An Ontario teen who lost his volunteer video gig for fraternizing with CBC bigmouth Don Cherry is hoping the shy, retiring fashion plate takes the former’s case to the nation tonight. From the Canadian Press :
Earlier this month Billy Steele, a volunteer camera operator with Rogers TV, was reprimanded for snapping a photo of Cherry and conversing with him at General Motors Centre in Oshawa, Ont.
Steele is now crossing his fingers that Cherry will speak to his defence Saturday night before a national audience during the commentator’s Coach’s Corner segment on CBC’s “Hockey Night in Canada” broadcast.
“Don Cherry’s the man — love that man, he’s awesome,” Steele said Friday. “I never miss Coach’s Corner. Now I’m hoping he’ll say something on Coach’s Corner. He probably will.”
“(I hope he says) GMC should be letting that kid back in, and shame on GMC.”
After interacting with Cherry twice in the course of two days, an employee of Global Spectrum, which runs the arena, said Steele was no longer welcome.
“This young man seems to not want to adhere to our procedures,” Vince Vella, general manager of the city-owned facility, said in an email.
“He has been counselled numerous times and doesn’t seem to want to comply with our practices and procedures. He continuously fails to comply.”
(the other Greg Anderson, left, also has nothing to say about Barry Bonds)
Unable to break trainer Greg Anderson under interrogation, the FBI this week turned their attention to the mother-in-law of Barry Bonds’ good buddy, along with unveiling the latest star witness against the Sultan Of Surly, household name Bobby Estalella.Only Baseball Matters‘ Joe Perricone pronounces the goverment’s tactics, “an astonishing abuse of power”, which vaguely sounds like the name of an old Phil Anselmo joint. (link courtesy Sports On My Mind)
Barry Bonds didn’t kill anyone, he doesn’t smuggle cocaine into high schools, or rape little girls. He used something to make himself better at what he does for a living. He took steps to improve himself. Regardless of whether you think it was right or wrong, whether you believe that it is the government’s job to tell us what is legal or illegal to take to make us happier, stronger, faster or just plain high; what Bonds did is in no way commensurate to the level of money being spent, and quite frankly, laws being broken, in chasing him down.Make no mistake, standing by and watching our government do this without a word of protest will haunt us. This is a targeted witch hunt, a black man who is being taken down because a government employee –a man whose salary is paid for by you and me– IRS Agent Jeff Novitzky, decided he wanted to take him down because he was an, “arrogant asshole.”
Not to mention, this investigation, costing between $30 and $50 million while our economy is crashing like the Hindenburg, is the height of absurdity. Twenty federal agents raiding the home of a 60-year old woman, in an effort to pressure Greg Anderson to testify? Really?
Perricone makes an excellent point — if our government can use unlimited resources to punish a universally beloved sportsman like Bonds with no sign of public outrage, who will object when they come to take away Roger Clemens?
“It is time to move on, and time for a new set of eyes and ears to keep tabs on ESPN.” So states departing ESPN ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber, who granted The Big Lead an illuminating chat regarding her one year tenure as the Worldwide Leader’s in-house watchdog (h/t : Jason Cohen).
I discovered sports media blogs in those first weeks when I was deciding whether to take on the job. One of my concerns was that I was too far removed in sensibility from ESPN’s core demographic to represent them. How could a gray-headed ombudsmarm speak for all those sports-obsessed young men? But when I started my intensive ESPN-watching and noticed someone or something that seemed off-base to me, I would plug a few key words into Google and up came the sports blogs. The way bloggers expressed themselves was worlds apart from me, but I was often in sync with the gist of what they were saying (minus the cheap shots and personal attacks, and yes that’s a cheap shot at sports media blogs from the ombudsmarm).I didn’t yet have access to the ombuds mailbag, so blogs were my first clue that I had more in common with young male sports fans than I imagined. Or maybe I should say that was my first clue that age or gender didn’t matter much among people who really cared about how something was covered. When I started posting columns, the mailbag reinforced that, so I stopped worrying about being the old gray lady of sports.
Q: In your first column, you wrote, “Who are these people and why are they shouting at me?” Do you feel ESPN has done anything to tone down the volume on its army of shouters?
I think that column made ESPN more self-conscious about the shouting, but it’s hard for me to say if the volume has been toned down, because over-exposure to the noise induced a degree of immunity in me and perhaps hearing loss.
Joe Namath’s guarantee of a Jets victory over Baltimore in Super Bowl III, “tipped off a new era of bravado and became two of the most famous sentences in sports,” gushes AOL Sports’ Lisa Olson the afternoon before Arizona & Pittsburgh do battle. “Please, for those of us who hold dear the Super Bowl and all its glorious gaudiness, won’t someone mouth off just a bit?
“This Super Bowl could use a Namath clone, more than ever. There’s very little juice emanating from Tampa (hold the Mons Venus jokes), and the weak economy can’t take the entire rap. If the most controversial Super Bowl story revolves around the Phoenix mayor doing mean things to Terrible Towels, then that tells us two things:
* the mayor and outraged Pittsburgh fans are idiots
* and the actual contestants in Sunday’s contest really need to step up their game.
Of course, guarantees might and often will backfire. Of course, the player who dares voice an audacious declaration will be treated in most corners as an egomaniac. But aren’t sports all about taking risk? And aren’t all professional athletes automatically equipped with more ego than the average Joe or Josie?
Instead, we get Cardinals defensive back Antrel Rolle calling Arizona “beyond average.” Not better than good, which the Cardinals surely are, and not great, which only a fool would suggest. But as long as Rolle and the rest of the Cardinals have defied reasonable expectation and haven’t much to lose, why not make the adventure even more interesting by expressing bodacious proclamations?
I’m with Lisa on this one. We’ve only got a few more hours for Brenda Warner to remind us that Jesus wants to see Big Ben writhing in pain.
“It is almost 40 years later,” he said. “Why in the world anyone is still talking about the sanctity of the clubhouse is beyond me. Baseball and the Yankees should feel lucky that this book is generating so much attention in January… there is no job hitting a ball with a stick unless a lot of people are convinced it’s important.”
Bouton was also amused that any player would feel violated by the book. “These guys have voluntarily gone into a business where people know that everything that they do or say is subject to being written about. They act as if they’re surprised when somebody tells what they do. Roger Maris always wanted to be a private person. Well, get into the shoe business if that’s what you want.”
And to anyone offended that unflattering accounts of his behavior landed in a book, Bouton offered simple advice: “Books are going to be written. Therefore, don’t act like a jerk.”
Not content with disparaging Maura Johnston, Kiss founder / marketing maven Gene Simmons turned his attentions later this week to Faction Collective, an independent ski company. Faction had the bad fortune to display a new pair skis featuring Simmons’ iconic face (in make up, natch) at a Vegas trade fair without obtaining the bassist’s permission. Who’d have thought Gene would personally pay them a visit? From the New York Times’ Christina Erb.
“My friend said, ‘Oh my God, it’s Gene,’ and then he bolted — he just left,” said Ross Janzen, who was manning the booth for the Faction Collective. “I turned around and it was Gene. People were standing three-deep around him. I was completely dumbfounded. He’s an imposing figure.
Faction took up about a dozen square feet, making it a blip on a convention floor occupied by more than 820 brands, 445 exhibitors and 3,479 booths. The four-day show, which ended Friday, drew 18,000 people — one of whom happened to be Simmons.
Surrounded by an entourage of barely clothed women, Simmons was there to promote a snowboard and ski accessory line called MoneyBag, a label he runs with Jason Dussault.
“If you’re a bootlegger, and you think you’re going to get by and put something out illegally, it will cost you more to defend that than simply getting a license,” Simmons said in a telephone interview Friday. “They think they can get by being a nuisance, just pests, until they meet Gene Simmons, who kills pests dead.”
Janzen offered to give Simmons the skis. Instead, Simmons gave Janzen his lawyer’s contact information.
Bill Byrne, who runs a public relations firm in San Diego and works for several outdoors brands, said: “Graphic take-offs or blatant use of a brand’s likeness without consent is one way a lot of brands build product awareness or controversy. The downside is, there could be some unanticipated legal issues.
“Gene is known for going after people that use his likeness. My guess is that ski guys think they are under the radar enough to do it. What are the chances that Gene Simmons is going to walk through S.I.A.? Does he even ski?”
Darkhorse rookie Jonathan Squibb bested the likes of Glutieus Maximus, Obi Wing, Da Disposal, Frank Da Fraud and Hank the Tank to win this years “locals only” Wing Bowl yesterday at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia.
