9 Innings

1st Inning

Since this is our first issue back after the break, congratulations to the Shepherd football team for its history-making run to the national semifinals. It was a pleasure to cover such a fantastic season.

2nd Inning

The Packers and Steelers will face off in Super Bowl XLV on February 6. While the Packers are talented, the edge has to go to battle-tested Pittsburgh. Green Bay was clearly the superior team on Sunday but struggled mightily to put the Bears away and almost let Caleb Hanie beat them. If they want to win their fourth Super Bowl, they'll have to show better composure than they did in the second half.

3rd Inning

Speaking of the Super Bowl, did anybody else notice that there are now trailers for Super Bowl commercials? Yes, during the conference championship games, Budweiser had ads to promote their ads that will air in two weeks during the big game.

4th Inning

The NFL's insistence on switching to an 18-game schedule is ridiculous. The players are against it, and there doesn't seem to be a huge demand from the fans. 16 games is plenty of time to decide which teams are deserving of the playoffs, and it would just be cruel to make Bills fans suffer an extra two weeks every year.

5th Inning

Was it just me or was there something just a little bit off about the BCS National Championship game? Even though it was tied until the last play, it didn't seem to have that aura of a great game about it. Maybe it was because the 22-19 game didn't live up to the shootout hype. Maybe it was overshadowed by the Cam Newton allegations. Maybe it was because it was a somewhat sloppy game. And heck, maybe it was just Oregon's uniforms that threw me off.

6th Inning

College basketball is starting to get in full swing, and the most exciting conference in the country might be the Mountain West. San Diego State is one of two remaining undefeated teams while BYU's Jimmer Fredette is the best player in the nation and has the potential to be one of the best pure shooters of all-time.

7th Inning

Marshall built a 24 point lead and held on to win 75-71 over West Virginia last week in the annual Capital Classic. Senior guard Joe Mazzulla blamed the loss on "not taking them seriously enough." Sorry, Joe, but when you're a senior and you know the game is close every year, you're pretty stupid if you're not taking it seriously. And when your team gives up a 34-5 run, that's not a lapse in concentration – that's just getting beat.

8th Inning

ESPN reached a $300 million deal with the University of Texas to launch a 24 hour network dedicated to programming all things Longhorn. I have nothing at all against Texas, but this deal is flat out disgusting because of the growing disparity between the large and small schools in college athletics as well as the obvious journalistic bias this is sure to create at the Worldwide Leader.

9th Inning

"She looks grumpy and her boobs are bigger." That was a text that reporter Todd Woodbridge sent to a friend of Kim Clijsters speculating on her pregnancy. Woodbridge then had to interview Clijsters in front of the arena after an Australian Open match, and Clijsters brought up the text on-air to an embarrassed Woodbridge, but the two shared a good laugh about the incident. Thank you, Todd, for reminding us never to ask a woman if she's pregnant unless we're absolutely sure.