Article:Check"Marks" 12/12/2008

Daily Rant: 12/12/2008

Topic #1: Well world... we only have four more years to live. Right? Isn't the world ending 12/12/2012? That is what the ancient Mayans have said. I know we don't think it's actually going to happen, but how dumb are we going to feel if it does? Just think of all the things I will miss out on in my lifetime if the world ends. I will have never been old enough to remember one of my teams win a championship. I will never see SportsCenter run a completely unbiased show. There are more things, but I just can't think of any. I guess let's just hope that the world doesn't end.

Topic #2: After potentially wasting $8.5 Million on SS Nick Punto, rumblings (what a great word to describe the rumor-mill) have the Twins looking back into trading for 3B Adrian Beltre. It now seems that Beltre has ADDED the Twins to his limited no-trade clause. His reasoning? According to reports, some players add teams that are interested in trading for them to this clause so they can use it as a bargaining chip in negotiations. How ridiculous is that? I think that if a player gets the clause, he can name X number of teams, and then is not allowed to change them. It just seems like such a dumb thing to allow. These players make enough money as it is. Do they really need to have that much more money in order to be traded?

Topic #3:  “Looks like Terrell is jealous of JW and Tony’s relationship”- XOX Gossip Girl. That’s right, Terrell Owens is acting a lot like Blake Lively and Leighton Meester’s characters on the hit show “Gossip Girl”. Terrell now feels resentment towards Tony Romo and Jason Witten because he claims they had secret meetings and drew up special plays that don’t include him. Does this mean that the playbook has only one line drawn? TO would have to be doing something, wouldn’t he? If I were the Giants I would just send all 11 defenders towards Witten, because according to Owens the ball will only go there. Why is Owens jealous? He is somewhere around 4 catches shy of passing Art Monk on the all-time receptions list. He gets plenty of balls… maybe if he didn’t sell out every QB that he has ever had on his team, they won’t hold secret meetings without him. Also, it used to be Witten, TO and Crayton. Then Romo got hurt, Jerry Jones became desperate and the Cowboys traded for another ball-wanting WR in Roy Williams. Stop Complaining and play football!

Topic #4: I will be going to my third Minnesota Timberwolves game of the year tonight. So far I have seen the Wolves blow a 12 point lead to the Mavericks, a 9-0 start against the Nuggets and now will probably watch them blow another lead to the Spurs. Early in the year the Wolves were getting ahead early and then much like last year, allowed teams to toy with them and take over in the 4th Quarter. Then, towards the end of Randy Wittman’s time the team just stopped trying altogether. Now with McHale coaching, they are back to their old selves. This team has gotten much better at grabbing early leads and making the other team struggle through 24 minutes. I just don’t understand why the second half is so hard for them. Is it because the other team is expecting nothing in the first half and doesn’t try? Kevin McHale has some talent to work with and now all he needs to do it get them to play 48 minutes of basketball.

Topic #5: How bad are the Oklahoma City Thunder? I checked yesterday and saw that they are 2-21. Their only wins came against the Timberwolves (surprise, surprise) and the Grizzlies. They have Kevin Durant, they have Russell Westbrook and that is about it. This may be one team that drafted worse than the Timberwolves (Nick Collison, Robert Swift, Johan Petro, Mouhamed Sene) Good thing they fired P.J. Carlisimo, huh?. I know that everyone wants to be a head coach one day, but PJ should be saying his prayers for being allowed to leave Oklahoma City. I know I get to watch about 60 bad basketball games each year (I’ll give the Wolves 22 good games), but it looks like the fans in Oklahoma City will be watching 80 bad games.