As I turn on Game Six of the NBA Finals, I know one thing: I don't want either team to win.

Unlike most people, I never wanted a Boston Celtics vs. Los Angeles Lakers finals rematch that had all the hoopla because of the battles in the '80s.  I would much rather see the underdog versus the winner on paper in the NBA Finals, so then I would at least have a team I'd want to root for.

Instead I'm stuck wavering back in forth in my mind as to who I'd rather see win another ring.

I hate the Lakers.

If you're not from L.A. —or should I say, if you're not from L.A. and superficial —then how can you be a fan of this team?  It's been in the finals three straight years, has the best coach in the league—if not the best coach ever —and also has the best player in the league.

The Lakers are the team that pulled off the greatest trade in NBA history by delivering Vlade Divac to the Charlotte Hornets for Kobe Bryant on draft night.  It makes you wonder if the Hornets would still be around in Charlotte if it wasn't for that move?

Shall we also forget the Big Ben-esque maneuver that Lakers pulled on the Memphis Grizzlies to acquire Pau Gasol?  I mean grabbing one of the best big man in the game for Aaron McKie, Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton, Marc Gasol, and first-round picks in the 2008 and 2010 NBA Drafts may not be a full on raping, but the Lakers definitely took the Grizzlies into a stall and forced them into it.

I hate the Celtics too.

Here's a team that was great, sucked for so many years, and then jumped back on the radar as one of the greatest NBA cities by pulling a New York Yankees and buying a championship.

Okay, I know the Celtics didn't really buy a championship, because there's a salary cap and every team has the same advantage, but let’s be realistic here, they bought their championship.

This team is much different this year though.  The star studded trifecta of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen are finally showing their age and were basically no-chance contenders throughout the year.  I'll definitely give them credit for being able to show up in the playoffs, and finally harness all their talent together and make an unbelievable run that has a great chance of achieving their second championship in two years.

But did I mention I hate the Celtics?

I just hate watching this team because of the me-against-the-world attitude that the entire roster displays on a daily basis.  The screaming, the yelling, the taunting, the mean mugging.

Come on, Kevin Garnett.  Do you really think most NBA power forwards are scared of your skinny physique, fragile old body, and Beatlejuice-looking head?

Paul Pierce is the biggest actor in the league since Vlade Divac, and Ray Allen thinks his place in NBA history is much better than it really is.  Now, we have to add in the antics of Rasheed Wallace to the mix this year and the new DreamWorks duo of Nate Robinson and Glen Davis, who now think they could be starters on an NBA team.

The cast of the Celtics is a big turn-off in my book.

So, since I don't like either team, who do I root for?  I root for greatness.

I've thought about this for awhile, and I finally figured out who I am going to root for.  Everybody wants to see a great series; if you're not a fan of either team, then of course the best scenario is to see a Game Seven that comes down to the buzzer, but there's still a problem with that thought process.

Even if you see a great game, there's still something missing when you see that last shot go in or rim out.

I said I'm rooting for greatness, which means I'm rooting for the Los Angeles Lakers.  Tough decision to make, but one I am fully set on.  We love seeing greatness in all shapes and forms, and the Lakers not only have the greatest player in the game, but the greatest coach as well.

I have to root for Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant.

I could go through all the stats for both of them to show how remarkable they are, but all I want to see is Phil get his 11th ring and Kobe get his fifth —both of them getting one step closer to be recognized as the greatest ever in the game as coach and player.

Phil may already be there with his 10 rings overall, but he's still near enough to Red Auerbach and his eight consecutive championships and nine overall to want to keep on achieving and set an unattainable mark.

Kobe has a chance to enter the MJ realm.  The MJ realm is the league of extraordinary gentlemen that currently only consists of one man, Michael Jordan.  It's a place that in the back of our mind we don't really want anyone else to reach, but also a little part of us wants someone to get in the discussion.

Kobe has a chance to do that.  A championship this year would give Kobe five overall rings with another back-to-back championship run on his resume and would put him one ring away from MJ.

The comeback from 3-2 series and the need to win two straight at home would take his legacy to the next level, and the talk of any other player as the greatest in the league right now would diminish immediately.

