Modano Panic

Before we go too far, I received this email from a friend at the Stars about 90 minutes after the game last night:

Bob:

Obviously Mike Modano's injury was the topic of Thursday night's Stars game at Anaheim. Since it was very late by the time the game was over, you may not have seen Stars Head Coach Dave Tippett's quote on Modano's status. Here it is:

"Mike tweaked an old injury and it looked worse than it was," said Tippett. "He plans on skating tomorrow so he should be fine. When any player goes down, you get scared but he looked fine walking out of here and seemed fine. I spoke to him afterwards and there's not much to evaluate. We won't take any chances with him."

Let’s hope so! I will tell you this though, I am about tired of Jonathan Hedstrom . This Swede is on my radar because he got Zubov hurt 2 weeks ago in Dallas, and now throws that elbow at Modano while he is pulling the slew-foot. I am not sure how dirty that was, but I think he might need to understand who you don’t touch. #9 and #56 are not in play. If they are, he needs to feel the pain train.

OK. Since that is what I know, here is to the 2006 Pacific Division Champions …I think they will win more than this, but without #9 that isn’t going to happen so cross your fingers on his situation…


Let there be no question what tonight’s main event is: Spurs – Mavs, 7pm tonight …

The Spurs can go a long way toward assuring they stay there by winning tonight at the AT&T Center.

A victory would extend the Spurs' lead over Dallas to three games and give them the head-to-head tiebreaker. They then would need to win no more than three of their final six games to claim the division title.

If the Mavericks win tonight, however, they would close within a game and split the season series. Given the Spurs' struggles in back-to-backs and that they have one left, the division title essentially would be up for grabs.

Even though the Southwest runner-up is almost assured of finishing with the conference's second-best record, it would enter the playoffs as the fourth seed under the league's format.

"I'm not going to try to figure out the math," Nazr Mohammed said. "They can still win out. We can still lose. So, you never know what can happen.

"But you do want to win this game, stay above them and keep going from there."
The Spurs, who have little chance to catch Detroit for the league's best record, started to distance themselves from Dallas last week when the Mavericks lost three games in a row for this first time this season. Dallas, however, has put together impressive victories over Denver and Sacramento while the Kings humbled the Spurs on Wednesday night.

Sarcasm Alert. Sarcasm Alert. Sarcasm Alert.

I am really shocked RA Dickey can’t get guys out with his new knuckleball …

This concludes today’s sarcasm alert.

New Cowboys Schedule has plenty of talking points …

The NFL didn't do the Cowboys any favors. Three of their first four games and six of their first nine are on the road, concluding with consecutive trips to Carolina (with Keyshawn Johnson), Washington and Arizona. The Cowboys haven't played three consecutive regular-season road games since 1992. If the Cowboys are to make a playoff run, they must survive a rough beginning.

Baseball Cards – Rest in Peace ….

Baseball card sales have been declining by about 15 percent annually for nearly a decade, and Major League Baseball says its licensing revenue from cards today is about one-third of what it was in 1991. The slide has come during a period when nearly everything about baseball's finances - TV revenues, jersey sales, team values - has exploded.

The baseball card "business has gone from being a $1 billion business in the U.S. 10 years ago to about $120 million now," said Robert Routh, an industry analyst at Jefferies & Co.

In February, the Topps Co. announced layoffs (it also will move its Bazooka gum manufacturing to Mexico), and the company's chief executive officer stated a new imperative to try winning back the customers it allowed to wander away.

"There is no question about it," Topps chief executive officer Arthur Shorin told stock analysts. "We've got to bring kids back."

The long decline can be at least partly blamed on the rise in other forms of entertainment available to children, such as Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards, video games, and computers. But Major League Baseball itself has had a hand in losing its youngest fans, and card companies have methodically watered down their own product.
There was a time when baseball cards mattered. Every spring brought the thrill of tearing open that first, pristine wax wrapper, releasing a plume of sugary gum-powder and a whiff of fresh-cut cardboard, and there they were inside: Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton, AL RBI Leaders, Andy Etchebarren, Vic Davalillo, Manny Mota.

There were a few hundred cards per year, and when you got the Pete Rose card, you had the Pete Rose card.

Then, like most pure and good things, the world of baseball cards was spoiled.
Collect 'em all today? No flipping chance. Last year, there were 200,000 different baseball cards issued, in nearly 100 different sets, most of them aimed at adult collectors and investors.

"Take a guess how many different Alex Rodriguez cards there were in 2004," said Colin Hagen, vice president of licensing at Major League Baseball. His unfathomable answer: There were 1,900 unique A-Rod cards in 2004.

The statistics get more incredible. Sixty percent of all baseball cards ever issued were released from 1999 to 2005. That's counting the entire history of baseball cards, which date from 1867.

