here comes the draft..

I am pretty damn mad at the NFL. For the past two months all we have heard is the draft is coming and now that it is 48 hours away, I am sick of the NFL. This off- season has been a disaster for this league. Players getting arrested for domestic violence and battery. Sexual assault, gun possession, public intoxication are the headlines. Trades have also stained this league his off season as many great players have changed uniforms. Mcnabb is in Washington, Marshall is in Miami, they Jets seem to make a smart move every day. Even the Giants signed a decent defensive back. The Cardinals lost Kurt Warner to retirement and the Browns gave Derek Anderson to them. They also traded away Brady Quinn. Thomas Jones is no longer a Jet because they signed L.T. Mike Shanahan is coaching in Washington. The schedule comes out today and i feel like last season never ended. I love football don't get me wrong but the NFL has absolutely pushed every sport off of the back page. Pete Carroll is in Seattle. He signed Mike Williams hoping to rejuvenate his underachieving career. The 49ers have gotten Ted Ginn Jr. to go with Crabtree and the great young tight end. Combine that with Gore and they have a great team coming back this year. The Eagles have so much offensive talent that is Kevin Kolb cannot do the job, Vick will. We haven't even mentioned the super participants and Brett Favre. So many questions and so much mystery going into this season. There will not be an undefeated team this year. The talent has been spread all over the league this off season. There are teams that have made interesting moves to give players a chance. Carolina and Miami are going to trust their weapons to young qb's. Chris Johnson and Vince Young will have a year together and can Houston defense help out their offense?
I will not do a draft preview because the first round has so many stories and I have a feeling that all of the trading has not concluded. I think the Browns want Bradford and want the first spot. I think that they are stupid. They got rid of Brady Quinn so I guess they think that someone in this draft has a better upside. Think about what the Browns have done since they made the playoffs. Edwards gone. Winslow gone. Anderson gone. Mike Holmgren is inheriting a catastrophe. I don't want to comment about the Steelers. They used to be my second favorite team. Perhaps their owner should stop being an ambassador to Ireland and take care of his football team. I heard today that McNabb wants T.O. in Washington. I guess the filmed an episode of the Spike T.v. show when fans compete against pros( Pros Vs Joes) and made peace. Shanahan loves T.O. and wanted him in Denver. I would not be shocked if T.O. does not play a down all season. Then there is Tim Tebow!!! Colt McCoy, Jimmy Clausen. Dez Bryant should be a top 10 pick. C.J.Spiller is going to give teams headaches all season. He is soooooooo fast.
I really hate talking football don't I....

the playoffs are here

The NBA and NHL playoffs are here and normally I am somewhat excited to watch them. The Hockey playoffs are the best playoffs of all of the sports because every night is a different game. One night the goalies can "stand on their head". One Oveckin and Crosby can get a hat trick and dominate. One night the defense of the Devils can be difficult to penetrate. Vancouver can hit and physically beat up teams. Chicago and San Jose can too. The NBA unless you are a fan of west coast basketball, you are bored. The Heat and Celtics are interesting because we want to see if Wade can play like Jordan. We also want to see if this is the end of the Celtics re-emergence or are they about to fade out to oblivion. Lebron is a god. He has Shaquille Oneal and Antawn Jamison on his team. They are going to be a tough out. He needs to win this year and erase Kobe Bryant from out of our conscience. The west has great match ups and on any night any of the teams can beat each other. Kevin Durant is in his first post season and everyone is waiting to see how he handles the pressure. Unfortunately he has to go up against the "black Mamba" who is looking to repeat as a champ. The Spurs and Mavericks should go all seven games. Both teams are on their last legs and want to give their two hall of fame players a proper send off. Jason Kidd has been to the finals twice and this may be his last hurrah. Tim Duncan is finally slowing down and the Spurs defense has not been the same this year. The team on the rise could be the Blazers!!! They are so athletic and with Andre Miller running the point, they have a better identity than they have in years past. Can You imagine how good the would be if they had Greg Oden and Brandon Roy healthy? Phoenix is very nervous about this match up because Portland is very long and quick. They will be a headache to eliminate. Utah should be an easy out but Deron Williams is a beast. Denver should have a 2-0 lead but let their lack of concentration get the best of them the other night. Can they contain Boozer and Williams? We shall see because they have only one mission and that is to beat the Lakers in the western conference finals. We hope that George Karl is getting healthy and that his cancer will not be an excuse why his team lost.
The NHL has some intriguing match ups leading up to the game that we all want to see. For some strange reason Detroit has forgotten how to play defense. The Coyotes have shown great puck movement and have exploited the Red Wings defensively. The Bruins have done the same to Buffalo. The Sabres are supposed to have superior goal tending and the Bruins have shown no fear. Montreal has to start playing better defense or they will be going home real soon. Brodeur has not been sharp yet. The Kings have shown me some moxie that I did not think they had. They are young and show no fear. The Blackhawks have been a shock to me all season. I thought that last year was a fluke but they can really play. Nashville is not impressed. San Jose better start taking Colorado seriously or they may be home for the summer sooner than they want to be. Sid the Kid was awesome the other night and they are ready to make a run. They have to avoid the Devils after what they did against them this season. Should be a fun spring eh?

