It was Opening Night in Oklahoma City as the hometown Thunder took to the NBA hardwoods for the first time. The Commish was there along with a full house in the Ford Center. There was a huge celebration. And then they went out and got rolled by the lowly Milwaukee Bucks.
John Rhode of the Oklahoman observed, "This season could be longer than originally thought, Thunder fans. Given what transpired Wednesday night at the Ford Center, patience not only will be a virtue with the Thunder, it will be a minimum requirement.
The Thunder got rolled by the Milwaukee Bucks 98-87 on opening night inside the Ford Center.
The home team trailed by double-digits for the final 29 minutes and trailed by as many as 24 at one point.
Granted, it's only one game, but is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Keep in mind, people, the Bucks aren't very good.
Much like the Thunder, no one is picking Milwaukee to play more than 82 games this season.
The Bucks wore green, but they hardly resemble the world champion Celtics, who next Wednesday will make their only visit here.
“We didn’t play like we were capable of playing, and that's a shame,” Thunder coach P.J. Carlesimo said afterward.
The Thunder struggled from the very beginning. The effort in the first half was questionable.
All summer long, we've been selling this team as a group that might not win, but it will at least play hard.
The Thunder did neither, and that's unacceptable, even to a bunch of forgiving, impressionable newcomers like us.
As for the Bucks, it appears that new coach Scott Skiles' patience with Charlie Villanueva lasted all of two games. Already, Charlie V is in the doghouse for his intermittant style of defense.
The Phillies finally won that World Series that wouldn't end last night and I'm truly happy for Geoff Jenkins, one of the good guys in the game. The former Milwaukee Brewer was always decent and available to the press. Even though, he didn't play that much, he was a major part of the deciding game.
Many, including ESPN's Mike and Mike In The Morning (yes, THEM again), noted that Ryan Howard became part of an illustrious crew: among the few to win a championship while HR and RBI leader of the season. Babe Ruth was the first and Roger Maris was the most recent before Howard.
But then, some dummy listed Henry Aaron -- which is true, but they listed it as:
Hank Aaron - ATL - 1957
No. no, no, no, no, NO! The MILWAUKEE BRAVES won in 1957.
Yeah well, this same dummy will reply, they're in Atlanta now, so?
SO?!
You don't say the Baltimore Ravens won the 1964 NFL title. You don't say (or at least, you shouldn't say) that the Oklahoma City Thunder won the NBA title in 1979?
Get it right, sheesh...
While we're talking on-air blunders , former Minnesota football coach Glen Mason claimed on the Big Ten Network that -- in his mind -- Michigan State is probably the 3rd best team in the league as "they've beaten Notre Dame and Michigan and Wisconsin..."
Uh, coach? Psst...the Spartans play the Badgers THIS SATURDAY!! Maybe, that attention to detail is why you're a former coach on the moribund Big Ten network, eh?
Finally, tomorrow is Halloween, which here in Madison means that we locals get to exclaim, "AARRRGGGH, what are you doing to my lawn???!!!"
October 31 in Madison means that thousands of drunken college kids ( I know what you're thinking now, there are other kinds?) decend on the city to get arrested as fast as possible. Think, a white trash, colder version of Mardi Gras, with none of the good food.
One year, Sponge Bob -- or some drunk kid -- got busted across from my porch. I saw this as I sat there -- after having 10 or 12 beer bottles thrown at my house. After the 12th, I took my lawn chair and a baseball bat, sat there and just kept saying, "just keep moving, kids."
Anyway, I don't live downtown anymore and October 31 is one of the major reasons why. Still, if you're in town for the festivities, DON'T think you WON'T get arrested.
This just in, Patti LaBelle can still bring down the house...
The talk of the sports world this morning came from an otherwise meaningless game between the currently hapless San Francisco 49ers and the distinctly mediocre Seattle Seahawks.
According to the Sacramento Bee, the new head coach Mike Singletary spoke a lot today about Vernon Davis. And he spoke a lot of about cancers in the locker room and how they can damage a team. But he was careful to separate the two. "Vernon is not a problem," Singletary said. "Vernon is not a problem guy. Vernon forgets sometimes that the team is more important. ... You have to be able to separate the two. He is not a guy who's a distraction on the team."
Which is not to suggest that Singletary isn't still steamed over Davis' performance yesterday. To recap: Davis was hit with a 15-yard unnecessary roughness penalty when he flicked the underside of Brian Russell's facemask. Singletary said he saw the whole thing and thought Davis was "kidding when he did it." What seemed to upset Singletary more was Davis' reaction. He tried to talk to Davis as he came off the sideline and Davis was defensive. When he looked behind him a few seconds later, Davis was being demonstrative on the bench.
Singletary said he had a conversation just last week with Davis in which he urged the talented tight end to be a leader on the team. His actions on the sideline were entirely opposed to what the new coach was looking for. "It just hit me the wrong way," Singletary said. He said he hadn't yet spoken with Davis and didn't mention any disciplinary action. He said he was not the type of coach who plays psychological games with players and would not give Davis the silent treatment. "It's not that he's out of my good graces," Singletary said. "Not at all. I don't have a doghouse." Which leads one to believe that Davis won't be subject to any disciplinary action ...
If anyone can get his team ready to play, Mike Singletary will do it after the players hear what he said. And I do mean, as in listenhere! Dan Patrick said on his radio show this morning that Singletary sounded like Samuel L. Jackson in "Pulp Fiction" (remember the Ezekiel speech?) after the 49ers lost to the Seattle Seahawks, 34-13, adding "I don't think Singletary was trying to sound tough. I think he simply is tough."
Said Singletary: "... It will change and it will change ... because they want to be champions. ... Our formula is this: We go out and hit people in the mouth, No. 1. No. 2, we are not a charity. We cannot give them the game. That's No. 2. And No. 3 is we execute, from the very start of the game to the very end of the game. That did not happen ..."
There's an old James Brown song,"Talkin' Loud And Sayin' Nothin" -- and I think, after yesterday's rant, we can safely say that ditty does NOT describe the new 49ers head coach.
Meanwhile, back in Seattle, the ax fell this afternoon for UW coach Ty Willingham. Molly Yanity of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports Willingham and athletic director Scott Woodward made the announcement at a news conference Monday.
Willingham has been under fire for being unable to turn around the Washington program.
Woodward has said he did not want to change coaches during the middle of the season. But he said Monday's announcement ends speculation of what is going to happen with Willingham and lets the team focus on the final five games.
The World Series could come to an end in Philadelphia tonight, but that isn't even the talk of the town and it's not the Eagles,either. As Ed Moran of the Philadelphia Daily News explains...maybe it’s because the World Series is in town, but so far there hasn't been the familiar outcry about the "typical" Philadelphia fans that usually erupts after one of those all too-"typical" Philadelphia sports scenes that become legend and get listed right under "throw snowballs at Santa Claus." In this case it was a flaming smoke bomb thrown onto the ice after a contested goal in overtime in Saturday's 3-2 Flyers win over New Jersey in the Wachovia Center. But can the noise be far behind?
It was an outrageous and dangerous act that covered the ice surface with smoke, chased the Devils' coaching staff from the bench and left the city with another fan-based black eye.
"We were not happy," Comcast-Spectacor president Peter Luukko said yesterday. "That was as good a hockey game as can be played and it didn't need that. After all the talk last year about how tough our fans are to play in front of, we went to Washington in the playoffs and someone throws a beer bottle that hits Jeff Carter and in Montreal someone threw a beer into the penalty box that hit Mike Richards and nothing like that happened here. We were angry last night."
