SimonOnSports

Charlie Manuel - Umm, well hello, umm Carlos. Carlos Gonzalez aka CarGo - Uhhh, who is this? Charlie Manuel - Well you know its, [5 seconds of dead air], Chaaahhhllie Manuel. My team, you know, umm, lost in the World Series and umm, I guess that makes me umm the manager of umm the All Star Game. CarGo - Oh, Mr. Manuel, so is this good news about the All Star game? Charlie Manuel - Well, you know I had some hardish type decisions to make. Umm, they want me to pick umm the All Star team and umm well I don't remember people's names and things. So umm, I kind of picked guys umm, that were you know kind of All Stars before cause well they were all stars before so well they can be all stars again, right? I think that umm makes sense. CarGo - Soooo, that means I didn't make the team? Charlie Manuel - Well ya umm, I didn't really know your name, umm, there are so many people named Gonzalez and umm I just went with Adrian. And well umm, I have to pick a playe...

To me all All Star games have morphed into events that are never "Must See". They all have major issues that make the games relative jokes and if I have anything better to do than the games shall be bypassed. The NFL and NHL are sports that are built too solidly around contact for any of the athletes to want to play full speed. The NFL additionally suffers from a mass pullout from some of their Superstars that frankly don't give a damn about the game as well as a list of plays so simple a 3rd grade pop warner player could learn them in a week. Major League baseball teams would never agree to the All Star game using just one ace starter for more than 2 innings and no All Star manager would ever just utilize his 9 starting fielders throughout the entirety of the game thus insulting the remainder of the huge roster he has at his hands.. Of the 4 Major Sports All Star games just one truly has the potential to truly show off the best of the best in a showdown without any l...

~So who watched the Pro Bowl last night? Anybody? I'm sure it was great fun what with the guys not wanting to tackle each other or hit each other at all and the fact that the AFC was playing its "7th" best quarterback at times. ~One thing that I did find quite ridiculous was the fact the NFL forced the Super Bowl Pro Bowlers to be in attendance simply to get introduced and interviewed. Was there really any added bonus that Peyton Manning was on the sidelines of the game? Why force him to be there? ~Just in case you live under a shell or not in England, this whole John Terry scandal is quite amazing. The scandal would be quite enough if it was just the fact that he cheated on his wife with the girlfriend of his purported best friend both on his domestic team (Chelsea) and teammate of the English National team but when you throw in the "got here pregnant" and "paid for the abortion" details it ramps it up a few notched. Than just to make everyt...

When the Commissioner announced that he was moving the Pro Bowl to the week before the Super Bowl I thought "Hmmm... Maybe I'll actually watch now." See I'm not sure I've watched a single Pro Bowl in my life. After the Super Bowl I'm just not really into it. We've already watched the big game. There's college bball, NBA and pitchers and catchers to look forward to. I've never been motivated to watch a game in which most people don't try and many don't bother to show up and frankly I'm just not in the mood for football the week after the Super Bowl. But when it was announced that it was the weekend before the Super Bowl I thought perhaps I'll watch now. There's nothing else going on that weekend. I'm still in the football mood. Maybe it's a good way to kick off Super Bowl week. Well I was wrong. The 2010 Pro Bowl has a new set of issues. First off all the players on the Super Bowl rosters are stripped off the ...

By moving the NFL Pro Bowl to the week before the Super Bowl the league has set it up so that a large portion of the Pro Bowlers want nothing more than to not go to the game. This weekend the 25 Pro Bowlers playing in the Conference Championship game know this, Win and they skip the Pro Bowl and play in the Super Bowl, Lose and its the Pro Bowl consolation prize. Nobody wants the consolation prize. Here are the 25 players who really want to skip out on next weekends festivities. Indianapolis Colts (6): Peyton Manning, Reggie Wayne, Dallas Clark, Jeff Saturday, Dwight Freeney, Robert Mathis New York Jets (4): D'Brickashaw Ferguson, Nick Mangold, Alan Faneca, Darrelle Revis New Orleans Saints (5): Drew Brees, Jon Stinchcomb, Jahri Evans, Jonathan Vilma, Darren Sharper Minnesota Vikings (10): Brett Favre, Adrian Peterson, Sidney Rice, Bryant McKinnie, Steve Hutchinson, Jared Allen, Kevin Williams, Antoine Winfield, Percy Harvin, Heath Farwell

Just for fun I figured now would be a good time to submit the worst possible Pro Bowl allowed without write in votes. Here goes: At the quarterback position we're looking for failure to come in one of three different ways. 1) Horrible Play, 2) Benched, 3) Injured. Each of these representatives have combined at least two of these fields. Josh Johnson, Brady Quinn and of course JaMarcus Russell have both been awful this season and at times benched. The combo of Jake Delhomme and Mark Bulger have strictly worked the miserable side of the equation and are now injured and out. Finally we have Trent Edwards who works the triumvirate, first he was miserable, than he got injured and now he is benched. For running back I was looking for these characteristics: 1) Not the Starter, 2) Injured, or 3) Tremendously Underachieved. Buckhalter, Kevin Faulk and Rock Cartwright are all their teams backups if not third string running backs. Darren McFadden is probably not the Raiders #1 and ...

