Cheap Seats

OK, I have neither the Nationals or Braves winning the World Series, so tonight's game can be thrown out of the equation, as I am in fact posting my season predictions before Opening Day tomorrow.

I will follow the format that my overlings at The Dallas Morning News used in their predictions. Here goes nothing...click said link to continue reading...

Ryan Zimmerman made sure the Nationals had a memorable Opening Night at their brand spankin' new Nationals Ballpark when he had the Nats' first hit since the first inning in the bottom of the ninth and it just so happened it was a walk-off homer to give Washington a 3-2 win over the division rival Braves.

There are so many great things about this picture. Mainly, Dmitri Young's fat, happy, diabetic face. Get used to it -- he'll be a Ranger very soon by my estimations. It also symbolizes the beginning of baseball, which behind the first two days of the NCAA tournament, is my favorite sports time of the year.

Yeah, I know the Red Sox and A's played in Japan last week and the games counted, but it didn't count in my mind. Baseball got started tonight, in America, and it will get in full motion tomorrow. Coming soon...my season predictions post. Stay tuned!

NFL owners are going to discuss banning long hair from the league at a meeting next week. This would have affect numerous players in the league and render many of them less tight.

But what ESPN didn't report is what Cheap Seats is about to break. NFL owners are considering numerous other rule changes similar to the Anti-Thug Act of 2008. Here's a run down of some of them:

-- Jerseys longer than six inches past the waist must be tucked in

-- In addition to a manageable length, hair cannot be dyed an "unnatural" color, such as blue, pink or orange

-- Male players cannot wear earrings

-- Players may not chew gum under any circumstances

-- No facial hair is permitted, including sideburns and soul patches

-- Player may not wear caps, beanies or hats on the sideline

-- Any player caught outside the locker room or the field without being accompanied by a coach will be suspended for a quarter of a game

Seriously though, it must suck to be Gene Upshaw. He has so little power that the NFL is actually imposing high school hallway rules on the players. You're getting taken for a nice ole ride, Gene. Also notable is that NFL owners have so little worry about that they're reduced to talking about hair length.

P.S. This move will look really racist if it passes. This would affect mostly black players with braids.

After the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament, I was down in all my pools because of Davidson's win over Georgetown, which I had going to the Final Four. Without one of my Elite Eight teams, I wasn't too confident about winning any money this year.

After the third round, that's totally changed. I've correctly picked all but one of the Elite Eight teams, and my sensible picks for the rest of the way have me believing in me. I have North Carolina, UCLA, Texas and Georgetown in the Final Four with UCLA beating UNC in the title game.

Help me decide what I'm going to do with all the money I win. Next year, I'll help you win some money by giving you sound advice.

The Stars loss to San Jose in overtime tonight was due largely because of Marty Turco slapping a Shark in the face with his stick. It resulted in a double-minor, a San Jose 3-on-5 advantage and a Dallas overtime loss.

Let the grilling of Marty Turco begin. His face whack will be the next highlight ESPN will show over and over again to fan the debate over hockey violence. Chris Simon, Todd Bertuzzi -- you are off the Budweiser Hot Seat.

Seriously, there are few things that irk me more than the way ESPN covers hockey. If you're hearing about hockey on ESPN it's for one of two reasons -- to pointlessly restate that "nobody cares about hockey" or to show some act of on-ice violence.

I guess with that TV deal went any acknowledgment of the National Hockey League by ESPN. That's some free negative advertisement for the Versus product. ESPN doesn't benefit from people watching hockey anymore, so why should they cover it?

It’s almost creepy how aligned the Stars and the Mavericks have been this year. Both entered the year coming off consecutive playoff disappointments. Both made franchise-altering deadline deals that were initially praised.

Both have collapsed since the deals. Both are even in danger of missing the playoffs at their current paces and it’s safe to say the Dallas area won’t be celebrating a championship in June.

Nothing personified that more than tonight when the Mavericks lost to a playoff contender – again – and the Stars coughed up another third-period lead in a critical game. Neither has given fans anything to suggest they can be competitive in the playoffs, and things are only getting worse.

I'd like to thank the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers for providing the best NCAA tournament game in the past few years with last weekend's "upset" over Drake. It was a 12 over 5, but the fact that they're both mid-majors kind of lacked the upset punch for me. Nevertheless, it was a great back-and-forth game that finally ended in this buzzer beater, which didn't happen once in last year's tournament and is what March Madness is all about.

