Castro to Stick Around NYC [Babes Love Baseball]

2007 Cy Young Award = CASH MONEY [Home Run Derby]

George Carlin Compares Baseball and Football [Oriole Post]

Bonds computer game: Mind-numbing fun! [Red Sox Monster]

Top Ten Tuesdays: Bernie Is Getting Jealous [Yankees Chick]

The Twenty Or So Things On Dickie V’s Mind That Have Nothing To Do With College Basketball Or The Game He’s Calling [Awful Announcing]

KSK Presents: The Green Zone! Your Guide To The Environmental Pussification Of The NFL! [Kissing Suzy Kolber]

Could Riley Have a Mysterious “Surgery” Soon? [SporTech Matter]

We’re Already Tired of the Barry Bonds Indictment [The Big Lead]

Blink And You Missed It: The Relevant Portion Of The Knicks Season Is Over [The Feed]

Phil Jackson is the king of half-hearted apologies [We Are The Postmen]

THE BENGALS GO VIRAL WHILE FANS VOMIT [You Been Blinded]

Hello Heyman!… Arrivederci Verducci! [My Baseball Bias]

It’s another light link day for Boston Red Sox news as the main focus of Red Sox Nation is the status of the Mike Lowell negotiations. It seems as though the only real credible offer is the one from the Red Sox of 3-years $36 million. As I saw on the Barry Bonds special on ESPN, Peter Gammons reported that the Yankees are no longer interested in Lowell to play first for them as it looks as though they will go with Shelley Duncan and the Giambino. So as Lowell sits back and mulls over his future, let’s take a look at the headlines from the Boston area media on this cold November morning.

Sox, Lowell keep talking [Boston Herald]

Red Sox Making More Changes To Fenway Park [Hartford Courant]

Strike zone [Boston Globe]

For more headlines and stories, head over to the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Providence Journal, and Hartford Courant websites.

From Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe:

Mike Lowell may be closer to making a decision on whether he’ll play for the Red Sox in 2008, but he wasn’t letting on when asked about it at Disney World earlier on Friday.

The World Series MVP and his family seemed to have a nice time at Disney World where he served as grand marshal of the Magic Kingdom Parade. Lowell told one media person at the event, “We’ll see what the offseason brings. My family and I have a decision to make.”

The Sox have a 3-year offer on the table in the $36-$39 million range. It’s not known whether Lowell has another offer to consider. ESPN’s Peter Gammons reported earlier in the day that the Yankees no longer seemed interested in pursuing Lowell as a first baseman and will go with a combination of Shelly Duncan and Jason Giambi.

Another possible destination could be the Los Angeles Dodgers, who are balking at giving up three top prospects for Marlins third baseman Miguel Cabrera, though word out of LA is they are now after free-agent center-fielder Aaron Rowand. Toronto general manager J.P. Ricciardi also said Friday that his team was not involved in Lowell talks and Philadelphia, which would appear the best fit for Lowell if he should depart Boston, have repeatedly denied it is in pursuit of the Sox third baseman.

Sox general manager Theo Epstein said Friday that talks with Lowell remained status quo

So what had started out as a bunch of teams offering him 4-year deals, now appears to be just the Red Sox 3-year deal. Hopefully over the weekend, Lowell will make his decision and give us an early present for the holidays.

Chris Douglas-Roberts scored a career-high 33 points for Memphis as they came back after being ahead early to beat UConn 81-70, to win the championship of the 2K Sports College Hoops Classic.

Douglas-Roberts also had 7 rebounds and ESPN The Mag cover boy Derrick Rose had a career-high 24 points for the Tigers. A.J. Price led the way for the Huskies for the second night in a row with 23 points. Jerome Dyson added 17 points including a nasty dunk over Joey Dorsey. Hasheem Thabeet did most of his damage at the free throw line tonight as he was 7-7, finishing with 11 points and 9 rebounds.

Memphis (4-0) got out of the gates quick as they took a 10-0 lead and with eventually go up 20-5. When Dorsey went out with two fouls for the Tigers, the Huskies worked themselves back into the game finishing the half with a 36-20 run to take a 1-point lead into the break.

The second half was a see-saw affair until Douglas-Roberts tied the game at 60 with two free throws at around the 9 minute mark. His two free throws were the start of the a 16-5 run that put the game out of reach for the Huskies at the 4 to go timeout. UConn tried to make one last run but it was not to be as the Tigers made some free throws down the stretch to stave off the upset-minded Huskies.

If you’re a fan of the Huskies, you saw a much improved team from last year. Price looks like he has his legs back and is ready to lead this team to the next level. I’ll take an NCAA berth.

