SubscribeNomar Garciaparra retires
Nomar Garciaparra, a one-time Hall of Fame lock, has called it a career after 14 seasons in Major League Baseball. He has officially retired and will now begin working as a baseball annalist for ESPN.
I wont miss him. I’ve never been a Nomar Garciaparra fan. To watch him at bat was a baseball at it’s worse. After every pitch, he would step out of the batter’s box and adjust his batting gloves. It was so, so annoying. If his gloves really needed to be adjusted after each and every pitch, maybe he was wearing the wrong gloves.
Goodbye Nomar Garciaparra. You will not be missed. At least not by me.
Ben Roethlisberger is once again accused of sexual assault
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has been accused of sexually assaulting an unnamed 20-year old female Georgia college student at a dance club. For those counting at home, this is Roethlisberger’s second sexual assault accusation. He was accused of raping Andrea McNulty, a Nevada resort hostess in a hotel room during a July 2008 golf tournament at Lake Tahoe. Andrea McNulty never went to the police and instead chose to sue Roethlisberger in civil court. A lawsuit was filed July 17, 2009.
This case is different in that instead of happening in a hotel room, it is said to have happened in the ladies room of Capital City, a dance club in Milledgeville, Georgia near Ben Roethlisberger’s off-season home. Even Ben Roethlisberger doesn’t want to be in Pittsburgh any longer than he has to. Can anyone really blame him?
The woman also went to the police and filed a sexual assault report, something alleged victim #1 never bothered to do.
Not that it really matters, but how does a 20-year old woman gain access to a drinking establishment? Don’t they card people down in Georgia?
Stephen Strasburg to make his professional baseball debut in the minor leagues
Stephen Strasburg, the highly touted top pick of the 2009 MLB spring draft, will likely start the 2010 season in the minor leagues and not for the Washington Nationals in the big league. Not that anyone usually thinks of the Washington Nationals has being part of the big league.
Stephen Strasburg will likely start playing professional baseball in either the double-A or triple-A level. That means he wont be playing for the Hagerstown Suns, one of the single-A level teams for the Washington Nationals. That is, unless he begins pitching at the double-A level and turns out to totally suck. That would be a bad thing since he is already being described as one of the greatest pitchers in the history of baseball.
Does America now love hockey?
If you watched Canada beat the United States in overtime Sunday night in the Olympics, you were not alone. Far from it. From Puck The Media:
The 27.6 million viewers for Sunday’s gold medal game was 10.5 million more (up 61 percent) from the Canada-USA gold medal game from the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics (17.1 million viewers). The 15.2/30 rating for yesterday’s game was four-and-a-half rating points higher than the 10.7/24 for the 2002 gold medal game and was the highest-rated hockey game of any kind since the USA vs. Finland 1980 gold medal game (23.2/61). The “Miracle on Ice” semifinal game between the USA and Russia had a household rating of a 23.9/37.
27.6 million viewers for a hockey game? I guess it didn’t hurt that it was actually a good, exciting game. Much like how some people watch NASCAR in the hopes that they will see a crash, it’s possible that some people tuned in Sunday in the hopes that Sidney Crosby would punch someone in testicles.
Does this mean Americans are now in love with hockey and will now watch the NHL? My guess is that Gary Bettman sure hopes so.
United States men’s hockey team picked a bad time to lose it’s first game
The United States men’s hockey team lost in overtime today to Canada 3-2. It was a demoralizing win. It’s bad enough to lose to Canada, it’s even worse when it’s none other than testicle puncher Sidney Crosby scoring the winning goal.
I really don’t care much for Sidney Crosby.
At least NBC showed the game on the main NBC channel in full high-definition glorious splender. Not that it makes up for showing all those prior hockey games on MSNBC and CNBC, non-HD channels.
The U.S. team might have only won the silver medal, but they have nothing to be ashamed of. After all, they beat Canada 5-3 only a week ago. U.S. Goaltender Ryan Miller, who normally plays for the NHL Buffalo Sabres, played fantastically the entirely Olympics.
Tony Kornheiser suspended two weeks for making fun of Hannah Storm’s wardrobe
Tony Kornheiser, famed former Washington Post columnist and current co-host of of the wildly popular ESPN TV show PTI has been suspended for two weeks from PTI for something he said not on PTI, but for something he said on his daytime radio show. He was commenting on the wardrobe of ESPN anchor Hanna Storm that included bright red go-go boots and a plaid skirt.
From ESPN’s Executive Vice President of Content, John Skipper:
Tony Kornheiser’s comments about Hannah Storm were entirely inappropriate. Hurtful and personal comments such as these are not acceptable and have significant consequences. Tony has been suspended from PTI for two weeks. Hannah is a respected colleague who has been an integral part of the success of our morning SportsCenter.”
If ESPN executives don’t want people making fun of the clothes some of their anchors wear, they should have their anchors stop dressing like clowns. Like Hannah Storm was dressed.
Seriously, she was wearing bright red go-go boots.
What’s really ridiculous about this whole thing is that Tony Kornheiser made the offending comment on his radio show, yet he’s not being suspended from his radio show. No, he’s being suspended from his TV show. Where’s the logic in that?
My guess is that it’s because it’s a lot easier to replace Tony Kornheiser on PTI for two weeks than it would be to replace him on his own radio show.
That doesn’t make it right.
Proof Jesus loves America a lot more than he loves Canada
(Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
The United States beat Canada last night 5-3 in one of the biggest upsets in Olympic Hockey. The game was so big, so important, that NBC televised the game on non-HD MSNBC. How great is that? Who needs HD for hockey with it’s wide format and it’s superb picture quality? One might think that NBC would actually put some importance on hockey since they televise at least some NHL games.
I guess not.
