Thanksgiving is always an interesting time. Many associate the holiday with good food and family gatherings. But us sports freaks know better. Thanksgiving is a time when many of us need our fantasy football teams to get a sizeable lead before the weekend games begin, leaving many an angry family member when we dart across the living room in the middle of eating to see if T.O. blessed our squadron with a much needed touchdown.

To all the wives, girlfriends and rarely seen relatives, please accept this as an advanced apology to the ire we will draw come game day...er, I mean Thanksgiving.

But Thanksgiving isn't all about football. As we sit before our delicious birds, let us remember all the turkeys the sports world brought us in 2007. UPDATE! reveals the most embarrassing, flabbergasting and inane sports figures of the year. And, being in the spirit of sharing, UPDATE! made sure that we took one turkey from each of the four major sports (basketball, hockey, baseball and football). Happy Thanksgiving!


Comment: When head coach Marty Schottenheimer was fired from the Chargers, his successor was set to inherit one of the best teams in football. After all, the Chargers owned the reigning MVP, the best tight end in the game and an elite defensive unit. Who can screw that up? Enter, Norv Turner. You know, the guy who came in with a lifetime 57-82 regular season record with just one playoff appearance in his illustrious career. Now we all knew about Schottenheimer's well publicized inefficiencies in the playoffs, but at least Marty had the good sense to run LaDainian Tomlinson heavy to set-up play-action passes. Under Turner, Tomlinson is on pace for career lows in touches and rushing yards, quarterback Philip Rivers is regressing at an alarming rate, San Diego is likely to miss the playoffs and one of the game's elite teams just a season ago is going nowhere fast. Nice job Norv.


Comment: Nobody watches hockey in America. Well, that's a stretch, some do. But Bettman's 'Americanization' of hockey since taking over NHL Commissioner duties has doomed this once proud sport. Ratings are remarkably low in U.S. markets as evidenced by the horrific 1.1 rating for Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Ottawa Senators and Anaheim Mighty Ducks. Now, while that could be written off due to the lack of a big market NHL team in the the finals (like Detroit or New York), one cannot ignore how turned off American fans have been from the game. You'd figure that when a U.S. team like the Nashville Predators has the opportunity to move to Hamilton, Ontario, Bettman would be totally behind it. Afterall, the Canadian faithful have been remarkably supportive of the sport. Nope. Not even when the buyer, Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie, was willing to overpay (yes OVERPAY) for the rights to the franchise. Bettman reportedly interfered in this potential purchase in an effort to keep the team stateside. Huh? News of this action only added to Bettman's negative Canadian reputation to our friends across the boarder. One thing he seems to be against, for sure, is competence.


Comment: 2007 was supposed to be Andruw Jones' season. He was poised to post monster numbers in a walk-year with the Atlanta Braves, even shedding weight prior to the start of the season to help his game. The end result: Jones' worst statistical season since 1997, highlighted by a repulsive .222 batting average. Whether it was a matter of pressing or not, Jones was one of baseball's biggest disappointments. To make matters worse, the free-agent market is saturated with quality centerfielders like Torii Hunter and Aaron Rowand while the likes of Corey Patterson and Mike Cameron are available with a far cheaper price tag. Jones is reportedly looking for a seven-year contract in the free agent market for about $17-20 million per season. That's going to be a hard sell considering last season's numbers, especially with the abundance of centerfielders on the market. To be fair, Jones did snag another Gold Glove this season, but his defense has never been a problem. Of course, he has the ability to bounce back offensively in 2008, but he likely missed out on a huge pay day with his disastrous 2007.


Comment: What do you get when you cross a whiny star player, an incompetent coach/president, a slobbish team owner and a sensational sexual harassment case? Why, it's the New York Knickerbockers, everyone's favorite disgraced franchise! Seriously though, we could get into the embarrassing sexual harassment case filed by Anucha Sanders or Isiah Thomas and Stephon Marbury's public fueding or the 2-7 record the Knicks have so far or the...well, you get the point. It's painful to watch this organization right now. Once one of the proudest franchises in all of sports, the Knicks have been reduced to a bad reality television soap-opera. I would not be surprised if Marbury were removed from the team in the following fashion: Isiah lines up everyone on the Knicks roster in three neat rows. He then proceeds to hand out roses, one by one, to each Knick until he is left with only Marbury and Mardy Collins. After a tear-jerking speech in which he describes he and Stephon's roller-coaster relationship, Isiah opts to give his last rose to Collins as he has never walked out on him in practice. Marbury storms off the set causing a big scene and goes into an expletive laced tirade about 'the real Isiah' before finally exiting. Hey, if this is going to go down in any franchise, it's going to be the Knicks.


Starbonell is UPDATE! Major League Baseball Editor.