You can argue the order of importance, but the three most pivotal positions on the ice are goaltender, top defenseman and the No. 1 center.

Teams generally look to stop the puck first, but when you want to turn it the other way it’s hard to do unless you have major skill up front.

Teams without a bona fide No. 1 center seem to advance only so far through the regular season, and more importantly, the postseason.

This week’s power rankings, which appear each Tuesday, take a look at each team’s top-line centerman.

San Jose 1. San Jose Sharks (25-3-2, Previous: 1) – Joe Thornton hasn’t as much changed his game under Todd McLellan as he has added to it. Thornton is active in front of the net, using his size more than in the past, and remains productive (he’s on pace for 98 points). And he has yet to miss a game as a Shark – 252 in a row and counting.

Boston 2. Boston Bruins (21-5-4, Previous: 2) – Marc Savard is arguably the most underrated player in the league, let alone at center ice. It all started to click once the lockout ended for Savard, not the biggest center around but certainly one of the most skilled, especially when it comes to playmaking and dishing the puck. He’s on pace for 93 points.

Detroit 3. Detroit Red Wings (20-6-4, Previous: 3) – Henrik Zetterberg is the best two-way center in the game. The scary thing is he has less than 400 NHL games and is only 28 years old. Scary, too, for Detroit general manager Ken Holland, who must extend the Swedish star’s contract. Otherwise, Zetterberg could be long gone in the summer to what would certainly be a very high bid.

New York Rangers 4. New York Rangers (20-11-2, Previous: 6) – Scott Gomez has battled inconsistency in his two seasons with the Rangers. His minus-10 sticks out this season. He’s not the biggest of players, but he’s viewed as someone who can step up in big games. That’s at least the hope moving forward as New York figures to be in the hunt again this season.

Philadelphia 5. Philadelphia Flyers (16-7-6, Previous: 7) – Mike Richards has taken big strides the last two seasons, not only in terms of production but in a presence that has led to him being named captain and awarded a long-term contract. Richards is on pace for 96 points, which would be an increase of 21 over last season’s career high.

Washington 6. Washington Capitals (18-10-3, Previous: 9) – Having Alexander Ovechkin on a wing is going to make any center look good, but it’s surprising how little time it has taken 21-year-old Nicklas Backstrom to assume high status among top NHL pivots. Like so many of the Swedes in the NHL, Backstrom is both skilled and mature beyond his years. He’s on pace for 82 points with his point-per-game production.

Montreal 7. Montreal Canadiens (16-8-5, Previous: 4) – He’s currently battling a foot injury, but Saku Koivu is the cog that makes the fast-paced Canadiens’ engine go. Many have long forgotten that Koivu’s career was threatened in 2001 because of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He’s an amazing story of dedication and consistency throughout the years, and now that the Habs have a very talented group, Koivu has the opportunity to shine brighter.

Pittsburgh 8. Pittsburgh Penguins (16-10-4, Previous: 5) – Flip a coin as to whether Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin is the team’s top center, but there’s no argument both are on their way to super-super stardom. The two leading scorers in the league, Malkin is on pace for 134 points and Crosby 120.

New Jersey 9. New Jersey Devils (16-9-2, Previous: 10) – It’s sometimes more the fit in the system as opposed to being a top-flight center with the Devils, and third-year forward Travis Zajac is playing that role currently. At 6-2 and 200 pounds, Zajac can handle the defensive load, then worry about dishing off to his wingers when the puck turns the other way.

Chicago 10. Chicago Blackhawks (15-6-7, Previous: 12) – Jonathan Toews is another superstar in the making. He struggled to score goals early this season, but that’s just a snapshot complaint of the big picture. Toews has size, smarts, skill and leadership. There’s a reason why the Blackhawks are so excited about the future and Toews, on pace for a modest 67 points, is a big part of it.

Anaheim 11. Anaheim Ducks (17-11-3, Previous: 11) – Ryan Getzlaf figures to be Anaheim’s man in the middle for many years to come. He has all the tools to be a star in the league. Getzlaf’s size and his shot are his greatest assets, but the team also likes his competitive nature and the chip he sometimes carries on his shoulder.

