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I'm on cloud nine today and will likely continue to be until the Devils figure out who their next opponent will be. Hopefully the other series goes into quadruple overtime for game six and then game seven too and they beat the living crap out of each other.

But one of the things about when your team is doing this well is that you soak up all the media you can get. At least that's the way I handle it. I can't get enough of listening to NHL Home Ice on satellite radio and if I'm home the TV is constantly on the NHL Network. Two things I think have been overlooked about the Devils and Flyers series and I think big reasons why the Devils won.

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The first round of the NHL playoffs was extremely interesting in that it basically seemed to prove that playoff experience didn't necessarily dictate playoff success. That was the conclusion drawn by our Florida Panthers site Litter Box Cats and it was the basis of a post on the New York Times hockey blog. Nice work by Chris S. Roberts in doing his homework and pulling these stats to the forefront. We'll see if it holds up in the second round.

This weekend the first of cycling's three grand tours gets started. The Giro d'Italia gets underway Saturday and American team Garmin Barracuda heads to the race hoping to secure a podium spot for Canadian Ryder Hesjedal. In advance of this, Podium Cafe, our outstanding cycling site, interviews Ryder's teammate Peter Stetina who will be one of the main riders protecting Hesjedal throughout the 21 stages across Italy. It's a really great interview that gives you n idea what it's like to ride in support of another rider in a grand tour.

We've assembled a fantastic team of writers to finally bring Ohio State Buckeye fans the best possible site it can have. Please welcome Land-Grant Holy Land to the SB Nation family. It will be led by Luke Zimmermann and will see contributions from many other great Buckeye writers. Please stop by and say hello!

Hey PC, so I was chatting with someone at my LBS yesterday and he was talking about how great Rotor's Q Rings are. He claimed the following:

1. It corrects any dead spots in your pedaling stroke.

2. It made him average 2-3 mph faster on his rides because you are getting full power the entire way around.

3. Helped prevent lactic acid build up.

4. Helped him with old knee issues.

5. All this while making much easier to climb.

I did some research and it appeared like he was essentially just repeating the Rotor marketing speak. So I thought about where I might ask whether or not people had experienced the same thing with Q Rings. I was reading a Joe Friel article last night saying that he recommends Q Rings for his "mashing" clients and well, I'm very much a masher. My climbing rides often average between 65-70 cadence. I've tried my hardest to get my spinning up to 80+ on my flat rides and I'm fairly close to accomplishing that goal. It's just not really the way my body works or feels comfortable.

Any way I thought I'd see if anyone out there is a convert or conversely if anyone had tried them and was skeptical. Also, do they work well with a Shimano gruppo? I'd appreciate any insight anyone could offer.

Sometime Wednesday morning over in the land of the rising sun, the Oakland A's will take on the Seattle Mariners in a game that actually counts in the standings. And to celebrate that, Athletics Nation has an interview with A's GM and Moneyball inspiration Billy Beane. Here is part one and here is part two. I especially enjoyed the conversation about the Academy Awards. Go ahead and call me shallow.

Rob Neyer of Baseball Nation also is appearing on some radio stations talking about numbers and the outlook for the 2012 season. He did a lengthy Fox radio interview with none other than Pat O'Brien. Listen to that here...and PLAY BALL!!!

[Note from baseballgirl: Just a reminder that OPENING DAY starts tonight; join me live at 3:00AM Pacific Time for the first game of the season, as the A's face Felix Hernandez. Melvin has revealed he is starting Brandon Allen at first base.]

Yesterday morning AN ran part one of the Billy Beane spring training interview for 2012. Today is the conclusion of that interview.

Again, I'll just say that Beane's enthusiasm for this rebuild has me fired up for the future. I'm not sure I expect much in 2012, but you never know and the team should be interesting to see how it develops. Without further ado, check out the conclusion to the AN exclusive Billy Beane interview 2012. And GO A's!!!

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It's been a fascinating offseason for the Oakland Athletics to say the least. For the first part it looked like he was simply tearing it all down and throwing in the towel on 2012. Many were in favor of this plan. But then Billy Beane suddenly re-signed Coco Crisp. Then he shocked many by signed Cuban outfielder Yoenis Cespedes. And finally, he brought in likely future Hall of Famer (if the PED suspensions don't stop it from happening) Manny Ramirez. And the team had the look of not necessarily a contender for the AL West crown in 2012, but it won't be the same walk in the park that it might've been prior to the late offseason moves.

I sat down with Billy Beane in his office in Phoenix, Arizona with a few days left in spring training before the team departed for Japan. As always, I enjoyed the interview and it remains my favorite part of my "job" to be able to talk shop with a guy I consider the smartest man in all of baseball.

This is the first of two parts so I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed conducting it. Another season start is just around the corner. Go A's! Hit the jump for my interview with Oakland A's GM Billy Beane.

