8:07 PMGregg Rosenthal of Pro Football Talk reports that Vince Lombardi's life story will soon be adapted into a Broadway Play. Let's just hope Hank Williams, Jr., gets nowhere near the score.
7:57 PMJudy Battista of the New York Times on missed tackles in the NFL: "One trend most exposes how poor tackling is. According to the N.F.L., there were 81 touchdowns of 50 yards or more through Week 8, the most since 1970, great for highlight reels, a nightmare for defenses."
7:36 PMLou Holtz observing Opposite Day on ESPN set today after Navy dominated Notre Dame during 23-14 victory in South Bend today: "It was obvious Notre Dame was the better football team."
7:17 PM Here's a thought: When watching the Yankees ticker-tape parade from one of the adjacent buildings looming over the route, don't toss documents out the window that contain people's social security numbers. Or meatballs.
Here’s the thing about Charles Barkley: he may come off as contrarian and opinionated and anti-establishment or whatever, but that’s not really the case. He’s just in the normal early stages of Cranky Old Man Syndrome, in which COMS sufferers begin alienating themselves from the changes in the world around them. It wasn’t immediately obvious; Barkley’s frequent shots at his superiors could have been just a garden-variety case of a problem with authority.
(NERRRRRRRRRRDS! AND BIRRRRRRRRRDS!)
But now that he’s going after TWITTER, well, we’re kicking ourselves that we didn’t diagnose the COMS earlier. It’s so obvious, in retrospect. He doesn’t hate authority because they tell him not to do things, he’s just not used to the culture of responsibility. And the kids, with their Twitter Tweet Twoodles or whatever they’re called? Well, Charles Barkley doesn’t much cotton to these computers today.
Back in January 2008, the Australian Open finals featured Ana Ivanovic and Maria Sharapova in one of the most eagerly-anticipated women’s tennis matches ever. Sharapova won the match, but it seemed like the sport was set for one of the hottest - in every sense of the world - rivalries in recent memories.
It’s not just that Ivanovic lost - at times, she looked absolutely lost, seemingly unable to do something as simple as throw the ball into the air correctly during her serves. Call it the tennis equivalent of Rick Ankiel’s pitching yips, although more attractive to watch if just as awkward. Ivanovic took to burying her head in a towel during changeovers, which is probably what a lot of fans wanted to do after watching her stumble to defeat.
Meanwhile, Sharapova was confident and poised in her easy victory. Her tennis game looked great, while her outfit … let’s just say it looked like something you might have seen in a teen dance competition in Sioux City, Iowa, in 1987. And not to go Mr. Blackwell on your here, but honey, Cher called from 1975 and she wants her beaded headband back. Unless you are planning on belting out a rousing version of “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves” after winning your next match - in that case, it’s all yours.
Sharapova said that her outfit was “inspired by the architecture of New York.” Which is a perfect transition to talk about one of the other great metropolises of the Americans: Saskatoon. Because FACEOFF.COM says that one of the bidders for the Phoenix Coyotes has already booked five dates at the Credit Union Centre (the Madison Square Garden of Saskatchewan) to hold games there if they get the team next season.
(There really is nothing quite like Saskatoon in December…)
Which leads to the question: what other events would possibly be happening in Saskatoon so you would need to save the date? A quick look at the Credit Union Centre event schedule shows a lot of minor league hockey…and not much else. Somehow I think that the arena would be willing to postpone the Saskatoon Blades vs. Moose Jaw Warriors showdown for an NHL game.
A partner for Ice Edge Holdings said that the team would be playing most of its games in Phoenix and not moving to Saskatoon permanently, which is too bad: it would be great to see NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman get an involuntary eye twitch every time he tries to explain how having a team in Saskatoon is good for the league.
Finally, Adrian Beltre returned to the Seattle Mariners last night after learning a valuable lesson about wearing a cup while playing third base on August 14 - as in “for the love of all things good and holy, wear one!” You might remember that Beltre thought his testicle had “exploded” after taking a scorching drive to the crotch.
After sitting out a few weeks (and probably getting some counseling for his lingering trauma issues), Beltre was back, and the Mariners decided to have a little fun at his expense. Ken Griffey Jr. had said he had the “perfect” music for Beltre’s first at-bat, and the person in charge of the songs being played over the PA delivered. Our own Scott Sepich was at the game, so I’ll pass along what he relayed to me:
“I was at the Mariners-Angels game tonight, and in Adrian Beltre’s first at-bat since coming off the DL, the music they played for him when he came to the plate was the “Nutcracker Suite.” A few of us in the press box caught on, but I’m not sure that the crowd got it. I thought it was pretty brilliant.”
