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Anquan Boldin requested a trade yesterday and this is the second round of disagreement between the Cardinals and their standout receiver this offseason. In light of this, I can’t help but throw in some football talk, despite the Olympics still going on and the baseball pennant races heating up. I couldn’t help but get excited at the notion that a star receiver was apparently going to be available (although we all thought Chad Johnson was available too) and the Eagles have shown this offseason that they aren’t hesitating to go after a big name receiver having already made a free agent offer to Randy Moss and trade offers for Johnson and Fitzgerald.

Of course, today, it was announced that Kevin Curtis would be missing significant time with a sports hernia, which (when I read the headline anyway) made me even more excited about the prospect of the Eagles going after Boldin if does in fact get traded. However, Andy Reid went on to say that despite Curtis being out “for a while” they would not pursue a trade and would count on Hank Baskett and Greg Lewis. Uggghhh. So now, not only are the Eagles (apparently at least) not going after Boldin despite the fact that he appears to be available, they are without their top receiver of a year ago.

A lot would have had to happen for the Eagles to get Boldin: the Cardinals would have had to actually try to trade him (unlike the Bengals with Chad Johnson), the Eagles would have had to pursue him (something that until recently seemed well beyond their standard operating procedure) and they would have had to be the ones with the best package. It wouldn’t have been easy, but it also wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. I just don’t understand the Eagles sometimes. Why say that you won’t pursue a receiver? More importantly, why wouldn’t you pursue a receiver now when you were so intent on doing so earlier this same offseason? Boldin would make that one hell of a receiving corps and one hell of an offense. If he becomes available (from the Cardinals, not just because he has requested a trade), the Eagles should be first in line with a trade offer bar none.

In light of Michael Phelps establishing himself as the greatest Olympian ever (and cementing his ability to actually wear gold plated diapers), I thought is was a perfect time to break out my Pantheon of Athletes. A couple notes here before I get started: 1) the above statement regarding Michael Phelps as the greatest Olympian is fact and connot be argued and 2) this is not a list of the people I think are the greatest athletes ever (although some of them are), rather it is a list of my favorite athletes ever; athletes who when they are on TV, I drop everything to watch. This list is also a starter list and I reserve the right to add to it at any time.

#1) Without a doubt, number one on my list is Allen Iverson. Obviously, I am a little as both a Georgetown grad and a Philadelphia fan, but there simply isn’t a more exciting basketball player (both on the court and at any press conference). Few athletes play as hard or with as much fire as Iverson does and absolutely no one is more fun to watch in person. I have seen Iverson play several times and you really can’t appreciate all of the things that he does during a basketball game on TV. He must be witnessed in person.

#2) Tiger Woods. Another athlete who is just fantastic to watch in person. When Tiger is on TV (or I happen to be at a tournament he is playing) I am stopping everything to watch him. What he can do with a golf club in his hands is just unbelievable. He completely electrifies a golf course and the crowd following him. There really is no one in sports who is better at what they do than Tiger is at golf. The game simply isn’t as exciting without him and certainly hasn’t been the second half of this season. I think the thing that makes the best statement about Tiger is that he has played in only 6 events this season and he is still on top of the money list despite not having played in almost two months.

#3) Charles Barkley. You know someone is a Pantheon level athlete when you still stop everytime they are on TV even after they retire. I’m not sure if he’s a better analyst than he was a player, but he sure is fun to watch at both. Never a dull moment with the Round Mound of Rebound. He is also number one on the list of people I would want at my bachelor party (or any party for that matter.)

#4) Michael Jordan. It’s impossible not to put Jordan on a list like this. Obviously as a basketball player, there really isn’t anyone with as many defining highlights as Jordan and he is the benchmark for greatness. But, Jordan Pantheon status isn’t limited to his skills on the basketball court. I mean, have you SEEN those Jordan commercials? Every one of them gives me chills. The Become Legendary series is just that, Legendary.

#5) Newly enshirned member, Michael Phelps. The guy flat out wins. Greatest Olympian ever, no doubt about it and absolutely must see TV. I don’t know what more to say about him.

That’s the top 5 for now. There will always be additions and changes and obviously, there are far more athletes in the Pantheon so stay tuned.

As I have already written, I have been complely captivated by the Olympics thus far. I can’t get enough of them. Each event has had its own excitement and I just can’t stop watching. I have been especially taken with the basketball tournament and certainly the US squad.

