I’m not surprised by the decision. The past few years, John Miller and Joe Morgan have been pretty bland as announcers. Perhaps ESPN got tired of these guys mispronouncing Carlos Beltran’s name (Carlos Bel-TRON, anyone?).

The NY Mets have made another big hire to their front office. Paul DePodesta joins Sandy Alderson and JP Ricciardi, as the new Sabermetrics/Moneyball team over in Flushing. There’s no doubt it’s good to see Wilpon allow Alderson clean house and restructure the team as needed, but how will this help the Mets this season?

The Mets are “capped” out in theory. They won’t be big players in the free agent market, which means they will really need the Moneyball strategy to squeeze out maximum value out of their limited resources. It’s a shame the suits don’t play the game, or I’d be real excited for the Mets right now.

The first two weeks of the NY Knicks season, and I’m really liking what I’m seeing from Landry Fields. See? The Knicks can draft without well without Isiah Thomas.

Speaking of Lord Isiah, I’m hoping he keeps his mouth shut for the entire College Basketball season. Someone needs to just slap the man back to reality. For someone who crashed and burned as bad as he did in NY, only an owner like James Dolan would want him back. Unfortunately, Dolan has the power to bring him back.

For every great surprise like Landry Fields and even Toney Douglas, there’s an early disappointment, and that is easily Danilo Gallinari. Early on, Gallo has been really disappointing. Yeah he’s injured, but for what he’s projected to be, he’s gotta find other ways to contribute when he’s not scoring. The great players always do.

And the Knicks could’ve had Brandon Jennings…

The Knicks are actually playing defense! Lets see if the defense holds up past the first two weeks of the season.

Did you know you can lose weight eating Twinkies? When I read about it, I felt I was in that episode of Family Guy where the only thing left standing after a nuclear fallout was the Twinkie Factory.

Here is how the Twinkie diet worked – http://www.slashfood.com/2010/11/09/eat-twinkies-lose-weight-one-mans-wacky-diet-that-worked/

Have you tried out the Dunkin’ Donuts Sausage Pancake Bites? They sound as bad as the KFC double chicken double bacon sandwich. Slashfood gave these mini breakfast treats a “B” which is not too shabby.

I’m going to have to try them out, then jog around Baltimore for a couple of hours.

I wanted to get the Kinect for Xbox 360, then saw that it’s about 1/2 the price of the 360 and it has gotten some reviews from both extremes. People either loved it or hated it. I’m going to hold off and wait for a consensus to build up.

Jason Garret was on everyone’s hot list for a head coaching job. He has it now. Only, I don’t think it’s in the situation he always thought he’d inherit. Without Tony Romo, the Cowboys offense is nonexistent.

The Giants are playing some real inspired football right now and the Cowboys continue down the path of despair. This Sunday, the Giants are going to put the nail in the coffin 100 times over.

This Thursday is a big day. Burn Notice is back AND Thursday night football begins!

Ravens v. Falcons in Atlanta. Flacco v. Ryan. Turner v. Rice. It’ll be a good one. My early prediction – Falcons shock the Ravens.

As a Giants fan, I’m used to watching Big Blue play down to the opponent (Lions?), rather than take control like they did today.

The Charlie Whitehurst-led Seahawks had zero chance. The score was 21-0 by the end of the first quarter.

How about that interception by Terrell Thomas off of Pete Carroll’s mancrush, Mike Williams, to take away the TD? Play of the game right there!

Coughlin’s coaching definitely came into play as the Giants avoided false starts and losing composure in one of the toughest places to play.

Bring on the COWBOYS!!!! WOOOOOOO!

-How about Peyton Hills dominating the New England Patriots? The Pats were as hot as the New York Giants, but the Browns dominated the Patriots on both sides of the ball. Hillis had over 200 yards and 2 TDs.

-I never would’ve ever thought that the Chiefs and Raiders would ever be involved in a “big game,” but there they were on Sunday afternoon, battling it out in a overtime thriller taken by the Raiders. Jamaal Charles once again carried the Chiefs offense. The Chiefs tried to force feed Thomas Jones the ball early, but 11 carries for 8 yards in the first half says it all.

-My upset special was the Lions to beat the Jets. That happened for 45 minutes. Unfortunately, football is 60 minutes and the Jets not only came back to beat the Lions in OT, but they knocked Matthew Stafford out of the game.

-The Cowboys keep blowing donkey dong.

You cut the stem off, the stem grows back. You light the thing on fire, it rises up from the ashes. You make your dog eat it, your dog poops it out, and out of the pile of shit, a new thorn is grown.

So what’s up with Dolan’s BFF?