Brilliant, indeed. In case you need further proof, the SEATTLE TIMES game blog not only mentions the musical cue but has audio of it as well. While I find it ironic that Ken Griffey Jr. - a man who once suffered a season-ending groin injury while fielding a fly ball - thinks that Beltre’s situation is hilarious. But it was a good choice of music, certainly more subtle than what I would have selected.
If there was one team in the NFL that had to be screwing the fans over by selling tickets directly to scalpers, it had to be the Washington Redskins, right? Too bad they can’t do the same thing with Six Flags tickets to prop up sales numbers.
Your nightly NFLPA train wreck update: the Department of Justice is confirming that they are investigating collusion claims by the union’s former HR director. She says that former player representative Troy Vincent had illegal meetings with Roger Goodell and Texas owner Robert McNair where he divulged classified information. Troy Vincent had a trouble keeping information private? That sounds strangely familiar.
Ladies, Rafael Nadal is playing at the U.S. Open in see-through shorts. Why can’t we get this technology in the women’s side of things (except for Serena Williams)?
Sometimes being a”football hero” takes on a different connotation: Kaleb Eulls, a star player at Yazoo High in Mississippi who has committed to Mississippi State, is being praised after disarming a 14-year-old girl who pulled out a loaded semi-automatic weapon on a full school bus.
Former Kentucky basketball star Edward Davender has been arrested as part of a ticket scalping scam involving Wildcats basketball tickets. If convicted, he could be sentenced to work for the Washington Redskins.
Adam “Pac-Man” Jones and Charles Rogerson the same CFL football team? Can someone please tell me how I can get Winnipeg Blue Bombers games on TV here in the lower 48?
Andy Roddick is less than thrilled with the U.S. Open trying to clamp down on players Twittering because they are concerned about players giving up “inside information.” Roddick’s retort (via Twitter): “you would seriously have to be a moron to send ‘inside info’ through a tweet.”
Anheuser-Busch plans to switch sports advertising tactics, targeting specific beer brands with demographics based on major sports. Bud Light to be linked to the NFL, while Budweiser will feature heavily in MLB advertising. No word on if Natural Ice will now be the Official Beer of Competitive Binge Drinking.
If they are going to start sending people to jail for 30 days for socking an opposing coach at a baseball game for 8-year-olds and then swinging a bat at people trying to break it up, then I just don’t know what baseball is anymore.
Of the different sports out there, the one with the largest variation in playing conditions might be tennis. There’s grass, clay, that weird concrete stuff down at the local courts… okay, that’s all I could think of, and maybe my initial premise is way off. But whatever, we’re plunging ahead with this one.
(”I’m so mad my shirt fell off! And now they’re taking pictures of me! Of all the rotten luck!”)
Less well-known, though, is the variation in tennis balls from court to court. As Andy Roddick noted at his latest victory, the different hosts of the hardcourt series (yes, that’s it! Hardcourt! Replace “weird concrete stuff” with “hardcourt” above, please.) have been using different brands of tennis balls for their tournaments, and he has just about had enough of it, mister.
While Brooks and the rest of the SbB crew worked hard to get you the very latest on the Steve McNair murder, Sunday turned out to be a pretty big day for three of the world’s biggest athletes — who just happened to have co-starred in the “Citizen Kane” of awkward athlete endorsement campaigns.
That’s right, now that Thierry Henry has been booted from the Gillette posse (at least in America), all three razor-wielding superstars had pretty huge days.
First, Roger Federer made history by winning his 15th Grand Slam title in a crazy five-set win at Wimbledon over Andy Roddick. Pete Sampras was in the audience, taking in the match as only Sampras could — puking his guts out on the sideline looking bored out of his gourd. The 30-game fifth set was the longest in Slam history by a full 10 games. The final game was the only time Federer broke Roddick’s serve the entire match. Only Roddick’s inability to put away four set points in a second-set tiebreak kept him from pulling off the huge upset.
