The baseball world will be a far less interesting place without Bobby Valentine. After being fired by the Boston Red Sox at the end of a tumultuous season in which his managerial style—read: obnoxious pomposity—tore apart his clubhouse and embarrassed his front office, Valentine must finally be out of baseball lives. 

That has to be it for him, right? Valentine is as polarizing as they come in sports, forcing people to do things his way or get the (bleep) out. The only problem with that model is that his players often have more stroke with the higher-ups than he does. They make more money than him, too. For every guy in the Red Sox clubhouse who may have liked the change of pace from the freewheeling ways of Terry Francona, there were half a dozen more who hated it—and seemingly hated Valentine. 

The fact is, Valentine's way of running a team did not work in Boston, and baseball people must be left wondering if it can work anywhere. Teams would be crazy to give Valentine another chance after the stories coming out of Boston this season. Take this incident, for example, from Boston.com: 

Valentine's mismanagement has become legendary after just one year. He publicly questioned Kevin Youkilis' physical and emotional preparedness before former MVP Dustin Pedroia publicly chided his manager by suggesting that wasn't how the Red Sox did things. 

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Welcome to the first presidential debate of 2012. I'm your host and moderator, Jim Lehrer of PBS. Most of you will go from not knowing who I am to hating me within the next 90 minutes. I'm OK with that as long as both Big Bird and I still have jobs tomorrow.

Today's format will be in multiple segments on different topics that impact American businesses. And because most of America will judge the debate on silly things like who has more energy and which candidate smiles more, all the questions are going to be about the American business of professional sports.

Remember, your answers must be kept to two minutes, unless you want to go longer, and then by all means I won't stop you. And please, do not worry about being truthful or specific in any way. We are measuring passion and a term I like to call "presidentiality" tonight, not facts.

First question, for you Mr. President, is now that the MLB playoffs are set, what team do you think will win the World Series?

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The 2012 NFL season is just four weeks old, but already, we should call this The Year Of The Elite Quarterback.

How many "elite" quarterbacks are there in the NFL, and who the heck are they? It's a question everyone seems to ask, and nobody can agree on a definitive answer.

When you think about all the steps it takes to become an NFL quarterback, shouldn't we just count up…all of them? Aren't all NFL quarterbacks, certainly the NFL starters, considered elite by comparison to the rest of the football-playing universe?

If there are 250 major college teams and more than 1,600 high school squads funneling talent up the football pipeline every year in America, being one of 32 starters at the highest level sure seems pretty elite. 

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The United States lost the Ryder Cup to Europe 14.5 to 13.5 in a fashion so fantastic, golf fans will be talking about the epic 2012 collapse for generations. 

The U.S. team, captained by Davis Love III, headed into Sunday's singles matches up 10-6 after dominating the competition Friday and Saturday. Despite the nearly insurmountable lead for Team USA, everything seemed to change late Saturday evening when, trailing 10-4 and looking at a very early and extremely anticlimactic denouement on Sunday, Europe won two extremely important points in the final two matches, led by undefeated Ian Poulter and his maniacal (read: kind of creepy) focus.

Still, despite the two points for Europe, the United States habitually dominates singles play, and thus had the Cup firmly within their grasp heading into singles matches.

With little else to worry about, the biggest story of the morning was Davis Love III putting Tiger Woods, point-less for America in three sessions on Friday and Saturday, last in the lineup of 12 matches to close out Sunday. Woods was the anchor for a team that only needed four-and-a-half points in the preceding 11 matches, certain to be a non-factor for the Americans. 

(Sidebar to pull back the curtain on this writing gig for a minute: Sometimes we plan for certain situations that don't actually happen. That's why sports are great; but planning to write about sports isn't as easy as we sometimes hope. Take, for example, the fact that this column was going to be all about how American golf no longer needs Tiger Woods. About how Woods could be such a non-factor in the Ryder Cup and the United States could still go out and not just beat a strong European field, but dominate them too. This was going to be about how young stars like Keegan Bradley, Bubba Watson, Webb Simpson and Brandt Snedeker are becoming the new faces of American golf.)

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The initial reaction to the NFL agreeing to terms with the regular referees felt a bit like the ball dropping on New Year's Eve. So long, everything we hated about the past—the new year is finally ready to begin, albeit four weeks late.

As the news settles in and the excitement over something so ridiculous subsides, what we, as fans of the game, are left with is still an enormous list of things that might go wrong when the regular referees return.

Let's not kid ourselves that the regular referees—though markedly better than the overmatched scabs the NFL tried to pass as competent rule enforcers during the lockout—still make mistakes. The regular referees are also joining the season already in progress, without the benefit of a preseason, so it's anyone's guess how long it will take them to get into game shape and up to speed with the pace of play. 

In short, fans should still expect blown calls. These guys aren't robots.

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To anyone watching the Green Bay Packers and Seattle Seahawks on Monday Night Football, Green Bay secured a much-needed road win by hauling in a game-saving interception by M.D. Jennings as time expired. 

To anyone watching the game.

To anyone waking up on Tuesday—or any day from now until the NFL ceases to exist—they will look at a box score and see that Seattle won the game on what could only have been a miraculous last-second catch in the end zone by Golden Tate to defeat Green Bay 14-12. 

Only that's not what happened. That cannot be what actually happened. We were watching. The NFL cannot try to tell us our own eyes no longer work. Roger Goodell is powerful, but he's not that powerful.

This is the play that nobody will forget. The replacement officials put in place by the NFL—by Commissioner Goodell—are so unprepared for the speed and pace of an NFL game they have consistently called into question the integrity of calls being made on the field.

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The New England Patriots sure look a mess. At 1-2 on the season, Bill Belichick is chasing down officials to yell at them—grabbing at one in the process—and the team seems to completely lack focus or identity on both sides of the ball.

Still, it's not time to panic. In fact, the Patriots may have the rest of the NFL right where they want it.

Not time to panic?!?! Right where who wants what?!?! I know, it sounds crazy with all the questions surrounding the Patriots after back-to-back losses that put New England in a tie for last place in the AFC East. Questions like: Is there not enough Wes Welker? Are there too many tight ends on the field now that Aaron Hernandez is hurt? 

Is there too much Julian Edelman? Has Josh McDaniels tried too hard to put his stamp on the offense that can essentially run itself with Tom Brady at the helm? That's a near certainty if you look at how questionable play-calling and unnecessary gimmicks allowed Baltimore to get back into the game on Sunday night.

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There are more than 300 million people in America. On any given Sunday night, nearly 10 percent of the entire country is watching NFL football. This Sunday, with the Patriots facing the Ravens, the Emmy Awards don't stand a chance. 

The bigger social media buzz late Sunday night may be focused on Walter White and Don Draper, but more televisions will surely be tuned into Tom Brady and Ray Lewis. Who can blame them, really? Award shows, even good ones like the Emmys, are stuffy, self-aggrandizing celebrations that only serve to remind regular folks of just how talented those people on TV really are. 

(Wait, that's different from the NFL how? Oh, right…helmets, pads and touchdown dances.)

To give an idea of just how many people consume what comes out of that rectangular box of magic we have as the centerpiece of the living room, there are more than 40 million Americans who will settle down to watch network television programs alone this Sunday night.

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