Old Video Casts Doubt on Clemens' Claim to Have Never Taken Drugs

Roger Clemens has claimed that he never took any "banned substances at any time in my baseball career or, in fact, my entire life," but after an exhaustive search, I have uncovered long-buried evidence that Clemens obviously must have used massive amounts of drugs during his early playing days. Let me present to you Exhibit A:



Clearly, you would need to have broken into Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's satchel of medicinal supplements in order to agree to do something like that. Or, the director walked in on you getting "injected in the butt" in the clubhouse one day, and used this as blackmail to get you to agree to do said video.

Either way, I think this is proof that is just as conclusive as anything in The Mitchell Report. And if you think that using performance-enhancing bathing products isn't serious, just remember Ironhead Hayward (RIP):

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 11:57 AM 0 comments  

Bowden: Florida St. Cheating Scandal Simply Misguided "Turn Back the Clock" Stunt

TALLAHASSEE, FL – Florida State head coach Bobby Bowden said today that the cheating scandal that could decimate his roster for the Music City Bowl game against Kentucky and the 2008 season was not a symptom of a program out of control, but rather a unique “Turn Back the Clock” gimmick designed to remind fans and the team of the program’s glory days in the 1980s and early 1990s.

“You know, we were talking about doing something to remind these kids and all the fans just what Seminole football used to be all about,” said Bowden. “We talked about retro jerseys, or bringing back some old players. Then I got the inspiration. I said ‘Dad gum it, Florida State football ain’t about jerseys, or even the players. If we really want to turn back the clock, we need to get back to what we’ve always done best – get involved in a scandal that embarrasses the university, its fans and alumni.”

Bowden said that he was surprised at the uproar about the allegations involving up to 25 players and an online music history exam.

“It’s not like these guys are normally going to class anyway,” Bowden said. “We just thought it would be a change of pace to have them actually take the tests for themselves instead of just giving them their As – and when I say ‘take the test’, I mean ‘supply them with the answers for the test’, of course.”

Sincere thought was given to giving the team a shopping spree at a local sporting apparel store on the eve of the game, but Bowden staff quickly soured on the idea, saying that it was tough to “stack up to the pinnacle of this program’s achievements,” although they left the door open to use the idea in the future ahead of a game against Florida.

Bowden added that he thought his opponent for the Music City Bowl made it an ideal choice for this sort of “team-building activity.”

“I know the Kentucky program well, and I’ve known Coach Mumme for a long time,” Bowden said. “I’m sure he appreciates a good-natured, spirited scandal as much as the next person, and has his own thing cooked up for the bowl game.”

When informed that former Wildcats head coach Hal Mumme had been forced to resign in 2001 after a myriad of sanctions from the NCAA, Bowden stared blankly at the reporter for almost a minute before launching into a brief, rambling speech about the weather and how “things were different under FDR,” nearly choking on a Burger King hamburger and finally being led back to the team hotel by a school official.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 10:58 AM 0 comments  

Feeling sick

Some of you (about 3) might have been wondering about my whereabouts the past few days/ Vacation to Hawaii? Desperate flight out of country to avoid the authorities? Standing in line for Spice Girls tickets?

No, no and possibly but sadly not. Actually, my lovely six-month old daughter picked up what her pediatrician says is the rotavirus. Which led to my wife and I basically splitting time between helping her while she projectile vomited and us getting sick ourselves.

Good times.

But I'm not the only person in the world feeling sick right now. Let me introduce you to the Cal State University Monterey Bay basketball team. The Division II Warhawks (or whatever the hell they are) were leading Fresno State by three with seconds remaining. And then?

Well, I'm usually pretty skeptical about the YouTube "proof our team got screwed" videos that pop up from time to time. But in this case...yeah, you got screwed pretty hard:



The second offense - the travel just before the miracle shot is heaved up - is pretty blatant, but is somewhat excusable. But the first one - throwing the ball back inbounds after jumping five feet outside of the end line - is pretty atrocious. And yes, that's a ref about five feet away from him who should have noticed that unless it's white Bob Beamon, he probably wasn't going to be leaping from in-bounds and be able to catch the ball and make the toss.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 7:29 PM 1 comments  

The All-Mitchell Report Teams

Since the release of The Mitchell Report earlier today, several stories have mentioned that you could "create an All-Star team from the names on the list". Usually, that's a lot of hyperbole, but with some 80 names on the list, I decided to give it a shot. In doing the research, I found that you could create not just one but two RBI Baseball style rosters based on the names released today: one for Current Players and one for Former Players. And they'd be pretty decent, too - at least in their primes (you know, before the mysterious, complete drop-off in production and serious of nagging injuries).

