The MLB trade deadline is today. The day started out pretty slow but has picked up a lot of steam over the past hour. Jake Peavy has been traded to the White Sox, Scott Rolen has been traded to the Cincinnati Reds, Jarrod Washburn has been traded to the Tigers and Victor Martinez has been traded to the Red Sox. With only 7 hours left, will we see Halladay moved as well?

Other than the Pittsburgh Pirates who has been trading away every player the own for prospect, the Boston Red Sox have been one of the most active teams this summer, making deals for Adam LaRoche and now Victor Martinez. They’ve also been trying to grab Halladay from the Blue Jays. If they can pull that off it would make the Red Sox the AL favorite, even though they aren’t winning their division. Victor Martinez is a great trade for them. He can play catcher and firstbase, plus DH if they need him too.

Jake Peavy to the White Sox is an interesting move considering he hasn’t pitched since early June and there is no clear time table on his return. Ankle injuries are tricky. The White Sox must hope he’ll back back in time to contribute down the stretch.

How is your team fairing today on the MLB trade deadline? Post a comment and let us know.

Minnesota Vikings defensive end Kenechi Udeze has officially retired from the NFL at the young age of 26. Udeze has been battling leukemia since February 2008. He missed all of the last season while battling the cancer. Udeze did participate in 2009 minicamps, but the challenging of coming back and competing on an NFL level was too great.

I remember when Udeze came out of USC and was the 20th pick in the first round of the 2004 NFL Draft. Draft experts had only good things to say about how he played on the field and his character off the field. He finished his career at USC with 28 sacks, a school record. The guy was an animal and destined to be a Pro Bowl player.

It will be said to see Udeze not in uniform anymore. He says his leukemia is still in remission. But he’s still dealing with side effects from treatment of the disease and is unable to play. It’s not every day players retire early because of an illness. I hope he can use his fame to help increase leukemia awareness and do something wonderful.

The Brett Favre era has officially come to an end… for now. As much as I was looking forward to Favre running on to Lambeau Field wearing the purple and gold (and selling a few jerseys to Vikings fans) I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. Even after all the offseason conversations, surgeries, workouts, etc … Favre decided he wanted to stay retired.

A lot of sports blogs are poking fun at Favre’s second (or is it his third?) retirement. This guy has flip flopped on retirement more than any athlete in history. I won’t pretend that I know what it’s like to leave a game I’ve played my entire life. Athletes go through this all the time… “What do I do now?” Yesterday, Favre told ESPN that saying goodbye to the Minnesota Vikings “was the hardest decision I’ve ever made.”

The Minnesota Vikings now turn their attention to Tarvaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels, who will duke it out in training camp for the starting job. I’m not sure how much of an impact Favre would have had on the field for the Vikings. They are completely stacked in the running game and really only need a QB that can manage the game and avoid turnovers (something Favre couldn’t avoid). It would have been awesome to see Favre play one more season, but the game will go on without him.

Roy Halladay of the Toronto Blue Jays has been the hot topic of MLB trade rumors for a month now. He is the most coveted pitcher currently on the block. With only 1.5 years left on his deal, the Blue Jays need to trade Roy while the price is high. If they have to wait until next summer to trade him, the value just won’t be there.

Roy Halladay is one of the top 3 pitchers in baseball. He is currently 11-3 with a 2.62 ERA. He has 4 complete games and 123 strikeouts in 141 innings pitched. No one pitches complete games like Roy Halladay does. The guy is a work horse and any time would love to have him in their rotation.

Two teams openly in the market for Roy Halladay are the Philadelphia Phillies and the Boston Red Sox. The Blue Jays just rejected a trade from the Phillies for three or four prospects. It’s not clear yet whether the Blue Jays are looking for a starting player plus prospects. Either way, I’m sure Philly and several other teams will throw offers at Toronto all this week. The MLB trade deadline is Friday.

What do you think will happen to Roy Halladay? Will he stay a Blue Jay or wind up somewhere else?

There has been a lot of talk about the missing LeBron James “dunked on video”. A couple of weeks ago at a Nike basketball camp, Xavier’s Jordan Crawford allegedly dunked on LeBron James… the video was allegedly confiscated. This stirred up a lot of talk in the blogosphere… everyone wanted to know what the dunk looked like and did it really happen.

Yesterday, the video was finally released. There are two versions out there, one from a cell phone camera and the other is a decent quality shot from behind the basket. I’ve seen both the videos, but I’m not going to link to them because quite frankly there’s nothing to see. James goes up for a block on the side of the rim while Crawford heads to the basket straight on. After all the hype, the actual dunk was very disappointing.

What’s not disappointing is this video of LeBron James’ Top 10 dunks. You can see plenty of players getting dunked on… including Tim Duncan.

The hot topic around the watercooler yesterday was the Sunday finish to the 2009 British Open Championship at Turnberry. Tom Watson, age 59, was 8 feet away from adding another notch in his major championship belt. Watson missed the putt and wound up bogeying No. 18 to force a playoff with Stewart Cink. Viewers could tell Watson was emotionally and physically spent. He was no match for Cink in the 4-hole playoff.

If Tom Watson would have won a major golf championship at the age of 59, would it have become one of the top 5 greatest sports moments of all-time? What other sport allows 59 years old to compete with 25 year olds and still have a chance to win? At the age of 58, Satchel Paige pitched 3 innings for the Kansas City Athletics (now the Oakland A’s)… but it’s not like he was throwing no hitters and winning World Series’ at that age.

In the end, Watson couldn’t come up with the win. Golf fans will talk about this major for many years to come, even though he didn’t win. It was a great sports story over the weekend and attracted millions of television viewers.

Did you watch the Open Championship? What did you think of Tom Watson’s play?

It is hard to believe that the NFL season is already upon us. Training camps start this week. The Buffalo Bills, with the addition of Terrell Owens, are the first team to report – July 25, 2009. Of all the training camps, the Bills will be the one to watch. Terrell Owens and his antics always attract a large crowd. The city of Buffalo has been waiting for a media frenzy. They’ve been irrelevant on the field since the late ’90s.

Other training camps I’m looking forward to include:

- Chicago Bears (July 31) – they invested two first round picks to bring in quarterback Jay Cutler. Will it pay off?

- New England Patriots (July 30) – Is Tom Brady fully recovered from his knee surgery?

- Minnesota Vikings (July 31) – Will Brett Favre actually show up to camp? Will he play for the Vikings?

After looking through all the teams, I probably spoke too soon about the Buffalo Bills having the most exciting camp this summer. It potentially could be the Vikings, if Favre comes back to play for them in 2009. Every media van in the country will be headed to Minnesota to catch a glimpse of Favre in purple.

Most training camps are open to the public. If you’re going to head out and watch some practice, I recommend you show up in a “Own The Moment” training camp t-shirt.