Favre report confirmed, Jersey already ordered

WCCO's Mark Rosen has reported that the reports of Brett Favre's signing from the weekend are all but confirmed. He states that the Vikings equipment manager has already ordered #4 purple jersey's with his name on it. You can now order a Favre Vikings jersey on Ebay as well.

So I guess Favre has already had a little talk with John David Booty who had the #4 jersey originally. Then again, this is Favre so he may not have had the talk and it will just be assumed that he's getting his number. Something tells me Booty wouldn't have a choice in the matter. It's clear now that the Tarvaris Jackson experiement is finally coming to a close. After trading for Sage, there's no way the Vikings let him go and he will be a nice backup if something goes amiss with Favre. Booty is a nice young arm that can learn a lot in a year from watching Favre and Sage. These are just my thoughts on how this will pan out, but I think they are rather legit.

Commanding Position? A View from a Red Sox Fan

I don't normally cover the Boston Red Sox here, but a good friend of mine wrote this up so I thought I would share. He makes some good points with some concrete "numbers" evidence.

Commanding Position?

Are the Red Sox poised to spread their lead in the AL East? The numbers appear to support it. Much has been made about the Red Sox this year. Be it the lofty expectation set on them by the fan base, or the media, or the high priced talent they run out there on a nightly basis. There is an expected level of production which hangs over every pitch.

Much has been documented about the struggles of the first half of this season. David Ortiz has been clawing his way through a slump ravaged start to the season. Dice-K brought another title to his motherland, but has failed to bring much more than a Zito-like, or more recently Wang-esque, drop-off. Jed Lowrie has shown more in his absence, evidenced by the cavernous difference between he and his replacements, than we expected when he got hurt.

Yet through all of this the Red Sox have posted a .609 winning percentage.

So instead of treading the ground of the ‘oh so recent’ past, let’s look at the immediate future. Currently the Red Sox sit in first place with a .609 winning percentage. Followed by: NY .551, TOR .535, and TB 514 (I will leave Baltimore out as they are 10 games out of first place, while posting a .464 winning percentage.)

The funny thing when you look at the numbers is this: We are talking about teams who have four of the five top run differentials in baseball, four of the top twelve winning percentages, and teams who average 6.5 on any of the Power Rankings. The only real disparity is this, Strength of Schedule.

When you look at the S.O.S for the four teams there is a noticeable gap. BOS .513, NY .500, TOR .495, TB .496. The Red Sox have played by far the toughest schedule in the division. This bodes well for the Red Sox between now and the mid-way point of the season.

Let’s take a look at three key factors:

1. The Red Sox have a S.O.S over the next six series of .435. This is key when you look at the balance of S.O.S in the division. Over the next six series for the other three teams their S.O.S: NY .513, TOR .515, TB .514.
2. What other team on the planet can remove a starter like Daisuke Matsuzaka, 18-3 last year, and insert John ‘friggin’ Smoltz, no resume needed.
3. In the month of June David Ortiz has begun to look normal. While his HR production is still low, he has amassed a .308 average with 5 HR 10 R 12 RBI and an O.P.S of 1,054.

These factors combined with the return of Jed Lowrie, in a couple of weeks, should be enough to bolster the Red Sox, not only through the soft schedule of the next nineteen games, but into the beginning of the second half where the schedule out of the break gets a bit more intimidating, but with the cushion which could be gained in that time it should be clearly manageable.

By the way, over the next couple of weeks TOR plays two series against TB, and one against NY. Someone has to loose those games.

By: Chris Laffey - chris_laffey@comcast.net

LNR: The Fall of McHale, Favre throws at High School...again

Last night around midnight, anyone following Kevin Love on Twitter got the breaking news that Kevin McHale would not be returning as Head Coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves. A unique thing this Twitter is, something I use a lot. Many media outlets use it to blast out breaking news and now the everyday fan can get a break on a story directly from a player before the media hounds jump all over it.

