Phillies try to fix problems that other teams wished they had

Phillies moved any position players they could for the chance to get some more punch in their everyday lineup but first they sent Shane Victorino to the L.A. Dodgers where he has been hated and booed contently for the past four seasons since he took exception to the Dodgers Hiroki Kuroda throwing a fastball over his head and wished he did not throw at his head. So the Dodgers gave up a relief pitcher Josh Lindblom who will hopefully better the Phillies disaster that is their bullpen as he has a 2-2 with a 3.02 ERA in 48 relief appearances for Los Angeles along with minor league starter Ethan Martin who is 8-6 in 20 starts in AA with a 3.58 ERA while getting a future player or cash. The Dodgers for their run to the 2012 postseason as they are tied with the Giants for first in the NL West pickup a player in Victorino that has been under preforming this season with a .261 batting average with 9 homers and 40 RBIs and will be putting him in as a lead off and hope he can improve his 24 steals on the season.

While the Phillies also helped the NL leading Giants as well as they sent Hunter Pence to the 2010 World Series Champs whose batting average is way down after hitting over .300 last seasons but is still on pace to be in the same neighborhood in homers as he has 17 right now in 101 games and is usually in the mid-20's and 59 RBIs and could reach that 90-plus range for the last couple of seasons. The Phillies get Nate Schierholtz who they are hoping with more time in the outfield will better his .257 batting average and getting on base that the Phillies really need and bettering his 5 homers and 17 RBIs in 77 games of spot duty while get better as the Phillies continue to have the horse on the mound in Halladay, Lee, and Hamels who is going to be around for the next 6 seasons. They also get minor league catcher prospect Tommy Joseph and minor league prospect right-handed pitcher Seth Rosin.

With their pitching and a lot of improvement with the everyday players the Phillies will once again be a World Series threat next season

Tom Mehegan

ColdPlay in Toronto was simply amazing

July 23, 2012

ColdPlay played their first of two show in Toronto and it was simply the most awesome stage performances I have even though I have not gone too many concerts in my lifetime i.e. 4 in like the twenty years. Chris Martin knows how to involve all the fans even the fans behind the stage that had to probably look at the screens all around the arena to see the guys faces but still he took time and sung a couple of songs to the crowd behind the stage who loved it. The presentation like what looks to be a staple for the band had its leasers going and it was an awesome display and they even gave everyone coming in a wristband that I had no club how it work until they came out and did their first song and had a certain pattern of light on the screen behind the band and it set off all kinds of different colors which was cool. They had an amazing entrance onto the stage with smoke flying into the air with Star Wars music to go with it and they played a mixture of songs off the new album along with the songs that everybody knows from the past CDs. They had a cannon shooting paper into the air and it was something to watch and the smart guy that Chris Martin and the rest of the band is they dedicated yellow to the people in Colorado and anyone is going through a tough time. The show was a 90 minute sing-a-long with coldplay including a 20 minute encore that started with the speed of light and Chris almost immediately had to stop the band as he had missed up the lyrics I do not know if it was planned or not but he did make fun of it by saying please do not put it on youtube which shows he has a great understanding of the fans and knows they are going to put parts of the youtube.

The act that was brought in from Australia had a tough job as nobody was there to see them and knew everybody was there to see ColdPlay but their instruments were ear busting loud and it was hard to hear what the lady was singing which ColdPlay did not have a problem with as the instruments were not as loud even though they do have a lot of upbeat songs.

If U are going to see ColdPlay anywhere enjoy they do put on a great show

Tom Mehegan

Rich Nash is heading to the BIG APPLE

Columbus Blue Jackets have finally traded Rick Nash and he is heading to the Big Apple to join Brad Richards, MARIAN GABORIK, RYAN CALLAHAN, DEREK STEPAN, MICHAEL DEL ZOTTO, and MARC STAAL. This means that the Rangers will be a powerhouse team to go head-to-head with the Philadelphia Flyers especially if Shea Weber ends up in Philadelphia. The Rangers did not give the Blue Jackets their best young players but did give them quantity as they gave up Artem Anisimov, Brandon Dubinsky, and Tim Erixon along with a first round pick. Artem Anisimov ,24, has been a very healthy center playing 243 of the Rangers 246 regular season games over the last three seaons and has 46 goals, 62 assists, and 108 points and will need to put up better in heavier minutes. Brandon Dubinsky,26, has played more than 70 games in 4 of his 5 seasons with 81 goals and 132 assists for 213 points in 393 games with the Rangers and will get more minutes and will need to put up more points and Tim Erixon,21,is a young defenceman who has a lot of upside. In the end Rick Nash is a huge steal at this price for a pretty solid 30 goal scorer with 7 of 9 30 goal scorer with his low of being 27 goals for two season and the best was two 40 goal seasons with a 41 goal season in 2003-04 and 40 goals in in 2008-09. It will be very interesting to see when Nash has his down games will the city and will John Tortorella get a little annoyed at him and will it effect his effort and will bring the boos Tom Mehegan

