This and that

• I saw on the ticker last night during the Marshall-Houston game (What? What else was on?) that SI.com was reporting that Ken Griffey Jr. won't be back with the Chicago White Sox. Looked everywhere for the story and finally found it buried in Jon Heyman's Daily Scoop.

That deal, by the way, looks better and better for the Reds, of course. It remains to be seen whether Nick Masset and Danny Richar amount to anything - they're both still young. But the ChiSox really didn't get THAT much out of Junior. He had a couple of nice plays (baserunning, fielding) but he struck out five times in 10 postseason at-bats.

• In other Reds news, MLB.com's Mark Sheldon reports that Todd Frazier continues to rake in the Hawaii Winter Baseball League.

• Bengals.com has a story about Keith Rivers talking for the first time about the hit from Hines Ward. "What goes around comes around," Rivers said, and it wasn't in this story but he apparently also said, "You reap what you sow." His jaw will be wired shut for seven more weeks.

• A few numbers: Jacksonville is an 8-point favorite on the road, according to most lines I've seen. The Jags allow 230.6 passing yards/game, ranking 22nd in the league. They allow 108 rushing yards/game, 17th in the NFL. They score 20.1 points/game, 20th in the league (Bengals are dead last, by the way, with 13 points/game). Jags aren't penalized very much, 22nd most in the league. In other words, they're pretty average. They've actually been decent on the road, with big wins at Indy and at Denver. They're 1-3 at home. David Garrard isn't having quite as good a year as last year (6 TDs, 4 INTs ... last year he had 18 TDs and 3 INTs). Maurice Jones-Drew has been disappointing for the most part - he's had two 100+-yard efforts but he hasn't had more than 32 rushing yards in any of his other five games this season.

Just some numbers. The way I see it, it's the type of team the Bengals could surprise if they play like they did, say, against the Giants. I wouldn't be stunned if it's Cincinnati's first win, but I wouldn't pick it straight up if I were betting with your money. It's an 0-8 team that pretty much looks worse every week against a team that hopes to be in the hunt for a wild-card berth in the AFC.

• The Enquirer's Dustin Dow takes a look at Xavier's potential starting lineup with the same asterisk that it could change if Jordan Crawford is deemed eligible. Dow says local product Terrell Holloway (Harmony Community School) is expected to start at point guard.

• Non-local link of the day: This Isiah Thomas thing isn't going to go away anytime soon, and Thomas is taking it on the chin yet again.