Your Weekend Viewing Guide

Now that college football is over, we have a weekend of college basketball, NBA, NHL, and the best weekend of the season for the NFL. (All times Central) *must watch of the day

Saturday:

• Now, Hurry!- NCAAB: Kansas at MSU (CBS)
• 2:00 PM- NCAAB: Indiana at Illinois (BTN)
• 3:30 PM- NFL: Baltimore at Tennessee (CBS)*
• 7:15 PM- NFL: Arizona at Carolina (FOX)
• 7:30 PM- NBA: OKC at Chicago (WGN)
• 7:30 PM- NHL: Chicago at Nashville (CSN)

Sunday:

• 12:00 PM- NFL: Philadelphia at New York Giants (FOX)
• 12:30 PM- NCAAB: Wisconsin at (14) Purdue (CBS)
• 3:45 PM- NFL: San Diego at Pittsburgh (CBS)*
• 6:00 PM- NHL: Nashville at Chicago (CSN)
• 7:00 PM- NCAAB: (3) UNC at (4) Wake Forest (Hope you have Satellite TV)
• 7:00 PM- 24 Season Premier (FOX)

Your Weekend Viewing Guide

With NFL Playoff football upon us, there will be good games on all weekend. Enjoy! (All times central)

Saturday:

• 11:00 a.m. - NCAABB: 3Pitt v. 8Georgetown (ESPN)
• 11:00 a.m. - NCAABB: 21OSU v. 23Minn (Big10)
  
• 3:30 p.m. - NFL: Falcons v. Cardinals (NBC)
  
• 7:00 p.m. - NFL: Colts v. Chargers (NBC)
• 7:30 p.m. - NBA: TWolves v. Bulls (WGN)
  

Sunday:

• 11:00 a.m. - NCAABB: Illinois v. 24Michigan (Big10)
  
• 12:00 p.m. - NFL: Ravens v. Dolphins (CBS)
  
• 3:30 p.m. - NFL: Eagles v. Vikings (FOX)
• 6:00 p.m. - NHL: Hawks v. Flames (CSN) There Andrew, are you happy?
  
• 7:00 p.m. - 24: Redemption (FOX)
  

Playoffs?! Playoffs?!

F$%& the Bears. F$#% Matt Forte. F%#$ Kyle Orton. F#$% Lovie Smith. F@$# Ron Turner. F#*$ Bob Babich. F@#$ the Texans. F#$% Daniel Manning. F#%$ Greg Olsen. F@#$ the Vikings. F@#$ the Packers. F#%$ the Panthers. F#%$ the Giants. F@$# the Cowboys. F#%$ the Bucs. F#%$ Rod Blagojevich. F#%$ the economy. F%$# terrorists. F#%$ the cold I have. F#%$ JB in the studio. F@%# Fox. If I forgot anyone let me know.

Now all I have to watch until March is the Bulls. F#%$ the Bulls.

Rob Previews Tonight's Chicago Fire MLS Semifinal

Rob will be our regular soccer analyst and fan. He is especially qualified for the job because of his love for the game and minority status. Enjoy!

Tonight, our Chicago Fire will be in Columbus taking on the Crew for the Eastern Conference Championship. The winner will face the winner of the New York Red Bull v. Real Salt Lake “Western” Conference Championship for the MLS Cup. At the risk of sounding extremely presumptuous, I’m going to go ahead and say that tonight’s game is all but for the title. The Eastern Conference has been markedly stronger than their Western counterparts, as evidence by the presence of New York earning a wild card spot in the Western Conference bracket.

As for the game itself, damn I’m excited. This is about as good as MLS soccer (redundancy alert!) is going to get this year. The Crew, under Coach of the Year Sigi Schmid, will be lead by Argentine legend/MVP Candidate Guillermo Barros Schelotto (16 assists!), and talented young Americans Robbie Rogers and (my sentimental favorite) Eddie Gaven. The Fire will be anchored by Goalkeeper of the Year Jon Busch and an attack that features American legend/hometown hero Brian McBride and the player everyone hates-to-love-to-hate, Cuauhtémoc Blanco.* It’s sure to be an entertaining game, but I’ve got two reasons to believe the Fire will come out on top: Defense and Chris Rolfe.

