398 in 387 plate appearances this season. He is no longer a capable catcher and probably shouldn’t be signed as anything more than a part-time designated hitter. But the 40-year-old could probably find an incentives-based major league contract if he truly wants to continue his career. The Yanks will turn DH duties over to a combination of Jesus Montero, Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter.

3. Progress being made in labor negotiations; deal could be done this weekl

Jayson Stark and others are hearing that some serious progress has been made in labor negotiations over the new collective bargaining agreement. There’s a decent chance that a deal could be done this week, in fact, though Stark has other sources telling him that’s a 50/50 proposition.
The holdup is the owners’ insistence on hard slotting for draft picks. The progress seems to be coming in the from of some mechanism other than a hard draftee bonus cap that nonetheless depresses signing bonuses. This is somewhat strange since draftee bonuses get tons of headlines but they represent such a small fraction of overall payroll. Like a really, really small amount. The top pick gets what a slightly above average veteran second baseman gets over a couple of years. Seems like a strange place to make a stand. But it doesn’t sound like the hardest stand, and it seems like labor peace is close at hand.

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NHL


1. Tortorela on Konopka: "I don't give a crap what Zenon said, or whatever his name is.

Ottawa tough guy Zenon Konopka spoke his mind today in anticipation of tonight¡¯s Senators-Rangers tilt, the first meeting between the teams since Ottawa¡¯s wild 5-4 SO win two weeks ago. That game, of course, was the one where New York¡¯s Wojtek Wolski took out Daniel Alfredsson with a questionable hit.
¡°We lost our captain. Our captain¡¯s still not in the lineup. I look right across every morning and see (the name) Alfredsson. I usually see his gear hanging there, and that bugs me,¡± Konopka told the New York Daily News. ¡°Right or wrong, if he was hurt legally, illegally, whatever way you want to explain it, our captain¡¯s out of our lineup, and that¡¯s a big blow to our team, and I look at that every day and that drives me up a wall, and it pisses me off.¡±
Keep in mind most people tend not to mess with Konopka. He¡¯s one of the NHL¡¯s most active fighters (58 scraps over the last two seasons) and led the league in penalty minutes last year. The few that do cross him are usually fellow fight enthusiasts.
But Rangers head coach John Tortorella? Oh yeah, Torts will mess with Konopka. ¡°I don¡¯t give a crap what Zenon said, or whatever his name is said,¡± Tortorella said following the Rangers¡¯ pregame skate. ¡°We¡¯re going to go about our business and try to play the right way.¡± Tortorella¡¯s comment about playing the right way should further rankle the Ottawa center. Konopka has expressed anger at comments the Rangers made on a hit he threw in the previous game ¡ª a check on Artem Anisimov that netted Konopka a five-minute boarding major and a game misconduct.
¡°They made a comment that after one of my hits, I guess, that this is what we need out of hockey ¨C one of the Rangers players said,¡± Konopka said. ¡°Well in my mind, the Wolski hit is the hit we need out of hockey. I feel like mine is a hockey play with the hockey puck there. That didn¡¯t seem like a hockey play.¡±
Puck was dropped at Scotiabank Place tonight, and in case you¡¯re wondering, yes, Konopka and Sean Avery do have a history ¡ª they fought in junior when Avery played for the Kingston Frontenacs and Konopka was with the Ottawa 67¡äs. BTW the Rangers won 3-2 in regulation.

2. [iHere's your Sidney Crosby update][/i].

The Pittsburgh Penguins returned to practice this afternoon at the Consol Energy Center, a practice attended by numerous national media outlets - to watch that Crosby guy.
Rob Rossi of the Pittsburgh Tribune reports that media members were huddled around Sidney Crosby¡¯s locker following practice in the hope of gleaning information about his potential return. ¡°Crosby appeared irritated at a group of reporters, gathered at his locker stall waiting for him to address his status,¡± Rossi writes. ¡°Later, though, he jovially chatted up a couple of the national reporters.¡±
Seems like everybody wants to know when No. 87 will return to action¡­but No. 87 isn¡¯t offering much in the way of information. Neither are the Penguins, though GM Ray Shero shot down rumors that the Mark Letestu-to-Columbus trade paved the way for Crosby to play Friday. Shero told Rossi on Tuesday night the move ¡°has nothing to do with Sid.¡±
Rossi states that ¡°the only thing I¡¯ve heard from people close to this situation is that the least ideal situation is for Crosby to return in a back-to-back games situation.¡± Which makes sense ¡ª the organization would probably like a day off following Crosby¡¯s debut to monitor his health. The alternative is dicey. For example: If the Pens were to play Crosby on Friday against Dallas then sit him Saturday against Carolina solely for precautionary reasons (which is a fairly logical approach), they¡¯d likely be bombarded with questions and speculation. I imagine the line of questioning would look something like this:

