500

Not going to let this moment go by without at least posting something.  David Ortiz, the greatest clutch hitter of all time, hit his 500th career home run tonight, as well as his 499th.

I was out sightseeing today wearing my #34 t-shirt.

33 HR and 94 RBI at 39 years old. The greatest clutch hitter ever. Some of the greatest players of all time got nervous, tighten up trying to get by these milestones. Not this guy. He's hit a ton the last few weeks and needed two HRs going into tonight to get to 500 and hit both of them tonight and hit 'em hard!

Ray Lewis, Tom Brady, and NFL rules

I am going to do two things that I try not to do in this post. Talk Semi-Blasphemy about the New England Patriots and Tom Brady. The second is to agree with Ray Lewis. The first is because this blog is led by a fearless leader who really likes his New England teams. I respect that, so I will poke fun at him once in a while because of what happens to his teams but stay away from some controversies. The second is because I just think that Ray Lewis is a blowhard that usually makes no sense. But I am violating these rules because it goes to a larger point that Zeb was trying to make with the Dez Bryant non-catch and Ray Lewis was speaking about when he mentioned Tom Brady awkwardly.

Think back to 2001 and the New England Patriots. Drew Bledsoe gets hurt early in the season. And I still cannot believe that Zeb is at the front of the line for him to be a Hall of Famer. Anyways, in comes Tom Brady to lead the Patriots into the playoffs and that fateful playoff game against the Raiders in Foxboro. We all know what happens in the "Snow Job", Charles Woodson strips Tom Brady of the ball but there is a tuck rule that had been put in place in 1999 for some reason.

Imagine what would have become of Tom Brady had the Patriots lost that game. First thing is that the Patriots do not win that Super Bowl. Duh! The dynasty of the Patriots may have never came into being. Why? Because at that time Bill Belichick is not considered a certified genius at the time. After the disappointment of that loss, you think that Belichick would have stuck with Brady at quarterback, or turned back to the veteran Bledsoe who was ready to start that 2002 season healthy? If you say Brady, then stop reading this post. You are too delusional for rational thought.

If Bledsoe leads that 2002 team, I don't think that Brady is in Foxboro too much longer. They have a commodity that is valuable as a trade chip and a previous league MVP in front of him. I believe that the Patriots trade Brady and never obtain the dynasty that they have had in the AFC East for the past 15 years. There is something about Brady that is able to get the best out of his teammates that Bledsoe never could in his years in the league. So the Patriots might have become the 49ers of the 2010's. Good enough to make the playoffs and even possibly a Super Bowl, but not good enough to have a sustained run of being the favorite each year to win the entire thing. I believe that the 2003 and 2004 championships would never come into being because Brady and his magic were the reason for the win over Carolina. The Eagles defense would have had much more success against Bledsoe if he were still playing in 2004. 

When Ray Lewis launched his nobody would have ever heard of Tom Brady except for the tuck rule rant, he was discussing how the NFL has way too many rules for the game that is being played. I think that Tom Brady would have become a starting QB somewhere else, he wouldn't be the superstar that he is today. But his point is this, we fans all saw a fumble that Charles Woodson caused during the "Snow Job". The only reason that it wasn't is because of a rule that the NFL had passed because of some incident earlier in history that they thought they needed to legislate. And that is what started Tom Brady on the path to super stardom. I happen to agree with that.

On Zeb's and Lewis's argument that the NFL has too many rules, I concur. But I also see the other side of the argument. Remember why the NFL says that the defense has the right to substitute when the offense does? It is called the Wyche rule. Sam Wyche used to substitute players quickly and run the play. He wasn't breaking the rules, but the "spirit" of the rule for substitutions. So a new rule had to be put into place. Sort of what will probably be put into place after the "4 OL formation" the Patriots utilized against the Ravens. It didn't violate the rules, but the "spirit" of the rules.

Less rules would make the NFL a more interesting game, but then we will go back to the era of hucksters and people being befuddled if a play is legal or illegal. More rules will make it more regimented and stifle innovation. It is a balancing act that the NFL needs to get correct. Sometimes, it fails on that. The Dez Bryant non-catch is one of those fails. So the next time that you complain that a rule is stupid, remember earlier in the history of the league, there was another call where the public said that they needed that exact rule to make sure that an injustice would not be committed again.

