Sir Alex Ferguson Is Going To Retire

Manchester United in the Barclay’s Premier League in England is THE most valuable sports franchise in the world according to Forbes. They value the franchise at $3B. Just for comparison purposes, here is how Forbes values some franchises that are more widely known in the US:

    NY Yankees $2.3B
    Dallas Cowboys $2.1B
    NE Patriots $1.64B
    LA Dodgers $1.62B
    Washington Redskins $1.60B
    NY Giants $1.48B
    Boston Red Sox $1.31B
    NY Knicks $1.1B
    LA Lakers $1.0B
    Toronto Maple Leafs $1.0B

The point here is that Manchester United – owned by the same folks who own the Tampa Bay Bucs – is a major sports entity in the world even though there are lots of sports fans in the US who consider themselves “sports sophisticates” but do not know Manchester United from Manchester Untied or United Airlines. I bring this up because Sir Alex Ferguson – the man who has been the manager of “ManU” for the last 26 years during which time “ManU” has won the Premier League Cup 13 times – announced that he is retiring at the end of this season which is only a couple of weeks away.

Before any US sports fan dislocates his knee with a kneejerk here by trying to compare Sir Alex’s record to John Wooden’s tenure at UCLA, allow me to inform anyone of that bent that John Wooden began coaching at UCLA in 1948 and he did not win his first championship until 1964. John Wooden went 26 years without a single championship in the same tenure that Sir Alex Ferguson won 50% of the championships available to him.

This man has been knighted by the Queen of England as a recognition of his accomplishments as a manager of a futbol team. There are – and have been – great coaches and managers of sports franchises in the US Indeed, there is no equivalent to knighthood here in the US; nevertheless, it would be difficult to point to a more successful coach/manager in US sporting circumstances than Sir Alex Ferguson.

Have a healthy and prosperous retirement, Sir Alex Ferguson; you have earned it

Oh, by the way… Bonne chance to the person who gets to follow you in that post…

The NBA playoffs are into the second round and both the Lakers and the Celtics are on the sidelines. Both of the NBA’s iconic franchises need significant makeovers. Even if Kobe Bryant can come back next year from his Achilles’’ tendon injury and play like the “Kobe of old”, this team needs help. Kobe is 34 years old and his contract – worth $30M in round numbers next year – is up at the end of next year. If the Lakers’ brass were devising a 5-year plan, they would be wise not to have Kobe in a prominent role within that plan as a focal-point player in the fifth year of said plan. And, that reality leads to questions:

    1. Is Dwight Howard capable of being the face of the Lakers’ franchise in the future? He is probably the best pure center in the NBA at the moment, but is this the guy who is going to be the leader of the Lakers in the same tradition that folks like Kobe and Magic and Jerry West and Elgin Baylor and George Mikan were leaders of that franchise?

    2. Oh, by the way, who is going to be the point guard on the future Lakers’ teams that approach the standard of excellence set by previous Lakers’ teams? I seriously doubt that person is on the roster at this time.

If you think I have painted a bleak picture for the Lakers, let me say now that the outlook for the Boston Celtics may be even bleaker. Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce may both deservedly be in the Hall of Fame one of these days. Nevertheless, they are aging stars on the downward arc of their careers and they are not able to carry a team by themselves to a Championship – or even to the Finals – anymore. Father Time has caught up with them…

It is reasonable for Celtics’ fans to expect Rajon Rondo to return at some point next year fully recovered and rehabbed from his injury and surgery. Might that be enough to change the balance of power in the NBA East from the Heat to the Celtics? Candidly, the answer is “NO!” The way for the Celtics to rebuild/retool is to find a way to trade both Pierce and Garnett (who will make a combined $27M next year) and use that salary room to restructure the team. If all the team does is to let the Pierce and Garnett contracts expire, they will be left with Rondo – a top-shelf point guard – and the following list of goombahs:

    Brandon Bass
    Avery Bradley
    Jordan Crawford
    Jeff Green
    Courtney Lee
    Fab Melo
    Jared Sullinger

No offense intended her to a group of players who had productive and honorific college basketball careers, but that lineup plus Rajon Rondo is not going to “unseat the Heat”…

It has been a while since the NBA faced a period where both the Celtics and the Lakers might be “inconsequential” for a few years. Conspiracy theorists will be looking for the next big trade that is lopsided in favor or either or both of these teams…

For the record, I really like Bob Costas and Jim Kaat as an announcing duo for MLB games. I do enjoy hearing Joe Buck and Tim McCarver a lot but with McCarver retiring at the end of this season, I think Costas/Kaat will become the undisputed top announcing tandem for MLB games.

Finally, commenting on the cold weather games that MLB fans endured in the early season 2013, Dwight Perry had this item in the Seattle Times:

“The Mets and Rockies played in 28-degree weather in Denver on Thursday.

“How cold was it? All the players wore No. 99 in honor of Wayne Gretzky.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

May 10, 2013 – 12:29 am Categories: Daily Rants | Comments (3)

Baseball Disappointments…

I know that it is only the first week of May and that the baseball season has barely begun; but still, I have to wonder what is wrong with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. As of yesterday, the Angels were 11-21 for the season; that projects to a season with 106 losses. Can they really be THAT bad? As of yesterday, they were only 2.5 games ahead of the Houston Astros – a team that is “major league” only in terms of the competition that it plays.

The Angels have spent big money in the last two free agent markets. Last winter they signed Josh Hamilton for 5 years and $125M. They gave him a $10M signing bonus and $15M for this year. In 2016 and in 2017, Hamilton will make $30M each season. A year and a half ago, the Angels dipped into the till to sign albert Pujols to a 10-year contract worth $242M. Pujols makes $16M this year but his deal goes through the 2021 season and the Angels are on the hook to pay him a total of $87M between 2019 and 2021. Here is how those investments look as of the moment:

    Josh Hamilton: In 126 at bats, he has 26 hits (hitting .202) and has struck out 40 times. He has hit 2 homeruns and has grounded into 3 double plays. He has driven in 9 runs.

    Albert Pujols: In 121 at bats, he has 28 hits (hitting .231) and has struck out 18 times. He has hit 5 homeruns and has grounded into 7 double plays. He has driven in 19 runs.

