Archive for August 2nd, 2007
Continue Reading August 2nd, 2007
We’re not gonna make any predictions this time — and we promise, this is the last time we’re gonna end a day with a Bonds post — but Barry Bonds might or might not give this another try tonight.
It has been amusing to watch how different people react to this drawn-out business. Particularly, Bud Selig, who gave a rather ridiculous press conference yesterday in which he claimed following Bonds around was “a Herculean effort” and that people “are stunned that I’m still doing this.” (ESPN’s Bomani Jones has an outstanding deconstruction of Selig’s lunacy.) We think this chase is making Selig lose his mind. We understand where he’s coming from.
Meanwhile, the nation’s sushi makers are having a grand time with this. At least somebody is.
Continue Reading August 2nd, 2007
Whatever your thoughts about the Mets, or little people, or any of it, we have to say, it just seems right — and exciting even — to see Pedro Martinez making his way back. It doesn’t quite feel like baseball is in order without him.
He pitched a simulated game today, and didn’t look too shabby.
Pedro Martinez threw 5 1/3 innings of a simulated game against a combination of players from the St. Lucie Mets and Gulf Coast League Mets Thursday. With Mets general manager Omar Minaya watching, Martinez allowed four hits and two runs, one earned, and struck out three batters with no walks. He hit one batter, but threw 50 of 67 pitches for strikes.
With the Mets trying to hang on for the playoffs, the mental image of Pedro pitching on a freezing October night is a pleasing one. Here’s hoping the Mets play the Dodgers again, and Grady Little tries to pull him, at last.
Martinez Pitches In Simulated Game [TCPalm]
Continue Reading August 2nd, 2007
It’s difficult, in the world of sports book publishing, to garner better advance publicity than John Amaechi had for his book Man In The Middle.
He was all over every ingredient of the ESPN network stew, he was featured on countless talk shows and he even started a little controversy that kept the whole show humming. And for all of this: He sold 9,000 books.
That’s not very many; it’s 1,000 more books than Paula freaking Poundstone sold. We mention this not to rip on Amaechi, who seems like a pleasant enough fellow. We are just amazed that the ESPN marketing machine couldn’t do better. (We’re sure Simmons’ book sold eight or nine times that … at least.) Hopefully Kordell Stewart’s book will do better.
Looking At The Business Of Gay “Celebrity” Books [Towleroad]
Continue Reading August 2nd, 2007
At last, we are seeing the expected fallout from the Michael Vick dogfighting imbroglio: The dogs have had enough of our spot at the top of the food chain and are taking their revenge.
It starts with one dog in Memphis. With that … the revolution begins.
A Memphis, Tenn., man is in critical condition after his dog shot him in the back. Police say King George, a 150-pound Great Dane, accidentally knocked a .22-caliber pistol off his owner’s end table around 2:30 a.m. The gun went off, hitting his 21-year-old owner in the back, MyFOXMemphis.com reports.
“I knew he was smart, I didn’t think he was that smart,” the victim’s fiancee, Miesha Lucas told MyFOXMemphis.com. “He was always protective. I didn’t think he would be like that.”
When you get home tonight, take a look at your dog. Take a good look. Don’t think his lack of opposable thumbs is gonna stop him. Because it’s not.
Dog Shoots Owner In The Back [Fox News]
Continue Reading August 2nd, 2007
Apropos of nothing — we haven’t said that in a while — here’s a Photoshop creation to honor those happy Cleveland Browns fans. Somehow, Brady Quinn is not in this picture, dancing or rocking out to Warrant.
(UPDATE: The great Twoeightnine offers up an alternative version that makes more sense, after the jump.)
Continue Reading August 2nd, 2007
Ah, Pete Rose. Where would we be without him? Just having him around is comforting, soothing. Particularly when you invite him to speak to a U.S. Army Reds Legends Baseball Camp.
Because when Pete Rose talks, everyone listens.
“It was a complete embarrassment,” said Staff Sgt. Steven Tischer, commander of the Colerain-Highland Ridge U.S. Army Recruiting Station that sponsored the baseball camp for 7- to 14-year-olds. “You don’t swear in front of kids, that’s just common sense. He dropped the F-bomb and the S-bomb. He told them winning is everything and if you get second place you’re just losers.”
“His comment that he was (bleeped) off that Marge [Schott] didn’t leave him any money in her will and that she left it all to the zoo. His comment about how Marge loved to smoke and she would have smoked in her sleep if someone was there to hold her cigarette all night. His comment that he saw Joe DiMaggio in the shower and he saw more of him than Marilyn Monroe ever did. His comment on a good friend of his that was a gambler - and how I could go on.”