Calgary 12. Calgary Flames (16-11-3, Previous: – The top spot is shared by Craig Conroy and Daymond Langkow, but most often it’s manned by the 37-year-old Conroy, which tells you all you need to know about the Flames – they resemble a donut with their hole in the middle. They’re both miscast as a No. 1 center. End of story.

Vancouver 13. Vancouver Canucks (17-11-3, Previous: 15) – Henrik Sedin has all the chemistry in the world with his identical twin Daniel, but finding a third player to complement the top duo has been a challenge. Taking some pressure off the Sedins is another reason why the team has been so aggressive in its pursuit of unrestricted free agent Mats Sundin.

Edmonton 14. Edmonton Oilers (14-12-2, Previous: 13) – Shawn Horcoff is a very good player, but the Oilers’ situation isn’t much different from that of their Alberta rivals in Calgary. Edmonton would like to have a more natural No. 1 center and let Horcoff slip to maybe a No. 2 role, but for now this is the way it is.

Buffalo 15. Buffalo Sabres (15-12-3, Previous: 18) – The Sabres seem to always feature undersized centers, and turning to the 5-foot-9 Derek Roy on many nights is no departure from the past. If Buffalo wants to get serious about contending in the postseason the team is going to have to get bigger in the middle of the ice.

Colorado 16. Colorado Avalanche (15-14-1, Previous: 19) – It’s never easy transitioning from a superstar to someone new, but the Avalanche appear headed in the right direction as Paul Stastny eases into the slot filled so many years by the classy Joe Sakic. Stastny has the bloodlines, but more importantly the skill and presence to handle the assignment. Sure, it’s early in the 22-year-old’s career, but all signs point to Stastny being the answer.

Phoenix 17. Phoenix Coyotes (14-13-2, Previous: 21) – The Coyotes acquired Olli Jokinen to fill the middle of a top line, but they have to be thrilled with the accelerated development of 21-year-old, second-year Czech center Martin Hanzal. He has some filling out to do, but that will come for the 6-4 Hanzal, who is on pace for 22 goals and more than 50 points.

Carolina 18. Carolina Hurricanes (13-12-5, Previous: 16) – Rob Brind’Amour is still probably considered the team’s top center, but it needs to be Eric Staal, who has been struggling to find offensive consistency this season. The ‘Canes don’t have any reason to worry. Staal will get there, and once he does he’ll be there for many years to come.

Nashville 19. Nashville Predators (15-12-3, Previous: 17) – Jason Arnott is an accomplished veteran with two Stanley Cups, but at age 34 with 998 games played, he’s going to start slowing down instead of speeding up. The Predators are used to doing more with less, and unless David Legwand takes a major step up at mid-career, the team will probably need to address this position sooner rather than later.

Minnesota 20. Minnesota Wild (15-13-1, Previous: 14) – Mikko Koivu, the 25-year-old younger brother of Montreal’s Saku Koivu, may be the most improved player at his position over the last year or two. Koivu was projected to be a solid NHLer, but he appears to be exceeding all expectations. On pace for 85 points, Koivu’s production is even more impressive considering Marian Gaborik hasn’t been there to help.

Florida 21. Florida Panthers (14-13-3, Previous: 22) – Stephen Weiss is playing there now, but does anyone think the 25-year-old – who has yet to crack the 50-point plateau during any of his first five full seasons – is the long-term answer for Florida? We don’t think so, either.

Los Angeles 22. Los Angeles Kings (13-12-5, Previous: 25) – Obviously, Anze Kopitar, 21, is that special young player every franchise would love to have from the start. It doesn’t seem like Los Angeles’ struggles early in his career is having an adverse effect on Kopitar, who appears mature beyond his years with the skills to match.

Ottawa 23. Ottawa Senators (11-12-5, Previous: 20) – Jason Spezza faces a lot of criticism, an inherent consequence of being the second player chosen in a draft and having to live up to all those expectations. At times, though, the 25-year-old hasn’t helped himself, with his seemingly lackadaisical play. Like his team, Spezza is off to a slow start this year and he’ll have to pick up the pace or trade rumors will pick up steam.

Columbus 24. Columbus Blue Jackets (13-14-3, Previous: 26) – No, we don’t expect R.J. Umberger to play top-line center any longer than necessary. Nothing against Umberger, one of the more versatile forwards in the league, but the Blue Jackets have to find the answer and they’re hoping that the fast start of rookie Derick Brassard’s career signals they have a worthy candidate.