CURRENT PLAYERS

C Paul LoDuca
1B Jason Giambi
2B Brian Roberts
SS Miguel Tejada
3B Troy Glaus
OF Gary Sheffield
OF Barry Bonds
OF Gary Matthews Jr.
DH Jack Cust
BENCH Jose Guillen
BENCH Greg Zaun
BENCH Jerry Hairston
BENCH Jay Gibbons
SP Roger Clemens
SP Andy Pettitte
RP Mike Stanton
RP Eric Gagne

Comments: Going by performance at their peak, this is a frightening group. The bench is a little weak, but I'd be surprised if you subbed anyone out if this was an RBI Baseball team - even for the 64-point power increase (video game steroids?). For some reason I was as surprised and disappointed to see Mike Stanton on the list - I didn't think that "crafty lefties" needed steroids to throw off-speed junk for one inning a night.

FORMER PLAYERS

C Benito Santiago
1B Mo Vaughn
2B Fernando Vina
SS Chuck Knobloch
3B Ken Caminiti
OF Lenny Dykstra
OF Jose Canseco
OF David Justice
DH Rafael Palmeiro
BENCH Matt Williams
BENCH Todd Hundley
BENCH Hal Morris
BENCH Rondell White
SP Kevin Brown
SP Denny Neagle
RP Kent Mercker
RP John Rocker

Comments: There were a couple of tough calls here. Todd Hundley, for about a two-year stretch, had a peak greater than Benito Santiago's (in fact, about as good as any catcher ever - big shock). But I decided that Benny gets the nod, based on longevity and also his Edward James Olmos-like skin (give the guy a break). I also had a tough time at 3B - Matt Williams had some great years, but Ken Caminiti was a former MVP. And is dead. It's tough to argue that. This is also a very solid team, but the relief staff is a mess - I guess quality relievers didn't understand the value of steroids and the quick recovery time associated with them until recently.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 4:59 PM 2 comments  

The Mitchell Report Afterglow: Is This It?

Now that I've had a few hours to digest everything, here's my thought on The Mitchell Report:

Meh.

I think that Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News hit it right on the head: this was just enough juicy meat (Roger Clemens! Andy Pettitte! Miguel Tejada!) to keep the media satisfied, without actually addressing any of the big picture problems or assigning real blame (or consequences) for transgressions in the past all the way up the baseball food chain.

Mitchell's expressed belief that MLB should not punish people named in the report for past actions? Sound similar to Mark McGwire's "I'm not here to talk about the past, I'm here to focus on the positives in baseball" disaster in front of Congress? Probably not, because George Mitchell is a skilled politician and public speaker, used to saying a lot without saying much at all. Mark McGwire, on the other hand, is a lunkhead.

(Of course, Mitchell left the door open for punishing players if their actions were particularly offensive and therefore punishing them was, as the Commissioner would see fit, "in the best interests of baseball". More on this loophole in a second.)

So if we're not going to punish people based on the report, what's the point of naming names? If the idea is to catalog what happened merely as a way to develop plans moving forward, why are there 80 people who have been publicly linked to steroid and other substances, when referring to them as Player X would have served the same purpose?

Because the public and the media don't want that - we all want fresh meat. We've picked apart Barry Bonds' carcass to the point that all we have left is marrow. We're sick of talking about him, but who else could we publicly call a user and a cheat? A few journeymen and average players? Not good enough. The public needed a few new "faces" of the steroid era who could receive a show trial and be summarily hung out to dry.

And the proof: the meat of the report? Anyone looking for smoking guns should look elsewhere. There are some exceptions where there is pretty convincing, hard physical evidence linking someone to steroid purchases (it amazes me that athletes - or anyone - would purchase something illegal and shady with a check that has their name right on it. Can't they find a way to pull out cash from the bank? They might as well just put "For: HGH supplies" in the Memo section of the check.)

But for the big two - Clemens and Pettitte - as well as a majority of the players mentioned? A lot of hearsay and unsubstantiated testimony from witnesses/accusers with less-than-perfect reputations. In what should be a surprise to no one, Clemens' lawyer has already released a statement on behalf of his client, saying that Clemens:

...vehemently denies allegations in the Mitchell report that he used performance-enhancing steroids, and is outraged that his name is included in the report based on the uncorroborated allegations of a troubled man threatened with federal criminal prosecution.

