all-encompassingly

BYU Basketball : The Saga Continues

Another addition to the sad string of BYU basketball news this year:

AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (AP) -- For more than 10 1/2 strange and painful minutes, the string of futility played out. Layups, 3-pointers, free throws -- Brigham Young couldn't get anything to drop.

The result was a 19-0 deficit on the way to a 70-39 loss to Air Force on Monday night, an unmistakable low point to a season that has been full of them for the struggling Cougars.

Ouch.

On a brighter note, BYU was able to raise enough money to construct a state-of-the-art facility for our favorite student athletes!

jaxon logan: 1986-2005

the most courageous play you will ever see in a hockey game is a defender diving in front of an opposing player's slapshot to prevent that puck from getting near his team's goal mouth. in the professional leagues, the hard, dense projectile has been clocked at speeds over 100 miles an hour.

acknowledging this, however, does not make what happened friday night at provo's peaks ice arena--a 2002 winter olympics venue and home of BYU's icecats--any easier to accept.

at the end of the second period with the icecats comfortably in the lead, BYU freshman, jaxon logan of palmer, alaska, went down to block a shot. the shot hit him in the chest and, it is now known, immmediately stopped his heart. he was able to get up and skate over to the players' bench, only to collapse when he got there. the puck he deflected led directly to a BYU goal.

the following has been posted at the BYU hockey website, icecathockey.org:

Jaxon Logan 5/14/86-1/21/05
Jaxon Logan, our teammate, friend, and brother passed away Friday night. While blocking a slap shot, Jaxon was struck in the chest by the puck which led to cardiac arrest and ultimately his death. Jaxon was a great man, talented athlete, and fierce competitor. A memorial service will be held at the LDS church on 85 south 900 East Provo, Monday @ 6 pm. All are invited. [BYU hockey website]

go here for instructions on making a charitable donation, or to leave or read notes of condolence.

jaxon may have suffered a commotio cordis is arrhythmia, or sudden death from low-impact, blunt trauma to the chest. [source--PDF]. houston astros pitcher, roger clemens, understands the nature of this tragedy, which is more common among young baseball players; he helped launch a campaign last fall to outfit schools with automated external defibrillators (AEDs) that can help increase the survival rate of such incidents by 20%. [article]

other coverage of the incident is here, here, here, and here. video here. our prayers and deepest sympathies go out to the logan family and his icecat teammates.

mark cuban on randy moss' "fake-moon"

like most sane, normal people, i imagined the worst when ESPN sportscenter wouldn't even show randy moss' "tasteless" touchdown celebration the morning after minnesota beat green bay last week. i can't remember exactly, but i think one anchor might have said, "randy has finally gone over the edge" or something to that effect.

"did he slaughter a calf in the endzone? perform a clintonesque act on the packers mascot? it must have been something positively scandalous!", i thought.

since it was "too obscene" for TV, i could only read about it online. WHERE I LEARNED IT WAS A "FAKE-MOON" (in other words, it was FAKE!).

later, i saw the video. it was DEFINITELY a fake moon, lasting all of, oh, half-a-second. no nudity. no dead livestock. the TV announcer for the game, fox's joe buck, called the celebration, "disgusting" and said, he was "shocked that we aired it live."

naturally, the NFL fined moss $10,000 (they must have taken note of all the sports anchors fainting).

it makes me wonder if these people have ever ridden on a school bus before.

mark cuban suggests that, in the future, when posterity looks back at the incident, the joke will be on all the breathless journalists who huffed and puffed at this nonexistant controversy.

While Randy Moss will be able to laugh about the response and soon forget about it, those in the media will find their future peers snickering at them. “Hey, you’re the guy that got all bent out of shape when Randy Moss faked mooning the crowd. It was a joke, right? You were kidding about it. Right? Please tell me you weren’t serious...You were. Really?...that’s interesting. And you are supposed to be one of the better journalists of your time? Good for you. Must have been interesting times.”
[read it all]

kobe bryant: "nobody treats my wife that way--except me!"

kobe has publicly denounced karl malone for apparently "coming on" to the young NBA superstar's wife a few weeks ago. he was upset that someone would treat his wife so disrespectfully.

this is curious, considering kobe currently charged with raping a young hotel worker in colorado. even if the facts point to his innocence with regard to rape, he is undeniably and admittedly guilty of cheating on his wife and (i'm just guessing here) hurting her feelings.

why the double standard, then? why couldn't kobe quietly deal with this in private?

because kobe is a huge narcissist, who can't stand to have any other talented players on the same team with him. he chased out shaquille o'neill, one of the NBA's all-time greatest centers last year, adding some tasty parting shots about shaquille's own problems with marital infidelity. he also managed to chase away one of the NBA's all-time winningest coaches, phil jackson, after the pampered star's drama-queen antics contributed to the coach's first-ever NBA finals loss in 10 trips.

kobe, we know you live in LA, but life doesn't need to imitate the soap operas! get over yourself! and jerry (buss, lakers' owner): are you starting to see that you made the wrong choice for your 'franchise' player? this might have been prevented by simply perusing your players' grade school report cards, looking for the phrase "does not work/play well with others".

The Record Books

* Used performance enhancing flaxseed oil

** Took "andro" (androstenedione)

*** Caught corking his bat after setting these records; may have also used a product similar to Bonds' arthritis rubbing balm

Barry Bonds Used Steroids

His grand jury testimony has been leaked.

My favorite part (emphasis mine):

Bonds told the federal grand jury last year that Greg Anderson, his personal trainer, told him the substances he used in 2003 were the nutritional supplement flaxseed oil and a rubbing balm for arthritis, according to a transcript of his testimony reviewed by the Chronicle.

...

