In an effort to keep things a little more up to date and fresh around here, I'm going to chime in a little more frequently with my thoughts on some current stories and happenings from all over the world of sports. So here is what I'm thinking about right now:

The Dodgers and Manny Ramirez

Let me start by saying that while the Detroit Tigers are surely my favorite baseball team, I've also always followed the Dodgers and would consider them my NL team. Usually all that leads to is a Yankees type syndrome where I wonder why they spend a ton of money on guys and then inevitably come up short late in the year or the postseason. This year has been different however. While they have spent some money, many of the guys contributing for the team right now aren't exactly household names. They came out of the gates firing and haven't looked back despite the suspension of Manny. He's half way through his 50 games already, but Juan Pierre has stepped in admirably, and LA is going to be faced with an interesting decision when Ramirez comes back. I'd also like to say that I love what Joe Torre has done. How many Yankee fans out there now are still saying "it wasn't Torre, it was the team he had". I think he's proven he knows what he's doing and up until about 2-3 weeks ago, the Yankees probably would have been dying to have him back.


The French Open

I realize most people don't give a damn about tennis, and I don't generally care all that much myself, however the streak of Rafael Nadal has to be noted. The man finally lost on the clay at Roland Garros yesterday, for the first time EVER! He had won 4 straight French Opens and won 31 consecutive matches, which for the record is ALL of the ones he had played there. That's a phenomenal accomplishment and one not likely to be matched there, or anywhere else anytime soon. Roger Federer is struggling this morning as well, maybe American Andy Roddick will finally have a chance at a Grand Slam title?

LeBron James

A couple of points to be made here. Let's just say I'm a bit disappointed in his behavior after Game 6 and I think it's kind of disrespectful to walk off and not even congratulate the Magic on winning the series. Now I understand that the guy is ultra competitive and he probably felt like "his" year was ruined at that point. Everything pointed to the Cavs at the very least making the finals, and quite likely winning the championship after collecting the best regular season record and sweeping 2 straight opponents in the playoffs, but they couldn't solve Orlando. Now, LeBron is usually one of the most respectful and genuinely nice guys you see in the NBA, so I'll give him a pass this one time, but I hope this doesn't signal some sort of change in him. Unhappy and upset as he may have been, and no matter how much he disliked getting beaten, he still needs to show the proper respect and congratulate the opposition as the better team. Additionally, the next year is going to be incredibly annoying, as we have to listen to all this discussion of where he might end up for 2010 nonstop. Many people are going to be very turned off and I'm betting there is some sort of backlash, more so than has already begun, towards James throughout the year, even though it's not exactly his fault.

Stanley Cup Finals

Thus far the Red Wings just have too much depth for the Penguins to do anything about. Detroit has done a fairly good job of neutralizing Crosby and Malkin while also getting scoring from all over their own roster. Marc-Andre Fleury has not looked particularly sharp thus far either, allowing some weak goals along the way. He'll obviously need to turn it around big time heading back to Pittsburgh if the Penguins want to make this a competitive series. As for Malkin's antics last night and the league's subsequent actions, I think it's a complete and total joke. Malkin did what needed to be done in showing some fire and trying to get his teammates to turn up the intensity heading into Game 3, but how he did it was stupid. He basically snuck behind the net and went at Henrik Zetterburg from behind, and the first punch he threw in their "fight" was with his stick still in his hand.

At the time he was given an intstigator penalty, which I think was clearly the right call, he literally is the one that started a fight out of what was just a small scrum (caused by a Penguin poking at Chris Osgood when he clearly had control of the puck, something you just don't do). The problem with that was that if a player is called for an instigator penalty in the last 5:00 of a game, it's an automatic suspension for the following game. Well, the NHL quickly reviewed the incident after the game and deemed that the call was wrong, and that Malkin's penalty would be rescinded, therefore no suspension. Wow, doesn't sound like the league just wants one of their top stars to be playing in the Finals and wants the Penguins to have a shot at getting back in the series at all does it? A complete farce in my opinion and I think most people other than Penguin fans would agree. It's bad enough Sidney Crosby already gets the Golden Boy treatment and is pretty much allowed to do whatever he wants, but I find this quick change by the NHL to be appalling. I was already against Pittsburgh from the outset, but now I think my dislike has grown even more.

ESPN

Now, I've steadily like the network less and less for awhile now, but it just keeps getting worse. Sportscenter is more or less a joke these days with highlights and stats being secondary more often than not (I suggest ESPNews if that's what you're looking for). Now a show looks more like this: NBA Finals coverage, baseball highlights, LeBron did this, tennis highlight (during a grand slam event only of course), Dwight Howard wants to win a title, baseball highlight, Kobe ate dinner, NHL highlight (60 seconds maximum, only for the Cup Finals, and only if Crosby/Malkin are involved), stupid fabricated story, etc. They only care about whatever sports are on their network and the biggest market teams at this point. Even 5 years ago things were much better. Add to this the fact that college softball has been all over their networks for the past week, which I'm sure must be a ratings juggernaut, though, it's still better than marathons of the World Series of Poker all weekend long, and you can see what I'm saying. I know this is the slow time of year in the sports world, and it only gets worse once the NBA and NHL wrap up, but the channel as a whole has become mostly unwatchable to me.