Sad, funny irony

It may be a bit rash to call it funny, especially when you figure in the victim and potential severity of the situation, but there was a ton of irony in when, on a tour of Fenway Park, a student was attacked by a red hawk.

What's so funny and/or ironic about that you may ask? The student's name was Alexa Rodriguez. That's right: and A-Rod was attacked in Fenway Park. Even more delicious, Alexa is 13-years-old. A-Rod wears number 13 for the hated Yankees.

But seriously, Alexa only suffered a cut to her scalp from the hawk, which apparently had a nest nearby with a solitary egg. Alexa was brought to the hospital via ambulance and should be no worse for wear. She may be afraid of predatory birds for some time though.

Everybody hates Chris

Poor Chris Henry. After getting in trouble with the law several times over the past few years and even getting suspended by the NFL for the first half of last season, the Cincinnati Bengals have finally had enough of the mercurial receiver. Henry was released by the Bengals yesterday after being charging with punching an 18-year-old in the face and then breaking his windshield with a beer bottle.

Bravo Chris, Bravo. Stay close to your phone, the Raiders and Cowboys are probably looking up their scouting reports on you right now. Too bad you're not more talented, Cincy might've been able to get a late-round pick back in a trade.

So, when you combine everything that he's done off the field, is there a way he could possibly get away with NOT being suspended for the entire coming season? This may not be as bad as what Pacman Jones did, but the repeated offences combined with the prior bad behaviour banishment should be the tipping point.

More Hot-Lanta controversy

We may be headed for a second replay of the season if the NBA sees what everyone else who caught the end of the Raptors-Hawks tilt last night saw. Because of some wackiness perpetrated by the Atlanta timekeeper, the Raptors' final attempt to win the game was waved off because time had apparently expired and the game was to head to overtime — where the Hawks eventually won. But not so fast.

Upon further review, which the refs didn't look into, the timekeeper had started the clock before T.J. Ford had touched the ball to lay it in. It was almost .2 whole seconds fast, which doesn't sound like a long time, but would have been enough time to give the Raptors the win.

This could be the second time this season that the Hawks may be forced to play a replay. The only difference between the Hawks-Heat replay and a potential Raptors-Hawks replay (which should happen, this was an ugly error) is that there is playoff ramifications now. Had the Raptors won the game, they would have clinched a playoff spot in the weak East. Since the Hawks are also in the playoff running – and not that far behind Toronto – seeding is front and centre here. If (more like when) the Raptors file a complaint and are awarded a replay of those final .5 or more seconds, a lot will be at stake.

Oh, and apparently the timekeeper also kept the clock running a few fractions too long after Atlanta had scored the game-tying bucket, leaving just .5 seconds on the clock. And aside, Ford's defence on Bibby's tying shot was horrendous.

You're making how much?

The numbers have been released and it turns out that the average major leaguer will make $3.15 million this season. It is the first time ever that the league average has topped $3 million and it doesn't look like the climbing salaries will stop in the near future.

Also, the median in salaries is now $1 million! That's right, half of the entire league is making over a million dollars to play baseball. It's incredible how this number can be so high when you consider that half of the league isn't very good at all. Plus there are a ton of younger players who are still on contracts around $300,000. It is ridiculous.

It's kind of odd that on this day in 1997, Albert Belle became the first player to ever be paid more than an entire team. Belle's $10 million deal was higher than the Pittsburgh Pirates

A-Rod is, predictably, the highest paid player in the majors and will actually make $6.8 million more than the entire Florida Marlins roster this year. Here's the tally.

A-Rod: $28 million.
Florida Marlins: $21.8 million.

It's actually kind of funny when you figure in this.

A-Rod: Zero World Series championships.
Florida Marlins: Two World Series championships.

Money can't buy you happiness or championships. Unless you're Boston.

Opening day, v 3.0

Sure you could count the A's-Red Sox series in Japan as the MLB's 2008 opener. Or you could count Sunday night's tilt between the Nationals and the Braves has the beginning. But yesterday was truly Opening Day for the season. With 26 teams slated to be in action, it was truly when baseball took off for the year.

It was a soggy day in New York, meaning the Yanks and Jays couldn't open their season. The same can be said for the Cardinals and Rockies who started out their game before it was called in the third. It was a good thing for the Rockies who were down 5-1 when it happened (I'm glad this isn't going to count towards Jeff Francis' stat line).

The Rays official lost the Devil and won their first opener on the road in seven years. It was just against the Orioles who, after trading away their top talents, is pretty much at the Rays' level.

There were a few extra inning thrillers like the wild 12 inning affair that saw the Pirates spoil Tom Glavine's home-coming. There was the Brewers dealing the Cubs a loss after Chicago had ceremonies honouring Ernie Banks. Then there was the Royals showing the Tigers that money can't buy wins.

Joe Torre won his debut while Dusty Baker lost his. Seattle won its first game with Eric Bedard on the hill and Minnesota entered the post-Johan and Torii era with a win over Hunter's new squad, the Angels.

All in all, even after just one full day, it's looking like it'll be a good season of baseball.

The Final Four

This will be, with all certainty the year your NCAA pool was won by the person who knew the least about college basketball going in. North Carolina, UCLA, Memphis and Kansas – all four regional number one seeds – made the Final Four this year. How boring is that? Sure you have great teams but how much of a copout would it have been to take the best teams to make it this far? It’s the first time ever this has happened; and I’m not very pleased with it.

I used to enjoy fleecing people in pools who had all top seeds winning through, now, I’m the one with the busted bracket. Even worse, I have absolutely no shot at winning because of the four possible champions there are now, most people took UCLA like I did. It was fun while it lasted but it looks like I’ll have to wait until next year when hopefully some people will believe that the selection committee will get it right again with the top seeds.

As for the Final, my revised prediction is: UCLA 72, UNC 66.

By the way, the most noteworthy tidbit of this tournament is not the all-top-seeds-final-four, or USC bombing out or Stephen Curry leading Davidson with his amazing scoring ability. It is the fact that Robin Lopez – the one with the hair – is dating Michelle Wie. Both go to Stanford and both are highly touted athletes, seems like a match to me, except for the huge height difference.