In Memoriam: Tony Gwynn

I’m still in shock that Mr. Padre – Mr. San Diego as far as I’m concerned – is gone. Tony Gwynn, the best player the San Diego Padres ever had, died yesterday after a long battle with cancer of the salivary gland. He was 54 years old.

Losing Tony so young hasn’t just been devastating for me, but for everyone that calls the San Diego area home as well as those who once lived here. We didn’t lose the face of the local MLB franchise. We lost an icon.

Tony was the best hitter in my lifetime, and I was around when Rod Carew, Pete Rose and Bill Madlock were the dominant hitters in their eras. But Gwynn was much more than that. Tony became the pillar of our community. He gave his time and money to local charities, did local advertising for businesses, and made many appearances on television and radio to talk baseball.

There are too many favorite Tony Gwynn moments to mention. There was the Captain Video nickname he picked up early in his career when it became known he used game tape to study his hitting technique and opposing pitchers. There was the time Gwynn appeared on The Jim Rome Show, back when Romey was only on radio, and he did a funny imitation of Rickey Henderson talking in the third person that made us instant fans of Rickey upon his arrival in San Diego. Who can forget the ground ball he hit to Ryne Sandberg that turned the tide in the 1984 National League Championship Series? Or that bomb he hit to right field in Yankee Stadium off David Wells in the 1998 World Series?

In an era when major league baseball stars had bodies built by performance enhancing drugs, Gwynn had one built by Betty Crocker. He gave hope to pudgy men that they too could play professional sports at a high level yet not look like the stereotypical athlete.

Or as Jim Rome has said many times over the years, “Fat guys with skill rule!”

Tony Gwynn was special. He could have left San Diego whenever his contract came up, but chose to stay even when the money offered by the Padres wasn’t as much as what he could have made in larger markets. Gwynn could have rode off quietly into the sunset when he retired after the 2001 season, but he became the head coach at San Diego State University and continued to preach baseball gospel to his students as well as fans of both the Padres and Aztecs.

San Diegans will never forget Tony Gwynn for all the wonderful things he did for our community, and we were lucky to have him.

A Homer's Perspective: Wisconsin In The Final Four

For the first time since 2000, the University of Wisconsin men's basketball team has made it to the 2014 NCAA Final Four by beating the University of Arizona 64-63 in overtime. I'm not going to rehash the game -- you may have watched it yourself on TV or read about it in the news, and I can't do the game justice compared to the professionals. However, I will give you a little bit of my perspective.

As a kid growing up in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, I was about eight years old when the Milwaukee Bucks drafted a kid out of UCLA named Lew Alcindor; and with Oscar Robertson's arrival, they teamed up in 1971 to give the Bucks its only NBA championship. You got to remember that this was at least five years after Vince Lombardi left the Packers, and Bart Starr wasn't winning us any football championships. In 1975, Kareem was traded to the Lakers, and the Buck have been basically cursed ever since.

So now you have the Bucks stinking up the NBA, the Packers fouling up the NFL until 1992, the Wisconsin Badgers football team didn't get respectable until Barry Alvarez's arrival in 1990, and it was still awhile until the Brewers actually were competitive when teaming Yount and Molitor together in the late 70's. Notice, I haven't even mentioned college basketball because we had Al McGuire coaching at Marquette.

The then Marquette Warriors were a thing of beauty to watch. They consistently had 20-game win seasons (a high number back then), and they were always invited to the tournaments, winning the NIT championship in 1970 and making the NCAA Final Four in 1974 and winning Marquette's only NCAA national championship in 1977.

So what does this have to do with the Wisconsin Badgers in the 2014 Final Four? I'm a homer and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I only am interested in teams from Wisconsin. What also makes this Badger basketball team a little bit more special for me is that I'm rooting for Sam Dekker because he is from my hometown. Reading the Sheboygan Press every day, I saw the articles of how he was a high school phenom and was overjoyed to see that he stayed in the state to play his collegiate career. He's only a sophomore right now, and I'm hoping he helps his team to a couple more of these before the graduates.

THROWBACK SUNDAY: Baseball Season is Here!

An October 1, 1924 motorcade down Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC, for the Washington Senators, following their first pennant victory. 