Penn State gets a slap on the wrist from the NCAA

Penn State football has been handed down by the NCAA and it is a slap on the wrist as they have been fined 60 million dollars and that is a drop in bucket for Penn State as they raised over 200 million dollar after the Jerry Sandusky sandal to the surface. They are not allowed to be in bowl game for the next four season which is a huge biggy as the team is likely not good enough to be in a bowl game and is on probation for five seasons and that is diffidently a good thing to make sure they separate sports and educational and it should be done with every team in the NCAA to make sure that things like this do not happen again but they are not going this far. They are 10 scholarships reduction over the next four season and they are not a huge player in pickling up the best high school players but players on the team right now can move to any team and will not be penalized for leaving Penn State. It looks like they tried to use Joe Paterno legacy and chip away at his legacy by taken all wins away from them between 1998 and 2011 which is 211 wins and it takes him from the winiest NCAA football coach with 409 and after the reduction he now is 12th overall with 298 wins. He also had his statue outside the football stadium and the thing is that he felt sorry for not doing the right thing when he had his chance as his body just gave up right after everything happened. I do not know if U can destroy a dead man's legacy especially when it is all about Jerry Sandusky who should be put away for a long time Tom Mehegan

NHL owners are not helping Bettman in negations

In the dead of the night Flyers owner Ed Snider spit in the face of the CBA that is in place right now in the NHL as Snider signed Shea Weber to a 14 year / 110 million dollars offer sheet where there is little to no offer sheets in the past. It will be hard for the Predators to match the deal as they would need 68 million dollars in bonuses over the first 6 years of the deal and they will need to come up with 28 million dollars over the first year and that is harder for the cash strapped Predators to handle than the 7.85 cap hit over the next 14 years. In the last 14 years there has been only 6 offer sheets signed and only Dustin Penner offer sheet is the only one that was not matched as the Ducks took a first, second, and a third round draft picks from the Edmonton Oilers for Penner.

The reality is that the NHL and the players union are negating a new CBA with the CBA right now as the CBA will be over on September 15, 2012 and the NHLPA Executive Director Don Fehr is rubbing his hands in glee over this deal for Shea Weber. This deal is putting the commissioner of the NHL Gary Bettman in a tough position as he is in the negations on behalf of the owners and with a deals like this along with the Zach Praise and Ryan Suter 13 /98 million dollars deals both with the Minnesota Wild this summer.

The NHL owners are going into the negations with the players wanting them to give a lot back with limits on the length of contract and want players to be play 10 years in the NHL before coming a free agent and no more salary arbitration for players. While they want a huge rolling back from the players and less revenue to the players and 5 year entry deal and it will be hard to take the owners serious after this.

Joey Votto is out of the Reds lineup 3 or 4 weeks

The Reds who are battling the Pirates for the division in the NL Central but will have to do it without their slugger Joey Votto for 3 or 4 weeks after he slide into third base trying to stretch a double into a triple but will have to go under the knife for surgery to repair torn cartilage in his left knee. The 2010 NL MVP he continued to keep a steady pace over the last three seasons and this season he has a better average with .340 and is close to bettering his doubles high as he has 36 in 86 games and his career high is 40 but is homers are down as he had 37 in 2010 and 29 in 2011 and now has 14 this season in 2012. It will be a tough time for the Reds to keep pace with the Pirates and they will be extremely lucky if they ate within three or four games of them when Votto gets back in the lineup Tom Mehegam