Sheffield testified to the grand jury that Bonds arranged for Anderson to give Sheffield "the clear," "the cream," and another steroid from Mexico, but also said he did not know they were steroids, the Chronicle reported.

Gary: Man Barry...you're getting huge...who's your personal trainer?
Barry: Oh this guy Anderson helps me out.
Gary: Really? You're not juicing are you?
Barry: Heck no, I'm on flaxseed oil and use a crazy-cool arthritis rubbing cream. Builds muscle mass in no time...amazing stuff!

Read about Bonds steroid use here.

brawls abound, but not a hockey game in sight

this weekend, america saw two of the most appalling brawls, donnybrooks, melees, brouhahas--whatever you call them--in recent sports history. and there wasn't a hockey game in sight. why am i pointing this out? because of previous arguments on this blog. [1] [2] [3] [4]

that said, i think ron artest's punishment is too severe. david stern announced sunday that artest would be suspended for the remainder of the season.

message to NBA fans: the players are entirely to blame when you, in a drunken enraged stupor, throw dangerous projectiles at them that could end their lucrative careers. please don't worry about your safety at our events. we will be punishing the vile felons to the tune of $5 million apiece. they have no right to worry that perhaps their eyes will be poked out and they will lose the opportunity to make their living. no matter that they have put in countless hours to excel at a sport and that can be taken away in just a split second by your mindless, riot-think choice of launching dangerous articles in the direction of their sensitive external organs from the upper deck. please continue to patronize our great sport, and keep drinking beer!

give me a break, commissioner. somebody threw a full bottle of beer and it hit artest in the face. his foul on wallace wasn't that bad in the first place, and artest behaved quite well up until he was nailed with the beverage. he even reclined himself on the scorer's table amidst the commotion to show how uninterested he was. michael wilbon of ESPN's PTI says artest's penalty was too light, considering he escalated the brawl to a near-riot. but artest didn't escalate the issue. the fan is to blame.

THE FAN.

how is everybody missing this?

it doesn't matter that artest earns a million bucks more a year than that fan.

it doesn't matter that artest was at work and the fan was at play.

it doesn't matter that artest has committed hard fouls and drop-kicked basketballs into the stands before.

he was attacked. multiple times. i don't doubt the hoodlums in the palace at auburn hills would have dismembered his body if they had the chance. when ron artest did leave the court, it was in the face of more obscene object-hurling, epithet screaming, prosecutable behavior by the drunken, ghetto-trash detroit fans.

charles barkley said it best on PTI monday, when he defended artest's split-second decision:

if you're walking down the street and you throw a drink in somebody's face, you expect to get hit. but it's easy [for david stern] to watch the tape over and over on monday and come to a decision that makes [artest] the scapegoat.

too bad. david stern is wrong to dole out such a fans-please-don't-be-scared-of-our-superstar-felons ruling. he came down hardest on perhaps the most innocent guy involved in friday night's "malice at the palace".

watch the video of the pacers-pistons-fans brawl.

then, of course, there was the clemson-south carolina fight on saturday. and the pittsburgh-cleveland fight a week ago.

i will, once again, return to the on-going argument between doug and me. doug has repeatedly claimed that the sport of ice hockey is "bad" and "out of control" and full of "barbarians", but i need to point out that most hockey fights are similar to boxing matches. they're orderly, fair, and entertaining. in hockey, one fights like a man. however, as we've recently seen in other sports, one apparently fights like he's at an arab leader's funeral.

those are my two points today: 1) ron artest is the NBA's latest undeserving scapegoat, and 2) with so many fights and not a hockey game in sight, it's time to stop calling hockey THE "out of control" sport.

the conspiracy against terrell owens

the philadelphia eagles' donovan mcnabb and terrell owens make up one of the most exciting duos in the NFL. owens is averaging more than 1 receiving TD per game and the eagles are undefeated.

owens is also known as one cocky mofo. there's the time he pulled the sharpie out of his sock after scoring, and signed the ball with it. i think the league fined him for that. there's the time he ripped a fan's sign off an endzone wall, and the time he asked a cheerleader for her pom-poms so he could use them in his TD dance. then last week, after scoring an impressive touchdown against ray lewis' baltimore ravens, he mimicked the LB's signature dance. big whoop. it was hilarious.

i like terrell owens. sure, he's got an attitude. but there's nothing wrong with that. he's good. he's also harmless. the guys that strangle their coaches are the ones you've got to keep an eye on. but, for some reason, everybody goes after TO.

steelers LB joey porter came out in support of owens with some remarks to a reporter on tuesday.

Porter, who also has feuded with Lewis, sounded a favorite T.O theme in Tuesday's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: other players celebrate flamboyantly, and some of them have even had off-the-field issues, which Owens hasn't, yet few are as widely reviled as T.O. In Lewis' case, those off-the-field issues include that agreement to plead guilty to misdemeanor obstruction of justice and testify against two of his friends after a double-murder at an Atlanta-area nightclub in January 2000.

"It's fine for this guy to celebrate, but it's not fine for this guy," Porter was quoted as saying. "It's good for this guy to be creative, but it's not good for this guy. Why isn't it funny when Terrell does the pom-poms? You guys can make who the good guys are. The media has total control over that.

"...But this guy [Lewis] just comes off a murder case and he comes back dancing and goes to the Super Bowl and you love every minute about it. He gets a 4-minute introduction when he comes out. They absolutely go crazy for it. He makes a tackle, he dances every play and you guys love it. Terrell scores a touchdown and he does his celebration and, for some reason, you guys just choose, 'We don't like you. You aren't one of the guys we pick.' I never thought it was fair."

This was music to T.O.'s diamond-studded ears. Owens has puzzled over his lack of endorsements and the league's apparent reluctance to market him.

