Wednesday Items

Sorry for the missed update on Tuesday, but just didn't have time to put it up.

The Favre Saga, still, is the big story of the day. The main rumor is that he'll be traded to Tampa Bay by the end of the day. Please just let this end.

The big story of my day on Monday was when F.C. Barcelona kicked us off our softball field in order to practice in Central Park. The team is in town to play the New York Red Bulls of MLS, well, fame is the wrong word, but they're part of Major League Soccer. Pretty cool to see Thierry Henry warming up in the park a few feet away. Dude's got his own Gillette commercial, in the States, so you know he's legit. Goals like these help too.

Funniest anecdote came when some kids started giddily sprinting toward the team and one of them, wrapped in an F.C. Barcelona flag, yells to his cohorts, "Guys! Don't Make a Scene!" Good call, flag boy, keep it subtle.

Manny Being Mangled? Okay, so it's Manny Parra and not Ramirez, but whatever. The Brewers' Prince Fielder took issue with Tuesday's starting pitcher and shoved him repeatedly in the dugout before teammates separated the two. Actually, that's a little inaccurate. They stopped the rather gargantuan Fielder from throwing Parra repeatedly into the bench, while Parra flopped like a shell-shocked doll.

This is the sort of reaction I was looking for after the Brewers getting swept at home by the Cubs. This isn't necessarily the beginning of the end for Milwaukee, this doesn't mean the clubhouse is going to explode in frustration or hold grudges (it's a guy thing). In fact, this could light a fire and get the team moving forward again. This is another turning point for their season, let's see where the Brewers go now.

Some final thoughts:

• Francisco Rodriguez is takes himself completely out of fielding position with his follow through. Why don't more people bunt against him?

• What exactly was that thing the Clay Buchholz was wearing around his neck on Monday and how much did it cost at the Denny's salad bar? (On review: Guess it's not made of foliage, but it sure looked that way on TV.)

• David Cone admitted on Monday while broadcasting the Yankees-Rangers game on YES that when he pitched he had some "sticky stuff" on his person, crediting notorious ball doctor Gaylord Perry for the tips. Does this affect anyone's perception of David Cone? Should it?

• Interviewed Garrett Dutton, better known as G. Love, for "Press Pass" this week. A snippet that didn't make the final piece:

Hume: You've always been known for your distinctive style. Who are some other artists you think are breaking ground with their sound these days?

Dutton: I really like Jack White. I have a lot of respect for him. We both have a lot of traditional blues in our recordings and live show and really appreciate it. I think he's a pretty visionary guy. I think Jack Johnson is also a visionary and groundbreaking musician. Even though, on the outside, it seems like he's not doing anything very hard, as a musician he's able to make a stadium full of people sing everyone of his words. Not too many people of our generation have been able to do that. Dave Matthews, maybe? But I think people go to sing along at a Jack Johnson show. I think hip-hop is where a lot of pretty groundbreaking production stuff is going on. And I guess Radiohead is pretty groundbreaking but I've never really listened to them.

I'm not going to joke around, my manager wanted to release Lemonade as a free digital release like a year before they did that and I definitely saw the power in it. But the reason it was so groundbreaking was because they're going to sell a million copies, whereas if we did that we only would have sold like 150,000 copies, so it wouldn't have been in Time Magazine, you know?

• I know I haven't written about much TV of late, but let's face it, when your girlfriend is reduced to watching Project Runway reruns, the pickings are pretty slim. When the fall arrives, I'll have more. And no, I'm not afraid to start with Gossip Girl.