Sports Crumbs - 12/13/06

- First up, so NFL notes. The San Diego Super-Chargers are really rolling now. With a shellacking of the Denver Broncos Sunday afternoon, 48 - 20. Along with Ladainian Tomlinson's historic TD romp (who will hereby be known as LTD on this site) the Chargers are on quite an offensive roll. The Chargers have won 7 straight after a road loss to Baltimore in October and swept the Broncos for the first time in 24 years. The Chargers have to be the front runner now to make it to and win the Super Bowl in February. With their offensive weapons of LTD, QB Philip Rivers and All-World TE Antonio Gates alongside a defense that is about as stingy as they come, the road to Miami on February 4th should lead through San Diego. And who can stop them? With Indy sliding and questions still surrounding Baltimore's offense, I think the only way they could get tripped up is in another shootout with Cincy. But then again, Marty Schottenheimer and his 5-12 playoff record is the coach, so who knows. Everyone did anoint the Colts in Week 9, so it should be interesting to see how the rest of the season plays out. And speaking of the Colts, what's going on with them??? Can they recover from this slide?? I say Yes, but I think this slide knocks them down from having home field advantage, which proves costly as they end up in San Diego for the AFC Championship game.

-- A couple baseball notes:

---- Daisuke Matsuzaka is on a plane back to Boston which might be a sign that a preliminary agreement has been reached between himself and the Red Sox. The reports are that the Sox had offered $8 million / year for 6 years and Matsuzaka's team had come back with $11 million / year for 6 years. Are you kidding me? I understand that this a 108-60 career record in Japan with a 2.95 ERA and 1,355 strikeouts in 204 games, but he's never thrown a pitch in the big leagues and he's going to pull in that kind of cash. And where does Barry Zito fall into all this spending? A former Cy-Young pitcher should be able to pull in close to $15 million / year by some over-spending team like the Yankees or Mets. But all in all, I guess in a market where Gil Meche can make $55 million, anything is possible.

---- The Houston Astros pulled off a trade with the Colorado Rockies yesterday for pitcher Jason Jennings. The Astros gave up youth in CF Willie Taveras and P's Taylor Buckholz and Jason Hirsh, but Jennings should give them a solid #2 starter even if he does only have a 58-56 career record. He should be able to replace Andy Pettite's numbers, but obviously won't be able to provide the playoff experience. Along with the aquisitions of OF Carlos Lee and P Woody Williams along with being able to play Chris Burke everyday, the Astros should definitely be able to push the defending World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals for the NL crown.

-- And lastly, Tiger Woods won his record 8th Player of the Year title in only his 10th year on the PGA Tour. He also resigned with Nike for another 5 years for an undisclosed sum, but his previous deals were first for $40 million over 5 years and then $125 million over 5 years, so one can say he won't be shopping at Salvation Army anytime soon. Oh and by the way, he's still married to Elin and only turning 31 at the end of this month. Lucky bastard.

HC