Off the top, Baltimore’s Manny Machado has lousy aim – I mean, how do you aim a bat-put at the pitcher’s mound and end up putting it down the third base line? Worse, he made a hero of third base umpire Angel Hernandez, who delivered a kick save (and a beauty, of course) on the bat before it rolled even more harmlessly down the line.
But worst of all, in the wake of Machado trying (poorly) to bisect Oakland's Fernando Abad by heaving his bat Sunday, the A’s will (or at least should) celebrate the first game after the All-Star Break (in Oakland against the Orioles) with a Campy Campaneris bobblehead commemorating him throwing HIS bat at Detroit pitcher Lerrin LaGrow in the 1972 American League Championship Series, and won’t that be a fine example for the youth of America?
X X X
Steve Coburn is running out of time to play the “Hey, I’m 61, I was disappointed, and I should have listened to the wife” card, but I’m guessing his apologies will start with telling his bride, “I’m sorry I spoke harshly to you on national television before I turned into a raving old coot, also on national television. Now can I move out of the neighbor boy’s tree house and come back home?”
X X X
Los Angeles Kings defenseman Willie Mitchell is so channeling his inner Darryl Sutter. When asked after his compatriots’ latest reaper-cheater Saturday night, he explained how the Kings keep spotting opponents leads without actually having to pay for it:
“Rope-a-dope.”
Then he clarified.
“It baffles everyone in here. It’s not a place we want to be in to have to climb out of all the time. Sooner or later it’s going to bite you in the ass.”
The next bum-biter is Monday night, on your favorite peacock-themed network.
X X X
Football Is Good For You, Honest, No. 58,101: Philadelphia Eagles defensive tackle Bennie Logan has had to defend his weight of 319 pounds – of course, because it isn’t enough weight.
“Most people, when they picture a nose tackle, they picture a 330-plus guy, just clogging up the middle,” Logan told Zach Berman of Philly.com. “But the way we play our defense, you’ve got to be able to run. And I don’t feel I’d be able to run or do the things our coaches, in our scheme, require us to do. That’s why I’m not 330, or put on that much weight.”
X X X
Richard Sherman, who no longer has to be described as a Seattle Seahawks cornerback and part-time lightning rod, was asked after being honored (more or less) with his visage on the cover of Madden ’15, about the hilariously stupid Madden Curse.
“I don’t believe in curses,” Sherman said Friday. “I believe in God.”
Somehow, some way, someone will take that sentence and use it as added proof that Sherman is actually a bad person. If you are that person, go away.
X X X
Former tennis star Monica Seles is engaged to Thomas Golisano, which should not interest you. It does, however, interest the New York Daily News and Pro Football Talk, because Golisano, who once owned the Buffalo Sabres, tried to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers and ran for governor of New York three times, is considered one of the leading candidates to purchase the Buffalo Bills from the family of the late Ralph Wilson.
And now, this mildly ghoulish note from PFT’s Mike Florio:
“Given that Golisano is 72 and Seles is 40, Seles will likely end up surviving Golisano, at some point. Which depending on ownership structures and prenuptial agreements could put her in position to own the team.”
X X X
Golisano has pledged to keep the team in Buffalo, though, which is more than can be said for Jim Bon Jovi of the Bon Jovi Bon Jovis. His rumored plan, to buy the Bills and move it to larger climes has inspired a Bon Jovi boycott in Western New York.
“It’s nothing personal,” said Charles Pellien, one of four fans who began the Bon Jovi boycott. “If Santa Claus was coming to Buffalo and telling us he was going to take our team to the North Pole, we would be boycotting Santa Claus.”
There is also a full-fledged fan alliance led by real estate investor Matt Sabuda, but also includes on its advisory board Bills Hall of Famers Joe DeLamielleure, James Lofton, Billy Shaw and Andre Reed; Republican strategist Carl Forti and NBC News correspondent Luke Russert, whose late father, Tim Russert, often signed off “Meet the Press” with “Go Bills.”
X X X
In more small-time football news, Brian Costello of the New York Post reported that Jets wide receiver David Nelson missed the first week of OTAs while they made sure he wasn’t Typhoid Nellie. During a trip to Haiti to do charity work, Nelson was bitten by a mosquito, took a fever that spiked to 104 degrees and had strep throat, so the team told him to clear out. “I was quarantined,” Nelson said.
That’s one more thing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have ruined for everyone else – potential epidemics.
X X X
And finally, two REAL football notes, because Mundial is upon us – well, most of us, anyway.
First, we have been critical of the U.S. soccer media’s borderline jingoistic coverage of the World Cup team, but the bar is so much lower than that. For instance, this headline from a Ghanaian news source (Spyghana, if you must know) before Monday’s friendly in Miami:
“South Korea feigning sickness as they meet Ghana”
Damn. I thought only LeBron James feigned sickness.
And second, we thought we’d present a list of influential players (courtesy Who Ate All The Pies) who won’t be part of the World Cup because of injuries, many of them collected through the stupid parade of “friendlies” that have dotted the schedule leading into Thursday’s Brazil-Croatia lidlifter:
Marco Reus, Ilkay Gundogan and Mario Gomez (Germany), Franck Ribery (France), Radamel Falcao (Colombia), Kevin Strootman and Rafael van der Vaart (Netherlands), Riccardo Montolivo (Italy), Theo Walcott, Kyle Walker and Jay Rodriguez (England), Thiago Alcantara, Jese and Victor Valdes (Spain), Christian Benteke (Belgium) and Kyle Walker “on the crock list.”
Several other players are also currently major injury doubts, with the likes of Luis Suarez (Argentina), Diego Costa (Spain), Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (England), Manuel Neuer (Germany) and Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal, who has been cursed by a Ghanaian witch doctor, or as the Ghanaians call it, “feigning sickness”).
In other words, for the last time, shut up about Landon Donovan.
