Howard Megdal

With the Philadelphia Union set to host their inaugural playoff match this Sunday, much of Philadelphia is gripped with Doop fever. Few have captured that irascible mood better than the Twitter feed, @FakeWIPCaller. Though he is a composite, @FakeWIPCaller was happy to provide an irrefutable take on how Philadelphia's yet-to-be converted are responding to the popular success in town, the Philadelphia Union.

Zac MacMath's 2011 has been an unusual combination of present and future.

What Fred Wilpon told The New Yorker doesn't matter. It matters like a team that is 20 games out needs to set a postseason rotation. It matters like a guy on The Titanic needed to figure out how to survive The Great Depression. It mattered like calling the right play for the Washington Generals matters.

In the abstract, it makes perfect sense. An outfielder, one year removed from a .915 OPS, is available in the late rounds of a fantasy draft. You draft him, he gets off to a strong start. There are multiple fans of his team in your league. And he has a chronic knee condition likely to flare up any day.

A strange feeling appears to be emerging about the New York Knicks: confidence about the team's future.

There will come a time, I'm sure, when seeing the Knicks lose two perfectly winnable playoff games in succession will infuriate. Someday, and perhaps soon, late-game mistakes and opponent heroics will lead to despair. And seeing the Knicks merely compete against the hated Celtics will not feel like any kind of victory. But for me, right now, this has been enough. So far, I have enjoyed the hell out of these NBA Playoffs.

It seems impossible to believe now, but it has been 21 years since the New York Knicks faced the Boston Celtics in the NBA playoffs. Seems so, but a closer examination reveals that time didn't stand still for me, either.

And now, a metaphor for our tech-savvy crowd. For years, I had faulty wireless routers. Perhaps the fault was mine; I would purchase them directly from Fisher-Price. So I had a strong cable modem, new computers, but my home network sputtered and made noises one associates with Jack Benny's car.

Will Jeter recover? Will A-Rod be great? Will A.J.'s ERA hover At right around eight? Will Mo ever tire? Will Hughes ever learn? Will Andy unretire If starters crash and then burn?

The Red Bulls started their season on a positive not Saturday, defeating Seattle 1-0 in the opener for New York. But a bit to the south, D.C. United served notice that it will not be the pushover it was last year, winning just six times.

The Eastern Conference favorite New York Red Bulls held their Media Day on Tuesday. While much of the attention still settled upon Thierry Henry and Rafa Marquez, and understandably so, it will be...

As you may have heard by now, the Big East has 11 teams in the NCAA Tournament, while the previous record for entrants from a single conference stood at just eight. A less-discussed aspect of this feat is that none of the Big East entrants qualified as "last four in", meaning that even without an expansion of the field to 68 this tear, the Big East still would have 11 representatives. Pretty impressive stuff.

Ben Hansbrough is a terrific player who has an outstanding season for Notre Dame. In no way do I wish to attack Hansbrough when I point out that Kemba Walker is clearly the outstanding player in the Big East conference, and it isn't particularly close.

Big East Tournament 2011: Game By Game Results, Ahead Of Time

With just one regular season game left for each of the 16 teams, only four of the seeds for next week's Big East Tournament are locked in place. Everything else is up for grabs. Teams can still earn a double bye with a win, while a loss could lead to a demotion to the Atlantic 10.

One of the best players in baseball history died yesterday, as Edwin Donald "Duke" Snider passed away at the age of 84. Strangely, his baseball legacy seems to be constantly downgraded, with various attacks on his record a common occurrence

As the Big East reaches its final two regular season weeks, the conference is more of an enigma than ever. Take a Georgetown team that shoots as well as any in the country, but shot just 25 percent in a home loss to Cincinnati on Wednesday. The percentage was the lowest for Georgetown going back to at least 1978.

The Mets begin their spring training schedule on Saturday with a tilt against the Atlanta Braves. The knock on spring training baseball is usually that it is both a poor indicator of season performance, while presenting none of the drama of a regular season baseball game.

With just a few weeks separating us from the NCAA Tournament, Big East teams are running out of time to make their final cases for inclusion, with the added problem of trying to do so against teams in a similar position.

There are many ways to present the case Gary Sheffield has for the Hall of Fame. My personal favorite is the Harmon Killebrew Approach.

A tremendous Saturday awaits fans of the Big East, the only conference in America where the odds are overwhelming that you are facing an opponent bound for the NCAA tournament. Here's what is at stake in the five Saturday contests:

Garden chairman James Dolan is taking a more active role in the Knicks' pursuit of Carmelo Anthony and has had direct negotiations with Denver Nuggets owner Stan Kroenke, the Daily News has...

For the owners of the Mets, Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, that question has in recent weeks become a very personal, even urgent one. The trustee for the victims of Bernard L. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, I...

With that in mind, let's take a look at five possible film heroes the Wilpons can hope will come to their rescue, and the ups and downs within each scenario.

Today's news that the Wilpons intend to sell a minority stake in the New York Mets obviously impacts the Mets, first and foremost. The simple act of needing a cash infusion tells the world that the...

Derek Jeter's Future -- A Center Field Of Dreams?

But that is changing, and it doesn’t matter whether the Jets win or lose on Sunday. It’s a matter of odds, history and a loudmouth coach. The Jets are simply due. Of the AFC East’s four...

You're the joke You're the joke With that swing, and that miss, you're the joke (Ha ha!) My dad said, "If your hitting's in a years-long dry spell At least treat all your baseball team's beat reporters well They'll stand beside your locker all day You can hit .210! Strike out four times! They'll never say!"