June 18, 2008

REALLY – Can any city in this wonderful country step up and stop Boston? I mean, REALLY, is there anything more annoying than a Boston sports fan when their teams are winning? Boston fans get louder and louder. . . . not just that, have you ever noticed that as the season goes on and a Boston team is in first, that Boston accent gets more pronounced. I mean, REALLY, use that accent all the time or just let it go!! Just in case you missed it, the Celtics destroyed the Lakers for their first NBA title in 22 years. The Patriots are coming off an undefeated regular season and a Super Bowl loss because some Giants scrub made the catch of a lifetime. The Red Sox are the defending World Series Champions, and they are currently 5 games a head of the Yankees. Thats just sick, REALLY. Let me end with how annoying Boston fans are . . . in the middle of Game 6, I sent a text to one of my closest friends who is a die hard Boston Everything fan living in LA. I said, “You must not be popular right now”. His reply, “Even I am starting to hate me.”

SERIOUSY - Lets go further on this NFL players holding out for more money – just because it bugs the hell out of me. At the start of every season, we hear about players holding out because they want to renegotiate for more money. This season the list includes Chad Johnson, Darnell Dockett, Anquan Bolden, Brian Urlacher, Chris Baker . . . . . I think I have clearly stated my point that they are selfish people who need to get back to work and honor their contract since the teams cannot give them a paycut for SERIOUSLY shitty performance. I think the simple solution would be for teams to hire a financial planner staff for their players (instead of players hiring their own) – that way, players don’t end up like the SERIOUSLY messed up Latrell Sprewell, the former four-time NBA all-star, who made $96M in the NBA. Yet Sprewell cannot pay his mortgage and he sold his yachts, SERIOUSLY. Players wouldn’t be upset about getting an extra 1M to 2M a year – their investments will make just as much as renegotiating. Note to professional athletes – you don’t have to give your agents commissions on the profits made from your own investments, SERIOUSLY.

C’MON – General managers get to fire coaches who have to deal with the players they acquire. C’MON Omar Minaya – isn’t it chicken to fire Willie Randolph in the middle of the night? Does Willie acquire the bullpen arms? C’MON, Omar, it’s not Willie’s fault that 41 year old Moises Alou would rather be on the disabled list than the field. C’MON Omar, it’s not Willie’s fault that his best player Ryan Church is out with a concussion and you replaced him with a part-time AAA ball player. This has typical scapegoat all over – especially after last season’s monumental collapse at the end of the season.

June 16, 2008

REALLY – Have we just seen everything in the Professional Golf Association, REALLY? Compliments to Tiger Woods for a remarkable weekend full of amazing shots and a gutsy Monday performance in a playoff. But, REALLY, was this a spectacular weekend for the PGA? Let me explain – So – the PGA’s best golfer, Tiger Woods had knee surgery six weeks, the knee from which he gets all his power. He doesn’t play a single round of competitive golf in six weeks, and he comes out and wins the US Open. We will hear about the “Tiger Focus”, the “TIger Will”, the “TIger Power and Inner Strength” – what isn’t being said is that the competition in the PGA is horrible, REALLY. In what other sport can the #1 player take 6 weeks off to recuperate and win one of the biggest events in that sport – absolutely none. If he took off from now until Wimbledon, Federer wouldn’t advance past the first round.

SERIOUSLY - Why would people side with NFL players who hold out? You signed a contract – so honor it, SERIOUSLY! Just because you had a great season, that doesn’t mean you get a new contract worth more money. If you had a bad season, could the team renegotiate and pay you less (thanks Deedsy!). So Urlacher, Chad Johnson, Darnell Dockett, Anquan Bolden – get your butts into the locker room, start sweating with your teammates, and stop being selfish.

C’MON – College basketball underclassmen who declare for the NBA. Over 60 of you tried to get drafted . . . . when will you learn that there are only two rounds of the NBA draft, and second round picks aren’t guarenteed, C’MON. If you are an underclassman who wants to go pro, you should be given a simple test first – the only question would be, “Have I heard about you and seen you play?” If I have not seen you play or heard about you once – then you probably are not ready for the NBA. So you guys from BYU or UAB, who do not play against top competition, C’MON, stay in school – let me see you Sportscenter, and then you can go pro.