And this is going to be the pattern you see time after time in the next few days: athlete expresses anger/sadness/disappointment that his name was released with this report based on baseless/unfounded/uncorroborated charges leveled by someone with a vendetta/a known criminal/a desperate former teammate facing a lifetime ban. And it will be hard to really argue, even if you know they are lying: most of these allegations wouldn't hold up in a criminal or civil court. Hell, the majority are so flimsy that a newspaper editor wouldn't run a story based just on them if the reporting was done by their writers.

But because "it's in The Mitchell Report", it's all going to be reported by every media outlet, with little context or additional reporting happening. The sad part is that there are nuggets of new information in the report, mainly about how team officials routinely either a) turned a blind eye or b) acknowledged steroid allegations or use when scouting players for potential trades. But interestingly, The Mitchell Report doesn't index each team or baseball front office executive is implicated in the report like it does for the players, so you probably won't be hearing as much about this.

(But, in order to drive home the point that Bud Selig - Mitchell's good friend and "boss" - was doing all he could to stop steroids and investigate wrong-doing despite the despotic and evil players union, the report does contain a letter the Union sent to its players urging them not to talk to the Mitchell Report committee without lawyers. Because the Union would rather direct it's workforce of minimally educated players talk with former Senators and investigators by themselves and "hope for the best!" Yeah, doesn't make sense to me, either.)

So what now? The Big Three - Clemens, Pettitte, Tejada - will be left out in stocks in the town square for the rest of the winter. If they survive, and the public has forgotten about them and moved on to some new sports scandal de jour, then Commissioner Selig will quietly let them go and heed the words of Senator Mitchell to let bygones be bygones. If the public is still baying for blood, however, then suddenly MLB will decide it's "in the best interest of baseball" to make examples of them by giving them lengthy suspensions/banning them from baseball/banning them from the Hall of Fame. Which would be insane, since the all-time HR king is currently awaiting a Federal trial on steroid related charges, with a mountain of evidence that's a lot more solid than what The Big Three have against them. And he's still going to play next season.

So I hope everyone enjoyed things today - the goofy "lists" being passed off as fact beforehand (again, Rich Garces wasn't a giveaway?), the build-up of the press conference followed by Senator NyQuil's insomnia-curing speech, the hours of post-announcement hand-wringing. At the end of the day, we're basically back where we started.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 3:53 PM 0 comments  

The Mitchell Report list

So remember that Internet list that I linked to earlier today? Turns it is was about 50 percent garbage. The Mitchell Report is out, and here's the actual list of players named.

I'll post more later once I have time to digest things. But let me just say this.

Jack Cust? NOOOO!!!

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 12:00 PM 0 comments  

A-Rod re-signs with the Yankees for $275 million

First the guy has the nerve to announce that he's opting out of his contract during a World Series game. So what does Alex Rodriguez do for an encore? Try to upstage another celebration of baseball in the modern era, otherwise known as "Mitchell Report Day". Just when you were prepared for a full day of rumors, denials, tearful admissions and speculation, A-Rod had to ruin it by signing a 10-year, $275 million contract with the Yankees, assuring that all of this wonderful, glorious steroid talk with be partially overshadowed by something as pointless as baseball-related matters.

What a jerk. No wonder everyone hates him. That, and the aloof, smug attitude. And the choking in the clutch.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 10:22 AM 1 comments  

T-minus one hour to The Mitchell Report

The Mitchell Report is set to get dropped in one hour, and when it does BASEBALL WILL NEVER BE THE SAME!!! Unless the list mainly contains players that everyone pretty much knew were doing something. There is a preliminary list floating around the Internet right now. I'm not going to post it here, because I refuse to get caught up in idle speculation and rumor-mongering.

However, if you are interested, Deadspin has the list up right now. Needless to say, the inclusion of Rich Garces on the list is making me skeptical. Somehow, unless "El Guapo" saw a pile of piles at Gabe Kapler's locker room and thought they were M&Ms, I doubt he's had a "personal trainer" give him anything to help him with his "workouts".

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 10:08 AM 2 comments  

Tejada Traded, Mitchell Report Out Tomorrow - Coincidence?