Washington Wizards trade Antawn Jamison to the Cleveland Cavaliers
If an NBA team fails to have legitimate NBA players on the team, is it still an NBA team? The joke that is the Washington Wizards just became a bigger joke by trading away Antawn Jamison, their lone remaining quality basketball player, to the Cleveland Cavaliers in a three-team involving the Los Angeles Clippers. The Wizards will get center Zydrunas Ilgauskas, the rights to non-NBA playing Slovenian forward Emir Preldzic and a worthless first-round pick from Cleveland. The Clippers are sending forward Al Thornton to the Wizards and the Wizards are sending Drew Gooden to the Clippers. The trade completes with the Clippers sending Sebastian Telfair to the Cavaliers.
A quick look at the Wizards’ roster shows just how pathetic the team is. The player with the highest scoring average is newly acquired Josh Howard with 12.6 points per game.
What are the Washington Wizards charging for seats? Unless the best seats in the house go for $5, they are over charging. Make no mistake, if you are paying money to go to a Washington Wizards game, you are paying to see the opposing team.
By dumping Antawn Jamison, the Wizards are clearly playing for ping pong balls in the up coming NBA draft lottery. Even if they do luck out and get the overall number one pick, they will surely waste it.
Remember Kwame Brown?
Which of these two men is older?
Who’s the older man in this picture? Orioles president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail or “new” Baltimore Orioles third baseman Miguel Tejada?
I wasn’t sorry to see Miguel Tejada leave the Orioles in 2007. I can’t say that I’m happy to see him return. Not only did he appear on the Mitchell Report in connection to steroids, he actually is one of the few players in Major League Baseball to have a criminal conviction stemming from the steroid controversy. On February 11, 2009 Tejada pleaded guilty to charges that he lied to Congress in 2005. He received one year of probation.
I just don’t see how once again adding Miguel Tejada to the Baltimore Orioles will make them a better ballclub. He’s old. Since he lies about his age, nobody even knows how old he really is. Some scientists claim that he may be 67-years old.
At least that’s what I heard.
Daytona 500 marred by giant pot hole
(AP Photo/Russell Williams)
From Fanhouse:
NASCAR’s biggest race of the year was halted for two and a half hours for two lengthy repairs to the track surface — a super gaffe in the sanctioning body’s self-proclaimed Super Bowl.
NASCAR initially stopped the race on lap 123 and spent an hour and 42 minutes trying to repair a nine-inch hole located smack in the lower groove racing line. But because of recent heavy rains and unusually cold temperatures, workers had trouble finding the right material to seal the track, and it took longer than usual to seal.
Less than 40 laps later, drivers started noticing the surface breaking up again.
The pot hole was blamed on recent heavy rains and “unusually cold temperatures”. If only science could tell us why we are being plagued with such unusual weather problems lately. The Winter Olympics is going on right now in Vancouver, Canada and the unusual warm weather and rain is destroying the snow flown in for the event.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that the weather is somehow changing.
Canada just cannot get it up
After sitting through nearly nine hours of the opening ceremony for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, viewers were rewarded with an entertaining technical gaff. Instead of just lighting a cauldron with the magical Olympic flame, the Canadians chose to close out the opening ceremony with Canada’s four most famous athletes, Steve Nash, Wayne Gretzky, Catriona Le May Doan, and Rick Hanson, coming out to the stadium floor, each with their own special Olympic torch. The idea was that four giant phallic symbols would then spring out of the stadium floor, forming some type of special giant Olympic cauldron to house the magical Olympic flame.
The problem was that only three of the four phallic symbols sprang to life. The fourth stayed where it was.
Oops.
I love watching live TV when something goes wrong, especially when it involves a technical blunder. The look on Gretzky’s and Nash’s face was priceless.
More people watched the Super Bowl than watched the final episode of M*A*S*H
Sunday’s Super Bowl between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts drew an astonishing 106.5 million viewers, breaking the 27-year-old record held by the final episode of M*A*S*H which only had 105.9 million viewers.
Who knew America was so interested in a Super Bowl between two relativity small-market teams?
I think there were a lot of factors that went into making this game so appealing to TV viewers. It was between the two best teams in the NFL. Both teams deserved to be in the Big Game. Both teams had high-scoring offenses that relied on throwing the ball to score points. Teams that rely on running the ball and controlling the clock may rely on an offensive scheme that has proved to be historically effective at winning Super Bowls, but it makes for really boring TV.
I also cannot help but wonder if the weather played a part in making this Super Bowl to watchable. Much of the East Coast and the Mid-Atlantic was covered with at least two feet of snow over the weekend. A good many schools and businesses were going to be closed on Monday because of the weather. When people don’t have to get up early Monday, they are able to stay up late Sunday night.
I don’t think anyone will be able to pin-point why exactly so many people watched the Super Bowl.
The New Orleans Saints are Super Bowl Roman numeral something something something champions
Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees celebrates with his wife and son.
Saints quarterback Drew Brees had a fantastic game, throwing 32-39 for 288 yards and 2 touchdowns. Also importantly, he had no picks. He went on to earn Super Bowl MVP for his performance.
The game looked to be going in the Colts’ favor until the opening play of the second half. The Saints began the 3rd quarter by kicking an onside kick that went off the hands of reality TV personality and Colts receiver Hank Baskett.
One of the most remarkable things about last night’s game was CBS analyst and former New York Giants quarterback Phil Simms. How does this man have a job? I lost count of just how many times he said something that was completely wrong. My favorite was when the Colts were driving and Simms said that the Saints should not blitz, but instead drop an extra defensive back into pass coverage. The ball was snapped and the Saints did the complete opposite of what Sims said. They blitzed. Colts’ quarterback Peyton Manning promptly threw the ball into the waiting arms of Saints’ cornerback Tracy Porter who ran the ball back 74 yards for a quick six.
