Sporties

-Let me go on record as saying I hope Al Davis never hands over control of the Raiders to anyone else, because his press conferences are awesome. First off, he looks like the Crypt Keeper and secondly, he pretty much talks about whatever is on his mind at the moment, damn whatever questions people ask. Yesterday while introducing his new head coach, Hue Jackson, Davis took the opportunity to once again defend his decision to fire the last guy by repeatedly putting down the guy, who was not in attendance and therefore could not defend himself. That's gotta make the new guy feel good. I imagine it would be like going on a date where the other person spent the entire night bashing their ex, only add in people and cameras there to document the entire thing. At least Jackson has a window into what is going to happen to him in three years.

-Staying in that same vein, it can't be a good sign when, right after holding a press conference to announce the signing of a new reliever, the GM of the Yankees came out and said he was not in favor of the signing nor was he involved in the negotiations. Brian Cashman said it was nothing again the player they signed, Rafael Soriano, but simply that he didn't want to spend that kind of money on a set-up guy while clearly ownership disagreed. I'm sure this is not the first time Cashman's opinion has been ignored by someone with the last name Steinbrenner, but seeing as how this is the last year of his deal, Cashman might want to think about leasing, not buying.

-Staying in the New York area, after weeks of trying to convince Carmelo Anthony to accept a trade to the Nets, the team announced this afternoon they were done trying to bring him to New Jersey. I get why Anthony was not a fan of the deal: he wants to play for the Knicks and the Nets are not the Knicks (not even close). However, given that the Nets are owned by a Russian oil billionaire who may have made his money through some very shady dealings, perhaps it is not wise to turn down his offers. At the very least I certainly wouldn't agree to go fishing with him any time soon.

-This is one of those annoying times of year when ESPN tries to get us to pay attention to tennis, simply because they own the broadcast rights for the Australian Open. Yeah, I didn't care last year, I don't care this year and, I'll save you the trouble, I won't care next year. Please stop interrupting SportsCenter with updates. There is a reason we banished this tournament to the other side of the Earth.

-And, since we're talking about ESPN, they just announced a deal with the University of Texas to create a Longhorn-only channel for 20 years and a cost of $300 million. While it is not uncommon for a conference to have their own network, it is a first for a single university to have their own station. I fully expect this to be the start of a trend and before too long it is going to be the death of major conferences in college athletics - why share TV money with other schools when you can have it all for yourself? But, on the bright side, it should just about kill off the BCS. So... that'll be nice.