Fact #1: The Orioles trade former MVP Miguel Tejada to the Astros for five marginal players and a giant box of Junior Mints.

Fact #2: Rafael Palmeiro blamed Tejada for his positive steroid test in 2005, causing lots of speculation about how Tejada became a power-hitting shortstop.

Fact #3: The Mitchell Report on steroids in baseball is being released tomorrow, and "big names" are expected to be named.

I'm not suggesting any link between the three facts. Unless, of course, Miguel Tejada's name is on the Mitchell Report list, in which case I did.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 3:06 PM 0 comments  

Petrino Overwhelmed by Congratulatory Gift Sent by Les Miles

FAYETTEVILLE, AR - New Arkansas head coach Bobby Petrino was "blown away" by the massive congratulatory gift sent to him by LSU coach Les Miles today after it was announced that Petrino was leaving the NFL's Atlanta Falcons in midseason to take the vacant Razorbacks head coaching job.

"I mean, I could barely open the door to my office because there were so many gifts waiting for me from Coach Miles," Petrino said. "Candies, flowers, gift baskets, even one of those Vermont Teddy Bears in Arkansas red and white. I guess being part of the SEC coaching fraternity really does mean something."

Miles said that his enthusiasm for Petrino's return to the college coaching ranks had nothing to do with the recent scrutiny he has faced. Miles has been linked repeatedly to the vacant Michigan coaching job - even after stating he was staying at LSU and inking a contract extension.

"No one should read anything into it at all," Miles said. "It's just such an honor to have another NFL coach come to the SEC - the greatest conference in the country, by the way, and one that I will never, ever leave - that I thought it was only right on welcome him to the club. Obviously, he should be ready for a lot of media coverage. If I was in the media, I'd be writing about this non-stop instead of talking about other coaching vacancies - this is huge news!"

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 10:58 AM 0 comments  

Petrino to exit the sinking ship that is the Atlanta Falcons?

Just when you thought that it couldn't get any worse...ESPN is reporting that Falcons first-year head coach Bobby Petrino is going to leave the team to become the next head coach at the University of Arkansas. This comes one day after the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that Petrino had told university officials that he was not interested in leaving the Falcons for the Razorbacks.

Of course, question No. 1 is: how much stock should we put into ESPN's "multiple sources" - are these the same sources that Kirk Herbstreit uses? Secondly, this tells you just how bad the Falcons are - Arkansas really isn't much of a step up from the Louisville job Petrino originally left. The last time this happened was when Nick Saban bailed on the Dolphins after last season, and look where Miami is today - starting down the barrel of 0-16.

This is a good hire for Arkansas if they pull it off - Petrino's a proven winner at the college level, although recruiting in Conference USA or the Big East is a far cry from recruiting in the SEC. Still, anything is better than the circus sideshow that the last few seasons under Houston Nutt had become.

Now, someone keep Darren McFadden away from the pit bulls and convince him to come back next season, and you might be on to something!

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 3:20 PM 0 comments  

YouTubeness: The Glory Days of NASCAR on ESPN (1981-1991)

I grew up loving NASCAR. I would watch every race I could as a kid, usually on ESPN. And this might surprise you if you've watched the current coverage of NASCAR on ESPN/ABC...but it was incredible coverage. You had Bob Jenkins with the play-by-play, and some combination of Benny Parsons, Ned Jarrett and Larry Nuber on color commentary.

What made it so special? The broadcast was actually about the racing, and not the 80,000 other things that make up a NASCAR telecast these days. I promise you that ESPN didn't miss a restart or the leader taking the checkered flag back in my time.

Plus, the racing was just better. The drivers weren't media polished and fresh-scrubbed: they were racers, and even the most gentile ones weren't afraid to drive someone off the road if they needed to. Earnhardt, Waltrip, Allison, Yarborough, Petty...you could smell the tobacco and gas fumes on these guys.

If you want to know what I'm talking about, and see what NASCAR really used to be about, join me on a YouTube trip down memory lane, as we watch a special that ESPN created for its 10th anniversary of covering NASCAR races back in 1991. It's in several pieces, so I've added the videos below.

(Note: Because Blogger is ridiculous and makes it impossible to make a jump/cut without screwing up your whole blog, I've just added the videos below rather than a nice, tidy jump cut like I would have wanted...)


