The celebrity curse

Our society has an obsession with celebrities.  People are drawn to the glamour of their lifestyles and find entertainment in tracking them through tabloids and magazines.  These media outlets take particular interest in the love lives of these celebrities, especially when two famous people start dating each other.  The couple may find it difficult to stay out of the spotlight, which can put a lot of pressure on them when every aspect of their relationship is scrutinized by a large group of strangers all over the country.  This can become problematic for professional athletes in this situation, as the added pressure can often become a distraction and impact their careers.  It's almost as if athletes that date celebrities are doomed to become cursed for the duration of the relationship.

One of the biggest examples of this is when Tony Romo dated Jessica Simpson.  Many considered the former pop star to be a bad luck charm for the Cowboys and an unnecessary distraction for Romo.  These concerns became magnified when the couple was spotted vacationing in Mexico the week before the Cowboys playoff game.  Romo was criticized for not being focused on the game and for not holding his vacation plans until after the postseason.  Considering the Cowboys would go on to lose that game, those concerns may have been warranted.  The couple split in the summer of 2009 and Romo went on to have one of the best seasons of his career, including his first career postseason win.

King's ransom paid to a Prince

The Detroit Tigers shocked the baseball world by making a surprise winning bid for free agent slugger Prince Fielder.  The former Brewer agreed to a 9 year, $214 million deal to join the team that his father once played for.  The signing comes on the heels of the devastating news that Victor Martinez had blown out his knee during off season workouts and would be lost for the entire season.  As recently as last week, Detroit GM David Dombrowski claimed the team would not overreact to the loss of Martinez by splurging on a big name like Fielder.  Maybe that was all a smoke screen to hide their true intentions, or perhaps their owner, 82 year old Mike Illitch, rolled out of bed one morning and decided he was intent on seeing his team win now at any cost.

One thing is for certain, this move comes with a hefty cost.  Fielder's deal is the fourth largest contract ever.  Of the larger contracts in league history, two of them belong to Alex Rodriguez and the other is the one Albert Pujols recently received to join the Angels.  Fielder may be one of the game's best power hitting sluggers, but he's not on the same level as those two, who have already paved their way to the Hall of Fame.  Fielder has put up some staggering numbers already in his career, but he's still got a long way to go before being considered a lock for Cooperstown.

Speaking of Fielder's numbers, let's take a moment to reflect on how great they have been.  In just over 6 seasons in the majors, Fielder has already swatted 230 Home Runs, putting him on a pace that should put him in the 500 career HR territory by the end of this contract.  He has a career slash line of .282 AVG/.390 OBP/.540 Slugging/.930 OPS, with his most recent season being well above those numbers in each category.  He's also averaged well over 100 RBIs per season in his career, making him one of the top run producers in the game.

AFC Championship preview

The New England Patriots host the Baltimore Ravens this weekend in Foxboro with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line.  As the top two seeds in the conference during the regular season, the two teams have already established themselves as the best in the AFC.  Now it comes down to this game to determine the conference champion.

The Patriots still agonize over the pain of their embarrassing upset loss the last time these two teams met in the postseason, back in 2009.  In that game, Ray Rice thrashed the Patriots defense for an 80 yard TD run on the opening drive.  They never regained momentum as the Ravens cruised to victory.  Of course this is a much different Patriots team this time around.  Wes Welker was injured for that game, and the team had yet to draft it's unstoppable TE duo of Gronkowski and Hernandez.  Those additions put this season's offense on another level, even if the defense has seen a bit of a decline since.  Chemistry issues behind the scenes may also have been part of the culprit for their disappointing finish that year, but all signs point to the team having a strong, unified locker room now.

The Patriots will be hungry and motivated to avenge that postseason failure from two years ago, as their redemption tour continues.  They already got some semblance of redemption for last season's early exit by beating the Jets twice in the regular season, which helped keep them out of the postseason.  Most recently they defeated a Denver Broncos team that has historically given this Patriots team difficulties and are responsible for Tom Brady's first career playoff loss back in 2005.  If the Patriots manage to defeat Baltimore, the redemption tour could very well conclude with a rematch in the Super Bowl with the Giants team that denied the Patriots their perfect season in 2007.