"I'm obviously not one of those who are a face of the NFL that they're going to have on commercials...It's discouraging at times that I get labeled and put in that same mold and that I'm the worst guy that ever put on a uniform in the NFL," he said. "It's funny, it really is. I listen to all the comments and at times, it baffles me.

"I've never had any off-field problems. I've wanted to say it for a long time, but since Joey put it out there, you have a guy like Ray Lewis, who I thought was pretty much my friend. This is a guy, double-murder case, and he could have been in jail, but it seems like the league embraces a guy like that. I'm going out scoring touchdowns and having fun, but I'm the bad guy. So I don't understand it, I really don't.

- - - - - snip - - - - -

In an instance of art imitating life, or something like that, Owens' words quickly made it to ESPN yesterday evening, with a panel of analysts that included ex-Eagle Mike Golic expressing sympathy for Lewis and condemning Owens for bringing up the murder business. ESPN also read a statement from the Ravens, who thought they'd traded for Owens' rights last March, then were forced to accept a fifth-round draft choice instead when the NFL brokered a trade to the Eagles. "Like the rest of the NFL community, we would expect nothing less from Terrell Owens," the statement said.

Then, on ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption," Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon found rare agreement, bashing Owens for bringing up Lewis' brush with the law. [article]

i first heard terrell owens' comments on ESPN the other day. they struck me as well-reasoned and appropriate. i watch sportscenter often, and the anchors do speak condescendingly about him. however, a few years ago, another talented, controversial egomaniac, deion sanders, was the marketing savior of both the NFL and MLB. anybody remember him attacking broadcaster, tim mccarver, in the braves' locker room? tim mccarver is a buffoon, and he deserved it, of course. but terrell owens has never done anything like that, and he's treated like he's done much worse. i'm glad terrell owens and joey porter said what they did.

despite what everyone says, i completely agree with TO. all the people who condemn him for bringing up ray lewis' crime are about as smart as the butter i put on my toast this morning. and infinitely more hypocritical. why didn't baltimore issue a statement about joey porter's comments? why didn't he get flack for what he said? the answer: because people just don't like TO. this conspiracy is even more obvious than rush limbaugh's black QB conspiracy from last season.

pittsburgh and philadelphia, two of the NFL's hottest teams, face each other this week. terrell owens is sure to continue to upset ESPN by having too much fun.

NHL lockout thoughts

i haven't blogged about the NHL lockout yet, but i don't really want to blog about it. i want it to go away. i want to know that in six months, i am going to be enjoying the two best months of the year again--months full of game sevens, quadruple overtimes, and pure manly grit--all beamed into my living room by ESPN.

i don't really know who's to blame for the lockout. off-wing opinion has noted that most owners were losing money last year. read his coverage of the NHL lockout here. punk rocker ben weasel, however, suggests otherwise.

other hockey tidbits here.

Here Come the Expos; Enemy to Public Schools

As every sports fan knows, the Montreal Expos are moving to Washington D.C., and receiving a welcoming gift of a free, taxpayer funded stadium. As every resident of the D.C. area knows, the public schools in D.C. suck. And I'm not just talking about the ritual passing of guns through windows to avoid metal detectors. I'm talking about the fact that the D.C. government is so strapped for cash they can't afford to plug holes in leaky roofs, or fix broken furnaces in the winter.

Well...Michelle Malkin has an excellent post over at her blog dealing with the nonsense of publicly funded sports stadiums.

It is sad that D.C., amid a growing crisis with its public school system, would agree to fund a private business of this magnitude.

I guess this is just what D.C. residents (and many other big city residents around the country) get for electing such enlightened "leaders" and Anthony Williams.

MST3K humor not only for nerds: satire works for sports, too

if you were a fan of mystery science theater 3000, you'll enjoy the new show on the ESPN classic network called cheap seats. it's the funniest thing on TV right now. and while it follows the model of MST3K in that a couple of wiseacres crack jokes about whatever's on the screen, it succeeds in solving (what i believe to have been) MST3K's greatest flaw: the painful lulls in joke-making inherent in ridiculing an entire movie. the show moves quickly with short clips, packing a lot of laughs for a 30 minute show. watch some clips here.

Marcelo Bielsa Resigns

The coach of the Argentine national soccer team resigned yesterday. In pure winning percentage he is tops in Argentina's history. Yet despite the Olympic gold medal a few weeks ago, he has been scorned by many Argentines since the collapse of the team in the 2002 World Cup.

Nonetheless, Bielsa is a class act, and a consumate professional. all-encompassingly wishes "El Loco" Bielsa all the best.

it's that time again

well, it's time for a couple of things.

one, the NHL playoffs. if you don't have time to watch the games live, i recommend watching highlights here. it sure beats ESPN sportscenter, where we get 10 seconds of highlights talked-over by some dude who sounds like he doesn't know a sports fan from an "athletic supporter".

two, final exams and papers. please excuse my brevity or (dare i say?) absence over the next couple of weeks. i'm hoping that when #2 is all over, i'll have a reaction similar to mr. bourque's (see picture, right). or, at least, i hope to lie down and take a nap.

phil mickelson

1 for 43 never felt so good.

Hockey fans may wish it wasn't so...

...but it is.

The sport is out of control.

Say what you will about baseball pitchers plunking batters, bullpen clearing brawls, or Shaq chasing down Doug Christie in an arena tunnel. But hockey as a sport is free-falling into moral oblivion.

The long standing toleration of fights, an integral part of the game according to many, led to a bloody display of "sportsmanship" Tuesday night. The Canucks' Todd Bertuzzi punched Colorado's Steve Moore "from behind, and then smashed his head to the ice, leaving him lying in a pool of blood." [whole story]

The result: A broken neck and facial lacerations for Moore, a suspension for Bertuzzi, and some long overdue attention paid to this "integral" part of the game by the NHL.

