It’s amazing how much East Coast bias exists when it comes to ESPN.

Monday morning when Odds & Ends usually is posted I was watching ESPN First Take, the show where Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless scream at each other over how good Tim Tebow is, to see what they would debate about and instead of talking about the Giants winning their second World Series in three years,they decided to talk about how bad the Cowboys were against the New York Giants (which they were). I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and see if they would talk about it the next topic or somewhere down the line. Nope.

I wasted nearly an hour seeing them maybe talk about it,but apparently the Cowboys-Giants, the Jets, and Cam Newton are more important topics to talk about than a team winning a championship is just not relevant enough to talk about. After waiting to see if the World Series would get talked about,I flipped over to repeats of Sportsnet Central on Comcast Sportsnet Bay Area to hear about it.

It’s clear to me and probably many West Coast sports fans that ESPN doesn’t really give a shit about them or the teams they root for unless those teams are named Los Angeles Lakers or Dallas Cowboys. I think it’s time the West Coast had their own version of ESPN. A network that catered to them and the teams they root for, and no, the regional cable networks don’t count. I think this is an idea whose time has come, especially since East Coast baseball teams don’t win the World Series anymore and teams like the Giants are dynasties in the making.

Speaking of the World Series and part of it taking place in Detroit and the wonderful music that has come from there courtesy of Motown, couldn’t they get anyone better to sing the national anthem?

Demi Lovato,who I didn’t know much about until Sunday, was tapped to sing The Star Spangled Banner before Game Four and didn’t do very well on it. It turns out she sang it because she is a judge on Fox’s terrible American Idol clone show, The X Factor.

What? So only Fox stars get to sing the national anthem? I joked to friends on Facebook that Peter Griffin would be singing God Bless America in the seventh inning stretch,which actually would have been an upgrade because Seth MacFarlane, the man who voices him on Family Guy,can actually sing compared to the military folks who sang it.

But back to the national anthem, why not have Aretha Franklin or Smokey Robinson perform it? They have Detroit ties! And same for San Francisco, why not get the Grateful Dead for that? They’ve done it many times and such a great job doing it. I don’t like that the national anthem is only available for stars of the network broadcasting it get to do it.

I almost half expect this to happen at the Super Bowl, like have Ashton Kutcher sing it since CBS is airing it this year,but it won’t because Kutcher is a horrible singer and also, CBS Cares!

The Giants have always had a tradition of great broadcasters, from Russ Hodges to Lon Simmons to Hank Greenwald to Jon Miller and Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper. Sunday’s Game Four was a reminder of that. The newest of the four major announcers, Dave Flemming, was scheduled to call the 10th inning as per usual on radio when the game goes into extra innings. Flemming, thinking Miller might like to call the inning instead, offered for him to do so. Miller refused saying “It’s your time,kid!” and Flemming proceeded to do so calling the final out of the series. Flemming even acknowledged and thanked the broadcast team for the opportunity after the game.

When I heard about this,I thought it was absolutely wonderful and a reminder that not only are the Giants an unselfish bunch,but so is their broadcast team.

One thing I’ve always hated when a team either wins or loses a championship (or any other game of importance or relevance) is when fans or other civilians start riots following.

Sure it’s great to go out and celebrate your team winning, I have absolutely nothing against that so long as it’s peaceful and you’re not vandalizing property. What took place Sunday in San Francisco was absolutely surprising to me. It’s the kind of thing I expect elsewhere in other cities, but not there.

In the twilight hours following the Giants winning the World Series, fans got rowdy and started bonfires in the streets of the Mission district fueling them with sofas and even set fire to a bus and smashed windows to several businesses,and even throwing bottles at police,this according to KTVU in San Francisco. Thirty-five arrests were made, 22 of them were felony arrests.

Okay, I bet a lot of these people weren’t really fans in the first place. Many times people will come from out of town and do whatever they can to cause destruction and reak havoc because they don’t live there. Having said that,it doesn’t excuse any of this. People,sick or well, drunk or sober, are responsible for their own actions. I’m absolutely disappointed that this happened following the win of a team I root for. It’s an unnecessary black eye that didn’t need to be delivered. This shouldn’t be tolerated in any city,win or lose.

Also,what the hell took so long to put these fires out? I wish someone would legitimately answer that one for me. We have comment boxes on these posts for a reason.

I think the Oklahoma City Thunder have made a big mistake in trading James Harden away to the Houston Rockets for Kevin Martin and Jeremy Lamb. When I saw this come across the wire on my phone on Saturday, I was “WHOA! WHAT?!?!?!”. How do you trade away a guy who comes off your bench and gives you 16 points per game and is a big part of your team?

I later found out it was because Harden and the team couldn’t agree on a long-term deal that was good enough for both sides. After having picked them to go back to the Finals in my NBA Preview, I feel like retracting that and sticking the Lakers there for this trade alone.

I don’t think Martin is a replacement for Harden, he does not score as much and as Kings fans will tell you he is very injury prone and he will disappoint you time and time again. Harden was a very,very valuable member of that Thunder team and in my opinion their X factor and that’s something you just can’t replace. Time will tell to see if I am right.Natio