Part 1 (Includes: Bobby Allison's Talladega crash in 1987 that lead to restrictor plates; Bill Elliot's Winston Million in 1985)



Part 2 (Includes first career wins of Dale Jarrett, Davey Allison, Rusty Wallace, Ernie Irvan, Mark Martin and Alan Kulwicki)




Part 3 (Includes: A look at Super Speedways, Short Tracks and Road Courses; Winston Cup clinching moments of Earnhardt, Elliot and Wallace; a boring interview with Brett Bodine)



Part 4 (Includes: a look at ESPN's technical innovations in covering NASCAR; the "stolen pace car" incident from the Talladega 500 in 1986; Rusty Wallace's practice crash at Bristol in 1988; Buffet Benny)



Part 5 (A look at big crashes, including: Michael Watrip (Bristol, 1990); Darrell Waltrip (Pepsi 400, 1991); 1990 Daytona 400 (1st lap melee); Mark Martin (Sears Point 1989 and Daytona 1989)



Part 6 (Fantastic Finishes including: Talladega 1986 (B. Allison/Earnhardt); North Wilkesboro 1989 (Rudd/Earnhardt/G. Bodine); Bristol 1990 (D. Allison/Martin) and Victory Lane interviews with Lake Speed and Darrell Waltrip)

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 11:46 AM 0 comments  

Bowl Game Projections: A Brief Bit of Bragging

As you may have noticed, I've pretty much bit the bag this season with my handicapping (as has my partner in crime), to the point that I've finally waived the white flag on the whole thing. So please indulge me as I brag about some predictions that I made earlier that have now come true. Thanks for the patience in advance.

Ahem.

You might remember a few weeks ago, with a couple of weeks to go in the college football season, that I gave a prediction on who was going to be playing where for every bowl game this season. Now the the regular season is complete and the match-ups are set, I went back to look and see how I did. Much to my amazement, I was pretty frickin' good:

Total Bowl Games: 32
Correctly Picked Both Teams: 15
Correctly Picked One Team: 15
Correctly Picked No Teams: 2

So, I had an almost 50 percent success rate at predict the exact match-up that was going to be taking place in the bowls. Keep in mind, this was on Nov. 26, before the chaos and confusion of the final week of games.

How good was that? I decided to go back and look at the bowl projections of the "experts" that had been made around the same time. The experts I found were: CFN.com, ESPN.com (Ivan Maisel and Mark Schlabach), CNNSI.com (Stewart Mandel) and MSNBC.com (Mike Woods). CBS Sportsline hasn't made their Week-by-Week projections available as far as I can see.

How did I stack up? I'll let you be the judge:

YOUR FACE IS A SPORTS BLOG

Both: 15
One: 15
None: 2
Pct. of Teams Correctly Placed: 70.3%

CNN/SI (Stewart Mandel)

Both: 15
One: 14
None: 3
Pct. of Teams Correctly Placed: 68.8%

ESPN (Mark Schlabach)

Both: 9
One: 21
None: 2
Pct. of Teams Correctly Placed: 60.9%

ESPN (Ivan Masiel)

Both: 10
One: 15
None: 7
Pct. of Teams Correctly Placed: 54.7%


MSNBC (Mark Woods)

Both: 8
One: 18
None: 6
Pct. of Teams Correctly Placed: 53.1%

CFN*

Both: 5
One: 15
None: 12
Pct. of Teams Correctly Placed: 39.1%

(*CFN stopped doing a projection the week before everyone else, forcing me to use one that was a week earlier. That's what you get for not working over the Thanksgiving holiday, I guess.)

Again, let's review:

ME: No. 1. EXPERTS: Nos. 2-6

Stewart Mandel and I were very close, and Mark Schlabach was the only other person to completely miss on only two bowl games. As for the rest...even with the one-week handicap, the CFN projections are a mess. Part of this is because they insisted on placing Boise St. into a BCS game, when they basically had no shot even if they had beaten Hawaii. I'll give Ivan Maisel some credit for being the only person to predict that Kansas would go to a BCS bowl instead of Missouri, which was either a bold prediction, or a careless one that turned out to be right.

What were the two I missed out on?

The Humanitarian Bowl: The big issue here is that I assumed that the bowl would select Boise St. as a natural fit to play a bowl game in Boise in order to assure a sell-out. I didn't count on the Hawaii Bowl swooping in to steal Boise St. away, leaving Fresno St. with a consolation trip to Idaho in December instead (albeit against a higher-profile opponent).

