Not enough to do an entire post on one topic, so here is a little bit of everything:
Loved hearing about Fresno State winning the college world series last night upsetting Georgia 6-1. Great story to see them win the National Title, and being 6-0 in elimination games in the entire tournament.
Jermaine O'Neal to the Toronto Raptors for T.J. Ford, Rasho Nesterovic and the 17th pick is a good deal for both teams. The Raptors get a big man to play down in the post and sit there and rebound the entire game long, and it takes a lot of pressure off Chris Bosh and Andrea Bargniani who were playing the inside game. The Pacers get an excellent point guard in Ford and the possibility o####reat player with the draft pick. Nesterovic was just a throw in to make the salaries match up, but he could turn out to be a good player for Indiana.
If the Miami Heat don't take Michael Beasley with the second overall pick in the draft this will be the biggest passover since the Raptors took the stiff Rafael Araujo with a ton of good palyers still on the board.
The whole Javon Walker saga has become a little tired. After his BS excuse that he was mugged at his hotel room and dragged to a car and dumped in the street was completely believeable. Now we have testimony that he willingly got into someones car and then was dropped off in the street. I was on Javon Walker for bad decision making when this stroy broke, then I dismissed that totally implausible story, and now the truth has come out. Okay, time to move on.
I love interleague play, and when I hear people say the schedule is un-balanced and un-fair need to look at baseball as an entire sport. It is the most un-fair sport in the world. Different parks have different dimensions, some parks have different nuances to them (Houston has a hill in centre field and Fenway has the Monster). The schedule has been un-balanced for a long time. The AL EAst plays the Yankees and Red Sox 18 times each, while other AL teams play them about six-nine times a season. The Cubs get to play the Pirates 18 times a season. Baseball on the whole is the most un-fair sport on the planet.
Stop beating me over the head with somone dunking in the WNBA. When Candace Parker throws one down on someones head and doesn't just let it fall over the rim, call me.
On New Years day in 2007 a tradgedy happened to the Denver Broncos. Conerback Darrnet Williams was gunned down in his SUV outside a night club with then teammate Javon Walker sitting in the car with him. Walker who survived the burtal attack lived to tell the story of that brutal night. Williams died while he was in Walker's arms. Walker keeps the blood stained clothing from that night with him to remind him of what happened.
It appears that he hasn't learned.
Walker was found the morning of June 17 in the street in Las Vegas with a broken orbital bone and robbed, after he allegedly purchased mass amounts of Dom Perion Champagne and began to soak the crowd at he night club he visited that night.
How does a person not make a better decision after going through traumatic events such as the death of a friend and teammate? You watched something bad happen to a friend, and now you go and have a "Look at Me" moment in a club in Las Vegas?
The incident leading to Williams death has been speculated to have begun in the same way as the most recent events began. If that is true, wouldn't that make you even a little more hesitent about how you conduct yourself the next time you are out in a club?
Affter the Williams shooting, Walker didn't show up to the funeral because he said that he had to go re-count his thoughts over what happened. What better place to do that than America's playground. If you were scared because of what happened to Williams, why would you go straight into the fire? Wouldn't you go as far away from a situation?
Walker doesn't know who is in the club that night, and if there is someone who has a history of bad intentions and is looking for a fight, while Walker had his alleged moment, someone easily could've picked him out as an easy mark. He is a victim of his own actions.
I don't like to see these types of things happen to anyone, but if you don't learn from your own experiences, then I find it hard to feel sorry for someone.
Since he didn't learn from his past experiences, this is just another case of an athlete finding out the hard way that--and this is a really bad term to use--he isn't bulletproof.
Well today is the day that former Patriots video coordinator Matt Walsh wil meet with Warden Godell to discuss what was or was not on the tapes. Then Godell will release those tapes to the media, then go meet in Washington with pissed off Eagles fan, Sen. Arlen Spector, to put a finish on the entire Spygate cloud that has been over the NFL for the better part of the last calender year.
My question now has been my question since the Spygate story broke, "Who Cares?"
