Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
Ryan Callahan scored for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
Kobe Bryant hit a baseline jump shot with 4.2 seconds left and the Los Angeles Lakers wrapped up a six-game road trip by holding on to beat the Raptors 94-92 on Sunday, their eighth victory in nine meetings with Toronto
Arc's five up, five down: After No. 11 Michigan State's 58-48 upset of No. 3 Ohio State, you'd be a fool to discount the Spartans' national title chances now.
Miami coach Al Golden says the worst is behind him, but his headaches figure to continue now that former booster Nevin Shapiro, now in jail, says his involvement with the Hurricanes program will result in stiff penalties.
Golf's dream pairing - Woods and Mickelson - is on the course in the final round at Pebble Beach. Jason Sobel has hole-by-hole reports.
The United States completed a 5-0 rout of Switzerland in the Davis Cup on Sunday, with 19-year-old Ryan Harrison and John Isner winning closing singles matches.
Euro Roundup: First-place Manchester City won 1-0 at Aston Villa on Sunday on Joleon Lescott's goal in the 63rd minute, maintaining its two-point lead over Manchester United in the Premier League.
Tessa Worley of France fought off gusting winds to win a second consecutive World Cup giant slalom Sunday in the Andorran Pyrenees. Overall leader Lindsey Vonn was more than a second behind and finished eighth.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
The Royals may not, either. Bell got a contract only through the 2007 season, giving him little more than 400 games to work miracles.
Blame baseball’s goofy caste system, which relegates small market teams like the Royals to being perennial also-rans. When they do have an occasional decent season (83-79 in 2003) they’re forced to trade stars like Carlos Beltran because they can’t afford to keep them.
The teams that share their penurious ways aren’t much better.
The Yankees may not win the World Series every year just because they have the highest payroll, but it’s almost automatic that the teams that pay the least won’t win much. The bottom five teams in payroll this season all have losing records, with the combined record of the two lowest paying teams, Kansas City and Tampa Bay, a miserable 32-70 going into Tuesday’s games.
Bud Selig insists that the disparity between teams is shrinking and the economic playing field is more level than ever. But until baseball starts sharing revenue and puts a salary cap in place, small market teams will be eliminated from contention before summer even begins heating up.
That deals some managers a losing hand no matter how hard they try. Look at Bell’s predecessor, Tony Pena, who was hailed as a bright young manager when he led the Royals to a winning record in his second season. Pena didn’t last long, succumbing to the inevitable once the losses started mounting.
Likewise, managers such as Dave Miley in Cincinnati, Lloyd McClendon in Pittsburgh and Eric Wedge in Cleveland are almost inevitably doomed to failure because they’ll never have the players to win consistently.
There are only 30 jobs available for managers in the major leagues, and the good ones don’t open up very often. For every manager handed a team with promise — Ron Gardenhire in Minnesota or Jim Tracy in Los Angeles — there are 10 others hired only because the owner needed somebody to blame.
Bell won’t win in Kansas City, but not because he is 345-462 as a big league manager. He won’t win because the system is stacked against teams like the Royals, who are spending about as much this year on their entire team as the Yankees are on Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter.
It’s tough for guys like Bell to turn down a chance to manage again. Not nearly as tough, though, as trying to turn teams like this around.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
DeMarco: Plug in a well-heeled ownership group and negotiate one of those mega-bucks TV deals that are going around, and the Dodgers could become the west coast version of the New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox.
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Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.
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Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.