Leading up to the tournament, the US team earned the moniker “the Redeem Team” and really no name could be more apt for this bunch. USA Basketball has seen a sharp decline over the past 5 or so years and there are a few players that are holdovers from the 2004 squad that took Bronze in Athens. So, on the court, they are certainly looking to redeem not only the fortunes of USA Basketball, but also redeem themselves for shortcomings over the past few years. You can see the desire in players like LeBron James and Dwyane Wade to take this one all the way. They are working hard and taking each game one at a time. It is a refreshing change of pace from the apathy that had seemed to engulf the team and program over the past few years (something I blame enitrely on Larry Brown; seriously, the man disgusts me).

Their style of play, coaching, work ethic and overall on-court performance is hardly the only thing that is renewing my interest and faith in USA Basketball. Obviously, the fact that it is a real competition this time around and the level of play has been elevated helps, but this goes way beyond the court. Yesterday, LeBron James, Jason Kidd and Chris Paul were sitting with Jason Lezak and Amanda Beard at the swimming cube to watch Michael Phelps. LeBron has also been at a tennis match. At the opening ceremonies, the basketball players didn’t walk by themselves and some of them brought cameras. In other words, they were treating the Olympic experience with respect and reverence. They weren’t larger than the moment. The moment was larger than them. Talk about a change of pace. To have NBA players truly value simply being an Olympian and not acting above the event means a lot. It shows that the event really means something to them and that really does play a role in their performance in this tournament. They care about the event. That is huge. It even makes rooting for Kobe Bryant palatable.

I have to admit, I haven’t always been the biggest fan of the Olympics. I always thought they were kind of cool, but mostly as a novelty, certainly not something that I went out of my way to watch. I really expect much of the same from the Beijing Olympics especially since I really am not a fan of watching tape delayed sporting events and given the 12 hour delay, there were certainly going to be some delayed events.

The Opening Ceremonies did little to change my mind. There were certainly parts that were very cool and the little boy walking in with Yao Ming really gave me chills. But, overall, they were way to long and again the delay factor bothered me for some reason. Still, I watched them and did think that there was some majesty and spectacle to the event and enough of my friends were talking about the Olympics that I decided to watch the first couple of events.

Then I got hooked. I’ve had the Olympics on basically every waking moment. Most of the time, they are just on in the background, but they are always on and I am constantly checking what’s on and what’s coming next. They have been truly exciting and I find myself especially excited to watch the prime time events each night and the live events each morning.

Of course, nothing did more for my Olympic excitement than the men’s swimming 4×100 freestyle relay on Sunday night. Not only was it easily the most exciting Olympic event I have ever seen, it was pretty damn near the top of exciting sporting event I’ve ever watched. There was jumping on the couch and yelling at the TV and waving Jason Lezak down those last 25 meters with more enthusiasm than a third base coach waving the runner home. The enthusiasm of the other three swimmers as their teammate barely clinched the gold medal was a inspiringly genuine and a refreshing change of pace from the posturing and contract demands of professional athletes. The rest of the Olympics will have a hard time measuring up to this relay, but that won’t stop me from watching. You never know when something like that may happen again.

It’s still baseball season and I haven’t delved too far into the NFL yet, but I did have some thoughts on two stories in the past couple of weeks: Brett Favre and Caleb Campbell. I won’t be the first or last to comment on either, but since neither situation was handled all that well they deserve some commentary. (Not nearly the amount of comments that Favre has gotten over the past month, but some anyway.)

The Favre situation was handled so poorly from both sides that it just blows me away. I really can’t believe that both sides treated the other the way that they did and thought that everything was going to work out exactly how they wanted. There was lying and mind changing and posturing and negative things said by both sides. From the beginning there was no way this was going to work out. Both sides are really at fault but two people really stand out as the worst offenders: Ted Thompson and Favre himself.  Thompson, his crazy Vince McMahon eyes and Favre kept trying to one up each other and kept ending up in deeper trouble.

Thompson kept trying to call Favre’s bluff and Favre wasn’t going away. Favre wasn’t going anywhere and knew that Thompson didn’t want him to come back. Thompson and the Packers wanted Favre to stay retired and acted as such (even acting as though he was definitely going to stay retired) even though Favre had no intentions of staying retired. That much was fairly obvious from the start, but no one on the Packers seemed to get it, especially Thompson. They certainly did not treat him with the respect that Hall of Fame quarterback deserves. If there is even a chance that he may come back, you at least welcome him back and let him compete for the job that he gave up. You say, “Brett, Aaron has been in here all summer and committed a lot to this team so we are going to let him compete against you for the job.” Obviously in an open competition, Favre is most likely going to win and in that situation everyone wins (even Rodgers is shown some confidence by the team allowing him to compete). That was the easy solution to the problem and Thompson and the Packers really let that get away from them.