PHILADELPHIA – Jonathan Squibb, a skinny 23-year-old from Winslow Township, N.J., is the new Wing Bowl champion.
Super Squibb, as he is known, tore through 203 wings – 23 more than second place finisher Not Rich and 50 more than third place eaters Hank the Tank and Da Disposal – while chomping his way to glory and a brand new Mini Cooper automobile.
Going into the competition, the Rutgers University and Winslow Township High School graduate was ranked with 9 to 1 odds by 610 WIP talker Al Morganti, who created Wing Bowl at the sports talk station 17 years ago as a diversion for sports fans mired in a pro sports championship drought.
“Nobody believed in me but my family, but I knew I could do it,” said Squibb, who is “in career transition.”
He planned to celebrate tonight with family and friends. What was his secret?
“It’s more up here than down here,” he explained, pointing first to his brain, then his stomach.
With apologies to Dave Wills, Salomon Kalou denies his celebration after scoring the second goal in Chelsea’s 2-0 victory over Middlesbrough Wednesday night was a show of solidarity with Ivorian political activist Antoine Assale Tiemoko. After reading Kalou’s claim that said gesture was inspired by the WWE’s John Cena, the Guardian’s Russell Brand isn’t quite buying it (”If you type Tiémoko’s name into a search engine you’ll be swiftly led to an online petition that you can then send to the president of the Ivory Coast which I have now done as it seemed so effortless and worthwhile; if you search for John Cena you get to see pictures of the hunk in his pants, so both lines of inquiry have their own rewards.”)
Were Kalou and Drogba expressing support through hand signals to Tiémoko I think it would be wonderful; two young millionaires presumed caged in their own tower of privilege conveying compassionate concern against corruption in their fatherland; that would be surprising and cause for optimism. If they just both like wrestling it would be less surprising and considerably less romantic.
If I were to discover that during the ‘68 Olympics when Tommie Smith and John Carlos held their fists aloft upon the medal winners podium they were not making a Black Power salute but working out a dance routine to the Tom Jones hit of that year, Delilah, a little piece of history would be tarnished. In spite of their denial I would like to think this controversial physical symbol was in support of Tiémoko. Fingers crossed.
The New York Mets avoided arbitration with P John Maine earlier today, inking the righthander to a one-year, $2.6 million pact. If a pair of out of town Congressmen have anything to say about it, said funds will come from somewhere else besides the $20 million annual naming rights deal with Mets signed with the floundering Citigroup. From Newsday’s Keith Herbert.
Reps. Dennis Kucinich (above, D-Ohio) and Ted Poe (R-Texas) sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner requesting he “dissolve” the contract with the Mets to name their stadium Citi Field.
Kucinich and Poe wrote that Citigroup’s financial footing “has changed drastically” since the naming rights deal was struck in 2006.
Steve Silverman, a spokesman for Citigroup in Manhattan, called the contract with the Mets a “legally binding agreement” signed two years ago.
The representatives’ letter requests Geithner demand that “Citigroup dissolve the agreement” with the Mets.
“Absent this outcome, we feel strongly that you should compel Citigroup to return immediately all federal money received to date, as well as cancel all loan guarantees,” the letter stated.
Under Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, Citigroup received about $45 billion in taxpayers’ dollars in recent months.
That infusion of cash gives Treasury officials authority to “protect the public’s interest,” Kucinich said.
Baltimore radio host “Nasty” Nestor Aparicio (above, right), a longtime thorn-in-the-side of Peter Angelos, was famously described by the Washington Post’s Leonard Shaprio as “a shameless and relentless self-promoter who really can get down and very dirty on and off the air with anyone who might happen to disagree with him”. Alas, Shapiro failed to mention that he’s an aspiring anti-semite / Latrell Sprewell impersonator as well. Dallas Sports Fans.com provides details of this morning’s brawl in Tampa, FL at what’s called “Radio Row” for Super Bowl XLIII.
Apparently, Gordon Keith went over to Nasty Nestor Aparicio with a wireless microphone to attempt to bury the hatchet between the two parties, when Nasty Nestor became angry, grabbed Gordon Keith around the throat and attempted to strangle him. The two were then separated and the police were called.
This is not the first incident between Nasty Nestor and the Ticket. In 2008, at the Super Bowl coverage, Corby Davidson went to Nasty Nestor to make peace. Nestor Aparicio began swearing at Corby Davidson and accused him of having a hidden mic, to which Corby responded, “I swear to the good Lord I do not have a microphone.” Nasty Nestor then allegedly called Corby a “(Explitive)-ing Jew.”
In the latest incident, Gordon Keith did have a microphone, but it is clear from the audio that he was not trying to provoke Nasty Nestor. Keith is now considering whether or not to file charges against Nasty Nestor. Anyone who was recording the live webcast of the incident, which was broadcast on the Ticket’s webcam, is encouraged to contact the Ticket immediately.
[First Cub Fan ex-Governor Blagojevich might still be in office had Wrigley voted on his impeachment.]
Your Cub Update stands still for a lot (I have a choice?), but seeing Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich impeached today was too much. Jeez, the Senate even handed Cub Fan #1 a shut-out: 59-0. But I have to speak out: Why is it a Cub fan Democratic office holder who lies, abuses power, and defies Federal investigators is impeached, yet GOP Cub fans like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Henry Paulson retire with dignity and mountains of money? Possibly this has something to do with our Sox fan President’s first official gaffe in office (I’m not counting the oath) when he attended the Commander’s Ball last week and asked several members of the Illinois National Guard serving in Iraq, “Cubs or Sox?” What was Obama thinking? Of course the Commander in chief was humiliated, and today’s news indicates he’s still smarting. The Daily Herald carries a nice Inauguration wrap-up of Bush’s exiting office to a classic Sox fan “Na-na-na, na-na-na, hey hey, good-bye” thru Obama’s tarnished moment in front of the troops.
A twitter post from the Sun-Times Gordon Wittenmyer (a twittermyer?) says “Report from Baltimore: out-of-options, lost-in-space Rich Hill headed to O’s for PTBNL once Balt. GM MacPhail juggles roster.” Indeed, with Kerry Wood and Hill gone, the on line wait for training room jacuzzi time will be seriously cut down in 2009.
And finally, right-handed pitcher Aaron Heilman is leaving his beloved Seattle Mariners. After spending nearly six-weeks there (including his first Seattle Christmas), we can expect Heilman in Cub pinstripes Opening day, unless a loophole is found in Jake Peavy’s contract. All I know of Heilman is that he was a key player on the Mets 2008 season. Is he an all-star waiting to happen on a contending team or just good on a so-so team? How will he adapt to Wrigley? For insight, I turned to CSTB’s own Gerard Cosloy, a noted Mets enthusiast. Says Gerard: “I can only assume his Notre Dame lineage will make him an instant fan fave. The real loser in the deal? The Joe Strummer estate. If Heilman’s a starter, Tannoy play of ‘London Calling’ drops dramatically.”
(Bulldogs react poorly to the news they’ll be under intense scrutiny later this evening)
Gonzaga and St. Mary’s collide tonight at 11pm eastern (ESPN2) and your viewing of said contest can be enhanced with the Twitter magic of Jason Cohen. Please chime in — the WWL’s advertisers get a raw deal, while Jason’s enjoyment is hampered by looking at his cell for much of the night.
“I did curse…” admits Dallas TE Martellus Bennett, referencing his since-removed YooToob clip that managed to rhyme “Romo” with “homo”. “…but I didn’t steal a hearse.” And with that, I think we can agree that a) Bennett has not been accused of stealing a hearse, and b) the sports blogosphere and the producers of several ESPN programs that feature men shouting eagerly await the day he does steal a hearse.
Former Steelers RB Franco Harris, perhaps thinking of those unlucky enough to miss the Derrick Coleman estate sale, has unveiled his “Immaculate Collection”, much to the delight of Brand Freak’s Kenneth Hein.
The first piece is a “generously proportioned” chair conceived by Helen Hoey, who partnered with national lifestyle designer Barclay Butera. There will only be 500 chairs made, and they are numbered and autographed by both Harris and Hoey. Thus, Harris will achieve every football player’s other dream—of having his autograph next to that of someone who’s also famous for luxury linens.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a Yankee official said yesterday that some members of the front office staff already are required to sign a confidentiality agreement in order to protect “proprietary knowledge of our business model.” The proposed clause is intended to ensure that future books about the Yankees are “positive in tone,” and “do not breach the sanctity of our clubhouse.”
