Despite prior assurances by Josh McDaniels that fences could somehow be mended with Jay Cutler, the miffed QB’s refusal to accept phone calls from his head coach appears to have worked to Cutler’s favor. To wit, his trade demand is about to be granted, as the Denver Post’s Mike Klis explains.
“Numerous attempts to contact Jay Cutler in the last 10 days, both by head coach Josh McDaniels and myself, have been unsuccessful,” owner Pat Bowlen said in a statement. “A conversation with his agent (Bus Cook) earlier today clearly communicated and confirmed to us that Jay no longer has any desire to play for the Denver Broncos. We will begin discussions with other teams in an effort to accommodate his request to be traded.”
Cutler heard about Bowlen’s statement Tuesday, but said by text, “I’m not talking about it.”
For now, the Broncos’ starting quarterback is Chris Simms, who has thrown just two passes since sustaining a ruptured spleen in the third game of the 2006 season, or nine games before Cutler replaced Jake Plummer as the Broncos’ starting quarterback.
An NFL source said the Washington Redskins are among the leading candidates to pull off a trade for Cutler. The Redskins have a proven young quarterback, Jason Campbell, and would meet the Broncos’ preference of dealing Cutler outside the American Football Conference. The Redskins also have the No. 13 overall selection in this year’s draft, one spot.
And let me be (presumably) the thousandth person to suggest that if they have to hunt small animals, the beaver would more appropriate. From the Oregonian:
Three Oregon men’s basketball players were cited Monday night in Eugene’s Alton Baker Park for shooting BB guns at ducks and geese in the park’s pond.
Officers responded to a report of men shooting guns in the park at 11:08 p.m. and arrived to witness freshman forward Josh Crittle fire approximately 20 shots toward the pond with a BB gun, said Jenna LaBounty, a spokeswoman with the Eugene Police Department.
Crittle was cited along with fellow freshmen Michael Dunigan and Teondre Williams on an accusation of violating park rules, which carries a base fine of $155.
LaBounty said that when the officers approached, Dunigan tossed his weapon into the water, where officers found it. Williams’ weapon was also located by the six officers who responded.
Crittle, Dunigan and Williams were handcuffed, cited and released within 30 minutes late Monday.
LaBounty said it did not appear any animals were injured in the shooting.
Isn’t that always the way? When you’re driving to the pond, gun cradled, somebody’s hand up in your face, you somehow manage to get off the shot and make it. But when they’re sitting ducks…
Hailing the passive resistance of the Rangers’ recently reacquired Sean Avery (above), the New York Times’ Jeff Z. Klein calls the former Vogue intern, “not merely a Zen master” in the Blueshirts’ 3-0 dispatch of New Jersey last night, but “a Machiavellian Zen master.”
Mike Mottau, who hit Avery with some big body checks early in the game, said Avery had challenged him to a fight late in the first period. It certainly looked that way, given that Avery crosschecked Mottau in the back after Martin Brodeur had smothered an Avery shot, then backed away.
“He shook his gloves and I was at the end of a shift and then the refs got in there,” Mottau told Gulitti. “I said I’d fight him the next shift, and after the TV timeout we lined up next to one another and he wouldn’t fight me.”
(If the refs had gotten wind of it, that would have counted as an appointment fight, which the league now considers a suspension-worthy offense.)
In the third period, David Clarkson grabbed Avery during a scrum. Avery dropped one glove, then let himself be thrown around by Clarkson, which resulted in Clarkson’s expulsion from the game.
“I was just trying to spark the guys,” Clarkson told Gulitti. “He had one glove thrown down and he had his fist cocked back, so that’s kind of why. I’m trying to spark the team and he had his one hand cocked back in a fist. I don’t know how. Say he throws a punch and hits me. I’m the guy that loses.”
Avery is provoking reactions from other players, then doing nothing in hopes of drawing a penalty. It’s a smart and effective tactic — but it’s also exactly the kind of thing players cite in polls when they repeatedly vote him the most hated man in the league.
Perhaps not the meatiest of parts, but far less embarrassing than being singled out by Mike Breen for ruining the toilet in ESPN’s NBA Winnebago. Video link culled from True Hoop.
It’s a curious move for a number of reasons, the first of which being FSC’s limited availability throughout the country. While ESPN’s coverage of the tournament is hardly above critique, the WWL has certainly done far more in recent years to promote marquee matchups and devote more time to relevant highlights on “SportsCenter”. If there’s more interest stateside in the Champions League compared to earlier in the decade, ESPN and John Skipper deserve some portion of the credit.
“I believe winning is fun and losing is for losers,” Michael Kinahan wrote in a letter to the kids on his team.
Kinahan went on in his welcoming letter to compel his players to be ready to hit the pitch playing like a “Michael Vick pit bull.”
The coach warned parents he wouldn’t tolerate them planted on the sidelines “in their LL Bean chairs sipping mocha-latte-half-caf-chinos” and not cheering.
Kinahan told parents and players to prepare for “bumps, bruises and even bleed a little,” – and vowed to “heckle” the young referees.
Kinahan told the Herald last night his letter was a mix of “suburban satire” and a challenge to compete.
“I stand by my comments. This isn’t two hours of free babysitting,” Kinahan said.
Without knowing much about Kinahan’s credentials, this does seem like an awful lot of work just to get mentioned on Jim Rome’s radio show.
Turbulent economic times, man. Bad CEOs, fading sluggers, pretty much everyone working in the manufacturing sector. No one’s job is safe. Of course, certain gigs are safer than others. Yes, even though he has 499 career home runs and is probably (I mean, right?) a Hall of Famer, Gary Sheffield was released by the Tigers today. Sheff was batting under .200 this Spring, but it takes awhile to get up to speed at a certain age.
This is just true of people who already have their places in Cooperstown sewed up. Take, for instance, Hall of Fame honoree Peter Gammons, whom I like but whose softball TV interviews and rambly, ultra-positive writing work have him looking more and more like the baseball world’s answer to Larry King. Two weeks ago, Gammons dropped this bit of happy talk into a Spring Training roundup:
The way Gary Sheffield has gotten back his bat speed and leverage through the hitting zone after a year and a half of shoulder problems makes him look like a serious comeback of the year candidate.
This latest turn of events would, admittedly, make Sheffield’s comeback candidacy that much more dramatic. You know, provided he finds a job somewhere.
Staniforth, of Chesterfield, Derbys, is believed to be the first person convicted of assaulting someone on a British talk show. District Judge Alan Berg, sitting at Manchester Magistrates’ Court, branded the show a “human form of bear-baiting”.
And he added: “It seems to me the purpose of this show is to effect a morbid and depressing display of dysfunctional people whose lives are in turmoil.”
Cash-strapped ITV bosses now say the cost of screening the show daily is too high.
And one of the biggest bills was paying for “guests” to stay at hotels near the Granada studios in Manchester.
An ITV insider told the Daily Star Sunday last night: “People appearing on the show love to get the chance to stay in a hotel at ITV’s expense but it’s too much to keep paying out.
“The screenings will be scaled back until next year when the show will go for good. It is unfortunate but everything has a shelf-life and this has come to an end.”
If this is the sort of defense that’s going to be mounted in support of Mike Piazza, MLB’s All-Time Leading Savatage Fan might as well throw himself on the mercy of Peter Gammons. The LA Daily News’ Ramona Shelburne pestered former Dodgers skipper Tommy Lasorda about The Backne Heard Around The World, and the response from Piazza’s godfather was as thoughtful as it was unexpected.
