I was listening to the “Best of the Jim Rome Show” on the radio the other day, and I caught his interview with Michael Franzese, a former member of the Colombo family.

This guy was a big time mob guy who, after serving time, has become a motivational speaker. At least, until whoever’s left of the Colombo’s gets a hold of him. Hopefully that won’t happen any day soon, because he gave an eye-opening interview.

Most of us know that the mob was (and probably still is) connected to gambling. And athletes and officials with a gambling problem or a debt are offered an “easy” way out. Just shave a few points, miss a few fouls, blow a few calls to cover the spred and your money problems are over.

According to Franzese, who enforced the collection of those debts, it was rampant throughout college and professional sports.

That brings up the question: just how naive are we, as sports fans?

You would think in the days of 24-hour sports networks, and a rampant, invasive media-driven culture we’d know all about any illegal actions and any gambling problems of every professional and high-profile college player.

But in the days of Internet gambling and athletes with more money than sense, do we even have a clue how many are involved with stuff like this?

Its like steroids in baseball, we know about the A-Rods and the Manny Ramirezes and the Barry Bonds, but exactly how rampant was the use of steroids and how many players are still using? There are a handful of guys you can look at in the majors today and say “these guys have never and will never use ‘roids“.

Guys like Derek Jeter, Dustin Pedroia and Michael Cuddyer, to name a few, have too much respect for the game to use steroids. Hopefully, guys like that are becoming the rule instead of the exception.

But if they were the exception, that means the rule was the steroid users. That’s more guys than the Mitchell Report, more guys than any who have come out and said anything, like Jose Canseco, and more records that are quite possibly tainted.

And no one knew this was going on?

If we expand that to other sports, how many Tim Donaghys are there still in the NBA? A foul can change the course of a game, and a single game can change the course of a player, team, coach or franchise. How many of them are out there and why hasn’t anyone noticed this before?

The same could be said in college basketball, the NCAA and the NFL. How many non-calls and phantom calls have been human error and how many have been to cover the spread?

Many NFL fans are still naive, they still have the blinders on. When the Patriots were caught video taping in 2007, many fans believe that New England was the only team unscrupulous enough to do that. Puh-lease. Get a clue. It’s a copy-cat league, and whether the action they are copying is legal or not, if it works, other teams will do it.

The only team I can say with some degree of certainty wasn’t doing that is probably the Colts. Aside from Tony Dungy, all coaches are that unscrupulous if it means they’ll win more games

It seems to me that the sports world still has more questions than answers when it comes to this sort of thing. It all falls under on category: cheating. And the cheating is usually tied to the money.

Players and officials may cheat for money, or to repay a debt they’ve accrued. Coaches and players cheat to get more wins or more homers or to recover faster from an injury. All of this revolves around the all-mighty dollar.

How long have we been walking around with blindfolds on? And the greatest question of all: how prevalent is it today?

Kevin Youkilis was a few thousand votes away from being the starter at first for the American League. Jason Bay led the outfield in votes. Boston had the most players selected to the All-Star roster by the fans. So how exactly is it that of the five that went to the All-Star game (Dustin Pedroia understandably withdrew), they had a total of three at-bats, one inning pitched, and four innings in the field?

Tampa Bay, who did not have anyone selected to start, and Carlos Pena was added to the roster to replace someone, ended up with three players playing a total of nine innings with five at bats.

That couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that Joe Maddon, the manager of the Tampa Bay Rays was manging the AL All-Stars and the Red Sox are 6.5 games ahead of the Rays in the AL East standings, right?

I don’t think so.

Last year’s epic 15-inning affair, managed by Terry Francona, seemed much more evenly distributed. The starters got one, maybe two times up to the plate, and everyone that could get into the game, got in.

It being 15 innings long might have had something to do with it, but the point stands. Terry Francona gave every single All-Star their chance to shine, whether they were a Ray, a Yankees, or an Athletic. It didn’t matter, these guys were there to be exhibited (it is an exhibition game) so everyone should get their shot on the field and at the plate.

The AL won. Congratulations. Whatever. This year’s game was a huge disappointment. It was boring, the changes were hard to keep up with because certain players were replaced, while others moved all around the field to make sure they weren’t replaced.

I can’t complain too much about the pitching, that was handled fine, with the exception of no Wakefield. He was one of the feel-good stories of this All-Star game and he doesn’t even get to pitch?