It's what I want to see.  It's a decision that I hate to make, but I know it's the right one.

Last Friday I left Erie, Pennsylvania at 9:00am and got ready to drive 450 miles on I-90 West to Chicago, IL for my first Blogs with Balls.  Unfortunately, it will probably be my last.

For anyone who doesn't know what Blogs with Balls is, it's a national conference where sports bloggers convene to listen to and ask questions to a group of experts that are designated a specific topic for their panel.  This was the third Blogs with Balls conference and this time around the topics featured were:

- Going Local: Evolution of the Local Sports Media Market in the Digital Age

- Today’s Sports Media Landscape: Blogs and Beyond, Where Are Ad Dollars Going?

- You’ve Gotta Fight For Your Right…to Blog?: A Legal and Ethical Primer to Sports Media

- Democratizing Sports Media: How Blogging Players, Fans & Leagues Are Changing the Game

- The Kings of All Media: Leveraging Podcasting and Video to Build a Media Megabrand

- The Future of Sports Media: What Today’s Innovations Mean for Tomorrow’s Fan

I finally arrived in Chicago at about 5:00pm and moved my stuff into my friend's place that I was staying at for the weekend.  There was a kickoff party at The Fifty/50 club so I grabbed a cab around 5:45 and got over to the event in about 20 minutes.

After checking off my name and receiving my wristband I walked downstairs and grabbed a drink.  At this time there weren't too many people there so I stood around a little bit and then I met Ed from Ed The Sports Fan.  We chatted it up for about ten minutes and then he introduced me to his friend Robert Littal from Black Sports Online and we were all just hanging out for awhile.

Not too bad.  Only about fifteen minutes in and I'm already networking a little bit.  This is the type of thing you do at conferences anyway right?

The party continued and the venue got much more crowded.  There was a Guinness ""Head-to-Head” competition that went on to see who could pour the perfect Guinness.  I was pretty solid with my pouring skills.  I kind of felt bad for the older fellow I went up against.  When he got done with his pour it looked like he was holding a big glass of diarrhea.  Even worse then that was the fact that he actually drank it.

At about 7:30pm the entire downstairs was packed with people.  Unfortunately there were no name tags so even if I talked to anyone I forgot their name about 15 seconds later.  The funniest part of the entire gala was the nervousness running around the place when all these fellow bloggers found out that they couldn't receive a cell phone signal.  I guess some people weren't smart enough to figure out there was Wi-Fi.  All they had to do was read the email that was sent about 3 hours earlier.

With the influx of people jam packed downstairs combined with the hot and humid Chicago weather on Friday; I decided to grab a cab around 7:45pm to head back to my friend's place.  The kickoff party wasn't too bad and I was excited to see what was in-store the next day at the main event.

I woke up around 9:00am, grabbed a shower, got dressed, and made my one mile walk down Addison to the Captain Morgan Club right outside Wrigley Field.  As I was walking it started to rain; probably a sign of things to come.

The venue was mostly great.  The setup was very good with a nice covered area where the main stage was for the panel to sit at.  Behind them were wooden locker displays for the sponsors of Gillette, Old Spice, and Head & Shoulders.  I grabbed my name tag and sat down at around 9:55am, getting ready for the conference to start at ten.

One negative was the name tag.  Do most bloggers really know each other by their real names?  It would've been nice to have our web sites, Twitter name, and real name on the badge, or at least something to help distinguish the people that I only know from their moniker a little easier.

The first panel came to the stage to discuss the Local Sports Media Market in the Digital Age.  Unfortunately the only thing they didn't discuss was the Local Sports Media Market in the Digital Age.  Amy K. Nelson from ESPN was the moderator for the panel; always a treat to see, but maybe not the best moderator around.

Quickly the entire discussion turned into a back and forth effort by Jim Bankoff of SB Nation and Dave Nemetz of Bleacher Report to distinguish each of their sites and explain the benefits that each site has.  It really just felt like a back and forth infomercial between the two where each would just state what they do better then the other person.  The semi-duel ended with Jim Bankoff telling the crowd of bloggers to come talk to him because SB Nation was looking for some new writers in some specific areas.