“I don’t believe that at all,” said Lasorda. “He worked so hard. I saw him in the weight room working out all the time. Whatever (is in the book) is hearsay. I just don’t believe it. He comes from a family that’s full of good people. “I wouldn’t comment on it if I didn’t feel strongly about it. He has too much to lose. And he’s such a nice young man. He goes to church, he’s got a nice family. I know him. I know what kind of man he is and I just don’t believe it.”
There is no proof, and Piazza has not commented or confirmed anything. Lasorda said he was saddened to hear of the accusations.
“This is a guy that should be in the Hall of Fame. He’s out-homered every catcher that’s in there,” Lasorda said. “I just don’t believe it. Mike Piazza? No way. He worked too hard. I saw him.”
I’m no Dick Pound, but wouldn’t PED use enable a person to be in the weight room “all the time”? I have few strong opinons about Piazza’s guilt or innocence (after all, he never played for the Yankees — I kid, I kid) but you won’t find many ballplayers as pious as Andy Pettitte. Going to church (and refraining from masturbation) didn’t stop him from using HGH.
The comment about Metal Mike having too much to lose is utter nonsense. As an unheralded zillionth round draft choice, he had everything to gain.
Manchester City’s Craig Bellamy has previously revealed himself to be something less than a master of diplomacy, but his text harassment of Alan Shearer seems somewhat tame compared to his public statements in the wake of Wales’ 2-0 defeat to Finland over the weekend. When Bellamy’s playing career has run its course, surely an analyst gig with Sky or Setanta awaits?
The Mets’ Grapefruit League loss to Baltimore Sunday afternoon wouldn’t ordinarily be a big deal back in Charm City, but it might’ve attracted less attention than usual. As the New York Post’s Bart Hubbach explains, O’s fans following the contest on the radio might well have believed the game was rained out (link culled from Baseball Think Factory)
The Orioles’ flagship radio team of Joe Angel (above) and Fred Manfra quietly left the stadium here today during a 90-minute rain delay and didn’t come back for the final eight innings, telling their bosses at 105.7 The Fan in Baltimore that the game had been canceled.
“Yes, the rest of the game was not on the air back home and we don’t know why,” a baffled Orioles PR rep said later. “We looked over during the game and they weren’t there.”
What if, for example, All-Star reliever George Sherrill — who ended up pitching this afternoon when the game resumed — had hurt himself?
All you would-be announcers might want to get your resume tapes ready, because there could be an opening or two in Baltimore very shortly.
The Baltimore Sun’s Ray Frager took the time to contact Angel, who insists the decison to vacate the premises was made by his radio paymasters (”Fred Manfra and I would much rather have preferred to stay and finish
the broadcast after the rain delay”). Angel’s version of events has been corroborated by Dave Labrozzi of CBS Radio, so perhaps those audition tapes Hubbach refers to might well be sent elsewhere.
The New York Knicks have 3 home games remaining in the 2008-09 season. While the club is lottery-bound, the basketball product isn’t nearly as shameful / desperate as Cablevision’s continued attempts to give the Garden all the ambience of a suburban U.S.A. shopping mall and/or middle school assembly.
…why not hire the guy who has ordered covert assassinations and/or secret bombing campaigns in half the world’s countries to coordinate your efforts? At the very least, Henry Kissinger is a recognizable brand — one that kills your democratically elected leader and installs a junta of crypto-fascists backed by fruit corporations or whatever, but a brand nonetheless. And considering that Alexei Lalas was probably in the running for some advisory role or other, maybe Hammering Hank’s role on the committee seeking to bring the World Cup to the U.S. in 2018 or 2022 makes some sense? And, to be fair, Kissinger was a part of the committee that actually brought the ‘94 World Cup to the U.S., so maybe…no, actually it’s still pretty offensive. The AP, via ESPN, reports:
“I don’t think we have a huge chance in 2018. I think it will probably go to Europe,” Kissinger said Monday. “We’ll certainly contest for it. And just as ‘86 guaranteed that we got it in 94, so I think bidding for 2018 will give us a great chance for 2022.”
…FIFA’s executive committee will vote on the 2018 and 2022 hosts in December 2010, and many think the 2018 vote will come down to England or Spain. Kissinger thinks Russia, which has never hosted soccer’s showcase, will get strong consideration. Next year’s tournament is in South Africa, and Brazil will stage the World Cup in 2014.
“I think Europe will probably get it in 2018,” he said. “Our best shot is ‘22, but I hope we can get it in ‘18. But it’s hard to believe Europe will let it go three times in a row.”
Kissinger received FIFA’s order of merit in 1996, with the governing body saying his “support for football from the high-profile position of his public office has contributed greatly to raising its visibility and credibility in the United States.”
Kissinger grew up in Fuerth, Germany, and still pays attention to Germany’s national team, die Deutsche Nationalmannschaft. “I follow them and I wish them well, but I don’t feel about them like I do about the Yankees,” he said. He also roots for Juventus, because he is friendly with the Agnelli ownership group, and Manchester United and Arsenal.
He also roots for the oppressive crypto-corporatist Chinese government, because he is friendly with its leaders, and resigned his spot on the 9/11 Commission because he preferred not to reveal the extent to which his consulting company does business with essentially every bad government in existence. Of course he loves the freaking Yankees. Thanks to Brendan Flynn for the link.
The Tigers placed SP Dontrelle Willis on the 15 day disabled list yesterday with what the club is calling an anxiety disorder, Said move raised the suspicions of the The Detroit News’ Lynn Henning, who took the time to quiz the area’s mental health professionals. “I can’t speak of the specific situation, but to the best of my knowledge, you cannot diagnose an anxiety disorder by a blood test,” said Hiten Patel, a psychiatrist at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. “Most psychiatric conditions cannot be diagnosed by blood tests, and anxiety disorder cannot be diagnosed in such a way.”
Agreeing was Taft Parsons, medical director of the Kingswood Hospital, the in-patient psychiatric facility at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.
“There’s no anxiety disorder, no psychiatric disorders, which are diagnosed by blood tests,” said Parsons, who explained that anxiety might be a symptom of a medical situation identified by blood work, such as a thyroid condition. “But (anxiety) would not be the disorder itself. Only a symptom.”
Dave Dombrowski, the Tigers president and general manager, was careful about providing details of Willis’ health, citing confidentiality laws. But he said: “It’s something that our doctors have discovered, and we’ve been working on it for a while to try to make sure exactly what this is. The doctors discovered that.”
GM Dave Dombrowski declined comment Sunday after being informed of the psychiatrists’ response.
The Tigers owe Willis $22 million through the 2010 season. But if he were to spend the bulk of this season or 2010 on the DL, insurance policies that are routine for highly paid players would likely be responsible for as much as 50 percent of his compensation.
The Memphis Commercial-Appeal’s Dan Wolken reports University Of Memphis head basketball coach John Calipari held a team meeting this morning and strongly hinted to the squad that he’ll be coaching Kentucky next season.
While Calipari did not say explicitly what he planned to do, players left the meeting convinced that Calipari would take the job. According to the source, Calipari told the team that Kentucky was the Notre Dame of basketball.
