Was the John Riggins throwback in the laundry? DC Sports Bog’s Dan Steinberg describes DeShawn’s sartorial decision as “something to make absolutely sure I never land that mainstream endorsement deal. Some crowning gesture–ridiculously, brazenly dark and disturbing– that perfectly sums up what I’ve done this month: turned myself into a comic-book villain, a prototypical WWE heel, a man you might hate but simply can’t ignore.”
Hey, it’s not as though Stevenson wore a tee reading “I BELIEVE THE ROCKET” to shootaround. Either way, however, we’ll see what sort of fashion statement he opts for Friday night, as the Wizards have forced a Game 6 after LeBron missed a layup with 3.9 seconds remaining in Game 5 earlier tonight. Cleveland’s 88-87 victory narrows the Wizards’ series lead to 3-2, and comes just hours after Gilbert Arenas announced he’s done for this postseason.
NEED AN AUCTION CALLER? HUMAN TORNADO SIREN? EVER WANTED TO HIRE SOMEONE WITH A JOHN WATERS MUSTACHE?
I’m your guy. My name is Avery Johnson and I am looking to obtain employment that will utilize my skills both as a man with very powerful lungs and very little idea of how to coach a professional sports team. I am a published author of a book about learning from failure, of which I have experienced much as of late. And if it’s a professional looking office environment in which I am employed, the good news is that I have plenty of suits and ties. If you find my skills to your liking, I hope you won’t mind if I wear my championship ring during the interview. It’s kind of my lucky charm.
It took a mere 71 pitches for Atlanta’s Mike Hampton (above) to feel discomfort in his strained left pectoral muscle during a rehab assignment Wednesday for Richmond (IL) versus Durham. Conversely, it took about 25 pitches by the Mets’ Oliver Perez (5 BB, 7 runs, 2 earned, 1.2 IP) today for those in attendance at Shea to suffer severe discomfort in their skulls and stomachs. Pittsburgh beat the Mets, 13-1, and about the nicest thing a fan of the home team can say about the contest is that it’s lovely to see Aaron Heilman get in some quality mop-up work.
MLB Umpire Jerry Crawford left Tuesday’s Cubs/Brewers tilt in the third inning with what’s being called “a bad reaction to medicine”. Scott Weiland and Eliezer Alfonso can only shake their heads and wonder about the double standar.
I would like to thank DirecTV tonight for screwing me out of the first five minutes of the third period of the Dallas-San Jose game. I flipped over during the second intermission to catch the end of Mystery, Alaska in just enough time to see Connor Banks ring one off the crossbar as the final seconds ticked off to see the Mystery boys drop one to the New York Rangers. And after getting my 3-year-old a sip of milk after he woke up, I flipped back over only to see Tracy Ullman fold up her laptop computer while in bed, then complain about cramps before putting the still warm computer in her abdominal region. I then got to see previews of some show called The Secret Life of a Call Girl, The Weeds, Penn and Teller’s Bullsh!! and the opening minutes of The Tudors.
There’s always the chance Eriendsson’s cat stepped on the remote and flipped to Showtime. But it’s so much more fun to presume there’s a vast global conspiracy to fuck over hockey fans at every available opportunity.
The New York Rangers said forward Sean Avery suffered a lacerated spleen in Tuesday night’s Stanley Cup playoff game and will be lost for the remainder of the playoffs.
The team also denied a published report in the New York Daily News — which first reported Avery’s hospitalization — that the forward had been taken to a Manhattan hospital while unconscious and in cardiac arrest.
The Rangers said Avery was admitted to St. Vincent’s Medical Center following a CT scan and is expected to make a full recovery. Avery walked into the medical facility with team doctor Andrew Feldman, and the two took a car to the hospital, not an emergency vehicle, the team said.
Michael Fagan, spokesman for St. Vincent’s Medical Center, said Avery is in “stable” condition.Tuesday night, the Rangers lost 5-3 in the Stanley Cup playoffs against the Pittsburgh Penguins at Madison Square Garden. The Penguins took a 3-0 series lead with the win.
Avery suffered the injury as the result of a hit during the game, spokesman John Rosasco told reporters during the team’s morning workout.
“He walked into the hospital,” Rosasco said. “He was never in a life-threatening situation.”
Avery’s mother Marlene told the Toronto Sun that the injury occured in the first period as the result of a collision with a Penguins defenseman and that he played the remainder of the game in a great deal of pain. She said her son’s spleen had not ruptured, but that he had suffered internal bleeding.
Avery played 14 minutes and 34 seconds of Game 3, taking 19 shifts on the ice. He finished the game before going to hospital, according to the team. He has seven points in eight playoff games this spring.
There’s no longer any mention of a heart attack (nor a correction) in the Daily News. Does this mean we can’t trust them on Mindy McCready either?
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins captain Nathan Smith will be suspended for the first game of the second round of the playoffs, coach Todd Richards announced Tuesday morning.
Smith was charged with public drunkenness, disorderly conduct, open lewdness and indecent exposure after he ran naked into the street as part of what he called “a prank that went wrong” early Sunday morning in Scranton.
“Guys have to be held accountable for their actions,” Richards said. “That’s what we’ve done all year. That’s what we will continue to do. Yes, we are here to win games, but when situations like this arise, that’s not the most important thing.”
Smith also met with the media and was apologetic.
“I recognize the fact that being a member of this team, part of our job is being a good role model in the community,” he said. “What I did was out of character for myself and is something I’ll always remember and never do again.”
Richards said he had not yet decided whether Smith would continue to act as the team’s captain. Veteran winger Dennis Bonvie said he thought Smith should continue in that role.
“Take that blip out of the screen and he’s been an unbelievable leader for us,” Bonvie said. “Does he deserve to be the captain? Yeah, he does. Other people will say, ‘Well, look what he did.’ Yeah, he did that, but he’s dealt with it head on and he’s dealt with it face up. Is he still the captain of our hockey club? As far as we’re concerned he is. He’s definitely the captain of our hockey club.”
A late-night party to celebrate Josh Howard’s 28th birthday after Sunday’s Game 4 loss turned Dallas Mavericks coach Avery Johnson livid and led him to cancel Monday’s practice, two sources confirmed.
Johnson, who stressed no partying during the series, was informed before Monday’s scheduled practice that Howard handed out fliers to teammates in the locker room before Game 4, inviting them to his party at a Dallas nightclub.
After Johnson called off the practice, the team then chose to conduct a players-only practice, an odd occurrence, especially the day before an elimination playoff game. Players were unavailable for comment Monday, but at Tuesday’s shoot-around several players claimed nothing out of the ordinary about the circumstances that led to the coach-free practice session.
Howard declined to comment after the Hornets ended the Mavs’ season Tuesday. He sat at his locker, at times with his head in his hands.
“I’ll keep that to myself,” Howard said when asked about his emotions as he sat facing his locker.
And with that, the Mavericks have found a scapegoat for the way they were repeatedly torched by Chris Paul. Seriously, Jason Kidd owes Howard just a little bit of his playoff share for taking so much heat.
You know that ballgame I said I’d be attending tonight, the one without booze on the menu? Well, it turned out to a somewhat memorable event in an otherwise shitty season for the hosts.
Below .500 in the Big 12, the University Of Texas might well miss out on the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1998. Leave it to right-handed starter Kenn Kasparek (junior) then, to end a 5 game home losing streak with a complete game no-hitter against Texas State, a contest won by Texas, 11-0. Kasparek faced the minimum 27 batters, a plunking of the Bobcats’ Thomas Field (subsequently retired on a double play) being all that separated him from perfection.
Kasparek’s no-no (9 K’s, 113 total pitches) was the 20th in school history and the first since Adrian Alaniz blanked Oklahoma, 4-0, on April 16, 2005.
Jim Rome opined Monday that “even Woody Allen, Luis Polonia and Gary Glitter” would find Roger Clemens’ alleged behavior “inappropriate”. The rest of us eagerly await the day Rome’s staff figure out who R. Kelly is.
Much as I deplore the use of the nickname, “Ginger Ninja”, I’m sure Paul Scholes finds it more endearing than “formerly relevant”.
As we’re on the brink of an All-England Champions League final in Moscow, we can now recall a period in which it was honestly suggested (out loud, even!) La Liga or Serie A held the public’s consciousness in a vice-like grip?
(Pictured, a view from one of Wrigley’s luxury sky boxes)
Hey, it’s Cub Mailbag time again. Here’s how it works: Fans send MLB’s official Cub reporter Carrie Muskat questions at the Cub web site, and I supply the answers her job description prevents her from giving. As the Cubs ride out April in first place, the Mailbag is feeling good. So what’s on your minds, Cub fans?
Sunday’s win put the Cubs in first place in the National League Central. Given that the White Sox are in first in the American League Central, I was wondering when the last time both Chicago teams simultaneously led their respective divisions.
– Tom B., Streator, Ill.
Tom — The Sox? Why do you care about them? You think Sox fans care about you? How often are the Cubs in first place at all? Next to never? We get to first and you bum my high out with a Sox question? Nice. As for our being number one at the same time as a team that’s managed to post only one more Series win than we have since 1908, and nowhere near our 16 pennants, I’d have to say not too often is the obvious answer. I think the Cubs in first at the same time as that 1-in-40 million giant asteroid hitting the earth is more likely. Don’t write mailbag with any more Sox questions. You’re banned from mailbag for a year.