 

The Senators went on to win the 1924 World Series over the New York Giants, 4-3.  That team included Hall of Famers: Goose Goslin, Bucky Harris, Walter Johnson, and Sam Rice.

 

Washington's first professional baseball team was the "Washington Olympics" (1871-72).  Several more Washington teams played in the 19th century including the first incarnation of the "Washington Senators" (1891–99).  A different "Washington Senators" team began play in 1901.  The Senators played most of their home games at Griffith Stadium, winning one World Series (1924) and three American League pennants (1924, 1925, and 1933). 

 

Washington was continuously home to a major league baseball team from 1901-1971.  Currently, the Nationals are one of two MLB franchises (and only one in the National League) that has never played in a World Series (the Seattle Mariners are the other).

The 2014 NFL Hall of Fame Vote

Many people probably missed the 2014 Football Hall of Fame announcement on Saturday because of all the hype surrounding the "Cold Weather Super Bowl" and the discussions about Peyton Manning's legacy and if Richard Sherman is just a loudmouth or if he was a strategic mastermind for taking the heat away from his teammates. Anyways, the selection committee came up with 7 guys to put into the HOF. And even though I do not agree with a couple of selections, I commend the committee for their selections.

The guys that I agree with:

History

Not a photoshop. 

When it comes to history being made in sports, you can often see it coming. The Stanley Cup Finals. The World Series. The Super Bowl. Almost any playoffs. I'd include golf, but we all know it's not really a sport. With the aformentioned events, you know it will be history of some sort. That doesn't always make it special. That brings us to Sunday Night Football this past Sunday. After the first three Patriots offensive possessions (and they were indeed, offensive) each ended with them coughing up the ball, history did seem to be taking place. A smackdown of historic proportion was in progress. The culmination of injuries to the Pats, Peyton Manning's monster season continuing and a few good bounces made it look like the reality of this season was setting in. This team, battered, bruised and delving deep into the roster, was hitting the wall. Somehow, they still managed to find a way to win. By halftime, my heart sunk. it was 24-0. The team left the field to a chorus of boos, which they earned. The mood was such that you were seeing statistics like this:

Not good. 

Some people changed the channel, some went to bed. At that point, Eeoyre had nothing on me. Still, the Patriots are my team. I watch. Maybe, I think, they can score a touchdown or two and it won't look so bad on the score sheet by the end of the game. Deep inside me, the thought was there. I tried to not even think it, as not to jinx it, as if that would make a difference. Had I really turned into one of those guys?

I kept watching because it was half over and I thought... maybe. Just maybe they can put up a fight and come back. Wouldn't that be something? All of those fans that left early because it was a blowout, the ones who'll lie and claim they stayed the whole time if they did come back and win. They'd miss a chance at history. Don't get me wrong, it's one game. It doesn't mean much of anything, except it does. If these guys can take the kind of beating they did in the first half and come out and turn it around, that means something. It means they have all of those cliches you hear at the press conferences about character and leadership and resilience. Doesn't matter, can't happen. Won't happen. Probably won't happen. Wouldn't it be amazing, though, if it did?

It did. No other way to explain this. 

We all know now that is exactly what happened. They came out of the locker room after halftime and played incredibly. One play at a time, they strung together offensive drives, scoring 21 points in the third quarter alone. Took the lead, won in overtime. 73 minutes and 4 seconds of football later, there it was. History. The biggest comeback in New England Patriots history. I had doubts that they'd even win before the game started. I was never so glad to be wrong.

This is why you never leave a game early. I never have and I never will. You don't know what could happen, and unless you are watching, you'll miss it. Watching the highlights instead, it's just not the same. Sure, you'll see what happened, but you won't feel like this:

I'm not even sure what this is, to be honest. 

You Gotta See This

I’m in the middle of a four-day weekend, and one of the things I did last night was rent “1” on OnDemand. This is a documentary on how safety changed in Formula 1 from it’s beginnings to modern day.

It begins and ends with Martin Brundle’s end over end accident in the 1996 Austrailian Grand Prix, and shows the British driver walking away unhurt from an accident that certainly would have killed him only a few years earlier.

