A Mavs fan, rewarded

Dallas Mavericks. World Champions.

Amazing. Absolutely amazing. Did it really happen? As a fan who has rooted for this team since literally before I can remember -- as a toddler who went to games with my dad at Reunion Arena in the late 1980s -- and seeing this thing through always believing and rooting for the Mavericks, last night's 105-95 win over the Miami Heat in Game 6 of the NBA Finals is the ultimate payoff, for myself and all Mavericks fans worldwide.

And when I think about what this means, not only being a lifelong Mavericks fan who grew up in Dallas, I truly believe that this championship, the first for the Dallas Mavericks, is the most meaningful that I've experienced as a fan. And it makes perfect sense.

First of all, it's the fifth championship won by one of my professional teams that I grew up rooting for: the Cowboys, Mavericks, Stars and Rangers.

The Cowboys won three Super Bowls just as I reached sports-consciousness. I had just turned eight years old when Troy Aikman quarterbacked the Cowboys to the first of three titles in four years. The Cowboys greatness became an entitlement to me, as it to some degree has been for fans of America's Team since the 1970s. I couldn't appreciate just how low things had been just four or five years earlier for that franchise when Jerry Jones fired Tom Landry in 1989, and the Cowboys followed with a 1-15 season.

Now as a Cowboys fan who has experienced only one playoff victory since the 1996 season, I'm beginning to understand what other NFL fans face year in and year out. Apparently the Super Bowl is not our birthright as Dallas Cowboys fans. It's something I didn't quite comprehend growing up.

As for the Dallas Stars Stanley Cup win in 1999, oh, I was excited about it. I wore my Stars jersey to games during the '99 season, painted my face, cheered in Reunion Arena for this newfangled hockey team that had just come to town six years earlier and was originally marketed as "football on ice" to a gridiron-centric sports town. The Stars went back to the Stanley Cup finals the following year, losing the New Jersey Devils, and have advanced to the Conference Finals just once since then, in 2008 when they fell in six games to the Red Wings. But hockey was never on the forefront of my mind. The Stars were a cool novelty compared to the Cowboys, Rangers and Mavericks, all of which had predated my existence in Dallas.

Yes, the Rangers run last fall was magical. I still don't know how it happened. But to some degree, it came out of nowhere, and there is still a sense of being content with just getting to experience a World Series without actually winning it. I loved the Rangers growing up. I enjoyed going to games at the old Arlington Stadium. Hell, I work in baseball now. A Texas Rangers Championship last fall would have been amazing. It's what the long-suffering Rangers fan dreams of.

Except the suffering of a Rangers fan is different than that of a the Mavericks fan. As a Rangers fan, we suffer through mediocrity year in and year out -- up until last year of course. The Rangers' success came out of nowhere. The 2010 Opening Day starter, Scott Feldman, and No. 2 starter, Rich Harden, didn't pitch in the postseason. The Cliff Lee deal? Was anyone expecting that at all? No. Rangers fans slogged through 39 subpar seasons with flashes of success in 1996, '98 and '99, but the thought of winning the World Series was never something to be seriously considered. Yes, Rangers fans suffered, but only through the acceptance of rooting for what appeared -- until last season -- to be a perennial loser. Not until 2010 could Rangers fans experience true pride in their team.

The Pain of Mavericks Fandom
But the suffering of Dallas Mavericks fans is that of a dangling championship that appeared would always elude us. Dallas reached the Western Conference Finals in the late 80s, falling to the mighty Los Angeles Lakers in a deciding seventh game. Eventually the Mavericks of Mark Aguire and Rolondo Blackman faded, and the Dallas NBA franchise became basketball bottom-feeders, putting together 11-win and 13-win seasons in consecutive years in the early 90s.

That is where I came into sports-consciousness with the Mavericks. My dad took me to games to root for the Mavericks. I got to see Jamal Mashburn and Jimmy Jackson join a rookie named Jason Kidd to form what was supposed to be the trio to propel the Mavericks to compete for relevance in the NBA. Triple-J had arrived, but nothing ever game from it. Eventually the three left or were sent away from Dallas. Jimmy Jackson was part of the trade to bring Shawn Bradley to Dallas from New Jersey. Jason Kidd was shipped to Phoenix for a young gun out of Wisconsin named Michael Finley.

And still I watched as this ragtag basketball team trudged through games at Reunion Arena, all the while cheering them on with no real expectation of success. Heck, sometimes I even got to see them win. A game. But win anything of significance? Only once.

My dad took me to Reunion Arena on March 12, 1998, to see Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, the defending NBA Champions. The biggest star in the NBA was coming to our neck of the woods. It was like a great national concert tour that was going to make a stop in our little city. Sure, the Mavericks were going to probably get crushed by the two-time defending champs, but who cares.

Then out of nowhere, something completely unexpected happened. We won. Wait, what? The Mavericks beat the Bulls, 104-97. I can still remember standing at the end of a concourse tunnel as the final seconds ticked off the clock. That night, I can still remember calling in to 106.1 Kiss-FM in Dallas to tell Sammy G how "I wanna be like Mike ... FINLEY!" It was the best win in Dallas Mavericks history in my sports-consciousness. I was just two years or three years old when Dallas went to the conference finals against LA in the 80s. But this win over the Bulls was the ultimate win.

The win over Chicago was so big that the Mavericks put out a VHS of the game, "Unforgetta-Bull: Mavericks shock Bulls 104-97 in OT" and a copy of that tape sits somewhere in my parents house.

Little did I know this win, a win that seemingly would never be surpassed in the annals of Dallas Mavericks history, would pale in comparison the ride we as Mavericks fans were about to take.

In the summer of 1998, just weeks after the Chicago Bulls -- the same team that lost to lowly Dallas in March -- claimed their third straight NBA Championship, that miserable Dallas franchise made a draft day trade for some German teenager that would forever alter how people in the Metroplex and around the world would view this organization.

Dirk Nowitzki.

If you doubted him before, his greatness is now, FINALLY, validated with the label of NBA Champion. But I'm jumping ahead in the story. (Sorry, I still can't believe it happened.)

Building For Success
Dirk's emergence combined with Mark Cuban's purchase of the franchise in January of 2000 kick-started what would become the most successful stretch in franchise history. And short of Tom Landry's 20 consecutive winning seasons, it's the most successful stretch for any Dallas-area franchise ever.

Dallas made the playoffs for the first time in more than a decade after the 2001 season and met the Utah Jazz in the first round. John Stockton and Karl Malone, two Hall of Famers, taking on the little Mavericks' "Big Three" of Michael Finley, Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki ... in that order. And when we say "Big Three" it was a big three for Dallas, for a franchise that had tried to assemble it's last "Big Three" with the Triple-J boys of the mid-90s. But it wasn't a true Big Three compared to what we see today with Miami. It wasn't three players who could conceivably win a championship -- and at the time, I think we all knew that but were still happy to root for them.

Utah quickly jumped out to a 2-0 lead in a then-best-of-five first round series against Dallas as the series shifted to Reunion Arena for Game 3, and if necessary Game 4. The Mavericks won game three. They squeaked by in Game 4, I want to say 94-93, but I can't remember and don't feel like googling. The series was going back to Utah for Game 5. Wow, so this is what playoff basketball is like?

I was experiencing it for the first time in my life. Playoff basketball was new to me. I'd never had a team to root for, never had a dog in the fight until now.

And facing a double-digit deficit in the fourth quarter of a deciding Game 5 in Utah, the Dallas Mavericks led by Michael Finley and Steve Nash with help from Dirk Nowitzki came charging back to eliminate the Jazz. At that time, I was convinced Calvin Booth was going to forever hold a place in Dallas Mavericks lore ... and maybe because that playoff series win was the first to start this amazing run, perhaps he does. (What a crazy-ass realization.)