When you consider that the Angels are committed to paying both of these guys a total of $367M, the most polite way to evaluate that investment would be to say it is “underperforming expectations”. Both players had career batting averages of .300 or better at the start of this year and both have been MVP winners in recent times. This is just a slump and both of them will pull out of it, right?

Not to put all the blame on those guys, consider the Angels pitching staff this year. Through 32 games, the Angels team ERA is 4.68 and they have issued 132 walks (4.1 walks per game). Currently, their #3 starter is Joe Blanton who is 0-5 with an ERA ever so slightly below 6.00.

I cannot think about what is wrong with the Angels without also wondering what is wrong with the Toronto Blue Jays. After they acquired most of the bona fide major league players on the Marlins’ roster from last year in a trade, they signed Melky Cabrera and got R.A. Dickey from the Mets. Yes, José Reyes is hurt and out for a couple of months but that does not explain why the Blue Jays have a 13-21 record – one that projects to 100 losses for the season.

As a team, the Blue Jays are batting .238. The team has 270 hits and 271 strikeouts. Combine that with a team ERA of 4.71 and you can see why the Jays have had trouble winning games. Looking at the “big off-season acquisitions” for the Jays:

    R.A. Dickey: Record is 2-5 with an ERA of 5.36.

    Josh Johnson: Record is 0-1 with an ERA of 6.86 (four starts)

    Mark Buehrle: Record is 1-2 with an ERA of 7.02.

    Emilio Bonafacio: Hitting .160 with 12 hits and 25 strikeouts.

    José Reyes: On the DL.

    Melky Cabrera: Hitting .270 – the highest of any regular starting player.

While I am at it, let me ask how the LA Dodgers – who spent money more frivolously than the US Congress over the winter – can possibly sport a 13-19 record and trail the San Diego Padres? One reason might be that in a recent game, this team that has the highest payroll in MLB started an infield of Luis Cruz, Dee Gordon, Nick Punto and Juan Uribe. Wow! The Dodgers’ preferred outfield lineup would be Carl Crawford, Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp. This trio will make $53.5M between them this year. Now take a look at their production so far:

    Carl Crawford: Hitting .304 with 5 homeruns but only 8 RBIs. He has stolen 6 bases. So far, he is the best of the lot…

    Andre Ethier: Hitting .243 with 3 homeruns and 10 RBIs.

    Matt Kemp: Hitting .273 with 1 homerun and 14 RBIs. Not exactly the stats you would expect from someone billed as “All-World” by the fawning LA press corps.

Clayton Kershaw has pitched 48.2 innings with an ERA of 1.66 and his record is only 3-2. He should sue the rest of the team for non-support or nonfeasance. Kershaw’s contract is up at the end of this season…

At the other end of the expectation spectrum, no one expected the Miami Marlins to do anything but stink this year. The team is living down to those expectations sporting a 10-24 record, which projects to 114 losses for the season. Giancarlo Stanton was obviously the best player on this wretched team – one who could start for just about every other club in MLB – and then he pulled a hamstring, which should keep him on the shelf for about a month. The Marlins went to their minor league system and called up Marcel Ozuna who – so far – is hitting .419 in his first 8 games.

Ozuna started the year in AA ball and this is his first year at that level. Up until now, he has been in a rookie league, a short-season A league and a full-season A league. So far, he is having no problems with major-league pitching. Is he a phenom or a flash-in-the-pan? We will probably figure out that he is a phenom if the Marlins trade him sometime this summer.

Finally, Greg Cote had this item recently in the Miami Herald:

“Racing has returned to Calder, which advertises itself as ‘20 minutes from anywhere.’ Believing it, a man from Buffalo, N.Y., left his home Saturday for the track and missed the first post by three and a half days.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

May 9, 2013 – 8:28 am Categories: Daily Rants | Comments (8)

Bad Person – Or Bad Career Advice?

Exactly 1600 years ago today, in 413 AD the Emperor Honorius granted tax relief to several Italian provinces that had been sacked and plundered by the Visigoths. This information comes from Wikipedia but I can find no mention in Wikipedia if said tax relief engendered a filibuster in the Roman Senate at the time…

In my former life, I often had the responsibility to provide career guidance and counseling to young professionals. Obviously, Titus Young never had good counseling or he never paid attention to any career counseling advice. Let me review the bidding for the WR that the Lions released a few months ago:

    Complained he was not getting the ball enough in Detroit.

    Intentionally lined up in the wrong position to “sabotage” certain plays.

    Said – with a straight face – that he was a better WR than Calvin Johnson.

    Sucker-punched teammate Louis Delmas earning a team suspension.

That is not much of a curriculum vitae for a WR who averaged 40 catches and 5 TDs per season over a two-year career. After the Lions released him, Jeff Fisher signed him for the Rams but that lasted about a week until the Rams let him go with Fisher saying that Young might fit in better with another organization. [Translation: Clearly, this guy is not worth the hassle.] Last night, Young took his already soiled image and found a way to make it even less attractive to perspective employers. He was arrested twice in a day for two different crimes.

    1. Around midnight, he was arrested for alleged DUI in Moreno Valley, CA.

    2. The next afternoon, he was arrested and charged with burglary when he tried to take his car from the impound lot where it resided as a result of the earlier arrest.

If Titus Young had ever shown “Jerry Rice Talent”, he would still be employable by an NFL team. Having failed to do so, I suspect that his opportunities in the NFL are extremely limited. Hopefully, he paid attention in his classes at Boise State…

That wish for Titus Young calls to mind a comment from Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald recently:

“President Obama gave the commencement address at Ohio State University. Obama has now been on the OSU campus five times in just over a year. There are scholarship football players at Ohio State who haven’t been on campus that often.”

Switching gears, Chicago Cubs chairman, Tom Ricketts said last week that the Cubs might have to move from Wrigley Field if they cannot reach multi-party agreement that would allow the Cubs to make changes to Wrigley Field to include a large video scoreboard. Said Ricketts:

“The fact is that if we don’t have the ability to generate revenue in our own outfield, we’ll have to take a look at moving – no question,”

Let me be clear; I am not one of those folks who think that Wrigley Field is an idyllic baseball venue that harkens back to the essential roots of the game. Wrigley Field is an old stadium that has been showing its age badly for the last two decades; it was never mentioned as a “dump” when bad stadiums were being discussed over the past 20 years because Shea Stadium, the Vet and RFK Stadium were still in use. Wrigley Field is better than all three of those places used to be – but not by a lot.

