03.31.06
Posted in Baseball, Free Expression
at 7:08 pm
I could mention that Mike Lupica has a fiction career, too, but there’s enough suffering in this world already. The Columnists.com’s Stan Issacs has had enough of Don DeLillo’s great baseball jones (street). (thanks to Repoz for the link).
On the occasion of the recent opening of the new movie “Game 6” written by the acclaimed and defamed novelist, Don DeLillo, let me refer to a passage from the first chapter of DeLillo’s 1997 novel, “Underworld”. It revolves around the game that has come to be known as “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World,” Bobby Thomson’s home run in the 1951 Giants-Dodgers playoff classic.
FBI boss John Edgar Hoover was at the game, so DeLillo’s overly ripe imagination has Frank Sinatra, Jackie Gleason and the boorish restauranteur Toots Shor sitting with him in the Polo Grounds.
Immediately after Thomson hits the climactic home run, DeLillo pens this description:
“Jackie [Gleason] utters an aquatic bark, it is loud and crude, the hoarse call of some mammal in distress. Then the surge of flannel matter. He seems to be vomiting someone’s taupe pajamas. The waste is liquidy smooth in the lingo of adland and it is splashing freely on Frank’s stout oxford shoes and fine lisle hose and on the soft woven wool of his town-and-country trousers.”
As if that isn’t enough, he goes on later: “Frank persists in looking down. He allows one foot to list to port so he can examine the side of his shoe for vomit marks.” And, “Says Gleason, ‘Don’t’ think you’re the first friend I ever puked on. I puked on better men than you. Consider yourself honored.’ ”
If it is possible to desecrate the memory of a great baseball game, DeLillo has done it. As one who was at that game, who treasures the sight of Thomson hitting that home run as one of the dearest moments in an adult lifetime of covering sports, I am appalled by the juxtaposition of the celebrities fouling the pages and my memory. I say DeLillo is a blackguard, a wretch, a disgrace, a good-for-nothing miscreant and more than anything else, a fraud.
I’ll note that one critic has called DeLillo “The great American novelist.” And that another has described him as, “America’s greatest unread author.”
I don’t care what the critics think of him. I just wish he’d attend to his artistry without having to rely on the built-in interest of great baseball games to whet people’s interest.
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Posted in The Law
at 5:25 pm
When the going gets tough, defense attorneys get desperate. There’s the time-honored “she asked for it” defense. Robert Chambers’ innovative “rough sex” defense. Mike Tyson’s baffling “she should’ve known what would happen” defense.
But with all discredit to the gentlemen above, the following item from the New York Post’s Laura Italiano might be a new all-time low. The first ever “she wasn’t hot enough to rape” defense.
My client made $500,000 a year,” the defense lawyer, Howard Greenberg, said after a Manhattan Supreme Court appearance for James Colliton, who is being held without bail. Colliton was a tax attorney for Cravath, Swaine and Moore, a top Midtown law firm.
“He had the wherewithal to pay for any piece of tuchus on the planet,” Greenberg continued. “And he paid that skank?”
While we can all acknowledge that everyone is entitled to a fair trial and their choice of representation, I hope that Greenberg’s friends and family are all thrilled to be associated with a man who refers to an alleged (child) rape victim as a “piece of tuchus” or “that skank”.
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Posted in Baseball
at 5:13 pm
Today’s ugly line for the Mets’ Victor Zambrano against St. Louis ; 2 and 2/3rds innings, 6 earned runs, 8 hits, a pair of HR’s allowed to Albert Pujols) and an to-be-confirmed hamstring strain in the Cards’ 8-6 win. Zambrano was scheduled to start New York’s 2nd game of the season, Wednesday night against Washington.
Pujols had 3 HR’s on the day, connecting off Pedro Martinez in the 3rd with one on.
RF Victor Diaz was hitless on the afternoon for New York, and is widely rumored to be starting the season at Norfolk.
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Posted in Basketball
at 12:56 pm
If the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament galvanizes attention for 3 weeks with a 65 team field, imagine how awesome it would be if every Division I program was invited?
Thought that’s not exactly what Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim is suggesting, let’s hear him out just the same. From the Rocky Mountain News’ Gary Holtz.
“I think this year more than ever has proven there are teams that might not get in or just barely get in that can win games,” Boeheim (above) said at a media event held by the National Association of Basketball Coaches.
“In the past, years ago, I think there were always teams that maybe wanted to get in, but you really knew they couldn’t win any games in the tournament if they got in. In college basketball today . . . the quality of teams has tremendously increased and the number of teams has increased. If it wasn’t a logistical problem, I think we would have expanded the tournament a long time ago. I think we need to get by that somehow.”
Boeheim said he was in favor of an expansion of “more than one or two, but I’m not looking at 20, either. Whatever seems to fit.”
No mention from Boeheim or the author how the regular season and/or conference tournaments might be devalued a tad if the field were expanded, but Boeheim might be on to something. Making 60% of all the teams playoff eligible has worked wonders for the MLS — fast on track to becoming North America’s 8th or 9th favorite professional sports league, so perhaps the amateurs can give it a try, too.
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Posted in Basketball
at 12:42 pm
If you guessed that the New York Post’s Peter Vescey would’ve made a constructive suggestion on how to repair the sunken Knicks franchise prior to the current squad winning their 20th game of the season, congratulations.
The first order of business is for James Dolan to hire a confirmed planner, a person experienced at erecting franchises pre-foundation and/or rebuilding them by creating something out of perishables or nothing tangible to the unskilled eye.
Not only must this significant someone be given complete power to inflict his will and know-how on the Knicks’ extreme make-over, but the entire Garden as well.
This would abruptly end the dream portion of Cablevision’s programming.
Dolan’s superior choices are five in number – Jerry Colangelo, Jerry West, Donnie Walsh, Geoff Petrie and ex-Knick Kiki Vandeweghe (above) whose father, Ernie, played for the above-mentioned ‘51 outfit. Kiki, of course, transformed the Nuggets from layoffs to payoffs in less than two seasons and is a rising free agent.
The other four have repeated success stories to their credit. Despite a year (both Jerrys, for sure) or two on their contracts I cannot envision their respective bosses impeding any such switch. Who knows, Suns owner Robert Sarver may even encourage Colangelo to follow his son’s footsteps out of Phoenix.
If selling Cablevision, the Garden and its two prime tenants, the Knicks and Rangers is out of the question, and Dolan doesn’t find any of those names appealing, I guess there’s always Pete or Rob Babcock.
(My guess is the players are praying Brown will tell his “win the right way” story walking. His reputation as a great teacher and motivator has fallen to the point where he will have to climb a ladder to reach bottom.)
With all due respect to Poison Pete, it should be acknowledged that not every portion of MSG’s empire is fucked. Last night’s loss to Ottawa aside, Manhattan’s hockey team are about to complete a strong campaign, and for the first time in what seems like centuries, have some sort of foundation in place for subsequent seasons, too.
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Posted in Football
at 12:10 pm
I’ve implied that Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan is soccer’s answer to Mark Cuban on more than one occasion. Aside from the fact that Cuban’s team might actually win something of note, I no longer think the comparison does Jordan justice. As a quote machine, he’s killing Cuban. From the Daily Mail’s Neil Aston.
“What do I think of (Birmingham City chairmen) David Sullivan and David Gold?” asked Jordan (above). “Well, what do you expect me to think of two people who sell dildos for a living? I see other clubs’ chairman as the enemy. I want to go in there and beat them up. Some of them like David Sullivan.
They are disingenuous, duplicitous and I don’t appreciate the ethics with which they do their business. I don’t appreciate the personal comments they have made to me and I don’t like the the way they do business. As for (former Palace manager) Steve Bruce, no problem. ”
It was reported that Jordan, who has pumped more than 30 million of his personal fortune into Palace, apologised to Arsenal’s David Dein after claiming that football was “a bullshit world full of bullshit people.”
“Like I would apologise to David Dein,” he scoffed. “David Dein is the kind of person who will do favours that you just don’t want. Everytime I see David Dein at a social event he has a player for me who has probably got one lege and he will do me a favour by letting me have him for twice the price. He thinks he is smooth.”
Birmingham’s Sullivan reponded to the Mail’s Neil Moxley :
“I’m flabbergasted at what Simon has said, although I’m very impressed by his vocabulary. I’ve got an economics degree and I didn’t understand two of the words he used.”
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Posted in Basketball, Fashion
at 2:24 am
Finally, an act of fashion fascism that everyone can get behind. From ESPN’s Darren Rovell and Marc Stein:
League and team sources have told ESPN.com that the NBA, starting next season, intends to ban the tights sported at various points this season by several players, including three MVP candidates: Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade.
Although NBA officials are not publicly commenting on the issue, sources say that the league simply does not like the look of players wearing visible hose. It’s believed that the league office, which already has regulations in place to curtail short lengths, can unilaterally outlaw tights by simply amending its uniform code before the 2006-07 season.
Sources say that the NBA informed its 30 teams at last month’s competition committee meeting in Houston that tights would be banned immediately after All-Star Weekend. But the league wound up holding off on that ban, perhaps to avoid a new controversy after the initial furor sparked by the off-court dress code faded quickly and quietly.