In between those clips, you’ll learn about some of the great drivers from Formula One’s deadliest era. But most importantly, you’ll also learn about the appalling conditions these drivers performed in until they demanded changes in the sport.

View it for the great vintage footage, but learn from it so you’ll gain a healthy respect for the drivers. Jochen Rindt was the first to speak out about the lack of safety in his Lotus 72, and sadly perished in it at Monza in 1970. Jackie Stewart, and subsequently Emerson Fittipaldi, were brave enough to take a leadership role in making tracks safer.

In the 70s, we lost an entire generation of future champions in François Cevert, Roger Williamson and Ronnie Peterson. You’ll learn about them as well.

It should be available on OnDemand until next month, and then it will be released on DVD sometime afterward.

The Kid Goes Into The Mariners Hall Of Fame

I remember seeing Ken Griffey Jr. play. One of the best players that I have ever seen. He made it look like playing professional baseball was the easiest thing in the world. And while he will never be considered the best player of all time, I would put him on my roster of 25. That does include 10 pitchers on my roster.

Bad Things Happen When You’re On The Cover & A Bold Prediction

Many of you may not be aware of it, but there is such a thing as The Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx. It’s not an urban legend. It’s a fact that several high profile athletes have had bad luck occur to them once they’ve been given the cover treatment. Consider some of the eerie things that occurred after athletes were featured on an SI cover, with publication dates included:

• January 31, 1955 – skier Jill Kinmont was paralyzed from the chest down after a near-fatal accident that occurred the same week she appeared on the cover.
• February 13, 1961 – figure skater Laurence Owen, as well as the rest of the U.S. Figure Skating Team, perished in a plane crash near Brussels, Belgium two days later.
• June 7, 1971 – racers Al Unser and Peter Revson were both featured on the SI cover. Unser was hampered by retirements during subsequent races that season. Revson was killed while practicing for the 1974 South African Grand Prix.
• July 30, 1984 – Steelers linebacker Jack Lambert suffered a turf toe injury that ended his career.
• June 20, 1988 – boxer Michael Spinks appeared on the cover with the caption “Don’t Count Me Out”. Thanks to a Mike Tyson punch, the referee did exactly that in ninety-one seconds after the opening bell of their fight. Spinks never fought again.
• December 6, 2000 – racers Dale Earnhardt and his son Dale Earnhardt Jr. shared the cover. Dale was killed two months later on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500.
• September 2008 – Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was on the cover of the NFL Season Preview issue. During the team’s season opener, Brady was lost for the season with a serious knee injury.
• October 15, 2011 – NASCAR racer Jimmie Johnson had an accident at Charlotte Motor Speedway later that month that ultimately stopped his championship winning streak at five years in a row.
• February 17, 2012 – Knicks guard Jeremy Lin’s team had their six-game winning streak snapped by the New Orleans Hornets, at the time the second-worst team in the NBA.
• February 23, 2012 – Lin, after making his second straight cover appearance, went 1 for 11 in a loss against the Miami Heat. The next month he tore the meniscus in his left knee and underwent season ending surgery.
• May 15, 2013 – Grizzlies guard Mike Conley Jr. and his team were swept by the San Antonio Spurs 4-0 in the Western Conference Finals.
• June 10, 2013 – The Spurs “Big 3” of Manu Ginobili, Tim Duncan and Tony Parker appear on this week’s cover.

I know HESPN (that H is for the 30 minutes of coverage ESPN devotes to the Miami Heat during SportsCenter every night) wants the Spurs to lose, but SI has to give my team another obstacle to overcome? I know everyone hates the Spurs, but this is ridiculous.

I’m crossing my fingers Michael Jordan and his 49 SI cover appearances weren’t an aberration.

PREDICTION: Spurs win their fifth NBA championship in six games.

The Long Story Of The North Star Athletic Association

In April, the press reported about the formation of the North Star Athletic Association in the NAIA. It will be comprised of 6 schools: Jamestown College, Valley City State University, Dickinson State University, Dakota State University, Presentation College, and Mayville State University. Only Presentation College was not a part of the DAC-10 that dissolved in 2011.

HAIL TO THE WASHINGTON #@*!*%

Here’s my view on this “Redskins” controversy.

