The Sports Examiner - 7 Days for Monday, May 19, 2008

7 Days for Monday, May 19, 2008

May 19, 2008

≡ 7 Days ≡

My opinion of Kingman's performance?

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= The Top Story =

>> Grapevine, Tx.: “The bottom line is the money, unfortunately, is going to drive the train. The 12th game, right now, is solving the problem. The reason there is a 12th game in football is the money. People may not want to admit that, but that's the facts of the matter.”

That’s Florida State president T.K. Wetherell, speaking at a College Football Forum gathering on Friday and telling the audience and several high-profile coaches that a college football playoff is inevitable.

“In my judgment,” he said, “if you take every argument that's been made today and apply it to any other sport on a college campus, then you'd have to cancel the (College) World Series, the Final Four, the soccer tournament. If you want to do it, it can be done . . .

“Everybody's going to be sitting here – I don't know, probably not in my lifetime at Florida State – saying, ‘You know, we really could move this back. And, by the way, we do play 63 baseball games and we play baseball through two final-exam periods, not one. Somehow, they all seem to graduate and do pretty good. Oh, those basketball players, we have a real problem with academics in basketball, but we seem to play right on through the tournament.’”

The Associated Press report noted that “Once the problems are solved and the ‘ungodly amount of money that it will produce’ starts rolling in, Wetherell expects everyone decide it's a good thing and want more of it. ‘It'll start off with plus-one, then it'll go to four or eight or 16 at some point in time, just like the NCAA (basketball) tournament,’ he said.”

Comment: Credit Wetherell with saying publicly what everybody has been thinking. He also has the long view of football and the perspective of those outside the college football industry, who see the hypocritical academic excuse that would, in fact, require destruction of the NCAA baseball and basketball tournaments. He is right, but nothing will happen until at least 2014.

= The National Pastime =

>> Chicago, Il.: If you thought steroids was bad, how about stealing? Money, not bases.

A Federal investigation into skimming of player-signing bonuses by team scouts is ongoing. The Chicago Tribune reported that White Sox senior director of player personnel David Wilder and two scouts were fired on Friday amid an internal investigation into that issue. According to the story:

[White Sox general manager Ken] Williams wouldn't say if financial improprieties were involved, but a source with knowledge of the probe said there were questions regarding the manner in which signing bonuses were distributed to Latin American prospects. Investigators were seeking to determine if Wilder and dismissed scouts Victor Mateo and Domingo Toribio were skimming from those bonus payments.

An MLB investigator confirmed to the Tribune on Saturday that the probe involved skimming and that it currently is limited to the White Sox.
Wilder was put in charge of the club’s Latin American operations and had oversight of the building of an instructional facility in the Dominican Republic and an increased scouting presence.

Comment: In occasional documentaries and outbursts with reporters, Latin players have complained about mistreatment, including finances, but with the government now involved, baseball – and the White Sox – could get another black eye. One can only imagine what volatile ChiSox manager Ozzie Guillen, from Venezuela, thinks about this.

>> Tampa, Fl.: The surprising Rays are 25-19 and sitting close to the top of the American League’s Eastern Division with the best performance in team history. Just in time.

The common wisdom in Tampa has been that the Rays have no chance to get voters to approve a $450 million contribution to upgrade Al Lang Field near the waterfront and leave Tropicana Field. But the measure could be on the ballot as soon as November and if the Rays continue with a miracle season that ends with post-season play in October, could the emotions carry the voters into a fit of insanity and approve the spending? It’s possible.

Then again, through 24 home games this season, the Rays are averaging a paltry 18,445 fans a game in 45,000-seat Tropicana Field.

According to Forbes, the Rays rank 28th out of 30 major-league teams in annual revenue at $138 million, but were netting about $29.7 million before interest and taxes, a margin of 21.5% annually. So they would need help to build or re-build a ballpark.

