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All Other Sports

Maria Sharapova’s banana scandal



Men are so juvenile

Maria Sharapova won the US Open in straight sets yesterday but she had to deflect reporters asking her about possible cheating/coaching from her dad and hitting partner instead. Coaching is not allowed in tennis (which makes no sense at all) so there’s an uproar over apparent hand signals and a banana signal. Sharapova claims that the hand signals are just a reminder for her to hydrate and the banana… means grunt like a gorilla.


I believe, at the end of the day, personally, my life is not about a banana. It’s not about what I wear. It’s not about the friends that I have. My career right now is about winning a tennis match. And right now, I’m sitting here as a U.S. Open champion, and the last thing I think people need to worry about is a banana.

Sharapova even got testy with a reporter who kept pressuring her about the banana signal.

Links:
[MSNBC]: Banana issue eats away at Sharapova’s title

Categories
College Football

Ohio State knows how to riot


After the lame rioting in Edmonton, Ohio State Buckeyes fans show them how it’s done. Lead by a male cheerleader who ran into three people with his car and was charged with vehicular assault, Buckeyes fans set the bar at 17 arrests early this football season.

Final tally: 17 arrests, 45 trash bin fires and four car fires.

We know you college football fans out there can do better. Remember there’s still a month and change to go before the Tigers win the World Series… and then there will be the riot to end all riots. It’s almost unfair that Detroit gets to participate in riots again. They are too good.

Links:
[Columbus Dispatch]: Campus-area revelry after football win leads to 17 arrest

[Columbus Dispatch]: Buckeyes come up big

Categories
MLB General

The Full Count: Here come the Twins


1. Closing in: We thought the Detroit Tigers had a divisional lead impossible to overcome. The Minnesota Twins thought otherwise. They just took 3 of 4 from the Tigers in dominant fashion. On Sunday, Johan Santana was able to shut down the Detroit offense once again. He threw 11 strikeouts and didn’t allow a run in Minnesota’s 12-1 blowout. Joe Mauer had two doubles and two RBIs for the offense, and Nick Punto had an excellent game with four hits. It was the Twins’ third win in a row to close out the series, and it gave them their smallest divisional deficit since April 18. The Twins are just two games back now of the Tigers. These teams don’t play for the rest of the season unless they meet in the playoffs.

2. The D-Train Returns: The Florida Marlins pitching staff got plenty of attention over the past week, but little of it went to Dontrelle Willis. He had been in the shadow of Anibal Sanchez’s no-hitter as well as some of the Marlins’ other rookies. But he showed on Sunday that he is still a very capable young pitcher. Willis pitched one of the best games the league has seen this season, going the distance for a complete-game shutout. He struck out 12 Phillies, matching a career high. The Marlins won 3-0 to salvage a series split against the Phils. The teams have identical records at 72-71 and stand 2.5 games back of the Wild Card lead.

3. Rollin’ Along: The Oakland A’s are still winning ballgames and still leading the NL West. Though they receive little attention, they have been just as good as the Yankees or White Sox, at least by record. The A’s are 82-60 after outlasting the Devil Rays 9-7 yesterday. The big news was Frank Thomas, who had a “perfect” day and homered for his fifth straight game. Thomas went 3-3 at the plate with 2 walks and now has 35 homers on the season. The A’s are still holding off the red-hot Angels in the division by 5.5 games. For the D-Rays, Delmon Young continued his incredible success since he was called up, going 3-5 to bring his average to .408.

4. Padres Power: The San Diego Padres still have the lead in the National League Wild Card. They’re going for their second straight playoff appearance, and the Padres moved to 2.5 games ahead of the streaking Giants after beating them yesterday. They won 10-2, as Woody Williams improved to 8-3 on the year and Brian Giles hit 4 RBIs. Rookie middle reliever Cla Meredith now has a 33 inning scoreless streak, as he hasn’t allowed a run since July 17 to decrease his ERA from 3.86 to 0.69. The Padres, who are off today, will take on Cincy this week before a pivotal series against the Dodgers.

5. Best in the business: The best players in the majors are performing better than ever. David Ortiz missed a week and a half in late August and early September, but he’s picked up right where he left off. Papi went 0-7 his first two games back, but then on Friday went 3-5 with 4 RBIs. Then, yesterday, Ortiz went 2-2 with three walks, three runs, and a homerun. The round-tripper gave him a career-high 48 this season, and he’s also on pace for career bests in on-base percentage, slugging, and OPS. Albert Pujols is also on pace for some career highs this year. His 45 homers are one off his best mark, set in 2004, and his 118 RBIs are nine away from his high. This is despite going on the disabled list for the first time earlier this season, and having almost 20 games left in the year. Other prominent players that are blowing up their career marks are Jermaine Dye, Travis Hafner (who is out the rest of the year with a broken hand), Derek Jeter, Alfonso Soriano, and Carlos Beltran, to name a few.

