Yesterday Josh Alper told you about Brandon Backe being arrested at a wedding over the weekend. According to the police report, Brandon resisted arrest and confronted the officers and had to be subdued, along with quite a few other people in attendance at the wedding. Well, it's starting to look like the Galveston police department may have gone a little too far.

According to witness testimony, it was the police who were acting out of line, and now the Galveston police department is launching it's own internal investigation into the incident.

Witnesses said Monday that police needlessly beat, Tasered and pepper-sprayed wedding guests who were trying to comply with police commands during an incident in which officers arrested 10 people, including Backe, at an outdoor bar at the San Luis Hotel on Seawall Boulevard.

Daniel Cole O'Balle, 19, was injured during the incident and flown by helicopter to Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston. Backe was charged with three counts of assault on a public servant and two counts of retaliation. He was released on $115,000 bond.

Galveston police spokesman Cpt. Walter Braun said the department's office of professional conduct was conducting an internal investigation, although no formal complaints of officer misconduct had been received. "This administration is taking a proactive step," Braun said.

Now that the season has ended for the White Sox it's time for the organization to start looking towards 2009. Sure, the team won the AL Central this season, but their series against the Tampa Bay Rays helped expose quite a few flaws that the team had, and some changes will need to be made if the team is going to get back to the playoffs again next year.

Of course, if you're going to bring in new players that means you have to get rid of the ones you have. Whether or not Ken Griffey Jr. is one of the players to go, or if he'll be back remains to be seen, but we can be pretty sure Junior isn't going to retire and make the decision easy.

''I'm not retiring. I have things to do,'' Griffey said, already at 611 home runs and turning 39 next month.

''I'd like to come back [to the White Sox],'' he said. ''It was a great ride. A lot of fun. I've had more ups than downs. The city, the fans, it's been great for me. This team fought all year. They were fun to be around. We'll see what happens.''

Well it's nice that you want to come back, Ken, but I can't say I want you back. Seeing Junior play just about everyday for two months helped me see just how far he has fallen from greatness. I knew he wasn't the same player anymore, but I had no idea how bad things had gotten.

The truth is, Griffey is exactly the kind of player on the White Sox roster they need to replace. They have enough concrete footed sluggers in their lineup, and really, Griffey isn't much of a slugger anymore anyway.

Last month Tim Robbins and writer/director Ron Shelton openly discussed the possibility of a Bull Durham sequel with the media during a 20th anniversary ceremony for the film at Baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Well, it seems like the project is gaining steam, at least if you believe the New York Post's gossip page (via SbB):

THE long-awaited sequel to "Bull Durham" is finally getting off the ground. A spy tells us Kevin Costner recently met with director Ron Shelton at Trader Vic's in LA to discuss reprising the role of carousing catcher Crash Davis from the 1988 baseball flick. Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon are also expected to return as pitcher Nuke LaLoosh and baseball groupie Annie Savoy, who are now married and owners of a Major League team that Costner manages.

Wait, Nuke and Annie get married? And they somehow own a major league team? Last month Shelton and Robbins suggested that Crash and Annie would be married, and that Nuke would be a washed-up drunk. What gives?

My guess is that nobody is right. Shelton admitted that he only recently warmed up to the idea of a sequel, so I'd wager that an actual script has yet to be written (and once it does, it probably won't be leaked before the project even starts filming). But for better or worse, it looks like this is really going to happen.

Ever since the Cubs were swept out of the NLDS by the Dodgers on Saturday night, I've heard quite a few different excuses for their postseason collapse. First and foremost, there's the idiotic ones about the team being cursed, which we all know is a bunch of crap. Then there are some who just think that the team collapsed under the weight of a 100-year title drought.

While some of the excuses are viable, and others are just plain dumb, there's one explanation for the Cubs failures that rules the roost of ridiculousness, and it comes from left fielder Alfonso Soriano.