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I'll admit it. I never liked Manny Ramirez. It could be perhaps the home run he belted off Zito a few years back. It could be perhaps I just don't like guys who quit on teams as Ramirez did on the Red Sox before he was dealt. I've also never been a huge fan of guys who gawk at their own home runs and Manny was famous for that. Or it might just be as simple as the fact that he wore colors other than the green and gold. Perhaps it's just that simple.

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In the worst kept secret of the offseason, Manny officially confirmed signing with the A's to Pedro Gomez today. As for whether or not Manny is really a different person as Gomez claims in the video, I don't really care. To me this move makes sense in quite a few ways. First and foremost, it costs the A's nothing really other than $500 K which I think Lew Wolff burped up after his breakfast burrito this morning.

Second, Manny is suspended 50 games so the A's don't really have to make any decisions with him until then. If the A's find that Chris Carter or Brandon Allen or someone else can be a beast as a DH prior to then, then you just release Manny.

To me it's classic Billy Beane. You take a shot and if it works out then great, if not, you essentially have lost nothing except some spare Wolff change. And if the A's pitchers somehow prove to be much better than we think or Cespedes is a beast immediately and the offense is actually scoring runs and giving other teams a run for their money, well, then you're adding a piece on June 3 who has a career 500 plus home runs. I honestly don't expect the A's to compete in 2012. But with Cespedes and Manny in tow as well as some of the great young pitching coming through the system, the green and gold are infinitely more interesting, don't you think?

The other thing is maybe Manny can help teach Cespedes a few things or two about hitting. I mean if you're going to have a 26-year-old adjusting to life in the bigs, why not have him learn some things from arguably the greatest right-handed hitter of our generation? Let's just hope we don't wind up with Yoennis being Yoennis as a byproduct of that schooling.

Today SB Nation launched a new blog covering the sport of water polo. It's called The Skip Shot and it's run by Jeremy Mauss, who also just so happens to run our Mountain West blog Mountain West Connection. Please join me in giving a warm welcome to our new water polo blog, The Skip Shot!

People often ask me what I'm most proud of when it comes to SB Nation and Vox Media. One of the first things out of my mouth is usually just how many full time quality people we've been able to recruit from within our blogger ranks. But something that is overlooked is how many of our communities strive to do such good as an organized force. Blazersedge is an awesome Portland Trailblazers community that knows its team better than any other source out there. But more than that, they are working to be a force for good in that community. Witness their latest efforts to get a bunch of underprivileged children to see a Trailblazers game. It's a beautiful thing and it makes me so very proud that this network exists.

Apparently comedian and actor Jon Glaser who recently starred in an ad campaign for his show Delocated caught some flack on our Denver Broncos site Mile High Report for his, uh, state of undress in the ad. He took so much flack that he decided to take some time with the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon crew to address exactly this issue. I personally thought his choice of underwear was his biggest mistake. Tightie whities? Do they still sell those?

Hendrick Motorsports had their annual press meeting introducing the 2012 team via a livestream. If you fast forward to around the hour and 19 minute time in the video, you'll see SB Nation's NASCAR editor Jeff Gluck chatting with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and attempting to get Dale Jr. to join the 140-character crew over at Twitter. It's a cool exchange and a nice reminder that once the NASCAR season kicks off, you won't see anything better than the coverage Gluck provides at sbnation.com.

I have a long sleeve shirt I bought back in 2003 or so. It's got an A's green hat with the phrase "I Believe" written over it. I know it was an homage to the famous Bull Durham Crash speech (beware if you are sensitive to dirty words, this is NSFW) but it meant more to me than that when I bought it.

Bull Durham's "I Believe In..." speech (via treborcram)

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It turns out that Super Bowl XLVI will be a great day for New England regardless of the outcome. OK maybe I'm exaggerating that a bit but it will be a great day for Boston College because BC will have the most players represented in the big game, as unearthed by our BC blog BC Interruption. And for unearthing the details, one of the main writers of the site wound up talking with the Boston Herald about just that topic.

Ted King is a professional cyclist for the Liquigas cycling team. He also recently sat down for coffee with our own Jen See from Podium Cafe to discuss his 2011 season and how things look for 2012. My favorite part? Jen's doodles. I'm a sucker for creative coloring.

Amazin Avenue, our Mets site, was the first site to report that the New York Mets had engaged and hired the same firm that helped the Texas Rangers through bankruptcy troubles. The story has since been picked up in a ton of different places. It's a great coup for the new media when a source comes to the new media over traditional. Congratulations AA and Eno Sarris.

As you might've heard, Coco Crisp chose to return to the Oakland A's. While it seems to fly in the face of a player who was saying that he wanted to be with a contender, Coco seems to be claiming that the A's could be MLB's Clippers this year. Course that means the 2012 Clippers and not the perennially crappy Clippers for most of their history. At least that's what I think he means.

