Sports (Don't read if you don't care about them)

When normal people like you and me say that the MVP of Major League Baseball should come from a playoff team, that's just normal sports-talk. When players who finished as the runner-up to Ryan Howard in the National League MVP voting say it, it's just plain whining. You can be upset because you didn't win, but you're a professional, so act like one. No one is going to listen to Pujols whine and complain about the playoff requirement and take his side. He comes off as childish and spoiled.

This whole Kelly Naqi/Michael Strahan thing is getting blown way out of proportion, on both sides. First of all, why is Strahan wasting his time with this woman? She's a regional reporter for ESPN. He said that he came out to talk to the reporters because of the questions she was asking (he wasn't scheduled to talk to the media that day). Seriously? You don't have other, more glaring issues with your health and your suddenly terrible team to deal with? And what a spaz--she's a 110 lb woman and he's a professional defensive end. Getting in her face about it and freaking out about being a "man" seems a little over-the-top. And on the ESPN side, the way the clip is shown and the reports are written, you'd think Strahan was two seconds away from punching her in the face. If you go to the website and read the side story about it, you'll see some very uncharacteristic biased reporting. I understand that they have to defend their reporter, but it's as if Stephen Colbert wrote it for them.

I'm completely onboard with the idea of this as the Wolves starting linep: PG Randy Foye, SG Mike James, SF Ricky Davis/Marko Jaric, PF Kevin Garnett, C Craig Smith. Start two rookies? Foye and Smith are the second- and third-best players on the team (respectively) behind Kevin, and they give the team the best chance to win. Randy Foye could be a legitimate Rookie of the Year candidate.

Apparently the Wild aren't playing so well right now, losing to a good San Jose team last night. It's hard to care right now when 1.) Gophers Hockey (men's) is no. 1 in the nation right now, currently unbeaten, and 2.) the NHL (much like the NBA) is pretty boring until the All Star Break. So I'll pay more attention to them then.

The Gophers have a men's basketball program. They're currently holding sign-ups for the intermural Big Ten season--they'll play against other intermural squads such as #1 Ohio State, #16 Wisconsin and others. Dan Monson is going to play intermural coach and it should be a good time. They've lost 5 in a row to teams I didn't even know existed (like Marist). But Dave Faunce, if you're reading this, I'll still go to any game you don't want to.