Phil Simms could not have been more wrong.
All in all, it was a great Super Bowl. The only way it could have been better was if Phil Simms stayed home.
Jets head coach Rex Ryan fined $50,000 after Dolphins fans tattle on him
New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan was fined $50,000 by the team for shooting the bird to some Miami Dolphins fans at a MMA event in south Florida. Miami resident David Hildenbrand, 24, took a picture of the incident and promptly plastered it all over the Internets for the world to see.
Hildenbrand says that a couple of his friends shouted to Ryan that, “Dolphins rule, Jets suck. “ Ryan responded with, “Go fuck yourselves“, and shot them the bird.
I fail to see what the problem is. The Dolphins fans initiated the exchange with Ryan. Am I to believe the Dolphins fans were somehow offended with what Ryan said and what he did?
I doubt it.
My only problem, if I even have one, is with Hildenbrand posting the picture online. He should have known that Ryan was going to get some grief over this, grief he doesn’t deserve. He should have kept quiet about the incident. Hildenbrand and his friends evidently thought it would be fun to talk smack with the head couch of their football team’s biggest rival and the head coach decided to play along.
Big deal.
David Hildenbrand comes off looking like a tattletale. Nobody likes a snitch and that is what Hildenbrand is. He’s a snitch.
John Terry has been a naughty boy
The news tabloids in the UK have been in a frenzy over a sexual affair between Chelsea defender and England captain John Terry and Vanessa Perroncel, a French underpants model and the ex-girlfriend of England teammate Wayne Bridge.
Terry, 29 years old, married his longtime girlfriend and the mother of this children Toni Poole in a lavish ceremony in 2007 funded at least in part by OK! Magazine. Toni has reportedly left Terry over the news of the affair.
Wayne Bridge played for Chelsea before this season. He now plays for Manchester City. Not only were Terry and Bridge teammates, they were reportedly best of friends. If the story wasn’t already icky enough, reportedly Perroncel became pregnant as a result of the affair and Terry arranged for the woman to have an abortion.
Some are now calling for John Terry to be stripped of the England captaincy. Wayne Bridge is expected to make the squad for this year’s World Cup in South Africa.
I should be interesting to see how this all plays out.
Andre Dawson to enter Hall of Fame as an Expo, not a Cub
Future Baseball Hall of Fame enshrinee Andre Dawson was disappointed to learn that when he is enshrined into the Baseball Hall of Fame, he will he going in as a Montreal Expo, not a Chicago Cub.
Andre Dawson had let it be known publicly that he wanted to go in as a Cub, not an Expo. Dawson played in Montreal for 11 years. He played in Chicago for six seasons, winning the 1987 NL MVP award in the process. He also played two years in Boston and then Florida before retiring in 1996.
The Expos don’t even exist anymore. They moved before the 2005 season and became the Washington Nationals. All things being equal, he ought to go into the Baseball Hall of Fame wearing the cap of the team that still exists, especially if that is his desire.
More proof NASCAR is not a sport
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Denny Hamlin suffered a serious knee injury in a pickup basketball game. Being that this is a NASCAR driver, the pickup game very may have involved pickup trucks. Then again, if Hamlin was driving a pickup truck while playing basketball, I doubt he would have hurt his knee.
Luckily for Denny Hamlin that he competes in NASCAR and not an actual sport. If he competed in a real sport like baseball, football, hockey, indoor lacrosse, or Frisbee golf, he would have to miss time at his chosen sport while he recovered from knee surgery. Because he is a NASCAR driver, he can wait to have surgery until after the upcoming 2010-11 Sprint Cup Series.
Whatever NASCAR is, it is not a sport.
Capitals versus Penguins
The Washington Capitals head into Mellon Arena tonight to take on the Pittsburgh Penguins. It’s the first time the two teams have met on frozen water to play hockey since Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. In that game the Caps totally collapsed and lost to the Penguins 6-2.
It was a disgusting, demoralizing loss. The Penguins went on beat the Detroit Red Wings in the Stanley Cup finals.
As long as I’ve lived here in Maryland, the Penguins have been the biggest rivalry of the Capitals. The Penguins always seem to be the team to end the Stanley Cup playoff run of the Capitals. It happened in the 1994-95 season, the 1995-96 season, the 1999-00 season, the 2000-2001, and of course the 2008-09 season.
Even before moving to Maryland, I hated the Penguins. That feeling has only intensified since living here.
The game tonight will feature two of the sport’s best players, that testicle puncher Sidney Crosby and the Russian male model Alex Ovechkin. Some like to say that Crosby and Ovechkin are to the NHL what Bird and Magic were to the NBA, except of course Bird and Magic played basketball and neither Crosby or Ovechkin is black. Other than that, the two rivalries are just a like.
It’s imperative that the Capitals defeat the Penguins tonight. I have it on good authority that every time the Penguins beat the Capitals, God kills a puppy and the devil gives Adolf Hitler a big glass of ice cold water.
Former Maryland Colts fans confuse me
Today the Baltimore Ravens play the Indianapolis Colts in the playoffs and many local fans who used to follow the Colts when they played in Baltimore are now lifelong Raven fans and want nothing more than for the Ravens to destroy the Colts in today’s game.
I just don’t get that.
If they were truly Colts fans before the them moved to Indianapolis, I don’t understand why they would stop rooting for the Colts simply because they moved. I don’t remember any Redskins fans jumping ship when the team moved from Washington D.C. for Maryland. The Jets used to play football in Shea Stadium in Queens, New York. They moved to Giant’s Stadium located in East Rutherford, New Jersey. I don’t remember hearing about any Jets fans shunning the Jets after they moved.
