The Dance is here!!!

I'm a little disappointed that Saint Mary's didn't get in but honestly it hurts to have your #1 player get injured for that amount of time. 

Michigan State got a 2 seed? Come on! Michigan State lost to Maryland (when they weren't winning) by 18 and lost to North Carolina by 35. Was beating Kansas and Oklahoma State (The only impressive out of conference games, unless you count Idaho or Alcorn State) justification for the two loses I mentioned? And losing to Ohio State by 12 means that they have momentum? I don't understand why everyone loves the Big Ten soooo much. If you ask me, the Big Ten was as pitiful as the Pac-10 this year and their top seed (Washington) got a 4 seed. 

Some small complaints about what has happened but overall I have to be happy that we don't do college basketball like football. (THANK YOU!) We know now that it is dance time that there will be many cinderellas in different seeds and conferences. 

Manny Ramirez was a cancer!

"It just takes one guy to bring an entire team down, and that's exactly what was happening. Once we saw that, we weren't afraid to get rid of him. It's like cancer.... blah... blah... blah..." Most of this is a quote of relief pitcher Jonathan Papelbon in Esquire magazine.

I guess that getting rid of him wasn't enough and Papelbon believed that he needed to get this off of his chest. Maybe he wants everyone to know that Manny brought the entire team down and that every mistake the Red Sox made was a result of Manny being on the team at that time.

Didn't the Red Sox lose to the Devil Rays with all of the weight gone in Los Angeles? Papelbon did blow a save while Manny was gone, just look it up. I'm just saying that the Red Sox weren't a bad team and that Manny didn't make them any worse than they were without him. If anything Manny at the age of 36 was a vital part of the team regardless of the gimmicks he was trying to pull.

Here is a look at what Manny did during his last 'season' with the Sox vs. what Bay did when he was brought to the Sox:

Head to Head - Games AVG SLG OPS

Manny Ramirez 100 .299 .529 .927

Jason Bay - - *49 .293 .527 .897

What Manny has done for the Red Sox over the course of his career will help put him in the Hall of Fame. He was by far the biggest face of the franchise other than Big Papi but things obviously got sour when his deal wasn't restructured. Even when Manny was supposedly sabotaging the Sox, he had better stats than Bay who was trying to prove himself in a new place. 

Papelbon don't try and blame the Red Sox choking to the Devil Rays on Manny. I'm pretty sure that he had nothing to do with the fact that you weren't able to make it to the World Series. My final question is: Manny is an LA Dodger and no longer affecting the Boston Red Sox, who is bringing up a dead topic and distracting the Red Sox now?

- D-Rae

Jerry is just getting started

Free agency has been in session and we hadn't heard anything from Jerry Jones.

I don't know about other NFL fans but this scared me. But thanks to the last couple days we can pretend that he has been here all along. Dropping Terrell Owens and Roy Williams (the safety) and  signing DT Igor Olshansky.

The media has commended Jones and the Cowboys for dropping Owens. Maybe I'm missing something but I wouldn't want to get rid of a WR of his caliber and have the chance that another contender could sign him. Over the course of three years, Owens caught 235 passes for 3,587 yards and 38 touchdowns. We all know that he was the secondary target for much of this period too.

I'm not trying to write off Roy Williams but his stats in 10 games last year are not comforting. In his time, he caught 19 passes for 198 yards and one touchdown. I understand that T.O. and Witten were ahead of him on the totem pole but I would hope that he would've showed a little more for 1st, 3rd and 6th round picks.

What was Jones thinking for releasing him this late? Popular belief is that T.O. tore the Cowboys locker room apart and just doesn't help chemistry. But I really think that its just his reputation talking. Regardless, he is gone now and I wonder why Jones didn't attempt to cut him earlier so he could go after Ray Lewis or some other bigger name free agents.

Whoever decides to take the "risk" will end up with a player with as much impact on a single side of the football as Albert Haynesworth. The Cowboys just hope that the rest of the NFC East has run out of money because god knows that their secondary couldn't cover him.

-D-Rae