Confidentiality agreements, some with meticulously spelled out rules and stipulated monetary penalties for their violation, are standard equipment in most contracts between celebrities and their hired staffs, as well as between corporations and their CEOs. The Mets are believed to have included similar clauses in their contracts with former manager Willie Randolph and former pitching coach Rick Peterson. Up to now, the Yankees never have included them in the contract of a player or manager.
“Up to now, we have always operated our employer-employee relationships on a basis of trust,” the official said. “But we never expected what we got from Joe. We may have to get a little tougher on this issue.”
The 29th place Ottawa Senators (quick, name the other 28 teams!) were defended after Tuesday’s 4-1 loss to New Jersey by owner Eugene Melnyk with what the Sun’s Don Brennan diplomatically calls “an inadvertent choice of words in a war-sensitive time.”
“Anybody that says we should blow up this organization should get their own bomb and go blow themselves up,” Melnyk said, flanked by 30 Grade 4 students, at a press conference to announce new fan initiatives.
“This is not an organization that is completely crippled,” he said. “It needs fine-tuning, it needs some tweaking, it needs a player here, a player there, a few good bounces and that’s it. But we are nowhere near that type of environment.
Melnyk did declare “the excuses are over” and that it was now-or-never time to salvage the season.
“To tell you the truth, it is hard after a game like (Tuesday) night,” Melynk said when asked about remaining upbeat. “On the other hand, you hope it’s just a blip. Going into (the Devils) game there was tremendous optimism. We played a few great games and then we had the all-star break and then we came back, and unfortunately enough was said by Craig, and that’s all I can tell you.”
Asked if he had made any decisions on the future of the team’s management and coaching staff, Melnyk offered some ominous words.
“As far as the hockey organization is concerned, I leave the hockey operations to the hockey people. I’ve always done that,” he said. “And we are going to continue doing whatever it takes to put a winning team on the ice. As far as I’m concerned right now, we are at a crossroads. This is it. We have to win 26-27 games, it’s got to be done.”
Over the summer, Jazz C Krylo Fesenko turned up for summer league games with the above hairstyle, prompting Utah head coach Jerry Sloan to remark, “he’s got to figure out what he wants to do…play basketball or be a clown.” Based on the following note from the Salt Lake Tribune’s Ross Siler, Sloan sees no need to choose between being a hall of fame coach and a fashion critic.
Don’t ask how we got on the subject this morning at shootaround, but Kyrylo Fesenko’s decision to show up to the Rocky Mountain Revue with blond hair was revisited. As he did then, Sloan insisted Tuesday that he had no problem with Fesenko’s look.
“I told him exactly that,” Sloan said. “I said, ‘If you need attention, son, go get 20 rebounds. There’ll be people lined up to shake hands with you, that want to talk to you in the press, everything.’ I don’t know why it works that way.”
The New York Times’ Michael B. Schmidt is reporting federal prosecutors getting ready for the Sultan Of Surly’s perjury trial believe they’re sitting on damning evidence the greatest offensive player of the modern game used performance enhancing drugs. Besides, y’know, before and after photography.
A person who has reviewed the evidence said that the authorities detected anabolic steroids in urine samples linked to Bonds that they gathered in connection with their investigation. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The evidence could be significant because questions have been raised about whether the “clear,” which like the “cream” was created to avoid detection in drug tests, was technically a steroid under federal law when Bonds testified before a federal grand jury in November 2003.
The urine-sample evidence could also have implications for another statement Bonds made before the grand jury, in which he denied ever being injected with any substances by his former trainer, Greg Anderson. Bonds said he never received injections from anyone other than his doctors. Most steroids are administered through injections.
Meanwhile, the authorities continued their efforts Wednesday to gain Anderson’s testimony about Bonds’s suspected use of banned substances. Early Wednesday morning, 20 federal agents raided the home of Anderson’s mother-in-law, according to one of Anderson’s lawyers, Mark Geragos.
Bonds was indicted in November 2007, and the authorities have since targeted Anderson’s mother-in-law, Madeline Gestas, and Anderson’s wife, Nicole Gestas, in an effort to put more pressure on Anderson to testify. The authorities have focused on the finances of Madeline Gestas, a California businesswoman who has been the subject of tax liens. Nicole Gestas is also under investigation in connection with her own finances.
“Even the Mafia spares the women and children,” Geragos said in a telephone interview in discussing Wednesday’s raid. “The government is obsessed with trying to get Greg to testify about Barry, but he never will.”
Saddlebacking: sad•dle•back•ing \ˈsa-dəl-ˈba-kiŋ\ vb [fr. Saddleback Church] (2009): the phenomenon of Christian teens engaging in unprotected anal sex in order to preserve their virginities
After attending the Purity Ball, Heather and Bill saddlebacked all night because she’s saving herself for marriage.
Bynum threw a blatant elbw and hip-check to keep Wallace from reaching the basket in the fourth quarter. I get it that every play in that quarter mattered – it did go to overtime, after all – but there were many things Bynum could have done to avert Wallace dunking. Most of them would not have involved Wallace going to the hospital.
Hopefully, this was about youthful indiscretion, not malicious intent. Because as talented as Bynum is, I’d hate to think his destiny is to end up a hockey goon.
The new stadium at the former location of the Orange Bowl in Little Havana is a clear break from the “retro” ballpark designs of the past. The design by HOK has the roof retracted to one side, much like the Mariners’ Safeco Field in Seattle. The design renderings appear to have the ballpark in white. With the roof closed, many see a modern, nearly “space ship” like quality to it.
Field dimensions in the site plan show the following: 340 to far left, 384 to left center, 420 “curved section” to straight-away center, 416 and 392 to right center, 335 to far right.
In short, this could be the biggest economic boon to Little Havana since Chuck Norris cast extras for “Invasion USA”.
If you think the persons responsible for the above stunt were industrious, how about management of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch? They’ll sell you an framed print of the above photograph for a mere $49.95.
If you were to make a major motion picture about the life of say, Larry Brown, would you choose to make his brief tenure as head coach of the New York Knicks the film’s primary storyline?
That’s the question that comes to mind after watching a trailer for “The Damned United” (above, opening in the UK March 29), a film that tells the story of Brian Clough’s ill-fated 44 days in charge of Leeds United during the Autumn of 1974. Clough’s squad earned just one win and one draw over the season’s first 6 matches, and while that might be considered a career detour prior to wild success at Nottingham Forest, it probably makes for a more interesting script.
37 year old Sugar Shane Mosely “brought the pain to (Antonio) Margarito, stood his ground like a man’s man’s man, and pretty much fought a flawless fight all around,” gushed No Mas’ Large in the aftermath of Saturday’s welterweight title fight at the Staples Center. “(Mosely) is a consummate professional – always in tremendous shape, always fighting with intelligence and urgency, and always going for the throat when the opportunity presents itself,” continued Large, hailing an achievement that’s all the more impressive considering Maragarito might’ve had the benefit of illegally doctored gloves eariler in the fight, as the New York Post’s George Willis reports.
The California State Athletic Commission is examining two pieces of harden gauze that were part of Margarito’s hand wraps.
Should the CSAC see and hear enough evidence to warrant a suspension or fine of Margarito and his team, it would taint the Mexican’s legacy and all but ruin his chances of reaching the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Clearly, this decision is the most important of his career.
“He’s tainted everything he has done,” Hall of Fame trainer and HBO broadcaster Emanuel Steward said yesterday. “Now you’ve got a situation where every fighter that he has fought is wondering, ‘Did he do that to me?’ I hate this happened because it makes it where there are questions about everybody he has fought.”
Now the question is whether Margarito had loaded wraps for that fight, too. “Now the biggest victory of his career is being questioned,” Steward said.
Margarito’s dominance over Miguel Cotto was one reason a record crowd of 20,820 fans filled the Staples Center for the Mosley fight. But after the two hardened blocks were discovered by Mosley’s trainer Naazim Richardson, Margarito had no chance against Mosley, losing by TKO in the ninth round. Coincidence?
“I don’t think anybody would have beaten Shane that night,” Richardson said, “but with that plaster in there, it might have made it a little rougher.”
I watched Jeff Kent’s tearful, endless retirement press conference last Thursday afternoon while on a flight between Austin and New York, waiting patiently for the thank-you to Barry Bonds that never came. While Dangle couldn’t acknowledge the role Bonds played in shaping the most inflated numbers of the former’s career, he did manage to remind the public he wasn’t a baseball fan in a somewhat unfocused address that was more awkward and creepy than genuinely moving.