So angry, in fact, that the Flyers are conducting an investigation; there is video from security cameras showing two suspects running from the building.
The description being released is of two males about 6 feet tall. One is described as an African-American wearing a white Flyers jersey and a white male also wearing a Flyers jersey, with his face painted.
"We are working diligently to catch the culprit and hope to prosecute the person," Luukko said. "If we find that the person is a season ticketholder, we will permanently cancel their tickets."
As for the National League champion Phillies, the grizzled veteran columnist Bill Conlon opines...Joe Blanton wasn't supposed to be pitching last night. Not according to the army of bloggers, e-mailers and fantasy-team managers who trampled each other deserting Jamie Moyer's corner. Many exhorted me to demand that Pat Gillick, Charlie Manuel, Rich Dubee and all the Phillies' powers-that-be make sure that Moyer was denied his World Series turn in the wake of a brief and ineffective outing in Game 3 of the NLCS in Dodger Stadium.
Give the ball to Joe Blanton in Game 3, for God sakes. Don't send that old man out there again. Please.
Nor was Pat Burrell supposed to be playing left with his ponderous gait. The Bat had to be the DH against the Tampa Bay Rays' Game 1 starter Scott Kazmir. Against the Rays' righties, Ryan Howard had to wear the DH mantle with Greg Dobbs playing first base.
And remember the success Manuel had with the flip-flop of Jayson Werth to No. 6 and Shane Victorino to No. 2 in Game 2 of the Division Series wipeout of CC Sabathia and the Brewers? Shane set the Money Pit ablaze with an epic grand slam. Well, time for the old fliperoo once again, right, Chuck, with the engine room flooded and the Phillies taking more strikes than an Akron bowling alley and abandoning more guys in scoring position than a payday raid on a mining town brothel.
And while you're at it, Cholly, let's stick Burrell in between Utley and Howard to split that inviting left-left arrangement Rays manager Joe Maddon seemed to exploit by using rookie lefthander David Price for an extended Game 2 save. Yep, Manuel said, he had given that some thought when he looked out there and the gifted No. 1 pick in the 2007 draft was going through his lineup a second time.
Just don't expect to see your Honorary Managers Diplomas in the mail anytime soon. You all flunked Double Switch 101, Lineup Chemistry 202 and Hunch-Playing 303.
Jamie Moyer hauled his 45-year-old bones from the cocoon of a 90-minute rain delay and made the latest-ending World Series game in history one of the most memorable. He was amazing, mesmerizing, magicianly, baffling and masterful. The Phillies won an amazingly tense, flawed and quintessentially entertaining Game 3 with a ninth inning that called for a redefining of the word "bizarre."
Joe Blanton pitched on his Game 4 night and authored personal and World Series history. Haystack Joe is reputedly a "contact pitcher." In a 10-2 destruction of the Rays that moved the Phillies into the wind shadow of their second World Series title, Blanton fired seven strikeouts in six-plus electric innings.
But that's not all . . . With two outs in the fifth, Joe put a righthanded version of the Matt Stairs buggywhip stroke on an Edwin Jackson heater and sent a screaming tracer into the leftfield seats. Blanton dragged some impressive records with him running out the first World Series homer by a pitcher since Kenny Holtzman hit one for Oakland in 1974.
Oh, yeah . . . Charlie has played Burrell in left and Howard at first throughout. And when Werth smoked a double and then two-run homer last night, he was batting No. 2 because that's the way Charlie Manuel had it set up, in the thinking he has done since this incredible postseason began. And, once more, Utley and Howard hit back-to-back and the Big Man inside-outed a three-run homer to left and a monster shot, two-run exclamation point, to right off lefthander Trever Miller in the eighth.
A Cleveland writer asked Manuel before the Phillies went 10-3 in the postseason if he is a different manager than he was when leading an Indians team loaded with All-Stars. And has he improved as a manager?
"The same old Charlie," he said. "I'm the same manager I was when I managed in Triple A or Double A, or A ball. I'm the same manager. Just when you win you're better [laughter], and that comes from having better players."
Now, don`cha hate it when you have to explain your jokes? It's never funny afterwards, and yet this column is jam-packed on an everyday basis with allusions and pop culture references. Therefore, I was trying to make a funny when I suggested last Friday that Marlo Thomas would have made a better VP pick than Sarah Palin.
The column was called, I Don't Want THAT Girl. Again from wikipedia...That Girl is an American television situation comedy that ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971. It starred Marlo Thomas as the title character, Ann Marie, an aspiring (but only sporadically employed) actress, who had moved from her hometown of Brewster, New York to make it big in New York City. Ann had to take a number of offbeat "temp" jobs to support herself in between her various auditions and bit parts, though she nonetheless was able to afford a spacious Manhattan apartment as well as an extensive wardrobe of mod fashions.
So, I was imagining the next SNL skit for Tina Fey and thought of a parody of the show's beginning, where some talent scout would see her in a crowd and explain, "I want that girl!"
Still, I'd argue that Marlo Thomas would STILL be a better candidate than Palin as evidenced by her exhaustive charity work. One more time from the wiki-folks...
Lastly, I think we can all agree that Patti LaBelle still has some pipes. She sang a stirring,stunning version of the National Anthem before Game 4 of the World Series Sunday night.
It's one thing to interpret the National Anthem by injecting new beats and notes -- it's a pregame tradition that has rewarded such superstars as Jimi Hendrix, Marvin ####e and Whitney Houston with career highlights. But LaBelle took it to the next level with editorial enhancements to the words written by Francis Scott Key.
"Did she just say 'the skylights' last gleaming'?" I said to Mrs. TV Barn as I reached for the remote. Yes, upon further review, it turns out she did sing that very lyric. And "the perilous flight." And "from the clouds we watched" (WTD?). All lyrics, no doubt, that were meant to be overlooked in the course of her soaring unaccompanied vocals, which were, I will admit, impressive.
And after all, everyone can relate to a gleaming skylight and taking a perilous flight and looking down from the clouds, so you can't say Ms. LaBelle didn't make the lyrics more relevant to our modern sensibilities.
But something tells me she didn't do it on purpose.
I admit, she took great liberties and an awful long time, but I'd gladly take that over hackneyed versions of "God Bless The USA" and "God Bless America" at my ballgames any day.
I mean, can't we simply enjoy our freedoms, start the games and leave the big guy out of it? This land is my land too, you know.
With all the hubbub about former Green Bay Packer QB Brett Favre's allegedly sharing inside information with then-Detroit Lions' GM Matt Millen, you may also have wondered to yourself: If the Lions knew what was coming and still lost by several TD's, then the Detroit football team must be -- to quote the esteemed Homer Simpson, the suckiest team that ever sucked.
1. The latest Brett Favre brouhaha would be a bigger deal from a Detroit perspective if, one, the Lions didn't get their butts kicked by Green Bay and, two, Matt Millen were still the Lions' president.
2. The Lions fell behind by three touchdowns in the first quarter and gave up 447 yards in the game. If Favre helped them prepare, that's just further evidence the Lions stink. And we already knew that.
3. Millen knows Favre from his days as a broadcaster. They have a lot in common as country boys. It would be no surprise if Millen called Favre to invite him over to hunt and then milked him for some football info.
4. Think of the Green Bay perspective, though. Imagine if Steve Yzerman had an ugly divorce with the Red Wings toward the end of his career, went to play for the Islanders and helped a lowly division rival like the Blue Jackets try to beat the Wings.