Can't Settle For Satisfactory
Dallas started a string of 11-straight 50-win seasons, and with each year, Mavericks fans -- now fully embracing our new "Mavs fans" persona became less and less enthralled with playoff participation and more and more focused on achieving success. The mindset shift, I feel, came in the 2003 postseason. Dallas began the playoffs with a first-round series (now in best-of-seven format) against the Portland Trailblazers. The Mavericks Mavs jumped out to a 3-0 series lead before dropping the next three games as the Blazers forced Game 7. Dallas prevailed, advancing to the next round.

Enter the Sacramento Kings. Dallas and Sacramento began a seven-game series that highlighted what would be my final few weeks of high school. In one of the first two games of the series in Dallas, the score was 44-40 Dallas after the first QUARTER. By halftime, the high-scoring blitz saw the Mavs lead, 83-80. And these numbers are coming from memory. I know I have these numbers right. In fairness, I don't remember the final score of that game. I'm not even sure if we won that high-scoring affair. I just know the series was a lights-out shootout. Chris Webber went down with a knee injury early in the series, and Dallas and Sacramento eventually found themselves in Game 7 in Dallas, on the exact same night as my senior stinkin' prom.

My little brother Matthew and a friend went to Game 7, getting to witness the Mavericks advance to the Wester Conference Finals against the in-state rival San Antonio Spurs. Meanwhile, I was at prom with my high school girlfriend. There were no smart phones. There was no "checking the score" to see how the game was going. At some point, someone made an announcement that Dallas won, but I never saw a second of the game. The night, for me, was highlighted when I got back to my then-girlfriend's house (no, this isn't going where you think it is ... remember, I'm a sports nut, so my focus was not where other high school seniors' focus would be after prom). My girlfriend's dad was at the door waiting for us, and he handed me a printout of the post-game story detailing Dallas' success. That, to me, was awesome on his part, and is in fact my highlight memory from senior prom.

Dallas stole Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals in San Antonio despite only leading for something like 67 seconds of the game, but Dallas shot 49-50 from the free throw line (again, I promise you I'm not looking these numbers up. Someone feel free to google and see what I've missed, but I doubt it's much of anything. In fact, it was Eduardo Najera who missed the first free throw for Dallas before the Mavs made 49 straight in the game.) But Dirk got hurt, and Dallas eventually lost in six games to the eventual champs.

Still, the bar had been raised. Simply participating in the playoffs was no longer satisfactory. Now, we want--, no, we need to win it all. Easier said than done, as we would find out.

That was after the 2003 season. It wouldn't be for another eight seasons that the Mavericks would finally achieve this dream. A new type of suffering was about to begin.

Struggling With Success
Dallas continued to win at least 50 games each year, continued to make the playoffs, but continued to fall short of its ultimate goal. The Mavs showed promising signs. There was a series win over Houston in 2005 after Dallas trailed 0-2, losing the first two games at home. There was a great Game 7 in San Antonio to beat the arch-nemesis Spurs in 2006 to advance to the Conference Finals against MVP Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns. Six games later, Dirk helped elevate Dallas to a place it had never been: the NBA Finals.

We all know what happened in 2006. And as much as last night is revenge, 2006 will always hurt. The series was right there. Many Mavs fans will always blame refs, and I can't disagree to strongly based on some of the generous called afforded to Dwayne Wade. Let's just say, I'm glad Bennett Salvatore didn't make an appearance in the 2011 finals. Still, the refs didn't make Josh Howard call timeout after Dwayne Wade's first free throw, not his second, in the pivotal Game 5 (granted, Wade shouldn't have been on the line, but I digress). And no one was complaining about the officiating when Dallas was leading the Heat, 2-games-to-none and up by 13 points with 6:28 left in Game 3.

The next year, Dallas got off to a rough start, beginning 2006-07 with four straight losses before going on to an NBA-best 67-win season, but the first-round loss to Golden State was a kick to the groin of our playoff hopes. Former head coach Don Nelson guided the Golden State Warriors to a six-game series win, becoming the first 8-seed to top a 1-seed in the first round since the NBA went to a best-of-seven first round format. That team was supposed to redeem the '06 Finals collapse. Instead, it was an even bigger failure. As Mavs fans, it was devastating.

Head Coach Avery Johson was jettisoned after the 2008 season and a first-round loss to Chris Paul, David West, Tyson Chandler, and the New Orleans Hornets. Dallas had traded young point guard Devon Harris for aging veteran Jason Kidd. It was a move I didn't understand. It was a move I blasted Mark Cuban for saying he would do it again if given the chance to do it over. It was a move that didn't payoff, and that playoff failure cost Johnson, a former NBA Coach of the Year, his job.

In Avery's goodbye press conference, he noted five things that a championship-caliber team needed to have. At the time, it seemed like he was making excuses for coming up short. But retroactively, it seems he was right, because it's those five things that Dallas put together three years later to achieve ultimate glory.

Avery noted that championship teams need:
1. A superstar player
2. Strong center position
3. Guard that can dribble-drive, get to the free throw line
4. Depth on bench
5. Experience on coaching staff

Well doesn't that sound like the 2011 Mavs?
1. Dirk
2. Tyson Chandler and Brendan Haywood
3. Jason Terry, Kidd & Barea
4. See Game 4 of the Lakers series
5. Rick Carlisle.

Yeah, so Avery had it right. Dallas, in fact, didn't have the pieces in place to win in 2008. But it's not like Rick Carlisle found the magic formula right out of the gate. Fans were calling for his head after last season's first-round exit to the seventh-seeded Spurs. The Mavs lost in the first round for three times in the last four seasons. Maybe that window that Dallas flung open with Dirk's and-one against Manu Ginobili in Game 7 in San Antonio in 2006 was slamming shut before our eyes.

50 Redundant Wins
Dallas was rocking and rolling to start the 2010-11 season. There were plenty of big wins, and the Mavs were one of the NBA's best teams before injuries to Dirk Nowitzki and Caron Butler proved to be significant setbacks, leading to a six-game losing streak, the longest since Mark Cuban bought the team, but merely "just another week" by 1990s franchise standards.

In November, the Mavs had a great come-from-behind win over the Detroit Pistons, at which time I wrote this blog about the greatness of Dirk and what we as Mavs fans were fortunate enough to witness. At the time I wrote it with the hope that one day he would win at title but knowing the reality didn't look too good. I finished the post by saying:

There will at some point come a time when he no longer suits up for the Mavs. I hope it's not for a while, because as he displayed on Tuesday night against Detroit, he is still very much capable of dominating a game in the NBA. But when his time as a Maverick is done, with a ring or not, he will be looked back at as one of the greatest sports figures the DFW metropplex has ever seen. He'll be up there with Troy Aikman, Roger Staubach, Nolan Ryan. He's one ring away from immortality status as far as the rest of the NBA is concerned, but here in Dallas, let's hope his team's fans know better than that.

He's already achieved it.

It feels so much better knowing his legacy will not be accompanied with the Stockton/Malone-esque "greatest to never win a championship" label.

Dirk and Mavs finished the 2010-11 season is somewhat of a slump, although it's hard to remember now. Dallas was 0-8 against playoff teams to finish the season and had lost out on the second seed to the Los Angeles Lakers, setting up a second-round match up with LA holding home court.