Pete Rose ranting about Joe DiMaggio in the shower to a baseball camp. We think we might like hire him and just have him follow us around, commenting on our daily life. Everyone should have a Pete Rose as a friend.
Potty-Mouth Pete Strikes Out At Camp For Kids [Cincinnati Enquirer]
Continue Reading August 2nd, 2007
Believe it or not, folks, the NFL season is much closer than you can possibly imagine. So close, in fact, that, if we’re going to fit in every NFL team preview by the start of the season, we have to go this early. So there you have it.
Last year, we asked some of our favorite writers to opine why Their Favorite Team Was Better Than Yours. Ultimately, we found this constrictive, and it also might have killed James Frey. So this time, we’ve just asked them to just run free, talk about their team, their experience as a fan, their hopes, their dreams, their desires for oral sex. All our teams are now assigned; if you sent us an email and we didn’t get back to you, we’re sorry, and we accept your scorn. But today: The Seattle Seahawks.
Your author is Matt Ufford, editor of With Leather and one of the dancing bears behind Kissing Suzy Kolber. His words are after the jump.
—————————–
The Seattle Seahawks have caused me a lot of pain. They’ve disappointed me. They’ve broken my heart. But that only makes them human, and in those terms they’re a hell of a lot better than any number of people I’ve met in my life.
The Seattle Seahawks have never asked me for money. They’ve never questioned my judgment. They’ve never sought my approval. They’ve never disliked the girl I was dating. They’ve never asked what our status is or whether we should take the next step or take a step back.
The Seahawks have never made me feel self-conscious or guilty for doing something. They don’t make assumptions about me or pretend they know something about me because they saw a picture online. They don’t care how much I drank last weekend, and they don’t mind that my room’s a mess.
Mike Holmgren never drank my last beer or finished off my scotch. Walter Jones never complained that I didn’t call him back; he’s never given me a reason not to call him back. Matt Hasselbeck isn’t worried that I haven’t found the right girl yet. Nate Burleson and Deion Branch could drop every pass thrown to them this year and be less disappointing than my love life. Julian Peterson and Lofa Tatupu don’t talk about me when I’m not there. Shaun Alexander has probably prayed for me at one time or another.
Josh Brown kicked four game-winning field goals in the final minute of a game last season, and the ‘Hawks subsequently used their franchise tag on him. During this time, he tried like hell to date Carrie Underwood but lost out to the Cowboys’ Tony Romo, because Romo is a quarterback and better-looking and has a full head of hair.
I want to tell Josh Brown it will be all right. But it won’t. The hurt never leaves.
I still hurt from Super Bowl XL. I still hurt from the decade of futility between Steve Largent and Mike Holmgren, still hurt from Robbie Gould’s overtime kick in last year’s playoffs and from Tony Zendejas’s overtime kick in the playoffs 19 years earlier. I still hurt from lies I told in childhood, from college girlfriends I disappointed, from mistakes I made in the Marine Corps. The hurt never leaves, and the scars run deep and weigh more every year.
But I still care. I care more than ever. I’ll never stop caring, never stop loving because there’s no other way to be a fan. There’s no other way to live.
Continue Reading August 2nd, 2007
Got $3 billion lying around? Jeez, who doesn’t? Well, if that $3,000,000,000 is just burning a hole in your pocket, rest easy: You could buy the YES Network.
Yankees officials aren’t confirming it, but sources tell Fortune that the network could be on the block … and that’s the ridiculous potential asking price.
YES brought in $340.5 million in revenue in 2006, up about 6 percent from the prior year, according to Kagan Media Research estimates. (YES doesn’t release official financial data.) Kagan believes that 40 percent of that revenue - about $136 million - translated into cash flow.
The cash flow, of course, is the key to YES’s valuation. John Mansell, a prominent sports-industry analyst, notes that stakes in other regional sports networks have traded hands recently at 19 times cash flow. So if YES, which is the cable home of the Yankees and Nets, can grow its cash this year by 8 percent or more - as Mansell thinks it will - a $3 billion valuation seems well within reach.
Christ; we had no idea “Yankeeography” could be so freaking profitable. Meanwhile, with George Steinbrenner “declining,” it’s possible the Yankees could be sold in the next few years anyway. Come on, Mark Cuban!
The Dismantling Of The Yankee Empire [Fortune]
Previous Posts
