Cheaters Never Win

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this entry right now.

I'm too busy celebrating the Giants' Super Bowl win, the Patriots' Super Bowl loss, Bill Belichick's lack of class, Junior Seau's lack of a ring and the Patriots' ability to win their 18 least important games of the season.

I hope all you New England fans will be able to deal with this loss with as much class as you displayed during all your wins this year. Your season is a failure. Your coach is a fraud. Your quarterback isn't perfect. Your line isn't inpenetrable. Your running back isn't anything special. Your team set the record for most wins in a season without winning the Super Bowl and your team didn't win the only game this season that mattered. Take your 18 wins and try to trade them to a Giants fan for just this last one. No one's biting? Too bad. Live with it.

Amani Toomer, Plaxico Burress and Steve Smith have a ring. Randy Moss, Wes Welker and Donte Stallworth don't. I guess the Giants' receivers really are better than the Pats receivers in some ways.

The best subplot, out of the millions that were artificially generated by bored media members who were forced to submit stories each day over the last two weeks, was Burress giving his "prediction" that the Giants were going to win 23-17. It was based on nothing, I guess it was his old number or his favorite number against his current number or something, just because someone asked him for a final score.

He didn't make a guarantee, or even a real prediction. He just gave an answer to the media and it got blown out of proportion just like everything else does nowadays. But Tom Brady wanted to take it a step further. He laughed at the notion that the G-Men could hold his mighty Patriots to just 17 points. "Is Plaxico playing defense?" Ha ha ha. Well, how does 14 points sound Tom? Ha ha ha.

Bill Simmons, The Sports Guy, ESPN's darling columnist, predicted the Pats would romp and compared this Patriots team to a team he would create in Madden. Simmons also created the "Eff You" phrase this season, as in the Pats scoring "Eff You" touchdowns just for the hell of it to run up the score. Well, Bill, you could have used one of those "Eff You" touchdowns in this game. Because after dealing with four straight intolerable months of listening to Patriots players and New England fans this year, I can't think of anything that sums it up better for me, so, I'll try it, Bill. Eff You. Wow, that feels pretty good. Let me try it again. Eff You!!!

Kiss the ring Pats fans, but not the old dusty ones that you stole when the other teams weren't looking. Kiss the new one, the one you thought was yours...

Fool Me Once, Shame On You...

...Fool me a bunch of times, win three or four rings.

So this Matt Walsh guy claims to have taped a bunch of stuff for the Patriots from 1998 to 2003. Not surprising. Usually when an individual or group gets caught cheating, it's not the first time they tried it. I doubt the Pats started videotaping other teams in Week 1 of this season. There will probably be a bunch of Matt Walsh's to come out of the woodwork.

I went to college with a guy named Matt Walsh and I didn't trust him either. The Patriots' Walsh could potentially blow this whole Spygate/Belicheat wide open, casting shadows of doubt on all of the wins the Patriots have accumulated in the last decade.

That's bad enough. But today, an unnamed source claimed to have stayed behind to tape the St. Louis Rams' walkthrough before Super Bowl XXXVI, which the Pats then won the next day despite being 14-point underdogs. That was their first Super Bowl win.

Can I say for sure that New England has cheated its way to three (hopefully not four) Super Bowl rings? No. The only thing that I know for sure is that Belichick had a terrible video staff in Cleveland.

Johan, Chuck, Doug and Kwame

From the time it was announced that the Mets had somehow moved ahead of the Yankees and Red Sox into the driver's seat of the Johan Santana derby, I couldn't help but think something was going to go wrong. And now, with the extension agreed upon, I still feel that way. Someone's failing a physical. That's just the Mets fan in me.

I'm glad all interested parties were able to agree on a contract extension, but it really took four days? Who raises their hand and asks the teacher for an extension in this situation? Is it Omar, is it the Twins, is it Johan? Get it done you dopes. I procrastinate as much as the next guy. I'm the one who did homework during 3rd period study hall when it was due in 4th period. I get it. But these guys make millions to run their own little fantasy teams, and 96 hours later you gotta call up Dud Selig and tell him that you need two more hours?

Maybe if the Mets took four days to think about Victor Zambrano, we'd still have Scott Kazmir in the rotation.

I have to say, with (a healthy) Santana, Pedro, John Maine, Oliver Perez and El Duque, not only do the Mets have the required 80% Spanish-speaking rotation under the Minaya regime, but it's automatically a top 5 starting 5 in the majors. Boston is great, as is Arizona with Haren added to Webb, but if, and it's a huge if, the Mets pitchers stay healthy, you would have to assume the playoffs are a guarantee and the National League World Series berth is ours for the taking.

In other news:

Tiger Woods holds just a one-stroke lead after two rounds of the Dubai Desert Classic. Apparently he borrowed Curtis Strange's clubs and is playing lefty just for the hell of it.

Chuck Knoblauch carried his kid strategically in front of his face Friday to and from a House committee meeting in Washington like he was an NBA star who just got caught cheating on his wife. Nothing like holding a toddler up for the cameras to distract from the fact that you're (allegedly) a scumbag. Maybe Chuck should have positioned his kid in front of him at second base when he went to the Yankees. Could have saved him the move to left field and Keith Olbermann's mother from getting hit in the face with a baseball in the seats behind the first base dugout.

So the pride of East Hartford, Doug Wiggins, is back with the Huskies. I'm a little confused though. Does the first UConn player to fail four drug tests win or lose?

Staying with UConn, does recruiting a smart kid who went to one high school, has never been arrested and can hit an 18-foot jump shot go against school policy? Or was it just too easy with Ray Allen and Rip Hamilton around, so they added a few obstacles to make winning a national championship so much harder?

Despite being a horrible basketball player, having no professional resume, being accused of rape (cleared), stealing a cake and then assaulting a man with it (not prosecuted) and getting arrested for disorderly conduct and interfering with a police officer, Kwame Brown has now been the No. 1 overall pick of the NBA draft, traded for Caron Butler and now traded for Pau Gasol. He must feel like George Costanza in the Seinfeld episode where he does the opposite of every instinct he has.
Brown: My name is Kwame. I'm unemployed and I live with my parents.
Memphis: We're the Grizzlies, hi.