Mussina was solid, but HOF'er ?

Word is circulating that Mike Mussina is set to retire from baseball. Mussina was always a solid, but not dominate pitcher during his years with the Baltimore Orioles and New York Yankees.

After struggling mightily in 2007, Mussina rebounded to win 20 games for the first time in his career for the Yankees in '08. Mussina has 270 wins in 18 years, during an era highlighted be offense and will finish with a career record of 270-153.

The Hall of Fame candidacy has already begun. I'd vote if I could, but nobody is knocking on my door with a ballot for me so I'm relegated to just an opinion.

Mussina was never considered to be one of the dominant pitchers of his era. That is something that should be taken under consideration when deciding the Hall of Fame legitimacy of a player.

Jack Morris was the winningest pitchers of the 1980's and is a post season legend for his performances with the '85 Tigers and '91 Twins. He isn't enshrined in Cooperstown. In 18 seasons, Morris was 254-186 and authored one of the greatest World Series performances with his 10-inning 1-0 shutout win in Game 7 of the 1991 series against Atlanta.

Until Morris gets to Cooperstown, Mussina's name shouldn't be discussed. Sorry, Moose

Pacman Returns




Serious ?

In defense of the Big 12

For those SEC fans who might be thinking the South has the best football, think again.

The Big 12 is the best conference this year, hands down.

I get a chuckle from those who bang on the Big 12 for its defensive stats. With a wide-open conference with QB's like Sam Bradford, Graham Harrell, Colt McCoy, Chase Daniel, Zac Robinson, and Joe Ganz, the defensive stats are bound to suffer.

This is the greatest collection of quarterbacks in one conference that has hit college football.

Look for the Big 12 to be a major player in the bowl season this year.

Prediction Time

Texas Tech has had the best season in school history. The Red Raiders have cleared all hurdles this year and erased all doubts as to their ability to win on the big stage. The Sooners are missing all-everything LB Ryan Reynolds and top DE Auston English.

I'm dying to pick the Red Raiders, but I can't. Oklahoma is playing as well as anyone in the country and are playing at home. Colt McCoy was the early leader for the Heisman Trophy, Graham Harrell of Texas Tech is the current front runner for the award. For now.

Oklahoma will win this game, 44-41. His performance Saturday night will be enough for OU quarterback Sam Bradford to hoist the Heisman Trophy next month in New York City.

Congrats to JJ

While I just can't grasp the allure to NASCAR, congrats to Jimmie Johnson on his third straight championship.

Each year, I try to drum up some interest in the sport but can't do it. Without the crashes, I just can't sit thru a race to care enough about it. I know there is a lot of strategy involved between the teams but there are too many left turns in this sport for me.

My lone enjoyment of NASCAR comes when I pump up the virtues of Jeff Gordon, who most NASCAR fans seem to hate. Not sure why, but it seems to get under the skin of those who detest the driver of the 2-4 car.

The only real positive I can put on NASCAR is that it isn't soccer.

My New Second-Favorite Team (For this week)

On behalf of college football fans everywhere, I'd like to take this time to give

a big shout-out to the Iowa Hawkeyes for sparing the nation the horror of watching another overrated Big 10 football team play in the BCS championship game.

For those who don't know, Iowa beat Penn State 24-23 Saturday, giving the Nittany Lions their first loss of the season and basically ensuring the Big 10 will not have a team in the BCS title game.

THANK YOU!

For years, the Big 10 has been the most overrated entitly in all of sports.

What you have is pretty simple....a bunch of evenly matched teams that can compete amongst themselves because they are incredibly average. Put the Big 10 boys on the national stage and they'd get buried.

Penn State is a nice football team that is having a fine season. I won't take that away from them. But, they'd have had zero chance of beating the SEC or Big 12 champion in the national title game. If they had to play the schedules of the SEC or Big 12, they'd be a 6-6 club.

People can rip on Texas Tech's non-conference schedule and be absolutely correct. Playing Eastern Washington, Nevada, SMU, and UMASS is a joke. However, if the Red Raiders run the table and head to Miami, they will have beaten Texas, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, and Missour (Big 12 title game).

If you put any of those teams in the Big 10, they'd run the table and go unbeaten.

Penn State's non-conference schedule consisted of Coastal Carolina, Oregon State (home), Syracuse and Temple. That schedule is an insult to humanity. I could excuse it if they had a few decent opponents in their conference, but they don't.

Ohio State? One big game this year and they got gashed by USC.

Speaking of USC, they'll most likely be waiting in the Rose Bowl for Penn State - if JoePa's crew can rebound and win out to claim the conference title. If that happens, the Trojans will bury them.