8:00 PM CSN Baltimore has video of Marcus Smith, a U.S. soldier who dressed as a minor league umpire to surprise his children at a Bowie Baysox game with a home visit from Afghanistan.
7:45 PM A Japanese Harley-Davidson motorcycle that was swept out to sea during last year's tsunami washed up on a shore in British Columbia last month. The bike's owner asked that the motorcycle be displayed at the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee as a memorial to the tsunami victims.
7:30 PM Buffalo Bills receiver David Clowneytweeted the results of his HIV test which came back negative. And to the critics of his decision to share his results, Clowney added: "Some people are Ridiculously stupid ... And can't see the bigger picture about things that are important in this world."
Sure yours may be bigger, but can you fill it? For Jerry Jones right now the answer is no, and Cowboys fans are furious. Anarchy in Dallas-Ft. Worth! It would be a shame if the new Tom Landry statue was torn down by an angry mob only hours after being installed.
Our story so far: The Cowboys are a couple thousand tickets or so short of a sellout for their home opener on Sunday, meaning that the game will be blacked out locally (maybe). To avoid that, or just because he’s greedy, King Jerry has released 1,200 reserved seat tickets into the wild. Get ‘em while they’re hot!
But that has royally pissed off PSL owners, who have paid as much as $5,000 each for their seats. This is a mess.
Last week, skeletal billionaire Jerry Jones made a curious comment in his capacity as Dallas Cowboys owner when he told reporters that revenue sharing - a staple of the NFL’s monetary structure and a key factor in the “parity” that generally defines the league from year to year - was “on its way out.” That would be good news to not many owners, only the richest - and one of them is most certainly Mr. Jones.
One tiny problem, though, and that’s the fact that Roger Goodell had earlier issued a gag order on the owners to keep them from publicly commenting on pending labor issues. It’s hard to break that rule more blatantly and clearly than how Jones just did, and that’s why the commissioner just issued Jones a fine that’s probably larger than your yearly salary.
One of the most-used buzzwords in today’s National Football League is “parity.” Salary caps and revenue sharing have ensured that every team, in theory, can compete for Super Bowls. It’s the most American of ideals (well, other than the revenue sharing and whatnot - socialism!); with gumption and hard work, any team - even the Cardinals! - can reach the pinnacle of the sport.
(What is Jerry Jones smoking?)
At least, that’s the storyline the NFL wants you to believe. The truth is that not every NFL team is created equal, and some teams have a hell of a lot more cash than others. In Jacksonville, the recession has wiped out their fans so badly they can’t even fill the stadium or get on local TV. Every team manages differently in these troubled times. Take the Cowboys, in comparison. They’ve reacted to the worst economy in decades by…jacking up ticket prices 90% over last year. And a happy recession to you too.
I’m not sure how much this seat is going for, but knowing Jerry Jones you’ll have to lease it for the entire season and pay extra if you happen to smudge the wall. From WAYNER.ORG via GEEKBRIEFTV, we present the worst seat at the new Cowboys Stadium. Some prefer to see the Cowboys game as 80 percent empty, but we prefer to see it as 20 percent full.
This is a real seat in Jerry’s new $1.15 billion playhouse, perfect for loners, or fans who are only interested in their team’s red zone offense. In the second half. Quite a letdown for the poor chump who drove all the way to Arlington to take in one of the iconic views in all of sports. I wonder, what would other classic American views look like from this seat? The results are after the jump.
• The harrowing story of Brett The Goat: From awaiting ritualistic slaughter while tied up in the trunk of a freaky Favre-hater, to his daring rescue by Minnesota auto mechanics & his settling down in the safe haven of a well-known Wisconsin farm.
Disney & Dreamworks are dueling for the movie rights as we speak!
• Speaking of the other Brett, the SbB Favre Embargo has officially ended. Shall we do it again?
