r.The NFL first notified Matthews, Peppers, Harrison and Neal about its investigation into the report on Jan. 11.Al-Jazeera America reported allegations by Charlie Sly, who worked as an intern a

Baseballs history lends itself to great debates. We ask three of our baseball experts three tough questions: Who would you rather have, an all-time ace or an all-time center fielder? Which ace would you take to win one game? Which center fielder would you love to have as captain of your outfield for a decade??Doug Glanville, Tim Kurkjian and Jayson Stark take a swing at these questions.1. Would you rather have an all-time ace or an all-time center fielder?Doug Glanville, ESPN baseball analyst:?I would take the center fielder. It boils down to how we split hairs for MVP. Once in a while a pitcher wins one, but the weight leans heavily for the guy that is out there every single day. I am also considering his glove work where every play in the outfield is his responsibility. Hes the center of the action. I played some center field in my heyday and it was always nice when pitchers would tell you how valuable your defense was to the team. So, imagine when you had their back defensively and hit a little. Its a very important position.Tim Kurkjian,?ESPN.com senior writer:?I would take a star center fielder over an ace pitcher mainly because the center fielder plays every inning of every game, the ace only pitches every fifth day, or 100 years ago, every third day. The ace can dominate a game, a great center fielder can will multiple games in a week with his offense and his defense.Jayson Stark, ESPN.com senior writer:?Give me the center fielder. Absolutely. Now maybe, if it were Game 7 of the World Series, Id take the ace. But over the long haul? This is easy. Look at that list of center fielders. Five of our top 15 players of all time were center fielders. And every one of them -- Mays, Mantle, Cobb, Griffey and DiMaggio -- was a franchise changer. So is Mike Trout. So was Tris Speaker. These are 10-win players in a regular old season, more in a special season. Mays had eight seasons with a 9.0 WAR or better. Only one man in history had more: Babe Ruth. Sign me up for that!2. If you had to pick one ace to win one game, who would it be?Glanville: Give me Sandy Koufax. You could send the bullpen home. Carry one pitcher (Koufax) on your roster and load up on position players. He won the MVP twice in World Series play. He pitched through arthritis and still finished his career with three out of four seasons with more than 300 innings. I am not even sure which Koufax I would sic on my opponent. The Cy Young/MVP of 1963 with 40 starts and 11 shutouts and a 5.28 K/BB ratio? Or the 1965 27-complete game surgeon who blew away 382 hitters on 5.8 hits per 9 innings? No wait, the aging 30-year-old 1.73 ERA in 1966 who racked up another 27 complete games in 41 starts. (Hmmm, maybe not him -- he was only second in MVP voting.) And if you are asking. He had a 0.38 ERA in 24.1 innings of the 1965 World Series. He did it when it counted, too.Kurkjian: If I had to take one ace, Id take Pedro Martinez. In his prime, even if it was only for five years, a case could be made that he had the greatest fastball in the game, the greatest curveball and the greatest change-up. I cant remember any other pitcher in the games history that could make a claim to have the games three best pitches at any given time. The greatest game Ive ever seen pitched was Pedro against the Yankees in 1999, a one-hitter with 17 strikeouts at Yankee Stadium -- the most times the Yankees had ever struck out in a nine-inning game. Pedro was so dominating that Yankee fans were cheering him on.Stark:?Bob Gibson. How much fun would it be to point that dude toward the mound in a must-win game? How good would you feel about checking out the look on Gibsons face and thinking the other team would be terrified just by the sight of him? Did you know hes the only pitcher in history with six postseason starts with a game score of at least 80 (and nobody else has more than four)? Did you know thats as many postseason starts that good as John Smoltz, Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine combined? Did you know Gibson went 7-2, with a 1.89 ERA, in nine postseason starts and averaged nine innings a start? Did you know his 17-punchout game against the Tigers in the 1968 World Series is still the biggest strikeout game in postseason history, nearly 50 years later? Bob Gibson is/was the man. Top that one!3. If you had to pick on center fielder to anchor your D for a decade, who would it be?Glanville: I have to go with Willie Mays. The guy was a eight-tool player. Like Trout he had invisibility and teleportation. But Mays also had dazzleation. His offensive numbers put him in the top of the top all-time. The number of All-Star appearances made him one of the brightest in the constellation. If he melted all of his Gold Glove awards, he could start a