Having said that, the Cubs are not really going to leave Wrigley Field. Yes, they do have an offer in hand from the mayor of Rosemont IL – a Chicago suburb near O’Hare Airport less than 20 miles as the crow flies from Wrigley Field – to get a 25-acre piece of land in Rosemont where a “modern Wrigley Field” might reside. No, they are not moving to Rosemont. Part of the problem Ricketts faces in terms of dealing with the city of Chicago and the folks who live around Wrigley Field is that Forbes listed the Cubs as the most profitable baseball organization last year. Also, in trying to claim that the Cubs’ revenue is hurt by those rooftop seats across the street, the claim is weakened to a degree by the fact that the Cubs are a minority partner in one of those rooftop ventures – according to Forbes. Crying poor and claiming that others are poaching on his revenue streams are just not supported by the facts.

    [Aside: The Cubs lost 101 games last year. Their average attendance was 37,307 which ranked 10th among the 30 MLB teams. By comparison, the Astros lost 107 games and drew only 22,244 fans per game.]

The folks who run Chicago and the people in Wrigleyville whose property values are propped up by Wrigley Field should give thanks that Jerry Reinsdorf does not own the Cubbies. If he did and if he had an offer in hand for a place to put a new stadium and the multi-party negotiations to get what he wanted in the old Wrigley Field were at a standstill, Reinsdorf would apply pressure to get things moving and to get what he wanted – pronto.

Jay Leno summed up all of the Cubs/Wrigley Field drama with this commentary:

“In baseball news, the Chicago Cubs said they will move if improvements are not made to Wrigley Field. And Wrigley Field said it will move if improvements are not made to the Chicago Cubs.”

Speaking of the Cubs and the improvements needed there, the team has a propensity for issuing outrageous contracts to middling players. The 8-year contract to Alfonso Soriano for $136M is a milepost in terms of over-valuation of a player’s worth. Nevertheless, the Cubs seem not to have learned from that blunder. Last winter they signed Edwin Jackson to a 4-year deal worth $52M. Jackson got $8M to sign and will get $11M per year through the 2016 season. At the time of his signing, his career record was 70-71; as of this morning, here are his stats for 2013:

    Record is 0-5
    ERA is 6.39

At least Soriano’s contract will come off the books in 2014; Jackson’s contract goes through 2016.

Finally, here is a comment from Greg Cote of the Miami Herald demonstrating why he does not write the “society column” for that paper:

“Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, 42, is dating a former Heat dancer, Nikki Sapp, 26. Strange, right? I don’t mean the age difference. I mean that in 50 years she’ll be an old lady named “Nikki.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

May 8, 2013 – 9:53 am Categories: Daily Rants | Comments (1)

Baseball Hall of Fame – Who’s In and Who’s Out?

Last week, I did a rant headlined Bad Boys and that rant caused Rich, a long-term reader, to pose this question as a comment:

“Speaking of bad boys, my beautiful wife Mary has just found a poster we picked up at a home run hitting extravaganza here in Las Vegas’ Cashman Field in year 2000. Depicted on the poster are the following notables: Rafael Palmiero, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Jose Canseco, Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez, who collectively have a few thousand home runs to their discredit. Also included are some players who have not sullied their own reputations with PED’s: Ken Griffey Jr., Shawn Green, Nomar Garciaparra, Mike Piazza and Chipper Jones. I am wondering which of these players, some with astounding careers, would in your opinion gain entrance to the Baseball Hall of Fame?”

Before answering that question directly as I will eventually, I need to state what I think the Baseball Hall of Fame ought to be. In the past, I have made it clear that some inducted members of the Hall of Fame should not have been so honored; they belong in my opinion in a “Hall Of Very Good Players” but not the Hall of Fame. I shall not belabor that point here. The reason I bring it up is that I believe that the Baseball Hall of Fame should honor those players who were truly “The Best” of their times in the game. At the same time, the Hall of Fame is not the “Hall of Great Human Beings”; it is a merely place to recognize great baseball players some of whom were only slightly removed from the primordial slime on the evolutionary scale.

Given my definition of what the membership of the Hall of Fame ought to be, there would be no exclusions for ne’er-do-wells before or after the fact of their retirement. Pete Rose would be in the Hall of Fame AND there would be as a permanent part of his repose there an explanation of his admitted betting on baseball games. Joe Jackson would also be in the Hall of Fame AND there would be as a permanent part of his repose there an explanation that he was part of the Black Sox team in 1919 but that he and others were exonerated at trial for fixing World Series games. Please do not tell me that such a thing would “demean baseball accomplishments” in some way. Remember, baseball is the game that allowed its commissioner to put an asterisk on Roger Maris’ 61 home run season in 1961.

By the way, just to be complete, I would add to the existing Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker memorials that there is some reason to believe that both of them fixed at least one game and wagered on its outcome. That allegation has never been proven of course – just as Joe Jackson’s participation in the Black Sox scandal has never been proven.

Even with that focus, the question here poses a conundrum. More than a few of the folks on Rich’s list have prodigious home run totals and batting accomplishments that would put them squarely in “Hall of Fame territory”. The thing that has to be considered is that some of them used PEDs to amass those statistics; therefore, to what degree might one “discount” some of the numbers?

I believe that as time goes on, the players of the steroid era will be seen in a less harsh light than they are today and that future voters for Hall of Fame induction will be less inclined to use the Hall of Fame ballot as a form of retribution. What follows is how I would vote for the players that Rich named in his question and why:

    Rafael Palmiero: I would vote NO. His home run total is more an achievement of time and not of greatness.

    Barry Bonds: Eventually, I would vote YES. Before the time when he went through his rapid “bulking up” he was a great player; I personally believe he was a prodigious user of PEDs but even discounting the effect they had on his stats, I believe he was one of the great baseball players ever.

    Mark McGwire: I am really on the fence with this one. His career batting average is only .263 but his career OPS (enhanced to be sure by his slugging numbers) is .982. He was an All-Star 13 times but was never voted MVP. Probably, I would vote NO.

    Sammy Sosa: I would vote NO. He had a few years with prodigious home run totals but I never saw him as one of the dominant players of his time.