Favre is in no way blameless in all of this. He has been waffling on retirement for the past 4 years and constantly holding the Packers hostage in their quarterback situation. Yes, he is a fantastic quarterback and yes he deserves some special treatment, but this has gotten a little ridiculous. He keeps talking about retiring every year and this year he went through with it. Then he thought he may want to come back and the Packers said they would take him back, let’s get this done and he changed his mind again. At this point, the Packers really needed to move on and get the football team ready for the season. Then Favre changed his mind again and tried to hold the team hostage again. The PAckers just couldn’t wait for Favre to make up his mind anymore. If he was going to play, he was going to compete for the job that he had given up months ago. If he came in with the right mindset, the job was probably going to be his. As Mike McCarthy said in the press conference the other day, Favre came in with the wrong mindset and was unwilling to compete for the job. That forced the trade. Favre wasn’t the only one at fault in this situation, but he certainly didn’t help it out. The Packers esentially got what they wanted (not originally, but as the situation went along) with Rodgers being the starting QB and not having to worry about Favre unless they both get to the Super Bowl. Favre gets to play this year, but by not coming into camp with a chance to compete for a starting job on a team with a real chance to get to the Super Bowl, he’s on the Jets, stuck in the same division as the Patriots and Tom Brady, probably the worst possibility he had.

The Favre situation was hardly the only situation in the NFL that was handled poorly over the past month. I had kind of forgotten the Caleb Campbell situation about a week after it happened, but Rick Reilly wrote a column this week that really reminded me of the whole situation and how poorly the DOD handled the situation. Here is a guy that the Army (hell, the nation) could be proud of and he was doing something that his fellow cadets could really get behind and enjoy watching him do. What he was doing was great for morale in the Army and the country. It was something that we could all feel good about. Somwhow that wasn’t good enough for the DOD. I know that Campbell signed up knowing what he had gotten himself into and these are the terms of going to West Point (or the Naval Academy or the Air Force Academy), but the policy mix-up had given him the chance. Then the DOD decided (with plenty of pressure from the Navy and Air Force) that their policy needed to be enforced over the Army policy. This took all of the hope that Caleb Campbell had built up in the past few months and took it from him. This is something that the DOD should have handled well before Campbell even had the chance to get drafted. They had time to take care of this. Once he got drafted, the window for them to renege should have been closed, but since they are the US military, the window is never closed. It truly is a shame that something like this had to happen. I couldn’t be prouder of Caleb Campbell and happier to have someone like him defending my country. He has handled this whole situation with dignity and complete class. I am extremely disappointed for him and in the DOD. He deserved better. We all did.

The AL East has been (at least in the last decade) the most romanticized division in baseball. There is the ever present Yankees-Red Sox rivalry and the fact that one or both of them is always in contention to win the division. The rivalry really hit its height in 2003 and 2004 and while both teams have been in postseason contention essentially the whole time since, some of the majesty of the great rivalry and some of the intrigue that has always been associated with the AL East has dissipated.

This year, the division race is just as tight as ever with three teams in contention and there are all sorts of storylines to follow. The Red Sox and Yankees are of course in contention and we have all heard endless stories about the surprising Rays. The race is undoubtedly is going to come down to the last week or two of the season and one of the three is likely to be the Wild Card winner. There are a lot of great things happening in the AL East this year, but I can’t help but feel like something is missing this year.

I think there are a lot of reasons for this. The first is certainly the presence of the third team atop the standings. For the past few years it has only been the Yankees and the Red Sox up there so the battles between the two have taken on more meaning. This year, every game counts a little more for each team and the head to head matchups of the Yankees and Red Sox don’t have any different meaning than the rest of the games with in the division. Plus, there have been so many more televised instances of the rivalry (it seems that way anyway) this year that they just seem so commonplace and not as big as they have in recent years.

The fact that it is the Rays up there with the Yanks and Sox definitely takes something away from the mystique. If it were the Orioles (or even the Blue Jays), there would still be something weird about this season, but the Rays make it even weirder. Even though they came into the league at the same time as the Diamondbacks, they still seem like an expansion team. They have just never settled into the Majors and all of the sudden now here they are leading the AL East in August. Kind of takes something away from the AL East mystique.

