the rock: Boomer's Diamond/Gridiron Notes: Stars coming to town in 2015 & Harbaugh (Super) Bowl

Great American Ball Park, the host for the 2015 MLB All-Star Game.

Well, what a pleasant surprise last night. The reported announcement from MLB commissioner, Bud Selig, that the 2015 MLB All-Star Game will be played at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati.

This marks the 5th time that the city of Cincinnati has hosted the All-Star Game, with this being the first time that GABP, which opened in 2003 will host the All-Star events. The last time, Cincinnati hosted the MLB All-Star Game, was 1988, at old Riverfront Stadium.

This is the first All-Star Game in the state of Ohio, since 1997, when the city of Cleveland hosted BOTH the NBA and MLB All-Star festivities. *Columbus would have hosted this year's NHL All-Star weekend, but was ultimately cancelled, due to the Lockout shorten-season.*

As an Ohio boy, I can't wait to plan a trip down to the Queen City in mid-July of 2015, and take in the sites and sounds of an All-Star event, which will include: the All-Star Futures Game, the Celebrity Softball Game, the Home Run Derby, and of course, the 86th edition of the MLB All-Star Game.

MLB News & Notes:

Jim & John are just one of the storylines,
for Super Bowl XLVII down in New Orleans
on February 3rd.

Talk about the ultimate Super Bowl for the sports media to talk about for two weeks. I'm sure we will one day, see the Super "Manning" Bowl (brother's Peyton & Eli, going head-to-head), but for now the two Harbaugh brother's will coach against one another, on the greatest stage the NFL has to offer. Jim & John Harbaugh, just 15-months apart, are two guys that act and run things just a little differently. Boy, I can't wait to watch all those story's that ESPN, will surely show of the two brother's growing up, and blah blah blah, etc. We were almost privileged to seeing this matchup a year ago, but thanks to a missed FG & a couple botched punt returners, we were left with another Brady/Eli Super Bowl classic. Either way this one works out, the Harbaugh family will be cashing in on it, for the next year, making family get togethers very interesting, as the one brother shows off his Super Bowl ring to all the cousins, aunt's & uncle's.

Both brother's made tough decision's during the season, that ultimately paved their ways to New Orleans, for Super Bowl XLVII, as Jim went with second-year back-up QB Colin Kaepernick to start the team's final nine-games, and it turned out to be a great move, posting a 7-2 record. Kaepernick, along with the other young QB's in the NFL, who have taken over the position, uses his arm & legs to run the 49ers offense pretty effectively, in my opinion. On the other hand, John, had to replace his offensive coordinator during the team's three-game losing streak in December. Since then, the Ravens' have lost just one meaningful game (Week 17 was a meaningless game), while averaging 26 points/per game.

And...if the two brother's won't enough of a storyline for this year's Super Bowl, you have the ending of Baltimore Ravens LB Ray Lewis' career as (that's just what they tell me, I don't see it) one of the greatest LB's ever to play the game.

This dude's statement pretty much summarizes up, my feelings for Ray Lewis:

I wish that all of you Cleveland-area Negative Nancies would stop filling my Twitter and Facebook feeds with all these sour grapges about Ray Lewis.

Everyone is stressing his minor character flaws like the fact that he has 6 kids with 4 different women and how he murdered two people, admittedly lied to the authorities about it, threw his friends under the bus and let them go to prison for him, then paid undisclosed hush money to the families of the deceased.