Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Tuesday 11/14 A.M. Quickie:
Bobby Knight's "YouTube Moment,"
Steve Smith's "McNabb Moment,"
And My Picks for '06 NL Cy (and '07 AL Cy)

Bobby Knight has his "YouTube Moment!" What I'm looking for is this: A link to the YouTube clip showing him slapping his player, Michael Prince, on the bench during last night's game. I don't see it on YouTube yet. Can anyone help me out?

(Meanwhile, what a dumb-ass Knight is: 871 career wins and he can't even control himself enough not to physically smack one of his players ON CAMERA. At least do it on a game that isn't televised. In the over/under on games suspended, I'll take "Zero" and you can have every other number. Anyone dare to take me up on it? In the over/under on "media outrage," however, I'll take "too many to count.")

Ohio St-Michigan Countdown: Jim Tressel says that the game's loser should NOT get a second chance in the national title game, but not because it's a competitively corrosive concept (my feeling) -- he just doesn't like the idea of a team not winning its conference championship making the national-title game.

NFL WRAP:

(1) Panthers d. Bucs on MNF: Donovan McNabb could take a lesson from Steve Smith, who upchucked on the sidelines, but not without catching 8 passes for 149 yards and a TD. Boot away!

(2) Brunell benched for Campbell: FINALLY, the Redskins give up on the terrible Brunell experiment in 2006 and go with the 2005 first-round draft pick who has been listed as inactive for 27 career games. The Skins will get better under Campbell, they'll barely miss the playoffs, and it'll be Joe Gibbs' fault for not starting him sooner.

(3) Randy Moss blames his mood: He blames his dropped passes on being unhappy. I'm serious. Even Moody All-Star, T.O. STFU and got the job done.

MLB Awards Season: Today: NL Cy! My pick is by attrition. Brandon Webb's team wasn't in contention; I can't reward Chris Carpenter's 15 wins (particularly after he won the Cy in '05 over a more deserving Roger Clemens). Carlos Zambrano – who is probably the NL's top starting pitcher – just isn't realistic.

So my NL Cy pick? Trevor Hoffman, who led the NL in saves and led his team to the playoffs -- not a bad season for one of MLB's elder statesmen who also happened to set the record for career saves.

MLB HOT STOVE:

(1) Matsuzaka to Red Sox tonight: The announcement will be made official that Theo won the rights to negotiate with the Japanese superstar. It only cost him $45 mil. And that's just to start talking to Scott Boras. (Yikes.) It's the bold move the Red Sox needed. I'm calling it now: Matsuzaka will win the AL Cy Young Award in 2007.

(2) Cubs eyeing Soriano: Having already spent big (5Y/$75M) to keep Aramis Ramirez, the Cubs are looking to drop another $100M(?) to get Alfonso Soriano. The Angels – who were hot for Aramis – likely won't let the Cubs take another player from them.

(3) Mets targeting Barry Zito: Is he a cornerstone pitcher? Does it matter? He'll get paid like one. If I was Omar Minaya, however, I wouldn't give up on trading the farm to the Marlins for Dontrelle Willis, too.

CBB: Vermont stuns B.C.! Chalk up another upset of a traditional power for the Catamounts. Lucky for BC, this was in the second game of the season, not the first round of the NCAA Tournament. But it should give everyone who thinks BC can contend in the ACC this season a moment's pause. (Obviously, quite a few did: BC was ranked 14th. Un-rank 'em!)

NBA Wrap: The Celtics don't just suck, but they suck as bad as they ever have since 1978. LeBron owns New York, both with his 29 points and his commercial presence. The Sonics can beat a solid team like the Nets, but they're still moving to Oklahoma City.

CFB: Butch Davis to UNC. Now, if they'd only, say, get rid of the basketball program, he'd have a fighting chance there.

San Francisco drops out of Olympics 2016 bidding. Down to LA and Chicago to be the US bid. My money's still on Chicago.

-- D.S.

33 comments:

Gary said...

Remember in the movie "Mr. Baseball" when Tom Sellick went to Japan they gave him number 45 or something like that because that was the number of home runs they expected him to hit. Well, as a Red Sox fan, I can only hope that "The Japaneese Gyro" (will it catch on?) wears number 27 for the number of wins he's expecting to get or maybe 316 for the number of strikeouts he's expected to have.

Hey, for $45 mil plus his salary, it's the least he could do

Aitch said...

Thnks for jinxing him right out of the gate Dan! lol

I'm still not sold on the player, but I think the move is solid if for no other reason than the returns in revenue it will generat e for the team in the far east. How much money do you think the Mariners and Yankees make in merch sales alone for Ichiro and Matsui respectively?