Players who wish to wear tights are required to send the league a written request from a team doctor detailing a “medical need” for the leggings. That’s because the league, according to sources, believes that some players are merely wearing them because they like the look.
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Posted in Baseball
at 2:12 am
Not willing to settle for anything as mundane as preseason predictions of Divisional Champs, MVP, Rookie Of The Year, etc., Newsday’s Ken Davidoff looks into the future and tries to determine when the following milestones, amongst others, will take place.
The first woman general manager: This will mark the ultimate intrusion of the “old boys’ club” that sports’ executive suites have nearly always been. Kim Ng (above, right), assistant general manager of the Dodgers since 2002 (she worked the same job with the Yankees from 1998 through 2001), is the favorite to get the chance, but if young men can shoot up the ladder as quickly as Theo Epstein and Queens native Jon Daniels did – both were hired at age 28 – then why can’t a young woman do the same? ETA: 2007
The first use of instant replay: Man, this sure is taking a long time, isn’t it? Selig opposes it – hence the delay – but one more brutal postseason of umpiring ought to put the issue high enough on the agenda. ETA: 2008
The first player with 500 or more home runs to not make the Hall of Fame: Mark McGwire’s day of reckoning comes soonest, as he’ll be on his first ballot this coming winter. He has virtually no shot of getting to Cooperstown next July, but he’ll probably be on at least 5 percent of the ballots, in perpetuity, and such a player stays on the ballot for 15 years.
I’m going to trust in the good work of our world’s journalistic community and count on new information coming out about McGwire’s sins. And I’m going to trust, once more, in the moral fiber of the Baseball Writers Association of America. McGwire will need 75 percent support to get in. I say he never makes it. ETA: 2021
The first Mets no-hitter. Kudos to Newsday colleague Mike Casey for this suggestion. They’ve employed Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, Jerry Koosman, Dwight Gooden, David Cone, Frank Viola, Pedro Martinez and Tom Glavine … and not once, in 44 seasons, can anyone throw nine innings without giving up a hit? ETA: 2462
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Posted in Baseball, Sports Journalism, Sports TV
at 12:56 am
Along with an item in today’s New York Times by Murray Chass pointing out the possible conflicts of interests facing former Sen. George Mitchell in his investigation of the Sultan of Surly (ie. he’s on the Red Sox board of directors and is a major Walt Disney Co. sharehoder), Richard Sandomir sheds light on unease at ESPN over the network’s mooted Barry Bonds reality show.
The emotional, sometimes angry debate within ESPN centers in part on whether it has put itself in an untenable journalistic position by aggressively reporting on Bonds’s pursuit of Hank Aaron’s career home run record while simultaneously carrying, at least through midseason, a series that provides Bonds editorial control of its content.
Other serious concerns are whether ESPN is paying for access to Bonds, who is difficult to cover, and giving him hours of time to rehabilitate his image.
“This has conflicts that need to be resolved,” said Jeff Brantley, an ESPN analyst who played with Bonds on the Giants in 1993. “Take this one: Pedro Gomez is covering Bonds on a daily basis, and if he asks tough questions, will Barry be allowed to go back at Pedro on his show?”
Vince Doria, ESPN’s news director, who admitted to having early reservations about carrying the series, said yesterday that Bonds would be “ill-served” if he uses the series to “belittle some of our people.”
Gomez, who was among those who objected most pointedly during the meeting, declined to discuss what he said. Others who cover baseball for ESPN were also said to be among the harshest critics of the series.
Doria said the reactions among the ESPN reporters, analysts, anchors and production workers included those who “felt it was a deal that we shouldn’t have made, some felt it was fine, some felt in between.”
Brantley said he was satisfied with the responses of ESPN management, but is still concerned how the series will look and if it will make the network seem, as he put it, “stupid.” He wondered if the series would stay on the air if it was substandard.
An interesting question. How long has “Cold Pizza” been on, anyway?
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03.30.06
Posted in Basketball, The Law
at 8:02 pm
…might not be his left knee. (from New Times, link swiped from True Hoop).
(Carnie Wilson is in no way implicated nor connected to the story above, but it’s amazing whose photo pops up when you type “Carrie Wilson” into a search engine).
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Posted in Baseball, History's Great Hook-Ups
at 7:45 pm
It’s being reported, well, all over the place, that Orioles P Kris Benson and his (cough) outspoken model-slash-activist wife Anna have filed for divorce.
Though I first suspected Jon Solomon’s Kris Benson voodoo doll might have someting to do with this, one of CSTB’s inside sources in Charm City reports there’s someone else in the Baltimore organization who might’ve come between the couple. I’m sworn to secrecy on this and can only reveal that the gentleman in question brings a long history of pitching success to the Orioles and is sporting a rather new tattoo.
If you’re skeptical, hey, so was I. I really didn’t think Leo was Kris’ type.
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Posted in Free Expression, The World Of Entertainment
at 4:06 pm
From the Islamic Republic News Agency :
Posters negatively portraying a Muslim as a criminal have been banned from being displayed at Tube stations on London’s underground railway network.
London Underground (LU) said that the adverts for a new television series using the phrase “America’s latest hero is a Muslim straight out of jail’ could not be used because it was sensationalist and will offend people.
“Following consultation with Viacom, which manages advertising on the Tube, it was decided to ask for the words `is a Muslim’ to be removed,” an LU spokeswoman was quoted saying by London’s Evening Standard newspaper Thursday.
The spokeswoman said that the text was “clearly intended to be sensationalist and could give offense.” She added that the decision was taken “in line with our standard policies which seek to avoid gratuitously insulting large groups of Londoners.”
The posters were intended to promote the hit US drama series `Sleeper Cell’ about an undercover FBI agent, who infiltrates a terrorist network by posing as a spy.
The digital channel FX, which is showing the programs, said that the advert would still appear in newspaper. It said that the American drama was the first to feature a Muslim as the lead heroic character.
Without denying anyone’s right to be offended by an inoffensive poster, I would like to say the following about “Sleeper Cell” ;
1) Until the final episode, where they appear to use an American Legion field in place of Dodger Stadium, the series was entertaining and provocative in ways we usually associate with a pay-channel that has 3 initials. Yes, it was every bit as good as “Arli$$”.
2) Blake Shields deserves some sort of award for “credible performance in a production that couldn’t afford Philip Seymour Hoffman”.
3) UK readers who are curious about this drama might be interested to know that much-maligned DJ Tim Westwood is surprisingly sharp in the role of Farik. Unless that isn’t Tim Westwood (in which case, he still sucks).
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Posted in Baseball
at 3:24 pm
In addition to mocking the departed Tony Graffanino, the Providence Journal’s Sean McAdam takes issue with Trot Nixon’s recent complaints concerning how frequently divisional rivals face each other.
The commisioner’s crime? He installed the dastardly unbalanced schedule in 2000.
“This,” said Nixon, “is a prime example of why Bud Selig needs to take a look at teams playing each other 19 times.”
Sorry, but Julian Tavarez is fully capable of behaving foolishly against a team he hardly knows. In fact, he did so Monday.
The last time Tavarez pitched in the American League, the Devil Rays didn’t even exist. So there was no long-held animosity, no past incidents that contributed to his eruption Monday. Tavarez simply lost his cool — as he’s done frequently in his career — and, unprovoked, slugged Joey Gathright in the jaw.
Nixon is smart enough to know that the unbalanced schedule — in which Red Sox fans are treated to three visits to Fenway by the Yankees, rather than two by the Detroit Tigers — has been a boon for baseball.
The more times the Yankees play the Red Sox, or the Cardinals play the Cubs, or the Dodgers play the Giants, the better it is for the game and for the fans.
If hot-headed relievers can’t maintain their composure — in a spring training game, no less — that won’t change by going back to a balanced schedule. It’s too bad that Nixon felt the need to rationalize Tavarez’s irrational behavior.
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Posted in non-sporting journalism
at 3:05 pm
On the heels of appearing alongside swim instructor Michael Barrymore and rebounding reprobate Dennis Rodman on Ch.4’s “Celebrity Big Brother”, Iraq war opponent and MP George Galloway found himself the focus of unwanted media attention. From the Guardian’s Duncan Campbell.
Galloway (above) had been invited out to a late night meal by two men apparently keen to help his party, Respect. The pair, introduced as Pervaiz Khan and Sam Fernando, described themselves as “Islamists” which, given that neither had a beard, also seemed peculiar.
Soon the conversation turned, according to Mr Galloway, to the issue of just how they could help – along the lines of “can we sponsor members of parliament? … fund political parties?” What could they mean? “I told them absolutely not, it’s completely illegal,” said Mr Galloway yesterday.
Then the men starting making remarks about Jewish people, said the MP, “and invited me to agree with them. For example, when I said the Daily Express was the worst pro-war, anti-Muslim paper in the land, they asked ‘because it’s owned by a Jew?’. ‘No,’ I said, ‘because it’s owned by a pro-war pornographer’.”
Then came talk about the Holocaust, with Mr Fernando saying, according to Mr Galloway,”you’re not allowed even to quibble about the numbers, not even to say it might have been five million”.
