NateGrey

.. Ouch ..

.. Classic to the 5th power .. ..

.. Ellsbury & Hansen for Lidge? .. Umm, no thanks ..

.. Wouldn't shock me if we had Jones in our lineup before the trade deadline ..

.. Hope it comes out on the Wii ..

.. http://images.nfl.com/photos/img6880458.jpg Continuing the wholesale overhaul of their wide receiver corps, the New England Patriots on Monday reached a contract agreement with unrestricted free agent Kelley Washington, who played the first four seasons of his career with the Cincinnati Bengals. The deal can be for as many as five years, with a maximum value of $22 million, but is also structured so that it could be as short as just one season. Washington will receive a signing bonus of $300,000. As is the case with the six-year contract agreed to with New England by wide receiver Donte Stallworth on Sunday, the Patriots must pick up an option payment to retain the speedy Washington beyond the 2007 season. It is believed that payment is $4 million. "I am happy to be a part of such a great franchise, and to have the opportunity to help the Patriots get back and win another Super Bowl," Washington said. "The privilege to play with arguably one of the best quarterbacks of all time, Tom Brady, and to be coached by someone like Bill Belichick is a blessing. I am very excited about contributing to the New England Patriots." Washington also had a contract offer from the Miami Dolphins. One of the most active franchises in the early free agent market, the Patriots have been particularly aggressive in rebuilding a wide receiver corps that was a major disappointment in 2006. In addition to signing Stallworth and Washington, the Patriots acquired restricted wide receiver Wes Welker from the Dolphins last week for second- and seventh-round choices in this year's draft. The gamble on Washington is a solid one, given that the Patriots appear to have made a fairly modest initial investment for a player who has enormous physical upside if he can stay healthy and play to his potential. Washington, 27, is a big, speedy wide receiver whose career has been stalled by a series of injuries at both the college and professional levels. The former University of Tennessee wideout played only one full season for the Volunteers before leaving school early for the 2003 draft. A third-round choice of the Bengals in 2003, he has 72 receptions for 893 yards and nine touchdowns in 44 games, including six starts. His best season was in 2004, when Washington registered 31 receptions for 378 yards and three touchdowns. ..... > http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2795771 ..... .. :thumbsup: ..

.. http://www.sportsnet.ca/images/nfl/phi/stallworth_donte_hor.jpg The Patriots continued their offseason spending spree, adding wide receiver Donte' Stallworth to their 2007 haul, a league source told ESPN.com's Michael Smith. Stallworth will sign a six-year contract. The deal is believed to be worth a little more that $30 million with close to $12 million guaranteed, the source told Smith. Stallworth, who played last season in Philadelphia after being acquired from the New Orleans Saints, also was being courted by the Eagles, Dolphins and Titans. Stallworth, 28, had 38 catches for 725 yards and five touchdowns for the Eagles in 2006. A first-round choice of the Saints in the 2002 draft, he has 233 career receptions for 3,516 yards and 28 touchdowns in 68 games, including 44 starts. League and union officials are investigating a Philadelphia Inquirer report that Stallworth is in the NFL's substance-abuse program, sources from both parties told ESPN.com's Len Pasquarelli. Citing unnamed sources, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported Monday that Stallworth is a participant in the league program, and that he could be subject to suspension if he suffered a repeat violation of its conditions. The newspaper also reported that a breach of the program's confidentiality agreement can warrant a league fine, and NFL and NFL Players Association officials began to seek out possible sources for the leak on Monday. The Patriots have been busy this offseason, adding coveted linebacker Adalius Thomas, ranked No. 2 on ESPN.com's list of free agents, as well as Dolphins kick returner/receiver Wes Welker, tight end Kyle Brady and backup running back Sammy Morris. ..... > http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2794615 ..... .. :thumbsup: ..

.. Good times !! .. :thumbsup: .. .. AT vid: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6619100303747361776&q=adalius+thomas ..

.. Chris Smith has a filthy chg ..

.. Damn you !! .. Damn you to the most remote corner of hell !! .. ..

.. Schill should STFU & concentrate on this season .. Geesh, I love him for what he did in O4 & all but holy f***s ..

.. .. !Manny being Manny! .. http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2007/02/26/1172508199_4933.jpg http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2007/02/26/1172508329_8555.jpg http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2007/02/26/1172508329_5687.jpg http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2007/02/26/1172507063_1475-1.jpg http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2007/02/26/1172508793_5003.jpg http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2007/02/26/1172507505_9718.jpg http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2007/02/26/1172507063_3356-1.jpg ..... .. :thumbsup: ..

.. Manny arrives Outfielder Manny Ramirez showed up at Red Sox spring training camp in Fort Myers this morning, three days earlier than he said he would. He arrived with agents Greg Genske and Gene Matosis, and is on his way to take his physical. A Sox official said Ramirez is not going to speak with the media. No word on whether Manny will work out today. > http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/extras/extra_bases/ .....

.. Need 1 more? ..

.. Japanese holiday ..