the people's champion

Every Monday, I have so much to write about and then I get to the computer and I lose what I want to say. I had this whole piece about why America loves Phil Mickelson and I just lost my train of thought. Phil is Joe Frazier. He is the people's champion. Is that a compliment? Joe Frazier was the guy who represented the little guy and when he beat Muhammad Ali his victory was supposed to make all of the little people feel great for one day. (or until the rematch).. Actually Joe Frazier then fought the big bad George Foreman and got knocked around and out after a couple of rounds. Then he and Ali had a rematch and Ali they both nearly killed each other before Frazier's corner threw in the towel. Phil is being portrayed as the family man. The man who would never cheat on his wife. He is being portrayed as the man who would take care of his sick wife and mom and take care of his kids. I remember when Brett Favre's wife had cancer and Brett shaved his head so she would not be bald alone. He became America's dad, brother and friend. I respected him more for doing that than being a football player. I respect Phil Mickelson for winning golf tournaments. If he had won a tournament while Tiger was away, everyone would have minimized his results and tried to take away his joy. He is the people's champion because he does so many bone headed things to lose tournaments and people pity him. I would hate to be called the people's champion if every one only roots for me because I have a "Tin Cup" moments. He is not the anti Tiger that world wants him to be. He loves Tiger and Tiger loves him. They buy each other lavish and fun gifts for each other on their birthdays. Their wives are friends. Phil knows that he could have had the career that Tiger has had had he not made so many mistakes at winning time. He has actually outplayed Tiger head to head in final groups lately.
My entire point of his blog was to say that I want the world to stop calling Phil the peoples champion because he did not cheat on his wife. Phil is a great player but he is only the people champion because he plays golf at times like he is one of us instead of way better than all of us. Joe Frazier was only called the people's champ because he did not speak out against the war like Ali did. I will root for both of them this season and hope that they will be paired together in a final round in a major and settle it on the course...
And today i hear that Mickelson may be a baby daddy.... when will it end

I have come to realize that you cannot work in media if you like people

I have to come to realize that if you like people, you cannot work in the media. You cannot like or be positive about anything. No one is ever sincere. No one tells the truth. No one is redeemable. No one is right. No one can make mistakes. I am sure that there are people in media who can find a way to hate Derek Jeter, Peyton Manning, Lebron James, Roger Federer. Hell, remember when Keri Strugg broke her foot winning the Olympics for this country and the flack that was caused because she was not in the team and that Bela had carried her and was showing her favoritism? Remember when Oksana Baiul won the gold and Nancy Kerrigan was being accused of showing bad sportsmanship and some of the criticism she took from that. Every one in the media is a critic and they find a way to create ways to hate you. Ever since I was child, for some crazy reason I have always had a stronger affinity for players who the public dislikes. I love Barry Bonds. I love Mike Tyson. I love Terrell Owens. I loved Reggie Jackson. I am becoming a big Alex Rodriguez fan. I hated the Eagles but I always root for Donovan McNabb. I am a big fan of Bernard Hopkins. Serena Williams, John McEnroe, Marty McSorley too. I had the pleasure of having a beer with Marty McSorley after he got banned from hockey after hitting Donald Brashere in the head with his stick. One of the nicest guys I have ever met. Dennis Rodman, one of the nicest people I have ever met.
So Tiger Woods puts out this commercial that everyone either hates or finds creepy. People are shocked today that he got a warm reception. I listened to the reaction of the media after he apologized for not be a person without flaw. Why do they want us to hate these people. Remember the woman on the soccer team that got caught playing a bit too aggressively in the soccer game. Everybody jumped on her for her actions. She should have been arrested. The reason they want you to hate them is each individual media thinks the world is their oyster and that if you don't like them, you don't belong in their oyster. Creating bad guys sells newspapers and keeps you watching. Why else Rush Limbaugh criticize Donovan McNabb or make statements about black quarterbacks when he is new to the sports genre. The media wants to keep reminding us that athletes make millions of dollars so that we can not aspire to be like them, no they want us to remind them that we are paying their salaries dammit and you better sign my piece of paper. To me that is silly. If the New York times paid 252 million dollars to their reporters for every story that they wrote, there would not be any negative stories to write about because they would be on a equal playing field as the athletes. I am tired of being told who I should love or hate. I will tell you all someone to hate. This woman in Florida gave her daughter drugs so she could go out is disgraceful to me. This poor 2 year old is now gone because mommy wanted to go an party. I don't want to hear that she needs compassion or mental health. She deserves to be stoned publicly. I am sorry but she actually has done something to be hated for. Why should we hate Tiger Woods? He did not cheat on me. I do not look to him or any athlete for my morality. Stop trying to make me hate him...

