October 3, 2003
Allen Barra defends Rush Limbaugh in his recent contretemps over Donovan McNabb. I think Barra is all wet on this one. McNabb may not have fulfilled his potential at Philadelphia, but he's hardly to blame for being the leading rusher on a team that can't run block or pass block worth a damn. Besides, the point isn't whether McNabb is overrated; he probably was, but expectations have come down quite a bit for him. However, Limbaugh's assertion that the media deliberately overrated him as a sort of affirmative action program is just too much to swallow. There is hardly a dearth of black quarterbacks in the NFL these days, and they don't need the press to make them feel good about their performances. ESPN made a mistake in hiring Limbaugh, and Limbaugh made a mistake in taking the job. Normally I respect Limbaugh's intelligence even if I disagree with him,...
October 4, 2003
The Twins seem to have a problem hitting the ball, all of a sudden. Roger Clemens looked a bit shaky at first, but apart from a bases-empty homer, the Twins couldn't hold the Rocket down today and went down to defeat, 3-1. Now that the Twins have let the Yankees off the hook for losing home-field advantage, it doesn't look likely that they'll win the next two (one in New York) to advance this year. Lohse looked good today, but unfortunately not good enough. Ah, well. Tomorrow the Vikings play against the Vick-less Falcons. We should be able to beat them to go to 5-0. If Gus Frerotte has another game like he did against the 49ers, we may have a minor QB controversy in the Twin Cities......
October 5, 2003
The Vikings beat Atlanta 39-26, and go to 5-0! I don't know what Tice did in the off-season, but these guys look good, and are starting to look confident. They're still making mistakes, but they're overcoming them. Of course, their biggest test comes up after the bye next week. They play Denver, who is 4-1 and I think will be the first team with a winning record they've played. We should know a lot more about this team after that....
October 7, 2003
Both the Cubs and the Red Sox make it to the championship round. The Red Sox come back from two games down to beat the A's (but who hasn't?), but now have to face the Yanks without home-field advantage. If the Cubs and the Red Sox both make it to the World Series, which jinx will be the strongest? Or will the world end during Game 7?...
Indianapolis scores 28 points in the 4th quarter to beat the vaunted Tampa Bay Bucs defense in overtime on Monday Night Football last night. This was unbelievable! The Bucs had them by the throat all game long, and in fact had a 21-point lead with less than 4 minutes to go. To give you an idea of the magnitude of the Colts' victory (or Bucs collapse, whichever you prefer): Indianapolis became the first team in NFL history to win after trailing by 21 or more points with less than four minutes to play in regulation. Wow! Too bad all of you turned the game off in the 3rd quarter ......
October 8, 2003
Do you think Dan Barreiro is celebrating this, or crying in his beer? If his earlier column is any indicator, probably both....
October 9, 2003
The fans in Boston must be happy with this -- the Red Sox just negated the Yankee's home-field advantage in this round of the playoffs. I'd love to see that Cubs-Red Sox series, and while the Cubs also lost their home-field advantage, at least they evened the series last night....
It's a shame that a story like this is even necessary. I didn't know that Walter O'Malley wasn't in the Hall of Fame....
October 10, 2003
Tension mounts as perennial football power Michigan comes to Minneapolis to play against the undefeated Minnesota Golden Gophers tomorrow at the Metrodome. So far, this is Minnesota's best season in 40 years, and if they beat the Wolverines, they have a shot at a national title. Of course, at the same time we have to get a lecture on econmics: Exhibit A: At the start of 1993, when Maturi was assistant athletics director at the University of Wisconsin, the Badgers' athletic department was $3 million in debt. Then the football team went to the Rose Bowl. "We went from $3 million down to a million in reserves almost overnight,'' Maturi said. While Minnesota's $47 million athletics budget is not currently in the red, it definitely could use a cash infusion as it attempts to raise money for an on-campus football stadium. C'mon, guys, this is supposed to be fun!...
At the end of the third quarter: Minnesota Golden Gophers 28, Michigan Wolverines 7. Go Gophers! Take back the Little Brown Jug!...
My beloved Dodgers have been sold to Frank McCourt, who has been trying to buy a major-league baseball team for years. He finally succeeded with one of MLB's crown jewels, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Dodger Stadium, which comes as part of the deal. Frank McCourt, a Boston real estate developer who failed in two earlier attempts to buy major league teams, has reached an agreement to purchase the Los Angeles Dodgers from News Corp., both parties said Friday. McCourt will head an investment group that reportedly has offered more than $400 million for the team, Dodger Stadium and adjoining real estate, plus training facilities in Vero Beach, Fla., and the Dominican Republic. Tommy Lasorda, the legendary Dodgers' manager for 20 years (and the winner of two World Series championships, four National League pennants, and I believe seven division titles), waxes optimistic about the sale: "It's been an organization of...
