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The Daily Digest for Tuesday, January 15, 2008 |
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January 15, 2008 |
≡ The Daily Digest ≡
 Beijing's Bird's Nest: house of horrors for American Olympians? |
= To Our Readers =
We signed an agreement last August to place a daily audio show on a new Internet site to be called TheGoodSportsNetwork.tv. It was supposed to launch September 4, then September 24, but the site is still not live. Maybe some day it will launch, but we’re not optimistic.
We are delighted to say that our readership has never been stronger and our Web statistics program shows that TheSportsExaminer.com had more than 1,000,000 page views in December. Since you seem to like what we’re doing, we’ll continue for now, posting a weekday note and sending out the Tip Sheet to keep you informed. Thanks so much for your support.
= Tonight’s Menu =
>> The 10-23 Clippers are at Phoenix to play the 26-11 Suns tonight. It’ll be a defensive challenge for the Clippers, who are giving up 105.1 points a game, but the Suns are averaging 110.3. Grant Hill is out for Phoenix and Chris Kaman and Corey Maggette are questionable for the Clippers. So, the Suns are favored by eight (they’ve won seven of their last 10 against the Clippers) and with an over-under of 208, the final is supposed to be, 108-100.
>> The 17-27-2 Kings are in Edmonton to play the 21-21-4 Oilers at Phillips Arena tonight. The home team has won six of its last nine from the Kings, but Los Angeles is on a 5-3 roll, its best of the season. The game is closer than normal for the Kings on the money line: it takes $160 to try to win $100 on the Oilers, but $125 will earn you a try at the same $100 on the Kings.
>> The Dallas Stars (25-17-2) invade the Honda Center tonight to play the 24-17-6 Ducks, with Dallas having won six of the last seven from Anaheim. But the Ducks are on a 5-1 run and the stars are 2-6 in their last eight, so the Quack Attack is favored: it takes $170 to try to win $100 on the Ducks, but only $110 is required to try for the $100 on the Stars.
= L.A. Stories =
>> What’s Bruin: See our daily blog on UCLA sports at LATimes.com!
= Panorama =
>> The National Pastime: Reports from the Twin Cities indicate a better and better chance that Johan Santana will stay with the Twins this season as trade possibilities with the Yankees and Mets seems to be fading and only the Red Sox showing solid interest.
Santana is 28 and wants a five-year contract, but there are concerns about the health of his pitching elbow over that span. “If I tried commenting on all the rumors that come out of New York and Boston, it would be a full-time job,” said Twins general manager Bill Smith to the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
>> NBA Hoopla: Although expected to do well, the Boston Celtics’ roaring start surprised a lot of league experts. Guard Rajon Rondo was asked how a team with so many new players found unity so quickly, he told Marc Spears of the Boston Globe that the training camp in Europe helped, but that “we have similar backgrounds. We like to do the same things. We like to play cards. Everybody likes to eat. We like the same music. We have a good time.”
The Celtics have not only been an inspiration to their fans on the court, but also at the cash register. The NBA announced that the Celtics had the highest jersey sales at the NBA store in New York and on NBAstore.com as a team and that Kevin Garnett was the top-selling player jersey. It’s the first time for either in the top spot since the NBA started keeping records in 2001.
>> New York, New York: Peter Vecsey of the New York Post was in good form today, writing about his favorite subject – Isiah Thomas and the Knicks – and how the virus that has impacted that team is now infecting others, or scaring them away from getting infected.
Writes Vecsey, “contrary to Thomas’ denial when word got out, GM Glen Grunwald initiated a trade call last week to Bucks GM Larry Harris in an effort to trade Zach Randolph.” The trade reportedly offered Randolph – averaging 16.8 points and 10 rebounds a game in 31.8 minutes – and Renaldo Balkman for a package of three reserves, including Charlie Villanueva, Bobby Simmons and former Bruin center Dan Gadzuric. For Milwaukee, this deal made a lot of sense and would have given them a real low-post presence, albeit with a high-priced player as Randolph has four years and more than $61 million left on his contract.
The answer was summarily no. Vecsey quoted what he called an “impartial” head coach who told him, ‘I understand Zach has a past. I understand his personality, issues and liabilities must be managed. I understand his contract is a major league obligation. But if a good team wants to get someplace, someone must be able to get you to that position. If that someone averages 20 and 10, and it’s more than he’s giving up at the other end, you pull the trigger.”
The Bucks said no, without even asking for a test to see if Randolph had Bubonic Plague. They figured he’s on the Knicks, so he must be infected with something.
>> All Fall Down: The famed Philadelphia Spectrum, once home to the 76ers of the NBA and the Flyers of the NHL, may be demolished if an ambitious redevelopment plan for South Philadelphia goes through. Comcast-Spectacor has the rights to develop the land and has ideas about creating 300,000 sq. ft. of restaurants, bars, theaters and retail shops with a new hotel and parking facility placed where the Spectrum is now.
“Any plan that takes the Spectrum down, what’s not to like?,” said Packer Park Civic Association president Barbara Capozzi. So much for history. Has anyone asked Julius Erving?
>> College Bowling: Great headline to a fun column today by Jim Moore of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
“Too bad boosters can’t be fired”
Moore goes on to detail the background on Washington alumnus Ed Hansen, who promised scholarship funding of $100,000 for the firing of football coach Tyrone Willingham and the same amount for the firing of athletic director Todd Turner. He’s 1-for-2 as Turner is leaving.
Moore wrote, “On first impression, I figured Hansen was rich, delusional and arrogant, and on second impress, I’ve reached the same conclusion.” And despite Hansen’s impeccable credentials as a former mayor of the City of Everett and as general manager of a major county public utilities company, those who follow the Huskies closely say he’s not unusual.
“If you don’t think money that’s given to the U-Dub doesn’t come with strings, you’re naive as hell,” said Kim Grinolds, who covers UW for the Dawgman.com blog. “Ed had the guts to put it in writing. There are a lot bigger figures out there than Ed Hansen’s.”
That may be scary, but that’s the way it is. Everywhere.
>> Rings & Things: The spin game is in full motion on both sides of the Pacific.
“It’s no secret that we’re more than an underdog; they are blowing us out of the water in the gold-medal race,” says U.S. Olympic Committee C.E.O. Jim Scherr of China. “We have never said that we wanted to take first position of the gold medal table,” said Chinese Olympic Committee vice president Cui Dalin.
The latest to make even a cursory review of the medal possibilities is Christopher Carey of the International Herald Tribune, who projects the U.S. with 99 medals and 45 gold to China’s 91 medals and 34 gold. Other projections have given the U.S. an even larger margin in the overall medal count.
The Chinese will do very well indeed and their sports program is progressing nicely. They will make a big splash at home, but it’s the U.S. Olympic Committee that needs to be careful.
As projection after projection shows the U.S. as the leading team at the Beijing Games, at what point does the USOC’s poor-mouthing of the American medal prospects begin to look like whining at best, or bad-mouthing American athletes and the systems that train them. The USOC has had control of the Olympic Movement in this country, for better or worse, since 1978. What kind of Olympic team the U.S. fields is under the direction of the USOC. When does the organization take responsibility if the U.S. does not win more medals than it did four years prior? The U.S. won 102 in Athens, trailed by Russia with 92 and then China with 63.
Or doesn’t anyone care?
~ Rich Perelman
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