I think the reason so many Maryland Colts fans stopped supporting the Colts after they moved to Indianapolis is because they never really were Colts fans to begin with. One might argue that if the Colts had more fans here in Maryland, they never would have had to move in the first place. I personally can’t blame the Colts for moving to Indianapolis in 1984. Colts owner Robert Irsay tried for years to work out a deal with the city of Baltimore and/or the state of Maryland to get a new stadium to play in.
The lease for the run down, dilapidated Memorial Stadium had expired. Public sentiment was against building a new stadium or even repairing Memorial Stadium. What exactly did they think Robert Irsay would do? Memorial Stadium was an armpit of a stadium. He did the right thing by moving to Indianapolis. The fact that so many of the supposed Colts fans dropped the team like a bad habit and are now rooting against the team, tells you all you really need to know about the level their fandom.
Tell me something I did not already know
The Wall Street Journal did a study that showed in the average NFL football game, the ball is actually only live for about 11 minutes. Most of the nearly three hours it takes to play a professional football game in the NFL is spent just standing around waiting for play to begin.
To be perfectly honest, I’m actually surprised it’s that much.
If you have ever watched a real football game (soccer) you will quickly realize just how much of American football is spent doing absolutely nothing. In soccer, the ball is constantly in play. Time does not stop, even for injury. The ball gets kicked out of bounds by either team and then the injured player is attended to. The officials decide how much time was spent attending to the injured player and that time is added to the end of the half or the end of the game.
In soccer, the only commercials are at halftime.
The first year I started watching the English Premiere League, I could not even watch the NFL. The thing that struck me the most was just how much time is spent in an NFL game where the coaches are shown standing on the sideline. When I watch a sporting event, I want to see competition between athletes. I don’t want to see a middle-aged white guy with a perturbed look on his face.
Mark McGwire admits to using steroids
Mark McGwire has finally come out and admitted what everyone always thought – that he used steroids when he broke baseball’s home run record in 1998. What’s he going to admit next, that he has red hair and a goatee?
I don’t really understand all the hoopla when it comes to steroids in baseball. Contrary to what you might have heard on sports talk radio, steroids do not help you hit home runs. What they do is allow your muscles to heal faster and recover quicker when subjected to trauma or damage. This means that when someone is engaging in strenuous weight lifting and they are taking steroids, they will be able to recover quicker in between workouts then someone who is not taking steroids. This allows them to lift more and work harder than someone who is not taking them.
So in other words, a person taking steroids is able to work harder than a person not taking them.
The notion that they are some kind of home run hitting magical elixir is absurd.
I guess one might make the argument that steroids help a person gain more muscles and more muscles help a person hit home runs, so it’s cheating. The problem with that argument is that simply lifting weights help to gain muscles too.
Is lifting weights cheating too? How about eating egg white omelets and broiled skinless chicken breasts?
I’m not even convinced that big muscles help a person hit home runs. Hank Aaron held the life time home run record for the longest time and he wasn’t a big muscle type of guy.
It’s probably a good thing that Mark McGwire came out and told everyone what we all thought to begin with. It’s not like he was the first baseball player to use steroids before they were banned by Major League Baseball. I’m sure that as time goes on, more players will come out and make similar “confessions”. If they were smart, they would come out now while all the attention is being focused on McGwire.
Nobody said ball players were smart.
Pete Carroll leaves USC for the Seattle Seahawks
Like a rat leaving a sinking ship, USC football coach Pete Carroll is leaving USC for the glory of the NFL, specifically, to be the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks. Not only will Carroll be making a boat load of money walking the sidelines of the NFL, he is able to leave USC before the NCAA comes in with flamethrowers and wreaks havoc on the program for violations stemming from a “relationship” between Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush and wannabe agent Lloyd Lake. Supposedly Lake put Bush’s family up in a swanky house free of charge.
The NCAA has rules against stuff like that.
Even though these violations, if true, happened during Carroll’s tenure, he will be spared any of the fallout that’s almost sure to come. The coach that replaces Carroll will be the one to pay for these transgressions, mainly in a decrease in scholarships. As if replacing Pete Carroll at USC and his two national championships and winning percentage of 85.6% isn’t hard enough, any coach dumb enough to take the gig will have one arm tied behind his back because of the foolery Pete Carroll allowed to happen under his watch.
Too bad Pete Carroll doesn’t have to worry about facing any type of retribution for NCAA violations. Then again, some might say that being the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks is punishment enough. The Seahawks are a pretty sorry franchise and Carroll has shown that he’s a pretty crummy NFL head coach.
John 11:35
Photo: Deadspin
Thanks Philadelphia Eagles for making these two bozos happy. Thanks a lot.
I thought people in Mexico hated Landon Donovan
Even though soccer fans in Mexico throw cups of urine at American soccer player Landon Donovan, he still takes time out of his schedule to be a pitchman for the Mexican lottery. At least I think that’s what he’s shilling. I don’t speak Mexican. I wish I did, but don’t. Landon Donovan on the other hand appears to be very fluent in the language.
Andre Dawson elected to the Hall of Fame
Andre Dawson has been elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. He will be enshrined into Cooperstown on July 25, 2010.
This is the ninth time Dawson has appeared on the Hall of Fame ballot. The other eight times Dawson was on the ballot, he was not yet good enough for Cooperstown. Even though he has not played professional baseball in 14 years, he evidently has somehow improved as a player. Even though his stats and accomplishment have not changed since his retirement, he’s now good enough for the Hall of Fame, even though he evidently wasn’t good enough the prior eight times his name appeared on the ballot.
I just don’t get that.
Either a player is a Hall of Fame player or he’s not. I don’t get how the voters can reject someone for enshrinement for years and then suddenly reverse their prior votes.
My hatred for JaMarcus Russell knows no bounds
The Oakland Raiders held a mandatory final team meeting Monday and 7th string quarterback JaMarcus Russell, the highest paid and coincidentally, worst player on the team, was excused by coach Tom Cable for “personal reasons”.