Here’s what’s up: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/knicks/2010/11/07/2010-11-07_isiah_thomas_rewrites_history_of_time_with_knicks_as_donnie_walsh_works_to_clean.html

Apparently, Isiah Thomas, wants another chance at running the Knicks. He’s like Captain Hindsight (South Park reference) when he says he would’ve gotten Dwayne Wade and Lebron James to play for the Knicks.

He also pats himself on the back with getting Jamal Crawford (2009 Sixth Man of the Year) on the Knicks. Yeah, Crawford was good… but he can’t carry a team, which is what he was forced to do on a talentless Knicks team run by a talentless, sex harassing, delusional President/Head Coach.

The winning Isiah comment? How he said that he “forgives” Anucha Browne Sanders.

Where’s Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler with the: “Really? Really? REEEAAALLLYYYY?!??!?!”

Right when Donnie Walsh cleaned up 50% of the Knicks (50% still lies with Eddy Curry). Isiah has the balls to say that the Knicks would’ve been better had he stayed.

I say Isiah needs a shock collar, and every time he thought of the Knicks, he got a big ‘ol ZAP!

Through six games this year, the Knicks are playing .500 basketball, and what’s amazing is that they haven’t been utterly blown out in any of them so far… that my friends, is improvement. Until Isiah comes back to take a big Mountain Lion sized dump on the roster.

No keepers, with 4 divisions with 4 teams each. Every Tuesday, I read up on all those “waiver wire” posts on various sports sites to get an idea of who I can pick up. 90% of the time, the top pickups were drafted or picked up 2-3 weeks before. An injury to any player in my league is potential devastation with few options for back ups.

This year, my team is holding on by it’s nails on a ledge. Here’s my roster as of November 3, 2010

QB – Tom Brady

RB – Jamaal Charles

WR – Steve Smith, CAR

WR – Johnny Knox

RB/WR/TE – Steven Jackson

WR/TE – Mike Williams, TB

TE – Chris Cooley,

K – Adam Vinatieri

DEF – Detroit Lions

Bench – Brandon Jacobs, Mike Hart, Tashard Choice, Santonio Holmes, Todd Heap

I’m still in the playoffs, but I’m one of the lowest scoring teams in the league. The luck factor has really been there for me so far. The big culprit for my lack of dominance is definitely Tom Brady… he’s had a couple of QB2 productive weeks, which in my league is costly.

Another culprit is my attempt to stream weekly defenses… doesn’t work if a bunch of teams are hoarding 2 defenses.

Although playing in a 16 team league does skew my player evaluation skills in smaller leagues. I have a buddy who plays in both a 10 and 12 team league. When I peaked at his free agent wires in both leagues, I rolled off 10-15 players who I’d love to have on my team. I was a bit envious seeing all that talent on his waiver wires.

I remember how during the first 3 weeks of the season, I was having buyers remorse on Jamaal Charles and Brandon Jacobs. Thank god those guys are getting their touches now.

Now it’s time for me to pray to the Fantasy Football gods to keep my players off the injury list.

The SF Giants are the 2010 World Series Champions… a team that had no business being in the playoffs 2 months ago, has won the whole damn thing.

The Giants were offensively, the worst team in the playoffs. They beat the Braves which I expected, but the real shocker was beating the Phillies.

How the Giants beat the Phillies is still beyond me. As good as Lincecum, Cain, and Sanchez are, they are no way on the same level as Halladay, Oswalt, and Hamels… Lincecum notwithstanding.

Then in the World Series, they faced off against the Texas Rangers. The Texas Rangers team that shut down the Tampa Bay Rays and then the NY Yankees. The Rangers team that eliminated the two best teams in baseball.

Suddenly the Rangers forgot how to hit and pitch against the SF Giants. The Giants did it with Freddy Sanchez having the best game of his career in Game 1 and with Juan Uribe having an incredible 5 game series. Then there’s Brian Wilson who did his best Mariano Rivera impression.

Congrats SF Giants on a great season!

For your viewing pleasure:

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/299581

it has nothing to do with baseball… just an article I find funny.

The best game of the 1:00pm games was by far the Bills/Chiefs matchup that went to overtime.

Jamaal Charles stepped up with over 200 yards of offense for my fantasy team. I wish he punched one into the end zone, but I’ll take the yardage.

How bad are the Cowboys? David Garrard is one of the worst QBs on the road, but they gave up 5 total TDs to him. I wish I had him starting this week instead of Tom Brady.

Anyway, my afternoon was an amazing time spent at that new Mexican establishment called Gorditos on Charles St. Took down a couple of tacos, knocked back a Jarrito, and enjoyed some NFL Redzone from 2-4:30. That place has some great food. It’ll only get better once they finish their bar area.

