djsocrates

ESPN's "Outside the Lines," the watchdog newsgroup of the sports world, reports that Raiders head coach Tom Cable has a history of physically abusing the women he has relationships with. This of course being the same Tom Cable who sucker-punched Al Davis's personal mole assistant head coach Randy Hanson, explaining the incident by saying Hanson "fell over and struck his jaw on a cabinet."

Now I'm not an expert on abusive relationships, but the "cabinet" explanation sounds a lot like "she fell and hit a doorknob," doesn't it? As soon as Cable let that BS fly, he should have been arrested for domestic abuse on the spot (that whole "due process" thing could have been sorted out later). One thing I do understand from having taken 1 or 2 psych classes, having attended a seminar on recognizing when people you know are in abusive relationships, and from watching a ton of "Law and Order: SVU" episodes is that abusive people come up with the most outlandish excuses to hide what they do from the general public, especially the authorities. Cable should have either fessed up or hung a sign around his neck saying "I'm an abuser, please investigate me."

Cable should be fired. This report clearly establishes a pattern of behavior that indicates that Tom Cable should be institutionalized, whether that institution be a prison or mental health facility, so that people around him don't have to fear for their lives. Al Davis has been looking for an excuse to fire Cable, so that's probably what will happen; I just wish Davis wasn't glad to have an excuse.

Ok, for starters, regarding the last post I made before disappearing-yeah, the Rangers put together a hell of a turnaround this year. But Nolan Ryan is the one responsible for the personnel decisions, and Ron Washington gets the credit for making things work on the field. So I only end up looking MOSTLY like a giant ass.

But I digress. Baseball's done for the year (or will be when the Phillies take the Series in seven) so let's focus on football, shall we?

We'll start in Washington, where Jim Zorn is insulting lame ducks everywhere by taking the phrase to unprecedented levels. (Actually, the use of the term "lame" duck is making an insult based on disability, which is now a federal crime, so we should probably call it something else). The last time I saw something as weak, ineffective, and flimsy as the 'Skins offense was...well you can probably fill that one in on your own. Zorn will be given until the end of the year so that Dan "the Man" Snyder can save what face he has left, but I agree with the guys over at WalterFootball.com who have reported that Jon Gruden is at the top of Football Steinbrenner's wish list. That should make things interesting. Anyone who has watched Monday Night Football for 30 seconds this year knows that Jon Gruden loves the Wildcat offense like Eric Mangini loves treating his players like garbage, meaning Tebow Mania may land somewhere other than Jacksonville come April. I'd pay to hear five minutes of the ensuing conversation between Wayne Weaver and anyone else in the room if that happened.

Speaking of changing destinations, it looks like Brady Quinn is destined to be the next Matt Schaub, shipped off to save some other desperate franchise while the one he currently plays for stumbles around while a guy with a rocket arm but no on-board guidance system-Derek Anderson in Quinn's case, Mike Vick in Schaub's-throwing NFL Blitz-style passes to a group of receivers with hands of stone (but hey, at least Anderson hasn't conducted canine genocide, so at least you have that, Cleveland fans). I feel sorry for Quinn. Somebody else will be interested in him-Matt Cassel conned the Chiefs out of $63 million for God's sake-but still, it just seems like the universe is conspiring against this guy. First he gets flattened by a JaMarcus Russell-led LSU squad in the Sugar Bowl. Then he falls to #22 in the draft because professional draft saboteurs (who do exist, and are damn good at what they do) exaggerate a minor shoulder injury and has to go to Cleveland in the first place. Then he gets benched because Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow II made Anderson look a lot better than he actually is. Then he finally does get in the game and faces constant blitzes because Jamal Lewis left his knees in Baltimore and has never gone back to pick them up. Then Mangini jerks him around in front of the national media before saying, "oh yeah, the job was yours all along, never any doubt." Then ownership overrides Mangini and benches Quinn again because watching Anderson complete 1 out of every 20 pass attempts on a weekly basis is easier to stomach than handing Quinn an extra $6 million or so. What's next-AJ Hawk bursts through Quinn's front door demanding his sister back? Hey Fate, why don't you stick to forcing Al Davis to have to continue selling off the Raiders bit by bit until we're all mercifully rid of him?

Until next time, chiiiiildren...wait, I should probably avoid finishing that. Never know what Bethesda Games might consider lawsuit worthy.

Jon Daniels is the most mentally retarded individual to ever call himself a GM and as such should be fired immediately.