>> New York, N.Y.: Mets’ closer Billy Wagner called out some of his teammates Thursday for not facing reporters after they lost their second straight to the Nationals, 1-0, at Shea Stadium. Wagner said to reporters, “Can somebody tell me why the closer's being interviewed and I didn't even play? Why they're over there not getting interviewed? I get it. They're gone. Shocker.”

He then told a radio reporter, “I didn’t even play today, I was not a participant in the game and the guys who participated were gone. David Wright is always there, the same guys are always there. But there needs to be other guys that are accountable.” But apparently not, according to the New York Post, teammates Carlos Beltran, Luis Castillo and Carlos Delgado.

Jack Curry wrote in the New York Times.: “For the angry Wagner, the issue was accountability, and in raising it he was echoing a complaint made last year by Paul Lo Duca, when he was the Mets' catcher. At that time, Lo Duca suggested that reporters seek out some of the Mets' Hispanic players for comments instead of continually coming to him. ‘Some of these guys have to start talking,’ he said. ‘They speak English, believe me.’”

Comment: Luke 12:48 reads in part, “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.” In the case of the three Mets whose lockers Wagner apparently pointed to, Beltran will earn $18.62 million this season; Castillo, $6.25 million and Delgado, $16.00 million. Is it too much to ask these guys to speak with the writers who cover the team? Then again, maybe the only Luke they know of is Luke Walton of the Lakers.

>> Los Angeles, Ca.: It was 30 years ago this week that one of the most famous of all baseball temper tantrums exploded deep inside Dodger Stadium. On Sunday, May 14, 1978, the Dodgers lost a 15-inning, Mother’s Day game to the Chicago Cubs thanks to three home runs and eight runs batted in by Dave Kingman, sending then-Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda into a rage after being asked what seems like an innocent question by radio reporter Paul Olden, remember?

Olden:
What was your opinion of Kingman’s performance?

Lasorda:
What's my opinion of Kingman’s performance? What the @#$% do you think is my opinion of it? I think it was @#$%^&* horse@#$%. Put that in, I don't @#$%^&* care. Opinion of his performance? Jesus Christ, he beat us with three @#$%^&* home runs! What the @#$% do you mean, ‘What is my opinion of his performance?’ How could you ask me a question like that, ‘What is my opinion of his performance?’ @#$%, he hit three home runs! @#$%. I'm @#$%^&* pissed off to lose the @#$%^&* game. And you ask me my opinion of his performance! @#$% That's a tough question to ask me, isn't it, ‘What is my opinion of his performance?’

And it continued on from there.

Comment: It’s only one of Lasorda’s famous outbursts, but his comments on Kingman’s performance has remained the most remembered. However, he might have been even better in a session after a game in San Diego some years later when he told reporters that Steve Garvey “needed a @#$%^&* oar to hit the @#$%^&* ball” and that when he pitched, he would have sent a limo to pick up players like Dodger critic Kurt Bevacqua of the Padres, “who couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a @#$%^&* boat!”

= The NBA/The WNBA =

>> San Antonio, Tx.: San Antonio Spurs coach Greg Popovich popped off last week, concurring with NBA commissioner David Stern’s view that teams have overdone the pre-game indoor fireworks that accompany so many player introductions, especially with all the smoke in the arena prior to tipoff.

Popovich is on to something when he says that “there’s going to be an accident. It’s like the stop sign that doesn’t get put up until a kid gets killed.”

Comment: Does anyone have the number of the NBA’s insurance agent?

>> Los Angeles, Ca.: Former NBA star Dennis Rodman, 46, was charged last Wednesday with spousal battery on his girlfriend, Gina Peterson, at an L.A.-area hotel last month. Rodman was apparently intoxicated at the time.

Comment: I guess Rodman isn’t quite the celebrity he used to be. The arrest item barely made even the wire story sections of most newspapers across the country.

