Barry Bonds’ trial on perjury charges was delayed indefinitely Friday when federal prosecutors elected to appeal U.S. District Judge Susan Illston’s ruling that portions of their evidence weren’t admissible. Full credit then, to the Nation’s Dave Zirin (”without Greg Anderson, the state’s case was always weak. But now it is on serious life support”), who saw this one coming down the pike several days ago (link courtesy Ben Schwartz)
Illston’s ruling was an indictment of not only the government’s case but its entire approach toward Bonds from day one. John Ashcroft’s Justice Department always seemed irrationally determined to prosecute Bonds. It was as obsessive as the fisherman Santiago attempting to bring home the great marlin in Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea.
Whether or not you are a Barry Bonds fan, or consider him to be just a step above a seal-clubbing, pitbull-fighting bank executive, every person of good conscience should be aghast at the way the Justice Department has gone about its business. Barry Bonds, Greg Anderson and maybe thousands of others have had their rights trampled on, all for the glory of a perjury case that looks to be going absolutely nowhere. Attorney General Eric Holder and President Obama have strongly indicated that the government is getting out of the steroid monitoring business. That is welcome, but after so many years, so many tax dollars and so many reputations destroyed, it all feels positively Pyrrhic.
At the end of The Old Man and the Sea, when Santiago finally returns to shore, his 18-foot catch has been reduced to a skeleton. A crowd gathers to gawk and imagine what the magnificent marlin once was. Santiago completed his journey with nothing, but he felt purified for the battle and slept deeply and proudly. As we pick through the bones of Barry Bonds, I can’t imagine Jeff Novitzky feels the same.
Asked by a Russian journalist whether he wanted to play for United, Tottenham’s Roman Pavlyuchenko (above) declared: “It would be wrong not to dream about this.
“I have realised that the English Premier League is exactly why you should start playing football in the first place.
“And Manchester United is the leader of it. Once your first dream comes true you must start dreaming of another target.”
But in saying how pleased he was to team up with Robbie Keane at Spurs, he was scathing about Berbatov, who made the move from White Hart Lane to Old Trafford.
“Robbie Keane returned to the Spurs as if he never left the club,” he told Gazeta Daily in Moscow.
“It’s evident that he’s a man of authority inside the team which is good for us. He was always liked as far as I can judge.
“If Berbatov returned it would be taken quite differently. I heard tales that he was an arrogant snob who after a training session would just throw his dirty boots to the man who takes care of our footwear saying: ‘Clean them for me!’
“No one likes such people. Still he’s now playing for Manchester United.”
Crystal Palace — mired in 14th place in the Championship —could’ve well done with this afternoon off, given the sort of fixture congestion that awaits the South London club. “I have to be careful what I say as it is obviously tea and coffee money for the FA,” mutters manager Neil Warnock (above, left, photographed with another fella who isn’t in a great mood tonight), who thankfully for readers of the Independent, isn’t nearly so careful about what he writes.
On Wednesday I found we now have to play Burnley on a Wednesday night, 11 March, instead of the Tuesday, because they are involved in the FA Cup the previous Sunday. Having got £300,000 for the TV coverage of that match, plus the gate money, we have to change to accommodate them. Apparently it is a rule which was brought in because of my then club Sheffield United’s involvement in the semi-final against Arsenal in 2003 when we had to play Nottingham Forest two days later. So I’ve been personally done twice.
Why am I so upset? Because in six days we now play Burnley, Swansea and Barnsley away. We will get back to Palace from Burnley at 4am on the Thursday – so there will be no training that day. We set off for Swansea on Friday morning returning at 11pm. After Sunday off we travel to Barnsley on Monday. So the team are playing in three long-distance matches on the road in the space of six days – they will be travelling 1,256 miles. So will our fans. Yet we have eight days’ spare at the end of the season between the last two games. The fixture guys are saying we cannot play then. Obviously there could be tornadoes developing.
I ask you, first the FA, now the Football League, it has got me thinking it has to be pay-back time. Do you think Alex Ferguson or any of the others would be asked to do this? Is there any wonder we complain, and ask the question, “why are amateurs running the game?” It is obvious to me the people making the decision on the fixtures and on the commission cannot have played the game.
I tried to ring Dave Cookson and Paul Snell, who I’m told are the officials responsible at the Football League, but they have had to deal with more important business with the Carling Cup. I wouldn’t think Crystal Palace are high up on their agenda.
I want to invite Dave to travel with me for those six days as my guest. I will personally pay his travel, accommodation and expenses to be with me. That is the only way to show people sat in an office making decisions like this just how ridiculous it is. I’m still waiting for an answer.
While at least one columnist reports Scott Boras has demanded an additional $10 million (on top of the prior $45 million proposed over two years) from the Dodgers in order to deliver Manny Ramirez to spring training, an item in Saturday’s LA Times suggests the counter offer isn’t purely down to greed on the part of player and agent. Could it be that Dodgers ownership simply won’t have the loot to make payroll?
The fine print of Boras’ proposed deal was significantly different from McCourt’s in that it requested that no part of Ramirez’s salary be deferred. McCourt wanted to defer most of Ramirez’s salary, according to a source with knowledge of the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because negotiations were still in progress.
Under the terms of the contract that Ramirez was offered by the Dodgers on Wednesday, he would have received $10 million this year. And by exercising the option for the second year of the deal, he would’ve received $10 million in 2010.
Ramirez would have been paid the remaining $25 million over the next three years without any added interest. He would’ve received $10 million in 2011, $10 million in 2012 and $5 million in 2013.
Asked if the Dodgers had any problems with cash flow or concerns about their projected revenues that would deter them from paying Ramirez’s entire salary in the year it was earned, spokesman Charles Steinberg replied, “I have no idea.”
Colletti acknowledged Friday that the Dodgers’ offer included deferred payments but refused to detail them.
“The deferred component was part of the deal from the very beginning,” Colletti said.
Boras acknowledged that, saying it was why he asked for more money in his initial counterproposal to the Dodgers’ latest offer. Boras requested a two-year, $55-million contract that included a player option for the second year, according to sources.
The Times’ Brian Kamenetzky has had just about enough of this story, writing “Like ‘24′ somewhere around the middle of Season 5, I’ve officially lost patience with this program.”
I’m tired of sources close to the negotiations and individuals with knowledge of the situation, all speaking in shadows like Deep Throat in a parking garage. As much as I want the Blue to be competitive and interesting — it’s a lot more fun to be around the park when the team is competitive and interesting, and they risk being neither without ManRam — I’m this closeto hoping some other team swoops in with a last-minute offer even if it means Boras is vindicated when it’s done. At least the ending will have a twist.
If you had told Frank McCourt he could have Manny back next season for somewhere in the neighborhood of two years/$45 million, he’d have jumped on it in a heartbeat. As my dad likes to tell me, the enemy of good is better. Don’t be greedy and overplay the hand. It’s OK to overbid on Manny if it means the nearly four million folks who fill the stadium and buy jerseys and wigs and pony up for parking will have good reason to make up the difference, especially when the payroll will be lower than last season’s even with Manny on board.
There’s an Associated Press report making the rounds which cites Johan Santana’s elbow stiffness as possibly keeping the Mets’ starter out of action for a further spell ; the talismanic lefty has already been bumped from two scheduled exhibition starts. From the New York Daily News‘ Adam Rubin :
Santana says doctors told him it’s the triceps tendon that is causing stiffness in his pitching elbow. With pitching coach Dan Warthen and manager Jerry Manuel already on the bus for Lakeland, Fla., Santana said he’ll wait until Sunday to map out a plan for pitching. But it’s clear he won’t be in a Grapefruit League game for a while. Santana said he hopes to throw a light bullpen session on Sunday. He then wants to face hitters in a batting-practice-style setting two or three times before entering a game. With potentially two days rest in between each BP, we’re possibly talking two weeks before a game appearance.
