1. This skeletal pile of wretched humanity “earned” a $14.5M salary in 2005. Keep in mind that 2005 was the year that steroids became the top story in baseball and where Bud Selig took no responsibility whatsoever for his role in the whole sordid affair. Not bad for a guy whose cronyism soils the integrity of the game. F him.
2. Two quick NFL-related items. First, everyone has spent so much time talking about Pacman Jones and Tank Johnson but why does no one mention what Joey Porter allegedly did to Levi Jones? Porter’s a punk and I hope the league doesn’t protect him. Second, I’m not sure I understand why the Chicago Bears would turn down a chance to move up from the 31st pick up to the 6th in this month’s NFL draft. If all it’ll cost you is a linebacker that has already sworn he won’t play until Week 10 of the upcoming season, why not make the move? As it is, the Bears D will be missing many of last year’s starters for various reasons. Why not guarantee yourself a top-tier talent when you know that one of your playmakers will be tanking the season on purpose? I’d rather have the draft pick than a guy who will play less than 40% of the upcoming season…
3. I’m an Ohio State Buckeyes bandwagoneer and have been for the past few years. And while watching the Gators beat OSU last night wasn’t that much fun for me, I do have to say that I respect the hell out of the UF basketball team. Not for the crapola “stayed in school” story that writers have beaten to death but because they’re a really good team that just did something historic. No, they’re not the UCLA Bruins of the 1960’s and 70’s, the Georgetown Hoyas of the mid-1980’s, or the Duke Blue Devils of the early 1990’s. But they’re absolutely one of the best college teams to come around in a long, long time and I don’t think we’ll see a team as deep and as tough as this for another stretch of years.
4. Staying with the Gators, I think Billy Donovan should take the Kentucky job. This isn’t the 20th Century; people just don’t stay at the same job forever like our moms and dads did. The whole notion of staying in one place forever and demonstrating some sort of loyalty is misguided in my opinion. We should constantly challenge ourselves and strive to do better things in different places. Now that Billy Donovan has pretty much secured his legacy as a successful college coach, now that he’s put the Gators on the map when they were but a blip on the SEC’s radar, he should go take over a historic program in need of a face-lift. Why shouldn’t he? Why sit in Gainesville when he’s done just about everything he can do there? Big challenges are for certain kinds of people and I think Donovan’s the type to like a challenge. He was a slow, white point guard in the Big East and he got his team into the Final Four in 1987 so how hard could it be to manage the expectations of a bunch of hicks living in the past? Seems like a perfect job for him.
5. Baseball officially started Sunday night but the true pageantry of Opening Day is best enjoyed during day games. I understand why there is a Sunday night game on the eve of Opening Day but I wish they’d get rid of it. It’s so much more fun when the game is played under sunny skies.
6. While on the subject of baseball, here’s a topic that I wish I didn’t have to talk about. The generally-accepted theory is that passion and intelligence travels from east to west, with the most rabid fans living in the Northeast. The Midwest is regarded for its warm and accepting love-ins with their players and with a strong knowledge of the game, and the Pacific coast is seen as having a take it or leave it attitude with baseball (and pro sports in general). While I think there’s a large measure of truth to that, it brings me no joy to have to rip my own fellow citizens with how they treated Alex Rodriguez on Opening Day.
It took 10 minutes into the season for fans to boo him for making an error on a harmless foul ball that got caught up in the breeze and the lights. Less than six minutes later, fans booed him again for striking out with men on base, failing to note that he swung on a terrible pitch because he was protecting the runners going on a double-steal. We in New York know a lot about baseball. We should know that those two plays meant nothing in the overall course of the game. We should also know that the first of 162 games is absolutely an inappropriate time to have frustration and cynicism rear their ugly heads. Passion is one of the things that make Yankee fans great but in this case, I was ashamed to see how people treated the best player in the American League and one of the two or three best players in the game. That fans gave him a curtain call after his homerun in the 8th inning doesn’t make up for it.
Nothing I write here will change how things are for Alex in New York. The well has been poisoned and too many stupid people with agendas are out to get him. The sad part is that, after he’s gone, the writers will pull their daggers out of his back and castigate the fans for driving him away…all to perpetuate the myth that New York is a hard city to play in.