That extremely blunt and politically incorrect assessment out of the way, I present my case:

Exhibit A (Rod): Daniels insists that he knew nothing about Alex Rodriguez being involved with steroids. Which any rational person knew was a lie even before A-Fraud copped to it. If I'm paying a guy $252 million dollars to do anything, I want to know every move the guy makes. If he farts in a public theatre, I want the gases collected for analysis. If he brings home I stripper, I want video (well I'd want that anyway, but you get my point). Besides, even if Daniels didn't really know, then his oversight sucks and he's just plain incompetent.

Exhibit B: Traded Adrian Gonzalez and Chris Young for Phil Nevin, who used roids himself and hit less than 10 bombs as a Ranger.

Exhibit C: Traded John Danks (won 12 games for the White Sox last year) for Brandon McCarthy (hasn't even pitched 12 times for Texas).

Exhibit D: Traded Edinson Volquez (he of the 14 wins and 200+ Ks) for Josh Hamilton. Don't get me wrong, Hamilton is a stud among studs both on offense and defense, but how badly does that team need an ace right now? Especially an ace with a Johan Santana-esque changeup?

Exhibit E: Negotiated with Ben Sheets with full knowledge that Sheets' elbow surgery will keep him out until well after the All Star break.

The persecution...er, prosecution rests, your honor.

Last year it was Lebron James popping off a triple double and getting "MVP" chants in Madison Square Garden, and this year it's Kobe scoring 61 points and getting the same treatment. I could go off on a long rant about this, but the simplest way to put this is: if your fans are cheering for the opposing players, then you don't have fans. James Dolan and Donnie Walsh had better take this into consideration and act acccordingly. For starters, by no means should they oblige Stephon Marbury and buy him out. He only has the rest of this season left on his contract, and once that expires, you get $20 million off the books. But more importantly, not budging on him shows that Walsh has learned his lesson from his days with the Pacers and is no longer going to let the inmates run the asylum. The way Jamaal Tinsley, Stephen Jackson, Ron Artest, Marquis Daniels and others made it their mission in life to terrorize the city of Indianapolis under Walsh's (lack of) guidance showed a clear lack of basic management skills that ended up with Walsh getting fired from the Pacers. But if Walsh can just ride the storm out and not give Starbury anything, then maybe he has turned a corner and learned a lesson. That lesson is what's going to be essential for the Knicks to rebuild. Otherwise, I can just envision the treatment that Amare Stoudemire, Chris Bosh, Dwayne Wade, Dirk Nowitzki, and Manu Ginobili will get when they barrel through the Knicks next year...

No sooner do I actually try to give the NBA some credit for doing something right (see my previous post regarding All Star uniforms), they go and potentially make me look like an idiot (which is admittedly not hard to do) by making H-O-R-S-E its latest All Star Game freak show...er, attraction. Now don't get me wrong, I like the idea. I always had a ton of fun playing the game as a kid, and I'd love to see some pros take a shot at it. But for the love of God, I pray that they get actual shooters like Peja, Dirk, Hedo Turkoglu, Kevin Martin, Ray Allen, etc. If they get guys like Rasheed Wallace, Vladimir Radmanovic, Kyle Korver, Raja Bell, or others that only make a lot of shots because they take a lot of shots, then this is going to be a disaster of epic proportions, and anyone who endorses the NBA will be ridiculed mercilessly.

I have a baaaad feeling in the pit of my sarcasm glands...

As expected, Jason Varitek went right back to the Red Sox after discovering (shock of all shocks!) that a 38-year old catcher who can't run and considers batting .245 for a season a good total isn't worth all that much on the free agent market. Given his decision to test the market, and the way Scott Boras royally teabagged Bahhhston on the Mark Teixiera front, I'm amazed Theo Epstein found it in his heart to let Varitek return. I just hope those bruises on his knees heal nicely. ;)

(No links, DJ? WTF?)

It's been established at this point that nobody directly affiliated with the Cardinals' organization thinks they'll win on Sunday. Hence, I am picking the Cardinals to win the game, 24-14; because when that many lemmings are all scurrying the same way, I start sprinting in the exact opposite direction. And here's why: the betting lines favor the Steelers by a touchdown. Vegas does this so that all the idiots who think they understand betting just because they can read numbers take the obvious road and bet on Pittsburgh; in turn, people who are not betting on the game predict that Pittsburgh will win because the people who are betting are taking the sucker bet.