During all the panels we were encouraged to tweet about Blogs with Balls by using the hash tag #bwb3.  This was the dumbest idea ever.  There were the occasional funny tweets, but for the most part it was just a bunch of sports bloggers, tweeting live during the conference and repeating everything that was said at the show.  Do I really need to see the quote of the person on a projector screen that I just heard a minute ago?  Do I need a recap of an event that just took place in front of my face?  If they were really tweeting to their followers then 1. The followers would not care one bit about these meaningless tweets and 2. If they did care they would've just turned on the live stream of the show and saw it themselves.

I was also in awe of the fact that people really had to have their laptops the entire time at the show.  Towards the front and center of the conference there was like a brigade of nerds that actually had extension outlets running from the power cords where the video camera was setup so they could make sure they had full battery juice the entire time.  I'm really surprised someone didn't setup a full on desktop so they could play World of Warcraft in between panels.  Can anyone just act normal once in awhile?  Sit back, enjoy the conference, and use your phone if you really need to be on the Internet.

I'm getting frustrated at this point. The panel was boring and horrible to listen to and none of the information was very useful, there's about ten bloggers who are continuously in the audience tweeting rampant and typing up the dumbest tweets that were either dumb, unfunny, or useless to the average reader of them, and, the chairs were the most uncomfortable things to sit on and I was already hurting after an hour.

The second panel showed up to talk about "Where Are Ad Dollars Going?"  Surprisingly this panel was actually worse then the first one.  The most attention getting part of this panel was that the very beautiful Michele Steele forgot that ladies are supposed to cross their legs when they're wearing a skirt the whole time.  Maybe the nerd brigade in the center got some up skirt pics.

By the end of this tedious to listen to discussion I was almost about to walk out.  I thought to myself, "Why the hell did I come to this thing?"

Most everything that was said already was common sense to me.  I guess if you have some business savvy and understand that your web site is your business then you would have already known everything that was just discussed over the last couple hours.  This panel didn't even focus on trying to help individual blogs.  The gist of it was join a blog network and....... get lucky?  Maybe this wasn't the best panel because all these people were the ones who provide the ad dollars, but none of them were people who have their own individual blog trying to do everything they can to one day achieve their dream of running their blog and making a full-time living from it.

That's all we wanted answered; that's the number one question for every single blogger in the audience.

Things somewhat changed for the better in the next panel that discussed the legal and ethical nature of blogging.  This panel had some great discussion that was moderated very well by Jason McIntyre of The Big Lead.  Unfortunately because of Jason's recent sale of The Big Lead for over $1 million we had to see lame tweets popping up again saying, "If @thebiglead is here, then he should be picking up a seven-figure bar tab." Wow, hilarious, I'm still guffawing over that one folks.  There were a solid twenty more that were similar to that nature.

I say congratulations and great for him, but I don't need to be running up to him, patting him on the back yelling congrats and good job.  I'll get back to this problem later though.

The ethics panel discussed everything from the Delonte West sleeping with LeBron James rumor, the usage of saying "Rapelisberger", to the credibility of web sites having verified sources.  The panel was very good, but there just weren’t the right people up there.  Why wouldn't you have a first amendment lawyer up there?  It just seems so obvious that this is the specific person that we needed to help us with all these issues.  Instead, the entire panel basically said, "Do whatever you want until you get caught."  Oh thanks for that great advice panelists.  I'm sure to use all of you for subpoenas in case I get sued and let the judge know that you guys told me to do what I want.

With about 10 minutes left in the discussion, Spencer Hall from Every Day Should Be Saturday asked Jason a question about if he checks his sources.  Basically it turned into a little verbal soiree between the two where Spencer brought up a specific story that he sent to Jason on April Fools Day and Jason posted it without even checking the source.  This in turn moved the discussion toward if we should have legit sources where the panel concluded that it depends on each web site.