ARod frustrates me sometimes. But I’ll never boo him. Never again.
2. Two quick NFL-related items. First, everyone has spent so much time talking about Pacman Jones and Tank Johnson but why does no one mention what Joey Porter allegedly did to Levi Jones? Porter’s a punk and I hope the league doesn’t protect him. Second, I’m not sure I understand why the Chicago Bears would turn down a chance to move up from the 31st pick up to the 6th in this month’s NFL draft. If all it’ll cost you is a linebacker that has already sworn he won’t play until Week 10 of the upcoming season, why not make the move? As it is, the Bears D will be missing many of last year’s starters for various reasons. Why not guarantee yourself a top-tier talent when you know that one of your playmakers will be tanking the season on purpose? I’d rather have the draft pick than a guy who will play less than 40% of the upcoming season…
3. I’m an Ohio State Buckeyes bandwagoneer and have been for the past few years. And while watching the Gators beat OSU last night wasn’t that much fun for me, I do have to say that I respect the hell out of the UF basketball team. Not for the crapola “stayed in school” story that writers have beaten to death but because they’re a really good team that just did something historic. No, they’re not the UCLA Bruins of the 1960’s and 70’s, the Georgetown Hoyas of the mid-1980’s, or the Duke Blue Devils of the early 1990’s. But they’re absolutely one of the best college teams to come around in a long, long time and I don’t think we’ll see a team as deep and as tough as this for another stretch of years.
4. Staying with the Gators, I think Billy Donovan should take the Kentucky job. This isn’t the 20th Century; people just don’t stay at the same job forever like our moms and dads did. The whole notion of staying in one place forever and demonstrating some sort of loyalty is misguided in my opinion. We should constantly challenge ourselves and strive to do better things in different places. Now that Billy Donovan has pretty much secured his legacy as a successful college coach, now that he’s put the Gators on the map when they were but a blip on the SEC’s radar, he should go take over a historic program in need of a face-lift. Why shouldn’t he? Why sit in Gainesville when he’s done just about everything he can do there? Big challenges are for certain kinds of people and I think Donovan’s the type to like a challenge. He was a slow, white point guard in the Big East and he got his team into the Final Four in 1987 so how hard could it be to manage the expectations of a bunch of hicks living in the past? Seems like a perfect job for him.
5. Baseball officially started Sunday night but the true pageantry of Opening Day is best enjoyed during day games. I understand why there is a Sunday night game on the eve of Opening Day but I wish they’d get rid of it. It’s so much more fun when the game is played under sunny skies.
6. While on the subject of baseball, here’s a topic that I wish I didn’t have to talk about. The generally-accepted theory is that passion and intelligence travels from east to west, with the most rabid fans living in the Northeast. The Midwest is regarded for its warm and accepting love-ins with their players and with a strong knowledge of the game, and the Pacific coast is seen as having a take it or leave it attitude with baseball (and pro sports in general). While I think there’s a large measure of truth to that, it brings me no joy to have to rip my own fellow citizens with how they treated Alex Rodriguez on Opening Day.
It took 10 minutes into the season for fans to boo him for making an error on a harmless foul ball that got caught up in the breeze and the lights. Less than six minutes later, fans booed him again for striking out with men on base, failing to note that he swung on a terrible pitch because he was protecting the runners going on a double-steal. We in New York know a lot about baseball. We should know that those two plays meant nothing in the overall course of the game. We should also know that the first of 162 games is absolutely an inappropriate time to have frustration and cynicism rear their ugly heads. Passion is one of the things that make Yankee fans great but in this case, I was ashamed to see how people treated the best player in the American League and one of the two or three best players in the game. That fans gave him a curtain call after his homerun in the 8th inning doesn’t make up for it.
Nothing I write here will change how things are for Alex in New York. The well has been poisoned and too many stupid people with agendas are out to get him. The sad part is that, after he’s gone, the writers will pull their daggers out of his back and castigate the fans for driving him away…all to perpetuate the myth that New York is a hard city to play in.
ARod frustrates me sometimes. But I’ll never boo him. Never again.
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