Come on! He’s 42 selected to his first ever All-Star team. Fun fact: there are only two pitchers in the American league with 11 wins. Both made the All-Star roster. Neither made it into the game. Beckett because he just pitched, so that was understandable, but to not put Tim Wakefield in the game?

Maybe I didn’t enjoy the game as much because the Red Sox were being pulled away from the spotlight as fast as possible by Maddon. Maybe because there were no homers, and a lot of cheap hits that are just too ordinary.

I have to wonder, had Dustin Pedroia played, would he have stayed in the game as long as Carl Crawford (who wasn’t a starter) or Mark Teixeira?

Judging from last night, I’d say “no”. I’m beginning to wonder if the only reason Beckett and Wakefield made the team was that Maddon couldn’t find a legitimate reason to exclude them from the roster. It would be too obvious that he was biased if he left the two 11-game winners from the Red Sox off the roster in favor of a guy with 10 wins or less who wears a different uniform.

Honestly, this game doesn’t mean much to me personally, but the pride people take in playing in this game deserves more respect than that. It deserves more than a manager playing favorites. I get that having the pitcher batting makes things difficult, but to not even put Kevin Youkilis, arguably one of the best defensive first-basemen in the league, one the field for even one inning is beyond disrespectful to his talent and to the fans.

At the end of the game, I switched sides. I started rooting for the National League, because there was no one left on the field for the American League that I gave a rat’s you-know for.

I might have been more inclined to stick with my league of choice had I felt it was managed correctly, but last night, I would have gladly traded home field advantage if it meant that Joe Maddon would lose that game.

The Royals were prepared to have a tough night with the bats, the Red Sox were also not expecting a high-scoring game, what they got was a pitchers duel that held both teams scoreless until the bottom of the eighth. This night was all about the men on the mound.

Lefty Jon Lester has owned the Royals in his three (now four) starts against them. He came in with a 1.64 ERA against KC and brought it down tonight going 8 innings with 4 hits, 2 walks, and 8 strike-outs. He improved to 8-6 on the season and brought his ERA down to 3.87. And no one was more excited than Lester when Pedroia hit his RBI double in the 8th.

It is also interesting to note that 3 of the 4 hits given up by Lester were to lefty batter Mark Teahen.

Bannister had his way with the Red Sox as well. He went 7 2/3 innings allowing 3 hits, 1 earned run, 4 walks, and 7 strike-outs.

Jon Lester and Brian Bannister dueled it out into the eighth, holding each other’s teams scoreless* (see bottom of article for explanation, this has nothing to do with Barry Bond’s home run record) until the 8th when Dustin Pedroia ripped a two-out double off the monster to put the Sox ahead 1-0 in what would be the final score.

To complete the pitching clinic put on by both teams, Jonathan Papelbon, who has been shakier this season than he’s been in recent years, came on and pitched a perfect 9th.

Both Lester and Papelbon were locating pitches wherever they wanted to, and kept the Royals off-balance most of the game.

The most impressive thing to come out of the night was Jon Lester’s ability to tie up hitters. He was throwing breaking balls, cutters, fast-balls, curves, anything he wanted to and hitters were tied up, confused, and watching strikes go by all night. In previous years, and even in previous starts, Lester has had to rely on his cutter and fastball more, so this is a great sign of growth.

It reminds me of what Varitek said after he pitched the no-hitter last year. That was not Jon Lester’s peak. Far from it. We get to watch him grow and develop and mature as a pitcher right before our very eyes. And unlike some teams *cough* Yankees *cough*, many of our pitchers are home-grown, we didn’t pay a gazillion dollars to take them from another team.

Though it is funny to note that only ONE of the Yankees big money players (Sabathia, Texiera, and Burnett) made it into the All-Star game.

You know who did make it, and who should start if there was any justice in baseball? Tim Wakefield. He probably won’t, but it would be a really great thing.

One final note (to explain the asterisk):

*The Red Sox should have been up 1-0 in the 5th, when Mark Kotsay distracted the infield in a run down, Jacoby Ellsbury headed home from third. He slid in safe, very safe, if you watch the replay, but was called out.

The 2009 season of NFL football looks to be an interesting one. 11 head-coaching changes (many of them new to the job), the Cutler Diva Drama, hold outs, the return of Tom Terrific, and the possible returns of Vick and Favre.