Okay, just as I was posting that last one, the Gophers just allowed the Michigan Wolverines to score 31 points in the fourth quarter to come back and win the game, 38-35. I stayed up for that? Long day ... I'm gonna go to bed....
October 11, 2003
Notre Dame, who has had two losses already this season, goes on the road and upsets 15th ranked Pittsburgh, 20-14. The Fighting Irish played tough defense and relied on their traditionally strong running game, rather than the new West Coast offense of Ty Willingham. It wasn't exciting, but it was convincing. Go Irish! (and note that I didn't post a damn thing until the game was over this time!)...
October 14, 2003
Let's see ... you're a football player at a major football college, and you've just been humiliated on national TV by an unranked team. What's your first instinct when you come across a rival fan? If it's decking the guy while the cameras are rolling, either you've taken a wee bit too much Testosterone or you're on the SpongeBob Squarepants academic track. I report, y'all decide....
October 16, 2003
The Corporate Juggernauts tied the score up, we're going to extra innings, and Instapundit is still off line ... I'm watching the rest of the game in bed. G'night, y'all....
October 17, 2003
So much for living in the Age of Freakin' Reason ... both "cursed" teams manage to promote their long-term images by choking in game 7 of their respective series. The Red Sox actually deserve a lot of credit; they went back on the road down 3-2, and won the first game and came close to winning the second. The Cubs, on the other hand, were up 3 games to 1 with home-field advantage, and managed to lose three games in a row, including two in Wrigley Field. [sigh] So instead of a World Series with the promise of real historical significance, which would have been true if either the Red Sox or Cubs had made it alone, we get the Marlins who won less than a decade ago, and New York for the fifth time in six years. Fabulous, simply fab-oo. I'll make sure I set the TiVo, with a...
A bit of of reaction this morning to a curseless World Series ... Over at OxBlog, David waxes biblical, invoking Lamentations (how appropriate!), while Josh simply asks why anyone will care ... Jacob Levy over at the Volokh Conspiracy decides that discretion is the better part of rage ... Strange Women Lying in Ponds expresses sympathy to Cubs fans, but doesn't seem 100% sincere ......
October 18, 2003
Normally, I'd describe the game between Notre Dame and the University of Spoiled Children as the Annual Battle of Good versus Evil, but with so much real evil in today's world, I'm just calling it The Game this year. Anyway, it's not looking good for the Irish so far. The Condoms just scored a touchdown, going 80 yards in 2:35, to take the lead 7-0. [sigh]...
[sigh] The University of Spoiled Children managed to just squeak by the Fighting Irish ... uh ... 45-14. The Trojans eased more than two decades of frustration by cruising to a 45-14 victory before a sellout crowd of 80,795. The victory was USC's first here since 1997 and the Trojans' second since 1981. USC's 45 points were the most the Trojans have scored at Notre Dame Stadium, and the second-most ever scored by any Fighting Irish opponent here. The Irish stayed with the Condoms through the first quarter, but after that it was all USC, otherwise known as The Best College Team Money Can Buy. (don't ya just love good sportsmanship?) [double sigh]...
November 6, 2003
In the second item, I'm afraid that Chris Dufresne of the LA Times has this exactly correct: Navy last defeated Notre Dame in 1963, yet we can't think of a year Notre Dame needed to beat Navy more. Um, ouch! But so true. This season was supposed to be when the Irish challenged for the national championship. After last year's magical season, it appeared Ty Willingham had turned the program around. But at 2-6, it doesn't look like it's going anywhere soon. Read the first, featured item on Eddie Robinson; it's heartbreaking....
November 11, 2003
You have to love the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. This is the headline on a story about multi-millionaire basketball player Latrell Sprewell playing through an Achille's heel injury: Timberwolves: Old-school Sprewell plays with pain Old school? It turns out Sprewell also is a distinguished professor from the Old School. He plays in pain, as was evident in Saturday's 88-79 victory over the Heat, when the Wolves played the second of back-to-back games. Sprewell was having a hard time moving, but he wouldn't budge from the lineup. Every time he limped upcourt, dragging that left foot, he was making a statement. Okay. Let's cast our minds back to 1997, when Sprewell played for the Golden State Warriors and P.J. Carlesimo was the coach. The Constitutional Rights Foundation describes the "old-school" outlook of Latrell Sprewell in this Spring 1998 issue of Sports & The Law: Early in the season, the Warriors were losing a...
