The Kansas City Royals have signed former Red Sox pitcher Hideo Nomo to a one-year minor league deal and have invited him to camp as well. Nomo last pitched in the majors in 2005 with Tampa Bay.

The Royals also signed free agent catcher Miguel Olivo to a 1-year contract with options for 2009.

The Chicago White Sox sent three minor leaguers to Oakland for 1B/OF Nick Swisher. Swisher is expected to be the everyday center fielder for the Sox. Chicago received left-hander Gio Gonzalez and right-hander Fautino De Los Santos, along with OF Ryan Sweeney.

Oakland GM Billy Beane may not be done dealing either. There’s a rumor he’s interested in Boston OF Coco Crisp. I wonder if Joe Blanton is still on the table?

The Cincinnati Reds signed former Yankee 1B Andy Phillips, RHP Jim Brower, LHP Adam Pettyjohn, INF Andy Green and INF Jolbert Cabrera to minor league contracts and invited them to spring training.

Free agent OF Luis Gonzalez is interested in Milwaukee but Milwaukee is unsure if they’re interested in him. Gonzalez played for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2007.

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When one Allen has a down night, another Allen is there to pick him up. That was the case as Ray Allen was nearly held scoreless but Tony Allen knocked back 20 points off the bench as the Boston Celtics beat the Memphis Grizzlies 100-96 before 18,624 at the TD BankNorth Garden in Boston on Friday night.

Tony Allen had 15 of his points in the second quarter as he helpd Boston get ahead of the Grizz and stay there. The Celtics trailed for most of the 1st quarter and into the 2nd before Allen went on a 13 point run in a seven minute span as his three pointer put the C’s up 39-37 with just under five minutes to play before the half.

In addition to Allen, the Bostonians were led by captain Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett who each had 23 points. Ray Allen, who went 0-9 from the floor, managed to knock back a couple free throws in the games final seconds to finish with two points on the night as the Green improved to 28-3.

It was a better night for a different former UConn star as Rudy Gay led the Grizzlies with 21 points, Juan Carlos Navarro had 20 off the bench and Mike Miller finished with 16 as he became the 43rd NBA player to make 1,000 career 3 point shots.

The Celtics flew to Detroit right after the game to face the Pistons tomorrow night in the Motor City. The Celtics will be looking for revenge as the Pistons were the last team to beat them and they did so on Boston’s home court.

I just saw this come across my feeds so I thought I’d share this with everyone courtesy of Peter Abraham.

“Nothing is really decided at this point,” Hank Steinbrenner blabbed. “I’m still leaning towards doing it. There’s others leaning not to do it. There are some others that are leaning to do it also. Disagreements within the organization. Nothing major, but just different opinions. I’ve changed my opinion a couple times.” Steinbrenner made it perfectly clear that it’s his call. “I always told (GM Brian Cashman”, ‘I’m going to make the final decisions because when you’re the owner you should.’ He is the general manager, and he has the right to talk me out of it and he has talked me out of some things.”

I wonder if Hank is sitting there pulling flower petals, going yes we should trade for him, no we shouldn’t, yes we should, no we shouldn’t. Obviously this flower petal he used came out with a yes we should trade for him.

In his interview with “60 Minutes” Mike Wallace, Roger Clemens says that the only thing Brian McNamee injected him with was lidocaine and B-12.

“Lidocaine and [vitamin] B-12. It’s for my joints, and B-12 I still take today,”

Here is a look at the teaser video for the interview. The full interview will be shown on 60 Minutes this Sunday on CBS. The show starts at 7 PM.

I wonder if that was the same B-12 that Rafael Palmeiro shot up with that turned out to allegedly be steroids.

New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has been named the Associated Press Coach of the Year for the second time.

Belichick won it in the year his team not only became the first team in 35 seasons to finish undefeated but in the year in which he and his organization were accused of unfair videotaping practices.

The Patriots charged out to an 8-0 record before they even had their first close game, a Week 9 battle at Indianapolis against the Colts in which the Patriots engineered in a 4^th quarter comeback to win 24-20 heading into their bye week.

After the bye they destroyed division rival Buffalo on a nationally televised Sunday night game 56-7 before they found themselves in some battles over the seasons last 6 weeks. In order to complete the perfect season they needed fourth quarter comebacks against Philadelphia, Baltimore and the NY Giants while having comfortable wins over Pittsburgh, Miami and the NY Jets.

