Hodge Podge

There were a few things I wanted to write about, but none of them were enough by themselves for a column... so I figured the best choice would be to combine them all into a hodge podge type thing.

- First, a little bit of housecleaning. I had a little interview over at Green Bay Railbird Central, which can be found here. As you may be able to guess from the name of the site, they were mostly looking for a Vikings fan's take on the Packers right now... just served as another reminder that the start of the NFL regular season is only like 2 months away! YES!

- Also had an interview over at The Sports Flow about a week ago, which was nice. I'm just glad I can be an inspiration to someone for something.

- Getting into other news, you probably saw that Rashard Lewis was sent to the Magic as part of a sign-and-trade and will make roughly $126 million over the next 7 years. That's ridiculous. Rashard is a real nice player, but are you kidding me? He's a good scorer, and he's still in his prime, but this is a bit absurd. Let's just say if I had Rashard Lewis' agent I'd probably have a gig writing for the Magic's website for $3 million a year.

- The Lewis deal allowed Darko Milicic to become a free agent, and he signed with the Grizzlies for what is believed to be $21 million over 3 years. Seems sort of moderate risk, high reward deal for the Grizz. Darko certainly has the physical tools to be a very good big man, the question is whether or not he's going to display the work ethic and effort every night in order to do that. If he does, he's a bargain. If not, he'll be a bit overpaid.

- One of the most interesting subplots (to me at least) of the free agency period is seeing where Andray Blatche winds up. He's the 20 year-old forward for the Wizards with lots of upside. There was talk that if he had been in this draft, he might have gone in the Lottery. Interesting to see if some team offers him the full midlevel, and if the Wizards would match it.

- There's also been talk that Ichiro will be re-upping with the Mariners for $100 million over 5 years. From a baseball standpoint, he'll be overpaid. He's a really good hitter, but he doesn't walk a ton and one of his best strengths (his speed) tends to go quickly with age. On the other hand, he generates a ton of revenue for the Mariners, and they basically didn't have any choice but to sign him for big money.

What else has caught your eye?