June 11, 2008

REALLY – People are surprised that former NBA referee Tim Donaghy is writing allegations that other NBA games were fixed, REALLY? The NBA had to see this coming . . . . finally, the NBA has its own version of Jose Canseco. A guy who knows he is in trouble, a guy who is publicly despised, a guy who is desperate. While the allegations by Donaghy may be the wriggling of a guilty criminal trying to get a lighter sentence, one has to wonder if there may be some truth to it. Whatever happened to walking or palming the basketball. Why is a moving screen called in the first quarter but not the fourth? Was Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and notorious referee critic, correct when he yelled for the officials to be independent from the NBA League itself? REALLY, when is the Senator from Arizona going to form a Congressional committee to figure out if Amare Stoudamire and Boris Diaw were wrongly suspended in the 2007 playoffs? This is one story that will dog the NBA for the next year. But do not worry NBA, last year it was MLB and the Mitchell Report – sooner or later something will happen in the NFL to take the public’s mind off of Donaghy, REALLY!

SERIOUSLY – The game of baseball was the game of seasonal statistics. Everybody who follows baseball somewhat regularly knows the numbers: a .400 batting average – 61 homeruns – 2632 consecutive games played. This week Ken Griffey Jr. hit one of those magical baseball numbers of which true baseball fans SERIOUSLY should be in awe: 600 career homeruns – and Griffey was never known as a power hitter. It’s a feat shared by some of the greatest: Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays. It’s more amazing because Ken Griffey Jr has fought several serious injuries the past several years. Ken Griffey Jr is the definition of a five-tool player: hits for power, hits for average, great speed, big arm, and great defense. He always played the game the right way, and he is surely a first ballet Hall of Famer. Quite amazing!
Unfortunately, it’s also a feat shared by Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa – two players directly in the middle of the performance enhancing drug scandal. Two guys I wish were not in the same sentence with Griffey because Griffey is completely different. While there have been no positive tests for Sosa or Bonds, let me tell you this – SERIOUSLY compare the changes in body shape of Bonds and Sosa to Griffey, and tell me again who didn’t take performance enhancing drugs.

C’MON – There is no Triple Crown winner this year. Big Brown decided to take a weekend off and finished last. But C’MON horse racing, with all the talk of steroids and HGH, why isn’t there a bigger stir about the trainers of Big Brown giving him steroids once a month leading up to the Kentucky Derby? It’s one thing if a human makes his or her own decision to inject themselves with steroids, but the horse does not get to make the decision into its own steroid use. Steroids create larger muscles on bones – and something tells me that a race horses leg bones weren’t meant to have roided out leg muscles. Banish steroids from horse racing, now.

June 4, 2008

REALLY – How did the NBA General Managers, on the hottest hot seats, end up in the NBA Finals? Before this season, Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak was in deep dog shit because the best player of this generation, Kobe Bryant, wanted out of LA. Across the country, Celtics GM Danny Ainge had to deal with a team that only won 23 games in 2006/2007 – yes that’s only 29% of their games, REALLY. These two teams have combined for 30 of the NBA’s 61 championships, and they were living in a nightmare. Yet, these two GMs found a way to get their legendary organizations with previously disappointed fan bases back into the NBA Final excitement. They should share Executive of the Year, REALLY.

SERIOUSLY – Jordan Schafer, the Atlanta Braves top prospect and future centerfielder, was suspended 50 games for “violating the baseball’s substance abuse policy as it relates to HGH“. How can you be suspended for violating that policy when there isn’t a test for HGH? Certainly if Schafer was a member of the MLB Players Union, he would not be suspended without a positive test, SERIOUSLY. If you don’t believe, please reference a player named Bonds, Barry Bonds. Speculation exists that some players saved their skin by tattling on Schafer using the new anonymous tip line. A tip line, SERIOUSLY?!?! So is the use of performance enhancing drugs now being equated to poor driving of tracker trailers down the interstate?
So where does Schafer go from here? He goes right back to work on the field and plays the game. May I remind you that Schafer first attracted attention when Baseball America rated him the nation’s top 13-year-old in 2000, when he started at first base for his high school team as a seventh-grader, SERIOUSLY! He was a third round pick, 107th overall, out of high school. As he grew into his body transitioned to a wood bat, he made some swing adjustments and had a great 2007 season.
The blind eye to steroids by Major League Baseball is embarrassing, and the effects of steroids on athletes are well documented. However, the effects of HGH are not well known and understood. When confronted by MLB, Schafer accepted responsibility for his actions, apologized to his teammates and his organization, and served his suspension. Respect him and root for him as he works to get into the majors because that type of maturity is not seen in 21 year old professional athletes.