Kick off is at 3pm GMT and I’m pretty sure you can count on my fellow patrons being highly annoyed at my 90 minutes of iPhone activity during what should be an otherwise thrilling League One relegation battle. How long before Twittering in public joins racist chanting on the list of offenses that justify ejection?
“What recession?” chuckled WFAN’s Richard Neer upon hearing news of the Redskins inking DT Albert Haynesworth to a 7-years, $100 million pact on Friday. And while only $41 million of that amount is guaranteed, the otherwise celebratoryChris Mottram of Mr. Irrelevant is all-too aware Haynesworth is just the latest in a long line of veteran superstars who’ve cashed in big time during Dan Snyder’s reign of error. That said, this isn’t Bruce Smith or Deion Sanders at the end of the line, and while Washington’s new acquisition oughta be enough to give Giants fans pause, there’s at least one person with a rooting interest in Indy who is pleased with the move.
This means Fat Albert, a guy who routinely took plays off and once stepped on an opposing player’s face with his cleats, is the highest paid defensive player in football. For us, the positive is this fat tub of crap is out of the AFC South. Sure, he was lazy. He was also damn talented. When he finally did put his mind to something, he was hard to block. For Titans fans, this loss is the equivalent of the Colts losing Peyton Manning. Haynesworth WAS the Titans. He was their best player. He was the lynch pin that held their outstanding defense together. Now, in the span of two years, the Titans have lost defensive linemen Travis LaBoy, Antwaan Odom, Antonio Johnson, and Haynesworth. That’s a lost of talent left to walk away.
Indeed, there are some at MSG “who know how to show people love”. While Stephon has two points at halftime of tonight’s Pacers/Celtics tilt, I’m certain Knicks fans will appreciate the classy thoughts expressed above, and shall wish their former inspirational leader nothing but the best in his pursuit of an NBA Championship.
Hey, even white collar criminals need to look stylish. The above New York Pickpockets lid is part of Upper Playground’s imaginary baseball league, which includes designs for the San Francisco Panhandlers and Chicago Racketeers. If the league expands, maybe Joe Beimel can sign with the Los Angeles Likely Stories?
Had flashbacks to my Giants beat days today as Mike Francesa discussed the Mets’ David Wright and Ryan Church boycotting his show (and declining even to meet with him off the air) because of assorted comments about them last season.
Francesa on Church: “I don’t really care if Church comes on the show now or forever. Church is going to be out of New York long before I’m going to worry about whether he comes on my show or not. He’s not a big deal in any way.”
Francesa on Wright: “I think he’s being very immature because he’s had a straight ascendancy and he doesn’t want any criticism . . . He needs to grow up.”
The genesis of Francesca’s feud with Church is an earlier claim by the former that the Mets’ oft-disabled RF wanted to leave New York. When Church denied the report, Francesca cited unidentified sources inside the Mets clubhouse — persons he’s still yet to identify.
Many readers may feel that if you are going to complain about crowd noise at a football match, then an angry letter about the fact that your view of the pitch has been severely impeded by 22 men in shorts who insist on running about all over it during the entire length of your visit is surely on its way. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the average age of those attending football matches is rising (or at least craning) ever upwards. Soon, most of the grounds will be, more or less, entirely in the knobbly hands of the prostate generation. It will alter the game irrevocably. For a start, the interval will have to be extended to an hour just so we all have time to piddle.
The fact is that when you are getting on in years, you increasingly find high-tempo, all-action entertainment physically and mentally draining. I had to spend the day in bed after watching The Dark Knight, a film that frankly made me feel as if I had been falling down the stairs into a darkened cellar for two and a half hours. No, there will come a time when fans at football matches will no more want explosive excitement from their afternoon match than we do from our afternoon TV schedule. We will want something light, cheerful and familiar, possibly refereed by Hannah Gordon or Alan Titchmarsh.
(just try to wipe the smile off this man’s face. No, really, I’d like you to try)
Citing the “shrill banter, contrived characters, and prefabricated opinions” most often heard on WEEI’s “The Big Show”, the Boston Globe’s Chad Finn used the pages of his paper’s new weekly, The O.T., to challenge the region’s most popular sports chat program. “I’m convinced that provided with an equal signal, some savvy program director could build what WEEI claims to be: the premier sports radio station in the country,” claims Finn before making the following incendiary suggestions (amongst others).
Have a well-considered opinion and the knowledge to defend it in an entertaining manner: No, passing yourself off as some sort of insider because of an association with the Celtics two decades ago does not count, particularly when there is mounting suspicion that you haven’t watched more than a handful of out-of-market NBA games since the days of short shorts and sky hooks. In a related note: Yelling the loudest doesn’t make you right. Didn’t your mom ever teach you that?
After you’ve beaten a story to death, please resist the temptation to beat on the corpse daily for another several weeks: Wait, wait, wait … you’re telling me Manny Ramirez quit on the Red Sox? And they traded him? When did this happen? How come you never mentioned this, Mikey? HOW COME YOU NEVER MENTIONED THIS??!!
Talk politics or the news story of the day when the moment calls for it: Credit where credit is due: WEEI was riveting radio in the days after September 11. The tone was sincere, heartfelt, and human. Since then, however, the tone regarding politics and world matters has become so extreme that certain hosts make Dick Cheney look like a beatnik. Worse is the increasingly snide disregard for those with different circumstances, views, and — the case certainly can be made — pigment. It’s one thing to be provocative, but too often that crosses the line to irresponsibility. Sure, a certain element is enthralled — hillbillies and cavemen, mostly. Others are simply waiting for the inevitable repulsive comment that leads to your downfall.
Enough with the drop-ins from comedians who’d bomb at the Ha-Ha House of Whiskey and Waffles: And if some clown named Shecky does find his way into the studio — either as a guest or as your nighttime host — have some dignity and refrain from hee-hawing and chortling and racing to laugh loudest as if he’s the reincarnation of George Carlin. He’s not. He’s a D-lister with a captive audience, and his best jokes wouldn’t make the cut for the Whiner Line. Which, by the way, is the best thing you have going. We might note the material comes not from you, but from the listeners. We’re going to assume you miss the irony of that.
Q: How excited are you about coming to the Celtics?
SM: “This is the happiest I’ve been since being drafted, man. I’m so happy that it doesn’t even feel real. It feels, it just feels like, it feels different to finally be able to get the opportunity to go play for a team that’s established. Everyone is on the same page. There is one goal, and that’s winning a ring, winning the trophy.
“I’m walking into an environment where it’s stable, controlled by the players because the players police themselves. You don’t have to have the coach police what is going on. Everyone seems to have it together and it looks like a family. That’s what it’s all about.”
Q: What would you say to your skeptics who wonder why the Celtics are signing you despite your past problems?
SM: “That’s OK. That’s just a perspective that has been adapted from what someone else told them. If they weren’t there and weren’t in that circle, then they don’t know.”
Q: How does it feel to go to a team that is pretty much drama-free?
SM: “You don’t know how good it feels to know that it’s just one thing, to have fun. [Kevin Garnett] was like, ‘Basketball is going to be fun again, kid.’ Man, I can’t wait. I’m so excited. I haven’t slept in like three days.”
Q: If this chapter ends with a championship, have you thought about how emotional you could be?
SM: “I don’t know what I’d do. I think teams that watch me, they understand about me that I’m a straight shooter. They might not like that. But at the end of the day I’d rather people respect me. I’m not a liar. If I played like [garbage], I played like [garbage]. To win a championship, that’s what you do it for.”
Q: What will it be like to wear the Celtics uniform?