Is anything physically wrong with Bob Howry, or did he have any offseason problems of any kind? I remember watching games last year and consistently seeing Howry hit 94-95 [mph] on the gun, but now he’s hitting 87-88. I know velocity isn’t everything, but it’s a huge part of Howry’s game and it seems to be a logical conclusion that if he can’t overpower hitters, he’ll continue to struggle. We need him to be solid if we’re going to make a run.
– Mike C., Chicago
In the post-steroids era, 87 is the new 95. But Mike, honestly, can you believe that Sox question? The balls.
After watching Carlos Zambrano’s huge game at the plate on April 16, I was wondering how many starting pitchers have ever had hits from both sides of the plate in the same game?
– Barney F., St. Charles, Ill.
Barney, Zambrano’s winning. He’s eating his bananas and laying off the Red Bull. So don’t take his mind off his pitching with this sort of thing and jinx him. Mailbag’s not even going to tell him you asked.
I noticed that when Kosuke Fukudome is on first (which has been often), Matt Sinatro appears to be talking to him about third-base coach Mike Quade’s signs. Does Sinatro speak Japanese, do they compromise and speak Spanish, or is Fukudome’s English improving?
– Jake D., Janesville, Wis.
Jake, signs are SIGNS. They’re not English or Japanese, for God’s sake. Quade rubs his nose, he taps his hat, and you think Fukodome needs subtitles? What a rube. First I get Sox questions and now one written by a guy who should be a Sox fan.
As DeRosa’s biggest fan, I would like to know what uniform number he wore as the quarterback at Penn. I need to order a jersey for my DeRosa shrine.
– Nicolas B., Bloomington, Ill.
Ok, I hate looking up stuff like that. What do I know from Pennsylvania football? And btw, a DeRosa “shrine?” Sounds more sexual or stalkery than you’re letting on, Nic. So, no, I won’t enable you. This, plus that Tommy Commiskey from Streator, Illinois – today’s mailbag just bad-vibes me.
I received a white “W” flag for Christmas and have been flying it religiously this season. What is the official length of time I can fly the flag after a win? When does it need to come down? Please help.
– Jason P., Grinnell, Iowa
Jason, the “W” flag is traditionally raised at Wrigley after the Cubs win a ball game and taken down when they lose. Please be careful with it. As you’ll see on the manufacturer’s label, they’re generally not good after 85 runs up a pole, sometimes burst into flames after 90, and over 100 is simply unknown.
Aug. 8 is the 20th anniversary of the first night game at Wrigley. Why is the game not a night game? Is there any chance they will change it?
– Liana W., Hiawatha, Iowa
Hiawatha – cool name for a town. You know, after Obama won out there, I thought Iowa must be a lot hipper than I thought, and your town name proves it. It’s like your town has a really cool tattoo. Thanks for the question, Liana. Questions like yours are what keep me going.
I’m gonna leave out the portentous stuff about “love of the game” – all you need to take away from Paul Daugherty’s Cincinnati Enquirer column is the nuts and bolts of a promotion by the ECHL Cincinnati Cyclones:
A steady stream of Bengals fans entered Koch’s Sporting Goods downtown at noon Tuesday, to pay their disrespects to the The Player Formerly Known As Chad. Each carried with him a JOHNSON 85 jersey, and a cathartic need to get rid of it.
The jersey could have been kindling. It could have been a doormat. They wouldn’t have cared. The fact that fans could exchange the nylon keepsake for two tickets to a Cyclones playoff game was a bonus, icing on the cake of betrayal…
Sherry Brabham has brought to Koch’s the Chad jersey of her 12-year-old son Frank. Frank, formerly a worshipper, has left the Chad flock and, Sherry says, is thrilled to be watching the Cyclones for free Wednesday night.
Next up, how ’bout a Chris-Henry’s-guns-for-hockey-tickets swap?
Unlike the Suns, Rockets and Mavericks, who all face potential elimination games tonight, the Washington Wizards have at least 28 or so more hours remaining in their ‘07-08 season. But while their match-up with the Cavaliers was pretty easily the first-round series I most looked forward to — I had a feeling the Suns/Spurs series would turn into the dreary, Parker-led, ref-soliciting, play-executing death march it has become — it has turned out to be pretty much a dud. Game four was exciting, but the previous games were torpid blowouts that were notable only for a few hard fouls and some demonstrative gesturing from second-tier guards. Well, that and for the ridiculous mastery of LeBron James (29.5 PPG on 51.2% shooting, 8.5 RPG, 6.5 APG). The Wizznutzz describe the experience of watching these games thusly:
Right now Queen James is having his way in the lane, like a bull in a vagina shop.
When he drives lane, its like the goddammed video for “OWner fo a Lonely Heart” by YES: a dude having seizures while a bunch of big eyed reptiles sit around and stare. Cuz Queen james is owning us right now, hes not even owning DeShawn hes just leasing him cuz he doesnt want to be responsible for the oil changes.
But besides being lopsided basketball, the series has also featured a goofy, WWE-style subplot involving each team’s surrogate rapper. The Cavs and LeBron have aligned themselves with Jay-Z, while the DeShawn Stevenson and the Wiz have 17-year old dance-inventor/ho-Supermanner Soulja Boy. My opinions on ho-supersoaking and/or Supermanning to the side, my instincts naturally put me on the side that doesn’t have the ultra-billionaire cake-talking rap plutocrat (and LeBron), but this will likely all be moot by sometime tomorrow night, anyway. Which isn’t bad news, considering that it should at least consign Jay-Z’s corny DeShawn Stevenson dis record to the furthest reaches of mixtape limbo. New York Magazine’s Ben Mathis-Lilley reports on the track:
Apparently a freestyle, it’s recorded over the beat from Too Short’s “Blow the Whistle.” Though no target is named, the track is clearly aimed at Washington Wizards shooting guard DeShawn Stevenson and rapper Soulja Boy.
As a track, it’s not much; there are some decent if vague lines — “We [that’s Jay and LeBron] let the money do the talkin’ / And as you see, we talk rather often” — but since Jay refuses to actually mention whom he’s talking about because he thinks he’s above it, there’s none of the hilariously personal cutting-down that makes a dis track a dis track. It’s too generic to be memorable, but we nonetheless appreciate it if simply for the fact that Jay-Z’s catalogue now includes an entire song about a semi-obscure player for the Washington Wizards. It’s an entirely new category of music: the Novelty Beef.
The word for the day must’ve been “aloof”, over at WFAN, as earlier this afternoon, Mike Francesca and Chris Russo launched into an extended spiel to determine which of the New York Mets’ prominent Latino ballplayers are guilty of not-exhibiting Captain Red Ass-like tendencies on a regular basis. After determining that Carlos Delgado was (ahem) aloof, Russo turned his attentions to the Mets’ centerfielder, a player he derided as one who “…doesn’t like to play hurt. Everything’s gotta be perfect for him to go out there.”
That Russo mispronounces names and generally plays fast and loose with the facts is hardly a new development. But WFAN’s afternoon programming has hit an all-time low if the Fraudcaster in question honestly expects his listeners to forget on how many occasions Beltran has insisted on playing while not even close to 100%. Innuendo Radio is obviously profitable, but this goes beyond mere critique and extends all the way to genuine defamation of character.
No doubt about it, Mets got rope-a-doped by an expansion team — you’re telling Rickey that the best you can get for a 23-year-old kid that’s got all sorts of upside is some broke-ass catcher and a Jew-hating outfielder? Rickey’s not down with that, the trade or the bigotry. Hating Jews is like a gateway drug into more insidious and dangerous forms of racism, like hating on the black man, or the Chinese man, or even women. And the honky’s last name is Church, if you can believe that! Chump should know better! For Rickey, Church is about loving your fellow man, praising The Lord for sacrificing his only son, waking your dead ass up early Sunday morning, and getting a few quick winks during the preacher’s corny-ass sermon before heading off to IHOP for some Rooty Tooty Double Covered and Smothered action. Rickey loves the strawberry syrup more than he loves his stolen base record (and Rickey sleeps with that base every night). Anyway, Rickey calls BOOYAH on this racially-motivated trade, and hopes Lastings whups up on those jive Jew-hating chumps every chance he gets.
And speaking of racism, Rickey wants to know what the heck’s going on with Carlos Delgado? Brother cannot catch a break — they boo him when he doesn’t hit, they boo him when he hits, and they’d boo him for ordering the #6 at Wendy’s. “Boo, Carlos Delgado! Rickey says boo! Rickey wanted you to get the Big Bacon Classic with a side of chili and a vanilla Frosty! You’re a chicken-eating chump, Carlos Delgado!” Rickey supports Carlos Delgado in his telling Mets fans to go have sex with their butt-ugly sister. New York fans are nothing but chumps if they got nothing better to do than harass this beautiful, beautiful man with their stank-ass beer mouths.
Lefty Steve Trout’s combined 9 years as a starter for the White Sox and Cubs are a matter of public record.