Whatever the personal reasons were, it didn’t stop Russell from living it up in Las Vegas. The San Fransisco Chronicle is reporting that Russell was checked into The Palms and living it up Vegas style only a day after the mandatory team meeting.
If there is anyone in the world that does not deserve a Las Vegas vacation, it’s JaMarcus Russell.
Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach picked a bad time to pretend concussions aren’t real
(AP Photo/Mike Fuentes)
Texas Tech head football coach Mike Leach has been suspended indefinitely. If he was a radio shock-jock, being suspended indefinitely would just be a fancy term for getting fired.
The thing that got coach Leach suspended was how he treated a player who suffered a concussion, and not just any player, the son of a former NFL player who had to retire early because of concussions. A former NFL player who is now an ESPN college football analyst who, coincidentally, feels very passionate about concussions and the proper treatment of concussions.
The Texas Tech player is wide receiver Adam James, son of Craig James.
A source close to the family said James sustained a concussion on Dec. 16, was examined on Dec. 17 and told not to practice because of the concussion and an elevated heart rate. The source said Leach called a trainer and directed him to move James “to the darkest place, to clean out the equipment and to make sure that he could not sit or lean. He was confined for three hours.”
A source told The Associated Press that James said Leach told him if he came out, he would be kicked off the team.
According to the source, Leach told the trainer, two days later, to “put [James] in the darkest, tightest spot. It was in an electrical closet, again, with a guard posted outside.”
Coach Leach picked the wrong time to treat concussions as though they were things players pretend to have to get out of practice. If he is fired over this controversy, I’m not sure a team in the NFL will touch him. The NFL has been working very hard at changing the way teams treat concussions. If a team were to turn around and hire Leach, a guy who evidently believes the best way to treat concussions is to make the injured player stand in a dark room for hours, I don’t think the league would react very positively to the hiring.
Injured football players annoy Pam Ward
I guess ESPN college football play-by-play announcer Pam Ward didn’t know that the TV viewers were still watching when she started complaining about the injured Marshall football player on the field. That, or she didn’t know her mic was on.
Classy.
Did Chris Henry kill himself?
According to one of Chris Henry’s neighbors, the Cincinnati Bengals receiver told the mother of his three children that if she proceeded to drive away, he was going to kill himself.
From ESPN:
Neighbor Lee Hardy told WLWT-TV and The Cincinnati Enquirer that he was working in his yard when the truck left the driveway. Hardy said Henry was yelling that he needed to talk to the woman behind the wheel.
“He said, ‘If you take off, I’m going to jump off the truck and kill myself,’” Hardy told the newspaper.
The first 911 tape was from an unidentified woman who said she was following a yellow pickup truck.
“It’s got a black man on it with no shirt on, and he’s got his arm in a cast and black pants on,” she told a dispatcher. “He’s beating on the back of this truck window. … I don’t know if he’s trying to break in or something. It just looks crazy. It’s a girl driving it.”
So much for Henry turning his life around. Whatever that means. It sounds to me that he was still doing stupid things. Jumping into the back of a pickup truck, shirtless, beating on the back window. On Monday the high in Charlotte, North Carolina was only 48 degrees. I have to believe that’s not optimum weather for taking a ride in the back of a moving pickup truck, especially when you’re not wearing a shirt.
Chris Henry 1983 – 2009
Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry is dead. At least that is what ESPN is saying. It’s been my experience when the four letter network says you’re dead, you’re dead. He was 26.
He was out for the season with a broken arm. Though you may not be able to catch a football with a broken arm, you can get into a domestic dispute with the mother of your three children.
Evidently the dispute began at the Charlotte area home Henry shares with his fiancee and the mother of his three children, Loleini Tonga. Police say Tongae was leaving in a pickup truck and Henry jumped into the bed of the truck and continued arguing with Tonga. About a half mile from the house, Henry somehow fell out of the truck. Tonga didn’t stop the truck, but continued driving.
Henry was found on the side of the road in life threatening condition. Henry was transported to Carolinas Medical Center, where he died early this morning.
Raiders sign J.P. Losman, will start Charlie Frye at quarterback
Just how awful is JaMarcus Russell? The Oakland Raiders have announced that Charlie Frye will start Sunday against the Denver Broncos. They have also signed former Buffalo Bills and Las Vegas Locomotives quarterback J.P. Losman.
Charlie Frye began the 2007 NFL season by starting for the Clevland Browns, only to be benched in the first quarter and then traded the following day to the Seattle Seahawks for a bag of packing peanuts and a 20% off coupon for Bed, Bath, and Beyond. The joke was on the Browns though because the coupon was expired.
Watching JaMarcus Russell fill in for Bruce Gradkowski against the Washington Redskins this past Sunday was a truly painful thing to watch. It looked to me that he had no clue what the plays were supposed to be. He looked like me trying to play Madden football on the Xbox 360 trying to figure out which buttons to mash.
Has there every been a team in professional football that’s had more bad quarterbacks play for them? For every Jim Plunkett or Rich Gannon, they’ve had ten Todd Marinovichs.
Lima beans, fat-free mayonnaise, the music of Jimmy Buffet, and JaMarcus Russell
What do the four subjects in the title all have in common? They are all things I hate.
Russell is the new Marc Wilson – San Francisco Chronicle
Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly quits to accept a ‘dream job’ at Notre Dame
Football coach Brian Kelly has been lured away from the undefeated, BCS ranked no. 3 Cincinnati Bearcats to coach the unranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Cincinnati will be playing in the Sugar Bowl without Kelly on the sidelines. Not only did Kelly quit on his school and his team, he did so before they had a chance to play in the biggest football game in school history.
This just makes no sense to me.
