FanHouse

With baseball using instant replay for the first time on Wednesday night to give Alex Rodriguez his latest pointless home run (Alex also homered last night to help the Yankees only lose by two), it's obvious we've entered a new age in the sport. Of course, all the opponents of instant replay were against it because they weren't sure where it would end.

Yeah, it only starts with home runs, but soon it will be safe or out, fair or foul, and ultimately, balls and strikes. Well, while it looks like umpires can still judge a pitch's location, we may end up needing robot umpires anyway. The human ones the game utilizes now can't count.

In the fourth inning Thursday, [Sean] Rodriguez struck out on what the scoreboard said was a full-count pitch. But a pitch-by-pitch replay of the at-bat confirmed that Rodriguez actually struck out on a 4-and-2 pitch.

Neither plate umpire Tim Welke nor Angels Manager Mike Scioscia noticed the mistake. At 2-2, Rodriguez said Welke asked Tigers catcher Brandon Inge what the count was.

"He said he thought it was 1-2, and I said I thought it was 1-2 also," Rodriguez said. "He thanked me for my honesty."

See, this is what happens to a sport when they draft players straight out of high school and let them skip college. Their math and counting skills just deteriorate.

According to the Kansas City Star, ESPN's initial report concerning the Darrell Arthur-Mario Chalmers weed and women bust at the NBA's rookie orientation mentioned a third player at the scene of the crime: #2 pick Michael Beasley. The Star reports Beasley's name has since been scrubbed from ESPN's accounts.

Why? Because some combination of police, hotel security and NBA officials decided Beasley wasn't involved in the weed possession. And ESPN's not the only media outlet to scrub Beasley's name: the Palm Beach Post's story on the matter previously cited Beasley, but no longer mentions the Heat rookie.

Why all the secrecy about Beasley? If he was in the room but found to be innocent of wrong-doing ... that's a good sign, something reassuring about him. Any negative suspicion regarding his involvement is only going to be intensified by the whispers resulting from ESPN's backtracking. The only other answer: Beasley wasn't in the room to begin with. In that case, ESPN needs to do more than remove his name from the accounts and hope everyone forgets. It needs to issue a correction and an apology. You can't just disappear mistakes in this age.

FanHouse's Tom Ziller argues his ranking of the top 50 players in the NBA.

For a Tar Heel, an old college superstar with a made-for-TV game, Antawn Jamison sure doesn't get much pub these days. It's all Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler ... which is understandable; Gil and Caron are more important, younger, a bit more boisterous and quirky. But it relegates 'Tawn outside the mainstream consciousness to an unfair degree, because this dude's a fine, fine player.

Eli Manning has won over Giants fans. For now. I could tell after his third-quarter interception, when boos would normally rain down from the cheaps in East Rutherford. Instead, the crowd was silent. Eli was spared. And this coming from a crowd who would boo anything (OK, maybe not Santa, but still).

But Manning was not the guy we saw in the postseason. Though the numbers don't back it up entirely, he looked a lot like the guy who maddened fans for years with inconsistency, lack of accuracy, and poor decision-making, even during the admittedly amazing-to-watch first drive, in which he completed a few clutch passes and then made Rocky McIntosh the butt of every joke in the Redskins' locker room this week.

And yes, let me say it again, that drive was great. He hung in the pocket and made some outstanding throws under pressure. But even during that drive he looked anxious, whipping simple screens with force when finesse was called for. And after that he regressed, failing to lead the team to the end zone on three subsequent red zone drives. He only completed 54.3% of his passes. He, of course, threw that interception, and he could have had two more if Redskins defensive backs knew how to catch.

The thing about the one interception that counted, too: it came at a pivotal time in the game. The Giants' offense was slowing and the Redskins were gaining confidence on both sides. They had scored near the end of the second and the offense was beginning to gain some yardage. Against a better team, that interception could have led to the score narrowing to 16-14, with a complete reversal of momentum. The Giants were lucky that they were only playing the Redskins, but not every opponent will just lay down like the Redskins, and Manning still has some things to work on.

Will Chuck Liddell beat Rashad Evans and earn a light heavyweight title shot? Can Rich Franklin successfully make the move up to 205 pounds and beat Matt Hamill? Will Dan Henderson re-establish himself as a force in the middleweight division or will Rousimar Palhares show that he's a title contender? We discuss all of that in our UFC 88 preview live chat, today at 1 p.m. Eastern.

I think we all (save Knicks fans) prayed the latest round of Zach Randolph rumors -- to Memphis, they said -- would die a quick, painless death. To the contrary. It's been either a rumor on life support or one which is taking the long, painful road to extermination. On Thursday, Inside Hoops proffered a minor confirmation talk was still brewing between NY and Memphis. Last night, Memphis Commercial-Appeal beat writer Ronald Tillery offered confirmation of talks on his Memphis Edge blog.

Any potential Memphis deal involving New York forward Zach Randolph is now in the Knicks' court from what I'm told. The Griz will agree to a package that includes Darko Milicic and Marko Jaric going to the Knicks for Randolph. But Griz brass apparently wants the Knicks to pick up more of the deferred payments owed Randolph in the latter year of his contract. New York executives supposedly are deliberating.

Further, the Memphis Flyer's Chris Herrington says there could be fire behind the rumors, based on talking with his sources. The real crux of the matter for me: how much cash is Memphis looking for to offset Randolph's massive 2010-11 contract? We're working with two teams which have different currencies here: the Knicks need cap space, the Grizz need cash, or the equivalent. Until now, cap space has been equivalent to cash for Memphis. But if they can get a player at some sort of discount, with a rich team playing part of his salary ... and lose burdens like Darko and Marko in the process, that's a neat re-purposing of that cap space into something more.