What’s not nearly so well known is Trout’s late summer of ‘87 stint moonlighting as a CBGB soundman during his days off with the Yankees. Bill Popp & The Tapes haven’t sounded nearly as good since then.
New York Magazine’s Bilge Ebiri caught up with former Mets / current Chiba Lotte Marines skipper Bobby Valentine for a chat on the occasion of “The Zen Of Bobby”, heading to an arthouse…well, a DVD rental queue near you. Pete Harnisch is gonna wait for it to hit cable.
What made you decide to let three NYU students follow you around with a camera? Did you have any concerns?
For starters, they were so persistent. It was kind of a three-year trip they took — calling me, e-mailing me, telling me about their idea, about their passion for the project. Finally, after I met them and saw the documentary they made before this [Andrew Jenks's Room 335],I decided to do it. I did have some concerns. Eight months — that’s a long time. But they were very special, wonderfully intelligent, and creative. And I can say it was the greatest experience of my life, hanging out with three 21-year-olds. [Laughs.]
When you first arrived in Japan, did you have any idea of the kind of media celebrity you’d become there?
When I first got here in 1995, I came to change the world. I wanted to make a big splash. And I got fired at the end of that season. That was when I realized how much the fans had taken to me — there was a genuine outcry for me not to leave. But you have to remember what the world of baseball was like in 1995. That was the year [Hideo] Nomo went to the U.S. He was basically the first modern-day pitcher to go there. As he was going, I was coming. And I was thinking that maybe a bridge or a highway could’ve been built between the two cultures.
What is the biggest difference between Japanese baseball and American baseball?
When people watch this film, they’ll hopefully see that these three guys captured the fandom here, which is really different. The fans have an incredible amount of passion. The game on the field is the exact same game, but it’s played with precision, the way it was many years ago in the States, before it became a power game. The double play and the sacrifice run and the sacrifice play are still common here. The 100-mile-an-hour fastball and the 500-foot home run are not.
Despite Manchester City remaining in contention for a spot in Europe for most of the season and having beaten Manchester United twice in league competiton — a feat not achieved in nearly 20 years, manager Sven-Goran Erikkson (above, left) finds himself free and clear to spend as much time as he likes with Pat Riley’s family. From the Telegraph’s Tim Rich :
Sven-Goran Eriksson will be sacked as manager of Manchester City at the end of the season after being told by the club’s owner, Thaksin Shinawatra, that he was not right for the club.
His agent, Athole Still, did not attempt to deny that Eriksson’s relationship with Shinawatra had broken down completely but said he would not be resigning.
Manager and owner met in the wake of Manchester City’s 3-2 defeat by Fulham on Saturday at which Eriksson was told he would be replaced.
Eriksson was said to have kept his customary cool during Sunday’s meeting but was said to be shocked by developments and there are even reports that he said goodbye to City’s players yesterday morning.
“I am giving a reasonably informed opinion and it is odds against him staying,” Still said. “It is the developments over the past couple of days. If Dr Shinawatra were going to give his ringing support, we would have heard it over the last couple of days.
“The one thing I can categorically say is that Sven will not be walking. You walk if you feel you have been doing a bad job and in Sven’s case that is very, very far from the truth.
What is surprising is the speed with which Thaksin’s mood has changed. Last summer, as Eriksson was hastily assembling a fresh squad built around eight new players bought on video evidence, the former Thai prime-minister suggested he was looking only for a modest improvement on Manchester City’s 14th-place finish under Stuart Pearce. Next season he would look for European qualification and entry to the Champions League by 2010.
Assistant coach Tord Grip said Eriksson had not been given enough time as manager. Grip confirmed to Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet: “We will be here for the two last matches. They probably think that we haven’t done a good enough job.”
Syndicated columnist Norman Chad, preuambly aware of “E-60″’s unseemly ambush of Astros SS Miguel Tejada, submits the following transcript from his own fateful encounter with “Ferris Toms of Fox Sports Net’s ‘F-60′”. “Little did I know my whole ink-sustained world would come crashing down when I agreed to do the interview” complained Chad, who might still have something left to offer as a character actor….if a second season of “Tilt” ever takes place.
Toms: How old are you?
Me: Me? I’m 47.
Toms: Born in …?
Me: A hospital.
Toms: In which year?
Me: 1960.
Toms: You sure?
Me: Why do I have to lie? Are you a divorce attorney?
Toms: We acquired the birth certificate that your father filed when you were a boy and, uh, let me show it to you because I want you to explain this to me. OK?
Me: My father? Where did you find him at, OTB or DMV?
Toms: This is your birth certificate, right? Is that you?
Me: Probably. Maybe. Perhaps. Who wants to know?
Toms: Is this your birth certificate?
Me: Hey, you don’t have to bring me over here to talk about my personal stuff — I pay a therapist to do that.
Comparing Rangers D Sean Avery targeting the wrists of Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby with Adam Graves’ attempts to disable Mario Lemieux, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review conceeds few others will raise the point because “sneak attacks are designed that way.”
The first slash connected. Luckily for Crosby, the harder second one did not, only because he’d whipped his smarting wrist out of the way. “He wasn’t going for the puck,” Crosby said. “He was going for my wrist.”
Penguins coach Michel Therrien said he was well aware of the incident and added, somewhat cryptically, “I’m working on that right now.”
Asked if that meant he was going to send a tape to league headquarters, Therrien said no.
It’s not exactly news that Avery is a league-wide joke. Or, as Penguins winger Gary Roberts put it a few weeks ago, “an idiot.”
Roberts was speaking in the aftermath of Avery’s ridiculous face-guarding act against New Jersey goaltender Martin Brodeur.
You might have heard what Avery did at the Rangers’ next practice, when he realized a television camera had caught him re-enacting his face-guarding routine. He made an obscene gesture to the camera.
This is the kind of maladjusted mental midget you’re dealing with.
Who knows why this obnoxious little gnat is such an attention seeker? Maybe Penguins defenseman Hal Gill got it right in Game 2, after the benches exchanged words.
NBC analyst Pierre McGuire, stationed between the benches, said, “Hal Gill just said to Avery, ‘You just weren’t hugged enough as a child. That’s why you’ve got issues.’ “
Yes, he’s got issues. Of Vogue (with apologies to Alan Partridge).
Of L’affair Clemens/McCready, Newsday’s Wallace Matthews opines, “aside from the age of his alleged mistress at the time of their meeting, this is one big non-story.” And that’s a very important distinction, as Matthews seems quite fixated on the age of the Rocket’s alleged mistress.
A ballplayer who cheats on his wife? I am shocked. A young girl who is seduced by the “charms” of an older man, said charms consisting mainly that he has his picture on bubblegum cards and an obscenely outsize paycheck? I am double-shocked.
The fact that she was 15 and he 28? Well, that one is a little tougher to get around, but these days, 15 is the new 30. Ask Miley Cyrus and her dad, who had no problem posing for an Annie Leibovitz photo spread with his scantily clad teenage daughter — looking creepily like his girlfriend — which, of course, was the only way that has-been was ever getting into Vanity Fair.
I’m going to have a much tougher time explaining that one to my 7-year-old daughter, who worships at the altar of Hannah Montana, than I am the reality of a warped world in which supposedly grown men feel they can avail themselves of anything and everything they want whenever they want it. Besides, if the State of Tennessee wants to pursue the matter of the Rocket and the Schoolgirl, I say have at it.
We don’t know if Clemens was having “an affair” or “a romance” with the underage McCready, the two coy terms applied to the association by the Daily News, or if Clemens was simply assuming a mentoring role with his young friend, knowing as we do how strongly he feels about serving as a role model for young people.
“I pride myself as an example for kids,” Clemens said under oath to Congress in February. “If I am guilty of anything, it is of being too trusting of everyone, wanting to see the best in everyone, being too nice to everyone.”
See, it could be as simple and innocent as that.
Then again, to believe a 28-year-old man could strike up a platonic 10-year friendship with a winsome 15-year-old is kind of like believing the only member of the Clemens family to use HGH was Roger’s wife, Debbie.
Though I’m somewhat comforted to know Wally finds the voice behind “Achy Breaky Heart” as worthy of a cheap shot as say, Jose Reyes, I don’t see the parallels between the Clemens/McCreedy allegations and a veteran entertainer’s photo session.
Manchester United’s lawyers will tomorrow ask the club’s players for their accounts of the violent clashes with Chelsea employees at the end of Saturday’s game at Stamford Bridge. In particular they will focus on suggestions that Patrice Evra suffered racial abuse, with sources inside the dressing room reporting that Evra had been called a “fucking immigrant”.
senior sources at Old Trafford confirmed yesterday that one of Evra’s associates had informed them the French defender was subjected to what Carlos Tevez described as a “grave insult”. United players who were closest to the scene believe they heard Evra being sworn at and racially abused. It is understood that Chelsea will vehemently deny this and that any allegation of racist comments or any language that could be construed as racist will be strongly disputed.
The Football Association has launched an investigation into the trouble, which occurred when Sir Alex Ferguson’s unused players were taking part in the routine post-match warm-down and objected to groundstaff and other officials asking them to leave the pitch.
