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NFL Week 10 Preview NFL Week 9 Preview World Series Game 6 Preview New York evens the series and heads to Philly for Game 3 English Premiere Soccer Week 11 Preview NFL Week 8 Preview 2009 World Series Preview Phiilies still waiting for outcome of ALCS NFL Week 7 Preview Angels try to stay alive in Game 5 August 08 September 08 October 08 November 08 December 08 January 09 February 09 March 09 April 09 May 09 June 09 July 09 August 09 September 09 October 09 November 09 Ex-NBA star Jayson Williams allegedly trashed a suite in a suicidal rage and was subdued by a stun gun and taken to a psychiatric clinic, New York police said. Police used a stun gun and two sets of handcuffs to subdue Williams. They allegedly found suicide notes and empty bottles and vials of sleeping pills, antidepressants and human growth hormone, police sources told the New York Post. The Award is shared this week by Williams for being Williams and the NYPD for using a stun gun on a suicidal man.
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John Daly is once again breaking news, but this time on the green not off. Earlier this week Daly took to the links in the Pro-Am segment of the Open de Espana at the PGA Golf Catalunya in Girona, Spain ala Ian Poulter, decked out in a harlequin orange and pink outfit that looked like pastel colors on mushrooms. Hey, at least he's not going shirtless this time, hawking Daly swag out of the back of a bus -- including his rollover minutes, assaulting fans with cameras, using beer cans as tees, or selling his autograph at Hooters. I think Happy Gilmore said it best about outfits like this -- "If I saw myself in clothes like those I'd have to kick my own ass." For the time being golf’s “Wild Thing” has toned down the off course foolery and turned up his game playing Daly-esque going two under par 70 in the first round, which included an eagle and three birdies. The rounds finest moment for Daly was when he arrowed a two-iron approach to just eight feet from the hole at the 16th, setting up a superb eagle. The Open de Espana is Big John’s latest bid to resurrect his career. Daly, 43, has been out of action since December and banned from the US Tour after he was accused of being found drunk and incapable outside a Hooters in Salem, NC. He has been rehabilitating by losing weight and trying to give up a diet of booze and cheeseburgers that saw him balloon to nearly 280 lbs. He has lost 60 pounds in weight over the last three months thanks to a surgical implant that has helped prevent his binge eating and has revamped his swing while serving his six-month suspension. Daly who posted rounds of 80 and 89 to finish tied for dead last in last July's Open at Birkdale, is now ranked 776th in the world. He is currently competing without sponsors, although rumors have emerged around his newfound fashion adventurism that indicates he has he signed an endorsement deal with Loudmouth Golf. The company or Daly has made no official announcement. Love him or hate him, somehow the Daly Show only furthers his reputation as a true man of the people. It will be interesting to see if Daly can bounce back from being the PGA's equivalent of "sex, drugs, and rock & roll," to the fierce competitor he was or at least find himself in the Top 100 again, crazy outfits and all.
