Thursday, November 4, 2010

A Few Sports Quickies

-I'm still trying to decide what it says about Randy Moss that only one team bothered to put a waiver claim on him, while it has been reported that as many as ten teams took a shot at claiming Shawn Merriman during the same 48-hour period. I admit Moss is not nearly as productive as he once was, but at least he still has flashes of greatness. Merriman hasn't given any indications over the last couple of seasons that he will ever be able to stay healthy or that he is anywhere near the player we all thought he was before he failed a steroid test. Their money is about equal, so it has to be something else. I knew that Moss's reputation around the league wasn't great, but I never would have guessed that it was worse than Merriman's. I guess Buffalo just has that much confidence in their offense.

-During Tuesday's game against Detroit, Kevin Garnett allegedly called Piston's forward Charlie Villanueva a "cancer patient." (Villanueva suffers from a disease with prevents him from growing any body hear.) Villanueva Tweeted Garnett's comments to the world after the game. If true (Garnett denies saying it) it is pretty much indefensible, so don't expect me to bleed green on this one. What I find fascinating are all the basketball players and coaches coming out and taking Garnett's side while simultaneously scolding Villanueva for breaking some sort of code. Their stance is that anything said on the basketball court should remain on the basketball court. Apparently you're allowed to say anything you want and the other guy should understand it's all in fun. The NBA... It's Fan-tastic.

-It looks like one of the Chilean Miners will be running the New York marathon this week. Apparently he passed many of the 70 days he spent trapped under the earth by running six miles through the tunnels on a bad knee. On a related note, I did a couple hours of yard work yesterday while fighting a cold. So, I feel as though we're about equal.

-The big news in golf this week is that for the first time in years there is a new #1 golfer in the world and it's Lee Westwood. Now, I get why people seeing Tiger being knocked from his perch after roughly five years is a big deal, because that speaks to just how bad a year he had and Tiger is the face of that sport. What I don't understand is the mad scramble to see who the new #1 golfer is. It's not like you get a boost by being the highest-ranked guy. There is literally no advantage to it; you don't get to take a stroke off of 18 holes you play and I don't even think you get a discount on greens fees. It's like being the #1 team in college basketball: nice to put on the resume, but at the end of the day it doesn't actually help you all that much.

-It was announced today that the Red Sox have picked up David Ortiz's option for next season. Ortiz initially said he wasn't going to be happy with just the one-year deal, but now says that he is "Ok with it." Oh, good. I was worried that a man making $12.5 million was going to have a hard time getting out of bed every morning. Here's an idea for you, David: how about you don't appear to take the months of April and May off for the third straight season and the team might be more inclined to reward you with a multi-year extension. When someone enters June hitting .135 it's a little hard to see the reasoning behind locking that guy up for the foreseeable future.

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