SM: “It’s historical. I don’t even know how to explain that. I’m so humbled by it. I’m grateful for the opportunity. If you look at the teams that we had there with [Larry] Bird, [Kevin] McHale and [Dennis] Johnson and Danny Ainge, it’s like, wow, this is the type of team that is formulating to that style of team. And with the additions they are trying to add, bringing on a guy like Mikki Moore, who is a great energy player, I just want to come in, help, and be one of the pieces that fit into the puzzle, that’s all.”
Newsday, which covers the New York suburb of Long Island, was bought by Cablevision in a $650 million deal last May that was widely criticized on Wall Street as a puzzling move into a troubled newspaper market.
Cablevision had to write down Newsday’s value by $402 million on Thursday, pushing its fourth-quarter results to a loss, as U.S. print advertising sales and circulation have dropped with more readers seeking free news on the Web.
But Cablevision Chief Operating Officer Tom Rutledge said the cable TV company was aware of the difficulties faced by the traditional newspaper business.
“Our goal was and is to use our electronic network assets and subscriber relationships to transform the way news is distributed,” he said on a conference call with analysts.
“We plan to end the distribution of free Web content and make our news gathering capabilities a service for our customers,” he added.
Rutledge’s comments could raise speculation that the paper may seek cost cuts by reducing print operations. It could also look to cross-promote Web access as part of the Cablevision programing package.
[Snooky, a key witness in the Vick trial, on learning Vick will be on the streets again by May.]
The AP today claims that suspended Atlanta Falcon Michael Vick is approved for home confinement, and there must be some very nervous dogs out there knowing he’s back on the street. Matt Damon lookalike Mark Maske reports it for The Washington Post:
Michael Vick has been approved for release to home confinement, possibly in May, a government official told the Associated Press. The NFL quarterback is serving a 23-month federal prison sentence in Leavenworth, Kan., for his role in a dogfighting operation based at a home that he owned in Virginia.
The AP report has not been independently verified.
Vick’s attorneys had indicated in bankruptcy court proceedings that they expected Vick to be transferred to a halfway house in Virginia for the final portion of his prison term.
DC Sports Bog’s Dan Steinberg, previously maligned by former colleague Tony Kornheiser as “Cheese Boy”, neglects to identify the questioner pestering the Wizards’ injured Brendan Haywood below, but calls the conversation, “Enlightening. In the same way pouring 40 feet of mud-flecked chocolate pudding on top of your face would be enlightening.”
What are they talking about in terms of a timeline for you, and what are you looking at?
Don’t have a timeline. If I’m healthy, I’m back, but if I’m not, I’m not.
So there’s been no timeline set for you in terms of a return to play?
They said this injury takes four to six months, so it depends on am I a four-month guy, a five-month guy or a six-month guy. I don’t know yet.
Are you a four-month guy?
Not right now. It’s been four months.
So you’re a five-month guy?
Don’t know. I’m not gonna give you anything on TV tonight. Come on. Stop with me.
I hear ya. Hey, if you had your druthers, when would you be ready to go?
When I’m healthy. You’re gonna find a million and one ways to ask me the same question, huh?
A practice like today, a practice this physical, when do you think you might be ready for something like that?
Don’t know. I hate to keep hitting you with the same thing, but I really don’t know. I’ll be reevaluated in a couple weeks. This might be a good interview for my doctor, she knows better than me. She’s got the x-rays, the MRIs and everything. And she’s a specialist in this area, so she knows way better than me.
Is she a good quote?
I don’t know. She’s a doctor, she’s probably gonna be even more bland than me.
Last night against New Orleans, writes Piston Powered’s Dan Feldman, “(Rasheed) Wallace gave up on his teammates. The game was close, and he couldn’t control his emotions. He’s becoming the cancer many feared the Pistons acquired in 2004.” “Might the Pistons just release him now, with only 26 games remaining on his contract?” wonders ESPN’s Royce Webb, who strangely hasn’t proposed that Joe Dumars lower the boom on first-year head coach Michael Curry (currently presiding over an 8-game losing streak).
Cancer or not, Detroit probably doesn’t have such an easy time with the Lakers in the ‘04 Finals without Wallace’s services. Second guessing last autumn’s Iverson-for-Billups swap is natural (and easy) enough, but I sincerely doubt Joe Dumars would like a do-over on Chucky Atkins, Lindsay Hunter and a first round pick for ‘Sheed.
“One great thing about rooting for Atlanta sports teams (save Georgia Tech!) is the prevalence of drumlines and other aspects of HBCU culture at the games,” Idolator’s Lucas Jensen writes. I’ll have to take his word on this; I’d always thought the best part of being a Braves fan was knowing that the players you root for go to the same strip club you do. (Or, if you prefer, “make really inspiring pre-game speeches“)
But Jensen does have a point that drumlines are a better, livelier musical entertainment option than the average, and definitely superior to the times when the Mets used to just play Mike Piazza’s King’s X CDs during batting practice. And it could get better still: the Braves are currently holding open auditions for bandmembers. It could be you down there on the field, depending on the kind of chops you display at playing different homonyms. Jensen continues:
The Atlanta Falcons have a drumline that comes out and highsteps along with that Petey Pablo song featured in (yep) Drumline. It’s a great spectacle, and it’s a change of pace from the lily-white pro games in other areas. And the Braves have the Heavy Hitters, and they are holding auditions today and next Thursday:
The Braves are looking for musicians with confidence and charisma, a flexible schedule, and the ability to work games in their entirety every Friday, Saturday and Sunday home game during the season.
PHOTO and VIDEO OPPORTUNITIES: Individuals trying out for the Heavy Hitters drum line will showcase their percussion abilities with instruments including snare, quad, base, and tenor drums, and symbols.
WHERE:
Turner Field
Enter through the Turner Field 755 Club Lobby, off of Ralph David Abernathy Blvd.
Free parking available across the street in the Green Lot
WHEN:
Thursday, Feb. 26 and Wednesday, March 4, 5:00-8:00 p.m.
Wow. I would love to showcase my “base” and “symbol” skills for my favorite baseball team! I know budgets are tight, guys, but could you hire a spellchecker? This does not make me confident for the upcoming season.
It’s not just Fred Wilpon and uh, Mike Pelfrey who’ve been taken to the cleaners of late. Former Mets mouthpiece Tim McCarver was awarded $100,000 in damages stemming from an arbitration claim the broadcaster filed against the Mogan Keegan mutual funds investement firm. From the Memphis Daily News’ Andy Meek :
McCarver, who once was a catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals and is the namesake of the former Tim McCarver Stadium in Memphis, filed his arbitration claim last year against Morgan Keegan. The company assigned several brokers to work with the baseball icon when he first approached Morgan Keegan about handling his investments, and his claim mentions that as a native Memphian, McCarver liked the fact that Morgan Keegan is headquartered here.
McCarver began to lose money, however, when investments he allowed Morgan Keegan officials to handle were placed in several Regions Morgan Keegan mutual funds that lost the majority of their value during 2007, according to McCarver’s claim.
“His extremely busy schedule, at first as a player and then as a broadcaster, made it virtually impossible for him to have any other outside business interests,” McCarver’s claim reads. “All investments in McCarver’s accounts were selected by Morgan Keegan. The firm knew that McCarver was a totally unsophisticated investor and that McCarver placed trust and confidence in Morgan Keegan to select specific investments in McCarver’s accounts.”
(the following item appeared elsewhere earlier today)
The Atlanta-Journal Constitution reported earlier today that Pylon guitarist/co-founder Randy Bewley (above, far right) passed away yesterday at the age of 53.
Bewley suffered a heart attack while driving in Athens, GA Monday evening.