But the controversy of the NFL season came in Week 1 when the Jets complained they had caught the Patriots illegally videotaping their coaching signals from the sideline. The Jets, with help from NFL Security, confiscated the camera and tape halfway into the 1^st quarter of the game. Later that week NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, convinced the Patriots broke a league rule, assessed the largest penalty in NFL history when he fined the team $250,000 and took away their first round draft pick and he fined Belichick the league maximum $500,000 in the incident.

To a man the team rallied around their coach and as a group issued a giant F-you that was heard from New York to Seattle and commenced a league wide beating no one had ever seen before.

Today, I imagine, Belichick feels vindication with this award as he should. Since Week 1 there has not been evidence of the Patriots doing anything against the rules nor was there ever any evidence provided that what they did in Week 1 could have given them an immediate competitive advantage.

Belichick received 29 of the 50 votes, while Green Bay coach Mike McCarthy had 15 votes to finish second. Also getting votes were Dallas coach Wade Phillips and Jacksonville’s Jack Del Rio (two each), and Indianapolis’ Tony Dungy and Tampa Bay’s Jon Gruden (one each).

Belichick also won the award in 2003 and is the only previous winner since 2000 to have also won the Super Bowl the year he won the award. The only other Patriots head coach to win the award is Belichick’s mentor, Bill Parcells in 1994.

The “guru” Peter Gammons stopped by Boston.com today for a chat with the fans in anticipation of the Hot Stove, Cool Music event this Saturday.

Gammons mentioned that Scott Boras and Brian Cashman will be there along with the other scheduled guests.

Here is a look at a few of the questions Gammons was asked and answered.

Where do you see Clay Buchholz fitting in next season, might he end up in triple A barring any injuries to the starting rotation?

I think he could start in Triple-A, but by the time the season’s over he’ll be an important part of their rotation. They showed that resting starters during season, e.g. Beckett two weeks, Schilling time off, can be very beneficial come October. Having 6 starters can eventually work its way out.

Hi Peter, I’m happy to see that you’re health is good. You gave us all a scare my friend. I grew up reading about baseball with you and Leigh Montville and hope that my 1 year old has the same privilege soon. Jacoby for Santana…I’m not sure I want to part with him. I’ve got a feeling that he is going to be real real special and I think that Sox are loaded with enough pitching (Cheaper than Johan at that). Your thoughts please?

Santana is probably the best pitcher of this generation. He’s young and he’s a great athlete who should be able to last another 10 years, but the more I’ve thought about the Santana deal, the more I’m convinced it’s not a great idea. Whether it’s the Ellsbury deal or the Lester deal, the Sox would still be giving up three young players and I don’t discount the importance that Lowrie will play in the next couple of years. Theo has rebuilt the RS farm system in a very short time and changed the culture. And I think that culture is really important. The baseball people with the Yankees feel the same about what Brian Cashman has done and would prefer not to make a Santana deal. There are days when I really believe that the Red Sox and Yankees wake up and hoping somehow the Mets can find 4 or 5 good prospects in the organization and make the trade, but right now, that’s highly unlikely.

For a full look at the transcript, click here.

 The NFL playoffs start on Saturday with a pair of games and then another pair on Sunday.  It’s Wild Card Weekend!!!  While Patriots fans are trying to figure out who the team will play, Giants fans will be hoping their team actually survives the first round.  Jets fans, well they’ll be drunk regardless, chanting at random women in the 7-11 parking lot as they try to get them to expose themselves.

So here’s the breakdown:

Saturday’s Games

Washington at Seattle (-3.5) at 4:30 P.M. on NBC.  Announcers: Tom Hammond and Cris Collinsworth

• Ian: Seahawks 24, Redskins, 17
• Steve: Redskins 31, Seahawks, 20

Jacksonville at Pittsburgh (+2.5) at 8 P.M. on NBC.  Announcers: Al Michaels and John Madden

• Ian: Jaguars 31, Steelers, 24
• Steve: Jaguars 34, Steelers, 31

Sunday’s Games

New York Giants at Tampa Bay (-3) at 1 P.M. on FOX.  Announcers: Joe Buck and Troy Aikman

• Ian: Giants 24, Buccaneers, 21
• Steve: Buccaneers 27, Giants, 13

Tennessee at San Diego (-9) at 4:30 P.M. on CBS.  Announcers: Jim Nantz and Phil Simms

• Ian: Chargers 37, Titans, 17
• Steve: Chargers 28, Titans, 21

Announcing teams courtesy of our friend, Awful Announcing.