5. It would do Rod Marinelli no good to comment on the Favre thing if there's any shred of truth to it. If he lies, he's a liar. If he dances around the truth, he's shifty. If he comes clean, he makes everyone looks bad and invites more questions.
Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times checks the pulse of the Wisconsin locals on the subject. (Yeah, I know it's a long way from home, but it's not like he has an actual NFL team in LA to cover.)
On Brett Favre Pass, some folks are wishing he had thrown his last.
"I just wish he had stayed retired," said Ron Enke, manager of Champion's sports bar, located a Hail Mary away from Green Bay's Lambeau Field. "What coming back has done for his image, what it has done for the mood of the town, lots of people wish he had stayed retired."
Eight months after the face of the NFL tearfully announced his retirement, that face is bruised and blushing.
It is the face of an accused liar. It is the face of an alleged cheater. It is a face lost.
The works of a lifetime, tarnished in less than a football season. An American hero, undone by the American way.
That's the thing about freedom. It gives us the right to choose wrong.
The score is now final, and it's not even close.
Brett Favre, New York Jets quarterback, Green Bay Packers traitor, fast-leaking legend, should have quit when he said he was quitting.
The college football season lingers on here in Madison. but the Wisconsin State Journal's Tom Oates suggests that the UW has now become a hoops school.
It may be for this year only, but, as they do at Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina and other basketball-first schools, UW fans have largely pulled the plug on football and are eagerly anticipating the start of the men's basketball season.
So are the Badgers, though it has nothing to do with football.
"We're just ready for basketball to start," junior guard Jason Bohannon said this week, the first full week of practice for the Badgers. "I don't know about everyone else, but we're ready for it to get going."
Why wouldn't they be?
They've won 30 and 31 games the last two years and last season won the Big Ten regular-season and tournament titles. The comparative lack of success in the NCAA tournament is an underlying issue only the Badgers can make go away, but aside from that, the program put together by coach Bo Ryan is rolling merrily along, methodically retooling every year and generally exceeding expectations.
Ryan admits, however, expectations are growing for a program that has averaged 24.7 wins per year during his seven seasons.
Of course, once upon a time, Wisconsin used to be a hockey school, so it's still a big deal when arch-rival Minnesota comes to town.
Their response to the Wisconsin Badgers on Friday, the way that goaltender Shane Connelly sees it, was that it wasn't yet time for them to get their first victory.
Minnesota rallied from a 2-0 deficit with a pair of goals off redirections in front of the net — the kind of plays that can be considered either highly skilled or highly lucky — and earned a 2-2 tie in front of 13,184 fans at the Kohl Center.
"The hockey gods aren't making it easy for us to get our first win," Connelly said. "At least a positive is a tie, but at the same time, we've got to hold onto these leads. It has to change pretty quickly."
Speaking of gods (or God or whatever), the religion writer for the Washington Post has a perfect explanation as to why the Tampa Bay Rays were able to make their miraculous "worst to first" run to the World Series. And as Dave Barry might say, I'm not making this up.
Devil be gone!
For 10 years, they were a losing baseball team with a fiendish nickname: the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Then the club exorcised the "Devil" from its name, and suddenly Tampa Bay is in the World Series.
The Rays won the pennant less than a year after they put the Devil behind them, and some Tampa pastors would like to think that's the reason why.
Rev. Wayne Newman of Bay Life Assembly of God says the Rays' turnaround may be God's way of saying, "If you get the devil out, you're liable to go somewhere." Rev. Tom Atchison of New Life Pentecostal Church of God says that at the very least, the name change has allowed more Christians to root for the team.
Meanwhile, those Tampa Bay Rays fans (or is it, Tampa Ray Bays fans) are up in Philadelphia for the weekend and the hometown paper, the Inquirer is doing its best to be good hosts.
Just to clarify, we did not boo Santa Claus. We merely pelted him with snowballs. And most of the batteries we heaved at J.D. Drew were rechargeable. So lay off us, mainstream media.
Anyway, you have nothing to fear. As long as you follow these few commonsense guidelines, you should leave here with nothing worse than a fractured clavicle:
Make sure your health insurance premiums are paid up.
Pack heat.
Do not wear Rays gear, assuming there is any Rays gear and, if there were, anyone would wear it.
If you arrive early for Sunday's game, do not, under any circumstances, wander into the Eagles' parking lots. (If you're confused, the Eagles' lots are those where the balloons of nitrous oxide are going for $20 and the tailgaters are grilling Dallas fans.) The last out-of-town baseball fan who made that mistake was cornered, beaten, and forced to watch Eagles Post Game Live.
And since the games aren't scheduled to start until after 8 p.m., you'll have plenty of time to sightsee and partake of some of the city's historic culinary treats, and other items of interest.
Here are a few suggestions from a native:This is where the founding fathers approved the Declaration of Independence, drafted the Constitution, and ordered out from Joe's Peking Duck.
Independence Hall.
Morimoto. If you like sushi - and who among us doesn't enjoy raw fish wrapped in gummy rice and smeared with green paste hot enough for Beelzebub? - this tony restaurant is the place for you.
The fall foliage. Take a walk along beautiful Kelly Drive to see the lovely fall colors before they, like Jimmy Rollins' bat, vanish.
Geno's. The cheesesteaks are good, but the rocket scientist who runs the place asks that customers order in English, as if "Yo, gimme one wid" is the Queen's English.
Any Quaker meetinghouse. Take in a service on Sunday and you'll be amazed. Worshippers just sit there and meditate. They don't talk. They don't move. Sounds a lot like B.J. Upton, doesn't it?
You'll find out pretty quickly that, compared with Florida, Philadelphia is an unusual town.
People who live here actually were born here. There are no beaches, no early-bird specials and, thankfully, no Cuban sandwiches. (For Philadelphians unfamiliar with Cuban sandwiches, think stale Oscar Mayer Lunchables.)
So enjoy yourselves. Before you know it, that Mini Cooper will be here to take you back to Tampa-St. Pete.
Yes, this column has been rather Sarah Palin-centric of late. You might even say it's bordered on the Palin-oxious.
The Blues invited Palin to drop a ceremonial puck Friday, and before the game, arena workers laid out a roll of carpet in front of the team's bench. But before Palin came out, the Blues players took the ice and Legace was the first player on.
"I was going to ask (the arena worker) to move (the carpet), but he had his foot there, so I figured he was trying to secure it," Legace said. "He's yelling at us, 'Careful, the carpet ... Careful, the carpet.'
"I'm like I can't jump over it. It's too far and my little legs won't jump that far. I just figured he's holding it and the other end is usually secure, so I'm just worried about it sliding (one) way. As soon as I went down, he lifted his foot off the carpet ... I knew I was coming down and I just couldn't catch myself.
"It's not that serious ... we'll just see what happens tomorrow."
Legace is questionable for tonight's game against Florida at Scottrade Center, and if he can't play, Bishop would likely start and Marek Schwarz would be the backup.
As with Tina Fey, Palin is the gift that just keeps on giving.
Still, I haven't been this viscerally angry about somebody on my TV set since Barry Bonds slinked away from Major League Baseball. And he was simply ruining the National Pasttime. (I know, I just said that but please forgive me.)
This woman could bleep up a one-car funeral. Forget Canada. if she's President, we might need to look for a new planet.
I mean, we just went through eight years with an intellectually discurious person in the White House and we allllll know how well that worked out, eh?
And yet, if you asked Gov. Palin if she was intellectually inclined, she'd likely answer, "you betcha."
"And you have to be up on not only current events, but you have to understand the foundation of the issues that you're working on," Palin said in an interview with People magazine. "You can't just go on what is presented you."
