Link-O-Rama
FoxSports.com continues to do their best to make people forget all about ESPN.com. Not only does FoxSports.com have about 1% of the ads ESPN.com annoys its readers with on nearly every page -- seriously, in addition to popping up and playing video, the ads now have sound that you can't turn off -- their content is free while ESPN.com has nearly everything behind the "Insider" wall these days.
And let's talk about the content. FoxSports.com features Ken Rosenthal and Dayn Perry as near-daily baseball columnists, and has now added Aaron Schatz and the rest of the boys over at Football Outsiders to anchor their NFL coverage. Oh, and FoxSports.com also runs "Daily Dose" columns from Yours Truly six days a week (which just might make me a little bit biased).
Meanwhile, ESPN.com crashed my Internet Explorer three times in five minutes last night and three of their featured, front-page articles yesterday were written by Jason Whitlock, Scoop Jackson, and Skip Bayless.
Speaking of me and FoxSports.com, check out their 2005 MLB Playoffs and 2005 MLB World Series pages. Apparently it's All Gleeman, All the Time.
The Week in Waffle Crappers:
* Jessica Alba says she'd be willing to do nude scenes in "an amazing story" and also reveals the same information that many extraordinarily attractive people mistakenly think is newsworthy:
I'm actually OK with my body and the fact that I have curves and flaws.
The people who tend to say that sort of stuff are a) the same people who have no discernible flaws, and b) own a body that everyone is "OK" with. That's like Albert Pujols saying, "You know, I'm OK with my approach at the plate and my yearly numbers." Meanwhile, Neifi Perez has bulimia.
* I don't give Marisa Miller nearly enough credit for her waffle-crapping ability on this blog. Also, she looks way better in a Sacramento Kings jersey than Chris Webber ever did.
* I have no idea who Rachel Nichols is, but she's really good looking.
Here's an entertaining look into the life of one of the world's most fascinating men.
While looking over the NFL betting lines for this week (I'm 6-2 since a rough Week 1), I was shocked to see that Sunday Night Football on ESPN features the Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers. The big question, of course, is why? What possible reason could there have been to schedule either of those teams for a primetime game in front of a national audience, let alone schedule a game between the two of them? I just don't get it, and the game being played in Mexico City literally couldn't matter less to me.
Meanwhile, Sunday's earlier games include San Diego at New England, Indianapolis at Tennessee, Denver at Jacksonville, Minnesota at Atlanta, and Philadelphia at Kansas City. All of those games figured to be interesting when the schedule came out this offseason and all of them figure to be interesting now. In fact, the argument could be made that San Francisco at Arizona is the least interesting game on this week's schedule and perhaps even the least interesting game of the season.
It's only Friday, but I've already placed some (purely hypothetical) money on "Over 46.5" for St. Louis at New York. I realize it's very early in the season, but those two teams rank first and seventh in points scored per game and 19th and 26th in points allowed per game. It jumped out at me as soon as I looked over this week's lines, which probably means it'll end 10-7 or something.
Not that anyone cares, but my fantasy football team is 3-0 and leads the Baseball Think Factory League in points scored. And I started Daunte Culpepper at quarterback all three weeks.
I've decided that I must begin referring to Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Jim Souhan as "Shecky Souhan." I've long marveled at his amazing ability to crowbar endless streams of bad one-liners into his columns and John Bonnes mentioned last week that Souhan's recent work reminds him of old-school comedian Shecky Greene. It's a perfect fit. And by "perfect fit" I mean "somewhat insulting but not offensive enough to make me feel bad about using it."
A headline from ESPN.com earlier this week that made me laugh inappropriately: "Sharapova out of Open with chest injury." And no, I can't explain why that's funny, even to an immature doofus like me.
There have to be easier guys to start trouble with at three in the morning at a "small restaurant grill" than two-fifths of the Vikings' offensive line. Seriously, go hunt down Paul Edinger at White Castle or something and save yourself some pain.
As far as I can tell, Kevin Garnett has the best-looking wife in the NBA.
There's a new blog worth checking out called Minnesota Twins Talk, except it doesn't really appear to have much talk about the Twins. That's perfectly fine with me, of course. After all, this site used to be named "Aaron's Baseball Blog." Imagine that.
Today at The Hardball Times:
- Ten Things About Momentum in the Postseason (by Dave Studeman)
Today's Picks (110-99, +$865):
Chicago (Buehrle) +155 over Cleveland (Millwood)
Milwaukee (Davis) -110 over Pittsburgh (Perez)
Saturday's Picks:
Michigan +5.5 (-110) over Michigan State