Weekly Sporties

-The biggest news in this neck of the woods this week was when Wes Welker left the Patriots and signed with the Denver Broncos for 2 years and $12 million. Heading into the offseason many people had expected Welker to remain with the Patriots and if he didn't it would only be because he received a massive deal from someone else. Well, neither happened. (I know $12 million sounds like a lot of money and in any other world it is, but not NFL free agency.) Almost immediately the finger pointing started as reports began surfacing that the Patriots had only offered him 2 years at $10 million and actually began negotiating with his replacement (Danny Amendola), as soon as they were allowed to. People in the Welker camp are saying the Patriots unwillingness to budge just shows they never wanted him back while the Patriots supporters are saying it was a solid negotiating tactic to not let emotions get in the way. What's weird is that I feel like we just went through this when Ray Allen left the Celtics for the Heat, in which the team and the player both acted like they wanted to remain together, but neither side really put their heart into it. At least Welker landed in a good spot, because if you aren't going to keep catching passes from Tom Brady, Peyton Manning is a good second option (provided he stays healthy). And, much like Ray Allen, I don't think the true fans are mad at Welker for leaving because they understand his reasons, even though I have no doubts there are a few people acting like idiots on the internet. Since there is no bringing Wes back, Brady is really the person the Patriots need to make sure is cool with all this because he just signed a deal giving the Patriots more money to play with in free agency and so far they haven't done much with it. Obviously, free agency just started but I don't think assembling the 2011 St. Louis Rams receiving corp is what he had in mind. They better do something with this money or there is no way any player will take a hometown discount again.

-However, even with the Welker signing not all is well with the Broncos at the moment. You see, despite the fact the season ends in February the NFL's financial calendar doesn't reset until March. That means this is the time when contracts get signed and also when all those huge roster bonuses included in deals made several years ago come due. That is why teams spend the first couple of weeks in March feverishly trying to renegotiate those contracts to save themselves some money and releasing veterans who don't want to comply. Denver was in such a position with defensive end Elvis Dumervil, who had $12 million roster bonus coming on Friday. The two sides cut it very close, but had agreed to a restructured contract with Dumervil which would keep him on the Broncos and give the team a little more money to play with. The only problem is that they agreed to the deal at around 3:30 and it had to be faxed to the league by 4. Well, Dumervil's agent didn't send the contract to the Broncos until about 4:05, which meant it couldn't be approved by the league and while the Broncos were waiting for the deal to arrive they were forced to cut Dumervil rather than pay him all that money. This means one of the leagues better pass rushers is now a free agent (causing some to question whether or not his agent did this on purpose) and rather than save about $9 million in salary cap space, the Broncos only got about $5 million in savings and they have no player to show for it. The Broncos could always re-sign Dumervil, but now he would essentially count against their salary cap twice. I am left with two questions: why is there no kind of wiggle room here? For example - why couldn't a team inform the league a deal has been agreed to but they are just waiting on the paperwork and be granted a 15 minute extension? Also, who still uses fax machines? Isn't this what email was invented for? It's not like game film is actually still on film, so you know the league can adapt. Hopefully this incident will be the thing which spurs them to advance to at least the early 2000s.

-One of my least favorite things in sports is when something which happens to role players on a daily basis and no one makes a peep suddenly happens to a superstar and people react like a crime has been committed. This happened this week when Kobe Bryant rolled his ankle in a game against Atlanta on Wednesday after landing on Dahntay Jones' foot following a jump shot. Bryant claims this was done on purpose, that Jones deliberately stuck his foot under Bryant's in an effort to injure him, and now every analyst with a microphone wants to make this equal to a crime against humanity. (They also decided to ignore the fact that Bryant was simultaneously sticking out his front leg in an effort to draw a foul, because that doesn't fit the narrative.) First off, I would question why Jones would be trying to get Bryant out of a game which was already over. Bryant was taking the shot with under 3 seconds left and when his shot rimmed out the game was done. Also, if you watch the film Jones's eyes are following the ball, which makes perfectly positioning his foot where Bryant was going to land rather difficult. So, really this entire controversy is based on the fact Bryant went on a post-game rant about wanting revenge and the news he would be out 'indefinitely', which would be a serious blow to the Lakers' post season hopes, something the NBA does not want to see. (It should be noted that Bryant actually played last night, so 'indefinitely' was 2 days and zero games.) The amount of preferential treatment given to superstars may be my least-favorite thing about the NBA. Yes, it sucks that Kobe rolled his ankle, but that doesn't mean it is part of some giant conspiracy or that a new rule has to be implemented. It means Kobe should tape his ankles and get on with it, because if the roles were reversed that is what everyone would be saying. I know the NBA has a habit of protecting its superstars but, jees, at least try and be a little more subtle about it.