At midnight Mr Galloway made to leave but, before he departed, Mr Khan said that his driver wanted a picture taken with him as he had seen him on TV. “His driver was built like a bodyguard, had a mouthful of gold teeth and, when I asked where he was from he answered, enigmatically: ‘Up north’.”
At which stage, Sven-Goran Eriksson, Princess Michael of Kent, the Countess of Wessex and countless others might ruefully have been able to warn Mr Galloway that he was in the crosshairs of “the fake sheikh”, aka News of the World reporter, Mazher Mahmood, who frequently pretends to be a wealthy Arab and who keeps his identity hidden behind a silhouette picture byline when his scoops appear.
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Posted in Basketball
at 2:47 pm
The owner is named Leslie, yet he’s never been a woman. Neither has the current GM, Carroll. So with that in mind, is it really such a big surprise the Rockets’ next GM is named Daryl, yet he’s never played the game? From the Houston Chronicle’s Jonathan Feigen.
In an astounding change of direction and style that stunned the Rockets and the NBA, owner Leslie Alexander has chosen Boston Celtics statistical analyst Daryl Morey (above) to be his next general manager. Morey will succeed Carroll Dawson after the 2006-07 season.
Morey, the Celtics’ senior vice president of operations and information, has worked under Boston owner Wyc Grousbeck for the past three seasons but has never been a player, coach, scout or general manager.
Morey, 32, will become the Rockets’ assistant general manager under Dawson next month before assuming the GM position after next season.
Morey’s position with the Celtics is his first in sports. He teaches a course at MIT, where he received his masters in business administration in “Analytical Sports Management.”
With the Celtics, he is not listed with the basketball operations department led by executive director of basketball operations Danny Ainge and general manager Chris Wallace. Morey “focuses on arena operations, risk management, basketball analytics, and ticket sales strategy, pricing and technology infrastructure.”.
Joe Morgan was unavailable for comment.
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Posted in Baseball, Sports TV
at 2:23 pm
“Emerging technologies”, is of course, a euphamism for being able to watch Angels games on an as-yet-uninvented octagon Taco Bell tortilla-wich, as hawked by that intensely annoying Dave Foley lookalike.
From the LA Times’ Bill Shaikin.
The Angels pulled the plug on Fox Sports Net on Wednesday, putting their fans in jeopardy of losing television coverage of opening day and virtually every road game this season.
Six weeks after Arte Moreno (above) called a 10-year, $500-million contract extension with FSN “a done deal,” the Angel owner terminated negotiations with the cable company. Instead of the proposed 150-game television package, the Angel coverage reverted to the 50 games required under the existing FSN West contract.
That schedule leaves the Angels with no television coverage for 39 of their 51 games before Memorial Day, including Monday’s opener. Club executives scrambled Wednesday to discuss patchwork deals with local stations, including Channels 13 and 56.
The deal is dormant, though, after Moreno decided negotiations had reached an impasse. Although both sides agreed long ago on the basic terms — 10 years and $500 million — sources said the parties could not resolve issues surrounding emerging technologies.
After Channel 9 dropped the Angels for the Dodgers, leaving the Angels with nothing beyond the 50 games guaranteed on FSN West this season, the club asked FSN to broadcast additional games. However, with the current contract expiring in 2009 and Moreno exploring the possibility of launching his own cable channel thereafter, FSN refused to air additional games unless the Angels agreed to the long-term extension that would kill such a channel.
Among the highlights of today’s Cardinals/Mets exhibition on SNY ; Braden Looper getting shelled, Xavier Nady busting out, and Gary Cohen shamelessly plugging Choco’s Pizza of Port St. Lucie, while praying desperately for a free delivery. “It’s been a long spring, folks,” pleaded Keith Hernandez. Note that SNY’s dynamic duo have been honing their unique chemistry for all of two whole weeks.
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Posted in Leave No Child Unbeaten, The Internet
at 1:42 pm
Under the catchy headline “Boy Bullied On Hate Website”, the following comes from the Mirror’s Richard Smith.
A heartbroken schoolboy told last night of the misery he endured as cruel yobs taunted and insulted him on a vile website.
The website was set up by two pupils who had been picking on the 12-year-old for almost a year.
They put pictures of him in school uniform on it along with a series of bizarre claims and hurtful jibes – including the repeated accusation that he was gay. The website also included a section where visitors could post their own foul-mouthed insults about the lad.
One callous visitor even wrote: “A cool hate website.”
One bully used the site to offer a £5 prize to anyone who stole the boy’s school diary.
The site included one entire section that gave lists of the victim’s bogus likes and dislikes.
The likes included: “Gays, boys’ legs, gingers, people who he fancies.”
The dislikes were listed as: “Everyone who’s not gay, the peeps who made this site, anyone who’s not in the YMCA.”
Another bizarre area was dedicated to the bleach that the lad was falsely said to use to colour his hair.
One bully wrote: “He uses his own brand. It’s called Gays R U. It’s on da market now in all good gay stores!”
The spiteful rant went on to list a series of likely side-effects from using the bleach, including: “Gayness, drowsy fatness, freckles, face deformities, squeeky voice, etc.”
It does seem tragic that in an age when the internet can be harnessed for so much good, callous individuals insist on using it to foster intolerance.
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Posted in Basketball
at 9:22 am
The Indianapolis Star’s Bob Kravitz wanted to “be roused out of my cynical stupor” at yesterday’s press conference introducing Kelvin Sampson as the new Indiana head coach, but no dice.
I honestly, truly, desperately wanted to come to this news conference — which inauspiciously started 20 minutes late — and be convinced that all my initial impressions of this puzzling and unexpected hire were wrong.
Can I be honest here?
I was underwhelmed. This wasn’t a pep rally to incite and unite the Hoosier Nation. This was a confessional. IU’s administration spent more time in a defensive posture than any of Mike Davis’ recent teams.
Even the smattering of students who showed up at Assembly Hall — hey, shouldn’t you clowns be in class? — had to be roused to action by athletic director Rick Greenspan, who awkwardly implored the crowd to “give (Sampson) a big cheer.”
For a week, Greenspan’s office had been contacting former IU players, Isiah Thomas included, asking if they’d come to Bloomington and show support for a new coach. Well, roughly 10 former players showed up, the most notable being Brian Evans and Greg Graham. There was no Thomas, no Kent Benson, none of the luminaries from the Hoosiers’ glory days.
Perhaps the most notable absence, though, was Robert Vaden, who continues to insist he will leave IU and follow Mike Davis wherever he goes. The rest of the team was there — a bored D.J. White looked like he’d rather be in geology class — but Vaden made the loudest statement by saying nothing.
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Posted in Baseball
at 7:52 am
Comparing Curt Schilling’s recovery / re-education as a pitcher to the challenges faced by Pedro Martinez circa 2002, Tony Massarotti examines the Boston starter’s mindset in today’s Boston Herald.
Curt Schilling made his final spring training start yesterday, an abbreviated four-inning stint in which he threw 67 pitches in the Red Sox’ 3-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates at City of Palms Park. Schilling’s fastball touched 94 mph, but it was routinely between 90-91.
“The hitters will let me know. You’d hate to make the adjustment before you have to,” Schilling said when asked if he may have to pitch differently at this stage of his career.
He later added: “I don’t have to throw 96 on the corners to get people out because I know where (a hitter’s) holes are, and I know where to go to get to those holes.”
Spring training means nothing, but it’s probably wise to temper expectations just the same. Schilling turned 39 in November. He is roughly 16 months removed from major ankle surgery. He’s coming off the worst season of his major league career, though anyone who remembers October 2004 knows the right-hander has a get-out-of-jail-free card that lasts as long as he does.
Does that mean he can’t win in 2006? Heavens no. Like Martinez, Schilling is smart, stubborn and a fierce combatant.
And like Martinez, it may take him some time to figure it all out.
Two years ago when he went 21-6, Schilling’s fastball routinely touched 93-94 mph and peaked at 96, occasionally 97. If that velocity returns, great. If it doesn’t, Schilling needs to find ways to keep hitters off-balance the way Martinez did, particularly because his fastball is so straight that you could hang laundry on it.
Admitted Schilling: “Location and velocity are of paramount importance to me at times.”
The truth is that some of the velocity may be gone. And that absence may be the difference between a strikeout and a foul ball, perhaps explaining why Schilling’s pitch counts escalated like gas prices during much of last season. He had trouble putting hitters away. And for a strikeout pitcher especially, that can be a harsh, harsh reality.
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Posted in Baseball, Cinema
at 6:26 am
From the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Todd Zolecki.
Baseball treasures its traditions, which is why the national pastime is so special to so many people.
Hot dogs, peanuts, Cracker Jack.
The traditional blood sport of cockfighting has not made its way into baseball’s fabric, and it probably never will considering that it is illegal in 48 states and the District of Columbia. So imagine the surprise of two Phillies season-ticket holders when they recently played a Phillies highlights DVD only to find a Spanish-language cockfighting video.
The Phillies had sent about 4,000 DVDs to season-ticket holders who had not renewed their season tickets, and as far as they know, only two have featured the sport where specially bred gamecocks are placed in an enclosure to fight to a bloody death.
