Pirates snap streak!

The Pittsburgh Pirates finally won their first game of the second half with a 7-3 win over the Astros in Pittsburgh.
Paul Maholm continued his run of reasonably effective pitching as he allowed just 2 runs over 6 and 2/3rds innings on his way to improving his record to 6-12.
The expected big Bucco bats,Jason Bay and Adam LaRoche each had 2 RBI.
Freddy Sanchez hit a solo homer in the 7th inning(5th) off Matt Albers ,while Xavier Nady and Matt Kata(?) added the other Pirate RBI.
The Pirates organization corrected a long time disservice as the team finally retired the uniform number of Hall of Famer Paul Waner.
This should have been done years ago,but credit is due for finally getting this done.
Now,lets do the next right thing and get Waner's younger brother and fellow Hall of Famer
Lloyd Waner's number up at PNC Park as well!
Series concludes today at 1;35.

Pitching Matchup
Houston: Woody Williams (4-11) at Pittsburgh: Shane Youman (2-1) 1:35

Bullpen Notes

In watching the Pirates game last night and the Paul Waner ceremonies,Ryan and I were bemoaning the lack of good nicknames anymore.
No originality at all,certainly no "Big Poison" and "Little Poison"s for sure.
My theory on this is the newspapers as recently as 30 years,most big league cities had multiple newspapers battling for headlines and a lot of nicknames came as a result of that.
Other than New York and Chicago,most cities have just one daily or if they do have two,there is clear dominance by 1.
An example is in Washington,where I bet the Post throws away more papers than the Times sells!

Sorry,I didn't make a pick on the Bernard Hopkins-Winky Wright fight,guess it slipped my mind.
Hopkins got a unanimous nod.

In the Post Gazette,Speculation on Jack Wilson starts in Toronto and states the Mets have Jose Castillo in their sights.
I would love to the Bucs try to land former Hagerstown Suns Bobby Parnell or Jon Niese.
One can only hope,more likely the Captain has a target on a relief pitcher at New Orleans (Mets AAA).

Speaking of the Captain,why has the newest "Improvement to our team" Cesar Izturis not played yet?
If Matt Kata is better than him,why bother to acquire Izturis.
Big picture-does not matter neither are worth starting in my opinion,so you can pick your poison.

Here is a interesting article from the Cleveland Plain Dealer on Reds 2nd sacker Brandon Phillips.
Phillips was given up on by manager Eric Wedge for some unknown reason and has developed into a star in Cincinnati.

Respected SI writer Peter King ranks the Browns at 32nd of the NFL's 32 teams.
If this turns out to be the case and Brady Quinn is a bust (which I think will be the case) and Dallas picks first overall with the Browns pick-Messrs Crennel and Savage will be going Greyhound about 30 minutes after the last game.

King ranks our NFC team in Seattle 9th of the 32 teams.

Photo Credits
Waner Family-AP Photo-Gene Puskar
Waner Brothers-MiLB.Com
Boxing-AP Photo-Jae Hong