However, the Hilltoppers' run is about to come to an end against the No. 1 seeded UCLA Bruins. UCLA just has too much inside for WKU to handle. A 12 seed has never defeated a 1, so if it does happen it will be one those things Disney movies are made of.

Now, my boy Kige Ramsey has an insightful post about WKU athletics today. It actually is pretty informative and clears up a lot, mainly the origin of one of the greatest mascots in college sports.

Take it away, Kige...

With the first two rounds in the books and the Sweet 16 on the docket starting Thursday, there's much to talk about in the March Madness world.

Check out our new podcast, this week's happens to be NCAA tournament-centric.

We had a thrilling buzzer beater as Western Kentucky's Ty Rogers beat Drake at the buzzer with a long 3-pointer to pull the ever-so-popular 12-seed over 5. Another 12-over-5 game came when Villanova beat Clemson. So there were two of the popular upsets, and neither was the one I actually predicted (Temple over Michigan State).

That brings me to the Spartans. Michigan State has a great tournament record under Tom Izzo. I usually pick the Spartans to make deep runs but after a couple of years of them tanking my brackets, I decided to go against them this year. Now they're in the Sweet 16 and have a great shot at beating Memphis.

I'm not one to jump on a player for having "off-the-field issues." Most of the time, these "issues" are pretty minor and are blown out of proportion.

Case in point: Tank Johnson. He had guns that were registered in Arizona instead of Illinois. Then he got arrested for drunk driving, which a blood test later cleared him of. So what exactly did this guy do?

But with Adam "Pacman" Jones, I'm a little more hesitant. This guy beat a guy down with a pool stick in college. His posse is accused of shooting and paralyzing someone. Trouble follows this guy, that much is obvious.

One of my favorite things in the world to do is a fantasy sports draft. Yesterday I got to do one for baseball and I'll do another one today.

Most of the leagues I'm in were formed in college and with friends at the time. We have long histories, and we've picked up some of my co-workers and random acquaintances on the way.

While picking your team for the year is obviously fun, the message board during the draft is my favorite part. Since I have a lot of college friends in my leagues, we resort to college humor. The trash talk is relentless, the cut-downs are foul, disgusting and frankly disturbing.

I'm not much of a gambler, so when March Madness rolls around, I fill out one bracket. I look down the desk and see some co-workers whose names begin with an "A" and end with a "dam Boedeker" filling out a handful of brackets in an attempt to win a pool.

Some of these co-workers then come into the newsroom and brag about "their" perfect brackets. I imagine if I filled out a bunch of brackets, I might have a perfect one at 4:30 p.m. on the first day of play, too.

In my world of keepin it real and puttin it to all my haters, my bracket isn't perfect. UNLV, Marquette and especially Kansas St. spoiled my day. I had USC in the Sweet 16. Belmont almost gift-wrapped a happy conclusion to arguably my biggest bracket gamble -- Xaiver beating Duke. But they choked.

My favorite 48 hours in sports starts in approximately 24 hours with the first two days of the NCAA Tournament.

I'm going to break down each region and tell you how I think teams of local interest will fare once March Madness kicks off.

In the East region, I see No. 1 North Carolina making it to the Final Four with staunch tests from Notre Dame and Tennessee. I think the most intriguing first-round game will be a battle of mid-majors with No. 7 Butler and No. 10 South Alabama, out of the Sun Belt. I think Butler will win the game at the free throw line and with its tournament experience.

As for the biggest upset of the first round, I'm going with St. Joseph's over Oklahoma, an 11 over 6. St. Joe's shoots the lights out from beyond the arc, and Oklahoma hasn't impressed me all year despite having an out-of-this-world RPI and strength of schedule. Blake Griffin is good, but both he and Longar Longar have been battling injuries all season. I think it will catch up with them.

The Houston Rockets 22-game win streak ended just now with a 20-point home loss to the Boston Celtics, who beat San Antonio last night. I realized two things in watching this game.

First off, the Celtics might indeed be the real deal and might give the Eastern Conference their first legitimate shot at a title since the Pistons, even though all the love from the media is in the West.

