You just know Chad can’t wait for this one.

Yep, Chad Pennington, the same guy who gets booed on his own field as much as Rex Grossman does in Chicago, will get the chance for some redemption once he leads his new teammates, the Dolphins, against the New York Jets, the very people who gave him the boot the moment Brett Favre landed on the Big Apple, in Week 1 of the 2008-09 NFL football season.

And while this game could’ve been better for Chad Pennington if it’s going to be played in New York, starting anew with a new environment in Miami should suffice I guess. Besides, now that he’s in Miami, he’s got more things to worry about than grudge matches with the New York Jets.

Last season was a disaster for the Miami Dolphins, losing all but one game of the season to go a miserable 1-15. The Dolphins have not won a championship for nearly 35 years and despite having one of the most prolific passers of the modern era, that being Dan Marino, they did not convert several opportunities to win the big one during the guy’s Hall-of-Fame career.

Of course, I’m not expecting Chad Pennington to be Miami’s new Hall-of-Fame quarterback and I’m not expecting…

Those guys from the MLB are probably hoping they’ll still get a piece of the viewing audience with football season finally here.

Teams are beginning to make that final push for the playoffs as the 2008 MLB baseball season gets ready for its conclusion. Looking at the teams that might be playing until October, we will try to pick out the best of the lot and hopefully, this’ll earn you a little something on the side to go with what is hopefully a profitable football weekend.

Let’s start with the American League, the Los Angeles Angels from the American League West are considered to be one of the complete teams in the American League.

The Angels have a great pitching corps to go hand-in-hand with an awesome rotation. Their only weakness would probably be their bench and since benches are really only good in this sport for fisticuffs on the diamond, this won’t hurt them that much.

In the Central Division, the Chicago White Sox are looking to dominate. The White Sox have a high powered offense with young players carrying the team this year. Although Chicago is not the only team being carried by young wheels this season.

The Tampa Bay Rays, aside from becoming the absolute Cinderella story of the year, is also a good young team that has…

The National League, hopefully, these guys won’t be as boring as hell come playoff time.

And since the road for the 2008 MLB World Series is about to begin once the postseason arrive, NL teams in the MLB are hoping to make some noise, looking to own a championship ring once the dust settles.

One of these teams is of course, the Arizona Diamondbacks. These guys should be fine as long as Brandon Webb is there to win games for ‘em. The D-Backs are probably this year’s counterpart of the Tampa Bay Rays in terms of shock factor since nobody expected them to be this good this year either.

Only time will tell if they can continue their Cinderella run.

The Los Angeles Dodgers, on the other hand, are simply too inconsistent to catch the top dogs although they still have a shot of making it to the playoffs. And it might even be a close fight to the finish although it still depends if the Dodgers can get hot in the final month.

The Chicago Cubs is also one of the teams from the National League who have shocked baseball fans across the country. The Cubs are perhaps the most complete team in the NL and quite possibly, the entire league. They have great team chemistry…

THUNDER. Yes, that is actually their name.

And although that, for some reason, reminds me of Hulk Hogan riding a boat, that will be the moniker Oklahoma City will go by in the coming 2008-09 NBA basketball season since there’s no way in hell those guys from Seattle will let Oklahoma use ‘’SuperSonics'’ after stealing one of the league’s storied franchises away from them.

And since a thunder can be heard miles away, warning New Orleans people that they might have to move to Oklahoma again (sorry… I couldn’t resist…) it was only fitting that everybody already knew Sooners country will be represented by the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA even before an official announcement came.

‘’It’s hard to keep a secret,'’ team chairman Clay Bennett said after stepping to a podium on the ground floor of the downtown office building where the team is based.

In what has become the worst kept secret in the NBA this coming season, the team’s logo and colors also leaked out over the weekend prior to the official announcement. Hell, they even had Thunder merchandise already for crying out loud to preempt Bennett.

‘’I thought it was great fun. Maybe I have a warped sense of things,'’ Bennett said.

‘’There’s just all kinds of good thunder images and…'’

BARELY.

Hee hee… Yes people, after Rafael Nadal started the 2008 United States Open Tennis Championships with the dominance you’ll only get from a player ranked no.1 in the world, he got his first scare of the tournament when a virtual unknown named Sam Querrey almost shocked the world.

In a match that forced Rafael Nadal to shift to another gear to beat the unseeded Sam Querrey 6-2, 5-7, 7-6 (2), 6-3, Nadal found himself matching his best result at the very tournament that simply hates his guts.

Playing for the sixth year at Flushing Meadows hoping for a better result this time, Nadal rallied to beat Sam Querrey to reach the quarterfinals against Mardy Fish. And it wasn’t easy too.

Nadal was down 6-5 in the third set and was on the brink of losing two straight sets to the unseeded Sam Querrey. Thankfully, Nadal was able to find the form that enabled him to beat then world no.1 Roger Federer at this year’s French Open and Wimbledon.

That form also brought Nadal the Olympic gold medal in the 2008 Beijing Olympics as well as the world no.1 ranking he’s relishing as of the moment.

‘’In every tournament you have one bad day, that’s the normal thing,'’ Rafael Nadal…

You read it, and after winning in straight sets for three straight rounds into the tournament, ‘’dominant'’ could be an understatement.