The Emerald Bowl: Again, same concept - I assumed that the bowl game based in San Francisco would wind up with Cal. However, I didn't count on Cal losing to Stanford, and basically making it real tough for the bowl to select them at 6-6 ahead of 8-4 Oregon St.

Much like a South Florida beating an Auburn, this is the type of win that builds credibility. I figure that I can make horrible predictions for the rest of the season now and I can point back to this as proof that sometimes, I get lucky.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 10:35 AM 2 comments  

Oh My God, This is Actually Working! I'm Flyi---SPLAT!

For those of you who think that parachuting is old news, that base jumping is so not "radical", "extreme" or "cool", here's the latest trend: wing suits. As in, wearing suits that have "wings", that proponents hope will lead to one day being able to jump out of an airplane and land without a parachute.

Here's a picture of the "wing suit" worn by enthusiast Jeb Corliss:

If you are like me, you are expecting to see the words "Acme Corporation" on the suit somewhere...




More specifically, the problem isn't so much "jumping" out of an airplane and landing - gravity kind of takes care of that. As French jumper Loïc Jean-Albert told the New York Times:

"You might do it well one time and try another time and crash and die."

Which is also what one might say about having Rex Grossman as your starting quarterback. Folks! I'll be here all week.

Not to say that I'm not impressed...but jump from an airplane and successfully land WHILE SLAMMING A MOUNTAIN DEW!!! and then I'll be really impressed.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 7:05 PM 0 comments  

Santa Clara Pep Band: Out-Dorking Tony Romo

You might remember recently that I posted a photo from CNNSI.com involving Tony Romo looking like a complete dork while playing Guitar Hero. I thought that it might be impossible for any photos to top that for pure geekiness. However, I underestimated CNNSI.com's abilities to find the absolute nerdiest photos possible. But if I knew that they were going to be doing a full photo spread on the Santa Clara University Pep Band's "Campus Crib", I would have known.
Somehow, they've managed to make their most prominent alum, Steve Nash, seem cool by comparison.

This is just one prime example of what I am talking about:

I don't know who at the University thought it was a good idea to let this photo shoot happen. I'm sure they thought "Hey, it's a way to get some free publicity and show off the great school spirit we have!" Apparently, this person forgot to ask for any ability to review the photos ahead of time. I'm also sure that he/she has been fired.

Unless the plan was to increase the number of pasty, nerdy, perpetually dateless, World of Warcraft-addicted geeks attending their school this year. In which case, bravo on a job well done. MTV's "Cribs" couldn't have done a better job of hitting your target audience.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 6:31 PM 5 comments  

Lenovo Stats: A total farce, or merely completely useless?

The NBA would like you to get very excited about the Lenovo Stat. They would like you to understand the Lenovo Stat as often as possible, and treat it with the same level of importance that you treat points, rebounds or assists. That's why they've created a whole special section on their Web site just for it, and are promoting the hell out of it at every opportunity.

Which would be fine, if it was a stat that meant anything, and not just some made up, BS stat with the same name as "The Official PC Partner of the NBA". Because when commerce and sports collide, the result is usually riveting statistical analysis.

So what is this "Lenovo Stat" that's going to revolutionize the concept of basketball statistics? If you guessed "a warmed-over version of the plus/minus stat that they've been using in hockey for years", you guessed right. Essentially, it's the total amount of points that your team scores while you are on the court, minus the number of points your team gives up during that time.

I don't think I need to tell you how useless this is. First off, there is no way to compare players from different teams - players on winning teams are almost always going to have higher rankings than players on losing teams, just because their teams are scoring more points than their opponents regardless of what they do. If you were comparing how many points a team scored/gave up while a certain player was on the court versus how they did when he was on the bench, or versus their overall performance, maybe you would have something.

Actually, no, you wouldn't. It would still be absolutely pointless, but at least it would be slightly more useful.

Want an example? Guess who the "Lenovo Stat" leader is for the Los Angeles Lakers? It's obvious, right - Vladimir Radmanovic. He of the 9.7 points and 2.9 rebounds per game. As for Kobe Bryant - you know, the most feared player in the game? Of course - he's fourth on the team on the Lenovo Stat, behind not only Radmanovic but Andrew Bynum and Luke Walton.

Any stat where Luke Walton is ahead of Kobe Bryant is pretty much inherently flawed and worthless.

