Archive for August 27th, 2007
Continue Reading August 27th, 2007
Because we’re still a little taken aback by Michael Vick’s press conference today — we imagine him using every prison phone call to dial Roger Goodell’s office — we bring you lighter news to close the day. Brady Quinn has shaved his head.
It’s rookie hazing.
“Just an involuntary haircut,” Quinn said, referring to rookie hazing. “I don’t know if it’s ever been this short.”
“Involuntary.” We hope no pictures of the actual shaving surface, lest we see Brady giggling while Bret Michaels stands in the corner and weeps.
(Oh, and Hall of Fame voting will be discussed tomorrow.)
Continue Reading August 27th, 2007
This is Tom Shearn. You’ve surely never heard of him, because, jeez, why would you have? He’s 30 years old and just made his major league debut yesterday for the oddly surging Cincinnati Reds. (They’re only 6 1/2 out of first in the NL Central, by the way.) And he’s got quite the tale to tell.
Specifically … he’s one of those guys who probably should have left baseball years ago but never did. So much so that, when he got the call to the majors … he was sleeping in a camper outside AAA Louisville’s center field fence.
Shearn was staying in a camper beyond center field in Louisville so he could save a month’s rent in Louisville. Last night Rick Sweet called him and asked him where he was was, walked across the field and told him he was headed to the big leagues. Instead of staying in the camper, Shearn drove to Cincinnati. The hotel looked booked, so he called Gary Majewski and asked if he could stay on his couch, they stayed up going over the scouting report and Shearn finally went to bed.
Shearn: “There were a couple of times, I asked myself what I was doing,” Shearn said. “I have a little girl right now, I could be home right now. I have great support, my family told me not to give up. This is my fourth or fifth year in AAA and it was getting a little tiresome, but I had great coaches in AAA and it all worked out.
Our favorite part of the story: Once he was woken up to find out he was going to Cincy … he just went ahead and drove to Cincinnati. That drive must have been awesome. Congrats, man. Baseball’s just the best sometimes, isn’t it?
Redfish Vs. Bluefish [Cincinnati.com]
Continue Reading August 27th, 2007
Everyone makes a whole fuss about the comeback player of the year award in baseball — which this year seems destined for Carlos Pena, though there’s no shortage of candidates — but The Angry T suggests a far more enjoyable honor: The Go Away Award, given to the player who clearly showed this year that he’s over the hill and will provide only diminishing returns for the rest of his career.
No shortage of candidates here, from Jose Contreras to Paul LoDuca to Ray Durham. But the unquestioned winner of this award has to be Johnny Damon, who, we might add, has two more years remaining on his $52 million contract he signed two years ago. Yeah, it really has been two years since Damon infuriated Red Sox fans (right before Christmas, even) by signing with the Yankees. The deal has turned out to be a disaster, and there’s still a long way to go.
The good news: In the 2009 season, the Yankees should have eight mediocre DH types.
The Go Away Award [The Angry T]
Well, They’re Handling This Well [Deadspin]
Continue Reading August 27th, 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: New England Patriots.
Your author is Eric Gillin, editor in chief of Esquire.com and a founding editor of The Black Table. His words are after the jump.
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The People’s Republic of China has the world’s largest army, with 2.2 million troops ready for action, 1,400 fighter planes, 8,580 tanks and untold stockpiles of nuclear missiles. (In comparison, the United States, which spends more than 10 times what China spends on the military, has just 1.5 million troops and 7,650 tanks.) With a population of 1.3 billion people, a rapidly expanding economy, massive investments in American businesses and a government surplus of $180 billion, China is poised to kick some serious ass for a very long time.
And so are the New England Patriots, another mysterious dynasty with a completely foreign way of doing things, which also has a massive stockpile of talent entering this season. As everyone in the NFL is all too aware, the Patriots had the best offseason in franchise history, signing a once-unstoppable, big-ticket target (Randy Moss), the most versatile defensive player in the game (Adalius Thomas), an undersized possession receiver who gives the secondary fits (Wes Welker), and another wideout with solid hands (Donte Stallworth) who could emerge as a possible deep threat.
