NFL Wildcard Playoff Betting Trends
NFL Wildcard Playoff Betting Trends
NFL playoff Free Picks and handicapping trends for football bettors
PREVIEW-Golf-The beauty and beast of the Match Play Championship (Reuters)
As Tiger Woods knows only too well, the beauty and, for many, the brutality of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship lies in its uncertainty.
Say goodbye to Predrag Drobnjak and his Manjaks
Say goodbye to Predrag Drobnjak and his Manjaks
NBA fans have seen many Europeans come to the league over the last decade without making a Nowitzkian or Gasolesque impact: Sarunas Jasikevicius
Sergei Monia
Jiri Welsch
Maciej Lampe
and Aleksandr Radojevic are just five of many. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise — there are few true stars in the league
and foreign countries should be capable of producing uninspiring fringe prospects just like America can.Every so often
though
one of these players finds a way to distinguish himself in the league even as his career peters out. For Predrag Drobnjak
a native of Montenegro who spent four seasons as a big man with the Sonics
Clippers and Hawks from 2001 to 2005
that fame came in the form of what is undoubtedly the greatest individual player website of all time. It’s called Drobnjak’s Manjaks
and it features ramshackle Flash animation worthy of a Michel Gondry project. Drobnjak retired last week after 19 years in professional basketball. While he may not have lit the nba on fire
he had a great career
winning two gold medals at the World Championships with Yugoslavia. Despite those accomplishments
Drobnjak will be best remembered for his website
not his play.That’s perfectly fine. Because when you venture over to Drobnjak’s Manjaks
it’s impossible not to smile. You can listen to Peja’s Robert De Niro impression
or his advice to kids (“Stay in school … it’s free!”). There are also regular appearances by his cat Jinkies. It’s hard to explain any single part of Drobnjak’s Manjaks
but it all comes together to show that Predrag was one of the more lovable athletes in the league during his time with Seattle.There are few better ways to honor a retired player than by saying he brought every fan joy. With this website
Predrag Drobnjak did exactly that. May he spend the rest of his life on his couch with Jinkies and a pile of Robert De Niro DVDs.(Website link via @kpelton and @mhaubs)
Saints release TE Shockey (AP)
For flamboyant tight end Jeremy Shockey
the party is over — at least in New Orleans. Shockey was released Tuesday by the Saints
who appear ready to move on with promising second-year pro and 2010 third-round draft choice Jimmy Graham. Shockey was no stranger to the Big Easy social scene and also helped give the city a reason to celebrate like never before.
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Darvish excited to be with Rangers (AP)
Darvish excited to be with Rangers (AP)
ARLINGTON, Texas (AP)—Yu Darvish is coming to America to pitch, for the team he really wanted to join for his next challenge. Japan’s best pitcher will play for the Texas Rangers, who scouted him for more than two years and then needed nearly every minute of a 30-day negotiating window before finalizing a $60 million, six-year contract Wednesday. It is a total investment of more than $111 million with a record posting fee. “The Rangers more so than any other team showed great, not only interest in scouting him, but a lot of personal time in developing a relationship with him,” said Arn Tellem, one of Darvish’s agents. “That personal connection was very significant to Yu and his family.’ There is also the much-anticipated boost the 25-year-old Darvish could provide to the Rangers, who have been to the last two World Series without winning the title. “Yu is excited about helping a team that has not won achieve that goal,” Tellem said. “He’s really thrilled to be coming here. This is where he wanted to be.” In addition to the salary, the Rangers will pay a posting fee of $51,703,411 to the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters of Japan’s Pacific League. The last two numbers in that amount are the jersey numbers of Rangers President and Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan (34) and Darvish (11). “When you talk about those kind of dollars, it’s high risk, but I also think he’s probably the most upside player I’ve ever seen come out of Japan,” Ryan said. “Having a free agent of that age, and with the fact that he’s been durable and has such feel for the baseball, I just think that he’s extremely unique.” The Rangers’ window to exclusively negotiate with the pitcher began Dec. 19 when their bid was accepted by the Fighters. The contract was finally completed a few minutes before the 4 p.m. CST deadline Wednesday, or Darvish would have stayed in Japan. Rangers general manager Jon Daniels, who described the move as a “step-out deal” for the team, said negotiations were never contentious. He said there were good reasons for Texas to want a six-year deal. “How often do you get a chance to sign a 25-year-old free agent? It’s a pretty unique opportunity, so you tend to look at things a little differently when you look at somebody that age and the years of the deal take him into his prime,” Daniels said. “And secondly, with the nature of the posting process and the size of the post, size of our bid, it made sense to amortize it out over a longer period.” Darvish was home in Japan, where he returned for offseason training after his first and only visit to Texas two weeks ago. The Rangers plan to formally introduce Darvish on Friday night. On his website, Darvish posted a note acknowledging his new team. “I will have a press conference first in America and then come back to Japan at which point I will express my gratitude to my fans here in Japan,” he wrote. Darvish had a 93-38 record with a 1.99 ERA over the past seven seasons in Japan. The 6-foot-5 right-hander was a two-time Pacific League MVP and a five-time All-Star. He led the league in strikeouts three times, in ERA twice and won two Gold Gloves. “The thing that stood out probably is just his passion for the game and trying to be the best he can possibly be,” said Ryan, the major league strikeout king who pitched a record 27 seasons. The deal surpasses what Daisuke Matsuzaka got when he left Japan and signed with the Boston Red Sox just more than five years ago. Dice-K got a $52 million, six-year deal and the Red Sox also had to pay a $51.111 million posting fee that was the highest for a Japanese player before what the Rangers bid for Darvish. When Ichiro Suzuki used the posting system in 2000 to get to the major leagues, the Seattle Mariners won the right negotiate with a bid of about $13 million, then signed him to a $14 million, three-year contract. Through last season, 38 Japan-born pitchers had appeared in the major leagues. There were nine last season, including relievers Yoshinori Tateyama and Koji Uehara with the Rangers. Both are still on the 40-man roster in Texas. Matsuzaka is 49-30 with a 4.25 ERA in 106 games (105 starts) in five seasons with the Red Sox since his high-profile move from the Seibu Lions to Boston in December 2006 when he was 26 years old. He missed most of last season after right elbow surgery and is going into the final year of his contract, worth about $10 million. Darvish, the son of an Iranian father and a Japanese mother, went 18-6 with a 1.44 ERA last season in Japan, when he made the equivalent of about $6 million. He had 276 strikeouts to lead the Pacific League. Darvish, who turned pro at 18, pitched in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and was a member of the Japanese team that won the 2009 World Baseball Classic. The right-hander has superb control and throws as many as seven effective pitches.