Crisp compared the A's to his favorite NBA team, the Clippers, saying, "You know the Lakers are going to be good, but that's not that exciting. The Clippers, they're young, they're exciting to watch - and they've done well."

Well the A's might be exciting to watch in 2012. Or they might not be, but I'd like to consider myself one of the more optimistic, supportive A's fans, you have to notice that his analogy does not say "winning" (TM Charlie Sheen). That's because with the A's 2012 lineup, I don't imagine that we'll see too much of that winning. Sure there's a chance that some of the young guys prove to be better than advertised and maybe even ahead of schedule, I'm just skeptical of it coming together in time to approach anything worth competitive this season. There's just too many things that can go wrong.

I do like bringing Coco in because I think Coco is a fun player to watch and he's just more dynamic than bringing in someone like Cody Ross. Course the A's could very well still bring in Ross as well which I am NOT a fan of.

We're always striving to give you more coverage of all of the sports you love here at SB Nation. With that in mind, we realized that a big portion of sports fans weren't currently being served by our offering. Many of these fans actually participate in this sport though rather than just watching it and that's running. It's with great pleasure that I announce that Stride Nation has officially launched. Stride Nation is a bit different as is explained by Tom Ziller here in the introductory post.

If you run or you love running, get the lycra, vaseline and head on over for your new site. Welcome Stride Nation!

Our blogs have developed a great reputation for bringing you the very best of interviews. We give you in depth, Q&A interviews with high profile people tied to the teams and nothing is a better example of that than the recent series on Bleed Cubbie Blue interviewing Tom Ricketts. Here is part one, part two and part three.

They get into everything from bringing Theo Epstein over from Boston to Carlos Zambrano. I'll just point out this from the interview:

TR: I forget the exact words I used on that television broadcast. The fact is we were very disappointed in his behavior and it wasn’t the first time we’ve been disappointed in his behavior, so at the time, it was just a matter of, well, it’s just really hard to imagine he’s really coming back in the near future. But it’s really Theo’s decision. I think that Carlos wants to be a Cub and he wants to do what’s right. We’ll leave it up to the baseball guys to manage it from there.

Look I understand that the A's depth chart in the outfield right now is not very good. I mean before the A's traded Ryan Sweeney, they had him making like Bugs Bunny in the outfield, being the lead candidate for all three positions.

But according to Jeff Fletcher, the A's are gauging their ability to sign Cody Ross. I'm not really loving the idea especially since Fletcher says that Ross was looking for a three-year deal and I'm not really in love with watching Ross play for the green and gold until the mythical opening of a new stadium in San Jose in 2015. Plus everyone hates Ross. I mean there's a Facebook page dedicated to hating him. Or maybe the A's should sign him? Maybe we should become baseball's version of the Raiders. Just go out there and start getting guys that everyone hates. AJ. Pierzynski, anyone? Anyone else we should pursue?

Still I'd rather see more of the unknown commodities playing, even if they are much more likely to fall flat on their face. Cowgill, Reddick and Taylor would be much more interesting to watch than throwing Ross out there daily. Plus, like I've said before, I'd personally rather go for the best draft pick possible even if it means fully tanking a season. To me, the A's have done too much band aiding over the last few seasons. And no, Ross isn't going to turn the A's into competitors and might not even make them any better. But I'm just not interested in watching players like Ross any more.

Maybe you feel differently but I'm just kind of done with that. It's time to let the unproven younger kids sink or swim and see what you've got and take the super high draft pick. Will it hurt? Oh yeah, but let's face it, we all know what we're in for in 2012. Let's take our medicine now in hopes of something greater.

So yeah, Grant Brisbee is a bit of an excellent writer who happens to write for Baseball Nation, in our humble little SB Nation network. He penned this piece today based on Monte Poole's piece and I think it's an incredibly insightful bit of writing that goes deeper than most of the "traditional" media does these days. And no, I don't pressure the guy who joined our network as the Giants guy to write favorable A's pieces...don't let him tell you any differently.

I've talked to many A's fans over social media and elsewhere (I'm on Twitter @papiblez in case you're wondering which you probably aren't) about the dismantling and while most seem to be in favor of the destruction of the A's roster, there are a good deal of them who are against ever throwing in the towel. I do believe that's why this rebuild has been postponed for far too long. I love Billy Beane. You all know that. I consider him a personal friend so there isn't any mistaking where I stand on things there. But I do think that Billy probably should've stopped putting band aids over the wounds a few seasons ago. At the same time, who could blame him for doing so? I mean the young rotation looked so great in 2010 that it looked like all he needed to do was to put together a patchwork offense to compete in the mediocre AL West.

