After minutes of speculation, the Arena Football League announced that it was suspending its 2009 season on Sunday. This means that Jon Bon Jovi won’t be appearing on your local NBC affiliate every weekend. It also means that New York Dragons Presidents Steven and Shanna Silva may have made the worst investment in pro-sports history. Let’s deal with these one at a time.

“We, the owners of the Arena Football League, realize we have the most fan-friendly, affordable and accessible sport anywhere,” said Bon Jovi, conveniently overlooking that he’s saying it in the release announcing the suspension of the 2009 season. The players will be “fan-friendly” and “accessible” because they’re earning commission for every pair of shoes they sell. He wasn’t lying about the “affordable” part since, you know, there are no tickets to buy.

Now Steven and Shanna Silva. They bought the Dragons in July from the crafty Charles Wang for $16 million. I’m not entirely sure how people earn $16 million when they are stupid enough to buy an AFL franchise on the precipice of economic ruin. It’s not like smart people — ahem, Krugman — didn’t see this coming a mile away.

Then there’s the fact that they bought a team from Charles Wang. The same Charles Wang who put Garth Snow in charge of his hockey team. If Charles Wang is trying to unload an asset, it’s probably because it’s already run aground.

D’Antoni picks up where he left off in Phoenix as poor shooting dooms his shot happy philosophy to an entertaining and hard fought loss… Ahhh memories.

Scantily clad fan removed from Giants game due to her sexy Santa outfit; Antonio Pierce denies claims that he attempted to conceal the woman and transport her to his New Jersey home.

Jets DE Ellis still shocked to be the hero of Sunday’s huge home win;  Not normally the man with the ball, Ellis points out how refreshing it is to actually garner praise for having “possession of something.”

Sacramento Kings fire coach Reggie Theus; This marks the second high profile coaching job the young Theus has lost, although at least this time he avoided the sting of being replaced by the grossly underqualified Dick Butkus.

Giants fall to supposedly fueding Cowboys in Dallas;  T.O. says of he and Witten’s relationship, “He’s a hell of a player, so it’s not that big of a deal that he’s a total f—ing douche who has secret meetings with my quarterback, man… it’s no big deal… he’s just my qu-qu… my… excuse me!” as he runs off to the showers sobbing wildly.

Timely defense saves the day as Gang Green holds off Buffalo 31-27; CBS commentator Dick Enberg credits Brett Favre’s leadership presence and emanating manliness on the sidelines for the inspired defense.

The Yanks may have interest in New York’s favorite son Manny Ramirez; Even after spending more than the gross national product of Sweden to obtain Sabathia and Burnett, the bombers are rumored to be willing to go for 3 years at $60 million, and sweetening the deal with an offer of his own personal film room for watching his Dora the Explorer DVD box sets.

Tiger Woods’ caddy Steve Williams rips Phil Mickelson publicly; Media at large credits Williams for saying “I hate the [expletive]” rather than capitalizing on the opportunity for a low brow man-boobs joke (like The Nooner predictably would).

Yanks waiting on Pettitte’s decision on 1 year, $10 million offer; GM Cashman flies to Houston to give pitcher ultimatum of ”take this deal or we will happily overpay someone else to have a decent half season and crap the bed down the stretch.”

Status of Jets Brad Smith uncertain with concussion, receiver may be unavailable for Sunday’s game against Buffalo; Mangini and staff scrambling to find a replacement to take the lead on ill-advised and horrendously executed kick return pitch plays.

Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels refers to Mets as “choke artists” in radio interview; Young star also under fire for saying that the Mets colors are blue and orange, and that Jerry Manuel wears glasses.

Dallas WR Terrell Owens is unhappy with yet another quarterback, claiming Tony Romo conducts secret meetings to draw up more pass plays to TE Jason Witten; T.O. also mentions a sneaking suspicion that Eli Manning has been conspiring with his entire team for at least a week on ways to beat the Cowboys.

As Sam Elliott’s character imparted in The Big Lebowski, “Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you.” In a similar vein, sometimes a guy surfaces with the unfortunate name of “J.J. Putz” and sometimes J.J. Putz gets traded to the city with a larger Jewish population than Jerusalem.

The Mets continued wheeling and dealing at Major League Baseball’s winter meetings in Las Vegas this week, acquiring the aforementioned putz, J.J., as well as a Sean Green for the next generation and center fielder Jeremy Reed in exchange for perennial trade bait Aaron Heilman, leaping-catch and groundout specialist Endy Chavez and the dynamically named Joe Smith, as well as minor leaguers Mike Carp, Maikel Cleto and Ezekial Carrera.

More than just a disastrous surname, Putz is also that most valuable of baseball commodities: a multimillionaire relief pitcher in his thirties with elbow issues. 2008 was Putz’s worst year since 2004, as he posted career highs in walks, flyballs and WHIP while throwing the fewest innings of his career. His 1.597 WHIP is particularly troublesome, as it represents his putting 3 men on base for every 2 innings pitched [grab collar and cringe]. In all fairness though, with the possible exception of Carp, a 22-year-old first baseman who may already hit better than Carlos Delgado but apparently can’t play defense, it’s not like the Mets are going to miss any of the dead weight they dealt away.

As FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal reports, the Metropolitans have expressed interest in trading for Dodgers outfielder and multimillionaire Juan Pierre. The idea that anyone wants Juan Pierre at all is a funny enough concept on its own, which is why this column ends here.

Nah, there’s more.

Even better than the possibility of the Mets expressing interest in Pierre’s anemic offensive performance and somehow even less impressive defense is Rosenthal’s selling of the rumor as something exciting, opening his article with tantalizing view of what the future:

“Imagine Jose Reyes and Juan Pierre combining for 140 stolen bases at the top of the Mets’ batting order.”

Oh man, I can just imagine it now…Reyes doubling to lead off the game, Pierre grounding out, as he does more than half the time he comes to the plate, before David “A-Rod” Wright comes up without the pressure of having to hit with no outs. It’s true, that makes no sense, which is why it’s bewildering that anyone, much less a contending team such as the Mets, would even consider unleashing a plague like Juan Pierre upon their roster, especially considering that he is owed $28.5 million over the next three seasons with a limited no-trade clause.

We all love the idea of Lou Brown famously telling Willie Mays Hayes to “Keep the ball on the ground,” but the reality is that putting the ball on the ground and relying on speed isn’t a viable option in the major leagues. Over the course of his career, Pierre has hit more ground balls than line drives, fly balls and bunts combined, with a .235 career batting average on those 2,504 at-bats in which he put the ball on the ground. In the 1,027 at-bats where he actually got under the ball and hit it in the air, he was even worse, delivering a batting average of .125. As they say, “You can’t steal first base,” but if you could, I imagine Juan Pierre is the guy could find a way to mess it up.

Mets get sweet relief, land K-Rod; Johan Santana throws out his back in spastic fit of joyous merriment, ace likely out until at least the All Star Break.

Yanks reportedly close to finalizing deal with CC Sabathia worth $160 million over 7 years; Apparently, the pitcher’s hopes to remain in the National League and live on the west coast were severely outweighed by his desire to have a room in his home devoted solely to money swimming.

Knicks fall behind late, lose to Bulls 105-100; Comeback partially thwarted by Wilson Chandler’s ill-timed Dan Orlovsky impression, when the forward was standing out of bounds on a late 3-point attempt.

Dolphins linebacker Joey Porter defends friend Plaxico Burress, and athlete’s needs for guns; Points out that with the amount of people out there who have personally told him they’d love to strangle the life out of him (presumably because he is a pro athlete and for no other reason whatsoever), he wouldn’t even go to Church unarmed.

In a blog entry this morning, New York Post baseball writer Joel Sherman wrote this of the Yankees’ interest in acquiring St. Louis Cardinals centerfielder Rick Ankiel:

The Yankees have been among at least five teams looking into obtaining Ankiel. [...] St. Louis has two needs: A closer and a starter. [...] The Cardinals do have some interest, for example, in Ian Kennedy

On the surface, it would seem like a pretty good trade for the Yankees. Ankiel hit .264/.337/.506 for the Cardinals while playing an adequate centerfield. He has a short, compact left-handed pull swing that would play very well at Yankee Stadium — well, the old one, anyways. His 25 home runs helped him post a 119 OPS+. Had Ankiel qualified for the batting title, this OPS+ would have ranked sixth among centerfielders. Then there’s that arm. Ask any Cardinals fan about Rick Ankiel’s throwing arm and prepare for a vigorous meating of your external acoutistic meatus.

Kennedy, meanwhile, has lost much of his top-prospect shine, but he’s still got a good arm. He would be attractive to the Cardinals, who have a strong farm system but are short on arms. Toss in a lower-level arm or two, and the deal wouldn’t decimate the Yankees’ system. That doesn’t make it a good trade for the Yankees.
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Mets reportedly close to 3-year, $37 million deal with closer Francisco Rodriguez; In a dark room somewhere, Billy Wagner is listening quietly to “Enter Sandman” on repeat while clutching a stuffed Mr. Met doll and weeping uncontrollably.

Islanders fall to former star Jason Blake and the Maple Leafs, 4-2; Game under protest by Isles on the grounds of grammatical impropriety of the word “Leafs.”

Former Yanks’ second baseman Joe Gordon posthumously elected to Hall of Fame by Veterans Committee; Chuck Knoblauch breathes a sigh of relief upon hearing that even after the writers who didn’t like him refuse to vote him in to the Hall, his colleagues can still vote him in long after he is dead and sweet senility has robbed them of the memory of not liking him.

Commissioner Goodell advises NFL players to avoid unsafe situations; Sends out comprehensive study pointing out that you are 57% more likely to lose your Chap Stick while wearing sweatpants, so in turn, carrying a loaded firearm while wearing them probably qualifies as a fairly unsafe situation.

Perennial All-Star Greg Maddux retires after 23 seasons; An undeniable first ballot Hall of Famer, the pitcher plans to sneak up and jovially relieve himself on his fellow inductees at the ceremony.