Meanwhile, ESPN.com reported Monday morning that Calipari met with Kentucky officials over the weekend to discuss an outline of a deal to replace Billy Gillispie.
A source told The Commercial Appeal on Sunday that Calipari had expressed interest in the job and could meet with Kentucky this week but that a meeting was “not definite.”
Memphis officials, according to multiple sources, had no direct knowledge of a meeting between Calipari and Kentucky if one indeed took place over the weekend. Kentucky still had not asked Memphis for formal permission to speak with Calipari as of 9:45 a.m., according to sports information director Lamar Chance.
Either way, Memphis is expected to make a strong bid to keep Calipari with a financial package that would make him the highest paid coach in basketball, according to another source.
While it’s hardly too early to wonder where Memphis might turn if/when Calipari’s hiring in Lexington becomes official, let’s consider the real victims of the Wildcats’ likely coup ; Memphis’ returning players Jeff Caple and Travis Ford, who are both denied the opportunity to extract greater compensation from Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, respectively.
Honestly, I don’t know what’s more surprising — that the new Guitar Hero ad featuring The General, (Sick Boy) Roy Williams, Rick “Matt from Tyvek Isn’t Walking Through That Door” Pitino and Coach K isn’t being financed by the opposition to make Rock Band look cool by comparison…or that the General is so willing to poke fun at his lousy reputation. Can a Bill Belichick spot for Ashley Madison.com be far off?
Sure, his team is just playing out the string, but we know it’s a huge morale boost for one of the East’s also-rans to witness a team leader, nay, the face of the franchise, returning to the hardwood after a long absence.
Lou Saban, a head coach in the NFL, AFL and NCAA for more than 40 years (as well as a former New York Yankees club president) passed away earlier today in South Carolina at the age of 87. From the Buffalo News’ Mark Gaughan :
Saban (above, seated) had two successful stints as Bills head coach. The first came from 1962 to 1965. He built the Bills in to a powerhouse, and directed the AFL title teams in 1964 and 1965. He left the Bills after that second crown to coach at the University of Maryland. But he returned in 1972 and helped catapult O.J. Simpson to NFL stardom.
Simpson became the focal point of the Bills’ offense once Saban arrived, and in 1973, he set the NFL single-season rushing record with 2,003 yards. Saban directed the Bills to the playoffs in 1974. He resigned during the 1976 season.
Saban alienated Bills Owner Ralph Wilson Jr. by quitting twice and he has never been added to the team’s Wall of Fame.
He finished with a record of 68 wins, 45 losses and four ties, according to the Pro-Football-Reference Web site.
Saban cited heart problems in quitting his most recent coaching job, at tiny Chowan University in Murfreesboro, N.C., in 2002 at the age of 81.
But four years later, he told a Buffalo News sports columnist that he would be interested in coaching again.
“If I coach again, fine. It not, who cares? I can’t force anything. When I mention my age, they say I’m too old. I can’t battle it. I can’t in any way cover up my age. I’d like to test myself again. That sounds selfish, but I’ve proven myself, and I’m alive. There’s nothing the matter with my brain,” Saban said in the 2006 interview.
Pic lifted from clr’s Twitter feed. The Mets charged a mere $5 to see St. John’s & Georgetown play the first competitive game in Citi Field history, while the Shack Shack charges $6.75 (at their Manhattan locations, anyway) for a Vanilla Creamsicle Shake. Of course, said shake is “blended with David Kirsch Vitamin-Mineral Orange Super-Juice”, which undoubtedly makes it an important part of Livan Hernandez’ training table.
In which recording artist/Judaism expert Courtney Love provides the rest of us with great inspiration the next time we receive a bill we cannot or will not pay. From Page Six’s Paula Froelich :
In papers filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Dawn Simorangkir, who runs a sportswear line called Boudoir Queen, says Courtney Love asked her to create a wardrobe for her, but then got angry when the designer sent her an invoice.
Love then hatched a “plot to destroy Simorangkir,” writing “malicious and false statements” on the Internet, claiming the designer “sold drugs, is a drug addict, has a history of selling cocaine, has a history of assault and battery, has a record of prostitution, has committed grand theft . . . was deemed an unfit parent, lost custody of her child, is a racist and homophobe . . . [and] is a danger to society,” the suit states.
In addition, “Love publicly made the menacing and disturbing statement that Simorangkir will be ‘hunted til your [sic] dead,’ ” according to the suit. “Whether caused by a drug-induced psychosis, a warped understanding of reality, or the belief that her money and fame allow her to disregard the law, Love has embarked on what is nothing short of an obsessive and delusional crusade to terrorize,” the suit claims.
It also states that Love’s vicious missives refer to Simorangkir as a “vile horrible lying bitch” and “the nastiest lying person I have ever known . . . [a] total scumbag.”
Apparently, if you read TMZ or any number of sub-Golden Fiddle sites, this dispute is pretty old news (well, by 3 days anyhow), but as someone genuinely saddened at the way so many have tried to bilk Ms. Love out of her hard earned fortune, the above item seemed newsworthy enough for a Sunday morning.
“If I want to find out what’s going on in this city, I’ve got to go to a fucking bar and talk to a police lieutenant and take notes on a cocktail napkin,” moans “The Wire” creator David Simon (above, third from left) to the Guardian’s Oliver Burkeman. “That’s what passes for high-end journalism in Baltimore these days.” Lest you think Season 5 settled all of the old scores for Simon, “The Wire”’s recent UK success has afforded him another opportunity to take a shot at the American news media.
Simon doesn’t respond well to the criticism that perhaps things aren’t entirely bad – that his shows’ unremitting pessimism distorts a world where some people do defeat the crushing force of social institutions. Last year, the journalist Mark Bowden made that charge in the Atlantic magazine, and Simon hasn’t forgiven him. “This premise that The Wire wasn’t real because it didn’t show people having good outcomes in west Baltimore … I don’t know what to tell him. We didn’t spend a series in a cul-de-sac with people barbecuing; it was the story of what’s happening at the bottom rungs of an economy where capitalism has been allowed free rein. And if he’s telling me it’s not happening, I want to take his fucking entitled ass and drive him to west Baltimore and shove him out of the car, at Monroe and Fayette, and say, find your way back, fucker, because you’ve got your head up your ass at the Atlantic.”
Behind Simon’s general disillusion is a disillusionment with journalism, the only work he ever wanted to do. Raised in a secular Jewish household in the Washington suburbs, he wrote for his school magazine, then was so busy editing the University of Maryland newspaper that it took him five years to graduate (”with terrible grades”). In his final year he began stringing for the local paper, the Sun; his wife, the novelist Laura Lippman, is another former Sun reporter. The way he tells it, the central betrayal of Simon’s life is the gutting of the Sun by profit-obsessed owners and Pulitzer-obsessed editors. One of those reviled executives, Bill Marimow, gets an obnoxious police lieutenant named after him in The Wire; Scott Templeton, the weaselly fabricator of season five, is modelled on a Sun colleague. (Other former staffers describe Simon as a perpetual picker of fights.)
The collapse of the US newspaper industry has left politicians free to pursue their unethical schemes unscrutinised. “The internet does froth and commentary very well, but you don’t meet many internet reporters down at the courthouse,” he says. “Oh to be a state or local official in America over the next 10 to 15 years, before somebody figures out the business model. To gambol freely across the wastelands of an American city as a local politician! It’s got to be one of the great dreams in the history of American corruption.”