    José Canseco: I would vote NO. I just do not see him as one of the best players of his time in MLB.

    Manny Ramirez: Eventually, I would vote YES. Ramirez’ lifetime batting average is .312 over a career that spanned 19 years; in 17 of those seasons he hit .290 or better.

    A-Rod: Eventually, I would vote YES. Even before there were any allegations of his use of PEDs, A-Rod was one of the best players in MLB.

    Ken Griffey Jr.: Clearly, he should be voted in on the first ballot and I would vote YES if I had a vote.

    Shawn Green: I would vote NO. He does not come close to my mental construct of what a Hall of Fame player ought to be. In 13 full seasons in MLB, he only made the All-Star team twice.

    Nomar Garciaparra: I would vote YES. With a career batting average of .313, I could put him in the Hall of Fame – - but just because they were contemporaries, I would have him wait until after Derek Jeter was in the Hall.

    Mike Piazza: Interestingly, Rich has him in the “no PEDs category” while there are some who are “convinced” that he was a user. Obviously, I do not know the facts here. His numbers as a catcher are most impressive (career BA .313; career OPS .922 and 427 home runs). Whether or not he was a “user”, he was one of the dominant catchers in the game during his run in MLB. I would vote YES.

    Chipper Jones: I would vote Yes. I am not sure which of his stats might fall short of the yardstick set by other Hall of Fame members where Jones falls short.

Rich did not have Roger Clemens in his listing so let me answer that one. I am convinced that Roger Clemens was a PED user; nonetheless, I believe that his stats make him a player worthy of induction into the Hall of Fame.

Finally, speaking of Hall of Fame players, here is an item from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“April 11 marked the 101st anniversary of the Yankees trademark pinstripes.

“Or 93 years since Babe Ruth first asked, ‘Does this uniform make my hips look too big?’ ”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

May 7, 2013 – 12:35 am Categories: Topical Rants | Comments (9)

Silliness First – Then Seriousness

I want to begin today by citing Greg Cote’s analysis of the Cinco de Mayo holiday and his celebration of the same in yesterday’s Miami Herald:

“Happy Cinco de Mayo, everybody! Non-imbibers refer to this as a ‘drinker’s holiday.’ The rest of us refer to this as ‘a day ending in y.’ ”

If you are like Professor Cote – and like me –, I hope you have recovered from yesterday’s festivities to the point that the crack of dawn this morning was not obnoxiously loud.

Last week, I tried to convey the message that Jason Collins announcement of his sexuality was not of particular importance to me even though that announcement was obviously very important to him. Here is a note from Gregg Drinnan’s Keeping Score column in the Kamloops Daily News over the weekend:

“After NBAer Jason Collins revealed that he is gay, Los Angeles Kings forward Dustin Penner (@Dustinpenner25) tweeted: ‘Honestly I don’t care if you are gay or straight as my teammate. As long as you don’t listen to Nickelback.’ “

I am certainly no expert on Nickelback’s body of work but I can recall listening to some of their songs because a friend was driving me somewhere and had them on in his car. From an admittedly small sample, I can understand exactly where Dustin Penner is coming from…

Last week, I also expressed a small bit of surprise that the Jacksonville Jaguars categorically ruled out the idea of working out and possibly signing Tim Tebow for the team. Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel took my comment a mile further down the road after it was announced that Jags’ WR, Justin Blackmon, would be suspended for the first 4 games of the upcoming season for running afoul of the league’s substance abuse policy for the third time in about three years:

“The Jaguars will take a chance on a substance-abusing wide receiver, but won’t take a chance on Tim Tebow – a proven winner, a hometown hero and a role model to people throughout the world. The Jags’ organizational stance on Tebow bafflingly seems to be this: ‘He’s the most popular player in the league who has won at every level and could sell tickets and make us interesting. Why in the world would we want THAT?’ “

I am not going to agree that Tebow is the most popular player in the NFL nor will I stipulate that he would win in Jax, but he would sell some tickets and he would make the Jags a lot more interesting than they are today.

Andy Staples had a report on SI.com last week about a convocation of “several dozen Division 1 athletic directors” meeting in Santa Monica to discuss current issues involving the business model of college sports in a setting where no one from the NCAA was around. It is definitely worth following the link to read the entire report. According to Staples’ report, the NCAA has continued the “vision” of Dr. Myles Brand and moved to consolidate power and authority in the hands of university presidents thereby isolating the athletic directors. And, not all that surprisingly, the university presidents and their advisors do not bring a lot of knowledge and experience in managing collegiate sports to the party. Here is a portion of Staples’ report:

“The athletic directors want to have an open dialogue with the NCAA about the pending Ed O’Bannon lawsuit, which could radically reshape the business model of major college sports. They want to talk about the potential impact should former football players sue over concussion-related issues. They want to talk about conference realignment, which has upended the industry in the past three years. They talked about all those issues Thursday and Friday in Santa Monica because the NCAA leadership doesn’t seem to want to discuss any of it with them. And the people in charge of some of the nation’s most powerful athletic programs are fed up.”

Here is the most telling part of Staples’ report. The ADs that spoke with him and participated in this meeting/convention/whatever would not allow themselves to be named in the piece because they fear retribution by the NCAA in the following sense:

“”We don’t want the NCAA getting back at us by going looking for one of our kids who might have gotten a free soda once.”

Let me be clear; I do not put all collegiate Athletic Directors on a pedestal and honor them for the grand societal function that they perform. Nonetheless, when folks at that level of experience and responsibility in an industry that produces billions of dollars of revenue are fearful of their overseers, one might conclude that there is “something rotten in the state of Denmark”. [/William Shakespeare]

In that vein, let me offer up a thought for the day regarding the NCAA and what it purports to exist for. The NCAA tries hard to make it appear as if it is a benevolent keeper of order so that noble amateur student-athletes might find ways to compete in intercollegiate athletics on a level playing field. The NCAA runs multiple series of advertisements and promotional messages trying to hammer that point home; the NCAA is merely there “for the student-ahtletes”. Think about those ads for a moment:

    The NFL does not run ads to convince us that it is all about garnering huge TV ratings thereby assuring they will generate even more revenues next year than they did this year. We know that is their fundamental objective and that is what the NFL does…

    Minor league baseball teams do not announce that their wacky promotions are little more than good fun ways to get local folks out to the ball park. We know that is their fundamental objective and that is what those wacky promotions are…

The point is that it is hugely unnecessary for any organization to fire up a bunch of ads to tell us the obvious about itself. Wal-Mart and Starbucks do not produce ads saying that one of their objectives is to drive out competition from small local businesses; but that is what they do. The ads encouraging young folks to enlist in the US Army do not feature the fact that soldiers frequently kill other people and are killed themselves; nevertheless, those are the facts of the matter. Organizations produce ads to try to convince us that they are something they are not such as “philanthropic” or “environmentally conscious”. It is like politicians who try to convince us that they are something more than careerists whose only objective is to be elected to office and then to be re-elected to office again and again and again…

The NCAA’s own self-pumpulating ads ought to convince any thinking person that the organization that approved the expenditures to produce those ads must not be what the ads are trying to portray. If that were the case, it would be a colossal waste of resources.

