FanNation

Sabbatical

It seems as though one month out of three or so I take off.  This one strongly correlates with my vacation-laden summer, but I just go through swoons on this site where I don't see any TD's of interest and have little to discuss in blogs.  However, i have a handful of thoughts from the past month or so that I would just like to bullet:

 - Michael Phelps is simply amazing.  However, i don't know about greatest Olympian of all time.  He is without question the greatest swimmer of all time, but it isn't fair to athletes like Carl Lewis or any variety of single-medal competitor (fencing, rowing, etc., etc., etc.) to call Phelps the best overall.  He is in a sport that makes multiple medals possible.  Tell me, what eight events could Carl Lewis have competed in?

Yankees comeback

Perhaps this is premature, perhaps I am just an overexcited homer fan.  Okay, I KNOW I am an overexcited homerfan.  But the Yankess recent success can't be denied, and neither can their success after the All-Star break year after year. Bottom line, the men in pinstripes look to be at it again.

They still have a ways to go.  Both the Red Sox and the Rays are in front of them in the division, and the Twins are also in front of them in the Wild Card.  There are major questions in the rotation and many injuries to key players (Jorge Posada, Hideki Matsui, Johnny Damon, Chien-Mein Wang, Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy...).  The hitting has been largely untimely and the bullpen, though strong since Joba joined the rotation, is not the best on paper.

Favre Officially Requests Release

I find myself in an odd situation, one I never expected to be in.  As one can easily tell by my screen name, Brett Favre is my favorite athlete of any sport.  I grew up watching him.  I am also a fan of the Packers due to a simple childhood misunderstanding.  When I was just a boy back in 1994 I was watching football with my dad, though I wasn't a very big fan at the time.  However, there was a small box score in the corner of the game we were watching, and one of the teams playing in that little boxscore was Green Bay, abbreviated to "GB."  Being a kid, I instantly was interested, because my initials are "GB." 

Darius Miles

So, as some previous blogs of mine have suggested, the Blazers are in a fine financial situation at the moment.  A large reason for this is that an independent doctor ruled that Darius Miles has substained an injury that makes him physically unfir to play, which takes about 9 million off the books for each of the next two years.  However, in such situations there is a stipulation that if the player can play in ten games in either of the enxt two years, then said player's salary comes back on the books for his original team.

Portland's Draft

Okay, I had to wait a bit to see if the Blazers made any more moves involving draft picks, but I feel ready to give my input on the Blazers' draft day.

Let me start out by saying that Kevin Pritchard is a fun GM.  He had five draft picks and kept none of them.  He trades like crazy and always seems to come out better because of it.  Owner Paul Allen has given him permission to spend his money, and Pritchard knows how to do it.