With baseball not quite into the stretch run and the NFL and college football not quite ready to get underway, sports news has been a bit slow this week. So perhaps that’s why Punting-Into-The-Giant-HD-Screen-Gate just isn’t going away. Peter Kingspent an inordinate amount of time talking about it in his Monday Morning QB column yesterday, and he insinuates that the NFL might have as much to do with the mistake as Jerry Jones.
(Can’t the Geek Squad come and pick it up and put a new one in next week?)
It’s strange that the Cowboys had everything about the new stadium approved by the league, but Colts President Bill Polian — who is on the league’s competition committee — is quoted by King as saying this:
“The irony is that our stadium architect [at new Lucas Oil Stadium] wanted to hang the videoboards the same way in our stadium,” Polian said. “So we put a metal beam about 90 feet above the ground and had our punter at the time, Hunter Smith, punt the ball up there trying to hit it. He hit it the majority of the time. That’s why we put our replay boards on the wall.”
Seriously, nobody from the NFL or the Colts, realizing that another team was building a new stadium, said anything to anyone else at the NFL or with the Cowboys about this possible issue? A guy on the competition committee didn’t see where the screens were going to be and say “uhhh, that’s not gonna work?” Or did Jerry Jones just not want to listen to anything because his punters don’t do silly things like kick the ball high and hard? Jones, for what it’s worth, installed the screens five feet higher than is required by the NFL. So why, if 90 feet wasn’t high enough for Indianapolis, does the NFL still only require 85 feet of clearance?
Cowboys punter Mat McBriar said yesterday that he plans on kicking to the sidelines, and isn’t worried about the boards. That’s great for Mat and all, but the problem is that you don’t want to get in a position of the screen being in play at all. It’s entirely possible that it could be hit two or three times in a row, and then you’re stuck with do-overs that exhaust players and open more opportunities for injuries.
The NEW YORK TIMES’ Richard Sandomir says that a screen like this is a completely new animal, and was specifically designed to hang at its current height. It is also designed to be able to be lowered, but not raised. One imagines that permanently raising it up would certainly be possible, but quite costly. And who foots the bill in that case? Jones (because it’s his stadium), or the NFL (because they approved it to begin with)? A Cowboys spokesman tells the DALLAS MORNING NEWS that the team doesn’t believe the height of the board will be a factor “in a competitive-game situation.” I guess they just think that A.J. Trapasso was screwing around when he plunked it.
Don’t look now, but baseball’s 2007 darlings are well on their way to becoming baseball’s 2009 darlings. After a stunning walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the 14th inning from Ryan Spilborghs last night to crush the Giants 6-4, the Colorado Rockies are now four games up in the wild card race and just three games out of first place in the NL West heading into a huge showdown with the Dodgers at Coors.
The Giants looked poised to pull within two games of the Rox, scoring three times in the top of the 14th to take a seemingly insurmountable 4-1 lead. But then Merkin Valdez completely blew up in the bottom of the ninth, walking pitcher Adam Eaton with the bases loaded to make it 4-2, then serving up the game-ending meatball to Spilborghs two pitches later.
Let’s be honest, here. The Giants are extremely fortunate to be anywhere near a playoff spot. It’s a testament to guys like Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain that they’re able to overcome an offense that features Bengie Molina’s .280 on-base percentage batting fourth every night. They’ve always seemed a bat or two away from being a real threat, and Freddy Sanchez wasn’t exactly the answer.
If Colorado can split the six games left with the Giants in San Francisco, they have a very favorable schedule, including 10 straight home games in September against the D-backs, Mets, and Reds. Then they get six games with San Diego down the stretch. It all leads up to a three-game showdown at Dodger Stadium to end the regular season. The Giants have nine games with Arizona and six with the Dodgers, but also have to go on the road to Philadelphia and Milwaukee while Colorado is in the midst of its long homestand.
Crazy to think that the NL West has become the best race in baseball, considering how well the Dodgers were going earlier in the year. And yes, a lot of that lead was built without Manny in the lineup.
