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Stand shortly and carry a big stick.

Going in the 2008 season, if someone told you that a member of the Boston Red Sox would win the American League MVP award, you wouldn’t have been surprised.  Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, Mike Lowell… the Red Sox had plenty of strong options.  But would you have put money on Dustin Pedroia, Boston’s diminutive 5′ 9″, 180-pound (if that) second baseman?  Hats off if you did.  And hats off to Pedroia, who capped off a fantastic offensive season by winning his second piece of personal off-season hardware in two years (he won the AL Rookie of the Year award in 2007).

Pedroia became the first AL second-baseman in 49 years to win the award and only the fourth in junior-circuit (tenth in major-league) history.  Much like his counterpart at first base, Kevin Youkilis (who finished third in the balloting himself), Pedroia did anything and everything the Sox asked of him.  Although he didn’t move across the diamond like Youkilis did in replacing the injured Lowell at third, Pedroia moved up and down the line-up, occasionally batting lead-off and clean-up in addition to his normal second spot.

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Say it ain’t so, Mark.

The SEC today charged the Dallas Maverick’s maverick owner Mark Cuban with insider trading.  According to the agency, Cuban allegedly received confidential information about an upcoming stock offering from Mamma.com, of which the basketball titan owned 600,000 shares.  The SEC claims that Cuban then ordered the sale of the entirety of his stake in the .com prior to the offering, thus avoiding losses of over $750,000.

In response to the charges, Cuban stated, ”I am disappointed that the Commission chose to bring this case based upon its Enforcement staff’s win-at-any-cost ambitions. The staff’s process was result-oriented, facts be damned. The government’s claims are false and they will be proven to be so.”

Continue Reading The People vs. Mark Cuban

The Steelers victory over the Chargers was the first ever 11-10 final score in the history of the NFL, after 12,837 games.

And you thought the Eagles-Bengals tie was odd enough.

No one likes to lose, and while Patriot fans may be disappointed that New England lost to the rival New York Jets in overtime last night, they can take solace in the play of Matt Cassel.  The backup quarterback, who until this season hadn’t started a game since high school, finally came of age in a remarkable performance worthy of the man he replaced.

Cassel’s numbers were excellent by any measure, let alone for a quarterback just figuring out his sea legs.  He completed 30 of 51 passes for 400 yards, rushed for 62 yards on 8 carries, and threw 3 touchdowns.  But what stood out the most was the poise he showed when the Patriots got the ball back down by 7 with 1:04 on the clock and no timeouts.  Cassel engineered a perfect drive, calmly marching his team down the field and tying the game with one second remaining on a beautiful sideline touchdown pass to Randy Moss.

Continue Reading Cassel Comes of Age