Sell, Haren. Sell, Haren. Why? Because Dan Haren pre All-Star Break equals God. Dan Haren post All-Star Break equals pedestrian. Just take a look at his splits from the last four seasons, Pre-All Star Break is in Powder Blue, Post-All Star Break is in Magenta. This is no coincidence. It is a trend. If you can sell high on him now and you are not in a keeper league, do it.

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below. ANSWERS

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below. ANSWERS

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Every year there are a few players that come out of absolutely nowhere to make an all star team. The majority of time its because they're having breakout, out of the ordinary years. Other times its because their team sucks and MLB had no one else to choose. Here's the list of players that fall under either of those qualifications this year. Team Captain: Jason Marquis - Throughout his career Marquis has been a mediocre to ok pitcher in the major leagues. Outside of his solid 2004 campaign with the Cardinals there hasn't been much positives to say about Marquis. He was mediocre enough the the point last year where the Cubs had no problems letting him go. And now, he's got 11 wins and is an all star. Ryan Franklin - Hew wasn't even supposed to be the Cardinals closer. The closers role was supposed to go to Jason Motte or Chris Perez but both faltered heavily in spring and the opening few weeks and the job was handed back to the veteran Franklin. If you remembe...

Every year there are a few players that come out of absolutely nowhere to make an all star team. The majority of time its because they're having breakout, out of the ordinary years. Other times its because their team sucks and MLB had no one else to choose. Here's the list of players that fall under either of those qualifications this year. Team Captain: Ben Zobrist - When you don't have a starting job at the beginning of the season and your career high in games played coming into the season was 62 despite being in the league for three seasons, you're not expected to make the all star team. But Zobrist won the right field job early in the year than he became the super utility man playing the Outfield, SS, and now 2b and he's raked when he's been in the lineup, so he gets an All Star bid. The Elder Statesman: Tim Wakefield: He's 43 and he's never made an All Star game before. He hasn't had an ERA under 4 since 2002 and he only won 10 games last ...

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below. ANSWERS

So Who Watched the Pro Bowl? I didn't. I didn't even remember it was pkayed yesterday until this morning when I read on my google reader that Revis made a solid one handed interception. This is pretty much exactly why the NFL made a good decision moving the Pro Bowl to the bye week, the football season is straight up over to me after the Super Bowl and if I don't manage to accidentally flip to the game, I'm not gonna remember to watch it. Oh and the NFC won thanks to Fitzy apparently.

BOOOOO BOOOOO BOOOOO. What 22 and 10 isn't good enough? Big Al is one of only three players in the NBA to currently hold those lofty numbers. So what if his team sucks. They're improving, ha. Instead of Al Jefferson we get the same old cast of characters . Shaq, who has played significantly less games and minutes than Big Al and is averaging 18 and 9. David West, who gets the benefit of playing with Chris Paul on a daily basis and not Randy Foye is averaging 20 and 7. Pau Gasol who is on one of the best teams in the NBA, probably because of Kobe, is averaging 17 and 9. Snooze Snooze Snooze. Give me Big Al.

I've gone on the record before in saying how much I hate fans being allowed to vote for any All Star game. 99% of the time they vote strictly on popularity and barely get anything right. For instance The Jets Blog put up the current Pro Bowl Voting Leaders in the AFC and highlighted what Jets are on the list. And of course the Fans got almost nothing right. ~Brett played great last week, but top AFC vote getter? That's probably a bit much. ~D'Brickashaw is 2nd in votes for Tackles? Hasn't he been labeled a bust by the media? Plus the only person ahead of him is Jake Long. Voters obviously just say ooh top 5 draft pick, I'll check the box. ~Thomas Jones is 1st in the AFC in yards, carries and tied for 3rd in tds and he sits out of the top 5. ~Kris Jenkins is the reason why the Jets are 3rd in the NFL in rushing defense and yet he sits 3rd on the list. ~Darrelle Revis is arguably one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL and yet because it's his 2nd year and ...