The trouble flared after Chelsea’s groundstaff asked the players to move because they wanted to cut the grass. It is in the Premier League’s rules that the players are allowed on the pitch after the match, and the players carried on with their exercises. A United player is believed to have sworn in response and the situation went downhill from there, with other insults swapped. In the next few minutes there were then two separate clashes, involving up to 30 people, with Evra predominantly involved. Photographs show a groundsman, Sam Bethell, with his fist raised and apparently about to punch him as others try to calm the situation.
Chelsea claim the trouble was begun by United’s players but on another day of claim and counter-claim Ferguson expressed his concern that the Stamford Bridge employees had started the incident out of nothing. “There’s one question I want to put,” he said. “Why were the lawnmowers going after the game to cut the grass? Were they not supposed to do it before the game?”
While New York and Chicago are seemingly engaged in a tug-of-war for the coaching services of Mark Jackson, Rockin’ Steady has unveiled “The Anthony Bonner Project”, a ten point plan for repairing the brutally damaged Knicks . Here’s a few of the highlights :
Under no circumstances will we bid against ourselves for a player, particularly a player already on the payroll. When Allan Houston was up for free agency some years ago, we more than doubled the next highest offer he had gotten (from the Chicago Bulls). There was no need to do this, considering that we were looking at a one-dimensional player—albeit a very good one—who would have gladly stayed in New York with a lower offer that still would have been the best offer on the table. This signing, more than any other, put us in a situation in which it became impossible to sign other free agents, and it also crushed the morale of our loyal fanbase when Allan’s health deteriorated. We have to be, and from now on will be, a team willing to lose a good player instead of making a bad deal. Just as fans of the New York Mets appreciate their teams’ savvy in not overpaying for the now-terrible Barry Zito, so, too, do we trust that our fans are intelligent enough to recognize the wisdom in these decisions.
We will, at this point, keep an evolving list of those free agents who are actually worth the NBA maximum salary. That list will number no more than 15 players. We will never offer the maximum salary to a player not on this list. Period. Not as a free agent, not as a retained member of the Knicks. Players who disagree with us as to their worth are free to take offers with other teams, assuming they can find an organization whose sense of their worth is more in alignment with theirs.
We will not overvalue or under-evaluate a talent – player, coach or otherwise – for reasons of regional favor. We will no longer be an organization that leaps to get Stephen Marbury, in part, because he is a Brooklyn guy whose homecoming would be a nice story. We recognize that fans of the New York Knicks desire not a homegrown product but a winning product.
We will bring back the player intro music from the mid 1990s. We are sorry for the shit we make you sit through now.
We will eliminate the cheer squad we’ve started sending around the Garden at home games, spurring fans to cheer regardless of the dreck on the court. We are sorry for making you sit through their shit, too. If we put a good product on the court, the fans will take care of themselves.
Awesome news for the ladies of the Can-Am League, as provided by the press release mavens at Our Sports Central (link swiped from Baseball Think Factory’s Repoz)
Nashua Pride Officials have announced that the team has re-signed pitcher Rich “El Guapo” Garces for the 2008 season.
“El Guapo” will return to Nashua after a successful 2007 campaign in which he accumulated a 6-4 record, with an ERA of 4.42 in 36 games pitched.
The Maraca, Venezuela, native, emerged as one of the top Can-Am League closers in 2007, recording 17 saves for the Pride, including the final three outs of the Can-Am League Championship Series that earned the Nashua Pride the Can-Am League Championship Trophy.
“Having Rich back is so exciting for us, especially the fans and the sponsors,” said Pride General Manager Chris Hall. “He was on the mound for us when we won the Championship and is a guy that we wanted on the mound this season. He is going to be a key player for us and we couldn’t be happier to bring him back to Nashua.”
He leaves the Mexican Baseball League where he had been pitching for Potros de Tijuana, recording three saves, and a 2.45 ERA in 18.1 innings pitched.
Not that I’m rooting for the Pride to lose a bona fide box office attraction, but might the Giants consider whether or not Garces is any worse an option for the SF pen than Brad Hennessey?
Not that I mean to pile on Matt, who does excellent work, but one of his links today, Develop Willet’s Point, raises my ire just a bit. I’m not ready to call the man behind it a flack for City Hall, but C. McShane (if that is his real name, says the guy named Pulp) is pretty jazzed about Mayor Mike’s vision for our fair pit.
I know MetsBlog used to be the go to sports blog for Fred Thompson ads and I believe it was part of the Pajamas Media consortium for a time (I will take back this slur if it turns out to be wrong), so for all I know, Matt Cerrone is a pro-business Republican who supports using eminent domain for the greater good and all that. But maybe he isn’t. But I do think it’s important we know what Matt thinks of the Willet’s Point redevelopment plan because it’s another test of that independence he promised his readers he would have after the merger with SNY.
Is he going to stick to Wilpon and Co.’s party line that the place is a hopeless garbage pit and has to be razed to the ground? Is he aware of any of the area’s history, the city’s neglect of it whenever they aren’t trying to push its businesses out? Is it telling that he hasn’t ever linked to No Land Grab, the anti-Atlantic Yards blog, despite the fact that they’ve followed the Willet’s Point story for longer than Develop Willet’s Point, which has been around for all of five days?
As baseball fans, we don’t want to deal with these issues, we just want a good bar to go to after the game, and I understand that. But there are people who work at Willet’s Point who will more than likely be forgotten by the city, no matter what promises our Billionaire King makes. There’s also the matter of affordable housing, the enormous clean up costs involved with the area and the question of whether the whole development will turn into a sweetheart deal with a connected developer that changes the entire neighborhood of Flushing. The people in Willet’s Point deserve better than being pushed out just so we can better enjoy a baseball game.
Well put. The potential for abuse in this instance is so pronounced, Donald Manes is currently clawing at the inside of his coffin, desperate to get in on the payday.
Much is being made today about Mets 1B Carlos Delgado’s refusal to take a curtain call after the second of his two home runs off Atlanta Braves pitching during a 6-3 victory at Shea Sunday afternoon. In an era in which New York’s print media have been all-too quick to criticize Delgado’s black and Latino teammates for excessive celebrations, the New York Post’s Joel Sherman would have us believe it’s the paying customers who’ve made the working environment intolerable in Queens.
For better or for worse – and to talk to a Met anonymously is to know they only think the worse – the negativity emanating from the Shea stands is a real part of the games. Most days these players feel as if it is the Mets vs. both the Braves and their own fans.
Delgado insisted afterward this was no statement. But it was the strongest one yet to define this current reality: Met fans don’t like this team too much and the players don’t like the fans, either.
And as one player asked, “Do they think that is helping us?” In other words, it is hard to win, harder yet when you are playing either in anticipation of the boos or to try and ward them off. Both media and fans have become harsher over the years, but there is a quick, energy-sapping maliciousness at Shea that is hard to match anywhere.
When Carlos Beltran’s 2006 campaign began with frequent booing and a similar reluctance to take a curtain call, I suggested those fans who were most hostile in their treatment of the outfielder represented a loud minority, but a minority of Mets rooters just the same. I’m not sure where the sense of entitlement comes from — that the likes of Beltran, Delgado and Reyes are pilloried in their first at-bat sometimes, that the manager cannot show his face without hearing chants of “Fire Willie”, but I suspect astronomical ticket prices and a level of hysteria primed by chat radio goons (it was only a week ago that Chris Russo suggested Delgado be executed) are as much to blame as any lingering resentment over last September’s collapse.
If patrons can only afford to attend one or two Mets games a year, they’re gonna get their booing in as early as possible.
Prior to the start of the season, Matthew Cerrone joined forces with the Mets and SportsNet New York in a deal to have MetsBlog.com appear on SNY’s Web site. This was followed by a lot of yap-flapping out of Metsville (and MetsBlog) about MetsBlog being able to continue doing its thing.
On Thursday, MetsBlog posted a YouTube video of Joe Smith going mouth-to-mouth (”You ain’t s— … I’m in the big leagues you idiot”) with Cubs fans. Spies say when a Mets official was made aware of the video’s presence, he had it immediately pulled off MetsBlog.
For MetsBlog, and its fans, that’s called livin’ in a corporate world.
If SNY is hellbent on ridding itself of any questionable associations, where’s the censors for Chris Cotter’s haircut?
Terrell Owens causing problems in the Eagles locker room. Billy Gillispie leaving Texas A&M. Walt Jocketty becoming Reds GM. To this list of “least surprising stories ever,” we can now add Peter Forsberg’s health. From Terry Frei of the Denver Post:
Forsberg has become more trouble than he is worth. His unreliability is demoralizing.
It raised eyebrows when he was in and out of the lineup down the stretch of the regular season after signing with Colorado on Feb. 2
This raises doubts.
At this time of year, in the most relentlessly testing of professional sports’ postseasons, any skepticism — even subconscious — about a teammate’s resolve is a major problem.
The on-ice impact of Forsberg’s absence is significant, especially given the Avalanche’s struggles to mount pressure on Detroit goalie Chris Osgood through two games.
But the dulling of the Avs’ emotional edge is even more debilitating.
The caveat: Only one man knows the extent of Forsberg’s pain, whether in his long-troublesome ankle or his groin — or both. And that’s Forsberg, who wasn’t made available to the media after the Avalanche’s 5-1 thrashing in Game 2.
