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30 miles so far this month. The running thing has ramped up considerably. My standard runs are now 3.2 and 4.0 miles.

I am still quite slow, but can comfortably jog several 9 minute miles as often as I wish. This won’t sound like much to real runners, but it is an order of magnitude better than I could do even back in January. It’s the improvement that’s bringing the motivation these days.

I’ve been really enjoying the NewBalance love/hate commercials lately; they really seem to nail the running mentality. Here’s a link to one.

Let’s see if I can hit 40 miles this month and add some speed in June…

I was watching a recent piece on ESPN where NBA players were comparing their passing game to that of hockey players. Watching NBA’ers think about playing hockey made me think about the different styles of fighting in sports. It’s funny how different they all are.

In the NFL, for example, there’s not that much fighting because there’s not really much point. Those guys aren’t really going to be able to hurt one another anyway, what with all the armor they’ve got on. I mean, they basically get into a street fight every time the ball is snapped. There’s just not much point in adding more.

Now in Major League Baseball, fighting is always a team sport. Think Sharks and Jets style street brawl. If one player fights, his teammates all fight too. All of them. Even the bullpen runs in from the outfield to get involved. No one usually gets hurt too badly; there’s generally just a lot of shoving and trash talking. It kind of looks like two college fraternities having a fight, where most of them really don’t want to actually fight, but they feel honor-bound to represent.

The NHL takes fighting seriously, it’s built right into the product. There’s centuries of history here and the players, and most fans, know and understand the detailed unwritten laws of these gentlemen’s diagreements. Honor and toughness are taken seriously here and violations of the code are not tolerated very well amongst other players. It’s really a phenomenon to watch. Two guys will square off, and instead of breaking it up, the refs all back up, give them room, and basically referee the fight. It’s crazy, but somehow it just doesn’t seem out of place in hockey. It’s all part of the appeal.

In the NBA, you just don’t see a whole lot of fighting. There’s been some notable exceptions, like the Ron Artest incident and the famous Rudy Tomjanovich shot, but those may be magnified by the relative rarity of these kinds of incidents. Also, the NBA hands down super-harsh penalties for fighting. You’ll get a harsh suspension just for leaving the bench to get involved. Carmelo Anthony got a month suspension last year for throwing one sucker-punch. Also, it just seems like these guys just don’t get as worked up. Why should they? They’re young, rich, happy, and they’ve got 64 more games to play. They just don’t seem as interested in duking it out on the court. Some guys obviously don’t like each other out there, but they aren’t likely to come to blows. So it’s pretty funny to think about these guys playing hockey. They wouldn’t last 10 seconds out there.

The Orioles are 6-1 and are a couple games up in the AL East.

Remarkable!

Went up to the 10th Mountain Division Huts again this year for the fourth consecutive year.

A great time was had, and some badly needed backcountry time made me feel good and relaxed. Here’s a few small photos:

I have read all the BS about this “Spygate” nonsense between the Jets and the Patriots. To cut through the crap, let’s take a realistic look at what happened.

In week 1, Jets security staff catch the Patriots taping defensive coaching signals in the Meadowlands. The camera is confiscated and the tape is reviewed by the NFL. The Patriots are guilty of cheating, and are punished for it. It is worth remembering that the league itself had warned teams before the season specifically not to tape opposing coaches.

Somehow, in this country of front-runner worshippers, everyone has decided that it was really Jets coach Eric Mangini who was in the wrong, beacuse a team that’s winning surely can’t be bad (rolls eyes). Let me just state what a fat load of BS that is. Coach Mangini has endured every type of abuse from Bill Belichick since taking the head coaching job with the Jets. Bill Belichick has not missed one single chance to make clear his childish hatred of Eric Mangini. As far as I can tell, the only thing Mangini ever did to Belichick is to contact a Patriots assistant or two about joining him on the Jets’ staff. This has somehow unhinged Belichick to the point where he will do anything within his power to attack Mangini. Somehow, the press has turned this around so that Mangini is the bad guy. Bizzare. Stupid.

So, let me state again that not only do I think Mangini was justified for preventing another team from cheating on us, I think it’s high time he publicly told Bill Belichick to f**K off. The hubris of Bill Belichick is legendary, and not in dispute from anyone. If you’d believe the press coming out of New England this week, Mangini wouldn’t even have been born, much less become a man, if it weren’t for Bill Belichick. Mangini would still be handing out press clippings to the beat writers if it weren’t for Belichick. Mangini would’ve never gotten laid, graduated from college, gotten married, had kids… heck, Magini wouldn’t even _exist_ if it weren’t for Belichick. They say Mangini owes his entire career to Bill Belichick. I don’t really see it that way. If someone does you a favor, then tries to lord it over you forever, then they’re an a**hole, just like Belichick. Even if Belichick was instrumental in getting Mangini started in NFL coaching, that does not mean that Coach Mangini would never have gotten a job. It certainly doesn’t mean that Mangini should look the other way as another NFL team blatantly cheats on us. In fact anyone who thinks that doesn’t have any integrity. If some one was paying _me_ a million dollars a year to win ballgames, I’d turn in folks cheating against us, too. That’s your job. I would never consider looking the other way as a team tried to gain an illegal advantage over us, that’s for sure. I’m glad our coach sees it the same way.

Apparently all of this drama started because Belichick ordered Mangini not to interview for the Jets HC job. Now, that right there is an a**hole move. I have never heard of a head coach doing anything other than helping their assistants get jobs. Now that we know more about Belichick, it isn’t too suprising that he’d pull that shit, he obviously only cares about himself. He obviously thought Mangini owed his career to him and that he should basically live forever in his shadow, gratefully scraping along at the feet of his master. What a load of crap that is. I sincerely hope that Coach Mangini leaves behind the high road that he has taken this entire time and calls out Belichick’s childish behavior some day. Because, really Mangini has taken a whole heap of ugly disrespect from Beilchick, and hasn’t responded negatively even once. So, I think it’s cool that he busted that a-hole for cheating.