.. Yahoo or ESPN? ..

.. http://espn-att.starwave.com/i/magazine/new/brady_bridget.jpg February 18, 2007 -- BRIDGET Moynahan, the star of ABC's "Six Degrees," is expecting and the father is New England Patriot All-Pro quarterback Tom Brady, although the couple is no longer together. Moynahan, 36, is more than three months along and "healthy and excited" about the impending arrival, said her spokeswoman, Christina Padadopoulos. She and Brady dated for two years before breaking up in December. "They were both very focused on their careers," a pal told the Boston Globe at the time of the split. "She was putting a lot into 'Six Degrees,' he into the Patriots. It was just really hard to make it work." Brady, 29, has lately been seen squiring around supermodel Gisele Bundchen, 26, and was spotted coming and going from the Brazilian bombshell's SoHo apartment building. Bundchen, in turn, was seen hanging around the Patriots' locker room after a game last month. This will be the first child for both Moynahan and Brady, whose bid to reach a fourth Super Bowl was cut short last month by another star QB, the Colts' Peyton Manning. Brady busied himself in a courtroom Friday, drawing a standing-room-only crowd as he testified on behalf of his former mentor, current Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis, who is suing over a botched gastric-bypass surgery. ..... > http://www.nypost.com/seven/02182007/news/columnists/its_brady_baby_for_sixy_star_columnists_liz_smith.htm .....

.. Matsuzaka slated for spring debut FORT MYERS, Fla. -- The countdown to Daisuke Matsuzaka's official Major League debut can begin. Red Sox manager Terry Francona revealed Sunday that Matsuzaka will make his Spring Training debut against Boston College on March 2. The right-hander is expected to pitch in the second of two split-squad games, scheduled for 6:05 p.m. ET at City of Palms Park. The 26-year-old Matsuzaka arrived in Fort Myers, Fla., on Monday night for his first Spring Training with the Red Sox after eight professional seasons in Japan. "I've played in Japan for eight years, but it's my rookie year, my first year here in the United States and in the Major Leagues, so I would stay humble," Matsuzaka said in his first formal Fort Myers press briefing on Thursday. Matsuzaka, along with the other four projected starters, is among the pitchers scheduled for the first mound session of the spring Sunday morning at the Player Development Complex. ..... > http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070218&content_id=1806096&vkey=news_bos&fext=.jsp&c_id=bos .....

.. Stallworth? http://images.nfl.com/photos/img9651031.jpg ..... > http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/sports/16702535.htm ..... .. Yes/No? .. :dunno: ..

.. This is pure comedy .. .. Joba Chamberlain who according to BP is a very good prospect yet they rate Daniel Bard a "good prospect" .. .. .. Like I said, pure comedy ..

.. http://espn.go.com/photo/2007/0210/nic20.jpg The Nicaraguan pitcher with a Jamaican inflection and British surname sat in his airy Toronto five-star hotel room this past September, took a deep breath and looked down at his dark, flexed forearms. "A Pearl Lagoon boy is here," Red Sox pitcher Devern Hansack said. "I can't believe I'm here." You can't fault his amazement, since the past year lifted Hansack from obscure pitcher playing pro ball in Nicaragua to major leaguer on the last day of the season at Fenway Park, no-hitting the Orioles for five rain-shortened innings. It was Craig Shipley, Boston's vice president of international and pro scouting, who spotted the 27-year-old Hansack in the fall of 2005 in Holland pitching for the Nicaraguan national team. Hansack had been released by the Astros in 2003, and went unsigned until Shipley gave him a $3,000 bonus. Hansack went on to become the Red Sox's Double-A pitcher of the year while living in a Dominican fan's basement apartment in Portland, Maine. Now Hansack, at 29 and with a wicked slider and a mid-90s fastball, has got an outside chance of winning the closer's job for the Red Sox. It might be a long shot, but so is Hansack. "Boston signed me and gave me a second chance," Hansack says. "I can tell any young guy who wants to do something, there's a second chance. Just put your mind to it." In late January Hansack invited The Magazine on a wild trip back to his hometown, where most people speak English with a Jamaican lilt. "I think he lives in the middle of nowhere," Red Sox PR director John Blake told me when I asked in early January about finding Hansack. "It may be difficult." It was. From Cessna airplane to motorized canoe to Pearl Lagoon, the journey isn't for the weak. ********** Not many make it out of Pearl Lagoon, a town of over 7,000 whose ancestry is a mix of Jamaican and African slaves, British occupiers and indigenous tribes that inhabit the surrounding cays on Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast. For people in the second-poorest Latin American nation (Haiti is first), money and commerce are sparse. The people of Pearl Lagoon are extremely poor, but they, unlike their inland countrymen, are people of the sea. The water is the lifeline in this fishing community, where most men begin fetching lobster, shrimp, snapper, catfish and shark, among others, when they are young boys. They are proud too, of their heritage. Inherent racism thrives in all Latin countries, but the language difference and remote locale of Nicaragua's Costa Atlantica adds to the segregation. The Coast traditionally has been exclusively black; only recently, pockets of Mestizo and Spanish-speaking people have migrated from interior parts of the country. Hansack's agent, Evelio Areas -- who is from Managua, the country's capital -- quips that Hansack speaks Spanish "with a gringo accent." But Areas is serious when he says that Pearl Lagoon, "is a whole different country. I'm Nicaraguan and it was a foreign land when I went." Hansack isn't sure from whom he descends, but his roots are firmly ensconced in baseball. Situated right behind the scoreboard in center field is Hansack's house. He was born next to the baseball field, and lived it his entire life. He still hasn't left.... -Continue- ..... .. ..