I’m really loving this MacBook Air despite the fact I couldn’t get dual boot with Windows 7 to work.

They give you 2 GB for a free account, and 256 MB of added space per person that you refer.

With that being said, here is my referral code:

http://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTE0MTM5NDcyOQ

I went with the 13″ variety with 4 GB of ram and 128 GB of SSD Flash Memory.

After updating my work laptop with Windows 7 Ultimate two weeks ago, loading Ubuntu on my old ass IBM R40, and buying a MacBook Air, I am having a hard time getting used to all the new functionality.

My first impression of the MacBook Air? It’s a lot faster than my IBM and the thing feels like a frisbee. It never gets too loud nor too hot.

Bottomline: It feels great having a laptop that I can move around with. My 7 year old IBM has a broken hinge on the screen, so I can’t move it or close the lid without risk breaking the screen off the IBM.

In other news, the Knicks started their 2010-2011 season with a win, then followed that up with a loss to the Celtics. At least they did not lose by 50 right?

Of course, when the Knicks are brought up, it’s in a context that is less about the players on the team, and more about the player not on the team (Carmelo Anthony).

A new Mexican place opened up that is as close to a Taqueria as I can get in downtown Baltimore. The prices are a little high, but at least the food is good and they serve mexican cokes. I binged out hard the week they opened.

I haven’t updated this thing in a long time huh?

Anyway, in case you were wondering, here are the players I still have. Remember, this is my 12-team H2H Roto League.

C – Geovanny Soto – Early struggles by Brian McCann is making me look good for picking Soto and not keeping McCann.

1B – Prince Fielder. A disaster of a April followed by a good May so far. Like a meal at Chick-Fil-A. You know it’ll always be good.

2B – Casey McGehee/Kelly Johnson. The rookie-flier tandem was ditched early on and I settled on some early season flames. McGehee is mashing, while KJ has cooled down some. Still, for punting 2B during the draft, these guys have been awesome.

3B – David Wright. Can’t argue with the counting stats (R/HR/RBI/SB), but his batting average and lack of clutch play plus high strike outs has me scratching my head a bit. I reached on Wright in the first round and can’t help but wonder what if I kept Ubaldo Jiminez over Prince Fielder…

SS – Elvis Andrus. I regretted drafting this guy in the 9th round and as the 102nd pick overall. Needless to say, those regrets are out the window.

OF – Matt Kemp. My keeper. He’s where I figured he’d be minus the caught stealings. He’ll be fine.

OF – Curtis Granderson. I hate you Grandy. I thought he was going to really bust out with the Yankees and then he slumps then gets hurt. About 2-3 weeks away from returning, but I can take comfort in…

OF – Alfonso Soriano. My first waiver pickup of the year. Some guy panicked after the first week in my league and I snatched up Soriano. Everyone in my league was expecting Soriano to put up 30/30, but give me 25/10 any day in H2H from a waiver OF like Soriano.

UTIL – Carlos Quentin. Just hit the Mendoza line today. His hits and homers will come.

SP – Johan Santana, Cole Hamels, Johnny Cueto, AJ Burnett, Clay Buchholz, Kevin Slowey, Clayton Richard, Ervin Santana.

I currently have Clayton Richard because he dominates the Giants (which he did last night), and his second start this week will be against the Indians. What is there not to like?

I dropped Wandy Rodriguez for Ervin Santana. I don’t know what’s wrong with Wandy, but he’s got a bad back and he’s not striking anyone out. Plus he’s only good at home so he’s pretty useless if he ever has a 2 start week on the road.

RPs – Heath Bell, Alfredo Simon, Frank Francisco.

SAGNOF! I traded David Aardsma about a month ago for Kevin Slowey… yeah, the trade hasn’t worked out for me that well… it would’ve been an absolute disaster if Slowey wasn’t getting the Ws.

Well that’s my team as of today. It’s currently in 3rd place overall and 2nd in my division. Last year my team didn’t get hot till Week 11, but these band of misfits seem to have the mojo working a little early. I just hope I don’t run out of gas at the end.

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So I went to the Preakness race track this past weekend. It was awesome. Tailgating on steroids seems to be the agreed upon description. I’ll post some pics later. But the most exciting part outside of watching the horses race, was the cornhole!!!!! CORNHOLE!!!

How I have missed Cornhole… the staple of any tailgate I ever went to at Virginia Tech. I played a few games, but only won one game. Yeah, it wasn’t a successful re-entry into the Cornhole game, but hey, I was rusty!