Charlie Riedel - ASSOCIATED PRESS

If this is what DC fans future continues to look like, then the future is looking good.

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Although his big league career is only one game old, the Nationals must be pretty thrilled with their first overall pick in last years draft. Not only did the simple announcement of the hurlers first start almost immediately sell out what would have otherwise been a sucky weeknight game against the lowly Pirates, but it also brought in over 150 media types which gave it major national (pun very much intended) coverage.

Think about the madness that an early season Nationals - Pirates game almost trumped Game 3 of a tiedNBA Finals between the Lakers and Celtics!!

The highlights of Stephen Strasburg's first MLB start, however were pretty darn impressive. The guy brought the heat and fanned 14 batters, making only one mistake (a 2 run HR) over 7 full innings in a dominating 5-2 Nationals win in front of over 40,000 very happy DC fans. Strasburg may very well be baseball's version of LeBron James - a guy long viewed as the next great thing who appears to be poised to make good on the hype. Of course taking him with the top selection last year was a no-brainer, but considering how often we hear about terrible "#1 Overall Busts" (especially in the NBA & NFL) it seems like we should pay some respect when it works the other way and an entire fan base can be re-energized in just one year after making the perfect draft pick.

Just a couple of weeks ago as the Lakers were getting an early test from the Thunder, all the regular pundits were pronouncing Kobe Bryant's reign as the best player in the world over - saying he had lost a step and that his best days were well in the rear view mirror.

Flash Forward 20 days and the newly awarded (two-time) MVP, his royal highness LeBron James, failed to show up against the Celtics in critical games and his Cavs have gone fishing (or doing some creepy business with each others moms). At the same time Kobe's Lakers dominated the last couple against the Thunder and swept away the Jazz - earning themselves a much needed week of rehab.

Fresh off of resting his supposedly over-the-hill bones, Kobe put on a clinic in game 1 of the Western Conference Finals last night. He spent the first two quarters getting his teammates involved, helping 6th man Lamar Odom rack up 15 points before they hit halftime. Coming out of the locker room in the second half, Kobe switched it up and took over the game offensively, burying contested shots and getting to the line at will scoring 21 points in in the 3rd qtr and effectively stepping on the Suns throats and ending any chance they had of coming back.

Kobe's 40 points and the display of his full arsenal on the court in game 1 seemed to be a bit of a statement - his under-biting, growling message to the rest of the league that he isn't quite ready to give up the crown just yet.

If Project Franchise had an NBA squad that won the Lottery tonight and could pick anyone in the world, I think the easy money would still be in LBJ because of his youth and future potential - but if we were picking one player to build a team around for the next two weeks for a championship run, it would be pretty hard to pass on Kobe.

If I had known what he looked like before I wrote this post,

I may have chosen a different angle

I’m sick of mock drafts.  Speculating on what a team "might" do is boring.  I’d rather tell teams what they SHOULD do.  Frankly, Al Davis should be reading this, nodding his head and calling me to run his draft room.

If I was a betting man, and I am, I’d rather actually place bets on the NFL draft than make up a "mock". 

Below is my advice for the teams picking in the Top 10 spots of the upcoming NFL Draft.

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More photos » Hannah Foslien - Getty Images

The throwback jerseys were the only thing that looked like the old stadium in Minneapolis today

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Target Field - Today the Twins officially moved into their new home one the edge of downtown Minneapolis and played their first outdoor home game in forever. After almost three decades in the Metrodome, the Twins are now playing under the great blue northern sky at the brand spanking new Target Field. While their former confines did provide one of the great home field advantages in the sport, it was a god awful place to watch a baseball game - part spaceship, part football field, part marshmallow - no parts America's past time.

But the new field is different - the biggest complaint heard today during the Twins 5-2 win over the Red Sox was that the fans are too close and are able to heckle the players too easily. Last time I checked that should actually be a requirement if a team is going to expect fans to sit through a 3 hour baseball game in 40 degree weather for the first month of the season.

To go along with their new pile of bricks, the Twins also signed their all-world catcher Joe Mauer to a pricey long term extension to basically ensure that he will spend the rest of the prime of his career in his hometown. Mauer was recently crowned The Fans MVP by ESPN and seems to have captivated the entire city - if he can stay healthy and lead the Twins to a playoff run and beyond it could turn out to be a heck of a great story for a great fan base who (fresh off that Favre/Vikings meltdown) deserves it.