First, I’m torn because I absolutely agree that the term “redskin” is pejorative.  To use the analogy, I wouldn’t want to support a professional team named the “Washington Sambos.”  However, there’s a reality to this story that’s not being talked about much. 

First, I think there is a degree of disingenuousness and hypocrisy by Native Americans, and by other American “minorities,” particularly by African Americans.  I have no doubt that over time—as soon as the first “pale face” spoke the words “red skin”—that it became a slur against Native Americans.  I wonder…when Native Americans first learned English, was the term “white man” used innocuously, or did it soon have a “racial” bite?  I’ll bet that in those early days of American colonialism and settling the “wild, wild west,” calling Native American Indians “redskins” didn’t exactly have the same context (at first) as when American culture referred to Asians as “yellow,” or Hispanics as “brown,” or how in the antebellum South, “blacks” was used equally negative to describe Americans of African descent.  But it is a fact that many Native American Indian tribes used face paint for many purposes—religious, celebrations, and in war.  Many cultures around the world use body paint for similar reasons, but early American settlers in the west, who first encountered hostile Indian tribes, would naturally (in ignorance or fear) refer to their painted attackers as “red-skinned.”  Is that were the word comes from?  Did that quickly become a slur in the lexicon of the white man?  Of course.  I’m not trying to argue that Native Americans brought this on themselves, I’m just saying the term has a basis in historical fact.  And while it definitely falls squarely in the same class as “nigger,” “kike,” “chink,” “slope,” “spick,” “honky,” “cracker,” or any other racial slur, I see “redskin” a little differently.

Second, I bristle at my African American friends who join the argument against the Washington Redskins logo, while justifying the proliferation of the word “nigga” as a term of endearment.  And don’t feed me this bullshit that “nigga” is DIFFERENT from “nigger.”  Some Blacks wholly embrace the term “nigga,” and the entertainment industry has made its use extremely profitable for both hip hop artists, and their white producers, agents, and sponsors.  I won’t even go into how much Hollywood enriches itself by the financial exploitation of all of these terms SOLELY for their pejorative connotation!

(Quick quiz:  Do you know what an “apple” is?  It’s a Native American slur used against other Native Americans to describe a person who’s “red” on the outside, but “white” on the inside.  Hmmmm…)

When the NCAA declared that all member schools had to change their mascots and team names that evoked these racially divisive terms (“Chiefs,” “Redmen,” “Braves,” “Warriors,” “Illini,” etc.), they gave a pass to Notre Dame (the “Irish”) and especially to the Florida State “Seminoles,” who still proudly (and legally) display their painted-face Indian head logo.  The Seminole Nation is split on this topic—Oklahoma Seminoles hate it, while Florida Seminoles profit from it!  Yes, the word “redskin” is bad, but what’s to be said of 30,000 Atlanta Braves “fans” when they break out into that incessant tomahawk chop thing—are they as racist as Dan Schneider and his 90K singing fans when the team scores a touchdown?

When the Redskins moved from Boston (the “Boston Braves”), the wife of the owner (George Preston Marshall) wrote the lyrics to its now iconic fight song:

Hail to the Redskins!

Hail Victory!
Braves on the Warpath!
Fight for old D.C.!
Run or pass and score -- we want a lot more!
Beat 'em, Swamp 'em,
Touchdown! -- Let the points soar!
Fight on, fight on 'Til you have won
Sons of Wash-ing-ton. Rah!, Rah!, Rah!

Hail to the Redskins!
Hail Victory!
Braves on the Warpath!
Fight for old D.C.!

But the original lyrics were (in CAPS):

Hail to the Redskins!

Hail Victory!

Braves on the Warpath!

Fight for old DIXIE!

Run or pass and score -- we want a lot more!

SCALP 'EM, SWAMP 'EM -- WE WILL TAKE 'EM BIG SCORE

READ 'EM, WEEP 'EM, TOUCHDOWN - WE WANT HEAP MORE

Fight on, Fight on -- 'Till you have won

Sons of Wash-ing-ton. Rah!, Rah!, Rah!

Hail to the Redskins!
Hail Victory!
Braves on the Warpath!
Fight for old DIXIE!

Did she write those words to openly demean Indians?  Did she use the term “redskin” in the same (racist) context as if the team were named the “Washington Sambos?”

Hail to the Sambos!