Finally, since I started today with a line from Greg Cote of the Miami Herald, let me close with another of his observations – this time on the NHL Draft and why it is not about to overtake the NFL Draft in popularity:

“In a lottery this week, the Panthers won the second overall pick in the upcoming NHL draft. They are expected to select someone you’ve never heard of from a Canadian junior team with a funny name.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

May 6, 2013 – 7:37 am Categories: Daily Rants | Comments (6)

Gambling On The Derby And On NFL QBs…

My interest in horseracing has waned significantly over the past decade. The prevalence of trainers who use drugs to enhance horses’ performances and the laxity by which the folks nominally in charge punish said trainers has given the impression that racing is no longer a “fair game” in terms of wagering. Make no mistake about it; outside the wagering angle, horseracing is not an attractive enterprise. I am not likely to pay money to go and watch horses run around an oval nor am I going to spend a lot of time in front of a TV set watching that either.

Today NBC will begin a television extravaganza for tomorrow’s Kentucky Derby. By race time tomorrow, you will know more than you could possibly have wanted to know about every horse in the race, every person who owns, trains, ride or grooms every horse in the race and most of the vignettes NBC will show you are going to be saccharine-sweet. I will watch exactly none of this.

I may tune in this afternoon to see the Kentucky Oaks (for fillies only) and I will tune in for the Derby tomorrow. In years past – when I cared about this a lot more – I would have devoted the entire rant today to handicapping the Derby field. Today, I will give you my three horses to play in a trifecta box looking for a price.

    Mylute: At 15-1 out of the 6-postposition, Mylute will be running late in the race and comes off a strong second in the Louisiana Derby.

    Revolutionary: At 10-1 out of the 3-postposition, Revolutionary has Calvin Borel in the saddle and he finds ways to get horses into the money along the rail.

    Verrazano: At 4-1 out of the 12-postposition, he has to avoid getting caught up in the inevitable traffic jam at the first turn.

One more Derby item… Rick Pitino owns 5% of Goldencents (5-1 out of the 8-postposition). In the event that Goldencents wins the Derby, Pitino will get 99% of the ink with regard to the ownership connections.

Switching from gambling on horseracing to gambling on young NFL quarterbacks, the KC Chiefs just threw down a large wager on a backup to Alex Smith. The Chiefs signed Chase Daniel to a 3-year deal potentially worth $10M and they gave Daniel $3M just to sign the contract. Chase Daniel has been in the NFL for 3 seasons with the New Orleans Saints; here are his career stats:

    He has thrown 9 passes; he has completed 7 of them.
    He has thrown for 55 yards; he has yet to throw a TD pass or an INT.
    He was sacked once for 10 yards.

With that résumé, he managed to walk out of the room with $3M wired to his bank account. And the NFL says that it is opposed to gambling…?

Another NFL quarterback situation merits comment today – the plight of Tim Tebow who remains unencumbered by a job. Several teams have declared that they are uninterested in signing Tebow or even working him out; obviously, the Chiefs think they do not need him as a backup as of today. One such team expressing their lack of interest is the Jacksonville Jaguars – and that one surprises me a little bit.

Tebow played high school football in Jacksonville and then played college football for Florida in Gainesville, which is less than 100 miles from Jacksonville. The Jaguars are a bad football team that cannot fill EverBank Field even though they have covered up about 10,000 seats with tarps and the new Jags’ owner, Shad Khan, has said that the presence of those tarps indicates failure for the franchise. I am surprised that the Jags do not consider the idea of having Tebow on their roster a good one simply from the perspective of selling some tickets because it is not as if the Jags have the latter-day John Unitas on the roster. Here is the Jaguars depth chart at QB:

    Blaine Gabbert: One more bad season, and he is officially a huge draft bust.

    Chad Henne: Career backup.

That’s it; that’s the list as of this morning. I am not one who thinks that Tim Tebow can be a great NFL QB; to the contrary, I think he needs a lot of coaching to become a good NFL QB. However, look at the “competition” in Jax; neither of those QBs has shown much of anything to indicate that he will become a good NFL QB one of these days. Moreover, neither of them will sell any tickets in Jax as shown by last year’s attendance figures. So, why the categorical statement of disinterest in Tim Tebow?

The final item for today regarding gambling on NFL QBs comes from the NY Post. The paper cited a report at Yahoo! Sports saying that Jets’ draftee, Geno Smith, had turned off coaches and execs during his pre-draft meetings because he appeared to be more interested in his smartphone than in talking with them. Sources said he was texting and tweeting during the meetings. Remember before the draft that a draftnik said that Smith did not take well to coaching and had been “coddled” for his collegiate career.

The Post also quoted an NFL insider who said that Smith “doesn’t know what he doesn’t know” and that “…you can’t tell him anything right now. He’s tuned out because he thinks he’s got it all down.”

Welcome to New York City, Geno Smith. Welcome to the “coddling” atmosphere of the tabloid press there and the warm fuzzy team environment created by Rex Ryan.