• A 13-year-old, 383-lb. football player from St. Louis collapsed and died of a heart condition last week during practice. Anthony Troupe, Jr.’s father dropped dead at the age of 45 in 2007. The AP asks if all student athletes should be tested for heart problems. I think the more reasonable question is why a 13-year-old kid was allowed to reach 383 lbs. Not to judge the kid himself, but someone around him should’ve taken some initiative to ensure that he was healthy enough to play football, considering the fate his father suffered.
• Billy Wagner has shunned the Red Sox and will stay with the Mets, according to FOX SPORTS’ Ken Rosenthal. The Mets will get two draft picks for Wagner when he walks as a free agent following the season.
• Look, I know the WNBA isn’t very popular, but the NEW YORK TIMES might want to employ a copy editor the one time they actually put something about the league on the front page:
Let’s add punting to the list of things that Jerry Jones knows less about than he thinks he does. And the placement of HD Jumbotrons in his new stadium. And…well, I’ll just stop there, because we could go on all day like this with issues that aren’t really relevant to the story at hand: while the debut of the new Cowboys Stadium might have been a success last night, ESPN says the stadium is a punter’s nightmare because of the enormous, low-hanging HD screen in the middle of the stadium.
In fact, Titans punter A.J. Trapasso managed to hit the screen with a punt in third quarter in Tennessee’s preseason game against Dallas - the debut of the new stadium. And while Trapasso has a leg on him, this wasn’t a display of punting prowess like Ray Guyhitting the screen at the Superdome, either - this seems like a problem that is going again and again.
Video of Trapasso’s punt plunking the video screen after the jump:
One of the most unseemly aspects of conference championship playoff games in football is the appearance of unfairness in the location of the game. Why, if a team is more highly rated and in line for a giant BCS bowl payday, should they travel to a conference opponent’s backyard at the end of the season and put their whole year on the line one last time?
It’s a legitimate question, especially in the Big 12, which has seen no fewer than five teams enter the conference championship ranked in the top three, only to walk out with a loss. So naturally, they’re thinking about permanently relocating to Dallas. Of course.
Lord knows there are many to choose from, but my favorite Adam Pacman Jones story has to be the one from August of last year, when he was informed that his NFL suspension was over while dining at Hooters. Yes, an NFL without Pacman seems somehow sad and incomplete — a notion I happen to share with a certain Dallas Cowboys owner, as it turns out.
If Game 1 of the NBA Finals seemly confirmed the suspicion that the Orlando Magic didn’t belong on the same floor with the Los Angeles Lakers, at least the Magic put an end to that on Sunday night in Game 2. They remembered how to shoot (at least two of them did), played some (at times) stingy defense, and generally were a total pest in pushing the Lakers to overtime.
Unfortunately for the Magic, what they didn’t prove is that they could beat the Lakers in the NBA Finals, as the home team held on for a 101-96 victory to take a 2-0 lead as the series shifts to Orlando for the next three (probably?) games. But they came tantalizingly close at the end of regulation. Hedu Turkoglu found Courtney Lee cutting to the basket behind Kobe Bryant on an inbounds play with 0.6 seconds left and tossed him a lob that reached Lee but forced a midair adjustment, causing his lay-in to be just off the mark, bouncing off the front of the rim as time expired.
While the Magic might not admit it, they seemed drained by the missed opportunity in overtime, although their inability to stop Pau Gasol in the extra period was just as crippling. The Spaniard scored seven of his 24 points in overtime, including a three-point play with 1:14 left that gave the Lakers an insurmountable six point lead.
As for the Magic’s shooting: Rashard Lewis and Turkoglu were outstanding, with Lewis hitting 6-of-12 three-pointers en route to 34 points, while Turkoglu added 22 points including three three-pointers. The rest of the team? Not so much, as the Magic weren’t helped by Rafer Alston and J.J. Redick combining to go 2-for-17 for the game, including a woeful 1-10 from behind the arc. Also not helping: that J.J. Redick was anywhere near the floor for any length of time, much less 27 minutes. For all the great coaching Stan Van Gundy might have done in Game 2, that can’t be considered his finest hour.
