Massive Missive

I’ll start by apologizing because it has been a long time since my last post. I’ve been caught in a wash of subpar sporting news that even a diehard sporting fan like I have difficulty caring about.

- I really, really need football. I would rather spend 45 listening to Favre rumors than think about baseball or specifically the Indians bullpen, which now has a collective shelf life shorter than Tal Bachman’s career. I don’t think the Halladay trade potential would ever get this much attention if it wasn’t July. As my colleague said recently, this certainly is the worst sporting month of the year. Please be September soon. I want to endlessly ramble about my fantasy team and then pretend to be listening when people tell me about theirs. On a side note, is no one watching the “TO Show”? How is it not the number one rated show on television? Watching TO and his sidekick Pablo bumble around LA has been enlightening so far, if only for watching TO shop like a drunken Pepperdine coed and then be harassed by “Frick and Frack”. I can’t tell if TO’s publicist is a genius or in need of serious psychiatric attention, but if the strategy is to divert attention from TO’s craziness to the most annoying publicist/friend on the planet, then it’s working. This lady makes TO look like Walter Cronkite (RIP). I can’t even imagine what’s going to happen when TO goes to Buffalo, a city about as glamorous as a DMV Christmas party, and where 90% of local media is dedicated to the Bills (70% of the 90%) and Sabres (the other 20%) and the remainder to the weather forecast. Can we get someone local over there to keep us updated on TO sightings? I need this.

- You have to know Belichick is thinking about Vick. New England has already become the Betty Ford Clinic of the NFL, and their playbook would only get deeper with direct snap options to Vick next to Brady in the backfield. That leads to the obvious thought of Vick heading right to the Dolphins, but at this point they already have a system that is working for them. The addition of Vick would just add a layer of complexity to a group that has gelled for some strange reason. And do you really want to let him loose in Miami? If I’m a GM, I’d rather let Richard Gere watch my gerbil when I’m out of town than give Michael Vick a salary to spend on Miami Beach. We should get a poll going as to where Vick would be most effective. At least we know where he would be least effective. Worst team: Oakland. What’s interesting about that last statement is that it works for just about anything you can think of. Worst team to be drafted by: Oakland. Worst team to be a fan of: Oakland. Worst team to play for: Oakland. Worst team to be the General Manager of if you are a corpse being perfused by Ringer’s Lactate and mentally and physically controlled by a team of irate, herpetic Macaques: Oakland.

- It really must have been Christmas morning in the Cliff Lee household. After the Cy Young winner pitched his heart out this season for a 7-9 record, he finally gets a chance for his efforts to actually make a difference. This leads me to reminisce about some other recent trades where an All-Star that was toiling in a futile situation has been moved to a team where they suddenly had championship potential. Obvious ones are Garnett from the T-Wolves and the Great Theft of Gasol from Memphis to LA. Who’s next?

- I recently watched the movie “17 Again” on a long flight (it was 8.5 hours- I would have watched Beaches twice to make it through this one). I can not deny that I found it entertaining. The premise of this movie is that 40-something suburban loser Mathew Perry, who is about to enter into divorce proceedings with his wife and has two kids that loathe him is given the opportunity to return back in time and become 17 once again and re-make a life-altering decision: play basketball in college or marry his high school sweetheart (who he is now divorcing). A creepy janitor warps him into some sort of hybrid who is 17 again physically but has the mind and soul of the same middle aged putz. Some mild hilarity ensues as does some extreme viewer discomfort as his teenage daughter puts the moves on the new guy in school (what is with Michelle Trachtenburg and incest? First EuroTrip and now this? I think we need a congressional committee) and he teaches his son how to be cool and date a cheerleader. In the end, he makes the same decision to leave the movie-ending basketball game and chase after his wife. The point to all of this is that I started to wonder about the worst career ruining decisions ever made in sports, or at least a top-5. I think these should also be based on career potential, the illustriousness of their career up that point, and also just how stupid the inciting incident(s) was/were. Bonus points for irony. I’d say my list looks like this, but not necessarily in order and it is by no means complete:

1. Pete Rose. The all-time hits leader gets caught gambling on his own games. How could you, Pete?
2. Maurice Clarett. A top-5 prospect for sure decides to enter the draft after his freshman year and goes undrafted. Later arrested for… just about everything.
3. Mike Tyson. Pretty much every decision he made after 1998.
4. Plaxico Burress. He shot himself in the leg. Enough said? Some will argue this choice because they feel he wasn't talented enough, but he was coming off of two seasons in which he had become a caliber receiver and was certainly young enough to move upward.
5. Vince Carter. The "second coming" didn't really pan out. I think everyone knows the story, but his raw talent was really hard to watch peter out into mediocrity. It's hard to tie this down to one decision, but I'd say that he really nailed the coffin shut when he decided that he needed to be involved in picking a GM and responding to his eventual (and legitimate snub) by purchasing the world's biggest postage stamp and mailing in the rest of his career.


- One of the best things about the Tour de France is that crazy-ass fans get to run around with the bikers down whatever stretch they choose. We should introduce this notion to other sports as well. If a guy with a cow suit and a cape wants to chase Roger Federer up and down the baseline, I think that should be kosher. If Contador can handle it, so can R-Fed.

- The best thing about the Golf Channel isn’t “Top 10 Tiger Short Game Moments” or the egregious amount of attention laden upon Natalie Gulbis, it’s Lauren Thompson. I give it three months before she’s a Fox News anchor.