Finally, here is a comment from David Letterman regarding the Jets’ draft:

“The New York Jets say they will take the best athlete possible in the draft. They’re going to take the best athlete available. It’s the same strategy the Kardashian sisters use.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

May 3, 2013 – 9:29 am Categories: Daily Rants | Comments (4)

Bad Boys…

Bob Marley sang:

“Bad boys, bad boys. Whatca gonna do? Whatca gonna do?
When they come for you? Bad boys…”

Well, I have some “bad boys” to give some attention today. I shall begin with a report in the NY Post where a basketball player for Wisconsin-Green Bay alleges that his coach, Brian Wardle, abused him in a way that almost makes Mike Rice’s behavior at Rutgers seem “constructive”. The player, freshman Ryan Bross, says that Wardle would not allow him to take some required courses for the major he preferred (human biology) because that major would interfere with basketball in future years. That does not coincide with the NCAA ideal of the “student-athlete” but the problem does not stop there…

Bross also says that Coach Wardle told him to go and sleep with a girl because it would make him play better and that Bross was on the receiving end of “gay slurs” when he evidently did not comply. It is getting worse but we are not at the end of the line yet…

Bross also alleges that Coach Wardle made him run “hill sprints” until Bross came down with diarrhea and soiled himself. Coach Wardle of course denies the allegations and claims that he has cooperated fully with an independent investigator looking into this matter. The jury is still out but one of the actors in this saga is indeed a “bad boy”. Either Bross is a liar or Coach Wardle has a large measure of sub-human tendencies.

In northern New Jersey, two high schools had a scheduled baseball game that ceased to be a baseball game and turned into something closer to a riot. Red Bank Regional High School attempted a suicide squeeze play and there was a collision at the plate. The home plate umpire said the runner “came in with a shoulder block on the catcher and was called out and ejected. The catcher retaliated by fighting.” So far, what we have here is “less than perfect baseball behaviors” but nothing close to identifying “bad boys”; but the story continues…

Both benches then emptied with 36 players from both teams on the field in a melee. All 36 players were ejected for fighting leaving no players eligible to play and therefore the game was called. The good news here – and it is not always the case in situations such as these – is that the coaches for both teams acted as peacemakers and the umpires did not need to eject any coach from either team. Now comes the bad part… A 49-year old (and therefore a chronological adult) allegedly assaulted one of the players and was arrested. A nominal adult somehow thought that it would be better to join in the “festivities” instead of:

    a. letting the umpires and coaches take care of business
    b. intervening to restore order
    c. calling the authorities to assist in restoring order.

On the assumption that this nominal adult did what he was arrested for, let me cue up Bugs Bunny here for Bugs’ assessment:

“What a maroon!”

The folks who are in charge of high school baseball in New Jersey will consider if either or both of the schools should participate in the state baseball tournament this year. If they are found to be sufficiently “bad boys”, they will sit home and watch. The chronological adult will either plea bargain the charge or face a jury of his peers [Aside: That is a frightening thought all by itself.] and said jury will decide just how much of a “bad boy” he is…

Some folks believe that whoever “dropped a dime” on Tiger Woods in The Masters getting him his two-stroke penalty is a “bad boy”. Well, here is a link to a golf blog on CBSsports.com that identifies who did that. It turns out to be David Eger, a golfer on the Champions Tour – formerly known as the Senior Tour.

I must give a hat tip to a reader who is one of my “go to guys” when it comes to legal questions and/or golf rules. I would never have found this blog entry without him pointing me to it.

I do not think that Eger is a “bad boy” in this saga. If there is a bad boy, then it is the rules maven on that particular hole who did not see the infraction as it occurred or who did not see that a rules infraction was about to happen and to inform Tiger Woods he was about to conduct an illegal drop. They put rules interpreters on the course for a reason; someone did not do his job; if there has to be a “bad boy” in that story, he is the “bad boy”.

Someone in the NY Yankees organization must have been a “bad boy” recently and the baseball gods are meting out punishment in the form of injuries. The Yankees have Curtis Granderson, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira on the DL; all of them have messed every game so far this season. Last week, catcher Francisco Cervelli broke his hand as a result of a foul tip; Cervelli had been hitting .269 as the everyday catcher. In addition, starting pitcher Ivan Nova had to leave a game in the third inning with “triceps pain”. An MRI revealed inflammation in the triceps muscle but there was no indication of an elbow injury; Nova is on the 15-day DL.

I do not want to make Nova and Cervelli out to be the reincarnation of Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra; they are not. However, the Yankees do seem to have suffered a season’s worth of injuries to starting players and Mothers’ Day is not here yet.

Finally, Brad Rock had this item in the Deseret News that he gleaned from the tweets of José Canseco:

“Time sure seems to fly. Just ask José Canseco the noted former steroid-abuser and current space cadet.

“Canseco tweeted last week: ‘Yes time travel is possible. Will explain later.’ “

I suspect that Stephen J. Hawking cannot wait for said explanation…

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

May 2, 2013 – 10:09 am Categories: Daily Rants | Comments (4)

Jason Collins Is Gay – - Moving On…

Jason Collins’ announcement that he is gay caused a flurry of activity in the commentary world. Frankly, I got the impression from ESPN that some of the subliminal message in their reporting was “See, we’ve been telling you all along that there were gay people in sports locker rooms and that one of them would ‘come out’ soon.” The vast majority of the comments have been positive and supportive; Collins himself tweeted that he got dozens of messages from other NBA players and all of them were positive. In addition, Collins got a message from President Obama and the President said he was proud of Collins.

I think I have made my position clear on the sexual preferences of members of Homo sapiens. In case anyone missed it before, here it is. I do not care even a little bit how you choose to express yourself sexually so long as:

    1. All sex is consensual
    2. All sex involves adults
    3. All sex involves other human beings
    4. All sex involves other human beings who are alive
    5. All sex involves other human beings who are not close relatives.

Obviously, it was important to Jason Collins to announce his brand of sexuality and I completely respect that. Because it took him a long time to do so, it must have been a difficult thing for him to do; therefore, I applaud him for doing it. Now that I know about his sexuality, I am ready to move on to the next issue.

I did see where some commentators compared this announcement to Jackie Robinson’s arrival in Brooklyn in 1947. Without belaboring the point, I think Robinson faced a far more difficult situation than does Jason Collins. The negative attitudes toward Blacks in 1947 were far more virulent and far more widespread than are the negative attitudes toward gays in 2013. Candidly, I see little comparison here. Consider that message Collins got from President Obama; does that really surprise anyone? Now consider the situation in 1947 and ask yourself what kind of message President Truman sent to Jackie Robinson. Truman desegregated the US military but he did not call Jackie Robinson to applaud him or to say he was proud of Robinson. Those were more difficult and more biased times…

It would now appear as if the Sacramento Kings will stay in Sacramento based on a unanimous vote by the NBA Committee charged with looking at the application to move the team to Seattle under new ownership. Assuming that recommendation is upheld by a vote of all the owners, there are a few questions still on the table:

    Who will own the Kings? The deal to move them to Seattle involved their purchase by a group of Seattleites who made a higher offer to the current owners (the Maloofs) for the franchise than did a competing group in Sacramento.

