Sport Talker

Projected Standings:

1) Detroit Tigers
2) Cleveland Indians
3) Minnesota Twins
4) Chicago White Sox
5) Kansas City Royals

Actual Standings:

1) Chicago White Sox
2) Minnesota Twins
3) Cleveland Indians
4) Kansas City Royals
5) Detroit Tigers

Roger Clemens testified before Congress today that the only injections he received from Brian McNamee, his former trainer, were the vitamin B-12 or the pain reliever Lidocaine. McNamee, on the other hand, insisted before a House panel that that he injected Clemens with only testosterone, the steroid Winstrol or human growth hormone. The committee’s chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, stated the obvious by saying, “Someone isn’t telling the truth.”

McNamee’s allegations originally surfaced in ex-Senator George Mitchell’s report to Congress on the state of steroids in Major League Baseball. Also named in the report, from McNamee’s allegations, were Clemens’s former teammates, Chuck Knoblauch and Andy Pettitte. Both Pettitte and Knoblauch have acknowledged that the allegations about them were true.

Pettitte, Clemens’s good friend, who has played with him since 1999 for either the New York Yankees or Houston Astros, weakened Clemens’s credibility by testifying about a time several years ago that he recalled that Roger mentioned taking human growth hormone. Clemens dismissed Pettitte’s testimony saying he must have misheard the remark.

Projected Standings:

1) Milwaukee Brewers
2) Chicago Cubs
3) St. Louis Cardinals
4) Houston Astros
5) Cincinnati Reds
6) Pittsburgh Pirates

Projected Standings:

1) Boston Red Sox
2) New York Yankees
3) Toronto Blue Jays
4) Tampa Bay Rays
5) Baltimore Orioles

Projected Standings:

1) New York Mets
2) Philadelphia Phillies
3) Atlanta Braves
4) Florida Marlins
5) Washington Nationals

Erik Bedard’s trade to the Seattle Mariners seems to have finally been completed. This deal has been in talks for a couple of months now and has been announced as on & off several times. The Orioles are expected to acquire Adam Jones, George Sherrill, Chris Tillman, Kam Mickolio and Tony Butler for Bedard. Bedard took and apparently passed his physical Thursday, so an official announcement should be coming shortly.

Bedard is one of the best pitchers in baseball, but will turn 29 years old before Opening Day, has yet to throw 200 innings in a season and can become a free agent following the 2009 season. He’ll form a fantastic one-two punch atop the Mariners’ rotation alongside Felix Hernandez, but Seattle paid a huge price to acquire him and may regret the move if they aren’t able to sign him to a long-term contract extension. The move to Seattle’s pitcher-friendly ballpark should help Bedard and with Johan Santana gone he’s now the top fantasy pitcher in the AL. Bedard’s arrival knocks Horacio Ramirez out of the rotation and makes it likely that Brandon Morrow will remain in the bullpen.

In one of the most significant upsets in Super Bowl history, the NFC champion New York Giants (14-6) defeated the AFC champion New England Patriots (18-1) by the score of 17-14.Had the Patriots won this game, they would have completed a the first perfect season in the NFL since the 1972 Miami Dolphins and the only one since the league expanded to a 16-game regular season in 1978.

The game was a rematch of both teams’ regular season-ending game on December 29, 2007, which the Patriots won to finish the regular season 16–0, with a score of 38–35 at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

New England opened the bye week as 14-point favorites, but dipped to 12-point favorites by kickoff. In the end, after falling behind late in the fourth quarter, the Giants won 17–14 on a final-minute touchdown pass from Eli Manning to Plaxico Burress. Manning was named the Most Valuable Player and the Giants became the first NFC wild card team to win a Super Bowl.

The telecast was the most-watched Super Bowl in history, with an average of 97.5 million viewers in the United States. A record 148.3 million total viewers tuned into the game. It was also the second-most-watched TV program in the United States, behind the 1983 M*A*S*H series finale.