Readers of a certain vintage will recall Bewley’s guitar work on songs like “Cool”, “Volume”, and “Feast On My Heart” bridging whatever stylistic chasm separated Andy Gill from RIcky Wilson. DFA’s 2007 reissue of Pylon’s 1980 debut LP, ‘Gyrate’ is a good place to start.
While Manchester United and Arsenal’s Champions League games provided entertainment for free on television, less than 3,000 turned up for the Quakers’ promotion clash with Rochdale on Tuesday night – half the amount required for the club even to break even. Apathy is not the sole reason that the club finds itself in the hands of administrators for the second time in six years, but it is a major contributing factor. Thanks to the ambition – some would say vanity – of former chairman George Reynolds, Darlington are saddled with a superb state-of-the-art arena that houses 27,500 seats but hardly suits a club with League Two status. It has been filled once, for an Elton John concert, while crowds for the football team remain miniscule and the atmosphere awful. Even last season’s promotion push couldn’t get the town out to support the club in big numbers – and repeated appeals from current chairman George Houghton for more support have fallen on deaf ears.
Reynolds claimed yesterday that the stadium was not too big and would have been filled if the club had made it into the Premier League.
But his wild ambition sounds somewhat jarring as the club spiraled into administration again yesterday, chairman Houghton saying he had “no choice” but to relinquish control.
Houghton painted a worrying picture of the club’s ill-health, revealing that Darlington have £4m of debt and are losing £54,000-a-week. Administrator Dave Clark last night placed that debt nearer the £5m mark. Houghton has personally plunged £1.1m into the club since Christmas and, despite repeated appeals for more support, the club’s attendances have seldom broken the 3,000 mark.
New Jersey “barely resembled the Nets you’ve come to know and (barely) tolerate” writes Dave D’Alessandro of the hosts’ 111-99 defeat of Chicago last night at The Crocodile Hut. It’s not only Wednesday evening’s victors who are hard to recognize, however, as the Sun-Times’ Dan McNeil claims Bulls GM John Paxson “appears to be morphing into his unpopular predecessor, Jerry Krause. If he packs on a few dozen more pounds, then joylessly wins six NBA championships, he’ll have the act perfected.”
I liked Paxson a lot more when he was among the best analysts on radio. You still can hear his voice on occasion, but these days he analyzes mostly media. This is where he most resembles Krause (above), who referred to local typewriter tappers as ”fiction writers.”
Krause should have been one of this burg’s most beloved figures. No other architect came within a solar system of approaching his level of success, and it wasn’t merely because of that Jordan fellow.
Oddly, Krause chose to promote himself as a dislikable troll. He always wore a scowl. He always was mad at somebody. Sadly, that brash persona overshadowed his enormous accomplishments.
Paxson is approaching Krausian levels of irritability.
He took time aside from generally managing the Bulls late last week for an appearance on ”The Afternoon Saloon” on WMVP-AM (1000). Paxson said he can’t worry about what’s written or said about him. Then he turned around and whined about what has been written and said about him.
Reacting to a report of his declining health, Paxson again alleged that the gatekeepers were manufacturing ”garbage.”
”It doesn’t do me any good to continually defend my position because then I’m not doing my job,” he said.
His job is guiding the Bulls in their journey back to the middle. He doesn’t have them there yet, and it’s not looking like Plan C coach Vinny Del Negro is up to the task.
And why would anybody be suspicious of Paxson’s physical well-being? Might it have something to do with the consistently tired look on his face, now ashen and bloated?
“Most likely,” says the former Phillies 3B and Hall Of Famer Michael Jack Schmidt, who suggests “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones” where Alex Rodriguez is concerned. And while it’s nice to see Cole Hamels isn’t the only quote machine working overtime in Clearwater this February, there’s something slightly disingenuous about saying the public should be more concerned with “someone fighting in Iraq” or “Barack Obama”. A-Rod’s celebrity, if not his enormous earning power, was built on the back of individual accomplishments that might’ve been tougher to achieve without the benefit of performance enchancing drugs. If Schmidt isn’t personally offended by Rodriguez’ deeds or inability to tell the truth, that’s fair enough — a less than hysterical reaction to the subject is admirable. But if we’re really supposed to live in a culture where no one has strong feelings about the exploits of professional athletes, guys like Schmidt will have to earn a living wearing something besides pyjamas in public.
Major League Baseball announced earlier today they’ll cease publication of printed versions of the Red and Green books, the venerable media guides for the American and National Leagues that David Pinto calls “staples of baseball researchers before computerized stats came along”. Though MLB promises to make a PDF version available to working media, said pledge is slim consolation to Murray Chass who protests, “I am too devastated and outraged to write anything else at the moment,” before writing quite a bit else on the matter.
Baseball officials would say the books died of atrophy. No one was using them any more. But I used them, often on a daily basis. They sit on a shelf an arm’s length away from my desk. I can get them that quickly when I need information from them.
One explanation given for the elimination of the printed books is the repetition of some of the elements of the books. The previous season’s statistics, for example, are in the average book that is published after the season. Rosters of the 30 teams appear in the spring training media guide.
But once spring training ends and the season starts, the spring training guide is put away, and the Red and Green Books become the references of choice. I don’t blame MLB for abolishing the books. I wish they hadn’t, but if they find that no one uses them, it’s just another unfortunate development of today’s coverage of baseball.
Younger writers, more attuned to the use of the Internet than their older colleagues, may not have a problem with the disappearance of the books. But in past years they didn’t have the Internet as an alternative reference site. They apparently just didn’t feel the need for any information the books provided.
That says more about them than it does about baseball’s decision.
Now available at WFAN.com : Yankees CEO Lonn Trost (above) rebuts oh so many nasty accusations surrounding claims of ill-treatment by his ballclub’s season ticket holders in a chat with noted consumer rights advocate Mike Franscesca. How much are standing room only tickets at the new Yankee Stadium? “$1000.00″ chuckled Trost, who is still willing, in all seriousness, to charge $325 per seat for a Wendesday, April 22 matinee against the A’s in what isn’t even close to the venue’s priciest location.
The absence of venues for serious sportswriting is one of my stock bitches. This is in part because it’s true, although that kind of tracks with the decline in high-profile venues for good writing, period. But it’s also because I like to imagine that a dearth of deserving venues is the only thing keeping me from writing that sprawling, deeply felt and powerfully composed 3500-word feature on, like, the A-11 offense or the weirdness of going to a NBA game or whatever it is that seems important to me at the moment.
But there’s another way to write that piece, which is embodied in Patrick Clark’s elegant, eloquent and strikingly thoughtful piece on baseball in the Dominican Republic at Triple Canopy. And that is simply to take the risk of researching and writing it, then trust your lower-profile venue to do right by it. (Triple Canopy is a web magazine run in part by Sam Frank, who’s a frequent CSTB tipster and all-around friend of the program) Dominican baseball is something most baseball fans have read about, although usually through little picaresqued moments of color like Felix Pie (above) having to borrow cleats for his first MLB tryout or glibbish pieces about scouting — but never really with any sense of the desperation, depth or cultural import of the game in that country. Clark gets at all those things not by pounding out a mournful, Zirin-y think-piece about the exploitation built into the game, but by actually going to the Dominican and hanging around prospects, buscons — the word translates roughly to “pimp,” and refers to the trainer/coach/agent hybrids who are the cornerstone of Dominican scouting — and their baseball academies. That Clark wrote the hell out of the piece that resulted is to his credit, but the reporting is what makes the article really work, and really different from essentially all of what’s out there to read on this subject.
The whole piece is worth reading (and looking at, as there are photos mixed in), and its flow and depth makes it difficult to excerpt. Know that it’s recommended highly, and that the bit below is just a taste.