>> Los Angeles, Ca.: The Los Angeles Sparks have Lisa Leslie back from maternity and added college Player of the Year Candace Parker and are the favorites to win the WNBA title this season. But Taj McWilliams-Franklin, who led the Sparks in scoring and rebounding last season, isn’t back. After being one of the only steady players on a team that won just 10 out of 34 games, she was traded three weeks ago to the Washington Mystics for unhappy DeLisha Milton-Jones and a 2009 first-round draft choice. She found out while on a tour of China. In the meantime, Milton-Jones was a member of the Sparks when they won two championships and wanted a change of scenery; she was in uniform against the defending champion Phoenix Mercury on Saturday.

Comment: Women wanted their league to be big business like the NBA. Looks like they are getting there.

= College Basketball =

>> Los Angeles, Ca.: UCLA made the Final Four for the third straight time last year and while stars Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook haven’t hired agents, they are almost certainly headed to the NBA. But Bruin coach Ben Howland isn’t despondent; he’s just trying to be sure that he has enough scholarships to handle all the talent that wants to come to Westwood.

Dealing with a limit of 13, Howland knows that center James Keefe, forward Nikola Dragovic, and guards Michael Roll and All-American Darren Collison will be back for sure. He knows that his no. 1-ranked recruiting class of forward Drew Gordon and guards Jerime Anderson, Malcolm Lee and Jrue Holiday will be in Westwood. That’s eight.

Howland probably expects wing Josh Shipp to return, but who knows about the Cameroonian duo of Luc Richard Mbah A Moute and Alfred Aboya? The latter could graduate this summer and begin his career in government service in his homeland. Mbah A Moute is also close to graduating, has put his name in for the NBA Draft, but while he’s unlikely to be picked, he could play in Europe.

With the departure of swingman Chace Stanback (smart!), getting Shipp, Aboya and Mbah A Moute back would give UCLA 11 scholarships, with two left. Just enough for ex-LSU signee, 6-11 J’Mison Morgan, whose mother had said he will attend UCLA and perhaps also ex-North Carolina’s 6-9 Alex Stepheson, who has been released by UNC in order to be close to his ill father. Stepheson attended Harvard-Westlake School.

Comment: It didn’t look like UCLA could be a player in the race for Stepheson, but if Aboya and Mbah A Moute decide not to return – and they may be a package – there will be plenty of playing time in the forecourt with only Keefe, Gordon, Dragovic and Morgan at 6-8 or taller. USC is also said to be in the running for Stepheson, but how attractive will the Trojans be until the O.J. Mayo extra-benefits investigation is completed? Or does Stepheson go somewhere like Loyola Marymount with new and respected coach Bill Bayno, where he would start right away and play in the increasingly-competitive (and televised) West Coast Conference?

= The NFL =

>> Indianapolis, In.: In addition to deciding whether to opt out of their collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Players Association, NFL owners are supposed to decide where the 2012 Super Bowl will be played.

Local organizers in Indianapolis have reportedly raised pledges of $25 million to help bring the game to their city and to the new Lucas Oil Stadium, which opens this coming season. That would go a long way to help pay for the use of the stadium, game-day expenses and transportation and support for the participating teams, NFL officials, team owners, sponsors and media and the other freeloaders who show up on Super Bowl week. This, the NFL will make more money.

Indianapolis is competing against Phoenix and Houston for the 2012 game. The 2009-11 sites have been determined already: Tampa (2009), Miami (2010) and the new Dallas Cowboys stadium in 2011.

>> Houston, Tx.: Fox’s Terry Bradshaw famously said of instant replay in December of 2006: “I don't like it. If it wasn't for the millions of dollars being spent on gambling on NFL games, we wouldn't have half of that junk.”

The NFL wants to stay as far away from gambling as possible, despite its obvious role in the continuing expansion of interest in the league. So, Tilman Fertitta, who bought the Golden Nugget hotel and casino in Las Vegas three years ago, sold his minority share in the Houston Texans to the team so it could comply with the rule that states that no member of a team ownership group may have a gambling-related business.

“It's one of those things that happens in business,” Fertitta told Houston television station KRIV. “I think it's a ridiculous rule, but I don't make the rules always.”

