07/11/08

Leading Off
-Answer to Tuesday’s trivia question: Baseball is the most common cause of eye injuries in the U.S.

-“If you train hard, you’ll not only be hard, you’ll be hard to beat.”
-Herschel Walker


Free Throws
NBA
-I’m not a Clippers fan, but I can’t help feel sorry for them after what Elton Brand did. Brand opted out of his contract, so that he could give the Clippers more room to sign another player (which turned out to be Baron Davis), then expected to sign back with the team. Or at least until a better offer came along. I don’t think we’ll ever know all the facts, as both sides seem to be holding back information. The Clippers allegedly offered Brand a contract, saying he could take it if he wanted to or he could leave. Brand said that since he didn’t want the offer, that he decided to look elsewhere. That’s not what Mike Dunleavy, the Clippers coach, had to say. Mike said, “We raised the offer to $75M and $81M.” Each side seems to be twisting the story to make them look like the good guy, so the question is, which story is closer to the truth? I tend to lean towards the Clippers, just because this story reeks of “gold-digger athlete.” The only thing that doesn’t add up is why he only took $100K more per year, to play for the 76ers. Whatever happened to hometown discount. Brand never signed a contract, so he had the right to leave, but it will be very hard for anybody to trust what he, or agent David Falk, says in the future. I feel mostly sorry for Baron Davis. Not so sorry that I pity him, because he’s still making over $10M a year, but he’s on his own now. Maggette bolted for the Warriors and Brand’s gone to Philly. I’ll finish this story with a quote by Baron Davis after he was asked why he didn’t back out of his contract once brand left, just because it’s so ironic. “I’m a man of my word. I committed to the Clippers and they committed to me.”

MLB
-The Cubbies couldn’t let the Brew Crew get away with signing Sabathia, so they had to go and get their own ace. The Chicago Cubs acquired pitcher Rich Harden from the Oakland Athletics earlier this week. Harden (5-1) has a great ERA at 2.34, the best of his career so far. He also holds a 1.14 WHIP currently good enough for 11th in the majors and 10 points below his career average. Harden joins pitchers Carlos Zambrano and Ryan Dempster (Canadian!) to form possibly the deepest rotation in the Majors.

-An interesting fact I just found out. The 2008 all-star game is sponsored by Fruit of The Loom!

-Speaking of the all-star game, it has a new participant. His name is Evan Longoria and he’s the future rookie of the year (yes I’m calling it now). He beat out, among others, Jason Giambi’s (hooray) moustache campaign and Jermaine Dye. Dye may have been a better pick statistically, but hey, the MLB is all about biased voting. Longoria along with Geovany Soto and Kosuke Fukudome will add an interesting side story, as rookies in the all-star game.

NHL
-The Ray Emery saga is over and I hope he speaks Russian. Emery signed a one-year deal with Atlant Mytischy of the new Continental Hockey League. Emery apparently got no interest from other NHL clubs after he was released from the Senators. He will join Chris Simon as the first Canadians to join the league from the NHL. That’s a good job of killing two birds with one stone by the NHL. Well done!

NCAA
-After failing his Scholastic Aptitude Test, twice, Brandon Jennings has decided to change his route from the NCAA to Europe. Hold on a minute, failed it twice? Seriously? Remember, this is the same test that Carmelo Anthony has to pass to play for Syracuse. I don’t know much about Anthony, but I don’t think he’s the brightest crayon in the box. Besides Jennings lack of intelligence, there is the fact that he is actually playing in Europe. Will this help his stock or hurt his stock? I don’t this this will hurt him, as he’ll be playing with professionals, similar to Victor Hedman of Modo. Will this influence more players to go for Europe instead of college? Probably not, but it depends on how he does. If he comes into the NBA and starts dishing out double-double’s faster than your local Tim Horton’s, than that could be enough to persuade someone to look at Europe. But for the time being, I don’t see the NCAA as being in any kind of trouble.