Toronto 25. Toronto Maple Leafs (11-12-6, Previous: 27) – The sad truth is third- and fourth-line centers Dominic Moore and John Mitchell have played the position better than anyone on the roster. The bottom line: The team’s top-line center is not even in the organization yet.

Dallas 26. Dallas Stars (11-14-4, Previous: 24) – The Stars are deep at the position, but it’s hard to forget about Mike Modano when he’s still on the roster. Brad Richards has the potential to fill the top role, and he has assumed more of that responsibility this season as Mike Ribeiro’s offense continues to sputter. It just feels like everything would be better if the Stars could just have a do-over.

St. Louis 27. St. Louis Blues (12-14-3, Previous: 23) – This is a wait-and-see situation as the Blues give their young players a chance to develop. Keith Tkachuk is having a surprisingly good season, despite playing center instead of wing, where he’s more comfortable. Either way, the man in the middle for the future has yet to emerge.

Tampa Bay 28. Tampa Bay Lightning (7-15-8, Previous: 30) – Vincent Lecavalier is a great player, talked about this time last season as an MVP candidate. He doesn’t have enough help around him anymore.

Atlanta 29. Atlanta Thrashers (9-16-4, Previous: 28) – Todd White? Really, who the heck is Todd White? Next.

New York Islanders 30. New York Islanders (10-18-2, Previous: 29) – Doug Weight – 37 years old, 17 years in the league – has had a great career, but he’s simply holding space until the future comes along. Get out your crystal ball; we don’t know who it is either.

DENVER – They pawed at him, tugged his grey shirtsleeves and hugged his thick legs, boys and girls, about 20 in all, screaming and squealing as one. Chaun-CEE! Chaun-CEE!

It’s been six weeks since the Detroit Pistons sent Chauncey Billups home, and he’s returned yet again to his old Park Hill neighborhood. The Hiawatha Davis Rec Center is 1,200 miles and a couple 3-pointers from the Palace of Auburn Hills. No B-B-B-Billups here. Only Chaun-CEE, the local kid made good.

On this night, Billups has helped transform the center’s gym into a makeshift holiday store, purchasing $3,000 worth of toys for nearly two dozen families. The children wander between the tables, plucking away their dolls, board games and soccer balls before rushing toward their basketball Santa. Soon, Billups is waist-deep in the grade-school mob, distributing autographs and hugs.

Christmas has come early, and perhaps no one knows this more than Billups’ current employers. On Nov. 3, Pistons GM Joe Dumars delivered the Denver Nuggets the present of their dreams, express-shipping them a heady, veteran point guard in return for Allen Iverson. All that was missing was the gift wrap and a bow atop Billups’ head.

The Nuggets needed someone to stabilize them, someone to lead, and Billups has done all that. Denver has gone 16-6 since his arrival, giving the team its best start in franchise history, along with a perch above the Northwest Division. No longer do these Nuggets appear to be all talent and showmanship. Just maybe, Billups has given them the grit to end their run of one-and-done playoff failure.

“I think Chauncey’s the best thing to happen to Denver so far,” said Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony. He didn’t say whether he meant the team or the city.

The tattoo on Billups’ left shoulder says enough: “King of the Hill,” a title bestowed upon him by his neighborhood. Bracketed by Colorado, East Colfax, East 52nd and Quebec streets, Park Hill is in northeast Denver; its demographics running south to north, black to white, high income to low. Billups grew up here, as did the families of each of his parents, Ray and Faye, their kin stretching a mile in each direction from the Hiawatha Davis Rec Center.

To this day, Billups calls the rec center “my everything.” He spent much of his childhood there, playing basketball, dominoes, cards, pool. Anything and everything. The gym has since been rebuilt – a hotbox before, it now has six baskets, two levels and a running track overhead – but the center’s old coaches and staff members still keep the graying box scores showing Billups’ 0-for-7 afternoons.

“We used to call him ‘Bricklayer,’” said Harry Hollines, the center’s former director, jokingly.

Even then, Billups showed an unusual ability to relate to adults and accept coaching. Whereas most boys started launching shots the moment their shoes touched the court, Billups stuck to the fundamentals, sliding his feet, jab-stepping, zipping a sharp bounce pass. Mike Brown, the Cleveland Cavaliers coach who began his career as a video coordinator and scout for the Nuggets, once worked a youth camp that Billups attended.