Granted, the job of college football coach is one of the most dishonest and corrupt professions a person can have. It’s right up there with used car salesman and military recruiter. I just don’t understand why the NCAA allows coaches to up and leave their program before the college football season is over to take another job at another school. Players cannot do that. If a player wants to leave and go to another school, he must sit out one complete season.
Brian Kelly is saying that coaching Notre Dame is his “dream job”. I wonder if he ever told the University of Cincinnati that. I don’t really quite understand the fascination so many of these white coaches have with Notre Dame. It’s just a Catholic college in Indiana that pretends to be better than every other college.
His former players at Cincinnati are both upset and hurt by the move. Kelly didn’t inform the team that he was abandoning them until after news of the hiring went public. Some are saying that he is dishonest. One former Cincinnati player said that Kelly’s actions were “cowardly”.
I cannot help but agree.
Tiger Woods speaks
Tiger Woods is planing an “indefinite” break from professional golf.
From his official website:
I am deeply aware of the disappointment and hurt that my infidelity has caused to so many people, most of all my wife and children. I want to say again to everyone that I am profoundly sorry and that I ask forgiveness. It may not be possible to repair the damage I’ve done, but I want to do my best to try.
I would like to ask everyone, including my fans, the good people at my foundation, business partners, the PGA Tour, and my fellow competitors, for their understanding. What’s most important now is that my family has the time, privacy, and safe haven we will need for personal healing.
After much soul searching, I have decided to take an indefinite break from professional golf. I need to focus my attention on being a better husband, father, and person.
Again, I ask for privacy for my family and I am especially grateful for all those who have offered compassion and concern during this difficult period.
I think it’s kind of late in the game to be asking for privacy. For years he has gone out and inserted himself into the public consciousness by telling us to buy one product after another. Tiger Woods may like to say that he is a professional golfer, but for every dollar he’s earned playing golf, he’s probably earned one hundred shilling products.
Who knows, maybe Tiger Woods doesn’t even like playing golf.
It’s not like he ever chose to play golf. His father forced it upon him at a very early age. He was raised, programed even, to become a professional golfer. It’s entirely possible that he could hate playing golf and not even know it.
Danica Patrick joins the world of NASCAR
Get your pink Rebel flags ready. The auto racing series known for turning left is about to get an infusion of estrogen. Indy Racing League’s Danica Patrick will be racing in select NASCAR Nationwide Series races.
The Nationwide Series is the series right below the Sprint Cup Series. Some like to say that it’s the minor leagues for NASCAR. The Nationwide Series used to be known as the Busch Series, much like the Sprint Cup Series used to be known as the Winston Cup Series.
It gets confusing.
Danica Patrick will still be racing full time in the Indy Racing League. This is just a part-time gig.
She might make the Nationwide Series races worth watching. When she perceives that someone has done her wrong on the racetrack, she tends to get in their face and let them know exactly what she thinks for them. NASCAR is full of racers that do other racers wrong. It should make for some interesting TV.
The train wreak that is Tiger Woods just wont stop
Lester Cohen/WireImage
When will this national nightmare end?
First it came out that Tiger was seeing a skanky cocktail waitress on the side. Then it came out that he was seeing lots of skanky women on the side. Lots and lots of skanky women.
If Tiger has a fondness for skanky women, why did he marry Elin? That’s the thing I don’t understand, not that I feel the need to understand this.
How about those Raiders?
AP Photo/Keith Srakocic
They’ve only beat four teams this season. It’s a shame Pennsylvania doesn’t have any more teams in the NFL for the Raiders to play.
I “watched” the game yesterday on the Raiders official website while I was really watching the Saints beat the Redskins on the TV. The Raiders game was actually exciting, waiting for the browser screen to update with the down and the field position. I was so focused on the actual field position that I didn’t even notice that the Raiders had scored with less than two minutes on the clock. I showed Sheri that they now had the ball on the 2 yard line and she had to point out that they had scored.
The ball was on the two yard line for the extra point.
Journeyman quarterback Bruce Gradkowski had a phenomenal game yesterday. He went 22 for 33 for 308 yards with no picks. He also threw 3 touchdowns. His quarterback rating yesterday was 121.8. I’d be lying if I really knew how that was formulated. All I know is that anything over 100 is pretty stinking good.
I grew up a Raiders fan, but my love for the Silver and Black has faded since I’ve been living in Maryland. At least I thought it did. I felt my fandom for the team rekindle while back home on vacation this past summer. I saw all the Raiders swag in the stores and it took me back to my youth.
Jamal Lewis calls it a career
NFL running back Jamal Lewis has been placed on the NFL’s Injured Reserve (IR) list by the Cleveland Browns due to post concussion symptoms. His brain is damaged from injuries he sustained while playing football. Being placed on the IR not only ends Lewis’ season, it also means the end of his football career. Lewis previously announced that this season would be his last in the NFL.
Before playing for the Browns, Lewis played for the Baltimore Ravens who drafted Lewis with the fifth pick overall pick in the 2000 NFL draft. He played in a Superbowl his rookie season, running for over 100 yards and scoring a touchdown in Super Bowl XXXV. In 2003, he rushed for 2,066 yards, 39 yards short of the all-time NFL record for rushing yards in a season, a record held by Eric Dickerson.
Lewis was a hard runner with quick feet. He could run a defender over or run right past them.
I came up with the name for this blog because of Jamal Lewis. More or less. I was the winning bidder on an eBay auction for a “mint” Jamal Lewis rookie card. I paid for the card and when it arrived in the mail, it wasn’t “mint” as advertised. It had a bent corner. I emailed the seller and tried to return the card for a refund, but he was not interested. After emailing the seller a couple of times complaining about my “mint” card with the bent corner, I gave up. This was around the time I was thinking of starting a blog. I decided that I would try to take my dissatisfying eBay experience and make something positive out of it.