So the story here is that after 16 years with the organization, the Ostrich is gone. Here in Minnesota, we like our local guys, but the release of McHale was over due. He was a great Golden Gopher and had a heralded NBA career with the Boston Celtics, but his front office bafoonarey was just too much. Dan Barriero of KFAN nailed when he said a few years back that McHale is the leader of the Country Club on 1st Ave, and until he's gone, this franchise is stuck in mediocrity.

A couple of years removed from the best player in franchise history being traded away, the Timberwolves now have a new General Manger and no coach. So who will they bring in? Who is capable of leading a team now full of talented young players? My vote goes to former Timberwolf Sam Mitchell. What say you? So say we all!

Sports Five
- Favre threw some passes today at Oak Grove High School, said he threw ok, but ok is not good enough for the NFL. And in case you've never seen Favre toss a football, ESPN even has video of today's exciting session.
- Shaincoe has a lot to say about Favre..... a lot.
- Former 1st round pick (loser) Ryan Leaf arrested at Canadian border.
- US Open starts tomorrow, here's the tee times.
- Steve Aschburner feels the Timberwolves are wrong in firing McHale.

Gaming Five
- Guitar Hero still reviews well, latest title sitting at 86% so far.
- Bioware announces Dragon Age system requirements. Nothing too fancy needed, good for the poor gamer.
- Developer Stardock recommends switching over to Windows 7 as soon as possible to enhance the coming PC titles. Since I'm writing this from my XPS 630 running Win 7, I'm good.
- With Father's Day coming up, IGN has put together a fun list: 10 worst gaming dads.
- Factor 5, the studio that recently filed for bankruptcy, is now getting sued by former employees.

LNR: Real Favre Dealine, Disgust over Stallworth Sentence

Since I didn't get to the Brett Favre HBO interview from last night, I'll hit on that real quick. So what did we learn other than the fact that Mr. Pompous Joe Buck does not deserve a show of his own? Nothing. Joe Buck asked all the questions any of us following this story would have asked, yet he left out the most important and possibly controversial question - Are you trying to join the Vikings in an attempt to stick it to the Packers?

Where were you on that one Joe? It would have been nice to see Favre try dodging that question, but you wussed out. So it's back to knowing what we knew before this piece even aired. Favre still wants to play and will do so if his arm fully recovers from the surgery he had two and a half weeks ago. The only new bit of information he gave was that he turned down Childress' offer to appear at the OTA's in Winter Park. Not because he didn't want to, but be cause he didn't want to start the media circus only to find out that he's not going to recover as he had hoped which would lead to another media circus following that announcement.

This has been covered to death throughout the day, but this tidbit just came out tonight. The Vikings have officially given Favre a deadline - July 29th, which is when the team reports to training camp.

Enough on this for now, on to tonight's Sports Five.

Sports Five
- SI in town to do a story on Joe Mauer and he goes 4-4 tonight. Twins win 8-2 on a strong return performance from Glen Perkins.
- Disgusting story of the day: Donte Stallworth pleads guilty, only gets 30 days in jail. 30 days! Killed a man while driving intoxicated and going well over the speed limit. To put this into perspective, Timberwolves guard Malik Sealy was killed in 2000 by a drunk driver and the driver served four years. Athlete preferential treatment? The ability to buy your way out of a long prison term? You be the judge of that one.
- The Brandon Marshall story is gaining traction as he posts farewell to the Denver fans in his blog.
- Tiger could have a tough time in the US Open this year. Long courses usually give him an advantage, but he's not getting the length he had before the surgery.
- Minnesota Wild no longer coachless, land Minnesota native Todd Richards who promises a open, attacking style of play. Enough for Gaborik to stay? I sure as hell hope so.

The gaming front has slowed down a bit since E3, which is to be expected. I'm still looking for my review copy of Tiger 2010 for the Xbox 360. Anyone?

