Some lowlights from Tuesday and Wednesday:

For anyone who was willing to give Corey Patterson a second chance after a
putrid 2005, the new Orioles outfielder rewarded all of his owners with an
0-for-4 performance during Baltimore’s
16-6 thrashing of Tampa on
Wednesday. Despite the fact he hit .215 last season and virtually disappeared
in the second half, many folks (including me) were willing to give the guy a
second chance, especially since he was moving to a new home. Sure it’s only one
game, but the pain of seeing an 0-fer in a slugfest could be enough to make
many give up on him pretty soon.

Tuesday proved to be very painful to anyone who owned both Andy Pettitte and
Jeremy Hermida. Pettitte somehow managed to give up 13 hits and 10 runs (seven
earned) in 4.2 IP – something that seems almost impossible in an early-season
start when most managers would pull a pitcher after he’d given up nine or 10
hits. Those counting on Pettitte to anchor their staff this year can’t be very
pleased with his first appearance. But those who also are banking on Hermida to
tear it up, suffered a double stomach punch when the Rookie of the Year
candidate tallied an 0-for-5 against Houston,
despite his team scoring 11 runs on 17 hits.

Finally, was that really Kenny Rogers on American Idol the past two nights? The
guy who claimed to be "The Gambler" looked nothing like the
white-bearded country singer the entire country can usually easily recognize.
Was it the fact that he got rid of the beard in favor of a goatee? Was it his
eyes, which seemed different than usual? Was
it the fact he is 67 and just looks older? 

My wife and I tried holding up our fingers in front of the TV on Tuesday to
block off his hairless cheeks, and it actually helped – at least slightly – to
make him look like the old Rogers
again. Wednesday night my mom came over, I paused TIVO and I gave her 10
guesses as to who Rogers was. She
had absolutely no clue and she works in the music business. I?m convinced
something fishy is up here.

The entire tournament will be remembered for George Mason?s
incredible run, yet the video showed maybe one Mason highlight, and managed to
leave out all of the dramatic shots from the closing minutes of their memorable
win over UConn. The video did include most of the buzzer beater for the tourney,
but instead of just showing us the raw TV footage of the shots, we were forced
to watch over-produced, dizzying angles of each shot, where you could barely tell
what was happening.

While I still watched the video 13 times on TIVO, it seems
that after doing such a fantastic job for 2 ½ weeks of broadcasting 63 games,
CBS would get the final piece of the puzzle right.