The DVD manufacturer, ProAction Video, took responsibility for the error. It said when it started its Phillies DVD run, a few DVDs from a previous run to another customer inadvertently remained in the molding equipment.
Oops.
Some of the cockfighting DVDs were stamped with a Phillies graphic, which featured second baseman Chase Utley (above) and the title Power of the Plan.
The Phillies said in a statement that they “regret if any recipient was offended as a result.”
Presumably, the Phillies also regret if any recipient was delighted as a result.
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Posted in Basketball
at 3:36 am
From the always entertaining mailbag portion of Dave D’Allessandro’s Nets Blast :
Dave: A couple Euros for your thoughts… 1) Planinic. I don’t know if you remember, but I’ve been asking for more p.t. for this guy since the pre-season. He can plain get by his defender and into the paint. Problem was, was he didn’t always make great decisions after his first move. Now he’s doing better w/ the pick and roll and kick outs. Just patting my back for my Planinic observations. 2) How is our project, 7 footer from Croatia or Serbia (I don’t remember) doing in the Euro league? Can we realistically rely on him for next year or is he 2 years away?
Rich Wong
Hey, Rich: The second Euro is Mile Ilic (he’s Serbian), and Ed Stefanski’s brief update can be found here. The emerging consensus is that he’s a better athlete than Krstic, but his upside can’t be gauged until they bring him over and work him out. I asked Krstic about him yesterday, and he gave one of those what’s-the-use gestures: “It’s the same as me,” he said. “They won’t play him, and they won’t give him the ball.” But if a buyout can be done, Ilic will be spending his summer in East Rutherford. As for Zoran, the Nets should be very proud of him – not only because the light finally went on in terms of recognizing that he has to drive the damn ball, but because he never bitched and moaned during the dark days of January and February. And don’t forget, it was his energy boost at New Orleans that got this nine-game winning streak started, just as it was Scott Padgett’s five 3-pointers that blasted them off on that 10-gamer. He was looking at the stats last night, and I told him, “Did you ever think you’d play a game in which you had more assists than Steve Nash?” And he replied, “I still haven’t taken my eyes off the 1-for-9 yet.”
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Posted in Baseball
at 3:25 am
Major League Baseball announced yesterday that former Sen. George Mitchell (above) will head an investigation of steroid use amongst Barry Bonds and others in baseball. For Newsday’s Jon Heyman, this is far too little, too late.
Believe me, it’s no great joy to stick up for Bonds; even his poor lawyers have to know that by now. And yet, it’s way too easy to be a part of the pack calling for his rather ample head.
One problem is that Bonds wasn’t nearly the only one taking steroids in his era. One player told Newsday that baseball would be “astonished” by the number of players who used drugs to enhance performance. If an investigation could really uncover the truth about who used and who didn’t, it may well discover that it’s a lot harder to find a home-run hitter who never took a steroid, never did a drug, during the era of 1990-2005, than to find ones who did.
The one thing we can surely say is that Bonds was the one who used them most effectively. Long before he picked up a needle, Bonds was the best player of his era. But maybe he also had the best drugs, the best chemist, a better cocktail. Steroids expert Gary .Wadler, the Manhasset doctor, said users like to compare notes about who has the best cocktail. Well, I think that argument is just about over now.
According to “Game of Shadows,” the book that juiced up this issue yet again, it was Bonds’ 10-drug cocktail that helped produce 73 home runs in a season in which he was walked a third of the time he came to the plate. If he hadn’t been walked so often, he might have hit 100.
Baseball’s other problem is that it wasn’t looking very hard while Bonds was doing what now seems obvious. So if the investigation is independent and honest, baseball isn’t going to look too good, either. Frankly, we were all too busy celebrating baseball’s rebirth to look. That includes commissioner Bud Selig, baseball executives, reporters, almost everyone.
Permalink
03.29.06
Posted in Baseball
at 9:52 pm
2B Jeff Kent signed a $11.5 million, one-year contract extension with the Dodgers on Wednesday, a pact that includes a club option for 2008 ($9 million) that becomes guaranteed if the Bad Lt. makes 500 plate appearances the prior year.
My initial reaction to this announcement was “you can purchase many pairs of sunglasses and little shorts for $11 million.” Dodger Thoughts’ Jon Wiseman, however, has a more sophisticated take.
It’s possible that Kent is one of those guys, like Roger Clemens, who is going to be performing at a high level past his 40th birthday. Nonetheless, the move comes as a shock, with the combination of age and recent wrist surgery raising questions about whether this would be the year Kent finally tails off, let alone 2007 or 2008.
It seems like a strange time to extend the commitment. I imagine that this is in part to try to keep the prickly player a little more content for the coming 162 games, along with a true belief on Dodger general manager Ned Colletti’s part that Kent is far from done.
On a different note, this definitely raises more questions about the future of Cesar Izturis and Willy Aybar in the organization. With Bill Mueller and Andy LaRoche at third base, Rafael Furcal at shortstop, Kent at second base and James Loney (and possibly Nomar Garciaparra) at first base from now through 2007, there isn’t a place for both Izturis and Aybar, if either. Even if Kent were to move to first base in 2007, only one spot opens up.
Right elbow troubles have put Blue Jays pitcher A.J. Burnett on the shelf to start the season ; Burnett is expected to miss at least two starts.
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Posted in Baseball
at 7:11 pm
Step back, George Brett. The Seattle Times’ Greg Bishop declares Mariners reliever Eddie Guardado, the Prankmeister Supreme. And now we know what’s wrong with Christian Guzman.
Cristian Guzman could not stop itching. This went on for four days, until he found himself on the shoulder of a Minnesota freeway, outside of his car, scratching at his underwear like a man with the worst case of chicken pox in human history. The next day Guzman queried clubhouse attendants about the shampoo and soap they used in the team shower.
His Minnesota Twins teammates had heard enough. They started laughing, cackling, crying, falling on the ground. And right then, Guzman knew.
Mariners closer Eddie Guardado had struck again.
“He used to take people’s cars and hide them down the street,” says Matt Lawton, Guardado’s friend and teammate in Minnesota and now Seattle. “He put peanut butter in people’s shoes, hot sauce in their jocks.
“He’s got some classics. He’s the best I’ve ever seen. He’ll stay up late at night, plotting things to do.”
The David Ortiz story: “He goes, ‘Where’s my shorts?’ I go, ‘Look in the freezer. They’re nice and folded —and hard as a rock. ‘So his focus was on the shorts. Well, I lined the inside of his jeans with peanut butter. He didn’t even notice. Peanut butter all up on him. I was crying, man. The reaction of the people, that’s where you get your humor.”
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Posted in Football
at 4:38 pm
QPR 1, Stoke City 2
Inept defending, midfield indifference (hello, Marc Bircham!) and a first half penalty muff by Gareth Ainsworth that even Discharge’s Cal could’ve stopped, conspired to sink QPR Tuesday evening, 2-1 losers to Stoke City at Loftus Road.
(the Potters’ Hans Sigurdsson can hardly believe Rangers are so careless on their own turf).
Yours truly could’ve enjoyed the televised splendors of Inter’s 2-1 win over Villarreal in the Champions League, but instead opted for the live drudgery of the nothing-left-to-play-for Superhoops. 28 quid is a lot of money to watch the R’s struggle without Kevin Gallen, but I had to double that toll when I arrived at will call and my ticket was nowhere to be found. Good old Rangers, some things never change.
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Posted in Baseball
at 4:23 pm
writes Ben Schwartz,
Or, at least, that’s what they mean by this week’s cartoon cover in their own wry, understated, Uptown way. Bonds has offered no comment, nor wry, understated, witty cartoon, in response.
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Posted in Baseball
at 12:05 pm
The San Francisco Chronicle’s Susan Slusser is on the scene with Oakland’s master of restraint, Milton Bradley.
“The only thing people know about me is I get p — off, so the only thing they try to do is p — me off,” the right fielder said a week ago. “Now all the little things people do to p — me off doesn’t work.”
Case in point: A few innings into Tuesday’s game, a fan down the right-field line began to yell racial slurs at Bradley. Bradley simply informed the umpiring crew and second-base umpire Ted Barrett had security remove the fan after the inning was over. There was so little fuss, many in the stadium didn’t even notice.
Bradley went 0-for-3 in Tuesday’s 8-3 victory over the Rangers and he is batting .200 for the spring, but he is not remotely troubled by that.
“I’ve been trying to work out some kinks in my swing, and it feels good,” he said Tuesday morning. “That’s my main concern. I can’t put much stock in spring training (numbers). One year, I hit .360 with six home runs, the next year, I had seven hits all spring. When the season starts, I’ll be fine. When it’s game time, there’s just a different focus. And I’m looking forward to having a good year.”
The AP is reporting Cleveland CF Grady Sizemore has signed a 6 year, $23.5 million contract extension, a pact described as the largest ever signed by a player with less than two years major league service time.
The agreement includes an $8.5 million club option for 2012 with a $500,000 buyout. If the option is exercised, the deal would total $31.45 million over seven seasons, and the option price could increase to $10.5 million depending on whether Sizemore is an All-Star, Gold Glove or Silver Slugger or does well in MVP voting.