The Fire backline of Gutierrez, Conde, Soumare, and Segares are skilled, physical as all-hell, and seem to have gotten their act back together after a brief stretch at the end of the regular season when they were leaking goals. Most importantly, Chris Rolfe is in the zone right now, with 4 goals and 2 assists in his last three matches. If he plays well tonight, the Fire attack will eventually wear down a sturdy Columbus backline. It’s amazing that a team’s leading scorer gets as little publicity as he does, but I suppose playing with McBride and Blanco will do that to you.

2-1 Fire. Then we can all hope Chicago is gifted an MLS Final against former coach Juan Carlos Osorio.

*Oddly enough, spell check happens to auto correct the word “Cuauhtémoc.” Go figure.

Debate vs. Baseball?

That's an easy question for most of us....baseball; but would you expect CNN analyst Jeffrey Toobin to answer that way? Well maybe you should. This comes to us from Home Run Derby:

Here’s a screen shot of CNN Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin during the October 2nd VEEP Debate - he’s at MLB.com’s GameDay, following the Cubs-Dodgers game on his laptop.

Stick it to the Man, Toobin! It’s great to know that CNN Analysts don’t give two craps about the Debates when there’s Playoff Baseball on either.

Get this … Toobin got busted again last night during the final Presidential Debate … this time while surfing Facebook!!

Here’ Toobin’s reply to GIZMODO …

“I am clearly a recidivist in this area. I figure as long as I stay away from porn, I can keep my job.”

I love this guy. Not that I would ever surf the internet at work or school, but you know what I mean...

Cubs Not Built for a Short Series?

I'm not a fan of the five game series to start the baseball playoffs. It's too wacky; too many things can happen to the best teams that knock them out in three to five games after a 162 game season. I would be in favor of shortening the season by a few weeks and extending the first round to seven games. That's a different topic for another time.

A short series had nothing to do with the Cubs loss. While I was concerned the short series could mean a fluky early exit for the Cubs, that just isn't how it went down. Alfonso Soriano has a different idea.

"We're a very good team for [162] games, but we don't do nothing after that," Soriano said. "That's the difference. We're not put together for [a short series]."

I'm not an expert, but isn't the baseball season made up of short series? They seemed to do fine then. Maybe he meant this team wasn't put together for the playoffs. Maybe he meant he wasn't put together for the playoffs, because it demands players have an elevated sense of urgency, and maybe even some effort. Although Soriano made a catch within ten feet of the wall in Wrigley for the first time ever, I didn't see anything from him this series.

I hope this was either a misquote or Fonzy didn't have a straight face when he gave it, because it is ridiculous. I'm sure if it were a longer series Soriano and the Cubs would have been right in their element. But really, are we sure "playoffs" isn't what belongs in that last set of brackets in the quote?

More Baseball: American League Day

Today we stick purely to the land of the DH with both ALDS series playing a game two.



5 PM Chicago (Buehrle) at Tampa Bay (Kazmir)



So the momentum from the end of the regular season is probably gone for the Sox. They dropped game one, but really the goal is to just grab one of two on the road and take care of business at home. If the Sox can win today they have a great chance of moving on. Will there be more fireworks from the Cabrera - Balfour fiasco? Will Evan Longoria keep it up? I don't know, but I think the Rays win again, because God hates Chicago. 8-4 Rays.



8:30 PM Boston (Matsuzaka) at Los Angeles (Santana - Not that Santana)



Boston has won 10 in a row against the Angels in the postseason (not this postseason, the series would have ended already) and have a good shot at 11 when Dice-K goes tonight. The Angels offense just did not look good-sound familiar?-in game one. I think Vlad and Teixeira get it going tonight though and take game two. This series is going to five games. Angels win 7-3.