-I guess this story belongs in the NCAA section. I put this in here because it involves the Rose Bowl. Don’t know what it is yet? Well, do you know this name: Jim Purol? If you Google image his name, you may find him with many straws in his mouth. Why the straws, you ask? Well he holds the record for most straws held in a mouth at once. Now he also holds the record for most seats sat in during a two-day span. He sat in 39, 250 seats in that 48-hour span. Here’s some stats for you. That’s 818 per hour and 14 per minute! But he didn’t stop there. He’s still going until he sits in all of the 92, 542 Rose Bowl seats. If any of you don’t think this is a sport, I would challenge you to try and beat it.

CFL
-The first loss always hurts the most, but it has to happen sometime. The Al’s lost last night to the Calgary Stampeders. The Stamps came back from a 1st half 17-10 deficit to win 23-19. Terrible second half by the Al’s that’s all I have to say, because I have other things to move onto.

-More important than the Al’s losing is the Argo’s losing. Once again the Argonaut’s were beat by one player, but this time he was on defense. The Edmonton Eskimos has back-to-back Jacks(on) as Tristan Jackson scored two touchdowns: One on an interception and one on a kick return. It was a wacky game with some wacky plays that I don’t have time to get into at the moment. If you have the time, check out the highlights of the game (I know that tsn.ca has a video). You’ll be amazed by the catches Arland Bruce and Johnnie Morant made. All that’s important though, is that the Argonauts lost. It makes me feel a lot better about the Al’s losing.

-I was very glad to see some CFL news on espn.com, explaining that you can/could watch a CFL game online at ESPN360. While I think it’s great to get some exposure south of the border, I think it would also be nice if we could get some exposure north of the border!!! Whatever happened to CFL on CBC. My country’s national channel and they don’t even show the CFL anymore? What’s next, no more HNIC? We’ve already lost the HNIC anthem, next they fire Cherry and Cole, then the whole thing falls apart. You can watch every game on TSN, why not at least one a week on CBC. If CBC was not the only possible way that I could watch sports, Than I would consider boycotting CBC sports altogether! HNIC included!

NFL
-First there was Joakim Noah, now Matt Jones, wide receiver of the Jacksonville Jaguars, was arrested with possession of cocaine. Police searched Jones’ car and found a plastic bag that contained cocaine and a jar that had marijuana residue. The police found 6 grams of the white powder. Apparently Jones was cutting the coke with a credit card. I wonder if it was a MasterCard. Plastic Bag…$5, six grams of cocaine…$180, Getaway car…$25K, Using your MasterCard to cut your drugs…priceless. There are some things money can’t buy, for everything else there’s MasterCard, proud sponsor of stoned athletes since 1969.

Cycling
-I’ve been doing a lot of apologizing lately and don’t thing I’m going to stop the trend now. I would like to apologize to all you hardcore cycling fans. When I said there were no Canadians in this years’ Tour de France, I was sorely mistaken. There is indeed one Canadian in the race. His name is Ryder Hesjedal and he is currently holding down the 94th spot in the race around France. I’m got going to completely ditch Robbie McEwen, although I must admit, at the 113th spot, he might as well not be racing. Kim Kirchen currently has the yellow jersey, but I haven’t been following the tour as much as I thought I would, so I really don’t much about that. I have been following it enough to know that former yellow jersey holder/wearer Romain Feillu is now in 136th spot. That makes me feel better about McEwen.


7th Inning Stretch
Actions may speak louder than words, but words speak louder than silence!


Buzzer Beater
-The Buzzer Beater award for July 11 goes to…Justin Morneau. A five-for-five night? Are you kidding me? Morneau finished the night just a triple away from the cycle, driving in two runs. He boosted his batting average to .324, good enough for 7th in the Majors. Morneau would’ve won this award on skill alone, but the fact that he’s Canadian and shares a first name with me, definitely didn’t hurt him.

Tiger Woods - 1
Kevin Youkilis - 1
Zie Jheng - 1
Matt Kemp - 1
Roy Halladay - 1
Conor Jackson - 1
Rafael Nadal - 1
Justin Morneau - 1

Next edition coming Sunday, July 13. Until then, have a good lifelock.com 400 (It’s a NASCAR race, silly).