But two things have changed since then. Pitching issues and a rapidly improving AL West. The Brett Anderson and Dallas Braden injuries, the Cahill earth-bound descent. The Rangers became a powerhouse in 2010 and 2011 and now the Angels don't appear as mediocre as they were with Pujols bat in the lineup (and Morales returning as well) and CJ Wilson in that rotation. A makeshift offense would not have helped the A's do anything in 2012 even IF Braden came back healthy, Cahill was Cahill circa 2010 and Brett Anderson came back to pitch like Brett Anderson midseason.

I know that this isn't easy for Billy Beane. He's probably the most competitive guy I know outside of myself (when I ride my bike I actually race birds flying alongside me and I will kill myself in order to beat them). Is there a chance that Lew Wolff gave Beane the directive to dismantle in order to force his fraternity brother's hand? Yeah of course there is. But I just don't see Beane doing that unless he truly believed that he was building towards something great down the road. It just isn't in Billy's nature even if commanded from above.

Accepting a poor team and no hope for three years is a hard thing and I get that A's fans are angry. I'm not looking forward to watching this team for three years...oh wait next year is 2012 so the pain won't actually last three years. It'll all be over soon enough kiddos.

Happy New Year AN!

Now I'm not sure if this is 100 percent accurate but Bob Nightengale of USA Today is reporting that the A's will be granted permission to move to San Jose. It won't happen until February if Nightengale is right but it's mixed news for A's fans.

I linked to it on Facebook and basically said, "Sucks for Oakland fans but it's been a long time coming and it's absolutely necessary." Believe me I know how much this sucks for the people who live in and around the Oakland area. But Oakland has so many other things going on right now that you simply can't blame the city for essentially giving up on the A's. I do believe that this will make the franchise much healthier over the long run as sports have turned into corporate products these days, with tons of revenue coming from luxury boxes and by moving to San Jose, the A's will suddenly have access to some of the most profitable tech companies in the world. Having a new stadium will also allow the A's to spend a lot more than they do right now and actually give them a shot to not only keep home grown stars but go after new free agents in the market. AND the free agents might actually want to come here as opposed to going anywhere BUT here. A new stadium with sparkling new facilities should also bring in a whole new casual fan.

I also have to think that Billy Beane knew that this verdict was on its way. I mean just look at the quotes from last night's Gio Gonzalez trade conference. He was talking about building the team like the next Cleveland Indians team so that when the team goes into the new stadium it's firing on all cylinders. That's what this offseason is all about and I don't believe it's just coincidence that Beane has fully committed to the rebuild the A's have needed for several seasons THIS season out of all seasons. Billy is really much more methodical than that.

Any way, I won't believe this is fully real until we get much closer...we all remember a little place called Fremont, right? But it's a small step towards a greater future for this franchise even if it crushes the past on the way to getting there.

Norb Vonnegut is an author and he took the time to sit down with Turf Show Times, our Rams site, to give some insight as to how he would fix what ails the St. Louis Rams franchise. It's a thought-provoking, outstanding interview that I highly recommend even if you aren't a Rams fan. Enjoy.

UPDATE: C.J. "I Hate Oakland" Wilson has also now reportedly signed with the LAAAAAAA as well. Go Rangers!

Yes, the best player in baseball now resides at the stadium about seven miles from my house. And the reaction is predictable from around the blogosphere. Angels fans are, well, thrilled. Ranger fans, not so much. Me being a glass is half full type of person (my wife would say I'm lying through my teeth on that one), I look at it this way. Pujols is allegedly 32 and his contract would run through his 42 birthday. The Angels also still have Vernon Wells and Torii Hunter to pay for. And Pujols can be a fragile guy. By the time the A's actually get competitive again...think Miami Marlins heading into their new stadium this season...Pujols will have probably three or four more years on him and be around 36. Now Pujols could be Bondsian in that he ages better than anyone expects but the A's should likely be on the rise when hopefully the Angels will be on the other side of that curve.

Course that means we still have to endure the next 3-4 torturous years. Half full, Blez, half full.

When a manager gets sacked (that's fired in the soccer world), often times people wonder whether or not that person deserved that fate. The BBC wondered that very question and went to the fans to ask them their opinion including our very own Roker Report.

Well that was a crappy year in Oakland. I just told Al Yellon, who runs our Cubs site, good luck with him, I just hope he remembers to pack his bat when he heads to Chicago because he left it in Kansas City.

Could this be like another former Royal who had one miserable year in Oakland and then went on to star for a struggling franchise that hadn't won a World Series and was cursed? We shall see. DeJesus had the worst year of his career offensively in Oakland (how many times are we going to say THAT phrase?). And he is someone that a lot of SABR-oriented GMs have pursued for a while. He did have a career .360 OBP until last year.

He wasn't in Oakland long enough to get attached and this is likely the first of a few different outfielders to sign elsewhere this offseason. As A's fan, get ready because the exodus is just beginning.