Well that didn’t take Bill Parcells long. Thursday morning Parcells fired Miami Dolphins head coach Cam Cameron after only one season, albeit a 1-15 season, on the job.

Cameron was hired over 12 other candidates 11 months ago in an exhaustive search for the new Dolphins coach to lead them into the future. Instead of taking the team to the next level the Dolphins actually dropped off from 2006 when they were 6-10 under Nick Saban who ran away to Alabama and the college game after just two seasons in South Florida.

Now the Dolphins are looking for their 5th head coach in the last five seasons a string that started in 2004 when Dave Wannstedt left after 9 games and was replaced on an interim basis by Jim Bates. 2005 brought Saban, who was replaced by the former San Diego Charger offensive coordinator Cameron last February.

Cameron, who became the first Dolphins coach to be fired in 37 years since George Wilson in 1970, was a head coach once prior to Miami when he led Indiana University for five seasons before being let go after an 18-37 record.

It is now rumored that Parcells and new GM Jeff Ireland may turn back to Dallas for their new coach as the ealy front runner is Cowboys assistant head coach Tony Sparano.

 

Back on August 30^th I went out on a limb and predicted the entire NFL season. I went week by week giving wins and losses. I then assigned the 12-playoff teams and picked through the Super Bowl.

With the completion of the regular season it’s time to take a look to see how I did on the season records, standings and playoff teams. I’m gonna leave the analysis to the overall record and leave the division and conference records alone but you can see for yourself where I went right or mostly wrong.

(-#) means the team lost that many more games than I predicted.

(+#) means the team won that many more games than I predicted.

AFC East

• I predicted the division winner in New England and the cellar dweller in Miami, but my picks for 2^nd and 3^rd were flipped. I could have never have predicted the Patriots undefeated season (+3) nor did I see Miami’s (-4) flop coming. The Bills were -1 and the Jets were -5.

AFC North

• Was I off, I had the division in absolute reverse from top to bottom. I missed each team by at least 3 wins either way. This division killed me. Baltimore was -6, Cincinnati was -4, Cleveland and Pittsburgh were +3.

AFC South

• Again I had the top team and the bottom team with 2^nd and 3^rd flipped. Indy I was -1, Jacksonville was +5 better than I thought, Tennessee was +1 and Houston was +5.

AFC West

• I had the 1^st and 2^nd place teams with 3^rd and 4^th flipped. San Diego was -2, Denver was -3, KC was -6 and Oakland was +2.

NFC East

• I had no one in the right order here at all. Philadelphia was -4, Dallas was +2, Giants were +4 and Washington was +6.

NFC North

• Again the Northern Division was a total flip from top to bottom. Chicago was -5, Detroit was -2, Minnesota was +3 and Green Bay was +9.

NFC South

• The only thing I got right here was #4 Atlanta who was a push because I totally predicted their record!!! Carolina and New Orleans were -3 each and Tampa Bay was +2.

NFC West

• The only correct placing was Arizona in second and they were a push as I predicted their record!!! San Francisco was -3, Seattle was +3, St. Louis  was -3.

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Since the NFL season ended on Sunday there have been some changes in the ranks so I figured I’d give you a quick rundown.

Len Pasquarelli of ESPN says the Baltimore Ravens have asked for permission to interview four current assistants from other teams. They are Indianapolis assistant head coach Jim Caldwell, Dallas assistant head coach Tony Sparano, Dallas offensive coordinator Jason Garrett and New England offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels. The four assistants can be interviewed this week because they all have playoff byes but the interviews must be wrapped up by Saturday. They are also expected to interview Rex Ryan, their former defensive coordinator and Buddy’s other son, as well.

Bill Parcells made his first hire by naming Jeff Ireland the new Dolphins GM. Ireland previously worked with Parcells in Dallas where he was the vice president of college and pro scouting. It is expected that he and Parcells will decide the fate of head coach Cam Cameron possibly as soon as Friday. I’d put Cameron’s chance of staying at 30%.

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