Bracing For Another Disappointment
There was no indication this would be a special playoff run at the time the post-season began. Dallas started off with two wins against Portland at home before dropping Game 3 on the road. Nevertheless, the Mavs had a 2-1 series lead with home court in the series, but was facing a Portland team that many predicted to upset Dallas in the first round (little did we know it would be the other Texas playoff team, San Antonio, that would suffer a first-round exit at the hands of Memphis). Then, the moment Mavs fans have sadly become accustomed to occurred.

Dallas led by 23 points against the Blazers when Brandon Roy had a career performance, scoring 24 points and leading a shocking comeback to tie the series, 2-2. If the window of opportunity for Dallas to win a championship was still open at this point, it wasn't by much. Buckle up, because this was the first-round upset everyone was project about to happen. Dallas was cooked.

But then, something different happened. Something even the most diehard of Mavs fans might have been cringingly expecting. Dallas didn't complete the collapse. Instead, they bounced back, winning Game 5 and going into Portland to win their first road playoff game in the last 10 years (okay, that stat is not accurate, but it sure felt like it before the LA/OKC/Heat series, right?). Dallas closed out the series in six games but would have an even bigger task waiting for them in the next round.

Defeating Goliath
The two-time defending champion Los Angeles Lakers earned home court by winning two of three games against the Mavs during the regular season. Kobe Bryant is an assassin with a basketball, and his supporting cast is nothing to scoff at. He has former, current and future All-Stars all around him along with the greatest coach in NBA history, Phil Jackson, on the bench to guide this basketball juggernaut against the Mavericks who barely edged the Blazers in the first round.

Dallas and Los Angeles went down the final minute with the game still in doubt, but Dirk made the plays when it mattered and Kobe clanged out what could have been the game-winning three as time expired. Dallas escaped LA with a Game 1 win, 96-94, and captured home court. Good. Now Dallas could just take care of business at home and win the series. Wasn't that what we all were thinking?

If you were thinking Dallas would sweep, you're either A. mentally challenged, or B. a LIAR! (and you've already read all this, so I doubt you're not all there in the head).

But that's what Dallas did, including an all-out blitz in the Game 4 clincher that was marred by flagrant fouls from Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum. I thought J.J. Barea might have died that day. How he survived that cheap shot from Bynum, let alone was still able to play in that game, heck, in these playoffs, was amazing. If anyone was going to question the collective toughness of Dallas anymore, just look at that play. The Mavs were going to take every shot put on them, both legitimate within the game and otherwise, get back up and continue to go to work. With a defeat of the Lakers, Dallas had a clear path to the finals basket with San Antonio already out of the picture. A return to the Finals was the light at the end of the tunnel, and we could clearly see it.

Handling The Little Brother
Dallas faced the new young guns of the NBA, the Oklahoma City Thunder. If you really think about it, the Thunder is exactly where Dallas was in 2003, a young team finding itself on the brink of the Finals for the first time. Maybe the lights were too bright for them on that stage, or perhaps Dallas simply willed themselves past OKC. Whatever had happened in that series prior to Game 4, however, didn't matter.

The Mavs trailed by 15 points with five minutes to play. Oklahoma City was sending the series back to Dallas tied, 2-2. The Mavs would have three games, including two at home, to win two more to advance to the NBA Finals. Not a bad position to be in at all. But that wasn't good enough for these Mavs. Dirk put Dallas on his back, the Mavs ended the game on a 17-2 run to force overtime, where they went on to part the clouds with a 112-104 win, sending the series back to Dallas 3-1, and the Mavs closed it out in front of their fans to advance to the NBA Finals.

But when Dallas was awarded the Western Conference Finals trophy, they didn't celebrate. Instead, Dirk walked off the stage, headed to the locker room. His teammates saw this and followed. This was not the trophy they came for. There was still work to be done. They have one of these trophies... and its meaning is hollow after how 2006 ended. The tone was set. Dallas was going back to the Finals on a mission.

A Familiar Foe
If Mavs fans dreamed of making a run to the Finals as the 2010-11 season began, it might have been wise to anticipate a rematch with Miami after they assembled their three-headed monster in the offseason. LeBron James was the big national story, but to Dallasites, Dwayne Wade was the true enemy. Wade, not LeBron, took what we were so close to capturing in 2006. Wade, not LeBron, said Dirk wasn't the leader Dallas needed him to be after that series. Wade, not LeBrong James is who Dallas needed revenge against. But beating the self-proclaimed King in the process, that's just icing on the cupcake.

Wade quickly reminded Mavs fans of what they were up against in 2006, pushing the Heat to wins in Games 1 and 3. The Mavs had a chance to win Game 3, but Dirk's shot, his flamingo one-footed fadeaway didn't fall -- perhaps for the first time ever? -- and Miami led the NBA Finals, 2-1. The Mavs would need to win three of the next four games if they were going to validate the previous decade's streak of 50-win seasons and the franchise's entire existence with a championship.

Dirk's flu game in Game 4, followed by an offensive outburst for the first time in these Finals in Game 5 put the Mavs on the brink, one win away from a title for the first time ever.

Last night, June 12, 2011, the Dallas Mavericks finished the job. Dirk bounced back from a 1-for-12 first half in which Jason Terry dragged the Mavericks kicking and screaming to an improbable 60-57 halftime lead. The Big German shook off the cobwebs after the break for 18 second half points to achieve him dream, to help us as Mavs fans achieve a dream of all of ours. There's no need to go into overdrive on last night's Xs and Os for why Dallas won, but it was so very fitting that the one Mavericks aside from Dirk who made the Championship-clinching victory possible was the same Maverick who took so much heat - no pun intended - since his arrival in Dallas simply because, frankly, he wasn't Steve Nash. Jason Eugene Terry, the JET, finally took flight to new height, scoring a game-high 27 points as the Mavericks etched themselves into immortality as NBA Champions.

Meaning
Forever the names of these Mavericks players will hold a special place in the heart of all Mavs fans. Dirk Nowitzki would have been remembered as the greatest Mav ever regardless. Now, it's just got a nicer ring to it (that time, yes, pun intended). Jason Terry is also now a Maverick-immortal. And the names of Tyson Chandler, Jason Kidd, J.J. Barea, Shawn Marion, DeShawn Stevenson, Brendan Haywood, Peja Stojakovic, Brian Cardinal, Corey Brewer, Ian Mahinmi, and even Caron Butler along with head coach Rick Carlisle, this will forever be the group that got it done for Dallas. These are the ones who brought Larry O'Brien to Dallas. Their legacy, in our eyes as Mavs fans, is forever sealed. Much in the way I remembered Calvin Booth's contributions as a young Dallas team beat the veteran-laden Jazz in 2001 to begin this incredible journey, I will remember these players who came along a decade later for finishing the job.

The Dallas Mavericks are NBA Champions. If it means suffering through the types of 11- and 13-win seasons we had to endure in the early 90s, so be it. Because we will forever be able to look the rafters of the American Airlines Center to remember what was accomplished this year.

Long before Mark Cuban's marketing team coined the phrase, I was a Mavs fan for life. And today, I find myself living a dream.

Congratulations to the Dallas Mavericks, the 2011 NBA Champions, and thank you for rewarding our loyalties with your demonstration of class, dignity, and above all else, a title. This season will live into eternity.

NFL Playoffs

January has arrived and with it the return of playoff football. The weekend's festivities kick off with the defending champion New Orleans Saints in Seattle to take on a team that Ohio State's president might describe as the Little Sisters of the Poor in terms of NFL playoff teams.

The Seahawks went 7-9 in the regular season. The Saints 12-4. And yes the game is in the Pacific Northwest because Seattle won the NFC West while New Orleans finishes second in their division. In fact, Seattle finished behind a few other teams that did not make the playoffs, such as Tampa Bay and the New York Giants. And while fans in those markets may cry foul, I am staunchly in favor of keeping things as is.