At first I disagreed with Spencer on the issue, but after thinking about it some more, then I agree that we should definitely have to have legitimate sources and be held accountable for what we write.  I could care less if people catch feelings over what I write or I'm politically incorrect because that is all freedom of speech, but to have a professional site that breaks news stories that are completely bogus is reprehensible to the blogging community.  To gain the respect that we are looking to get as legitimate sporting news sources or sports writers then we must act with the same professionalism.

I'm not trying to write for a newspaper or specific company so I don't care if people are offended by what I say.  I'm writing because it's something I'm passionate about and want to convey my thoughts to readers who hopefully gain some insight, either positive or negative, by what I say.  If you don't want to read it then don't, but I'm not putting on a facade to try and make things seem like something they aren't.

By having a sporting news site that doesn't check sources, this is exactly what you are doing.

The next panel is where my true dislike for Blogs with Balls came about.  The sports blog fanboys came out of the woodwork.

During lunchtime I just witnessed blogger after blogger basically stand in line to chat with their blogging heroes.  The minute people like Jason, Spencer, Jonah Keri, Michele Steele, or Jim Bankoff stepped away from one conversation the next fanboy jumped up to try and get their name in with them.

Continuously I heard people talking to Jason saying stuff like, "Do you remember the story I sent you about LeBron James on April 24th this year?"  Jason was very kind in trying to get away from them with a nice little response like, "Oh! That was you?"  I think the kid who asked him creamed his pants on the spot.

One blogger I heard talking to Michele Steele brought up to her that he set behind her at Dorkapalooza.  I wish I was making this shit up.

I think Spencer got more compliments on his Team USA soccer jersey then Landon Donovan would've got if he were there.  Some of my fellow bloggers and this suck up nature were just starting to disgust me.

After lunch the fanboyism hit its pinnacle.  The one and only Spencer Hall was the next moderator for the panel that was discussing, "Democratizing Sports Media."  The flash bulbs went off and young men sat back in their chairs attentive, waiting to grasp on every single word that came out of Spencer's mouth.

The entire panel and the discussion was great; definitely the best of the whole day.  Spencer's random questions and quick little insults made the time go by quickly and the discussion flow much better.  I was actually surprised how much I actually enjoyed him as a moderator so kudos to you Mr. Hall.  I'm not tweeting any of your quotables or posting pictures of you chugging a Smirnoff Ice like all your fanboys in the audience though.

To sum up the remaining two panels; sucked.  The podcast panel told us that you should plan your podcast and then edit it at the end.  Hmmm.  Thanks for the genius advice that everyone should do almost anytime they are doing anything.

The Future of Sports Media was the last panel that discussed some technologies that would probably be coming to sports in the next five years.  I guess I found this one a little more boring because I have a technology background so I knew everything they talked about.  I would've much more liked hearing about the future of technology pertaining to actual blogs instead of the technology that would be coming to sports in general.

Why not have a discussion on blogs moving towards Internet television or if video casting will be of any importance?  There was so much they could've touched on that would've directly affected the blogger instead of all sports fan and it was just left alone.

At the end of the conference I couldn't wait to leave.  I just sat in the worst plastic chair ever for nearly 8 hours listening to discussions that seemed like common sense to me.  I would however like to point out that the event was run great and if you are one of the fanboys or a blogger that lacks some business or tech sense then you probably won't find a better conference to come to for such a reasonable price.

I thought about the conference for awhile on my 450 mile drive back from Chicago to Erie, PA yesterday.  After a lot of deliberation, I came to the conclusion that Blogs with Balls was actually a pretty good show; it just wasn't for me.

Maybe my head is just in a different place right now.  

As you read this I'm driving 500 miles on I-90 East to move to Hartford, CT to start a new career in a week.  Maybe with all the packing, driving, and everything else going on, I just wasn't in super-networking mode while I was out there.

In the end the problem wasn't Blogs with Balls it was the bloggers with balls that were there.  

The whole experience turned into a who can I meet that can help me propel my blog into the next tier.  It just seemed that it was almost a suck up fest towards all the big name bloggers by the fanboys hoping that maybe one of them would pick up their card or remember their name and that’s how they would move ahead in the blogosphere.