November 15, 2003
No matter how good an athlete you were, no matter how important an executive you are -- it's never too late to make a complete ass out of yourself, as former Dodgers and Angels pitcher Bill Singer demonstrated: New York Met official Bill Singer, a former All-Star pitcher with the Dodgers and Angels, directed racially insensitive remarks at Dodger executive Kim Ng in deriding her Chinese heritage this week, baseball officials who witnessed the incident said Friday. What were the comments anyway, you ask? Some critique of current Chinese political philosophy? A crack about Confucius? Mocking Mao? According to witnesses, Singer approached Ng in the bar of the hotel where the meetings occurred. After asking Ng, the highest-ranking Asian American in the major leagues, questions about her background in a sarcastic tone, Singer began speaking nonsensically in mock Chinese before eventually leaving. ... Two officials within earshot described the exchange....
November 16, 2003
No story to link to here -- I'm watching the Vikings-Raiders game, and the Raiders are running all over the Vikes, who haven't helped the defense out by coughing up the ball at least four time. They're down by eleven in the 4th quarter. The announcer, Bill Maas, decided that he would be clever about the Vike's lack of run defense. This is what he said: "The Vikings need a whole case of Immodium, because they can't stop Oakland's runs." Ha ha, hee hee. Sam Rosen was just about speechless after that crack, if you'll pardon my pun. I'd say Maas needs something to stop his diarrhea of the mouth. And the Vikes just fumbled again. Oh goody....
December 11, 2003
Imagine my surprise when I found out -- via Hugh Hewitt -- that the Dodgers were about to close a deal with the Yankees to trade ace starting pitcher Kevin Brown: The Dodgers agreed to trade pitcher Kevin Brown and his $15-million salary for next season to the New York Yankees for pitcher Jeff Weaver, two minor leaguers and $3 million in cash, major league baseball sources said today. ... The deal would give the Dodgers the financial flexibility they lacked the last few seasons. Hamstrung by Brown's salary, the Dodgers were unable to upgrade a punchless offense last season and failed to make the playoffs for the seventh consecutive season. Fox made Kevin Brown baseball's first $100 million man, a label he never really lived down in five seasons with the Dodgers. When he was healthy, Brown was brilliant in his surly, intense way. However, he only stayed healthy...
December 29, 2003
... will likely get you assaulted today in Minnesota, after watching the 'Queens blow a 6-0 record into a 9-7 finish, complete with four losses to teams that wound up with 4-12 records, including the Cardinals yesterday. Water cooler talk mostly centers on coach Mike Tice's future with the Vikings (consensus: not coming back) and the stadium initiative, which seems a lot more remote than it did on Saturday. I was prepared to discuss how frustrating this season was, and how bitterly disappointing it was yesterday to watch the Vikings fail to cover the end zone properly on the last play when that was the only part of the field in question -- next time, get behind the receivers! -- but then I found out that the guys at Fraters Libertas have it covered here. And here. And here, and here, and here and here. We take our football seriously...
January 6, 2004
Pete Rose has written a blockbuster new book about his life in which he finally admits he gambled on baseball while managing the Cincinatti Reds, after 14 years of public denials. Charley Hustle no doubt believes that this public admission of guilt will unlock the doors of the Hall of Fame and possibly allow him to manage a team again. Initial public reaction indicates that fans hope for the same thing. Allowing Rose back in the game is a big mistake, though, and his public admission appears to be not only less than heartfelt but less than complete as well. Thomas Boswell agrees with this assessment in today's Washington Post, and Boswell reminds us that Rose strung us all along for 14 years of denials and counteraccusations, both from himself and his many proxies: "I'm sure that I'm supposed to act all sorry or sad or guilty now that I've...
January 16, 2004
Women's professional sports, with the possible exception of tennis, have always struggled to find a wide audience. The problem goes back as far as the defunct professional women's baseball league featured in the excellent movie A League Of Their Own right through today's WNBA and LPGA. It seems that every time league executives address this problem, some idiot comes up with solutions like the one offered by FIFA president Sepp Blatter for women's soccer: FIFA president Sepp Blatter has caused an uproar by suggesting women soccer players should wear tighter shorts to bring more attention to their sport. Blatter said women's soccer needed different sponsors from the men's game and should seek to attract fashion and cosmetics companies by featuring "more feminine uniforms." "Tighter shorts, for example," Blatter told the Swiss newspaper SonntagsBlick. "In volleyball the women also wear other uniforms than the men. Pretty women are playing football today....
