Weekly Sporties

-Just a couple days after I said they needed to get a move on with their managerial search, the Boston Red Sox hired Bobby Valentine as their new manager. Personally, I was on the fence about the decision at first. After all, I've never met the man but he took a team to the World Series and yet couldn't get another job in the majors until now? That's a red flag. It's like when the super-nice and cheap apartment is still available - suddenly you wonder what might be wrong with it. However, I was convinced this was a smart hire the second it came to light that several Red Sox players were not happy about their new manager. Apparently, they think Bobby V might be a little harder to deal with. I'm sorry, are these the same Red Sox players who blew the biggest lead in Wild Card history and choked away the post season? The ones who couldn't be trusted to police their own clubhouse? Well, sorry boys, but that's just too damn bad if you aren't happy about it. In fact, I kind of hope they are pissed. A kick in the pants could be just what they need. They couldn't get the job done when they had a guy like Terry Francona, who was always on their side, managing them so now they have to be managed by a guy who might not be so willing to fall on the sword for them. All they had to do was win one damn game in September. They have no one to blame for this but themselves, so they really should stop looking to the fans for sympathy.

-Speaking of coaches getting hired and fired, no coaching position might be more expendable than hockey coaches. Seriously, those guys get tossed away quicker than Kleenex. I can only assume it has to do with the nature of hockey. I mean, there are only so many ways to draw up a play going to the net. Still, they are often fired quickly and without much warning. Perhaps the best example of this was former Bruins coach Pat Burns who was coach of the year in 1998 and got fired less than two years later. This time around it was Washington Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau, who got fired Monday morning despite having a winning record and taking the Capitals to the President's Cup (best record in hockey) just two seasons ago. Then, as if to prove my point about how tenuous a hockey coach's job can be the Anaheim Ducks fired their coach Wednesday night just so they could hire Boudreau, even though their coach won them a Stanley Cup in 2007 and just sign a contract extension through 2014 during the summer. Clearly the lesson for hockey coaches is that you should rent, not buy.

-It took all of about two days once the NBA lockout ended for rumors to start back up that the Celtics were looking to trade point guard Rajon Rondo. Rondo was frequently the subject of trade rumors before he signed a contract extension last year and a lot of people thought now that he was signed he would be considered untouchable. However, I'm not surprised. If you look at the Celtics' roster there isn't much else out there people would want to trade for. Garnett makes too much money, Ray Allen is too old, Paul Pierce is a Celtic for life and the rest of the roster simply isn't very appealing. If the Celtics want to make any moves of significance, Rondo is the only attractive chip they have left to bargain with. Now, GM Danny Ainge has said that he doesn't plan to trade Rajon, but where there is smoke there is usually fire. Rondo's name has simply come up way too much for there to be no truth to all these rumors. Also, more than a few people have reminded us that Rondo is really sensitive to this kind of stuff. If they keep dangling him out there at some point they are going to be forced to trade him or risk him poisoning the locker room. I'd like to say I trust Danny to makes these kinds of decision, but the last time I checked he was shipping out Kendrick Perkins so Shaquille O'Neal could get more playing time. Let's just say my confidence in him is a little shaken at the moment.

-One of the names floating out there for Rondo is that of New Orlean's guard Chris Paul. Now, Paul is a very good player and wants to be paid liked it, but he also wants help in the form of another superstar on the roster and he wants to play in a big market. In other words, he wants out of New Orleans. Now, the worst part for the Hornets is that there really isn't much they can do about it. Paul wants to leave (he wants to play for the Knicks), he's eventually going to leave (probably to play for the Knicks) and every other team in the league knows it. As such the rest of the teams in the NBA are going to low-ball New Orleans because they know the Hornets don't have much bargaining leverage. You know, one of the reasons the NBA was locked out all summer was because the small-market teams like the Hornets were tired of not having enough money to keep their superstars on their teams and they wanted to stop every good player from ending up on the same 8 or 9 teams. After a nearly 200-day lockout it sure as hell doesn't look like much as changed. Man, and I thought the lockout was useless before...

-After getting benched six games into the season, Vikings quarterback Donovan McNabb asked for and was granted a release from the team late in the week. He went unclaimed through the NFL's waiver process and is now free to sign with any team he wants. Personally, I'm not sure how many teams want McNabb. Sure, he was good in the early 2000s, but that sure feels like a long time ago right about now. However, you wouldn't be able to tell that from the talking heads on ESPN. You see, every couple of years the network brings in a fresh crop of former players for fresh faces and perspectives. Where it gets weird is when those former players have to talk about guys they used to either play against or be teammates with. At that point you can tell they are just basing all their opinions on what they used to see on the field. For example Hugh Douglas, who used to play with McNabb in Philadelphia, was on TV the other day talking about how teams would be smart to sign Donovan because McNabb has such a strong arm. Are we talking about the same Donovan McNabb who I've watch one-hop 20-yard passes for the last 2 seasons? It might be time for some of these analysts to get back into the film room, because with opinions like that it sure seems like they aren't paying attention.

-If there was ever any doubt whether or not Tiger Woods was still the most influential golfer on the planet, look no further than this weekend's Chevron World Challenge. It's an 18 man field (very exclusive), doesn't count in the standing at all but hands out a lot of prize money and thus it's pretty much the very example of the rich getting richer. Now, normally it would barely be worth a mention. But, Tiger came out Thursday afternoon and put together a very nice round, tying for second place. On ESPN there was not a single mention of the guy who was actually in the lead, but there were two stories about Tiger's shoes. You see, Tiger started out the day wearing white shoes, but was wearing black shoes after the 9th hole. The announcers spent the remaining part of the day wondering if it the change was due to conditions, or perhaps pain in his knee, or maybe the spikes were different. Good God, we needed to know: what was going on with Tiger's shoes!?!?!? Well, turns out he broke a lace and thought it would be faster to change shoes than re-lace the ones he was wearing. Mystery solved and much ado about nothing. It's been said before and it needs to be said again: Tiger doesn't move the needle, Tiger is the needle.

-All of the realignment that has been going on in college athletics for the passed couple of years is due to one thing: conferences trying to get Championship Games. Every school in a conference gets a nice chunk of TV money when they have a Conference Championship to televise, so the various leagues have spent the last couple of years collecting enough teams from other places to create two divisions and have their own conference championship. Well, this is the first year for the Pac-12 Conference Championship. It happened last night and it pitted #9 Oregon against a 6-6 and unranked UCLA squad. You see, thanks to USC being under NCAA sanctions they were ineligible for the conference championship, so UCLA ended up winning the division by default. The same UCLA who lost by 50 points to USC last week and subsequently fired their coach. The same UCLA who wasn't going to play the game unless they got a special waiver from the NCAA saying they would still be bowl eligible at 6-7 because they knew they were going to get wasted, thus have a losing record and you need to be at least .500 to play in a bowl. Not exactly the game you would want for your first conference championship. So it was hardly surprising that when the game was played last night Oregon blew the doors of UCLA in a contest that was neither very close nor very interesting. My point in all this? Beware what you wish for.