Categories
NFL General

Who are the best fans in the NFL?


The question of who has the the best fans has been debated 4,983,823,422 times and counting now on various message boards  across the internet and at bars.  Well, American City Business Journals attempts to answer that question using a formula for fan loyalty.  They ranked all 32 teams based on seven categories from 1996-2006; the first three concentrate on support and the other four are based on the difficulty of supporting that team:

  • Average attendance
  • Percent of capacity
  • Attendance fluctuation
  • Winning %
  • Market population
  • Per capita income
  • December temperature

The winner?  Cleveland, followed by Kansas City and Philly.

Here’s the entire list:

  1. Cleveland Browns
  2. Kansas City Chiefs
  3. Philadelphia Eagles
  4. Green Bay Packers
  5. Dallas Cowboys
  6. Buffalo Bills
  7. Houston Texans
  8. Denver Broncos
  9. Baltimore Ravens
  10. Washington Redskins
  11. New York Giants
  12. Carolina Panthers
  13. Miami Dolphins
  14. St. Louis Rams
  15. New England Patriots
  16. Detroit Lions
  17. San Francisco 49ers
  18. New York Jets
  19. Minnesota Vikings
  20. Cincinnati Bengals
  21. Pittsburgh Steelers
  22. San Diego Chargers
  23. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
  24. New Orleans Saints
  25. Indianapolis Colts
  26. Jacksonville Jaguars
  27. Chicago Bears
  28. Tennessee Titans
  29. Seattle Seahawks
  30. Arizona Cardinals
  31. Atlanta Falcons
  32. Oakland Raiders

Links:
[MSNBC]: Cleveland is No. 1 in rankings of NFL fan loyalty
[Biz Journals.com]: All 32 teams ranked

Categories
Carolina Panthers

Panthers fan gets new truck after a stupid practical joke



Gets a Ford F-150

Remember when you were a kid and there were ads in the back of comic books that offered a 50-foot yacht for $10? And then you ordered it and it was a little toy boat with 50 friggin feet attached to the bottom of it? Well, it wasn’t funny then and it’s still not funny now. And the folks at Fox Sports definitely don’t think those type of jokes are funny anymore.

On August 24, during a preseason game, Dick Stockton and Daryl Johnston started promoting a car giveaway at the end of the game so fans would stay tuned. At the end of the game, Tony Siragusa presented Greg Good, who dresses up as “Catman” for Panthers games with a new white Porsche. Unfortunately it was just a toy car. Good (who might not be so bright) thought it was a token of a real car and couldn’t believe his good luck. Then he found out that it was just the toy car and was understandably very upset.

There was some uproar in the Charlotte area after a Charlotte Observer columnist named Scott Fowler took up Good’s cause. Fox Sports president decided to hand out some punishment over the incident to his staffers and will personally give Good a new Ford F-150 pickup for his troubles. Now… can we stop with the stupid jokes during football telecasts?

Links:
[ESPN]: After joke at Panthers game, ‘Catman’ to get truck
[The Smoking Gun]: Woman sues when “100 Grand” prize turns out to be chocolate bar

Categories
MLB General

The Full Count: Verlander rolls along


1. This Rookie’s not fading: It’s a fact that most rookies, even the best ones, fade down the stretch. But Justin Verlander of the Tigers isn’t following that trend. In September he has two starts and a 0.60 ERA after last night’s gem against the Twins. Verlander threw 7 innings, allowing just one run and striking out 5. He earned a victory to improve to 16-7 as the Tigers rolled on against the Twins. Verlander was helped by the Tigers’ offense, which scored 7 runs and hit 4 homers. Detroit ended a 1-4 stretch with the victory and leads the Twins by 5 games.

2. The Contenders: The Phillies and Marlins started what will be an interesting four-game series over the weekend. Yesterday the Phils took Game 1 by a score of 14-8 in a game that featured great offense by both teams. For the winning Phils, Ryan Howard hit his 54th homerun of the season, his fifth jack in five days. Chase Utley had two hits and three RBIs, and backup catcher Chris Coste even got in on the action with four runs driven in. The Marlins were impressive too on offense, as Miguel Cabrera went crazy with four hits, a homer, and three runs. But their stud rookie pitcher Josh Johnson saw his ERA rise over 3.0 for the first time since May 4. He had been leading all pitchers in that category for a while, but not after the 4 innings pitched, 5 earned runs effort he had last night. The Marlins fell back to .500 a day after their no-hitter. But each team is still very much alive in the Wild Card standings.

