Brett Favre is Dumb, but Josh Hamilton is Incredible

You know that memo to Brett Favre that I wrote 2 years ago, and wanted him to read? I don't think he did. My God, I am completely and utterly tired of the endless "drama" every summer since he left Green Bay. It's pretty obvious at this point, contrary to what this *at the time* awesome ad was referring to - Favre's indecisiveness is nothing more than a contrived scheme to keep him out of training camp. So what if he's 40? If the man wants to play in the NFL, he ought to go through training camp like everyone else. And if - as he claimed this year - medical issues prevent him from doing so, he ought to be way more upfront about his intentions. The guy is a gloryhound who enjoys playing the media like a violin, and media outlets like ESPN (witness their breathless coverage of his reported retirement by text a few weeks ago) are all too happy to oblige.

Just because he's Brett Favre, iron man, doesn't entitle him to skip training camp. Just because he's Brett Favre, NFL legend and holder of several records, doesn't mean he gets special treatment. But the Vikings, lacking the guts to play hardball, are all too willing to go along with Favre's games. It must really suck to be Tarvaris Jackson right now.

New Layout

Yep, I decided it was time for a re-design. I thought the name was misleading, the picture was too big, the color was too blah - basically, if I wanted to make this a serious endeavor, then some changes had to be made. So, summary of the changes -

1) The name: Now "Stretch's Take" instead of "The Weather Up Here." While the original certainly was clever, it made the blog sound too weather-oriented. Since I don't want to go into meteorology, I thought something a little more salient was needed. While the new one is *possibly* a work in progress, it's an upgrade. Stretch, by the way, is my sometimes-nickname.

2) The picture: The original is a great picture, but became outdated once the original title was swapped out. Now, being a picture of baseball stuff, it's more representative of what I hope to write about - as opposed to describing my favorite sunsets over lakes, which may have been implied by the previous picture.

3) The background: It's a little more pro-looking...I guess. More of just a change for change's sake. Great Tupac song, while I'm on the subject.

Deconstructing Head-to-Head Part 1

So of course, for the first post after my pledge to restart the blog, I'm going to do something that wasn't mentioned as one of the ideas bouncing around in my head. Go figure.

Nope, I've decided to go with something that I've pondered about for a long time, but never really figured out how to quantify. As you might have figured from my very long posts 2 years ago examining my fantasy baseball draft halfway through the season, fantasy baseball is kind of a passion of mine. I'm no fantasy nerd, I don't obsess over every fantasy sport I play. Outside of baseball, it's merely just a casual thing with friends for bragging rights (except come March Madness time, when it's sometimes for money). But with baseball, it's kind of a point of pride. Yeah yeah, I know, that sounds awfully pathetic - that I invest a lot of time and even pride in my fantasy baseball teams. See, I view baseball as MY sport, and if I don't absolutely dominate in the fantasy version, then my being the resident baseball expert is in doubt. Yes, I also recognize that that's more of a self-imposed thing than anything else, but still. The fact remains that baseball is my favorite sport, and therefore I "care" more about fantasy baseball.