Honestly, this is only the first time someone taping signals has been caught doing so. As much as people want to think that the Patriots were the only team taping signals, need to remove their rose coloured glasses and see what advantage this can give a team. Then you're going to tell me that only the Patriots are the ones taping signals? Really?
The Pats and Bill Belichick were just the first ones to get caught, after his protege Eric Mangini went to the league and told the NFL what the Pats were doing. What is stopping Mangini from taping signals? Didn't he come from the Belichick school of coaching? Wouldn't he have learned from the master and put it into practice? Just asking some questions.
Next we have this so called smoking gun, that turned out to be shooting blanks. Former Pats employee Matt Walsh claimed to have video tape of the Rams walk-through before they faced the Patriots in Super Bowl 36. Then he gives Godell the tapes and it shows us exactly what we already know.
Thank you for wasting my time. Your big atom bomb that was supposed to blow up the Patriots dynasty turned out to be a dud that was well beyond its relevancy.
Then, finally we have the Eagles fan, Sen. Arlen Spector who was looking for any reason to say that something was fishy about the Patriots beating his beloved Eagles in Super Bowl 39. He is grasping at straws looking for a reason to try and get his first championship as an Eagles fan.
This is almost as rediculous as Congress being involved in whether or not baseball players took performance enhancing drugs or whether or not Roger Clemens "misremembered" his whereabouts at Jose Canseco's BBQ.
Spygate was a non-story from the beginning, the league disciplined the Patriots, and the story was closed. Since everyone loves to delight in others people misery, when somone has a little bit of success, they want to tear them down and say something was up and they achieved thier success while everyone played by the rules. Doubt that they were the only team taping signals.
Time for everyone to put Spygate in the rearview mirror and move on.
Baseball season making headway into May, and the NBA and NHL Playoffs are getting closer and closer to a champion, all we are seeing is great team after great team playing, that I know I sometimes forget about the terrible franchises in professional sports.
There are a lot of teams that are or have been in disarray for a long time in professional sports, so I am going to give you all the teams that are as the french say "Le Garbage"
NFL Washington Redskins Two words, Daniel Snyder. The owner of the Six Flags franchise proves he can run an amusement park, but not when it is the most valuable sports franchise in the world. When you start trading away draft picks for cheese sandwich's, a ride on Superman and player who past their prime ages before they arrive at the Redskins. Mark Burnell was the quarterback even though they had Jason Campbell waiting in the wings, and there are questions around him. That was their first round pick a few years ago. Then this past draft he was willing to part with more picks to acquire Bengal hater Chad Johnson.
I love Ocho Cinco, he makes the league fun, but when he can't produce with a A-list quarterback like Carson Palmer, what chance does he have with Campbell.
Miami Dolphins 1-15, need I say more? Now we have your star player dancing the night away to "DUH-DUH-DUH-DUNNNNNNN" Then he attempts to extend the olive branch to the coahc who shuns him. I know they had a great draft with Michigan south by drafting Jake Long and Chad Henne, but as of right now, not such a good franchise.
NHL Toronto Maple Leafs The Leafs run thier franchise the way they do because no Leaf fan questions what they are going to do. With a packed building every night, regardless of what kind of team they are fielding or icing, but I digress. Now they fired a coach who was put in a no win situation with players who would be hard pressed to make the second line on most other N HL teams. This team is run like a business, which is the way it should be done, but it is an unsuccessful business in terms of W-L, not $ and sense. 41 years since a championship proves it all.
And the Grand Prize winner is.............
The New York Knicks When you hire Larry Brown, one of the best coaches in NBA history, and replace him with a person with limited coaching experience. Then you make that coach the GM or the other waya around who makes questionable deals as general manager and let him run your team, while he sexually harasses employees of your organization. Then the Knicks fire said person as preident and GM, but continue to allow him to coach a losing team rather than letting your next coach come in and attempt to fix the situation so there are no growing pains for next year.
But then you tell that previously employed coach that he still has a job, but he has no title and no responosibility and can not talk to any of his current players. Where do I sign up for that job, being kept on the payroll while doing nothing, sounds like a good deal, does it come with benefits?
That doesn't even cover the players on the team. Starbury selling shoes while babbling about nothing on a certain video, and the other bunch of overpaid stiffs they have playing for the Knicks right now.
