Fresh off hitting a two run homer off of Daisuke Matsuzaka, Pat Burrell showed how fond he was of the Red Sox.

Well, the crazy lady is just about divorced. All that is needed is a judge’s John Hancock. Britney and K-Fed and their lawyers spent most of Thursday afternoon working out a divorce settlement and finally agreed to the terms. Well actually, they really worked out the details of the settlement with the Marlboro Man.

All it took was a cigarette break for the ex-pair to work out an agreement. Basically the agreement is K-Fed gets a million dollars and joint physical custody of the kids while Britney gets to keep her fortune and shares the custody as well. No word if any parental support will be provided by Britney.

The reason why K-Fed got so little. Britney is a smart lady (go figure) and had an airtight prenuptial agreement. The same can’t be said for the area between her legs.

So how did Britney celebrate the end of her marriage? By partying of course. I guess rehab really worked.

Former UCONN star Caron Butler showed some range on Wednesday night hitting a 78 foot shot.

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Maple Street Press Red Sox Annual 2007 goes far beyond the basics and gives diehard Sox fans the detailed coverage of the team they crave. In collaboration with renowned Red Sox website Sons of Sam Horn, it provides over 100 pages of the most complete and in-depth coverage of the Red Sox available.

After another offseason of upheaval there are many questions facing the Red Sox as they enter the new season. Why did the Red Sox sign JD Drew? Is he worth the money? Is Julio Lugo going to be at shortstop for more than one year? Will Coco Crisp bounce back? Chad Finn gives a position-by-position break down of the new-look roster and what to watch for in the coming season. With the expanded room, the Annual is also able to go beyond the standard topics and examine things such as:

• The story behind Dirty Water and how the now beloved song came to be the Red Sox victory anthem;
• How winning impacts the Red Sox’s financial returns and off-season investments;
• A thorough look at the courtship of Daisuke Matsuzaka from Rob Bradford;
• How the offense cost the team a postseason appearance last season and what Theo Epstein has done to make sure that doesn’t happen again;
• A detailed deconstruction of Theo Epstein’s bullpens over his tenure, and what to look for from his latest group of relievers;
• Where Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz rank amongst the greatest 1-2 punches in baseball history; and
• How the Red Sox’s new approach to the amateur draft might allow them to have an influx of premium talent

This and more is all packed into over 100 full-color pages of Red Sox coverage (not ads) unlike anything else available in print. This is a publication by Red Sox fans for Red Sox fans, and provides a level of coverage national publications cannot match.

‘The Hits Keep Coming’ internet radio show on Blog Talk Radio just had it’s third episode on the air tonight. Thanks to Anthony and Jason for helping make everything go smoothly, as well as the conversation and taking out part of their evening to talk about the sport we love.

A special thanks to Chad Gramling of Chad Gramling’s Baseball Blog for joining us in the first hour.

The first was live and streaming; whereas, the second hour was just recorded after we got off the air.

Website: http://blogtalkradio.com/oriolepost

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The Hits Keep Coming… Episode 3
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Downloads:

• Windows Media Format
• MP3 Format
• ITunes

Hour One: (Live)

• Show Intro & News
• Ugueth Urbina
• DirecTV, John Kerry and Congress
• National League Preview

Hour Two

• National League Preview (continued)
• Position Battles with Ian
• Milestones for the upcoming season

Join us every Wednesday at 7PM Eastern Time for a live broadcast of the show.

So does Daisuke Matsuzaka throw a gyroball? New evidence brought out by Tom Verducci over at Sports Illustrated says that no, the gyroball doesn’t exist.

Here’s the truth: Matsuzaka’s changeup is so wicked, so unlike most every changeup anyone has seen, that people don’t know what to make of it. Matsuzaka has told me he does not throw the gyroball. Every Red Sox staff member and official I’ve talked with said he does not throw it.

“What the Marlins thought was the gyro was the changeup,” one of the Boston sources said. “That’s what people think is the gyro. It’s his best pitch.”

Said another Red Sox insider, “Japan is famous for copious scouting reports. If you throw a pitch once in your life the scout will include it in the report. Dice-K enjoys letting people think he throws it. There’s no harm in it. Why not just give them one more thing to think about?”

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Gyroball
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Dice-K
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So was Dice-K pulling everyone’s chain when he said this back on February 15th.

(We’ve heard so much about the gyroball. Do you throw it and will we see it this season.)

[Matsuzaka pauses and grins] Hmm… how to answer this? I knew this was coming. I prepared some optional answers. Do I say I can, that I have it? Or do I ask what pitch you are referring to? Overall, if I have the chance, I will pitch that ball.