As Federer was accepting his trophy, Tiger Woods was getting ready to tee off in the final round at the AT&T National, which he hosts. I’m not sure I understand the “host” thing, is that like when Heidi and Spencer “host” a party at PURE? He started the day in a tie with defending champion Anthony Kim, but soon found himself needing to keep up with Hunter Mahan, who started well back but fired a 62 to zoom all the way to the top of the leaderboard. Tiger drained a 20-footer on the 16th hole to take the lead, and he got to the clubhouse with two easy pars to wrap up his 68th PGA Tour win. And he interviewed himself afterward. I have to give him credit, though, as it was the first time the questions in a Tiger interview were as boring as the answers.
Jeter got more votes than anyone else in the AL, but is joined in the starting lineup by just one other Yankee — first baseman Mark Teixeira. A-Rod is nowhere to be seen, with Evan Longoria getting the starting nod instead. Josh Hamilton was voted into the starting lineup despite missing all of June with an injury, and this year’s recipient of the Lance Carter Memorial “Who?” Award is Oakland reliever Andrew Bailey, who is a fine pitcher but a guy even baseball fans would be hard pressed to tell you anything about. And while it looks like manager Joe Maddon pulled some homerism by adding Jason Bartlett, Carl Crawford, and Ben Zobrist to the team, all three of those guys are having huge years. And yes, if you’re scoring at home, Zobrist is the last All-Star ever, alphabetically speaking. The other big story is that of 42-year-old Tim Wakefield, who surprisingly has never been an All-Star until now. And congrats to the Royals for producing an actual All-Star this year, rather than their usual token “we gotta put someone on the team” guy.
The NL team is headlined by Albert Pujols, who received the second-most votes ever (only Ken Griffey Jr. got more, in 1994). At age 37, Raul Ibanez is an All-Star for the first time, and has been voted in as a starter. Unfortunately, it looks like he’s probably not going to be able to play. Nor is fellow outfielder Carlos Beltran. That means that reserves Hunter Pence and Brad Hawpe are likely to be out there when the game starts. No true no-name on the roster, as even Pittsburgh’s representative — Freddy Sanchez — is fairly deserving of his spot.
• If you click on only one link today, read this story in the L.A. TIMES about Zac Sunderland, a 17-year-old kid who is nearing the end of a solo circumnavigation of the world on a sailboat. Pirates, broken sails on the open seas, armed police escorts in New Guinea. It’s safe to say he had a more eventful year than the rest of us.
• POLITICO says that Sarah Palin’s lawyer has fired a warning shot to the media in order to squash lingering rumors that Palin awarded the contract for constructing a sports arena in Wasilla (where she was mayor at the time) with the understanding that the same company would build her a house. In other news, the Phoenix Coyotes have just announced they are moving to Wasilla.
• OK, there was something called the “Junior World Football Championships” going on for the last week, and you’re not going to believe this — but the USA won. Shocking, considering our boys had to take down the likes of France, Mexico, and Canada (which they did by a cumulative score of 174-3). Next time, in an effort to even the playing field and give other countries a fighting chance, the U.S. is just going to send Washington State’s football team instead (they might be able to beat Sweden).
• Sure, losing 16-14 in the fifth set of the biggest tournament of your life is pretty brutal, but don’t feel too sorry for Andy Roddick. He has a pretty nice shoulder to cry on:
Ah, love is in the air in the tennis world. And I’m not talking about Billie Jean King canoodling with Elton John at a Bud Collins-hosted Streisand listening party.
This week Andy Roddick will finally close the deal with Brooklyn Decker, marrying the SI swimsuit model. While Decker isn’t really my cup of tea, there’s no debating she’s regarded as a mega-hottie.
Roger Federer also married recently, consumating his relationship with a woman named Miroslava Vavrinec. With a name like that, you’d think he snagged a 5-star supermodel.
In yesterday’s Speed Read, we mentioned how it was obvious that the Australian Open was a little hotter this year, based purely on the gallons of sweat dripping off many of the top seeds. Well, yesterday the year’s first tennis major officially jumped the shark and morphed into an episode of Survivor, with Andy Roddick outlasting Novak Djokovic in sweltering 130-degree heat.
Yes, you read that correctly: 130 degress. Fahrenheit (if it was Celcius everyone would have burned up in the stands). It was so hot that Djokovic could barely force himself back onto the court midway through the second set after a six-minute break, but even the pride that motivated that didn’t last long; he retired after being trounced in each game after that.
Roddick deserves praise for weathering the conditions (all horrendous puns intended), but something more serious needs to be done in the future. As global warming makes both summers and winters more severe across the globe, the Aussie Open is going to keep getting hotter and hotter. Serena Williams has already called for air conditioning earlier in the week, and as crazy as it may sound to play tennis in an air conditioned dome at a global major, it may not be that far away.