What none of these morons realize though, is that they set the line where it is because they know that Arizona is going to win. Don't ask me how they know; I don't know, because I like my knees in their current unbroken state. But they know. The lines are set where they are because Vegas knows what the result is going to be. While I realize that this seems very paranoid of me (and admittedly, I am a very paranoid guy by nature), go ahead and try taking the Steelers by a TD if you think I'm wrong.

I would NOT want to be in Pittsburgh come Monday...

So Joe Torre is releasing a tell-all expose` of the Yankees' locker room.

What shocks me is not that Torre is doing this. The devotion of the Yankee fan base aside, America's appetite for smut, sleaze, and dirty laundry assures that that this book will hit #1 on the NY Times' Best Sellers List faster than Hank Steinbrenner can contact ESPN to air his next expletive-filled rant. What shocks me is that both Torre and the book's co-author, notorious Yankee apologist Tom Verducci, swear that the fact that the book is a third-person account means that it's not calling any names or making any accusations.

I can repeat my opinions about you to a parrot and have the parrot repeat them to you, but that doesn't make them the parrot's opinions. They're still mine. So Torre's idiotic view that he's not being a scuzzy asshole because he's not using the words "I" or "me" is just that, an idiotic view. I thought the Yankees were a tad too harsh for letting him go when they did; now I realize that they were really doing it for the good of the clubhouse.

Now Torre winding up in LA, the gossip and slander capital of the world, makes so much more sense.

So apparently Big Mac's younger, estranged brother is trying to sell a book saying that he introduced the one-time single season HR champ to steroids, even going so far as to personally inject him. Unfortunately though, nobody's biting on the hook yet. This of course means that there's a credibility issue; if it were an interest issue, Jose Canseco wouldn't have been able to fire off one book, let alone two.

Look, we know Big Mac used androstendione, and we also know that he has admitted to doing so and that it was legal when he was using it. Whether or not that's the only thing he used is uncertain, but it is worth noting that when he was called to testify before Congress about steroids in baseball, he never admitted to nor denied anything. It's not 100% certain, but it could be that after seeing Rafael Palmiero attempt (and fail, horribly and epicly) to register his denials under oath, McGwire didn't want to put himself in the same kind of position that Palmiero, Roger Clemens, and Barry Bonds (and to a lesser extent, Sammy Sosa) are facing now; Bonds is going to trial, Clemens is next in line for litigation, Palmiero has disappeared off the face of the Earth, and Sosa can't find a job despite hitting 23 home runs and driving in 66 runs during his last stint with the Rangers.

We may never know if andro was just the tip of the iceberg for McGwire, but what we can say for sure is that he's played the whole thing very shrewdly so far. If he did anything else we don't know about, now is the time for him to admit it. His skillful handling of these accusations has placed him in a prime position to be forgiven. Hell, an admission now (again, if there is anything else to admit) might remove any roadblocks McGwire is facing on his quest to get into the Hall of Fame.

The ball's in Big Mac's court now.

Spring training starts in about a month, and yet Manny Ramirez still hasn't found a buyer. According to Scott Boras, the guy who convinced the Giants that this guy is worth $126 million dollars, he and Manny are looking for a deal worth more than the 2 year, $22.5 million-per-year deal offered by the Dodgers.

Now I realize that the McCourt family has shown over the past few years that quality offense is not one of their primary concerns; after all, they gave Andruw Jones a $36 million dollar deal, which only a team dedicated to the worst hitting imaginable would do. But the McCourts realize that the economy is tightening, their ticket sales are never among the league's highest, and that Man-Ram is a 36-year-old guy with nothing remotely resembling knees left who has left not one but two franchises after throwing a hissy fit.

You can make the case, unlike LA Times hothead Bill Plaschke, that the way Manny lifted the team into the NLCS last year and his ability to step up and deliver when the pressure's at its highest is worth every penny. And you'd be making valid points, too. But then again, Manny did all that and more when he was in Boston, and if they weren't willing to step up and give ManRam a major raise, why should the Dodgers do it? You would think that considering the near God-like status Manny enjoyed in Beantown, that John Henry, Theo Epstein, et. al. would have backed up the Brinks trucks to Manny's crib with all the money he wanted. But if they weren't willing to go to bat for him (sorry, bad pun alert), then he's not worth it. Whatever reason there is, he's clearly just not worth it.

Don't sweat it, Manny: $45 mil still goes pretty darn far, even in a recession.

Jon Gruden wins a Super Bowl and two division titles. Fired.

Mike Shanahan wins two Super Bowls, four division titles, and turns the likes of Tatum Bell, Quentin Griffin, Mike Anderson, and Olandis Gary into 1,000 yard rushers. Fired.