January 28, 2004
Apparently, in the eyes of Minnesota Golden Gophers athletes, Minnesota's natural beauty is a terrific attraction for high school recruits. Unfortunately, some of the student hosts gave recruits too close a look at some of our beauties: Gophers athletic director Joel Maturi said he will investigate recruiting practices within the football program after learning that high school prospects went to several Minneapolis bars and a strip club during an official recruiting visit in December. Three prospects acknowledged Tuesday that they were part of a group that visited bars as minors and that several were served alcohol. A group also went to Deja Vu, a downtown strip club that admits patrons 18 and older and does not serve alcohol. I am certain that high-school prospects would like nothing better than to go to strip clubs and get tanked, but the question is how a public university allowed such a thing to...
February 1, 2004
... because I do so well at predictions -- here's mine: Carolina Panthers 27, New England Patriots 24. BBD&O, 2 Clio nominations. I think I will be live-blogging the Super Bowl, mostly to review the ads. We'll see if that works out ......
5:40 - How could Vinatieri blow a 31-yard field goal attempt? It looked like the snap came to the wrong side of the holder, and the timing got thrown off. Speaking of being off, the commercials so far are not impressive. The "monkey on the back" car commercial was exceedingly lame, and the Bud Light commercial was only good for a slight grin. They spend $2 million a minute for these? 5:45 - The Panthers can't get any offense going so far, and the second set of commercials is just as lame as the first. 5:49 - The First Mate liked the Bud bikini-wax commercial. I was cringing. Go figure. 5:55 - The H&R Block commerical with the Willie Nelson advice doll was the first really good commercial so far. The Don Zimmer moment was classic. 5:59 - The Panther's Wil Witherspoon just blew up a reverse better than I've...
7:38 - King suggests that "Saving Silverman" was better than the first half of the game. Well, maybe he's right; you don't get to see Neil Diamond on screen too often, and I don't think you'll ever see R. Lee Ermey play a gay football coach again. 7:43 - Streaker on the field before the kickoff. Who said there's no action in this game? 7:58 - The Bud Light chimp commercial was worth a chuckle. The Panthers were lucky that the second-down pass play was ruled incomplete. It was obviously a catch, and the fumble would have resulted in a New England touchdown. Like the two teams, the officiating has been mediocre during this game. 8:06 - Scariest line of the night: "Erections lasting longer than four hours require medical attention." Owwww. That ought to keep you from trying Cialis. What's with all of the E.D. commercials, anyway? 8:11 -...
February 2, 2004
During my live-blogging of the Super Bowl, I mentioned the Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake strip show that occurred at the end of the halftime show. Apparently, I was mistaken in my initial viewing of the scene, as the NFL, CBS, and MTV have apologized for an unplanned "wardrobe malfunction": CBS apologized on Sunday for an unexpectedly R-rated end to its Super Bowl halftime show, when singer Justin Timberlake tore off part of Janet Jackson's top, exposing her breast. ... The two singers were performing a flirtatious duet to end the halftime show, and at the song's finish, Timberlake reached across Jackson's leather gladiator outfit and pulled off the covering to her right breast. The network quickly cut away from the shot, and did not mention the incident on the air. But there was a sticker over the nipple, as I said during my live blog, and now that I've replayed it...
February 17, 2004
The Los Angeles Dodgers, a proud but chronically underachieving franchise, took steps to correct that in the first days of the Frank McCourt era by hiring Oakland A's assistant GM Paul DePodesta: DePodesta, Beane's top assistant since November 1998, faces a considerable challenge. A 1995 cum laude graduate of Harvard University with a degree in economics, he inherits one of baseball's largest budgets -- Los Angeles' $105 million payroll last year nearly doubled Oakland's -- but also one of the sport's most consistently underachieving teams. The Dodgers haven't won a postseason game since defeating Oakland in the 1988 World Series, last reached the playoffs in 1996 and finished 15 1/2 games behind the National League West-winning Giants a year ago despite recording the majors' best ERA. Los Angeles also ranked last in the majors in scoring and, despite the best efforts of previous G.M. Dan Evans, has failed to obtain...