I always preach making your free throws because it will help you win the game. While UConn was 27-38 (71.1%), some of those misses were at key times, like the front end of one-and-ones. If you look at the 11 missed free throws by the Huskies, thats the final margin of the score.

UConn (3-1) is off until Tuesday when they will face the Gardner-Webb Runnin’ Bulldogs for a second time in 5 days. Tip-off is at 7:30 PM at the Hartford Civic Center and the game will be covered locally on MyTV9.

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The Boston Celtics frittered away a 15-point 4^th quarter lead to the Miami Heat Friday night in front of a sell out crowd at the TD BankNorth Garden but managed to eke out a 92-91 win.

Trailing 91-90 Celtics captain Paul Pierce, who was in foul trouble all night, rolled off a pick onto the baseline and under the hoop after a pump fake on Udonas Haslem he laid the ball in with 25 seconds to play to give Boston the lead.

The Heat called for a 20-second time out and set up a play for Dwayne Wade to take the final shot, which he did. The shot clanged the back of the rim and James Posey grabbed the loose ball as the horn sounded and Celtics escaped with a win to improve to 8-0 on the year.

In the fourth quarter and really through out the game, the Celtics got careless and abandoned what got them to this point and ended up with too many turnovers and too much individual play and it almost cost them.

Kevin Garnett had a double-double with 26 points and 11 boards to lead Boston, while Miami’s Wade in his first start of the year had 23 points and 6 helpers. The Celtics also had 19 points and 7 assists from UConn product Ray Allen and former Celtic Ricky Davis had 20 points for the Heat.

Ian preaches about how important foul shots are when he writes about UConn. Well maybe Jim Calhoun can get Allen (7/7), Garnett (6/6) and company to help out as the Green went 17 of 18 from the charity stripe for a sizzling 94%. Miami was only 16-28 (57%) as the usually sure shooting Wade went 7 for 12 at the line as the Heat fall to 1-8 on the year.

Boston visits Orlando on Sunday at 6 p.m. to play the Magic.

When the current Red Sox ownership group took over, they made a vow to make Fenway Park cleaner, bigger and better. So far, they have lived up to their word. They’ve helped bring two World Championships to Red Sox Nation, added plenty of seating to Fenway and created some new things for the fans.

Now they plan to add 800 more seats in the pavilion level of Fenway Park plus they have torn out all the bleacher seats and are replacing them for next year. Also, they plan to put a bar in center field where the garage doors were.

Tina Cervasio from NESN caught up with Larry Lucchino and talked to him about the improvements to the ballpark, Barry Bonds and talks briefly about Mike Lowell.

“I’m spending a year dead for tax reasons.” – Douglas Adams.

Maybe Derek Jeter should take that advice as the State of New York claims that the New York Yankees shortstop owes them millions in back taxes from 2001, 2002 and 2003. New York State claims the captains primary residence at that time is an apartment he owns in New York City’s Trump World Tower, that was purchased in October 2001.

Casey Close, who is Jeter’s agent, says the all-star shortstop has made his home in Tampa, FL since the 1994. Florida residents do not pay a state income tax.

According to the Associated Press, in part of the states assertion of residency, The New York State Division of Taxation and Finance noted that Jeter has personal items in the apartment that are “near and dear”. New York State has a reputation of being aggressive in these issues.

They base their claim on Jeter spending at least 183 days of the year in the State of New York. Jeter could be responsible for paying taxes on all of his income, including endorsements and appearances that easily double his baseball salary.

Judge Timothy J. Alston, has asked the department for more specifics with respect to its claim that Jeter has “immersed himself in the New York community”. Alston told the department it must provide Jeter with a more detailed document specifying his “community involvement in jurisdictions other than Florida” and “public statements regarding his desire to be in New York,” according to the AP.

According to Jeter’s contract with the Yankees he was paid $38 million over the time period in question with a $16 million signing bonus due before June 2008.

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About two months ago, I did a news of the weird piece about Kyla Ebbert, who was kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight for wearing inappropriate clothing. Well now it seems as though Miss Ebbert has decided to take her clothes off for Playboy and get some dough for revealing what was underneath her slutty outfit.

Ebbert worked at a Hooters in San Diego but said she is now looking for a more respectable waitressing job. She wants to become an attorney, and doesn’t think posing nude should get in the way of her professional aspirations.

A more respectable professional waitressing job huh? That’s a pretty good one. Just another person using their 15 minutes of fame to cash in.

Warning: The following links are NSFW. You can head here for the Playboy article and here for the nude pics of Ebbert.