Hail Victory!

Coons on the Warpath!

Fight for old Dixie!

Run or pass and score -- we want a lot more!

Shuffle on a-long then mop the den floor.

Slave on, Slave on ‘till you are done

Shiftless, la-zy bums!  Rah!, Rah!, Rah!

What sense does that make?  None, and I argue that while the term “redskin” is certainly offensive (then and now), to argue that the Washington Redskins football club IS racist and the organization’s intent is to perpetuate racism, is just a plainly stupid argument.  (I mean, when was the last time, outside of Hollywood, that you heard anyone, ever, seriously refer to a Native American as a “redskin” in that context?  In 1938, it was just a mascot and had no more cultural meaning to the team than a “pirate” meant to Oakland or Pittsburgh.  But today, 2013, it’s a business—BIG business (take a look at how much money the NCAA makes on the sale of school logos).  The Redskin logo means billions in revenue to Dan Schneider, NBC, FedEx, and Landover, MD, just as that blood-thirsty, murderous pirate means jobs (and profits) to Oakland and Pittsburg.  Sure, Dan Schneider could have said he’d never change the name without capitalizing the word “never,” but by saying it that way, he’s putting all of us on notice that he’s not going to be pushed around, and from a business perspective I don’t blame him for the stance he’s taken.  (I think you’re a crappy owner, Danny, but I’m on your side on this issue!)  If the Redskins change their name, will I continue to support the team—hail to the...(uh, hell to the yeah)!  But I disagree with this particular “PC” snit.  The argument is out of context and is being personalized. 

And I’ll say this--I’ll bet you cash money that while they’re pissed off over this “redskin” thing, there are probably more than a few Native American Indians who bop their heads and sing along (openly) to Kanye’s hook:  “Now I ain't sayin' she a gold digger, but she ain't messin' with no broke niggas!”

I’m just sayin’.  Okay:  Flame on!

September 20th Is So Far Away…

This is the official trailer for Rush, Ron Howard’s movie based on the events that shaped the 1976 F1 season – and the rivalry between reigning world champion Niki Lauda and rising star James Hunt.

Current events aside, I remember watching ABC’s Wide World of Sports almost every Saturday afternoon to watch F1 races from the mid-70s up until ESPN was created. I remember this season vividly. Tyrrell introduced the P34, a six-wheel racing car that was steered by the rear wheels. McLaren was still racing the venerable (and highly successful) M23, and Ferrari had the fast and fragile 312.

I had my doubts Daniel Brühl and Chris Helmsworth could play Lauda and Hunt, but this trailer convinced me they nailed it. And the car porn… I have to find a way to get September 20th off from work so I can see the first showing of this movie.

RIP Johnny

L-R Dom DiMaggio, Williams, Doerr, Pesky (those 4 were the best of friends) and Joe Dobson.

Today we lost a gentleman of the game.  Johnny Pesky died today at the age of 92. I dare say no one has spent longer actively in professional baseball -- 73, to be exact, 61 of them with the Red Sox. His #6 is retired by the Red Sox (the only player they made a few exceptions for to do that) and the famous Pesky pole in right field at Fenway is named for him (even though he only hit 6 career homeruns at Fenway.) The link below is a pictoral through the years of his career.
Johnny Pesky through the years - Sports - Baseball - Red Sox - Boston.com

Nobody, and I mean nobody, loved baseball more than Johnny; and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in the game, ever, who was loved more by the fans and the players.

5 Things That I Am Following This Week

1.  The debate about slavery that has popped up this past week.  Sprinter Michael Johnson says that descendants of slaves have a superior athletic gene that lets them be great athletes.  Chris Rock saying that the 4th of July is basically a white man's holiday because when the Declaration of Independence was signed, it didn't affect the black man and his fortunes.  And this is a conversation that is worth having.  Racism is still alive in America and it is alive in sports.  This conversation is needed in the entire context of America and why our history is sometimes glossed over in sports.  However, I am troubled about the way race is portrayed sometimes in the sports world.

