Victory Over World Champs Doesn't Get You Far These Days
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." -- Marcel Proust

Fresh off their lusty and unexpected victory over the World Champions, the Miami Dolphins have offered the head coaching job to Nick Saban.

So much for interim head coach Bates turning permanent. Just shows you, the value of beating world champs ain't what it used to be. This isn't even "What have you done for me lately?", this is a case of "Whatever you haven't done you won't do and even that which you HAVE done you could never do again"...

This follows the Dolphins "good faith" offer to Art Shell.

By the way, if anybody cares at this point in the NFL season, they've announced their Pro Bowl rosters. I don't even care about this when the season's done, the carcass of the Super Bowl has been picked clean and there's nothing but NBA (and this season not even the NHL) on the telly but the Pro Bowl. Thoughts are already with Spring Training by then. So who, other than the players and their agents, really care about the Pro Bowl?

Frankly, the ONLY thing that matters at this point in the season is how the Playoff Picture is Shaping Up.

There are two things I care about in the AFC and they are:

1. That the Bills beat out the Ravens, Jacksonville and Denver for the final wildcard spot.
2. That the Jets, as the top wildcard, end up playing San Diego and not Peyton Manning in the first round.

So I'll be rooting for the Colts to dunce the Chargers this week.

*****

I can't seem to really work up a healthy froth about the AP pulling out of the BCS either. I don't mind the BCS the way it is. Is there any other championship to watch other than USC-Oklahoma? Does anyone with an IQ over 10 and NOT from the South want to see Auburn face either of these teams, even if they ARE undefeated? No. A playoff isn't a perfect system either because at the end of the day, someone is going to be left out that deserves to be in and viceversa. I just wish people would stop whingeing about the BCS like it held some sort of world importance or something. Controversy? C'mon. The invasion of Iraq, now THAT was controversy.

More of the Embers of The Unit Burned Before He Gets To New York

It appears that in the union of New York-based Cy Young pitchers, Pedro Martínez and Randy Johnson have never pitched against each other. In fact, in Johnson's 16-year career and Martínez's 12-year career, they have played in the same league at the same time for only four months. That was in 1998, Martínez's first season with Boston, and Johnson's last with Seattle. Both pitchers played for Montreal, but nine years apart.

Need we remind you that the Mets and the Yankees play an interleague mini-Subway Series twice a year and what, I ask, would be more exciting than seeing those two square off?

Well sure, the Randy Johnson v Curt Schilling, Yankees-Sox matchups wouldn't exactly be dull either...

I can't seem to get enough morbid fascination with the trade that wasn't. On the one hand, it's nice to see the Yankees not get their man for a change, even if this aberration is only temporary. On the other hand, it does appear that quite nearly everything the Diamondbacks have been involved in since winning the World Series in 2001, has been one unmitigated disaster after another. True, it was the Dodgers at the end of the day who wore the cold feet and the shrinking spine, but given recent Diamondback history, it is no suprise that their fingerprints are all over this third consecutive failing effort to send Randy Johnson elsewhere.

Of course, there's always the typical, arrogant optimism of Yankee supporters that Johnson, five months wasted trying to punch his ticket out of Arizona, is destined for the Yankees.

I don't begrudge him that -the mishaps and mistrades and freak signings have flattened the Arizona franchise to a shadow of its former self with not much of a future to look ahead to. But to insist that only the Yankees are good enough, well, it's just too narrow-minded. Why not Shea? It's still NYC. How about a Big Trio of The Unit, Pedro and Glavine? The aging wonders. The oldest starting rotation in the history of mankind...certainly the Mets have a "legitimate" shot at the World Title with that sort of rotation, don't they?

Hypothetical Question du Jour: If neither team can shed their troublesome stars, whose clubhouse would suffer more, Arizona's with a replay of The Unit's Season of Discontent or the Cubbies Clubhouse with the apathetic and well-hated Sammy Sosa? What if the two could just swap headaches? Why wouldn't Johnson be interested in joining a Cubs super rotation and help lead them their first an historic title, like counterpart, Curt Schilling did with the Red Sox?