NOTE: Before posting your pro-hockey flames in the comment section, I'm not picking on hockey. I'll be posting a harsh piece on baseball and steroids in the coming days... Nonetheless, if you still feel the urge to rant about how hockey is the gods' gift to mankind, go right ahead.

quote of the day

for sports fans who wonder HOW playing and watching these trivial games can be SO satisfying, george will provides an explanation:

Sport—strenuous competition structured and restrained by rules—replicates the challenge of freedom and satisfies the human hunger for coherence. [article]

yes, perhaps. but what about those of us who are sports fans for the chance to catch a glimpse of one of janet jackson's knockers?

um. i need to clarify. i hate the NFL halftime show. i hate it because it takes away from the pure beauty of the sport. this year was a perfect example. i like what george will said because it is right. i agree with the coherence idea. and the zen idea (mine). those are some of the results from my search for meaning in sports.

i hate janet jackson's hooter. i hate michael jackson's nose. i hate everything about all the jacksons.

FCC in the spotlight again

the guardian headline tells the tale: Singers' boob sparks outrage in US

but that's what you get when you put MTV in charge of a 'family' event. as i said before, i have trouble enjoying the superbowl because of the hype, specifically the halftime show.

the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was inundated with complaints about the incident and about some male singers grabbing their groin.

Timberlake blamed a "wardrobe malfunction", but the FCC chairman, Michael Powell, branded it "a classless, crass and deplorable stunt".

well put. but the FCC is still on my bad side about something else. [read]

UPDATE 1: wapo's sally jenkins treats the issue well:

Maybe now we'll finally grasp the fact that the league is just another mass entertainment company, the Viacom of sports.

For years NFL marketers have preyed on the sensibilities of the nation to sell their sponsors' products. They have appropriated sex, patriotism, war and even the tragedy of Sept. 11 as commercial vehicles, and used them all to peddle more Coors and cars. You can always count on the NFL, during any legitimate national outpouring of sincerity, to seize on the topic of the day and bend it as a selling tool, along with breasty cheerleaders, Britney Spears, and faux-militarism, in search of higher ratings and ad revenues. A 30-second Super Bowl spot now costs $2.3 million. So for the league to be suddenly shocked and indignant at the behavior of a bunch of MTV entertainers it hired in partnership with CBS to boost its cool points and halftime ratings is utterly disingenuous, and craven. Exactly what did the league expect when it rented the MTV culture?

[read the whole thing] or for a more humorous take, there's this: [Super Bowl: sex, lies, marketing]

UPDATE 2: for more thoughts, i respond to pam's comment at this post: [flag desecration]

pam: I am just amazed that I hear all the hoop-la over Janet Jackson at the superbowl halftime because she showed a little skin, and Kid Rock cuts a hole in the American Flag and throws it over his head like a pancho and parties in front of 60,000 americans...noone seemed to care! I was most offended and wish he had been arrested right off the stage! I wonder how the men fighting for our country over in Iraq watching the game felt about that! That is what the country should be all out of sorts about!

me: pam, i agree with you in that people should be outraged over kid rock's lack of flag etiquette. if i had watched the 6-hour long commercial people like to call the superbowl, i might, too, have been offended. [flag etiquette site]

as it stands, public nudity is illegal, as far as i can tell, whereas flag desecration is not. perhaps that's one reason for the lack of outrage? i don't condone either, but that's my explanation.

the problem with these entertainer types is that they're so out of touch with america. on sunday, justin, janet, and kid (do you think he goes by kid?) all showed us how out of touch they are with reality. then look at michael jackson...scary. look at the dixie chicks, when they made their now infamous GWB comments. all of these people have alienated their audiences, which often are made up of plain 'ol american families, christians, NASCAR fans, patriotic, non-PC people, who just want to have a good time without having their values and beliefs threatened. [dixie chicks/john norris]

Posted by travis at 07:43 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

miserable failure

there is a google-bombing war going on in the blogosphere. it was started by a bloke or two who thought dick gephardt was right to label a certain president a "miserable failure." he encouraged others to link the words "miserable failure" to an official website of an american president (who shall, for the moment, remain nameless).

other, more astute and moral bloggers (1) (2) (3) have suggested the likes of jimmy "appeasement" carter and bill "the meaning of is is" clinton as better bearers of the "miserable failure" mantle.

yes! much better choices. no question about that.

but i'd like to make another point here. sure, both bill clinton and jimmy carter are miserable failures, but politics is not the only realm in which one can fail miserably.

we need to consider the most consistent perennial loser, whatever the field or endeavor. so, who do i believe is the worst miserable failure in the history of miserable failures? (well, not counting the french. they're almost cliche at this point). who can never win, who seems jinxed, who can't get a break from even their closest supporters?

the cubbies. you guys suck. and here's my attempt to steady the googlebomb:

miserable failure

miserable failures

see also our poll in the right sidebar. make your voice heard.

two mario cartoons

edmo has pointed me to a couple of cartoons highlighting the pens' dire situation this season. and mario lemieux's overarching greatness. here is one, with a link to the other.

the second is called mario-mama.

i've linked to the instigator, whose art this is, under the hockey links in the right column. there is more on mario's greatness: here

bench clearing brawls

i post the following from rink blog, not ONLY because it supports my arguments against critics of hockey, but because doug (my foremost critic) and i have discussed this very issue, and doug called me a big fat liar. or at least, he didn't believe me that there are more bench-clearing brawls in baseball than in hockey. cue rinkblog:

Who can forget the old Rodney Dangerfield joke, "I went to a boxing match....and a hockey game broke out." Maybe its time to update that one-liner. How about "I went to a hockey game.....and a basebrawl broke out." Say what you will about fighting -- an actual part of the game -- but when is the last time you've seen a bench-clearing brawl in hockey? It was probably right before the NHL beefed up Rule 72, which mandates stiff penalties for players who leave the bench or penalty box to fight.

