Category Archives: Sports news

Sports news

Deflategate comes to an end

FOXBORO, MA - NOVEMBER 02: Tom Brady #12 of the New England Patriots warms up before a game against the Denver Broncos at Gillette Stadium on November 2, 2014 in Foxboro, Massachusetts. (Photo by Jim Rogash/Getty Images)

A young man with whom I am acquainted is a happy fellow.

Trevor is as die-hard a New England Patriots fan as anyone this side of Cape Cod. However, he lives way out here on the Texas Tundra, in Amarillo.

But by golly, he loves them Pats. He went to this year’s Super Bowl game in Arizona that the Patriots won in that remarkable fashion over the Seattle Seahawks.

I know he’s happy because a judge today tossed out a four-game suspension handed to Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who’d been accused of conspiring to deflate some footballs prior to the Patriots’ AFC championship game victory over the Indianapolis Colts. The Pats won the game by a zillion points, so the deflating of the balls — no matter who did it — never really mattered.

But Brady got pounded with that four-game suspension handed down by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Well, the suspension has been lifted. The NFL will appeal. My hunch is that the judge’s ruling will stand. Brady will take the first snap when the Patriots’ regular season begins.

Trevor will be made whole again.

I happen to agree with most Pats fans, that the four-game suspension was too severe. Brady perhaps needed some sanction. Fine him a lot of money; hey, he can afford it.

Four games? It was too much.

As for the appeal that Brady launched several months ago, consider this little item: He appealed his suspension to the league and the arbitrator was none other than the same man who administered the suspension in the first place, Roger Goodell!

Is that fair?

I think not.

So, let’s get on with the pro football season. As for the air pressure inside those footballs, don’t let the players anywhere near the balls until it’s time for them to take the field.

Brady suspension lifted

 

Sports news

Pro football rookie is ‘too good to be true’?

There is a story making the rounds that suggests a “new normal” among prospective professional athletes.

It’s that some pro scouts, team executives and analysts just cannot believe that a possible star athlete doesn’t carry any baggage, that he’s got to have something wrong about him.

Marcus Mariota won the Heisman Trophy this past season while playing quarterback for the University of Oregon.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/marcus-mariota%e2%80%99s-lack-of-red-flags-was-a-concern-for-nfl-teams/ar-AAdGE3A

He’s a fine young man. He’s devoted to his family. He finished his college education, earning his degree at Oregon. He’s the proverbial Boy Scout.

Then we hear that Oregon head coach Mark Helfrich reports that some National Football League analysts and scouts were spooked by the absolute absence of any skeletons in Mariota’s closet.

As Larry Brown writes in MSN.com: “The NFL is so used to finding at least something wrong with players that they balk when they can’t dig up any dirt.”

OK, Mariota isn’t perfect. He got a speeding ticket in Eugene, Ore., during his final year at Oregon.

But that’s it. Apparently.

Are we going to believe now that NFL general managers, scouts, coaches — maybe even the fans — demand that their star athletes punch out women, abuse drugs, steal things or launch into profanity-laced rants on national television?

The Tennessee Titans thought enough of Mariota to draft him No. 2 overall.

I’m going to go with the Titans’ judgment on a young man who certainly looks like the real thing.

Sports news

Brady’s cover-up bites him in backside

Didn’t we all learn from the Watergate scandal that the cover-up almost always is worse than the crime?

Then again, the principal involved in a boiling sports controversy wasn’t even born yet when the Watergate scandal took down the president of the United States and sent several high-ranking government officials to prison.

Still, didn’t New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady hear of such a thing when he was in high school or attending the University of Michigan?

Brady’s four-game suspension in this year’s upcoming NFL football season will stand. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had imposed it in the wake of the now-famed Deflate-gate controversy. Brady then appealed the suspension to, strange as it seems, to the same man who imposed it. Goodell decided to let the suspension stand.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/bradys-suspension-upheld-by-nfl-commissioner-roger-goodell/ar-AAdCRfi

And why is that? Well, it turns out that Brady destroyed the cell phone that contained text messages that supposedly implicated the QB in the issue of whether he knew anything about the deflated footballs used in the Patriots’ game in which they clobbered the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC championship game this past year.

Good grief, man. All he had to do was turn over the cell phone. He didn’t do it, apparently knowing that he had done something wrong.

My strong hunch is that his destruction of the cell phone infuriated Goodell so much that he dared not lighten the suspension.

The cover-up, Tom, did you in.

This story likely isn’t over. The NFL players union will appeal the suspension.

They’d better hurry. The season starts in just a few weeks.

Sports news

‘Legend’ not in football Hall of Fame?

I’ve been reading the word “legend” over the past several hours.

