Stay Classy, Baseball

Baseball has again proved why its administration and players themselves are responsible for the game's demise. Michael Wilbon and Dan Le Batard just debated the new issue on Pardon the Interruption. A Fred Mitchell report (Chicago Tribune) says that "more than 70" corked bats were in the Cubs' clubhouse the night Sammy Sosa busted his open and that 1/3 of the bats DID NOT belong to Sosa. Oh lawd, baseball's in trouble. Now we can all begin to understand just how many players cheated in baseball in ways outside of steroids.

--PHOTO-- Courtesy of www.spitter.com

But it gets better - the report also says that MLB officials told the Cubs that they had an hour to clear all these bats from the clubhouse/dugout before any measures were being advanced. Oh jeez, Bud Selig. If this is true, all of Selig's and baseball's credibility is eliminated - in my eyes. Selig can no longer act like he's mulling over his decision about whether or not to follow Bonds's inevitable defeat of history and the record books, if this is true.

This will break any semblance of credibility that the public has for baseball players and the league administration. Confirmation of the story's validity would mean that league officials not only turned a blind eye to cheating, but that they've captained it at times.

--PHOTO--Courtesy of www.espn.com

Once Upon a Time....

...Steve Spurrier blessed my college experience when he chose to coach my South Carolina Gamecocks when he returned to college football. I'm a die-hard Washington Redskins fan but I had no doubt the Head Ball Coach could resurrect USC football and knock down the conventional order of SEC dominance. Spurrier's got USC on its way with an exceptional recruiting class, a stable running game and one of the nation's best defenders, Jasper Brinkley.

The college football season is 55 days away (for my team anyway) and I wanted to commemorate Spurrier's return with Tony Kornheiser's reaction to Spurrier 10 games into Spurrier's first season. I chose Kornheiser's piece for this week's column of the week because Kornheiser knows Spurrier deserved his NFL shot and is ready to win in college, again --

A FEW CHOICE WORDS: TONY KORNHEISER

Gamecocks Spurred by Ol' Ball Coach

Tuesday, November 15, 2005; Page E02

How about a big round of applause for the Ol' Ball Coach!

What a triumphant return Steve Spurrier has made to the place where he belongs -- college football. (Though hour by hour in Gainesville, an increasing number of angry souls fume about what on earth Spurrier is doing in South Carolina, and not back at his alma mater, Florida.)

I'll defend my position until my dying breath that it was the right move for Danny Snyder to hire Spurrier. A man that innovative and dominant in big-time college football deserved the chance to carry that magic to the NFL. Okay, he couldn't. We're all wiser and more humble. . . . Well, I'm not, but Spurrier is.

Spurrier never lobbed grenades at Snyder and the Redskins. He sat out a year to watch his son play high school ball, then jumped back in at South Carolina -- because the geniuses who are running Florida didn't want him. They wanted young, hot shot Urban Meyer instead. How's that working out for them?

Spurrier went boldly back to the Southeastern Conference -- even though it meant playing Florida -- and cleaned out the trash Lou Holtz left behind in Columbia, S.C., some of whose names Spurrier had to read on a police blotter. In his first year Spurrier has coached 'em up pretty good. He's 7-3, and ranked No. 19. He beat his perennial patsy, Phil Fulmer, and over the weekend he humiliated the Gators' Whiz Kid.

How sweet to be the Ol' Ball Coach now. Spurrier is happy coaching South Carolina. (You'll love this: To raise money for a short-game practice area for the school's golf team, Spurrier has lent his name and likeness to a California vineyard producing, hello, "Cock-n-Fire Cabernet" at $15 a bottle!)

And everybody here is happy with Joe Gibbs coaching the Redskins. Who says there are no happy endings?

-Courtesy of www.washingtonpost.com

Sports Illustrated's Demise?

Sports Illustrated has entered a realm of embarrassment it is not used to. Journalism's top sports writers have been dodging job opportunities with SI in favor of the behemoth ESPN or other employers (See J.A. Adande). SI just endured a larger wake-up call aptly described below by AOL Fanhouse:

Whoops! Henry Abbott of True Hoop almost got duped as well, but I can't blame the guy, because SI.com is still looked upon as "mainstream media" -- so people believe them. You'd think they'd check their sources and reference them accordingly. But now I'm not so sure "SI" doesn't stand for "Stealing Information" since they have been notoriously bad this year (see: taking a quote from With Leather without attribution, see also: running a story that no one bothered to check its validity). Oh, sure they added this:

NOTE: An earlier version of this item contained a quote attributed to P. Diddy, which turned out in fact to be the creation of a blogger. My apologies to the readers and to P. Diddy, for attributing it erroneously to him.

But I don't see a link, the name of the blogger or the exact place you took it from. Geez, guys, man up and give credit. It could've been one of those, "Oh ha ha ha, I misread," but now it's more like, "We're never wrong and readers won't know otherwise." Not cool SI.com, not cool.