Every sports team in the world has a mascot. But what are they and what is their purpose? From the dictionary definition of mascot, it is either an animal, person or object likened to a talisman to bring good luck to a team. This behavior emulating the near-idolization of sport mascot designs has been going on for centuries and is very apparent within native cultures of indigenous peoples. The people of Papua New Guinea, do a dance, while decorated with colors and feathers representing a local majestic bird of prey as a sign of bravery and for good luck in the hunt.

When I first heard that the Orioles had traded their all-star closer for two minor league (AA) prospects, I was utterly dumbfounded at first. I originally thought they had basically given him up for free.

The retirement and un-retirement of Brett Favre is becoming an annual rite of the NFL preseason, and this year is no different. A few months after retiring from football after playing last season with the New York Jets, The Gunslinger is back in the NFL. This year he'll be slinging balls for the Minnesota Vikings, who'll pay Favre $12 million bucks if he's on the opening day roster.

UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva had lost a lot of his luster coming into Saturday nights UFC 101 matchup with former light heavyweight champ Forrest Griffin. He was undefeated in his previous nine UFC contests, but his last three victories had been far from impressive. Hed beaten overmatched James Irvin last July in his first effort at 205. That was followed by a TKO win against Patrick Cote when Cote blew out his knee mid fight. In his most recent bout, hed pouted and showboated his way to a unanimous decision victory by default against a thoroughly overwhelmed Thales Leites. On that night in Montreal he'd heard an abundance of boos from the fans who at one point started a GSP chant in reference to his most frequent challenger for pound for pound MMA supremacy. Even Dana White criticized his effort and finally conceded that St. Pierre might, indeed, be the best all around fighter in the game.

On a historic night for the sport of mixed martial arts, Brock Lesnar avenged his early loss to Frank Mir with a TKO victory and in the process unified the promotions heavyweight championship at UFC 100. Mir/Lesnar was the main event of a stacked card and the culmination of a frenzied week of activity in Las Vegas.

In one of the stranger front office shakeups in recent NBA history, the Los Angeles Clippers have 'relieved' Mike Dunleavy of his head coaching duties effective immediately. He'll remain on board as the Clippers' general manager, and both he and the team cited the demands of the forthcoming trade deadline and free agent market as a catalyst for the change.

It may be a bit of a stretch to call Satoshi Ishii the Michael Phelps of Japan, but not by much. His victory in the heavyweight judo competition at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing was easily the defining moment of the games for his countrymen and was considered by most media outlets the #1 highlight of the year in all of sports. Though Japan does well at the Olympics for a country of its size and has won gold medals in a number of sports, its important to keep in mind that until the late'70s judo was the country's most popular sport. While its popularity in the intervening decades has been supplanted by imported team sports like soccer and baseball, judo still holds especially high prestige among the Japanese sports fans and general public.

The San Jose, CA based Strikeforce MMA promotion recently announced that they have signed Brazilian middleweight Ronaldo Jacare Souza to a multifight contract. He is expected to make his Strikeforce debut on the same October event as recently signed Fedor Emelianenko, which will be broadcast on the Showtime premium cable network. Though it didnt receive anywhere near the media attention of Emelianenkos rejection of the UFC for Strikeforce, MMA experts know full well that 'Jacare' is a top notch acquisition.

The good news for the Kansas City Chiefs as they prepare for the start of the NFL regular season is that their starting quarterback is back at practice. The bad news is that they still don't know when hell be able to play. Matt Cassel returned to the Chiefs practice field on Monday for the first time since he injured his left knee in a NFL preseason game on August 29th. Still, there's been no confirmation from either he or the team as to when hell return to action. It would be an ironic twist if Cassel lost significant time due to injury, as it was a knee injury to Tom Brady while in New England that first brought him mainstream attention

Reigning lightweight champ BJ Penn entered his main event battle against welterweight kingpin Georges St. Pierre looking to become the first man in UFC history to simultaneously hold titles in two weight classes. GSP never gave him the chance to make history, as he stopped Penn after four increasingly dominant rounds to retain his belt with a TKO victory and make a compelling case for being the pound for pound best fighter in mixed martial arts.