Hornets G Chris Paul and Knicks counterpart Nate Robinson exchanged pleasantries and shoves with about 9 minutes remaining in New York’s 103-93 win at MSG Friday night and afterwards, the former praised N8 as “the better player” to the Post’s Mark Hale. Sort of.
“What happened was, I went in for that layup over Larry Hughes, and he pushed me in the back, and I was just like, ‘All right now, Nate,’ ” Paul said. “And I’m thinking he’s going to be like, ‘My fault’ or something. He said something crazy. So then we went back down the other end, I tried to be aggressive and it happened. . . . Whatever. It’s our last time playing the Knicks.
“I don’t pay no attention, tell you the truth. I just play. Dunk contest champion.”
The “dunk contest champion” comment seemed to be a jab at Robinson, though Paul claimed he knows Robinson personally and insisted that the feisty Knick “didn’t get in my head.”
“They won the game. I guess that makes him the better player.” Paul said with a bit of sarcasm.
“I really like their team, to tell you the truth,” he said. “I know Al Harrington real well. Q-Rich [Quentin Richardson]. Chris Duhon. I’m a huge Chris Duhon fan. We played against each other in college.”
A couple of weeks back, Florida Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria instituted what the Palm Beach Post’s Joe Capozzi calls “a new, clean-cut look” for the Fish. Amongst those displeased with the club’s new dress code ; All-Universe SS and hot pick for 2009 MVP Hanley Ramirez (above, left).
At first, players kept any complaints private. But Thursday, Ramirez let out his frustrations when he arrived in Fort Lauderdale and was told to remove his gold chains, another fashion no-no under the new policy.
According to a team source, Ramirez reacted by complaining loudly about the hair-cut policy. He walked around the clubhouse with the words “I’m sick of this —-” written across the front of his shirt and reportedly said, “I’m angry! I want to be traded.”
The protest prompted a meeting between Ramirez and top team officials after he left the Marlins-Baltimore game in the sixth inning.
Manager Ferdi Gonzalez was asked if Ramirez’s protests Thursday prompted the manager to address the team. “Now you’re putting me in a bad mood,” Gonzalez said, refusing to discuss the issue.
Ramirez wasn’t talking about it, either.
“That’s in the past. No more comments about that. New day today,” he said Friday in the clubhouse while wearing a ball cap that covered his buzz cut. “I’m happy today.”
Antoine Wright and Smith got in each other’s faces by the Denver bench after Wright’s missed jumper with seconds remaining essentially sealed the Nuggets’ win.
Cuban took his frustration out on his keyboard minutes after the loss, posting twice about the incident on his Twitter page, questioning a refereeing crew headed by Ronnie Garretson.
how do they not call a tech on JR Smith for coming off the bench to taunt our player on the ground ?
scary part of that play: Same crew chief from game in Denver where they missed call – last play of the game & 1st JRSmith/Wright issue.
Cuban was fined $25,000 for “inappropriate interaction” after his confrontation with Smith earlier this season. It’d be stunning if David Stern didn’t order Cuban to cough up some cash for finding a new way to question NBA officiating.
I want you to remember that this is not a polo shirt,” insists the Guardian’s Marina Hyde of tomorrow’s unveiling of England’s new official jersey. “It is nothing less than an attempt to restore hope to a nation via the medium of sportswear.” Couldn’t the same thing have been accomplished by Burberry going bankrupt?
I confess to having developed something of a horrified fascination with the official campaign leading up to this momentous launch. Whether you believe replica England shirts to be a tax on stupidity is irrelevant. Even by the standards of preposterous hype, this one redraws the blueprint.
One can only assume it is a deliberate and frankly biting satire on the whole business of England, and all the vainglorious pretentiousness that has characterised the set-up in recent years. This thing is the veritable Emperor’s New Strip. It may look like a polo shirt to you and me, but it is the very essence of tragi-comic self-regard.
Unconvinced? Then do proceed directly with me to one of the lengthy interviews with the senior designer David Blanch.
“The detail is in the minutiae,” he declares, “even down to the spacing on the ventilation holes. The configuration of the holes is actually taken from the position of some of the roses on the three lions crest. It’s a bit of a Da Vinci Code, a ‘rose code’ if you like.”
Jesus wept… Just when you think you understand performance synthetics, you realise that some amazing twist has derailed your assumptions about the meaning of Aertex or whatever.
Asked if there is any detail of which he is particularly proud, David declines to cite a state-of-the-art booing deflector shield, and instead mentions “the care label”. The care label! Clearly, we are invited to read this garment as though it were the last act of The Tempest, as opposed to something Ashley Cole is going to sweat in.
“I was shocked that it fell apart this fast,” Forde said. “One minute they’re 16-4, 5-0 in the SEC and you’re thinking Sweet Sixteen. The next thing you know, they’re in the NIT and firing (Gillispie). It’s wild.”
UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart and President Lee Todd cited Gillispie’s inability to deal with the public, his players and the media as a large reason for his dismissal. Forde said it became clear that Gillispie didn’t fit the mold.
“There’s no doubt that the Kentucky job requires a unique person. Obviously Billy didn’t have the main characteristics it took to be successful. It’s a hard job, but they pay you a lot of money. He screwed up the opportunity of a lifetime.”
“It’s a shame,” former Wildcat Kenny Walker said. “If he would have been just a little bit better guy, a little easier guy to deal with, I think he would have deserved another year. But (public relations) is a big, big part of the job. You wonder how much that was discussed with him when he got the job. You also wonder about the background check (UK) did. It seems like there should have been some things that raised some red flags.”
But several in the national media felt like Gillispie got a raw deal.
“What Billy said at the SEC Tournament about all the things that weren’t in his job description, that was a misdiagnosis,” Sporting News columnist Mike DeCourcy said. “But to make a huge issue of how he picked apart an ESPN sideline reporter, that’s entirely ludicrous.”
“It’s a panic move,” Sports Illustrated’s Andy Staples said. “I disagree with the whole ‘fit’ thing. I know that’s a major issue at Kentucky, but ‘fit’ is only an issue if you’re not winning games. Is Nick Saban a good fit at Alabama? Not necessarily, but he’s a good fit because he’s winning games.”
“In recent years, as George Steinbrenner has faded from view as the principal owner,” writes the New York Times‘ Richard Sandomir in Saturday’s paper, “(team president Randy) Levine has emerged as the strongest voice of the Yankees…no other Yankees executive — not Steinbrenner’s sons, Hal and Hank; Brian Cashman, the general manager; or Lonn Trost, the chief operating officer — is as willfully aggressive.” Not even Tony Pena asking for a date comes on as strong!
“Part of Randy likes to fight,” said Hal Steinbrenner, the managing general partner. “He has a history of not backing down. He likes to be the bad cop. I’m the good cop.”The family has never asked Levine to restrain his style. Hal Steinbrenner said he has “absolutely” applauded Levine’s castigations of Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, a persistent critic of the stadium’s financing. Levine has angrily accused Brodsky, a Westchester County Democrat, of attacking the Yankees name for political ends.
Levine’s occasionally choleric behavior is not an act, he said, but evidence that he can change speeds on his rhetorical pitches.
“I get angry,” he said, “but I try not to let anger color my job.”
