Patriots QB Matt Cassel rose to the occasion of filling in for Tom Brady and gave fans a better year than just about anyone was expecting.

The Providence Journal / Bob Breidenbach

•Baseball needs a salary cap.

That would seem rather obvious, but the problem around here is that we have benefited from the uneven playing surface. I suspect we would all think very differently if we were living in Kansas City or Cincinnati or Pittsburgh, where the odds of making the playoffs is akin to winning the lottery. I suspect we would all be howling from the rooftops that the situation is so blatantly unfair if we were one of the small-market teams, instead of the one of the fat cats that can get in the game with any of the free agents.

Integrity of the game?

Please.

So spare me all the anguish that the big-bad Yankees swooped in and bought Mark Teixeira at the last second, that it was somehow unfair. Live by the sword, die by it, too.

Or it’s not the Yankees who have to change; it’s the system.

•If tomorrow does turn out to be Matt Cassel’s last game for the Patriots, we owe him one big thank you for giving us a better season than anyone had a right to expect.

•It’s been all over the radio since Halloween. So can we finally stop with the Christmas music now?

•What were the odds a year ago that Chad Pennington would come in to play the Jets tomorrow with the second-best quarterback rating in the NFL?

•Memo to the Yankees: Does this mean the youth movement is on hold for a while?

•Quiz of the Week: What Celtic has starred in a movie, and what’s the name of that movie? (Answer near the bottom of the column.)

•Line of the Week comes from Cassel, from an AP story, on his future: “If anyone knew the future, I probably wouldn’t be here right now because a lot of people predicted that I wouldn’t be here after preseason.”

•If you paid money to watch the Arizona Cardinals phone it in last Sunday, you should file a grievance with the NFL for fraud.

•There’s no truth to the rumor that Plaxico Burress has more guns in his house than some of the police departments in Rhode Island.

•Or that Scott Boras is baseball’s anti-Christ.

•Or that Rhode Island is going to ask Congress for a bailout on the grounds that we are incompetent and can’t get ourselves out of this financial mess.

•Donny Marshall keeps getting better and better as a Celtics analyst.

•Remember when the question was who was better, Pennington or Tom Brady?

•Yes, he’s a great player. But LeBron James should just shut up and play for the Cavaliers and stop talking about where he might end up in 2010.

•The Jim Carrey phenomenon has always managed to slip by me.

•The Yankees have the four highest salaries in the game in A-Rod, Derek Jeter, Teixeira and CC Sabathia.

•Former NBA star Kevin Johnson is the new mayor of Sacramento, in case that slipped by you last month.

•Yes, the Celtics lost to the Lakers, but they were due to lose; it was a bigger game for the Lakers, and it was on the road. Add it all up, and outside of the glamour matchup, the game ultimately means nothing.

•You know the Visigoths are at the cultural gates, Bunky, when the hot thing in Hollywood is to make movies out of comic books.

•Gag me with a spoon if we have to deal with another offseason of Brett Favre’s annual Hamlet imitation.

•You’ve got to love the story in The (Quincy, Mass.) Patriot Ledger that says the Knicks’ Eddie Curry has failed to pay a $47,000 clothing bill to the Casual Male, which is somehow only fitting, since Big Eddie plays kind of casual.

Clemens

•You thought you had a bad year, Bunky? Rest assured, it was better than the one Roger Clemens, Michael Vick and Plaxico Burress had.

•And Bernie Madoff, too.

•Remember about a month ago, when the New York papers were talking about a Giants-Jets Super Bowl?

•One of my New Year’s wishes is that Sharaud Curry gets his mojo back, the one that had him as one of the best young guards in the Big East two years ago.

•Carlton Fisk turned 61 yesterday.

•I would go to a lot of places before I went to a mall the day after Christmas.

•The $400 million or so the Yankees have already spent on free agents would have paid off this state’s deficit, if you’re crunching the numbers at home.

•The worst thing about Teixeira getting by the Red Sox is not that he won’t be in the middle of their lineup next year, but he won’t be in the middle of the lineup for the next eight years.

•There’s no truth to the rumor that Santa is going to ask for a bailout.

•Quiz answer: Ray Allen, and the movie was Spike Lee’s He Got Game, which came out in 1998.

•Kurt Warner looked like he was throwing bowling balls instead of footballs last Sunday.

Cruise

•It hasn’t been the same for Tom Cruise since he jumped up and down on Oprah’s couch.

•ESPN’s reenactment of the 1958 Colts-Giants famous playoff game is well worth it.

•Seven Big East teams are in this week’s AP Top 25.

•Yo, 2008. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

breynold@projo.com