Random Friday

Today some musings:

• This morning Jim Souhan said a whole lot of nothing about the U of M's new coach Tubby Smith but made some time for digs at football coach Tim Brewster, saying:
  

  His supporters believe Brewster will become the next rebuilding wizard to alter the college football landscape, but to date he has proven only that he's not ready to coach in the Big Ten.

Not only to does Souhan fail to offer some of that proof, he fails to provide even one example of poor coaching. Heck, even Mack Brown at Texas and Coach K at Duke make mistakes (don't they?), so it shouldn't be that difficult to come up with something to support that statement.

• Joe Christensen reports on the Johan Santana trade talks, and comes up with this interesting bit:

  Specifically, the Yankees plan on making a strong push if the two-time Cy Young Award winner becomes available. They appeared to be holding back their top prospects in the (Miguel) Cabrera discussions to make a run at Santana.

Forgetting about what the Twins might do with or get for Santana, how messed up is baseball that one team can go after and probably get the very best pitcher and one of the top three hitters, and then pay them in perpetuity? Ok, ok, the Yankees appear to be replacing Arod with Cabrera in this scenario. Still, the gall and balls of it all.

• Over at Gopher Illustrated, the suggestion was made that Tubby Smith should start Lawrence Westbrook with senior Lawrence McKenzie and frosh Al Nolen. My goodness, what a D II world we live in still around these parts. The previously scatterbrained/scattergunning Westbrook apparently looked good at Minnesota State Southwest St. (is that really the name now?) on Wednesday. Gopher fans expectations are such now that a victory over a small division school is the basis of joy and conclusions on what the coach should do. Is it January 5 that the Gophers open the season at Michigan St.? Now there's your reality.
• Tomorrow I run twenty miles with my running partner Meantforme. While she tends to motor through this kind of torture, I rarely feel good running that kind of distance. The next marathon is a mere few weeks away, and I'm nowhere near ready for it. Surviving 20 is my only goal right now and, truly, to do that I have to eat right, hydrate right, sleep right. There really is nothing worse than giving up your Friday happy hours. I used to live for those damn things.