I guess to each is own, but that's just not me.  I'm not running up to Jay Busbee to ask him if he remembered my Tiger Woods Mistress Slot Machine game he posted about or any other big name blogger that has posted anything of mine before.  I'd much rather work hard, be passionate about what I write about, and if the accolades come then the accolades come.

Promoting yourself is one thing and pimping yourself is another.  Is sucking up to all the panelists really what you have to do to grow as a blog?

Maybe at Blogs with Balls 4 that will be a panel discussion.

Well we're a little over a week away from the start of the 2010 World Cup and I think it's time we all start getting excited.  This World Cup is going to be wonderful this year with no clear cut winner and at least eight teams with a legitimate shot of winning.  The setting of South Africa will also be interesting as well, as we'll get to experience African music with drum playing in the stands throughout the game.  It's just one of those unique situations that is presented by having the World cup in Africa for the first time.

Of course with all the excitement comes the drama too.  We've already heard that Argentina's coach, Maradona, has made the claim that he will streak through the streets of Argentina if the team wins the cup.  I'm sure we're all looking forward to seeing that.

We have a U.S. squad that is solid, but not great.  A few battered players on our defense that will make or break this team.  They could go on a crazy run or be out of the first round.  Either way I think many of us in the states will be on the edge of our seats watching the opening match against England on June 12th at 2:30pm EST.

Last, but not least, we have the controversy we have every World Cup; the soccer ball.  Adidas released the Jabulani ball and now players are starting to cry and whine about how it doesn't have enough grip or that it has too much spin.  I haven't heard this much take about a ball since Lance Armstrong lost his in 2007.

Hopefully just the nature of the World Cup will get you excited to want to watch and root your country on, but if not then I have one last thing for you.  I'd like to present to you the 2010 Favre Dollar Footlongs Cup where you can make your World Cup picks for a chance to win a Favre Dollar Footlongs shirt and a Best Buy card to the winner.

Here's the link:  http://us.wc.fantasysports.yahoo.com/world-cup/group/6782

There are not many times when a true underdog goes on to win a championship.  I'm not just talking about the lower seeded team winning it all in the finals, but a team that nobody thought had a legitimate shot to do so.

We've seen upsets, but the last miracle team that could even come close is probably the 2005 Pittsburgh Steelers since they were the first #6 seed to win three away games before winning the Super Bowl.  The NCAA Championship this year could have provided one, but like so often we see that the miracle finish just didn't happen.

The Philadelphia Flyers have a shot to be the miracle team.

Philadelphia had ups and downs all season.  They signed Ray Emery to be their man between the posts and at the beginning of March he was gone due to season ending hip surgery.  They also had a coach who was fired and replaced by Peter Laviolette in early December.  This was a team that struggled the entire season just trying to make the playoffs and they almost didn't.

With two games remaining in the season they needed just one win to get a berth.  To make things more interesting both games were against the New York Rangers who also were vying for that last playoff spot.  The Flyers traveled to Madison Square Garden on April 9th and lost a heart breaker with a score of 4-3.  Two days later they would have to regroup to play the Rangers on their home ice.

The Flyers prevailed with a 2-1 victory after a shootout in overtime that not only gave them the win, but also the 7th seed in the East.  Next on board for the Flyers were the New Jersey Devils with hall of fame goalie Martin Brodeur.

Philadelphia, with backup goalie Brian Boucher playing great, beat the Devils in five games to move on to the second round.  The Flyers seemed to finally catch a break when the Montreal Canadians upset the Washington Capitals, which gave them the opportunity to play the #5 Boston Bruins instead of the #1 Washington Capitals.

The draw was far from a break.

The Boston Bruins opened up the series with three straight wins, only needing one more to move to the Eastern Conference finals.  Brian Boucher stepped up and brought a shutout in game 4 to move the series to 3-1.  In Game 5 he provided the same effort with 4-0 shutout.  There was only one problem with this win though, the Flyers lost their now unstoppable goalie to injury and the backup to the backup, Michael Leighton would have to step in for game 6.

Leighton did his job in game 6 with a 2-1 win to pull the series back to a 3-3 tie; a feat of three straight wins that was impressive in itself.  Game 7 was headed back to Boston and the winner would go to the East Finals.