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Phil sure looked like he was having fun on Sunday in Augusta

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Phil Mickelson spent the first 15 years of his PGA career as a guy who fans rooted for, but could never really get all the way behind during the Majors because at some point over the weekend he would find a way to screw it up. With his clutch birdie put on 18 to win in the 2004 Masters, his first major, it looked like Phil had finally gotten the monkey off his back - but then came 72nd hole at the 2006 US Open and Phil just couldn't help himself. With the lead and just needing a par to win the title he pulled out the driver, missed the fairway and hit a concession tent (after having literally been in a garbage can the hole before) and 15 minutes later he was watching Geoff Olgivy raise the trophy.

Phil has won two other majors since then (a Masters & a PGA Championship), but as a fan it was pretty hard to root for him this afternoon as there was always a sneaking suspicion that he was just waiting to make a mistake or blow up. When they made the turn and Phil was jockeying for the lead with Lee Westwood and KJ Choi, all while Tiger was coming on strong, you couldn't help but envision Lefty carding a pair of double-bogeys and hanging a 40 on the backside.

The thing that Phil had going for him, however, was that everyone else soon looked much shakier - the usually invincible Woods was clearly not in the zone, KJ melted under the pressure and Westwood just didn't have what it took to hang with Phil. So, on the 13th hole par 5, after his drive got hung up in the trees its really a great thing that neither the announcers, or the fans watching on TV, realized what he was planning. Instead of punching through and laying up short of the water in front of the green (which Westwood had done moments before), Mickelson decided to risk his lead and attempted to navigate the ball through two trees and down 207 yards to a wildly dangerous up front pin placement.

Lucky for Phil, and the rest of us who were watching, it worked like a charm and the ball landed inside 10 feet. He ended up missing the eagle putt, but still dropped in for birdie and kept up the separation he needed from the pack - eventually winning by 3 shots and enabling fans everywhere to smile and cheer as he hugged his wife and kids next to the 18th green.

But it wasn't the birdie on 13 that won the tourney, it was that he didn't make double bogey. The shot he played was reckless and poorly thought out - but when it safely hit the green we finally got to see that immensely creative talent of Phil Mickelson help him win a tourney and not squander an opportunity away.

Chalk one up for the good guy.

Final Four - This years NCAA Hoops Tourney was full of surprising upsets, early exits for top teams and a (semi) Cinderella story. And last nights final game, which was set up to be a snoozefest between defensive-minded, local favorite Butler and the always hard to root for Dukies, turned out to be a total gem. Of course the game ended on a missed Butler buzzer beater from half court that fell about 4 inches off from being the greatest ending in the history of basketball - and finally wiping Christian Laetner from the marquee spot on highlight reels for the rest of eternity. But it was still a great game, with constant lead changes and a hard fought effort on both sides from start to finish.

It was pretty clear that neither of these teams looked like the best in the country, as its hard to imagine either of them beating Kentucky or Kansas more than 3 out of 10 times - but in this tourney, they won the games they had to play and got themselves to the final game and made it a real treat to the fans who watched courtside and on TV's across the country. On what was a great day of sports (Tiger press conference, opening day in baseball, etc), a game that was expected to be a boring affair turned out to be a gem - and further proof that college basketball's got the best championship format in sports, so lets hope they keep it as is next year and beyond.

Jamie Squire - Getty Images

It looks like they are growing out the rough at Augusta this year.

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El Tigre's Mane - Tiger Tiger Woods Y'all showed up Monday afternoon for his first real, big time press conference since the Turkey Day Disaster that ruined his billion dollar name sporting a new piece of seriously unnecessary facial hair that ain't doing anything good to restore his formerly squeaky clean reputation. Yes, the presser was a good strep in the right direction and yes, Tiger seemed genuinely contrite and remorseful for his actions - but the goatee just screamed "Dirtbag!"

You'd think if you were attempting to convince the world that you were no longer into strippers and cocktail waitresses and strange Ambien sex binges, that you'd want to go clean shaven. It's sort of like trying to sell your used car without even bothering to run the thing through an automatic wash at the local 76. For all of the things that his camp did right in the last month or two in terms of fixing up his battered and bruised image, you think they could have handed the guy a Norelco before he walked out on stage.

As Andre Agassi said, "Image is Everything" and the lasting pic from that press conference in my mind is a picture of Tiger looking like a redneck creeper with a strange semi-grown in chin-stache. I'm sure this is some type of strange ploy to get back at Gillette for dropping him when the sh*t hit the fan, but for all of his fans who will be rooting for him this weekend if he's back on the leaderboard (of which I'll likely be one of them), it would make it a heck of a lot easier if he'd clean himself up beforehand.