Many topics to touch on today..

What is an impressive streak in your mind? Joe Dimaggio's streak of 56 hits is unbelievable. Rocky Marciano won 49 straight fights without a loss. How about Don Mattingly, Ken Griffey Jr., hitting a home run in 8 straight games. The U.C.L.A. streak and the UCONN women's streak are very impressive but some might say that they had an advantage over every team they played against. The men's game in the 70's was way watered down. Most of the great players went to a handful of schools and the talent pool only started to expand in the 80's and 90's. Some will argue that the same schools in the women's game get the great players so you are only competing with 15 schools a year for a championship and if you are doing it regionally, you are only competing against 4 schools. It seems that every year Tennessee and Connecticut get the blue chip recruit and the other schools get the left overs. Duke, North Carolina, Stanford, Rutgers, Oklahoma, Baylor, Maryland, Notre Dame, are the cream of the crop. Nebraska had a great season only to be knocked out of the tournament early in both the conference and the NCAA tourneys. The women's game is good for have an anomaly team come from out of no where. I can name Texas Tech, Villanova from a few years ago, Louisiana Tech and Vanderbilt were good when I was younger, and USC had the greatest player of all times in Cheryl Miller and Lisa Leslie play there. So anytime you win more than 20 games in a row it is impressive, anyone one who says differently has never played sports. The amount of pressure that these youngsters have been under over the past two seasons to win is crazy. Herm Edwards said it best,"you Play to Win the Game!" Don't you forget it!!! I salute the Connecticut Huskies women's team because they have truly earned my respect. Coach Geno is 7-0 in championship games. That is an amazing streak. They have 77 out of 78 games by double digits. That is outrageous. Next year they have tough games to start the season and it will be awesome to see if Maya Moore can lead them to another perfect season. I hope she can..
Another topic of discussion is Tiger Woods. I have spoken on his situation and it is time for the world to move on. If he wins the tournament this weekend, it would be the greatest and worse thing in the world. It would be bad because the entire golfing community should retire if he wins because he cannot be that much better than all of these players. The confidence of every player will be crushed and he will ascend higher up in the pantheon of earthly mortals. It becomes a good thing if he wins because in my opinion he needs a hug. He needs someone to hug him and say we love you and move forward with your life and whatever happens happens. Anything is possible...
The start of the baseball season always is exciting and exhilarating until your team loses or someone gets hurt. There so many teams missing key players and already some players are snapping at the media. Don't you love the analysts and their predictions. If Pujols stays on this pace he will hit 330 home runs. Roy Halliday may win 30 games this year. Tim Lincecum may strike out 300. Matt Cain too!!!
Finally, football players need to leave women alone. If you go to a club, ask your security to ask the bouncer to get you some ladies and screen the ladies and whoever does not give you the time of day, let them walk away. When I was a bouncer, I had several athletes ask me to let women in V.I.P room or area and usually the athlete would buy thousands of dollars of alcohol and find one girl he liked and everyone played nice and went about their business. Now recently, this making it rain crap has created havoc in clubs and needs to stop. Some one has already been paralyzed already and if you want to throw money up in the air at least do it in a hotel room where you can control what happens. Also stop touching women. If they want to be touched they will let you know. Women. Don't cheapen yourself to be with a star player. If you don't want to be hit or touched, walk away from trouble. Don't take the free alcohol unless you are ready to entertain what is coming next. Every year it is the same story. When will both sexes learn?

Growing up..

