Sports and Such

So 2/5 of the Braves starting rotation is now down with injury, so they keep scraping along. Awesome year for ESPN to pick them to win it all. rrr... But hey: as my friend Rod is fond of saying, year after year: Just Wait 'Til Hampton Gets Healthy. (That might be trademarked... I'll have to check.)

The Maxi Pads and the Officials have joined forces, WWF-style, to put our Preds in a 2-0 hole. (Luckily, Detroit IS a huge hole. Ba-dum-pssh...?) Hey, did I mention our Moral Victory just by making it to the playoffs this year?

Barca continue to lolligag through the Liga season, losing a few more points off Real Madrid for the lead. And apparently Ronaldinho has come to terms to leave FCB for [shudder] an Italian team. [gorge rising...]

Best sports story of the day, though: in another glowing article about Greg Maddux, which opens with a bullpen catcher proving that you can catch Greg Maddux blindfolded, there's this nugget about how well he works with and understands his fellow pitchers:

... When Brad Penny and Maddux were teammates on the Dodgers, during the last two months of 2006, they had a conversation one day that led Penny to reach a stunning conclusion: This guy knows my stuff better than I do. It was eerie, really, how easily Maddux dissected Penny's repertoire and suggested ways to maximize it. Penny, figuring he'd take advantage of the situation, asked Maddux to call a game for him against the Cubs. And so, on the night of Sept. 13, Penny glanced into the dugout before every delivery and found Maddux, who signaled the next pitch by looking toward different parts of the ballpark. Penny threw seven scoreless innings with no walks and beat the Cubs 6-0. "Maddux probably won't tell you that story," Penny says. He's right.

And what else? Today is his 42nd birthday. Awesome.