Plaxico Burress Is In Legal Trouble?

I had no idea…

Plaxico Burress is a wide-receiver who plays for the New York Giants. He accidentally shot himself in a club last weekend. He faces charges and Michael Bloomberg’s wrath. It’s a relatively big deal.

Unless you’re ESPN. Then you’d have to believe, if measured by the coverage they’ve dedicated to this issue, that Plaxico Burress committed genocide. Every episode of Sportscenter features nonstop coverage of this idiotic shooting. Everything circled in pink, above, is Burress related; there is apparently no other sports news going on anywhere in the world. The degree to which the network has gone overboard on this is shocking beyond words.

Two Other Observations

-Skip Bayless’s downright glee at all of this is edging uncomfortably toward racism. This morning, he was positively thrilled that the mayor of New York had issued a fatwa against Burress, essentially glad that the mayor had reminded Burress of his place. I don’t know; I just can’t imagine Bayless getting this excited if a white athlete had accidentally shot himself hunting.

-If this had been Brett Favre, ESPN’s offices would have drowned in the tears of its own adoring reporters.

Technorati Tags: ESPN, Plaxico Burress, Skip Bayless

Rodriguez Bolts For Michigan…

This is nothing more than a collection of thoughts about Rich Rodriguez’s decision to leave Morgantown for Ann Arbor.

-Got an email from my friend Rachel this morning, usually a mild-mannered person. Here it is, in its entirety:

Subject: Rich Rodriguez is a total fucking asshole! Body: See Subject Line.

-A lot of people will be sad that we’ve lost such a winning coach, which I understand, because I remember what it was like having Don “Coal’s Good” Nehlen doing the coaching. But, with the exception of the Sugar Bowl, we shouldn’t go around believing that Rodriguez really gave all that much to us. Yes, we won the Gator Bowl last year with a come-from-behind victory.

We lost Miami game when Rodriguez blitzed everyone on a fourth-and-long, allowing the first down and the momentum to go to Miami, depriving us of an enormous upset. We got eviscerated in bowl games too - Florida State and Maryland both ran roughshod over us. And Rodriguez, for all of his alleged brilliance, wasn’t particularly bright when it came to spotting talent. Bednarik had to be half-dead before he finally turned the offense over to Pat White, and Steve Slaton only got to run the ball because he performed well on the few occasions he was trusted with the ball.

Of course, there was also this. On the biggest stage with the best opportunity WVU has had to play for a national championship since 1993, Rodriguez couldn’t help but keep calling the same play, over and over and over and over and over again. When it didn’t work, he could not adjust. And so it was that our shot at the national championship disappeared.

-Michigan is going to have fun with Rodriguez. So too will their cheerleaders. Let’s not forget Rodriguez’s “brother”, who will always make things interesting. And let’s also not forget that Michigan cares about one thing: beating Ohio State. Rodriguez, with everything on the line, couldn’t be Pitt. Ohio State is no Pitt? If I lived in Colombus, I’d be celebrating the fact that I just won the next four or five rivalry games.

-Rumor has it that Rodriguez told his players that he tried to stay at WVU, but WVU wouldn’t “let” him. What RichRod meant was that he tried, for the second year in a row, to totally soak the University for more money and the school wouldn’t cave to his insane demands. Claiming that he wanted to stay to his players is as ugly and two-faced as it gets. He could have at least been honest with them. Of course, this is a man who cannot spell honest.

-Rodriguez also took two of his assistants with him to Michigan, meaning that he has basically left the coaching cupboard completely empty for our upcoming BCS game. It takes guts to completely abandon a team before an enormous game. According to that article, he’s taking other coaches too. In other words, here was a man so loyal to his school and his home-state that he plundered the athletic department upon leaving, thus abandoning his school, his home-state and all of his players. Good times.

-Finally, there is the issue of who takes over at WVU. Plenty of talk focuses on former Auburn coach Terry Bowden. He grew up in Morgantown, and has claimed it is his dream job. He also hasn’t coached in ten years. It’s a longshot, but here’s hoping WVU goes out on a limb and considers a coach capable of getting the best out of his players: Texas Tech’s Mike Leach. The man is an offensive genius who wouldn’t simply run Patrick White up the middle, hoping against hope that something worked out. He’d also have a shot at a BCS bowl game every single year, something he doesn’t have at Texas Tech by virtue of having to compete against Texas and Oklahoma annually.