¡°Why is Crosby not playing tonight? Was it his decision to sit out, or the club¡¯s? Did he show any ill-effects from last night? If he did, what were they? If he didn¡¯t, why isn¡¯t he playing tonight? Could he have played if he checked out okay?¡±

Yeah, sounds like a real headache. Best to avoid it. The first game might be Tuesday, Nov. 15th at home against Colorado.
For you non-hockey fans, Sidney Crosby suffered a severe concussion in late 2009 and missed the entire 2009-10 season and the first part of this season.
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MLB



UPDATE: "It was hard for me to think about, if I was going to get out alive"

Kidnapped MLB catcher Wilson Ramos is freed by police commandos in Venezuela; five suspects arrested. The kidnapping ordeal of Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos ended after two days when Venezuelan police commandos swooped in to rescue him in a flurry of gunfire and arrested five alleged abductors. Ramos said he was happy and thankful to be alive, and that the final moments had been hair-raising as police and the kidnappers exchanged heavy fire in the remote mountainous area where he was being held.
"The truth is I'm still very nervous, but thanks to God everything turned out well," Ramos told Venezuelan state television, speaking by telephone after arriving at a police station in his hometown of Valencia early Saturday. He thanked the police and National Guard commandos who rescued him, saying "the boys did a great job."
Five men were arrested in the kidnapping, including a Colombian "linked to paramilitary groups and to kidnapping groups," Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami said. "I don't know who those people were. I know they're Colombians by their accent," Ramos said. "Three guys grabbed me there in front of my house, they took me to another SUV and from there they took me into the mountains," in central Carabobo state.
Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo hailed the news. "We are thrilled with reports that he has been rescued," Rizzo said in a statement. "We greatly appreciate all the prayers and thoughts of all who have joined us in wishing for this conclusion to what has been a nightmarish 48 hours. We are eager to see Wilson and let him know just how many all over the world have been waiting for this news." Ramos had recently returned to his homeland after his rookie year with the Nationals to play during the offseason in the Venezuelan league.
Security has increasingly become a concern for Venezuelan players and their families as a wave of kidnappings has hit the wealthy as well as the middle class. Although Ramos is the first major leaguer known to have been kidnapped, relatives of several players have previously been kidnapped for ransom, and in two cases have been killed. Some kidnappings in Venezuela have previously been carried out by highly organized criminal groups that demand ransom. Bodyguards typically shadow major leaguers when they return to their homeland to play in Venezuela's baseball league. Polls consistently say rampant crime is the top worry of Venezuelans. The country has one of the highest murder rates in Latin America, and the vast majority of crimes go unsolved. The number of kidnappings has soared in recent years.

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College Football
vs.
It's official - BCS title game - LSU vs Alabama rematch.
What many predicted might happen for the last couple of weeks has come to fruition. The SEC is going to win it’s sixth straight BCS national title with No. 1 LSU and No. 2 Alabama meeting in the championship game on Jan. 10 following up on one of the most controversial endings to the regular season since the BCS was brought into this world in 1998.
That means no national title shot for No. 3 — and Big 12 champion — Oklahoma State, which is .0086 percent behind Alabama in the BCS average. The Cowboys will be playing No. 4 Stanford in the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 2 instead in what could be one of the most interesting games of the postseason.
Matchups for all five BCS bowls:
Jan 2 - Rose Bowl - #5 Oregon vs. #10 Wisconsin
Jan 2 - Tostitos Fiesta Bowl - #3 Oklahoma St vs #4 Stanford
Jan 3 - Allstate Sugar Bowl - #14 Michigan St vs. #11 Va Tech
Jan 4 - Discover Orange Bowl - #15 Clemson vs. #23 West Va.
Jan 9 - BCS National Championship - #1 LSU vs #2 Alabama

