And Padre Nation Weeps

Padres fans were shaken by the news today that outfielder Terrmel Sledge will not be with the team next season.
Sledge will play for the Nippon Ham Fighters in Japan in 2008.
Somehow, Padre fans will have to come to grips with this unsettling development.
But what about all those folks out there who bought Padres jerseys with "Sledge 8" as Christmas gifts?
We should take a moment to sit back and reflect on all the good times that Terrmel Sledge brought us. A great site that chronicles Sledge's career highlights can be found here.

The Minor-League Town Poll

The head coach of the Chargers in 2008 will be:
	Norv Turner
	Ted Cottrell
	Ted Tollner
	Ted Leitner
	Marshall Faulk
	Charlie Weis
	Tom Landry
	Joe Torre
	Phil Jackson
	A.J. Smith
Free polls from Pollhost.com

An Award-Winning Guy

We can't tell you how excited we are over Jake Peavy winning the National League Cy Young Award on Thursday.
Peavy is an outstanding pitcher, and more importantly, he's an exceptional human being.
But we've never been inclined to get off on other people's individual awards. We've always been about the big picture, the overall success or failure of the team.
And without a doubt, this year's Padres team failed miserably.
Bottom line: If Jake the Fake doesn't have a Cy Young-caliber season, the Padres would've been out of the playoff race by September 1.

This Just In ... Rivers Blows

It seems Charger fans are just now realizing that Philip Rivers may not be an elite quarterback after all.
Based on all the booing and talk radio chatter, you'd think Rivers' mediocrity was a recent phenomenon.
Apparently, we were ahead of the curve on this one because we were pointing out Opie's problems a year ago. But most Charger fans were too giddy during that 14-2 season to notice Opie's deficiencies.
And on another note, it's nice to see we're not the only ones who can't stand the San Diego Chicken.

He is a 4-Star Talk Show Host

At 3 p.m. Monday, the world as we know it will come to a standstill. Or at least the small portion of the world able to pick up XTRA Sports 1360's radio signal.
At that time, Lee "Hacksaw" Hamilton makes his highly anticipated return with an afternoon sports talk show that just might redefine the genre. In case you forgot, Hacksaw invented it.
Hacksaw has always been an easy target to make fun of, but you've got to give him credit for being compelling radio. In a town filled with bland, uninteresting, amateur hacks dominating the radio airwaves, "The Franchise" stands out like a bad toupee.
Yeah, we'll be listening.
We can't wait to find out how many topics he puts on the table.
And we can't wait to hear such callers as Kenny in "Temeculabonsallfallbrook."