“I thought he was a man back then,” Brown said. “His presence was just something that you wanted to follow.”

Billups went on to star at George Washington High School, and when the ACC and Big East came calling, he said no thanks. The University of Colorado in nearby Boulder was just fine. Home was still home.

No matter where Billups’ career took him, from Boston to Toronto to Denver to Minnesota to Detroit, he always returned to Park Hill in the summer. He and his younger brother, Rodney, who starred at the University of Denver, hold a free basketball camp for 300 children each year. Billups’ foundation has a scholarship program at local Regis University, and each summer he sponsors a team – and plays – in the pro-am league at the rec center. On some days, he just stops by to shoot pool or play dominoes.

“You’d think he’d just walked in off the street corner,” said Tony Wells, the center’s longtime track coach.

That sense of community further endeared Billups to the neighborhood. Park Hill has produced plenty of talent. Former New Jersey Nets All-Star Michael Ray Richardson. Billups’ cousin, current Tennessee Titans running back LenDale White. But no one’s shadow has stretched farther than that of Billups. “He’ll be royalty forever,” White once said.

Billups had told friends and family in recent years that he was interested in someday joining the Nuggets’ front office. His chances of playing for them, he figured, were done. He was happy in Detroit. He’d signed a five-year, $60 million contract ($46 million of which was guaranteed) in the summer of 2007 that figured to take him to the end of his playing days. Dumars had promised a shakeup in the wake of the Pistons’ loss to the Boston Celtics in the East finals, but it was hard to argue with the team’s success. The Pistons had made six straight trips to the conference finals and won the NBA championship in 2004 with Billups as the Finals MVP. These were not the Minnesota Timberwolves.

On the evening before the trade, Billups called his dad and spoke favorably about the potential of the Pistons’ younger players. It wasn’t until later that night that he got a strong sense a trade was in the works.

“The first thing you have to deal with when someone tells you you’re being traded is just that,” Billups said. “You’re being traded.”

Billups now says he would have “probably not” re-signed with Detroit if he thought there was a chance of him being moved. But while he clearly wasn’t happy about the way his stay with the Pistons ended, he couldn’t argue with where they sent him.

“I guess he was a little bit sore at first,” said Cleveland center Ben Wallace, a longtime teammate of Billups in Detroit. “But if you’re gonna get traded, wouldn’t you like to go home?”

For Billups’ family and the Park Hill community, there was no bitter with the sweet. They were happy only to have him back. “The ceiling was too low as high as I jumped,” said Billups’ brother, Rodney. “I had to change my number because we were getting so many calls.”

Billups jokes that his mother is more excited to have her three granddaughters back than she is her eldest son. He makes two, three, sometimes four trips to his parents’ house each week. Unlike in Detroit, where his star status made it difficult to go out in public, Billups can take his family to eat in relative peace.

“Since he’s come back, it’s been all positive,” Billups’ father, Ray, said. “All positive.”

That wasn’t the case the first time Billups was traded to Denver, after the Nuggets acquired him from Toronto in a three-team deal midway through the 1998-99 season. He had yet to establish himself in the league, and teams weren’t sure whether he was better equipped to play the point or off-guard. He also wasn’t quite ready for the role of hometown hero.

“I was 22 years old, just came into a lot of money and being in the NBA,” he said. “It was just kind of overwhelming for everybody to want a little bit of your time.”

After missing most of the next season with injuries, Billups was sent on his way. The Nuggets tried to bring him back when he became a free agent in 2007, but they didn’t have the salary-cap room to make an offer that approached the deal he received from Detroit.

“When he left here early in his career, I never thought he’d come back,” Rodney said. “Wishes do come true.”

Billups wasn’t quite sure how the Nuggets would accept him after the trade. Iverson had been popular among his teammates, and Anthony and Kenyon Martin both sounded disappointed about his departure. But Billups did know this much: He could help the Nuggets if they let him. They lacked self-discipline, and he could give them that.

“I knew I would be able to change that fast because I would be the one with the ball in my hands,” he said. “All that run-and-gun, fast shots, crazy shots, I would be able to affect that because you can’t do it if you don’t have the ball.”

