Pontificating on A-Rod, Manny and my 'new' Big East

I'm not a big fan of the guy, but you have to give Alex Rodriguez his due. Since joining the Yankees after his hip surgery, the Bronx Bombers have gone 18-6. Clearly, no one has benefitted more from his return than Mark Teixeira, who's been looking like Babe Ruth reincarnate in recent weeks.

Of course, all of this will be forgotten if A-Rod proves to be A-Fraud again in October.

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I envy the fact that my wife, Beth, wasn't born with the "sweet-tooth'' gene that I was. Man, if I could just lay off those cakes, cookies and Abbott's frozen custard I might have a chance.

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Good friend Jim Quinn had an interesting take on my proposal for a new Big East Conference. Jim suggests adding the University at Buffalo, along with Army and Navy. I like the idea. And I would propose having two divisions, with the Big East championship football game being played every year at the new Yankee Stadium.

So, here's how I would align the new Big East:

Ol' Ben Division (named after legendary Syracuse coach Ben Schwatzwalder)

Syracuse
Notre Dame
Boston College
UB
Army
Rutgers

Joe Pa Division (named after legendary Penn State coach Joe Paterno)

Penn State
Pitt
West Virginia
Maryland
Navy
Louisville

We would make sure that certain interdivisional rivalry games were maintained every year: Army-Navy, SU-Penn State, ND-Pitt.

Yeah, I know I'm dreaming, but you have to admit it makes more sense than the current setup in the Too-Big East and Big Eleven, oops, Big Ten.

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Here's another reason Major League Baseball makes me want to rip my hair out. According to the collective bargaining agreement "a player shall be deemed to have been eligible to play in the All-Star Game if he was elected or selected to play; the commissioner's office shall not exclude a player from eligibility for election or selection because he is suspended under the program."

So, you know where I'm going with this. Despite being suspended 50 games for being caught using steroids, Manny Ramirez is eligible to play in the All-Star Game next month if the fans vote him in.

How Bud Selig and the owners could have allowed this clause to be included in the CBA is assinine.

Sadly, the fans also are to blame. Instead of doing the morally correct thing, they've voted Manny the Scam Artist into fifth place among National League outfielders. He's just 106,000 votes from qualifying for one of the three starting spots.

The disheartening message here is that at least 635,000 fans who voted for Man-Ram don't care if athletes cheat or not.

If Manny truly cared about the game, he would request that his name be removed from the ballots and he would ask the fans to vote for other, more deserving players.