Right now, it will take an amazing comeback for the Orlando Magic to win the NBA Title. (Before the 2006 Miami Heat did it, who was the last team to go down 2-0 and win the NBA Title? The 1977 Portland Trail Blazers.) But perhaps they need to take a clue from famous local resident and occasional Magic fan Tiger Woods, who had some Magic of his own on Sunday, no overtime needed. Woods came from four shots back to win the Memorial Tournament in front of host Jack Nicklaus with one of his most impressive final round performances, shooting a 65 while hitting every fairway in regulation.
The performance was awe-inspiring enough to prompt Nicklaus to cave in Woods’ surgically repaired knee with a nine-iron after the match in an attempt to prevent Woods from reaching his record of 18 major championships, before standing over a fallen Woods and shouting a Ric Flair style “Woooooooo!” Actually, that’s a lie; in fact, Nicklaus remarked that it would “greatly surprise” him if Woods didn’t win major No. 15 in two weeks at the U.S. Open.
Finally, it’s kind of hard to fault the San Diego Padres’ Josh Wilson for giving up the go-ahead three-run homer to the Diamondbacks’ Mark Reynolds in the 18th inning of Arizona’s 9-6 win on Sunday. Sure, Wilson might have had extra motivation for pitching against the team that released him earlier this season, but he really shouldn’t have been out there anyway. Wilson is an infielder, and was only pitching after Padres manager Bud Black ran out of pitchers in bullpen. So he sent Wilson out there, who got fastballs up to 88 mph and mixed in a few change-ups as well.
Also, when you are relying on David Eckstein to homer to take the game into extra innings, you really should consider yourself lucky to be there in the first place, which is what the Padres needed in the ninth inning to erase a three-run deficit. Then again, the Padres really didn’t do much after that against the Diamondbacks’ bullpen, getting no-hit for all nine innings of extra baseball.
THE SPORTS HERNIA wonders if Pau Gasol might be missing Game 3 after some…explosive rectal issues?
Former Philadelphia Eagles defensive lineman Sam Rayburn tells the PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER that he was taking more than 100 painkillers a day before being caught forging prescriptions and getting clean. Or as Elizabeth Taylor would call that, lunch.
What could bring together Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and former head coach Jimmy Johnson? How about a concert headlined by George Strait and Reba McEntireto open the new Cowboys Stadium?
Just when things couldn’t get any worse for the Washington Nationals, DC SPORTS BOG checks in with this: they had a malfunction during their fireworks display, and the debris just happened to fall on the D.C. fire chief. Proving that the Nationals really have turned into a bad 1970s sitcom.
Mike Brown proved that his WEC featherweight title victory over Urijah Faber in November was no fluke in the rematch on Sunday, going into Faber’s hometown of Sacramento, CA and winning a unanimous decision that left Faber in the hospital after the match.
Among the “highlights” of the ongoing court battle over the fate of the Phoenix Coyotes: the Phoenix suburb of Glendale (where the Coyotes actually play) is suggesting that coach and minority owner Wayne Gretzky is “overpaid” and should have his salary cut by more than $6 million. Because going after The Great One is a winning legal strategy in Canadian courts.
David Wells says that Jose Cansecooffered HGH to him when they were teammates on the Chicago White Sox, but he declined. Instead, he dropped 30 pounds by giving up beer in the offseason and actually working out. Also, is there anyone Jose Canseco hasn’t offered performance-enhancing drugs to in baseball at this point?
HOME RUN DERBY casts a discriminating eye at the reverse negative error baseball card, the bain of beleaguered Topps photo editors everywhere. (Well, specifically at the Topps offices, I guess.)
Long Island high school athlete Ryan Harrigan uses his abilities to chase down a would-be purse snatcher while working his after-school job as a grocery store employee. Would you like paper, plastic or handcuffs, Sir?