With all of these variables, and with roster cuts far in the future, predictions right now are a little premature. But its fun, and if I happen to be right at the end of the season I can look back and say “wow, I called that in June!”

We’ll start with the NFC

NFC West

This is a difficult division to call, because there are 3 new head coaches in the division (well, Singletary was interim last year, but…) Here go my picks:

1. Arizona. I’m giving the division to the Cards because, despite the Superbowl hang-over, they are (right now) the most-stable team with the least likelihood of some kind of roster shake-up.
2. Seattle. Experience and maturity keeps them in the mix in this soft division, but that maturity could bring them down if the injury bug bites.
3. San Francisco. They could possibly take the division or they could lose every game. The 9ers are in a state of flux, because they don’t have their starting QB named, and they’re still looking at getting him offensive weapons. If it was August, this would be a problem, good thing for them its June.
4. St. Louis. After a dismal season, the Rams have made a coaching change and some cuts and trades. I wouldn’t look for them to be Superbowl champs this year, but I would call this year a “rebuilding” one. They look like they’re making all the right steps, so it should be an interesting year for the Rams.

1. NFC South

1. Atlanta Falcons. I like the Falcons because I feel like they have a lot of young talent, good coaching, and went through a post-Vick karmic rebirth last season. They are not the Falcons they were under Vick, and even though its a tough division, I think the Falcons come out on top.
2. New Orleans. If they can get the defense to match that high-powered offense, and no one gets arrested or anything, the Saints should be a force to be reckoned with.
3. Carolina. The Panthers are coming off a decent NFL season, but they have to find balance in their offense. Great running offense, okay passing, but the defense will be the key here. Peppers is unhappy, which causes distractions, and may end up causing a trade, which would be very bad for Carolina.
4. Tampa Bay. I do not have an irrational hatred for all things Tampa Bay, I promise. (I still hate the Rays and their cowbells, but I’m neutral on the Bucs) The reason Tampa Bay is down here? One, its a tough division, the teams are pretty equal in talent, and two, coaching change.

NFC North

I’m not even going to try ranking these teams. A Chicago Bears with Cutler could take the division, a Minnesota Vikings with Vick in the Wildcat and Jackson under center could take the division, a Vikings with Favre under center could take the division, and the Green Bay Packers with Rodgers are still a force to be reckoned with and they could take the division.

The only thing I feel comfortable picking for the NFC North is this: the Detroit Lions will not win the division.

NFC East

1. Philadelphia. They made some good off-season moves, they didn’t loose anyone too big, they picked up a great WR in the draft in Maclin, and they picked up a coordinator who worked with the Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator last year. That is bound to help. I like the addition of another ex-Patriot in Hobbs, he’s inconsistent, but the Eagles secondary is good enough that they won’t notice.
2. (3 or 4) Dallas. The loss of TO is big. They needed him as that deep threat and to draw the double-team. There’s also a lot of pressure on them this year to preform, they’ve been so good and projected to be NFC favorites, and win the Superbowl, but they can’t win in the post-season. They are like the NFL version of the Chicago Cubs, only without the championship drought. (For those of you who don’t know, the Cubs ha ve now lost 9 straight post-season games. That’s three years of being out in the first round.)
3. (2 or 4) New York. (Or Jersey…) The Giants are still a good team. They have that big distraction named Buruss still hanging around, and they lost their defensive genius to a head coaching job, but they’ll make some noise in this division.
4. (2 or 3) Washington. The Redskins need confidence. They need their QB to have it, their coaches to have it, and their fans to have it. The reason I have put the Cowboys, Giants, and Redskins with the possibility of moving up or down the rankings is because all three teams have the talent and the ability to win games, maybe even win the division. The question is, will they reach their potential?

Now onto the AFC

AFC West

1. San Diego. They should again be a playoff team. They have the talent, a few injured players returning, and a descent off-season. LT may be on the decline, however, so that could shake things up in the west a bit.
2. Denver. New head coach Josh McDaniels made a splash early in the off-season with the Cutler Diva Drama. It ended in a messy divorce that will hurt the Broncos, but they should still win some games and probably won’t have a losing record.
3. Kansas City. The additions of Pioli, Cassel, and Vrabel from the Patriots certainly help this team who did pretty much nothing last year. It will be up to Cassel to prove that he’s not just flash in the pan and new coach Haley to prove that this team can win games. The only place to go is up.
4. Oakland. I think we have to face one truth in all of this: as long as Al Davis gets to make decisions, the Raiders are screwed. If new head coach Tom Cable can stand up to Davis and avoid being fired, that team has a lot of talent, if not…

AFC South

Like the NFC North, this is a division I just can’t make up my mind on. Saint Tony has retired, along with a good bit of the coaching staff. Its gotten so bad that Peyton Manning has actually called them out on national TV. He’s clearly frustrated and uncomfortable with what has to be a big change for the Colts. No Rhodes, no Harrison, and new coaching may make the beginning of the season tough for Manning and Co. They could win the division or this could be called a “building year”.