His Colorado teammates refused to criticize Forsberg after the loss. Perhaps they also understood that they had been so thoroughly outplayed, it was embarrassing. They drew brain-lock penalties and seemingly were more concerned with showy displays of message-sending passion than emotion channeled into such things as bothering to make the Wings pay for going to the net.
Am I saying that Forsberg, among the grittiest of NHL players in the past, lost his heart as well as his spleen? Of course not. He’s proven his grit, his resilience, his courage, and displayed a high pain threshold in the past.
But at some point the past becomes irrelevant, and you have to suck it up and play. Now.
Or not. The nightly “will-he/won’t-he?” dance is worse than simply going on without him. But since everyone in hockey saw this happen on the Flyers for the past two years, and Forsberg himself never really came out with an “I feel great!” upon returning, the blame here ought to be directed at the Avs’ front office.
Except that with a Stanley Cup in Denver quite unlikely either way, I reckon that the franchise got exactly what it wanted: box office buzz, accompanied by a coin flip’s chance that he could make a difference (which he did, in the first round).
True Hoop’s Henry Abbott was up pretty early Saturday, declaring Larry Brown’s resignation from a no-show job in Philly and Sam Vincent’s sudden firing in Charlotte were hardly unrelated. Today, the Post’s Peter Vecsey (”hey, I’m no Agatha Christie – I’m not even Julie Christie”), concurs, predicting “I visualize Dean Smith as Brown’s behind-the-bench consultant for home games, a la Tex Winter holding down Phil Jackson”.
Down deep, Next Town Brown has a lot of groupie in him when it comes to (Charlotte boss) Michael Jordan. I dare say he’d probably work for nothing (admittedly a “slight” exaggeration; Larry definitely wears Michael’s underwear brand) to hang around His Airness on a regular basis.
If my conclusion-jumping is off target, the Grizzlies’ presidency and coaching jobs are there for the scoop should Brown want them. Again, he was never in Bulls GM John Paxson’s interviewing equation, which has expanded beyond Rick Carlisle. In fact, sources say Paxson is scheduled to meet with Mark Jackson in Los Angeles sometime this week, though the original point god made it clear, all negotiating details being near equal, his goal is to coach the Knicks..
Condolences go out this Sunday AM to the players, staff and some several dozen fans of the Austin Toros, who saw the D-League title awarded to Idaho after a 108-101 loss in Boise Friday evening. The NBA’s haste in producing locker room tees for the Stampede has me wondering which war torn corner of the globe was airlifted Toros 2008 Championship shirts.
Anyhow, if you see a bunch of helicopters flying over Comal and 12th Street today or tomorrow, you’ll know what’s up.
What a difference a week and some crazy fixture congestion makes. It was only Thursday the 17th when Chelsea manager Avram Grant put on a public display of petulance that made Bobby Knight look positively rosy by comparison following a drab 1-0 victory over Everton. By Saturday afternoon, however, Grant’s Blues — also 90 minutes away from a Champions League final — find themselves very much in the mix for the Premier League crown following a 2-1 defeat of Manchester United, a result that left both clubs level on 81 points with two matches remaining. Manchester United possess a considerable advantage on goal differential, but the prospect of their only managing a draw against West Ham or Wigan over the next two weekends is not the most unlikely scenario, not when you consider the lack of poise shown by their captain. The Observer’s Duncan Castles on what might be the start of the biggest choke job in recent memory to not invoke the name Willie Randolph.
Rio Ferdinand admitted accidentally kicking a female steward in the aftermath of his team’s 2-1 defeat. Ferdinand said: “I kicked a ball in frustration at the result, as I have done before in the past. Unfortunately a lady was stood by and I accidentally brushed her with my foot. I went back to make sure she was OK and apologised profusely. Credit to her, she laughed it off and was very understanding. She said she wasn’t hurt. I’ve arranged for a bouquet of flowers to be sent to her.”
But however accidental the contact, Ferdinand’s expression of anger will not have impressed Fabio Capello, who was at the game and chose the United player to captain England against France last month. And, as Patrice Evra, Gary Neville, Paul Scholes, Gerard Pique and John O’Shea were warming down, a row developed with Chelsea groundstaff and punches appeared to be thrown. A Chelsea spokesman said: “We will be studying the CCTV footage of the incident and take whatever action is appropriate.”
As a result of their defeat, United must at least match Chelsea’s results against Newcastle and Bolton in the next fortnight to retain the title. Although Ferguson fielded only a half-strength team – starting with his two leading scorers, Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez, on the bench – the Scot chose to attack referee Alan Wiley’s decision to award Chelsea their penalty when Michael Carrick clearly handled a Michael Essien cross.
“Absolutely diabolical,” Ferguson said. “It’s a major decision. Granted it hit his hand. He’s not lifted his hand above his shoulders, above his head, anything like that. The ball is going straight to Rio Ferdinand. The referee should have seen that rather than the linesman. If it goes down to decisions like those we’re in trouble. If we’re not getting decisions we deserve then we’re going to have to perform really well.”
Ferguson further criticised Wiley for failing to award United an earlier penalty and for failing to take action against Didier Drogba when a collision with the striker’s knee forced Nemanja Vidic out of the game.
“In the context of today when Ronaldo comes on and from the first minute he is grappled to the floor by Ballack,” Ferguson added. “Clear penalty kick. No penalty given. Vidic needed stitches and lost a tooth. He got kneed in the face by Drogba, no foul given. He was dazed actually rather than concussion.”
…and I’m only calling it that because the phrase “web gem” is someone else’s intellectual property. It may well take another Carlos Beltran hike up Tal’s Hill to top this robbery of Felipe Lopez from Friday evening.
I’m not even gonna tackle the delicious ironing of the scene outside Radio City Music Hall being such a wonderful argument for wartime conscription, but let’s just say the plethora of dudes wearing NFL jerseys all over midtown today will not cause the casual onlooker to mistake this for Fashion Week.
The New York Post referred to the Falcons’ first round pick (no. 3 overall), QB Matt Ryan (BC) as “the antithesis of Michael Vick”. Which either means he’s a pocket passer, immobile, loves puppies, is super dull or is a white guy. OK, he’s not wearing an orange jumpsuit, either, but the same could be said of Joe Flacco (Delaware), selected no. 18 overall by the Ravens. If you’re trying to comfort Baltimore season ticket holders, describing their new QB as “the antithesis of Kyle Boller” is a nice place to start. If this leaves Brian Brohm in the role of 2008’s Brady Quinn, give the former credit for not being in New York this afternoon.
As of 5:30pm EST, the Modell’s at Grand Central Station had yet to receive stock on Vernon Gholston jerseys. I think this qualifies as a blown business opportunity.
I was tired of hearing Darren McFadden being called “Run DMC” about a week ago, much as I don’t quite get the Adrian Peterson comparisions. McFadden could well be an impact player, don’t get me wrong, be he’s not been injured on the field nearly as much as Purple Jesus.
Possibly because I am too hungover to make intelligent decisions today, I’ve largely stuck with ESPN’s draft coverage in favor of The Rich Eisen Project. Sadly, I think there’s something missing from The Worldwide Leader’s presentation. A certain lispy malevolence. Perhaps next April, the NFL Network will allow Bill Romanowski to make a triumphant return to premium basic cable.
I have no idea why Elvis Costello’s “Alison” is playing over the Radio City tannoy between selections number 32 and 33. I always figured Roger Goodell to be more of a Graham Parker & The Rumor kinda guy.
I would not want get this guy started on, for instance, the matter of bunting to break up a no-hitter. But seriously, if the Padres are truly concerned about the opposition teeing off, might it not be slightly insane to take umbrage at a swinging strike?
(GOP commentator George Will works out the Cubs’ magic number after the Cubs-Nats game tonight)
With all the mid-September World Series talk out of Chicago this third week of April, I did check the calculator after tonight’s 5-3 loss to the Nationals to make sure the Cubs were still in the hunt. Fortunately, there’s some games left. The downer in DC last night coulda-shoulda been won, especially after leaving 10 runners on base, and an amazing catch by Reed Johnson. DC’s second-string catcher Wil Nieves mercifully ended it with a walk-off 9th inning homer, his first. Piniella bitched on the Cubs’ pre-game show that they need more support from the mid-bullpen and leave too many men on the bags. Unfortunately, the boys mistook that as his game plan instead of something to fix. An autopsy of this mess is offered by The Daily Herald’s Bruce Miles:
WASHINGTON — If ever a game fell into the “deserved to lose” category for the Cubs, it was Friday night’s 5-3 loss to the Washington Nationals.
Never mind, for a moment, reliever Bob Howry giving up a game-winning, 2-run homer in the ninth inning to backup catcher Wil Nieves for Nieves’ first career home run.
Well before that the Cubs had many chances to blow out the pesky Nats but couldn’t do it.
“This is a couple games in a row where we’ve had opportunities, and we haven’t taken advantage of them,” said manager Lou Piniella, whose team is 15-8 and has lost two straight. “A backup catcher got a hold of a high fastball, and that was that.”
The Cubs wasted a 7-inning pitching performance by starter Ryan Dempster who righted himself after giving up a 2-run homer in the first to Nick Johnson.