I’d come to the DR curious about what baseball costs boys like Priki [Ignacio, a prospect under the wing of buscon Juan Cedeño], and certainly, it’s hard to watch a teenager languish in isolation, out of school, hanging all his hopes on a baseball dream. There’s no question Priki faces incredibly long odds; the numbers dictate he will have washed out within a few years, with little to show for his prodigious efforts: no education, scant savings, few job prospects. I didn’t meet many people willing to criticize the place of baseball in the lives of Dominican youth, but those few I did would point me to the motorcycle-taxi drivers. Those are your baseball players, they’d say.
Baseball men claim that the sport offers other benefits: the food and shelter that Cedeño pointed to, or, commonly, that the clubs teach English to their charges. But when I met an American who worked at one of the academies, he told me that his club was hardly invested in teaching English: Most of the players will never make it to America, so why waste the time and effort? As Cedeño told me, a prospect must focus on only one thing.
And yet, it isn’t baseball that’s keeping Priki and his peers out of school. Lack of education is a national, systemic problem; while I wasn’t able to pin Priki or Cedeño down on an answer, I can guess that even without baseball, Priki would have been out of school by the time he was twelve or thirteen. I met other ballplayers who practiced by day and attended school by night, but they are more exception than norm. Meanwhile, Priki’s agreement with Cedeño allows him a richer material life than he had in Los Minas, a neighborhood that generally draws electricity from the power grid for less than twelve hours a day.
Nor can I help but think his efforts provide their own rewards. In college, my baseball coaches used to harp on the sacrifices of time and effort you made to be an athlete: that you worked hard because hard work was a good thing. At eighteen, I found their exhortations to have something of a false ring. Now, watching Priki labor day after identical day, I can believe in the value—unquantifiable, and perhaps only private—of the rigorous pursuit of an improbable dream.
Reuters reported earlier today that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is taking a 20 percent pay cut as the league announced layoffs of 169 employees. There’s no word yet from Ben Schwartz on my proposal that he and other CSTB contributors follow suit by accepting 80% of their current blogging fees rather than watch their junior colleagues face termination.
Goodell took a voluntary cut from the $11 million salary plus bonuses he was to receive for 2008 and agreed to freeze his salary for 2009 along with other executive staff, the league said.
The job cuts, made in response to the struggling economy, represented 15 percent of NFL staff and affected the New York business office, NFL Films in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey, and the NFL Network and NFL.com production in Los Angeles.
They were made through a combination of buyouts, layoffs and open jobs not filled.
“It will continue to take collective sacrifice to get through this challenging economic environment, but these and other steps by our office and clubs will enable us to be more efficient and better positioned for future growth,” the NFL said in a statement.
From the Washington Post — and then, as per usual, from Brendan Flynn — comes the story of a D.C. prep star named Travon Smith. Smith is his class’s valedictorian, possesses a vertical leap that would would get the soles of his feet over at least one member of the Geto Boys with ease, and yet isn’t being recruited by D1 schools because…he lacks hoops fundamentals? Which is interesting considering, like, the last generation or so of college basketball recruiting. The Post’s Alan Goldenbach reports:
Smith is learning that the hops alone don’t write the ticket in basketball. An 18-year-old who stands 6-5 and weighs 300 pounds or who can run the 40 meters in 4.3 seconds likely will find a football scholarship opportunity simply because coaches know they cannot teach someone to be that big or that fast. A baseball program will take a chance on a left-handed pitcher who can’t find the plate but can throw 90 mph. Aside from height, though, basketball is not a sport that chases raw skills.
“There are some positions in football where strength and speed can overcome a lack of skill or technique,” said Chris Caputo, an assistant basketball coach at George Mason, speaking in general terms because NCAA rules prohibit college coaches from discussing potential recruits. “In basketball, it’s ultimately your skill set [coupled] with your athleticism. When we look at strength and jumping ability, we also look at a skill set. Can he shoot? Can he pass? The athleticism is certainly a nice piece of the puzzle, but there’s more to it. At our level, it’s hard to teach technique, and that’s what makes the difference. In basketball, they really don’t care about your 40 time.”
…Smith shifted to guard this season, because that’s where he likely would play in college. Now, he’s working on his ball-handling and outside shot.
“I just want to go to college,” Smith said, “Yeah, I’d love to play, but I really want to go to college.”
It’s enough to make you miss the days when kids like Smith — or, say, C.J. Miles — could make the jump to the NBA because of abilities like that (with non-sociopathic personalities as fringe benefits). I may not be watching college hoops well enough or intelligently enough, but the GMU coach’s comments just seem entirely wrong to me. I can believe that CAA teams aren’t chasing athletes lacking certain basic fundamentals, but isn’t that the entire recruiting philosophy for schools like Georgia Tech and Wake Forest, among others?
Those programs’ unpolished athletes are McDonald’s All-American pedigreed, but it is baffling that some run-and-gun D1 team — Duquesne, UMass, pick your local spazz-core shoot-first squad — couldn’t take on such a ridiculous athlete, teach him to play perimeter D, and watch what happens on some Bravo TV shit. If Slim Charles and the Junkyard Band can show some love to Anacostia, why wouldn’t some program — it could be any that has fans who enjoy dunks and that likes graduating players — take a chance on this dude? (And why aren’t there YouTube clips of Travon available? Come on, DC!)
(Above: Nate Silver and crew take a break after shipping Baseball Prospectus ‘09)
I’m the last one to doubt the statistical prowess of Nate Silver. To run the table as he did predicting the ‘08 presidential election results really says volumes about his proven ability to accurately predict a future by examining the past. What’s more, I want to point out how much I personally appreciate the decision he made to share his number-crunching gifts with the worlds of politics and baseball, thereby depriving the Wall Street pig-pen of one more enabler.
All that said, it seems there’s a ghost in the machine. Silver’s Baseball Prospectus has published its 2009 edition, and its PECOTA team forecasts call for rain on the South Side once again. The system has has sold short the Sox three out of the last four seasons, but this year is truly inexplicable. PECOTA puts the division champ White Sox dead last in an AL Central that just hasn’t improved appreciably.
Silver knows it’s been tougher to figure out the White Sox than a presidential election. PECOTA badly missed predicting the 2005 World Champs, forecasting a mere 80 wins. Next, BP shorted the Sox in ‘06 before nailing their performance in ‘07 – a year everthing went horribly wrong.
Last season, the Sox again whipped PECOTA’s projections and contributed significantly to the system’s first historical increase in average error predicting team wins. On average, PECOTA now blows its forecasts by an averge of 8.5 wins, ending a steady trend toward increasing accuracy with a rude blemish.
“Everybody pick us for theer o four so I tink we doin pooty goo” offered Ozzie on last year’s expectations. Pooty goo is right. The Sox came out on top despite the loss of Scott Linebrink, the dismal months of Paul Konerko and Ken Griffey PAs, the cracked wrist and failed MVP bid of Carlos Quentin, the achilles tear of Jose Contreras and the mental desertion of Javy Vazquez in September. To drag all that into the postseason was, yes, pooty goddamn goo. While the Sox can’t do worse than PECOTA predicts, what’s likely to happen in ‘09?
Going in, this spring looks worse for the Pale Hose than last year. The loss of Vazquez to Atlanta and Contreras for at least half the season has not been compensated. The dicey proposition to cast Bartolo Colon in the fourth slot and and allow a competition for fifth probably means trouble early on. It puts new pressure on Buehrle, Danks and Floyd to go deep and might lose the Sox quite a few games if the weeks drag on. Average outings become a luxury for the starters the team can ill afford as the bottom either heals or learns.
But last place? Quentin, Ramirez, Dye, Thome and Pierzynski are bats that more than easily match the local pitching. Konerko may decide to play a full season, you never know. Getz, Anderson, Viciedo – the kids are (probably) alright.
Last place? Who are these giants in the AL Central, anyway?
