For those of you who are fans of Batman, you have to check out the new trailer for “Dark Night” which will be in theaters next summer.
Christian Bale is back as Batman and Heath Ledger is the Joker.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkT1wdRePco&rel=1&border=1
In a game that had the feel of an Eastern Conference Finals Game 7 the Detroit Pistons nipped the Boston Celtics, 87-85 when Chauncy Billups knocked down two free throws with 00.1 seconds left on the clock.
Billups got to the line because Cetics captain Paul Pierce missed a fall away jumper with 1.7 seconds left and Rasheed Wallace grabbed the rebound and Detroit called time out allowing them to inbound in the Celtics end. The inbound pass came to Billups at the top of the key who let a jumper go and he was fouled as he shot by Tony Allen. The TD BankNorth Garden crowd groaned as Billups, one of the NBA’s best free throw shooters, went to the line.
The loss snaps a 9 game Boston win streak and 12 game home win streak. In fact, the last home loss was on April 18 to Detroit.
The Green were led by Kevin Garnett who had 26 points and 12 boards, Ray Allen knocked in 24 points and Rajon Rondo had 14 points and 7 helpers.
The Motor City Madmen got 28 points and 8 assists from Billups and former UConn star Richard Hamilton added 21 points, Rasheed Wallace had 13 boards and 9 points.
With the loss the Celtics drop to 20-3 and Detroit improves to 18-7 with the win.
The Celtics entertain the Chicago Bulls Friday night at the TD BankNorth Garden.
ESPN analyst and former NFL head coach Bill Parcells is reportedly ticketed to South Florida to frolic on South Beach in his speedo, hang out with Dan Marino, go fishing with Jimmy Johnson, check out all the “imported” women and oh rebuild the once proud Miami Dolphins back to a franchise that matters in the NFL.
According to Chris Mortensen of ESPN, and we know how wrong Mort has been this year, Parcells will sign a four year contract with the Fish to be the Vice Presidente del Operacions de Futbol or something like that. My junior high spanish is shall we say “el rusty”. They heavy will be the jefe so to speak.
Wednesday morning it was thought that Parcells would be going to Atlanta to make over the Falcons but apparently Arthur Blank didn’t have enough stuff at Home Depot to satisfy Parcells or the lure of no more video rental fees was a bigger draw.
Stay tuned because knowing the Big Tuna like we do in this area you are sure of two things:
If you’re interested, I am running a college football bowl pick’em contest here at SOX & Dawgs. The winner gets to do a guest post about any subject they would like. The first bowl game is tomorrow night but entries will be accepted through noon on Saturday. Obviously, your picks for Thursday and Friday wouldn’t count if you get in on Saturday. You can get to the contest by clicking here.
Sales of HDTV’s are up on the island of Oahu and that could only mean good things for Oceanic Time Warner Cable. Or does it? They actually ran out of HD converter boxes this week but expect to receive about 5,000 more later on. This will bode well for the fans who ordered HDTV from them in order to watch the Allstate Sugar Bowl featuring Hawai’i and Georgia on New Year’s Day.
Rich Rodriguez left West Virginia for greener pastures at Michigan and it wasn’t know whether or not Rodriguez would coach the Mountaineers in the Fiesta Bowl against Oklahoma. He won’t because he has been officially let go from his job at the university as of today. He won’t coach Michigan in the Capital One Bowl though as Lloyd Carr will be the coach in the game. Rodriguez will also contest the $4 million buyout on his contract.
Kansas head football coach Mark Mangino was named Coach of the Year by the Associated Press today. He has taken the Jayhawks to their first major bowl game in 38 years and also led them to a school-record 11 wins.
In wake of the academic scandal at Florida State, the Seminoles will play their Music City Bowl game against Kentucky on New Year’s Eve shorthanded. As many as 20 players will be suspended for the game. The suspended players may miss three games in 2008 as well.
“Naturally we’re having to make a lot of adjustments,” Bowden said. “We’ve got some guys who will be playing positions they haven’t played before.”
Curt Schilling spoke out today on his blog, 38 Pitches, about the Mitchell Report,and the players involved. His words were strong and given the fact that he is a current player, it gives us a different look at what came down last week.
We all have different opinions of the report and like Curt Says in the blog,this is his opinion. Here are some excerpts from the entry but I highly recommend you heading over to 38 Pitches to check it out.
His thoughts on Senator Mitchell:
First off on the Senator himself. I’ll take the word of the many reputable people I have heard talk about Senator Mitchell and after reading the report I don’t think I’m wrong. People wanting to point to his apparent ‘extreme bias’ based on his position as a senior member of the Red Sox organization are on a wild goose chase. I would argue that most of the people calling his character into question are doing so because they can’t relate to someone possessing integrity and an unbiased opinion in his position. Meaning those people are saying “If it were me I’d be unfair and taint the report to read in favor of the Red Soxâ€. (The conspiracy theorists out there are having a field day with Senator Mitchell’s relationship with Boston and his integrity, I don’t have any issues with either and I think if you look at his reputation and record you can safely say this man has made a living out of doing some pretty damn good stuff.)
His thoughts on Andy Pettitte, Gary Bennett and Brian Roberts:
To Andy Pettitte, Brian Roberts, Gary Bennett, thank you. All three of these guys I know, Andy not very much, but the other two I know very well. I played a few years with Gary, worked out at API and competed with Brian. Gary Bennett is a guy who I always respected because I never figured him as a guy that would be able to play as long as he has. He was always a hard worker and a nice guy and I always enjoyed throwing to him because he cared about his game calling skills. He’s made a nice career for himself and my hope is that it was more through his hard work and effort than through cheating, either way he’s a friend of mine and always will be. Brian Roberts worked as hard as anyone I’ve ever been around. Not to mention he’s about as kind and giving as anyone you’ll ever meet. I know how regretful he is and I know that this mistake is not indicative of his choice making in life. He screwed up, knows he screwed up and admitted it. I’ve always had huge amounts of respect for Andy Pettitte, as a competitor and as a person. Someone who’s made his beliefs as a Christian very public and always been the big game pitcher as well. He says he did this one time to recover from an injury, I believe him.