The offense left 10 runners stranded and ran itself out of a couple of innings.
“No matter how much money they make,” muses the New York Sun’s Tim Marchman, “athletes are just like other people, and would prefer to do well rather than badly.” For a proud man like Carlos Delgado (benched tonight against the Braves in favor of Marlon Anderson), is any size paycheck worth tolerating death threats from Long Island City’s no. 1 SF Giants fan?
When he came to the Mets three years ago, he looked to have a decent chance at the Hall of Fame. Now, he looks to have only sketchy chances of holding a job next year. He’s been dropped a spot in the order, and radio host Chris Russo, in a characteristically thoughtful riff, even suggested on the air that the Mets should consider killing him. (”They could kill him, they could bench him, they can do a million things.” ) It’s hard times in New York town.
One problem, maybe the worst one, is that Delgado has seemingly completely lost the ability to reach the outer half of the plate. This was visible to even the least observant fan last year, but it’s gotten even worse this year, when he’s had four hits (three of them singles) on pitches from the middle of the strike zone on out. The man can reach out and put the bat on the ball to slap it foul, but he can’t hit it with any authority at all.
Like most left-handed power hitters, Delgado is basically a pull hitter, so this isn’t necessarily an immense problem in its own right. The Mets are not counting on him to shoot dribblers up the third base line or through the hole the other way, but to crank long hits down the right field line. When a hitter can’t even pose the threat of being able to hit an outside pitch, though, he’s going to get nothing else. This isn’t just a hole in his swing, but a gaping black pit of despair. No pitcher needs to throw a pitch in his wheelhouse at all, for any reason, because he’s just not going to be able to hit anything that isn’t in it. This, I suspect, is why he’s hitting for so little power: It’s less that he’s incapable of hitting the ball really hard than that he’s incapable of forcing pitchers to serve the ball where he can tag it.
No one else on the Mets roster or in their system is capable of playing first base full time while hitting at all respectably. (Neither Moises Alou nor Ryan Church has ever played a major league game at the position, for the curious.) Even if they were inclined to make a trade, it’s unclear how they could do so — the farm system is barren, and few teams are ever looking to do a New York team a solid. For the present, and likely the rest of the year, Delgado it is. One just hopes that the fans and even the writers keep in mind that baseball is hard. Don’t get down on the man: Even if it isn’t enough, he’s doing what he can.
In a quick reversal, Kenny Mayne, who announced his eligibility for the NFL draft yesterday, has decided to pursue other interests such as his career at ESPN and promoting his new book, An Incomplete & Inaccurate History of Sport, on sale now at KennyMayneHasWrittenABook.com.
Sources close to Mr. Mayne believe his revised decision might have something to do with a letter he just received from Demarcus Ware of the Dallas Cowboys in which the QB sacking specialist wrote, “Looking forward to seeing you in the NFL. You should of cast me in that Tony Soprano video like you did Jason Whitten and Tony Romo.”
When reached for comments, Kenny Mayne replied, “No comment,” then added, “But I do have plenty of comments on Ice Hockey, Childbirth, Electric Tackle Football, and much much more in my new book, An Incomplete & Inaccurate History of Sport. On sale now at fine bookstores everywhere.”
Dear Alisha Cantrell of Random House Books,
I’m with Pat Summit on this one. Kenny Mayne is about as funny as a stag party at Auschwitz. On behalf of each and every sports blogger you are harrassing with these retarded messages, I implore you : please stop. Now.
Next week in Weston, Fla., organizers for three potential new bowl games will make their presentations to the NCAA’s Bowl Certification Committee. They are: The Congressional Bowl in Washington, D.C, (Navy vs. ACC); The St. Petersburg Bowl in St. Petersburg, Fla. (Big East vs. Conference USA); and the Rocky Mountain Bowl in Salt Lake City (Mountain West vs. WAC).
No, this is not a joke.
If all existing bowls earn recertification, as is expected, and if all three new contests get approved, it would raise the total number of bowl games to 35 — up from 22 less than a decade ago….
Last season there were only seven eligible teams that did not land bowl invitations. They were Troy, South Carolina, Northwestern, Iowa, Louisville, Ohio and Louisiana-Monroe. Had the three proposed new games already existed, there would have been just one team to spare.
Personally, I don’t really care how many bowls get played. If 6-6 Northwestern had been in one last year, I’d have watched it. And if Idaho and Air Force played a December game in Salt Lake City without calling it a bowl, I’m sure fans of those teams would drive to it. As Mandel notes:
Last year’s 32 bowl games netted an average attendance of 54,078, highest in eight years. The PapaJohns.com Bowl pitting Cincinnati and Southern Miss garnered a modest but respectable 2.26 rating on ESPN2. By comparison, NBA regular-season games on ESPN average a 1.3.
But this is my favorite part:
“There’s a lot of concern in our association about adding even one more game,” said Scott Ramsey, executive director of the Music City Bowl and chairman of the Football Bowl Association. “One of the worst things that could happen down the road is for the organizers of a game to spend all year preparing for it and then not have enough teams to play. It would give the bowl system a collective black eye.”
Steve Dunleavy, the bouffant-haired, proudly authoritarian Aussie columnist who managed to seem ignorant even in comparison to the New York Post’s opinion-writer All-Stars — for non-New Yorkers, imagine the literary and journalistic equivalent of this pitching staff, writing articles about traitorous liberals and how awesome cops are every day — is easier to take in the memory than he was when he was still writing. Looking back, he seems like a throwback tabloid journalist, if perhaps one with an unseemly hard-on for guys with guns; like Jimmy Breslin, maybe, only if Breslin’s impulses trended more fascistic than populist, and Breslin was drunker.
Back when he was still in the Post, it was hard to say much good about Dunleavy. Jeff Johnson, for instance, wrote this about him back in 2004, in a post that includes two of S-Dun’s most egregious columns:
I wonder what another Post columnist, Phil Mushnick, who day in and day out busts the chops of the rising tide of assholes and fools in the sporting world, would have to say about colleague Dunleavy—the hard-boiled nitwit whose columns are fueled only on gin, cigarettes and a certainty that New Yorkers just adore the crooked assholes who supposedly a) spend their time defending and protecting us or b) figuring out new ways to rip us off? Maybe the Post’s unspoken brotherhood won’t let Mushnick talk.
And while Johnson was right, he was also wise enough to realize that when it came to people to talk to about betting on horses, Dunleavy was still a pretty good guy to interview. At Vice, as part of what will be an ongoing Derby-related series, Johnson posts an enjoyably semi-coherent interview he did with Dunleavy back in 2005.
So what can you tell us about betting on horses?
Here’s a point, my bookie, since 1970—err, Frankie Downtown is still alive, bless him. Is he a wise guy? No. But he’s a made man. Frankie Downtown would deliver on Mondays at Costello’s Bar. Say I wasn’t in. I was out of town or out of the country and I owed, at a maximum, 75 bucks. This is back in 1968 or 1969. I wasn’t there when he came around, and say the next week I won $100. He wouldn’t say, “Well, you lost $75 last week, so here’s $25.” He’d pay what he owed me, and leave it to me to settle what I owed. He would never subtract my losings from my winnings. By the way, I’ve only seen him twice in my life, talked to him on the phone quite a bit. If he taxed me, I’d say “You’re a fucking mobster.” Well, what does my state (NY) do? Seventeen percent! The gambling ring does better than Enron. They pay what they owe and you don’t have to knock their door down. Am I professing a love of the mafia society? No.
…Anything else?
Gambling is the wrong word. You do bet, with a modicum of alleged knowledge. But I’ve never made a big bet in my life. If you opened my wallet, moths would fly out. My biggest payout is $600. When I am left to myself, I normally win.
Meaning when you don’t study anything?
No. When I do study. When I am not in a bar, amongst all the talking, sucking down booze. The only secret, and let me make this loud and clear, is when constipated D.A.s swoop on a so-called gambling ring—they should be going to Albany and saying stop taking people’s money from their winnings. It’s outrageous.
And that’s pretty fucking Dunleavy right there: incoherent and indignant in about equal measure, proud of his mob bookie, pissed at the government, and almost certainly pissed (in the British usage) in general. “As much as I pretended to loathe his love of the mafia and firemen who wouldn’t snitch on each other,” Johnson writes. “I actually really miss his writing.” And, as loathsome as Dunleavy’s shtick truly was, that does make sense to me. I’d take his sort of prose over the Comic Book Guy-meets-Milton-Friedman maunderings of John Podhoretz or the perilously undermedicated Andrea Peyser, who survive him at the Post.
Also, there’s no way that a softball scold like Mushnick would wind up getting mugged while passed out on a bench near his favorite bar. He’s still outraged over the fact that baseball played in the Mountain time zone doesn’t start at 5:45pm, EDT.
Newsday’s David Lennon on the hottest accessory sported by a member of the New York Mets since Darryl Strawberry’s anti-drug wristbands.
When the TV camera zooms in close, it’s obviously a mouthpiece, but the clear plastic appliance rarely stays in his mouth. Rather, Mike Pelfrey chomps on it like a great white shark does a walrus on those Discovery Channel specials.
