Memphis police have charged three people in the shooting death of Memphis football player Taylor Bradford. He was shot back on September 30th and was buried this past weekend.

Texas Tech freshman wide receiver Michael Crabtree broke the NCAA record for touchdowns catches by a freshman when he caught his 15th of the year this past Saturday. The record was 14, held by Javar Gaffney while at Florida, Mike Williams while at USC and current Hawai’i player Davone Bass.

Chadron State running back Danny Whitehead broke the all-time rushing record for all divisions after rushing for 208 yards against Western New Mexico. The previous record was 7,353 yards and Whitehead now has a total of 7,441 yards in his career. The most famous player to come out of Chadron State is former Buffalo Bills great Don Beebe attended.

Virginia Tech will be without the services of star linebacker Vince Hall after underwent surgery on his wrist. He will miss at least 4-6 weeks.

Georgia will be without the services of one of their running backs, Thomas Brown, due to a broken collarbone. He will be out 4-6 weeks.

Penn State head coach Joe Paterno has suspended running back Austin Scott for the rest of the season. Scott broke an unspecified team rule to warrant the suspension.

USC star QB Josh Booty may not start this weekend against Arizona due to a broken middle finger. Booty actually played the part of the 2nd quarter and 2nd half against Stanford with the broken finger on his throwing hand. USC lost the game 24-23. Stanford was a 41 point underdog coming into the game. So is this a bigger upset than the Appalachian State win over Michigan?

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The opponent in the ALCS is now known as the Indians eliminated the Yankees last night. The Red Sox now have evaluating to do with their playoff roster. Do you need to carry another pitcher? I think so. Although that pitcher will probably be Tim Wakefield. That brings this question? Who do you drop off the roster? My gut feeling says it will Bobby Kielty Kevin Cash. So while the Indians and Red Sox await Friday’s start of the ALCS, let’s take a look at the headlines from the Boston area media today.

Schilling’s ALDS clincher could be invaluable [Boston Globe]

Point Is To Stay Sharp [Hartford Courant]

Please take notice [Boston Herald]

Red Sox must play the waiting game [Pro Jo]

An internal battle [Boston Globe]

Good spin on rotation [Boston Herald]

For more headlines and stories, head over to the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Providence Journal, and Hartford Courant websites.

Curt Schilling followed the lead of the Red Sox ace Josh Beckett in Game 3 on Sunday.

Indians skipper Eric Wedge stood by his decision to start Game 4 last night. Obviously he was right.

Yankees skipper Joe Torre is very appreciative of the support his players have given him.

Wily Tavaras hopes to be ready for the Rockies and be a part of the NLCS roster.

Bob Melvin has a lot of faith in his Diamondbacks’ rookies.

The NLCS will start on Thursday and the ALCS on Friday.

• NLCS Game 1 Thurs., Oct. 11 TBS, 8:30 PM

• NLCS Game 2 Fri., Oct. 12 TBS, 10:00 PM

• ALCS Game 1 Fri., Oct. 12 FOX, 7:00 PM

• ALCS Game 2 Sat., Oct. 13 FOX, 8:00 PM

• NLCS Game 3 Sun., Oct. 14 TBS, 8:30 PM

• ALCS Game 3 Mon., Oct. 15 FOX, 7:00 PM

• NLCS Game 4 Mon., Oct. 15 TBS, 10:00 PM

• ALCS Game 4 Tues., Oct. 16 FOX, 8:00 PM

• NLCS Game 5 Wed., Oct. 17 TBS, 8:30 PM*

• ALCS Game 5 Thurs., Oct. 18 FOX, 8:00 PM*

• NLCS Game 6 Fri., Oct. 19 TBS, 8:30 PM*

• ALCS Game 6 Sat., Oct. 20 FOX, TBA*

• NLCS Game 7 Sat., Oct. 20 TBS, TBA*

• ALCS Game 7 Sun., Oct. 21 FOX, TBA*

*If necessary

Steve was 3-1 in the division series and I was 1-3. So that means don’t listen to my predictions.

