Week in Review

First...someone's got to explain the Loretta for Mirabelli trade. Padres fans can talk for ages on all the greatness that is Mark Loretta. Red Sox fans I've talked to talk about D-Mir as if he should have started over Varitek. Big power, lots of strikeouts, great defense, gritty and doesn't wimp out if a collision's coming on a throw to the plate. That's more than we could say for Ramon Hernandez, but this trade makes absolutely no sense. Everything I think of doesn't hold up.

OK Norwich goes out to Alexandra Stadium to face Crewe Alexandra. This is Dean Ashton's old club (yeah like you all know who Dean Ashton is). Frankly Dean was one of the best strikers among the lower divisions in England until he came to Norwich City and was slowly ruined by Nigel Worthington's inability to get or keep a midfielder that could give him any through balls to work with.

World Cup group draw was today. Watched it online live. USA, Italy, Ghana and Czech Republic are all in the same group. Top 2 advance to Stage two which is the first round of actual Bracket-type play. Czechs are ranked #2 in the world, Italy lost the 1994 World Cup final on penalty kicks and while they're not as good as they were then, they're actually favored by a lot of "experts". Ghana has gotten itself a pair of really talented Midfielders and of course USA has it's strongest side in a long time. OF course there's Brazil, Germany, England, France and Argentina in here as well.

In related news, apparently Hamburg defender Alexander Laas was hit with a drumstick during a match with FC Cologne a few weeks ago. A player for Hamburg had scored and as they celebrated, some Cologne fans threw various objects, one of which struck Laas and cut him on the forehead sending blood gushing into his eye. Apparently he shook his head and let's just say TV cameras didn't turn away fast enough and it was pretty gross. Still now the World Cup is worried about hooliganism and whether their security will be ready in time. More news for people who don't like the sport to point to, trying to convince their soccer-fan friends to drop the sport we love so much. Yeah as if baseball (White Sox fans in particular) have been any more innocent lately with guys being attacked on the field, objects thrown at players on a daily basis and even about 3-4 years ago a Giants fan being shot at a Dodger game.

In personal news we have our gifts pretty much all purchased. Just a couple people we still need to buy for. Cards haven't gone out yet so if you haven't gotten yours, there's a reason. We either haven't sent them (we haven't sent ANY) or we don't have your mailing address. I was gonna make an ID theft joke but I think that would garner some unwarrented attention. This blog is boring enough. No need to start putting FBI agents to sleep.

Anyways if anyone reads this and thinks it's lacking in something, let me know. I've sorta hit a wall and I'm not sure exactly what I should be doing to make this better.