I, for one, am not interested in watching the title game. LSU has already beaten Alabama, and if beaten, will be tied with Alabama at 1-1. I'm one who believes Oklahoma State should be playing LSU. And who came up with the Sugar Bowl lineup? Did anyone see the drumming Clemson gave VaTech? This is a terrible pairing. What about #8 Kansas St, #12 Baylor, Boise State or #15 TCU? They'd make a better opponent than VaTech.

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NCAA Football

Non-BCS Bowl Games.
Dec 17 - Gildan New Mexico - Temple vs. Wyoming - ESPN 2:00
Dec 17 - Famous Idaho Potato - Ohio vs Utah State - ESPN 5:30
Dec 17 - R+L Carriers New Orleans - San Diego St vs. Louisiana-Lafayette - ESPN 9:00
Dec 20 - Beef 'O' Brady St Petersburg - Florida Intern'l vs Marshall - ESPN 8:00
Dec 21 - S.D. County Credit Union Poinsettia - TCU vs Louisiana Tech - ESPN 8 p.m.
Dec 22 - MAACO Las Vegas - Arizona State vs Boise State - ESPN 8
Dec 24 - Sheraton Hawaii - Nevada vs. Southern Miss - ESPN 8:00
Dec 26 - AdvoCare V100 Independence - Missouri vs North Carolina - ESPN2 5 p.m.
Dec 27 - Little Caesars - Western Michigan vs Purdue - ESPN 4:30
Dec 27 - Belk - Louisville vs. North Carolina State - ESPN 8 p.m.
Dec 28 - Northrup Military Bowl - Toledo vs Air Force - ESPN 4:30
Dec 28 - Bridgeport Education Holiday - Californica vs Texas - ESPN 8 p.m.
Dec 29 - Champs Sports - Florida State vs Notre Dame - ESPN 5:30 p.m.
Dec 29 - Valero Alamo - Washington vs Baylor - ESPN 9 p.m.
Dec 30 - Bell Helicopter Armed Forces - BYU vs Tulsa - ESPN noon
Dec 30 - New Era Pinstripe - Rutgers vs Iowa State - ESPN 3:30
Dec 30 - Franklin American Mortgage Music City - Mississippi State vs. Wake Forest - ESPN 6:40 p.m.
Dec 30 - Insight - Iowa vs Oklahoma - ESPN 10 p.m.
Dec 31 - Meineke Car Care of Texas - Texas A&M vs Northwestern - ESPN noon
Dec 31 - Hyundai Sun - Georgia Tech vs Utah - CBS 2 p.m.
Dec 31 - AutoZone Liberty - Cincinnati vs Vanderbilt - ABC 3:30 pm
Dec 31 - Kraft Fight Hunger - Illinois vs UCLA - ESPN 3:30 pm
Dec 31 - Dick-fil=A - Virginia vs Auburn - ESPN 7:30 pm
Jan 2 - TicketCity - Houston vs Penn State - ESPNU noon
Jan 2 - Outback - Michigan State vs Georgia - ABC 1 pm
Jan 2 - Capital One Citrus - Nebraska vs. SC - ESPN 1 pm
Jan 2 - Taxslayer.com Gator - Ohio State vs Florida - ESPN2 1 pm
Jan 6 - AT&T Cotton - Kansas State vs Arkansas - FOX 8 p.m.
Jan 7 - BRVA Compass - SMU vs Pittsburgh - ESPN 1 pm
Jan 8 - GoDaddy.com - Arkansas State vs Northern Illinois - ESPN 9 pm


Jan 2 - Taxslayer.com Gator Bowl - Old Urbans vs. New Urbans.
Both Ohio State and Florida confirmed that they will square off in the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla. Luke Fickell will coach the Buckeyes in the Gator Bowl while Will Muschamp while do the honors for Florida, but the real storyline for a game involving a pair of 6-6 teams will be the former and future head coach of the teams - Urban Meyer.
This is just the 2nd meeting all-time between the two teams and Urban Meyer was the Florida coach at that game, a 41-14 win in the BCS 2006 title game. Now, less than a year after leaving Florida, he has been announced as the new Ohio State coach.
The Gator Bowl will come one year and one day after Meyer’s last game as UF’s head coach, a 37-24 win over Joe Paterno‘s Penn State Nittany Lions.