(c)The first player to leave the players' or penalty bench from either or both Teams shall be suspended automatically without pay for the next ten (10) regular League and/or playoff games of his Team.

(d)The second player to leave the bench from either or both Teams shall be suspended automatically without pay for the next five (5) regular League and/or playoff games.

(g)Any player who leaves the penalty bench during an altercation and is not the first player to do so, shall be suspended automatically without pay for the next five (5) regular League and/or playoff games.

I feel safe making this statement: Baseball has had more bench-clearing brawls in this year's playoffs than hockey has had in the past five seasons, incudling the playoffs. Take that, hockey critics. [source]

last time doug and i were engaged in our argum--er, civil discussions--about bench clearing brawls, you couldn't watch sportscenter without seeing highlights of some brawl. there was at least one per day MLB-wide. nothing has changed, but now its october and there are only four teams left playing.

so my point? this is another area where hockey players are smarter than other athletes. in the NHL playoffs, the number of fights drops off to about, oh...ZERO. in MLB you've got the same catty, whiny selfishness all year round.

i thought it was particularly funny that pedro martinez decided to bean somebody, then stare him down (game 3). he's done that before, and i think it is the most idiotic thing ever. if a pitcher throws at a guy's head, then engages in any action like unto taunting, he should be thrown out and fined. pedro has lost all of my respect. and he lost the game.

now, about manny and sammy. those two are my heroes, but both took occasion to react to somewhat high, somewhat inside pitches with an outrage usually reserved for fascist republican regimes. ("he's throwing at me! he's throwing at me!") give me a break, chums. i know that ball is coming at you fast, but if you flinch when you don't have to, just laugh it off.

and--as long as we're still playing baseball--go cubbies.

UPDATE: if you don't mind VERY gratuitous use of salty language, allah has some VERY funny stuff to say about the donnybrook. in fact, he manages to employ the english, spanish, hebrew, and arabic languages in his explanation, as well as references to holy scripture and the movie zoolander. tip to leaning towards the dark side

UPDATE: somehow i'd missed that pedro was fined $50,000. continue reading this entry to read about pedro's life of foolishness.

Baseball is not a nice game. The nation's pastime remains an Old Testament game in the new millennium.

That was apparent Saturday in the fourth inning at Fenway Park. Not that the Yankees and Red Sox need much incentive to stir things up. But Boston pitcher Pedro Martinez dosed baseball's nastiest feud with a bucket of gasoline. Afterward, Martinez claimed he wasn't intentionally throwing at Yankees outfielder Karim Garcia. If you believe that, I have a drawer full of dot-com stock to sell you.

The skillful Martinez puts the baseball where he wants it. In this case, the target was Garcia's head.

The motive was childish. Martinez was peeved because the Yankees touched him for four runs. Martinez had revenge -- not team -- on his mind.

The Red Sox trailed 4-2. The subsequent rhubarb shifted the focus from baseball to blood and sent fear up to bat for the Red Sox. After all, Roger Clemens, no shrinking violet himself, was on the mound for the Yankees.

In the top of the fifth, Clemens threw a fastball head high over the plate. It was enough to make a nervous Manny Ramirez blow. Ramirez wasn't looking for a pitch to drive, he was looking for one to duck. When order was restored, Ramirez struck out weakly on a pitch way outside. Martinez should have been credited with an assist.

Pedro's history for shenanigans reaches back to his minor league days. Dave Brundage, the former Oregon State star and manager of the Mariners' Double A team in San Antonio, recalls an incident years ago when Martinez pitched for the Dodgers' Triple A team in Albuquerque, N.M.

Brundage was playing for the Mariners' Triple A Calgary team, which was losing to the Dodgers' farm club 15-3. The Calgary catcher homered off Martinez. The diminutive right-hander hit the next batter in the head, sparking a brawl and his ejection.

The Calgary pitcher drilled the first batter the next inning; both benches emptied again. At one point, Brundage looked over at the exasperated Albuquerque manager, former Dodgers shortstop Bill Russell. "And Russell is saying to his players, 'I am going to lock the doors and you guys can beat the hell out of Pedro.' "

With Martinez out of the game, Brundage's team rebounded to win 15-14.

There is etiquette to the mayhem surrounding beanball wars. In the old days, pitchers were told to throw at a batter's head when asked to protect their own hitters. It was easier to move your head and avoid such a pitch, the logic of those nastier days held.

Today, the rule is to hit the batter in the backside and avoid his head or upper body.

But throw at him you must if the opposing pitcher has been inconsiderate with his location. Fear, the pitcher's friend, is the batter's nemesis.

After a batter has been intentionally hit, the opposing manager won't always order the next batter plunked. Sometimes, you wreak more havoc by making hitters wonder.

Two years ago, Brundage's San Antonio team brawled with the Rangers' club in the Texas League. An opposing player sucker punched Brundage. Brundage's pitcher was eager for revenge, but Brundage said no.

"I told my guys, 'Let's wait and use it our advantage,' " he said. "Let's make them feel a little uncomfortable and make them wonder when is it coming."

The Rangers' Double A hitters wondered for the next three games and lost all three.

Martinez wouldn't be so reckless if he played in the National League, where pitchers bat. The designated hitter not only diminishes the nuances of strategy, but allows pitchers to duck the game's checks and balances.

But Saturday, Martinez couldn't duck one fact: He indulged his temper and took his Red Sox out of the game. Major League Baseball fined him $50,000, but Martinez cost Boston a pivotal game in the American League championship series.