Nuggets coach George Karl had already spent much of training camp trying to give the team more of a defensive mindset, no small challenge considering Anthony and Iverson were liabilities on that end of the floor and shot-blocking center Marcus Camby had been traded to the Los Angeles Clippers. The Nuggets played fast and loose, they were fun to watch and they won 50 games last season. But they still got swept by the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the playoffs.

“After failing to even scare L.A., I said if we’re going to be a Western Conference playoff team and be successful, we’re going to have to change,” Karl said. “In a very unique way, everything we wanted to change, Chauncey believed in and was.”

The Nuggets needed to share the ball. Billups is unselfish. The Nuggets needed to improve their defense. Billups is a rugged and willing defender. The Nuggets needed someone to lead. Above all else, Billups does that.

Billups isn’t a screamer like Kevin Garnett. He guides and counsels, pointing his teammates in the right direction, talking to them between free throws. Already, he has done the unthinkable, giving Anthony a conscience. Two days after the Nuggets’ recent loss to the Houston Rockets, Billups stayed long after practice, forever chatting with Karl on how they can work together to move the team forward.

Said Anthony: “Maybe we needed that guy on the court to say, ‘I know George is the coach, but, no disrespect, I’m running the show now. I’m the general on the court.’ ”

The Pistons, meanwhile, have only recently begun to gain some traction since Billups left, splitting their past 12 games. Iverson has been fined twice: first by the team for skipping practice; then by the league, which docked him $25,000 for comments he made to a fan in Charlotte.

Billups still frequently talks with Tayshaun Prince, Rip Hamilton and Antonio McDyess. Asked if his former teammates say they miss him, a big grin starts to stretch across his face. “Definitely,” he said.

The Nuggets still have work to do to distinguish themselves as legitimate contenders for the West finals, evidenced by their lopsided loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday. The attention to detail isn’t there every night. J.R. Smith, their mercurial young guard, remains flighty. “We don’t have a commitment to get better by every player,” Karl said.

Still, the culture has changed around these Nuggets, and a lot of that credit goes to Billups. Iverson didn’t lack for fans here, but Billups is one of them. Just the other night, Karl went to a local sandwich shop and was stopped by an elderly man who said he used to run the clock for Billups’ high school. He told Karl how much his wife loved Billups, how much everybody loved him.

“There’s obviously a spirit to his years here in Denver and at the University of Colorado,” Karl said. “It’s there. It’s not flaunted. It’s not exuberant. But the kid must have been pretty damn good.”

No one needs to tell the people of Park Hill that. The King is back. For Chauncey Billups’ old neighborhood, for these Nuggets, Christmas came early.

DETROIT – William Clay Ford Sr. has done more damage to the NFL brand than Michael Vick, Adam “Pacman” Jones and Travis Henry could ever dream.

If you consider it in football terms and football terms only, it isn’t even close.

It’s time for the league’s image protecting commissioner, Roger Goodell, to get as tough with an increasingly incompetent owner as he would with a misbehaving player. If the hard line approach is about protecting the NFL, then what’s worse for the league right now than the chaos and carnage of the winless, hopeless, helpless Detroit Lions?

Ford, the owner of the Lions since 1963, may be a low key, law-abiding 83-year-old – a far cry from the troubled players Goodell has made examples out of with stiff suspensions and demands of accountability.

However, you never saw them destroy football in a major market. They didn’t mismanage a franchise for over four decades only to kill it lately. They didn’t reward failure, excuse ridiculousness and insult paying customers with season after season of non-competitive teams.

They didn’t put together the worst team in league history, 0-15 heading into Sunday’s season finale at Green Bay. They certainly didn’t declare the front office would return anyway or that the hiring a general manager with full control wasn’t a priority.

“Let’s see who’s available and what experience they have and see if they fit in any of our slots,” Ford Sr. told Booth Newspapers.

Slots? Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse in Detroit.

By forcing the new guy to accept limited power and holdovers from the pathetic Matt Millen era, Ford is assuring no quality candidate will look twice at the position. The Lions will again get a desperate candidate willing to work within the illogical confines of the confused owner.

It’s why football in Detroit is dead until there’s a change at the top.

Goodell is doing the league and its fans a disservice by allowing such mismanagement. The Lions do not have NFL-caliber players or NFL-caliber coaches. It isn’t an NFL organization.