March 2, 2004
Sometimes a post is difficult to categorize; this one could go under Sports or Science, I suppose. The San Francisco Chronicle reported on its website late last night that San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds took steroids and human-growth hormone from a lab in the center of a federal investigation, according to information provided to the feds: Investigators also were told that New York Yankees stars Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield, as well as three other major leaguers and one NFL player, were given steroids, the newspaper reported. Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, gave the players the drugs from the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, according to information given to the government and shared with the newspaper. ... The Chronicle reported that two of Bonds' former teammates — Marvin Benard of the Chicago White Sox (news) and Kansas City catcher Benito Santiago — and former Oakland infielder Randy Velarde also received...
March 3, 2004
When people ask me to identify a hero, sometimes I have difficulty answering. Sir Thomas More? General Anthony McAuliffe, who famously replied "Nuts!" to a German demand for surrender at Bastogne? The Canadian diplomats who risked their lives to smuggle Americans out of Teheran in 1979? All good answers, of course, but now one man can take his rightful place with these other people of courage: Saint Paul of Fraters Libertas. JB Doubtless writes today about how SP spoke truth about an evil, in the middle of the lion's den (er, Giants den) itself. Here is an excerpt of this inspiring display of righteous bravery: Something sent SP off (a Bonds dinger? the memory fails) and he yelled "HE'S JUICED". Embarassed, but laughing, TRAH and I continued watching the game. But he wasn't done. In what could only be described as drunken, maniacal boorishness SP launched into a ten minute...
March 9, 2004
The Pittsburgh Steelers, who underperformed their way to an out-of-the-playoffs finish last season, made a huge step forward in kick-starting their moribund offense by signing former Eagles running back Duce Staley this afternoon: Free-agent running back Duce Staley will continue to play his football in the state of Pennsylvania, but to do so, he's going to have to take the turnpike west to Pittsburgh. Staley, the former Eagle, has agreed to a five-year, $14 million contract with the Steelers, agent Leigh Steinberg said Tuesday night. One of the most sought-after rushers in the free-agent marketplace, Staley will receive a $4 million signing bonus as part of the deal. The Steelers plan on releasing last season's feature running back, Amos Zereoue, who has talent but for some reason could never catch fire in Pittsburgh. They intend on teaming up the Duce with the Bus, Jerome Bettis, who will continue his amazing...
March 31, 2004
Paul Hornung, who had an illustrious, Heisman Award career at Notre Dame and a brilliant Hall of Fame NFL career, may have had his Al Campanis moment last night in a radio interview when he stated that Notre Dame needed to lower its academic standards in order to attract black athletes: Football great Paul Hornung said in a radio interview that his alma mater, Notre Dame, needs to lower its academic standards to "get the black athlete." "As far as Notre Dame is concerned, we're going to have to ease it up a little bit," Hornung told Detroit's WXYT-AM in an interview before the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame banquet Tuesday. ... "We can't stay as strict as we are as far as the academic structure is concerned because we've got to get the black athlete," Hornung said in the interview. "We must get the black athlete if we're going...
April 5, 2004
The Los Angeles Dodgers, who have underachieved for several years and haven't won a playoff game since Orel Hershiser beat the A's in 1988, finally pulled the trigger on a major trade for a big-time hitter ... but somehow this sounds familiar: If all goes well, Milton Bradley will be that long-awaited impact hitter, stirring a dormant Dodger offense to life and displaying his supreme talent for the hometown fans. If not, he'll be the guy who displaced an entire outfield on the eve of the season opener, a volatile personality injected into the clubhouse of a manager whose contract expires at the end of the season. New owner Frank McCourt promised a big bat before the season started, and new General Manager Paul DePodesta delivered with 24 hours to spare, but only after the Cleveland Indians basically fired Bradley for misbehavior. The Dodgers gambled on him Sunday, trading their...
April 9, 2004
As some of you know, the Los Angeles Dodgers have been my favorite sports team since the Captain was just a small cabin boy. My dad took me to games at Dodger Stadium, one of the few temples of baseball, back when Wes Parker played first base, and I went to several games a year there until I moved to Minnesoooooooota in 1997. We're talking 30 years of bleeding Dodger blue, people. So one of the ongoing symptoms of this chronic disease is that I read the Los Angeles Times on line every day to catch up with any news from the Blue Crew and to find any hope at all that we'll win our first playoff game since 1988. Now that the season has started, I aim for the LAT Sports section with a laser focus, as Dick Clarke would say on his American Grandstand tour. These days, the...