.. http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2007/02/14/1171482071_6616.jpg Red Sox pitchers Craig Hansen (left) and Manny Delcarmen (right) threw in the bullpen area Wednesday http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2007/02/14/1171478508_9532.jpg Red Sox pitchers Manny Delcarmen (front) and Jonathan Papelbon (rear) threw at the same time as they worked in the bullpen area Wednesday morning. http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2007/02/14/1171478508_8052.jpg Some Red Sox pitchers (including Jonathan Pabelpon, center, with high white socks and sporting the new red hat the team will be using for parts of spring training), catchers, and younger position players who are already in camp loosened up before working out Wednesday. http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2007/02/14/1171478508_1838.jpg Workers prepared some mounds in the foreground as pitchers threw in the other bullpen areas. http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2007/02/14/1171478508_7447.jpg Bennie Ruffin pulled the tarp off of home plate on a practice field. ..... .. good times .. :thumbsup: ..

.. http://www.baseballagent.com.au/Players_News_Pages/Harriott20.jpg A few years ago in the Bankstown Junior Association Annual report a reference was made to 15yr old David Harriott. "Look out for David's name in years to come. It doesnt matter to David if he has a bat or a ball in his hand - it was always 100%". The report finished with the following:- "Can I have your autograph now David - It will save me asking in a few years". Its to be hoped that the writer got his autograph as David will soon be out of the country for much of the year, making America his new home. Ft Myers in Florida to be specific, spring training home of the famous Boston Red Sox who is David's new employer. http://www.baseballagent.com.au/Players_News_Pages/Harriott21.jpg Jon Deeble the Red Sox scout who covers the whole pacific rim for the recent World Champions had seen David at the MLB Academy on the Gold Coast and liked his attitude and quick strong arm. "When I saw him on the mound with his strong arm and long legs I was immediately interested", said the veteran scout who is building up the Red Sox involvement with Australians. Having that former Aussie Major League pioneer Craig Shipley as his boss certainly helps. Like most Australians, David started at the T Ball level having been taken down to the tryouts by a friend up the road. "I started in the Bankstown U6's and played with them all the way up to the U16's."he said from his Yagoona West home following his signing. "I played in every single Bankstown Rep team at the U12; U14 and U16 level." He now plays for the Canterbury/Bankstown Major League club under veteran coach Barry Holland. His weekend performances on the mound for the U18's are intermingled with time in 1st grade mid week - the nursery for so many recently signed players such as Shaun Tabrett; Josh Wells and Gavin Dlouhy. His first experience of the life of the traveling baseballer occurred in 2002 when he went on trips to Osaka with the NSW U12 juniors and also to Melbourne to participate in an U12 rubber ball tournament. His next overseas trip will be next month to Ft Myers. He traveled regularly after that with the Winter Development Squad that is one of the innovative programs in NSW for elite players. One of the highlights of the Winter Development visits to QLD was a visit to the MLB Academy and David was inspired to work hard towards getting a scholarship. His State representative career began as it so often does for the elite athlete with the NSW U14's in 2004, then two years with the NSW U16's and finally this year as a bottom age U18 in Geelong where Jon Deeble noted his pitching potential. It was when he was in the U16 NSW team that he came into contact with pitching coach Rob McLean who has been responsible for developing so many young NSW pitchers. Rob spent many hours working on David's action and this signing is a result of Rob's patience and David's determination to perfect his action. Last year, following his success with the NSW U16's in Mt Gambier he gained scholarships to both the NSW Institute of Sport under Andre Desjardin who proved a hard task master and emphasised the need for regular gym work and increased fitness and also the prestigious MLB Academy. He has dreamed of baseball as a career for as long as he could remember. "Being with Boston of all clubs is the most amazing thing that could have happened. I watch them on TV and now to be part of them is fantastic". On the 1st March he will travel to Ft Myers along with TIm Cox and Mitch Denning, both from NSW, to his 1st spring training, returning to Australia in June to attend the MLB Academy again. This time he will not have to pay to go there and will receive his rookie ball salary whilst he is there. In the meantime he's practising his signature for all those baseballs that will need to be signed. The writer of that Bankstown Juniors annual report can consider himself smarter than the rest with his early request for an autograph. ..... > http://www.baseballagent.com.au/Players_News_Pages/Harriott.htm .....

.. How about a shoutbox? ..