It’s been used to describe the late Ken Stabler, the great quarterback for the Oakland Raiders who, in 1977, led his team to a crushing Super Bowl victory over the Minnesota Vikings.

I’ve known for years a bit of information about Stabler the Snake. He isn’t in the pro football Hall of Fame.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/former-alabama-raiders-quarterback-ken-stabler-dies-at-69/ar-AAcMuiZ

And I’ve wondered all that time: What in the world has kept him out of that shrine?

Young pro football fans today perhaps don’t know that the Raiders weren’t always the doormat they’ve become. They once personified a rebellious attitude. The team owner, Al Davis, himself was the embodiment of the term “rebel.” He was constantly feuding with pro football league brass — whether it was the old American Football League or later with the National Football League.

Stabler took that attitude onto the field, along with many other great players.

He wasn’t just all flash and sizzle. He played in four Pro Bowls; he was the NFL”s most valuable player in 1974; and, oh yeah, he played on that winning Super Bowl team. Indeed, he has as many Super Bowl wins as another player who came out of the University of Alabama, Joe Namath — who’s in the Hall of Fame and who didn’t produce the kind of career stats that Stabler did.

I’m no football expert. I just know when someone’s been robbed of a proper tribute.

Stabler should have been inducted long ago into the Hall of Fame.

Rest in peace, Snake.

 

Sports news

Shrieking? At Wimbledon of all places?

Wimbledon is supposed to be a place of grand decorum, politeness and good manners.

Now, though, we hear gripes about the grunting that goes on while the world’s greatest tennis stars are playing each other. What’s more, the fans apparently get tanked up on gin-laced drinks and have been mimicking the grunts some of the players — notably the women — make while they’re competing.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/tennis/sound-and-fury-as-azarenka-blasts-scream-queen-critics/ar-AAcGf3z

I’ll stipulate that I’m not a huge fan of tennis. I like watching it some of the time. I’m not glued to my TV set when the “majors” are being played. Wimbledon is one of them. The closest my wife and have ever been to the place was on an airplane that in June 2006 was making its approach to Heathrow Airport in London; the bird flew over the stadium, and I’ll admit it was kind of cool to see it from the air.

It fascinates me somewhat that an uproar would occur at this place.

Why, they don’t even allow the competitors to wear anything but white on the court. Headbands? They have to be white, too.

Wimbledon is as stodgy a place as, say, Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia, which has banned CBS Sports announcer Gary McCord from taking part in the network’s TV coverage of the Masters Tournament because, well, McCord’s smart-alecky personality rankles the stuffed shirts who run the Masters.

So, if the green jacket crowd can dictate who covers their golf event in Augusta, why can’t the stuffy Brits who run Wimbledon get the athletes to stop their grunting and shrieking?

What’s more, why don’t they make the stands a booze-free zone?

Do I like hearing the grunting? No. It does distract me from what I’m watching. But that’s not my call.

It’s just that if the tennis royalty that runs Wimbledon is going to demand certain behavior and make the athletes wear only white, then let’s go all the way.

Stop the shrieks and tell the fans to behave themselves.

 

Sports news

Let’s end the Pete Rose campaign for HOF

How about we simply give up trying to debate whether Pete “The Gambler” Rose deserves to be in baseball’s Hall of Fame?

I’ve grown tired of the discussion.

ESPN has aired a segment that revealed pretty conclusive evidence that Rose bet on baseball while he was playing the game, not just managing a team.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb/roses-hof-chances-now-all-but-gone/ar-AAbYo90

Didn’t the man dubbed “Charlie Hustle” deny all those years that he never bet on baseball while he played the game? Didn’t that stand as a possible qualifier that could get him inducted into the Hall of Fame?

Good grief. MLB’s rulebook is as clear as it gets.

Betting on baseball results in a lifetime ban. Pete Rose is still among us, last I saw. That means he doesn’t qualify for the hall.

He at first denied betting on games while he managed the Cincinnati Reds, where he played most of his career. Then he said, well, yeah I bet on games — but not on games involving my teams.

What else might we learn about this guy? He has said all along he didn’t bet while playing the game. That denial now appears headed for the crapper.

I understand fully that Rose got more hits than anyone else in the history of the game. I get that he played his guts out and got the most of the talent he had, which — truth be told — wasn’t as much as many other players of his era. He was a stellar hitter.

He also was a compulsive gambler — who broke one of baseball’s cardinal rules.

I know the Hall of Fame is full of racists, drunks, drug users, womanizers — and even a couple of pitchers known for throwing spitballs.

None of those sins, though, translates to lifetime bans.

Gambling on baseball? That’s the deal breaker.

Sports news

If LeBron is MVP of finals even if Cavs lose … ?