Cowboys, Cardinal in Fiesta Bowl.
vs.
It's been a long, difficult year for the Fiesta Bowl, first with a dud of a game, then nearly losing its BCS status after an investigation into financial improprieties. By landing Oklahoma State and Stanford, two dynamic teams that just happen to be Nos. 3 and 4 in the BCS standings, the Fiesta Bowl got the golden game it needed.
"If you want to come up with an event that's going to focus everyone's attention on the game, you couldn't ask for much more than this," Fiesta Bowl executive director Robert Shelton said Sunday night. Oklahoma State (11-1) fell just short in its national championship bid. Despite having a resume that stacked up against Alabama, the Cowboys were third in the final BCS standings, oh-so-close behind the Crimson Tide, who'll face LSU in the national championship game.

Big 12 commissioner calls for plus-one playoff.
Interim Big 12 commissioner Chuck Neinas said that a model allowing the top four teams of college football to meet in the postseason should be revisited. "The plus-one model has received consideration before," Neinas said. "As a result of this year, I feel that consideration should become more serious as we move forward."
Oklahoma State finished a close third to Alabama in the final BCS standings and will play in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl instead of the Allstate BCS National Championship. Cowboys coach Mike Gundy believes his team, after a rout of Oklahoma, deserved a chance to play for the title. Oklahoma State won its conference while Alabama did not. And the Crimson Tide has already lost to LSU this season.
In the past, SEC commissioner Mike Slive and ACC commissioner John Swofford have supported a plus-one system. It was rebuked by the other conferences, but now Dan Beebe is no longer Big 12 commissioner and Tom Hanson has been replaced in the Pac-12 by Larry Scott, who has proven to be forward-thinking. In a seeded, plus-one system for this season, LSU would have faced Stanford and Alabama would have faced Oklahoma State, with the winners playing for the title.
In that scenario, the Big Ten and Pac-12 champions, Wisconsin and Oregon, would still play in the Rose Bowl. In the past, the Big Ten and Pac-12s' preference to preserve the rivalry of its champions meeting when at all possible has been an obstacle for the concept of an expanded postseason format.
Remarkable that the Big 12 commissioner has changed his tune now that his conference missed out on the title game. I wonder how he would have felt if it were two Big 12 teams meeting for the national championship. You think he'd still want a playoff? hmmm?

[pegasus]

NCAA Football



Big East to add Boise, four others for 2013 season
After a couple months or so of flirting with the idea of expansion, it sounds like the Big East is finally going to add five schools to its seemingly ever-diminishing group. Last night, the Newark Star-Ledger was one of many news outlets to report that the Big East was on the verge of adding Boise State and San Diego State for football only and SMU, Central Florida and Houston as all-sports members. Of course, swift action hasn’t exactly been the route Big East commissioner John Marinatto has taken; not to mention, those five aforementioned programs, along with Navy and Air Force, have been in the Big East expansion discussion for a while now.
The Star-Ledger and CBS Sports‘ Brett McMurphy are confirming that the Big East will add the five schools as either football-only or full members, bringing the football side of the conference to 10 members and the basketball side back to 16. The official announcement is reportedly set for Wednesday.
The goal is to have all the members available to compete in the new conference by 2013.
The main absences? No Air Force and no Navy. The two military academies were part of the original targets by the Big East, but talks had hit snags in recent months because of concerns over conference stability and exit fees. BYU was also part of the expansion discussion, but complications with the school’s TV contract with ESPN and BYUtv eventually halted those discussions. That would eventually allow San Diego State — the biggest and most western of all the Big East candidates — to emerge in the Big East expansion discussion.

P.S. ESPN is saying that Navy will join as football only.