It was in game 7 where we thought momentum finally caught up to the Flyers Phenomenon.  The Bruins opened up the game with a 3-0 lead midway through the first period.  The Flyers fought back, chipped away, and somehow came out with a 4-3 victory to move on to the next round.

Maybe Michael Leighton is the lucky charm.  I haven't seen a player join a Philly team to provide luck like this since Tony Danza did it in The Garbage Picking Field Goal Kicking Philadelphia Phenomenon.  Was destiny finally on Philadelphia's side for once?

The Eastern Conference finals had another miracle team join the fray with the #8 seed Montreal Canadians going up against the Flyers after they won a 7-game series against the defending champion Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Flyers didn't let the opportunity pass them by and they beat the Canadians in five games to move on to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 1997.

The series starts tomorrow and I just don't know who to root for.  I'm a Penguins fan so it's natural that we hate the Flyers, but after looking at this unbelievable run I don't know what to think.  On the other side we have the Chicago Blackhawks with Marian Hossa, one of the most hated players amongst Penguins fans, so we'd like to see him lose his third straight Stanley Cup finals on three different teams.

I'll probably decide who I'm rooting for once the puck drops tomorrow, but either way, if the Flyers win, this will be the second coming of the Miracle on Ice.  Ups and down all year, new coach, having to play the backup to your backup goalie for the finals, and a 3 game series deficit that opened up with a 3 goal deficit in game 7 and you still make the finals is a miracle in itself, but one that movies aren't made from.

We'll find out how the movie ends over the next couple of weeks.  I just wish my Pens would there so I could see an alternate ending.

Lately it seems that sports fans are mesmerized by the "it could happen to us" motto.  I don't blame you. With the miracle 3-0 comeback by the Philadelphia Flyers against the Boston Bruins as well as other surprising upsets and comebacks throughout the NBA playoffs, what are we supposed to think?

I'm here to help all of you with your false hopes and dreams.  There's no need to have you hanging on the edge of your seat only to see your dreams shattered and your face full of tears.

Here's the top ten "don't get your hopes up" in sports:

10) Mike and Mike will still be on the air for another five years - I want it to end. You want it to end. Sports fans in general want the worst radio show in sports to end as soon as possible, but it won't. We all used to enjoy the show, but now it's just annoying and so over-produced that it's not even entertaining.  I'm tired of all the lame cliffhangers like "Golic had a hang nail on his big toe.  I'll tell you why after the break." Or all the ESPN forced rhetoric that comes out of these two.  Their contrasting opinions seem forced on most issues just to make the show go and it just gets old.  How many "Greeny is gay" and "Golic is fat" jokes can we really take?  Please just get off the air because we know we're hearing what ESPN wants you to talk about instead of sports issues you should really be talking about.

9) Brett Favre will not retire in 2011 - Brett Favre is coming back this year. We all know that. After this surgery he'll be back in purple and gold and go on to have another great season.  Just like last year, don't count on this one ending in the promised land. Another Super Bowl - less year will bring him back for an additional year. For a while, I was sick of the Brett talk. Now, he's hardly in the news because of all the previous speculation regarding his possible retirement. We expect him to come back so we don't need or have breaking news everyday telling us what's going on. Good for Brett and good for us because he's a staple player in the NFL. To boot, I need him around just to keep my site name relevant.

8) The NHL will not be aired on ESPN - The one thing that needs to happen in 2011 to make the sport relevant won't when the NHL's contract ends with Versus. The biggest reason for this: you guessed it, money. I actually think this will end up working out for the NHL, though.  Before, I thought that every sport needed to revolve around ESPN, but that just isn't the case anymore. Versus may not be on everyone's TV right now, but the the availability of channels has grown significantly in the past ten years.  The NHL will be aired on a few different stations, none of which with an affiliation to ESPN. They'll find a market that fits them well.

