Category: Sports

From Sideline Chatter

Punter Jeff Feagles, formerly known as No. 10 in your New York Giants program, has agreed to switch to No. 17 this season so top draft pick Eli Manning can wear 10.

“Had Feagles balked at the offer,” speculated Jeff Gordon of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “Archie Manning would probably have ordered the Giants to trade Feagles to the San Diego Chargers.”

But Archie isn’t the only Manning manning the phone lines.

“I received a call from Eli Manning the other day,” reader Dominador Nazareno told the San Francisco Chronicle. “He told me not to draft him for my fantasy football team.”

From Sideline Chatter in The Seattle Times

Bill Scheft of Sports Illustrated, on the 4,000 no-shows for the Orlando Magic’s Fan Appreciation Night: “Can’t blame them. The biggest attraction was getting your X-ray taken with Grant Hill.”

Well, duh: The NBA announced that the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant has been named to this year’s all-defense team. The all-plaintiff team, we assume, comes out later this week.

The Arizona Cardinals do the appropriate thing.

Former NFL player Pat Tillman was killed Thursday while serving as an Army Rangers soldier on a mission in southeastern Afghanistan.

Two Sports Illustrated stories help us honor someone truly remarkable: “Not Standing Pat: A star NFL player leaves the game to serve his country” and “A cut above: Pat Tillman, Arizona State’s height-loving, tree-swinging, book-cracking linebacker, is the best player you’ve never heard of.”

See also Sports Illustrated writer Tim Layden on Remembering Pat Tillman, published online today.

They say the good die young. Pat Tillman was 27.

Barry Bonds after 15 games:

• 38 at bats
• 14 runs
• 19 hits
• 5 doubles
• 9 home runs
• 19 rbi
• .500 batting average
• 1.342 slugging average

hit the first of his record 755 home runs 50 years ago today.

From the always amusing Sideline Chatter:

• Greg Cote of The Miami Herald, on how he knew it was time for Arnold Palmer to quit after 50 Masters appearances: “As Arnie made the long farewell walk on the 18th fairway, his right blinker was on the whole time.”

• Randy Turner of the Winnipeg Free Press, on reports the Mets’ Mike Piazza bought his fiancée a $500,000 engagement ring: “Or as they refer to such a bauble in the NBA: a Kobe Bryant starter kit.”

The University of Arizona Softball team is 43-1.

Stuart Benjamin at The Volokh Conspiracy suggests:

Playoff seedings are determined by regular season records. If (as in the NBA) 8 teams go to the playoffs from each conference, the team with the best record will play the team with the 8th best, the 2nd will play the 7th, and so on. The idea is to reward the teams with the best records by pitting them against the weakest opponents. But a better — and more interesting — system would allow the top seeds to choose their opponents.

NewMexiKen thinks this is a great idea.

“All true, but I can’t agree that No. 661 wasn’t a big deal. I don’t care if you’re swinging a bat or driving on the Bayshore Freeway: Passing Willie Mays is always a big deal.”

— King Kaufman at Salon on Barry Bonds.

appeared in his first major league game on this date in 1947. He went hitless but scored the winning run.

The front page of the Pittsburgh Courier, once the country’s most widely circulated black newspaper, illustrates the significance of that day.

Click on image to enlarge.
 
 
 

From the Late Show Top Ten Archive

10. This year he broke the home run record, last year he was a cellist.

9. Only signs autographs in exchange for clean urine sample.

8. Requests salary be paid in Balco gift certificates.

7. That guy who looks like the Phillie Phanatic is actually your shortstop.

6. Whenever team wins, dumps tub of Creatine on manager.

5. Exhibits erratic behavior like chewing on foul pole.

4. Can spit sunflower seeds 95 miles per hour.

3. Rush Limbaugh points at him and says, “That dude’s messed up.”

2. George Steinbrenner is scared of him.

1. Makes Schwarzenegger look like Carrot Top.

From AP via the San Francisco Chronicle:

Larry Ellison paddled out to McCovey Cove, not bothering to wear his Arnold Schwarzenegger disguise for his second straight catch of a milestone home run by Barry Bonds.

Ellison, a 53-year-old sales director for a computer company, retrieved both of the balls hit by Bonds this week. The first was on Monday when the slugger tied godfather Willie Mays for third on the career list; the next came 29-1/2 hours later when Bonds passed Mays with another sensational shot into the water.

From Sideline Chatter:

Reds shortstop Barry Larkin is such a big fan of ballparks that his oldest daughter got her middle name that way.

Brielle D’Shea Larkin, we assume, is just thankful she came along before pops ever laid eyes on Petco.

