Links From Around the 4-1-2

-Brian Benett from ESPN's Big East Blog has lots of stuff regarding the Brawl, including some postgame thoughts.

-Sid is slowly closing the gap on the 3 Canadiens for the 3 All-Star starting spots. He's down by about 70,000 votes, and it's looking more realistic that the might actually catch them.

-Dejan Kovacevic has returned to the PBC Blog on the Post-Gazette's website, making that officially the ultimate hot spot for Pirates fans. And if you happen to be one of those crazy people that stayed on the blog's comments board even after DK shut it down for almost 2 months, my hat's off to you, or should I say my hap cap's off to you?

-Remeber how the Pirates just signed those two Indian pitchers? Well, it turns out they have a blog that they have been writing, and if you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favor and check it out, it seems almost surreal to read it the comedy is so high.

-Ron Cook tries to talk Shady McCoy into turning pro. Someone needs to smack him around a bit and tell him to stop trying to talk our super-duper star tailback into turning pro.

-Steve Pederson, one of the most well-spoken people that I have ever met, makes an appearance on Stan and Guy for ESPN 1250.

-Peter King fawns all over Ben Roethlisberger in his weekly Monday Morning Quarterback column. Interesting to read about a guy who has been stereotyped as being not that close with a lot of teammates.

-Joe Starkey rains all over the Pitt Football parade. Whatever Joe. He calls the game ugly because it was a defensive heavy game with some definite bad offensive mistakes. He says this kind of football makes for bad TV and claims that no one cares about the Big East because of how bad these games are. Clearly, Joe hasn't watched the SEC play any football this season. This game was very remiscent of some of those SEC games. He also does everything short of running around in a coonskin cap and firing off rifle rounds he's such a WVU apologist. In fact, don't bother reading this, as it defines the derogatory fishwrap term that is typically handed on lower-tier papers live the Trib.

-Will the Steelers just cut Anthony Smith and get it over with? The guy is useless.

-Rob Rossi tackles the hot-button Penguins alternate blue uniform issue. Kinda interesting as he does take a lot of fans' opinions into account.

-Some injury news for the Steelers/Patsies game tomorrow afternoon.