Reporting from the Jock-o-sphere

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"In your eyes, the light, the heat."

Kevin Love takes on Tim Duncan and is starstruck.

"It was crazy. It was my first going up against Tim Duncan," he writes. "And to see him work and all his moves and how he's a finisher around the bucket. I've always looked up to his game while I was growing up. He's a serious player. He's the greatest winner in the past 10 years. And as far as best player goes, it's probably him."

"So going up against him, and learning from him—there were teaching points last night. He hit a 15-footer off the glass and I was running up the court and said 'Man, what can I do about that?' Well young fella, you can't do much about that, to be honest with you."

Heading elsewhere:

In the baseball blogosphere, MLB.com is having a good number of prospects take to the laptop and blog about their experiences from the Arizona Fall League. A sampling ….

Justin Fiske, a Cardinals pitching prospect:

"The weather here in Arizona is starting to change a bit," he writes. "I saw rain for the first time today here in Phoenix. The temperature has been dropping rapidly at night as well. Night games get a bit chilly which should be expected in November."

And MLB wants to move the World Series to a warm weather spot. Not even Arizona is safe from rain and cold.

Humberto Sanchez, a Yankees pitching prospect:

"Let me start by saying that even tho i cant vote in the united states yet (I'm a Dominican citizen and US Permanent Resident) i'm really happy to say that i was in this country when the first african american was elected president of this great country," he writes. "Barack Obama had a very strong campaign and i honestly believe that it came down to President Obama being more demographically appealing to our generation. it was great to see the voter turn out in the United States because it shows how much the people care and how much the wanted their voice to be heard."

Quintin Berry, a Phillies prospect:

"I'm learning a lot here, especially from our hitting coach, Ryne Sandberg," he writes. "Having a Hall of Famer in Tony Gwynn as a college hitting coach made great improvements to my game on the outside pitch. This has been a great strength of mine for years. Now I have another Hall of Famer in Ryne who has completely elevated my game on the inside pitch. This has been something that I struggled with for years and Ryne has made my confidence level higher than ever before when it comes to the inside pitch. And that's just after a few weeks. I must say I'm pretty lucky!"

Not a bad set of coaches so far, eh?

Elsewhere …

Paul DePodesta sticks up for the Padres exercising their option on Brian Giles:

"I know there's been a lot of debate here about whether or not the Club should pick up this option," he writes. "In the end, Brian's combination of offense, defense, leadership, and strong desire to remain in San Diego made the decision pretty easy. To a large degree, I think Brian's overall contribution to our team over the past few seasons has been overlooked, or at least discounted."

"As I've written in this space, we're sticking with our plan of developing our own talent, but as more and more players make it to stage three (big leaguers), it is players like Brian who will help us get to stage four (championship players). Even though we're committed to going with our homegrown players moving forward, it can make a significant difference for the team to have a rock or two in the middle of the lineup that can be counted on for quality at-bat after quality at-bat."

The Depo continues to use his blog as a way to explain and defend the team's decisions. Interesting.

Chris Cooley continues his quest to be the COOLEST ATHLETE BLOGGER EVER. He went to Disney World during the Skins' bye week.

"This was my first trip to Disney World and to be honest after going in with low expectations, I was impressed," he writes. "I thought the 'Soarin' through California was one of the coolest rides I've done, I mean you never even move and it feels like your going 100 mph. The Rockin' Roller Coaster was probably my second favorite, the takeoff was the coolest start to any ride that I've ever been on. Actually, other than a couple rides I had a blast, Disney was definitely worth it."

It's true: one can never go wrong with a trip to Disney World.

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