= College Football =

>> Morgantown, W.V.: Former West Virginia football coach Rich Rodriguez, now the coach at Michigan, said in a deposition released last week that he was pressured into signing his coaching contract at West Virginia by the state’s governor and three members of the school’s Board of Governors, even though he had serious reservations about the terms. Rodriguez wanted to exclude the now-under-litigation buyout clause that required him to pay the school $4 million if he left, but he signed the contract anyway.

Comment: Rodriguez is 44 years old and a multi-millionaire from his coaching work at West Virginia. Shouldn’t he have had the same discipline that he insists on from his players and tell the boys on the Board to work it out with his attorney? Hello?

>> Gainesville, Fl.: University of Florida safety Jamar Hornsby turned himself in last week after an arrest warrant was issued for him after he ran up 70 charges for $2,856 on a credit card belonging to the father of a female student who died in a motorcycle accident in 2007 and possibly stolen when her effects were being removed from her apartment after her death! Hornsby was dismissed from the football program by Florida coach Urban Meyer; he had been the no. 3-rated safety prospect in the nation in 2006 according to Rivals.com.

Comment: This is too cruel for words. No coach in his right mind can take Hornsby in as a football player, so what happens to this guy? This is a tragedy ready to get worse, a lot worse.

= Hockey =

>> Quebec City, Canada: Canada learned what it means to host the World Hockey Championships on Sunday. It lost.

Playing before a rabid home crowd in Quebec City, Canada, the Canadians had a 4-2 lead over Russia going into the final period, but were tied on goals by Alexei Tereshchenko and Ilya Kovalchuk to force overtime. Kovalchuk scored with 2:42 gone in the extra period and win Russia’s first world title since 1993.

The loss extends the host-team drought in the IIHF worlds to 22 years; the last team to win a world championship in its home country was the USSR way back in 1986. It was a sweet turnaround for the Russians, who also lost when hosting the tournament last year. Canada won the title in 2007 in Moscow, but Sunday was the first-ever meetings of the Canadians and Russians in a world championship final.

= Horse Racing =

>> Baltimore, Md.: The big winner in Saturday’s Preakness Stakes wasn’t the heavily-favored winner, Big Brown. It was UPS.

The horse was named for the delivery service and even the 1-5 odds on Big Brown to win the Preakness were better than the odds on the horse’s owners reaching a sponsorship agreement with the company. Jockey Kent Desormeaux wore a UPS patch on his pants and a UPS cap after the race on Saturday.

The delivery company will continue to reap publicity not just through the Belmont Stakes on June 7, but what if Big Brown wins the Triple Crown? Then the publicity bonanza potentially continues all the way through the Breeder’s Cup on October 25 at Santa Anita Park, a nice bonus for Magna Entertainment, which will host the Breeder’s Cup for two consecutive years in 2008 and 2009.

= Keeping Track =

>> White Plains, New York: Former 100-meter world-record holder Tim Montgomery, 33, who is the father of a child with imprisoned Olympic gold medalist Marion Jones, was sentenced Friday to 46 months – almost four years – in Federal prison for his role in a $5 million fake-check scheme. Montgomery pled guilty to charges relating from his role in depositing about $1.7 million in bad paper.

Even so, he’s not finished with courtrooms; he has been charged with dealing heroin in Virginia and will be tried in Norfolk in July.

Comment: The parade of gold-medal winners to the “Graybar Hotel” may be over for now. In addition to Montgomery and Jones, 1976 Olympic 4 x 100 m relay gold medal winner Steve Riddick was sentenced earlier this year to more than five years in prison for his role in the same check-fraud scandal.

But the next courtroom blockbuster comes on May 28-29 when 2004 Olympic 100 m champion Justin Gatlin has his appeal heard to reduce his suspension for doping (from 2006) reduced from four years to two. If successful, Gatlin would be eligible – if he obtains a qualifying mark – to compete in the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials and possibly the Olympic Games in Beijing.