3. The Steamroller: The Mets are literally steamrolling their way through the relatively easy National League. Yesterday they cruised by the Dodgers 7-0, as Tom Glavine pitched well enough to earn his first victory since August 5. Since June 23, Glavine is remarkably just 2-4, with an increased ERA as well. Two wins in two-and-a-half months are very bad luck for a pitcher on the NL’s best offense, which showed off as well in the win. Jose Reyes hit what was surprisingly his first career inside-the-park homerun. David Wright went 2-2, drove in a run, and scored. And Carlos Beltran hit his team-leading 113th RBI. Brad Penny of the Dodgers got smoked for all seven runs and exited with a loss.

4. No Hafner, no problem: The Cleveland Indians lacked big-time DH Travis Hafner last night, who hasn’t played since the 1st with an unknown injury. But that was no big deal for their offense, even against the defending World Champs. Cleveland easily outclassed the White Sox yesterday, winning 9-1. Victor Martinez and Grady Sizemore each homered for the Tribe, who pumped out 17 hits on the night. The loser for the White Sox was Mark Buehrle, who has been plagued by inconsistent play recently. He left after 4 innings, allowing 5 runs and 10 hits on the day. The loss dropped him to 12-12, including a 3-6 mark since the break. The Indians have now outscored their opponents by 81 runs this season, a remarkable figure considering their 67-72 record.

5. The Quiet Pursuit of an All-time Record: An MLB player is about to break a major record, yet even baseball fans haven’t been hearing about his chase. He is Padres closer Trevor Hoffman, who has been one of the league’s most underrated players for a while and is closing in on the saves record. Hoffman leads the National League with 37 saves this season, and has closed out more than half of the Padres’ 73 wins. He hasn’t even allowed a run since July 28. More importantly, Hoffman is just 5 away from Lee Smith’s mark of 478 saves. He’s on pace for six more saves this season, meaning that he should break the record.Why this isn’t a bigger story is beyond us. Mariano Rivera gets all the publicity, but Hoffman has been just as good for just as long in the regular season. The only thing he doesn’t have is the playoff experience. Still, he’ll retire the all time saves leader, and that should be enough to get anyone into the Hall of Fame.

Categories
St. Louis Cardinals

Sep 8 in Sports History: Mark McGwire breaks Roger Maris’ record


In 1998: Mark McGwire broke Roger Maris single season homerun record with his 62nd of the year in St. Louis. McGwire’s low line drive off a Steve Trachsel pitch barely cleared the left field fence. Sammy Sosa of the Cubs, who was locked in a then-riveting battle with McGwire to catch Maris, came in from right field to embrace McGwire. “Big Mac” finished with 70 on the season and Sosa ended up with 66. Although many laugh about it now while others are angry at the fraud that was perpetrated that summer (re: Congressional hearings of 2005), the Home Run Chase of ‘98 was believed to help lift baseball out of its post-strike doldrums. On a side note, does anyone remember the kid who tore up his winning lottery ticket by just handing the homerun ball back to McGwire? We can’t help but wonder how much those signed bats he received in return are worth right now.

In 2002: In an exciting and historic opening weekend of NFL action, Dwayne Rudd of the Cleveland Browns would end up costing his team a home playoff game by forgetting the Emmitt Smith Rule. After stopping the Chiefs on the last play of the game, Rudd removed his helmet on the playing field and tossed it 15 feet into the air in celebration. An unsportsmanlike conduct penalty was called and Kansas City was able to use their final free play to kick a game-winning field goal for a 40-39 victory. The Browns finished a game behind the Steelers and ended up losing to them at Heinz Field in a Wild Card game…… The Houston Texans made their debut with a 19-10 victory over the Dallas Cowboys at brand new Reliant Stadium. Although, they finished 4-12 in 2002, the future looked bright for the Texans upon returning to Houston that evening. They selected what they believed to be a franchise quarterback in David Carr at no. 1 overall; and Reggie Bush and Mario Williams were only seniors in high school.

Categories
Detroit Lions

Lions coach charged with nude driving


These days, a coach getting arrested for drinking and driving is pretty commonplace. They should just start putting it at the bottom of boxscores. But Lions assistant coach Joe Cullen decided to raise the bar a little and got arrested on August 24 for “driving on the street without any clothese on. (NUDE).” Thank god the police officer clarified that one for us. Curiously, there was no citation for being drunk, just nude.

A week later, Cullen was arrested for DUI with a BAC of .12. Now, a .12 is just a regular night out for some folks and hardly drunk enough to go around driving naked so it’s possible Cullen was at Eddie Sutton levels of drunkeness when he was driving naked. But since the police officer didn’t charge him with drunk driving for that incident, we have to wonder if whether Cullen just likes driving in the nude, which is more offensive to us than a .12 BAC.

It seems Joe Cullen has a bit of an alcohol problem as he was arrested for public drunkeness in a restaurant in Mississippi in 2005 and was fired from Ole Miss.