It’s not that Pelfrey prefers the taste and texture of molded plastic over a fistful of classic Bazooka. The mouthpiece is for the pitcher’s TMJ, or Tempromandibular Joint Disorder, and he runs the risk of his jaw locking up right there on the mound.
Only once has that actually happened, during spring training this year, and Pelfrey was lucky that he was able to free up his jaw without a visit to the emergency room.
“It was real tough,” said Pelfrey, who starts tonight against the Braves at Shea. “I had to jerk it back and it kind of popped back in.”
Pointing to an area alongside the right side of his jaw, he added, “This muscle right here gets real, real tight, It’s like a cramp almost. You have to pop it back out.”
The condition, Pelfrey believes, is a souvenir of his trip to Taiwan with Team USA in 2004, when he was part of the group that won the gold medal at the World University Baseball Championships.
Pelfrey struck out 20 in 16 2/3 innings. But in his meeting with Japan, one of the few hitters who did make contact came within inches of ending his career before it really even began. Pelfrey took a line drive off his right cheekbone, and when he points to the spot, it’s perilously close to his eye.
Catcher Brian Schneider joked that Pelfrey just munches on the mouthpiece for show, but Pelfrey insists that he’s not conscious of what going on. And he’s definitely not doing it on purpose.
“I don’t even know,” Pelfrey said. “When I watch video afterward, I’ll see myself doing it before the pitch and then it settles down right when I’m going to make the pitch. I don’t even think about it. I’m worrying about the hitter or the next pitch. But people in the stands see it. When we were in Chicago, they were yelling, ‘What’s up with the mouthpiece, Pelfrey?’ I’m not even paying attention to it.”
“Years ago, when I was angling to write about TV and/or radio absurdities,” recalls the New York Post’s Phil Mushnick, “it could take three, four days to gather the goods. Today? Same day delivery. Cake walk, can of corn.” A shame for both (?) the readers and Phil then, that his column doesn’t appear each day…and a critique of WCBS’ resident baseball blowhard is what passes for revelatory.
Sunday afternoon on WCBS Radio, John Sterling (above), into the seventh inning of the Yankees-Orioles, four times had launched his “It is high! . . . It is far! . . .” home run call. And not until he pulled it out a fifth time was a home run actually hit. In a game that included one home run, Sterling, in service to his relentless self-promotion, called five of them. Nothing can stop him.
But that the “Voice of the New York Yankees” may be the worst broadcaster in professional sports has been a 20-year absurdity. That he would continually deprive a radio-reliant audience of accurate descriptions – not to mention creating the false hope of Yankee homers hit so high and so far that they’re caught for outs – while continually suffering the embarrassment of his selfish and dishonest devices, reveals a man so stuck on himself that we all get stuck.
The logical notion that Sterling would grow weary of making a jerk of himself is no longer a logical consideration.
Given how it ended, I can’t say I’m too sorry that I missed the Flyers game to see Big Dipper and Great Plains (above) at Maxwell’s – seeing updates on my phone was pain enough. Certainly couldn’t tell that I was 10 minutes from two different NHL arenas – I’ve had an easier time finding sports bars that subscribe to Center Ice in Texas.
Ryan Potulny’s goal brought the longest game in American Hockey League history to an end early this morning, with the Phantoms beating the Albany River Rats, 3-2, in five overtimes.
It was the first AHL game ever to reach a fifth overtime, and Potulny scored 2 minutes, 56 seconds into the eighth period to bring the marathon to a close.
The Phantoms also took 101 shots, smashing the previous club record of 64.
The previous AHL record for the longest game was 114 minutes, 56 seconds (74:56 of overtime) on May 30, 2003, when Hamilton beat Houston, 2-1.
Albany goaltender Michael Leighton made 98 saves. And lost.
Goalie Scott Munroe played the entire 142:56 and made 65 saves.
What’s more, the start time for Game 6 on Saturday has been moved *up* to 1pm, so Philly fans can also watch the Flyers on TV.
While the WaPo’s Jasons Reid and La Canfora report the Redskins are still trying to swap their 21st overall pick in Saturday’s draft for disgruntled Bengals WR Chad Johnson, Ocho Cinco appeared on “SportsCenter” last night and insisted that if Cincinnati won’t honor his trade demand, “I can get a gig with Clooney. Make a movie. He loves me.”
Johnson didn’t elaborate about which project he and close friend George might collaborate on, but surely there’s a screenwriter out there who can envision a new, outspoken character for the above program’s long awaited, feature-length reunion?
Tuesday, April 23 was “Jackie Robinson Night” at Nationals Park, a mere 8 days after a similar event was commemorated at stadiums around the rest of the big leagues. A no. 42 emblem was unveiled on the outfield wall, and several Nats players wore no. 42 on their uniforms. Uni Watch’s Paul Lukas, clearly not the sort of person to celebrate New Year’s Eve in February, was less than impressed with Washington’s efforts.
Why wasn’t the 42 already on the wall? Like, it was already retired, right? I realize it’s a new stadium, but so what? The number was already supposed to be retired on an MLB-wide basis.
• Why did the Nats get to dress players in 42 again? Okay, so they were on the road last week, but so what? Is every road team from April 15th gonna get to do this? I disagree with people who say that the annual April 15th celebration cheapens the number, but I do think it got cheapened a bit last night. I realize some people will say, “Anything that raises awareness of Jackie Robinson is a good thing,” and I generally agree with that, but turning his memory into a way to add another promotion to your home schedule is totally bogus. The whole point of April 15th is that it’s a one-day thing — a tribute day, a special day. If we start to make every day special, the practical result is that no days are.
• Why was Ray King wearing white cleats in the preame ceremony? He switched to black for the game.
SNY has added Harold Reynolds to their Mets pre and postgame studio panel. I don’t want to make too much of Reynolds’ alleged zipper problems, nor those of new SNY colleague Darryl Strawberry, but let’s just say Chris Cotter should probably try to dress for work a little more conservatively.
The Mets are currently trailing the Nats, 8-4 in the last of 7th, the key blow being a Felipe Lopez grand slam off Aaron Heilman. The latter’s propensity for allowing devastating home runs this season makes me wish Dr. Allan Lans were still available. Not for Heilman mind you, but for yours truly.
Midway though Boston’s 7-5 loss to Anaheim earlier today, Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy noted Wednesday’s passing of veteran broadcaster Don Gillis. From the Boston Globe :
In October 1962, Gillis became New England’s first nightly TV sports anchor on the old Channel 5 (WHDH-TV).
Gillis, who got his start in radio in New Bedford, was well-known as both a sports anchor and host of the “Candlepins” program. After the old Channel 5 went off the air, he served as sports director at WCVB-TV from 1972 to 1983 and hosted the bowling program until 1995.
His resume also included doing play-by-play for the Celtics, Bruins, Patriots and Red Sox.
“He wrote the blueprint for local sportscasting, which I use to this very day. He left an enormously large pair of shoes, which I am still trying to fill and he remains the conscience of our sports department,” said Mike Lynch, the current WCVB-TV sports anchor.
“A true Boston legend, there was no one better. He leaves a legacy of warmth, humor and mentorship to the many who followed in his footsteps. He will be missed,” the station said.
Between the above news and Bob Lobel’s recent departure from Ch.4, New Englanders of a certain vintage are feeling really fucking old this month.
…the nod for the dopiest blurb going to Random House books for claiming “Kenny Mayne Declares Himself Eligible For The NFL Draft”…though at least we’ve learned what happens to major publishers who failed to to acquire “God Save The Fan”. The runner up comes courtesy of Billboard Biz (link supplied by Howard) :
Not only will Fritos be the “official snack” of Tim McGraw’s upcoming Live Your Voice trek, but the food company will also give the country artist his own chips flavor: the limited edition Tim McGraw Spicy Jalapeño Fritos.
Beginning next week, Wal-Mart stores nationwide will carry McGraw’s Spicy Jalapeño Fritos. The limited edition chips flavor is part of a larger partnership between Fritos and McGraw, who will also appear in TV commercials and print advertisements for the brand.
Along with being the “official snack” of McGraw’s summer headlining tour, which begins May 9 in Tampa, Fla., Fritos will be the presenter of the “StyleSonic Stage.” The stage will feature artists chosen by McGraw who will perform prior to the start of each concert. As a special promotion, McGraw is making StyleSonic music available for free download to everyone who buys a ticket to the tour this year.
In September, McGraw fans will have an opportunity to purchase a limited edition collectible tin, which will be exclusively available at Wal-Mart for $7.88. The 500,000 tins will be filled with Fritos chips, along with a behind-the-scenes DVD from McGraw’s summer tour.
Mother 13’s Corey Harris was unavailable for comment.
Kazmir gave up four earned runs and worked into the fifth inning on Wednesday in the Class A Advanced Vero Beach Devil Rays’ 4-3 loss to the Palm Beach Cardinals in a game that started in the morning and ended with Kazmir going back and forth from the mound to the bullpen due to a pitch-count misunderstanding.”It was frustrating,” Kazmir said following his 64-pitch effort, his second start following a left elbow strain in late February. “I wanted to work on a lot of things and stretch myself out. I felt strong. [pitching coach Jim] Hickey and I were both on the same page, but it didn’t happen.”