Radicals might want to abolish division and even the conferences and just take the league's top 12 teams, but that would be a mistake. Not only does winning your division need to mean something, but scrambling the NFL's playoff format is not the right answer. There is no need to try to fix a system that isn't as broken as people are making it out to be. This isn't the BCS.

Another new wrinkle to the NFL playoffs this year are the adjusted overtime rules. In the past a team could receive the opening kickoff of overtime, make 2-3 first downs, and kick a long field goal to win while the other team never sniffs the ball. Now the league has adopted rules that say a team must score a TD to end overtime within the first two possessions essentially. So if a team kicks a field goal on the first possession, the other team can kick a FG to force the start of "sudden death" or can score a TD for the victory.

The purpose of this is to make sure a coin toss doesn't determine the overtime winners, but if you looks at the evidence of overtime playoff games in the past, the percentage of teams who lose and never touch the ball are not overwhelming. However the NFL is trying to give each team a chance to touch the ball regardless of what past stats indicate. And in the playoffs, unlike the regular season, the constraints of jamming a game into a hard 3-hour block aren't as demanding.

Regardless, it should be a great NFL postseason. Frankly, I don't think Seattle will win, as much as I'd like them to, but they will play a much closer game with New Orleans than people are expecting. Granted, I haven't been much of a fan of seeing playoff games in Seattle (not since that dropped field goal by Tony Romo ended the Bill Parcells tensure in Dallas ... now I'm sad).

NFL playoff format & the NFC West

With the NFL playoffs less than two weeks away and only a few playoffs spots truly up for grabs in Week 17, it seems that the debate over which teams should get it has reignited, mainly as a result of this week's Sunday Night Football match up featuring two sub-.500 teams with a home playoff game on the line.

The 2010 edition of the NFC West division may not be the home to the year's best football, but it has shaped up to be the most competitive division this season, with three teams all in the hunt for the division crown until the 49ers loss in Week 16. Granted, that doesn't mean any of these teams are playing great football -- or even "winning football" for that matter -- but that's no reason to lobby for playoff restructuring or even division restructuring.

First of all, for those who say the NFC West is watered down and doesn't provide strong competition to the rest of the NFL, even if their junior varsity skill level does translate throughout the four teams in the division, this is clearly an aberration and not the norm. In the NFL over the last ten years, only two divisions have sent three different teams to a Super Bowl. One of them in the NFC South ('02 Buccaneers, '03 Panthers, '09 Saints) and the other is the NFC West ('01 Rams, '05 Seahawks, '08 Cardinals). So not only have three of the teams in the NFC West been to a Super Bowl recently, but the fourth team in that division is once-mighty San Francisco which, despite a rough patch in recent years, is one of the most successful franchises in NFL history. The potential for strong competition exists in that division, so please don't think blowing it up is the right call.

Furthermore, if you win your division, you should get a home playoff game. Period.

If the Falcons end up 13-3 and win the NFC South this season while the Saints finish 12-4, then you know what, the Saints should have beaten Atlanta when they had the chance at home in New Orleans back in September. The Saints and Falcons have 12 common opponents this season plus two head-to-head games. NFL schedules are set up to provide an equal challenge among division teams. Whichever team handles that schedule the best wins the division and should be properly rewarded by hosting a playoff game.

Wasn't it just two years ago we were having this same debate about how good a 9-7 NFC West Champion Arizona Cardinals team really was, and they went all the way to the Super Bowl. If you're good enough to win you're division, you belong in the playoffs. Teams in other divisions might have not had to face as challenging a schedule as teams from another division.

The NFL playoffs are set up just fine. And if a 7-9 Seattle ends up hosting a 12-4 New Orleans Saints, then they better pack warm clothes. If 8-8 St. Louis hosts a team with a better record in the first round, they earned that right. It's not something that can be altered based on one or two fluky seasons.

UNC, Tennessee & the 10-second runoff that wasn't

Thanks to the Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl pitting North Carolina against Tennessee, an entire nation of football fans and passers by wake up to something that - for most of them at least - is a new concept: a 10-second runoff. Diehards who know "all the rules" may still be a bit confused by this concept, but that's what this blog is here for.

Admittedly, my own knowledge of when 10-second runoffs are applied was taken to task on Christmas night in the Cowboys-Cardinals game [How the Cards stole Christmas] when Arizona's game-winning drive would have been thwarted by draining the remaining 10 seconds from the clock after an illegal formation penalty. The Cardinals right tackle was uncovered on the line of scrimmage, but instead of a 10-second runoff and thus a Cowboys win, instead the Cardinals were merely penalized five yards and allowed to kick the game-winning field goal. Bah humbug.

As far as penalties go late in the game, it's widely known that "a game cannot end on a defensive penalty" at really any level of football. Offensively, however, it's a little more complicated. In fact, plenty of games end on offensive penalties -- just ask Cowboys backup tackle Alex Barron after his holding penalty cost Dallas a Week 1 win at Washington. I always knew that if the clock is running inside the two-minute warning, and a player gets injured in a tie game (or the players of the injured team is losing, presumably on offense), and that team does not have any more timeouts, 10 seconds are run off the clock (see NFL rule). This is to prevent players from faking injuries to stop the clock and give a team an unfair advantage in driving for the last-second score.

The 10-second runoff due to an injured player on a team lacking timeouts might even be common knowledge, albeit a rare occurrence in the NFL today. However it can also be applied on some offensive procedural penalties. I say some because I used to think it was all until the Christmas night Cowboys/Cardinals game corrected my beliefs. To clarify, an offensive procedural penalty is something like a false start, two men in motion at the same time and not getting set, motion toward the line of scrimmage, too many men or not enough men on the line of scrimmage resulting in illegal formation. So prior to the Cowboys loss in the desert, I would have thought that any of these sort of penalties would result in a 10-second runoff if an offense was without a timeout, tied or trailing under two minutes in a half, to prevent the offensive from stopping the clock and absorbing a 5-yard hiccup of a penalty all to preserve time. It is for that reason exactly why when the Cardinals were able to spike the ball with 10 seconds left in the Christmas night game without being properly set on offense that the Cowboys bench thought they had won. That and, frankly, Jeff Triplett leaves much to be desired when it comes to portraying confidence in the calls he makes (the man looks so beaten down with every call, he makes Toby from "The Office" seem peppier than Oprah giving away cars to her audience).

You know the rest of that game, the Cardinals ended up with 10 seconds left on the clock from the time the ball was spiked, no runoff for not getting their offensive line set on that spike-play, and kicked the game-winning field goal on the next snap.

And that's not the first time this has happened in the NFL either.

12-team NABL in 2011. Who's missing?

It has certainly been a busy offseason for folks in the Golden Baseball League. The six-year-old independent league's remnants have joined forces with teams from the United League and what's left of the Northern League to form a 12-team indy league that stretches from Alberta to Texas and from Hawaii to Illinois. And, yep, there is even are you freaking kidding me? a team in Tijuana. Skepticism about the latest Tijuana "adventure" aside, it's good to see the new North American League taking shape as the new year looms.

[skip to bottom for official press release]

There is still plenty to do before the first pitch is thrown, but the league's website is already up and running, albeit with limited content to this point. The most telling bit of information is the "Teams" section that lists 12 clubs for the 2011 season. Just as telling are clubs that are omitted.

Eastern Division


Western Division


The Eastern Division comprises three teams from the Northern League (Lake County, Rockford and Schaumburg) and three from the United League (Edinburg, Rio Grande Valley and San Angelo). The Joilet JackHammers from the Northern League were originally speculated to be joining the party but based on the website won't be part of the new North American League. As far as old United League teams, the Laredo Broncos, Alexandria Aces and Amarillo Dillas are MIA instead of NABL.