Although Palin didn't name a single newspaper or magazine when CBS News anchor Katie Couric asked where she got her information, the Alaska governor told People that she has always been a "voracious reader" and named reading — anything from biographies to historical works — as her favorite thing along with her children and sports.
Besides author Lawrence Wright's terrorism history, "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11," Palin said she's reading a lot of briefing papers.
"I appreciate a lot of information. I think that comes from growing up in a family of school teachers," she said.
Palin said if she and husband Todd had had a sixth child, they had already picked a name for a boy joining siblings Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and Trig.
"I always wanted a son named Zamboni," she said.
Finally, director Ron Howard would also like to talk to you about this election. And so would Andy Griffith and Henry Winkler.
At my age, it takes an awful lot to shock me, but something I heard on Mike and Mike In The Morning (yes, THAT show again) shook me to the core. Frequent visitor (and arguably the best football analyst on TV today) Mark "Stink" Schlereth, when asked how many knee surgeries he'd had, matter-of-factly replied, "twenty."
TWENTY?! Yes, of the 29 procedures...wait a minute, TWENTY-NINE times under the knife?! Well, if that doesn't tell you something about the price people pay to play professional football, then WTF does?
Something else Schlereth said rang true to the bone, too. I'm paraphrasing here, but he added something to the effect of "when it's you on the operating table, there's no such thing as minor surgery."
Don't I know it? This year, I was struck by a hit-and-run driver -- on my bike, no less -- and literally broke my face. It required three plates to reattach the pieces together and I'm still rather antsy whenever anything gets remotely near my head.
So, when I read that Arizona Cardinals' WR Anquan Boldin was going to return to the football field -- just weeks after surgery for his own fractured face -- I just about #### the morning coffee out of my rebuilt nose.
Football? You're gonna play FOOTBALL?! Are you freakin INSANE?!
Yet, in a conference call with Arizona reporters on Wednesday, Carolina Panthers QB Jake Delhomme said, I would be 100 percent shocked if I don't see Anquan Boldin on the field Sunday."
As the Arizona Republic's Kent Somers reports, Boldin suffered facial injuries and a concussion from a severe hit against the Jets on Sept. 28. He underwent surgery on Oct. 2 to fix the damage and cleared a concussion test last week.
On Tuesday, he had wires removed from his mouth and he's eager to sink his teeth into a steak from Ruth's Chris Steak House. He can't eat it yet because he has some numbness in his mouth.
Boldin went through a portion of practice Wednesday and went out of his way to head butt a couple of teammates, including fellow receiver Steve Breaston. "He asked me what I was doing," Boldin said. "I just said I was trying to get a feel for it."
Now, of course, I'm not a football player, but the thought of Boldin playing this Sunday makes my own head hurt all over again.
Still, Mike Tulumello, of the East Valley Tribune adds that Boldin practiced on Wednesday, then said, “I’m going to take it one day at a time.
“Hopefully, everything plays out to my liking. … Everything felt good. I kind of head-butted some guys to see how it feels. I didn’t feel any pressure from it.”
Boldin knows he could get hit in the same place after he takes the field.
“My feeling is, if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. I can’t go the whole game worrying about it. … Then you haven’t played to your full potential.”
In making the decision on whether to play, in concert with the Cardinals’ medical staff and coaches, “You have to listen to your body,” Boldin said. “That’s the best indictor.
“The body lets you know if you can go. It also lets you know if you can’t.”
Boldin said wires were removed from his mouth Tuesday, but metal plates that were implanted are to stay in permanently.
Yeah, I'm walking around with plates in my head too. Yup, me, Anquan and Don Zimmer.
Now, the surgeons assured me that I'd have no trouble walking through airport security, but I haven't tested this theory as yet. Another loyal reader, GS, suggested that I should maybe visit the City-County building here in Madison to see if the plates make the machine go WHOOP, WHOOP, WHOOP, WHOOP...
Surgeries were the topic of discussion on Mike and Mike In The Morning as many are buzzing about the news that New England QB Tom Brady may need a "do-over" on his own knee surgery.
In fact, Karen Guregian of the Boston Herald reveals that "doctors are so concerned about containing the infection in Tom Brady’s left knee they have performed three procedures in an attempt to eradicate it, according to a source familiar with the quarterback’s travails on the West Coast.
While Brady acknowledged on his Web site that he had one arthroscopic procedure done to “clean and to test the wound” last Wednesday, the Herald has learned there have been two additional procedures performed since that time, with the same goal in mind.
According to the source, the fear is the patellar tendon graft used to replace Brady’s anterior cruciate ligament is in danger of becoming compromised. Should that occur, the entire ACL reconstruction would have to be removed and redone from scratch.
All of which would push back the possible timetable for his return to the Patriots' lineup.
Meanwhile, that's not the only problem in the NFL this morning. Accoring to John Harris of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Ray Anderson, NFL executive vice president for football operations, says the league is investigating a bounty made against Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward by Baltimore Ravens linebacker/defensive end Terrell Suggs, who appeared on the "2 Live Stews" show on Sporting News Radio.
"We certainly are looking into it," Anderson said. "That bounty notion is completely against the rules. We will look into it aggressively."
Of course, Suggs reversed field Wednesday and told Baltimore reporters that there's no bounty on Ward. Don't you just love these people who say stupid things and then claim to be misquoted?
Uh, dude, you were RECORDED SAYING IT!
In the same interview, Suggs also added that a similar bounty had been placed on rookie running back Rashard Mendenhall and it was widely reported that Ravens' LB Ray Lewis danced over the stricken body of Mendenhall, exclaimed, "HE"S DONE."
Still, the thuggish Lewis also tried to feign some remorse. When asked on Dan Patrick's radio show, if he feels sympathy for opposing players he's injured on the field, "Yeah, I do. Sympathy goes a long way," Lewis said. "Most of the time, as soon as I see somebody seriously hurt, I go into prayer. I don't stop until that person starts to move.
"The last thing you want is to ever injure somebody where there limping the rest of their eyes. ... Nobody should go out there to hurt anybody. If you do, you're in the wrong sport. You may as well go into UFC."
Yes, sirree...never a dull moment while covering the Baltimore Ravens.
Game 1 of the World Series has come and gone. So, what did we learn last night?Let MLB.com's Mark Newman count the ways.
1. The Phillies are in this event, too. Many Americans have adopted the Rays. There is no denying it. New York is particularly teeming with Tampa Bay backers right now, and the frenzy has spread in a country that loves a great underdog story. But the Phillies won Game 1, 3-2.
2. It is cool to shave all the hair on your head except for a thick racing stripe down the middle, which you spray-paint blue. Rayhawks are everywhere here, and you see them on the strangest of pates. If you have a shiny pate, then a blue boa affixed to the noggin' makes for a nice Rayhawk just the same.
3. It is not cool to get out of the way when the opposing team's first baseman is lunging into the crowd to catch a foul ball. Score it E-fans, in Game 1 at Tropicana Field. This isn't the first time that poor foul-ball-catching etiquette was displayed in a postseason game, of course (hint: Wrigley Field). Jimmy Rollins was talking about how they cleared room for Ryan Howard in that situation, and he was asked what would happen if Carlos Pena tried to make a foul catch just like that back in Philadelphia: "Would he come out alive? Yeah," Rollins said. "Bruised? Maybe."
4. Be careful what you ask for when you put the shift on for Chase Utley. During the same at-bat in which he tried to bunt for a hit down the unoccupied space at third base, Utley turned on an inside 92-mph fastball from Scott Kazmir and blasted it for a two-run homer in the first inning to set the tone.