Cleveland? I wouldn’t want to face Carl Pavano or Kerry Wood in a sulking contest, but this team is at least one CC Sabbathia short of where it was last spring, and Sizemore’s average is deflating faster than the Dow Jones. I don’t see the threat.
Detroit? Sure, Jim Leyland can croon like Sam Cooke when he’s taking the Motown studio tour, but where’s his pitching? A healthy Zumaya and a restored Verlander is only the beginning of what they’re going to need to dominate.
The Royals? The White Sox are supposed to finish behind the Royals? Not unless they’ve cloned Zack Greinke, recalled Mark Grudzielanek and given Esteban German the same surgery they gave Charlie Gordon in Flowers For Algernon.
Minnesota? Okay, Joe Crede will help –but probably only for the two months his repaired back will survive him flinging himself onto the Metrodome concrete. Mauer’s alarmingly unhealthy, which means nobody setting the table for Morneau, which means lots of pressure on an underwhelming rotation that unfortunately for them, is still forced to play away games.
The AL Central will probably come down to 5 or 6 games difference between first and fourth place. Truth be told, the Tigers are probably the team with the most pent-up demand for wins and I see them putting in a far better effort this year. Sox win 88, take the division, and Clint Eastwood takes Best Director in 2010 for The Human Factor. Book it.
Not me, however. I’ll always remember that I was watching UK terrestrial outlet Channel 5’s coverage of tonight’s Pistons/Heat tilt, and analysis of the Marbury/MSG divorce was provided by none other than Coolio (above).
Though I’d lost track of Coolio’s career travails of late, he seems to be something of a crap TV fixture over here, having finished 3rd in the most recent series of “Celebrity Big Brother”. In addition, he’s made a recent appearance on “Star-ving”, a straight-to-the-web program that pairs the aspiring white rapper duo of David Faustino (aka M.C. Bud Bundy) and Corin Nemec.
This doesn’t have much to do with the state of the Knicks roster or the Celtics’ mooted plans to sign the newly freed point guard. But I do know I will be very, very careful in the future before I ever again refer to Stephon Marbury as washed up. There’s all sorts of second and third acts in public life.
As the Indy Star’s Mike Wells points out “the Pacers were without three starters and Marquis Daniels, who had 28 points, was throwing up at halftime because of his battle with the flu,” leading the visitors to suffer the indignity of allowing 72 second half points to the Knicks (32 of ‘em coming from emerging All-World candidate Nate Robinson) in last night’s 124-199 loss. As such, head coach Jim O’Brien (above, left) made it very clear he was in a hurry to get the fuck out of Dodge. Either that, or he had to make it downtown to Paul’s Place before they turned the grill off.
Pacers coach Jim O’Brien was asked a question I couldn’t fully hear by a reporter about 75 minutes before Monday’s game against the Knicks.
“It depends on what kind of mood I was in,” O’Brien responded to him.
O’Brien was in one of those moods – a sour one – after their four-point loss to the Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
Just when I didn’t think O’Brien could beat his 41-second postgame interview session in Milwaukee in December, he takes two questions and spends a total of 22 seconds addressing the media before walking away.
O’Brien’s abrupt exit had one New York reporter yell out, “Thanks a lot coach,” as he walked away.
O’Brien obviously isn’t one that takes losing lightly. He cut an interview session short when he walked out the room at Conseco Fieldhouse last season after being asked about not believing moral victories following a loss.
There was the question of why O’Brien had Jeff Foster taking the ball out? Why they couldn’t stop Nate Robinson from scoring 32 points in the second half?
None of that got asked because O’Brien was in no mood to discuss things.
While Seth from Posting & Toasting reminds us that Larry Hughes fared no better in his home debut as a Knick than in his shoot-first-ask-questions-later stint on Sunday in Toronto (”shooting contested jumpers when you’re admittedly rusty is downright moronic”), of equal concern is the prospect Walt “Clyde” Frazier might be blissfully unfamilair with the cinematic history of Will Ferrell.
Will Ferrell attended tonight’s game, and if you know anything about Nate Robinson, you’ll know that he goes apeshit for Will Ferrell. The two exchanged “shake and bake” fist pounds all night.
Speaking of which, when Mike Breen explained that the “shake and bake” phrase to which Nate so often alludes is from Talladega Nights, Clyde responded “Really!? I thought he got it from me!” How Clyde manages to be so cool with so little sense of pop culture is beyond me. Maybe what makes him so cool is that he’s still stuck in 1970.
In December, Private Eye reported that Damien Hirst had confiscated works by teenage collage/graffiti artist Cartrain (above), claiming copyright infringement over the latter’s use of the diamond-encrusted skull from Hirst’s “For The Love Of God”. It’s a curious claim given prior charges Hirst himself was accused of lifting the skull idea from John LeKay, and with so much ill-will floating around, it should come as no surprise that a number of artists have come to Cartrain’s defense. From Red Rag To A Bull.com :
It has come to our attention that some artist named Damien Hirst has allegedly been picking on one of our treasured Street Urchins who used a bit of art in one of his collages.
Thanks to Red Rag To A Bull and a small group of highly trained artists you can now save this Street Urchin from certain death and help him get back the 200 quid that this Hirst allegedly nicked off him.
All of the works below are for sale and once TWENTY MILLION POUNDS has been raised ALL the proceeds will go to make an exact copy of a sculpture known as “For the Love of God”. This will then be sold for FIFTY MILLION POUNDS and the THIRTY MILLION POUND profit will then be used to repay the Street Urchin his 200 quid, help other Street Urchins and also feed starving children in Africa and Sussex.
“This is a fantastic camp – as positive, upbeat, optimistic a camp as I can recall in my career in terms of athletic talent and atmosphere and the attitude of the players,” stressed Washington Nationals Prez Stan Katsen to the Times’ Mark Zuckerman. “[The negative news is] certainly not affecting any of them in their preparation.” And while GM Jim Bowden’s rumored involvement in a growing bung scandal might not give those in uniform pause, the Washington Post’s Thomas Boswell and Dave Sheinin report the case has the fully attention of the Nats’ front office, despite Katsen’s attempts to refocus the media coverage.
Behind the scenes, according to sources, some within the team’s ownership group — which includes Managing Principal Owner Theodore N. Lerner, seven principal owners and nine founding partners — are eager to cut ties with the general manager they inherited almost three years ago, and see the investigation as a way of facilitating Bowden’s exit. The Nationals, one source said, are encouraging the investigation to return an answer on Bowden (above) so the parties can “go on their merry way.”
Washington’s pragmatic stance with Bowden, several sources said, will change instantly if the investigation gives team ownership any ammunition. That group, which took control of the Nationals in 2006, inherited Bowden as its general manager – and ever since, Bowden has built a reputation for survival skills. He survived the transition to a new ownership group by fostering an alliance with Principal Owner Mark Lerner, still his closest supporter. He survived a forced marriage with Kasten. He survived a 2006 drunk driving charge. He survived three losing seasons in Washington, including last year’s 102-loss calamity.
Bowden’s track record in building the Nationals reflects a mix of unwise contracts given to veterans, savvy high-reward risks on players like Elijah Dukes, and notable offseason upgrades, including the early February signing of free agent Adam Dunn. While talking about Bowden on Monday, Kasten bemoaned the lack of recent attention given to on-field story lines.
“It’s happened with your backs turned to it at the moment,” Kasten said, motioning to one of the practice fields. “I hope you’re not happy about that. Something could be happening out there. We could have Adam Dunn at third base at the moment and you wouldn’t know about it.”
Pic culled from Peter Abraham and The Journal News. It looks as though the Yankees had fun yesterday, but I must admit, upon reading of manager Joe Girardi’s plans to host an 8-Ball Tournament, the first thought that came to mind was “will Steve Howe Mickey Rivers come out of retirement?”
