Author: Vin

Vin is a Philly boy who shouldn't be invited into your house because he'll judge you on your book and music collection. He owns Dawkins, Utley, Iverson, and Lindros jerseys, which is all you really need to know about him. He can be reached at [email protected].

Categories
NFL General

NFL Labor talks could lead to WWIII

At least that’s the impression I get when watching ESPN news. You’d think these guys were negotiating the future of the free world instead of the just trying to figure out if the players get 60% or 56% of a billion dollar pie.

Here’s what you need to know: despite the dire warnings of a “black thursday“, it seems that all they had to do was delay the free agency period so they moved it to Monday. And guess what? Everyone who was released to meet the Friday cap deadline isn’t really released. I assume that these guys can just keep extending the “deadline” whenever they want. Dire indeed.

One piece of good news coming out of the labor strife is that if there isn’t a new CBA, we’ll actually have more football games.

Barring a new CBA, the players either will be on strike or the owners will lock out the players in 2008. The union likely will decertify, and antitrust rules will apply.

If this happens, then the EA deal that gives them exclusive rights to NFL players would be voided. Hello NFL2k9! It’s a small consolation prize for the insanity surrounding the league right now.

[GamersReport.com]: EA’s NFL Exclusivity Contract May Be Voided

Categories
Utah Jazz

Andrei Kirilenko is a lucky man



Best NBA wife ever

I was listening to KNBR this morning when Rod Brooks mentioned that Kirilenko’s wife gives him a hall pass one night a year to sleep with another woman. “As long as I know about it, it’s not cheating.” Those Kirilenkos really have adapted well to this living in Utah business.

However, Andrei claims that he doesn’t want to take advantage of his get out of jail free card. Smart move, Andrei, as long as she doesn’t know you used up the card, it doesn’t matter. And if you ever get caught, just say “oh, I told you about that woman….”

Ironically, the couple appeared in a PSA produced by the NBA that stressed HIV/Aids prevention through safe sex, living drug-free, and monogamy.

Categories
College Basketball

Mike Krzyzewski willing to let reserves die



You’re expendable!

FSU fans prematurely rushed the court with 1.7 seconds to go thinking they had won the game. The Seminoles were assessed a two-shot technical foul. Luckily, they were up 77-72 and the two free throws did not change the outcome of the game.

Everyone will talk about how FSU might have gotten into the dance with this win but the overlooked part of this story is that Coach K sent all of his players to the locker room except for five reserves because he feared for their safety.


It’s unfortunate that happened. When a crowd rushes when there is still time on the clock, you have to be very careful. We weren’t going to win the ball game so why put those kids in harm’s way. I thought it was the right thing to do.

Unless of course you’re warming the bench, then you can be in harm’s way.

Let’s say somehow the Duke plane crashed in the middle of a war zone and everyone survived the crash. If I were Pocius, Davidson, Boykin, Boateng, or Johnson, I’d be very afraid. When Coach K yells “Cannon Fodder” at you, it’s not a play he wants you to run.

[Warchant.com]: Noles take down No. 1 Duke

Categories
Olympics

Sweden’s Gold Helmets

We’re a couple of days late with this but this video of the Sweden hockey team celebrating and dancing is very amusing.

First you have the whole team looking like complete tools with their gold helmets on. Then you have some woman singing “Simply the Best”. We imagine she is Sweden’s version of David Hasselhoff or John Tesh. Finally, you have some guy who looks like he took victory dancing lessons from Mark Madsen. All in all, this might be the worst celebration of all time.

[Fox Sports]: Swedish hockey stars arrive home to celebrate

[Hockey Rants]: First one to find the video.

Categories
New York Knicks

Knicks owner is insane



Our win % is so low
you’d think I was insane!

How else can you explain James Dolan’s continued support of Isiah Thomas?


I can’t say it as plainer than I’ve already said it. I’m not making a change, guys. We’re going to continue on with the strategy. I believe in the plan. I believe in the strategy. I believe in the guys who are executing it. I fully expect you to kill me in the papers tomorrow with this, but I’m going to stick with it. I’m going to stick with it until we stop making progress. I think the course is to stay the course, not knee-jerk.

Dolan thinks that this is the first year of a 3-4 year plan to make the Knicks contenders again. He also says 15-42 isn’t a mistake, it’s a strategy. How did Isiah convince him this was a good plan of action?