Amongst those unimpressed with Kent’s outpouring, naturally, was longtime sparring partner T.J. Simers of the Los Angeles Times, whose farewell to “some lip-biting, mustache-soaked sob sister” posed the question, “the cold shoulder lives his entire baseball life, every other macho sentence beginning, “I don’t care what anyone thinks,” and so now we’re supposed to care what Kent has to say?”. From the January 25, Times :
The whole thing is out of whack, sports at its lost perspective worst, the wrong guy blubbering at the microphone and the line extending from here to New York now with folks more deserving than Kent of such attention.
Where’s the spotlight and appreciative crowd for SteveDilbeck, the Los Angeles Daily News sports columnist, who like so many others in recent weeks has been told they will no longer be paid to do what they do so well?
Kent is 40, and although he maximized his God-given talent to play baseball, the Dodgers paid him $9 million last season on top of millions already earned. Now he will oversee the golf country club and three motorcycle shops he owns until he becomes eligible for the Hall of Fame.
And he’s trying not to cry.
Dilbeck, as upbeat and engaging as Kent is sour and aloof, is married, father of three, including a son requiring shots for diabetes every day, and now at age 56 looking for work in an industry hellbent on becoming extinct.
Kent controls his fate to the end, while an unseen bottom line changes the course of Dilbeck’s life. But, oh, how we care about our athletes, what they are feeling and what might be next for them.
The second baseman earns $55,555 for each Dodgers game, which means two games into the year he’s probably earned more than Dilbeck. And some might argue Dilbeck was more on top of his game than Kent last year.
No question Kent was as bright as they come, a wonderful departure from Gary Matthews Jr. and Kevin Brown, the stern demeanor a mask to hide the beating heart, but in the end not enough to disguise the brooding contempt he had for folks who did not look, act or think like him.
“We don’t want to be overly opportunistic and exploit this,” lied Boyer after producing multiple designs, obtaining MLB Properties approval and crouching by the telephone, gleefully rubbing his hands while awaiting a green light from the Oval Office.
Fine with me if the first thing to be shot down by the Obama administration is this dubious idea. No offense to Boyer, but if bringing Chicago its only World Series ring in a combined 184 seasons netted the Sox no prestige, then slapping the President’s campaign glyph on a Sox hat isn’t going to do it either.
Lt. Charles Wilts, spokesman for the Woodland (Calif.) Police Department, said Brett Philip Pedroia was arrested Jan. 9 for sex crimes involving a then 8-year-old boy in 2004.
Wilts said Pedroia, 30, was charged with two counts of lewd acts with a child under the age of 13 and two acts of oral copulation with a minor, both felonies. The spokesman added the alleged sex crimes took place in a home in January 2004. He declined to say where the residence was located or whose home it was.
Reportedly, Dustin Pedroia, 25, and his brother are not close and have not spoken in recent years.
A Gordon Edes puff piece on the Pedroia family from June of 2007 gives little indication Dustin and his older brother were estranged. Though it’s not necessarily something a family would volunteer, either. Let’s keep in mind, ladies and gentlemen, that in the United States Of America (and perhaps a handful of other countries I cannot identify), a person is innocent until proven guilty. And with in mind, I look forward to AOL Sports’ Lisa Olson extending the same courtesy to Brett Pedroia that she afforded New York Knicks accused sex pest Eddy Curry.
In Portland, last week’s presidential inauguration was completely overshadowed by the mayor, his (apparently) 18 year-old ex-boyfriend and far too many journalistic conflicts. In Corvallis, it was ruined by Brian Williams.
The cameras caught Oregon State coach Craig Robinson early and Williams identified Robinson as Reggie Love, Obama’s personal assistant. Oops. It got worse. Because Williams waxed on and on about how Love become Obama’s personal assistant, and what a personal assistant does… according to one OSU fan who emailed me, “evidently one shaved head tall black guy looks about the same to Williams.”
Eek.
So later, the cameras are again on Robinson, who is wearing his Oregon State scarf, colors orange and black, and Brokaw says Robinson is wearing “Princeton” colors. Robinson attended Princeton, and the school colors are indeed orange and black, but it was a little shortsighted, no? to miss the the obvious angle. No mention from Brokaw that OSU’s colors are orange and black and that Robinson is the Beavers’ coach.
One reader, from Independence, wrote:
“To NBC: Go (bleep) yourselves. You are elitist pigs. If this is your idea of ALL THE facts, what am I to believe on your newscasts?”
Another wrote:
“I am still pissed about OSU stopping Pitt and holding them to zero points, and have it characterized as a boring game…. and all (Robinson as coach) gets them is their basketball coach first misidentified, and later, lauded for his Princeton education. Elitest (bleeps).”
(Sic)
Now, being a Penn State fan, I like a titanic defensive struggle as much as anyone, so let me suggest that some may have thought the Sun Bowl was a boring game not because of the 3-0 score but because it featured two mediocre teams, the better of which was coming off perhaps the most humiliating home loss of the college football season.
But I digress. Canzano concludes that “NBC’s coverage made the Northwest feel a little insignificant.” Said insignificance would also be why Sam Adams is still not nearly as well-known as Elliot Spitzer.
“Whatever you have called me over the past few days can’t be any worse than my own anger over my mistake. I made an inexcusable error when I confused the great OSU coach Craig Robinson with a friend of mine, the personal assistant to President Obama, Reggie Love. I am sending personal apologies to both men, and this is my apology to all members of Beaver Nation. It was a mistake committed during 9 hours of live programming – I was distracted and watching many incoming video feeds, but that’s no excuse for the error, which was no one’s fault but mine. I have felt awful about it since I forced myself to read the coverage of it on OregonLive.com, and I hope that someday you can find it in your hearts to forgive my error.”
Heh. He said “Beaver Nation.”
Incidentally, Coach Robinson’s team is not so bad (0-18 in the Pac 10 last year, road wins over Cal and Stanford this year).
After examining brain tissue from deceased NFL vets including but not limited to John Grimsley, Mike Webster, Andre Waters, Justin Strzelczyk and Terry Long, The Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy released a study Tuesday about the 6th documented case of chronic traumatic encephalopath (aka CTE), this time in the form of deceased Tamba Bay lineman Tom McHale (above). From CNN.com’s Stephanie Smith :
CTE has thus far been found in the brains of six out of six former NFL players.
“What’s been surprising is that it’s so extensive,” said McKee. “It’s throughout the brain, not just on the superficial aspects of the brain, but it’s deep inside.”
CSTE studies reveal brown tangles flecked throughout the brain tissue of former NFL players who died young — some as early as their 30s or 40s.
McKee, who also studies Alzheimer’s disease, says the tangles closely resemble what might be found in the brain of an 80-year-old with dementia.
“I knew what traumatic brain disease looked like in the very end stages, in the most severe cases,” said McKee. “To see the kind of changes we’re seeing in 45-year-olds is basically unheard of.”
The damage affects the parts of the brain that control emotion, rage, hypersexuality, even breathing, and recent studies find that CTE is a progressive disease that eventually kills brain cells.
In a statement, the NFL indicated that their staffs take a cautious, conservative approach to managing concussions.
While they support research into the impact of concussions, they maintain that, “Hundreds of thousands of people have played football and other sports without experiencing any problem of this type and there continues to be considerable debate within the medical community on the precise long-term effects of concussions and how they relate to other risk factors.”
Minutes into Friday’s Grizzlies/Knicks encounter, the visitors had taken a 20-7 lead and I remarked to a pair of associates that Mike D’Antoni’s defensive philosophy seemed to consist of conserving as much energy as possible ; the sooner the Knicks allowed the opposition to score, the faster they’d be able to push the ball up the floor themselves.
As it turned out, New York had little difficulty in overcoming the early deficit, beating Memphis 108-88, with O.J. Mayo and Rudy Gay combining to shoot a miserable 11 for 31 from the field. Ron Artest and T-Mac were similarly ice cold last night in the Rockets’ 104-98 loss to the Knicks, and such defensive performances in mind, Basketball Prospectus’ Kevin Pelton points out, “New York has improved relative to league average just as much on defense as on offense. At the same time, there’s an eerie symmetry in that the Suns have dropped off by the same amount as the Knicks have gained on both offense and defense.”