When the Louisville Courier-Journal’s Joseph Gerth attended a Saturday function headlined by Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY), how was he to know he’d end up penning 2009’s best candidate to date for “Is It Real Or Is It The Onion?”
Jim Bunning predicted over the weekend that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg could be dead from pancreatic cancer within nine months.
During a wide-ranging, 30-minute speech on Saturday at the Hardin County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner, Bunning, of Kentucky, said he supports conservative judges “and that’s going to be in place very shortly because Ruth Bader Ginsburg … has cancer.”
“Bad cancer. The kind that you don’t get better from,” he told a crowd of about 100 at the old State Theater.
“Even though she was operated on, usually, nine months is the longest that anybody would live after (being diagnosed) with pancreatic cancer,” he said.
Bunning, who has only about $150,000 in his campaign account, has been criticized because of his inability to raise money.
“I’m not only asking for your support, but if you have a $25 check somewhere, or whatever, you can send it; I’ll cash it,” he told the group.
Nationals GM Jim Bowden’s tenure in Washington is notable mostly for the fact that, even considering our nation’s just-deposed political leadership, Bowden (above) has somehow generally managed to be the most volatile, baffling and maligned chief executive in the city. Back in July, the Washington Post’s Chico Harlan broke a story about the FBI’s investigation into allegations that scouts and other Nats front-office people were skimming money from the bonuses given to prospects. Harlan has a follow-up in today’s WaPo, but the bigger story is in Sports Illustrated, where Melissa Segura reports that the Feds are looking at Bowden’s connection with this sort of malfeasance going back over a decade.
A federal investigation into the skimming of signing bonuses given to baseball prospects from Latin America is looking at Washington Nationals general manager Jim Bowden as far back as 1994, when he was GM of the Cincinnati Reds, according to a baseball executive familiar with the investigation.
Two sources inside baseball say that a long-time scout in Latin America, Jorge Oquendo, 47, is the man who links the FBI’s investigations of Bowden and his special assistant Jose Rijo to that of former Chicago White Sox senior director of player personnel David Wilder. Last May the White Sox fired Wilder and two Dominican-based scouts after allegations surfaced that they had pocketed money earmarked for player signing bonuses. Oquendo worked for Wilder in 2006 and 2007, as well as for Bowden with the Reds in 1994 and again with the Reds from 2000 through 2003.
Considering the amount of money involved in these bonuses — yes, even those paid by the stingy Nats — this maybe isn’t that surprising. Considering Bowden’s rep for half-shady quasi-incompetence, it’s probably even less so. But considering the Feds’ ultra-aggressive but notably unsuccessful attempts to prosecute baseball’s bad guys — witness, for instance, the flatlined, ultra-pricey Barry Bonds investigation — maybe Bowden doesn’t have anything to worry about.
Agent David Falk — at one time, arguably the most powerful man in professional basketball not named David Stern or Michael Jordan, warns the New York Times’ Howard Beck that upcoming labor negotiations between the NBA and the Players Association could be disastrous for the latter. Given this is the man who brokered the deals that brought Shawn Bradley to the big screen in “Space Jam”, Falk knows a thing or two about a catastrophe.
The N.B.A.’s system is broken, Falk says, and fixing it will require radical measures that almost guarantee a standoff in 2011, when the collective bargaining agreement expires.
“I think it’s going to be very, very extreme,” Falk said, “because I think that the times are extreme.”
How extreme? Falk said he believed Stern, the commissioner, would push for a hard salary cap, shorter contracts, a higher age limit on incoming players, elimination of the midlevel cap exception and an overall reduction in the players’ percentage of revenue. And, Falk said, Stern will probably get what he wants.
“The owners have the economic wherewithal to shut the thing down for two years, whatever it takes, to get a system that will work long term,” he said in an extensive interview to discuss his new book. “The players do not have the economic wherewithal to sit out one year.”
Falk despairs over the current state of the agent industry, saying “there’s rampant cheating going on” and “the quality of the representation is low.” He blames the union, which certifies agents but provides almost no oversight. A union spokesman declined to comment.
The players, he said, must recognize that the owners have the ultimate leverage. Many are billionaires for whom owning an N.B.A. team is merely a pricey hobby. Some of them are losing “enormous amounts of money” and would rather shut down the league for a year or two than continue with the current system.
So Falk is urging the union to take a more cooperative approach.
“And if we don’t do that, in my opinion, there’s an overwhelming probability that the owners will shut it down,” he said.
With our fearless leader out of blog range over the Atlantic (or maybe just between Texas and the Maritimes at this point), I may as well make this another post instead of updating. From TSN’s Bob Mckenzie (y’know, that never ceases to amuse me):
Sources say the New York Rangers and John Tortorella have an agreement in place that would make him the next head coach of the NHL team, but that the Tampa Bay Lightning have not yet been contacted for permission.
A current NHL on TSN analyst, Tortorella remains under contract to the Lightning for the balance of this season. In order for him to become head coach of the Rangers, he requires the blessing of the Lightning. Sources also tell TSN that the blessing has yet to be granted, however the NHL’s head office is now involved in an attempt to resolve the situation.
Arent you suppose to ask for permission first? Usually, all the other team can say about a fired coach is, “go ahead, relieve of us his salary.” But if the Rangers tampered, however harmlessly, and the Lightning stand their ground, a draft pick or more money could come into play. Just another feather in the Dolan/Sather cap.
As with past recent-vintage Rangers teams, high-paid free agents have disappointed, even though these particular guys (Gomez, Drury, Redden) never felt like flashy, celeb-first acquisitions a la Fleury or Lindros, and indeed, were acquired more for their particular skill sets (Gomez, winning pedigree and assists, Drury, winning pedigree and grit, Redden – oops – defense) than first-team all-star caliber (problem is, they’re paid like all-stars).
The CW for days has been that former Devils coach Jim Schoenfeld, who has coached the Rangers’ AHL team in Hartford and is currently in the NY front office, will step in to finish out the season (Hartford’s current coach is second-year man Ken Gernander). Then, of course, you have to wonder if they’ll keep the unexciting hockey lifer (as they did with Renney) or feel obligated to go after Pat Quinn or another “name” (which has hardly been the trend in the NHL of late, Todd McLellan and Bruce Boudreau being the most recent examples).
John Tortorella would seem the obvious choice (Bob McKenzie is saying so on TSN), so much so that you have to wonder if they’re hiring him (or should I say, re-hiring – he was an assistant back in ‘99-’00, including four games as the interim head coach) right now. ‘Cause if you were just promoting from within you could announce it on the spot.
Tortorella’s last stint with the club is also the last time the Rangers fired their GM (Neil Smith) and coach (John Muckler) at the same time; Glen Sather’s been there ever since.
Did this franchise really once employ Ron Low and Bryan Trottier? Good times.
Update: Via Puck Daddy, Jane McManus of the Journal-News says “The new coach will almost 100 percent certainly be John Tortorella.”
And I almost 100 percent certainly can’t decide which is more delightful, the thought of seeing Torts again during a Flyers playoff series, or the thought of Torts and Larry Brooks seeing each other every day.
Update 2: This also means the Flyers’ John Stevens is the longest-tenured coach in the division, and third in the entire Eastern Conference. This has been noted by Rich Hoffman, though for all I know he did his research here.
Thank you, Blabbermouth.net. This looks to be a certain literary classic, though it would be good to know whether or not Tommy Saxondale handed in a foreword before I place an order with Amazon.
