Obama watches Strasburg set record, White Sox win, Wave go by!!!

Washington Nationals rookie phenom Stephen Strasburg set a record during another masterful performance. And the Chicago White Sox scraped their way to an 11-inning victory, winning for the eighth time in nine games.

But the biggest winner at sold-out Nationals Park on Friday night?

[Photos: President Obama takes in a ballgame]

President Barack Obama (right, in White Sox cap).

Not only did he get to witness Strasburg with his own eyes, and he saw his White Sox win, but he also sat stoically — and righteously — as the rest of the stadium foolishly did the Wave. Including at least one of his own daughters. Hah! Silly humans!

Here's indisputable photographic proof of the president's good sense.

Of course, the slightly bigger news was, again, Strasburg. He struck out 10, giving him 32 for the season, to eclipse a record set by Houston's J.R. Richard for most K's in his first three career starts.

In September of 1971, Richard struck out 29 out of the chute for the Astros. Reality could never quite keep up with Richard's legend. Strasburg does not lack for hype, either.

Ozzie Guillen's impression: "I think he's the best pitcher in the National League."

Mixed reaction greets Manny Ramirez's return to Fenway!!!

In the end, Manny Ramirez's(notes) return to Fenway Park on Friday night went as I thought it would: Some people cheered, some booed and a few looked completely unmoved.

As for the man himself, Ramirez did not offer a tip of the cap or a wave as he approached the plate in the bottom of the second inning, perhaps because it seemed like the moment did not require a response. The whole scene then ended as quickly as it began with Ramirez lining the first pitch for an out to center field. No real drama, though the Red Sox did make an effort to set the stage — at least somewhat — for their former slugger.

From the Associated Press:

"In the middle of the second inning, the Red Sox played a video on the scoreboard of Ramirez highlights. Set to the R.E.M. song 'Superman,' it showed him making diving catches, receiving his Series MVP trophy, posing at the plate after hitting a home run and, of course, opening the door to the Green Monster.

Ramirez will likely DH all three games during this interleague series, so a mid-inning potty break in the Monster seems unlikely. The good news is that the famed left field wall was not left wanting for a visit from a formerly beloved player now living in exile.

Yes, that was Roger Clemens sitting in the seats atop the Monster. When it rains, it pours, I suppose.

Marvin Harrison still loves the shoot em up bang bang!!

According to ESPN's Shaun Assael, former Indianapolis Colts star receiver Marvin Harrison had a nine millimeter handgun confiscated by police during a recent traffic stop.

Harrison was stopped by police three blocks away from a garage that he owns. The same garage that was the site of a murder 2008.

Harrison, as you'll probably recall, was linked to that murder in north Philadelphia back in 2008. He never faced criminal charges for the incident, but Philadelphia police did determine that multiple shell casings at the crime scene came from a gun belonging to Harrison -- a .50 caliber elephant-killer. A lot of media outlets then painted an unflattering picture of Harrison's off-the-field habits.

Here are the details, again, via Shaun Assael:

The 37-year-old former Pro Bowl receiver was driving the wrong way down the one-way street in a Cadillac Escalade when the patrolman stopped him along with the driver of a second car that was trailing him, the sources said.

According to the two law enforcement sources, the patrolman saw Harrison place something that appeared to be a weapon in the seat console of his car. When the officer asked him to step out of the vehicle, Harrison produced a car registration and a permit to carry a weapon, both of which were in order. When he was asked whether he had a weapon, however, he answered no, the sources said.

At that point, the sources added, the officer said that he had probable cause to search the vehicle and found a weapon.

The gun will undergo some ballistics testing to see if it might match up with some other 9mm shell casings that were found at the original 2008 crime scene. According to a witness, a second gun at the scene was responsible for the 9mm casings, but police never found that weapon.

What's there to say? The surprise that Marvin Harrison(notes) isn't the quiet little choir boy we all thought he was has long since worn off. It's not illegal for Harrison to have a gun, of course, but why is he lying to police about it? Particularly when he has all the permits and paperwork in order? Legally, he's guilty of nothing, but my goodness ... everything around him seems so shady. If nothing else, I'd classify Harrison as a scary guy.