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Posted in Basketball
at 10:48 am
More Trailblazers turmoil, as chronicled by The Oregonian’s Jason Quick
The darkest day of the Trail Blazers’ season may have arrived Tuesday when co-captain Joel Przybilla said his future with the team might be in jeopardy because of the way some teammates have given up on the season.
Przybilla (above), a fan favorite and a player whom coach Nate McMillan singles out for his hard work, becomes a free agent on July 1. He has spent much of the season saying his top priority is to re-sign with Portland, but after a dismal second half, which has included 22 losses in 25 games, the 7-foot-1 center says he will look elsewhere this summer unless changes are made.
“When the season is over, it’s going to be a big decision for me, and a lot is going to be determined by what team they bring back,” Przybilla said. “Because I’m telling you, this is tough, it’s real tough.
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Posted in Baseball
at 3:28 am
The above headline is supplied by Ben Schwartz, who writes the following, after noting the Cubs have placed Mark Prior and Kerry Wood on the disabled list to start the 2006 campaign ;
The guy from Fire Dusty Baker, who has officially made me the second least forgiving Cub fan alive, picked up on what Paul Harvey likes to call ‘the rest of the story,’ by following up on the Cubs hoped-for Walker for Graffanino trade after it fell through.
“Let me get this straight…
The Cubs tried like hell to trade Todd Walker for Tony Graffanino. The deal could not be closed so the Red Sox put Graffanino on waivers. Now the Cubs can just pick him up, but suddenly they have no intrest in him. This brings up two points:
First, they really are trying that hard to dump Walker, huh?
Second, Hendry really did over-estimate Walker’s value when he re-signed him this off-season by a lot. I mean, the Sox were going to cut Graffanino anyway, and didn’t even want a free player. Wow.”
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Posted in Football
at 3:15 am
Arsenal 2, Juventus 0 (Champions League, QF, first leg)
Sorry, I think I deserve just a little credit for not going with “Absolutely Fabregas”.
All of a sudden, Arsenal’s loss of Patrick Viera last season seems a little less devestating. Not only is the (mostly) young Gunners side coming into its own with poised showings against Europe’s toughtest competition — last night’s impressive display following Arsenal’s ouster of Real Madrid — but the home side’s composure was in stark contrast to the 2nd half meltdown suffered by Fabio Capello’s men. From the Telegraph’s Henry Winter.
If Cesc Fabregas’ name danced merrily on the lips of every Arsenal fan as they strolled into the ground last night, then mention of Kolo Toure surely featured in ensuing utterances. Organised superbly by Toure, Arsenal’s defence equalled AC Milan’s Champions League record of seven successive clean sheets.
Juventus coach Fabio Capello must have secretly admired the mobility and steel of Toure and his defensive cohorts, particularly as his own back five cost £100 million – 20 times more than Wenger’s rearguard. Toure was magnificent, even inflicting two stealthy tackles on Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who wore the bemused look of someone belatedly realising he had been pickpocketed.
This compelling first leg was played at an intensity and speed that Juventus failed to match. At times it resembled an FA Cup tie, although the only Englishman to touch the ball was Brian Barwick, the Football Association’s watching chief executive, who caught a wayward clearance from Zebina.
The foreign hearts in the Arsenal ranks were filled with an English passion as they tore into esteemed guests, the sixth-placed side in the Premiership giving a wonderful advertisement for the English league. The suggestion that Arsenal would struggle against more physical European opponents, and would melt when Vieira and Emerson crunched into challenges, was soon mocked.
Even Robert Pires, who would normally struggle to tackle a petit fours, flew into challenges on Vieira. The thought must briefly have passed through troubled Italian minds: had they plucked the wrong French ball-winner from Highbury? “Welcome Home Patrick – Toujours the Fantastique 4″ read one banner on the North Bank. Nobody had bothered to add anything about Pires tackling him.
I didn’t get to see last night’s Benfica/Barcelona match in its entirety, but there’s a pair of saves at Ronaldinho’s expense that ought be shown on “SportsCenter” in an endless loop. “What Chris D’abaldo is to Saliva,” I can already hear John Buccigross intoning, “Moretto de Souz is to Benfica”.
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Posted in Basketball
at 2:52 am
After the ethical lapses of Jim Harrick and the abomination that was Steve Lavin’s hair, you’d think there’d be tremendous civic pride over the recent achievements of Ben Howland’s UCLA basketball team. Think again, suggests the LA Times’ resident pain in the neck Bill Plaschke, who thinks the Bruins are so dull, “UCLA could win a national title and get hurt in recruiting.”
(Cedric Bozeman spies Plaschke ducking out to purchase nachos during Saturday’s UCLA/Memphis trudgefest)
The scoreboard flickered with the sort of numbers that Southern Californians love.
At a football game.
The playing surface was littered with the sort of diving stops and up-the-middle defense that Southern Californians adore.
At Dodger Stadium.
To many in its hometown, UCLA’s return to college basketball’s Final Four with a 50-45 regional championship victory over Memphis on Saturday was more confusing than cathartic.
This is fun?
This is entertaining?
This is L.A.?
More Deadwood than Hollywood, the cold-blooded Bruins are two winnable games from making their town’s sports fans face a long-dreaded question.
What if a national championship is brought to Los Angeles by a bore?
Why was Saturday’s 10.2 Los Angeles rating for the Memphis game only one-third the rating the game received in Memphis, and less than one-third the rating of other recent L.A. teams in playoffs and World Series and bowl games?
And did you talk to anyone after the game, or after any of the first four UCLA tournament victories?
The three words I have heard most often are “A great game.”
But the next three words, spoken in the same breath, are “Hard to watch.”
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Posted in Baseball
at 1:59 am
Citing the White Sox’s improbable championship run last season, the Washington Post’s wishful thinker Dave Shenin declares “It’s Anyone’s Ballgame”.
In hindsight, the White Sox’ success should not have been so unexpected simply because they were mediocre the year before. In fact, they were the fourth team in five years to win the World Series after logging 85 or fewer wins the year before — including two champions (the 2003 Florida Marlins and the 2002 Anaheim Angels) who had losing records the year before.
So, with the dawn of the 2006 season upon us, we say to thee: Have faith, Milwaukee (manager Ned Yost, shown above). Hang in there, Arizona. Believe, Baltimore. This really could be your year.
If the period from roughly 1995 to 2001 will be known forever as the Steroid Era, perhaps this one will be known as the Parity Era. The evidence, as it was in the last era, is right in front of our eyes:
Eight different NL pennant winners in the last eight years. Four straight unique AL champs. Six different teams winning the World Series in the last six years. In the last five years, almost half the teams in baseball — 13 out of 30 — have played in a league championship series. And by our count, there are perhaps 17 teams good enough to win it all this season.
“It’s not like it used to be a few years ago, when you felt like only a few teams could win it all,” Washington Nationals Manager Frank Robinson said. “Look at our division [the NL East]. Any one of us could have won it in the last month.”
Perhaps instead of the “Parity Era,” we should call this one the “Era of Fundamental Soundness.”
Gaze at the Big Picture of Baseball over the last few years, and you can almost sense a sea change coming over the game. In the post-steroid era, the impact of the long ball clearly is diminished, and what is taking its place is a renewed emphasis on pitching, defense, athleticism, teamwork — all the things the 2005 White Sox, like the 2002 Angels and the 2003 Marlins, possessed in large quantities. (The 2004 Boston Red Sox? We’ll call them the exception that proves the rule.)
If anything, the trend should accelerate in 2006, the first year in which amphetamines are banned from the game — which is expected to result in starting players getting more frequent days off, and making the quality of a team’s bench that much more important.
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Posted in Hockey, The Law
at 1:49 am
Perhaps someone other than Stan Fischler should’ve done the accounting? Newsday’s Mark Harrington on the forthcoming Richards/Kumar trial.
A fondness for exotic cars, “frequent” personal use of a Gulfstream V corporate jet and a $51-million loan backed by his restricted Computer Associates stock to buy one-third of the New York Islanders all may play cameo roles in the upcoming securities-fraud trial of two former CA executives.
In papers filed this month in advance of the trial in May, federal prosecutors said they intended to make an issue of the stock holdings and “lavish lifestyle” of former chief executive Sanjay Kumar (above, left) and co-defendant Stephen Richards to allege they had motives to manipulate the company’s books in the $2.2 billion accounting scandal. Kumar and Richards have pleaded not guilty to securities fraud, obstruction of justice and conspiracy charges.
In one of the more illuminating sections of the March 3 filing, the government draws a direct correlation between the $51 million line of credit Kumar secured on June 30, 2000, to buy his Islanders interest and the company’s July 3, 2000, announcement that it would miss financial projections. The latter disclosure, released just before midnight during the July 4 holiday weekend, caused CA stock to plummet 43 percent, or a collective $13 billion, when the market reopened July 5.
Kumar was able to use restricted CA stock as collateral for the loan because the CA board had voted days before the purchase to ease a restriction on the sale or transferral of the stock, prosecutors said. The vote took place the same day a Delaware court approved a settlement forcing key CA executives to return 4.5 million shares of stock from the plan.