Try God-like. And Federer, after three rounds into the 2008 United States Open Tennis Championships, was exactly that. What has been he eating for him to have this kind of dominance in the last Grand Slam of the year? Nothing special really, it just so happens that he ain’t No.1 no more and he wants to get the top spot back BAD, whatever it takes.

After staying on top of the tennis food chain for the past few years, Roger Federer relinquished the No.1 spot to rival Rafael Nadal after the latter beat him in the last two Grand Slam tournaments of the season, that being in the French Open at Roland Garros where Nadal normally dominates anyway and the other in England where the annual Wimbledon Championships are held.

It was only understandable that Rafael Nadal gets all the attention in the U.S. Open this year since he is now the man to beat in tennis. And while Nadal enjoys all the attention being the new world No.1, Federer opts to just continue what he does best and that’s beating everybody else.

Federer has yet to drop a single set after three rounds into the 2008 U.S. Open, and while the media continually chooses to ignore the new world No.2, choosing to put all their efforts in watching every single move Nadal makes these days, Federer seems determined in grabbing all that attention back.

Federer is looking to remind everybody that he is still…

And in case you were wondering, we meant that with a hint of sarcasm.

The 2008-09 English Premier League season is just starting to heat up as teams have already played at least twice in this early start of the season.

As of the current standings, Chelsea FC and Liverpool are on top, winning both of their fixtures with a total of 6 points each.

On the other hand, Blackburn Rovers, Hull City, Newcastle United, and Manchester United are all tied with the same number of points with 4.

There are 10 teams tied with three points apiece. Those teams are Aston Villa, Manchester City, Bolton, Everton, Middlesbrough, Fulham, Sunderland, Arsenal, Stoke City and West Ham.

At the bottom, we have Tottenham, West Brom, Wigan and Portsmouth, all scoreless still in the Premiership.

In other Premier League season news, Vince Grella of Torino has moved to Blackburn signing a four-year deal reportedly around £4million.

Grella ends a ten-year stint playing in Italy having first arrived in Serie A in 1998 when he joined Empoli.

He joined Parma in 2004 and Torino in 2007, but he has now sealed his move to the…

Awww… Now this officially sucks.

The 2008 U.S. Open Championships is underway but it seems the last Grand Slam of the tennis calendar seems to miss something very very important, it’s most marketable entity. I’m referring to Maria Sharapova and as sad as it may sound, yes, she’ll be out of the tourney because of an injury.

You read it, the hot and sexy Maria Sharapova will miss the 2008 U.S Open because of an injury on her right shoulder. This marks the first major championship that she will miss since her Grand Slam debut back in 2003.

Sharapova claims that there is no surgery needed. She also tells she’ll be back in two or three months. But STILL, a Grand Slam tournament without her long legs, short skirts and cute little panties is like dropping an atomic bomb on Florida when the Miami Heat is having a vacation in some other part of the world.

The world no.3 Maria Sharapova has played in each of the past 23 major championships, winning titles at Wimbledon in 2004, the U.S. Open in 2006 and the Australian Open in January.

A doctor who looked at tests on her shoulder from April told Sharapova that she has been playing with a torn rotator cuff tendon since spring.

‘’He actually couldn’t believe that I’ve been playing this…'’

In what was probably the most anticipated match-up of the preseason, this one turned out to be the most disappointing one.

The 2008-09 NFL football season is upon us and yet some people are still buzzing about the way Super Bowl XLII concluded with the Giants finishing what has been a Cinderella run for the title while denying the Patriots of what would be a record-breaking perfect season.

It was only natural for these football fans to go ga-ga over the idea that the New England Patriots and the New York Giants will be having their rematch this early, even before the brand new season officially starts. Unfortunately, both of the team’s star quarterbacks were unable to play in this highly anticipated rematch. Sad ain’t it?

Last season’s league MVP Tom Brady, despite giving hints that he might actually play this big preseason game, didn’t. This was the fourth preseason game that he already missed (which would be ALL of the Patriots’ preseason games…) because of the injury to his right foot. STILL, he remains confident that he’ll be able to play for his team once the regular season starts. We’ll be keeping our fingers crossed for that one.

The New York Giants, on the other hand, opted not to play their field general much to the surprise of everyone.

After already losing Osi Umenyiora in these preseason games, Giants…

Yeah sure, the regular season is about to close.

But hey, since it’s never too late to try something new, they’re still giving it a go for the remaining games of the 2008 MLB baseball season. Instant replays have always been able to tell game officials if the call made was right or not and finally, the league has decided to take advantage of it.

This should put MLB baseball in a better position to bring in fans as well since these guys, with the new instant replay thing, will see less of their team getting screwed by a stupid call made by an umpire, although this doesn’t guarantee that boredom won’t get you every single time you watch nine guys dance around a field for six hours straight.

MLB management and their umpires agree that using instant replays is the way to go, signing an agreement that will allow the sport to start using replays to help in making calls in any game.

The said deal was signed by lawyers for the commissioner’s office and the World Umpires Association (WUA) a day after WUA spokesman Lamell McMorris went public with complaints over negotiations.

‘’We reached an agreement. Final decision with respect to moving ahead has not been made yet, but we have an agreement with…'’