I think the other major reason is that the make up of both the Yankees and Red Sox franchises has changed drastically over the past few years and with that much of the same passion and fire that had embodied the rivalry has dissipated. George Steinbrenner is no longer prominently involved. Joe Torre has moved to the West Coast. Pedro is gone. Now, Manny is gone. Posada and Schilling have been injured. Jeter and Mariano are older. Kevin Millar is gone. Trot Nixon is gone. These were the characters that made the rivalry so great and a lot of fun to watch. Hank Steinbrenner and John Henry tried to inject some of that passion back into the rivalry earlier this season, but it all came across as a big media farce. Hank has tried to be his father, but he just isn’t. He’s probably smarter (as a baseball man), but his public comments are just overblown. A lot of the character in the rivalry has fallen by the wayside.

Terry Francona is a great manager and has done a great job of keeping the Red Sox in check over the years. But he is also really even keeled and runs his team like that. He is increasingly intolerant of distractions (Manny) and the Red Sox have less and less of a personality as the season goes along. Players like Trot Nixon and Manny Ramirez have been replaced by JD Drew and Jason Bay, both solid players, but not exactly finalists for Mr. Personality.

None of this is bad for baseball or bad for the AL East. In fact, it is exactly the opposite. This is fantastic for baseball and fantastic for fans of the AL East. The baseball is better and more teams have a chance. The Red Sox have built a model franchise and the Yankees still spend more money than anyone else, but they are still getting challenged by the Rays. There is exciting baseball being played in this division and in a move that is good for the game, it isn’t just being played by the same old teams.

All of this is great for baseball and baseball fans, but there is definitely some of the magic missing from the AL East race this year. I complained about having to hear only about the Red Sox and Yankees for years, but now that the rivalry doesn’t seem to mean as much it definitely feels like something is missing.

As far as the race is concerned, I think it is the Yankees’ race to win. I’m just not sold on the Rays taking control down the stretch and the Red Sox left themselves open with the Manny trade (which even with the reports out of Boston about how he quit on them, I still don’t agree with). The Rays could have a 6 or 7 game lead in this division with the way that the Yanks and Sox have middled in the past couple of weeks, but they didn’t take the division control. Jason Bay has been solid for the Sox so far, but it won’t be long until everyone really finds out that he is no Manny Ramirez.

The Yankees, on the other hand, have all of the pieces (although the Joba injury will definitely hurt morale and their chances). They did a great job at the trade deadline and they don’t have to face Manny anymore. If the Yankees’ pitching can hold up marginally well over the last two months of the season, they should be able to win enough games to steal this division from one of the other two. This is a long shot pick and it is really just a gut feeling, but I think the Yanks have what they need to take control of the division.

When CC Sabathia was traded to the Brewers, the NL Central race got a lot more interesting. When, only a couple of days later Rich Harden ended up on the Cubs, the race got REAL. And this was before the All-Star Break.

So far, both pick-ups have been great, with Sabathia being absolutely lights out so far with the Brew Crew. Right after the all-star break it really looked like the Sabathia trade was going to push the Brewers over the top and get them past the Cubs as they trimmed the Cubs’ lead to one going into a crucial 4 game set in Milwaukee. This looked liked the Brewers’ chance to take control of the division. As series in July go, this was as big as they get: not make or break, but pivotal nonetheless.

Then they got owned and the Cubs took control. They beat both of the Brewers’ aces (Sabathia and All-Star game starter Ben Sheets, who also lost today) and really asserted themselves as the team to beat in the Central. This week, the Brewers and the Cardinals kept pace with the Cubs, but the Cubs have that 5 game lead that looks a lot bigger after that series sweep. It really should give them a lot of confidence going up against the Brewers for the rest of the season.

Neither the Brewers or the surprising Cardinals, who talent-wise don’t really seem to be in the same league as the Cubs or Brewers, should be counted out, but I think those two are probably going to be fighting it out for the Wild Card (and would seem to be the most likely to win it). The Cubs have some serious momentum going right now and have all of the elements in place: a seriously potent offense, superb starting pitching and a solid bullpen. They are the pick to win the Central and the Brewers are my pick to win the Wild Card, but keep an eye on the Cardinals. They have given themselves the confidence to stay in this race and aren’t going to go away.