Sorry to the RW faithful that I've been missing in action for the past two weeks.  It's been a busy time here at RW headquarters, but I'll make it up to you in the coming weeks, I promise.  Here's what's been on my mind in the meantime.

Manny on steroids?  As I posted in my fantasy league, that leaves Jeff Reboulet as the only baseball player in the last 15 years whose numbers are not clouded by the question of PED's.  Although he did hit that one home run that barely cleared the fence in left once.  Who knows?  Maybe he juiced that night?  Getting back to Manny though, I feel dumb for being surprised.  Once the A-Rod story surfaced, nothing should surprise us as baseball fans anymore when it comes to players being named.  I think we were all surpised by Manny because we didn't want to believe that a happy go lucky guy with all of that hair could be juicing too.  He never knows the strike count.  How could something like steroids creep into his stream of consciousness if he doesn't even keep track of the balls and strikes when he's at the plate.  At worst you figured he could have a Ricky Williams-esque drug problem, but steroids?  That's it.  Albert Pujols and Ryan Howard are the only guys left that we can pray never took steroids or never get caught.  Otherwise?  There is a 0% chance of a clean record holder when it comes to the power numbers in our lifetime.  Bonds' 73 isn't going anywhere and who knows how high A-Rod will set the benchmark after he passes Bonds' 762.  It wasn't a sad day for baseball.  Baseball should be immune to days like this.  No, it was a sad day for we Dodgers fans who now have to watch Juan Pierre in left field for 50 games.  So much for that 21-8 start.  There goes Andre Ethier's pitch selection and his confidence to follow.  At least we have the pitching to fall back . . . wait, Randy Wolf's going tonight?  Crap.

The Lakers are going to win the championship.  I'm sorry to all of you naysayers, but it's going to happen.  The Rockets will be the toughest competition because they match up with the Lakers.  Brooks is too fast for Fisher.  Battier and Artest can slow Kobe down, and Yao can get it done against the Lakers' towers of power inside.  The Rockets performed way past well down the stretch without Tracy McGrady and I think are the second best team in the west.  The Nuggets are fun, but unless this is a team tattoo contest, Denver's not coming close once they get past the defenseless Mavs.  Chauncey makes them a little less insane, but when J.R. Smith and Birdman are integral parts of your team, you're not going places.  And that brings me to the Cavs.  I know everybody's getting all excited by their beating up on the Detroit Old Age Homers and the mighty Atlanta Hawks, but look at Cleveland.  If they are in a tight game and it's coming down to the wire, do you really trust LeBron that much?  How many missed jumpers and free throws has that guy tallied over the past few years in the last moments of games?  Do Big Z and Varejao make you all warm and fuzzy on the inside?  I don't know, I'll take my chances with Pao, Bynum, and Odom.  And who guards Kobe?  They have absolutely nobody to guard Kobe.  If he can get his against the likes of Artest and Battier, what's he going to do with Wally Szczerbiak?  And I've said it before so I'll say it again, Phil Jackson over Mike Brown is the biggest advantage the Lakers will have in that series.  Mike Brown will be crying by the time the end of the third quarter comes around and he has to do the in game interview.

I love watching guys like Phil Mickelson get excited over Tiger's struggles of late.  Tiger Woods is the kind of guy that tends to remember things like Phil joking about his performance after the Masters.  And I'm scared for what is going to happen to Johnny Miller when Tiger starts clicking again.  Did Miller win 14 majors?  I don't think so.  And now I hope that his head doesn't end up mounted on Tiger's wall when this is all said and done.  When Tiger's short game comes back in a few months, it's on.

Did the Raiders really use the 7th pick in the draft to take a guy that might not have gone in the top 25?  That's ok, at least they followed that up by using their second round pick on a guy that might not have otherwise been drafted.  Wonderful.  At least there's next year's 4th pick in the draft to look forward to.

I don't think it's good when you have to smuggle a referee out of a country because they're scared a bunch of Englishmen are going to kill him, but did you see the Chelsea/Barcelona game?  Ok, 98.5% of you didn't, but for those who did, was that not one of the most poorly officiated big time games you've ever seen?  A garbage red card followed by fifteen non-PK calls to make up for it.  Chelsea was going to have a chance to make up for last year's PK blunder and now I have to watch Man. U again.  We should be talking about Essien and Iniesta's amazing goals but instead we're talking about some Norwegian who almost got the crap kicked out of him by the actual players on the field then had to be literally smuggled out of England.  Should we really be trying to mirror European culture?

I was really happy to hear that Ricky Hatton woke up alive on Sunday.  I hate to say I told you so, but, anyway, I hope Hatton retires.  He's made enough money, seems like a good guy, getting married.  Having your head caved in never solved anything.  Getting to Pacquiao, the guy is the best pound for pound fighter in the game, until Mayweather comes back that is.  A lot of people are going to take Pac-Man to beat Mayweather, but Money is too fast and too big for Pacquiao.  Mayweather is a natural welterweight and Pacquiao won't be able to utilize his speed against Mayweather the way he has with his other competition.  Mayweather's defense is the best since Whitaker and will frustrate Manny.  I like Pac-Man but Mayweather will win on points.

The Dodgers are down 8-6 to the Nationals right now.  No Manny.  Crap.  I just hope we don't go 0-50.