‘OK, this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to lose a lot of games my first 3 years here and overpay everyone and ruin our cap space by stockpiling selfish overpaid players. Then we’ll call that Year 1. After that, I’ll continue to ruin the Knicks for 3 more years and then in 2010, we’ll just win the championship.’

Isiah must be the smoothest salesguy in the history of the world.

[NY Post]: DOLAN: SOME THINK I’M BRAIN-DEAD, BUT…

Categories
College Basketball

Just make March Madness opening round a national holiday

Those of you who have jobs — too bad. But at least this year you won’t have to sneak out to watch the opening round of the NCAA tourney. CBS sports is offering free online viewing of the games. Good news for you. Bad news for your employer.

A consulting firm is estimating that the availability of games on the internet could cost employers nearly $4 Billion due to lost productivity. I’m not sure that being able to watch games only changes anything. The first few rounds have everyone in the office reloading web pages to see how their brackets are turning out anyway. For me, productivity during the tourney was nil anyway.

Man, I just got very excited thinking about the tournament this year. The buzzer beaters and upsets make me emotionally….erect. Hooo boy! It’s only a few weeks away folks!

[Pittsburgh Live]: Employers cry foul over Internet ‘Madness

Categories
General Sports

Odds and Ends for Thursday March 2 2006: Breakfast of Champions

No, not a martini. Joey Cheek and Apolo Ohno are going to be on a Wheaties box. Bode Miller is going to be on the Colon Blow box.

[USA Today]: Members of the Pittsburgh Steelers were evacuated from a movie theater Wednesday night after of a bomb threat interrupted a private screening of a new DVD of last month’s Super Bowl victory, police said.

[ChicagoSports]: Lawrence Philips to stand trial for trying to run over three people with his car.

[Philly.com]: Jimmy Rollins has a shoe fetish.

[London Free Press]: More gay sports hazing. This time a swim team.

Categories
NFL General

NFL Labor talks break down



There is no way you’re
getting
50% of this football, Gene

I’m not sure if it’s posturing by Gene Upshaw but he left New York and returned to Washington because talks were “hopelessly deadlocked”. Although the current CBA doesn’t expire until the end of 2007, if there is no extension reached, it means that there is no cap for 2007. Sounds pretty good for the players right? Well, yes and no.

Because 2006 is the last year of the cap, it means that teams won’t be able to get relief by moving cap dollars to 2007 because they don’t know what is going to happen in 2007. So there could be a lot of players on the waiver wire by Thursday when teams have to be under the $95M cap. If your team is up against the cap, you’ll be crying. If your team has plenty of cap room, start looking into decent hotel accomodations in South Florida.

Finally, once you let the uncapped year out of the bag, there’s no way the NFLPA is going to go back to having one. And that means after 2007, there could be a lockout. I can’t believe that the NFL and NFLPA have gotten so greedy that they might find a way to kill this cash cow.

I wonder if I should get my Philadelphia Soul jersey now or later.

[AP]: NFL labor talks break off on eve of free agency

Categories
Cincinnati Reds

“””””Million-dollar nigger”””” uniform is up for auction”



Just what I wanted

I’m sure Cincinnati fans look back at Marge Schott with fond memories so why not get some of the baseball memorabilia from that era?

The auction is being conducted by Cowan’s Auctions Inc and there are about 450 lots of mostly Reds items, including uniforms of Pete Rose and Eric Davis.
I mean, don’t let it bother you that Schott called Eric Davis and Dave Parker “million-dollar niggers” or that she owned a Nazi armband. Also, just because she didn’t want her players to wear earrings because only “fruits wear earrings” doesn’t mean you fruits shouldn’t buy the memorabilia. And if you’re Jewish, well, how can you resist buying from the collection of someone who said Hitler “was good in the beginning, but went too far”?

Thank you Cowan Auctions, we really needed to be reminded of the Marge Schott era.

[Bizjournals.com]: Schott baseball memorabilia auction set for March

Categories
NFL General

Go for it on 4th down

Remember when Dick Vermeil and Jon Gruden showed some stones this year and went for game winners this year? Turns out they not only did the ballsy thing, they made the statistically correct call.

A study by David Romer at Berkeley found that coaches were too conservative and “choosing to go for a first down or a touchdown would up the odds of winning by 3 percent.”

Romer did some complex math involving 700 NFL games and found that whenever the chance of a touchdown is statistically 18 percent, coaches should go for it. Of course, Vince Young didn’t need some high-falutin guy from Berkeley to tell him this. He knows you gotta scramble for a touchdown.

[MSNBC]: Scientist debunks football strategy