NESN Red Sox baseball analyst Ken Macha is set to be named the new manager of the Milwaukee Brewers.  He will replace former Boston third base coach Dale Sveum, who was named interim manager after Ned Yost was let go with about two weeks left in the season.  Sveum was able to right the brewery and get the team into the playoffs for the first time since 1982 but it wasn’t enough for him to keep the job permanently.

Macha is a former minor league manager in the Red Sox system and was manager of the Oakland A’s for 4 seasons, twice winning the AL West and taking the Athletics to the playoffs before losing to Boston in the Division series in 2003 and in 2006 they beat the Minnesota Twins in the Division Series and lost to the Detroit Tigers in the ALCS.   Three times Macha’s teams won at least 91 games, overall he has a 368-280 career managerial record.

Macha was nearly let go by Oakland after the 2005 season when initially he and the team couldn’t come to an agreement on the contract and Macha had sought out other offers.  He eventually signed a one-year deal and came back in 2006.  After 2006 he was let go by Oakland despite nearly leading the team to the World Series.

The last two season’s Macha has worked as a baseball analyst for NESN before and after select Red Sox games boring Sox fans to tears and curing insomnia all over the Northeast.

We are performing important network maintenance on Wednesday, October 29, 2008 from 11:00 p.m. to midnight MDT. Total downtime will not exceed five minutes for the following domain(s):

soxanddawgs.com

This maintenance is required to introduce additional network security enhancements that will result in improved network stability and reliability. We appreciate your patience and understanding.

I’ve never gotten an email from any other host I’ve used to let me know they are shutting the server down for maintenance.

Essentially the site will be down for the 5 minutes on October 30th from 1 AM to 2 AM since Mountain Time is two hours behind us here on the east coast.

Congratulations to the Philadelphia Phillies for winning the 2008 World Series over the Tampa Bay Rays. This is just the second time they’ve won the World Series, with the first being in 1980.

It was a magical ride for the Rays but the season is over now. Now it’s time for the craziness that is the offseason.

I’ve been diligently looking for work lately and in searching some non-traditional places for job postings along with the usual sites I came across an ad on Craig’s List for a part-time hockey play-by-play announcer.

There was only one catch though. You need to be able to call the game in Chinese.

Hi

I am looking for a native Chinese to go hockey game and report the game in Chinese.

Please email me if you are interested.

Thanks

Sounds like a great gig for Chip Caray.

Here is an interview that aired before last night’s Boston Celtics game between Paul Pierce and John Thompson where they both talked about their love for the late Red Auerbach among many other things.

According to Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk, New England Patriots defensive tackle Vince Wilfork will not be suspended by the NFL for his actions in the game against the Denver Broncos two weeks ago.

A league source tells PFT that Patriots defensive tackle Vince Wilfork will be fined but will not be suspended after meeting Tuesday with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Per the source, Goodell had suspension on his mind heading into the meeting but came out of it convinced that Wilfork understands the league’s focus on player safety.

This is good news for the Patriots as they head into their matchup against the Indianapolis Colts this weekend. I fully expected Wilfork to get at least a 1 game suspension.

Update 10/30 at 10:30 AM – Wilfork has been fined $35,000 by the NFL for what is being called a pattern of aggression and not from any specific hit on Broncos QB Jay Cutler.

With one election just a week away, there’s another vote going on at NFL.com now in which you can vote for the Patriots Richard Seymour for the Defensive Player of the Week.  He had 7 tackles, 1 sack and 4 QB hits in the 23-16 win over St. Louis and was the SOX & Dawgs Defensive Player of the Game.

After a whirlwind week of travel, former UConn Husky Mel Thomas made her professional debut for the Bausch and Lomb Waterford Wildcats In Ireland this weekend and put up 33 points.

Thomas joined the team last week and practiced on Thursday. She then took the day off on Friday before making her debut on Saturday in Waterford’s win over the Tolka Rovers.

The Basketball Ireland Women’s Superleague website isn’t exactly updated quite that quickly, hence the delay in finding out how Mel did.

Mel is in action again this Saturday when her Wildcats team takes on LeisureWorld Churchfield Iona at 7 PM in Ireland.

Editors note: I had originally put up that she had scored 36 points when in fact she had scored 33.

UConn Huskies redshirt freshman kicker Dave Teggart has been honored by the Big East Conference as it’s Special Teams Player of the Week for his performance in the 40-16 win over the Cincinnati Bearcats.

Dave Teggart's perfect day earned him Big East honors.

In his first collegiate game, Teggart kicked 4 field goals (26, 47, 32, 22) and made all 4 of his PAT’s.  The 47 yard field goal was impressive in that he kicked it into a driving wind and had room to spare.

Teggart took over for Tony Ciaravino who had struggled the week before in a loss against Rutgers when he missed 3 field goals including the potential game-winner.

Huskies running back Donald Brown was also named to the Big East Weekly Honor Roll.

Brown had 27 carries for 150 yards and 2 touchdowns. He also caught 4 balls for 58 yards.

I guess who ever chose that as the featured comment on the ESPN.com frontpage wasn’t an English major.