I am very surprised that nobody was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame this year. This marks the first time nobody has gone in since 1996. The reason is more than likely because of the many players who made the ballot for the first time and their link to using performance enhancing drugs. While I did expect players like Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa,and Roger Clemens to not get voted in, I didn’t expect guys like Tim Raines and Jack Morris and other players who have long been on the ballot to not quite reach the 75-percent of the vote needed to get in.

While I like the exclusivity of the Baseball Hall of Fame, I don’t like that either one or two players only get in per year,or in this year’s case zero. I would like to see more players who do deserve to get in to the Hall get in. Making them wait year after year is getting kind of disgusting. If they’re worthy enough of getting in, for god sake’s vote them in.

While I am happy my New England Patriots won, there is still a great deal of room for improvement. Sure they scored more than 40 points again versus Houston, but the Texans hung in there throughout almost the whole game.

I wasn’t particularly happy with the way special teams played as the Pats allowed the Texans’ Danieal Manning to nearly score not once but twice on kick returns. If the Pats want to beat Baltimore, they’re going to have to do a better job on special teams because the Ravens have Jacoby Jones, a Pro Bowl kick returner and he alone could change the course of the AFC Championship Game.

I will say this here and now, I won’t be surprised if the Ravens win this rematch of last year’s AFC title game and won’t be that upset if they do. They have been impressing me this postseason and they have a lot to play for.

I am calling it right now, the Edmonton Oilers will make the postseason. I probably said it in the last edition of Odds and Ends,but I am still calling it. The Oilers have a young squad with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins,Taylor Hall,and number one overall pick Nail Yakupov.

Unfortunately they don’t have a big time goaltender on the team and that may hurt their chances at postseason play,but at this point and with a short season, I think a youth movement with a roster of guys looking to prove themselves in this league could help their cause to make the postseason.

It was a wild weekend of football and in my view the eight teams that participated were all deserving of that opportunity. Every single team that played this weekend, in my view, has the talent and also what it takes to win a championship. For me picking the four games was hard and in the end I only got one of those games right.

That is just how crazy this weekend was. The games that weren’t decided until the end were great because those teams made you believe they had a chance to win it. Baltimore certainly did and even the Seattle Seahawks did in a losing effort.

To the teams that didn’t win, I know that they will be around for a while.