Archive for December 14th, 2007
Continue Reading December 14th, 2007
Eric Mangini is not inherently a likable character. He’s schlubby, he’s obsessive and he always looks exhausted. He was on “The Sopranos;” that’s about all we can come up with, positively. But everyone will be rooting for him Sunday.
In a certain way, the Jets derailing the Patriots’ perfect season would be the ideal, most beautiful way for this all to go down. People are concerned about the postgame handshake now? Wait until Mangini destroys Belichick’s dream season.
There’s no way that’s gonna happen of course, but man, it would make Mangini a hero and completely eradicate the team’s disappointing season. If only. If only.
Continue Reading December 14th, 2007
Another fun story lost in the Mitchell Report tidal wave yesterday? The release of Michael Vick’s letter to Judge Hudson attempting to get his sentence reduced. (PDF)
The letter is self-pitying, but, frankly, not without some justification. (Vick wouldn’t be the first person to smoke weed because of a lack of affection from his father.) It also includes a character-witness letter from George Foreman and a news story about Vick helping out after Hurricane Katrina. None of this worked, of course.
It even mentions that Vick has “horses, parrots, fish tanks and lizards.” It’s more difficult to get those to fight.
Vick Letter To Judge Hudson (PDF)
Continue Reading December 14th, 2007
This was lost in all the shuffle yesterday, so we held it for today. So: As a Cardinals fan, allow us a brief moment of sublime amusement at the Cubs’ release of Mark Prior. (Not least of which because the Cardinals are reportedly very interested in the man.)
As any Cub fan can tell you, Mark Prior has been Exhibit A in the endless run of pain since the Bartman moment in 2003. He was, in a way, the ultimate Cubs pitcher: Unlimited promise, nothing but heartbreak and disappointment afterwards. The jettisoning is surely a net positive for the organization, which needed to move on, but if he comes around and fulfills that promise for another team — particularly if it’s the Cardinals — Cubs fans will never stop banging their heads against the wall.
Cubs Cut Ties With Prior [Chicago Tribune]
Continue Reading December 14th, 2007
It’s the day after the Mitchell Report; dad is passed out under the tree, the cat is covered in tinsel, torn wrapping paper is everywhere. Meanwhile, on the Interwebs, reaction crystalizes …
• Die, Baseball, Die. The sport should have been dead for years, and if the Mitchell report surprises anyone, then you, anyone, should be relegated to the salt mines along with people who like Family Guy and those who don’t use their turn signals in traffic. OMG, people are suddenly just so much bigger now in like a year! If this shocked anyone after years of stats and norms being established with interminable death-march 162 game seasons…we mean, it would have marked a spurt not just in baseball’s evolution, but humanity’s. Sammy Sosa should have had Waterworld gills. Mark McGwire should have been telekinetic, and Albert Pujols should have had the ability to levitate (over the border! To Mexico! For illegal steroids!). [Every Day Should Be Saturday]
• Roger Goodell Reacts To The Mitchell Report. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! (sighs) (wipes away tears) Oh, God. Oh, God. Can’t stop… laughing… Selig… so very dumb… such an amateur… (giggles) (calls Paul Tagliabue) Tags! Tags! Are you watching this?… I know!… That’s what I did too!… It’s fucking GREAT… Later. (hangs up) Tee hee hee! [Kissing Suzy Kolber]
• The List. Is it just me, or is Mo Vaughn the only Red Sox player (sans Brendan Donnelly) on the list? Something stinks up there in Beantown, and this time it’s not just the Red Sox. [Thurman Munson Should Be In The Hall Of Fame]
• Roger Clemens Got Off Easy. When you line up both Bonds and Clemens, according to the strict letter of the law, neither had ever tested positive for anything at the time these separate instances broke — BALCO and Grimsley’s admission. Yet everyone began bashing Bonds incessantly after BALCO, while no one really jumped on Clemens after multiple signs that he too was a user. [100 Percent Injury Rate]
• Fun With The Mitchell Report. A search for Barry Bonds in the pages of the Mitchell report has 91 results. Sammy Sosa has 1. BALCO appears 56 times. Bud Selig and Cocksucker has zero results. Circumstantial does not appear. Carolina Panthers results in zero occurrences. David Eckstein is not named. John Kruk and Donuts has zero results. The word Sex appears 3 times. Buttocks appears 5 times. Ass does not appear. Bud Selig appears 52 times. Correction: Ass appears 52 times. Soccer appears once. Bartolo Colon loves cake does not appear. Zorro does not appear. [Bugs And Cranks]
• Baseball’s Mitchell Report A Platter Of Hearsay And Innuendo. The Mitchell Report has served the American public a platter filled with hearsay and innuendo that tarnishes the reputation of dozens of America’s finest athletes and the sport they play for our entertainment. As far as we know, none of the players on Mitchell’s list ever failed a drug test. Their alleged “crime” was being on someone else’s list as a purchaser of performance-enhancing substances. Did they use those substances? Did it affect their performance? We will never know. [Roger Abrams, The Huffington Post]