"Yeah, it's tough," he said. "We tried, but it just didn't happen. We played all year like a very good team and we expected a little bit more, but it didn't happen.

"We're a very good team for [162] games, but we don't do nothing after that. That's the difference. We're not put together for [a short series]."

That could honestly be one of the dumbest things I've ever heard, and keep in mind that I have to listen to myself talk 24 hours a day.

The Cubs aren't built for a short series? That's funny, because I always thought that the most important part of a team in a short series was their starting rotation, and last I checked the Cubs had a pretty good one. Ryan Dempster, Carlos Zambrano, Rich Harden, and Ted Lilly seem like a rotation that's built for a short series to me.

I mean, isn't the entire regular season just a whole lot of short series packaged together? They did pretty well there, didn't they?

It has been assumed that Jerry Manuel is going to lose the interim from his "interim manager" title, and become the full time manager some point soon after taking over for Willie Randolph and pushing the Mets back into the race before ultimately folding again on the last day. But the negotiations between Manuel and the Mets haven't been automatic, and coincidentally, former friend Bobby Valentine has expressed interest in returning to the Mets.

Valentine, now manager of the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan, told 1050's Andrew Marchand in an e-mail, "I am working for a team that needs me and wants me as their man. I love it here, but I am an American and love great challenges. I was in a Met uniform in the '70s, '80s, '90s, 2000, and would love to be there in the next decade."

There's something strange about this. First, Manuel is seemingly playing hardball with the Mets in negotiations, and all of a sudden Valentine's name just happens to come up publicly ... after his name wasn't even mentioned during the Shea Stadium ceremony during their final game. Seems a little too convenient for me.

Meanwhile, any day now Gary Carter is expected to unveil a Power Point presentation to Omar Minaya as to why he really should be Mets manager*.

*Not really, but would you be surprised?

UPDATE: Of course, as soon as I write this, WFAN in New York has just reported (via Jon Heyman) that Manuel has indeed signed on with the Mets for two years and an option. If the floating of Valentine's name was indeed part of the conspiracy, it worked.

There's a large, gaping hole of symbolism between a fun-to-report total rumor and a legitimately important celebrity relationship story. And that hole can be filled when two people as famous as Alex Rodriguez and Madonna are seen eating dinner together. (Or when Madonna allegedly "brainwashes" A-Rod, but that's beside the point.)

Which is what the New York Post is reporting, via the always fun "sources."

REPS for Madonna and Alex Rodriguez deny the two dined together at Dos Caminos on Third Avenue the other night. But sources insist the Yankee star broke bread with Madge and two male friends. "Madonna entered through the front door half an hour after A-Rod arrived and had her security guards check the exits before she sat down at a quiet corner table," said one source. Madonna had the men laughing with her stories. When the meal was over, they left by separate exits.

I don't feel "good" about reporting this -- clearly it has nothing to do with the actual playoffs going on. However, A-Rod and Madonna are two enormously famous celebrities in their respective corners of the world, so it's going to be news to lots of people when they come together.

Perhaps neither one is really that great in terms of legitimate non-pop culture likability (I can only imagine the fake-accent-spewing children they would crank out), but they are both immensely talented and popular. So if they start dating, I'm gonna tell you about it. (Oh yeah, it might be important to note that their reps are totally denying all of this.)

Also, how awful would C-Rod feel if Alex took the Yankees to a title the year after they locked up that divorce? I think it would be fairly awkward.

There's still a lot of series left. So I'm not gonna do anything stupid and jinx my Dodgers bet by pointing out that the Cubs straits are more dire than a, well, there's no need for Mark Knopfler jokes here. In fact there isn't a need for any jokes -- this is a serious situation for Cubs fans, and gosh darnit, they are going to find someone to blame.

Before it was Bartman and a goat. Now, it's a preacher. So, yeah, this should end well for everyone.

