This is for you! As well as birthday presents -soon to come.

Oops. I got one right in my final four, and it was Butler! So much for having 6 of 8 right in the Elite Eight.

We’re in for a great final four though, is Duke or West Virginia the real favorite? Butler playing, practically, at home and Michigan State in their 6th final four in 12 years. That fact, mainly, is unreal in this era.

The Regional Quarterfinals start tonight so it is time to evaluate the bracket. The only Elite 8 team I’ve lost is Kansas, and I should have picked Northern Iowa. I liked them, they crushed the Saints but I figured that was a bad matchup.

All my brackets have mistakes now that Xavier beat Pitt in the second round.

However, I did get 9 of the Sweet 16.. that’s not bad, right?

I do have Butler beating Syracuse, so, we will see if the Bulldogs can handle the Orange when they meet up in the West region semifinal.

So this is what I did at work Thursday… don’t get too jealous.

It’s that time of year again. Matt is traveling before MAAC Tournament events begin so I am immersed in making sure the operations of SienaSaintsBlog.com go on without a hitch. We will be covering everything that we can. So check it out!

One reason? George Mason fouling last Saturday with time expiring to lose at home to Northeastern. Now the ref on the far side of the play is emphatic in his call. I’m sure that, after looking at many replays that you would rather let the players decide the game but the shooter does get hit on the arm in the shot.

I’m okay with the call now because Northeastern’s win didn’t help and Old Dominion held onto the #1 seed. If that is what gave the Huskies an auto-bid to the postseason, then I’d feel worse.

This year, the Pro Bowl is being played the week before the Super Bowl. To compare, Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game is always in July. However, one of these games holds high significance when it comes to the games after it.

MLB awards the winning league of the All-Star Game home field advantage in the World Series. Baseball wants to likely make sure tickets and hotels are properly reserved and with the All-Star Game tying in 2002, the Pro Bowl has never tied by the way, television has a vested interest in covering MLB’s All-Star Game (in Anaheim this year by the way).

Now why not consider the football equivalent in this? If the NFL ever wanted to execute this rule it would probably go like this:

The winning conference of the NFL’s All-Star Game, the Pro Bowl, will automatically win the coin toss and have the option of whether to defer or receive.

Makes sense right? Isn’t that the same extent of an advantage in the All-Star Game to have that slight help from your fellow league/conference teammates? Do you think an extra home game helps a team more in the World Series as much as receive/deferring the ball to start a one game championship?

Then instead of the buildup to the Super Bowl we can have a build up to this coming decision by the conference champion. Will they defer? Do they want the ball first? Are they worried about defending the other team early? All those questions that we ask when you compare lineups against each other the days before a World Series starts.

The Pro Bowl is a relatively even series, the NFC leads 20-19 all time. On the other hand, the AL has gone 12-0-1 in the last 13 All-Star Games and has won every single All-Star Game where homefield advantage has been decided. Now the National League won 11 straight all-star games from 1972 to 1982, but they didn’t decide home field advantage and they didn’t even have interleague play then.

My problem with the idea of the MLB All-Star Game is the idea of who decides the game. The superstar players play early, like a preseason NFL game or similarly to the Pro Bowl. Then the teams open up their benches and let every pitcher pitch and every player (or at least most of them) play. In the sake of using everyone, Prince Fielder and Ryan Howard were used as a pinch-hitters in last year’s All-Star Game: did that benefit the NL?

The problem is motivation as well. This year, two of the coaching staffs with the best regular season record that lost in the Divisional Round in the NFL playoffs will coach the Pro Bowl. So Cowboys’ Coach Wade Phillips and Chargers’ Coach Norv Turner are the two that get that distinct duty. Under our scenario of awarding the coin toss to the Pro Bowl winner, what motivation would either staff have to win the game? The St. Louis Cardinals, defending 2006 World Champions, were 7.5 games out of first place and 40-45 when the All-Star Game took place in 2007. The NL team lost 5-4 and manager Tony LaRussa pinch hit Aaron Rowand over his own star Albert Pujols who jokingly said of the decision, “Maybe he was saving me for next year’s All-Star Game.”