It was then that Bent Corner was born.
The New Jersey Nets make NBA history
The New Jersey Nets set a record last night by losing to the Dallas Mavericks. They have now lost there first 18 games to start the season.
The Nets are a really bad team. They have the lowest scoring average in the NBA with 86.6 points a game. They allow their opponents to score on average 96.1 points a game. That’s a really bad combination.
I couldn’t even name one player on the Nets. Looking at the roster, there best player is a 7-foot center named Brook Lopez. He’s their leading scorer (18.2 PPG) and their leading rebounder (8.9).
I’ve never heard of him.
The really silly thing about the NBA is that if the Nets gone on to lose every game this season, they still wont be guaranteed the first pick of the 2010 draft. They would only get more ping pong balls than any other team.
Hockey player shows his displeasure by slashing his own goalie’s ear
There is nothing like good old fashioned southern hockey. Florida Panthers defenseman Keith Ballard failed to secure the rebounding puck which resulted in a goal for Atlanta Thrashers forward Ilya Kovalchuk. Ballard was so beside himself that he swung his stick like a baseball bat at the goal. The problem is that goalie Tomas Vokoun’s head got in the way.
Opps. I hate when that happens.
I’m not expert in childish behavior, but couldn’t Ballard come up with some other way of showing his emotions? Perhaps he could suck his thumb or break one of his favorite toys.
Notre Dame fires Charlie Weis
The University of Notre Dame responded to back-to-back 6-6 records by firing it’s football coach, Charlie Weis. They will now go out and try to hire a new coach, but what coach would really want to go to Notre Dame to coach football? I think the days of it being a serious football program are long gone. Unlike every other major football program, Notre Dame is not in a conference. This is what allows them to play Navy or UConn. Teams in a conference have to play teams in their conference.
Any coach that leaves a major football program to go to Notre Dame is living in the past.
Even though Charlie Weis was fired, the university still has to pay him his salary. He has six years remaining on his contract. This makes him the winner in all this. Getting paid to do nothing is the true American dream.
Charlie Weis is my hero.
Hines Ward has lied to doctors about being straight
Pittsburgh Steelers receiver Hines Ward, voted the NFL’s dirtiest player, called out Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger for missing last night’s game against the Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens won the game in overtime, but Ward’s comments came before the game in a taped interview with NBC’s sports gnome Bob Costas:
“This game is almost like a playoff game. It’s almost a must-win. I could see some players or teammates questioning, like ‘It’s just a concussion. I’ve played with a concussion before,’” Ward told Costas in an interview taped Saturday at the team’s suburban-Baltimore hotel as a prelude to the Steelers-Ravens game.
“It’s almost like a 50-50 toss-up in the locker room: Should he play? Shouldn’t he play? It’s really hard to say. I’ve been out there dinged up; the following week, got right back out there. Ben practiced all week. He split time with Dennis Dixon. And then to find out that he’s still having some headaches and not playing and it came down to the doctors didn’t feel that they were going to clear him or not – it’s hard to say. Unless you’re the person [himself]. … I’ve lied to a couple of doctors saying I’m straight, I feel good when I know that I’m not really straight.”
Maybe Ward should not go around saying he’s lied about being straight. Someone might just take that comment the wrong way. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I never thought I’d be doing this, but I feel the need to defend Ben Roethlisberger. He was right to sit out the game. A concussion is a brain injury. Unlike many of the human organs like the lung or the kidney, you only get one brain. You cannot mess around with brain injuries.
When in doubt, sit it out.
Not only is the potential for re-injury much greater with a quarterback than a receiver, a quarterback has to do a lot more in a game than a receiver. Roethlisberger has to orchestrate the entire offense while Ware only has to catch balls that get thrown his way (by Roethlisberger) and dive at the knees of defensive players on running plays.
Hines Ward should just keep his mouth shut.
Tiger Woods was not drunk, he was on prescription pain medication
There appears to be more to the Tiger Woods solo auto accident then was first reported. Go figure. When Woods first hit the fire hydrant and then the neighbor’s tree, he was sitting behind the wheel unresponsive. The doors were locked, so wife Elin Nordegren used a golf club to smash in one of the back windows so that she could extract Tiger from the vehicle. Either she had heard the crash and came outside to see what had happened or she helped cause the accident by slamming that same golf club she used to rescue her husband into Tiger’s Cadillac Escalade several times as he was trying to leave the happy home. Both scenarios have been appearing in news accounts about the accident.
Tiger was lying in the street with his wife Elin was standing over him when police arrived.
Remember those facial lacerations that Tiger supposedly sustained in the auto accident? Well, it now appears he received those not from the accident, but from his lovely wife prior to the accident. It was supposedly the reason Tiger was in the mood to go out driving at 2:30 a.m.
Because his wife beat him up.
And what would cause the Elin to go medieval on Tiger? Rumor has it that Tiger has been seeing another woman, Rachel Uchitel. The rumor had been reported in the National Enquirer this week so it must be true. They are usually right about such things. As John Edwards.
Though Tiger Woods may not have been using alcohol at the time of the accident, he evidently was taking prescription pain medication. This would explain why he was acting so loopy when police arrived.
What it doesn’t explain is why he wasn’t placed under arrest.
Tiger Woods injured in car crash
Tiger Woods was involved in an auto accident. From WESH NBC Orlando:
The Florida Highway Patrol said Woods was injured in the crash, which took place at about 2:30 a.m., and was taken to Health Central Hospital. The Orange County Fire Department confirmed that a patient was taken to Health Central, but would not confirm that the patient was Woods.
A source told WESH 2 News that Woods has been treated for facial lacerations.
Woods was driving a 2009 black Cadillac Escalade when he lost control and hit a fire hydrant outside his home and a tree outside his neighbor’s home, FHP said.