"He's different than most left-handed hitters," Kazmir said. "I would say more of a long swing, they don't really know how to get to an inside fastball too well to a lefty. But him, you can just tell he loves to keep his hands in and he likes that short and quick swing. But I knew just from watching video and games here and there he likes a pitch in. He just gets his hands through the zone."
Said Utley: "I guess it turned out pretty well. The third baseman was playing shortstop, I figured with a guy on first and one out, I'd try to create something at that point. It was foul, but it ended up to turn out pretty good for us."
5. The NL can play with the AL.
6. Cole Hamels is starting to remind you of a young Bret Saberhagen in the 1985 postseason for Kansas City and a young Josh Beckett in the 2003 postseason for Florida. You are wondering if soon you will be seeing postgame notes comparing his 2008 postseason to people like those, listing birthdates and such. He seems unbeatable this month.
7. The running game is alive and well in this series, even though both teams come in with reputations for massive power displays. "There will be running this series," Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz said.
"For us 0-1, it's like being down 0-1 in the count if you're the batter," Rays reliever J.P. Howell said. "You're not too worried, but at the same time you saw what they have. You've got to prepare and adjust. They're very aggressive on the basepaths. That's something I didn't know about them. And those guys, they battle, it's a different league. Their approaches are just different. It's a feel thing."
8. The in-game music is different here, seemingly younger than many places. Early in the game, it had a club feel. You can tell it's a young team, just by the vibe that permeates into the crowd. There was rapper Too Short, country singer Trace Atkins, an industrial band called Ministry, Aussie band Midnight Oil rings out when Aussie reliever Grant Balfour enters the game, there was the national anthem from the Backstreet Boys -- the only thing missing was New Kids On The Block. By the way, NKOTB drew the largest crowd in the stadium's history. It's not your grandfather's ballpark.
9. Both U.S. presidential candidates know exactly how important baseball is to everyone.
10. You really can win a World Series opener after a long layoff.
11. But don't count on winning often when you are 0-for-13 with runners in scoring position.
12. Tropicana Field is a fun place to watch the Fall Classic. In the fifth inning, they were having a great time inside the Centerfield Brewhouse, while down the concourse a boy was wailing on baseballs in the Extreme Zone Batting Cage -- a junkyard motif with a clunker car bearing a sign that reads: "RUNS GOOD".
13. Looking ahead is OK as long as you aren't a player. Even though you don't know which of these teams is going to win the World Series, you already can order that team's clubhouse championship gear.
15. Brad Lidge can do pretty much whatever he wants right now. He remains perfect in save situations in 2008. This time it was thanks to his tight slider. In Game 2? "They're gonna go home and watch video, and tomorrow I might face them again, and they might be on my slider better," he said. "So you have to make adjustments. It's mostly the situation of the game that dictates what's going on. I haven't seen 'em, they haven't seen me. Tonight it's sliders, tomorrow it's fastballs if it requires fastballs."
Finally, I have some terrible news to share with you all. Shocking, ugly, evil, DISGUSTING news that will shake you deeply.
The esteemed Mr. Easterbrook has his own loyal readers and one of them, Nicole Zavradinos, was among many to report that WMNV-FM in St. Louis has already switched to an all-Christmas-music format. She heard "Little Drummer Boy" on the radio while driving to work. ARRGHH!
Yet another reader, Ryan Lindhurst of Mount Clemens, Mich., reports, "You might have noticed at your local grocery stores that Pepsi has begun selling Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash. It is advertised as a 'holiday drink' and for the last two years has been available from late October until New Year's. This year it hit the shelves shortly after Labor Day." Click Cranberry Splash on the Sierra Mist home pageand you will be offered Christmas wallpaper plus Christmas songs containing the word "cranberry."
After reading Easterbrook's column, I saw a display of Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash and shuddered visibly. And yes, it's been siting there since freakin Labor Day at Apollo Liquor too.
Still, Xmas music before Halloween is just plain wrong. Having given up on the holiday several years ago, I can't stand Xmas music EVER!!
The problem is that in our secular America -- and I'm a secular American, so I'm not knocking that -- you can't play the baby Jesus songs, so it means suffering through an entire month of those blankety-blank chestnuts and rocking around that #### Xmas tree. Now, you're telling me that a radio station in St. Louis is playing this #### in October?!
Look, my friends, THIS and not Bill Ayers or Rev. Wright or Sarah Palin's clothes budget or any number of silly meaningless so-called issues..THIS is what we should asking our candidates about.
"Senator Obama, if elected, would you consider a FCC ban on radio stations playing Xmas music before December?"
Only 12 more days before the election...and only 62 more to stock up on the Cranberry Splash!
As you probably know by now, this election isn't about you or me, It's allllllll about Joe The Plumber and maybe all the other Joes out there.
Look, my friends, I'm having this Joe problem this morning. After John McCain said "Joe The Plumber" enough times during last night's debate, Barack Obama felt obligated to speak personally through the TV screen to Joe as well.
It got so bad -- 21 times for McCain and 4 more for Obama -- that I started hearing that dreadful Falco tune, Rock Me Amadeus in the back of my harried brain.
Joe the plumber, Joe the plumber
Joe the plumber
Joe the plumber, Joe the plumber
Joe the plumber
Joe the plumber, Joe the plumber
Joe, Joe, Joe the plumber
C'mon, everybody, you all know the words.
Look, in a way, I feel for poor Joe -- although, McCain did congratulate you for being rich last night. One day, you're asking a candidate, whatcha gonna do for me, and the next day, you're telling the Huffington Post how surreal it all is.
Still, all this Joe-centric coverage is making my head hurt. All of the morning talk shows including -- what else -- MSNBC's Morning Joe, had Joe on their minds. I was half expecting the Weather Channel is predict Joe flurries on the Eastern seaboard.
Joe the plumber, Joe the plumber
Joe the plumber
Joe the plumber, Joe the plumber
Joe the plumber
Joe the plumber, Joe the plumber
Joe, Joe, Joe the plumber
Now, I know all about Fat Joe, Trader Joe, GI Joe, Shoeless Joe, Joltin' Joe, Smokin' Joe, Joe Willie and Joe Louis...I'm even wondering if I saw Joe Hill last night.
The only Joe that matters in sports these days is Joe Pa, the venerable Penn State coach. Still, if you think Penn State is looking past hapless Michigan -- especially after the way the Nittany Lions spanked Wisconsin last Saturday -- my friends, you'd be wrong.
"Some people are waiting for the other shoe to fall, and it usually happens against Michigan," said Penn State fan and Pancakes lineman Ben Lerman, a junior biology student from Rochester, Minn. "We just can't beat them for some reason."
Penn State football historian Lou Prato, who has chronicled every Nittany Lions victory (three) and loss (10) against Michigan since their series began in 1993, offered this: "Curse of the Wolverines."
Michigan has won nine straight against the Nittany Lions, including the past four games at Beaver Stadium. Of the six games played at Penn State, the Nittany Lions have come out on top once -- on Nov. 18, 1995, when Penn State defeated U-M, 27-17.
The game was played three days after a snowstorm dumped 18 inches of snow in Happy Valley, nearly paralyzing the area.
"Cold, windy, freezing," Prato recalled. "They got volunteers and prisoners and paid people five bucks to clear the snow from the field."
Better conditions await Saturday: The forecast at kickoff calls for partly cloudy skies, with the temperature in the mid-to-upper 50s.