Brian Meehan: 503-221-4341; brianmeehan@news.oregonian.com [link]

newsflash: icecats are newsworthy

there was no room today in the print version of our school newspaper for an article about the icecats' first home game of the hockey season. there WAS room, however, for a scintillating expose on national cookie month. i'm not kidding.

so i thought i'd get the word out. games tonight and tomorrow against the UNM lobos.

for information, check out byuhockey.com. the season schedule is here. team roster is here. notice how young the team is. that's my only concern. we've got talented players and a dedicated coaching staff.

last season we beat new mexico twice, including a 5-4 overtime thriller, and a 10-1 drubbing the next night. this year we hope to sweep the series again.

go icecats.

buck the curses (plural)

if you haven't picked a team to support in the MLB playoffs, may i suggest the chicago cubs and/or the boston red sox? boston last won a championship in 1918, and the cubs, 1908. each team has its supposed curse (a bambino and a billy goat, respectively), but each managed to win its division playoff series this week. if they meet in the world series, there is a 100% chance one "curse" will be broken. [WS history]

i learned my lesson about rooting against the perennial loser in 1994. stanley cup finals. rangers, canucks. i rooted against the rangers, and gleefully participated in the raucous chants of "nineteen-forty!" while my dad ignored me. we were in our living room, after all (1940 was the last year they won the cup).

but the rangers pulled it out, and their fans cleverly chanted the rebuttal: "nineteen-ninety-four!" you couldn't help but be happy for them. the next fall, they raised the championship banner to the rafters while beethoven's "ode to joy" blasted through the garden (i mean, who DOES that?). the win clearly meant a lot to that team, the city, and the fans.

there is something about a team winning a championship after years of futility....even opposing fans can appreciate it somehow .

the worst thing for major league baseball this year would be a yankees win.

ho-hum.

[some discussion]

Limbaugh and McNabb

By now, everyone knows about Rish Limbaugh's comments on Donovan McNabb, the Philadelphia Eagle's QB. Limbaugh talked about how the NFL and TV personalities, wanting black QBs to "do well", have pumped McNabb up to be much more than he is.

I wasn't sure where I stood on this, until reading a SCATHING editorial written by a Philly sports writer, which states that not only was Rush right, but too kind.

In his notorious ESPN comments last Sunday night, Rush Limbaugh said he never thought the Philadelphia Eagles' Donovan McNabb was "that good of a quarterback."

If Limbaugh were a more astute analyst, he would have been even harsher and said, "Donovan McNabb is barely a mediocre quarterback." But other than that, Limbaugh pretty much spoke the truth. Limbaugh lost his job for saying in public what many football fans and analysts have been saying privately for the past couple of seasons.

The entire article is worth a read. Click here to read it.

In essence, McNabb really isn't that good. Sure he can run and dance around defenders. But in terms of games won, playoff success, and raw passing statistics, he no better than Brad Johnson of the Bucs. While Johnson did help the Bucs win the Super Bowl last year, he is hardly an "awesome QB".

Rush pointed out the obvious and was shown the door. So goes the double standard on race and conservatives...

$500K raised for firefighters

I invite you to read this story on NHL.com. [link]

Comedian, Dennis Leary, and Bruin legends, Bobby Orr and Cam Neely, helped organize a charity game for retired NHL greats and celebrities to raise money for firefighters. They hatched the idea after Leary's cousin, Jeremiah Lucey, and five other Worcester, Massachusetts firefighters lost their lives in the line of duty in December 1999. To date, the event has helped raise over $1.3 million for the Worcester Fire Department.

The event was pleasantly devoid of politics. Well, except for presidential candidate John Kerry scuttling around, whispering to everyone he's a vietnam veteran.

The game was a shootout; the final score: 18-10. There was a lot of joking, and not just about John Kerry looking French or Tim Robbins having political views. Everyone had fun on the ice.

"[Michael J.] Fox scored a goal," Leary said. "But his big thrill came in the pre-game warm-up when he passed to Guy LaFleur from the corner. He said, 'Hey Denis, I don't have my glasses, did I just send a pass to Guy Lafleur?'

It was a little faster than most of these charity games, and a lot of dipsey-doodle.

I come off after a shift and I can barely breathe and Gordie Howe starts telling me a story about a fight he was in 30 years ago. I said to myself, 'This is great, fantastic.'"

Mr. Hockey, Gordie Howe, served as coach for Leary's team. Fans admitted their only disappointment of the evening was that, with Howe behind the bench, the knave, Robbins, escaped being felled by one of Gordie's famous elbows.

[this post can also be read at midwestpundits.com, courtesy of a new affiliation i have with that blog]

hockey is better

hockey is better. i go on first to clean the hair. not hockey is better. i make the hair silky and smooth. oh, really fool? [scuffling noises]

doug religiously maintains, with the awkward giddiness of your child's hall monitor, that ice hockey is inferior to many other sports. he is especially vocal in putting down hockey next to basketball and football.

often, doug cites the "larger audience" for football and basketball, and considers the argument done. well, if we're going to go on that subjective information (the philosopher hume might call it a "secondary quality") then NASCAR would have to be america's number one sport.

disgusting, right?

doug's argument is starting to fall apart! but let's go back in time, shall we? wasn't vanilla ice great? everybody loved him, didn't they? what about tight-rolling your jeans, doug? you know you did it (or at least gazed in awe at the popular kids who did) and, last, but certainly most unbelievably, jimmy carter was actually PRESIDENT. yes, he was. of the united states. for a whole term.

objective primary qualities like speed of the game, pace of the action (or frequency of play stoppages), skill level of players, etc. are probably better criteria for what is a good sport than the whims of the american populace. (is it counterintuitive to anyone else that football games can be won and lost based on how many time-outs you have? or that the flow at the end of a basketball game is often ruined by the strategy of the losing team fouling incessantly?)