new country with his face on the currency. His numbers are amazing: .302 lifetime average, 660 HRs, 338 SBs, 3,283 hits, .941 OPS. And he took a year off for military service in 1953. Forget anchoring my D for a decade, I would have taken two decades of Mays.Kurkjian: Willie Mays would be my defensive center fielder over a 10-year period, in an extremely close call over Andruw Jones. Mays speed and range were tremendous, his arm was well above average and he played the game defensively with grace and flair. That basket catch fascinated me as a kid. Ive always wondered why no one else ever tried it. Maybe because only the best of the best could do that.Stark:?Paul Blair. Id love to say Willie Mays, just because, well, hes Willie Mays. Im tempted to say Andruw Jones, just because, in his heyday, he was the best I ever saw with my own eyeballs. But people who watched Paul Blair play for those stupendous teams in Baltimore in the 1960s and 70s will tell you he was the greatest defender they ever saw roam center field. He played the shallowest. He anticipated the best. He went back on the ball better than anyone. He made big plays and huge catches for teams that won between 90 and 109 games pretty much every year for more than a decade.I dont have the metrics to prove it, because the fielding data from that age just isnt precise enough. I only know he won eight Gold Gloves, he led all AL outfielders in defensive win shares seven times and baseball-reference.com tells us he ranks second among all outfielders in history (behind Jones) in defensive wins above replacement. So maybe Mays was better. Maybe Jones was better. Maybe Kevin Kiermaier is better for all I know. But if Im running Paul Blair out there for the next decade, I know balls are going to get caught. And you know what else I know? My team is going to win. Mike Gartner Jersey . Soukalova missed only one target and completed the 15-kilometre course in 40 minutes, 32.6 seconds for both victories in this seasons individual discipline. Darya Domracheva of Belarus was second, 34. Adidas Nicklas Backstrom Jersey . R.J. Umberger scored twice to lead the Blue Jackets to a franchise-record for consecutive wins with a 5-3 victory Tuesday night over the Los Angeles Kings. http://www.cheapwashingtoncapitalsjerseys.com/ . Barcelonas entertaining victory ensured the defending Spanish champions retained their share of the league lead with Atletico Madrid two rounds ahead of their meeting in the capital. Real Madrid needed a late goal by substitute Jese Rodriguez to earn a 3-2 victory at Valencia to stay in third place and three points behind its title rivals. Tom Wilson Jersey . -- Los Angeles Lakers guard Jordan Farmar will be out for roughly four weeks after tearing his left hamstring. T.J. Oshie Jersey . -- Edmontons Val Sweeting is two wins away from a trip to Winnipeg to play in Canadas Road of the Rings in December. Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison said in an affidavit sent to the NFL that he never met nor communicated with the source of a media report that linked him and other players to the use of performance-enhancing drugs.Harrison has insisted that league officials have to provide credible evidence before he agrees to an interview. The NFL Players Association sent a letter on Harrisons behalf along with the signed affidavit to NFL executive Adolpho Birch on Monday.Neither the CBA nor the Policy state that a player must agree to an in-person interview based upon random, baseless verbal remarks or face discipline for a failure to cooperate with a league investigation, union attorney Heather M. McPhee wrote.In the absence of the existence of any documented, credible evidence, this affidavit constitutes reasonable cooperation by (Harrison).The other active players implicated by the Al-Jazeera report are Green Bay linebackers Clay Matthews and Julius Peppers, and free-agent liinebacker Mike Neal, who played the past six seasons with the Packers.dddddddddddd Peyton Manning, who is now retired, also was cited in Al-Jazeeras doping report in December.The NFL first notified Matthews, Peppers, Harrison and Neal about its investigation into the report on Jan. 11.Al-Jazeera America reported allegations by Charlie Sly, who worked as an intern at an anti-aging clinic. But Sly later recanted his claims.I have met thousands of people during my career, but to the best of my knowledge and recollection, I have never met the individual who is apparently named Charles Sly, Harrison said in the affidavit.The 38-year-old Harrison, who was The Associated Press Defensive Player of the Year in 2008, also said: I have never violated the NFL Policy Performance Enhancing Substances.---AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and www.twitter.com/AP-NFL Wholesale NFL Womens Jerseys China Womens NFL Jerseys Nike NFL Jerseys China Cheap NFL Jerseys Outlet Cheap NFL Jerseys Wholesale Wholesale NFL White Jerseys Discount Jerseys ' ' '