Despite Michigan's dominance, the games between the schools have been astonishingly close: Eight of 13 have been decided in the fourth quarter or overtime, and defined by one series or play.
Prato recalled the 1993 game, the year Penn State joined the Big Ten:
"The first time we played Michigan ever: It was down here, and people here remember how our fans started getting real loud in the first 5 minutes of the game, and the officials were going to penalize us. Back then, you couldn't holler; it was ridiculous. We needed to be quiet? We called that the Michigan Rule."
In that game, Penn State saw its 10-0 lead disintegrate as the Wolverines took a 14-10 advantage after Derrick Alexander returned a punt 48 yards for a touchdown. Late in the third quarter, and into the fourth, the Nittany Lions had first-and-goal at the Michigan 1 but failed to score on four rushing attempts. The Wolverines won, 21-13.
The past four games between the schools have been decided by 4.25 points on average. A particularly heartbreaking loss for Penn State occurred in 2005 in Ann Arbor.
The Nittany Lions led, 25-21, with less than a minute left when Steve Breaston returned a kickoff to the U-M 47. The Wolverines quickly moved the ball downfield, advancing to the Penn State 10. On fourth down, and with no time left on the clock, Mario Manningham scored on a 10-yard pass from Chad Henne for the 27-25 victory.
It was the Nittany Lions' first -- and only -- loss of the season. They went on to win their last four regular-season games, grab a share of the Big Ten title and defeated Florida State in the Orange Bowl. Their record: 11-1.
"Magic seasons can go up in a wisp of smoke," said Prato, 71, who was news director at Channel 4 in Detroit in the mid-1970s. "And our last two magic seasons went up in a wisp of smoke based on Michigan games. One or two plays can change the game.
I'm a fan of Rays, as a rule. I like Ray Romano and Ray Lewis and Ray Bradbury and Ray Nitschke and Rachael Ray. I once drove a Sting Ray and went to a fight to see Sugar Ray. I dug that "Ray" movie with Jamie Foxx.
As ballclubs go, though, the Rays represent everything a Cubs fan can't stand:
• A team that is 10 years old. Ron Santo owns hairpieces that are more than 10 years old. Wrigley Field has rats that are more than 10 years old.
• A team that in 2007 had an average attendance of 17,148 a night. Wrigley could draw 18,000 for a pie-eating contest.
• A team with a payroll below $48 million. My friends, the Cubs spent that much on a Japanese pinch-hitter.
• A team that has won 742 games. While the Cubs have won 10,082.
How many MVPs have the Rays had? None. Batting champs? None. Cy Young Award winners? None. No-hitters? None.
How many uniform numbers have the Rays retired? Two.
One belonged to Wade Boggs, who played there when he was 40 and 41 after playing for other teams from age 24.
The other is Jackie Robinson. A great man, but the most colorful memory of his time in Florida was not being permitted to use a restroom.
Not everybody loves the Cubs the way everybody loved Raymond, but almost nobody loves the Rays.
The improbable Dodgers were impossibly wobbly, impossibly clumsy, impossibly booed.
Exactly 20 years later, something else sailed out over the right-field fence to a chorus of shrieks and stares.
It was the Dodgers' season, knocked into next year by the Philadelphia Phillies, who did everything the Dodgers couldn't.
Like, you know, pitch and catch.
As the Phillies hugged and danced and partied long into the night, Ethier was one of the few Dodgers to return to the field and wave to the fans, but you can't blame the ones who didn't.
They were probably worried for their safety in front of a crowd that spent the long evening lashing out like jilted lovers.
Dodgers fans booed in a way they've rarely booed before, from the leadoff homer by the Phillies' Jimmy Rollins to the final stranded runner by Nomar Garciaparra.
They booed sadly horrible Chad Billingsley, who couldn't survive three innings for the second time in a week, couldn't consistently throw inside again, his two worst performances in his two biggest games, and who knows when he'll recover?
"I tried to do everything I could," he said softly.
They booed the painfully awful Rafael Furcal, who tried to play with a sore neck and paid for it with three errors in one inning that led to two runs that finished them.
"To have this happen on the last game of the year, that is tough," he said, also softly.
They booed the just plain lousy Blake DeWitt, who hit into two double plays and ended the series hitting .077 before he was replaced by Jeff Kent.
Who stranded three runners by striking out twice.
It was like that.
In fact, the only Dodger who didn't get booed last night was a Joe, as in Torre.
Chanting for Sage Rose-and-the-ball-fell, who single-handedly gave away a sure Texans victory the last time he was on the field, is akin to saying, “Thank You, sir. May I have another?”
Is there something about the torture that y’all alike?
Have you married the wrong spouse more than once? Do you regularly take a second helping of spoiled milk? How many times did your mama have to tell you not to touch that hot stove before you stopped touching that hot stove?
For a city regarded as soft on sports figures, Houston has been rough on quar-terbacks. Dan Pastorini came in with flair and was quickly cooled down. Warren Moon arrived with fanfare and was almost driven out of town.
It was taken to a new level when David Carr hit town with high expectations and a huge salary, then departed as the most disrespected figure in Houston sports history.
Pastorini and Moon eventually earned fan love before leaving, though much of Pastorini’s came after he left. Carr was released, and fans almost threw a parade. Schaub doesn’t throw balls as pretty as those Moon released. He doesn’t have the wild style of Pastorini. He’s probably not the angel most of you thought Carr was.
Outwardly, he is not a cool customer like The Snake, and he doesn’t bring the sweet milkshake breath to the huddle that Giff Nielsen did. With Gary Kubiak holding tightly to the reins, he certainly isn’t the gunslinger Jim Kelly was, and he is unlikely to be the quality soccer executive Oliver Luck has become.
Schaub is just the latest Houston pro quarterback on the hot seat. We’ve roasted almost all the others.
In the end, Schaub might be one of the few we should have liked from the start.
But like all the others save for George Blanda — the first on the block, and a champion to boot — he’ll have to work his way up from below the bottom.
Quarterbacks and Houston just don’t mix well.
There are a million Joe stories in the heart of New York City. But Newsday's Shaun Powell would rather discuss a Stephon.
Remember Johnnie Taylor's Cheaper To Keep Her? Powell has much the same sentiments about the New York Knicks and Stephon Marbury.
Marbury has a year left, a year that will not exactly break the Knicks. They're not going anywhere special. They're not bracing for a championship journey. There's no precious and delicate "chemistry" at risk here. If anything, this is a year to throw away, a year that'll serve as a free pass for Walsh and coach Mike D'Antoni, no matter how many games they lose.
Knicks fans know better than to invest emotionally in this season. They're saving their deposit for 2010 and beyond, and if a trade of Marbury were to either postpone or ruin plans for the future, there would be hell to pay. So keep him.
They won't buy him out. Would you write someone a check for $21 million to do nothing? In this economy? No, they should keep him primarily because this is the year to keep someone like Marbury. He's in his walk year. It's in his best interest to play hard when his number is called and shut up when it isn't.
Marbury wants another contract and another chance with another team next season, and while he's been accused of being a weirdo over the last 18 months, he ain't crazy. He knows this season, basically, will be spent auditioning for his next paycheck.
Keep him, and if he does feel compelled to go nuts, the Knicks can suspend him without pay, citing insubordination. That's a win-win for the club, the best scenario possible.
Look, my friends, is this the kind of change we need?TV Guide's Matt Matovich asks the question after Obama's plan to broadcast a 30 minute program on prime time in the week before the election.