Gaming Five
- Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters reviews hit everywhere, looking better than average.
- Game Consoles dominate in Web-to-TV delivery.
- Pre-order Madden 2010 at Gamestop to get your exclusive demo.
- Microsoft mum on New Xbox rumors.
- Halo 3 murderer sentenced. May you drop your soap countless times to make up for the bad gaming press you created, asshole.

Favre on HBO's Joe Buck Live tonight

As the entire world has already heard, Favre will be on the debut show of Joe Buck Live tonight (how this selfish, biased tool gets his own show is beyond me). It airs on HBO at 8pm Central Time and I'll blog my thoughts on it in tonight's Late Night Recap. Here's hoping Joe Buck has the balls to ask the tough questions. Surely Favre is going to do all he can to make it sound as if he just wants to play for the love of the game, but we all know he wants to stick it to the Pack - Ted Thompson specifically. I'd be a bit more at ease with him joining the Vikings if he just admitted that.

Book Review: Stephen King's Cell

I remember when Stephen King announced that once his epic journey to the Dark Tower was complete, he would stop writing. This was around 2002 if I remember correctly, and I recall thinking to myself - yeah right, it's what you do man, there's no way you can stop.

I, amongst thousands of others, was correct. Cell was released in 2006 and was the first true signature novel of Stephen King's following The Dark Tower. A guy like him is triggered by the empowering "what if" and Cell is a direct example of that. Like myself, I'm sure Mr. King watches all the "phone crazies" around him - in their car, filling their buggies at the super market, in the elevator, on the plane, on the bus, and on and on. So surely Cell was a direct representation of his people watching.

Cell opens up by paying homage to the king of zombie flicks, George Romero. The pacing of this book in the first third is fast and feels much like a zombie film. As the story progresses however, you come to find that this is no zombie tale at all. I really enjoyed the first third of this book, the character development was fast - which is unusual for King, and his signature imagery was sprinkled throughout.

The story does slow down a bit about half way through as it becomes centered around the main character and his quest to find his son. King did his homework on the technical aspects of this novel and as a IT Professional, I can appreciate that.

This is a fine, enjoyable read for his first true novel following the rigors of The Dark Tower. For King, it's more of what I like to call a popcorn read. I can see this one as being written for the screen and believe it would make for a fine summer movie. I've been a fan of Stephen King since I was kid and he's a writer I look up to and sometimes find trying to emulate in my own fiction. If you're a fan of King's other horror novels, I recommend this one.

PPP Rating: 7.5 out of 10

LNR: StarCraft 2 Beta Update, Childress does more Favre dodging

So it's been a bit too long since the last LNR. My apologies on that, but things happen and unless something changes and I actually start getting paid for this, that's just the way it goes sometimes. But, as you can see, I'm still plugging away and will continue to do so (work and family permitting). I come to you from my hotel room in Chicago tonight where it took me almost five hours to get here thanks to delays at the lovely O'hare aiport. I'm catching up with the stories and here's what's caught my eye in a short time.

Gaming Five
- Blizzard handing out StarCraft 2 beta keys tomorrow? This post says it's 100% confirmed, so where's my key, Blizzard!!??
- Remember Duke Nukem Forever? The game that was supposed to be released before Y2K? Yeah, well here's some new footage, even though I thought 3D Realms mailed it in recently.
- Hey iPhone users, want an addicting game to pull you away from Facebook? Peggle is now 80% off, only costs $1. One dollar! You can't even get a 20 oz. Dew for that price.
- Gears of War 2 PC rumors, according to IGN. Rumors, really? Why? The first one is available on the PC, with an additional act that never hit the 360.
- Overlord II demo has been released for the PC and PS3. It's so fun being evil, isn't it!!??

Sports Five
- Childress dodges more Favre questions..............blah blah blah.
- Crimson Tide Football put on probation, stripped of 21 wins. Ouch.
- Phil Mickleson is hitting 'em well, post wife cancer announcement.
- Red Sox continue domination over the Yankees, improve to 8-0 against them.
- Twins road woes continue, lose 3-0 lead late in the game against Oakland, lose 4-3.

