MLB:Barry Bonds Owes it to Fans to Participate in the Home Run Derby So for once, Barry, I implore you, do what's right. Participate in the Home Run Derby. Your performance-enhancing substance displays of power on the field have no place in games that matter. In an exhibition designed solely for purposes of pure fan entertainment, they're perfect.
Jim Bowden Is Really Concerned About Jesus Colome's Bum: OK, maybe we shouldn't be laughing at an infection which leads to a hospital visit, but it's hard not to when it leads to Professional athletes tend to get the strangest injuries, especially big league pitchers. quotes like this: "It's a serious situation," [GM Jim] Bowden said. "We pray for his buttocks and his family."
BALCO Attorney Troy Ellerman Agrees to Long Prison Sentence: Lesson be learned, you leak federal grand jury testimonies to reporters, you will go to prison. For a long time.
ESPN Kvetching:
Reggie Bush Will Be in the Booth When David Beckham Makes His MLS Debut: By far the most annoying thing ESPN does with its NFL coverage is invite people who know nothing about football into the booth during Monday Night Football games. Hearing the announcers ignore the game on the field so they can talk on and on and on (and on) with Jamie Foxx about his latest movie is unbearable. Now ESPN is going the other way, planning to put a football player in the booth while its viewers are trying to watch another sport.
Is MLB Punishing ESPN for Scooping the All-Star Picks? Newsday's Neil Best explains on his blog: "The move is punishment for ESPN having reported the all-star selections Sunday afternoon even as TBS was doing so with a special show for which it had acquired rights."
NBA:
Random YouTube Magic: The Life and Times of Quincy Douby: Not every Coney Island ballplayer comes into the league with Telfair or Marbury-like god complex. Witness the Kings' Quincy Douby; in this video, the first part of a two-part mini-doc, we hear how Douby had no name for himself in NYC.
A Scientific Study of Height Among Chinese Basketball Players: With two players from China getting nabbed in last week's draft, we now have a reasonable sample of data points with which to work. This study includes past NBA players Mengke Bateer (6'11") and Wang ZhiZhi (7'1"), current player Yao Ming (7'6"), draftees Yi Jianlian (7'0") and Sun Yue (6'9"), plus future NBA star Sun Ming Ming (7'9"), currently slated to play in Mexico next year.
NASCAR:
Meet Ella Sofia Gordon: Jeff Gordon and wife Ingrid Vandebosch revealed the first pictures of daughter Ella Sophia today on www.jeffgordon.com.Winter Sports:
Sochi, Russia Gets Winter Games, Now Only Needs Cold Weather: They also have hot women in bear suits. That just had to help their bid.
Red Wings Re-Sign Dominik Hasek and His Wonky Groin: The rehabilitation of Dominik Hasek's reputation in Detroit was completed yesterday, as the team announced that the 42-year old veteran goalie had been re-signed to a one-year contract that could be worth up to $4 million if the future Hall of Famer reaches certain performance incentives.
College Football:
Random YouTube Magic: Sean Salisbury Throws a Dumb Interception: Remember this video the next time he agitates about a quarterback making an impossibly bad decision.
Former Florida Safety Avery Atkins Dead: Atkins, 20, was a highly touted recruit who had several run-ins with the law over the past couple years, the most recent being an arrest for possession of crack cocaine on Monday.
NFL:Bears Give Lower-Ranking Employees Second-Class NFC Championship Rings: The rings for the more important people will have more diamonds, and that rankles some of the people who will get the lesser rings. I'm not sure why teams give out rings for losing the Super Bowl, and I'm not sure why teams that give rings give them to people who work in the office but have no impact on whether the team wins or loses. But if a football team is going to do those things, it might as well make the ring equal for everyone.
NFL 30 to Watch: Kevin Gilbride, New York Giants Offensive Coordinator: Gilbride has said he'll work on Manning's throwing mechanics and accuracy, but the job is bigger than that. Manning often looked in 2006 like he wasn't in sync with receivers Plaxico Burress, Amani Toomer and Jeremy Shockey, and if Gilbride can't fix that, the Giants will start 2007 the same way they ended 2006.