For all the talk about the Phoenix offense, you never heard about D’Antoni’s defensive philosophy. I don’t believe it’s ever specifically mentioned in the 300-plus pages of :07 Seconds or Less, Jack McCallum’s tremendous book about spending a season with the Suns coaching staff. Yet D’Antoni’s style is every bit as unique on defense as it is on offense, as I laid out in a column for 82games.com three seasons ago. His teams offer relatively little ball pressure, with defenders off the ball always ready to provide help. The goal at all times is to avoid penetration and cover for a typical lack of height, turning the game into a jump-shooting contest that was hard to win against Phoenix’s shooters.
This style can be seen in the numbers. Trademarks of a D’Antoni defense include very low assist rates for the opposition and few, if any, fouls. Both of these have carried over in New York. The Knicks are sixth in opponents’ assists per field goal made (surprisingly, they also ranked amongst the leaders in this category, which generally matches up well with overall defense, last season) and third in opponent free throws made per field-goal attempt (they were 15th a year ago).
If you’re reading Basketball Prospectus, I hope you’re already aware that D’Antoni’s teams have never been the defensive liabilities they were made out to be in the media. On a per-possession basis, the Suns generally ended up right around league average. The natural conclusion was that D’Antoni was an acceptable defensive coach and an elite offensive one. This year’s results have undercut that position. D’Antoni still appears to be a terrific coach, just not in the way we assumed. It’s a thought that borders on preposterous, but perhaps D’Antoni’s true genius lies in his ability to take gifted offensive players without the same knack for the other end of the floor and cobble them into a competent unit.
Yesterday’s farcical sequence that began with Stephon Marbury claiming the Celtics had made a commitment to rescue the league’s self-proclaimed No. 1 Point Guard and ended with Boston denying such reports took another nutty turn Tuesday, with the retired Reggie Miller claiming he’d been recruited by the defending champs. The Boston Herald’s Steve Bulpet attempts to keep track.
“We love it all,” said Doc Rivers after yesterday’s brief practice. “I mean, we’re going to call Magic (Johnson), Larry (Bird) and Michael (Jordan) next – Cooz (Bobby Cousy), (Bill) Russell.”
While the Marbury situation has been ongoing, Miller’s comments came as a bit of a surprise.
“No, we contacted Cheryl,” Rivers said of Reggie’s sister. “I wanted Cheryl to come back, not Reggie.”
So…I’ve never really liked much of John Updike’s writing. I haven’t read the better Rabbit Angstrom books — Rabbit Run, Rabbit is Rich, Rabbit 3: Dream Warriors — which I suppose would be the stuff everyone likes. And yet I feel like I’ve read a lot of his writing: some embarrassingly tumid narcissistic-older-guy short fiction that snuck into the New Yorker by dint of his American Genius Emeritus status; some eclectic but dialed-out criticism, including a terrible review in the New Yorker of this totally pernicious book by Amity Shlaes that amounted to a lot of reminiscences about his childhood in the face of a book that seriously misrepresents the New Deal. Updike also wrote a lot of poems at the end of his life, too.
He wrote a lot of everything. And to my uncharitable eye, he represented the last dinosaurine relic of those phallobsessive postwar male writer dudes, forever finding new euphemisms for ejaculation and hastily tossing together new targets for those eruptions of curdled eloquence. Oh, look, I just made one up. It’s cool if you need to take a break here to vomit.
But with Updike’s death today at 76, after a losing battle with lung cancer, it’s worth remembering that there was some very good writing among his back catalog, and that not all of it was about humping. At Salon, King Kauffman sets the context for Updike’s canonic piece of baseball writing, “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu.”
“Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu” appeared in the Oct. 22, 1960, New Yorker. It’s the story of Ted Williams’ last game. It was written partly in response to a column by Huck Finnegan in the Boston American that appeared on Sept. 28, the day of Williams’ valedictory, to use Updike’s word.
Finnegan had characterized Williams’ career as “a series of failures except for his averages,” noting that he hadn’t played well in the handful of games he’d appeared in in the postseason or on a season’s final day with a pennant on the line. Literally a handful: Finnegan was talking about nine games, plus a Red Sox flop following Williams’ return from an injury in late 1950.
“It has always been Williams’ records first, the team second, and the Sox non-winning record is proof enough of that,” Finnegan wrote. So the kind of nonsense typists type these days about Alex Rodriguez isn’t new, and is going to look just as silly five decades from now as Finnegan’s work does today.
But Updike didn’t need Finnegan. “Fenway Park, in Boston, is a lyric little bandbox of a ballpark,” he began, and we moderns have to remember that Fenway was not yet today’s obsessed-over jewel, its lyricality beaten to death on TV every night from April to October. It was just one of a bunch of 40- or 50-year-old little bandboxes doing duty in the bigs at the time.
Updike’s whole 6,000-word essay is here. I haven’t finished it — I needed to get this post up, so you dear readers could find out just how I feel about the late John Updike. But from what I’ve read, which is probably just the first third or so, I think I’m starting to see what everyone else, for decades, saw in John Updike. I just finished it. It’s really, really good. Kind of orotund and over-the-top in that published-in-1960 sense, but really beautiful language and a surprising amount of empathy and warmth all-around. Great essay. Still not sure I want to read his novels, but it’s great.
(probably not Gene Simmons on the left. Though it’s really impossible to say)
Friend of the CSTB family Maura Johnston made the not so outrageous suggestion yesterday that Gene Simmons’ new Canadian label might be, y’know, a big pile of suck (”how Simmons will turn bands from Canada into superstars who eclipse the likes of Bryan Adams and Celine Dion is as yet unclear, but I’m going to hazard a guess that lots and lots of merchandising will likely be involved”). With typical aplomb, though somewhat confused about the author’s gender, Gene fired back earlier today :
You will see the built in bias…the arrogance of US media.
What are YOU and I going to do about it? We’re going to shame this guy into submission. We will send him and his ilk back to fish wrapping factory they escaped from.
How are we going to do it?
We’re going to find, develop, nurture and launch new talent emanating from — CANADA!!!. That’s right, Baby.
Why here?
Because you actually DO have the talent.
And now, you have a WAY.
ME.
Send us you electronic demos. (Read above how.).
Oh, and the asshole who posted the story? He gets no free tix, no backstage passes, and therefore, he won’t have access to our parties and our girls.
All Naysayers can get in line. It forms over there…to my left.
Dallas Cowboys tight end Martellus Bennett released a song on YouTube that uses derogatory terms to describe African-Americans and gays.
Bennett, who is African-American, wears a white, autographed Cowboys helmet during the video, which lasts almost three minutes.
“I shouldn’t cuss that much,” Bennett said. “I’ve been listening to [rapper] Too Short too much.”
Dessie Brown Jr., Bennett’s friend, released the video to select media members and asked that they watch and also listen to a rap song on Bennett’s MySpace page. In an e-mail, Brown wrote, “excuse the language on both.”
USC head coach Pete Carroll joins Twitter. He would like you all to know it’s 75 degrees in Los Angeles today (i.e., way nicer than in Eugene, Columbus, Austin or State College).
There was a goony dust-up among the brodeo clowns who create and comment on posts over at With Leather today over one of the two football-related pieces to run at Slate today. Charles Pierce’s over-the-top-ish flaying of the Cardinals was mentioned here as an article of interest, and there as an example of what Slate is. That is, per the author, “the preeminent place on the Internet for joyless contrarian douchebags to show off the big words they know but can’t use in conversation, and it’s never more irritating than when they try to write about sports.” I’ll agree with the contrarian part, which is as much and as unfortunate a part of the Slate’s brand as is leering goonery at WL. In the former case, it makes an otherwise very interesting site occasionally disappointingly predictable; with the latter, it leads to tortured after-the-fact defenses of editorial douchery. It’s the internet, there’s room for everyone, right? Unless it becomes possible to hear blogs talk or smell their Axe bro-care products, I’m good with that.
That means that there’s room to mention one of those conventional wisdom-deflating, quasi-contrarian Slate pieces that actually works. This one was by Josh Levin (in disclosure, I should mention that he’s edited some of my stuff for them), and deflates, among a couple other big-ticket columnists’ tributes to Fitz Sr., Rick Reilly’s deflation-primed ode to the journalistic objectivity of Larry Fitzgerald Sr., the sportswriter dad of that one be-dreaded guy on the Cardinals who keeps putting up 3-touchdown games. (A side note: I’d planned for a bit to write something about Reilly covering his own kids’ progress in a beer pong tournament, via his severely retarded ode to beer pong as “the next great American pastime,” but was prevented from doing so by flu-like symptoms and spiritual malaise-related issues that came over me every time I started working on it) Anyway, here’s Levin doing the sort of plain, smart sports-media writing that makes contrarianism seem worth the work. As a bonus: pretty much all these words are easy to understand. Well, for CSTB readers.