But the Patriots Republic of New England aren’t like the New York Yankees — a stupid comparison some boneheaded sports commentators made over the summer. For one, football has a salary cap. And two, the Republic didn’t have to throw around millions of dollars — players actively took pay cuts to be a part of their system, where everyone plays multiple positions, there is no I in team, and star bullshit is simply not tolerated. Compared to the NFL’s capitalist swine, where “me first” players sign perfectly good contracts, only to suddenly decide they’re underpaid two years later and hold out — the Patriots are a bunch of screaming Commies, with a defensive playbook that’s the very embodiment of the Marxist adage, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” In China, people are nothing more than replaceable cogs in a vast machine — a mentality held by the Patriots management, which has no qualms about giving the boot to “stars” like Deion Branch.
There’s a reason no one seemed all that concerned about Asante Samuel’s hold out. There’s a reason why Randy Moss threw away a two-year $20 million deal to make just $3 million for a single season. They understand that in the Patriots Republic, the individual player is not important, the system is. For every Ty Law New England loses, there’s a Randall Gay waiting in the wings to step into the role. And the architect of this great leap forward is Bill Belichick, the Patriots’ Chairman Mao, a man whose public statements invariably fall into one of the following three categories: Blatant propaganda, reverse psychology or out-and-out disinformation.
Belichick is a man whose separation from his wife was kept secret for a full year — he coached an entire football season! — until it became publicly known. This is a man who is known as “N.E. Coach” in Madden because he refuses to join the NFL Head Coaches Association. (He’s the only coach who will not join.) This is a man who looks like he sleeps in (and chews on) the clothing he wears on game day. This is a divorced guy with nothing to lose and nothing left, a man so completely consumed by football, he is somewhere out there right now in a very dark room, watching film. Like an obsessive-compulsive in a Slinky factory, chronically restless, tinkering with his life’s work, getting closer and closer to perfecting football’s version of Socialism, an efficient, victorious machine that sublimates the individual for the greater good.
This idea of the greater good — a very Socialist notion — is what drives China as well. It’s why businessman Zhang Shuhong killed himself after his toy company, Lee Der Industrial, was blamed for the recall of a million Mattel toys coated in lead paint. The notion of honor and public shame — not fines and suspensions — keep people in line in the Patriots Republic. (Those of you with Tivo and high-def — check out the Patriots assistants on the sidelines after a blown play. Zhang Shuhong didn’t have anything on those dudes.)
And that’s why this season is so compelling. The rest of the world isn’t really afraid of China’s economic might and military firepower — after all, the combined might of our European allies is just as powerful. It’s the fact that the rest of the world doesn’t have a fucking clue what they’re going to do with it. So here’s Bill Belichick. And he’s adding an arsenal of explosive receivers and the best defensive free agent in the league to a core group of veterans who have won before and a quarterback entering his prime. What the hell is he going to do with all that?
That’s why I’m not worried about the Colts, an already injury-plagued team that’s going to have that classic post-Super Bowl 8-8 hangover season. I’m not worried about the Chargers, who will need a season to adjust to a new coach and a young quarterback. And I’m not worried about the NFC, where no one appears truly dominant yet. Honestly, I’m worried about injuries and a team whose shiny new parts might need a bit longer to become well-greased cogs in the machine.
With so many weapons and an entire country now rooting against the no-longer feel-good, no-longer underdog Patriots, the pressure on the Republic is palpable this season. Anything short of Total Victory will be a complete disappointment for the fans, for the organization and, most important, for Belicheck. There are no excuses. He has to win this season. Only one thing is certain:
If this team doesn’t fucking win, he’s going to run them all over with a tank.
Continue Reading August 27th, 2007
Had your fill of kids’ baseball for the summer? Jesus, school starts in a week, and we’re just now wrapping up. Warner Robins’ championship win over Japan was great and all, but don’t forget we had to slosh through nearly a month of televised children’s programming on to get there; a kind of creepy short-term Sesame Street for sports fans.
I’ve always found ESPN’s obsession with the Little League World Series pretty self serving. They are, after all, making money off the backs of 12-year-olds. I have nothing against Little League — I once coached it — but I have no clue as to why anyone other than coaches or parents would want to watch it. It’s actually pretty boring; the umpiring is usually terrible and the parents are nuts. And the best players are mostly the ones who’ve hit puberty first, and watching a six-foot teenager hit popups that go for home runs over a 200-foot fence isn’t my idea of compelling viewing.