It was like Coach Mangini was finally saying, hey Bill, F-you too, you jerk.

I hope he says as much publicly sometime.

It might be stupid to bench Chad Pennington right now. I have been a Chad supporter for a long time now, and although I am also excited by what Kellen Clemens might be capable of, I will make the case for Chad right here.

1- Chad is a winner. Even on the star-crossed New York Jets, Chad has been well over .500 in games he started, counting his 1-6 record this miserable season. He has even won playoff games, putting him in rare company amongst Jet QB’s. I appreceiate that more than other people seem to.
2- The Intangibles. Chad is very likely the smartest QB in the NFL. I guarantee you he will be a coach one day. His professionalism and leadership are the textbook example. No one involved in football would disagree with that.
3- He can actually throw the ball. He has the second highest completion pecentage IN LEAGUE HISTORY. It’s been fun sport for a lot of old, fat, sportswriters and armchair QB’s to poke fun at Chad’s arm strength. Here’s a clue for you: Chad is a pretty strong dude. He’s 6′3″ and 225 lbs. He can throw a football 60 yards downfield in the air. I have seen him do this many, many times. But, somehow, weak, unathletic newspaper reporters get to describe him as having an arm “like a spaghetti noodle.” This is no small injustice. I’d like to see your fat asses do better (this means you NY sports writers).
4- HE HAS CONSISTENTLY PLAYED EXCELLENT FOOTBALL. His career passer rating is 89.1. That is flat-out phenomenal. For comparison, hall-of-famer Troy Aikman’s career rating is 81.6, not even close. Brett Favre, a first-ballot hall-of-famer has posted a career 85.3 rating (so far).

What I am trying to say is that Chad is demonstrably one of the better quarterbacks playing in the NFL today. Most teams would love to have him as a starter right this minute. Cleveland, Jacksonville, Arizona, Kansas City, Miami, Minnesota, Chicago, Carolina, Atlanta and others come to mind. I think we probably haven’t seen the last of Chad starting games in the NFL.

I hope he goes on to do well. He has been a very good QB and very likable and easy to root for. He has consistently come back from injuries that would’ve ended less tough players’ careers. He’s one of the few 1st round draft picks that ever worked out for the Jets. I rather think he is not the problem with the Jets this season, but I do understand why he’s on the bench. That just the business reality of the NFL these days. We need to see what the 2nd round pick can do during this horrible lost season. Thanks Chad. It’s been a good ride.

I did a little quick research on the current Orioles roster. I was dismayed to discover that only one current player has won a World Series ring. Even more disturbing is that it’s Kevin Millar, who won his only ring while with the hated Boston Red Sox. Tejada does have an MVP to his credit, but still… Almost no rings on the team. That’s just not a good sign. It would be interesting to know how many teams have won the series with no rings on the roster before. Or, how many rings on average the World series winners have had.

Well, another football season comes to an end this weekend. The cycle begins anew. We’ll start looking for teams’ draft strategies here soon. Is that Mel Kiper’s hair I see?

This was an excellent season in many respects. The Jets making the playoffs was obviously unexpected by nearly everyone, so that was quite gratifying to watch. Kind of like Bengals fans recently, we’re enjoying the team’s success more because we have waited and suffered long. Chad Pennington made a comeback, in fact he was the NFL Comeback Player of the year, which he well deserved. Most folks wrote him off before the season, even the Jets tried to give him a 5 million a year pay cut. He’s the man. The new coach seems like the Greatest Thing to come along since… well ever. This dude has obviously got what it takes. Let’s see if can go a little deeper into the playoffs next season.

The Richmond Speedways, my fantasy football team of three years now, won the title in the league called “Smack Talk All-Stars”, in dominant fashion. Of course drafting LaDanian Tomlinson with the #2 overall pick didn’t hurt. My pal Loomis drafted Shaun Alexander wiith the first pick, which I enjoyed referring to as the “Sam Bowie” incident all season as LT set scoring records. Baltimore D, Carson P, TJ Houshmandzadeh and Laveraneus filled out the regular starters. I only lost twice: Bengals bye week and Charger bye week. Go figure I think I won 13 straight including the playoffs. That tends to make your football season more enjoyable.

I’ll make my Super Bowl pick, so I can be semi-publicly humiliated when it’s totally wrong.

I think the Colts roll, say 24-10. They’ll load up the box on Jones and Benson, make Rex Grossman throw a lot. Peyton and Marvin have been waiting for this moment for eons and I say they’ll put on a clinic. Colts win going away. Plus, as horrible as the NFC was this year, it would be an injustice for them to have the championship. It just wouldn’t seem right.

Yes, it is indeed glorious. Now Sunday comes the biggest Jets game I can remember.

Oh yeah.

The Jets are going to qualify for the postseason with a win against the sad-sack Raiders. We’ll be either the 5 or the 6 seed.
If we’re the 6 seed, we’ll probably go to Indianapolis.
If we’re the 5 seed, that means we’ll go to New England for the wild-card game. Oh please let it be so.

This is Bill Belichick’s worst freaking nightmare. This is why he’s so mad at Coach Mangini; he saw it coming. His former Padawan Learner Eric Mangini is now on a collision course to ruin his Super Bowl dreams. It is delicious. It must come to pass.

p.s. Anyone who still questions whether #10 has a pro arm needs to watch the replay of his TD throw to Jerrico Cotchery in the Monday night game. That’s probably the best throw I’ve ever seen him make. It was a thing of beauty.