Sticks and Stones

There are few worse things in life than nasty college campus rumors, like two girls tearing each other apart on Myspace because of rumors about a guy or two guys tearing each other apart because rumors started that one cheated in Madden by using the same play over and over. Granted, the former is usually a bit more scathing than the latter, but whatever the case, rumors are rumors.

But of all the awful rumors I've heard spread on campus, the most vile and repulsive one I've ever heard is hanging stale in the air like a Rex Grossman deep ball. It would seem that some demented psycho, somewhere, started the rumor that the Pac 10 is as good as the SEC in college football.

First off, I've seen Sci-Fi Channel movies that are more realistic than that claim, but it's out there now and for some odd reason, people are buying into it. With USC sitting atop the college football world, those in the know want to believe that having one great team out of ten ultimately makes the rest of the conference better by association. It's like "Entourage." One team is famous. The rest are losers, weirdos and, generally speaking, teams nobody wants to associate themselves with. After the Trojans, the Pac 10 sports an Oregon team that, for the 190th consecutive year, couldn't match up defensively against a jay-vee high school squad. Of course, they also have the representatives for the "Always Overrated Because They're Major Schools" award in UCLA and Cal. Then, after those powerhouses, you have Arizona State, a bunch of other teams that can only throw the ball, all the way down to Stanford, who can't throw or run the ball and, I believe, are coached by a giant, talking spruce.

With the modest improvement of Oregon, you'd think the conference comparisons meant that the SEC was sliding or something along those lines. Funny story though: it's actually getting better. Reigning national champ Florida has a QB who routinely garners close to 1000 yards of total offense just by himself. LSU sports the best defense in any conference in the world. Hell, even Kentucky is ranked now. And that's not even mentioning Alabama, Auburn, Georgia and South Carolina, all of whom could destroy any of the bottom eight teams in the Pac 10. Of the twelve teams that make up the SEC, maybe three or four are legitmatley not good. That's frightening.

My advice for avoiding this sticky rumor: stay away from the Los Angeles media. It's because of clods like Bill Plaschke from the LA Times that people have been tricked into thinking USC makes every other Pac 10 team better just by playing alongside each other. Just like rock music, baseball and good crime novels, the best stuff comes from the east coast. And you can mark that down not as East Coast Bias, but East Coast Truth.

 Crucify Eric Gagne all you'd like but that trade made sense, and it still makes sense. Kason Gabbard had no future on this club, being blocked by fellow young lefty Jon Lester, and Gagne was meant to the relieve the then-impending Okajima fall-apart, which did eventually happen. Unfortunately, Gagne got nervous, relied on his fastball, and got tagged repeatedly in close games. Even though we're the vaunted Boston Red Sox, not all trades work out. That's baseball. Get over it.

 I know it's kind of soon, but Jacoby Ellsbury is already the fastest player in Sox history, right? What's his competition? Johnny Damon? Coco Crisp? Mike Greenwell? Mo Vaughn? Troy O' Leary? Is it even that close?

 If you had Randy Moss marked down for five TD's through three games in August, you're a bigger crook than O.J.

 So.do you think Eric Mangini is getting invited to the Belichick house for Christmas dinner this year?

 For that matter, do you think Eric Mangini will get invited to the Mangini house for Christmas dinner? He might rat out his own mother for stealing recipes.

 Has anybody seen Wes Welker's face yet? Anybody? It's been three weeks, and all I've seen is helmet. He's like Darth Vader. The most I've seen of him is his pasty skin, and the back of his head.

 It's a sad day for sports when I found myself wondering aloud one day when hockey season begins, then realized days later that the preseason was already almost over.

 Even more depressing is half the people in New England probably think that "Manny Fernandez" is the starting left fielder for the Red Sox.