The bottom line is that awarding homefield advantage in the All-Star Game is as much of a problem as if the NFL awarded the coin toss to the winner of the Pro Bowl. With this being the first year the Pro Bowl is being played before the Super Bowl, why not entertain that possibility?

Robby doesn’t update his website but I see him a lot at work and he put my original wordpress site on his blogroll which was nice. I got rid of the blogroll for this site, it just didn’t make sense with the layout. But I encourage you to visit his page, http://robbyradio.com/. It’s okay he doesn’t update it, he’s probably busy with his blogtalkradio show http://www.blogtalkradio.com/robbyradio.

By writing this here, he definately can’t be mad at me anymore for not putting him on my site… Right?

So I’ll share a few stories on this once great bagel place.

One time I was going in to get a bagel before going to Bristol, CT and I have my Marist keychain on. The man behind the counter says “you went to Marist?” so I say yes and he says, “I went to the CIA [Culinary Institute of America] just up the road.” So I figure, he must be the one who made all these great bagels/cream cheeses.

About a few months later the place is sold to a new owner. This new owner, I never met him, but the bagels went downhill fast. Not only did even the Sesame bagels taste weird but the French Toast bagels (they were great by the way) didn’t even look like bagels anymore. So I’m guessing a lot of people agreed with me and business was going down, so apparently the owner thought of the most rational solution:

Firefighters apprehended a bagel store owner shortly after he tried to set fire to his own store in a Commack strip mall, officials said Friday.

Salvatore D. Dirato, 49, the owner of the Bagel Cafe, was still in the darkened store on Jericho Turnpike on Thursday evening when Commack firefighters arrived in response to a 911 call from the adjoining pizza restaurant, fire officials said.

“The workers from the pizza place called it in because they were getting some smoke and were worried about the whole strip going up,” said Commack Fire Chief Steve Fontana. “I was the first on the scene. . . . When I approached, I happened to see somebody in there, and he went through the back door.”

Assistant Chief Andy Babajko then grabbed Dirato and held him for police, Fontana said.

About 15 Commack firefighters responded to the alarm, Fontana said. The blaze did not spread to the adjacent businesses and for the most part extinguished itself, Fontana said. It was declared under control within 15 minutes of his arrival, he said.

Dirato was charged with second-degree attempted arson and criminal mischief. A spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota said the fire was started at the store’s oven and charred one of its walls.

The spokesman, Bob Clifford, said Dirato also used a crowbar on a nearby automated teller machine that evening, destroying the mechanism and causing $2,000 damage.

Dirato pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Friday in First District Court in Central Islip, said Patrick Lanigan of Coram, Dirato’s attorney. Lanigan declined further comment.

Dirato was ordered held on $25,000 cash bail or $100,000 bond.

Only in Commack.

My brother Justin designed this website so I encourage you to take a look at it. http://americanpatriotheroesfund.org/

Justin’s bio on the page:

Senior Director, Client Relations

Justin P. Restivo (USMC)

Justin is our Sr. Director for Client Relations, Atlantic. He is a former United States Marine, Military Training Coordinator (MAG-31), CAC Marine Liaison (D&R) & Civil Affairs Specialist (3rd CAG). He served as a member of a Special Tactics Team & Quick REACTION Force  (Special Operations Capable) assigned to provide enhanced security to Marine Corps & Naval Installations on the East Coast following the attacks on 9/11/2001. He is a member of the Marine Corps League in Port Washington, NY and the American Legion. He is a partner with American Patriot Funding and a Licensed N.Y. State Mortgage Broker with a local mortgage broker-dealer. He is a 7 year industry Veteran of the Mortgage banking community and has received numerous awards for achievement and excellence. He is involved with in local charities, political organizations and other Veteran groups. He is married to his wife Kimberly and they reside in Suffolk County, NY.