7) Tim Tebow will not score a single passing touchdown this year - I'm a Tim Tebow hater and damn proud of it. The guy is going to suck in the NFL. For all the thousands or hundreds of thousands of people who purchased a Broncos #15 jersey in April, I would return it to the store right now. We've heard that he is in line to see around 15 snaps a game, but I don't think that will happen. "Tebowmania" should die down after a couple of miscues early on. I think the Tebow experiment will end before it even starts.  If he sticks to running back, then it may work. If he stays behind center, than it won't.

6) Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquaio will not fight in 2010 - The fight is bound to happen; when it will happen is a whole different story. This fight will not only decide once and for all who is the greatest pound for pound fighter in the world, but the winner will leave the ring with a legacy in line with some of the greatest boxers of all time. To the disappointment of boxing fans everywhere, it won't be this year. Here's how it will go down: Both will make their easy millions with a few easy warm up bouts. Then, we'll finally see the epic battle ... sometime after 2010. Another factor to consider is the inevitability of a rematch, no matter the result.  When's the last boxing match that we knew would have a rematch?  Pavlik/Taylor and Vazquez/Marquez? Both were great fights that made us want sequels, but it's not like we wanted it before we saw the fight. This fight is in a league of its own and in a year other than 2010.

5) Stephen Strasburg will not have more than 7 wins - Oh No! Did I just commit blasphemy against Jesus? I'm definitely going to Hell now. I know he's dominated the minor leagues, but coming to the big leagues is a whole new ball game. The Nationals may have a winning record right now, but let's see what they look like after the All-Star break. Then we'll know if I'm right or wrong. Strasburg will be great in the future, but I think the hype will wane off quickly. Let's not forget about the Nat's offense either. The run production won't be there for Strasburg to win games.

4) The USA Soccer Team will not finish in the Top 8 - I don't think that they even make it out of their group, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt thanks to several injuries on the English team and one of the easiest groups in the World Cup.  America has their hopes up for the first time in soccer, but it won't last after they get eliminated as most soccer fans in the USA will be flat lining by the end of June. The team just can't match the talent around the world. Maybe give us 4-8 more years and then we will have a shot at the Cup.

3) Neither the Orlando Magic nor the Phoenix Suns will make the NBA Finals - Let's face the facts here my friends. The Lakers are 27-3 at home in their last 30 games. Did we forget that there would still be two games left at the Staples Center even if Phoenix wins game 6?  It's not going to happen. The Lake Show will return to form tonight and win the series, probably in 6. In the East, we see every single senior citizen and their grandchildren from the Orlando area jumping back on the Magic bandwagon. No team in the NBA has ever come back from 3-0 and it's not going to happen now. Stan Van Gundy can thank David Stern and Eddie Rush for saving his job by not getting swept, but Orlando is not winning this series. Lakers versus Celtics, just how we all wanted it.

2) LeBron James will not be a New York Knickerbocker - I hate to even delve into this ridiculous chaos that no one knows anything about. The one thing I do know is that LBJ will not be playing in MSG more than two times next year. Star players don't go to teams because they love the city; they go to teams because they can win. Athletes only go back to their home towns or favorite cities when they are on the final stages of their career and Bron Bron is far from it. So where do I think LeBron is going? I'm actually going to pick a place that nobody seems to bring up: Cleveland. LeBron is staying. The Cavs will go out and get a big name coach and they will pull off a trade deal for Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudemire, or Joe Johnson that will help solidify the team. Ohio's own will stay in town to once again bear the weight of Cleveland aka the Armpit of America on his shoulders.

1) The New York Jets will not make the playoffs - Everyone’s favorite Super Bowl pick seems poised to make another run at the Lombardi Trophy, but they won't even get the chance to play in the post season. The Sanchise was solid his first year, but I don't see his skills really improving. Teams will be ready for him and therefore will stop the offense easily. The loss of Thomas Jones will be felt early on once Shonn Greene gets injured. Then we'll have to watch LT try to carry the load and tarnish his legacy even more. The defense will be solid, but with other talented teams in the AFC East, I'm trying to get Jets fans to take a step down from their high horses right now.

So that's my advice and predictions for all the things that people are legitimately believing in sports these days. In the words of Mr. Perfect, "I'm not the type of guy who says I told you so, but I told you so."

I may be wrong, but don't get your hopes up.