Between Tennessee, Jacksonville, and Houston, with the talent they have and the moves they’ve made in the off-season, I don’t have a favorite. My gut tells me that it will be one of these three, not the Colts, who wins the division.

AFC North

1. (or 2) Baltimore. Tough defense, good arm and football IQ for Flaco (trust me, I’ve seen him play live and its amazing), and a gritty, tough vibe, the Ravens look good. They are my tentative number one, because like the Colts, you can never count the Steelers out.
2. (or 1) Pittsburgh. The possibility of the Superbowl hangover is looming, the chance that Big Ben takes up alligator wrestling to top his motorcycle accident is there, and the Madden curse is just waiting in the wings to claim another victim. Despite all of that, the Steelers are again in contention for division.
3. Cleveland. This town deserves someone to play well. While I don’t think the Browns have any shot at the post-season, I think they will win as many games as they lose this year.
4. Cincinnati. The Bengals are all over the place, they are getting arrested, not showing up for training camp but showing up on ESPN in LA doing something completely unrelated to football. They are just a mess. And if you think those off-field distractions won’t bother their game, wrong.

AFC East

1. New England. Number 12 is back, Welker and Moss know the offense better this year, they picked up some good free agents, and made some good draft day moves to freshen up an aging defense. The loss of Vrabel and the retirement of Harrison does not help, but Rodney Harrison was injury-prone, and Vrabel is past his prime. The additions of Galloway and Taylor are excellent, considering they ha ve three passing weapons, and Taylor can join the Morris-Maroney running back by committee group. Look for them to be the top of the AFC east, and possibly the AFC.
2. Miami. Ronnie Brown and Chad Pennington will do their best to take the Dolphins back to the playoffs. They could be a wild card team, they could even possibly take the division, but with an entire off-season and hours of film, I don’t think defensive coordinators will be fooled by the Wildcat.
3. New York Jets. (Or Jersey…) All eyes will be on Sanchez this year which is probably not great for the young Rookie. I wouldn’t look for him to be the post- Favre savior, but as long as he doesn’t crack, he should win a few games. I wouldn’t look for the Jets to be as dangerous this year, new head coach, new QB, etc., but they made some good moves for next year.
4. Buffalo. I know, TO is at Buffalo. He’ll help them. But you have to remember, the AFC East secondary is used to going up against guys like Randy Moss, they won’t be dazzled by TO’s ability to catch balls no human should. Sure, he’ll help the Bills, and they certainly won’t be a bad team, but I think them taking the division is a little far-fetched.

That’s all my rankings, premature and slightly-biased though they may be. Feel free to argue!

Of the five James Madison University Dukes who have gone to mini-camps over the past weeks, two have contracts, and one is hopeful.

JMU defensive linemen J.D. Skolnitsky signed a three year, $1.2 million deal with the Washington Redskins. Skolnitsky was the best prospect exiting JMU for the pros this year, and is likely to contribute to the Redskins defense if he makes the roster.

The second best prospect out of Madison is QB Rodney Landers. Landers went to Tampa Bay with fellow alum Evan McCullough for their mini-camp and both made a good impression on first-year head coach Raheem Morris.

Landers, though a QB, ran drills at QB, defensive back, and return man. Due to his size and speed, Landers is perfect for a CB/punt returner.

While he has not signed a contract with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, they are in talks, and Landers is hopeful to land a contract, though other teams have expressed interest in him. With the Wildcat formation being utilized by everyone this year, teams are looking for that Pat White-esq QB who can do it all.

My prediction? The Bucs sign Landers as a CB or special teams guy, and utilize him in the Wildcat.

While Landers did not recieve a contract, Evan McCullough did. He signed a two-year deal as a corner for the Bucs.

No word yet on whether Terrence Apted, who tried out with the Redskins, or Marcus Haywood, who tried out with the Saints, have been offered anything.