Another NFL draft has -- mercifully -- come to an end. As expected, Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford was sentenced to six years with the Detroit Lions, a team that finished 0-16 in 2008. Fortunately, for Stafford he will be paid $78 million dollars for his time and emotional distress. Members of his family will reportedly be allowed to visit him on weekends and he will be allowed one conjugal visit per month. Ah, there is nothing quite like the NFL draft. Diehard fans from across the country attend the event in person or watch it on television, eagerly waiting to see the newest addition to their favorite team. Watching the draft is on a par with sitting through a 17 hour Joanie Loves Chachi marathon. Unlike the NBA draft, which is a slam-bam two-hour event, the NFL draft is two unbearable days beginning with the first round, when teams are given 10 minutes to make their selection, even the team with the first pick. The teams have the entire off-season to make their choice, so doesn’t it seem a waste of time that the #1 selection is made only after the entire 10 minutes are up? After the first pick is out of the way, 31 other teams use their entire 10 minutes as well, making the first round drag on, and on, and on, sometimes for up to four hours. Of course, fans are led to believe that in the “war rooms,” there is a whirlwind of action where team officials huddle up to make important decisions like last-second calls about possible trades. But while all this “action” is taking place, fans are left to sit and wait, knowing nothing about what is actually gong on. The second day of the draft is when things reach the bottom of the barrel as the final four rounds are completed. I means who the hell cares at this point. Thank God, teams are no longer given 10 minutes to make their selection, but that’s because by this time the talent is so depleted that picking a player is really a crapshoot anyway. Other factors of the NFL Draft that are just as if not more annoying is how suspense is totally diffused by the No. 1 pick being signed before Draft Day, players in attendance behind the stage, mock drafts and Mel Kiper. Last March NFL owners agreed to make changes to the NFL draft adopting a few new rules, but more changes will need to be made to fix a broken system. Here are a few of my own. Start the draft at 10 a.m. That way, in the event that the first few picks are still predictable, people are waking up for the surprises and, by the time nobody cares anymore, they still have the afternoon to kill. Next, have the prospective draft picks sit in the front rows, like they do in award shows. Don't hide them from the world. Then, have a host. Someone like, Howard Stern, Tom Green, or Jerry Springer to announce the draft picks. Finally, I did find one thing interesting about the draft. The interviews with some of the functionally illiterate students that somehow managed to snag scholarships to prestigious institutions of so-called higher learning. In case you haven’t noticed it’s playoff time for both the NBA and the NHL. While both have some interesting first round match-ups, I have decided to do a comparison to give you the chance to decide which league offers more excitement during the playoffs. So lets fire up the clichés, ‘We don’t care who we play’, ‘We’re just happy to be in the playoffs”, and whatever lame catchphrase the 12th man scrub on some basketball team dreams up in the hopes of banking some extra pennies should the team catch fire, and some city marketing campaign decides to buy it. Lets start the debate with tradition. The NHL has its playoff beards, no one is allowed to touch the conference championship trophy, and baiting the other team to get in a fight for a precious power play. The NBA has Tracy McGrady losing in the first round, the NBA burying at least one entire series on the NBA network, and TNT’s 30 games in 30 nights tired out promotion. The winner here is clearly the NHL. What would a professional league be without its stars? Sure the NHL has Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin, and that’s apparently it according to the commissioner’s office. You’re right Gary von Gary. Boston has no stars -- except maybe the Norris winner. Syd the kid doesn’t play with anyone decent -- except an MVP candidate, and Detroit’s all-star roster has been a fluke except for winning multiple cups and awards. The NBA on the other hand has Kobe, Bron-Bron, and D-Wade amongst the other billion. Clearly the NBA is the winner here. During an NHL broadcast you might come across one of these during a commercial break --an NBA player. Some people might say that both the NHL and NBA playoffs are like a season of its own. This year the NHL will give us eight great match-ups and teams that are better, but it's not uncommon for a team to catch lightning and maybe a hot goalie and make a run for the cup. The NBA? Hmm, will Boston, Cleveland, or Orlando play the Lakers? Four out of 16 teams? Why even bother? Yawn. This one goes to the NHL, with the best top to bottom playoff of any sport. And it doesn’t have to be your team to warrant a good game. Finally the NHL has the best trophy ever while the NBA has a golden ball on the edge of a rim. The next time an athlete tells a story about christening his baby in the NBA trophy, then feeding his dog out of it, then taking it to a stripper, and then boozing whiskey out of it all in the same night, I might listen. Lord Stanley rules. Winner, the NHL.