Miz is back, A.J. is undecided, and A.W. has made himself a star

Smackdown MITB IT was crazy march and I would not be surprised if wrestlers have major injuries but it was all for not as the obvious winner Dolph Ziggler and he and Vickie were very excited and crowd was completely behind him. After Shamus beat Del Rio and Del Rio beat him down after the match and the crowd were calling for Ziggler and when he came out he was not with Vickie and when he got to the ring he argued with Del Rio and when he turned around he was hit with a bro kick and would of been the first winner not to win but the bell did not ring so the match did not happen. AW made himself into a star They had a surprise match between AW's prime time players had a match against Primo and Epico with Rosa in their corner and they beat the prime time players but it was A.W. who was mic'd at ringside and he was brilliant as he was better than the commentators and was talking about making millions and that O'neil was a better dancer than Rosa and he was encouraging his team to get the Job done. After the match he serious took one for the team as Truth on commentary shoot a bottle of what and hew took the whole bottle and it was an amazing scene and after this performance he should be a better part of RAW. A.J. still not showing her cards yet The match was in three parts with the first being A.J. was playing her poker face which is the best in the business right now and it was a feeling out process for Punk and Bryant. The middle was after Bryant pushed Punk into A.J. who had to be taken to the back so that they could get their moves in with Punk going from one guard rail to another guard rail close lining Bryant and Bryant later used a kendo stick as a baseball bat and missed and both used it on each other and Bryant did the superfly jump off the top and hit it while Punk did his tribute to Macho and missed. Then when A.J. came back it was A.J. putting a chair in the middle of the ring and they both crawled for it and in the end both used the chair on each other and then A.J. decided that she did not want them to hurt each other too much but still wanted them to fight for her so when Bryant went for the Kendo stick A.J. put her foot on it and when Punk planted the chair in the turnbuckle and A.J. stood in front of it. The end of the match came when Punk had a table setup in the ring and put Bryant on it and did the elbow off the top and A.J. counted it and she looked worried for Bryant while Punk focused more attention on the crowd than A.J.. The Miz returns Miz came out to a great reaction from the crowd and said that he was off doing a movie and now he is back and he will be apart of the champions MITB match and he sid he was a movie star. When it came to the match everybody attacked Show and he was out of the match for a long time after Cena FU'd him throw the Spanish table and everybody throw ladders on him so he could not move and the finish happened when Big Show got out of the ladders and throw everybody out of the ring and throw a ladder on them. He then went under the ring and brought out a heavy duty ladder and tried to get the case but was stopped and Cena did his Superman spot as he climbed the ladder and Y2J was on his shoulders for a FU put Y2J put him in a sleeper and he still was able to fight and after he throw away Y2J Big Show came back and tried to punch Cena but Cena used the case to block it and it fell apart in Cena's hands and held it up on top of the ladder. It was a good event but could not match last year's Tom Mehegan

Dwight Howard staying in Orlando

The indecision known as Dwight Howard is going to play his ball in Orlando this fall/winter as the Magic were unable to get the deal done with the only team Howard will be willing to sign long term with which is the Brooklyn Nets (formerly of New Jersey) by the trade deadline put in place by the Nets. It is unlikely that any team will be willing to give up a tone to get Superman out of Orlando at this time without an agreed to extension and that would only happen if some team goes out and trades for D Will (Dreon Williams)who just signed a 5 year 98 million dollar contract with the Nets and will not be going anywhere anytime soon.

So it will be very interesting in Orlando to see how Superman (Dwight Howard) will be received by the Magic fans like will it be like business like usually and then near the end of the 2012-2013 will they start turning on him. Will he want to put in the effort on the court or will he get another phantom injury like he did at the end of last season when his plans to replace Jeff Van Gundy as head coach and then Van Gundy turns around and throws him under the bus when he to the media said that Howard had tried to get him fired just before Howard came into do his presser and then was gone for the season.

Another question will be when will the trade talk heat up again as it will diffidently be happen around the trade deadline in mid-march and it will be the same old thing will he or won't he allow himself to be traded and if so will he allow himself to be a rental player.

A few this we do know is that in about 365 days Dwight Howard will be a very rich man as apart of the Brooklyn Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov will make sure his carrier pigeons do their job this time unlike the Nuggets deal or now the Magic deal. Also the Brooklyn will be a contender in the Atlantic division this season without Superman as D Will has Joe Johnson who if he is focus can be a beast and Gerald Wallace who is a monster on D and that ugly step son Brook Lopez (who has been traded to almost eveyone under the sun will be back for the time being) as he signed a 4 year/60 million dollar deal and don't forget Kris Humphries who had a break out season last year.

This Brook Lopez signing is absolutely crazy as there were reports in the media today that both the Charlotte Bobcats and the Portland Trailblazers who just got tried of waiting around to see which team would end up with Lopez said that they would both sign him to a max deal and just destroy any deal as a player who have had their offer sheet matched by their current team can not be trade again for a certain amount of time.

Howard is coming to Brooklyn and the nets will replace the Celtics as the team to beat in the Atlantic division

Tom Mehegan

Minnesota Wild get both Parise and Suter

Minnesota Wild GM Chuck Fletcher had his father's Doug Gilmour trade moment as he went out and went head first into the free agent pool as they grabbed both Ryan Suter and Zach Parise with 13 year / 98 million dollar deals. This a very good deal for the Wild and for Parise and Suter because the Wild play the same kind of D first hockey the Ryan Suter did in Nashville and Parise did in New Jersey and unlike other high free agents in the past who have signed their huge contracts and then were asked to do something different then they were used to and did not fit into the system and have their contract become a massive headache.