Chances are, WVU makes the regressive choice with Bowden. But Leach could do great things with the offensive talents that we’ve got here. Here’s hoping he’s at least considered.

-As for Rodriguez? Rachel put it best - he is a total fucking asshole. The less said, the better.

Earth to Balko: Calm Down

I love Radley Balko’s blog, the Agitator. I have permalinked him, I read him daily, I find myself miffed when he doesn’t update. He’s a fist-pounding Libertarian who somehow manages not to appear to be completely insane, no small feat amongst the Libertarians.

Except, that is, for when he’s cheering on his beloved Indianapolis Colts and getting furious at the New England Patriots. For a couple of years there during the height of the Patriots dynasty, nothing was more entertaining than seeing Peyton “The Golden Boy” Manning show up in big games and then completely disintegrate before our eyes. Fortunately for Manning and his legacy, last year he finally won his Super Bowl, and did so dispatching Balko’s hated Patriots.

And goodness wasn’t Balko happy when the Patriots were caught cheating earlier this season stealing signs. Balko inexplicably believes that the Patriots are the only team doing this sort of thing, but perhaps we should leave that issue alone. In the previous link Balko quoted Gregg Easterbrook, who has completely gone off the deep end with his Patriots criticism. In Easterbrook’s mind, next weekend’s Pats-Colts game will decide the future of mankind. Both Balko and Easterbrook seem to genuinely believe that while the Colts represents all that is good with football (Balko because he’s a fan, Easterbrook because he’s insane), the Patriots then represent everything that is horrible with it.

Quick confession: I’m a Pats fan. Have been ever since I went to college. Prior to going to UMass,, I didn’t care much about the NFL, save for a passing interest in the Chicago Bears.

Let’s ignore the fact that Manning set his touchdowns record on the back of some questionable play-calling late in games against hapless opponents - Easterbrook believes the Patriots’ Tom Brady is running up the score, while Manning was presumably doing the right thing. And let’s ignore the fact that Manning threw his offensive line totally under the bus after one of his more difficult losses. By all means, let’s pretend that the Colts are everything good about football, and the Patriots everything awful.

Easterbrook’s objection is vaguely tolerable, I guess. Balko’s though, and particularly as a libertarian, is positively absurd. Whereas Balko believes deeply in the authority of the marketplace to sort out winners and losers, he apparently believes that the NFL is a completely different issue. That the Patriots are steam-rolling their competition makes them classless hacks - a criticism I’m sure Balko also issues when whatever corporation effectively corners the market. Balko kills the Patriots for going for it on a fourth-and-1, a play in which the Patriots could have made the field goal. The Patriots coach, asked if he was trying to run up the score, asked rhetorically if he should have kicked the field goal. Both would have run up the score, and Balko would have no doubt been pissed about either.

What’s strange is that Balko seems to be implying that the Patriots owe their opponents something, precisely the sort of position he finds abhorrent when discussing limitations within the marketplace. How on Earth can he possibly hope to have it both ways?

Needless to say, this weekend looks like we’re heading for one of the greatest regular season games in NFL history, as the undefeated Colts host the undefeated Patriots at home. In the meantime, maybe the rhetoric can simmer, and maybe Balko can at least moderate his total freak-out whenever the Patriots are casually mentioned.

Breaking Up With West Virginia

I’ve been thinking this over for a few days, and I’ve finally decided that I’m breaking up with West Virginia. Yes, this place is my home, and yes, I love it here, but I’m done with this state’s nonstop refusal to be anything other than an ignorant cesspool. What put me over the top? This, the first story documenting the apparent departure of our men’s basketball coach, the unbelievable John Beilein.

The first thing to realize about Beilein’s departure is that a lot of people around here want him to leave. To them, the issue isn’t that he led us to the Elite Eight two years ago, or the Sweet Sixteen last year, or the NIT Championship this year, or that he coached a beautiful type of basketball, or that he assembled a fantastic group of athletes and individuals, or that he rarely let us down, or that we never had to worry about NCAA sanctions. No, the issue for these people is that he didn’t want to be here enough. The fact that he’d even consider listening to offers from NC State last year and Michigan this year led people that I know to argue that Beilein ought to leave if he hates it so much here. Like so many things in this god foresaken place, the issue isn’t anything but the individual who believes that s/he should be treated better.

