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MONDAY Generally a big fan of Air Canada, but fly to Phoenix on Air Canada Rouge. I always thought Rouge meant red, but apparently it means Seats only kittens can fit comfortably in. Need to work on my French. Arrive at hotel and front desk clerk hands me a large warmed delicious chocolate chip cookie with my key. This is brilliant check-in bribery. I could find a dead body in my room now and be hesitant to complain. Walking through downtown Phoenix, a scalper asks us if we want to buy tickets to the Pro Bowl that night. I laugh like hes Louis C.K. I prefer my football with tackling. TUESDAY The last Super Bowl Media Day I covered was in Jacksonville in 2005. My lasting memory is of two Mexican reporters from Azteca Deportes who asked questions with hand puppets. I arrive at Media Day in Phoenix and among the first people I run into are the same two reporters, with different hand puppets. I quietly wonder if the original puppets got a better offer and jumped to Telemundo. The problem with Media Day is that half the reporters dont seem to actually work in the media. There must be radio stations who hand out passes to contest winners. A couple of guys in the Gronkowski scrum are wearing Patriots T-shirts and asking probing questions like, Gronk, why are you so awesome? Though that is actually better than many of the questions real media ask. I am standing with Seattle punter and Canadian boy Jon Ryan when a reporter sticks his mic in and says: Reporter: You are Canadian, right? Ryan: Yes. Reporter: Do you like pontoon? Ryan: What? Reporter: Do you like pontoon? Ryan: Poutine? Reporter: Yes, poutine. Twenty-nine reporters ask Marshawn Lynch questions, all getting the exact same answer, Im only here so I dont get fined. I want to ask the 29th guy if he thought his question was so good, it would make Lynch sit up straight and say, Brilliantly posed sir! This one I must answer, thoroughly and eloquently! I am impressed (confused?) with the fans who buy tickets to sit in the stands during Media Day to watch...scrums. There are a couple of hundred Seahawks faithful who cheer madly every time Russell Wilson has a good answer. Some even scream during the Patriots availability, making me wonder if they are trying to affect Brady and his offences ability to hear the questions. They take this 12th man thing seriously. WEDNESDAY Fourteen more questions without answers for Lynch. Give up the dream people. You are not getting him to open up about his childhood and cry for you. Eat dinner at Lo-Los Chicken and Waffle House in Scottsdale, highly recommended by Deion Sanders. I assume the name means waffles for breakfast, and chicken as a specialty for dinner. I am wrong. It means fried chicken and waffles, together, for every meal. Broccoli is not allowed within 10 miles of the place. It is a bylaw, I believe. I order the Tre-Tre because it sounds like it gives me street cred. It has two drumsticks and one giant waffle with an ice-cream sized scoop of butter. It is delicious. I have no regrets. THURSDAY I have quadruple bypass surgery. FRIDAY NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell holds his annual State of the Union news conference. The union has issues. Goodell sidesteps every question like a Russell Wilson scramble. One reporter asks, roughly, Any other employee who had a year like you did would have been fired or resigned by now. Why havent you been fired or resigned? Boom. I cant see the reporter who asks it because there are about 1,000 people in the room, but I quietly hope it is one of the Mexican hand puppets. Goodell just keeps digging himself a deeper hole. I have had numerous issues with Gary Bettman over the years (cough...TV rights...cough), but he makes himself available much more than once every four months. Plus he answers questions, even if you dont always like the answers. A Roger Goodell interview is the same as a Marshawn Lynch interview, just with more and fancier words. SATURDAY I am standing in the bleachers behind the 16th hole at the Phoenix Open, the craziest golf tournament the planet has ever known. The most fruitless job in sport belongs to the volunteers who ask the crowd for silence before players hit their tee-shots on 16 at Phoenix. They scream, cheer, boo, chant, and mostly drink, through every shot. You hit one tight, its a football stadium celebrating a game-winning touchdown for the home team.You miss the green, its the same crowd after the ref called the touchdown back. PGA Pro Jon Rahm wears an Arizona State football jersey for his tee-shot. The crowd goes nuts. Then he hits it long to the back of the green, and they boo him relentlessly. The 16 Bleacher Creatures chant every chant ever used in American sport. Examples: -USA! USA! for every American player, and some Euros who they believe are American because they have had 17 Budweisers. -The Atlanta Braves Tomahawk Chop chant...for no explicable reason. -Bald spot! Bald spot! As Phil Mickelson strolls towards the green. You need to put 16 bleachers on your bucket list. Just dont bring your kids. This tournament is basically the worlds largest nightclub. Except it opens at 7am. Women show up in heels and cocktail dresses. And leave covered in mud. There are more than 100,000 people on the course the day Im there. I figure about 10,000 are watching golf. I always thought the Phoenix Waste Management Open is a terrible sponsor name. But in my three hours there, I see two fights, a couple of guys throwing up, and one young lady (in heels) passed out in the mud. The sponsor name, in retrospect, is perfect. SUNDAY The Auxiliary Press Box is one of the sections at the top of the stadium. We are in the last row of media, with an entire section of Patriots fans right behind us. Chris Schultz makes a point of telling them he picked the Pats to win. Which he did, though he would have told Seahawks fans the same thing if they were behind us. Avoiding getting beer poured on his head is one of Schultzys many strengths. The game is great, but you all saw that, so Ill skip the details. Im a mile from the stage for the halftime show. In fact, from my vantage point it almost looks like Katy Perry is dancing with sharks! Lol. As if. No choreography would be that drunk. (Unless they were at the golf tournament all weekend.) When you