You probably didn’t notice with all the football going on (Giants, cough, Cardinals, cough), but the Columbus Crew, the best team in MLS all season, won the MLS Cup this afternoon, 3-1, in sunny Southern California. While MLS Commissioner Don Garber was busy brushing up his Spanish accent so he could pronounce Guillermo Barros Schelotto, the Crew was busy dismantling an overmatched New York Red Bulls team that probably didn’t deserve to be there in the first place.

(This is what it’s supposed to look like, Ohio State.)

It’s a good story for American soccer fans, because the Crew has built itself up the right way, sticking with their plan and coach and augmenting a talented core, including longtime captain Frankie Hejduk, with one surprising international star (the aforementioned Barros Schelotto). But this title is even more important for the city of Columbus itself, providing a means of escape from two of the most embarrassing performances in collegiate national championship history.

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Cheer up, Boston sports fans. Sure, the Red Sox might have brought you to the brink of exaltation only to send you crashing to the ground like to some junkie with a packet of methadone, but at least the Patriots have kept your hopes adrift for another week with their 41-7 win over the Denver Broncos on Monday night.

Sure, this might have been a performance against the same team that lost to the putrid Kansas City Chiefs, but it’s something to be proud of, right?  Rodney Harrison might have blown his knee out, a crippling blow to a depleted Patriots secondary, but come on…: did you see Matt Cassel? He’s the second coming of Tom Brady, the wa y he hooked up with Randy Moss. Right? Right???

New England fans, I’ll let you slepp on your false sense of security for now. At least ou aren’t 49ers fans, who have seen their team go from playoff contenders to also-rans in the course of a few short weeks. Which means that head coach Mike Nolan is gone, replaced by Mike Singletary, who will at least kill his team with his eyes. The eyes, the eyes, oh Lord the eyes!

Here’s what else happened last night while you were out raging against the machine with Tim McGraw:

• EliteXC is finished, as SI.COM reports that they have closed their doors after “hemorrhaging” money. As poets throughout the ages have mused, wither Kimbo Slice? At least Gina Carano is one step closer to her inevitable Playboy spread.
• Not only did Joba Chamberlain get popped for a DUI this weekend, the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS also says that he got into it with a lippy Red Sox fan back home in Omaha at a nudie bar.
• AWFUL ANNOUNCING has Emmitt Smith trying to talk about Matt Cassel being between a “rock and a hard place.” Do I even need to tell you that the phrase “rites of patches” is invoked?
• The SEC official who appeared to take down South Carolina QB Stephen Garcia on Saturday? THE STATE says that the league has ruled that it was “inadvertant contact.”
• As the NEW YORK TIMES notes, the Red Bulls’ goalkeeper Danny Ceperos is a goal scoring machine.
• The NEWARK STAR-LEDGER reports that Devils’ center Bobby Holik is out three to four week with a broken pinkie. Broken pinkie? Come on - NHL players should just get their pinkies cut off and not miss a shift.
• The SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE signs in with news that Tiger Woods was back at Torrey Pines - the scene of his U.S. Open triumph over Rocco Mediate - this time as a caddie for an amateur. How far of a fall a few months can bring.
• A bad day for Colombian golfer/fashion plate Camilo Villegas, as FOX SPORTS notes that his uncle was shot and killed during a robbery of his coffee trading business. Juan Valdez’s whereabouts have not yet been determined.
• The AP explains the New Orleans Saints trying to lay out the basics of American football to a London audience, without much success.
• How bad could the World Series be in Nielsen numbers for Fox? According to the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, really bad.

I guess it was only a matter of time before a performance-enhancing drug scandal rocked the world of American soccer. I, for one, am glad that they are ridding everybody else’s national pastime of PEDs. The last thing we need is MLS becoming more entertaining.

With two games remaining in the regular season, Jon Conway and Jeff Parke of the New York Red Bulls were suspended for 10 games and docked 10% of their annual salary for testing positive for some supplement you can buy at your local gym. Because there’s nothing more despicable than our professional athletes going to the store and buying things that the rest of us can.

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• THE APPLE CORE speculates on Michael Phelps’ rap-centric iPod playlist. So he’s getting doped up before the race by listening to Young Jeezy?



• LIQUID GENERATION has a video montage of The Greatest Gymnastics Crashes. And yes, the guy running into the vault horse - the Citizen Kane of gymnastics bloopers - is in there.
• TIME proposes using ex-NBA stars to create a Dream Team of sorts for Olympic Handball. Sounds like a great reality show to me.
• WIRED counts down the Top 10 Most Advanced Olympic Doping Methods - sadly, none of them involve Jolt Cola Read more…