A Fox spokesperson confirms for TVGuide.com that the network will push back the start of its World Series Game 6 coverage (if needed) by some 15 minutes, to make room for the half-hour of airtime recently purchased by White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama.
Last week, Obama purchased 30 minutes of prime time from Fox, CBS and NBC, to deliver a final message to voters on Wednesday, Oct. 29 (starting at 8 pm/ET). Major League Baseball and Fox were to start Game 6 at 8:20, but agreed to hold the ball for a few and accommodate the program (for which Fox is fetching some $1 million in ad revenue).
"We are pleased that Major League Baseball has agreed to delay the first pitch of World Series Game 6 for a few minutes in order for Fox to carry [Obama's] program," Fox Sports says in a statement. "If requested, the network would be willing to make similar time available to Senator McCain's campaign."
Of the Big 3's 8 o'clock programs, only ABC's Pushing Daisies remains unaffected by the half-hour delay. CBS is shuttling Old Christine to 8:30 (bumping Gary Unmarried), while NBC's plans for that gap (where the back end of Knight Rider usually airs) have yet to be announced.
So, hello Joe, whadya know? I'm learning about Joes I didn't even know existed after this All Joe All The Time cable coverage. Apparently, there's a Joe who sings and is a seven-time Grammy nominee -- not that I've ever heard of him.
Okay, Okay, it's all MY fault...for being so clever as to call the Bucks' rookie Joltin' Joe Alexander yesterday.
Look, my friends, it won't happen again. Now, sing along with me.
John Kruk isn't a baseball analyst, he just plays one on TV.
Look, John Kruk the player was a joy to behold, for fan and sportswriter alike. Not blessed with the most athletic physique, the Krukster got the absolute most out of his talents and nearly everybody he played with at every single level lists him among their most favorite teammates.
And he was a quote machine. In an age when ballplayers were growing more and more angry and downright belligerant, John Kruk would always give you a couple minutes of his time
And he was funny. As a Philadelphia Phillie, Kruk once observed, ‘It’s easy to be a sportswriter. All you have to do is put on 40 pounds and wear clothes that don’t match.’
Of course, recently in Milwaukee, Frank Deford, an actual journalist, countered, “Now that Mr. Kruk is a journalist after a fashion on ESPN, he proves that point every time he’s on the air.”
Yes, I loved John Kruk as a player and fountain of frothy glorious quotes. But John Kruk, the so-called journalist is an intellectual train wreck. His sentence construction is made up of popsicle sticks.
The column by Slate's Ben Mathis-Lilley asks why the thinking man's game -- baseball -- is being explained on television by the worst analysts? It would be bad enough if Kruk were the exception and not the rule, but why are we being subjected to absolutely terrible analysis during baseball's post-season.
And it's not as if ESPN doesn't have some top rate baseball analysts. Baseball Tonight employs several experts with actual expertise: Hall of Fame writer Peter Gammons, lovably excitable reporter Tim Kurkjian, and ESPN.com regulars Buster Olney and Jayson Stark are all knowledgable with the capacity to share their expertise. Still, they're drowned out by a veritable plethora of eminantly awful space-fillers.
Mathis-Lilley cites a recent edition of Baseball Tonight, where Eric Young's scouting report on C.C. Sabathia consisted of "He can dominate with the inside fastball as well as the outside fastball," all said over video of Sabathia throwing a curveball.
Do you want cheese with that?Slate.com also noticed that the Milwaukee Brewers might have been the fattest team in recent memory.
Justin Peters claims that Milwaukee's 40-man roster features 12 players who weigh 220 pounds or more, including the (allegedly) 270-pound Prince Fielder, the 290-pound Sabathia, and Seth McClung, who ballooned to 475 pounds when he ate then-manager Ned Yost on Sept. 15. (The Brewers claim Yost was fired, but then how do you explain the ketchup stains on McClung's jersey?)
Catch some Rays? Maybe not. Those plucky Tampa Bay Rays stand a couple games away from sending Red Sox Nation into the winter of their discontent. John Herbert, a longtime Rays' beat writer observes how far the team has come and how much more pleasant it is to cover a winner.
In the bad old days of the last decade, any admission that I was from the Tampa Bay area was met with abject sympathy and even an occasional, "You poor old sod. Won't you ever learn how to play baseball in Tampa?"
I don't have to sweat those trips any longer. Tampa Bay's baseball team has done us very proud. The dream team has gone from worst to first, reminding me of the "incredible" New York Mets of a couple of generations ago.
The Rays have done for Tampa Bay what the local chamber of commerce has been trying to do for years: to give the area some much-needed and consistent front-page publicity all across the nation.
Where did the mojo go? Instead of waxing poetic about our teams, suddenly our teams are getting waxed.
We were kings of the world, universally hated by sports fans across the land. Life was a nonstop sequence of banner hoistings and ring celebrations. We grew arrogant, cocky, entitled.
Now the Patriots are an ordinary team with a no-name quarterback, getting pummeled, 30-10, much to the titillation of a national television audience hungry for New England blood.
And the Red Sox, winners of two of the last four World Series and favorites to repeat in the fall of 2008, find themselves trailing the once-laughable Tampa Bay Rays, two games to one, in the American League Championship Series. The Rays, deemed not ready for prime time playoffs by David Ortiz just a couple of days ago, routed the indomitable Jon Lester, 9-1, at Fenway Park yesterday. Who's the scaredy cat now?
This is not to overreact to the Red Sox' plight. The Sox last year trailed the Indians, 3-1, in the ALCS, then roared back to win the next three and sweep the Rockies in the World Series.
But yesterday's lopsided loss to the Rays stunned a Nation still reeling from the Patriots' Sunday night debacle in San Diego. Suddenly Big Papi is Big Popup. Boy Wonder Jacoby Ellsbury is 0 for his last 20 and has fans begging for Coco Crisp. Josh Beckett, Mr. October of this century, is serving more meatballs than Bertucci's. Jason Varitek looks as though he might calcify in mid-swing. Terry Francona has forfeited his hardball Mensa membership and is hearing words he never heard in the Bible.
Moreover, I would argue that the Red Sox have become the new Yankees -- believing in their own manifest destiny that they cannot fathom any other outcome. As the late great Lowell George once put it, the people you misuse on the way up, you meet up on the way down.
It Ain't The Shoes, it's the funky numbers on the helmet
In yet another example of how TV football analysts are soooooo much better than their baseball counterparts, ESPN"s Jamal Anderson reminded viewers that --- everybody, all together, ON ANY GIVEN MONDAY -- anyone can beat anyone in the NFL. Sure enough, the previously hapless Browns dominated the previously unbeaten New York Giants on Monday Night Football.
In fact, in the Department of Cliches portion of our show, the New York Daily News' headline reads, Giants show it's any given Monday in NFL.
Still, I don't believe it had anything to do with any of that. It was the funky ole school numbers on the helmets. One look at that and the G-Men were toast!
Finally, Ringo Starr is mad as hell and he's not gonna take it any more. The good-natured drummer, who also enjoyed a brief acting career after star turns in Beatles' films "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!," guest starred on a 1991 episode of "The Simpsons" in which he is shown scrupulously answering every piece of fan mail that comes his way.
"They took the time to write to me, and I don't care if it takes 20 years, I'm going to answer every one of them," Starr says on the show.
In his mail, he finds a package from Marge Simpson that contains a portrait she painted of him back in the Beatles heyday. He puts it on his wall and writes back to tell her — a few decades late — how much he likes her painting.
Well, not any more, man. The former Beatle has told the BBC that will no longer sign memorabilia for fans and will throw away all fan mail he receives in the future.