• The Mitchell Report. I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to feel. My head is cloudy. I guess there is good news to be found, if one had to find the silver lining. The good news is that this is finally all out in the open. I also think that there should be another report — we can call it The Milano Report for now, recognizing and celebrating the players of the steroid era that didn’t succumb to the pressure of using illegal performance enhancing substances. Please revisit my “Steroid And Botox Era” blog entry for more of my views on this topic. [Touch Em All With Alyssa Milano]
• A Dark Day Ends. I guess I just don’t really understand smearing a few players rather than not keeping it more general. Especially if the majority of what you learned came from mostly two sources. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel bad for those named in the report. If they cheated, they should be named, but my feeling is that naming so many prominent players just gives the impression that pretty much everyone was doing it but just didn’t happen to use the same supplier. [Athletics Nation]
• Random Thoughts On The Mitchell Report. One question people have been asking me is, “Why does Congress even give a hoot what baseball does?” The answer, objectively, is that major league baseball is a monopoly that gets an exemption from anti-trust law from Congress. That is to say, Congress allows MLB to continue on as a monopoly as long as they’re good girls and boys and keep their noses clean. Essentially, this gives them oversight of baseball. Maybe not to the degree that the police have oversight of your driving habits, but definitely to the extent that your parents did when you were sixteen. Sure, it was legal for you to drive…as long as Dad would let you borrow the car. [UmpBump]
Continue Reading December 14th, 2007
We think ESPN’s Jayson Stark had the most comprehensive and dead-on take on the Mitchell Report, particularly the public perception that those names in the report are guilty without a shadow of a doubt despite evidence that wouldn’t even stand up in a civil case. Not that it really matters; we wanted our pound of flesh, and we got it.
How delicious, then, that the pound of flesh belonged to Roger Clemens! Perhaps the most universally loathed baseball player — A-Rod has decades to go to catch up, and one senses his problem is more that he’s kind of dopey, rather than a dick like Clemens — has finally gotten the comeuppance many wished upon him. Hating Roger Clemens: It’s not just for baseball fans anymore!
As Stark points out, the evidence against Clemens is essentially he said/he said, but, frankly … WHO CARES? The Mitchell Report was gonna nail someone to the wall and ruin their reputation forever. And it turned out to be Roger Clemens! Bad day for baseball? What? Says who?
Many Legacies Will Be Tarnished Forever [ESPN]
Continue Reading December 14th, 2007
The NBA Closer is written by our own Canadian weekend maestro J.E. Skeets. When he’s not busy scouring the box scores or eating slow-smoked ribs and beef briskets, he can be heard on The Basketball Jones daily podcast. Enjoy!
• Miami Vagines Hang Like Sleeve Of Wizard. With all due offense to Chris Quinn and the Heat organization, when the Medicine Man is your best player on the court, you’re in for a long night. DeShawn Stevenson’s beard scored a season-high 26 points, Caron Butler added 19 and Antawn Jamison had a sick little 16-16 package as the Wizards beat the Heat 104-91. Darius Songalia like! Quinn finished with a career-high 22 for Miami, which lost for the seventh time in nine home games this season. Their mothers must be horrible cooks.
• The Bryant Report. I won’t lie. On a day when The Mitchell Report was getting all the boring news — Worst. Deadspin Day. Ever. — I really expected Kobe Bryant to come out last night and score like 105 points or drop a cool quintuple-double to steal the Friday PTI headlines. Instead, Kobe scored a pretty quiet 30 points, and the Lakers bench used an 18-5 fourth-quarter spurt to break open a close game and beat the Spurs 102-97. Oh well. The defending NBA champs, now 17-5, did play without Tim Duncan and Tony Parker, so perhaps Kobe figured it wasn’t even worth it. Manu Ginobili scored just 14 in the loss.
• Garbage Points. Hawks’ forward Al Horford has been suspended one game without pay for super spiking — KABOOM! — T.J. Ford’s head earlier this week. He’ll serve his suspension tonight. … Your starters after the first batch of All-Star voting returns: KG, LeBron, Dwight, Wade and Kidd in the East; Kobe, T-Mac, Melo, Dirk and Yao out West. C’mon, people, Vote ‘Toine! … Despite having only four healthy guys, the Clippers waived forward Ruben Patterson yesterday. The Kobe Stopper appeared in 20 games for the Clips, averaging 5.1 points, 3.2 assists and 0.0 babysitter-boners this season. … Wes Unseld, American badass.
