Jason Giambi saved the Yankess from being swept by the Red Sox on three consecutive meetings when he tied the match at 2 at the 7^th inning and hit the winning homer at the 9^th. By the way, this was the last game to be played by the all-time rivals at old Yankee Stadium, their last series will come at Fenway Park on September when they’ll meet for 3 more games.

The Yankees are left 29 games after their victory over Boston and they are just six games behind the Red Sox, a loss would have left the Yanks in really bad shape to fight for a chance of making it to the playoffs.

Now, from those 29 games left, the Yankees have to go 20-9 to make it to the postseason, and 23 of those games are against teams with a current record of .500 which makes it even more difficult .

The one player the Yanks need to be in good shape is A-Rod, and yesterday he showed that he’s still going through a strike of bad luck. The Yankees haven’t lost the playoffs since 1993, and they know three time MVP Alex Rodriguez is essential for their plans.

Truly not the time to become a Yankees fan…

The AFC East is one of the most competitive and interesting divisions at the NFL right now, and it’s all about quarterbacks, with the arrival of Brett Favre to the Jets and the departure of Chad Pennington to Miami, plus Tom Brady who led the Pats the past season to an almost-perfect record and Trent Edwards who helped the Bills to come up with a 7-9 record last season.

Obviously the Patriots are still the favorites to win the division, but Favre has injected a lot of trust into the Jets and Chad Pennington will attempt to take revenge on the Jets for removing him from the team in order to have space to bring Favre from the Packers.

By watching the numbers from the experts I came up with the following season ending records:

AFC East

Patriots 14-2
Jets 10-6
Bills 8-8
Dolphins 4-12

Who knows, the season is just starting, and as of now each team has the same chances than the rest, let’s watch a couple of games to see what the real deal is…

The Dodgers were playing great when Manny Ramirez came to the team, but it seems like they’re are back to where they were before the arrival of the 36 year-old left fielder.

And it seems like its Joe Torre’s fault as Ramirez has diminish his performance since the Dodgers head coach asked him to cut 1 inch of his dreadlocks, well, not really…

The truth is that Manny is just not playing at his best.

And it’s almost a fact that Manny Ramirez won’t be playing for the Dodgers the coming MLB season, and Ramirez referred to this matter with the following statement: "It feels like I'm on vacation; I'm here for another month or two. After this, I don't know what's going to happen. I'm living day by day." He said.

But besides baseball, Manny Ramirez posses a natural ability to bring a team together,

“He's really loose. Any clubhouse he comes into, he's going to make it looser. Whatever it was, whether it was him or us, we're playing real well right now.” Teammate Jason Johnson said.

So Ramirez might not be able to lead the Dodgers to the playoffs, but the team from Los Angeles is certainly happy with the money they’re making by selling Manny’s wigs…

Everybody knows that a Manning-less Colts are surely not going to win their division, and the injury that Payton suffered recently, truly clouded future team expectations for the Super Bowl XLI winners.

Now they might be breathing more calmly since Payton Manning is on his way to full-recovery, and that shown this morning when the two-time NFL MVP was seeing by reporters training with the team for the first time this season.

Even though Peyton Manning is showing good signs of getting his act together, it is not likely that he will take part on the last Colts pre-season game on Thursday, and there are also doubts about his involvement on Indianapolis season opener on September 7^th.

But after a month of having knee surgery, Peyton Manning is happy to be back on the football field, “I’m glad this day is finally here. As I’ve said all along, the goal is to be ready for that season opener and I certainly hope to be and this point I expect to be.’’ He said.

So Colts fans out there, better be praying for Manning to get back on track or you will not see your team winning that many games this season.

Well the Beijing Olympics are over, and it seems like everybody is more than satisfied about the final results; even Jacques Rogge, the IOC president called them “truly exceptional”

And for China it meant much more than just being the Olympics hosts, they also ended with the most medals (51) above the USA (36) and Russia (23).

As some of the Beijing Olympics highlights, we have Michael Phelps in swimming, which finished with 8 titles, beating the gold medal mark imposed before by Mark Spitz.