These stories create an image of a sportswriter obsessed with journalistic etiquette, a reporter who pounds out scrupulously honest, evenhanded, undemonstrative copy. Once you dip into Fitzgerald Sr.’s collected works, however, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that Reilly and his cohorts haven’t read a word the man has ever written.
Fitzgerald Sr.’s column in the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, a weekly African-American newspaper, is less a work of journalism than a proud parent’s scrapbook. Judging by the last two issues, the Spokesman-Recorder doesn’t run straight game stories, meaning that Fitzgerald Sr.’s columns represent the bulk of the paper’s writing about football. As such, the Spokesman-Recorder sports section is essentially a Larry Fitzgerald Jr. tribute page—since 2003, the elder Fitzgerald has written about his son at least 23 times…
Although there are a few exceptions, the vast majority of Fitzgerald Sr.’s articles lack any kind of disclosure, instead identifying Fitzgerald Jr. as a local boy made good. Even so, I wouldn’t go out of my way to criticize Fitzgerald Sr. if Bell and Reilly didn’t build him up as a media ethicist fit for the chairmanship of the Poynter Institute. (Wilbon gets a pass, as his piece doesn’t belabor the point.) After all, he’s writing for a small paper where most of the readers are probably aware of the columnist’s filial ties to the receiver. It’s also hard to argue with what Fitzgerald Sr. has been saying—it’s true that nobody has played better in these playoffs than his flesh and blood. It’s easier to find fault with Bell and Reilly, who’ve concocted a fable about the impartiality of a man who basically acts as his son’s PR rep. Fitzgerald Sr. might not cheer in the press box, but he fashions the written-word equivalent of minutes-long standing ovations.
Why does Reilly want us to believe that the author of 2004’s “Fitzgerald shines at workout” (”The consensus is that Larry Jr. should have won the 2003 Heisman Trophy”) and 2008’s “Arizona’s Larry Fitzgerald hits all escalators” (”He is just 24 years old, and he’s already one of the best in the game today”) is “going to be two people during the big week, parent and sportswriter, and never the twain shall meet”? I suspect it has something to do with that sportswriterly tendency to turn good people into faultless paragons of virtue. The point isn’t that Fitzgerald Sr. is a bad guy because he failed to disclose a relationship. It’s that he’s always happily blurred the very line that Reilly et al. say he refuses to blur.
In which France’s premier daily sports publication reveals itself to be somewhere between Will Leitch and Hugh Trevor-Roper on the gullibility scale. From The Guardian’s Paul Doyle and Rob Smyth :
The Fiver was today amused to chance upon a feature on L’Equipe’s website entitled ‘Les Bad Boys du Foot Anglais’. Taking $tevie Mbe’s recent bother with the law as their cue, Les Diligent Boys du Hackery Francais informed their readers that “in March 2008 Robbie Fowler was arrested for possession of £120,000 worth of cocaine”. Unaware of any such event ever having occurred, the Fiver elected to look further into this sordid affair. And its research ended at exactly the same place, you suspect, as L’Equipe’s; that place being here.
So now permit the Fiver, in the gleeful tone of a schoolboy who’s just caught his principal smoking behind the bike shed, to dispense some elementary lessons to our intrepid French colleagues.
1) When looking for impeccable sources for a story, think twice before turning to a website called www.thespoof.com. 2) If you have not already heard raucous alarm bells, prick up your ears when said site carries quotes from a chap purporting to be Robbie Fowler’s lawyer and glories in the name Mr Bob Tw@t. 3) If your internal sirens are still strangely silent, ask yourself why the last line of the story was immediately followed, in bold type, by the following statement: “the story above is a satire or parody. It is entirely fictitious.” 4) If you have ignored all of the above, feel free to shout “oh merde” very loudly indeed. 5) Now sit back and await correspondence from Fowler’s real-life lawyer. Clue: we don mean Mr Bob Tw@t.
“After watching Mickey Rourke accept his Golden Globe,” sighed Newsday’s Alfonso Castillo, “I wrote that I hoped he would mention the plight of the pro wrestler in his acceptance speech if he won the Oscar.” You can file that one under “highly unlikely”, as Castillo explains :
Rourke told reporters on the red carpet for last night’s Screen Actor’s Guild awards that he is in talks to appear at WrestleMania and is gunning for Chris Jericho.
If WWE is actually planning for a match between Rourke and Jericho, that might explain where Jericho fits into the card, now that he lost the Rumble and seems like a sort of odd-man-out in the main event picture.
Nevertheless, Vince McMahon proves, once again, that – just like Ted used to say – “Everyone’s got a price.” After leaving WWE, Jesse Ventura was one of the company’s most outspoken critics, and hammered WWE for its role in Owen Hart’s death. But soon after being elected governor of Minnesota, he seemed to have a change of heart when he agreed to referee a match at SummerSlam 1999. When Wade Keller of the Pro Wrestling Torch called him out for apparently having his silence bought, Ventura pretty much blew him off.
Admittedly, this is a bit different. Rourke was never any kind of advocate for struggling pro wrestlers, but rather just an actor who took a job. I wouldn’t be surprised if WWE is offering Rourke more money to appear at Mania than he got for “The Wrestler.”
You’ve got to give McMahon some credit. How best to diffuse some of the negative publicity surrounding “The Wrestler” than to have the star of the movie give WWE his endorsement.
…or at least that’s the implication from weekend press reports surrounding Hull City’s 2-0, F.A. Cup Fourth Round victory over Millwall on Saturday, a match that featured scenes one police official described as “like going back 10 years.” Lions chairman Heather Rabbatts issued the following statement Monday, stressing that not all Millwall fans are likely to kick your head in. Others would prefer to put a brick through your car’s windshield.
“The reality of the situation is that we have a core of around four or five hundred travelling fans who follow the team up and down the country week-in week-out causing no problems whatsoever.
“These people will now be identified by other clubs and police forces as potential trouble makers and treated accordingly, whilst the real culprits will not be at Hereford on Tuesday night for example.
“We, at Millwall, will continue to take responsibility for doing everything in our power to rid ourselves of a criminal element which clearly sees big games involving our club as an opportunity to indulge in anti-social behaviour.
“Saying that these are not genuine Millwall fans is not ducking the issue because clearly those who support the team regularly know what damage incidents such as Saturday’s do to the club and are as dismayed by and condemnatory of these events as the rest of us.
“What is even more vital now, is that everyone working in football wakes up to the fact that there is still an anti-social hooligan element in our society which continues to be attracted to football as a vehicle for their activities.’
Needless to say, New York Burger Co’s ad department isn’t as funny as Wizznutzz. And their legal dept. can’t be very smart for failing to use the generic term, ‘The Big Game’ in reference to Sunday’s, uh, Big Game.
There’s also the matter of Plaxico Fantastico having shot himself in the leg, but the pistol packing WR can take it up with these Goodburger wannabes himself.
“My greatest talent is determining which ballpark is depicted in the background of a photograph taken between the ‘70 and early ’90s,” boats Let’s Go Sox’s Jere, revealing to bubblegum card neophytes, “the most common background item–the one that makes you recognize Yankee Stadium instantly, is the Brut sign.” (link culled from Repoz and Baseball Think Factory)
There was something about that sign–the way it snuck in to the posed pictures so often. It couldn’t be missed. The other signs were sometimes visible, but a big, short word was most likely to be recognized. Unless you’ve got a very distinct logo, nobody’s gonna recognize your ad way in the blurry background; BRUT had the power to bust through.
The Stadium returned in its renovated form in 1976. A few ads appeared above the bleachers that season, but it wasn’t until the next season, when all the spaces were filled in, that BRUT made its debut. Remember, baseball cards feature pictures from the previous season, so it was Topps’ 1978 set that put the sign in little kids’ hands across the country. And they went hog wild, too–the ‘78 set would be the Brut-iest one of all. Visiting players were shot time and again on the third base side in pre-game, posed with left field behind them. Entire teams seemed to be posed, one by one. Mariners players were heard to complain, “ain’t no variety in these shots….” No less than 28 American Leaguers that year were shown with a portion of the Brut sign peering over their shoulders. Some guys, not thinking about becoming part of this exclusive list 30 years later, stood so that the sign was completely blocked.