-So it turns out that once the actual games start, the World Baseball Classic is kind of interesting. Of course, this opinion is based entirely on the fact that the United States, despite being largely devoid of big stars, made a rather unexpected run into the semi-finals, which they did mostly on the back of Mets' third baseman David Wright. Unfortunately, that weight of carrying a nation was a little too much for Wright, who suffered a pulled muscle a few days ago. Wright said the injury was nothing serious and that once he warmed up it was fine. He also said that if the injury happened during the regular season he would have been fine to keep playing. Well, the Mets decided it was more important for them to make this call and that they want him to actually play the regular season, so they pulled him off the team. Without Wright the USA lost to Puerto Rico and was eliminated from the tournament. This revealed the fatal flaw of the World Baseball Classic - it is largely meaningless in the grand scheme of the sport. Sure, it would be nice to win, but not at the expense of the games which actually count. Of course, the Mets are paying Wright a lot of money and therefore have every right to say whether he should try to play through injury. Still, I can't help but wonder if it is wise to allow individual teams to have a say over whether or not their players are too injured to continue because they won't have the interest of team USA in mind and be extra cautious. You would like to think that the WBC officials could tell the teams that once they agreed to let a player on the roster they were no longer going to have any kind of say in the matter, but a stance like that would only ensure that no team allowed their marquee players to participate and the tournament would lose the little star power they have left. Considering that is pretty much the only leg the tournament currently has to stand on, they can't afford to lose that.

-If you think the Mets have injury concerns, you should look to the other side of the city where the Yankees are falling apart. Already without third baseman Alex Rodriguez for most of the season, first baseman Mark Teixeira suffered a broken bone in his arm and will miss the first two months of the season. That means the Yankee infield is extremely thin. At first General Manager Brian Cashman said the team would not be making any moves to fill the void, because he didn't want to create a logjam when injured players return. But, after realizing that if he didn't do something to prevent a freefall there might not be much a season to come back to, Cashman started changing his tune. His new strategy appeared to be to get an older player who wouldn't mind considerable bench time later in the season. That is why the Yankees's General Manager began using the media to let it be known the team would like to sign the recently retired Chipper Jones or bring Derrek Lee out of retirement. First off, the names being floated are kind of sad coming from a man whose job it is to know every player at every level. You mean to tell me he doesn't know of any younger players who would be happy for the opportunity? Seriously, the names Cashman is floating out there sounds like the kind of thing you would hear from the guy in your fantasy league who hasn't paid attention to baseball in the last couple of years and only goes after names he is familiar with. Secondly, why does Brian Cashman, who has had this job for 15 years, need the media to pass the team's interest along to Chipper and his agent? Shouldn't the GM of the New York Yankees either have every agents' number in his phone or at least have the number of a person who does? Has he built up no contacts in the last decade and a half? Gee, I can't imagine why the Yankees roster was so poorly assembled.

-Well, we have a new entry into the ongoing debate over whether or not golfers are tough. First in the 'yes' column we had the LPGA golfer who was bit by a poisonous spider, cut the poison out of her leg using a golf tee and still finished the round. In the 'no' column we had world #1 Rory McIlroy walking off the course in the middle of the round because his wisdom tooth hurt. Now we have this story, though I'm not sure which category it should fall into. The other day a man was golfing in Illinois when he noticed a strange-looking patch of Earth near the middle of the fairway. He went over to investigate and suddenly the ground opened up beneath him, plunging him into a sinkhole. He fell almost 18 feet before hitting the ground and broke his shoulder in the fall. Now, I know that technically a sinkhole could happen anywhere, which means it is not golf-specific. However, you could make the case that other professional athletes like football and baseball players are in recently-built stadiums where the ground was tested before construction and deemed safe, so their environment is more controlled. Not only do golfers have to deal with hazards beyond their control such as snakes and alligators, but we must now add sinkholes to the list of things they have to worry about as they golf. Even if the chances are extremely remote of this happening to them, it is just one more thing they have to worry about in the back of their minds. Even the toughest of football players would admit that the looming specter of the ground opening up and swallowing you whole makes the game much more mentally fatiguing. Also, you know it is just a matter of time before someone gets on the governing bodies of golf and demands a rule be implemented for how you play a shot which has fallen into a sinkhole or what to do if your match-play partner gets swallowed by the Earth. To me, golfers have enough to worry about considering they are expected to call fouls on themselves, so I say dealing with sinkholes is another notch in the 'tough' column.

-I often think it must have been a lot of fun to be a sportswriter back in the days when the NFL or NBA were just starting up because of the absolutely chaos that took place behind closed doors. You always hear urban legends of guys getting traded after two General Managers spent the night getting drunk and playing poker. If that is the stuff we know about, imagine all the things crazy stories which never surfaced. Seriously, if the internet existed back then many of things we now know to be institutions would have never had a chance to gain legitimacy. Now those leagues work very hard to maintain their well-crafted image and all the fun stories are killed before they ever see the light of day, which is why if you want to find the more unusual stories you need to look to a smaller, fledgling league to produce them. This week was no exception, as the National Lacrosse League featured one of the more bizarre transactions you are going to hear about. Buffalo Bandits general manger Steve Dietrich only had two goalies on his roster and wanted to have the rights to a former, currently retired player, just in case they needed a goalie in an emergency. So, he sent a sixth-round pick to the Toronto Rock (by the way, new names would be a good idea for this league) in exchange for the rights to this goalie. That goalie's name? Steve Dietrich. Yep, Dietrich traded for himself. This is exactly the kind of thing which probably happened all the time back in the early days of the NFL but could never happen today, which is a shame because this story is awesome. I can't say this will make me more of a lacrosse fan, but I admit it gives the fans of the NLL a chance to feel as though they are getting in on something at the ground floor. Who knows, but maybe someday they can be like the dozen people who saw the first NBA game ever played? As for Dietrich, hopefully the pick he traded doesn't go on to be a Hall of Fame player or else that trade will go down in lacrosse infamy. The good news is that if he ever has to release himself the conversation should be relatively brief.