But when a TBS cameraman saw Rev. Father James L. Greanias spreading holy water in the Cubs dugout several hours before Game 1 of the Division Series on Wednesday, the priest from St. Iakovos Greek Orthodox Church in Valparaiso, Ind. knew the cat was out of the bag.

[...]"Now I guess I'm just another Cubbie Occurrence," he said.

The spreading of the holy water took about 10 minutes, as Greanis went up and down the dugout, getting it in every nook and cranny. The remaining holy water was poured out onto the field near the dugout steps where the players run out to their positions.

"It's not unusual," Greanis said. "In Greece, the priest blesses soccer teams, and they did it in the Olympics, too. It was not intended to be a p.r. stunt or anything."

That's fantastic. It's a much better story when it's not a publicity stunt. And the story becomes best (like a black bear) when the Cubs subsequently lose ... like now. Actually, I take that back -- I don't ever like to see anyone injured and I'm a little afraid of what the outcome will if/when the Cubbies lose the series and Father Greanias finds himself in the middle of an angry blue mob.

There was a time where Kosuke Fukudome was a cult hero in Chicago. But that was April, when he hit .305 and was hitting clutch home runs for them. But now it's October, and Fukudome has seen his average drop every month until now. And he's 0-for-8 so far in the playoffs, which have seen the Cubs get waxed twice by the Dodgers (including Thursday night's 10-3 loss). In Lou Piniella's post game newser after Game 2, he responded to a question about Fukudome by announcing that he will have a seat until further notice:

"From now on I don't want to hear about Fukudome anymore as far as whether he's going to play or not. I'm gonna play Fontenot or Reed Johnson or somebody else and that's the end of that story. The kid's struggling and there's no sense sending him out there anymore."

To be honest, no part of the Cubs game has been clicking, so it's hard to say that Fukudome is taking the hit for the entire team. But Fukudome is obviously struggling ... and it's not like he's hit .300 all season and then fell off the chart in the playoffs ... He hit .217 since the break. So while benching Fukudome isn't going to solve all the Cubs' problems, Cubs fans must be wondering what took Piniella so long.

After losing their best hitter, Carlos Quentin, for just about all of September, the White Sox nearly missed the playoffs this season, and needed to win three straight games against three different teams to get to Tampa. The reason for this is because the White Sox offense lost any kind of consistency it had while Quentin has been relegated to the bench.

They're a team that relies heavily on the home run, and without Quentin in the lineup they've become more long ball dependent than ever before. While Carlos still lead the team with 36 homers this season, he's the one White Sox slugger who decides to throw some doubles, singles, and walks in his arsenal as well, and when Jermaine Dye and Jim Thome hit their moonshots, he's usually on base.

Of course, not having Quentin available for their series against the Tampa Bay Rays won't help their chances to get by the young upstarts, but should they pull it off, Carlos thinks he might be available for the ALCS.

But the subsiding pain has raised Quentin's confidence to the point where he thinks he could be ready should the Sox advance to the AL Championship Series.

The 2008 season is one that the Detroit Tigers would like to put behind them as soon as possible. A team that many picked to win the AL Central, and likely go to the World Series with their murderer's row of a lineup, ended up finishing in last place instead. Behind the Kansas City Royals of all people.

Of course, just because his team bombed out this year, manager Jim Leyland wouldn't have minded getting one of them there contract extensions. Now he says he's disappointed, and though he'd like to stay in Detroit, he's not going to stay anywhere he's not wanted.

"I have not been extended," Leyland told Albom, "and I'm not gonna be extended. ... There was some sense of an offer that I did not accept.

"I'm not afraid of anything. I want to manage the Tigers. I have every intention of managing the Tigers. I'm disappointed that I did not get an extension, but I understand. - well, maybe I don't understand, but I can live with that.

"I'm certainly not somebody that's going to sit around and worry about that. I made it perfectly clear that I wanted to manage the Tigers. I think we had a great year (in 2006). I think we had a good year (in 2007) and then we had one disastrous year (in 2008). Overall, we've actually done pretty well."