The game featured a rare 10:30 morning start and was played before mostly school children, teachers and chaperones, due to a promotion Palm Beach had with area middle schools.
And the game had a bizarre feel to it from the moment Kazmir toed the rubber.
His first pitch, an 88-mile-per-hour fastball, was belted down the right-field line for a home run by Palm Beach’s Tyler Henley, tying the game at 1.
After throwing just 20 pitches over the next two scoreless innings, the Texas native was told to head to the bullpen to finish his work, which led to more confusion.
“They wanted me finish up in the bullpen, and it didn’t really make too much sense,” said Kazmir. “[My start] was originally set for 70-75 pitches, and we certainly wanted me to go five [innings]. I got done after four innings and I had thrown 54.
“They said, ‘Finish up in the bullpen. If you had 50 pitches, we’d let you go back out there.’ So I’ve got to have a 20-pitch cushion to go out there for another inning? That’s a lot of confidence.”
With reliever Ryan Morse warming up in the bullpen, Kazmir stood nearby and waited while the staff communicated with Tampa Bay coaches. Eventually, he was allowed to go back to the mound for the bottom of the fifth inning, though he said he tried to do too much in a few pitches.
“They said if I threw seven pitches, they were taking me out. I was just throwing fastballs down the middle, saying, ‘Please, just get yourself out.’ The only thing that was going through my head that last inning was, ‘How can I get out of this inning in three pitches?’
While the Post’s Marc Berman suggests Toronto’s Sam Mitchell as a viable candidate for the Knicks’ coach vacancy and the New York Times’ William Rhoden suggests Avery Johnson (time for Mark Cuban to ban The Gray Lady from the the locker room), one prominent car wash magnate / fashion plate / Michael Jordan bag-carrier confidante reminds us New York already as a qualified individual on the payroll. From The New York Post’s Mark Hale.
“Herb Williams would bring just as much as Lenny Wilkens brought here. More than Isiah. No question,” Oakley (above) said. “All he needs is a chance.
I think they should give him a chance because every time they’ve asked him to do something, he’s done it over the years. Interim coach, he’s done it. Coached after the season, he’s done it. So what’s left besides giving him a chance?
“I think that you should start with what you’ve got here and take a good look. He’s been there every time you called. You got sick, he went and got the medicine to make you better.”
Asked further whether he believed Williams should be the coach, Oakley replied, “I think he should be. Or bring Patrick back. Patrick at least [was] assistant coach three or four years. Mark in the studio with NBC, whatever. So I don’t know. I don’t know how they pick coaches these days.”
Oakley said Thomas’ firing was long overdue: “He should have gotten fired a couple years ago.”
In fact, Oakley said he believes Williams was more deserving of being coach than Thomas, Wilkens or Larry Brown.
“They should have [given] Herb the job,” Oakley said. “That was embarrassing to bring [Thomas] to New York. What he’s done over the last five years for the team is garbage.”
Hale collected the above remarks at a screening for the pilot of “Cafe Oakley”, a new cooking program that sadly, cannot be found on YouTube. Yet.
If Shaq wants to go off on the flop-happy Spurs, I’m all ears. Should Chris Bosh decide to bury Sam Mitchell, by all means, bring on the blog-fodder. But I’m not sure if I have what it takes to give a hoot about a war of words between Mike Bibby and Kendrick Perkins.
(Ozzie Guillien, above, shows exactly how he’d manage Derek Jeter)
Let’s just say the White Sox don’t have their mind on their game lately. The Sun-Times‘ Joe Cowley reports one reason why the Working Side of Town can’t beat the Yanks. Ozzie Guillen’s in love:
White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen had no problem expressing his man-crush on New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter.
“Derek Jeter has everything in his life,” Guillen gushed Wednesday. ”He’s got money, he’s got rings…”
Then Guillen paused and laughed as it became obvious where he was going.
”He’s not married,” he continued. ”He lives in New York. At the All-Star Game, I looked around to see if he’s got anything I don’t like. Whoa. The perfect man. Too bad I don’t have a daughter.”
(Cabrera’s 2nd inning error against the Yankees last night)
And then, South Side Sox brought me to the on-going Colombian Shortstop Blood Feud going on between Detroit’s Edgar Rentería and Chicago’s Orlando Cabrera, the two greatest players in their native country’s history, reported on here at length by ESPN’s Jorge Arangure Jr. The two will be on the field together next week when the Sox and Tigers meet up at the end of April, but it dates back to 1992 when Cabrera’s father got Rentería signed to the majors. This, I should add, was long before Cabrera read Ayn Rand or saw his family for the Spanish language adaptation of Long Day’s Journey Into Night that it is. As Arangue reports:
But last year Team Rentería, a family business that runs the four-team Colombian winter league and a youth baseball academy in Barranquilla, was looking for investors. Edinson Rentería, Edgar’s older brother and the league’s president, offered to sell the Cartagena franchise to Cabrera, who’d already opened a competing academy in his hometown. Cabrera put in $25,000 to buy the Indios but sold them back to the Renterías at the end of the season, in January, when, he says, his interest waned. Despite many disagreements with Edinson over such issues as TV-rights fees and ticket sales, Cabrera believed the separation was amicable. In fact, it was not.
“He wanted to buy one team so he could wreck everything that’s been done with the league,” Edgar says. “I think he did it out of malice. You should ask him what he has against the Renterías. For several years, people have told me that he’s jealous of me. People have always known me more in Colombia than him, and I think that bothers him.”
As Cabrera listens to a recording of these comments, his jaw drops in disbelief. This is Colombia’s baseball ambassador, the tactful Rentería? Cabrera seems more surprised than angry. “These are ignorant comments from an ignorant person,” he says. “I’ve always respected Edgar as one of the smartest people on the field, who, because of his intelligence, has excelled beyond his abilities. For him to make comments like that is disappointing.”
In Wednesday’s 7-2 defeat of the Washington Nationals, The Mets’ Johan Santana finally looked like himself — minus the gopher balls that have plagued him since ‘07 — and got some run support to boot. Ryan Church (2 for 5, 1 run, 2 RBI’s) continued to make a case for himself as the club’s most pleasant surprise of the young season (with all due respect to Angel Pagan), while Duaner Sanchez and Billy Wagner each kept their ERA’s at zero with scoreless eighth and ninth innings respectively (a hold for Sanchez, a 5th save for Country Time). So of course, after the Mets ended a 3 game skid, Newsday’s Wally Matthews would choose to pick on Jose Reyes, asking the shortstop (seriously) “How would you like to be remembered, as another Derek Jeter? Or another Rey Ordoñez?”
I’m glad you’re having fun again, with your celebrations and your dugout dance routines. But for thousands of Mets fans throughout the city, the only fun is seeing this team win and seeing you play well.
The two go hand-in-hand, like one of your silly handshakes.
You, Jose Reyes, are not doing your job, which is to create runs at the top of the batting order and .prevent runs on the field. You can’t do the first if your body isn’t on base and you can’t do the second if your head isn’t in the game.
The other day in Chicago, your decision to throw home on what should have been an inning-ending double-play ball led directly to the grand slam that blew the game open. What exactly were you thinking?
You can blame Jorge Sosa if you like. But had you made the right play, he never would have been in the position to throw that pitch. And you might have come up in the ninth with a chance to do something meaningful. Instead, you grounded out to end a game that was already out of reach.
You can shrug the blame off on the manager or the GM or the bullpen or the first baseman or the centerfielder, and on any given day, any one of them can be measured for the clown suit.
But day in and day out, it is you that makes this engine go — or stall in the mud. When it comes down to it, the long-term success of this ballclub depends on you and David Wright, the axis around which all Mets teams for the next 15 years are supposed to be built.
Wright not only has .delivered on his promise, but exceeded it. But on too many days, we wonder if you will ever keep yours.
This week’s reports of Rupert Murdoch buying Newsday and cutting costs across the Long Island paper and the Post bring to mind all sorts of tantalizing options. Aside from Neil Best and Phil Mushinick having to share a television set, I’m intrigued by what might happen if Matthews’ brain is placed inside Mike Vaccaro’s body. I realize there’s a good chance neither scribe would survive such a procedure, but I am totally willing to take that chance if it would increase Newscorp’s profits and advance the cause of science.
As you probably read elsewhere over the past few days, Yankee skipper Joe Girardi has banned delicious items from the clubhouse spread, a perfectly reasonable decision according to the Journal News’ resident fitness maven Peter Abraham.
All clubhouses have an assortment of candy, gum, sunflower seeds, ice cream and other goodies. Personally, it never has made sense to me. Why would you provide professional athletes with junk food?The players, of course, aren’t too pleased. They’re used to M&Ms and Snickers bars.
The clubhouse in Tampa Bay replaced all the candy with nuts, dried fruit and granola. It was hilarious to watch as guys smuggled in candy bars and ate them furtively at their lockers.
On a more serious note, clubhouses stopped giving players tobacco several years ago. Many teams have since stopped offering free beer because of the liability issues. The Yankees stopped giving players beer on charter flights back to New York.
It makes sense. Why would you want to get somebody drunk then put them in a car to drive home at 4 a.m.?
Good question. Perhaps Tony La Russa would like to field that one.