“The Islanders purchase likely caused the 35-day month practice to extend for more quarters than it might have otherwise existed,” prosecutors charged.
The 35-day month refers to CA’s extending financial quarters beyond their close date so that more sales could be piled on, a violation of federal securities law.
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Posted in Baseball
at 12:00 am
Sorry I missed the following item from Monday’s New York Daily News and T.J. Quinn, but I’ve actually had to read it a second time just to be certain that John Rocker hasn’t accomplished the near-impossible : he’s made Tom Glavine seem like a sympathetic figure.
Former Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker said he didn’t want to be “pigeonholed” as a bad boy last night, but then he took a few shots at onetime teammate Tom Glavine on the “Daily News Live” show on Sportsnet New York.
“He’s had a few comments to make against myself that I thought were out of line and really sort of unnecessary and people took his side because he was the more mainstay Braves guy,” Rocker said. “I just really thought as far as reaching out to younger players and reaching out to his teammates, somebody who could ‘rah-rah’ in the clubhouse, really kind of stayed to himself. … You walk past him in the hall, he wouldn’t even look at you.”
Rocker said he idolized the Braves growing up in Macon, Ga., and didn’t like the cold shoulder he got from Glavine.
“You know, to go and get something to eat and sit down at a table with him for 10 minutes after a game and you grew up idolizing him and he won’t even look at you, that’s rude. Maybe that’s just his personality and he’s a quiet guy, but to me it was rude,” Rocker said.
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Posted in Baseball, Ugly New Stadiums
at 10:40 pm
The AP and the New York Times on the continued attempts to make the new Yankee Stadium a reality, regardless of whether the neighborhood wants it or not.
Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson testified Tuesday when the New York Yankees pushed their proposal for a new $800 million ballpark before a City Council subcommittee.
Jackson (above), who acts as an adviser to the Yankees, said he’d had his share of fights with owner George Steinbrenner. And he said he knew the relationship between the Yankees and the neighborhood wasn’t always great.
”You can’t change the past,” he said. ”I do think there’s an opportunity to engage with people who are trying to help.”
Jackson’s testimony added drama to a packed hearing that had plenty of emotion but wasn’t even expected to result in a vote. Various committee and full council votes on the 53,000-seat stadium plans are expected on April 5.
Jackson’s entreaties that city leaders ”engage” with Yankees officials pushing for a new South Bronx stadium across from their current one caused some council members to bristle.
”It’s an uneven relationship, and it’s almost abusive,” said Councilwoman Helen Foster, who represents the Bronx neighborhood.
She cited longtime stresses on the impoverished neighborhood — traffic among them — resulting from the Yankees’ presence. She questioned whether the current plans were taking Yankees fans’ concerns more seriously than those of Bronx residents.
Linda Florence, who lives near the stadium, said she didn’t mind the Yankees getting a new ballpark. But she’s worried about the loss of green space in a neighborhood where it’s scarce.
”Don’t take away the parks that are central to our neighborhood,” she told the council.
Adam Arce, who works in security for the Yankees, said a new ballpark would be a boost for the team and nearby businesses.
”This is a trigger,” he said. ”This is a starting point.”
Councilman Charles Barron, questioning the Yankees’ commitment to the largely minority neighborhood, asked team president Randy Levine how many upper echelon ballclub officials were minorities. Levine said he found the question ”offensive.”
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Posted in Basketball
at 6:00 pm
The superb recent performances of several schools that we’ll charitably call not-exactly-national-powerhouses have done little to quell CBS’s Billy Packer, writes the Chicago Tribune’s Teddy Greenstein.
Billy Packer–a.k.a. the Scourge of the Missouri Valley Conference, the Enemy of the (Wichita) State–was as feisty as ever while speaking with reporters Monday to promote CBS Sports’ coverage of the Final Four.
Again he did not back down from those who accused him of showing bias toward the major conferences.
He pointed out that in the final Associated Press poll, none of the 72 voters ranked George Mason among the Top 25 teams.
“Now I don’t see anybody clamoring for members of the AP [poll] to apologize for not giving George Mason a vote,” Packer said.
“That would be ridiculous … I find this rather stupefying that it’s: `Billy Packer made this horrendous mistake.’ I’m in the majority. There was no one in the country, no knowledgeable observer of basketball, who had George Mason playing Wichita State [in the Sweet 16]. So why would anybody apologize for that?”
Packer, though, confirmed he had seen very little, if any, Missouri Valley competition during the season.
But he said that didn’t change his view that the committee should have recognized that the power conferences had dominated the tournament in past years.
Said Packer: “You’d have to say that what the Valley did this year in the tournament should certainly give them some weight in the future.”
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Posted in Baseball
at 5:34 pm
For those who’ve not followed the Mets’ seeming indifference towards Aaron Heliman, this might seem like a 3rd string quarterback controversy. But when there are questions marks surrounding spots 1-4 in the Mets rotation (Pedro’s toe, Glavine’s 80 mph fastball, Steve Trachsel and Victor Zambrano being, well, Steve Trachsel and Victor Zambrano) and Heilman was declared untouchable in at least one rumored offseason deal, at the very least, this is a 2nd string quarterback controversy. From Newsday’s David Lennon.
The bullpen phone rang for Aaron Heilman shortly before 9 o’clock yesterday morning, when the pitcher formerly known as the Mets’ No. 5 starter was called into the manager’s office and told his job title had changed.
Brian Bannister soon followed, and in a matter of minutes, the Mets had pulled off their best trade of spring training without going outside the organization. Or so they hope. Promoting Bannister on the strength of his Grapefruit League resume is a calculated risk, and giving him Heilman’s spot makes it even more so.
“I look at it as, ‘What makes our club better?’” manager Willie Randolph said. “Both deserve to be in the rotation. We have some questions with [Jorge] Julio coming in late and [Duaner] Sanchez getting acclimated. But Aaron [Heilman] just makes that nucleus out there that much better.
“That’s all. And that’s not to say really that this is etched in stone. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This is about what’s best for the team at this point in time.”
The key word being “team.” Heilman was not exactly thrilled after receiving the news, and the Mets are fortunate he doesn’t have Jose Lima’s flair for public speaking or there may have been some early morning fireworks in the clubhouse.
The Mets are also fortunate Heilman doesn’t share Jose’s flair for pitching. Lima Time allowed 5 runs, all earned, in two innings of labor earlier today, as Florida beat New York, 12-7.
ESPN’s marketplace maven Darren Rovell reports that when and if Barry Bonds passes Henry Aaron’s all-time mark of 755 career home runs, Major League Baseball “will in some way formally celebrate.” As opposed to the day the Sultan Of Surly retires, a moment MLB plans to unofficially commemorate with a huge party most of us aren’t invited to.
Released by the Red Sox on Monday, 2B Tony Graffanino was picked up waivers today by Kansas City.
16 year veteran Marquis Grissom has declared his retirement after failing to land a job with the Cubs
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Posted in Basketball
at 5:08 pm
Bob Huggins has been in the Big 12 less than a week and the competition’s already running for cover. From the Sports Network.
Kelvin Sampson has reportedly agreed to leave Oklahoma to take the men’s basketball head coaching vacancy at Indiana.
Sampson would replace Mike Davis at the storied program, according to the Bloomington Herald Times, and an official announcement could come as early as Wednesday.
In 12 years at Oklahoma, Sampson has compiled a 279-109 record. The Sooners have been to the postseason every season since he arrived for the 1994-95 campaign and have reached the NCAA Tournament 11 times.
Sampson’s tenure in Norman was highlighted by a run to the Final Four in 2002, which ended with a loss to Davis’ Indiana squad in the national semifinals.
The North Carolina native guided the Sooners to nine consecutive 20-win seasons and has the highest winning percentage (.719) in school history.
Sampson led Oklahoma to three straight Big 12 Tournament championships (2001-03) and the Sooners played in the title game five times in the last eight campaigns.
The two-time national coach of the year has a career record of 455-257 in 23 years with Oklahoma, Washington State and Montana Tech.
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Posted in Baseball, Rock Und Roll
at 4:15 pm
Metal Mike might’ve moved to San Diego, but his aesthetic lives on in Flushing. From what even Chris Ballard would agree is the bane of all internet activity, Blabbermouth.net (thanks to Maura Johnston for the tip).
QUEENSRŸCHE frontman Geoff Tate will sing the national anthem at the New York Mets/Washington Nationals game Shea Stadium in Flushing, New York on April 5 at 7:10 p.m. According to a posting on QUEENSRŸCHE’s official web site, the anthem will be aired live during the radio broadcast and after the anthem, a mention will be made of the group’s new album, “Operation: Mindcrime II”.
“Operation: Mindcrime II” is scheduled for release on April 4 via Rhino. Legendary heavy metal vocalist Ronnie James Dio (BLACK SABBATH, DIO, RAINBOW) makes a guest appearance on the album as “Dr. X”.
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Posted in Basketball
at 12:51 pm
From The New York Daily News’ Hugh Son.
The controversial Atlantic Yards project shouldn’t get $100 million in state funds until a desperately needed Sunset Park high school is built, a Brooklyn elected official said.