The brusque Brodsky sees Levine as “someone who thinks the world responds to bullying and verbal violence.” After a public hearing at which Levine, 54, turned red while yelling at him, Brodsky said: “He couldn’t have been acting. His face was too purple.”
At a hearing about stadium financing this month, Levine accused Brodsky of being on a “witch hunt” and of using “Soviet-style tactics” in subpoenaing him, and told him that he is “not the dictator of the state who can overrule everybody else.”
Brodsky countered, “I will remind you, Mr. Levine, that the Giuliani years are over.”
Levine turned from the witness table with a smile, his morning’s joust over.
“Entertaining, wasn’t it?” he said as he left the Manhattan hearing room.
According to a Columbus police report, a man wearing a Calgary Flames jersey has been arrested and charged with inducing panic after placing at least three threatening phone calls to the Blue Jackets — specifically targeting [rookie goaltender Steve] Mason — during Thursday’s 5-0 win over the Flames.
Charged with the misdemeanour, Peter Stenzel, 52, was picked up at his Dublin, Ohio, home.
“They got his number from caller ID, and it was given to special duty officers,” Columbus police Sgt. Rich Weiner told the Columbus Dispatch Friday.
“When they got to his residence, he was upset. He’s a passionate hockey fan.”
Security was on edge at the Nationwide Arena, and there was a beefed-up police presence because of the phone calls that came in between 7:45 and 8:11 p.m., between the end of the first period and start of the second.
Special-duty officers were placed around all the arenas entrances.
Sources told the Dispatch Stenzel threatened to “shoot” and “bomb” Mason during the game.
“It’s nice to see a fan who cares,” writes Deadspin. Hilarity!
[An autogrphed photo of Selig recently made out to himself.]
I’ve posted here before on Bud Selig’s tenacity when it comes to promoting himself. Now he’s got a very public show of support, from noted Cub fan George Will, who writes in to Forbes Magazine to chastise it for criticizing the man that Bud Selig has declared a massive success – Bud Selig. Will argues that Selig is bar none the greatest commissioner Major League Baseball has ever had. I’ll be the first to say, Selig’s business acumen and selling the game are definitely impressive. That’s because Selig is the best business rep the owners have ever had, and he should be commended as such. As far as what the job of baseball commissioner was designed to do, which is bring a sense of moral authority to baseball and give it credibility — he’s about the worst it has ever had. With a kind of Bush-like thinking Will has recently rejected, Will manages to both praise free market economics and extol the virtues of Selig, the CEO of America’s favorite monopoly – baseball. Will’s total blame for PEDs on the players union is also a bit much to stomach, since owners happily profited from their “ignorance” of the situation and did little or nothing to raise the issue. Mr. Will’s fan letter can be found here. [And a CSTB thank you to Chris Lehmann for the link.]
(Xavier’s Terrell Holloway, determined to command more viewers tonight than Alec Baldwin)
Pittsburgh and Xavier will be tipping off in Boston very shortly, and in the unlikely event you’d prefer to follow my as-they-happen observations from the TD Bank North Garden than follow CBS’ analysis or a more qualified live blogger, you do so in the box to the right, or by following the CSTB Twitter feed.
I’ll be hanging around for Duke/’Nova, too, unless there’s an impromptu DMZ reunion happening somewhere down the road.
Now John Daly can return to what he does best: getting cut, getting drunk and getting fat.
Several years ago I wrote a column that called Daly something that was wholly true then and is even more accurate now. I called Daly a repugnant loser who is more scoundrel than hero. I blasted him for his treatment of women and his reckless lifestyle….
The victory is not just one for freedom of speech. Athletes should be held accountable for their deeds just like writers are held accountable for theirs.
Just as all of you are in your everyday lives.
So I’ll repeat what I said several years ago.
Daly is a disgraceful human being who, if he were Allen Iverson, would be despised and wouldn’t get the dozens of second chances he has received.
Is “Allen Iverson” some kind of code? I didn’t even know he was a golfer.
PS – On an unrelated note, if you’re not paying attention to those twitter widgets (twidgets?) on the righthand side below the ad, GC will be live from Boston shortly (and I’ll be on the couch).
Actually, per ESPN’s Chris Sheridan, Zeke and Donald Sterling definitely had “informal but substantive” talks several weeks ago — The Donald being in the market for an executive to take the pressure off High-Voltage Bummer Generation Device and nightmarish martinet/Head Coach Mike Dunleavy. Dunleavy, who brokered the talks, was apparently playing some sort of practical joke. See how much, if any, of this makes even the slightest bit of sense:
Thomas remains under contract to the Knicks for the remainder of this season and two more, but he has the franchise’s permission to seek employment elsewhere. He was fired as Knicks coach and general manager last spring and was replaced by Donnie Walsh in the front office and Mike D’Antoni on the bench.One source with knowledge of Thomas’ thinking said it now appears he has shifted his focus to pursuing a head coaching position at the college level. The same source said Thomas’ name was discussed at the highest levels of the Grizzlies organization when Memphis fired Marc Iavaroni earlier this season.
…Dunleavy has generally won praise for his salary cap management and his most recent personnel moves…[His] coaching is actually the area where the most justifiable criticism could be directed. The Clippers entered Wednesday night’s game against New York 37 games under .500. He has clashed with some Clippers players, most notably Baron Davis and Chris Kaman, although Sterling has been publicly supportive of Dunleavy and overtly critical of his players, most recently when he went on a postgame rant in the locker room after a loss to San Antonio earlier this month.
It is hard to know where to start with this. ClipperBlog’s Kevin Arnovitz just reprints half the Sheridan story under the headline “When Real Life Exceeds Parody.” Brendan Flynn, who sent me this link, writes, “You can’t make this up. Bill Simmons could try — and if Isiah Thomas becomes the Clips GM, I’ll want to read his column again. Dear god: Could one organization have Sterling, Thomas and Dunleavy? Really?” The answer, it seems, is that only an organization already featuring Sterling and Dunleavy could conceivably also support Isiah Thomas.
As seen at Allston, MA’s Sports Depot. I can get over the omissions of Ted Williams, Bobby Orr, Larry Bird, Jim Plunkett and Carl Yastrzemski, but cannot quite reconcile why there’s a basketball growing out of Tim Wakefield’s shoulder.
Notice that ESPN never breaks stories of this sort? Instead, they attempt, with their mighty machine, to co-opt the story after it is published. Their ruse is to, after some time, give the public the impression that it is they and not the story’s original source, that is acting as both programmer for whatever league it is they are televising and news medium with intrepid-enough journalists who have the go-ahead to investigate the very leagues they televise and to which they are beholden.
Already, this morning on the Mike and Mike in the Morning show, ESPN college basketball analyst Doug Gottlieb is asking, “Is there any plausible deniability [for UConn's hoops program and Calhoun]?” Never heard that question asked on behalf of Sampson. Meantime Eric Kuselias asked Wetzel about the timing of the story, implying that Yahoo waited until now to publish the story. Wetzel replied that UConn refused to hane over their phone records until the authors threatened to sue the university. Wetzel said further that the article would have been published in January had Connecticut’s athletic department complied with the request for the phone records.
Gottlieb later blamed the “One and Done” rule for Connecticut’s misdeeds despite also averring that Calhoun has been followed by these sorts of accusations for most of his career. Kuselias gave the, “if in fact this is true” caveat to the story.