That's it for tonight, here's hoping my trip back the Twin Cities tomorrow goes better than the trip here.

Childress denies Favre dealine, wants him if healthy

If there's a team in the NFL that can turn the sport into a tennis match during the off season, it's the Minnesota Vikings. Brad Childress finally jumped on KFAN this morning to publicly address the situation. You can get the podcast from this mornings Powertrip Morning show here: Childress on Favre

I'm glad to see that he's putting this on hold and giving Favre enough time to recover from last month's surgery. He addressed a question about how Sage and TJack are handling the situation stating, "I'm not worried about their reaction." A pretty bold statement, but he did follow up with this:

"I've talked with Sage and Tarvaris," Childress said. "They're competitors. Do they like any of the conversation? Absolutely not. But they know this: I'm charged with adding and subtracting players from this team to make us better. Every day when I walk into this office, there's not a day that I don't try to look and see if we can't get better at some position. If this is going to make us better down the road, and if this has got a chance to happen, I'm going to take care of the Minnesota Vikings."

It's nice to finally hear him admit that if healthy, he wants Favre. So now we are back to waiting, but at least we now know where the coach and team stand. It's all up to how Favre's recovery goes now.

Childress gives Favre a Deadline, really....why?

As we all know, ESPN reported last night that Brett Favre had surgery on his arm last month. An indication that he's a bit more serious about a return and more than likely to the Vikings than previously thought. Today the Vikings imposed a deadline on Favre, giving him till the end of the week to make a decision. Favre still needs to time to heal to see if this is even going to be possible, so why the deadline now? This is clearly a power move by the Vikings, trying to get Favre to cave in now and possibly sign a one year deal at a lower price. But really, isn't Favre still the one that has the Vikings by the balls? If he calls the Vikings in July and says "Hey guys, my arm feels better now than it has in years, you ready to sign me?" Do you actually think they will turn him down? If they did all Favre would have to say is "Really, who is your starting quarterback right now? You guys really think a TJack/Sage combo is going to get it done in this league?"

Seriously, this deadline is a joke. They are obviously serious about pursuing Favre so it's in their best interest to let him fully recover, bring him in for some throwing tests, and make a decision then. If they are attempting to ease the fragile minds of Sage and Jackson, they screwed the pooch on that one the second they entertained bringing Favre to Minnesota......for the second year in a row.

LNR: The E3 Madness has begun

E3 2009 has officially kicked off with the Microsoft, EA, and Ubisoft conferences all completed and the web a complete buzz over it. Tomorrow will be the Nintendo and Sony Press Conferences followed by the three day mayhem of non-stop game previews from the show room floors. Late Night Recap will be a bit more gaming centered all week due to E3 so the usual five stories will be a bit expounded on. Here's what caught my eye so far.

- Assassin's Creed 2 Cinematic Trailer.
- Mass Effect 2 Impressions and Screenshots.
- Madden NFL 10 Online Franchise details.
- Left 4 Dead 2 announced and dated.
- Facebook and Twitter to invade Xbox 360, life will never be the same for some.
- Red Steel 2 looks more than promising and will be bundled with Wii MotionPlus.
- Metal Gear Solid: Rising announced for the Xbox 360. Conflicting reports state that it may also be coming to the PS3 and PC.
- Star Wars: The Old Republic Cinematic trailer........wow!
- Modern Warfare 2 Demo footage.
- Halo Reach announced, multiplayer beta to be included with the upcoming Halo 3: ODST.
- The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition announced. Second title to follow and here's hoping all the great point and click adventures from back in the day many of us came to love get a nice rework like this.
- Lego Harry Potter 1-4 announced and why not, everything else is getting Legoized these days.
- Guitar Hero 5 band list revealed. More Megadeth and Iron Maiden, ftw!

That's enough for tonight and there's plenty of other action to follow on all the gaming sites out there these days. I'll have more links tomorrow so check back and I'll try to include a Vikings update, but there just isn't much going on right now other than the Wildcat formation.