Mega said...

It works like this: Boston wins with bidding $45 mil to get the rights to negotiate with Boras.

NOW, Boston can throw something out there like 5 years for $5 million.

IF Boras declines, well then the pitcher can't play in the MLB this year. So effectively, 90% of the total salary will be just the opening bid.

Am I right here? Someone correct me if I'm not.

Gary said...

People are forgetting that this money for the bid doesn't go against your team salary therefore not against the luxury tax either.

The Red Sox can rationalize it by simply viewing it like it is a stadium upgrade...just another way to increase revenue.

The Sox now can get big advertising dollars from Japaneese companies, sell their "pink hats" to all those Toyoko U. Coeds. I predict that the Matsuzaka jersey will be one of the top sellers in all of MLB next year (compounding RSN rabidity with Japans love of their baseball stars)

Even if this blows up in the face of the Bo-Sox, they (probably) won't have a huge contract to get themselves out from under.

I think it's a great move and one that a creative front office (like the Red Sox) can take full advantage of.

-seth said...

wouldn't call it a "slap" by any means. I'll be surprised if you're still upset about what Knight did after you see it.

Sheldiz said...

yeah, the bobby knight thing, had he been any coach other than bobby knight... would not have been a "thing" at all.

it wasn't that deep. the kid wasn't paying attention and bobby snapped him out of it.

however, had he caught his attention by throwing a chair at him, we'd be having a different conversation.

Big D said...

Thank God I don't really care about the NBA... otherwise I'd be joining the rest of the insane here in Boston lining up to leap from the Zakim bridge over the C's...

Christian Thoma said...

henry s said...
so, if OSU loses to Michigan and only drops to the 2 slot, Tressel will reject the invitation to the Championship Game...we'll hold you to it, coach...


Here's the problem: if Tressel turns down a Championship invite, does that mean he doesn't get a BCS invite at all? If that's the case, he wouldn't turn down the Champ invite because of all the $$$ that the Big Ten would lose.

Also, the BCS has the ability to force matchups in the bowls 'for the good of the game' ... can they force OSU/Michigan loser out of the Championships even if they're 2nd in the BCS?

john (east lansing, mi) said...

Weird... I think you overdid your title (blogger is having trouble handling it).

Anyway -

Yes, Bob Knight should have known better just because he's Bob Knight; but I just found the clip (I know you've gone your separate ways, but espn.com is still useful - that stupid Motion Player on the front page has the clip, as does ESPNEWS every 30 minutes), and like Fran Fraschilla says, this is no unthinkable act of coach-on-player violence. They said on E-NEWS that the player looked like he was hurting on the bench, but that doesn't even make any sense, slap-related-injurywise. Maybe it hurt his feelings, sure.

Anyway, I think SportsNation and I are in agreement on the Zero games, and in fact think it would be ludicrous if it were any higher.

Good for Tressel; take that, Oklahoma (Heisman Winner Jason White. Ha!) Let's see if he changes his mind later on (he doesn't seem like the type, but then again, he does seem like the type to have stadium guards thoroughly search Michigan's coaches and players and their bags to psyche them out before The Game. What a fucker.).

What the hell are these NFL guys eating these days (besides Campbells Chunky)? Don't they have trainers for every aspect of their lives or something? Ridiculous.

I guess we'll see about Campbell, but then again, I don't give two shits.

Moss - umm... I don't even know what to say.

NL Cy -
Ehh. I can see it being hard to reward 15 wins, but your reason for excluding Webb seems less reasonable. So what if his team was no good? Maybe that makes his 16 wins even more impressive.
Mostly I just don't like the idea of giving it to Mr. 479+ because saves seem sort of capricious to me (but then again, I guess official scoring in baseball is so interesting because everything is capricious). Fine, let him have his lifetime achievement award pre-Hall. Whatevs.

I don't want it, but I can't see any way for Matsuzaka to be anything but a huge disappointment. Sorry.

Everything else in the Q is currently in Not-Happening-Yet mode for me; with the Real CFB Season starting and ending on Saturday, I'm ignoring sports that aren't prudent enough to wait for the proper time to start.

I should be on board in a week, but maybe I'll remember I'm in school.

john (east lansing, mi) said...

By the way - this is the best week of the year for ESPN Classic, which is currently (10 AM-11 AM ET, in AA) showing the first Bo vs. Woody game, from 1969, when Bo beat Woody's best team.

What a week...

TBender said...

