Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Wednesday 11/08 A.M. Quickie:
Post-Election Madness,
Tragedy at The U.,
Herm Edwards' Big Choice?

I'm a little behind because I was up until the wee hours watching election coverage, but I'll have a true "Lead Item" by mid-morning about how the election results dovetailed directly with a distinct sports angle.

More spin on today's big storylines:

U. of Miami DE Bryan Pata shot, killed: What a tragedy for The U. and for college football. I'm sure there will be a lot more coverage of this as the day goes on.

Herm Edwards can't choose between hot Damon Huard and coming-off-injury Trent Green. Among all NFL traditions, one of my least favorite is the notion that starters can't lose their spot to injury – that simply because Green is healthy, he automatically gets his starting QB job back. I'm sorry: Has Edwards not been paying attention to how well the team is playing under backup-no-more Huard? Two words: Start. Huard.

Michael Strahan might play this weekend. Shaun Alexander still won't. (How's that fantasy pick working out for ya?)

Matsuzaka bidding ends today: And all I want is for the right officials to announce the results at 5:01 p.m. and not leave us all hanging: Who won the bidding... and how much did they shell out for the rights to negotiate with Scott Boras for the pitcher's services?

More MLB Free Agency rumors: Are the Phillies targeting Alfonso Soriano? Losing him would be bad enough for the Nats; losing him to another team in the division would add injury to insult.

College Hoops Preseason All-American Team: Tyler Hansbrough, Joakim Noah, Ronald Steele, Big Baby Davis and Brandon Rush. That's 3 of 5 from the SEC, if you're keeping score. (I'm disappointed -- but not surprised -- that one of the super-freshmen, like, say, Greg Oden, didn't make the list. You'd think voters would have learned something from their experience with, um... Carmelo Freaking Anthony.)

That was fast, particularly for Bob Knight: Texas Tech leading scorer Jarrious Jackson rejoined the team for practice after being dismissed last week. Guess Knight REALLY wants to pass Dean Smith on the all-time win list.

College hoops early signing period starts today: But OJ Mayo won't commit to USC, though he says he's still interested in playing there. If you K-State fans think Mayo wants to join buddy Bill Walker playing under Huggins, I'm just not quite sure Walker will be there for his sophomore season. Why stay when he can be an NBA first-round pick?

NBA: Hornets rule! Is it possible that Chris Paul, in his sophomore NBA season, is the Most Valuable Player in the league? It's not a crazy argument. After four games, his Hornets are one of only two unbeaten teams, and he had 22 and 11 to lead NOOCH to 4-0, best start in franchise history.

NBA Injury Watch: Shaq didn't play again last night, for the second straight time (knee). All he has to do is be healthy for the playoffs; it doesn't matter what seed the Heat get.

Meanwhile, Amare Stoudemire could start tonight, representing a nice moment for a player who was one of the NBA's most exciting before that knee injury hurt him.

More evidence that 2004 is a LONG time ago: The Red Sox declined to pick up their option on World Series title closer Keith Foulke.

R.I.P. Johnny Sain, 89: Part of one of the greatest mantras in sports history: "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain."

From the original Boston Post poem during the Boston Braves' Spahn-Sain 1948 World Series season: "First we'll use Spahn, then we'll use Sain, Then an off day, followed by rain. Back will come Spahn, followed by Sain, And followed, we hope, by two days of rain."

I'm no friend of the fogeys, but I can heartily agree that you just don't see amazing stuff like that anymore.

-- D.S.

17 comments:

Matt T said...

Break up the Hawks! 3-1 with a win over the Cavs last night. LeBron missed a free throw at the end of regulation that would have made it a 3 pt game, allowing T. Lue to send it to OT.

Unknown said...

I assume by REAL LEAD ITEM you mean the INEVITABLE VIRGINIA RECOUNT that DECIDES THE SENATE.

btw... I live in Maryland and we use all the DC TV stations which leads to us seeing the ads for the Virginia people to. It's become a joke about the candidates for senator in Virginia. Webb (D) is crazy sexist to the point where he acually said things like "The Naval Academy is a horny woman's dream." and Allen (R) somehow got elected last time without the people somehow finding out that he hates those people that have the darker skin.