"Please do not send fan mail to any address you have," he said in a video message on his website.
"Nothing will be signed after the 20th of October. If that is the date on the envelope, it's gonna be tossed.
"I'm warning you with peace and love I have too much to do," the 68-year-old drummer said.
Dressed in black clothes and dark glasses, Starr said it was "a serious message to everybody watching".
He added: "No more fan mail and no objects to be signed. Nothing."
Starr, who released his most recent album Liverpool 8 in January, recently completed a tour of the US and Canada. In April, a foliage sculpture of Starr outside a railway station in Liverpool was beheaded by vandals.
The performer had reportedly angered some locals when he told the BBC's Jonathan Ross he missed nothing about the city.
Letters, we get letters...loyal longtime reader CJ from the Netherlands (HOLLAND?! Yeah, we global, booooeeey!) asks what impact the financial meltdown will have on the sports world. Well, we're seeing it already on a micro and macro level.
Locally, the sad economic news has forced both the Madison Mallards and Green Bay Packers to scale back proposed stadium improvements. (Full disclosure moment: This columnist is employed by the Northwoods League baseball club.)
The Mallards have had put the kibosh on big plans for a brand spanking new park. The original plan would have remodeled the Duck Pond at Warner Park, rotated the baseball field 180 degrees to help block the sun and gave the ballpark a $5.5-million facelift.
Now, the plans have changed, however, and the project has been scaled back to halve the price, WISC-TV reported.
Instead of building new facilities, the plans will now renovate existing buildings.
The city will still authorize $800,000 for new bleachers, but will not provide the $1.2 million for other renovations.
Mallards General Manager Vern Stenman said the ballpark will still get its needed improvements.
"A couple weeks ago, we came to the second option and said, 'Man, we can do a little bit scaled back project and accomplish 90-95 percent of what we were hoping to do and spend less than half the amount of money,'" said Stenman. "It just made a lot of sense."
Meanwhile, improvements to Lambeau Field have also been torpedoed by the economy. The Green Bay Press-Gazette reports that even the Packers are pinching pennies these days.
In light of the uncertain economic landscape, the team decided to put off a $25 million expansion of the Lambeau Field Atrium. The plan calls for a plaza that would wrap around the atrium from the Oneida Nation gate on the east to the Miller Brewing Company gate on the north to allow for better movement for fans. It also called for underground parking for players.
Packers President and Chief Executive Officer Mark Murphy attributed the delay to the weakened economy, as well as the team’s desire to incorporate the idea into longer-term development plans.
“Given the size of the investment, we want to make sure it fits into our long-term master plan,” he said. “It made sense to put it on hold for a while. We don’t want to say in a year or two, ‘if only we’d known’ … so we decided the best thing to do is hold off.”
The Packers recently bought a number of properties west of Ridge Road along Lombardi Avenue with an eye on future development.
Plans for the atrium expansion are drawn, but no supplies or contracts were ordered or signed. It was expected to begin after the football season, and Murphy still expects it will go forward at some point. “It would have solved a lot of problems,” he acknowledged. “It’s a timing issue.”
“We’d like to see the project completed,” said Patrick Webb, executive director of the Green Bay-Brown County Professional Football Stadium District. “We think there are safety issues, both for people going to the game and for the players and parking. We’ve been suggesting it for several years.
“But we understand and support the team’s decision. One has to only look at the current financial situation to understand why the team doesn’t want to liquidate investments at this time for the project.”
Until the economy stabilizes, the Packers will remain cautious, Murphy said.
As Manchester United, possibly the world's most valuable sports franchise and arguably the most famous one worldwide, took to its hallowed pitch, its home red shirts (an appropriate color, as it turns out) were emblazoned across the chests with the logo of American International Group, previously the largest insurance company in the U.S. and now a ward of the state.
At the time of its collapse and public rescue, AIG was just midway through a four-year sponsorship deal with Man U that will pay the club upward of $100 million. Not that U.S. taxpayers' money is really going offshore, mind you, since Man U's owner is Malcolm Glazer, a Rochester-born businessman who also happens to own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Hmm, so does that mean that -- as an American taxpayer -- I now own part of Man U?
And what about all those stadium and arena names that are also up for grabs?
Right now, for example, they're trying to figure out what to do with the name of the 76ers' and Flyers' crib, the Arena Formerly Known As Wachovia Center. Do the naming rights Wachovia purchased go to Wells Fargo, which stepped in to try to take over the failing bank late this week, or to Citigroup, which thought it had a deal earlier in the week and so is contesting the Wells Fargo transaction? The same goes for Wachovia's piece of the Charlotte Bobcats. For now, presumably, nothing has changed. And if you committed to memory every last sentimental moment you witnessed at the last game at Yankee Stadium a couple of weeks back, you might recall a straight-faced sign beyond the outfield that reads in retrospect like some fan's idea of a topical joke written on a bedsheet:
AIG: THE STRENGTH TO BE THERE
That's just stuff in plain sight. Never mind the loans out to leagues, franchises and owners, or the books that aren't opened to the media but might contain records the FBI could stumble upon in its search for evidence of criminal activity in New York's financial district.
Whether the House of Representatives signed off on the bailout of Wall Street (it did, early Friday afternoon), whether the Dow Jones Index stabilizes or crashes right down to the Mendoza line, whether the $1.2 trillion in investors' losses in Monday's trading at the NYSE are recovered in whole or in part or will only be compounded, something will change, almost certainly many things.
It won't be business as usual anywhere, sports included.
There is a glimmer of good news among the bad tidings as Tiger Stadium preservationists raised the needed funds by last Friday's deadline to prevent immediate demolition of the rest of the stadium.
The Detroit Free Press' Zachary Gorchow reports that stadium advocates turned over $69,000 to the city for security and maintenance at the stadium and put $150,000 into an escrow account to defray the costs of delaying demolition.
"It's an exciting day," said Thomas Linn, vice president of the Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy. "It's only a small step, and there's a lot more to do."
There sure is.
Friday's success is merely the first in a long series of deadlines preservationists must meet to prevent the ballpark -- which the Tigers called home from 1912 to 1999 -- from complete demolition.
The Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy promised the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. that by Dec. 1 it would supply conceptual design plans and cost estimates, preliminary 5-year operational and construction budgets, a fund-raising proposal and an economic feasibility evaluation, among other requirements.
If the city approves, then the conservancy will pay an additional $150,000 into an escrow account on Dec. 11.
The current concept for the iconic stadium is to convert the lower deck into a restaurant and bar, banquet facilities, a welcome center for the Corktown neighborhood and an exhibition area for yet-to-be-determined sports memorabilia.
The Detroit City Council was poised to vote Tuesday to authorize the razing of the rest of the stadium if preservationists failed to raise the money. The outfield stands already have been leveled.
Preservationists have until March 1 to raise $15 million for the project itself and would have to begin construction by July 1 with completion of the work in 18 months.
Still, another longtime reader CP in Florida suggests that beer might make the best investment in the long and short term. He writes that if you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you will have $49.00 today.
If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you will have $33.00 today.
If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you will have $0.00 today.
But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for recycling refund, you will have received $214.00 back on your investment.
Based on the above, CP suggests that the best current investment plan is to drink heavily & recycle. He calls his strategy, the 401-Keg.
Speaking of saving, did the Packers save their season with a win in Seattle on Sunday? The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's roundtable of Packers "experts" debates the issue along with providing some post-game quotes. If you asked any Packer in particular, it was HUGE!
"Gear!"