Curt Schilling officially announced his retirement last month at the age of 42 by saying, “This party has officially ended. After being blessed to experience 23 years of playing professional baseball in front of the worlds best fans in so many different places, it is with zero regrets that I am making my retirement official.” With that announcement Schilling ended months of speculation on whether he would pitch again despite the Cubs and Rays rumors. In the end, common sense ruled out and Schilling realized that given his age, the work involved for one more run simply wasn’t worth it. So now begins what will be the debate for the next three and a half years. Is Curt Schilling a Hall of Famer? Schilling is retiring with 216 wins in his career. Above him are 79 pitchers. The pitchers with the fewest wins to be inducted are Jim Bunning and Catfish Hunter, both with 224 wins. Bunning was a strikeout king and perennial All Star who won his games despite never being on a playoff team. Hunter had a Cy Young Award to his name and five World Series titles on his resume. But there are many pitchers with more wins -- and even some with considerable playoff success -- who will never go to Cooperstown unless they buy a ticket. Does Schilling really deserve to go ahead of all of them? Schilling will probably be remembered most for one of the most “heroic” performances of all time when he pitched in Game Six of 2004 ALCS in the famous “bloody sock” game. The game helped cement his legacy as one of toughest and best big game pitchers of all time, but is this enough to lead him to Cooperstown? I think most baseball fans would agree that Curt Schilling was a special pitcher. Pretty much anybody who wins World Series games for three teams -- and three World Championship titles, is bound to be special. There is no denying that he played a big role in reversing the second-worst curse in baseball -- ending the “Curse of the Bambino”. Or as perhaps the best post-season pitcher ever with a 2.23 ERA , 11 wins in 19 starts with 120 strikeouts in 133 innings pitched and a WHIP under 1.00. But while Schilling was postseason ace in a hitter's era, it may still be a bit of a stretch to suggest that he's going to be enshrined in Cooperstown someday. All in all, Schilling had a fantastic career and achieved unbelievable successes, but if he failed to be inducted into the Hall of Fame he would hardly be the best pitcher to never be enshrined. I Sure, Schilling is Hall of Fame worthy, but is he more so than many of the pitchers who’ve never received their just considerations? Perhaps Shilling will be the best pitcher of our generation who doesn't get in – not counting steroid user Roger Clemens. While baseball is a stats game, I feel that there should be other criteria used when determining if a player is worthy of being in the Hall of Fame. I guess the debate begins and ends with this. Will Schilling’s really-good-but-not-great career post season dominance be strong enough to get him into the Hall of Fame? The Tuskers (2-8) ended the 2009 season Saturday with a loss to the San Diego Old Aztecs (5-5) 50-10 at San Diego. The Tuskers were blanked by San Diego in the first half 40-0. Billy Ross and Abel Ruesga would score back-to-back trys for Kern County late in the second half to close the gap 10-45 before a final San Diego try ended the match with a final score of 50-10. The Man of the Match Award went to Zacharia Peters. The Tuskers would like to thank the community for their support. Upcoming Tuskers events will be an open rugby clinic to be held in May and the summer 7s tournament. For more information please visit www.kcrugby.com. For a baseball purist like myself, Opening Day is like Christmas. It's pretty much the greatest event of the year outside of the annual hot-dog eating contest at Coney Island. Opening Day is a tradition at the beginning of every new Major League Baseball season. Falling somewhere around the beginning of the month of April, it signals a newness and a chance to forget the past season, a spring-cleaning of sorts, a place every team and their millions of fans begin the season with a perfect record on Opening Day -- unless you count that trumped-up Sunday night game that ESPN has aired the past 10 years. By the end of opening day of baseball, though, 50 percent of the teams are wondering why they lost.
It's a scene that returns reassuringly year after year. The intense Crayola green of the manicured field, the perfect 90-degree corners exactly 90 feet apart, the men in uniform palpably itching with eagerness as they await the first "thwap" of a little white ball smacking into the catcher's mitt.
Since the first professional Opening Day in 1876, the ritual has unfolded according to an invisible plan. The first pitch generally yields to nine engrossing innings and the sadly mistaken belief it will go on forever. A rich history of special events have occurred on Opening Day, that includes President William Howard Taft throwing out the ceremonial first pitch in 1910, beginning a tradition for presidents, Jackie Robinson becoming the first African-American player in the major leagues in 1947, and Hank Aaron hitting home run No. 714 to tie Babe Ruth’s record in 1974.
Joe DiMaggio once said of opening day, “You look forward to it like a birthday party when you’re a kid. You think something wonderful is going to happen.”
This year I am going to Fenway on Opening Day. So in honor of my pilgrimage to the Mecca of baseball, I am boldly declaring Opening Day a quasi-religious holiday that justifies work stoppage. So if you play hooky from work one day a year, this is the day to do it.
The boys of summer are back in town, play ball.
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