Heath Shuler is now a congressman in N. Carolina which leads to him moving to DC where his career for the Redskins was one of the biggest dissapointments ever. If you mention the words "heath shuler" to the average person in DC (cause here, everyone follows the 'skins) you will receive laughter in return 6 out of 10 times and some variant of "Wow that guy sucked" about 7 out of 10 times.
( not kidding )

The story about the Miami player is tragic but I don't want to say anything till we get the details.

If Strahan plays this week and ends up hurting so bad he's done for the season I'll laugh at the man for the rest of time. (not that i'm not already doing so because of this summers incident where he lost a bizillion dollars to his wife in the divorce because he couldn't tell the court his kis' birthdays)

I don't think people get how big the Daisuke Matsuzaka thing really is I love the Buster Olney theory on the O's way overbidding with like 50 million and then offering him a 30 million contract so either they win by gettin him for only 30 million in contract thereby balancing the porting fee OR they win by not signing him not losing any money and the Red Sox and Yankees not getting him either.

I really thought Greg Oden would have been preseason first team....after the GMs said they would have drafted Mayo in 10th grade though i find it hard to believe he isn't First Team next year.....

We really don't have stuff like Spahn and Sain and pray for rain....but I sure wish we did

Sheldiz said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Sheldiz said...

@guyinthecorner: i'm in MD too, near DC... i LOVED that ad about Webb... that's the one that ended with "He's right for 06. 1806", yeah?

I can't say i'm not glad about not having to watch two states and the District's worth of campaign ads anymore.

Christian Thoma said...

I can't believe Dan didn't freak out over Hansbrough (spelling?) getting more votes than Noah.

RevScottDeMangeMD said...

Wait...Kansas State has fans?

Also...so THAT'S where the "Spahn's teammate" means when I do the crossword puzzles. I always wondered that...

And honestly...is there any easier job than be a member of the House? You work like 30 days a year! Everyone knows that the Senate does all the work. Seriously, I need to become a state rep!

john (east lansing, mi) said...

Ok - this is driving me crazy, because I was at work this morning, round about 8:00 or 8:30, listening to the radio... maybe local sports talk, maybe NPR, I'm not sure where I was tuned at the time.

Anyway, I heard a little item in the national news roundup that the accuser in the Duke Lacrosse case admitted that she was in it for the money... Like, three of the guys hadn't paid her for whatever services they procured, and she was trying to get it out of them I guess? Maybe she couldn't take her unpaid bill to the police, so she took a different story instead? I can only guess at all the logic of this, and even worse, I seem unable to find out if this really happened...

news.google and cnn.com have nothing for me - has anybody else heard about this? have any better sources?

As soon as I heard this, I wanted to weigh in most critically, but now that I'm lacking the report I was looking for, I feel like I oughtn't to.

Brian in Oxford said...

One thing I would like to know is to what degree, if ANY, Pata played a role in the FIU brawl.

Yes, a guy getting shot and dying is tragic. No, I don't think it'll be shown to be related to the brawl. But at least I'd like to get a sense of what the guy was about. It will temper my sadness at least somewhat if it turns outh we learn the guy was a punk.

(Parallel to Jerome Brown, perhaps.....I always remember him at the Fiesta Bowl showing up Penn State...then I learn he died tragically and it just never carried the same amount of sadness for me that it *should* have.)


Johnny Sain, definitely immortalized by the poem. In fact, it comes up every year when there's a team with only 2 really good pitchers down the stretch....we try to make a similar rhyme in homage. "Hampton and Smoltz, then pray for 10,000 volts" for instance, for next year's Braves.

BLUE said...

Dan, how can you not mention Carmelo Anthony's donation to Syracuse. Is it because nobody likes to report stories of generosity by athletes? He gave $3mil to syracuse to build a new gym. It is the largest single donation by an athlete to a school ever. Yet, all we hear about is HGH and steriods, and the new NBA ball and Lebron is great. You want a good role model for your kids, point them at #15 for the Nuggets.

