Has anyone else notice he's lost at the plate so far this year?  Yea, yea, I see his BB's are huge and his OBP is .400 plus, but his BA is under ,240 now.  It's been 29 games guys, I'm a little skeptical myself. He may be still hurting so I'll give him that....Just wanted to get your opinion as I've made mine....the guy is not focused on baseball.

A bunch of my friends gathered to watch ufc 92 which was awesome and we had a really good time watching the action.  Many of us had the same thoughts and I was looking for feedback on this awesome mma site to an observation we had about the ufc 92 and more recent ufc events.

Is it just me or do many of the fights stay standing much longer than in years past?  I've been watching ufc for about 8 yrs and I never can remember this many fights not going to the ground.  Last night's fights consisted of exactly 0 tapouts I believe from submissions... Correct me if I'm wrong but what I'm seeing lately are stand up kick boxing matches.  Has anyone else noticed that many recent fights this year have stayed standing up and relatively little jiu-jitsu has been used on the ground?  MIr-Nogeira featured two BJJ black belts known for their submissions yet they stayed standing up the whole fight?  Also, Evans-Griffin took three rounds to finally hit the mat.  Why wouldn't have Evans taken Forrest down much earlier in the fight to stay away from the leg kicks which were hurting him.

Now I know many fans like to see the action stay on the feet but my quesiton is do the fighters intend this to be the case?  As many of you are probably aware elite xc was caught encouraging fighters to keep the fights standing especially against Kimbo Slice etc.  They encouraged fighters to keep the fight standing by increasing their payouts at the end of the fights.  Now I'm not saying this is the case in the ufc at all it's just that I am thinking out loud of why so many more fights stay standing nowadays.

Other reasons could be the style of today's fighters and the desire to have the best knockout of the night to gain recognition etc.  I'm perplexed as you can tell and I would really appreciate any thoughts out there on this subject.

I read the worst news of the off-season today so far in my mind concerning our beloved Yankees.  I read that Cashman is leaving the door open concerning the possiblity of bringing Pavano back to fill the back end fo the rotation out.  I think this shows the utter idiocy of Cashman and his certain ineptness to turn this team around.  We wasted 40 MILLION dollars on Pavano over the last 4 years with seemingly nothing in return.  Not only did Pavano suck as a player, but from what I've read he was looked down upon in the clubhouse and many players thought he nursed his injuries way too much.  I'm interested in your reaction to this "possibility".