In the Western Division, everyone still playing baseball from the Golden Baseball League will be a part of this half of the new league. The two remaining teams in Canada - Calgary and Edmonton - are back, along with GBL originals Yuma and Chico. Maui appears set to return for a second season and a new Tijuana franchise is listed as well. Missing participants of the 2010 GBL include the Tucson Toros, which have gone dark while the Padres Triple-A affiliate is in town after moving from Portland, the Victoria Seals, which ceased operations during the fall, and the St. George RoadRunners, which essentially folded midseason last year.

How the Cards stole Christmas: Dal 26, Arz 27

Twas the night of Christmas out in Glendale,
A game between teams whose records showed fail.
WIth seconds to go, and a win oh so close,
Once again Dallas lost by a nose.

With no shot at the playoff, and McGee under center,
I don't see this team getting much better.
But if this was bad, Cowboys fans may shriek,
When they check the schedule and see Philly next week.

Ugh, what a brutal game. The Cowboys once again had a chance to lock up a win and failed to make the necessary plays. All too typical of a sub-.500 team. It's easy to go "glass half full" in a three-point loss to New Orleans, but when it's the 4-10, now 5-10 Arizona Cardinals, the pessimism oozes. The Dallas Cowboys used a collection of early catastrophes and late blunders to gift-wrap a Christmas win for the Arizona Cardinals, a 27-26 loss at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale on Saturday night.

Before all the oozing pessimism begins, let me just say it was nice to see Stephen McGee play efficiently and - frankly - at "back up quarterback" levels, not at the inept level of the typical third-string quarterback. Kitna has played so well this year as Romo's backup, and he should retain the job for 2011 (if there is a 2011 season, *gulp*), but McGee is certainly an asset. Maybe with a little more development, another team might want to trade for him to be their current backup and QB of the future. At the very least, when the 38-year-old Kitna retires - presumably soon - McGee would seem to be fit to slide into the backup role. Granted, all this is based on half of a football game's performance.

Last nugget of positivity before I get into the kicked-in-the-groin-ness of the game. Coming back from a 14-0 first quarter deficit, not to mention a 21-10 halftime deficit, showed a lot of resolve in this team. Only thing that hurt then was the NFL rule book that states a football game is 60 minutes, not 58 and a half.

Jon Kitna tossed a pair of interceptions for touchdowns in the first quarter, both could arguably be blamed on his receiving targets Miles Austin and Roy Williams. On the first possession, Austin slipped as the ball squirted into the awaiting arms of Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie who ran 32 yards for the opening score. Cardinals kick off, Cowboys start to drive, but another interception on a ball behind Williams gets batted up in the air and snagged by Greg Toler. After a 66-yard jog, it's 14-0 Cardinals. I'm not sure if the NFL keeps stats on this sort of thing or not - they probably do (the NFL keeps stats on everything) - but I've got to believe the 2010 Cowboys lead the NFL in tipped-ball interceptions. Jon Kitna might be setting some sort of NFL record by a backup QB for that particular category in the second half of this season. Then again, when you're a 5-10 team like the Cowboys are, you just don't get the gratuitous bounces of the 10-5 teams.

Frankly, the Cowboys dodged a bullet not going down 17-0 when Jay Feely missed on a long field goal attempt. If only that particular trend repeated itself. Unfortunately the Cardinals kicker made a pair of long fourth quarter field goals to win the game for Arizona.

It's a difficult balance, losing these games with the prospects of a higher draft pick hanging the balance doesn't make falling in the final seconds to stinkin Arizona that much more of an attractive option. Give me the win. Every. Single. Time.

Now is not the time to get into whether or not the Cowboys front office would wisely use that pick 4-6 spots higher based on one win like this could have been. But recent history outside of Dez Bryant isn't on their side. And when the head coach is trying to get an interim tag removed, these are games you cannot lose. Dropping a game to New Orleans on Thanksgiving when a big-money wide receiver fumbles away what should have been the game-clinching drive is one thing. That's a playoff-bound opponent and a fluky play. Losing a game to woefully bad Arizona and having a repeat of early-season gaffes like Marion Barber taking his helmet off to celebrate resulting in a 15-yard penalty is unacceptable.

Off with his Head Helmet
I'm more disturbed by Barber's blatant defiance of the rules, slinging his helmet off after a score while still on the field and costing his team 15 yards, than I am with David Buehler missing a crucial extra point with less than two minutes to go. I'll get into the reasons why I think Buehler should keep his job -- even though immediately after the game I was convinced he should be and would be released before Week 17 arrived. But first, Marion Barber.

Revenge, but barely: Dal 33, Was 30

The Dallas Cowboys continue to play encouraging and distressing football. At a point in the season where - as Bill Parcells would say - you are what your record says you are. The Jason Garrett Cowboys had a chance to take on what appeared to be a dysfunctional Washington Redskins team that was coming off the awkward announcement that head coach Mike Shanahan was rolling out Rex Grossman over Donovan McNabb at quarterback. The Redskins started off the season hot thanks in large part to the last time Alex Barron saw the field wins over the Cowboys and Eagles. It looked like the McNabb/Shanahan duo would be a force to be reckoned with within the always grueling NFC East.

Yeah... not so much these days.

Washington fell to 5-9 after the Cowboys edged them out, 33-30, on Sunday at Cowboys Stadium. And sadly for the Cowboys, there is no excuse for the game being that close.

Dallas was in a no-win situation really. Beat down the hapless 'Skins and it's simply an easy victory over a distressed football team. Lose to them and the once-encouraging Garrett-Cowboys are back to the laughing stock that got Wade Phillips fired, and any talk of Garrett as the next head coach comes to a screeching halt. The Cowboys had their blowout in hand, leading by 20 points in the second half, but somehow allowed Rex Grossman -- he of "Rex is our quarterback" fame -- to throw for more than 300 yards and bring Washington back from the brink to tie the game in the fourth quarter. Are. You. Kidding?

Perhaps we're at the point where

Pony Pride

Immediately following the eyebrow-raising presentation of the Heisman Trophy to Auburn's Cam Newtom -- eyebrow-raising because of his father trying to shop him around to different SEC schools before he eventually settled in at Auburn -- ESPN aired PONY EXCE$$, a two hour film about SMU football's prominence in the early 1980s followed by their ultimate demise through the death penalty.

If you get a chance to watch the 30 for 30 film about Southern Methodist University receiving the harshest punishment in the history of the NCAA, I'd strongly recommend it. Growing up in Dallas, I always knew that SMU once dominated the football landscape and eventually suffered what my father always said was a punishment the NCAA would never dish out again. But I never fully understood the depth of what was happening on Mockingbird until last night's feature.

Some background...

God drops touchdown; public crucifies receiver

One of the wackier sports stories of the weekend came down late Sunday when Buffalo Bills wide receiver Steve Johnson tweeted his frustrations about dropping what would have been the game-winning touchdown against the Pittsburgh Steelers in overtime. It was a ball that hit him in the hands, and he flat dropped it. That wasn't the controversy. Receivers drop balls all the time. They don't however then lash out at God as a result.

And, unlike most of the sports-loving public out there, I don't have any problem with his frustrations or the way he expressed them.

If you haven't seen it yet, here are the comments he posted on his twitter account:

Okay, now before you get all up in arms, let's take a breather. Calm down. Let's look at this objectively as well as somewhat spiritually.

