Well, that’s not conventional

A few days after praising 49ers head coach Mike Singletary for being a hardass with Vernon Davis, I’m going to reneg my statement slightly until further notice, after it broke that he pulled down his pants to demonstrate that the team was getting its tail whipped against Seattle.

Thankfully he kept his boxers on but this has got to be a stunt that’s never been pulled in the history of coaching…way to innovate – but I don’t think that the team seeing your butt is going to motivate them.

So Mike, you know I love ya for being a great Bears player but just stick to being the tough guy that doesn’t take any crap or excuses from his team. It has worked before and you are the perfect guy to implement it on a fallen dynasty.

It’s about time…

It’s about time… that someone held these prima donna professional athletes to a higher standard. Mike Singletary (HOF Bears Linebacker) is the head coach that did, telling his star TE Vernon Davis to shut up and take a shower after a stupid unsportsmanlike penalty. Thanks Mike and hopefully more head coaches will take after you and show these guys that just because they’re making millions doesn’t mean they don’t play the game right.

It’s about time… that Bud Selig did something right as MLB’s Commissioner. Thanks Bud for not screwing up and ending the game after 5 innings as a rainout. You probably did it to save your own tail because you didn’t want a repeat of the 2002 ASG situation. Although you probably should have told Tampa the game was going to finish no matter what, props for doing what was right.

Why freezing the kicker is officially stupid:

With :08 left in the Jets-Raiders game that had the Raiders ahead, 13-10,  Jets kicker Jay Feely attempted a 52-yard field goal.

Doink!

It hit the left upright and fell harmlessly to the ground.

But wait, Raiders’ new head coach Tom Cable called a timeout before the kick to ice Feely, a move that is commonly done by head coaches.

Well, as evidenced by this particular example, it doesn’t work because Feely belted his second chance right through the uprights to send the game into overtime.

 After multiple possessions by each team, the Raiders finally did end up winning on a Janikowski 57-yarder deep into OT, but the game could have easily been the Jets win as well.

The point of this is that coaches have the right to use timeouts anyway they want to, but this is a pretty good example of why it is pointless, and sometimes harmful, to use for freezing. The game easily could have been tied at 13, and in that situation, the Jets would have walked away with a victory that they probably should not have gotten.

Not so sure about that decision

Is it really worth it, Trevor Wikre?

He’s the dude you’ve been hearing about that  had his pinky amputated to keep playing football for Division II Mesa State after he broke it in half during practice.

He made that decision because he wants to finish his senior season and not have to watch from the sidelines.

Not so sure about that one.

Here’s a message to you Trevor: You play D-II football. No one has ever heard of you before today, you are not ever going to grow another pinky, despite what you may or may not have learned in your previous schooling, and you’re not as cool as Ronnie Lott.

This is what he told the Denver Post:

“People keep asking me if I’m going to have regrets some day,” Wikre said. “But the thing is, my personality is that I do things in life without regrets.”

Hey, more power to him for making a decision like that but if he suffers a severe injury in his next game against CSU-Pueblo, he better still be feeling good about his decision, because you can’t amputate everything.

More Bold Predictions

 

 

 

 

 

 To add to my previous post, I have three more bold predictions to make:

6: Gilbert Arenas will join Law & Order:

Instead of becoming an NBA analyst on TNT after his career ends, Gilbert Arenas will perform another function on the same network- Detective Green’s stunt double due to, well, looking exactly alike. People will ask him for autographs not because he is a great former NBA player, but because he does such a great job on Law and Order.

5: Terrell Owens will become a team player:

Instead of being a spoiled brat all of the time by demanding the ball and calling out his teammates, Terrell Owens will, overnight, become a team player. During a press conference he will be quoted saying, “I think distributing the ball evenly among all the wide receivers will give us the best chance.” He will continue, “I also think that I’’ve been getting the ball too much and that’s hurting our chances.”

4: National League will actually win an All-Star game

Despite not winning an All-Star Game since 1997, the National League will finally pull one out at Busch Stadium in St. Louis in 2009. To do this, they will collude secretly and make a plan for their teams to trade for the last three All-Star game MVPs including JD Drew, Ichiro Suzuki and Michael Young. When they get these players, they will win the game and capture home-field advantage in the playoffs since that format started. Unfortunately for the NL team that gets to the world Series, home-field advantage won’t matter because the AL team that is in will sweep them with all of the players the NL traded for the All-Star MVPs.  

T.O. versus Ocho Cinco

 

 

 

 

 

Could today’s game between Terrell Owens’ Dallas Cowboys and Chad Johnson’s Cincinnati Bengals be anymore of a circus?

It could be when they play.

Chad Johnson is planning on kissing the star in the middle of Texas Stadium if he scores a touchdown. Personally I think that’s lame because T.O. was the first one to do the star antics when he was with the 49ers, but I digress.

This is how the celebration should go down:

I think if Johnson really does do it, the Cowboys will send and offensive lineman out there to sit on his head. Now that would be a great celebration right there. I could just see Johnson’s legs squirming around after there’s 360 lbs. right on top of him. T.O. will then run onto the field and start dancing around the O-Lineman like he’s a campfire. Right from under the O-Lineman, Johnson will get his arm free and a sign will pop out that says, “Dear NFL, please don’t fine me again.”

Anyways, I may be missing something but the Bengals are WINLESS in four games. Maybe it’s time to think that Johnson should shut up and play until he starts winning some games. Don’t get me wrong, I love Chad Johnson’s antics but the wins need to come before he celebrates anything. I mean, you can do all the TD celebrations you want, but when your team will probably end up 4-12, they don’t mean too much.