"But," you might counter if you were a marketing person with Lenovo reading off a list of talking points proponent of the Lenovo Stat, "it isn't an individual stat - The Lenovo Stat shows the power of teamwork. It's a way of showing the best-engineered, best combination of players on the court."

"Really?," I would counter."Because it still seems like a crock of crap to me. Take at look at the Lenovo Stat for the best two-person combinations on the team. No. 1 is Radmanovic and Bynum. Kobe isn't on there until No. 4, and he's only part of five of the Top 20. Now, you want me to believe that Vladimir Radmanovic and Jordan Farmar are a better combination than Kobe Bryant and...well, anyone?"

And you would not answer, because you would run screaming and in tears back to Lenovo world headquarters rather than admit defeat. And then I would treat myself to a two-piece chicken plank basket at Long John Silver's, but really reward myself by ADDING A THIRD PLANK! And then my official LJS Stat count would be a +3 for the season.

(Note: in the time it took me to finish this post, the Lenovo Stat section on NBA.com appears to have imploded. I'll take the credit for it - I'm sure they were so scared about the power of my upcoming post that they panicked and removed the site entirely.)

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 2:10 PM 2 comments  

Yahoo! Sports Reports Reggie Bush Owes More Than $59 in Library Late Fees

SAN DIEGO - In yet another chapter in their on-going investigation into New Orleans Saints RB Reggie Bush, Yahoo! Sports today published a report that the former Heisman Trophy winner racked up more than $59 in late fees from the USC library system while a student there - a sum which has never been repaid.

"Clearly, this sort of shocking revelation blows the lid off of our entire investigation," said Jason Cole, who has been investigating various aspects of Bush's life for more than 18 months. "Bush's startling disregard for the library jurisprudence system is just another example of how he shamelessly abused the system, and how USC is a renegade, out-of-control program."

Cole said that Yahoo! Sports has made other "explosive" recent breakthroughs in their continuing investigation of Bush. Among the new charges:

• Bush frequently "helped himself" to mints, butterscotches and other hard candies in the loose bin at the Ralph's near USC during his time in school, without ever paying.
• On several occasions, Bush "took a penny" from a bin at an off-campus 7-11, but was never documented to "leave a penny".
• Bush received meals, apparel, athletic coaching and academic tutoring from the University while a student at USC.

Despite waning public interest and a lack of action from the NCAA, the Heisman Trophy committee, the FBI and other organizations, Cole said that he plans to continue his investigation until "justice is served".

"I mean, at some point, people are going to realize the truth - that Yahoo! Sports is a reputable news source," said Cole. "If it takes running Reggie Bush's name into the ground and destroying the reputations and lives of him, his family, and everyone he loves in order for my snooty college classmates now working at "The New York Times" and "ESPN" to see that just because I work for a company with an exclamation point in its name doesn mean that I screwed up my career, then that's what I'll do. The truth needs to come out."

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 11:33 AM 0 comments  

Meyer Says Player "Totally Justified" in Alleged Beating of Restaurant Employee with Sandwich

GAINESVILLE, FL - Florida Gators head coach Urban Meyer today said that starting defensive end Jermaine Cunningham was "totally justified" in his actions that led to his arrest with a former teammate after allegedly assaulting a sandwich shop employee with a sandwich and empty soda cup.

"I mean, if you buy a sandwich, you should get the chips for free, right?" said Meyer. "Then, they tried to make the sandwich with one of those 'wedge cuts', where a wedge is cut out of the top of the loaf of bread instead of slicing it in half. Everyone knows that's a complete rip-off - you get like half as much filling that way. I normally condone any member of the team that gets involved in an off-the-field incident. But it this case, the jerk at the sandwich shop totally deserved it."

Meyer said that outside circumstances also need to be taken in consideration.

"He hit that guy with a turkey and avocado on white," he said. "I don't think anyone - even a football player - is going to cause that much damage with that sandwich. If it was a Cold Cut Trio on rye, maybe it's a different story."

Sources close to the investigation report that the unnamed employee may have caused the already tense situation to reach a breaking point by adding vinegar and oil to the sandwich without asking Cunningham.

This is not the first time that Florida players have had a restaurant-related incident. Four players were suspended for one game after causing more than $20,000 to a Gainesville-area Shakey's Pizza after being told that it would be 15 to 20 minutes before the pepperoni pizza would be ready as part of the Bunch-A-Lunch buffet.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 3:46 PM 3 comments  

My Christmas Gift to the UCLA Bruins

Now, you might expect me to be the last person to give UCLA advice on how to conduct a head coaching search. You would think that as a loyal USC alum, the last thing I would do is help out my rival. That I would just chuckle at the fact that the head coach of Boise St. would rather stay there than come to coach at UCLA, meaning that somehow the Broncos job is now more prestigious than the Bruins job.

