EVERYBODY HAS THE "DROPSIES"

There are a lot of things getting dropped these days:

** The Red Sox dropped Bobby Valentine. Actually, this was more of a case of not dropping him soon enough. I didn't think he'd make it thru July, but he did. Perhaps the Sox would have done a lot better if they had replaced him, but then we wouldn't have had "The E-Mail," the "Team Meeting," the denials and more denials. At least the drama kept a lot of comedians working.

** The Marlins dropped Ozzie Guillen, finally. This was another move that everyone knew about last July, everyone but owner Jeffery Loria. Once Guillen expressed his misplaced admiration for Fidel Castro, there was no place for him to hide. The Marlins also fired hitting coach, Joey Cora. Why did he get the boot? Did he praise Che Guevara while my back was turned? Loria can't be surprised at this. When you light a firecracker, why would you be surprised when it goes off?

** Cardinal Shortstop Pete Kozma dropped the ball. He dropped a lot of them. Has a shortstop ever had such a bad game in a playoff situation? In 1925 World Series, Washington Senator shortstop Roger Peckinpaugh committed 8 errors, but it took him all 7 games. Kozma was only charged with one error, but he really misplayed at least 4 different balls in that game. And, in what must be considered karma, the ball seemed to find him in every critical situation. The only consolation is that Pete wasn't a Yankee. If this had happened to a Yankee SS, his picture would have been on posters all over the city, inside a circle with a diagonal line through it.
Did anyone notice that Tim McCarver, explained one play where Kozma took one step the wrong way on a ground ball, by saying the runner at second, Pablo Sandoval, may have shielded the ball from Kozma. Replays showed that Sandoval was actually heading back to second and wasn't anywhere near the ground ball, and McCarver was quick to correct him...wait, no, he never did.

AND THE BEAT GOES ON
Things that we don't need to see:
Valentine is gone, but he still can't keep his mouth shut. Now he's saying that David Oriz "refused" to play after he came off the DL with his achilles injury. Bobby says that Ortiz saw that the Sox weren't going to compete after the big trade with the Dodgers, so he just didn't want to play. Now what good does that statement do except trash another player and team leader on the team. No one has ever questioned Ortiz' commitment to the Red Sox (or Youkilis, either), but Valentine seems intent on blaming everybody but his own inability on the teams collapse. I hope we've seen the last of him.

Another former Red Sox icon is in the news, also. World Series hero Carlton Fisk, has been charged with DUI, after law enforcement officers found him asleep in his car with an empty whiskey bottle on the floor. 
There may have been a lot of good explanations for those things, but it's hard to explain why the car was found in a cornfield at the time. Fisk, who was celebrated for his "body english,"  couldn't quite sell this one to the officers.

SOMEBODY'S GOT SOME 'SPLAININ' TO DO
When you read the scouting reports on the Tigers and the Giants, the consensus is that the Tigers have the best pitching and the best lineup, you have to wonder why they only won 88 games in the regular season.
Because the Tigers are in the Series, we risk having a team with less than 90 wins being declared MLB's best team for the second year in a row.I'll never get used to this.

THEY SAID IT
" Owner Jerry Jones says he believes the Cowboys can win the Super Bowl this year. That's an even bigger stretch than his last facelift."  -- RJ Currie
"According to SciTechDaily.com, the brain is constantly making decisions you don’t know about or can't understand. Especially if the brain belongs to your wife."  -- RJ Currie
"Not that the Yankees are trying to get rid of Alex Rodriguez or anything, but rival GMs are suddenly getting baseballs in the mail with the Yankees' phone number scrawled on them."  -- Dwight Perry
"Justin Verlander, the Tigers' ace pitcher, has a glaring weakness after all: He's 0 for 33 lifetime as a big-league hitter. Which is kind of like complaining that Brooklyn Decker doesn't like to cook."  -- Dwight Perry
"The Miami Marlins have fired manager Ozzie Guillen. So congrats to all those who had October 23 in the pool."  -- Janice Hough
"Alex Rodriguez was benched for Game 3 of the series between the Yankees and Tigers and was seen flirting with women in the crowd from the bench. Coaches weren't worried. They know A-Rod always has trouble scoring in the playoffs."  -- Jim Barach
"NYY infielder Pay-Rod hit .120 in this year’s playoffs. However, his average for hitting on female fans behind the Yanks dugout was reportedly .625."  -- TC Chong
 "Close to 20,000 Husker fans attended the game at Northwestern. Some had such good seats that they felt like A-Rod at the ALCS."  -- Brad Dickson

BRAD DICKSON'S BOTTOM TEN
2. Akron (1-7): The Zips are now playing for pride. And when you’re called the Zips and are 1-7, there’s not much of that left either.
 5. Kansas (1-6): Kansas was blown out by Oklahoma. To their credit, after watching footage of Oklahoma’s 63-21 win over Texas, most of the Jayhawks still showed up for the game.

CP-