Links:

[Detroit Free Press]: Lions assistant coach arrested for nude, drunken driving
[Detroit Lions Site]: No mention of Nude Driving as a hobby

Categories
MLB General

The Full Count: Marlins’ Sanchez throws no hitter


1. The Drought is Over: Believe it or not, you just waited through baseball’s longest no-hitter drought of all time. Believe it or not, it was an unknown rookie on baseball’s most overachieving squad that captured the no-no. Anibal Sanchez threw the Marlins’ fourth no-no in team history, the first since 2001 by a rookie. He was the first to do so since Randy Johnson in May 2004, an 841-day span. Sanchez did it against the Diamondbacks, as the Marlins won 2-0. Here’s his line: 9 innings, no hits, no runs, four walks, and six strikeouts. Sanchez also allowed a baserunner to reach via error, and he needed a few defensive gems to accomplish the no-hitter. Perhaps the biggest one of those came in the 7th innings with two outs, when shortstop Hanley Ramirez fielded a tough grounder to his left, spun, and threw a bullet to first for a close out. The stadium in Miami was one of the least likely atmospheres to witness a historic feat, considering the paid attendance was only 12,000 and about half that actually were in the stands at any given point. On the year, the 22-year-old Sanchez is 7-2 with a 2.89 ERA. Since the start of August, he is 3-1 with seven straight quality starts. Sanchez, a native Venezuelan, is one of many rookies on the Marlins roster and wasn’t even among their numerous candidates for Rookie of the Year before yesterday. Well, he is now.

2. The Deadly Duo: Chicago couldn’t afford a sweep at the hands of the Red Sox. They needed to at least stay close to the Twins. And they did just that with an 8-1 victory yesterday. Their best two offensive players, Jim Thome and Jermaine Dye, came up big in the win. Dye hit his 40th homer of the year, a two-run shot. Thome went 4-4 with his 39th shot of the year. The duo, which has been pacing the White Sox’s dynamic offense all year, struck again against Boston. Pitching-wise, Jose Contreras broke out of a month-long slump in which he had gone 0-3. He finally won his 12th game of the season with an 8 inning, nine strikeout performance. The White Sox took advantage of a Twins loss to move to just .5 games back of them for the Wild Card. Each team is closing in on the slumping Tigers.

3. Daily Double: The New York Mets played a home doubleheader against the Braves yesterday, and they sure took advantage of it. The Mets won the first game 4-1, behind a recent call-up’s starting pitching. Dave Williams, who has been back and forth to and from Norfolk all season, pitched a gem to move the Mets on in game 1. In game 2, the Mets won by a more convincing margin. Despite resting David Wright and Carlos Delgado, New York moved on behind Jose Reyes and Shawn Green homeruns. At 86-52, they have the best record in the majors.

4. Watch out!: Don’t look now Oakland Athletics, but the LA Angels are coming for you. The team has won five games in a row, gaining 3 games on the A’s in the process. The Angels easily beat the Orioles last night by a margin of 8-4. Vlad Guerrero hit two RBIs to bring his season total to 109–best in the division. Rookie prodigy Howie Kendrick hit his 3rd homerun and 23rd RBI of the year. And young starter Ervin Santana won his 14th game of the year, though he allowed 4 runs in 7 innings. The Angels are still 5.5 back of the A’s, but with the way they are playing that gap could be diminished very soon.

5. Gaining firepower: The major’s best offense is about to get even better. The Yankees, who won 8-3 last night behind two homers and six RBIs from Jorge Posada, lead the MLB in runs scored and OPS. Now they will return Hideki Matsui, who put up 100 or more RBIs from 2003-05. Matsui had his first rehab start yesterday for the AA Trenton Thunder. He went 1-3 with an RBI. Though no specific return date is listed for Matsui, when he does come back it will likely be at the designated hitter spot. That could provide a huge boost for the Yanks as they make their run at their first World Series title since 2000.

Categories
NFL General

Sep 7 in Sports History: Pro Football Hall of Hame Opens in Canton


In 1963: The Pro Football Hall of Fame was dedicated in Canton, OH., where pro football originated. The original class had 17 members, including Red Grange, George Halas, Bronko Nagurski, Jim Thorpe and Sammy Baugh. There are now 235 members enshrined. A new class is selected each year the day before the Super Bowl, and is inducted in August.

In 1979: Although some thought the idea was ludicrous (Ron Burgundy included), The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) made its debut on cable television. ESPN started as a small operation showing off-the-wall sports like Aussie Rules football and strongest man competitions, but is now a global empire that includes MLB, NBA and NFL telecasts. It’s available in over 80 million homes and has dozens of networks, including ESPN2, ESPN Classic and channels on each continent.