And normally yes, I would. But in the car this evening, I had a flash about who would be the perfect hire for UCLA. The head coaching candidate that would send some shock waves through college football and actually scare the living crap out of USC. It's such a good idea that I have to share it, even if it means that I am betraying my school.

UCLA should go after and hire Jim Harbaugh.

Think about it. If you want to send a message to USC that you mean business, what better way than to bring in the guy who beat them this season at Stanford and pulled off one of the biggest upsets in sports history. Pete Carroll might seem unflappable, but if UCLA were to hire Jim Harbaugh, I promise you that even Coach Carroll would have his pulse rate go up a few ticks immediately.

It's not going to happen. But it should. And it would be AWESOME if it did.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 1:08 AM 1 comments  

Diet Pepsi Machine Cut by Atlanta Falcons

Atlanta – Despite being cut by the Atlanta Falcons today, former first-round draft pick and rookie sensation Diet Pepsi Machine vowed that his playing career is not over.

“I still feel like I can contribute to a team that needs a talented playmaker, or a zero calorie alternative to regular soda,” said Machine as he cleaned out his locker at the Falcons’ training facilities.

















Atlanta, desperate for offensive talent, brought in Diet Pepsi Machine after he had been cut by the New Orleans Saints at the start of training camp. However, he had contributed little since joining the team, mainly playing on special teams.

Diet Pepsi Machine first burst on the NFL scene in 2005, when the New England Patriots shocked the sports world by taking him late in the first round of the NFL draft. The unconventional move appeared to pay huge dividends immediately, when he caught 14 passes for 809 yards and 14 touchdowns in his first six NFL games as a tight end.

The success of Diet Pepsi Machine in his rookie season caused other teams to try to emulate the Patriot’s success, said NFL draft guru Mel Kiper Jr.

“Of course, none of them were successful,” Kiper said. “There was the Lions using a No. 8 pick on a Snickers Ice Cream bar machine and the Jets taking an old cigarette machine. And I think the league would like to forget the Raiders going to Japan to bring in a machine that appeared to sell cans of beer and used schoolgirls’ underwear as their new starting QB.”

However, Diet Pepsi Machine was plagued by a series of drops that left the Patriots shaken in their confidence in him. ESPN NFL analyst Ron Jaworski said that it was one of the most precipitous falls from grace in recent pro football history.

“Diet Pepsi Machine has always been almost unstoppable once he gets into space – his Yards After Catch is amazing,” Jaworski said. “The problem is simple – his lack of hands. And I don’t mean that in a figurative sense, I mean that he literally doesn’t have hands. The only way he can catch a ball is if it is thrown directly into the slot where Diet Pepsis usually come out. Once teams realized this and directed their defenders to expect low passes, even a quarterback as accurate as Tom Brady couldn’t get the ball to him.”

Diet Pepsi Machine’s progress was further stalled by a series of injuries suffered in the 2007 season, including: a ruptured dollar bill acceptor, a broken coin return, and clogged gears caused by leaky soda.

The personal life of Diet Pepsi Machine also caught up to him. While in New England, he was frequently spotted at 24-hour grocery stores and liquor marts the night before game time. Patriots coach Bill Belichik released Diet Pepsi Machine late in the 2006 season after an incident where he reported was seen sneaking massive quantities of rum into his dispenser in the locker room minutes before kick-off.

Diet Pepsi Machine attempted to make a comeback before the start of this season, signing a free agent contract with the New Orleans Saints. However, he only played into exhibition games, leaving the team over a dispute over his role with the team.

“If he would have accepted his role as a fullback, he could have been something special for this team,” said Saints head coach Sean Payton at the time when Machine left the team. “However, he refused to block. Every time we asked him to open a hole for Reggie (Bush), he would claim that the motion from making a block might ‘cause him to overcarbonate’ and explode. We can’t have that on our team.”

Talking to reporters after his release today, Diet Pepsi Machine said that he would attempt to catch on with an Arena Football League team this season, or possibly look for work outside a local Piggly Wiggly.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 1:02 AM 0 comments