Category Archives: Sports
Too Smart for the NFL
So far this year one NFL player is in jail on murder charges while others have been fined for tackling too hard. Now, according to Bloomberg, a 320 pound Nebraska and Oregon reject has been suspended for bullying a 310 pound Stanford classics major for being too smart.
Dolphin tackle Jonathan Martin turned over to the NFL some nasty voice and text messages he received from guard Richie Incognito that indicate the hazing went beyond “team building”. This wasn’t a case of veterans making the rookie stand on a table at training camp and sing his college alma mater. He flat out got the “mean girl treatment” when he sat down to eat and Incognito and the other linemen got up and left. Whatever.
World Series Facial Grooming
Was looking for a distraction so I switched from Health.gov to the World Series. Being skilled at distraction, my attention drifted from the game to the elaborate facial grooming of the Red Sox players. It went way beyond the fuzz, stubble. and occasional handlebar you expect to see.
So I came up with this.
The cartoon had a caption but one admirer gushed, “it’s so insanely stupid it doesn’t need a caption”.
So, I shaved it.
Slates Amanda Hess grades the growth here.
NCAA
Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel is so disliked that SEC coaches voted him second team all conference – after winning the Heisman Trophy as a freshman last year.
Now the NCAA is going after the disagreeable star for allegedly selling his autograph.
This fits a pattern – for the NCAA. Two seasons ago it suspended Ohio State student athletes for trading trinkets for Manhattan – just kidding – for tattoos. The NCAA wasn’t impressed by the fact that the the trinkets, given to the players by The Ohio State University, were the property of the players. Bobby Knight established that three Indiana University National Championship rings were his property when he eschewed tattoos and exchanged them for cash.
Now the governing body has taken the next step. It doesn’t believe Manziel own’s his name.
NCAA Faces Lawsuit
The NCAA could be on the ropes though. It is also fighting an antitrust lawsuit. The suit “accuses the NCAA of fixing at zero the amount that players can receive from video games and other products that use players’ names, likenesses and images”.
Dope Scandal
Twelve ballplayers got 50 game suspensions in the Biogenesis dope scandal. A-Rod got 211. Hardly seems fair, but neither is cheating. Besides nobody likes him. You can see his entertaining press conference in Chicago here.
And here are “The 15 Most Hilarious quotes from Alex Rodriguez’s 2009 ‘I’m sorry for Taking Steroids Interview'” dug up by New York Magazine.
NFL Gangster Style
John Facenda was known as The Voice of God. He was famous for his over-the-top NFL Film productions glorifying the manly ideal of the players. Now pro athletes glorify themselves as gangsters and rappers. At least that’s how Jason Whitlock sees it at Fox Sports. He says, “… popular culture has installed Tony Soprano as America’s most celebrated and revered icon above Joe Montana”.
The Wall Street Journal says that on a psychological profile Aaron Hernandez scored a perfect 10 on focus and a 1 on social maturity.