One of the reasons that Beilein apparently “hates” (which is probably too strong a word) West Virginia is that our athletic department apparently refuses him small expenditures for team expenses. The only person that our athletic department is willing to consistently reward is our football coach, the idiot Rich Rodriguez, a man whose constant sideline temper tantrums are embarrassing, and whose well-known philandering is downright offensive. That he toyed with leaving WVU for Alabama last season (before the season’s completion, mind you) earned him a raise. Don’t bother asking me for an explanation.

But this about Beilein. This is about our state not doing enough to keep a talented man here. West Virginia University does this sort of thing regularly, by the way. Talented employees here - faculty, coaches, administrators - routinely leave for greener pastures, because West Virginia refuses to give its state university the sort of resources it needs to keep that talent here. I have a professor friend who is leaving at the end of this year; ultimately, it came down to money, both for him and his wife, that the university was unwilling to pay. He is amongst dozens of young, talented professors who teach here for a year, or two, or three, and then leave, because other states that actually value talent are willing to reward it. Us? We value…

Before I discuss what it is that we apparently value, maybe I ought to discuss the name that’s most likely to surface as Beilein’s replacement: Bob Huggins. Huggins is - How does one put this nicely? - a douchebag. Forget the fact that he wins games without graduating his players, forget the fact that he has been arrested on several occaisons for driving under the influence, forget the fact that he has almost zero post-season success…Huggins is from West Virginia! He was born in Morgantown! He played basketball at WVU! He has called this job his “dream” job! How could he be anything but perfect for our basketball team?

I’ll tell you how he could be anything but perfect for West Virginia: he’s Bobby Fucking Huggins. He can’t coach his way out of a wet paper bag, and he certainly can’t do it with our current crop of likeable players. He’s an ass on the sidelines and a drunk in real life. And even if he can generate some small modicum of regular season success, he can’t duplicate that in the post-season, when it actually, y’know, matters.

Yet, there will be a deafening cry in the area to bring Bobby Huggins home. With Bob Huggins at the helm, despite overwhelming evidence otherwise, surely we can finally win an NCAA championship. Just like our football team did this year, what with its favorable schedule, dominant players, and (yet another) idiotic coaching performance. (Rodriguez, by the way, is from West Virginia, like Huggins, is beloved around here, like Huggins, and when push comes to shove, completely folds under the pressure…like Huggins.)

And so, I am done. There are more reasons of course. Maybe I’ll make this a regular feature on this blog: Reasons Why I’m Breaking Up With West Virginia. I cannot stand that we would let the greatest coach Mountaineer basketball has ever had leave, and I certainly can’t stand that we’d do it over petty nickle-and-dime bullshit. The fact that we couldn’t make Beilein feel loved here, the fact that we couldn’t take care of his needs, says everything to me that I need to know about where this state’s priorities are. And the fact that we might replace him with Bob Huggins? That’s the exclamation point at the end of the fucking sentence.

Stackhouse Struggles To Understand Math

Jerry Stackhouse is pissed off that he’s being fined every time he can’t handle a foul call. He doesn’t object, necessarily, to the technical foul being called on players who can’t take responsibility for their actions, but rather that the league also fines him. However, that isn’t the point of this post.

“Everything doesn’t have to be we’re going to show you by taking your money away. A thousand dollars is a thousand dollars, no matter whether you are making $9 million or $30,000.” 22nd Paragraph, above article.

I’m no math genius or anything, but I’m pretty sure Stackhouse isn’t being, technically, intelligent. A thousand bucks to a person making $30,000? That represents 3.33 percent of the entire salary. Meanwhile, a thousand bucks to a person making $9,000,000? That represents .01 percent of the entire salary, one percent of one percent. To put that another way, Jerry Stackhouse is a fucking moron.

Fantastic Writing

Of all the genres of writing I enjoy, I think nothing pleases me more than the ‘Fuck It, I’m Just Going To Do It’ article. Usually appearing as a work of satire, the ‘Fuck It, I’m Just Going To Do It’ article appears in numerous places, in numerous ways, skewering numerous peoples. My reigning favorites:

1. Rex Grossman’s Fuck It, I’m Throwing It Downfield. The reason this article is so appealing is because Rex Grossman actually plays football this way, just throwing the ball as far as he can and hoping something good happens. It’s funny because it’s true.

2. The classic of the genre is The Onion’s Fuck Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades, a tribute of sorts to the CEO who approves of producing massively unnecessary razors.

Needless to say, this is my kind of writing: rude, disrespectful, and truer than we might like to admit.