Redskins to Haynesworth: We'd like our money back, please!!!

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The Washington Redskins have just about it had it with Albert Haynesworth's(notes) unhappy dance, and now they're firing back. According to the AP, their plan of attack is to recover some or all of the $21 million they gave him in bonus money last year.

The Redskins are going to see if they can recoup all or part of a $21 million bonus from the disgruntled two-time All Pro defensive tackle, an official within the league with knowledge of the deliberations told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The team decided to take the action after Haynesworth failed to report for a mandatory two-day minicamp.

Haynesworth, as you know, is upset because the Redskins want him to play in a 3-4 defense, as opposed to the 4-3 Albert prefers.

Haynesworth's contention is that the Redskins promised him he'd be playing in a 4-3, and he never would've signed there if he knew his role would be as a 3-4 player. Unless he specifically got that written into his contract, though, I don't think it matters. The Redskins signed him to play football.

So play football, Big Al.

Whenever possible, I try to side with the player in NFL athlete vs. management controversies. I feel like the current collective bargaining agreement is slanted very much in favor of the owners, and players generally get the short end of the stick.

Haynesworth is making that stance difficult, though. He's not a young guy who's outperformed his contract, and he's not someone who isn't going to get the payday he deserves. He just signed with the Redskins a year ago for $100 million.

I don't care if they ask you to return punts on the scout team or clip Rex Grossman's(notes) toenails. You took the money. Now you do what they ask you to do, which, by the way, is not unreasonable.

Unless you're willing to give the money back, in which case I'm sure the Redskins would be happy to release you, and you can go see if someone else will give you $100 million. Heads-up, though: Only one Dan Snyder exists.

Yahoo

Bosh May Call New York Home Next Season!!!

Chris Bosh(notes) will soon no longer be in the employ of the Toronto Raptors and the New York Post reports that the New York Knicks will be one of the teams that he'll be seriously considering moving to.

"There are a lot of teams out there I'm considering, including my home team, the Raptors," Bosh told TV station SNY, according to the Post. "It's gonna be crazy and confusing and I'm looking forward to it."

Bosh also told the station that as cool as it would be to move to another team with LeBron James(notes), he's not going to wait for him to choose a new team.

"Anytime you have the opportunity to play with certain guys, you have to take that into consideration. When it all goes down, he's gonna be one of the all-time greats," Bosh said. "At the same time, I can't just sit around and wait. I have to be proactive with my choices and what's gonna make me happy. I have to make sure I take my time and make the right decision."

source: Yahoo

Wallace May call it a QUITS???

Rasheed Wallace(notes) was pressed into the starting five for the Boston Celtics on Thursday night when the injured Kendrick Perkins(notes) couldn't play. Wallace delivered 11 points, eight rebounds, two assists and two blocked shots in a game the Celtics led nearly the whole way before finally succumbing to the Los Angeles Lakers, 83-79, to lose the championship.

Wallace has two years and $13 million left on his contract, but Celtics coach Doc Rivers suggested after the game that the 35-year-old would retire this summer, the Boston Herald reports.

"You know, I don't know if Rasheed will ever play again. I think he took that out on the floor with him," Rivers said. "I think he is thinking about retiring, and I thought you could see that in his play. He was dying out there. When he got the cramps and the strains, he was just trying to figure out a way of staying on the floor."

Wallace didn't say anything about it after the game. Instead, he hung out around the door of the referees' dressing room, reportedly wanting to talk to an official. "I'm trying to give him a compliment, and he thinks I'm trying to say something (bad)," Wallace said, according to the Herald.

Source: Yahoo

Texas Teams may be headed west to the Pac-10, Baylor's all for it!!!

Pac-10 bigwigs met today in San Francisco, as expected, yet failed to revolutionize college sports as we know it by extending membership to half the Big 12, as widely speculated over the preceding 48 hours.