Nice to see you're able to view each season in a vacuum, Dan.

If Clemens "deserved" it in 05, then he didn't deserve it in 04 - Johnson pitched better but had a worse W-L. And as we all know by now, record is partly determined by your team's offensive production.

I still think that the four top candidates should share the award, or at least have Carp and Hoffman split it. Voting for Hoffman outright means the 06 Cy is a Lifetime Achievement Award (see Ron Dayne, Heisman winner). He had a good, not great, season...just like Carp, Oswalt, Webb. Zambrano is a distant 4th because he walked 115 batters -- 16 less than the other 3 combined!

Jared said...

I thought I remembered reading that the Red Sox' salary offer has to at least match their bid, so they would have to pay this guy at least $42 mil. I'm not sure if that's correct though. I still don't see why he's getting all this hype when every other pitcher from Asia has been a bust, or had just a short period of brilliance.

Jon said...

Is it possible to not give out a Cy Young in the NL this year?

When I think of Japanese starting pitchers I think of Nomo and Irabu, Red Sox better hope that Boras considers some of that $45 mill when negotiating and settles for the 5 year, 50 mill contract....but then again this is Boras. Should be interesting to see what the Sox pay him in total.

www.seasonlongpool.com

Unknown said...

Dan-

I'm kinda dissapointed. BEING FROM DC I CAN TELL YOU SOMETHING. Last year everyone was saying the same thing. Brunells washed up, blah blah blah. But when he led the Skins to 5 W's to end the season 10-6 and a playoff W as well all those people shut up. A quick stat on Brunell...

There are only 3 QBs who have played all their teams games this year who have less INTs than Brunell. (Peyton Manning, Phillip Rivers, Marc Bulger)

That Being Said, I Want Jason Campbell

I don't think people get the whole Matsuzaka thing. Heres why it's worth it to pay 45 mil to negotiate.

1. The red sox are trying to take over Asia. They are also starting a baseball camp in China.

2. They plan on getting it back with partnerships to new Jappanesse sponsors and want to sell a TV package over there.

3. If they fail to reach a deal they get all the money back and the Yanks still don't get him.

CALLING THE BOBBY KNIGHT INCIDENT AN ATTACK WAS COMPLETELY IRRATIONAL

It was a "love tap". Watch the clip. The player said he didn't care. The player's mom said he didn't care. This is WAY LESS AGRESSIVE than a football coach grabbing a guy by the facemask.

great info on matsuzaka and the gyroball, and if you think it's not as great as people say you have to read this

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=jp-gyro031306

(that clip on the top doesn't work, for the best clip i've seen look at the next URL and watch the spin on the ball, I used to pitch and TRUST ME, that's no breaking ball)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yimyfjcf2f4

rukrusher said...

The ACC can't disown B.C. in hoops, that is an ACC team losing to Vermont and that might impact the chance of a ACC bubble team making the Tourney in March. It is the little things come back to haunt you on Selection Sunday.


P.S. B.C. cannot lose enough to suit me. I can forgive Miami and V-Tech for going to the ACC but B.C. cannot lose enough money and games to make me happy. Wonder how that Athletic budget tightens flying the Field Hockey team to every away game.

john (east lansing, mi) said...

Oh, man - I wasn't even thinking about it until I saw it, but in that 1969 OSU-UM game, the ESPN Classic footage shows Woody Hayes, with OSU down 7-6 at the end of the 1st quarter, hitting some poor assistant-type in the side, because the guy was standing slightly in front of Woody. The victim is holding a cup of liquid, and the blow causes him to spill it; much more violent than B. Knight's little tap last night, I think.

Also, the out-of-town scores ABC reported at the quarter were Princeton-Dartmouth, Harvard-Yale, and Brown-Columbia. That's it. Weird.

Josh said...

Here's hoping Matsuzaka fails. I hate all of you Red Sox fans. You made me take up the Yankees as my second team.

Trey (formerly TF) said...

You're going to have to take a lot of convincing to me that Matsuzaka is worth the $90-100M the Red Sox will end up spending to get him.

The guy looked good in the WBC, and has been dominant in the Japanese leagues, however, there is a major difference between pitching 34 games in MLB and pitching 30 games in Japan.

The kid has all the tools, the form, the pitches, the accuracy, but ask any MLB pitcher and they'll tell ya the mental game is just as big.

While the WBC was a nice venue to show his stuff off at, was it really as determinative as pitching 34 regular season games and 2-3 games in the post season before starting a World Series game? No.

Joe (Dayton)

rukrusher said...