The stalled high school project – promised and then scrapped three times in 37 years – is more deserving of state funding than developer Bruce Ratner’s $3.5 billion arena, office and residential tower project, said state Sen. Velmanette Montgomery (D-Fort Greene).
“There shouldn’t be any dollars going to that arena until that high school is built. Period,” Montgomery told the Daily News.
The $93 million school project – in limbo amid budget disputes between Gov. Pataki and the city – should “definitely go to the top of the list” for funding, Montgomery added.
Education advocates and Sunset Park parents fear the school will be shelved yet again amid an ongoing battle regarding at least $4.7 billion courts have ruled the state owes city schoolchildren.
A Ratner spokesman declined to comment.
If you’re searcing for a gift for Shaquille O’Neal, a copy of Who’s Who In The NBA might be a good place to start.
On the occassion of Danny Fortson’s 30th birthday, consider the following statement :
Danny is just a great human being no matter what may be written about him!
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Posted in Baseball
at 12:14 pm
Though the good folks at the New York Daily News were unable to provide a compelling enough snapshot of The Little Unit (She-Unit?), thanks to the wonders of Photoshop, I am counting on someone to deliver the goods to CSTB very shortly. Thank you.
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Posted in Basketball
at 11:52 am
Designated Hitter Erubiel Durazo and P John Wasdin have been released by Texas.
While the Rangers have no shortage of players who can DH or play first, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see Durazo (above) on someone’s major league roster by opening day. Personally, I’d refer to see him go head-to-head in a televised tryout versus Carlos Pena on Saturday night, kind of the like the NCAA tournament’s play-in game (or the first season of “Dream Job”, only with less talking).
Houston’s $15.6 million insurance claim on Jeff Bagwell has been rejected by Connecticut General Life. The insurance company takes issue with the club’s declaration that Bagwell is “totally disabled”. Well, let’s see. Bagwell can’t throw and has struggled to hit the ball out of the infield this spring. Not only do the Astros have a case, but going by the lowest of baseball standards, the Mets might want to try the same thing with Kaz Matsui.
Pete Rose has come out in favor of punishment for players found guilty of using steroids “during the last two years.” That should kill Matt Lawton’s remaining chances of making the Canadian Baseball Hall Of Fame.
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Posted in Baseball
at 10:32 am
The Globes’ Gordon Edes collects the quotes from Boston’s 2nd bench clearer in as many days.
”What do you mean, ‘regret’?” Tavarez said when asked if he was sorry he hit Gathright with a blow to the jaw in the eighth inning of a 12-11 win over the Devil Rays, adding another line to the rap sheet of scrums between these clubs. ”I wish I don’t have to [throw a punch], because I’m not here to fight, you know. Little things happen in baseball, you know. No big deal.”
Incensed at what Gathright’s teammate, Carl Crawford, called a sucker punch, delivered with Gathright on one knee and trying to push away Tavárez’s left leg that was planted on his right forearm (”I can show you the marks,” said Gathright, who did just that for reporters), the D-Rays expect that baseball disciplinarian Bob Watson will view the incident with more gravity than Tavárez did.
”I think that may require a suspension, absolutely,” said Joe Maddon, the Tampa Bay manager who is replacing Lou Piniella, accused by Curt Schilling last season of fomenting some of the bad blood between the teams. ”That kind of action cannot be tolerated, and I don’t want any of our guys ever doing anything like that, I know that.”
The Journal News’ John Delcos does his best to determine which relievers are making the Mets’ big league roster and who will find themselves bound for Norfolk.
Duaner Sanchez and Jorge Julio seem certain to work the eighth and seventh innings, respectively, as the bridge to Billy Wagner. Bradford figures to be the situational right-hander, which would account for four relievers.
Should Randolph carry 11 pitchers, he’s looking at two more relievers. One of them probably will be a lefty, either Royce Ring or Darren Oliver.
If Randolph takes 12 pitchers north, he could conceivably take both left-handers and another reliever.
Who would it be? Yusaku Iriki? Pedro Feliciano? Heath Bell? Juan Perez? Perhaps a veteran such as Jose Lima, who could be a swing guy and work as both a starter and a reliever.
It won’t be Mitch Wylie, a Rule 5 pick who yesterday opted to become a free agent rather than accept a minor-league assignment.
The wild card is Aaron Heilman, who would go to the bullpen if Brian Bannister makes the roster as the fifth starter, which is the only way he would stick, Randolph said.
“I haven’t heard anything,” Bannister said, giving the four-word greeting that serves as hello for him these days.
Today against the Marlins at Jupiter, Heilman will make his final spring start, which could help Randolph make his decision.
“Aaron changes everything,” Ring said. “If he’s in the bullpen, everybody will be juggled, and they would probably only take one lefty.”
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Posted in Football
at 9:04 am
On a day in which Patrick Viera (above, right) returns to Highbury (for tonight’s Arsenal/Juventus Champions League Quarterfinal), the Independent’s Dominc Lawson wonders why today’s footballers can’t be nice, polite gentlemen like those well-bred cricket and rugby players.
Rugby Union has long since turned professional. But the interesting thing is that the now well-remunerated players still maintain the same standars of conduct on and off the field as they did when it wan amateur game. In contrast to the way in which the modern professional football player writhes in mock agony at the slightest tap, the rugby union player reacts in the opposite fashion: even after receiving a thump that would fell an ox, he pretends not to be hurt.
The same is true of professional cricket. Batsmen are frequently struck sickening blows from fast bowlers, but it is a matter of professional pride never to rub the bruise, agonising as everyone knows it to be. In other words, rugby and cricket are manly games, while English football, symbolised by the effete and narcissistic David Beckham — no longer is. This development is frequently blamed on the foreign players who now dominate the Premier League, but I doubt whether such racial analysis would stand up to scrutiny.
Yes, I know that the greatest players — Pele and George Best spring to mind — have something about their movement on the field which is profoundly aesthetic. But, taken as a whole, the modern game is about as beautiful as a pub brawl.
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Posted in Blogged Down, Sports Journalism
at 6:32 am
A long transcontinental flight gave me time to catch up on some old mail, a couple of unfinished books, yesterday’s papers, ‘The Fog Of War’ and least interesting of all, Chris Ballard’s “Writing Up A Storm (How The Web Is Changing Sports Coverage”) in the latest Sports Illustrated.
It’s tough to argue with Ballard’s assertion that sports bloggery is packed with drooling, gossip-mongering social reprobates with little or no training, credentials, etc. Because after all, it takes a journalism degree to deliver the hard hitting content you’ll find in a serious sports mag like S.I. For example, did you know the Knicks’ David Lee and S.I. swimsuit model Anne V. are dating?
Seriously, other than those stuck on airplanes or dentist offices, who regularly reads Sports Illustrated anymore? The photography is still top notch, some of the reportage of a high quality (Tom Verducci’s no slouch), but far too much of the modern SI reads like a desperate attempt to mimmick the breezy, personality-parade that is ESPN The Magazine.
(Sports Illustrated’s Rick Reilly — irrelevent in the pre-blog era, too).
I’m not sure what purpose it serves in the year 2006 to rail against the plethora of crud on the internet aimed squarely at the lowest common denominator. There’s a signal-to-noise quotient for all subjects, not merely sports. For every thousand poorly written, shit-stirring-for-the-sake-of-it-blog, there’s still a sizable minority of articulate, original voices that weren’t likely to be sanctioned by Time-Warner anytime soon.
(Though that said, it is worth noting that some of those voices, Dodger Thoughts’ Jon Wiseman amongst them, are SI contributors these days. Just like Chris Ballard.)
A couple of additional observations from this mess of an article :
1) Though I could certainly Die In Peace without reading another word about Bill Simmons’ career trajectory, there is something kind of amazing about an ESPN competitor giving Simmons that much coverage. I’m struggling to think of a good analogy — Fox’s Sunday NFL show profiling Chris Berman?
2) Next time, I sincerely hope Ballard and SI will commission more photographs of dudes hunched over their laptops. We really need more of that kind of thing.
3) “Leitch is not surprised by Deadspin’s popularity. “It seemed like there was a gaping hole for a site like this,” he says. “Most sites were either hard-core heavy stats, Bill Jamesian, or they were ‘Jets suck!’”
Indeed, I can’t tell you how long the sabermetric approach of The Sports Frog proved daunting to someone like me, who just wanted some light entertainment.
Likewise, the partisian sentiments flowing from a blog like Yard Work so completely overwhelm whatever else the site might have to offer in terms of satire, absurdity, etc. At bedtime tonight, after you’ve given thanks to Will Leitch for inventing the internet, be sure to give him very special credit for pioneering just whatever the fuck it is he wants to continue taking credit for.
4) As paradigm-smashing as the the current sports blogging boom might seem, Ballard’s version of da ’sphere seems exclusively populated by, well, white guys of a particular vintage hunched over laptops. The sole non-male voices heard from, for better or worse, are the anonymous young ladies behind On The DL (correctly cited by Ballard as “the most risque thing about Deadspin).
Sheesh. They have the internet on computers now. Maybe next time (said in Geico caveman voice) Ballard can do a little research.
