Sports this 'n' that

The Mets reacquired outfielder Jay Bruce, signing him to a 3 year deal on Wednesday.  It makes you wonder why they even traded him to Cleveland at the trading deadline in the first place. It doesn't offset the pound-foolish decision by GM Sandy Alderson to settle an arbitration case with suspended pitcher Jenrry Mejia, but, well.......!
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Meanwhile, the MLB Players Association dismissed a lesser known agent after he was caught videotaping some of his clients.

Jason Wood isn't as well known as, say, Scott Boras, but his client roster included Boston's Andrew Benintendi. Wood was fired from the agency he worked for on Wednesday, and it seems his tactics may have been a little too below board for the agency's standards. Compared to a known con artist like Boras, Wood was like a guppy swimming with sharks and trying to make his own ends meet on the side. Hmmmm.
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So Alabama won college football's national championship---again---early Tuesday morning. That the title game vs. Georgia went to overtime wasn't an issue. The problem I have, and probably a lot of other fans, too, was that ESPN decided to make this game more like the Super Bowl has become in recent years, and booked rapper Kendrick Lamar as halftime entertainment.

Now, I get that rap music is big business in the "Dirty South", but given that the game started shortly after 8 pm (ET), and the first half took nearly two hours to play (!), the pace of play being a problem that the NCAA suits need to address yesterday, don't you think ESPN could've set it up so that Lamar's concert was part of the pre-game activities in Atlanta? When the game went to overtime, I went to bed, since I had to go to work the next morning. So did a lot of other fans in the East. Shame on you, ESPN.
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So Alabama coach Nick Saban won his 6th title, 5th with the Crimson Tide (he also won at LSU a few years back before an ill-advised 2-year run with the Dolphins). While fans may be showing signs of Alabama/SEC fatigue, the gossip mill was churning, suggesting that Saban would bolt for the NFL again, this time to take over the Giants. Yeah, right, and chickens have lips.

Then again, those same gossips are claiming the Giants could poach either RPI grad Matt Patricia, Josh McDaniels, or Bill Belichick himself from the Patriots in the offseason. Remember, Belichick won his first 2 rings with the Giants as Bill Parcells' defensive coordinator after the 1986 and 1990 seasons. Given the gossip suggesting a growing chasm between Belichick, Pats owner Robert Kraft, and diva QB Tom Brady, it's easy for the simple minded to pick up on that and pray that Belichick finally "comes home" to finish his career. He has said, though, that he'd return to New England for the 2018 season, but we'll know for sure after the Super Bowl.

Most of America is suffering from Patriot fatigue, too, except in New England, where their fans are almost as rabid as the zealots in SEC country, who see football as a second religion. McDaniels flopped in Denver. Patricia's never been a head coach, but could get the nod because of his upstate ties. We'll see.