Before we get too ahead of ourselves, let's focus on this week's match up with Baltimore.

Yankees beef up rotation while Sox remain quiet

A relatively quiet off-season for the Red Sox, at least compared to the blockbuster moves made in recent years, has frustrated many fans in Boston.  Despite a glaring weakness at the back end of the rotation, the team seems content to roll the dice on attempting to convert Daniel Bard and Alfredo Aceves to the rotation while picking up some low risk options to fill in as organizational depth.  For a team that perennially expects to contend for a title, these under the radar moves are far from sufficient for a rabid fan base eager to see the team fix holes that derailed last year's once promising season.

Last week's moves by the division rival Yankees only made matters worse.  New York fixed their own rotation issues by trading for young phenom Michael Pineda and signing veteran Hiroki Kuroda to a reasonable 1 year, $10 million deal. 

Pineda, the young fireballer obtained from Seattle, should slot nicely into the second spot, behind rotation anchor CC Sabathia, and likely will remain a fixture in that spot for years to come.  He has ace caliber stuff, with a mid-90s fastball and a biting slider that can make left handed hitters look foolish.  In his promising rookie season he posted a respectable 3.74 ERA while striking out 9.1 batters per inning.  He got off to a great start mowing through lineups before teams adjusted to him and he hit the proverbial rookie wall down the stretch.  He struggled after the All-Star break to the tune of a 5.12 ERA before being shut down in September with the team cautiously looking to cap his innings total.  It's not unusual for young pitchers to wear down as they surpass new career highs in innings pitched, so his late season struggles aren't a long term concern.  The one concern that may be legitimate is how he'll fair in his new environment.  He'll face a drastic change in moving from pitcher friendly Safeco Park in Seattle to the launching pad in New York, especially when you consider his fly ball tendencies.  He also struggled against AL East opponents last season, particularly Boston and Toronto.  Even as he progresses as a pitcher, his stats may suffer just from the move to a tougher environment, despite that he may actually be pitching better.  That's life in the AL East.  It effects all but perhaps the elite pitchers.  Someday Pineda may join that group of elite that is unfazed by ballpark factors or deep lineups.  As long as he maintains his high strikeout rate, he'll find success.

Things I Noticed: Week 17

The regular season ended with an exciting slate of games in which all but four of the week's games had playoff implications.  Credit the league's schedule makers for ensuring that the last week of the season was packed with plenty of divisional games, which helped make sure there weren't too many meaningless games.  It also helped that many of the teams competing against each other for playoff spots played at the same time, so they didn't have the luxury of seeing the results of their competition before determining if the game had any meaning for them.

Here are some things I noticed this week:

• The Patriots clinched the top seed in the AFC with a win over the Bills.  It looked ugly early on, as the Bills piled up a 21 point lead in the first quarter.  For a while it seemed that either New England wasn't aware that they needed to win in order to get that top seed, or perhaps they felt sorry for their long suffering rivals and spotted them a few touchdowns as a handicap to start the game.  In any case, the Patriots finally showed up in the second quarter, on both sides of the ball, while rallying to score 49 unanswered points to cruise to victory.
• On the one hand, it's troubling to see the Patriots fall into an early hole in each of the past three weeks, but on the other hand, at least their offense has shown that they are capable of rallying back, proving they are never really out of any game.
• The Patriots Tight End duo once again contributed most of the damage for the offense.  Hernandez caught 7 passes for 138 yards and a TD, while Gronkowski added 8 catches for 108 yards and 2 TDs.

• Gronkowski's two trips to the endzone extended the record he had previously set for for TD's by a TE to 17, but he also set another TE record.  His season total of 1,327 receiving yards edged out the Saint's Jimmy Graham for the league lead at the position, not only for this year, but for the most All-Time for his position.  Sure, it's only his sophomore season, but put this man in the Hall of Fame already!
• Tom Brady became only the 6th QB All-Time to pass for 300 career TDs.  He's tied with John Elway for 5th All-Time on the list.