NOTE: If you are looking for the 2009 NFL Pro Bowl Rosters go there.

The 2008 NFL Pro Bowl rosters came out today and the Dallas Cowboys led all teams with 11 players on the team. The New England Patriots and San Diego Chargers led the AFC with 8 players chosen each.

The best story of the Pro Bowl rosters has to be the announcement of Sean Taylor as the starting free safety for the NFC squad. As we all know, Taylor was gunned down in his Miami home last month and passed away from the injuries suffered.

The teams were selected by the players, coaches and the fans. A look at the teams after the jump.

Continue reading →

The Boston Red Sox took home another award today in MLB.com’s This Year in Baseball Awards as Hideki Okajima was named top setup man, easily outdistancing the Yankees’ Joba “The Hut” Chamberlain in the voting.

For the Red Sox, this marks the fourth award they have won out of the 7 issued so far. Josh Beckett was named Starter of the Year, Jonathan Papelbon was named Closer of the Year and the no-hitter by Clay Buchholz was named the top Performance of the Year.

When the Red Sox signed Okajima, they saw him as someone who would be there for Daisuke Matsuzaka as he adjusted to life in America and MLB. Little did they know he would be the Red Sox Japanese All-Star representative and one of the top setup men in the game last year.

Kudos goes out to the Red Sox Pacific Rim scouting department for the great find.

Several Connecticut news outlets are reporting that a mall Santa Claus was groped by a 33-year old woman who sat on his lap this weekend for a photo at the Danbury (CT) Fair Mall. Evidently she wanted more than a photo and some holiday cheer.

Police arrived at the mall at 8:45 p.m. Saturday after receiving the complaint.

“The security officer at the mall said Santa Claus has been sexually assaulted,” Danbury Detective Lt. Thomas Michael said.

The groper was quickly identified and caught in the mall. She wasn’t able to get far because she was on crutches.

Police are not releasing the name of the man playing Santa, but they said he is 65 and felt badly because children were waiting to see him.

“He was apparently shocked and embarrassed by the whole incident.” police said.

“Santa Tim” Connaghan, president of RealSantas.com, teaches hundreds of prospective Santas a year and said he’s never heard of a similar incident, though it’s not unusual for adults to want to pose with Santa.

I guess she will go on Santa’s naughty list.

We start the week with Patriots head coach Bill Belichick and his visit with “The Big Show” on WEEI in Boston. He talks about the game with the Jets and the upcoming game against Miami.

With the win the Patriots are just the second team in the 88-year history of the NFL to start a season 14-0 joining the 1972 Miami Dolphins. Those two teams plus the 2004 Pittsburgh Steelers are the only teams to win 14 consecutive games in one season. Pittsburgh reeled off the 14 wins after losing the second game of season and finished 15-1. Miami only played a 14 game schedule in 1972.

Someone alert Mercury Morris, the Patriots just paid the toll on the turnpike and are entering the neighborhood.

Depending on who you talked to after the game on Sunday the weather was either great or lousy. Patriots linebacker Adalius Thomas loved it saying:

“I thought it was great,” he joked. “Didn’t you see all those bikinis out there?”

While the New York Jets kicker Mike Nugent after he missed a late 35-yard field goal attempt said:

“The wind was going everywhere the entire game and toward their bench. I had to change direction, and on that field goal I didn’t change enough.”

Patriots wide receiver Wes Welker went over 1,000 receiving yards for the first time in his career while Randy Moss went over 1,300 for the year and 12,000 for his career.

The Patriots have been absolutely incredible this year in red zone offense. They have put points on the board 38 times in 39 trips into the red zone this season. Their only red zone failure was a missed Stephen Gostkowski 32-yard field goal attempt against the Philadelphia Eagles. Gostkowski has missed two other FGA’s this season but the team had not entered the red zone.

Continue reading →

As seen on the front page of ESPN.com around 12:15 AM this morning.

So I ask which one is correct? The correct one would be the red arrow on the left as the Suns beat the Spurs 100-95.

Tina Charles led three UConn Huskies in double figures as they easily took care of the of the South Carolina Gamecocks 97-39 in their first game in eleven days as they came back from final exams.

Charles had 23 points and 10 rebounds for yet another double-double. Ketia Swainer added a career-high 15 points while Maya Moore had 10 points and pulled down 8 boards to round out the Huskies in double figures. Mel Thomas and Renee Montgomery both had 8 points as well for UConn.

The Gamecocks (7-3) were led by Illona Burgrova who had 11 points. Demetress Adams had 9 points before she fouled out. Brionna Dickerson added 7 points on just 3-of-22 shooting as well.

UConn could be without the services of Kalana Greene for the rest of the season as she left the game with what UConn officials called a “severe right knee injury”. I am not going to speculate on the severity of her injury but I cringed when I saw the replay because I know that feeling all too well (I have torn my right ACL 2 times). You could definitely see her knee give out as she went in for contested layup. Hopefully the injury isn’t too severe and we here at SOX & Dawgs wish her the best.

