So here’s a first-world (if your world is Nerdtron 3) problem: Should we start today’s shame-smear with John Rocker or Pope Frankie?
Okay, Rocker it is. The inflammatroid ex-reliever is appearing on the latest version of Survivor, and when asked about it in a radio interview delivered the Rocker-y goods:
“Okay, let’s talk Survivor.”
“I can sum it up by saying it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done.”
Odds are, he didn’t survive as long as Jeff Kent did two years ago.
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Now, the Pope, or as he is positioning himself, the next Mark Emmert. Apparently he is being asked to intervene in a huge high school power struggle outside Washington D.C.
Of course he is.
A group of alumni at Bishop O'Connell High in Arlington, Va., have objected to the local powers’ inattention to a series of scandals under coach Joe Wootten, including claims that he suited up a talented transfer student who may have been 21 years old; that he let two players leave school quietly amid allegations that they videotaped a sexual encounter on campus and shared the video with classmates; that he lent the parochial school's gym to a convicted drug lord who had been sending topflight talent to the team.
Nobody knows what the Pope will do with this information, but if he wants to do NCAA enforcement, he should send out an encyclical putting a smaller school on ecclesiastical probation.
That’s the way the kids here do it.
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Speaking of sportsmen in suits, FIFA. Of course FIFA. Did you ever think it wouldn’t be FIFA?
Michael Garcia spent about two years reporting on FIFA's committee people who allegedly got paid as part of the bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, and the 350-page report has finally been submitted to FIFA's chief judge Hans-Joachim Eckert. Eckert in turn has gone all FIFA, announcing he will release a summary of the report and keep the actual report secret.
So Garcia, who wants to show his work, is complaining he can’t: “Given the limited role Mr. Hans-Joachim Eckert envisions for the Adjudicatory Chamber, I believe it is now necessary for the FIFA Executive Committee to authorize the appropriate publication of the Report on the Inquiry into the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup Bidding Process.”
I think this falls under the category of “term papers you had to do that your teacher never looked at.”
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As for the game that doesn’t necessarily involve massive corruption, Middlesbrough and Liverpool took all day to settle their League Cup match. Liverpool won 14-13 on penalties, tying the longest match in English soccer history.
The two sides played to a 1-1 draw after 90 minutes, each scored in the 30 minutes of extra time, and then needed 30 penalty kicks to settle the matter when Middlesbrough’s Adomah shanked his spot kick.
See? Sudden death is the way to go every time.
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And finally, David Manica, the man in charge of the new Warriors’ arena, is still blistering from the commode-based analyses of the new design.
“Unfortunately, people focused on the silly comments about the toilet,” he said. “I’m not angry. Just disappointed. But I'm not too worried about it. When it's done, that's the last thing people will be thinking about . . . No one ever called me.”
The first draft of plans for the 18,000-seat arena includes a 10,000-square-foot ballroom floating above the San Francisco Bay that the architect is sure won't be nearly so toilet-y. “It's going to be wholly spectacular,” Manica said, frantically searching for his Wite-Out while Joe Lacob sees headlines about the Warriors going down the gurgler in his sleep.