    Will the Maloofs retain ownership in light of the new arena that Sacramento will construct for the Kings? If so, how long until the conspiracy theorists come up with the idea that all of this drama was orchestrated by David Stern to demonstrate how much he loves to screw over Seattle fans?

    What does Seattle do with the money they have allotted for a new downtown arena and with any of the properties it has claimed under eminent domain? Might there be another NBA franchise they could poach? Memphis?

Last Fall, Marquess Wilson quit the football team at Washington State and stated that physical and verbal abuse from Coach Mike Leach and others on the coaching staff were the reasons why he quit. He has since taken back most of those allegations. Wilson was the top WR on the Washington State team and some scouting services had him as a first or second round pick going into last year. The Bears drafted Wilson in the seventh round last week. If the scouts were right and if Wilson somehow has gotten his head together, that might be the steal of the draft.

Miami Marlins’ owner, Jeffrey Loria is not exactly the most popular owner in MLB amongst his home fans. In the latest contretemps, there are reports that he made his manager change the order of the starting pitchers scheduled for a double header. That did not win him any points with the baseball pundits or the fans. The Marlins attendance so far this year is down an average of 11,137 fans per game; the Marlins have the lowest average attendance in the NL and only the Cleveland Indians are drawing fewer fans than the Marlins. This is not the first time that Loria and his managers have “had issues” with the baseball decisions involving the team. If you doubt that statement, ask Ozzie Guillen and/or Joe Girardi about their fun times in Miami.

Here is a comment from Greg Cote of the Miami Herald regarding the Marlins and their attendance situation:

“The Marlins are in the midst of a seven-game homestand against the Cubs and Mets, and attendance is such that the club is using inventive discounts and giveaways to all but beg fans to come. My favorite is the “2 for 1” promotion: If you buy two tickets, you get to pitch one inning of relief or have one at-bat.”

Tim Tebow has cleared waivers in the NFL and is an unrestricted free agent. He has an offer to play QB for the Omaha Beef of the champions Professional Indoor Football League. That season is evidently underway and for the 6 remaining games, the Beef reportedly would pay Tebow $450. I am guessing he is not going to jump at that offer.

    FYI, the Omaha Beef dancers are called “Prime Dancers” and when fans get together to go to away games, the vehicle is called “The Meatwagon”. Sounds to me as if the Omaha Beef franchise has the same circus atmosphere as the NY Jets’ franchise. Maybe Tebow would fit in perfectly…?

Tebow also has an offer from the Legends Football League – formerly the Lingerie Football League – not as a player of course but as a quarterback mentor and coach-at-large for all of the QBs in the league. I am guessing he is not going to jump at that offer either.

Finally, here is another comment from Greg Cote of the Miami Herald which ties together two of today’s topics:

“I overheard a couple of baseball fans referring to 42. Turned out they were discussing the new movie about Jackie Robinson. At first, I thought they were talking about Marlins attendance.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

May 1, 2013 – 9:57 am Categories: Daily Rants | Comments (2)

Just A Bunch Of Stuff Today

It appears as if I will be hopping from topic to topic today like a kangaroo on a caffeine jag… So let me start with the simple announcement that Barry Sanders will be the “cover photo” for the Madden 2013 football game. That should put a significant break in the “Madden Curse” which holds that the guy on the cover of the game will be injured during the year of the game that he is “endorsing”. Barry Sanders will suffer no football injury this year since he has been retired from the NFL since the end of the 1998 season. At age 44, it is unlikely that he will be attempting a comeback this year.

Now, if you want to imagine how the “Madden Curse” might take on a mythic dimension, consider the situation where Barry Sanders were to fall off a ladder in his home this season whilst changing the batteries in his smoke detectors… If that happens, I shall definitely be looking over my shoulder to see if Rod Serling is welcoming me to The Twilight Zone.

The Big 10 realigned its divisions over the weekend and did it geographically. The Leaders Division and the Legends Division have been relegated to the “Stupid Ideas Hall of Fame”. In the future, the Big 10 will have an East Division and a West Division. Moreover, the ADs who set all that up consulted with professors in the Geography Departments of the various schools to assure that the Easternmost Schools went into the East Division and the Westernmost Schools went into the West Division. Such a novel concept…

Here is a comment from Bob Molinaro in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot:

“Musical chairs: This week we learned the old Big East will be called the American Athletic Conference. Now if I only knew what schools are actually in it.”

If you are a member of the nuclear family of one of the athletic directors or coaches in the newly defined “American Athletic Conference”, please recuse yourself from the following question:

    How many schools are in the American Athletic Conference?

    Name 75% of them.

The answer to that question and that challenge is:

    For 2013, there are 10 teams in the American Athletic conference but there will be 11 teams in 2014 and 12 teams in 2015.

    For 2013, the teams will be Central Florida, Cincy, Houston, Louisville, Memphis, Rutgers, SMU, South Florida, Temple and UConn.

Until all of the teams involved here finally settle into their new conference alignments, consider this status nothing more than a goat rodeo…

In order to explain to folks who live outside the southeastern portion of the US just how important college football is to folks who do live there, allow me to present two comments from sports columnists around the country:

“So what if North Carolina lawmakers want to anoint an official state religion?

“ ‘There’s precedent,’ noted comedian Argus Hamilton. ‘Last year Texas upheld the execution of three housewives who walked in front of the TV set during a football game.’ “ [Dwight Perry, Seattle Times]

“Down South: A reminder of how deep college football runs in some places: Alabama and Auburn combined to draw 161,000 to their spring games.” [Bob Molinaro, Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot]

While on the subject of collegiate sports, the folks in the athletic department at UConn decided to change the logo of their “Husky Dog” to an image that was fiercer. One of the students at UConn has taken offense at the new logo and called it a “pro-rape symbol”. In a letter to the UConn president, this student said that the new logo would “intimidate women and empower rape culture”.