2.   Wimbledon 2012.  In the Women's finals, you have a resurgent Serena Williams playing a Polish player in Agnieszka Radwanska who has a severe respiratory illness that has made it nearly impossible for her to speak.  Radwanska is the 1st Polish player since 1939 to make a Grand Slam Final.  Over in the Men's draw, it looks like Andy Murray might make the finals.  He plays Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in one semifinal while Federer-Djokovic match in the other semifinal is being looked at as the true title match.  There is lots of drama here and it comes to a head this weekend.

3.  The Doping Case Against Lance Armstrong.  Armstrong is using the vendetta defense against the U.S. Anti-Doping agency.  He is alleging that the anti-doping agency has caught others doping and is giving them leniency in exchange for false testimony against Lance to catch the big white whale in cycling.  Reports have 5 former teammates, 2 former team managers, and a fromer trainer willing to testify against Armstrong in exchange for 6 month suspensions for the people involved.  Without their testimony, they could be banned from the sport of cycling or face at least a year long expulsion from the sport.

4.  Formula One - Another week, more chaos.  Bernie Ecclestone has proposed a London Grand Prix.  The German banker convicted of bribery is appealing his conviction, he was involved with Ecclestone.  Marussia F1 test driver Maria De Villota lost her right eye after the race car she was driving crashed into the team hauler.  She was in surgery for approximately 18 hours according to reports.  She underwent procedures from nuerologists and plastic surgeons during her time in surgery.  Her head took much of the brunt from the accident.  An investigation is taking place because apparently De Villota was slowing down at the end of her run when the car suddenly accelerated and hit the team hauler.  All of that doesn't overshadow the British Grand Prix going on in Silverstone, England this weekend.  Fernando Alonso leads the points by 20 and Sebastian Vettel, a favorite to win the championship at the beginning of the season, is trying to turn qualifying performances into race results after June failed to produce a podium finish despite 3 poles.

5.  Golf and Tiger.  Tiger Woods has won 3 tournaments this year, although none of them a major title.  He isn't as consistant as he was when he was the undisputable #1 player in the world and has shown that he can crumble in a tightly contested tournament.  However, the biggest thing for the PGA is that Tiger still has the ability to pull in eyeballs.  Tiger is 8 wins behind Sam Snead for all time wins on the PGA tour.  Snead won an amazing 82 PGA tournaments.  Tiger is four major tiles behind Jack Nicklaus with 14 major titles.  Jack won an outstanding 18.  I think that he makes the Snead record, but narrowly misses the major tourney title.  I am sure that is OK with the PGA though.  What a storyline 4 times a year, with Tiger chasing Jack for the most major tournament titles. Even if tiger doesn't reach 18 major titles, golf's popularity will be increase.  Why?  Because America is a sucker for trying to see if history is achieved.  And if Tiger is on the verge of making history, then it should be where America and it's eyeballs watch to see if Tiger can pull it off, especially if Tiger is in that final pairing on Sunday.

Fenway 1912

I know I'm not the only one who loves the history of baseball at least as much as the game itself.  So for you others out there like me, you'll appreciate this five-minute piece on the 1912 Red Sox and the first season at Fenway.
Because this video clip runs automatically when the page loads, which includes while you're on the front page of the blog, and because the clip is a little messed up, to see it go "below the fold."

Houston Antwine 1939-2011

This is a name football fans my age and younger are mostly unfamiliar with, especially if you're not from the New England area.  Houston Antwine died Monday of heart failure at the age of 72, ironically the day before his wife would die of lung cancer.
Antwine is a member of the Patriots 50th Anniversary team, as well as a member of the All-Time AFL team.  He played tackle for the Pats from 1961 (the year I was born) until 1971, amassing 39 sacks during that time and along with Jim Lee "Earthquake" Hunt formed a formidable tackle duo during the '60s.  Antwine was a six-time AFL All Star.  He played his college football at Southern Illinois. He was also a nominee, though not selected, for the Patriots Hall of Fame in 2011.
There's some cool old game footage in a short video at this link, which is slightly different than the video below.



In other Patriots "news," enjoy the new sidebar photo, which takes care of two fetishes (at least) in one.

Trivia: Redskins/Cowboys Rivalry

Here's an interesting bit of Redskins/Cowboys trivia.

I've been a Redskins fan all my life and I have to admit that I did not know
this piece of trivia: Here is the true origin of the Redskins/Cowboys
"rivalry." We all know the story of coach George Allen's motivating the
70's Redskins by conniving a media fight with then Cowboys coach Tom Landry,
and the rest, as they say, is history. But is it?