What organizations do you think are in complete disarray and why. Post it in the comments
With the Ottawa Senators chances of missing the playoffs reaching an all time high this year, I think for a good laugh, lets look at theirs and some other epic collapses in all of pro sports.
2007-2008 Ottawa Senators After starting the season with a 13-1 record, and looking like a shoein to make the Stanley Cup finals, and maybe win the entire thing. But then the Sens ate some bad fish when out on a road trip and started choking. The Sens have been on a nose dive ever since the All-Star break, and they may not have a chance to pull out before they hit the ground.
2007 New York Mets With a 7 game lead, with less than a month to go in the season, the Mets were playing with their family cat and swallowed a fur ball and began to choke. With as good as the Mets were last year, they still couldn't close the deal. Not only did they lose the division to the Phillies, they missed the playoffs all together.
2006 Boston Red Sox What happened? Two years off of winning their first World Series in 86 years, all I remember from this season is what is known as the Boston Massacre. The Red Sox had a lead in the division, then came August 18. The Sox had a four game scheduled series with the Yankees, that turned into five game series because of a rain out. The Yankees went on to lose all five games to the Yankees and then lose the division, and finish in third place. The Yankees are who we thought they were, and we let them off the hook.
1978 Boston Red Sox The original Boston Massacre. most Red Sox fans will remember this for Bucky Dent. With a 14 and a half game lead on July 19, the Red Sox proceeded to break their fans hearts when the coughed up seventeen games losing the division by 3 and a half games. Yankees outfielder, Reggie Jackson said after the season, "We played great, but we didn't win it. They lost it. If they'd played .500 the last half of the season, we'd never have caught them".
1978 Washington Redskins The beginning of the season looked promising with 6 straight wins. But then the the 'Skins had a drink go down the wrong tube, choked and finished 8-8, with 5 straight loses.
1942 Detroit Red Wings The original team to lose a seven game series after leading 3-0. While leading in the deciding game in the Stanley Cup finals, 1-0, they lost the game in 10 miniutes by letting the Toronto Maple Leafs socre three unanswered goals.
Jean Van de Velde, 1999 British Open Who could forget Jean Van de Velde hitting the ball into the water at Carnoustie in 1999. Then after rinsing his ball, Van de Velde decided to get a little wet himself. Van de Velde turned his golf pants into flood pants and waded into the creek and proceeded to attempt the heimlich maneuver. He was unsuccessful.
Greg Norman, 1996 Masters Bogey. Bogey. Bogey. Double bogey. That sounds like a guy at your local dog track executive course, not a professional at Augusta. This was the greatest choke job in golf history, until a monsieur Van de Velde got wet at Carnoustie.
But here is the gold medalist...........
2004 New York Yankees This one is pretty simple because it made history that had not been made in 86 years. After the Yankees took a 3 game lead over the Boston Red Sox in the ALCS, the Sawx "kept the faith" and fought back in three great games to only destroy Yankees in the final game. Then the Sawx lucked out in the World Series to let Bill Buckner rest easy.
According to Harris Interactive, when 100 million people watch the game, people tend to notice.
Harris Interactive released a poll on Feb. 5 about Americas favourite sport. A link to the poll is here. The only people surveyed in this entire survey are Americans. Some of you may surprised at the number 5 entry, because I know I was:
Pro Football (DUH!!!!)
Major League Baseball (I thought it would be number 3)
College Football (Thought it would be number 2 if not number 1)
Auto Racing (NASCAR's marketing make it viable)
Hockey (WHAAAAAA!!!!)
Number 5 really surprised me because I thought that most Americans cared more about about professional or college basketball which ranked which were 6 and 7 respectively. Also, men's golf ranked 8. Another thing that shocked me was that bowling at number 11 beat boxing at number 14.
They also mention the change in percentage of followers has risen in pro football, college football, auto racing and hockey. Each rose 6%, 2%, 5% and 3% respectively.
What shocked me was that even though baseball has recorded record revenue, they dropped 8% and pro and college basketball each dropped 2%.
This poll is only measured a certain number of Americans, this isn't a concensus of the general population.