I want to be clear about this.

    I am unalterably opposed to the rape of women under any circumstances.

    I have looked at the new logo and the old logo for UConn. Neither of the two creates in me – a male member of Homo sapiens – any differentiated level of ardor, arousal or testosterone-fueled feelings.

    I cannot imagine a situation where a male person associated in some way with UConn would be more motivated to rape a woman that was in some way associated in some way with UConn that might be linked to the new “fierce” logo as opposed to the old “friendly” logo.

This is one of those situations where the answer to the problem may be ever so politically incorrect. If that student – and perhaps others too – are sufficiently offended by the menacing look of the new logo, they might want to consider taking the credits they have earned at UConn and transferring them to another institution of higher learning that has a comparable reputation in their field of study and which might have a team name and a school logo that is less threatening to the unraped status of women at that institution.

Finally, here is an item from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald, which poses a question to readers here who may have the legal credentials to address it. Should any of them choose to do so, an added piece of information would be if they would take this case on a contingency fee basis:

“Bulls fan Matthew Thompson, 25, is suing Derrick Rose, saying Rose missing the season with an injury has caused him mental breakdowns and emotional distress leading to obesity issues. I would think Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau might have a better claim on all that.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

April 30, 2013 – 12:30 am Categories: Daily Rants | Comments (3)

NFL Draft – General Comments

I would like to make a few “overview” comments about the NFL Draft from last week. Not to worry, I am not going to assign grades to any of the teams’ draft selections or anything of that nature. The grades for each team’s draft selection process will become self-evident a little less than two years from now when the 2014 season and the playoffs are over and only two teams remain with any “business at hand”. At that point, you will have a pretty good idea of how many of the players taken in the last couple of days can actually play NFL football.

I probably had the NFL Draft on my TV set for about 4 hours last week and paid close attention to what was on the air for less than half of that time. Understand that most of the airtime consisted of people yakking over canned highlight shots of various players. That can be interesting for a while but there came a time when I wanted to have all of that nonsense in the deep background of my consciousness while I awaited the arrival of the milliseconds of real news and genuine anticipation as a team made an actual pick.

In the midst of the first round, the NFL had prepared a large celebration for/tribute to Boston in the aftermath of the Marathon bombing incident. Representatives of various first responder organizations were onstage while a video montage played in the background; of course, this interlude just happened to be timed to go on just as folks awaited the New England Patriots’ first round selection. And just then, the Patriots traded that pick…

Question:

    Was that trade Bill Belichick’s way of thumbing his nose at the league and at the TV networks covering the event for excessive pandering?

    It would not surprise me were that the case.

Two offensive tackles, Eric Fisher and Luke Joeckel were taken with the first and second overall picks. Let the comparisons begin…

The Oakland Raiders traded down from the #3 pick overall to the twelfth slot where they took DJ Hayden (CB-Houston). As was to be expected, the folks in the Raiders FO who spoke about this pick swore that this was the player they had wanted all along. All I can say is that if they had actually taken him with the #3 overall pick, some of the talking heads on TV sets might have exploded.

The NY Jets did no favors for two of the first three players they drafted.

    1. After trading Darrelle Revis to the Bucs, the Jets used their first draft pick to take Dee Milliner (CB – Alabama). I hope Milliner enjoys being a microscope.

    2. The Jets’ third pick – a second round pick – was Geno Smith (QB – WVU). He joins a roster with four other QBs on the list vying for playing time:

      David Garrard (recent acquisition)
      Greg McElroy (he was last year’s fan-favorite “savior”)
      Mark Sanchez (most famous for inventing the butt-fumble)
      Matt Simms (his father starred for the “other NY football team”)

The only reason that the Jets do not have six QBs on their roster today is because they released Tim Tebow this morning. Some folks have suggested that Tebow’s best career move might be to hook on with a CFL team and to try to develop his game there the way Doug Flutie and Warren Moon did. That sounds alluring but those folks never seem to mention Sam Etcheverry who was a huge star QB for the Montreal Alouettes and then signed to play for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1961. Let me just say that his two-year career in the NFL was “barely memorable”…

The Buffalo Bills took EJ Manuel (QB – Fla St) at #16. Granted the Bills’ roster is not loaded with great QBs (Kevin Kolb, Tarvaris Jackson and Aaron Corp) but I just do not see Manuel as this year’s version of either Andrew Luck, RG III or Russell Wilson. Hell, I do not think he is the equivalent of Ryan Tannehill… Here is what I find interesting about this selection:

    Bills’ coach, Doug Marrone, was at Syracuse last year with Ryan Nassib and when he wanted to take a QB with a prime pick, he looked past Nassib to take Manuel. What might the message have been to other coaches/GMs in the league?

      For any of you other guys who think Nassib is a mediocre prospect, I have to say that I agree with you and I was around him for the last four seasons.

      Nassib’s agent must have loved that…

Bob Molinaro of the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot had this comment about the Bills’ explanation for their pick of Manuel in the #16 slot:

“Idle thought: The Buffalo Bills, it’s said, took a chance on EJ Manuel because of his intangibles. Is one of them the ability to play well in thermal underwear?”

The Indy Colts took Bjoern Werner (DE-Fla St) in the first round. The word is that the Colts were looking to replace free agent Dwight Freeney. I saw Florida State play at least 3 times last year and never made a single note about Werner; now he is going to fill Dwight Freeney’s shoes. I wish the young man a lot of good fortune.

The Arizona Cardinals took Kevin Minter (LB – LSU) in the second round and later took Tyrann Mathieu (CB-LSU) in the third round. Already on the roster, the Cards have Patrick Peterson, Early Doucet and Alan Faneca all of whom went to LSU. Here is an idea for the Cards – a team that has difficulty selling out there stadium in Glendale AZ:

    Schedule one of your exhibition games in Baton Rouge, LA. The football crazies there might come out in greater numbers to see their former Bayou Bengals play than might come to an exhibition game in a town that barely cares about NFL games that count in the standings.

Finally, here is a Facebook observation by Dan Daly formerly with the Washington Tmes:

“A pol could go a long way in this country if he promised ‘a chicken in every pot and two compensatory selections in every garage.’ “

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

April 29, 2013 – 10:11 am Categories: Daily Rants | Comments (5)