ESPN’ talking heads lambasted Sampson, citing his prior excessive phone call record at Oklahoma. No one, to this day, has ever questioned the validity of the charges Sampson incurred at Indiana, despite the fact that there was a cadre of powerful boosters and other influential people in the shadows of the Hoosier’s basketball program who never wanted Sampson to be hired at Indiana and were not at all beyond using assistants to set up Sampson to be dismissed as head coach.
Though I’m abdicating my Church Of The Up All Night responsibilities this evening, Max Dropout will be your host for an evening of exceptional cinema at Beerland (711 Red River) , screening “Rocktober Blood” (1984, dir. Beverly Sebastian) and Brian DePalma’s directorial debut effort, “Phantom Of The Paradise” (1974) Brooklyn Lager are supplying the free beer, there’s free pizza and i’m so jealous I cannot attend I’m literally shaking with rage. No wait, that’s just a minor stroke!
“Is this the best way to use Greg Gumbel?” Jeff Johnson asks at Fitted Sweats. While I think the answer depends strongly on how — and how accurately — one defines “best,” I’d say that the above image works pretty well. The good people at Pontiac Digital should be commended for finding just the right identity for Gumbel: funky secret service guy.
“He’s out of shape,” Warthen said after the Mets’ 10-6 Grapefruit League loss to the Tigers.
“He came into camp in good shape. I thought he was throwing the ball very well when he left camp. I was a little reticent when he left here [for the WBC], and my worries have come to fruition.”
Warthen said Perez is about the same weight as last season, but the lefty added a few pounds after leaving to pitch for Team Mexico earlier this month. The 6-foot-3 Perez is listed at 205 pounds.
“The better body shape you are, the easier it is to get your arm in shape, and I think he has gotten himself out of [shape], even though the weight is about the same as last year,” Warthen said. “He still is not the same guy, the energetic guy, even the life around the clubhouse is not the same.”
Assuming Warthern isn’t exaggerating about Perez’ condition, the club would do well to keep this press release out of the starter’s eyesight.
Or…sorry? I don’t know what the official in-house CSTB policy is on references to Anchorman. While that film isn’t necessarily my favorite Adam Dunn vehicle, I enjoyed it well enough (and especially enjoyed Will Ferrell’s attempt to translate “San Diego” as the above post-colon cluster of disgusting words). And I enjoyed, too, Jason Gay’s piece in The New Republic Online comparing Curt Schilling to Anchorman hero Ron Burgundy. As was the case with the film he references, Gay’s piece is pretty well out of steam by the time it reaches its conclusion, but when it’s good, it’s quite good. For example:
Curt Schilling was baseball’s Ron Burgundy. Like Ron in his native San Di-ah-go, Schilling was a locally beloved institution–a hero in Boston, Philly, and Arizona–with a comically inflated sense of self-importance. He was a very, very good pitcher, especially in the postseason, but not an all-time great (most sportswriters think he’s a bubble candidate for the Hall of Fame). Still, when Schilling dramatically wrote in his retirement post, “Four Wosrld Series, three World Championships … there are men with plaques in Cooperstown who never experienced one,” all that was missing was that famous Ron-ism, ‘”I’m kind of a big deal.”
Over his 23-season career, Schilling often displayed raffish, Burgundy-style charms. His Yankee-taunting quote during the 2001 World Series–”When you use the words ‘mystique’ and ‘aura,’ those are dancers in a nightclub”–could have been written by Ferrell or Anchorman co-writer Adam McKay. He had enigmatic personal habits: He was a Jedi-level computer geek, with a blog and his own video gaming company; and a 2001 interview he did about his obsession with the game EverQuest may be the most awesomely nerdy sports Q&A ever (”My first foray into Lower Guk was a lot of fun. … Completing the Robe of the Lost Circle quest was a blast. … One night I log in, and there’s a 55 level monk there.”)
But Schilling mostly resembled Burgundy in that he was a first-rate blowhard, thrilled to hold forth with presumed authority on nearly any subject, as if earth was desperate for his wisdom. He’d shamelessly careen from sports to religion to politics; from his conservative heroes (John McCain, George W. Bush) to The New York Times (”A ‘left wing’ mouthpiece that has never had issues reporting ‘facts’ that aren’t, as facts.”) to Obama’s campaign trail economic plan (”There is nothing he’s proposed that is going to help me hire new employees or maintain the best health care coverage”).
What does Elvis Crespo have to do with anything ordinarily discussed on this site? Nothing, really. The merengue star had a song on MLB Caliente, a Major League Baseball “presented” collection of Latin hits. Per this bio, he apparently wanted to be a baseball player growing up in Puerto Rico. But his alleged conduct on a flight between Houston and Miami earlier today is at least newsworthy enough to bump Neil Allen — known as Goddamned Neil Allen around my house when I was little — down the page a bit. The Associated Press, masters of deadpan data-based hilarity, reports:
Crespo is being investigated after a woman said she saw him performing a sex act on an airplane en route from Houston to Miami, according to Miami-Dade County police.
The Grammy winner was masturbating in view of other passengers Thursday, prompting the plane’s captain to radio the Miami International Airport’s air traffic control tower, the police report said.
Officers interviewed Crespo upon his arrival but did not arrest him. No charges have been filed. When asked by police at the airport about the accusation, the 37-year-old Puerto Rican singer said: ”I don’t recall doing that.”
According to the police report, 52-year-old Patricia Perea of Canyon Gate, Texas, told police she was sitting next to the singer of the hit song ”Suavemente.” She said that about 15 minutes after the plane left Houston, Crespo covered himself with a blanket and began to masturbate, then exposed himself.
I know Crespo’s official line is that he forgot whether or not he actually did this, but I’d really love to know if he has an explanation for why he waited until the plane reached cruising altitude to do the thing. Thanks (I guess?) to David Williams for the link.
Some guys really know how to celebrate their birthdays. While the rest of us schmoes have to console ourselves with a trip to the Ground Round or the emergency room (sometimes both in one day), Uni Watch’s intrepid Paul Lukas served as a volunteer flusher when the plumbing at Flushing’s Glittering Monument To Avarice & Greed underwent preseason tests this past Saturday.
The main thing I learned as we waited for the flushing test to commence was that plumbers don’t use the word “toilet”; instead, they say, “bowl” (as in, “I hear they got over 300 bowls in this stadium” or “Holy shit, 20 bowls in one bathroom!”).
Eventually, a guy on the P.A. gave us instructions on precisely when to flush. Over the course of about 10 minutes, I flushed this toilet bowl about 20 times. There was some random chuckling along the way, because the sound of flushing is sort of inherently humorous, and then we were told that the test was over and that the plumbing system had passed with flying colors, prompting a lot of cheering and high fives. (Sorry, ladies, I didn’t test out the tampon machine, but I assume it was shipshape.)
The Sporting News reported Tuesday that Providence Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask has escaped suspension, despite going nuclear after allowing a pair of shootout goals in the P-Bruins’ loss to Albany Monday night. The above clip has garnered hundreds of thousands of views on You Tube —more than half of them from George Brett refreshing the page over and over agan.
Rask, the Bruins’ top goaltending prospect, went ballistic after a 1-0 shootout loss. He was outraged that referee Frederic L’Ecuyer for allowing goals by two Albany players during the shootout.
