Red Tide Rising

The Red Raiders and Longhorns finally supplied a legitimate game between this year's alleged top football teams. Previous attempts by Ohio State-USC, Florida-Georgia, etc. resulted in one-sided affairs.

It's a shame that by winning on a last-second touchdown, Texas Tech probably hindered the chances of an entertaining national championship.

Expect Alabama (who beat up on non-conference foe Arkansas State) and Penn State (idle) to ascend to the top spots in the BCS standings. Alabama has a rugged SEC schedule left, as well as a potential SEC title game. Meanwhile, Penn State has Iowa, Indiana and Michigan State. Only the Spartans have a winning record in the mediocre Big Ten.

Can't wait for the BCS Blowout Part III where the Big Ten representative gets taken behind the woodshed by a team from below the Mason-Dixon Line. Sweet.

Getting Their Phill

The Phillies are champions of baseball ... wow ... did not expect to say that on Opening Day 2008.

Some fun things to think about in brief.

• Point of criticism that will be debated tomorrow: Joe Maddon elects to let J.P. Howell hit and keeps him in to face Pat Burrell, fearing a left-hander throwing sliders to the right-handed slugger will end badly. Well, letting the righty Howell go didn't help much. Burrell doubled, leading to the game-winning run.

Was it the wrong move? No way to tell. But if it were me, I'd want the ball in the hand of the guy with the best stuff. David Price is that guy.

• If you're one of the people lauding Francisco Rodriguez for the American League MVP, you better be voting for Brad Lidge on the NL ballot.

Lidge: 92 Ks, a 1.95 ERA and 41 saves in 41 opportunities. If it weren't for Lidge, the Phillies would not have even been in the playoffs, topping the Mets by just 3 games. The Angels cruised in on a 21 game cushion. And I know the postseason doesn't count, but come on.

• 25-year-old Cole Hamels received the World Series MVP trophy, but made his first mistake of the postseason — revealing his wife's age (30?!?!) on national television. Just give her the car keys to that newly-won Camaro, Cole, and you might make even it back into the house tonight.

• Why do network anchors get to serve as emcees for the postseason celebration? They're usually painfully awkward and tonight was no exception.

• Interesting choice of words by Phils' manager Charlie Manuel during the post game interview: "I thought we could beat anyone in our league." Unsaid by Charlie Manuel: "But since I'm sane, at no time did I ever think we could beat someone from the American League."

Remember Me?

I wish I could say that there was some sort of thematic basis for my hiatus from this blog — say, solidarity with Major League Baseball's tough, but correct, call to suspend Game 5 of the World Series — but alas, it's just a lot of work getting in the way.

Rather than try to catch you up on all of the news I missed, let's start fresh, eh?

The World Series actually does resume tonight (we think) after a 46-hour mid-inning intermission. The debate is already raging as to whether or not Bud Selig and Co. made the right decision.

It's not clear cut. There's no way that the World Series should be decided with an abbreviated game. However, the rule on the book states that games count after five-and-a-half innings. The conditions seemed to deteriorate into the "unplayable" category between that time and when the Rays tied the score in the top of the sixth inning, leading Philly fans — and strict interpreters of the Constitution — to believe Major League Baseball was continuing play so as not to give the Phillies a rain-shortened win.

Two things strike me about this scenario. 1.) This has never happened before? Really? What are the odds of that. 2.) MLB has screwed up a lot of things (see: Steroids, tied All-Star Games, Astro Turf, over expansion ... ) but this was not one of them. The title of your sport should be decided on a field by players and not by Doppler 8000 radar.

***

In the NHL, the Washington Caps stumbled a bit over their Western Conference swing, losing at Calgary and Phoenix before picking up an OT win against Dallas. Washington returned home and snagged a shootout win against Nashville last night, despite the absence of Alex Ovechkin. Ovechkin, who has struggled to start the season, with only 2 G, returned home to Moscow to be with his ailing grandfather.

Alexander Semin stepped in just fine, dealing with Nashville's top defensive line and pairing to notch a goal and an assist and potting a goal in the shootout. Semin is on fire, probably because he's playing with some desire this season. Last year's run to the playoffs certainly seemed to ignite Semin's drive, leading the Russian sniper to skate hard after loose pucks and play the body in the series against the Flyers. Prior to last season Semin sometimes sleepwalked through games. Not this year. And if opponents choose to snooze on him, they're going to get burned.

The play of goalie Jose Theodore has caused some concern, but, as I discuss in tomorrow's FCNP Splinters, I'm not too worried ... yet. It's early and there are a lot of top tier goalies struggling right now ... including the much-adored Cristobal Huet, who manned the crease for the Caps' miracle run last year.

A bigger problem has been some spotty play by the Caps defense. Washington's back-enders have been missing a few checks at their own blue line and, worse, have been slow to pick up open attackers trolling the front of the net. The eventual return of Tom Poti will help a lot, but I'm still waiting for them to call up Karl Alzner.

The Caps are scraping the salary cap limit, which is what kept Alzner in the AHL out of training camp, but from what I've seen, his play has been vastly superior to what Tyler Sloan has shown so far (and that's no knock on Sloan or his great story of determination). I even think Alzner was better than John Erskine, though shockingly the Caps extended him for two more years lately. My quick analysis based on the signing? Alzner will be in Washington for sure next season. Shaone Morrisonn, whom will likely be due another raise after winning his arbitration case this summer, will not. Again, that's based on nothing, but losing Morrisonn would be a disappointing cap casualty.