"In the late '80s, people started realizing that the old cards were valuable, and adults became involved in collecting," said Warren Friss, Topps' vice president of sports. Prices of vintage cards for Mickey Mantle and other stars skyrocketed. New cards got pricey, too - some as high as $10 or $100 per pack.

Gagne gone …and Bob and Dan’s fantasy team rejoices as we now have a closer!

Dodger closer Eric Gagne will have surgery on his troublesome right elbow Friday to remove a nerve that he said has been causing him pain, a Dodger official said today. Gagne will be placed on the disabled list, and the Dodgers did not immediately provide a timetable for his return.

Gagne's 2005 season ended abruptly in June when he had elbow surgery. Originally, he was going to have the ulnar collateral ligament replaced in a procedure commonly known as Tommy John surgery, but doctors determined that the drastic measure was not necessary and merely repaired the ligament. Gagne did have Tommy John surgery in 1999.

Shocker: College Hoops final with no ratings …

Florida's win over UCLA in the men's national championship game on CBS drew the second-lowest television rating since the contest began airing in prime time in 1973.
Monday's telecast of Florida's 73-57 victory was watched in 11.2 percent of the 110.2 million U.S. households with televisions, according to Nielsen Media Research Inc.

That's 25 percent lower than the 15 percent of U.S. households that watched North Carolina beat Illinois last year.

The 2004 title game, in which Connecticut defeated Georgia Tech, drew the lowest rating, with 11 percent of households watching. . . .

Ask Sam Smith about Noah …

Florida's Joakim Noah is hot right now. Is he a possible Bulls choice? I think not. He's got no low post offense. He reminds me of Chandler. --Ernest Tamura, Port Orchard, Wash.

Yes, he's getting a flood of attention. That's right, you don't even have to pay the 50 cents and you get writing like that. Noah's arc has curved up to the top of this draft. He's the hot guy now after the tournament and you'd assume with Florida winning he'd come to the NBA, especially with Greg Oden locking up No. 1 for 2007. My guess remains that if the Bulls have the No. 1, they'll take him, though the interesting thing about this draft is there is no true No. 1, or even 2, 3 or 4. Some teams like Adam Morrison No. 1. Others have him seven or eight. Tyrus Thomas, Noah, LaMarcus Aldridge, Morrison, Josh McRoberts and Rudy Gay are some of the names I've heard as possible No. 1s. Yes, Noah doesn't seem to have much offensive skill at this point. And the Bulls have had enough of teaching guys to make a shot, I'm sure. But look at it this way: The last two years their power forwards have been Antonio Davis, Michael Sweetney, Othella Harrington and Malik Allen. Any of the young big kids would be an improvement and Noah could be special with those long arms and shot blocking ability. He also seems to fit the profile of the kind of players the Bulls are seeking - hard-working, smart, team-oriented. It's hard to say whether he could develop a post game and he does need to gain some weight. It helps to have some post presence, but the Bulls seemed to figure it out when Horace Grant and Bill Cartwright and then Luc Longley and Dennis Rodman were their inside players.

Carlos Pena still on the street …I think, so is Ricardo Rodriguez …

Carlos Pena hasn't signed anywhere yet. Teams didn't exactly beat down his door, apparently. Craig Monroe , his closest friend on the Tigers, said he hasn't spoken to him recently.

The Rich get richer …

The Texas Longhorns picked up a commitment Wednesday from John Brantley, considered the best quarterback recruit in Florida and one of the best in the nation.
"It's really solid," Brantley said of his commitment by phone from his home in Ocala, Fla. "I told Coach (Mack) Brown, 'I won't let you down.' "

And now, the part of the blog that means the most to me:



1 more win, and Wisconsin wins National Title # 6 …

An NCAA men's hockey championship, a prize that has eluded UW's proud program since 1990.

One more victory in the Bradley Center, only 90 minutes from the Madison campus and almost certainly in front of another crowd dominated by red-clad UW fans, will end the drought.

"We've got a chance to win the last game of the year and that is what we talked about since the beginning of the year," coach Mike Eaves said after top-seeded UW dispatched Maine, 5-2, in the second national semifinal Thursday night in front of a boisterous crowd of 17,691 fans. "Your goalie needs to be good. Your special teams need to be good and your big players need to play well."

With Carlson serving as the catalyst, the Badgers (29-10-3) followed Eaves' winning formula for most of the night. Now they'll meet Boston College (26-12-3) in the title game at 6 p.m. Saturday.

That’s right. Bill Guerin’s Boston College will battle My Wisconsin Badgers for all of the marbles, Saturday Night. Certainly a bet is in order on today’s show…

On Wisconsin...