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To: Cactus Jack who wrote (57646)	12/4/2006 1:23:48 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 104197

Carr's disappointment comes through after Rose Bowl bid _______________________________________________________ The Associated Press 12/3/2006, 11:14 p.m. ET ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — Lloyd Carr is going to let people read between the lines. Sunday night, the Michigan coach wouldn't directly say that his Wolverines should be headed to the BCS national championship game, but he wasn't making it hard to guess how he felt. "I don't think there is any question that there are flaws in the system," Carr said on a Rose Bowl teleconference. "I hope that, in the future, we can have a system where all of the answers are decided on the field." Michigan entered the weekend ranked third and helpless to do anything but watch, having finished its regular season with a 42-39 loss to top-ranked Ohio State on Nov. 18. The Wolverines got what they appeared to need when No. 2 USC lost to UCLA, but, as it turned out, that wasn't enough to get Michigan a rematch with its archrival. Instead, the team will be facing USC in Pasadena while Ohio State plays Florida, which jumped from fourth to second after beating Arkansas in the SEC title game. "My statement is that I don't think they would have moved ahead of us if USC had won their game," Carr said of the Gators. "I don't know what the voters were thinking — you'd have to ask them — but I don't think there's any question that if USC wins, we remain No. 3." Ohio State coach Jim Tressel chose to abstain in this weekend's coaches poll instead of helping decide which team he would face in the title game. It was a move that Carr would only touch on briefly. "I thought it was real slick," said Carr, who also said he could not see any situation where he would give up his vote. Carr was careful to say all the right things about Michigan's third trip to the Rose Bowl in the last four years. "The Rose Bowl is not a consolation — it is the greatest tradition in college football," he said. "I've always felt that there's no better experience for a college football player than to play in the Rose Bowl." Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis said he voted Michigan No. 2 on his ballot. "I didn't play Florida. I played Michigan, I played them at home and they beat us soundly. I thought from my end it was a fairly easy decision," Weis said. Carr said that a traditional Big Ten vs. Pac-10 matchup is even more appropriate this year after the Nov. 17 death of his mentor, Bo Schembechler. "Coach John Robinson spoke at Coach Schembechler's memorial, and he talked about the tradition of USC and Michigan," Carr said. "We have great respect for USC, for the Rose Bowl and for that tradition." The Wolverines will be looking for their first postseason victory since beating Florida 38-30 in the Outback Bowl on Jan. 1, 2003. Michigan lost to USC and Texas in the next two Rose Bowls before dropping a 32-28 decision to Nebraska in last season's Alamo Bowl. "We'd like to win one of these," Carr said. "We've done some great things to get to the Rose Bowl, but now we need to win one." They'll be facing a USC team that was hoping for a fourth-straight shot at a national title and a coach who understands Carr's frustration. The Trojans won the 2003 AP national title despite being left out of the BCS championship game. "I completely understand what Coach Carr is having to deal with under the BCS system and the challenge he faces," USC coach Pete Carroll said. "I respect him for the way he is handling it."

To: Cactus Jack who wrote (57646)	12/4/2006 1:31:28 AM
From: SiouxPal	Respond to of 104197

Go Gators!

To: Cactus Jack who wrote (57646)	12/4/2006 2:47:24 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 104197

Bonds Is a Big Bargain for the Right Team ____________________________________________________________ By DAN ROSENHECK The New York Times December 3, 2006 In a soaring free-agent market, Barry Bonds’s bad-boy reputation may turn him into baseball’s unlikeliest bargain. Even at 42, he is the best player on the market. Nate Silver, an analyst for Baseball Prospectus, said Bonds would probably hit around .270 next season, with about 25 home runs, 135 walks and surprisingly average fielding thanks to his keen defensive instincts. Using the well-known relationships between statistics like doubles and strikeouts, runs and won-lost records, it is possible to transform numbers into the only statistic that truly matters to a general manager: wins. If Bonds meets the predictions of Silver, he will improve any team without a starting-caliber left fielder by about five wins (or four and a half if he is squandered as a full-time designated hitter). By contrast, none of this year’s top free-agent corner outfielders (Alfonso Soriano, Carlos Lee and J. D. Drew) are likely to exceed a four-win contribution next year. And since Bonds will be gone after one or two seasons, teams won’t have to worry about signing him to a long-term contract and paying him top dollar while his skills decline. So which organization should take the plunge? Like all free agents — and, indeed, all workers — Bonds represents a revenue stream for his potential employers. Silver says that each regular-season win a player adds to his team is worth about $1 million in revenue. If he can push them into the playoffs, ownership earns a further $40 million. So some teams can squeeze much more profit from Bonds’s five victories than others. A squad with only about 60 wins’ worth of talent on its roster, like the Kansas City Royals, would probably not earn more than an additional $5 million in revenue by signing Bonds, because it has virtually no chance of making the playoffs. By contrast, a team that is a good bet to win around 88 games next season, like the Chicago White Sox, would increase its chances of making the postseason to 50 percent from about 30 percent. That additional 20 percent probability of a playoff berth is worth an additional $8 million, bringing Bonds’s total value to $13 million. Any team looking to sign him should be on the verge of a postseason appearance; that eliminates his most recent employer. Even though Bonds is loved in San Francisco and despised most everywhere else, the Giants are unlikely to contend next year. Bonds can also offer potential suitors an added source of revenue: his chase for the home run record. He is on track to surpass Hank Aaron’s career total of 755 late next season. When Bonds broke Mark McGwire’s single-season home run record of 70 in 2001, attendance increased by about 5,000 a game during the last 40 games of the year, and once he reached 69, every game sold out. A team that comes close to selling out most of its games would be unable to accommodate the extra fans who would pay to see Bonds break the record. But one with a big stadium and mediocre attendance could increase its revenue by more than $5 million. Add it all up, and one team trumps the rest: the Minnesota Twins. They had the worst-performing left fielders in the majors last year. They play in a tightly contested division, vying against the 2006 pennant-winning Detroit Tigers and the 2005 world champion White Sox, as well as the up-and-coming Cleveland Indians. And, crucially, they averaged 24,000 empty seats a game in August and September, meaning they could benefit more from an increase in attendance for Bonds’s record chase than any other serious contender. Moreover, they are $11 million under last year’s payroll. If Carl Pohlad, the Twins’ owner, gave his general manager, Terry Ryan, another $6 million and instructed him to offer Bonds a one-year, $17 million contract, he would still have a good chance of making a profit on the deal. Ryan has not publicly expressed any interest in Bonds, and the Twins do not have a history of signing big-ticket free agents. But Bonds has always been unique, and he represents an opportunity to acquire a premier slugger in a market that would otherwise be out of the Twins’ financial league.