Bye bye Vladdy, We Hardly Knew Yea

"Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones." --Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970), Unpopular Essays (1950), "Outline of Intellectual Rubbish"

Although they might not believe it immediately, the Mets are better off without Vladimir Guerrero, another man from the island of the Dominican Republic who, armed with a guaranteed, multi-year millionaire deal would most surely have suffered all sorts of back injuries (the tricky back is no secret to anyone), poor conditioning and hypersensitivity to the backlash of the hypercritical New York media. Vlad might as well as have carried a sign stating: "I'm not New York material!" - Baltimore was the perfect fit for him all along, a non-competetive small market town with a virtually non controversial media and grateful fans, similar to Montreal. How he will do at Anaheim is anyone's guess but I'm guessing he won't lead them back to the World Series, not with a herniated disc, even if he is only 28.

He might be good for a year or two, $13-14 million per annum good. But will he be that good for five years in a row, getting older each year, with a herniated disc? HERNIATED DISC. No. The Mets offer was a smart one. 3 years guaranteed and the rest of the fat contract applicable should the best-case scenario unfold and The Vlad become the next Willie Mays. Otherwise, the Mets have been down this road before with Fat Mo and who needs another discontented, injury-prone man with an enormous, guaranteed contract?

True, he isn't fat Mo. True, the enormous Dominican population in New York would be an enormous boon to ticket sales. True, a lineup whose middle consists of Guerrero, Piazza and Cliff Floyd following a whiffy Cameron, Kaz and Reyes opening, is a pretty formidable lineup to face. But let's face it, Reyes and Floyd are already well known as being injury-prone (what was the longest stretch Reyes has gone in the major or minors without an injury?) and adding to that a big guy with a bad back and you've got an instant mix for trouble.

"Vlad would have made more money with us if he was healthy," Duquette said, referring to the incentives the Mets offered. "Our feeling was all he had to do was stay healthy and stay in the lineup."

What we can say with certainty however is that at least he won't be able to kick the Mets around anymore. He had more at bats against the Mets (194) than any other team in the NL over the last three years and made the most of them with 11 homers and 33 RBIs while hitting .309 against Met pitching. True, he didn't destroy Met pitching all the time, it just seemed that way. He hit .369 with 11 homers and 40 RBIs against the Phillies pitching but given the Phillies pitching over the last three years, it's more understandable. Against the Braves, he hit .278 with 13 homers and only 23 rbis in 187 at-bats, hardly the numbers you want against your stiffest opposition.

Against the American League, his future opponents, if you take away his stats against his new home team, he hit .364 in inter-league matches with 5 homers and 14 rbis in 129 at-bats. That translates to 25 homers and 70 rbis over a full season. With a dodgy back, these are hardly stats worth 70 million plus guaranteed over 5 years.

New Angels latino owner, Arturo Moreno is trying to make a splash right away, and he's doing it. He lowered the beer prices at the concession stands, and now he's done even better, signing two pitchers, Bartolo Colon and Kelvim Escobar, and two outfielders, Jose Guillen and now Guerrero, the jewel of the free-agent crop, all-Latino players with spotty histories of injuries and gaps, all of which means the Angels will be bankrupt in a few years and no championships the richer for it. Simple math.

*****

The States have got the NFL playoffs: Martz's chickenshit failure to go for victory and avoid overtime resulted in a crap team making it into the NFC Championship, the Carolina Panthers. Perhaps the funniest aspect of the outcome was Kid Whiner, Jason Sehorn, getting the nod as Game Goat, for falling for the Steve Smith fake and blowing coverage the trillionth time of his highly overrated career. Carolina is coached by the old Giants defensive genius, John Fox, but whomever they end up playing, the Eagles or the Packers, should win decisively, even if the Pack would have to play in Carolina. But Carolina against the Eages in Philly, fuggettaboutit. Let's say, 37-0. Meanwhile, the Pats continued their march to regain their footing as the World Champions of American Football by narrowly defeating a tough Tennessee Titan team in the bitter cold. Justice was served and now the Pats will face either Indy or KC, neither of whom have any defense to speak of and aren't likely candidates for the Super Bowl. The way it's shaping up, wouldn't it be nice to see a Pats-Packers rematch? (not that the first one was so exciting that it called for a rematch)

But I'm not sure I'm falling for the inspirational Brett Favre's dead father story. I like Brett Favre and I hope he wins, I'd be rooting for him if I had Sky TV's 12,000 options and a giant screen tv set but I haven't either and no pubs around here would be showing the match. But the Pack at Philly should be a beauty, a hard-fought, guts and and bloody match featuring Favre against the man whom Rush Limbaugh found out, couldn't be insulted for the sake of racism anywhere but a listening audience filled with idiots and dittoheads. Is it appropos that the match will be played at Lincoln Financial Field, further underscoring the NFL's ties to corporate America and war for money?

Here is the man of the hour, the best hope the Cheeseheads have for further postseason dreams.

Since 1990, NFC teams coming off a bye and playing at home in the playoffs are 24-2. Top seeds, which the Eagles are, are 13-0. Big Whoop. How many times had the Tampa Bay Bucs won in subfreezing temperatures before they beat the Eagles IN PHILLY in the NFC Championship game last year? This is the first time since 1960 that the Packers travel to Philly for a playoff game (Vince Lombardi's playoff debut as head coach was a 17-13 loss).

It says here the Pack defy odds, run the ball down the Eagles throats and win, 20-17. For the record, I'd have had the Rams beating the Panthers and the Pats beating the Titans but that's all speculation now, isn't it then?

There's a nice breakdown of Philly versus Green Bay as far as cities go: Interesting: Philly is 45 percent white, 43 percent black, 9 percent Hispanic, 4 percent Asian whilst Green Bay is 86 percent white, 1 percent black, 4 percent Asian, 3 percent American Indian, 7 percent Hispanic. Another interesting comparison unavailable was number of millionaires.

As for the Chiefs-Indy match, here's all you need to know: The Chiefs haven't played poorly at Arrowhead, where they've won 13 straight games. But their playoff history here is troubling. In 1995 they lost at home to the Colts, and in 1997 lost to the wild-card Broncos. The Chiefs will be trying to end a four-game postseason losing streak that dates to the 1993 AFC Championship game. The Colts are 7-1 on the road this year.

Final score: Indy 35 KC 17.

*****

Where Have You Gone, Yinka Dare?

Who'dda thunk it? Yinka Dare, dead at 32.

*****

Die, Manchester United, Die!

Which brings us today to the piece de résistance: NFL-playoff-less in England we tune instead to the dreaded matchup of England's New York Yankees, Manchester United against my favourite team, Newcastle. Their last nine encounters league encounters have produced a staggering 43 goals - almost 5 per game - and the last time Newcastle visited Old Trafford they played their part in an end-to-end eight-goal bonanza, losing 5-3 to the eventual champions. This match will feature the Premiership's top two scorers: Newcastle's Alan Shearer and Man U's Dutch Delight, Ruud van Nistelroy.

Whilst Newcastle fights for a spot in the Champions League, they don't have a prayer at unseating Man U from the top of the tables but what they can do is make up for the humiliation they suffered at the hands of Man U in the opening match of the season. Not to mention, a victory over Man U would propel them into a tie with Liverpool for 5th place in the tables. Realistically, Newcastle have lost their last four matches against Man U and might be happy just to earn a draw against them.