Good morning! Steak and Eggs for breakfast. Phillies were off last night and they begin 10 game home stand tonight at Citizens Bank Park at 7:05pm.

The most encouraging news on the NFL lockout to date, the NFL owners have voted to approve the proposed collective bargaining agreement. The owners voted overwhelmingly to pass it with a 31-0 vote. The Raiders abstained, should we even be surprised that Al Davis was the one who abstained? Players have not seen this bargaining agreement and are expected to vote today. We will see what happens and try not to get too excited until this whole thing is over. More here.

Placido Polanco received injections in his back yesterday. Oswalt had a “great” bullpen session on Tuesday at Wrigley. Bad news for Joe Blanton as his injured elbow has not improved. More here.

Kevin Kolb has had throwing sessions during the lockout at Arizona State University with Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald. Kolb also has been looking at real estate in Arizona. Could this be a sign that a deal to Arizona is on the horizon? More here.

Lawrence Frank is expected to be named the new head coach of the Detroit Pistons. He spent last season as an assistant coach to Doc Rivers in Boston. Previously, Frank was 225-241 in almost seven seasons as head coach of the New Jersey Nets. More here.

Good morning! Steak and Eggs for breakfast. This is just a quick way to catch you up on last night’s big sports stories so you can start your day!

Jimmy Rollins joins Steve Jeltz and Tomas Perez as the only people to hit a homerun from both sides of the plate. Rollins hit one in the 6th then again in the 8th yesterday. Vance Worley went eight strong innings to push his record to 6-1 and lower his ERA to 2.02. More here.

As part of the new collective bargaining agreement, the league might ban two-a-day practices in training camp. Outspoken New York Jets linebacker Bart Scott had a lot to say on the subject including calling it “wimpy.” More here.

The Texas Rangers had their 12 game win streak snapped last night after going up 8-3 they allowed 6 runs in the bottom of the sixth to lose 9-8. More here.

Jeff Carter was officially introduced to the Columbus media yesterday. He believes Columbus can be a playoff team. More here.

The NFL players did not vote on a collective bargaining agreement yesterday but it is anticipated that the owners will vote today in Atlanta. Reports are that Commissioner Goodell has the necessary 75% majority vote from the owners to pass the new CBA. More here.

You may have seen this picture surface on the internet today or floating around twitter, but here it is just in case you haven't yet.  Today the temporary bleachers were set up at Lehigh University.  This is a sight for sore eyes considering the NFL has been locked out since March.  The Eagles organization must feel pretty confident about an agreement rumored to be reached this week.  Hopefully this deal will be reached and these bleachers will be full of fans watching training camp.  More to come...

-Tristan Tschoepe

According to ESPN NFL Insiders Chris Mortensen and Adam Schefter, an end to the lockout could come soon. According to league sources, a deal could be in place for the July 21st league meetings in Atlanta. The league has been locked out since March and both sides appear to be arriving at a right give and take for there to be a new collective bargaining agreement. According to Mortensen and Schefter, the outline of offseason events could look like this:

• July 21- Educate the clubs on the new league rules and allow voluntary training for teams and agents.

• July 25- Sign undrafted rookies, as well as give free agents a chance to re-sign with their teams.

• July 28- League year starts and free agency begins.

• August 2- Rosters must be set at 90 players.

• August 3- Deadline for restricted free agents to sign offer sheets.

• August 7- A four-day match period for teams to match restricted free-agent offer sheets.

• August 12- Deadline for rookies to sign contracts (not yet agreed upon).

• August 16- Signing period for restricted free agents ends, as does the signing period for franchise and transition tenders.

• August 29- Deadline for players to report to earned credit for an accrued season toward free agency.

-Steve Dolan

Source: http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=6756301

The NFL lockout is an issue that stems from the Supreme Court’s decision in American Needle v. the National Football League. The owners and the players could not agree on a collective bargaining agreement by the 11:59pm deadline on March 11, 2011 which therefore announced that the NFL was in a lockout, not a strike. “A lockout is the ‘withholding of employment by an employer from its employees for the purpose of either resisting their demands or gaining a concession from them.’ In other words, a lockout is when an employer refuses to let workers work, and therefore get paid, as a form of leverage” (Feldman). The lockout would not have happened if the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the NFL but, for the players, the lockout is a much better alternative.

            The reason for the lockout is that the owners and players cannot agree upon dividing up the $9 billion in annual revenue the NFL generates. Under the 2006 Collective Bargaining Agreement, the players receive close to sixty percent of the $9 billion and, now, the owners feel like they have conceded too much to the players. In addition to the dividing of revenue amongst the players and owners, the owners want to institute two more games into the regular season schedule without any additional player compensation. The players want more money if the league is going to increase the amount of games on the schedule by 12.5 percent and they feel that the addition of two more games is contradictory to what the league is preaching on player safety.