Saintsgiving: NO 30, Dal 27

It looked like the Saints would feast on the Cowboys this Thanksgiving. Dallas had its opportunity to win fall out of the arms of Roy Williams with less than four minutes to go in the game. And while there are no moral victories in the NFL, it is safe to say that the Wade Phillips Dallas Cowboys would have had zero chance to take a lead in that game after trailing 17-0 with just over 10 minutes gone by in the first quarter.

They could have folded. They didn't. At least not until the very end after coming back from a 20-3 deficit right before the half.

The Cowboys had Thanksgiving dinner spoiled by defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans, 30-27. Roy Williams will catch plenty of flack for his role in the loss, and rightfully so, but the Cowboys also caught plenty of breaks from the Saints. It was tough to tell if New Orleans took their foot off the gas in the third quarter or if Dallas simply ramped up their efforts, or perhaps some combination of the two, but after slogging through the first 29 minutes and 17 seconds of the game, the Cowboys finally showed some signs of life.

Interim head coach Jason Garrett missed out on starting his tenure 3-0, and while his first victory can be attributed to the emotional swell of his first week on the job, and his second win can be attributed to playing the Detroit Lions, this game would have been by far the most impressive victory he could have added to his resume in his personal quest to retain the job on a permanent basis next season.

Dallas drops now to 3-8 on the 2010 season and that should stop any hallucinating talk of a massive table run into the playoffs. After the loss, Jason Garrett spoke of how there are no moral wins. Can you imagine what we would have heard from Coach Wade after something like this. Yes, there were some strong efforts to praise, but Dallas also caught a few breaks down the stretch as well.

A few thoughts on a crazy game that appeared to breathe live back into the Cowboys just as quickly as it then fumbled that life away:

What we're watching with Dirk

It sure seemed like just another ho-hum Tuesday when the night began. Back in Dallas for Thanksgiving, I headed for the American Airlines Center to take in a Mavericks game. The Pistons were in town, not exactly the team that dominated the Eastern Conference the middle of the last decade, but certainly not a slouch either.

Dallas started off hot with an 11-0 run, but an ugly second quarter resulted in Detroit working their way back to take the lead at the half, 42-38. And all the while, there was the main Mavs man, Dirk Nowitzki chipping away, bucket after bucket. Swish. Swish. Swish. His 17 first-half points weren't much to write home about for two reasons: one because mailing a letter all the way to Germany is expensive, and secondly because the Mavs were losing.

The Mavericks weren't able to cut into the deficit in the 3rd quarter either, trailing 63-56 heading into the final period. Hey, there's 82 of these games, and Mavs fans have become accustomed to ramping it up when the playoffs begin, keeping energy levels during regular season games in on the early side of New Year relatively "meh" so to speak. Dallas is trailing. Dirk is playing well. But the team just might not find the win column tonight. Most of the wine-and-cheese crowd at the "Double-A C" on Tuesday weren't going to lose a lot of sleep without a mad fourth quarter rally.

But Dirk continued to make these buckets and make it look effortless. His trademark fallaway-off-one-foot shot from near the elbow continued to fall just as it has for more than a decade in Dallas. The man who cause Dallas fans -- which were small in number and perhaps even smaller in faith -- to scratch their heads on draft day 1998 made them slowly start to believe in yet another comeback win in Big D. And row by row, with each bucket from the Big German, fans rose from their seats, believing that this could be a special night. Help from Caron Butler and Jason Terry certainly made a comeback opportunity possible, but all the while #41 continued to do what makes him so special.

Decibel levels climbed within the AAC, and the Mavericks chipped away at the Pistons lead until Dirk Nowitzki sank a pair of free throws as the Mavericks snuck ahead, 68-67. After a Pistons' 3-pointer, Dirk drew another trip to the line, two more free throws and things were tied up, 70-70. A quick trip down the court later, Jason Kidds slings the ball over to Dirk for the go ahead 3-pointer, and as soon as it left his hand, there was no more doubt in the building.

There were six minutes left on the clock, but by that point, it was essentially over. Detroit tried to keep it close down the stretch, but the Mavericks withstood the best efforts of their opponents. And when the dust finally settled, there was Dirk with 42 points, 12 rebounds and yet another impressive comeback win. Dallas 88, Detroit 84.

It's just another November win. It doesn't make a whole lot of difference in the overall scheme of things for this franchise, let alone for the 2010-11 season. But it's also the mark of what Dirk Nowitzki has been doing for a dozen years in Dallas that has made him the most special player in franchise history in what must be considered the makings of a hall of fame career.

The off-balance shot falling away. The flailing limbs on a take to the hoop. Heck, even the goofy videos on the jumbotron. It's all part of the quirkiness and Dirkiness that has been a staple in Dallas. People may still remember the Mavericks before Dirk. People might remember Don Carter's hat, Triple-J, Rolando Blackman, Derek Harper, and Reunion Arena. There might be some "good old day" feelings toward those early days of the Mavericks, be it fond memories of Moody Madness or the run to the Western Conference Finals against the Lakers in '87 when the Reunion Rowdies were at their finest.

But what this 7-foot phenom has done in Dallas is rewrite the franchise's history books. We don't know where this team will go after Nowitzki takes his final shot with the Mavs, whether or not that ends up being the final shot of his NBA career. Maybe this franchise, 20 years from now, will win a title without him and that will be the greatest Mavericks team ever, featuring players who are currently in kindergarden. But what can't be questioned is that this franchise is now talked about in pre-Dirk and post-Dirk terms.

Pre-Dirk, they were the little Mavericks, a team that at one point won 11 and 13 games in consecutive seasons. Yuck. Yes, they'd been to postseasons, but aside from a seven-game series against the Lakers, there weren't many highlights. Dirk changed all of that. He essentially erased those memories. At the very least he sent them to the back of the memory bank, piling ahead of those old memories countless jump shots, 3-pointers, dunks, drives and yes, even those goofy videos on the jumbotron.

Seriously, think back to what you thought of the Mavericks before Dirk arrived. More importantly, did you even think of the Mavericks? Did you look at them as a novelty, merely a way to witness Magic Johnson or Michael Jordan or Larry Bird or other superstars come through town to play our city's version of the Washington Generals? What did you think of the Mavs?

What do you think of them now?

One player changed the trajectory of this franchise. Obviously coaches, GMs, role players and a owner who appears to be equal parts fan and businessman helped the process. But it can all be traced back to #41.

There will at some point come a time when he no longer suits up for the Mavs. I hope it's not for a while, because as he displayed on Tuesday night against Detroit, he is still very much capable of dominating a game in the NBA. But when his time as a Maverick is done, with a ring or not, he will be looked back at as one of the greatest sports figures the DFW metropplex has ever seen. He'll be up there with Troy Aikman, Roger Staubach, Nolan Ryan. He's one ring away from immortality status as far as the rest of the NBA is concerned, but here in Dallas, let's hope his team's fans know better than that.

He's already achieved it.

Yes we McCann: Dal 35, Det 19

Channelling my inner Lou Brown from Major League, "That's called a winning streak."

The Dallas Cowboys gunned the engines in the second half and stormed away from the Detroit Lions in a battle of 2-7 teams each playing their backup quarterback. The Jason Garrett era continued to impress, and players who had underachieved throughout the first eight games of the season appeared to hustle (what a novel concept!) throughout the game. Heck, Mike Jenkins even made a hard-hitting tackle in the game.

It's hard to get too excited with a 35-19 win over the lowly Lions, but sadly this was a game between two last place teams, two evenly matched teams, and that's where this Cowboys season is. Now, if they can topple the defending champion Saints on Thanksgiving, then by all means, go crazy Dallas. But the now 3-7 Cowboys are at the point where players must simply maintain the mindset of "I'm playing for my job this week" every week throughout the end of the season.

