This Day In Sports - May 11th - extended edition

1928 -- Walter Hagen shoots a 292 at Royal St George's to win 63rd British Open.
1972 -- Giants trade Willie Mays to Mets for pitcher Charlie Williams and cash.
1990 -- NY Yankees trade Dave Winfield to Angels for Mike Witt.
*From SI.com




NFL
More conflicting reports regarding the debacle that has become Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings. The latest information comes to us from Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com. Yahoo! Sports is saying that Favre has declined the Vikings offer, end of story. At the same time ESPN is claiming that their sources are telling them the Vikings have received X-rays from camp Favre and further decisions are pending on examination of Favre's current health. Florio dug a little deeper and got in contact with Mark Pesavento, Assistant Managing Editor of Yahoo! Sports. Pesavento made the fatal flaw of talking with Florio on the record before he realized that Florio would run with the story. Pesavento and Yahoo! Sports are sticking to their guns and claiming that they have again confirmed that their report that Favre will stay retired is accurate and their source, who is highly placed within the Vikings organization and Bus Cook (Favre's agent) have confirmed such things. Pesavento told Florio, “I don’t want to come off as defensive, but since we’re talking about the reporting of this story, please hear me out: Despite what [ESPN’s Jeremy] Schaap reported (something other media outlets have latched onto), we know there were no X-rays sent to Minnesota. Our (highly-placed and very reliable) Vikings source told us so and Bus Cook has since confirmed that." CLICK HERE for more on this story.

With ESPN and Yahoo! Sports going at it, the rest of the media world has been relatively quiet. One interesting fact that could debunk the Yahoo! reports is that last week when Favre-apolooza was hitting stride the Paul Allen show on KFAN-1130AM, received an email from a working at a big time local package distribution center (later was leaked that this was Fed-Ex), checked in a package from Hattiesburg, MS on its way to Winter Park and Vikings headquarters. Could this have been the package containing #4's X-rays?

MLB
With the Twins (15-17) currently sitting at 3rd in the AL Central 3.0 games behind the Detroit Tigers (17-13), with 130 games remaining it's no time to panic. But there is some room for worry as our pitching staff which proved to be promising last season, has been completely sub-par. With Scott Baker (1-4) and Fransisco Liriano (2-4) off to slow starts and Kevin Slowey (4-1) the only starter with a winning record, there is room for concern regarding the rotation. The bats have not been much better. This week saw Alexi Casilla, who was batter a measly .165, sent down to AAA while Tolbert replaced him at 2B. With disappointing production from Delmond Young and Joe Crede the offense received a much needed boost from Joe Mauer's return to the batting order. Through his first week and a half back, Mauer is batting .485 with 3 HR and 10 RBI. Hopefully this bundled with the Firstbasemen's consistent production will spark the Twins above .500 and into a 5-6 game winning streak.

There was also other big news around the majors last week. Alex Rodriguez made his return to the pinstripes by hitting a HR with his first swing of the season (one upping Joe Mauer by one swing). Following in A-Rod's steroid footsteps Manny Ramierez failed a drug test violating the MLB's drug policy and getting himself suspended for 50 games. Here's my question for Manny. How arrogant are you to think that in the current state of baseball, you of all people can beat the system? Anyone who was using steroids and still is under the current crack down is a complete idiot. Now this substance that Manny was supposedly using was known to be a masking agent and also known to be a drug which increases the amount of estrogen in a women's body during pregnancy...is there something that Manny needs to tell us?

NBA
This years NBA Playoffs have captivated me more than any playoffs since 2004. That may or may not have something to do with the demise of my hometown Minnesota Timberwolves, but this years post season has given a spark to a professional sports organization that has been sickly the last 5 years. Every series has some sort of headline that is grabbing at my attention. Let's start with the Denver Nuggets vs. The Dallas Mavericks. Amidst the wonderful story that has been the Denver Nuggets this post season, this series has been riddled with controversy and off the court distractions. The Game 3 no call that led to Carmello hitting the game winning three had Mavs owner Mark Cuban hunting down the referees after the horn. That bundled with Dirk's alleged fiance being arrested from his home has made this blowout of a series a little more interesting. The Cavaliers and Hawks contest is not a contest at all. The Hawks find themselves in a 3-0 hole and they have no game plan to stop Lebron James. If there is anyone out there that still thinks that Kobe is better than Lebron, first off your nuts, secondly we may be in line to see them face off in the finals. The Hawks will be swept, this series is over. The Lakers/Rockets series has proven to be a little more interesting that one may have expected. For the most part Kobe has been Kobe and the Lakers have been the Lakers. The Rockets have proven to be more of a test than anyone could have expected and with Yao's broken foot they played a very inspired game on Sunday. In the end though, the Lakers just have too much firepower. They should move on to the conference finals but to get to the NBA finals and have a shot at winning they will need to play much better defense and show a little energy. Chauncey and the Nuggets will give them a run for their money either way. The Boston/Orlando series seems like a let down because of the highly notarized first round series the Celtics had with the Bulls. 7OTs in one series is tough to beat. The Magic have proven that they have a little fight in them. Currently the series is tied 2-2 with the Celtics still holding onto home court advantage. It's obvious that Kevin Garnett was the key piece to the dominance that was Celtics '08. With Garnett acting like a well dressed high school punk on the bench, the Celtics have shown some weaknesses. This series is completely up in the air with the scale tipping towards the team that is most consistent. All it takes to blow this series is one lackadaisical effort.

Finals Prediction - Cleveland Cavaliers over the Denver Nuggets in 6 Games.

NHL
NHL playoffs without the Wild bore me to death. For the sake of the sport I am pleased that Crosby and Ovechkin are facing off as it's always nice to have the two top stars in your sport facing off against each other. But the NHL has a serious problem here. There TV ratings have plummeted over the past few years and they continue to have games such as yesterday's Detroit/Anaheim Game that were not televised AT ALL! It's not like it was on a special NHL cable package, it's not like it was only available locally. It was flat out not televised at all. The NHL as an organization needs to figure out this mess that they call their television schedule. That is all...