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Tune in tonight as bloggers Anthony of the Oriole Post and Jason of My Baseball Bias join me for our hour long baseball show called, “The Hits Keep Coming†on Blog Talk Radio and on MVN Radio. Every week at 7PM Eastern Time (6PM Central/ 5PM Mountain/ 4PM Western/Pacific) we chat, analyze and comment about the world of Major League Baseball.
This week: Mitchell Report and Free Agent Roundup
If you’d like to call in, the phone number is 718-664-6564 or you can send us an instant message if you use AOL IM at hitskeepcoming20.
Please join us at either: http://blogtalkradio.com/oriolepost – 7PM Eastern Time tonight!
Topics to be discussed this evening:
You can listen to last week’s show by going over to the sidebar on the right and looking for the Blog Talk Radio section.
See you all tonight!!!
Things have been relatively quiet on As The Santana Turns lately but there is some news this morning regarding the Boston Red Sox and Minnesota Twins.
This comes via the Pioneer Press:
The Boston Red Sox remain the favorite to acquire Johan Santana from the Twins, insiders say.
Boston remains firm, though, as initially reported by the Pioneer Press, in offering just Jon Lester, Coco Crisp, Jed Lowrie and Justin Masterson. The Red Sox are adamantly opposed to substituting Jacoby Ellsbury for Crisp, and that’s the current holdup.
Regardless, there’s buzz that the Santana trade could be made within days.
Boston has a larger pool of players who interest Minnesota and can contribute to the Twins immediately, whereas many of the New York Yankees’ top prospects are at least a season or two away from succeeding in the major leagues. The Yankees remain firmly opposed to trading pitchers Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy together for Santana, and they certainly won’t trade Joba Chamberlain.
The dark horse for Santana remains the Angels, who have enough young players to appease the Twins, but they have been quiet, much the same as they were before popping out of the weeds with a $90 million, five-year free-agent offer for Torii Hunter.
Could the Red Sox get an early Christmas gift in Santana? Personally, I think the other trades for big named players, Miguel Cabrera and Dan Haren, has shown the Twins they can get more for Santana than what the teams are offering. Unfortunately for them, neither the Red Sox nor the Yankees are budging on their original offers.
Stay tuned folks.
Seeing as it is the end of the year I felt we should open up nominations for Carl Everett’s Crazy Hall of Fame. So nominate away. Some time in the next week a super secret panel will vote on the nominee’s.Â
The rules for entry are simple:
You have to be absolutely bat shit crazy to get inducted. The offenses must have occurred on the field of play so arrests for DUI, dog fighting and other things aren’t eligible.
Some names up for consideration include:
Here are the current members of the CECHOF.
With the release of the Mitchell Report last Thursday, everyone was awaiting the words of the players who were named in the report. I think we all knew there would be some admissions and a lot of denials about their alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs.
The biggest name in the Mitchell Report was Roger Clemens. When the report came out, Clemens’ lawyer, Rusty Hardin, issued a statement saying that Roger had never used steroids or HGH. And on Tuesday afternoon, Clemens issued a statement through his agent Randy Hendricks.
“I want to state clearly and without qualification: I did not take steroids, human growth hormone or any other banned substances at any time in my baseball career or, in fact, my entire life. Those substances represent a dangerous and destructive shortcut that no athlete should ever take.”
“I am disappointed that my 25 years in public life have apparently not earned me the benefit of the doubt, but I understand that Senator Mitchell’s report has raised many serious questions. I plan to publicly answer all of those questions at the appropriate time in the appropriate way. I only ask that in the meantime people not rush to judgment.”
With his BFF, Andy Pettitte already admitting he used HGH twice, and the two of them being training partners as well, you have to wonder if Clemens really did it. Normally, people are innocent until proven guilty but with this situation, the media and most people are saying he’s guilty.
Obviously most clubs were cognizant of the fact that there would be free agents on the list and already one player named on the Mitchell Report has signed a deal for next season. Gary Bennett, who admitted he used HGH, was signed to one-year deal by the Los Angeles Dodgers.
To me this makes the Mitchell Report a joke.
The New England Patriots have put eight players on the AFC Pro Bowl Squad and seven of them were named starters.
Quarterback Tom Brady earned his 4th trip to Hawaii, other Patriots on the offensive side of the ball are wide receiver Randy Moss, tackle Matt Light, guard Logan Mankins and center Dan Koppen.
Patriots on the defensive side of the ball are linebacker Mike Vrabel, tackle Vince Wilfork and cornerback Asante Samuel.
Koppen is the only Patriot who will not start in the game.
Other AFC notables are Indianapolis QB Peyton Manning, RB Joe Addai and WR Reggie Wayne, Pittsburgh QB Ben Roethlisberger and RB Willie Parker, San Diego RB LaDainian Tomlinson, Miami DE Jason Taylor, Tennessee DT Albert Haynesworth and Baltimore safety Ed Reed.
NFC Notables are Dallas QB Tony Romo, TE Jason Witten and WR Terrell Owens. Green Bay QB Brett Favre, Minnesota RB Adrian Peterson, Philadelphia RB Brian Westbrook and Washington safety Sean Taylor, who was voted in posthumously.