by John Moriello, FOXSports.com

Updated: June 22, 2008, 6:20 PM EST 2 comments

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(10) Ryan Howard: Even with two two-homer games since Friday, Howard is having a miserable season — 19 homers and 58 RBIs but only a .217 batting average. He'll surpass 100 strikeouts for the season by the end of the week and is on pace to fan about 220 times this year. He's coming off consecutive seasons of 58 and 47 homers, but the batting average dropped from .313 to .268 along the way, and the '08 Phillies are winning despite Howard rather than because of him. Management may have lucked out with the $10 million loss in arbitration in the offseason; it would have cost the Phillies half that much for Maalox alone if they had locked him up for five years at an obscene price when they had the chance.

(9) Mike Milbury: Hey Mike, how's that rant about Tiger Woods being a wuss for missing three months of golf (it was two actually) after knee surgery working out for you these days? And isn't there some irony in the fact that golf seems to be the offseason activity of choice for hockey players?

(8) The Sporting News: There used to be one significant weekly sports magazine in this country, and it didn't have to be glossy to be good. But the people running TSN fell behind the times as early as the 1980s and then tried to be everything to everyone — unsuccessfully — in a bid to attract a new audience as America's love affair with baseball waned. Now, the publisher is announcing that the magazine will go biweekly in September with Will Leitch, Hank Steinbrenner and Tony Stewart added to the roster of contributing writers. This partial score just in: Style 1, Substance 0.

(7) Jeremy Shockey: Getting into a shouting match last week with GM Jerry Reese had to be the proverbial last straw for the talented but undisciplined tight end's tenure with the New York Giants. The prevailing theory while the Giants were making their improbable Super Bowl run minus the injured tight end was that QB Eli Manning was able to take control of the huddle without Shockey second-guessing checkdowns or criticizing throws. Replacing 371 catches and 27 TDs in six seasons is no small task, but the Giants do have candidates at tight end. No one will second-guess them for moving Shockey for a pair of second- or third-round draft picks and calling it addition by subtraction.

(6) Terrell Owens: There's no doubt T.O. caught a bad break by getting himself thrown into the NFL's advanced drug-testing program on a technicality, but Jeff Garcia and Donovan McNabb can verify he had this bit of indignity coming. Owens failed to provide the league office with up-to-date contact info, so they couldn't find him in order to schedule a mandatory offseason drug test. Consequently, he's subject to being tested 24 times in the next year. The odds of him testing positive? Minimal. The odds of Owens being greatly inconvenienced because he couldn't be bothered with giving the league office a working phone number? Exceptional.

(5) Kobe Bryant: The only similarity between Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan is that they both have documented character flaws. On the court, Kobe rates a lot closer to Scottie Pippen than he does Michael Jordan. End of discussion. Wait for LeBron James to start making shots from beyond 18 feet on a consistent basis, then we can start having the discussion about a worthy successor to M.J.

(4) International soccer: For the love of God, can somebody please help FIFA write a decent offsides rule? Other than Brazil, there's no greater source of offensive talent than the continent across the pond, but the European Championships have thus far been a typical letdown. Only four of the first 18 games were 1-0 or 0-0 snoozefests, but the sport's No. 1 flaw remains intact. There should be no such thing as offsides following a free kick in the offensive half or a corner kick until the defense clears the ball across midfield. Anything less penalizes teams for playing an attacking brand of soccer.

(3) Marshawn Lynch: Oh, this guy's sooooo outta luck the next time he needs a favor from his teammates or someone in the Buffalo Bills front office. Lynch has said less than Jimmy Hoffa since the May 31 hit-and-run accident involving his vehicle in Buffalo. Frustrated by the silence, the district attorney has served three players and two executives, including chief operating officer Russ Brandon, with subpoenas in order to get someone to say what everyone already strongly suspects: Lynch was driving the SUV. A case that was once shaping up to be two trips to court and a $500 fine for a Class A misdemeanor is getting worse by the day for Lynch and his friends, with 89-year-old owner Ralph Wilson still at risk of being dragged before the grand jury to help unravel the mystery. I'd love to hear Lynch's defense for why the NFL shouldn't sit him down for eight games (at a cost of $182,500 in salary), but he, of course, isn't talking.

(2) Tim Donaghy: Where was the disgraced NBA referee at a time when his allegations could have — and would have — been taken seriously? Telling the feds now that Game 6 of the 2002 Lakers-Kings series may have been more fixed than my neighbor's cat is an obvious bid for leverage ahead of Donaghy's sentencing for his own on-court shenanigans. Most reasonable people can agree that the officiating in the '02 series deserved more scrutiny than it probably got from league or law-enforcement offices. But Donaghy has offered nothing to make a reasonable person believe he has the scoop on what might have happened. He threw out an episode that he knew would evoke a response, and plenty of conspiracy theorists were all too eager to bite.

(1) Mauricia Grant: Comparisons to the Duke Lacrosse rape fiasco are inevitable, but the difference is that there may well be something to Grant's blockbuster allegations against NASCAR, as is suggested by Friday's disclosure that two organization employees who allegedly exposed themselves in her presence have been suspended. But here's where you should have problems with Grant: If any of the allegations in her suit against the racing organization are true, what took her so long to go public? And, more to the point, how many other women or minorities were subjected to rude and crude behavior while Grant got the ducks in a row for her super-sized suit following her October 2007 firing? And, for what it's worth, her allegations may be serious, but how can any reasonable person say they rise to the level of $225 million? She'd do well to re-file this thing for a 10th of that figure and settle the case for $5 million.