While allowing the Cardinals’ Larry Fitzgerald (above) is “having the most significant postseason any nonquarterback has had in about 20 years”, Slate’s Charles Pierce unloads on the NFC Champions, dubbing Arizona’s playoff run, “fluky and disgraceful.” And he’s not even mentioning Will Leitch’s Tumblr page!
Arizona played in a landfill of a division. They won their two playoff games because Jake Delhomme of Carolina turned the ball over six times and because the Philadelphia Eagles all looked at the newspapers last Sunday and discovered they were in the NFC championship game again. The Cardinals are a glorified Arena Football League team with a soft defense and a running game unworthy of the name. They are in the position that they’re in because the NFL rigs its season worse than any carny rigs his wheel. For all the macho posturing of its principal propagandists, between the jiggering of the schedule and the conniving of the draft and the socialistic revenue schemes, and the desperate grab for any mechanism that will flatten out the differences between really good teams and really bad ones, the NFL is the league that comes closest to the biddy soccer league philosophy of making sure that everyone gets a trophy.
The only proof anyone should need came in the 15th game of the season, when Arizona visited New England. It already was clear this year that the Cardinals were even money to finish in the middle of the pack of any league that played in the upper latitudes, with the possible exception of the Ivies. Send them north out of the pleasure dome that the Bidwills blackjacked out of the state of Arizona, and the team did things like give up 56 points to the New York Jets, playing such shoddy defense that Brett Favre threw for six touchdowns. This, of course, ignited another outbreak of hot and steamy Favre love from the easily smitten television press corps, so we have the Cardinals to blame even for that. In Foxborough, however, in December, they simply quit.
..the Jersey Giants head coach would undoubtedly appreciate you purchasing this shirt (ie. what-do-you-get-the-scowling-man-who-has-most-things). If Wizznutzz would prefer not to donate all proceeds to the Plaxico Fantastico defense fund, that’s ok. The important thing is spreading the message around.
Mavs F Dirk Nowitzki — facing Boston this afternoon — is in his 12th NBA season and with Dallas currently the 7th seed in the West, there’s a tendency (alluded to by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Jim Hubbard anyway) to hint Nowitzki oughta be swapped as part of a rebuild, ala Kevin McHale presenting the Celtics with Kevin Garnett. Dallas assistant Dwane Casey, however, insists “they are two totally different situations.”
“I thought Glen [Taylor, the T-wolves’ owner] and those guys did the best they could in a small market and what they had to work with,” Casey said. “Mark [Cuban] has done a great job in Dallas with his budget and putting all these good players around Dirk.”
Cuban has no problem with the concept of connecting Nowitzki’s future to a situation involving a Celtics franchise player, but Cuban said Garnett is not the player.
Two years ago, the Celtics were in the process of winning 24 games and Paul Pierce was nearing 30 years old. It seemed to be an ideal time to trade Pierce for young players, draft picks and begin rebuilding, and Cuban was one of many who was interested in helping that process.
“Everybody and their brother called up when Boston was struggling about trying to get Paul Pierce,” Cuban said. “Everybody. We offered to try and take his contract and they said, ‘You know what? He’s part of our fabric, our culture.’
“You look at how things turned out for Boston.”
“What if the Lakers had traded Kobe?” Cuban said. “Then when the Pau Gasol opportunity came along, they would not have been in position to take advantage of it.”
Instead of grabbing his Louisville Slugger to send a baseball into orbit, Canseco taped his wrists and put on some boxing gloves to try and send former Partridge kid Danny Bonaduce (above) into a daze.
The former Oakland A’s slugger showed he has only warning track power in the ring. He staggered Bonaduce with a couple of big blows in Saturday night’s three-round fight, but failed to deliver the knockout punch and the celebrity boxing match ended in a deflating draw.
“He hit me harder than I’ve ever been hit my entire life,” Bonaduce said.
Bonaduce’s nose was bloodied and the two hugged after the bout. All that was missing in this D-list celebrity boxing bout was the reality TV cameras.
“If there’s a knockout, it’ll probably be me,” Bonaduce said before the bout.
Bonaduce never looked in any serious trouble and Canseco seemed hesitant to go after him with ferocious cuts.
Canseco took his second shot at celebrity boxing after he was whupped by former Philadelphia Eagle Vai Sikahema in his debut boxing match last July. Bonaduce, who played Danny Partridge on the “The Partridge Family,” is like Mike Tyson in his heyday in the outlandish celebrity boxing circuit. He’s beat Barry “Greg Brady” Williams and Donny Osmond.
Maybe those two 1970s TV stars combined have biceps as big as the hulking Canseco’s. The 6-foot-4 Canseco weighed in at 260 pounds. Bonaduce is 5-6, 180 pounds.
“I truly don’t know that I can damage him,” Bonaduce said. “He’s just too big. I can just outpoint him.”
He didn’t much time to play rope-a-dope against Canseco. The bout featured only three, 1-minute rounds. Canseco sparred early Saturday, ran 10 miles and proclaimed himself in top shape to last 3 minutes, if needed.
And no, neither boxer was drug tested.
“Thank God, no,” said promoter Damon Feldman, laughing.
(l-r : Alex and Derek, in happier days)
The New York Post’s Susanah Calahan and James Fanelli report this morning that Tom Verducci’s forthcoming “The Yankee Years” (Doubleday) features no shortage of dirt dished by former Bombers skipper Joe Torre. Jim Bouton, while not neccessarily unavailable for comment, isn’t on my IM buddy list, either.
Torre gets most personal in his attacks against Alex Rodriguez, who he says was called “A-Fraud” by his teammates after he developed a “Single White Female”-like obsession with team captain Derek Jeter and asked for a personal clubhouse assistant to run errands for him.
Torre, who left the Yankees and became manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers after the 2007 season, says Brian Cashman never told the brass that the manager wanted a two-year deal and instead remained silent during Torre’s tense final sitdown with the bosses.
The book also reveals that, during spring training in 1999, team doctors revealed to owner George Steinbrenner that Torre had prostate cancer – even before informing the manager himself.
[Meet the Cubs new OTB funded owners: Ameritrade's Ricketts family.]
For the last 48-72 hours, news of the pending Cubs sale went from naming Tom Ricketts the new owner to clarifying, as calmer heads in the business press took notice, that he has been given an “exclusive” 60-90 day window to make his bid happen, which the Wall Street Journal describes as possibly “challenging.” That is, he’s offering $900 mil for the team, Wrigley, and 25% of the Cubs sports network – and he only has half the $900 mil presently. Wrigleyville23 immediately broke down the politics of the sale, pinpointing Ricketts as a generous GOP cash donor. Then again, compared to the century of support the Tribune gave Republicans nationwide in their papers, comic strips, and by allowing Reptilicans to toss out first pitches at Wrigley, I prefer Ricketts. I mean, at least he never insisted we keep the peace with the Nazis on his 1940s editorial pages. Muckety’s provides an interactive mapping of the Ricketts family fortunes and friends, which I cannot make sense of, but maybe you can.
Analysis of the deal so far is that Ricketts’ offer is about 900 million, half of which Ricketts says he can put up in cash. It’s the cash factor that sets him apart, as no matter how close – or at times, above – the 1 billion mark other bidders came, no one put up $450 million in their own cash. Then again, Ricketts now has to go out and find $450 million more in some truly credit crunched times, and while he has some sort of “exclusive” window, as many sources report, MSNBC claims that other bidders can still increase their offers. Coming so quickly after Mark Cuban’s pleading blog post on the Cubs, it feels like someone in the Ricketts camp leaked Zell/Tribune’s preference. Nothing is settled, and Cuban only trails by $50 million. Like he couldn’t make that up? Cuban’s problem is that he is said (if memory serves) to have only offered $100 million in cash, with the rest coming from credit – again, not so easy these days, and a leveraged-out owner is not what mlb wants. With so many people reporting at odds with one another, it’s probably wise to be skeptical of all this and question sources. Seriously, with money like this on the line, whose going to talk to a sports reporter?
The Biz of Baseball’s Maury Brown has a detailed account of Ricketts’ successful angling for his current poll position here. Brown also mentions Cuban, and dismisses everything we’ve read about Cuban’s high profile interest in the Cubs: he was never the lead bid post Bush credit apocalypse (he went from a rumored $1.3 billion offer to $850 after the Depression hit); the SEC charges did not effect his status at all; and the opinion of baseball owners re Cuban meant little compared to the numbers. Apparently, this includes Maury Brown dismissing himself: here. Since Cuban himself alludes quite a bit to Jerry Reinsdorf in his blog on the subject, I question much of what Brown says. Still, mlb likes Tom Ricketts’ “I bleed Cubbie blue” reputation and that with him the Cubs can return to a family ownership, which mlb prefers.