Want To Keep A Secret?

If you’re intending to keep a secret, y’know, secret, don’t tell a television announcer. Then, don’t complain about that announcer saying something about it on television. That’s what they’re paid to do.

And while I’m at it, calling the disclosure of a secret hand-signal, used by the quarterback at USC, ‘unconscionable’? Really?

Torture is unconscionable. Molestation is unconscionable. War crimes are unconscionable. Revealing a team’s barely hidden secret? Not hardly.

The Greatness of Sports (The Cubs Give Up Again)

(If you don’t like sports, if you object to them ethically, then there’s no point in you reading any further.)

My Cubs traded away Greg Maddux yesterday. I remember the first time they lost him, after he won a Cy Young award with the team in the early 1990’s. I was much younger then, but I remember thinking then, as I think now, that letting Maddux go was a bad idea. He’s simply too valuable, even when he’s struggling, to ship off for a shortstop that we probably didn’t need. (Of course, if Cesar Izturis ends up being worth the money we’re paying him, I’ll quietly change my opinion about adding him to the team. It still will have been a bad idea to rid ourselves of Maddux.)

But who am I kidding? We’re talking about the Cubs, the perennial losers of American sports, an organization that has finely honed its ability to lose. Whereas Red Sox fans liked to complain that when they lost, they did it more painfully (at least before that team’s stirring World Series win two years ago), Cubs fans rarely get the opportunity . Usually, we’re far out of contention long before the games start to genuinely count. Three years ago, on the verge of our first Series appearance since 1945, Moises Alou got tangled up with a Cubs fan reaching for a catchable foulball; the team fell apart after that. I remember leaving the room after the ball wasn’t caught, then driving around a few minutes later listening to the Florida Marlins put the Cubs away to tie the series. Then, a few nights later, I remember watching the Marlins secure an apperance in the World Series.

The team’s been shit since then, performing far under expectations and generally disappointing even the most diehard amongst us. So trading away a commodity like Maddux shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Why keep players around if the team’s going to be mired in practically last place, especially if those players can bring potentially valuable pieces back to the team? But trading away Maddux is the Cubs way of publically declaring that the team’s current players aren’t going to cut it. Which means we’ll spend the next few seasons rebuilding, a process that will hopefully involve a coach who isn’t completely incompetent. That means it’s going to be two or three years before I ought to even bother caring about the team.

But I will. I’ll watch the games on WGN. I’ll read the trade rumors. I’ll get excited for Spring Training. I’ll anticipate the imminent return of the constantly injured Kerry Wodd and Mark Prior (two pitching phenoms who were supposed to lead us toward league dominance). None of this makes any sense of course. I know that the team is going to disappoint me. I know that its going to hurt me. I know these things.

The more logical amongst us have to wonder why those of us who are sports fans waste our time. I don’t have a particularly good answer. The closest I can come is this, a video roundup of Liverpool’s comeback against AC Milan in the Champion’s League final; that video gives me chills, no matter how many times I watch it. Sometimes, a team rewards its loyal fans with a stirring performance, a performance so unbelievably wonderful that the feelings generated cannot be imagined. And one day - at least I desperately hope that the following is true - the Cubs will reward me in the same way. The fact of the matter is that it doesn’t make sense to watch sports, but I’ll still be crying like a little kid if the Cubs ever reward my fandom.

And there’s no amount of logical argument that can explain that.

Angola (the Black Antelopes) Ties Mexico (the Whiny Bitches)

Many critics of soccer point to that most boring of results on paper, the dreaded 0-0 draw. Of course, a 0-0 draw is boring on paper. But anybody who watched Angola hold off Mexico for a totally unexpected 0-0 draw knows that scoreless games aren’t always boring. To be frank, there aren’t enough superlatives to describe how overwhelming a result today’s game was for Angola, a country torn asunder by thirty years of civil war. (While I’m passing around compliments, Mexico’s fans deserve credit for turning on their team immediately after the final whistle. No credit to Angola - just anger at their own team for not meeting expectations. Classy.)

And the Whiff! (US Soccer Sucks)

There’s no sense pretending that the United States played anything bordering on “attractive” soccer against the Czech Republic earlier this week. 3-0 is 3-0 is 3-0. The question now is, what’s to be done about it. (Besides choking away an awful lot of positive press in the span of about five minutes, or the time it took the Czech’s Jan Koller to score.)

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