.
Winners:

You gotta give those rolling Tampa Bay Rays credit – they are making this a heckuva interesting first half of the baseball season. Don’t know if they can keep it up, but the Red Sox and the Yankees have hardly impressed as of late.

Losers:

Gotta love this headline: Kerry says McCain lacks judgment to be president. Whatever “President Kerry” says must be right, huh. Jeesh – I don’t know who’s the bigger loser here – John Kerry, for thinking anyone cares a whit about anything he has to say, or the dumb AP (or their clueless writer Hope Yen), who obviously had trouble scrounging around for something negative to write about John McCain on a July 4 weekend…

Manny Ramirez, who is quickly wearing out his welcome in Boston. Not only for shoving the club’s traveling secretary to the ground over a ticket dispute, but his performance lately has left something to be desired. Not to mention that great pinch-hitting job against Mariano Rivera tonight. Next time at least take the bat off your shoulder, Manny. Mark my words, Mr. Ramirez is playing his last season in Boston. “Manny being Manny” just don’t cut it anymore – especially at $20 mil per year.

Once-phenom, now has-been Michelle Wie, who, after missing the cut at the U.S. Women’s Open, had this to say about her 81/80 weekend: “It doesn’t feel like I played that bad,” Wie said after scrambling for a par on No. 9 from about the same position where she made her quintuple bogey on Thursday. “I’ll just take this as a bad week and go from there.” Uh, Michelle, you make cuts consistently and then don’t, that’s a bad week. When you spend the last three years tanking it with that wildly erratic game you have, that’s not a bad week, that’s what we call the norm.

All those top-ranked players in the world that stiffed Tiger Woods’ AT&T National invitational in Washington, D.C. this week. I’m sorry, but after all Tiger has done for the sport of professional golf and increasing the sizes of the purses these guys play for on a week-in, week-out basis, you’d think a these spoiled brats would show at least a little gratitude. Hey guys, don’t you know who wields the knife that butters that tasty side of the bread you eat from every week?

A-Rod. Simply because.