but, if we're going to cite useless, unnecessary information in defense of our various sports, i would like to note that the NHL sponsors jeopardy. i am not kidding. check the credits at the end of the show. name another sport that would do something like that. and reading a book to a classroom of kids only when a camera crew is around isn't really a "committment to education," despite NFL and NBA propaganda. i will refrain from making a joke here about athletes and illiteracy. just this once.

so that's my useless, irrelevant argument for this time, doug. hockey is better because hockey players are smarter. good luck refuting it. which NCAA sport's best teams consistently come from ivy league schools? hockey. and lacrosse. oh, and probably chess, too, but i haven't researched that.

joe nieuwendyk, who played at cornell in the mid 1980s, won his third stanley cup this spring. a.j. mleczko, angela ruggiero and jennifer botterill, all of harvard, have starred on the US olympic team with goaltender sarah tueting of dartmouth. and there are many, many others. ken dryden left cornell one spring in the early 1970s to join a montreal canadiens team just in time for the playoffs. his spectacular play led them to victory that year, and to a slew of stanley cups in the '70s.

basketball may have bill bradley (princeton), but that's it. at least, he's the only one to make it big in the NBA since plastic was invented...

i don't want to discount the successes of the NFL's jay fieldler (dartmouth) or marcellus wiley (columbia), but those guys are insignificant compared to the likes of a nieuwendyk or a dryden. do you know how many roster spots there are on NFL teams? like 400. hockey? 20. a little tougher for the hockey players. gotta be good. and most of the guys on NFL rosters from ivy league schools are linemen. do you know how easy it is to be drafted into the NFL as a lineman? don't you know someone who has played in the NFL as a lineman? a cousin, friend's brother, or acquaintaince? yes, you do. because when you've got to sign 90 guys who weigh 300+ lbs., it's hard to be picky. i heard that the arizona cardinals almost signed a japanese sumo wrestler to their roster, but balked at the last minute. they were worried that emmitt smith, in his old age, wouldn't be able to get around the guy.

okay, i think that's enough. have i convinced anyone? of anything? do you want to check my facts?

herb brooks

"At all levels of the game, including college hockey, Olympic hockey and the National Hockey League, Herb Brooks was a consummate teacher, an unparalleled motivator and an unquestioned innovator." --gary bettman

[off wing opinion on brooks]

[reaction]

[miracle on ice]

why i hate the avs

my hatred for the NHL's colorado avalanche has nothing to do with bill clinton (see photo, left). though, can't you imagine clinton joking with his buddies after receiving the jersey, "too bad i wasn't president in 1969! that jersey would've been a great conversation starter with the interns!"

no, my hatred stems from an innate desire for justice, as well as some personal grudges. i'll explain.

the "avalanche," as they are now called, used to be the "nordiques." they were the hapless nords, who had a horrible name, a putrid jersey design, and who never made it past the second round of the playoffs. they were just getting good in 1995, when the financially troubled team was sold, and moved from quebec to denver, colorado.

they won the stanley cup their first year there.

"it is great for hockey!" said the bumbling bill clement. lots of people seemed to agree with him. only, what about the poor french canadians who just spent 20 years cheering for a crappy team, and now who don't even get to have a stanley cup parade, see the banner go up, gloat, and all the other wonderful spoils of victory? if you ask me, it is one of the greatest tragedies in hockey.

visit the quebec nordiques preservation society, or read a brief team history here

there are more reasons for me to hate the avs:

(A) patrick roy. sure he's good. but i hate him. i hated him because i had some canadian friends growing up who were die-hard habs & roy fans, and who were very snooty about it. but i don't hate roy all the time. i love it when he leaves the net to play the puck. ["greatest regular season game in NHL history"]

(B) bob hartley. he didn't coach the avs to their first cup win, but he did coach them to their second cup, in 2001. i hate bob hartley. he coached the hershey bears of the AHL in the late '90s. my local team was one of their bitter rivals at that time. at one game against the bears under hartley, my seats were near the entrance to the visitors' tunnel. as hartley came out i heckled him with something like, "the bears suck!" or perhaps something more incendiary. but i still i expected him to ignore me and walk to the bench like any mature 50-ish looking guy should. come on, i'm a 16-year old, squeaky-voiced heckler. anyway, he didn't ignore me, but had some quite flavorful comments to shoot back at me, none of which are repeatable here. maybe that's not reason to hate him. but it seems like there was some reason i was mad at him in the first place.

so that's that. i hate the avs. i did manage to enjoy about the last 2 minutes of the 2001 finals, when i accepted the avalanche victory and rejoiced with ray bourque, who finally won a stanley cup in the last game of his great NHL career.

i have also been seen wearing avalanche "stanley cup champions" apparel (i usually wear it inside-out, when i have to clean the toilet or something). the shirt was mirthfully given to me by a denver acquaintance who thought it would be funny, given how much i hate the avalanche.

go see 'seabiscuit'

check out the trailer(s) for this feel-good equestrian-sport drama. or, for you skeptics, here's a balanced review.

then, get into the business. you can raise a million bucks by september, right?

.

.

.

dennis miller: a pragmatist, and funny

i've always thought that dennis miller is funny, but recently as i've heard his comedic rants in defense of america, i've come to think even more highly of him. he can make a logical argument and be funny about it. he's one of a few in hollywood who has what the rest of america takes for granted: common sense.

here ESPN's dan patrick interviews miller. its funny. here's a tidbit, DM on parenting:

The danger to me seems like when your kids are spending 12 hours a day building pipe bombs in the garage and you never come down the Bat pole and say, "What's up?" You know...you've got to be there. So when they say, "Let's make pipe bombs now, dad," you go, "No, we're not going to make any pipe bombs."

and on the dumbest sport:

dan patrick: dumbest sport?
dennis miller: Curling. It's like Shirley Booth on methamphetamines. It must be a really sad day in a Canadian boy's life when they say, "You know that great, glamorous sport (hockey) that our whole culture evokes? You can't do it. The same ice that they play that exciting, sexy game on, you've got to sweep it."