TJ said...

Someone in front of me in class just suggested the following, which I've decided is inevitable: Britney Spears... on Flavor of Love.

Worldwide Reader said...

I'm disappointed -- but not surprised -- that one of the super-freshmen, like, say, Greg Oden, didn't make the list.

Isn't Oden out until January with a wrist injury or something? So he plays a few months at OSU and then goes right to the Bulls (thanks, Isiah!)

Yes, a guy getting shot and dying is tragic. No, I don't think it'll be shown to be related to the brawl. But at least I'd like to get a sense of what the guy was about. It will temper my sadness at least somewhat if it turns outh we learn the guy was a punk.

Ehh.

john (east lansing, mi) said...

Alright troy (g,f) - you can have the Sports Guy's job (brilliant, if not sports-related).



re: this whole Pata thing,
First: a shotgun? to the back of the head? What a fucking mess...
The rest:
I floated the tenuous FIU link last night just because it's obviously the last important thing I heard about Miami football; it seems like a preposterous thing to be related to this, especially given that another Miami player was already, it sounds like, hunted outside his own apartment this summer.


Can anybody else tell me how you feel about this: I have now heard three different sports-talk personalities express the idea that this will reflect badly on the Miami program, Larry Coker, etc. How is that possible?
Sure, this sounds like a conviction of Miami (I thought Detroit was supposed to be bad). Maybe the school should move somewhere safer.
But as far as the players, program, and coach go, this is the first time in my decade or so of CFB cognizance that I have thought anything good about Miami (or at least, backed off on thinking bad things).

A couple months ago, it seemed fucking ridiculous that Coker should have to tell his players that he didn't want them to own guns. Now, I hear that one player chased away his teammate's shooter with the gun he keeps in his apartment. I've always thought Miami's players were obnoxious posturing thugs. It doesn't seem so nuts when I think about the setting of Miami vs., you know... Ann Arbor...

Now, as they say, I don't condone it, I understand it. For the first time.

john (east lansing, mi) said...

brian, I'm with the wwreader.

Whatever course of events ended up with a shotgun pointed at the back of this guy's head seems to me that it couldn't have been deserved.

By the way, initial reports tell me that Pata was a "guidance counselor" on his team, "a guy everybody loved," a "great kid, a Christian... a role model and a motivator," and as far as his mom knew, he "had a problem with nobody."

So hopefully that does it for you?

RevScottDeMangeMD said...

Adam...

I was just joking with you. I am from Dayton and it's my nature to hate anything Huggins related. However, as I told Shanoff the other day, being from southern Ohio, I have seen Billy Walker and OJ Mayo play numerous times in person and they are the REAL deal. All of you can laugh at me if you want, but OJ Mayo is better than Lebron was when he was in HS. He's THAT good.

john (east lansing, mi) said...

Oh - I found that thing I was looking for, via the Drudge Report.

Guess the... former security manager... at her club made the claim; it wasn't her recent admission or anything.

I'd have to guess that a strip club full of bouncers and strippers would be on her side, if they thought she was being fully forthcoming on all this.

Did that case end and I forgot about it, by the way? What happened/is happening?

Brian in Oxford said...

It does suck more to learn that Pata was one of the "good guys" on the team.

And it also does show that if Miami does have a majority of "good guys", then they've got a serious problem with their image, if players like him were NOT the ones being promoted to the outside world.

The ones who are the role models....why weren't we exposed more to guys like him, in light of the brawl? Sheesh, it was waaay to easy to label the whole team as 85 thugs or something.

I wonder if they'll play their game this week with Maryland. There's no off week to reschedule before the ACC championship, either. Let's see the league shift their championship game back a week if Maryland needs to play this game on the 2nd. Maryland's definitely in the hunt for a spot in the title game.

T-Mill said...

Tears in our household last night, as my wife is a UM alum and big fan of both football and baseball. We were simply shocked when we heard it. I'm a relatively new UM fan and I feel numb today.