He needs to step in and if not move Ford out, then at least demand he accepts league assistance to help the franchise become legitimate.

Ford Sr. is so delusional he thinks a tweak or two will do it. He isn’t even considering following the path of the Miami Dolphins, whose response to last year’s 1-15 season was to give Bill Parcells total authority. The Dolphins are now one victory from the playoffs.

If Goodell can get tough with players for off-field misbehavior, then why not an owner for prolonged on-field crimes against the sport?

The best case would be to get Ford Sr. to transfer power to his son, William Clay Ford Jr., who at least had the wherewithal to push for the firing of Millen earlier this season.

If that’s not possible, then do what NBA commissioner David Stern did with the New York Knicks. He took self-destructive owner James Dolan (like Ford Sr. little more than a bumbling trust fund) and all but forced him to hire respected basketball executive Donnie Walsh. Half a season later the franchise has been stabilized.

Left to their own volition, guys like Ford Sr. or Dolan or Vick, Jones and Henry fall victim to arrogance and entitlement.

The players might break the law. The owner just breaks the will of the customers. Anger has been replaced by apathy for many in Detroit. Fans have given up on staging protest marches, wearing opposing colors to home games and screaming into talk radio lines.

In Ford’s 45 years as owner, the Lions have won just a single playoff game (1991 against Dallas). What was once a mostly mediocre franchise has lately produced historic futility.

The current team has lost 22 of its last 23 games and is actually worse than the record.

It lost all eight home games this season by an average 22 points. In a football mad area, the majority of the games were blacked out. Fans that did attend often spent most of the game booing.

Head coach Rod Marinelli spent the season shrugging off charges of nepotism for hiring his son-in-law as defensive coordinator. Even with a defense ranked last in the NFL, Marinelli said he never once thought of firing anyone or taking over the duties himself.

Why would he hold someone accountable? No one is ever accountable with the Lions.

“Loyalty is my strength,” Marinelli claimed.

This explanation came after a 42-7 defeat to New Orleans Sunday where the Lions didn’t make a single defensive stop. It’s little wonder plenty of irate fans thought local columnists should make more press conference jokes at Marinelli’s expense.

Yet Ford Sr. surveyed this toxic environment and deemed it unworthy of a front office housecleaning. He has no reasonable plan forward. He has no chance of getting proper help.

If earlier this season Ford Jr. hadn’t publicly ripped his father’s management, it stands to reason Millen, the bumbling broadcaster, might still be in charge. After all, he was in the middle of a five-year extension Ford Sr. gave him despite years of draft busts and losing seasons.

This is the worst run franchise in the league and the biggest black eye on Goodell’s operation. Ford Sr.’s actions have a far greater impact on the league than one player’s dog fighting ring.

If Goodell’s really so concerned about the health and image of the league, it’s time he held old men in suits as accountable as young players in strip clubs.

For nearly an hour during their news conference two weeks ago to promote the World Baseball Classic, the tournament’s organizers blathered on about rule changes and mandatory reporting dates and scheduling specifics. Left unsaid was the shocking disclosure that the active ingredient in Ambien is a WBC news conference.

Salesmanship isn’t the WBC honchos’ strong suit, though that had revealed itself without a dais and microphone. Just look at the players who already have declared themselves unwilling to join Team USA at the second incarnation of the tournament in March.

Josh Hamilton? No. Ryan Howard? Sorry. Alex Rodriguez? Nope, he defected to the Dominican team. CC Sabathia, Brandon Webb, Cole Hamels, Josh Beckett, A.J. Burnett and Brad Lidge? Nein, non, lo, nyet, nei and na. Respectively.

And the exodus won’t end there. Before the Jan. 19 preliminary roster deadline, Tim Lincecum, Roy Halladay, Jake Peavy and Ben Sheets are expected to turn down invitations, too, in spite of the personal pleas of manager Davey Johnson. Others will follow. Which leaves the American team in the same place as the original group that couldn’t even advance to the semifinals: woefully undermanned and destined to underachieve.

Why other countries seem to have no trouble procuring their best and brightest while the United States deigns to chumming for pitchers gnaws at WBC organizers, who dream of the event maturing into baseball’s version of the World Cup. Grand though those delusions may be, the initial tournament succeeded, an opening game between the Dominican and Venezuela providing the bell-ringing, song-chanting, flag-waving and -wearing atmosphere never seen at a baseball game outside of Latin America.

