Hello and welcome to a new feature we will do every Monday called Odds & Ends where I will give my take on different topics or events in the world of sports. So without further adieu, here we go…

The Oakland A’s have decided to end their experiment with Manny Ramirez, though it is said that the split was an amicable one. I actually think this was a good idea to let him go and was a bad idea to bring him on in the first place. The A’s were more than likely trying to boost attendance with bringing him to the team but I doubt that even that would have worked. Ramirez should probably retire anyway, he is 40 years old now and hasn’t played in the majors since early last season. He did hit .302 in AAA Sacramento but I don’t know if he would’ve done that well with a big league club. The A’s should focus on signing free agents who are in their prime, not on their way to an AARP card.

It seems like the longer the Browns hold on to Colt McCoy, the more they want to trade him. Here’s my question: What is Mike Holmgren waiting for?

Look, we all know that the Browns are very high on the 28 year old rookie Brandon Weeden and he will most likely be their starting quarterback when the 2012 season begins, but wasn’t McCoy supposed their quarterback of the future to begin with? What happened to that?

I still think McCoy has a future left in football and that Browns haven’t given him the fairest of shots, especially when the team lacked a running game after a whiny Peyton Hillis was gone for the year. McCoy wasn’t the same following Hillis’ premature end to the season. I don’t know where he will end up,but I know he isn’t done yet. I just hope he gets a shot somewhere to prove himself.

Matt Cain has to be the starting pitcher when the All-Star Game comes to Kansas City this year. He has been the top guy for the Giants so far this season, he just pitched a perfect game (the first one in Giants history) and with an 8-2 record, he has meant very much to a Giants team that offensively has gotten much better but is still at times up and down, hot and cold, whatever you want to call it. To me, Cain is the best pitcher in the National League and has been proving it all season long,not to mention earning every bit of the $127 million the Giants shelled out to him before the season started that just might be the envy of a certain pitcher also on the Giants’ staff that is having a career worst year, or as some may call it, a Freak-ishly bad season.

I’ll bet a lot of San Jose Sharks fans can’t stand seeing the Los Angeles Kings win their first Stanley Cup before their team did,especially when year after year they’ve had the thought that this year is going to be “the year”. It has yet to be for Team Teal and they are now the Golden State’s only team to not yet win a Stanley Cup. They have also never appeared in the Finals in their 22 year history and Sharks fans have to wonder what it will take to take for their team to get what they’ve long been waiting for. Me personally, I think toughness was not a big thing for them last year, they seemed to lack a lot of it compared to the season prior. The Kings, they showed so much toughnesss during the course of their run for the Cup and a will to win. The Sharks need just that, to be tougher and the will to win. Maybe they’ll regain it, maybe they won’t, only time will tell.

In my mind, there was no funnier thing to happen for the Super Bowl Champion New York Giants than to have their plan of releasing Jake Ballard in an effort to re-sign him and place him on their PUP list only to have the New England Patriots claim him before they could get the chance. Ballard was hurt in Super Bowl XLVI and is expected to miss the entire 2012 season due to knee surgery recovery.

Now the Giants are pissed and butt hurt about it even if general manager Jerry Reese is putting a brave face on otherwise. Look, the Patriots didn’t do anything wrong by getting Ballard, he was avaliable, and they claimed him. Do they need another tight end? Hell no!

There are no unwritten rules about this sort of thing. Not only that if the Giants really liked him and really wanted to keep this guy,why waive him in the first place? Do you think the San Francisco 49ers would do this to Vernon Davis? No, that would be stupid. The exact same thing would happen to them like it did the Giants. It goes to show you that you better prepared to lose if you make that kind of wager.