Bye-Bye Baseball Season
BOSTON (CBS) - The baseball season has come to an end with Monday night's fifth game of the World Series.
Congratulations to the San Francisco Giants who ended 56 years of frustration with the win over the Texas Rangers.
In case you're wondering, the Giants' team payroll of $97,828,833 ranks tenth for 2010, a far cry from the $206,333,389 Yankees payroll which topped the list.
The end of the baseball season marks the start of the Free Agency period. This year, 142 players have opted to test the market, including catchers Jason Varitek and Victor Martinez. Unlike previous years when teams had 15 days to negotiate exclusively with their own free agents, this year that period is but five days long.
Of course, as far as Red Sox fans go, the season ended a month ago. That's when attention was turned to the Patriots and subsequently the Bruins and Celtics. None of those three teams have disappointed in the early going.
'Early going' may no longer apply to the Patriots since we are eight weeks into the NFL season. But at 6-1, best record in the league, the Pats made New England sports fans forget baseball rather quickly.
What to make of the Randy Moss situation? Simple; every time Randy Moss opens his mouth he becomes his own worst enemy. Don't look for a return to Foxborough.
Patriots holdout Logan Mankins returns to the team today, two weeks before the November 16 deadline for players in his position to quit pouting and get free agency credit for the season. Mankins was in line to make millions more than the $1.54 million dollar tender he finally signed. Gordon Gekko was wrong; greed is not good.
Congratulations to Tim Thomas, NHL First Star of the Week, for posting his third shutout of the young season. After winning the Vezina Trophy two years ago as the NHL's top goaltender, Thomas saw his game slide last year because of a hip injury. Surgery this off-season has corrected that and Thomas has never been better, compiling a 6-0 record, .984 save percentage and 0.50 Goals Against Average. While his confidence is sky high, you have to wonder what's going through the mind of goalie-mate Tuukka Rask, who was in goal for both loses this season and went from Wunder Goalie to backup in a mere eight games.
Time to go vote.