Team USA delivered the tournament’s nadir with bungling performances befit of its roster. On whom the blame was laid – the players, accused of selfishness for not joining the cause, or USA Baseball, the group tasked with convincing them that playing in the WBC is noble and enjoyable – doesn’t matter so much now. The reality is that it wasn’t a one-time spurning.

The first WBC didn’t convince players from the United States that it was a must-participate event. Bowing out in the second round certainly had something to do with that. So did the empty seats in stadiums for Team USA’s games. And the fear – among pitchers especially – that disrupting their standard schedule leading up to opening day is a road flecked with injury mines.

Civic pride for the American players doesn’t exist like in Japan and Cuba and the Dominican, where baseball is a matter of great national import and where a jersey with your country’s name is a gilded shroud. Participation is a must.

Here, it’s a sorta, mighta, maybe. Yes, Team USA already has some solid commitments. Derek Jeter and Chipper Jones return from the first go-around, and Dustin Pedroia, Grady Sizemore, Brian McCann and Ryan Braun are in. The only pitcher thus far is John Lackey, and that, really, illustrates the difference between what Team USA can be and will be.

Imagine a rotation of Sabathia, Halladay, Lincecum and Webb. Fine, replace one of them with Hamels. OK, switch out another for Peavy. Whatever the permutation, it would be the best in the WBC, even with the pitch limits.

Only Team USA is likely 0 for 6 with the six best pitchers. So fingers are crossed that Cliff Lee says yes after his Cy Young season. And that MLB teams don’t reel in Jon Lester or John Danks or Chad Billingsley or Matt Cain because of their young arms. Or that Roy Oswalt and Dan Haren don’t look at what happened to Team USA’s 2006 WBC starters – Peavy’s ERA that year spiked, Dontrelle Willis’ career has never recovered and Roger Clemens was in front of Congress two years later – and run away frightened.

Johnson managed a group of American minor leaguers to the bronze medal at this year’s Olympics, and he’s approaching the WBC with the same no-excuses tack. The United States should win the WBC. Of the 1,188 players who played in a major league game last season, 864 were born in the United States. That’s nearly 73 percent. To have an almost three-quarters monopoly on talent in the best league in the world and not cruise to victory is embarrassing.

Perhaps it won’t matter, and Team USA’s offense will mash with such ferocity and its bullpen will pitch so well that it might negate the paucity of starting pitching. Hopefully so, in fact, because the WBC is a tournament worth nurturing, and Team USA’s success is vital to its health.

When Jan. 19 rolls around and the question emerges of what could’ve and should’ve been, officials will slough it off and try instead to focus on the players that comprise the roster. It’s a neat sleight of hand, exactly the sort that Mark Teixeira tried the first time around in the WBC when, following a loss to Korea, he said, “We can’t worry about who didn’t play and who could’ve been here.”

That sentiment, apparently, hasn’t waned. Teixeira, a free agent who can’t afford to miss his first spring training with a new team, likely will pull himself from consideration. Just another name on a long list that has the WBC wishing it really had swallowed a sleeping pill and this was all one bad dream.

Video of the PLAYSTATION 3 version of MLB 08: The Show showing Mets pitcher, Pedro Martinez, tossing the 9th inning of a no hitter.

WR for the New Orleans Saints

Madden NFL 09 Senior Producer, Phil Frazier, shows off many of the new gameplay features in this year’s game. More details on the game head over to www.madden09.com. Madden NFL 09 hits stores 8.12.08.

I wanted to post some season mode vids of MLB08 The Show. I know now why this game has become my favorite sports game yet - its the attention to detail. I played without skipping the cut scenes to show just how detailed everything is. If you notice, the right-center field scoreboard is correct for the matchups from that day on the MLB schedule (April 2). The commentary and video are seamless, complete with season stat tracking and player tidbits. Framerate is like butter too (unlike the other baseball game LOL.) - Anyway, not alot of action offensively in this one, as it was a pitchers duel until the 8th. Tigers ended up winning 3-1 on a Sheffield 3-run dinger in the bottom of the 8th.

MMA China,Chinese fighter won, THE ART OF WAR, China MMA was held in beijing in 2006

Kicker for the Philadelphia Eagles