Video of the incident made the airwaves Tuesday. In it, Rask screams at L’Ecuyer, smashes his stick against the goal’s crossbar, then against the glass next to the Providence bench and tosses a crate onto the ice.
Here’s how the Journal described the incident:
“On the first goal, Jakub Petruzak appeared to lose control of the puck far off to one side of the net before scoring. Then L’Ecuyer ruled that Harrison Reed’s shot had entered the net for the game-deciding goal. Rask argued that it hit the crossbar.
“After the game, Rask smashed his stick on the boards, then flung it across the ice. He then grabbed a milk crate from behind the Bruins bench and tossed it halfway across the ice.
Murray downplayed Rask’s actions, saying that he’d seen much worse during his two decades as a pro player and coach. “It it weren’t for YouTube, no one would have known about (the Rask incident),” he told the Journal.
“For some Catholics and other Christians in southeast Michigan, the Detroit Tigers’ home opener this year will be off-limits,” writes a pious Kathleen Grey of the Detroit Free Press. “The 1:05 p.m. game against the Texas Rangers is on April 10 — Good Friday and one of the holiest days on the Christian calendar.” Slightly holier than Jim Leyland’s thrice-weekly trips to the dog track, at least.
That’s the day for somber reflection, personal sacrifice, church services that run from noon to 3 p.m. and a no-meat pledge, which doesn’t lend itself to downing a hot dog or two at the game.
While all 30 Major League teams are playing that day, only the Tigers are taking the field during the Christian holy hours. It’s a schedule that keeps the weather and tradition in mind, said Tigers’ spokesman Ron Colangelo.
“Major League Baseball has a monumental task of putting together the schedule for the entire season,” he said. “Fans have come to know that our home opener is always a day game.”
And the Tigers point out that there are plenty of vegetarian offerings on the concession menus. Last year, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals named Comerica Park one of the Top 10 vegetarian friendly stadiums in baseball.
Michael Ochab, 47, will miss his first opener in 20 years, choosing to attend services at St. Florian Catholic Church in Hamtramck, instead.
“It’s sort of an insult for Catholics,” he said. “I’m still hoping the Tigers will change the time.”
Yahoo Sports‘ Adrian Wojnarowski and Dan Wenzel reported late last night the University Of Connecticut violated a number of NCAA rules during the school’s courting of G Nate Miles.
Miles was provided with lodging, transportation, restaurant meals and representation by Josh Nochimson – a professional sports agent and former UConn student manager – between 2006 and 2008, according to multiple sources. As a representative of UConn’s athletic interests, Nochimson was prohibited by NCAA rules from having contact with Miles and from providing him with anything of value.
The UConn basketball staff was in constant contact with Nochimson during a nearly two-year period up to and after Miles’ recruitment. Five different UConn coaches traded at least 1,565 phone and text communications with Nochimson, including 16 from head coach Jim Calhoun. Yahoo! Sports obtained the records through the Freedom of Information Act. The documents were requested in October and received two weeks ago. Many of UConn’s communications with Nochimson were clustered with calls and texts to Miles or his inner circle.
The relationship between Miles and Nochimson began at a Nov. 11, 2006 high school tournament in suburban Chicago. While sitting with Nochimson and watching Miles play, Moore told Nochimson that UConn was actively recruiting the player. Later that day, Miles said, he was introduced to Nochimson.
Moore said he knew the player and the agent were in contact after the event. Records show that Moore traded multiple text messages with both Miles and Nochimson in the evenings of Nov. 11 and Nov. 12, 2006.
Eight days later, Miles, a Toledo, Ohio native, committed to UConn. Calhoun later said the sinewy 6-foot-7 prospect had “as much basketball ability” as any player he’d ever brought to Connecticut.
From that first meeting until Miles was expelled from the university in October 2008 for violating a restraining order brought by a female student, Nochimson played an integral role in the player’s life. The agent guided Miles, who had social and academic difficulties, through a jagged journey to Connecticut.
Nochimson filed paperwork with the NBA Players Association to decertify himself as an agent in June 2008 after UConn All-American and Detroit Pistons star Richard Hamilton fired him as his business manager and accused him of stealing more than $1 million.
Though Yahoo’s story first ran some 10 hours ago, the Hartford Courant can merely come up with “calls seeking comment have been placed to UConn.”
A couple of years back, I while browsing at the Mets’ 42nd St. Clubhouse Store and overheard a clerk telling a colleague that Scott Strickland’s wife had complained that t-shirts featuring her hubby reliever’s name and number were tough to find.
I wondered who the heck was going to purchase a Scott Strickland t-shirt, but that’s nothing compared to Metsblog’s Matthew Cerrone, uncovering ample inventory of Country Time and Boogie Shoes swag at the same shop. For $7.99, I’d spring for a Lo Duca tee. But keep in mind, I once wore a Metal Mike authentic to Yankee Stadium right after the Mets catcher had denied playing house with Sam Champion.
Larry Andersen, now a radio voice, was the weary reliever who set up closer Mitch Williams that fatal Game 6 in Toronto, Schilling with the towel covering his head and face, Joe Carter up with one out, two runners on, the Phils clinging to a 6-5 lead. A lot of people on that bench have never fully forgiven Schilling for the way he showed up his teammate with the baseball world watching. And it didn’t matter that Williams wound up serving the most dramatic World Series walkoff homer since Bill Mazeroski in 1960….
Andersen rolled his eyes when I asked his reaction to Schilling’s cyberspace announcement that his 20-year career is over. “I was taught that if you can’t say something nice about somebody, don’t say anything at all,” he said. Then LA laughed mirthlessly. “It would probably make CNN.”
As luck would have it, the showers that came gusting off Tampa Bay and doused another Bright House Field sellout forced Darren Daulton to land the mothership in the parking lot. He was holding court in the Hooters box with the usual gaggle of pals and fans who surround him here during the Countdown to Dec. 21, 2012, last day of the Mayan calendar. When that page is turned, he says, all humankind will continue to exist, but in a different form.
Dutch pointed to Andersen. “I’m with him,” he said.
Some Phillies fans are wondering which hat Curt would wear should he earn HoF induction. Really? (And hey, remember when that used to be a serious question to ask about Roger Clemens?)
(Bradenton, FL Mayor Wayne H. Poston, prepared to mediate all disputes between local thugs)
Tim Marchman spent a month last weekend in Bradenton, the Grapefruit League home of the Pittsburgh Pirates and a town whose Chamber Of Commerce would probably prefer you read the burg’s wiki entry than the following from the Slate baseball scribe.
I spied a corrugated metal shack promoting boxing on weeknight evenings, storefront Pentecostalist churches and donut shops with hand-painted window signs out of Walker Evans, grim pawnshops with long rows of shotguns for sale, local headlines revolving around the travails of the dog track, storefronts for rent for $800 and cars for sale for $600 and lots of kids on bicycles, and shared good times at the Greyhound station with two toughs trying to one-up one another with absurd tales of their time inside and knowledge of obscurely nicknamed and highly fertile Ft. Myers thugs. You will not hear a bad word about Bradenton pass my lips.
Even without Billy Packer calling the games for CBS, the Big Dance has a way of curtailing procreation. “My idea of enjoying the NCAA tournament involves macrobrews and fried food. It doesn’t involve a frozen bag of peas on my balls,” protests Deuce Of Davenport’s Mustafa Redonkulous after reading the following item from the Cleveland Plain-Dealer’s John Campanelli.