Second, as I was telling Jeff tonight, despite this ridiculous streak the Rockets just went on, I was never sold on them. Now, don't get me wrong, I appreciate the greatness of what they accomplished with this streak -- the second-longest in NBA history. But, with that being said, I think they just caught lightning in a bottle and aren't really that great of a team. Honestly, taking a look at their upcoming schedule they could lose some serious ground in the next week and a half and be out of a playoff spot. Kind of like the Mavericks. The Western Conference is just nuts. I think Dallas will get in the postseason, but as crazy as it might sound, I'm not completely sold on the Rockets, who were in first place heading into tonight's game.

Well, we're one day through the best conference tournament in the land and there was one major upset. Here's how I think things will unfold on Friday...

No. 9 Oklahoma State vs. No. 1 Texas
Thanks to one of the worst offensive possessions in college basketball history, the Cowboys will be playing Texas in the second round. The Pokes got in two good shots on the Longhorns this year but both ended in Texas wins. That leaves open two possibilities: The Pokes get over the hump and beat Texas or Texas gets its act together and rolls. I like the latter.

My favorite sporting time of the year is just around the corner and the precursor is always the conference tournaments, most importantly the Big 12 Tournament.

In the past, the Big 12 has been a bit down, but this year's been different. It was so clustered past the top three that no seeds were decided until Saturday -- incredible.

So, here's how it's going to go down. The top four seeds get first-round byes. That would be No. 1 Texas, No. 2 Kansas, No. 3 Kansas State and No. 4 Oklahoma.

On Thursday, things will get kicked off with No. 8 Texas Tech vs. No. 9 Oklahoma State. Next up will be No. 5 Baylor vs. No. 12 Colorado, followed by No. 7 Nebraska vs. No. 10 Missouri and finally No. 6 Texas A&M vs. No. 11 Iowa State.

Continue reading for my expert predictions...

Looks like Kige and I are kind of on the same page.

Look, we can argue until we're blue in the face about who the greatest quarterback of all time is. There's Joe Montana, John Elway, Johnny Unitas, Dan Marino, etc.

I don't know if Brett Favre is the greatest of all time, but what I do know is that the greatest statistical quarterback in NFL history announced his retirement today, and he's doing it while he's on top of his game -- at least close.

This wasn't an Emmitt Smith retirement or a Troy Aikman one, where they stuck around a couple of years too long and ended up going out on bad teams with their talent noticeably in decline. You see, Brett Favre went 13-3 last season and lost in the NFC Championship game to the Giants. Sadly, his last NFL pass was an interception that sealed the win for the Giants.

When the Mavs lost to the Spurs in the final minute of the game, I thought "It's just one game against a really good team." When they lost to the Lakers, I thought "It's just two games against really good teams."

After Dallas' loss to Utah last night, I'm changing my thinking. The Mavs are 0-4 against teams with winning records since the Jason Kidd trade. They just lost three of four, with the three losses being to Western Conference powers.

Maybe it wasn't so good to make such a drastic change this late in the season? When you change point guards, you're changing the dynamic of your team. This is like the Cowboys trading for a Pro Bowl quarterback in Week 10. The Mavs may not have enough time this year to get this to work.

That said, I'm not going to write off the trade, even if the Mavericks flounder this year. But it ain't looking good for 2007-08. The Mavs have a brutal April, so if they're going to put this together, it needs to be now. After Thursday's game, the Mavs don't face another playoff team until March 18. Time to get it together.

Big Ben Roethelisberger signed an 8-year, $102 million deal to remain a Pittsburgh Steeler this morning. There's no doubt Big Ben is an NFL star seeing as how he's 26 years old and has a Super Bowl ring, but is really worth that kind of dough? I don't think so. You'd be hard pressed to find a good number of folks who would call him a top 5 NFL quarterback, and that kind of money is top 5 money.

After rampant rumors that freak wide receiver Randy Moss was going anywhere but back to New England -- possible teams were Green Bay and Dallas, neither of which proved to have any truth to them. It now appears Moss will re-sign with the Patriots making New England the immediate favorite to win Super Bowl XLIII.

Could you have imagined Randy Moss and Terrell Owens on the same team with Tony Romo throwing them the ball? That would've been completely unfair and next to impossible to make work -- moreso on Owens' account than Moss'.