Mike Holmgren takes a franchise that never mattered and made them the class of their division. Fired by virtue of the fact that his successor was hired before he announced he was leaving.

Eric Mangini builds one of the league's fiercest defenses and embarrases his mentor The Dirty Hoodie in his own house. Twice. Fired

Wade Phillips parlays marginal talent as a defensive coordinator and his father's legacy into head coaching gigs in Buffalo, Atlanta, and Dallas. Can't control a locker room. Can't organize. Can't lead. Can't strategize. Can't evaluate personnel. At present, still the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys.

Unbe-freaking-lieveable. Bum's Son still has a job, let alone a head coaching gig, when guys 1000 times more qualified than he to be an NFL head coach are being shredded through the grinder that is the NFL's "win now or go home" mentality. Don't get me wrong, I realize that the Buccaneers, Broncos, Seahawks, and Jets have a lot of work to do and that Raheem Morris, Josh McDaniels, Jim Mora Jr. (who replaced Phillips as Falcons head coach) and Rex Ryan are giving their fans the sense that the work is being done. But the fact that Jerry Jones has not gone another direction with his locker room is a sign that he is the anti-Al Davis, the anti-"Just Win, Baby", the only guy who doesn't realize that the point of the game is to earn rings.

Jones only cares about two things: publicity and power. The former is the reason Jones, with his oil money dwindling, is still able to produce a $100 billion dollar stadium so ostentatious and showy that even the Roman Catholic Church thinks they need to tone it down. Publicity gets people to pay attention to the team, to buy gear, to buy tickets, to tune in on TV and radio. Who cares if Pacman Jones leaves a trail of dead bouncers and gunshot-coated $100s in his wake? Who cares if Terrell Owens' bipolar episodes have 52 of the biggest, strongest human beings on the planet too scared to sneeze in TO's presence? Who cares if Tony Romo and Jason Witten get upset because Jason Garrett wants them to work hard in practice? Not Jones, whose disdain for his own squad is such that he allegedly is the one who showed up an hour late before the flight to Philadelphia for the week 17 ass-kicking that put the Eagles on the path to the NFC championship game and the Cowboys in the crosshairs of individuals such as myself.

As for the power, even Zombie Al in Oakland thinks Jones is on an ego trip. Any coach who crosses him gets dumped. Chan Gailey made two playoff appearances but couldn't get the freedom to install the personnel he wanted for his offense. Dave Campo, same story. And we all know the story with Bill Parcells; the irony is that when Parcells left to run the Dolphins and took Tony Sparano with him, he took the only coach who might be able to unite the organization and heal the wounds that have festered under the Phillips administration. Jones' refusal to let anyone else run the show is much like the recent failures of such coach/GM types as Shanahan, Holmgren, Mike Sherman, and even Parcells; professional sports franchises are too big to succeed as dictatorships. More to the point, all Jones would have to do is look within his own city at the way Mark Cuban has run the Dallas Mavericks into the ground and see that owners who try to do more than just sign checks end up doing more harm than good.

Don't expect a change now, Cowboys fans. Phillips won't get fired, Pacman won't get cut, and Owens won't get the mental help he so urgently needs until Jerry dies and passes the team on. Sad, sad stuff.

Courtesty of JE Skeet's "Ball Don't Lie" Blog: The NBA's 2009 All Star Uniforms.

Pretty badass looking, if you ask me. I think these are unis that people might actually go online and buy. I expect David Stern to be taking credit for personally commissioning the design any day now, if he doesn't make the outright assertion that he drew the damn jerseys himself; after all, if the NBA gets it right, he gets the credit, and if something goes wrong, Stern blames the "culture of basketball" (which is a very nice way of saying that the problem is black people. You're not fooling me Stern, you racist sonofabitch).

Then again, all of this still begs an even more important question: If the NBA's Chinese fans, who only know of the existence of the Rockets, Cavs, and Lakers, stuff the ballot box for T Mac (apparently in China, he's viewed as the Chris Tucker to Yao's Jackie Chan), is the game even worth watching in the first place?

The matchup between the Steelers and Cardinals in the Super Bowl means two weeks of pregame coverage and six hours of John Madden's inane ramblings all devoted to the fact that Cardinals head coach Ken Whisenhunt and assistant coach/offensive line coach Russ Grimm used to coach with the Steelers, as well as possible mentionings of the fact that Grimm only left because Mike Tomlin, and not him, was picked to replace Bill Cowher.

Ugh. On the bright side though, Frank Caliendo should have plenty of new material after the game though.