FHP said the crash is still under investigation. It said alcohol did not play a role in the crash, but that charges are pending.
Isn’t Woods a spokesman for Buick? Why then wasn’t he behind the wheel of a Buick? Granted, Buick and Cadillac are both brands owned by General Motors, but Woods only appears in commercials for Buick.
How does someone crash into a fire hydrant and then a tree at 2:30 a.m. and not be drunk while doing it? Can a sober person even do that? If anything, being sober while unleashing all that vehicular chaos is even worse if you aren’t drunk.
I’m pretty sure he was drunk. He had to be.
Bill Simmons is a douche
As if there was any doubt that ESPN columnist Bill Simmons is a raging douche with an exaggerated idea of his own importance, he attempts to remove all doubt by writing about a recent speeding ticket he failed to get out. The blog Kissing Suzy Kolber posted a portion of the article.
From Kissing Suzy Kolber:
Seattle loves me for defending its Sonics after Clay Bennett hijacked them and moved them elsewhere. If there was ever a place I could get out of a speeding ticket, it’s Seattle. Or so I thought.
Anyway, I shot out of Seattle like a bat out of hell. We were weaving between lanes and going about 90. Twenty minutes into the drive, still in the outskirts of Seattle, we were arguing about why navigation systems don’t come with different voices — for example, we should be able to have Morgan Freeman be our nav narrator or, even better, Sam Jackson as Jules in “Pulp Fiction” (”I told you to take a motherf—ing right, you dumbass!) — and I stopped paying attention to things like “Is there a cop car behind me?” Which there was. He pulled us over, walked over to my driver’s side and somewhat angrily asked why I was going so fast. I explained that we were trying to get to Portland and apologized for my speed. He asked for my license and registration. Then we had this exchange:
Me (big smile): “Were you a big Sonics fan? Because-”
Him (frowns): “No.”
And he walked away with my license.
OK, first of all, “we” weren’t weaving between the lanes like a bat out of hell, he was the one driving like a dick. I have nothing against people driving fast. I’ve been know to drive fast on occasion. The problem I have with drivers like Simmons is the weaving in and out of lanes. Drivers like him make the road more dangerous than it needs to be. Though I may on occasion drive fast, I don’t weave in and out of lanes. I drive with traffic like a regular person.
He honestly thinks people know who he is?
I don’t know who the cop was that refused to allow Simmons to get out of his ticket, but he’s an American hero.
Hockey goal of the year
David Perron of the St. Louis Blues scores what has to be the goal of the year on the New York Islanders yesterday.
You call that perfect?
Sean Storms, a collector with more money then sense, just spent $200,000 on a graded “perfect” Michael Jordan 1986-87 Fleer Card. The card is considered Jordan’s “rookie” card, even though his rookie season in the NBA was 1985-86.
Beckett, publisher of the most popular sports card price guide and the company that graded the card, published the story on their website about the card’s sale to Sean Storms. They claim in the article that the card is perfect, yet if you look the actual ratings of the card, it’s not really perfect. If it was perfect, it would rate solid 10’s in every category. This card doesn’t have solid 10’s. Beckett rated the card’s surface as a 9.5 out of 10. If it was in fact perfect, they would have assigned a perfect 10 to not only the Centering, Edges, and Corners, but the to the Surface too.
This card isn’t perfect.
If you want to impress me, show me a graded 1986-87 Fleer Michael Jordan with solid 10’s. You do that and I just might just start bowing like Obama in Japan.
One of my favorite basketball cards comes from the same set. It’s a 1986-87 Fleer Kurt Rambis card, number 89 in the set. It, like the Jordan card, is considered the Rambis rookie card. I was able to pick it up for fifty cents at a card show at the Ruritan in Mauginsvile, Maryland. It was quite a score because the card usually goes for around $2. I handed the gentleman selling the card a one dollar bill and not only did I get a mint Rambis rookie card, I got two shinny quarters as well.
It was a wonderful day.
Raiders finally invite JaMarcus Russell to take a seat
The Oakland Raiders have announced that they are benching former number one draft pick quarterback JaMarcus Russell and will be starting journeyman quarterback Bruce Gradkowski for the foreseeable future.
It’s about time.
Russell has been an awful NFL quarterback. If the Raiders didn’t use an overall number one draft pick on him and paid him over $30 million in guaranteed money, I have to believe they would have benched him a lot sooner. Not that benching him is even the correct move. They need to release him. He has no business being in the NFL. Though he is a talented athlete, I don’t think he really wants to play football. I don’t think his heart is in it. Someone with his raw talent shouldn’t be as bad as he is. His passer rating this season is only 47.7. He’s thrown nine interceptions and fumbled the ball five times.
And to think the Raiders cut Jeff Garcia before the season started, supposedly to give Russell a shot of confidence going into the season. Also, one of the reason’s Raiders owner Al Davis gave for firing former head coach Lane Kiffin was that Kiffin never believed in JaMarcus Russell and was against drafting him.
Imagine that.
Terrell Suggs may miss the rest of the season
Cleveland Browns quarterback Brady Quinn’s wallet is a bit lighter thanks to the illegal chop-block on Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs. Quinn refuses to say how much the fine from the NFL is, but a league source tells ESPN that it’s $10,000.
An MRI exam showed that Suggs suffered a severe MCL sprain in his right knee resulting from Quinn’s chop-block on Monday night. Suggs’ agent, Gary Wichard, said that his client might miss the rest of the season.
Though I’ve never been a Brady Quinn fan and I think he’s a punk, Terrell Suggs is a thug who brags about hurting opposing players. No matter how hard I try, I can’t feel sorry for him. If there is such a thing as karma, it would stand to reason that a player like Suggs would suffer a season ending injury.
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