[PETCO Park is the new ballpark in San Diego]

Baseball Blogs: All Baseball, All Blogs, All The Time has a list of blogs by team. For example, there are 10 blogs listed for the Anaheim Angels. A couple are generic, such as Dominican Players, but Chronicles of the Lads and The Pearly Gates (to name just two) must be Angels specific.

Not that any Angels fans read NewMexiKen. Every MLB team has similar blogs.

From The Seattle Times: Sideline Chatter:

• Tonya Harding, appearing on ESPN Radio’s Dan Patrick Show, on why she was declining Patrick’s offer to have her fight show regular Phil the Showkiller: “I’m not going to make a skeptical out of my boxing career.”

• From a transcript of interview quotes by Syracuse men’s hoops coach Jim Boeheim distributed to media at the NCAA tournament’s Phoenix regional: “There are a lot of good teams. There’s a lot of parody.”

NewMexiKen isn’t a fan of Phil Mickelson but I am glad he finally got the monkey off his back. Better yet, he did it in style—he made the charge this time—five birdies in the last seven holes—and making the final birdie putt to win.

Factoid: Mickelson had never come to the final hole in a major with a share of the lead.

NewMexiKen mentioned Candace Parker several days ago and has been getting a number of search hits since. It seemed like a little more information was in order. Here it is from The Washington Post, Women’s Basketball Hits New Heights. The article begins:

Midwest City, Okla., March 30 — In the most recent example of the evolution of female athletes, a high school girl did more than just compete against five of the best boys’ high school basketball players in the nation in a slam dunk contest on Monday night.

She defeated them.

Candace Parker, a 6-foot-3 17-year-old from Naperville, Ill., beat a field of competitors that included at least two who could be playing in the National Basketball Association next season.

“I hope 10 years from now this isn’t a big deal,” said Parker, who will play at the University of Tennessee next season. “That would be my dream. That 10 years from now three or four girls enter the dunk contest and it’s not a big deal. It’s not like, ‘Wow, she won.’ I hope that happens.”

Parker achieved her milestone with a final dunk attempt, a right-handed slam that she spiced up by covering her eyes with her left arm during her final few strides toward the basket. The crowd of 5,000 at the Carl Albert High gymnasium — many of whom wore throwback jerseys and bopped to blaring hip-hop throughout the night — cheered wildly as the ball ripped through the net.

The dunk earned 79 out of a possible 80 points from eight judges.

LeBron James won this contest last year.

NewMexiKen has been unable to find a video of the dunk online.

From Dwight Perry, The Seattle Times: Sideline Chatter —

A British gymnast with the presence to add an impromptu somersault to his routine to ensure a feet-first landing survived a 33-foot fall from a fourth-floor hotel window in Ljubljana, Slovenia, with just a broken ankle.

“Probably my gymnastic knowledge and experience saved me,” Steven Jehu, 17, in town for the upcoming European championships, told the Slovenske Novice newspaper. “There was a big window that could be opened. I leaned out over a metal bar, but the bar suddenly broke. I couldn’t do anything. I fell.

“I got away with it all right, although the European championships for me ended before they even began.”

Adding insult to injury, the French judge docked him one-tenth of a point for the slight wobble on his landing.

Jill’s take on the Masters: John Daly’s first chance in years and it dovetails with his wife pleading guilty to money laundering charges. Tom Watson’s longtime caddy died of ALS this morning. Arnie’s playing his last Masters. Can Tiger come back, after having lost his focus by getting engaged to a Swedish nanny? (Sounds more like The Young and the Restless than the PGA.)

It was 30 years ago tonight that Hank Aaron hit career home run number 715 and broke Babe Ruth’s record. Tim Kurkjian of ESPN Magazine has a fine essay on The magic number.

Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle —

— Freddie Adu, 14, played his first Major League Soccer game Saturday. Though Freddie was far from dominating in his first outing, his teammates say they hope he’s with the team for a long time, because his mom brings the coolest snacks.

— The NFL passes a rule assessing a 15-yard penalty for excessive celebration of touchdowns. The vote is unanimous, except for the Raiders, who abstain, saying, “This doesn’t concern us.”

McKale’s legacy more than sports —

When J.F. “Pop” McKale, the towering sports figure in [Tucson] lore, passed away in 1967, he left a string of accomplishments still felt today.

McKale, as head basketball coach of the [Arizona] Wildcats from 1914 to 1921, guided the team to a 49-12 record. McKale also coached baseball and football.

As the athletic director, he hired Fred Enke as basketball coach in 1925. McKale and Enke initiated 35 years of basketball greatness for the University of Arizona.

And it was McKale who gave the university its nickname, Wildcats.

Yup, old Pop McKale’s shadow still looms large as the highly successful men’s team, and the up-and-coming women’s team, play in McKale Center.

For all of McKale’s doings and the imprint he left on Tucson, McKale has a different meaning for at least one Tucsonan.

Read the story.