In 2008, the St. Louis Rams fired their head coach a few weeks into the season and Jim Haslett took over. The previously winless Rams under Haslett won his first two games, beating the Redskins on the road and then beating the Cowboys in St. Louis (and it wasn't pretty by any means). The Rams went on to lose their remaining 10 games, finish 2-14, and they brought in a new coach the next year, blowing up what they had in place and slogging through 2009 before getting top pick Sam Bradford out of OU to help them right the ship this season in 2010.

So this is just a cautionary tail that while the Cowboys under Garrett do have two wins, impressive in many aspects but also faulty in others, it is a weekly battle to prepare and execute and cannot be taken lightly the rest of the way. We saw this team take it lightly through the first eight games, resulting in inexcusable losses at Washington, at home to Tennessee and of course that embarrassing loss to the Jaguars. We've seen the team give up in Green Bay, resulting in Wade Phillips getting fired the next day. If they give up at this point, Garrett isn't getting fired before the end of the season, but he at least has to make the players believe that they could be cut loose or demoted if they don't give at least 100% each week.

This team has made too many strides in the last two weeks under Garrett to regress to the Wade-levels they were at. But in watching the recent success, it's only more maddening to think that had they actually played to their abilities throughout the first half of the season, the now 3-7 Cowboys might be at least 5-5 if not better and still in the hunt for a playoff spot instead of solidly filling the role of spoiler the rest of the way. (And, yes, I realize they aren't mathematically eliminated, but winning out means going 9-7, and there are already six teams in the NFC with at least 7 wins, so let's table any playoff talk until Week 15 or so when we can definitely say if it's still likely at that time.)

What Garrett's new style has done is pushing players to get the best out of them. Plain and simple. The prime example is Jon Kitna. Garrett's offense looks revived, ready to attack, and Kitna leading the way has been more than impressive. When he took over, everyone in DFW held their breath fearing Brad Johnson 2.0, which was so bad that fans were calling for (and briefly got) Brooks Bollinger into a blowout loss against the Giants. Kitna is proving he can still play in this league, and he is more than capable to be a solid backup QB behind Romo in 2011 as well.

Defensively, the Cowboys are becoming ballhawk players, creating a pair of turnovers yesterday that helped solidify the win. Rookies Sean Lee and Bryan McCann, two guys who didn't really get a chance under Wade, are starting to make sure Cowboys fans -- and more importantly for them, the Cowboys front office -- know their names. Lee provided a big forced fumble moments after McCann added another long return TD to his resume. Meanwhile Terence Newman accepted the challenge of taking on Calvin Johnson and other than Detroit's first play from scrimmage in which Newman got tripped up, taking down Johnson through incidental contact, was is no real jeopardy of surrendering the big play throughout the game.

It's a short week until the Super Bowl Saints come marching in, and they'll be looking for payback against the team that ended their undefeated run in 2009 at the Superdome. The fact that these Cowboys of 2010 are not the 2009 Division winners that stormed New Orleans (poor choice of words) won in New Orleans is of little consequence to Drew Brees and company. As Garrett likes to say, they'll be ready at 3:15 on Thursday. Only difference is that, under Jason Garrett, I'm convinced the Cowboys can be as well.

A few other thoughts on Sunday's 2-7 showdown:

Gardenhire, not Washington, AL Manager of the Year

News just hit the wire that Minnesota Twins skipper Ron Gardenhire has been named American League Manager of the Year for 2010. Gardenhire certainly was more than qualified for the honor, helping to lead the Twins to the AL Central Division title, despite being bounced from the playoffs in a three-game sweep by the Yankees.

Granted, postseason play does not factor in to these regular season awards. That being said, it's still disappointing not to see Texas Rangers skipper Ron Washington take home the honor. Maybe it was the preseason news of his positive cocaine test. Maybe it was the fact that Texas is considered to play in a weaker division with fewer teams. But don't think that Washington isn't deserving of this honor.

The Twins finished 94-68, with four more wins than the Texas Rangers (90-72) in 2010. Minnesota finished six games ahead of the second-place White Sox in their division while the Rangers bested second-place Oakland by nine games. Gardenhire's Twins were certainly a strong team, but the Texas Rangers overcame much more and Washington helped mold a group that (outside of Cliff Lee) hadn't ever achieved anything.

The Rangers hadn't won the AL West since 1999, going 11 years between playoff appearances. Texas had guys who had career years, and Washington's fingerprints were all over it, putting them in positions to succeed. The Twins have won their division in six of the last nine seasons (2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2010). Bottom line, this is a group of guys that have been their before. It was known that they should finish atop their division. Meanwhile the Rangers have been nothing more than a dark horse contender, a trendy up-and-coming pick for several years, but never have been a team to take seriously.

Ron Washington changed that. He took a group of guys that had a handful of All-Star appearances along with castoffs (Colby Lewis), aging veterans (Vlad Guerrero), and other parts, throwing together a division winner with some clear staying power. Bringing in a hired gun in Cliff Lee helped push the team to the division crown and through the playoffs, a move that must be credited to Jon Daniels and Nolan Ryan, but when Lee wasn't on the mound, it was Washington's philosophy of how to play the game that fueled the Rangers' success.

Perhaps this is one of those things where Gardenhire's time had finally come. He had finished second a handful of times before finally breaking through and earning the honor this season. For Ron Washington, if his Rangers continue to produce at the level we saw from this season's American League Champions, he deserves to be recognized for his efforts as well.

North American Baseball League

It looks like enough cats are getting out of bags across the country that independent baseball fans can see the handwriting on the wall of a mega-merger that would weave what's left of the Golden Baseball League, United League and Northern League into one big baseball league. While merger talk had been speculated over the last week, Ballpark Digest brought it all together in a Sunday article that detailed some of the how and why of the new league.

Low and behold, yet another cat escapes from the bag today as Ballpark Digest reports that the name being kicked around is the North American League. Either that or the North American Baseball League, according to a source close to the negotiations. While nothing is finalized and formalized just yet, it seems like things are progressing as all three leagues are not in a position to survive on their own in 2011, but combining the trio would infuse new life into all remaining markets.


While the sale of the (?ex-)Northern League Joliet JackHammers seems to be the big hang-up currently stalling any major announcement, it appears 16 teams are listed as potential cogs in the new league's big machine.

Northern League
Joliet JackHammers
Lake County Fielders
Rockford RiverHawks
Schaumburg Flyers

United League
Coastal Bend Thunder
Edinburg RoadRunners
San Angelo Colts
Rio Grande Valley WhiteWings

Golden League
Calgary Vipers
Chico Outlaws
Edmonton Capitals
Orange County Flyers
Na Koa Ikaika Maui

Three other potential teams include a Tijuana franchise, reportedly nicknamed the Ambassadors or Embajadores, as well as Omaha and Yuma.

It all sounds well and dandy, but this issue of high travel costs will still be an issue for teams in the "Canadian" or "West Coast" divisions. I can't imagine any bus trips going from Chico or Orange County to Illinois, and Texas-area teams will probably have to make their way to Houston or Dallas-Ft. Worth for the best flight options to get to Calgary or Edmonton. Obviously not every team will play each other, especially if there will only be 76 games with 24 of them being played "out of league."

Garrett gets it done: Dal 33, NYG 20

Let me begin the "Jason Garrett era" with a quick reminder from the last Cowboys era that inspired the type of confidence that I'm feeling tonight:

Put the anointing oil away.