All that having been said, however, Daulton Carriker’s pitch-perfect quote on Sunday, after hitting the title game-winning home run against Japan, is making it hard on us cynics. “I felt like I was flying, like Peter Pan,” Carriker said. “I didn’t know what I was doing.” Who but a kid could get away with a quote like that? That made it all kind of OK, at least for a day.
Just Peachy [SI.com]
Continue Reading August 27th, 2007
Well, it’s now official, as if we didn’t know it already and somehow needed hours of coverage all morning (including Bob Ley saying it’s “the biggest story, sports or otherwise, in the country right now” on the day the attorney general of the United States resigned): Michael Vick has officially pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy. You might find that entertaining. But in 20 minutes, it should be more fun.
At 11:30 a.m. ET, Vick is going to hold a press conference to tell his side of the story. And by “press conference,” we mean “he’s making a statement and taking no questions.” And by “his side of the story,” we mean “things that he cannot be held accountable for because he’s already pleaded guilty. So that should be fun. Make sure to check back here for that.
December 10 is Vick’s sentencing. By pure happenstance — we hope — the Falcons will be hosting the Saints on Monday Night Football that night. That should also be fun, and by “fun,” we mean “grueling.”
Continue Reading August 27th, 2007
Whenever Chicago Bears linebacker Lance Briggs wakes up, groggy, confused, wondering where his car is, we hope he turns on CBS-2 in Chicago. There, he will learn exactly where his car is. Sorry: His Lamborghini.
Anyway, it’s currently wrapped around a light pole on the Edens Expressway. That happened about 3:30 a.m. CT today — about five-and-a-half hours ago — and the driver (who is not yet confirmed to have been Briggs) walked away and left his $350,000 car on the side of the road.
We imagine Briggs, still asleep, snoring, peaceful, dreaming of Jon Kitna … and then he wakes up, shakes off the sleep, looks out the window and realizes … hey … where’s the car? And, uh … why is my face on TV? And who are these 11 women?
Briggs’ Lamborghini Crashes On Edens [CBS2 Chicago]
Continue Reading August 27th, 2007
We have just learned what David Wells had been doing between the time the Padres cut him on Augus 6 and he was signed by the Dodgers last week. He was surfing, according to him. Mitch Yost-like, no doubt, shooting the curl at Imperial Beach like a sleek seal. Come on Wells, you never once left The Beachcomber, did you?
Evidence came with his half price Margarita-fueled, five-inning effort in his debut for the Dodgers on Sunday; LA beating the Mets 6-2. Our hero (6-8) allowed seven hits and two runs, walked three and struck out two in his first game in 20 days … not bad, really. The Dodgers are now 3½ games back of wild card-leading San Diego, but with three teams to pass (four if you count the Rockies, with whom they are tied), it looks grim. Rafael Furcal went 3-for-4 and scored two runs. David Wright doubled twice for the Mets, who lead the NL East by six games over the Phillies. Kind of odd, isn’t it, that David Wells is employed and Alberto Gonzales is not?
• We Now Join The NL Central Already In Progress. Georgia native Adam Wainwright threw seven innings to get the win as the Cardinals beat the Braves 4-1 powered by Juan Encarnacion’s home run. And so our little soap opera shows the Cubs (5-4 losers to Arizona) in the lead, with Milwaukee (5-4 losers to the Giants) in second 1 1/2 games out, and St. Louis in third, two games back.
• We’re Calling This. Joe Torre quote following Sunday’s 5-4 loss to the Tigers: “We’re all right.” Translation: “We’re screwed. We just have to hope for the wild card now.” Curtis Granderson had an inside-the-park homer for the Tigers. The Yankees fell to 7 1/2 game behind the Red Sox in the AL East.
• Howard Huge. All you Ryan Howard fans should know that he homered and had four RBI as the Phillies beat the Padres 14-2.
• Four-Game Sweeps. David Ortiz hit a two-run homer, and J.D. Drew and Bobby Kielty also homered, making a winner of Julian Tavarez (!), the Red Sox beating the White Sox 11-1.
