More random thoughts

“If this is the game of the people, they need stars.” — FIFA president Sepp Blatter, defending the transfer of Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid.

O’BRIENS, Santa Monica — Words form sentences, some of which are coherent …

» The recent record transfer of soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo from Manchester United to Real Madrid brings up something that should be considered in U.S. pro sports leagues. If a team drafts a young player, spends the time and resources to develop said player to harness his complete talents, only to see that player sign for big bucks with, say, the Yankees, shouldn’t that team be rewarded with more than some compensatory pick in the third round of the draft?

Take for instance last season, when the Red Sox acquired the Pirates’ only real star player, Jason Bay, in a pennant-race inspired move. Rather than the regular slew of unproven prospects and bag of batting practice baseballs, shouldn’t the Red Sox have paid a fee commensurate with what the market would have figured Bay to be worth? Same with CC Sabathia. Everyone knew he’d wind up with the Yankees in 2009. Everybody, and only Yankees fans thought this was fair. If baseball were set up like soccer, the Sabathia trade to Milwaukee would not have happened and the Indians would have been rewarded for their work in grooming Sabathia into the game’s finest southpaw hurler with a boatload of cash. This system works, because big-market teams still get the high-priced talent they desire, but it doesn’t totally screw the small-market teams that put the time into developing that talent.

» Greatest Pro Bowls of all time, and other stuff is hoping that the long national nightmare ends Sunday night.

» Greatest Pro Bowls of all time, and other stuff honestly believes that teams with winning traditions have a distinct advantage over those that don’t possess any sort of history of success. There has to be a sense that doom and gloom is destined to happen in an untimely fashion to these historically overmatched teams.

» This seemingly won’t end, so recently demoted Miss California Carrie Prejean might as well sell out and wind up on reality television programs or between the pages of Playboy magazine.

Greatest Pro Bowls of all time, and other stuff thinks it was Darth Vader who said it best: “It is your destiny … You don’t know the power of the dark side.”

» Playboy as Playbot is an easy, yet hilariously entertaining, typo to make.

» Greatest Pro Bowls of all time, and other stuff was hoping with the switch from analog to digital television, somehow, magically, that the NFL Network would appear on Time Warner Cable.

» The Indians’ secret weapon to get back into the AL Central race? Seagulls.

» Funny search term some fool used to find this blog: deyvid becam

» Here are Greatest Pro Bowls of all time, and other stuff’s just-totally-off-the-top-of-our-heads Major League Soccer power rankings …

1. Houston Dynamo
2. Chivas USA
3. Chicago Fire
4. D.C. United
5. Seattle Sounders FC
6. Colorado Rapids
7. New England Revolution
8. Columbus Crew
9. Kansas City Wizards
10. Los Angeles Galaxy
11. Toronto FC
12. Real Salt Lake
13. FC Dallas
14. New York Red Bulls
15. San Jose Earthquakes

» There are just 89 more shopping days until football season kicks off on Sept. 10 in Pittsburgh.