Bill Parcells' words regarding a new starting quarterback named Tony Romo in 2006 are just as fitting for the Dallas Cowboys' new interim head coach midway through 2010. Jason Garrett took over the franchise after an embarrassing 1-7 start to the season and was given less than a week to change the culture of a team that lost all discernible heart and will the previous two weeks and prepare them for "4:15pm [Eastern] Sunday" as he stated all week long. And while it is just one week, one game, 1/16th of the entire season, Jason Garrett got more out of this squad -- his squad -- than we'd seen in quite some time.

Dallas Cowboys 33, New York Giants 20. (recap) (highlights)

Again, I realize this one win doesn't put the now 2-7 Cowboys into the Super Bowl (which, if you hadn't heard, is actually going to be at Cowboys Stadium in February). But seeing the way Dallas played tonight, it's also hard not to be infuriated that they hadn't been playing like this all season; playing like that they could be 7-2. One win doesn't change the first eight games. It does, however, give the Cowboys a spark that they can use to ignite the rest of their season.

Garrett, entire roster have 8 week audition

Today is the day. Offensive coordinator-turned-head-coach Jason Garrett makes his debut for the Dallas Cowboys in the wake of Wade Phillips' firing. Garrett has had what seems to be an "impressive" week -- and that's impressive based on the recently lowered bar that has been set over then last three and a half years. The fiery redhead comes across pointed and stern in his press conferences. Will that translate to wins on the football field? It's no guarantee, but it's certainly refreshing.

People are making a big deal about the Cowboys practicing in full pads on Wednesday for the first time since pre-season, and sadly this is a big deal. Don't get me wrong, I think that at times giving players a chance to practice in just shoulder pads and shorts has its benefits. It's a long season, and players will wear down. As a result, sometimes an easier paced practice can help keep guys fresh. But when a team hasn't played football the last Sundays anyway (and, no, they weren't on the bye either, *sigh*), sometimes you need to run then ragged in practice. If they show up flat on Sunday, I'd rather it be because they are exhausted from a rougher week of practice than because they just lost the heart required to compete.

GBL: Giant Baseball League?

When the Victoria Seals announced the club was ceasing operations this week, the news -- coupled with Tucson taking a year off and three franchises being absorbed by the league during the 2010 season -- seemed to spell the end of the Golden Baseball League. But a report out of the midwest points the other direction entirely. Could we be looking at the GBL going from the brink of extinction to becoming a super-league?

The Rockford (Illinois) RiverHawks will be joining the GBL for the 2011 season, according to a report from WREX Channel 13, an NBC affiliate. Before we get into the ramifications of what it all means, here is the story from WREX:

RiverHawks join Golden League
Posted: Nov 12, 2010 8:20 PM

By: Mike Morig

ROCKFORD (WREX) - After one season in the Northern League, the Rockford RiverHawks leave for the Golden League.

An official announcement is expected next week, but team owner Dave Ciarrachi told the 13 Sports Authority Friday night that the ‘Hawks are Golden League bound and the league itself will expand.

Ciarrachi said the league's new format will feature four divisions, one on the west coast, one in Canada, one in Texas, and one in the Midwest.

The RiverHawks will play in the Midwest division along with former Northern League teams from Schaumburg, Joliet, and Lake County. A potential fifth member of the division could come from Omaha.

Ciarrachi said the Golden League rules will allow the RiverHawks to keep the players they have, no matter their age.

The league will feature 16 or 17 teams and the name of the league along with the divisions will be discussed at the owners meetings later this month.

Talk about a game-changer. When the Golden Baseball League announced on the league's twitter feed that a major announcement was on the way, my only thought was a merger. What else could it have been? No league drums up attention to announce it's folding. But while I thought there might be a "merger" that would either bring the Calgary and Edmonton franchises back into the fold of the Northern League, the idea of a mega-league didn't quite come into focus.

Goodbye Golden League?

It's a sad day in the sports world whenever a franchise closes its doors. Seattle SuperSonics fans mourned the departure of their franchise moving to Oklahoma City. Cities that hosted Arena Football League teams saw them shut down in 2009 due to the economy (arena football has since been revived). And in the realm of independent baseball, it seems we are witnessing the inevitable demise -- or best case scenario, the incredibly drastic reshuffling -- of the Golden Baseball League.

The GBL, which played its first season in 2005 with eight teams throughout California and Arizona, finished its sixth season this September after expanding to a league-high 10 team format that stretched from Tijuana to Edmonton to Maui. Many thought the league's massive expansion, especially amid difficult economic times with dwindling crowds, would be the final nail in the coffin for the league. Yesterday, someone took a hammer to that last nail and began driving it home.

Packing it in: Dal 7, GB 45

After a third straight butt-kicking, it seems today will finally be the day embarrassed and desperate Dallas Cowboys fans get the bloodshed they have been craving since Alex Barron's holding penalty in Week 1. Jerry Jones and the team has a 4pm press conference today and the general thinking is that head coach Wade Phillips is not expected to survive the announcement.

I don't know what he could have done, being a completely impotent head man under Jones with no true authority of any kind. But it is clear that this team doesn't play hard for him. And if he's not even willing to bench people during games who aren't trying, then there is nothing left to do but to remove the head coach.

Jerry Jones said that people "will suffer" as a result of Sunday night's 45-7 loss in Green Bay. I should hope so.

At this point, the Cowboys need to wipe their personnel slate clean. Not just at the head coaching spot, but everyone on the field needs to realize that they are playing for their position on this club in the future.

Tashard Choice should be the No. 1 running back. Marion Barber is not what he used to be and Felix Jones looks lost. Other than Dez Bryant, is there anyone who isn't a starter that is clearly pushing for playing time? Don't think so.

With as bad as the offensive line is, let's just take them all out and throw the backups in. Let them try to earn their stripes. It's not like they can be any worse. The defense is terrible. Other than Demarcus Ware, not one of the other 10 starters is a lock to have a spot on this club in the future. Anthony Spencer and Mike Jenkins used to look like the future of this defense. This year, they are so bad it's embarrassing. Jenkins isn't even trying. We've seen him make "business decisions" before, but sadly he hasn't learned from that. HIT SOMEONE!

Today Wade Phillips is gone, but that in no way is going to fix the mentality of this team. Thank goodness Romo was already hurt because the last thing this organization needs is the false hope that Romo might provide under center. This season is a loss. It has been since the loss to Tennessee.

So while thing "quick fix" of firing a coach is only the first step, there are too many other steps that still need to be taken for this organization to show any sort of turnaround before the Cowboys wise up and hire a tougher head coach.

Rangers

What an amazing ride, huh?

The Texas Rangers fell short of baseball's ultimate prize, and while there are no moral victories in sports, I still come away from this postseason run, the first postseason "run" in franchise history with an overwhelming sense of team and civic pride. For the years I've lived in Southern California, I have slogged around Angel Stadium in my blue Rangers jersey whenever Texas came through, all the while knowing I sat at the bottom of the division's totem pole, merely a guest at the house of the big bad Angels.

No more.

The Rangers won the American League West. They won the American League Pennant. Hell, they even won a World Series game. And while it might not be the ultimate prize like the Angels took home in 2002, there is no longer the shame of never having tasted success. Now I have. And, at the risk of becoming greedy (as admittedly I am with the Cowboys), I want more.

I don't have time now to break down what this series has meant and why it's meant that much, but to put it briefly and bluntly: on this Tuesday, November 2, 2010, the morning after the Texas Rangers were eliminated from the playoffs in Game 5 of the World Series one thing is clear: I am more than ever before proud to be a Texas Rangers fan.

Thank you, Texas Rangers, for rewarding my loyalty and for whetting my appetite for more postseason baseball.

It might be time to put the Claw and Antlers shirts back in the closest, but I'll leave them in front of the Romo jersey for quick access when the 2011 season opens up.