Francona Out

Just two days after suffering defeat and missing the playoffs the Boston Red Sox and manager Terry Francona decided to part ways. The red sox had a 9 game lead over the Tampa Bay Rays on September 3^rd, and on Wednesday they suffered the largest blown lead in MLB history and missed the playoffs. Going into the season most baseball analyst had the red sox winning the World Series. They made two huge accusations in the off-season by signing Carl Crawford and trading for Adrian Gonzalez. Gonzalez for most of the season was putting up MVP type numbers. While on the other hand, Carl Crawford struggled the entire season and many red sox fans viewed him as an utter disappointment. The red sox did have their fair share of injuries. Their pitching staff was depleted by injuries and John Lackey’s inability to pitch two consistent games in a row all season. The red sox expectations at the beginning of the season were through the roof and when you don’t exceed those expectations you are going to see changes. The decision to let Francona go will not be the only change we see the red sox make this off-season. Full Story

Kobe Bryant Playing Overseas?

Apparently Kobe Bryant feels it is never necessary to rest. Especially since he is coming off his 33rd birthday. There have been reports circulating ever since the NBA season went into a lockout that Kobe would consider playing overseas. First, it started out that he might join fellow NBAer overseas and join a club team in Turkey. Now the reports are saying that he is considering playing in Italy. Even Kobe himself is saying that he sees it as "very possible" that he plays over in Italy while the lockout is intact. Kobe was born in Germany because his dad played for a German club team. To me this seems to be the only reason why Kobe would go back there is because he is semi familiar with the area. Will just have to wait and see.  Espn Story

News Roundup

       
   1.      The satellite that some worried would fall onto land was reported by Nasa to be found in the south part of the pacific ocean.  Satellite Article

      
    2.      On the latest episode of Two and a Half Men, Ashton Kutcher had a scene where he was using a laptop and he decided on his own to place advertisement stickers on the front of the laptop. The network execs were not happy about this because Kutcher was promoting companies he has invested in. Whole Story

     
    3.      On October 4^th Apple is planning on having a press conference to introduce the iPhone 5. iPhone Details

4.      Odyssey Marine Exploration announced that they have discovered a British cargo ship that contained over 700 million ounces of silver. Video and Article

5.      Walter Payton, one of the greatest running backs of all time is about to have a book released on his life and apparently there are some shocking details to be revealed. ESPN article

Guest Speaker: Dylan Smith

Today in class we had a guest speaker from the Tucson Sentinel, Dylan Smith. Mr. Smith is the current Chief Editor and Publisher of the Newspaper which is based solely as an online resource. Mr. Smith and a few of his colleagues branched out once the Tucson Citizen went under and decided to run an online print only newspaper that focuses mainly on local Tucson news along with other major news stories. The Tucson Sentinel is a nonprofit online news source. The majority of the staff at the Sentinel does work voluntarily and carry a second job to pay for all their expenses. The Sentinel receives around fifty percent of their income from website advertisements along with around another fifty percent from donations that come from fellow readers of the Tucson Sentinel. A few interesting notes I took from Mr. Smith’s presentation; one was how since The Sentinel is a nonprofit news source they are not allowed to specifically endorse any political candidates. As Mr. Smith puts it “we want to give our readers everything straight up. We don’t want to lie to them like Fox news.” In addition, Mr. Smith talked about how his website was one of the first in the country to break the news that Gabrielle Gifford’s was in fact still alive and not dead after she was shot. He went on to discuss how crazy that first week was for him as a reporter and all the coverage that he had to attend whether it was a court hearing or a hospital visit. It was nonstop. To visit the Tucson Sentinel click the following link. Tucson Sentinel

NBA Lockout

NBA Lockout News 

The NBA is currently in a lockout between the owners and the players union. All reports that I have been listening to and reading about have talked about how badly the owners and the NBA are doing in making sure a deal gets done before the regular season is suppose to start in late October.  The article discusses the main differences between the players union and the owners. It doesn’t look like this problem will be solved anytime soon and everyone is hoping to at least get a season in this year. Many players are already going overseas to play while the lockout goes on including perennial all-star Deron Williams. The NBA lockout is different than the NFL lockout because the NFL had so much more money at stake if they were to take their lockout into their regular season. On the other hand, the NBA’s revenue sharing is nothing compared to the NFL. Therefore, they have the ability to lockout the players into the season and try and use that as a bargaining chip because many NBA players need their paychecks to cover all of their reckless spending.

Week 1 of College Football

Here are the newly updated rankings after the opening week of college football. Rankings After one week in the books college football comes up on another exciting weekend in the world of college football. This coming weekend #1 Oklahome faces #5 Florida State in a matchup that could easily end someones national championship dreams. Last weekend LSU knocked off Oregon, bumping LSU over Alabama for the number two ranking while Oregon slid down the rankings. LSU's jump over Alabama was the only spot where there was reason for suprise. After this weekend the rankings should again jump around a good amount as there are a number of top 10 teams who face tough challenges ahead.

Opening Weekend in College Football

Tonight is opening night for College Football. Coaches, players, and fans have been waiting for this day to come since January 11th (day after the National Championship). Auburn is the defending national championship going into this season and yet there looks to be another SEC team lurking in the shadows waiting to dethrone the Tigers and that is their bitter rival the Crimson Tide of Alabama. Although Alabama lost their three main weapons on offense they return an NFL esque defensive along with heisman hopeful Trent Richardson at Running Back. The top two games of opening weekend consist of #3 Oregon playing #4 LSU in Cowboys Stadium. The other marquee game is Boise St. marching into Bulldog territory to face #19 Georgia, in the Georgia dome. As all four teams hope to keep their BCS dreams alive with a win, only Boise St. could ruin their chance at a BCS game with a loss on opening weekend. There doesn't seem to much upset alert for opening weekend as most teams start out playing FBS schools to ease their team into the season. One game to keep your eye on is the always dangerous Appalachian State against Virgnia Tech. My picks for these two games would be Oregon -3 and Georgia +3.5.