UConn started out the first half shooting 7-of-21 while South Carolina was just 2-of-12 to start the game. The Gamecocks were down 8 points at 22-14 but UConn went on a 21-5 run to take a 43-19 lead into the locker room at the half.

Head coach Geno Auriemma didn’t come out to the bench for the second half until the first timeout as he was probably in the trainer’s room with Greene. More of the same for the Huskies in the second half as they totally dominated both sides of the ball. They held the ‘Cocks to one field goal over the last 11 minutes of the game.

The Huskies (8-0) will leave tomorrow morning for San Diego as they will take on San Diego State on Friday night at 11 pm ET in Charde Houston’s return home. This is something Geno usually tries to do for all of his players in their careers at UConn. The game will be televised by CPTV.

Continue reading →

One stormy night in Boston, the city that years later would be come the epicenter of the sports universe, the Duke who ran the local baseball team decided that it was time to cut ties with ‘Roid Boy, the team’s biggest star.

See ‘Roid Boy had taken on the body of “Flounder” from “Animal House”. And in the words of “Dean Wormer”, or maybe they were the Duke’s words, “fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life son”. But ‘Roid Boy felt if he could add a lot of money to that maybe he would come around again and be the pitcher he once was. And if he didn’t he still would have a lot of money.

So they kissed goodbye, or maybe they just glared at each other and, just like the “Journey” song, they each went their separate ways. ‘Roid Boy in his search for riches wandered across the border. No kids he didn’t end up at Taco Bell, although that is possible, he found himself in of all places, the land they call Canada.

Drunk on maple syrup and full of Canadian bacon and Molson ‘Roid Boy scoured the landscape looking for a paycheck. It was Toronto, home of the hockey hall of fame, where he would find some Canuckistani to pony up nearly $25 million, American of course, over three years. So he took his family from their double wide in the rural backwoods of Houston and moved them into the Super 8 by the airport in the new land of Canada. Most specifically Ontario.

It was here that ‘Roid Boy would the meet a man who was willing to jam him in the ass. And ‘Roid Boy liked it. He liked it so much he wanted it more often. He even told the man he didn’t have to be gentle any longer to just give it to him good.

For two years the man stabbed ‘Roid Boy in the ass. ‘Roid boy grew stronger and more resilient and won games and awards and then in a fit of ‘Roid Rage demanded that the team who gave him money when no one else would trade him to the Evil Empire. ‘Roid Boy had gone mad.

Continue reading →

It was kind of weird week in the NFL:

I made mention earlier tonight that the Miami Dolphins finally won a game and will not go winless. The ironic thing is that today was also the annual reunion of the undefeated 1972 Dolphins team that won Super Bowl VII. They were on the sideline during the game. Some of the current Dolphins equated the feeing of finally winning to that of winning a Super Bowl.

The Pittsburgh Steelers had everything going their way home game, bad weather, playing a warm weather team and they lost to Jacksonville. Couple that with a Cleveland Browns win and we now have a tie atop the AFC North at 9-5.

The Browns beat the Buffalo Bills at home in blizzard conditions 8-0. That’s a lopsided baseball score not a football score. The bad news for the Browns is that the Steelers hold the head-to-head tie breaker by virtue of a season sweep.

The Giants are in midst of their annual late season swoon, that may very well in the end cost Tom Coughlin his job. They got their asses kicked tonight by Washington in Giants Stadium. Not a very good way to tune up for the post season. They are now 9-5 and 3-4 at home. They have a losing home record and they close the season out at home against what may very well be an undefeated New England Patriots team.

Speaking of stunning losses, the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Dallas Cowboys in Texas Stadium today in front of Jessica Simpson clad in her pink Tony Romo jersey. Romo by the way did squat today. Tony remember that you are not Brett Favre nor Tom Brady and I hope the piece of ass is worth it.

Continue reading →

It’s time to enter the second annual SOX & Dawgs College Football pick-em contest. Last year, my mom picked the most winners and won a free post here at the site.

Much of the same this year for the contest. The winner will get to make a guest post about any subject they want to. I do hope to improve upon my last place finish from last year.

I will have a template as the first comment that will have the team who is favored with the spread next to it’s name. For example, Utah (-9.5) vs. Navy. Utah is favored 9.5 points meaning if you pick Utah, they will need to win by 10 points for the pick to be correct. The tiebreaker will be total points in the BCS Championship game.

The first bowl game is on Thursday night but because I am few days late, I will accept entries until noon on Saturday 12/22. Of course the first two games wouldn’t count but the way I picked last year, you will still have a chance to beat me.

Pass the word around and good luck to everyone.

The entire bowl game schedule can be found here.