Ray Guy a Finalist for the Hall of Fame

Long overdue.

He was the punter for the Raiders, and hands down the best punter in the history of the NFL. But is a punter worthy of the Hall of Fame? That's a hard call. Is Ray Guy worthy of the Hall of Fame? A slightly different question, and one that leads more to an affirmative answer. I don't know if he's got a legitimate shot or not. I thought the list looked relatively weak, but there are some star names on it and of the names on the list,

"Dent, Grimm, Guy, Hickerson, Irvin, Kuechenberg, Monk, Derrick Thomas, Thurman Thomas, Wehrli, and Zimmerman have all been finalists in previous years."

So those guys might be favored. But hey, at least Ray Guy has a chance.

Reds moves

Schoenweiss went to the Mets. I liked that guy, so that's sad.

The Reds got infielder Jeff Keppinger from the Royals in exchange for pitcher Russ Haltiwanger. Most of Kepp's time was in the minors and he put up decent numbers. Still don't know what the need is, but Haltiwanger I've never heard of, and he may not amount to much. The roster move bothers me as Kepp coming in meant Ray Olmedo is out. I like Ray. He works hard and is a fast guy. A good worker. Looks like he might not be around anymore, which is sad.

Shawn says it's no biggie.

Mama says she might miss Olmedo. I hope he doesn't leave!!!

Tom wonders what the crap is going on, and factors Brendan Harris into the equation.

Not big news. Just stuff.

Blues 3, Devils 2

This one was pretty dang embarassing. I mean, it wasn't a bad game, just a team that is so dang easy to beat.

The scary part? John F called this game. He said that the Devils should rest Brodeur for this game with Marty needed for the big ones coming up. That was evident when Brodeur was not on top of his game, as Clemmensen could have given up 3 goals and it would have been expected. It just seemed that this game was pissed away when it could have been salvaged, pardon my language there. Also, John F called it when he said the Devils have a disturbing trend of playing down to the level of their competition and waiting for them to act so they can simply react. Maybe I made up that last part, but it seemed to make sense. Anyway, both of those things were key factors in the game. So congrats to that man because he nailed it. Sadly, he nailed two key negative things, and when negative things happen, negativity happens and then you lose to a crappy team like the Blues. Ah well.

The weird part? One of the kids on my dorm floor is in love with the St. Louis Blues. We talked the first couple weeks of school back in August and then haven't really talked since. He came in my room LAST NIGHT to use my microwave and then heard the hockey game on the radio and checked it out for a while as the Blues won. It was annoying, but at least he wasn't in my face about it. It's just weird because the Devils hardly ever play the Blues. Incredibly weird timing.

Sad game. We'll get over it.

Mavericks 99, Blazers 74

Bad. Poor. Not fun.

You'd think I was describing the Portland TrailBlazers, and in a way, I am. But I was actually describing the Mavericks. They played this game pretty poorly almost all the way through, and they still wind up with a 25-point win. This is the stuff of legend. The defense clamped down and the Blazers couldn't hit the broadside of a universe last night. It's nice to know that when the Mavs don't look that great, they can still pull it off in convincing fashion.

Nowitzki was a non-factor, as Jason Terry and Josh Howard led the way, with their modest contributions of 20 and 17 points respectively. 3-pointers was the story of this game as they helped the Mavs pull away at key times, and kept the Blazers from getting anywhere close. Dallas was 10 for 16, as Devean George went on his usual 0 for whatever night, this time only 0 for 1. What is up with that guy? It seems I check the box scores and George has maybe a few points, but mostly has no points and shoots tons of 3's and doesn't make any of them. It's kind of annoying. I guess they pay him to play defense. I'll take that. Anyway, Portland didn't make a single 3-pointer. And they shot it 11 times. Wow. Hardly ever will you see a stat like that. It certainly helped the Mavs win, and contributed to the team shooting under 40% for the game. Sad. The Mavs barely won the rebounding matchup, but they did thanks to Dampier who played a huge chunk of time in this one. Still only came away with 2 points, but whatever.

Not a biggie. A game they couldn't lose. And by that, I mean it was impossible for them to lose. They sort of tried for a while, but realized it wouldn't be a great idea.