C’MON – If I was DerMarr Johnson, i would be so freakin’ embarrassed that I would never show my face to the public again.
For those of you who do not DerMarr, he was a high school All-American in basketball along with Parade’s National High School Player of the Year in 1999. He went to the University of Cincinnati and ended up being the 6th overall pick in the 2000 NBA Draft. In September 2002, Dermarr crashed his Mercedes S600, breaking his neck, and it was feared that he faced paralysis as he missed the entire 02/03 season. In October of 2003, he returned to the court playing in the ABA. DerMarr played in the NBA for the next three seasons, seemingly overcoming the horrific accident and near paralysis to compete at the world’s highest level of basketball. It was a second chance on life and the game that he loved – and he ran with it.
Seems like a wonderful story . . . but here is the disappointing, embarrassing, and just sad part. In June 2007, DerMarr was tasered and arrested outside a Denver nightclub. He was formally charged with resisting arrest. C’MON DerMarr! I guess that you can write that off as possibly “wrong place, wrong time” or whatever else excuse one has used before, but now last month, DerMarr was arrested for DUI!!! C’MON – now there are no excuses. This is obviously the behavior of somebody who has no respect for himself and those family who love him – DerMarr needs help, and i hope those around him can give him the support he needs, but until then, stay away.

June 2, 2008

REALLY – Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) on CBS, REALLY?!?!? On a Saturday night, REALLY?!??! Since the retirement of Lennox Lewis from boxing’s heavyweight division, boxing has had a major decline in popularity. At the same time, MMA has exploded. First PPV, then cable reality shows, now CBS. This is probably the most desperate attempt by a major network at getting ratings in a down year due to the writer’s strike. MMA is entertaining, and CBS put a good show on for those people who have never seen MMA before. But MMA doesn’t belong on CBS – REALLY - it’s not like the big four of baseball, football, hockey, and basketball. What happened to the Saturday night family movie?? Those probably vanished right after the disappearance of Saturday morning cartoons.

SERIOUSLY – Inside Time’s Top 100 Most Influential People issue, there’s an interesting fact: “As many soccer players (4) have made the Time 100 as basketball (3), baseball (1), football (0) combined“.
Think about it – the superstars of the United States three major sports have as many world influential people as soccer., SERIOUSLY! Soccer is truly the world’s game, and I still cannot figure out why soccer isn’t more popular in the USA. It’s a game where the halves are 45 minutes of continual action where every player on the field has to contribute. The hits and tackles are harder since there are no pads – players are continually moving around the field. So don’t give me the “boring to watch on TV speech” because every sport has boring periods. There are no timeouts, there are no catchers throwing the ball back to the pitcher 200-300 times, and there are no huddles before every play – SERIOUSLY!

C’MON - We are in the midst of watching one of the great coaches of all time Phil Jackson work his magic. For all those people who think Phil Jackson is just lucky to have some of the greatest players of all time (Jordan, Pippen, Shaq, Kobe), C’MON!!!!!!!!!

First – there are superstars who have not won championships.
Second – Phil gets his superstars to play each and everyday. No Allen Iverson “Practice” speeches.
Third – Phil gets the most out of the entire team. Guys like Will Perdue, John Paxson, and Luke Walton were barely supposed to hang around in the NBA – yet they became important role players putting in solid minutes off the bench.
Fourth – Phil accurately assesses the game information and makes the decision to change things if needed. This is something Phoenix fans wouldn’t understand anything about after watching the arrogant and pompous Mike D’Antoni coach for the past several years.