Saturday Sporties

-You ever have that friend who is just a little too eager to please? You know, one time you mention that you enjoy a certain band and then the next time you see them they're wearing that band's shirt and suddenly own all the albums? I kind of feel that is what ESPN is doing with the NFL right now. They know the NFL games get huge ratings, so they lead SportsCenter with any NFL news, even if it really isn't news at all. Thursday it was announced that the two sides of the labor negotiations had decided to extend their completely arbitrary deadline another day. Then Friday another week-long extension was announced. All this amounts to is yet another arbitrary deadline, but you would have thought it was the Vatican announcing a new Pope the way ESPN was breaking in with details all day long. Here's the deal, ESPN: just tell us when they either A) come to an agreement or B) delay the start of the season. We don't care about anything in between.

-You'd never know the NFL is heading towards a lockout the way teams are still releasing and signing players. From the outside it looks to be business as usual, including the usual bad signing. Former Colts safety Bob Sanders signed with the Chargers the other day, which everyone agrees is a great deal, "as long as Bob Sanders can stay healthy." Well, I have news for you, San Diego fans - Bob Sanders never stays healthy. If the NFL season expands to 18 games then he'll just miss a higher number of games than usual. What I'm saying is, if you are going to base whether or not a deal is a good move by whether or not a player who is never healthy can stay healthy, then you just made a bad deal.

-Speaking of players getting dealt and not being healthy, when Kendrick Perkins was traded by the Celtics last week, it was with the understanding that he had a knee issue which would prevent him from playing for a couple of weeks. Oklahoma City knew this and was fine with still making the deal. However, the other player in the transaction, Nate Robinson, was supposed to be the healthy party and yesterday it was announced that he will miss the next month and a half because he needs knee surgery. Now, normally, this is where I would remind OKC of my strict, "no take-backs, no changies" rule. However, despite Nenad Kristic being a very nice rebounder and Jeff Green finally showing me something in last night's game, we still love Perk around here so if the Thunder want us to take Kendrick back, I think Boston fans would be more than happy to make an exception just this once.

-During football season, training camp fights are not uncommon. However, they are not something that usually takes place during Spring Training. Earlier this week a couple members of the Cubs got into a fight in the dugout, reportedly involving a pitcher who wasn't happy the defense behind him gave up three errors in the first inning. They're trying to downplay this in Chicago by saying it's good and shows the Cubs have passion going into this season. Well, you can try and tell yourself that if you want to, but I'm pretty sure it means that one pitcher is an asshole, the infield defense stinks and your team already hates each other. But hey, it's the Cubs - would you expect anything different?