Tigerprince Radio

New York Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina has decided to retire. Mussina, who turns 40 next month, spent the last eight seasons with the Yankees after pitching for the Baltimore Orioles for the first 10 years of his career. His 270 wins rank second among all active right-handers, behind only Greg Maddux. In the final start of his career, he pitched six shutout innings against the Boston Red Sox to finish off the first 20-win season of his career.

The NFL is giving Adam “Pacman” Jones another chance.

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said Wednesday the suspended cornerback has been reinstated by league commissioner Roger Goodell, but he must miss two more games this Sunday and the following game on Thanksgiving. He’ll be back Dec. 7 at Pittsburgh.

Well we can all thank Mr. Deep Pockets himself (Jerry Jones) for this one!

Fox Sports has decided to pull its bid on the next round of television rights for the Bowl Championship Series college football games.

Fox’s four-year deal with the BCS ends after the 2009 season. The Bowl Championship Series says it is close to a deal with ESPN.

“Currently, over 98 million homes receive ESPN,” BCS coordinator John Swofford said in a statement. “With the ever-changing technology and as we look toward January 2011, when the first games in this package will be played, we know that the number of households that receive ESPN will only continue to grow.”

SportsBusiness Daily reported that, according to sources, ESPN bid $125 million per year over four years to get the games, while Fox’s top bid was $100 million per year.

One person who won’t be swayed by President-elect Barack Obama’s recent call for an eight-team national college football playoff is Oregon president David Frohnmayer, chair of the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee.

“We deeply respect the president-elect and we are glad that he is a fan of college football,” Frohnmayer said in an e-mail response to ESPN Tuesday. “We have the most compelling regular season in all of sports, and I’m sure that contributes to Senator Obama’s enjoyment of our great game.”

Frohnmayer opposes a playoff for the former Division I-A. Other presidents on the committee are Rev. John Jenkins (Notre Dame), Robert Khayat (Ole Miss), Mark Nordenberg (Pittsburgh), John Peters (Northern Illinois), Harvey Perlman (Nebraska), Graham Spanier (Penn State) and Charles Steger (Virginia Tech.)

“My colleagues and I on the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee have discussed the future of postseason football on many occasions and we do not believe a playoff would be in the best interest of the sport, the student-athletes or our many other constituencies,” Frohnmayer said.

When asked what change he’d make in sports during last week’s Monday Night Football broadcast, Obama said “I think it’s about time we had playoffs in college football. I’m fed up with these computer rankings and this that and the other. Get eight teams the top eight teams right at the end. You got a playoff. Decide on a national champion.”

Amid growing fan discontent, Charlie Weis insisted Notre Dame is on the right path and he is the coach to lead the Fighting Irish out of their latest rut.

“I’m confident that the program is going to go where we all want it to go. That’s as honest as I can be,” Weis said Tuesday. “Because I think we have pretty good players. When you have pretty good players, you have a chance to be pretty good.”

Notre Dame fans, though, aren’t looking for pretty good. They’re looking for national championships, something they haven’t celebrated since 1988. The Irish went 3-9 last season and despite an easier-than-usual schedule by Notre Dame standards, the Irish (5-4) are just a game above .500 and have lost three of their last four.

Weis, who as a Notre Dame student more than 30 years ago called the university president to complain about a loss, said he understands fans being upset.

“I think that I’d be perturbed, too, if I were them, to be honest with you,” he said.

Some blamed last year’s dismal record on Weis’ predecessor, Tyrone Willingham, whose last recruiting class left Weis to rely on a bevy of inexperienced players. But Weis has four recruiting classes, three full, highly rated classes in place and isn’t showing as much progress as many fans expected.

The Milwaukee Brewers hired former New York Mets manager Willie Randolph as bench coach on Saturday.

The 54-year Randolph was fired as the Mets manager on June 17. His career record was 302-253 and he led New York to the playoffs in 2006. His .544 winning percentage ranks second to Davey Johnson (.588) in Mets history.

“We are very pleased to add Willie to the organization as he brings recent National League expertise and success to our coaching staff,” general manager Doug Melvin said. “His reputation as a player is a quality that will be valuable in his teaching and coaching of our talented young team. Willie is a professional both on and off the field.”