The best part of this whole thing was Johnson talking earlier in the week about how he thinks he antics are helping the team. I think Bengals coach Marvin Lewis died a little inside after that comment because the Bengals are sure to get massacred in this game.

The Twins were jobbed

 

  VERSUS

 

 
A day after watching the Twins get beat 1-0 by the Chi Sox in a decisive tiebreaker game to see who wins the AL Central and goes to the playoffs, I wonder how differently it would have turned out if the game was played in the Metrodome.

Where it should have been played.

The game was placed in Chicago because of the best way to choose anything ever because it never fails coin flip. 

Choosing the place of the game by looking at who held the season series (Twins 10-Sox 8 ) would be too stupid, wouldn’t it?

Instead of either one of those choices we could have a sanctioned boxing match between Twins GM Bill Smith and Sox GM Kenny Williams. Whomever won in 12 rounds would get to choose if his team had home-field advantage.

Sox manager Ozzie Guillen could even try to motivate his GM by saying that Williams isn’t a “big-game boxer” just like he said about Javier Vazquez’s pitching last week. Oops, that didn’t work last time.

Point is, MLB needs to revisit the whole coin flip decision. It might be OK for the NFL to do it to decide who gets possession of the ball at the start of a game, but not for MLB to choose where the most important game of the season for those teams gets played.

Monday’s Stew

How ’bout them Bears

After blowing the last two games late in the game, it was good to finally see the Bears defense, in the words of linebacker Lance Briggs, “finish.”

That goal line stand in the fourth quater was amazing and I’m still surprised the Eagles didn’t try a play-action pass. Too bad for them.

Off to Detroit next for the first conference game of the year.

CC will C a lot of $$$

After his performance in the second half of the season, including going 11-2 and almost single-handedly putting the Brewers in the playoffs, CC will see a lot of green green.

That was a fact before he went on this phenominal run of going three straight starts on just three days rest but I’m talking about Alex Rodriguez-esque money.

No, he won’t get $25 million a year like Pay-Rod because he is not an everyday player, but it is a legit assumption to say that Sabathia could be looking at a contract that pays him $18-20 million a year.

Message to Mets fans:

Don’t be too upset, better than not having a chance at all like my offense-less Blue Jays. Least they still have Halladay.

Bold Predictions

Now that the Tampa Bay Rays are about to clinch the American League East, I would like to go back to the beginning of the season when I said that they didn’t have a chance at making the playoffs.

I was wrong.

My Sports Management professor, however, was very right. He said, before the season even started, that the Rays would be in the playoffs. I just talked to him and praised him for his bold prediction. He said to me, “If you make a bunch of predictions, one is bound to happen.”

In this post, I will take his advice. I will make seemingly outrageous predictions and at least one will be right:

3. Kevin Costner will make another baseball movie

With his last few movies being flops,  Kevin Costner will revert back to what he has always done: Baseball movies. After starring in  three baseball movies already (Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, For Love of the Game), he will consider himself an expert and put together the cast for this baseball movie by himself. The cast will include former baseball movie stars Robert Redford, Dennis Quaid, Charlie Sheen and Wesley Snipes. They will call this movie “The Washups.”

2. Julio Franco will make a return

Born in Aug. 1958, Julio Franco, known for being the oldest man to hit a home run in the majors, will not be satisfied with just that record. Despite retiring last season, Franco will make a return in the 2016 season to beat out Satchel Paige’s record of being the oldest player ever to play in the majors (58).

1. The Syracuse Orange football team will win the BCS National Championship in 2009

Somehow, despite finishing with just one win against Northeastern in the 2008 season, Coach Robinson will  keep his job for the next season. After all the top recruits see the movie The Express about Syracuse great Ernie Davis, they will have an overwhelming desire to play for the Orange and opt not to go to Ohio State or USC. With all of this great young talent, SU will easily go undefeated and win the BCS Championship. Robinson will then have his pick at any NFL job.

If you have any bold predictions of your own, feel free to add them in the comment section.

The House that Greed Built

I’ve been reading things about the final game Sunday at Yankee Stadium and I’ve been watching YES Network ads all summer long insinuating that the “management is “sad” about letting go of the old stadium.

They should stop the act already.

This whole thing is being used as a giant marketing tool for Hank Steinbrenner and all of his cronies. I can’t even imagine how many things they’ve sold with the final year patch on them. I’ve said since the announcement of the stadium that all its for is a giant money machine. Especially being as how they are making it look like the old stadium “just with more suites.” How convienent.

The biggest money in all of sports is the luxury suite and the most expensive single game ticket will be $2500 in the new stadium. What does that do to average guy who wants to bring his wife and two kids to the game?

Nothing happens because he can’t afford to go anymore. That goes for all of the Average Joes who have seen baseball slowly turn into a corporate sport.

Now admittedly, I don’t like the Yankees too much but I’ve been to Yankee Stadium (including David Wells’ perfect game in ’98) and I loved it. There’s very few places in baseball where you can step back in time and feel like you are still watching legends like Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle. It’s just one of the places that should not have been tampered with, just as Fenway or Wrigley shouldn’t.

Maybe I’m just a baseball purist, and despite not liking the Yankees, seeing that stadium torn down is going to feel like a huge past of baseball is going with it and I hope the Steinbrenner family realizes what they did.