Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Almost makes you sorry for Lane. Almost, but not quite.

Tennessee's expected to struggle on offense in their first season under Lane Kiffin. They'll be running a new system with a mediocre quarterback, which tends to result in problems. Now take away two of their better receivers, one for the entire season and the other for potentially half of it, and things get really shaky. Not having Denarius Moore for reps leading up the season and almost certainly not back before the UF week means that the Vols will have to count on true freshmen being productive right away in SEC play. They need to figure out how to get the ball to Brandon Warren as well as make Gerald Jones wear bubble wrap to protect the closest thing to an experienced impact receiver they have left. September 19 should be lots of fun to watch.

I didn't watch a second of the MLB All-Star game last night. I used to see the whole thing every summer, but two things killed off my interest. Interleague play ruins the mystique of seeing players from both leagues on the field together. Beyond that, Bud Selig idiotically made the outcome determine World Series home field advantage. Now I wouldn't watch it unless I was there in person. Selig is such a joke of a commissioner. Yesterday he claimed he's still reviewing Pete Rose's reinstatement request. At this point Selig could have been through the whole thing twice if he was reading one word per day. Rather than just having the guts to say "Hell no I'm not letting the guy back into the game. He lied to everyone in sight for years, only fessed up when he was trying to cash in with a book, and still spends the majority of his time in Vegas at sports books!", Selig just leaves things in limbo. It's a perfect symbol of the kind of "leadership" he's applied to everything else in MLB over the years.

There may not be a single good player that's been a Celtic since I became a fan who I liked less than Antoine Walker. He was a selfish guy who cared only about his stats and loved to shoot threes even though he wasn't that good at it. He was a classic example of a team cancer. Despite only being 32, Walker has burned enough teams in the NBA by now that no one wants him on their roster anymore. Unfortunately for Walker, it appears he did a poor job of keeping track of the 99 million dollars he was paid during his career, as he's facing charges for writing bad checks to three Vegas casinos worth over 800 grand. Walker was named in three mortgage defaults in Chicago last month as well. Hopefully this will be a cautionary tale for young players about not expecting your career to last forever and managing your money wisely. Based on history, I doubt they'll learn the lesson.

Another talented guy who didn't fully understand how good he had it as an NFL player was Andre Rison. His career was good, but could have been so much better had he stayed out of repeated off field disasters. Now Rison's leading a summer camp, and one of the lessons he'll be teaching the kids is that he was the best to ever play the game. Move over, Jerry Rice, and make way for "Brock Middlebrook" on top of the WR pyramid.

Be on the lookout for a purple 1975 Caprice Classic convertible. It features a football steering wheel and a painting of Thomas Davis of the Carolina Panthers at a desk with a panther sprawled in front of it. Unfortunately for Davis, his extremely tasteful ride has been stolen. The value of the car is supposed to be 136 thousand dollars - American, I assume. Sounds like quite a bargain.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Go figure. I was looking forward to reading what you had to write about the All-Star game since a) it was actually a decent game and b) the winning manager and MVP were both from your home town (or home "region" I guess) team. If anything it showed the amazing turn-around the Tampa Bay franchise has made under its new ownership.

Heath Cline said...

Anon - I am happy for Crawford and Maddon, but I had to be honest. The A-S game just doesn't carry any allure for me anymore.