There’s sure to be plenty of knee jerk criticism of such a drastic and unorthodox move, but there’s a lot about it that we should all love. First on the list? A chance to see more of the beautiful Brooklyn Decker, who just so happens to be engaged to Monsieur Roddick. What, you thought she was going to brave 130-degree heat to support her beau? Not a professional lady of leisure.
(Someone go get air conditioning in Melbourne! Pronto!)
So, was the heat that Roddick and Djokovic faced in the wee hours of Tuesday worse than the metaphorical heat Jon Gruden was up against during his ouster? Yeah, it probably was. Still, Gruden faced plenty of criticism in the days leading up to his shocking dismissal, and now it’s becoming clear that a disturbing amount of it came from Tampa Bay fans themselves. According to THE ST. PETERSBURG TIMES’ Bucs Beat blog, the Malcolm and Bryan Glazer — the team’s owners — “took the pulse of the fans” before dropping the axe on Chucky’s NFL head coaching career.
According to the blog’s author, beat writer Stephen Holder, fans were absolutely irate that the team collapsed down the stretch, costing them a playoff berth in a wide-open NFC in a season where the city was hosting the Super Bowl.
(E tu’, Bucs fans?)
And don’t underestimate just how much the fan feelings may have played into getting rid of Gruden. Just look at the Glazer’s once irascible relationship with Manchester United fans — the family also owns that storied soccer franchise — and it becomes clear that they’ll cow-tow whenever they feel enough pressure to do so.
Here’s what Bryan Glazer told the blog:
“We talked to a lot of people, but we not only talked to the players, but (also) out in the community getting a feel for the team,” Glazer said. “We get opinions and we mix them all together. We just took our time making that decision.”
Asked further about the community feedback, Glazer said, “Our fans are our stockholders. They’re what we play for — the people in our stadium and the ones that watch on TV. That’s what it’s all about: winning and how they feel about the team. If they don’t feel good about the team, then there’s something wrong. . . I think you all know the sense that’s out there. It was time for a change.”
Hmmm. Sounds like a cheap way out when things start to go wrong with Raheem Morris next year, doesn’t it?
Here are Justice’s full comments. Pretty aggressive:
“He has never been in a car with me,” Justice said. “He didn’t take me to the airport. He’s going to call me a liar and that’s his information? That’s a bald-faced lie. … Who was in the car with me? Give me some specifics. What was the day like? Why didn’t [Radomski] put that in the Mitchell report? … You don’t remember taking me to the airport then? Now you wrote a book and remember? He has nothing.”
Well, he has something: A book deal. And the more this issue gets talked about, the better that book deal is going to look. Talk about free PR. Justice said he’s not going to take Radomski to court for that very hypocritical reason, though that in itself is sure to cast aspersion on his own assertions that he’s never sat in a car with the man. And what did Doc Gooden have to say about Radomski’s claim that he twice peed in a cup for him?
Here was Gooden’s text-message response: “LOL”
Uggggh. The steroid story spins on … and on and on and on.
Remember when the PLAYBOY party during Super Bowl week was the hottest ticket of the year? Well, now it’s not a ticket at all, thanks to that whole recession deal.
All the deification of Larry Fitzgerald Sr. — by Rick Reilly and Michael Wilbon, among others — has been a little over the top. How do we know? Because SLATE’s inimitable Josh Levinhas Fitzgerald Sr.’s past work to prove it.
Sure, the Super Bowl party scene may be taking hit, but will the slow down affect the strip clubs? It’s a legitimate question … or at least legitimate enough that the ST. PETERSBURG TIMES is asking it.
College baseball coaches aren’t the only ones who drink and drive. Players do, too. So, if Augie Garrido got a four-game suspension, how many are Stephen Locke going to miss?
If a Brazilian pro soccer player scores a goal that doesn’t go between the goalposts, is it still a goal? Judge for yourself at the 6:05 mark of the video below.
Novak Djokovic, just a year removed from becoming Flushing’s instant darling after unveiling his array of tennis impressions (he served it just like Sharapova! Uncanny!), has managed nearly as quickly to become more unpopular than Armando Benitez in the Big Apple.
After dispatching Andy Roddick in four sets in the US Open quarterfinals, Djokovic celebrated with a double-barreled Usain Bolt chest thump, then blasted Roddick in his on-court interview.
(Video of Novak’s post-match interview after the jump.)