Red Sox Nation, here’s your opportunity to ask Clay Buchholz a question for an upcoming video interview for his site, Red Sox Nation Goes Buchhwild.

This is how it will work. Leave your question for Clay in the comments section here with your name (last name optional), your question and any other comments for the young phenom. The moderator for the interview will be stopping by to gather up your questions and will take the best ones to use.

So folks, start asking Clay questions and let’s hope that yours gets used.

We all have our opinions of “national” announce teams. From the guys at ESPN to FOX, ABC, NBC and CBS. Now we can add the announce teams that covered the four division series for TBS.

I think it’s time we take a look at the crews and the TBS production as a whole.

First the production or what you see as you watch a game. It has been very subpar especially from a network that has covered baseball for 30 years. There doesn’t seem to be enough cameras to cover the action, I’ve heard that ESPN and Fox used a minimum of 10 cameras in this round of the playoffs in the past. To me it looks like TBS may only be using 6 or 7. They totally missed the flight of Johnny Damon’s home run in Game One and had a poor replay angle of the home run in the one game playoff between San Diego and Colorado.

They’re way too busy pushing they’re own agenda whether it’s coming back late from a break and missing plays or bombing you with wrap around promos about “Frank TV”. I think part of the problem is they don’t seem to have many advertisers and they are using the Frank TV promos for filler. By the time that show actually airs no one will want to watch it.

They had a power outage during Game Three in Colorado on Saturday night. There was a fourteen-minute delay because of a computer glitch shutting down some to most of the field lighting at Coors Field. So they decided to throw it back to the studio in Atlanta and talk with Ernie Johnson, Cal Ripken, Frank Thomas and special guest Curtis Granderson. When the lights come back on at Coors it takes a few good minutes for the light to get to the point where the umpires will let play continue. They come back to the game and almost miss the first pitch. There is no excuse for this, the people at the field know the umpires are getting ready to re-start the game, they need to let the pitcher and the players get in a few tosses so why didn’t someone say hey we need to come back here now. No they were too busy yukking it up with the Big Hurt. Then when they do come back it’s not to the game announcers in the booth its to the sideline reporter. Who the hell does that?

The quality of the product seems to be really off, in Cleveland it was like they had a mic on everyone of the fans in stands as the background noise was so loud you couldn’t hear the announce team at times. They’ve also had a lot of audio bleed over with other voices in the background either from an off camera boom mic or something bleeding through from the truck.

Shot wise I am far from impressed with TBS, many times during my broadcast the picture on a standard definition TV actually pixelates or digitizes and gives you the digital pixel squares. It’s like they’re using inferior equipment and a digital zoom on a pocket camera.

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Two mistake pitches by Angels starter Jered Weaver led to monstrous home run blasts by Big Papi and Manny. Curt Schilling was outstanding yesterday, throwing up seven zeros on the Angels. Then a 7-run 8th inning sealed the deal for the Red Sox as they went on to win 9-1 and advance to the ALCS. They now await the winner of the Indians/Yankees series. The pitching by the Red Sox was outstanding in the series sans Dice-K’s bad inning. The bullpen san’s Gagné was outstanding as well. I am not making excuses for the Angels but it seemed to me their injuries did them in a little. The biggest part of the Angels demise in the series I think was due to the fact that the Red Sox shutdown their running game. Bill Belichick’s game plan of stacking the line worked. Just kidding. It’s all about the pitchers keeping a better eye on the runners. While the Red Sox await their opponent for Friday night, let’s take a look at the headlines from the Boston and Los Angeles area media on this Columbus Day morning.