And nobody would deny that the USA Basketball team was the main feature of the Olympics as the team leaded by Kobe Bryant and Lebron James excelled expectations and showed the world why “hoops” are one of the American sports by excellence as they beat up each one of their rivals by outstanding scores, including their victory over Germany by 106-57 (49 points of difference), and only Spain came as the real deal in front of the Americans since they lost at the finals for the gold medal by just 11 points with a score of 118-107.

Also Usain Bolt, the now famous runner, who broke 3 world records and won the 100 and 200 meter competitions.

One important fact not to be forgotten is the fact that the US men’s volleyball team won the gold medal and went undefeated in despite of the tragedy occurred to their head coach, Hugh McCutcheon, as his father-in-law was murdered and his mother-in-law was severely injured by a Chinese man at a tourist spot in Beijing… All the goods to

McCutcheon and family…

In total, more than 100 Olympic records were set, and more than 40 world records were break at the 2008 Beijing Olympics,

Now we’ll need to wait 4 years until London hosts the 2012 Olympics…

The 3rd meeting is always essential in NFL pre-season games, as teams get to play their quarterbacks into the third quarter, much different than the past two, where they gave almost everybody on the roster a chance to show what they have accomplished in order to win a place at the starting line-up.

So let’s check on what can happen tonight on 3 interesting games:

Even though the Falcons are playing at home, I think the Titans offense is stronger for this game, with guys like Justin McCareins and Justin Gage firing up Atlanta’s plays with their young talent, while Matt Ryan will be leading Tennessee’s defense along with Stephen Tulloch.

While on Texas, the two NFL teams of the state will renew their rivalry tonight in order to find out who is most prepared to face the coming 08/09 NFL regular season, and I think the Cowboys are better, but the Texans have won their two previous pre-season matches and seem ready to repeat as they won to the Cowboys on the same meeting just one year ago, I’ll give it to the Texans this time around.

Now, for me the most interesting game of this date is Broncos / Packers, with odds favoring Denver, who has won one of their previous two NFL pre-season games and Green Bay having lost their previous two. I also think the Broncos have the most chances of winning this match as Denver is always forcing them selves to win pre-season games while testing new plays in order to arrive fully prepared to the regular season, and the Packers are now playing without Brett Favre who got traded to the Jets, so they will have to rely more on their defense for now, while the team gets used to Aaron Rodgers to play as full-time starter.

Team USA hasn’t had a true rival yet at the Beijing Olympics; in fact, the press is just waiting for the end of each game in order to check on how great the disparity will be between each team’s scores, as the Americans have won by wide margins every single match in their quest for the gold.

Their last victim is Australia, a team that gave Team USA a hard time a few days ago in a warm out for the Olympics on a game that finished with just 11 points of difference, but today the Australians fell to the Americans by 116 to 85 and were knocked down of the tournament.

Now the true test comes for Team USA as they advanced to the semifinals and their next rival is almost with certainty Argentina, Manu Ginobili’s team, and the one who won the gold back in 2004, the year when the Americans had to conform with the bronze medal.

I don’t think the Argentineans will beat Team USA, but the possibility, even though its weak, exists indeed, so the Americans might as well look at this match as a way to completely forget how embarrassing they have ended on previous Olympics meetings.

After losing the fame of being the best basketball team in the world for two years straight at the past Olympic meetings, the USA is back in a great way.

There is no doubt that they have being superior to each one of their rivals at Beijing, and with a team made of true superstars, they are getting closer to bring home the Gold medal.

USA’s last win came against Spain by 119-82, a truly slaughter for the current FIBA world champions on Chinese ground.

Currently the Americans are 4-0, and it seems like they have no real rivals at the Olympics this time around.

There is no doubt that every single member of the team has performed outstandingly, but the resurgence of Dwayne Wade is something to notice, as he’s performing as well as he did back in the 2006 NBA finals, when the Heat won the championship to the Mavericks and he received the MVP honors.

Of course you cannot forget about the great chemistry between Kobe Bryant and Lebron James, whom are possibly the best two players in the NBA

Also the talents of Dwight Howard and Carmelo Anthony are essential for the team’s performance.

Critics saw Spain as a road block for the elite basketball team, but the USA showed that they are on a level on their own, and that to match them is an almost impossible task.