A Few Sporties

-I forgot to write about this yesterday, but I wanted to commend the fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers for their behavior during Thursday night's game against LeBron James and the Miami Heat. Once that game got out of hand (and especially considering the way it got out of hand - with LeBron just dominating the game on both ends), things could have gotten very ugly and one or two bad apples could have made the entire city look stupid. Instead it sounds like everyone behaved like adults and it never got passed some very loud booing of Mr. James. I know it may sound like I set an extremely low bar, but when it comes to sports fans I learned a long time ago that being an optimist has to take a back seat to being a realist.

-Having never attended either a school in Texas or a Big 12 school, I'm going to have to plead regional ignorance on this one, but when news came earlier this week that TCU would be switching conferences and joining the Big East, I had to scratch my head. Wouldn't it have made more geographical sense for a school near Fort Worth, Texas join a conference like the Big 12, which features school from neighboring states instead of the Big East, which was founded as a collection of school on the Northeast I-95 corridor? Plus, with Nebraska and Colorado leaving for other schools, wouldn't you think that the Big 12 would have wanted to add a strong football school to maintain it's status as an elite conference and also have the magic number of 12 schools that you need to keep a that most money-making of games, the conference championship? Just seemed to me to be a natural fit.

-So, where do we all think Jonathan Papelbon is going to be next season? Now that word has leaked that the Red Sox were prepared to jettison him for a 41 year-old Mariano Rivera you can't imagine that Papelbon is going to be too pleased with the organization. And, given the facts that Paps is coming off a down year, he was already annoyed about his contract and the Red Sox were clearly open to the idea of using someone else to close games, I wouldn't be shocked if Cinco-Ocho was relocated before next season. My money is on Atlanta.

-Earlier today the University of Cincinnati was playing against Pittsburgh in a snowy stadium. After a Pittsburgh player scored several students from Cincinnati started throwing snowballs at him, including the student in the Cincinnati Bearcat mascot costume. The students were warned by security, including the mascot, except the mascot went the extra step of pushing the security guard. He was detained and charged with disorderly conduct while the school went to the back-up mascot. While I assume this will be the greatest mugshot in history, I am shocked to know that schools even have back-up mascots. What would have happened if this game was in Pittsburgh? Do they travel with extra costumes? I'm full of questions.