April 10, 2004
IRS agents raided a drug-testing lab on Thursday where results and samples of steroid tests performed on major-league baseball players were being held: Federal authorities probing an alleged steroid distribution ring have seized the results and samples of drug tests on selected major league baseball players from a drug-testing lab, a spokesman for the lab said Friday. Internal Revenue Service agents served a search warrant to obtain "documentation and specimens" from a Quest Diagnostics lab in Las Vegas, Quest spokesman Gary Samuels said. Samuels would not say whether IRS agents took the drug-test results or specimen of Barry Bonds, but said the agents took materials consistent with a federal subpoena that had sought test results and specimens from the San Francisco Giants' slugger and fewer than a dozen other players. Among them were New York Yankees Gary Sheffield and Jason Giambi. The raid occurred Thursday, shortly after the Major League...
April 17, 2004
Fox News reports today on the arrest of St. Louis Blues' center Mike Danton on suspricion of conspiracy to murder, in a story where the subtext seems to speak louder than the story: A center for the St. Louis Blues was arrested Friday in an alleged scheme to kill an acquaintance he feared could ruin his career, the FBI said. Mike Danton, 23, was arrested at the airport in San Jose, Calif., after the Blues were knocked out of the NHL playoffs in a loss to the San Jose Sharks on Thursday. According to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Illinois, Danton told a female friend that a hitman from Canada was coming to kill him and asked the woman if she knew someone who would kill the person for $10,000. The woman, identified as Katie Wolfmeyer, passed his call to another man, described in the complaint as...
June 2, 2004
Mayor James Hahn announced today that he now supports using the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum as the venue to attract a new NFL team to the nation's #2 market. LA has been without any pro football team since the early 1990s, when the Rams left for Saint Louis, leaving La-La land in the lurch. However, Hahn's proposal will likely wind up chasing off the NFL rather than attracting them back, regardless of the TV revenues: Mayor James Hahn said he now thinks a modified Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum would be the appropriate home for the possible return of an NFL team to the city. Hahn had previously backed a proposal to build a new stadium, but said the progress the Coliseum has made in preparing environmental impact documents has given it the edge over other possible sites. ... A $400 million renovation to prepare it for a pro team would...
July 26, 2004
The good news for today is that we have an Arroyo who is willing to fight. The bad news: it's the wrong Arroyo: A bench-clearing brawl broke out between the Yankees and Boston Red Sox yesterday after Bronson Arroyo hit New York's Alex Rodriguez with a pitch in the top of the third inning. Rodriguez stared down Arroyo as he started walking toward first. Catcher Jason Varitek, still wearing his mask, got between them as the AL MVP walked up the baseline and, after some jawing — of the distinctly unprintable variety — pushed the Yankees star in the face. The dugouts emptied. On the other hand, perhaps A-Rod merely put into practice what Teresa Heinz-Kerry urged from all of her fellow Beantowners -- a little more %$#@*&% civility, damn it!...
November 13, 2004
Baseball has decided to postpone looking at instant replay after major-league GMs split on continuing its review: Upon further review, baseball will hold off on taking a look at instant replay. After watching umpires reverse almost every missed call in the postseason, major league general managers split 15-15 Thursday on whether to keep exploring the subject. "Based on that vote, it's unlikely we'll do anything substantive in the next year to pursue instant replay," MLB executive vice president Sandy Alderson said. In the past twenty years, baseball games have bloated from an average running time of two hours to well over three hours now. I used to be embarrassed for Los Angeles fans who ducked out after the sixth inning, but now if you have kids you can't keep them up past that time for a night game. Increased advertising time, needed to pay the skyrocketing salaries of the players,...
November 27, 2004
No, I'm not talking about the Ron Artest riot in Detroit -- I'm talking about the annual battle of Good vs Evil, the Forces of Light vs The Forces of Darkness ... the annual Notre Dame/USC football game. The Los Angeles Times reports that the Fighting Irish have had their difficulties this year, and they're looking for a little redemption: Three victories over bowl-bound teams and two wins over squads in the top 10 are normally confidence builders for most college football programs. Not at Notre Dame. The glass is either full or empty for the Irish, who consider a season that doesn't include at least seven wins and a bowl championship series game unacceptable. ... The Irish have had more ups and downs this season than Magic Mountain's newest thrill ride. They upset highly ranked Michigan and Tennessee — after losing to Brigham Young in the season opener, a...