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03.27.06
Posted in Baseball
at 7:47 pm
From MLB.com Spencer Fordin writes that Kevin Millar has convinced Orioles pitching coach Leo Mazzone to get a tattoo. I apologize in advance for the nightmares you are certain to have this evening.
“I’m going to break him in a little bit, and we’re going to bring The Edge to this club — that edge this team needs,” Millar said in his diary dated March 15. “Leo’s been in my ear a little bit that he wants one, and I told him I’ll think of one for him. I’ve got to go to my drawing board, but I’m going to take him once our families leave. We’ll have a day together.”
That goal came to pass over the weekend, with Mazzone sporting some brand new ink on his left shoulder. The design, instigated by Millar, is a red-and-blue pennant with the words “14 straight” written inside of it. The slogan refers to Mazzone’s run of success with his former team — the Atlanta Braves — which included 14 consecutive division titles.
“He’s fired up about it. He’s going to be shirtless for a while,” said Millar on Monday. “He’s a tough guy, but he got to the tattoo parlor and he was nervous. He kept asking me, ‘Millar, will it be all right?’”
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Posted in Baseball
at 7:38 pm
From the AP :
“My life is in shambles. It is crazy,” Barry Bonds said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press. “It couldn’t get any crazier. I’m just trying to stay sane.”
Then, clearly joking, he went for shock value:
“Go to the Empire State Building and jump off, commit suicide and people can say, ‘Barry Bonds is finally dead.’ Except for in San Francisco,” he said. “I’ll leave something for them.”
Asked how he blocks out distractions, he says:
“What’s my job description? That’s what I’m doing at that time,” Bonds said. “No, I don’t forget [what is said]. I will never forget. I forgive you but I don’t forget. I forgive everybody.”
Much as I hate to imagine how gruesome it would be if the Sultan were to take a flying leap off the Empire State Building, I can’t be the only person wondering if Pedro Gomez would have the presence of mind not to follow him.
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Posted in Football
at 7:28 pm
The April issue of When Saturday Comes was a little late in turning up at Chez CSTB, which is a crying shame. I’ll blame my local letter carrier for denying me the pleasures of WSC’s provocative examination of whether or not it is permissible to call Spurs fans “yiddos” (regardless of whether or not they’ve “reclaimed” the pejorative for themselves), along with fascinating recollections of the 1980’s football fanzine boom.
As always, however, some of WSC’s funniest bits are at the expense of the pundits and commentators that make Fran Healy seem downright scholarly by comparison. From WSC’s Simon Tyers.
Ian Wright’s survived the BBC cull perhaps with half an eye on his light entertainment contract, even though his seated shifting and weaving is approaching attention deficit disorder proportions. Mark Lawrenson (above) should retain his loft position, too, despite contriving with John Motson, to cover the Liverpool v Manchester United FA Cup tie in as obtuse a manner as possible. John opened with the curious gambit that Liverpool’s previous Cup win over United “predated the invention of Chanel No.5″, a connective milestone that I’m sure was at the forefront of everyone’s mind, then conceeded that Peter Crouch’s goal “may have even hit the inside of the post” just in case we thought the ball had propelled itself over by means of voodoo. But they upped the ante with a bravura performance around Alan Smith’s injury, Lawrenson wondering first if he had “dislocated something with the force of the shot” before diagnosing from the monitor close-up a “sort of loose” leg and that it was his right. Mark Lawrenson is 47 years old. If he hasn’t learned to tell left from right by now, there truly is no hope for him.
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Posted in Rock Und Roll
at 3:40 pm
Nikki Sudden, formerly of the Swell Maps and more recently a veteran of countless recordings with and without partner in scarves Dave Kusworth, passed away over the weekend.
There are bigger fans and close friends more qualified to eulogize Sudden than this correspondent, but anyone whose brains were fried by the synapse-snapping proto lo-fi of the Swell Maps, or was moved by Sudden’s gorgeous, sweeping recordings for the Glass label in the 1980’s will surely feel a sense of loss today.
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Posted in Basketball, Fashion
at 1:02 pm
The NBA’s much ballyhooed dress code has ushered in a new era of bland, as surveyed by the New York Times’ Alexandra Marshall (link swiped from True Hoop).
Fans of draft night know that newbie players haven’t pranced to the podium in, say, an all-white Nehru vest ensemble topped with a gleaming white derby since Samaki Walker in 1996 (above). No one could picture Charles Oakley’s creatively tailored, retina-searing suits on anyone anymore except maybe a criticproof caricature like Shaquille O’Neal. Dress code or no, with the exception of Wallace, Iverson and the flagrant fashion foul that is Tim Duncan, the league’s will to corporate homogeneity has been festering since Jordan’s foray into executive realness. “I don’t think too many people are taking the extra step,” says the dapper Philadelphia 76er Chris Webber, who recalls suffering a day of merciless teasing by his entire team simply for wearing a slightly-too-high-cut turtleneck. “We follow the national trend now: jeans and a shirt and blazer.”
The Knicks, the home team for the country’s fashion capital, are no exception. “You could say I’ve been housebroken,” says the Knicks’ clotheshorse president, Isiah Thomas, who, upon joining the organization in December 2003, instituted a more stringent dress code than the N.B.A.’s: no denim, ties required. (This from a man who cites Catholic school and his older brother, the neighborhood pimp, as his two strongest sartorial influences.) The Madison Square Garden locker room that once sheltered Anthony Mason’s black mink coat (emblazoned with his number) and the matching three-piece suits and fedoras of Walt (Clyde) Frazier could easily be mistaken for the locker room at the Equinox gym on Wall Street. A recent walk through the hapless Knicks’ formica warren of a changing room reveals a few flashes of flyness: LV’s and double-G’s on the shelves of the rookies David Lee and Channing Frye, Stephon Marbury’s colorful neckwear and the power forward Maurice Taylor’s canary diamond monogram cufflinks. But earth tones, rep ties and anonymous leather topcoats far outnumber Technicolor and fur in the cubbyholes. In a media-savvy response to the new code, this season Marbury, who is also the spokesmodel for the Joseph Abboud men’s-wear label, has given each member of the organization one custom Abboud suit, to be fitted by the company’s head tailor, Salvatore Mellace. It is up to each man to pick his cut and fabric. And so arises the perfect opportunity for a test case: have players truly lost the desire to match on-court skills with off-court flash? Left to his own devices, will the second-string center Jerome James ask for a five-button coat?
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Posted in Basketball
at 9:45 am
From the Cleveland Plain-Dealer’s Roger Brown.
Cavs management has told Ronnie Duncan, the team’s public-address announcer, to stop using his creative call for point guard Eric Snow (”Eric Sn-oh-oh-oh-oh!”) whenever the player scores. But that’s only the latest example this season of management obsessively micro-managing what team fans see and hear. Among others:
TV broadcaster Michael Reghi was chastised by a team official for noting, on the air, that point guard Damon Jones and head coach Mike Brown were exchanging words on the sideline.
Staffers were directed to stop using music by Usher, the R&B superstar and team part-owner who’s largely disappeared this season;
Quicken Loans Arena ushers and security staff were ordered to wear Anderson Varejao wigs during a recent promotion featuring the wild-haired Cavs reserve.
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Posted in Basketball
at 8:17 am
(GMU coach Jim Larranaga risks Phil Mushnick’s ire by reinacting that stupid Nike ad and playing Onyx’s “Slam” at high volume)
If the pain of losing to George Mason weren’t enough for Connecticut’s Jim Calhoun, he now has a summation from his best pal, the Hartford Courant’s Jeff Jacobs to go with his Monday morning coffee.
If you’re going to whip a thoroughbred team to the Final Four, it’s really helpful – maybe even required – to have two jockeys. UConn had Marcus Williams.
Although you wouldn’t have known it by this 86-84 loss, UConn had more than enough big guys to get the job done. It didn’t have enough little guys.
“The first thing my son Jay [who went to Bowling Green and now plays in Italy] had said to me was Marcus Williams is the key to the game,” George Mason coach Jim Larranaga said. “He is the head. If you cut off the head, the body will die. I asked him if he had any suggestions. He said, `No, you’re the coach. You figure it out.’”
The column that most everyone figured would be written – if/when the Huskies had fallen in an upset of historic proportion – was that Rudy Gay disappeared when it mattered most.
Gay didn’t disappear. He was terrific in a loss that may have shocked a nation, but shouldn’t have shocked folks in Connecticut. Surprised? Sure. Shocked? Nope.
Don’t get this wrong. UConn was a really good team this season. Good enough for it to take a long-term shortcoming and a short-term collapse by the UConn longs to get beat. Yet when you add those two problems to the unrestrained joy that an underdog can play with – sans the weight of great expectations – well, you get NCAA Tournament history.
“The game takes instinct and takes a couple of guys to create plays,” Calhoun said. “We have one who does it as well as anybody. There are guys who can rebound and there are guys who can make shots, but they are not creative to make other people better at times.
“What Mason had is three guys – all the time – who can go by you. Three guys who could make threes, but most importantly beyond the shooting aspect, they could create situations for their big guys. We got by sometimes, despite the inability to transport the ball to better situations, because we were so unselfish. We do have talent, but it’s jammed into two positions. They wore Marcus down. No kid should have to handle the ball that many times in a game.”
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