The NCAA tournament’s first round, which features 32 games in two days, makes for great drama, great television and office pools. It also makes for a great time — perhaps the best of the year — to be sterilized. It’s March soreness, baby.
And more guys are realizing it.
“I’m booked up,” said Dr. J. Stephen Jones, chairman of regional urology at the Cleveland Clinic’s Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute. “My schedule on that part of the month filled up very quickly. It filled up ahead of time.”
Scheduling the procedure to coincide with hoops hoopla makes perfect sense, says Jones, who has done more than 2,000 vasectomies.
First off, the demographics match. The men getting snipped, usually in their 30s and 40s, are typical March Madness fans.
“If they’re going to have a day off, it might as well be on a day when they would want to be watching basketball, as opposed to watching ‘Oprah,’ ” Jones said.
It’s the kind of story papers and blogs around the country can’t resist. Especially if it’s regurgitatated every year.
The New York Yankees issued a press release earlier today trumpeting the multitude of food and drink options available at their soon-to-open new palace, promising “a window found in the left-field concourse of the Field Level where fans can see butchers from Lobel’s of New York preparing prime, dry-aged steaks”. If, however, you’re stuck upstairs with the rest of the peasants, the Bombers have wonderful news for you, too.
The Yankees continue to offer exceptional value on food and merchandise. They are offering a $3 hot dog, a $3 soft drink and a $6 beer. Traditional Stadium fare, such as hot dogs, peanuts, popcorn, sausages and Cracker Jack, remain the same price as last season. New sizes of soda, many including a souvenir cup, are offered at a variety of prices. In addition, a Family Value Line of merchandise has been created with low-priced items, including pennants, Yankees T-shirts, key chains, and more.
Granted, this is New York City and there’s already a paucity of establishments were you can get drunk for under $20 (though a corner bodega comes to mind). But there is something intensely creepy about bragging of the filet mignon on offer while throwing some consolation hot dogs and key chains towards the great unwashed.
What Politico is to cheesily Drudge-baiting, manufactured political scandals, I am to Washington Post sportswriter Chico Harlan. I own this beat. Power and speed. Win the news cycle. Cover the fuck out of a guy I didn’t really actually know existed until like a month ago. Sorry.
But: but Harlan’s long story in the Post today on Marquis Grissom — longtime Big Leaguer and current Nationals coach — is really good. (Makes you wonder what Harlan could write if he wasn’t so embarrassed to be covering stories like this instead of, you know, food) Grissom was a guy I always kind of dug as a player — cool name; always on non-threatening-to-the-Mets teams; the fact that he essentially had the same season in three-fourths of his big league campaigns. His brief resurfacing a year or so back as an apostle of black baseball was also intriguing. But simply by asking good questions without looking for some cheap-heat Wally Matthews angle and letting his subject talk, Harlan has revealed a guy who has to qualify as one of the more admirable and interesting baseball personalities I can think of. Here:
His parents, Marion and Julia, had once earned 50 cents per hour picking cotton. Marion had built the Grissom house from scratch, front doors always open wide, food from the garden available for whatever nieces and nephews stopped by. The Grissoms had 15 kids of their own. Marquis was the second-youngest.
“I went from drawing water out of a well and burning a stove for heat in the house to making $1.5 million,” he said. That’s when he started buying the houses.
First he gave a house to his baby sister, just because she was the baby. That cost Grissom $78,000. He paid in cash, and because his salary kept rising — $3.575 million in 1994, $4.95 million in 1995 — he kept buying more houses, paying them off in an instant. He bought a house for his parents. He bought the nicest house for his sister Barbara, who always took care of him. For one brother, he threw in a car, too. Sometimes, he let the siblings pick out the property, or at least the neighborhood. He asked them to stay within a price range — about $215,000. He bought a house for every brother and sister.
Not every sibling flourished — one of his brothers was on drugs — and Grissom worried about how the handouts might set a bad precedent. So he talked to them about how to use the money saved on house payments for education, for their kids’ college. The houses weren’t just places to live; they were parts of a foundation.
…He kept thinking about something bigger, spreading the foundation beyond family. That’s when he started building fields.
The Marquis Grissom Baseball Association was granted nonprofit status in 2006. Grissom wanted to mass-produce the good fortune that gave him a chance, which meant a lot of work. Kids in the Atlanta area needed gloves, fields, funding, coaching, attention. Grissom tried to create all of that. The MGBA had (and has) two employees, counting its namesake.
But its burden — and its potential — expanded quickly. In the first year, Grissom rebuilt an old baseball complex, laying the chalk, painting the dugouts, buying the foul poles. (”Two of ‘em will set you back $1,500,” he said.) He talked to Coca-Cola about scoreboards and a local gravel company about warning tracks. Soon, Grissom’s association was responsible for dozens of teams and at least 200 kids, 7 and older. Grissom paid for many of their registration fees, burning more than $500,000 of his own money. He picked some of the kids up from school. Sometimes, he paid for their meals, too.
Chico Harlan was 26 years old when a college buddy at the Washington Post helped bring him aboard as the paper’s chief Nationals correspondent, which is either an amazing job or something much shittier, depending on how you feel about interviewing Austin Kearns 190 times a year or trying to capture the magnificence of an Adam Dunn practical joke while on deadline. It’s not necessarily a job I’d want, probably, but one of my big shortcomings in general is that I kind of can’t come up with any jobs I’d necessarily want.
But for most people who want to write about sports a full-time gig at the Post at that age would be pretty sweet. The downside of it, besides the aforementioned Kearns-interviewing and the possibility of being dissed in a Lastings Milledge song: you’re still 26 when you have the job, which means you’re kind of still figuring out how to be a person. When I was 26, I was punching in hung-over at Topps every day and doing laundry like five times a year. (If I’d done something cooler when I was that age, believe me, I’d mention it) When Chico Harlan was 26 — which is right about now, for those just joining us — he was all brash and youngish and self-conscious and therefore prone to saying impertinent and stupid things to reporters for weird D.C. area magazines. Things like this, which he said to the Washingtonian’s Harry Jaffe in an article that went up today:
“I don’t like sports—I am embarrassed that I cover them. I can’t wait to stop. It is a means to an end and a paycheck.”
So…whoops, right? Harlan apologizes for misjudging the thin line between “candor” and “baffling, potentially career-killing snobbery” in a post at his WaPo Nats blog:
The quote is accurate. The sentiment is not. I have nothing but gratitude and appreciation for my job. I know I’m lucky as heck to do what I do…Maybe it’s worth explaining the conversation that led me to the I-hate-sports declaration. When I first started talking to Harry Jaffe, the journalist who talked to me for the piece, we were discussing my background, my childhood love for baseball, the fact that I played it as a teenager, etc. I didn’t want to be portrayed, though, as some central casting sportswriter: the sort who always dreamed of athletic glory, lacked the skills, and chose the next best thing. That’s not me. I wanted the make the point that I have other interests, many more. I suppose I made that point with an inartful tap of the sledgehammer.
I remember when I wanted to appear to be…some way or other. I do my laundry more often now, at least. Thanks to Garey Ris — who does the WSJ’s Daily Fix when I’m not doing it (I did it today, he does it Tuesday) — for the links.
This story seems have crashed 