Well, it seems in the late 50's just before the original "Texans" (the AFL
"Dallas Texans") bolted for Kansas City (now the KC Chiefs), the Texas oil
millionaire Clint Murchison petitioned the NFL for a franchise, but they had
just one stick in the mud--Washington Redskins owner, George Preston
Marshall. Murchison signed a deal with Marshall to purchase the Redskins,
and everything was going smoothly, but Marshall suddenly changed the terms
of the agreement, and Murchison refused to sign and the deal fell through.
Jilted, Marshall refused to agree to allow Murchison to be granted an
expansion team--they needed a unanimous vote by all owners for a team to be
approved, and Marshall refused to vote yes. Now, it seems the marching band
leader for the Redskins, who wrote the Redskins fight song ("Hail To The
Redskins") ended up getting into a pissing contest with Marshall. The
bandleader owned the rights to the song (not Marshall) and being pissed with
Marshall, he approached Murchison in Dallas and sold him the song for
$2,500. This deal occurred right before the second owner's vote for the
Dallas franchise. Moments before the vote was to be taken, Murchison let it
out to Marshall that he owned the fight song and unless Marshall voted to
approve the Dallas franchise, he would sue Marshall every time the Redskins
band played the fight song--he threatened to refuse to let Marshall play it
during any of his games that year! Marshall eventually gave in and
Murchison turned over the rights, and Marshall gave his "yes" vote that
formed the 1960 Dallas Cowboys.

And so a rivalry was born!!!

Not only did I find that story interesting and ironic, but the irony of the
"cowboys and indians" history of the KC Chiefs is also an interesting
tidbit!

For A King's Ransom

Much thanks to DaSnake for pointing out this story -- actually, the story at the site Throwback is two stories in one, the story of King Kelly and another regarding the rare autograph of his that was recently "discovered" and is going up for auction. 

The story is an excellent read, especially if you're unfamiliar with the character King Kelly, one of the early stars of baseball in the late 1800s, or if you're interested in sports memorabilia.
Kelly was a flamboyant man and baseball player for the Chicago White Stockings and Boston Beaneaters of the National League, a real self promoter.  Despite this fact, it is thought that less than 10 of his autograph are in existence today; and to find one in such great condition with such a great story behind its discovery, will likely result in this piece going at auction for a "King's ransom."
Here is a quote from another online article regarding this auction:  "What SCP Auctions calls the "greatest 19th Century baseball autograph find in hobby history" is making an impression on collectors of rare baseball memorabilia--and those fascinated by the pro game's early history."  If that's not a good enough teaser for you, well, I guess nothing would be.
The bidding was to have ended last night, though the only information I can find thus far is that the bidding had passed $100,000.  I will endeavor to report the final winning bid, unless someone beats me to it.  Thanks again, DaSnake, for pointing this out.  And to answer your question in the comments:  Unfortunately that is the only way to communicate on a blog but don't worry, leave a comment anywhere at anytime.

Willie O’Ree: San Diego’s Hockey Legend

Many people know Willie O’Ree as the first black NHL player but did you know he was a very accomplished minor league forward? For those of us who grew up in San Diego with hockey in our blood, we were lucky to have O’Ree as our most popular player when the San Diego Gulls played in the Western Hockey League in the late sixties and into the mid-seventies.

O’Ree was one of the top scorers for the Gulls throughout his career, and in his final WHL season he scored 30 goals in 73 games. Five years later, O’Ree came out of retirement to play for the San Diego Hawks of the Pacific Coast League and scored 21 goals in 53 games – at the tender young age of 43. I had the privilege of watching many of O’Ree’s game that final season and even at his advanced age he was one of the PHL’s better players before the league folded in 1979.

When the San Diego Gulls were revived in the International Hockey League in 1990, and again in the West Coast Hockey League in 1996, both teams thought enough of O’Ree and his accomplishments to retire his #20. Even though we no longer have minor league hockey, Willie O’Ree will always be known around here as Mr. Gull and is as beloved in our community as Tony Gwynn.

Today O’Ree lives in the La Mesa area and is currently the director of diversity programs for the NHL.