"Do I get to wear a uniform?"

"Nah, kid, just sweats."

there is another interview, more serious, perhaps, in the most recent weekly standard (hat-tip to croooow blog). here are my favorite tidbits:

on political parties: "I don't think of myself as a classic conservative," says Miller. "I think of myself as a pragmatist. And these days, pragmatism falls into the conservative camp. We have to depend on ourselves in this country right now because we can't depend on anyone else. We are simultaneously the most loved, hated, feared, and respected nation on this planet. In short, we're Frank Sinatra. And Sinatra didn't become Sinatra playing down for punks outside the Fontainebleau [Hotel]."

on john ashcroft and civil liberties: "With John Ashcroft, the main civil liberty I'm looking to protect is the 'me not getting blown up' one. I don't know if it's written down anywhere in Tom Paine's crib sheets, but that's my big one."

on intervention in liberia: "I think we have to send a few mall cops over, quite frankly. Who's the man in charge over there, Chuck Taylor? Didn't he invent Converse All-Stars? It can't be that hard. Let's send some guys over from Nike and Puma.

and on some 2004 democratic presidential candidates: "I knew Kerry was going to have to run for president because his features are so chiseled, his actual skull could be on Mt. Rushmore. The guy looks like an Easter Island statue in a power tie." [and] "I hope they send Howard Dean out to do battle with Bush because he'll get his ass handed to him quicker than someone who just got out of liposuction surgery."

NBA players to sport commemorative patch

to commemorate the NBA's storied history, league commissioner david stern announced friday that all NBA players will henceforth don this patch on their game jerseys (see picture at right):

the announcement came after even the league's most squeaky-clean player, kobe bryant, was caught engaging in, then lying about, adultery.

LA lakers coach phil jackson (affectionately known as "reverend zenmaster dimmesdale" among his players) had this to say about the new jersey design:

On the breast of the jersey, in fine red cloth, surrounded by an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appears the letter A. It is so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it has all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which the players wear; and which is of a splendor in accordance with the taste of our age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the league.

stern, however, was willing to forego the league's "sumptuary regulations" because of the prestige associated with the patch: "this is the same scarlet letter worn by our nation's last political and moral role model, bill clinton" stern noted, proudly. "it is now being passed on to the sports icons of america's youth."

trifecta de pimps (updated)

(1) lance armstrong is really good at riding his bicycle. he is a great human being. he is a great american. go lance.

i have so much confidence in and respect for (2) president bush and (3) prime minister blair. they are right. their opponents are wrong. the faulty niger-uranium intel came from the french, BTW.

all of blair's opponents especially suck. i have been very impressed with his resolve in the face of so many detractors in britain, many coming from his own party. as jeff greenfield said today, blair may walk the same lonely road that churchill walked. churchill was politicked out of office by his ingrate countrymen in 1945, despite leading them in courageously facing down the nazis.

anyway, blair is a pimp for siding with the good guys. too bad its going to get him canned. but you're in good company, tony. way to stand up for what is right in the face of such depressing relativism.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
read blair's address to the joint session of congress. or watch it. don't forget to thank tony yourself
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
and in the news:

at their last tour stop, the dixie chicks' natalie maines made another outrageous remark: "hey, y'all! i'm embarrassed that lance armstrong is from texas!"

when asked why she would say such a thing, she responded, "he's just bein' a tyrant! he's oppressin' the nice french cyclists!"

maines admitted later that the comments were foolish and inappropriate. in an effort at what she called "reconciliation" she began to cry and disrobe for us, then asked, "all better?"

quote of the day

on US open winner jim furyk's golf swing:

Some say it looks like a one-armed man trying to kill a snake in a phone booth

ha.

happy fathers' day

we would like to wish our dads each a happy fathers' day. we're not sure if they will read this because we know how much trouble it has been to teach them to use the "confounded, new-fangled internet" [their words], but if they have learned, and they do read this, we wish them the very best!

and in honor of father's day and golf (a sport every father loves), we'd like to now make our much anticipated prediction for most dominant male golfer during the next calendar year. the competitors who comprise the fields in each week's tournaments are so evenly matched, our choice is, by no means, clear cut. but based on astrological readings and by being in touch with PGA karma, we're going to go ahead and say: tiger woods. we predict tiger to be the most dominant male golfer during the next calendar year. so, with that sleeper prediction, you can now go out and bet with confidence. you don't have to thank us. its the least we could do to thank you for the tireless, thankless hours of work you put in to teach us not to throw a ball like a girl (and other things relating to manliness).

so, happy father's day! thanks for being our dads. as always, good luck sneaking away for golf.

"Today is Father's Day, so everyone out there: Happy birthday!"
Ralph Kiner, announcer for the New York Mets

The French Open

The French turned out in huge numbers to watch the French Open last week, having tired themselves of burning the president in effigy (and I'm talking about the president of Proctor & Gamble, maker of such anti-French products as Old Spice and Secret deodorants). Yet the French seem to have a way of offending others with more than just body odor. During Serena Williams' match against Belgian Justine Henin-Hardenne, the French broke a rule of tennis etiquette that only they could...they started booing Serena. While booing is perfectly acceptable in most other sports venues, tennis has long prided itself on maintaining a level of civility among competitors and fans. Unfortunatly, the French have an equally storied and treasured tradition: rudeness.

The irony of the situation is that Serena could have probably taken on every Frenchman in the audience, and not only in tennis, but this writer would pay to watch Serena locked in an Ultimate Fighting cage with Jacques Chirac. Hmmm...anyone really wondering who would emerge alive? I imagine that the only thing that Chirac can beat b