On a Sunday in which former Maverick Pops Mesah-Bonsu went off for 39 points and 18 rebounds in Austin’s 131-124 O.T. win over Colorado, there are suggestions he’s either auditioning for the Raptors or being recruited for Great Britain’s Olympic team. Back in Big D, the Star-Telegram’s Eddie Sefko admits he scoffed when FSN Southwest’s Emily Jones reported Antoine Wright and Jason Terry were hanging blue and red bandanas (respectively) from their lockers, representing the Crips and Bloods (”this would be the Emily Jones of legendary gang hotbed of Plainview, Texas”). “Turns out, the West Texas lady knows her stuff,” conceeds Sefko.
Jason Terry informed us that the bandanas do represent the rival gangs and were sent out by the LA Clippers’ Baron Davis, who is co-producing the movie Crips and Bloods: Made In America. It chronicles the bloody feud between America’s most famous and infamous gangs.
Terry said Davis sent out trailers and other information to all NBA players about the movie. And the players, as they often do, have responded. Many of them, including Terry and Wright, are donating money for every point they score this season.
The donation will be distributed to help inner-city youths across the country.
Monta Ellis wishes he’d thought of this story, as provided by the Cleveland Plain-Dealer’s Paul Hoynes.
OF David Dellucci, who will miss at least the first three games of the Cactus League season, told reporters Saturday morning that he suffered a cut left thumb when an alligator bit him while he was saving a boy while fishing near his home in Baton Rouge, La.He hooked two of the three reporters gathered around him hook, line and sinker before coming clean.
Dellucci said he smashed his thumb while trying to close the tailgate of his trailer on Feb. 1. He called the Indians with news about the mishap right after it happened and reported to camp early to get it checked out.
As reported in an earlier post, Dellucci needed three stitches to close the cut. Then he needed surgery on the thumb to reclose the cut properly and reattach the nail to the nail bed.
Dellucci told reporters he wrestled with the alligator to free the boy, but “the gator got me on the thumb.”
After telling the truth, Dellucci laughed and said, “There are about 10 or 15 guys in this clubhouse who still think that story is true.”
Given David Ortiz’ suggestion earlier this week that those found abusing PED’s be sentenced to a one-year suspension, it might be a tad embarrassing for Boston’s hulking DH to find himself linked to controversial trainer Angel “Nao” Presinal. No need to panic, however, because Big Papi assured viewers of Comcast “Mohegan Sun Sports Report”, “this place where he works out is a facility that’s like five minutes away from my house.” From the Boston Herald’s John Tomase :
“It’s like an Olympic place where everyone goes and hits, runs, gets all their work in,” Ortiz said. “It’s like in the middle of everyone’s houses, so we all go down there and work out. He’s a good trainer. He’s the guy that teaches you how to train, how to get your body ready to go. Besides that, I have no idea about any of this.”
Presinal was banned from big league clubhouses in 2001 after border agents in Toronto intercepted a gym bag full of steroids that Presinal signed for. When questioned, he told investigators it belonged to Indians outfielder Juan Gonzalez.
“He got into some trouble before from what I hear, and that’s something he’s got to deal with, especially with what’s going on,” Ortiz said.
(l-r : Washington’s inexplicably employed Jim Bowden, the Dominican Republic’s oldest teenager)
Nationals assistant GM Jose Rijo is taking a leave of absence. Previously implicated in baseball’s bung scandal, Rijo was said to instrumental in Washington’s awarding Dominican prospect Esmailyn Gonzalez to a $1.4 million signing bonus at the age of 16. Trouble is, the player wasn’t 16 at the time, nor was his name Gonzalez. Appropriately enough, Fire Jim Bowden is keeping track of further developments, including a vehement insistence from the not-nearly-so-young man’s trainer that neither he or Rijo were involved in the scam.
Well, that takes a bit of the shine off UConn’s 64-50 win over South Florida. While the Hartford Courant’s Christopher Keating cites Calhoun’s tormentor, freelance journalist Ken Krayeske as a bit of a provocateur (and at least one Connecticut scribe has described Krayeske in terms far less flattering), the coach raised an excellent point, though perhaps unintentionally.
“Quite frankly, we bring in $12 million to the university, nothing to do with state funds,” Calhoun shouted. “We make $12 million a year for this university.”
If Calhoun’s hoops program is profitable to the tune of $12 million profit annually, he’s hardly being overpaid. A.J. Price, however, is being seriously fucked over.
C Blake Griffin and the no. 2 Oklahoma Sooners will tip off against Texas in less than an hour, and your editor WILL BE THERE, just mere rows away from the visitors’ bench. Though I could opt to provide upskirt photography of the Association’s probable no. 1 overall pick in next June’s draft, I’ll instead be providing live updates via Twitter.
It emerged that following Fulham’s 3-0 defeat at Old Trafford on Wednesday night, the club’s head of communications Sarah Brooks stepped in and prevented Radio 5 Live from talking to the manager, Roy Hodgson. Fulham fans, already on edge at the ease with which Rooney and co swept their team aside, took exception to the commentary of Alan Green (above) and hit the message boards to protest. “Alan Green’s comments about Fulham appalled some of our fans,” said Brooks. “Remarks like ‘Fulham should not have bothered to turn up’ were insulting. In those circumstances, I didn’t feel it appropriate for 5 Live to speak to our manager.”
One of the least expletive outcries on the club’s official website invited 5 Live to “turn up a day before the match and do their commentary”, while the mildest description of the controversy-courting Green was “a mix between Shrek and Benny Hill”. The Irishman has regularly been spotlighted for his opinionated and often rash commentary, which in the past has touched upon issues both social (the morals of Liverpudlians) and racial (Sun Jihai and Chicken Chow Mein) which his employers would be keen to avoid. Elsewhere, BBC investigations into the corruption of transfers, agents and bungs has landed the broadcaster in trouble with Harry Redknapp, Alex Ferguson and Sam Allardyce. They all complained loudly about unfair treatment but rather than go to court to defend themselves, they now ignore the broadcaster altogether. Ironically, those who which suffer most from this non-cooperation are the mild-mannered Gary Lineker and his comrades on Match of the Day, and their audience, who must instead turn to Sky to catch any comments from the aforementioned managers.
Charles Barkely’s partying with Urkel, driving drunk and telling Scottsdale police he was cruising for a blow job was in the words of AOL Sports’ Jay Mariotti, “rock bottom, an indefensible blunder in a wild life pardoned too often by basketball and media buddies who should have been in his face instead of frolicking with him.” Still, sports journalism’s no. 1 mascara fiend is not without compassion, Thursday’s night’s emotional outpouring on TNT causing Mariotti to proclaim, “the B.S. meter wasn’t moving. I had it out, ready to gauge his honesty and contrition levels. He passed.”
In a sports year in which we’re evaluating public apologies more than watching games, at least we heard sincerity in Barkley’s voice. He said more in two minutes than Alex Rodriguez did in 32, beginning TNT’s “Inside The NBA” program by apologizing directly to his family, the network, his sponsors, the league and the fans who have made him the most talked-about analyst in sports television. Even if he struggled to maintain his composure and kept stumbling over his words, this was his best broadcasting performance to date.
If anyone doubted it, TNT’s ratings dropped 38 percent during his seven-week suspension while suffering through the likes of Chris Webber and Gary Payton. No offense to them, but anyone is boring when the comparison point is Barkley. People love him because he speaks his mind and, more often than not, it smacks of truth. And they’ll continue to like him and watch him, despite the troubling nature of his DUI and dirty cop talk, because he now has shown he’s flawed like everyone else.
If he screws up again, all bets are off. If he screws up again, the TNT bosses who have been forgiving will fire him on the spot. But as one who was tough on Barkley, I’ll admit it’s easier to give him another chance than most. Because his living hell is so visible, you want to see him overcome it and become the basketball ambassador he always should have been. Whether he’s accountable enough to ever be the governor of Alabama, as he aspires, is unlikely. But I’ve seen politicians overcome worse than Barkley and thrive.
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