South Siders will also appreciate that Ricketts went to the University of Chicago and is the son of Joe Ricketts, founder of TD Ameritrade brokerage. I know this graf from Bloomberg business news warms the heart of many a Sox fan like Rob Warmowski, as it tells the simple story of a well connected rich kid and his dream of being an even better connected rich kid:
Ricketts, who met his wife at Wrigley Field, grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and attended the University of Chicago. The 43- year-old worked as a trader at the Chicago Board Options Exchange and attended classes at night to earn a graduate business degree in 1993.
When asked his opinion of that graf, Rob W responded: “With a black Democrat in the White House, it looks like Cub Republicans are circling the wagon’s on this one and picking one of their own.” Indeed, Ricketts background makes it appear as if the Cub high command is simply promoting from within the bleacher ranks. This way, they retain the North Side Republican status quo, and Ricketts connected rich kid background and days on the Options Exchange means many a South Sider employed by him already know him as “Mr. Ricketts” (to his face, anyway).
[Can't tell if this is heroin or Obama pads of butter from an Obama friendly waffle house, but it's deadly none the less.]
And like voting, the first hit is free. The Smoking Gun’s poetic headline says it all: “The Audacity of Dope.” If some of you wonder what this has to do with sports, keep in mind, this blog has lots of “music industry” connections. I think you get my drift.
As seen minutes ago in the front window of New Era’s E. 4th Street Flagship store in Lower Manhattan. Guys, pride is one thing, but surely you wanna get paid for this most blatant copyright infringement homage? And if those two aren’t upset, what about Dailbor Bagaric?
If the New Era cash-in wasn’t original enough, consider the latest menu item available at the Beligian Frites hut at 113 Ave A. (the former home of Ray’s Candy Shop)
Every once in a while I’d be watching television, most notably NYPD Blue and a few episodes of that show I heard about from William Donohue, and I’d be like, “hey… it’s one of the guys from Slap Shot!” (which is more than I could say of Michael Ontkean post-Twin Peaks).
Said actor was Brad Sullivan, who died of cancer on December 31 at the age of 77.
I’ve had the pleasure over the years of meeting with Brad on several occasions and talking about Slap Shot, my fundraising efforts, and his Christian ministry with the Asian community in NYC….
One day about 6 years ago we were sitting in a Starbucks close to his home in the city and Brad told me that he had recently seen Slap Shot for the first time since it’s release and he couldn’t believe how sacrilegious it was. He was genuinely saddened that he portrayed such a nasty character in the movie and he was sorry he had ever done it….
He didn’t like people who asked him about his role of Mo, but was a very kind man and he was happy to discuss his other quality roles and projects at any time with anybody. He did however. like the fact that anything he signed or gave me went to charity.
A week ago today, Real Madrid’s 3-1 defeat of Osasuna received a fair bit of global attention after some questionable officiating left referee Alfonso Perez Burrull (above) suspended, or “in the fridge” as La Liga’s review committee chose to call it. Perhaps it was just a pure coincidence then, that Burrull’s match report included claims Real supporters brandished banners featuring ““extremist or radical symbolism” and engaged “in chants of a facist nature“. When Saturday Comes’ Ian Plenderleith calls the measly fine levied against one of the world’s soccer superpowers, “a naked affront to even basic, PR-driven levels of human decency.”
That of all people the referee was the one having to call attention to such behaviour means that, given a crowd of 75,000, the chanting and gestures must have been fairly conspicuous. You wouldn’t expect a man controlling a high-speed football game in arguably the world’s best league to otherwise notice the antics of spectators in a stadium the size of the Bernabeu. What on earth were the stewards or the police doing? Keeping an eye out to see if Osasuna defender Miguel Flano was tugging on Raul’s shirt? Unfortunately for Burrull, he seems to have been focusing as much on the crowd as on the game – he was given a one-month suspension from reffing for twice incorrectly booking Osasuna’s striker Juanfran Torres for diving.
Following Burrull’s report, the Spanish football federation slapped Madrid with a draconian fine of… €3,000. A federation spokesman said Real had been punished for breaching a rule aimed at preventing xenophobia and intolerance. There was nothing about measures being taken to ban fans from the stadium. There was not even a statement on the club’s English-language website condemning the fans’ behaviour. After all, if the federation doesn’t take such offenses seriously, why should the club?
We all know that Spain only came out of fascist dictatorship in the 1970s, and that Real was General Franco’s pet club. We also know that a generation back, such scenes were not uncommon inside English grounds, but sustained and steady campaigns have exacted healthy change. But while Real Madrid are not responsible for bigotry outside their stadium, there’s no reason why both they and the Spanish federation can’t take strong action to set a precedent in the face of ongoing pro-fascist behaviour from the Ultra Sur fan group. At the moment, like its objectionable former national team coach Luis Aragones, the country’s football officials are out of step with anti-racism campaigns across the FIFA nations.
Ducks don’t get much lamer than Herm Edwards, fired yesterday after 3 seasons as head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, the inevitable axe falling an entire ten days after the club brought in the Hooded Casanova’s son-in-law, Scott Pioli, to rebuild the organization. While the K.C. Star’s Jayson Whitlock sees the logic in allowing Mr. Play-To-Win-The-Game to twist in the wind over the past two weeks (”there’s nothing wrong with a cautious pace as long as little is lost and the end result is appropriate…had Pioli canned Edwards right away, a lot of valuable information would’ve walked out the door with Edwards and his assistants”), his colleague Joe Posnaski finds the Chiefs’ handling of the situation just a little distasteful, declaring “put it this way: Scott Pioli better win fast. He isn’t winning anyone over with his class.”
I’m not sure why it took 10 days for Pioli to pull the trigger. I’m not sure why he left Herm dangling out there for those 10 days while his assistant coaches fled like high school kids on graduation day. I’m not sure why the Chiefs would throw Herm overboard late on a Friday afternoon with a news release and a couple of pointless statements. I’m not sure what it says about an organization that it would treat a loyal man like that. Actually, I’m precisely sure what it says about the Chiefs.
In the end, I suspect, most people in town won’t care how Scott Pioli fired Herm Edwards, because most people just wanted Herm Edwards fired. Sports is a hard business and a cold game. People forget fast. Just one day earlier, Gunther Cunningham bolted for Detroit, where he gets to coach the one team that had a defense worse than his own. And he did not feel like he could leave without first shifting blame for his defense to Herm.
“I’ve gone through three years of playing zone defenses because I was loyal to Herm Edwards,” Cunningham said. “That’s what he wanted. People here in town knew that I was different than that. My idea is to put a lot of pressure on the quarterback — always has been, always will be.”
Key phrase in that statement: “was loyal.”
And how true was the statement anyway? In 2006, when Herm Edwards became head coach, he kept Gunther Cunningham on as his defensive coordinator.
This was despite the fact that the two years before Herm arrived, Cunningham’s defenses finished 31st and 25th in total defense. They weren’t playing zone then — the head coach was Dick Vermeil. and he would let his defensive coordinators do whatever the heck they wanted. Half the time, Vermeil didn’t even know the Chiefs had a defense (and half the time, he was right).
Some of us got over the Giants’ playoff loss to Philly a bit faster than others. Presumably, the gentleman above — in a clip forwarded by Tommy Hoops — will cope with the long offseason in the most constructive way possible : tracking down his tormentors (in particular, the guy who shouts “it’s a fucking game, what the fuck is wrong with you?”) and beating them to death with a ball peen hammer.
If you recently heard about the web site “Berman Exposed,” and thought to yourself, “it’s about time there was a comprehensive Silver Jews fan site!,” well, you weren’t that far off the mark.
Along with the announcement he’s retiring from music (to say the band is splitting up seems semantically imprecise), David Berman (above) now resignedly reveals himself to be the spawn of Richard, the “Center For Consumer Freedom” corporate lobbyist who fights the good fight against such things as MADD, the Humane Society, ACORN and LOLCats. How has this guy not been hired by the BCS?
Now that the Joos are over I can tell you my gravest secret. Worse than suicide, worse than crack addiction:
My father.
You might be surprised to know he is famous, for terrible reasons.
My father is a despicable man. My father is a sort of human molestor.
An exploiter. A scoundrel. A world historical motherfucking son of a bitch. (sorry grandma)