Celebration photos and video

What a series [38 Pitches]

How sweep it is [Yooooouuuuukkkkk]

Schilling, champagne in the flow again [Boston Globe]

Angels hit empty early against Red Sox [LA Times]

Sox look heaven sent [Boston Herald]

Angels lose Game 3, 9-1, to fall out of playoffs [The Orange County Register]

Bubble Wrap [Hartford Courant]

Angels get Red Socked [LA Daily News]

Red Sox’ domination of Angels was total [Pro Jo]

Angels’ demise rests mostly on Scioscia’s shoulders [LA Times]

Dynamic duo struck again and again [Boston Globe]

Lineup gets a clean(up) bill of health with Manny [Boston Herald]

Pitching Gets The Credit [Hartford Courant]

Ortiz and Ramirez an awesome 1-2 punch [Pro Jo]

For more headlines and stories, head over to the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Providence Journal, Hartford Courant, LA Times, The Orange County Register and LA Daily News websites.

The Red Sox still have a lot of confidence in Daisuke Matsuzaka.

The Angels will look to build upon the success they had this year despite their early elimination.

Trot Nixon was in the Indians lineup on Sunday because of his success against Roger Clemens.

The Yankees players gave their support to Joe Torre after George Steinbrenner’s recent comments.

The Diamondbacks’ duo of Stephen Drew and Chris Young are ahead of their time.

Rockies pitchers Aaron Cook and Jason Hirsh might be healthy enough to pitch in the NLCS.

The Indians were unable to be like all the cool kids and sweep the Yankees last night in New York. Despite Roger’s Clemens poor outing, the Yankees were able to put together a couple of big innings as they beat the Tribe 8-4. The Yanks will bring back Chien-Ming Wang back on short rest while Paul Byrd will try to finish it off for the Indians.

Here is a look at the standings of the Big East so far this season. The Big East schedule is still young so you could expect to see UCONN and Cincinnati fall a little bit. I am guessing that Brian Brohm from Louisville is probably wishing he had gone to the NFL instead of going back to school.

Back-to-back home runs by David “Big Papi” Ortiz and Manny Ramírez in the 4^th inning and another outstanding postseason start by Curt Schilling helped the Sox defeat the Angels 9-0 and sweep them in this ALDS series. Schilling gave the Red Sox seven shutout innings even though he probably wasn’t as sharp as he would have liked. The Sox will now await the winner of the Indians-Yankees series starting Friday night in Boston.

Jered Weaver didn’t pitch all that badly for the Angels even though he gave up the back-to-back jacks. It was his bullpen that failed him and also a lack of offense by the Angels ultimately did them in today and also in the short series.

After setting down the side in the 1^st inning, Weaver ran into a jam in the 2^nd. Weaver walked Manny to start the inning and Mike Lowell followed that up with a double to give the Sox runners at second and third with nobody out. J.D. Drew had the first chance to bring a run in but he ended up grounding back to Weaver for the first out. Weaver then got strikeouts of Jason Varitek and Coco Crisp to work out of the jam.

In the 1^st inning, Schilling allowed a 1-out hit to former Sox shortstop Orlando Cabrera but worked out of it. In the 2^nd, he gave up a 1-out hit to Macier Izturis but then got Howie Kendrick to hit into a 6-4-3 inning-ending double play.

Schilling got himself into trouble in the 3^rd inning. Juan Rivera led off with a single. Schill followed that up with a strikeout of Angels catcher Mike Napoli. He then got Chone Figgins to ground into a fielder’s choice that retired Rivera at second. Cabrera followed that up with his second hit of the afternoon moving Figgins over to third. Schilling decided to pitch around Vladimir Guerrero to load up the bases for Reggie Willits, who took over for Garrett Anderson at the start of the 3^rd. The move paid off as Schilling got Willits to foul out to Varitek, who made a great catch on the ball.

Big Papi led off of the 4^th inning for the Red Sox and took a fastball from Weaver and planted it into the right field seats to give the Sox a 1-0 lead. Manny followed that with a home run of his own to give the Sox the 2-0 lead. I am sure Weaver was a little pissed at Manny because he admired it for a few seconds before running the bases. Weaver settled down after the back-to-back blasts as he got Lowell, Drew and Varitek to end the inning.

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