Ken Macha was hired Oct. 30 as the manager, taking over from Dale Sveum following the team’s first postseason appearance since 1982.

In addition to his managerial experience, Randolph spent 11 seasons on the coaching staff of the New York Yankees as third base coach (1994-2003) and bench coach (2004). He was a part of four World Series championship teams with the Yankees.

The six-time All-Star second baseman had an 18-year playing career spent primarily with the Yankees (1976-88). He also played for Pittsburgh (1975), Los Angeles (1989-90), Oakland (1990), Milwaukee (1991) and the Mets (1992).

**Oh for the record Dave is the listener that started the movement to get rid of Willie when the Mets went on their season ending skid**

Tennessee couldn’t even beat heavy underdog Wyoming for outgoing coach Phillip Fulmer — on homecoming day no less.

In his first game since being forced to resign at the end of the season, Fulmer could only watch as Ward Dobbs returned an interception 24 yards to lead Wyoming to a 13-7 win over the Volunteers on Saturday.

Tennessee (3-7) came into the game favored by 26 1/2 points, but wound up with its seventh loss of the season and marking just the second time in Fulmer’s 17 years as coach that the Vols won’t play in a bowl game. It was the first time the Vols lost to a Mountain West opponent.

Wyoming (4-6) won its first road game of the season, and may want to play more often at Southeastern Conference schools. The last time the Cowboys went on the road to the SEC, they beat Mississippi in 2005.

The Los Angeles Dodgers want a full-length feature of the Manny Ramirez show after last season’s short.

General manager Ned Colletti said Wednesday that the Dodgers made an offer to the free-agent slugger, and their pitch would give him the second-highest average salary in the sport behind Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez.

“If you saw the bid, it’s nothing that we’re embarrassed by,” Colletti said at the GM meetings. “Manny was close to that number, anyway — closer to that area than the last place he’s been.”

The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that the Dodgers’ offer is believed to be for either two years at $50 million or three years for $75 million.

Rodriguez currently has the top average at $27.5 million under the 10-year deal he agreed to before last season. Mets pitcher Johan Santana is second at $22.9 million under the six-season deal he agreed to before the ‘08 season.

Ramirez, acquired from Boston on July 31, is coming off a $160 million, eight-year contract he signed with the Red Sox before the 2001 season.

Angered by the Oakland Raiders’ 2-6 start, team owner Al Davis asked his front office staff to explore the possibility of releasing several players, including cornerback DeAngelo Hall, according to multiple sources.

The Raiders are expected to release Hall on Wednesday.

The process started on Monday, a day after the Raiders’ embarrassing 24-0 loss to the Atlanta Falcons. Davis, looking ahead to rest of the season and to 2009, asked his staff to study a list of potential players who could be let go before the end of the week or after the season, sources said.

One source said the list included more than a dozen names. The Raiders’ front-office staff studied the cap consequences of releasing high-priced veteran players. He also wanted his staff to see if other teams might claim any of these players on waivers.

Duke coach David Cutcliffe quashed any speculation about him returning to Knoxville to replace his good friend and former boss, while Steve Spurrier said his current job at South Carolina will be his last as a college football coach.

“I’m at Duke, staying at Duke,” Cutcliffe said Tuesday.

Cutcliffe twice served on Tennessee’s staff and spent eight years as the Volunteers’ offensive coordinator. He came to Duke last December after a two-year stint in Knoxville and has called Fulmer “the best football coach I’ve ever been associated with.”

Cutcliffe said he was being proactive because he spoke to recruits who said other coaches had told them that he was headed to the Volunteers.

The 63-year-old Spurrier, who grew up in Tennessee rooting for the Vols, had great success during the 1990s while coaching Florida against Fulmer’s Vols. He once roiled Fulmer when he said “You can’t spell Citrus without UT,” a reference to Florida’s SEC dominance that left Tennessee to a lower-tier bowl appearance.

“Maybe five years ago I would’ve [been interested in the Tennessee job], but it wasn’t open five years ago,” Spurrier told The State newspaper of Columbia, S.C. “I’m at my last gig right here [at South Carolina]. And we’ve got a pretty good team if we can get a little offense going.”