The most interesting thing about this deal is that the Detroit Red Wings who wanted both of them especially Ryan Suter who was supposed to replacing Nicklas Lidstrom and ended up not getting neither of them.

Zach Parise has been a solid player for the Devils as he played at least 80 games in 6 of 7 seasons and has at least 60 points in the last 5 of 6 seasons after his rookie season. Ryan Suter has played at least 70 games in all of his 7 seasons with the Nashville Predator and has found his grove in his last 4 seasons and has put up between 37 and 46 points a season.

The Wild are the new player in the mix in the NHL

Tom Mehegan

Oilers sign a popular D-man, Canucks replace Salo, and Flames burned again

Edmonton Oilers

The Oilers snagged a very highly thought after defenceman Justin Schultz who had 28 of the 30 NHL teams trying to sign the College player to a contract. He played 121 games over the last three seasons with the University of Wisconsin and scored 40 goals and 73 assists with 113 points and is the hope for the Oilers getting a defenseman that make that lead pass to the forwards and maybe help put up more team goals and victories. The Oilers have resigned Ryan Smyth for next season and hopefully to bring some more leadership in the Oilers locker room.

Vancouver Canucks

Canucks replaced Sami Salo, who signed as a free agent with the Tampa Bay Lightening, with former Panthers defenceman Jason Garrison who had two and a half seasons seasons with the Panthers and had 59 points in 189 games. The Canucks signed him to a 6 year/27.6 million dollars and the Canucks who signed Cory Schneider to a 3 year/12 million dollar deal and are looking like they are still trying to trade away Roberto Luongo.

Calgary Flames

Calgary Flames once again have gone and burned themselves again by signing a defenceman for big bucks as they signed Dennis Wideman to a 5 year/26.25 million dollars. He hopefully not be the next Dion Phaneuf (6 years/39 millions) or JAY BOUWMEESTER (5 years/33.4 million dollars) who after signing their deals became shells of themselves from what they were before signing those contract as Phaneuf did not last very much longer in Calgary as he was traded to Toronto within a year and a half while BOUWMEESTER point totals have gone down since joining the Flames.

More free agents to sign

Tom Mehegan

Canadiens get tougher, Leafs are still quiet while Senators have a hit and miss day

Montreal Canadiens

The Canadiens got tougher by resigning Travis Moen and signing former Brandon Prust who is a 28 year old who not afraid of going into the corners and if someone messes with the Canadiens smaller players like BRIAN GIONTA and DAVID DESHARNAIS who are 5'7 when the new norm in the NHL is over 6 foot he will not be afraid to drop the gloves as he had 20 fighting majors last season. The best thing for the Canadiens is addition from subtraction with Scott Gomez being bought out any day now and they have brought in Colby Armstrong and maybe with the Canadiens or the bulldogs like goaltender Cédrick Desjardins will be doing next season.

Ottawa Senators

The Senators made a trade with the Columbus Blue Jackets but was not Rick Nash but instead it was Marc Methot native coming home in exchange for Nick Foligno as defensive defenceman to replace Flip Kuba who is headed to Florida and joining the Panthers. While former 25 goal scorer Guillaume Latendresse winger from Minnesota signed an one year deal to replace Matt Carkner who is heading to the island while also signing defense man Mike Lundin from the wild to fill out their roster. GM Brain Murray says it will be a quiet week in the Nation Capital and that neither Rick Nash or Zach Praise will not becoming are way and will just build on last season success signing Eric Karlsson to a 7 year/45.5 deal and hoping he can take if game to that next level.

Toronto Maple Leafs

Leafs signed Jay McClement to a 2 year/ 3 million dollars who was a penalty killer and logged the most penalty killing minutes with Colorado and will hopefully help the dreadful leaf penalty killing and probably the fourth line center. They were also paying attention to the Calder cup as they signed Calder cup winning defense man Mike Kostka who is likely staying in the AHL with the Marlies on an one year deal. Even though they did little to nothing on day one the big fish are still out there with Zach Praise, Ryan Suter, and Martin Brodeur still on the marker but really not a player yet for any of team it looks like while the likes of Roberto Luongo and Bobby Ryan out there for the right price while Jonas Gustavsson is now a dead thing.

Winnipeg Jets

ALEXEI PONIKAROVSKY is the newest Jets who if focused will be able to create trouble in front of the opposing goalie but he can be a little hit and miss and when he does not he is likely invisible on the ice. They lose forward Tanner Glass to the Penguins and backup goalie Chris Mason to Nashville Predators but has signed Ondrej Pavelec to a 5 year/19.5 million dollars and not done yet with lots of cap space.

Day one was quiet

Tom Mehegan