First example is the Jake Peavy story that had many teams and cities wondering what he was going to do. Writers in Seattle put the Minnesota Twins as the front runner. Then the next time “sources” put the Yankees in the lead and even said a deal would be done by the end of the day. Oh there was a deal done by the end of the day but it sent Peavy to the Texas Rangers.

Next we have a story over this weekend where the Yankees are in the lead to land Dan Haren. At this point I’m guessing it’s people just wanting the Yankees to do something, so they are hoping if they say they are in the lead for so and so that it will land whoever. Come to find out the Angels put up the better offer and Haren doesn’t end up in New York.

Now I change sports and we have a Nationwide race where a couple of old hacks or drivers whatever you want to call them give their view of what is happening on the track. One is Rusty Wallace who could be heard muttering “dumbass” during a recent Kyle Busch interview. He shows why he should stick to driving when during a commercial break and caution comes out and the one really bad replay they have, he gives his best shot by saying that Ron Hornaday cut a tire down and got into the 31 car of J.C. Stout. However in the replay you could see the 31 sideways and more than likely the tire getting cut down was caused by contact with the 31.

I understand play by play is hard but if you are getting paid to do it, you probably should be pretty accurate. Not to mention get the names right. It’s not hard to do your work right. Take pride in what you do and if you can’t don’t make people have to listen to you.

Now back to baseball and today the recent power rankings on ESPN.com came out. I understand why the Yankees and Rays are number’s 1 and 2 but to think the Red Sox deserve number 6 in the Major League is almost laughable. The Giants have a better record than the Cardinals and the Red Sox yet sit behind both of them. I understand though that the Red Sox play in one of toughest divisions. Doesn’t help in any case because they aren’t gonna make the playoffs and at that rate might not  be even worth being considered. We go down a couple spots and they list the White Sox at 10 and the Twins at 11. Although just 7 days prior the Twins finished a series they took 3 of 4 from the White Sox. The only thing they can say about the Twins is “Justin Morneau’s continued absence from the lineup after sustaining a concussion earlier this month is an ominous sign.” However if anyone can remember last year that the Twins made a Playoff run and winning a sudden death playoff game of 163 without Morneau. Good job ESPN!

In short just take pride in your work and stop giving us crap. Get your stories right. You don’t need to be the first one but if you are be correct. Kinda like Stephen A Smith. Congrats on being the first and being right that Bosh and Lebron would join Wade. Anyone want to hire me to make the changes needed, I will. I will tell Rusty to go somewhere else. Or those who helped with this week’s poll Jason Grey of ESPN Fantasy, Tim Kurkjian of ESPN The Magazine, Peter Pascarelli of ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball,” Enrique Rojas of ESPNdeportes.com and Jayson Stark of ESPN.com. Several team comments are courtesy of the fan bloggers who are part of Rob Neyer’s SweetSpot Blog Network.

This last Saturday night was the USARacing Pro Cup Series(formally Hooters Pro Cup) season opener. I first want to thank, Gary Kale, Carl Hubbard, Jack McNelly, Chip Lofton, and Larry Camp for keeping this series alive. This is the best short track series and will continue to be.

As always the season opener is a two day event and walking around Friday you could feel that racing bug in the air. Many were happy to be there, others had comments about the new owners still having race teams in the series. Bottom line is no one would be there without these guys, and they bought the series so they could continue racing in the series.

Saturday rolled around and a few more cars showed up bringing the car count to 21. Definitely a lot lower then everyone wanted to see. But it was still a good thing to be back at the track for everyone. A lot of speed in practice and only 1 incident to slow the session. It appeared the 75s was the fastest but i cant confirm that. After that everyone takes a little break and prepares for qualifying, while the teams do that its the first official drivers meeting. Larry Camp introduces himself and speaks with great enthusiasm about the series. An anouncement of the tv package from the new production company. Look for it on Fox Sports Net on Sunday mornings. And then they get to it with Jimmy Wilson and the rules. New rule in 2009 must take fuel and has to be after lap 50.

Qualifying starts and Clay Rogers wins the pole with a 16.472. As always in between qualifying and the race is the autograph session where the fans have a chance to meet the drivers. After that its time for business, and when the green flag drops Clay takes off. He starts lapping cars and laps everyone except the top 10 when the first caution waves. At this point you think the only thing that will stop Clay is some bad luck. Mostly everyone makes both their before Clay can make his. When Clay finally does make both of his stops, he restarts in the back of the field and trouble starts in front of him and he has no where to go. His team makes the necessary repairs but he is several laps down at that point.

With Clay out of the race for victory its time for others to step up. The top 3 are Brandon Ward, Benny Gordon and Derek Kale. Caleb Holman, Trevor Bayne, and Drew Herring who were all fast in practice are towards the back, so its anyones race. When they restart Clay is furious and storms through the pack making some crazy passes. While he does that the battle for 2nd heats up, Kale gets under Gordon and tries to make the pass. Gordon does what he does best making it difficult, but maybe this time he made it too difficult on himself, when he just kept coming down on Kale and eventually taking himself out of the race. Anyone knows these twos past you would think there would be some words exchanged but Gordon just goes to his hauler and calls it a night.

Kale now finds himself 2nd with Clay lining up to the inside of the leader. Everyone knows how Clay is going race but what is Ward going to do leading? The restart is clean, Kale cant follow Clay through the bottom but does put some pressure on Ward. While behind him Holman puts a little pressure but cant make any progress. Bayne’s coming strong, puts the pressure on Kale for 10 laps before he finally lets Bayne go. Bayne gets by Ward and is in the drivers seat. He goes on to win the first USARacing Pro Cup Series race. Followed by Ward, Kale, Gill, and Herring.

Overall it was a great night for racing and some good racing there was. A couple ruffled feathers but nothing to explosive. The series is the same, so if you live anwywhere near a race make sure you go to it. And teams its worth it, dont let your stuff sit idle any longer. Especially when all your doing is waiting to see if they find a sponsor for the series. They will and it will be back to normal.