And here is what I had said just last week after watching the game and hearing the analysis on ESPN.

He even threw the mythical “gyroball.” Folks, this pitch simply doesn’t exist. When he throws this pitch, it is a change up with screwball action. All I know is he threw that ball and it looked like it was going to go over the middle of the plate and as soon as it got near the plate, the bottom fell out. Of course, it was called strike 3.

The big question here is who are we supposed to believe? Are we supposed to believe the guy, Verducci, who said baseball was clean after the “Game of Shadows” came out or Dice-K or ESPN? Well, two of the three aren’t credible. So I will go with Dice-K and say, No, the pitch doesn’t exist.

Ria Cortesio has a dream, and that dream is to be a professional umpire in MLB. She will get the chance on Thursday to call a big league exhibition game between the Diamondbacks and the Cubbies. She will be the first woman since Pam Postema to call a big league exhibition game. No woman has ever called a game or been an umpire in MLB ever. She hopes to change that.

”I’m looking forward to it. There will be a lot more people in the stands than I’m used to. I was kind of expecting it. Umpires with my seniority usually get picked. I don’t do this job to get on TV. But I hope it will raise the awareness a little.”

Cortesio started out in the Pioneer League back in 1999. For those of you who don’t know, minor league umpires don’t make shit for money. She started out making $1800 a month plus $34 a day meal money and 33 cents a mile. That’s right they don’t fly. If I remember correctly, the only leagues that minor league umpires fly in are the International League (AAA), Pacific Coast League (AAA) and Texas League (AA).

She is now going into her 5th season in Double-A ball. She will be back in the Southern League again and is the first person up for promotion to Triple-A. Let’s hope Lou Pinella is on his best behavior on Thursday.

Unfortunately for the UCONN Women, they ran into Sylvia Fowles and the LSU Lady Tigers in the regional finals. LSU rode their “big girl” past UCONN by the final score of 73-50. LSU now moves onto Cleveland to take on the Rutgers Scarlet Knights in the Women’s Final Four.

Fowles led the way for the Lady Tigers with 23 points and 14 rebounds. Allison Hightower added 12 points, Erica White had 11 points and Ashley Thomas, who hadn’t scored since the last time these times met, chipped in 10 points. For UCONN, they were led by their backcourt duo of Mel Thomas and Renee Montgomery. Montgomery had 17 points and Thomas had 13 points on 3 of 5 shooting from behind the 3 point arc.

This was an LSU team that was having to deal with the loss of their coach, Pokey Chatman, who had to resign due to an inappropriate relationship with a former player. They played their hearts out and got the better of the Huskies. Also during the game, Tina Charles’ shoulder flared up when she was stuffed on a shot. LSU played great defense taking away the Huskies interior game and early on UCONN couldn’t make a shot.

With no seniors on the team and two of the top recruits coming in, I expect the Huskies to contend for the national title again next year.

Monday’s start against the Cincinnati Reds was the 5th start of the spring for Daisuke Matsuzaka, and his fourth on the road. He wasn’t as sharp as he was in his last outing against the Pirates. He throw 104 pitches in 5 innings. Just over half (59) were for strikes. He didn’t allow any hits nor runs but walked 5. He did strikeout six batters.

He seemed to be working on different pitches instead of trying to establish his fastball. He fell behind on the hitters early and you could even see him getting pissed at himself.

Normally after his starts, Matsuzaka usually will meet with the media and then the Japanese media, but for the first time all spring, he didn’t speak with the media but rather issued this statement:

‘‘This time of the year, I think the content of my pitching is more important than the result on paper. I’m not happy with the content of my pitching today. I threw a lot of walks and wasted balls and it was tough for my fielders to defend and to get into a good rhythm on offense. It’s something I want to pay attention to in the regular season.’’

Honestly, if this is him struggling, I’d hate to see him when he is on. We all have high expectations on what to expect from him and I am sure his expectations are higher than ours. He is a tireless worker and I expect whatever kinks he had on Monday to be worked out by the time he faces the Phillies this weekend in Philadelphia. Yet another road start for him.

If you didn’t have a chance to catch to Peyton Manning on Saturday Night live this past Saturday night, you missed Peyton probably being the funniest athlete to appear on SNL. Honestly if he wasn’t playing football, he could probably pass as an actor on SNL. Instead of me telling you how good the show was, I’d ask you to head over to Ladies… and see what the beautiful and talented Holly had to write about the show. I will leave you with these two clips from the show.

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