Football

In the early fall of 2001, New York was rocked by the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.  In one hour and forty three minutes, the tallest buildings in Manhattan had gone from glistening beacons of American achievement to a mass grave for three thousand innocent people. 

All anybody’s talking about in the New York area is the Islanders’ first regulation win over the Rangers (though Jimmy Rollins predicted it on Monday). You can’t walk down the street without somebody stopping you and asking all about the hockey team from Long Island.

Will they get on a roll? Is John Tavares the real deal? Islanders, Islanders, Islanders!

In the last 96 hours, we have witnessed the Phillies advancing to their second World Series. As many years—and with an Eagles loss to a team run by a man who still uses an overhead projector at press conferences—never has it been more clear.

The Phillies are everything the Eagles are not.

Today is why football will never touch baseball as far as greatest sport goes. Football has it’s moments...on Sundays. Today there is nothing on again until Sunday. That’s too many days without a game being played for me to really get into it.

Last night was Monday July the 13th. We managed to have a night where seven of the

best home run hitters in baseball and Brandon Inge got together in an attempt to put on a power display where batting practice pitchers grooved balls at 70—75 MPH and in turn the likes of Pujols, Fielder, Cruz, and Howard deposited them deep into the St. Louis sky.

Long gone are the days of being a plumber by day, baller by night. Whether that 'baller' be basket, foot, golf, or otherwise related, the players are paid too much.

Now, when someone sees an NFL player getting paid less than $1,000,000 per year, they say "wow, he's getting screwed."

It never should have come to this. The money and commercialized culture of sports will be the death of the selfless athlete.

Remember when all an athlete needed to be happy was a ring, trophy, or medal?

Neither do I.

If an NFL or MLB team ever needed a player, who do they look for? They go into the Twins or Vikings organizations.

Through the years, Minnesota franchises have done very well in bringing up great players only to let them walk and become superstars in other places.

Most notable is David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox.

For six years, the Twins groomed Ortiz to be their designated hitter. After his best season with the team in 2002 where he hit 20 home runs and 75 RBI's, they let him go to the Red Sox.

I’m about to embark on a 10-day trip back home to Virginia, which means keeping up with the Seattle Mariners will be as difficult as if they were playing on Mars. No ESPN highlights, no box scores in the paper, no asking anyone about last night’s game, no nothing.

Sure, there’s the Internet for all that information, but I truly believe my parents’ computer is powered by a small rodent, making easy access to late-game action almost impossible, and me mostly out of the loop for one of the most important stretches of the season.

Earlier this week, the Lakers NBA Championship moved me to put together a system to rank the best teams of the 2000s decade. While creating a list of the best, I also came up with a list of the worst.

For reasoning behind my methodology, see my article on the Top 10 Teams of the Decade (http://bleacherreport.com/articles/205182-the-top-10-teams-of-the-decade...).

Here is a quick recap of how the scoring works.

A team loses one point for every year they finished below .500 in the MLB, NFL and NBA, and for each non-playoff team in the NHL since there is not really a .500 mark.

Lou Kusserow (CREDIT: Columbia Athletics)