I get the feeling the Knicks would be happy to pay someone to take Z-Bo if it gets them under the league cap in 2010. James Dolan has cash to burn, which doesn't mean a thing if you can't legally sign worthy players. Using the cash to get the space is clever.

From The Windup is FanHouse's daily, extended look at a particular portion of America's pastime.

I don't know if you've been paying attention, but there are some things going on in this country right now that are far more important than whether or not the Cubs will win the World Series, or whether New York will collapse on itself should the Yankees miss the playoffs.

No, I'm not talking about the new Beverly Hills 90210 - though it's nice to see Lori Loughlin getting work - I'm talking about the upcoming election for President of the United States. Yeah, you've probably noticed in the last few weeks that all your favorite crappy sitcoms and celebrity dancing shows haven't been on in favor of a bunch of people giving speeches in front of sycophants. We call these the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.

For the first time in my life, I've paid pretty close attention to both of these conventions this year. You see, even though I've never been shy about my feelings about this country of ours, and those who have been chosen to run it, I've never actually exercised my right to be a factor in the decision.

That's right, at 27 years of age, I have never voted in a single election. Not for President, not for Governor, not even for Student Council President in high school. So when November 4th rolls around in two months, I will be stepping into a voting booth for the first time, and though I'm somewhat excited about it, I still face a pretty tough question.

Just who am I voting for?

NBA Essentials ranks our six favorite stories of the day.

1. Basketball Prospectus. Beware the mid-level, which almost never works out. Exhibit A: Jerome James has received the MLE twice.

2. MOUTHPIECE Blog. Chuck Klosterman considers Craig Ehlo a fairly rated player: "Bring up Ehlo's name in a conversation and somebody will always say, 'You know, in retrospect, Ehlo was actually okay.' This is true."

3. Garbage Time All-Stars. A beautiful suggestion for Golden State's replacement mascot.

4. Crawful to Crawsome, via HP. (Yes, that is the name of Jamal Crawford's blog.) The Crawstar wants you to know he's not a loser, he's just been tainted by the overwhelming Knickerbocker suck virus.

5. Inside Hoops, via BDL. That no-good, awful Zach Randolph to Memphis rumor is back and better than ever. The Crawdaddy has no comment. (The Memphis Edge, the sports blog of the Memphis Commercial-Appeal, is reporting is as in negotiation as well.)

6. Marca, via HoopsHype. Quote of the day re: Darrell Arthur and Mario Chalmers, from innocent little rookie Rudy Fernandez: "Yesterday they asked if there was anybody in the class with friends on drugs. You have no idea how many of them raised their hands!"

Ben Gordon never officially commented on the rumors that CSKA Moscow was interested in signing him. Well, he no longer has to, because CSKA's GM Andrei Vatutin commented for him. From the Russian newspaper Soviet Sport, as translated by The Hoop:

"This whole thing is a dirty trick of the newspapers, we are NOT in negotiations with Ben Gordon. At the moment all of our staff are currently on holiday. I'm personally on holidays in France and I haven't heard anything about Ben Gordon."

It may have been a dirty trick, but maybe the newspapers aren't to blame. Soviet Sport dug deeper by tracking down the original source of the rumor, Greek reporter Nikos Zabaras, who revealed his source:

Nikos Zabaras said that the agent of Ben Gordon wanted the article published on contra.gr in order to increase the projected salary of his client.

Zing! It's possible that Zabaras is lying to save face, but it's just as likely that Zabaras felt justified giving up his source after realizing he was completely played. Had Gordon's agent (Raymond Brothers, assuming he has the same representation as a month ago) been a little more vauge he probably would have gotten away with it -- it would have been virtually impossible to verify a report saying Gordon was entertaining an offer from an unnamed European team.

Perhaps attaching an actual team to the rumor was an attempt to make it sound more legitimate, and perhaps Brothers thought John Paxson would blink before he simply picked up the phone and verified it himself. Who knows? All we know for certain is that the Bulls now have absolutely no reason to take Brothers seriously at the negotiating table. Gordon may not like it, but the Bulls are holding all of the chips in this stand-off.

Relax, Cubs fans, there's no need to panic after all, at least if you believe the company line. Carlos Zambrano finally underwent an MRI yesterday (one day after inexplicably skipping his previously scheduled exam) and the results weren't all that bad, just a touch of inflammation and rotator cuff tendinitis. He received an anti-inflammatory shot, and if all goes well, he could end up missing just one start. From Dave van Dyck of the Chicago Tribune:

"Hopefully, by time we get to St. Louis [on Tuesday] he will throw [in the bullpen]," general manager Jim Hendry said. "If that proceeds in a positive fashion, he will be ready to start, probably by the end of the series in Houston."

"So he'll just be missing, hopefully, this one start. Obviously, he'll have to get his strength back from not pitching. Once the shot takes its proper course, he will begin throwing in St. Louis."

Is mere rest and a touch of cortisone all he needs? It's possible. After posting a 1.78 ERA in five July starts, Zambrano posted a 7.43 ERA in five August starts. On the surface, such a sudden drop in performance suggests there might something more serious going on in Big Z's arm ... if only it didn't look so familiar.

Last season, Zambrano posted a 1.39 ERA in July followed by a 7.06 ERA in August. What happened down the stretch run? Zambrano re-discovered his groove with a 3.44 ERA in six September starts. It's frustrating, but inconsistency is a hallmark of Zambrano's career, as is being an workhorse who always bounces back. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he'll be okay.