Sure enough, though, a sprawling, 16-team super conference forged by an alliance with Big 12 refugees was one of four options commissioner Larry Scott laid out for the league's future, according to multiple sources (including an unnamed Pac-10 athletic director) who leaked the day's agenda to both ESPN Los Angeles and Orangebloods.com, the Texas-based Rivals affiliate that initially broke the impending super conference scenario on Thursday. Those four options, according to both outlets:

• Retaining the current 10-team structure, unchanged since Arizona and Arizona State joined the Pac-8 in 1978;
• Adding Colorado and Utah to form a 12-team conference with two six-team divisions and a championship game, a la the SEC, Big 12 and ACC;
• Brokering a full merger with the entire Big 12, creating an unwieldy, 22-team behemoth that would completely redefine the concept of a "conference" in college sports;
• Brokering a merger with six Big 12 schools, as reported by Orangebloods, as long as one of those schools is Texas.

As Scott stressed on Friday, all options remain on the table. The one non-negotiable aspect of all four: The formation of a Pac-10 network based on the lucrative Big Ten model, likely run in conjunction with Fox Cable News, a partner in the Big Ten Network and in the Pac-10's current television structure. (Orangebloods notes that Scott's No. 2, associate commissioner Kevin Weiberg, resigned as Big 12 commish when members rejected his effort to start a conference network in 2007, defecting to the Big Ten to help launch the BTN instead. He may now play a significant role in putting the Big 12 on the chopping block ... with the lure of a conference network. If the question is "Who's laughing now?," the answer is Kevin Weiberg.)

Scott is reported to favor the final option above, the 16-team goliath featuring the crown jewel of the expansion push, Texas, and five of the Longhorns' less lucrative Big 12 comrades. As of Thursday, that lineup allegedly consisted of Colorado, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M and Texas Tech. But where Texas goes, of course, so goes Texas politics. And if Texas is the real prize, reasoned a legislator who spoke to Orangebloods' Chip Brown, Texas politicians see no reason to let the Longhorns go without attaching as many Lone Star riders as they can afford – specifically, in this case, that could mean Baylor's in, and Colorado's out:

"If you're going to have an exported commodity involved in this, do you think we're going to allow a school from outside the state of Texas to replace one of our schools in the Big 12 South? I don't think so. We're already at work on this," said a high-ranking member of the Texas Legislature who asked not to be identified.

The source said there is a block of 15 legislators who will work to make sure Baylor - not Colorado - is invited to the Pac-10.

"If the Pac-10 wants Texas, and we know they do, they may have to take all of our Texas schools," the source said, adding that Texas Tech has also benefited from political inclusion on the invite list.

In other words, affiliation with Texas is a bleeping valuable thing. You don't just give it away for nothing. If that anonymous man doesn't wear a 10-gallon cowboy hat to work every day, he should, and occasionally use it as a potato chip bowl on his desk, right next to the autographed photos of J.R. Ewing and Ann Richards. (It was then-governor Richards, a Baylor grad, who was considered instrumental in securing the Bears' surprising seat at the Big 12 table in 1995. She may be dead, but hardballin' Texas politics is alive as ever.)

It's men like him and the 14 others prepared to milk the Longhorns' irresistibility for all it's worth who should put Texas Tech's mind at ease: Other conferences may think they have "a Tech problem," and now "a Baylor problem." Even Texas may think it has a Tech/Baylor problem. If Texas is as golden as everyone seems to think, though, it's exactly this sort of canny regional politicking that could wind up saving the Bears and Red Raiders from the scrap heap when the dust settles.

If pushed too far, it could also throw the brakes on the entire production by raising the price beyond what the interested conferences are willing to pay. But then, Texas could still have the opportunity to make up the difference in what it might have made in the Pac-10 or Big Ten television networks by exploring the all-Texas network, and vulnerable Texas Tech and Baylor would (presumably) remain secure in the Big 12 South. If UT is going to land on its feet no matter what, its unofficial protectorate programs are likely to benefit from the resulting landscape, as well – as long as it doesn't include the Longhorns ditching them for the unlikely refuge of independence.

Either way, if only Nebraska and Missouri had those kinds of bargaining chips to throw on the table, maybe they could be the ones laying down ultimatums instead of receiving them. But more on that in the morning.

Source: Yahoo.com