Talk is now swirling a bit about whether LeBron James should be the most valuable player of the NBA Finals if his team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, loses to the Golden State Warriors.

What’s the big deal?

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/lebron-james-wouldnt-feel-good-about-winning-finals-mvp-if-the-cavaliers-lose/ar-BBle7vK

There’s precedent for such a thing.

Here’s two examples that come to mind off the top:

* The 1960 World Series ended with the Pittsburgh Pirates beating the New York Yankees on a seventh-game, ninth-inning home run by Bill Mazeroski. The Series MVP? Yankees second baseman Bobby Richardson.

* Super Bowl V was won by the Baltimore Colts on a field goal by Jim O’Brien. The MVP of that game? Dallas Cowboys linebacker Chuck Howley.

There might be other examples.

LeBron James has played his guts out. He’s scored a ton of points. If it goes to the Warriors, he would have earned the MVP — no matter what.

 

Sports news

ESPN to honor Caitlyn Jenner … for what?

Bob Costas is a smart sports journalist who goes far beyond who gets the most hits, scores the most touchdowns or sinks the most three-point field goals.

He’s been known to offer opinions on a wide range of issues beyond the field of competition.

He often is spot on.

I think he’s on target with his assertion that ESPN’s plan to honor Caitlyn Jenner with a special courage award, named after the late tennis great Arthur Ashe, is an attempt to exploit Jenner and boost the network’s ratings.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/10/bob-costas-caitlyn-jenner-arthur-ashe_n_7555508.html

This likely will be the final thing I’ll say about Jenner, whose sex changed from man to woman. Jenner once was Bruce Jenner, Olympic decathlon champion who turned into a reality TV personality; he married Kris Kardashian and became the foil for his former wife and her daughters.

Then Bruce became Caitlyn.

I’m not sure about the “courage” it took to do such a thing. Jenner always has struck me as someone who craves publicity. She’s getting a ton of it now.

The Arthur Ashe Courage Award is named after the tennis great who died of AIDS complications in 1993. He announced to the world that had contracted HIV through a tainted blood transfusion. It broke the hearts of a sports nation that had admired him for his talent on the tennis court and his courtly, gentlemanly demeanor.

Caitlyn Jenner earning an award in memory of Arthur Ashe? It just doesn’t feel right.

There. I’m out.

 

Sports news

How odd? I don’t like horse-racing, but am thrilled today

Someone has to explain this one.

I’m not at all nuts about watching horses running around a track with a mini-man perched on the saddle.

However, I do excited when a horse wins the first two legs of the Triple Crown. And then I get really excited when the same horse wins the third one.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/horseracingspecial/american-pharoah-becomes-1st-triple-crown-winner-in-37-years/ar-BBkMGCO

That was my state of mind this evening as I watched American Pharoah win the Triple Crown, becoming the first horse since 1978 (Affirmed) to accomplish the feat. It’s the longest stretch between Triple Crown winners in Triple Crown history.

Secretariat remains the gold standard for horse-racing excellence. What’s more, Secretariat won the 1973 Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths. Jockey Ron Turcotte ever laid a land on his steed. In fact, he was unaware of the distance between his mount and the next one until they turned down the stretch and Turcotte said he couldn’t hear any other horse sounds: hooves pounding or horses snorting.

This one was good. American Pharoah led from the gate and took it all the way home.

However, consider this: It comes from someone commenting on a friend’s Facebook post about which horse is the best in history. This fellow said Secretariat’s winning time in the Belmont Stakes would have put him 15 lengths ahead of American Pharoah.

Still, the newest Triple Crown winner joins some heady company.

Well done.

 

entertainment news, Sports news

It’s settled: IOC says Jenner keeps the gold

It didn’t take long for the International Olympic Committee to settle this issue.

The 1976 Olympic gold medal in the decathlon will remain awarded to Bruce Jenner, an American athlete who won the event in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

https://celebrity.yahoo.com/blogs/celeb-news/international-olympic-committee-responds-to-petition-seeking-to-revoke-caitlyn-jenner-s-gold-medal-160628464.html

Responding to an online petition asking that the medal be revoked because Bruce Jenner is now Caitlin Jenner, the IOC said: “Bruce Jenner won his gold medal in the 1976 Olympic Games and there is no issue for the IOC.”

There you have it.

The petitioner is from Fort Worth. Jennifer Bradford said she is standing up for transgender rights.

My own view is that she’s standing up only for her own quest for publicity.

The IOC occasionally has had to deal with athletes whose gender has been questioned. There have been instances where female medal winners have been stripped of their medals because it was determined they possessed male DNA, giving them an advantage over their fellow female competitors.

That’s not even close to the issue here.

Bruce Jenner won the gold medal as a man. He’s now a woman.

Let’s move on to something else, shall we?