cover the game, you always watch the end from the bowels of the building, in a Disney ride-like line-up to get on the field. I have never seen a group of media gasp the way they did when the Seahawks threw on that last play. Even the hand puppets said, Holy S***! (In Spanish) We interview Patriots corner Brandon Browner, who says...what we all are saying, What were those guys thinking? When my alarm goes off at 4am for my flight home, I ask the same thing of myself. By the way, I have now covered three Super Bowls. All Patriot victories. I should really get a ring. Ian Happ Jersey . -- Arizona pitcher Bronson Arroyo is expected to miss a week to 10 days because of a back injury. Kyle Schwarber Jersey . In the calls, Hernandez discussed the murder of Odin Lloyd, including his "belief about his criminal liability" and the "extent of his control over persons charged as accessories," according to the request filed Thursday in Fall River Superior Court. http://www.cubsauthentic.com/cubs-kerry-wood-jersey/ . Johan Franzen had two goals and two assists, Gustav Nyquist a goal and three assists and David Legwand a goal and two assists in the Red Wings 7-4 win over the New Jersey Devils. Greg Maddux Cubs Jersey .ca! Hi Kerry, Im sure youve received many emails wondering what your take is on the Spezza goal that looked like Neil blatantly kicked it in while standing directly in the middle of the crease where, you know, usually a goalie is to make a save but couldnt be due to Neil being there! Thanks! Jon - Westfield, MA Jon: Lets first ask Henrik Lundqvist what he thought of the scoring of the Sens second goal with . Anthony Rizzo Jersey . Speaking with TSN 1050 following Brendan Shanahans introductory press conference, the Leafs GM also addressed the clubs perceived leadership issues and the type of working relationship that can be expected within Torontos front office.CHICAGO -- The Washington Nationals hit the halfway point of the season tied with Atlanta for the NL East lead. Adam LaRoche will take that. "I like our position in the standings and I like how our team is playing," LaRoche said after Washington swept a day-night doubleheader from the Cubs on Saturday. LaRoche and Wilson Ramos homered, Blake Treinen earned his first major league win and the Nationals beat Chicago 7-2 in a rainy nightcap. Gio Gonzalez pitched two-hit ball over seven innings in the opener for a 3-0 victory. In the second game, Washington tagged Jeff Samardzija (2-7) for six runs over five innings to salvage a four-game series split. LaRoche led off the second with a long drive to right for his 11th homer, and Ramos connected to start the fifth, sparking a four-run rally that made it 6-2. Making his fifth major league start, Treinen (1-3) allowed two runs and four hits in five innings. The right-hander was recalled from Triple-A Syracuse as the 26th man on the roster for the doubleheader. "It means a lot," he said about the win. "Im definitely excited, thats for sure." Ross Detwiler pitched three perfect innings for his first career save. The only runs for the Cubs came on a two-run homer by Luis Valbuena that tied it at 2 in the fourth, right about when the rain started falling. With two outs in the inning and Nate Schierholtz batting, play was stopped for 55 minutes. Once the game resumed, it didnt take long for the Nationals to regain the lead. Ramos connected on the first pitch of the fifth for his second homer, and Washington sent up nine batters in the inning. With two outs and a man on first, three straight singles by Anthony Rendon, Kevin Frandsen and Jayson Werth resulted in two more runs. First baseman Anthony Rizzo then let LaRoches hard smash get by him for an error, bringing in Frandsen to make it 6-2. "Coming out of the rain delay they jumped on me right off the bat, and then they hit some fastballs over the plate and hit them up the middle," Samardzija said. "Made me keep throwing pitches. Like I said, they did a good job. They were ready out of the break." In the first game, Gonzalez dominated in his third start back from the disabled list, outperforming Dalllas Beeler in the rightys major league debut.dddddddddddd Rendon had three hits, including a two-out double against Beeler in the sixth before scoring the games first run on a wild pitch. Rendon added an RBI triple off Justin Grimm and came home on a sacrifice fly by LaRoche against Wesley Wright in a two-run eighth. Denard Span chipped in with two hits and scored a run, and the Nationals snapped a three-game losing streak. Gonzalez (5-4) struck out seven and walked two while improving to 2-0 in three starts after missing a month because of inflammation in his pitching shoulder. Tyler Clippard worked the eighth and Rafael Soriano finished for his 19th save in 21 chances. "Obviously, coming (off) the DL and trying to work your way back is going to be a process," Gonzalez said. "Its not going to happen overnight. Its good to see, little by little, using fastball and changeup at the same time. Its good to know when you need them theyll be there." Beeler was about as good as Gonzalez. Called up from Triple-A Iowa as the 26th man, he pitched four-hit ball while allowing an unearned run in six innings. Beeler also singled in his first at-bat when he lined the first pitch he saw up the middle in the third, drawing big cheers from the crowd. "I was a lot calmer than what I thought Id be," he said. "I walked out there, took a deep breath, threw my warmup pitches, kind of looked around again, exhaled and I was like, All right, same game Ive been playing for the last 20 years." NOTES: Nationals OF Bryce Harper hit three homers and drove in five runs in a rehab game for Double-A Harrisburg. The 2012 NL Rookie of the Year is working his way back from a torn ligament in his left thumb. He went 4 for 5 as the DH against the Cleveland Indians Akron affiliate. Washington manager Matt Williams said hes not sure if Harper will play another game for Harrisburg on Sunday. The Nationals are optimistic he will return early in the week, if not Monday, when they open a three-game series against Colorado. ... The Cubs have their first scheduled Sunday off in 82 years because of the annual Pride Parade in Chicago. The last one was on June 19, 1932. Chicago played the Giants in New York on a Saturday and then went to Philadelphia on a Monday. ' ' '