Also, the out-of-town scores ABC reported at the quarter were Princeton-Dartmouth, Harvard-Yale, and Brown-Columbia. That's it. Weird.

I would imagine they were the only other early games going on at that time. I am just guessing but I think that was a 12:00 game and the Ivy League was probably the only schools playing at the same time. Plus the Ivy League still meant something in 1969. At least to the Ivy League Network employees.

Brian in Oxford said...

Who was winning that Dartmouth game?

And I'm pretty sick of individual awards being predicated on team success.

ToddTheJackass said...

I'm a huge BC fan, and watched in disgust at the game last night. Simply put, we got beat, and bad. We couldn't box out to save our lives, nor rebound for anything.

That being said, it's only November, and we were without two players (one starter), who were suspended. Also we're really transitioning, having Tyrese Rice handle the point, and introducing Shamari Spears to try and fill in as best he can for Craig Smith. Give them time, and they'll be formidable.

Not quite ready to give up the season quite yet Dan, although I know you think it's probably over already and we should just give Florida the title again.

Mark my word, Florida will not win again. Not because they're not the best team, just because the odds of repeating in the tourney these days is so difficult, even if you have the best team.

-Todd (Boston)

ToddTheJackass said...

And Dan, Johan is still the best in baseball.

Hopefully, Matsuzaka will get the Rookie of the Year award though. Don't forget he's eligible for that.

-Todd (Boston)

john (east lansing, mi) said...

Haha, Princeton 7, Dartmouth 0.

And I'm sure it was early, since there's sunlight in Ann Arbor at the end of the (November 22) game... but I hadn't thought that nobody else in the world was playing at noon.

john (east lansing, mi) said...

Hey, can anybody quick tell me why the Ted Ginn highlight I see twice a day involves another Buckeye blocking a Spartan in the back? Shouldn't that one be coming back?

Ed in Westchester said...

dan-mega - that would be negotiating in bad faith. MLB can then pass the next highest bid to the Seibu Lions, who could accept, get that offer, and the Sox are SOL.

Anonymous said...

getting back to Favre for a minute. His numbers are better than Brady's this season to date. Care to explain to me now why he should retire Dan?

Anonymous said...

and read what tressel said in the article, not dan's revision.

"Yeah," Tressel said. "Yeah. … The thing we say as we go into every year, if you want a chance to play for the national championship, you better make the assumption that you need to win every game in your conference and be a champion, and that's the way we enter it. I hadn't thought about it, but you asked the question so I gave you the short answer, I guess."



He never said that he would decline the invite, he said that to go to the NC he feels you need to win your conference.

that to me sounds more like a backhanded shot at the BCS (in favor of a playoff) than anything else. And a shot at ND for not joining a conference.

Anonymous said...

Being a Michigan fan, I know I'm horribly biased here, but if OSU loses *at* the shoe by more than a blown call, there's absolutely no reason to rematch them against Michigan in the championship. On the other hand, if Michigan plays a close game, you can argue for a rematch, since it would then be on a neutral setting. However, I think I'm already sick of all of the bitching if that happens, so if Michigan loses and doesn't get a rematch, I won't be complaining (out loud).

EPorvaznik said...

Yeah, that sure was a slap from Knight (sigh). Jesus, Dan, do you really want even more college kids heading into the world all namby-pamby and prissy, expecting the world to be some cake-walk without confrontation or tough love?

Prince said he had no problem with what Knight did -- heck, he justified the coaching maneuver to get his attention -- so end of story as far as the rest of the world should be concerned. Won't, but should be.

Christian Thoma said...


Being a Michigan fan, I know I'm horribly biased here, but if OSU loses *at* the shoe by more than a blown call, there's absolutely no reason to rematch them against Michigan in the championship. On the other hand, if Michigan plays a close game, you can argue for a rematch, since it would then be on a neutral setting.


I'm an Ohio State fan, and I agree completely.

Kevin said...

response to ed in westchester - I don't think MLB could call offering a low salary "negotiating in bad faith", after all, they are just driving a hard bargain. I thought at first that was what the Sox were doing, but that would really piss Boras off, which might not be a good idea...

Ingrid and Jim said...

Randy Moss is a little cunt.

Want us to make you happy? Okay, how about we pay you millions of dollars a year to play football?

I officially disown the Raiders.

Fortunately, my Scarlet Knights (and Trojans) are keeping me in a good football mood!

Anonymous said...

Has anyone told Moss that if the quality of the team affects his mood, then it's in his best interest to catch his passes?

Apparently, he can't catch his own bullshit either.