Growing up in a single parent home for most of my childhood, I was left to decide whether or not I wanted to play sports. I played in a recreation league in football, basketball and baseball. My father nor my mother forced me to play any sports. They did not want me staying at home all day either, but they never made me go out for teams in any sport. I was influenced by the players on the television, my brother, and I liked talking sports with my father. My friends that I grew up with were older than me and they influenced me as well. Sports was a good thing and being a fan of brash and cocky players was okay too because they were usually the best players on the field or court. Reggie Jackson comes to mind. Micheal Jordan, the 86 Mets, Lawrence Taylor, Mike Tyson, Larry Holmes and of course the Greatest! Jon McEnroe is another. The point is I loved playing sports because of what it gave me. It gave me pride, it made me feel important, it made me feel like I was a part of something, it increased my self esteem. Sports also has been a huge reason for some of the jobs I have gotten. I was on a sports trivia show because of my knowledge and I have been on other sports shows because of my passion.
The point of my self serving monologue is I don't know what has happened to our youth today. They would rather play video games or skateboard that pick up a basketball or baseball. These kids are so disinterested in playing sports. they have no passion to play or even learn about the game. One of the biggest reason why kids are so fat today is that they don't want to leave their homes and play sports at all. They will go to a friends home and play video games but break a sweat, you must be crazy. Now today there are games where kids can break a sweat and most kids will play those games when they are younger, but our youths today would rather learn how to get girls, buy drugs, or shoot someone than learn how to throw a baseball or play football. It is sad that young black kids don't even bother playing baseball anymore. When a sport has to go out and purchase fields with the hope of having kids playing on them, that is a problem. The funny thing is that baseball can provide more opportunities than bot football and basketball. Football may 47 to 53 roster spots on a team, but most of the jobs are race specific. Although that may be changing, I don't recall counting more than 3 white running backs and maybe 5 or 6 white wide receivers in the NFL who are actually doing anything. Don't get me started on other positions. The point is why has baseball been so forgotten. Barry Bonds cannot be blamed for kids not wanting to play baseball. Steroids is not a reason either. There is more money in baseball than any sport in this country. Soccer makes more money globally but the money is in baseball. Tiger isn't taking kids away from baseball. People may want to watch golf on a Sunday when Tiger is in contention before they watch a baseball game, but no one I grew up with can afford golf clubs. Lebron and Kobe are taking kids away from baseball, but they are only continuing what Jordan, and Dr.J did before them. I wrote a blog a while ago about how kids think that if they can dunk, they are good players. Well that is only true if you can make the dunk or get to the rim and be able to dunk.
My baseball team cares about as much about playing baseball as I do about eating my favorite sausage and pepper sandwich ten times a day. My job is to get them to play better and catch the ball. That is it. My job is to motivate them to want to win. I don't know what else I can do...

What the he** are eagles doing?

Here is one of the crazy things form the weekend.. What the He** did the Eagles just do? They gave away not only their franchise greatest player, but they gave him a division rival. Ever since Donovan McNabb has been an Eagle he has been treated with little to no respect. The fans wanted Ricky Williams and on Draft day he was booed. Ricky Williams smoked his career away and probably would have been killed if he wen to Philly. He has taken the team to five NFC title games and one Super Bowl. He is not the reason they have not won the big game but he gets blame when they lose and never gets credit when they win. He once threw four touchdown passes in a game on a broken ankle. He completed a fourth and 26 against Green Bay in a playoff game. He has battled Warner, Favre, Brady, Mannings,( Eli and Peyton), Vick, and Rothlisberger just to name a few. He should be a Philadelphia icon. He should be revered like Iverson, but because he never won the Super Bowl, he will never get the love that he deserved. He is not Dr. J, Moses, Mike Schmidt, Ron Hextall, or Pete Rose. He is the most disrespected superstar of my generation. He has done nothing wrong to anyone. Terrell Owens threw him under a bus. He just led this team to the playoffs despite not have one of their key running backs. The Eagles released him too. The team just drafted several talented receivers in the last two seasons for him to play with. Kevin Kolb may be the second coming of Brett Favre but he is no Donovan McNabb. Now McNabb goes to Washington to be tutored by Mike Shanahan. Shannahan has had John Elway, Steve Young, and now gets a hungry McNabb. He gets a hungry Clinton Portis, and a young receiving corp that has under achieved. They have great tight ends who can stretch the field. Chris Cooley is already a pro bowl tight end. Fred Davis is a budding star. I am scratching my head. Micheal Vick and Kevin Kolb will battle for the job. Kolb was great in college and can throw the ball through a wall if needed. Vick has been compared to McNabb his entire life. He was supposed to go to Syracuse and replace McNabb there, but chose Virginia Tech. He has to be wondering what his future holds.
The Eagles also could have had Albert Haynesworth but chose a second round pick instead. Whoever this pick is, he better be ready to have his life scrutinized for the next 15 years...