= Football =

>> London, England: Cardiff City lost to Portsmouth, 1-0, at famed Wembley Stadium on Saturday in its “once in a century” appearance in the FA Cup title game. But a bigger upset came before the teams took the field.

Seems that the main sponsor of the Cardiff City team, a Welsh mobile phone company called CommsDirect, was approached with a $1 million offer from an Asian online gambling service to have that company’s name on Cardiff City’s uniforms during the match, almost equal to what CommsDirect had paid for two years of exposure!

Unbelievably, CommsDirect turned down the offer and Cardiff City will wore their normal jerseys in the match, even though the company’s sponsorship agreement ended with Saturday’s match. A company spokesman said that CommsDirect didn’t want to anger Cardiff City fans by bailing out on the team during its biggest match since it won the Cup in 1927.

= The Five-Ring Circus =

>> Beijing, China: Seems a lot of things are going wrong this year in China and not just with the Olympic Torch Relay. Now a Feng Shui master named Raymond Lo says he know what the problem is: it’s the Year of the Rat!

Seems that the Year of the Rat is symbolized by earth and water, which are in conflict with each other and Lo says that natural disasters will be very common during the year. Moreover, the number eight is supposed to be lucky – the Olympic Games will open on August 8 – but so far Chinese numerologists point out that adding together the numbers in the dates from this year’s disasters – snowstorms, rioting in Tibet and even the Sichaun earthquake – they all add up to the number eight.

Comment: There is an uneasy feeling about the Olympic Games in China, just as a coach can see problems coming for an athlete who is trying too hard. The Chinese have put in so much effort and placed so much emphasis on the Games that even a tiny problem – rain during the Opening Ceremonies, bad air conditions, a few upset stomachs in the Olympic Village – will be magnified, perhaps out of proportion. Is there a Chinese word for “chill”?

= Potpourri =

>> Boston, Ma.: It’s Hulk Hogan’s world.

The WWE heavyweight champion and national icon of the 1980s is just as much a part of American culture today as in his heyday:

Quoth Republican presidential candidate John McCain last month when he introduced a match as part of the WWE’s “Monday Night Raw” show: “What’cha gonna do when John McCain and his McCainiancs run wild on you?”

Yesterday, well outside of any wrestling show, when Boston’s P.J. Brown made a surprise jumper with 1:21 to go to put the Celtics up, 91-88, on their way to a series-clinching win over Cleveland, ABC’s Mark Jackson asked, “P.J. Brown, what’cha gonna do when the ball is swung to you?”

Not to be outdone, analyst Jeff Van Gundy followed with a plug (sort of) for UPS during a replay: “What can Brown do for you? This isn’t a UPS commercial!” He obviously isn’t a Hulkamaniac.

>> Minneapolis, Mn.: Qualifying for the annual July 4 Nathan’s International Hot Dog Eating Contest has started and Patrick “Deep Dish” Bertoletti will be at the table after winning the Minnesota eat-off on May 10 with 41 hot dogs and buns in just 10 minutes! Newcomer Patrick Vandam was second with 30, but both were well behind American vacuum cleaner Joey Chestnut’s world record of 66, set in 12 minutes last year in the Nathan’s final.

Weekend qualifiers included the weak-stomached Arthur “Grande” Rios who qualified by winning in Hartford, Connecticut with a modest 22 3/4 hot dogs and buns.

But Bertoletti isn’t intimidated by Chestnut, and came back after a week of dieting to beat him in the World Gyro-Eating Championships in Houston. Deep Dish downed a dozen 12-ounce gyros in 10 minutes to edge Chestnut by one. Bertoletti earned $2,000 and a take-home sack for his trouble while Chestnut got the second-place prize of $1,000. Humble Bob Shoudt inhaled 9 1/2 gyros for third ($700) and Nasty Nate the Newcomer ate six for fourth and $300.

Comment: Is it true that the government of Myanmar turned down a shipment of gyros for victims of the cyclone there, so the Houston-based donors put on this tournament instead? Maybe not.
~ Rich Perelman

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