Mayor Kevin Johnson fought for the Sacramento Kings to remain in Sacramento and won much praise for succeeding. But now, after a series of charges that can at best be termed spectacularly unethical (getting city workers to do private work for him, for a start), he is suing both his city and a local reporter (Cosmo Garvin of the News & Review) after the reporter filed a request for emails the mayor and his staff sent using private Gmail accounts while doing city business. This, after he admitted in court deleting text messages regarding the new arena that he had been told not to delete.
In other words, he is having exactly the year his new favorite basketball team is having.
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Friday is always a great day to hide news, but that reverts to Thursday when Friday is the start of a long weekend. Thus, the NFL suspended: the Jets’ Sheldon Richardson (4 games), the Cowboys’ Rolando McClain (4), and the Packers’ Datone Jones (1) for, in the immortal phrasing of Mike Florio at pro Football Talk, “choosing marijuana over football,” and the Chargers’ Antonio Gates (4) for PEDs.
This would have been a good day to sneak teams into Los Angeles, too, but the NFL doesn’t do convincing P.R. as well as it used to. Nobody does, frankly -– though the St. Louis Cardinals fired farm director Chris Correa for his role in the AstroHack case and announced the dismissal Thursday as well.
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Saturday’s Copa America final between Chile and Argentina is a fairly big deal, which is why the Chilean satirical magazine The Clinic puts on its cover ET with an upraised red finger and the legend, “PREPARATE MESSI (GET READY MESSI).” You know Messi, but the digital exam reference is to Chilean Gonzalo Jara, who was caught in a photo seemingly doing a similar act of intrusion on Uruguayan Edinson Cavani in an earlier match.
I love satire. Much more than non-surfer Marcus Mariota, anyway.
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Guess who this is based solely on the quotes, and points off if you are already a subscriber to the German magazine Bunte:
“I have a clean conscience. If somebody accuses me of being corrupt, I ask him whether he knows the meaning of that word.”
“Whoever calls me corrupt will have to prove it, but nobody can prove that because I am not corrupt.”
“If anybody calls me corrupt because (my organization) is corrupt, I can only shake my head. Everybody who says something like that should go to jail.”
“My faith has given me strength during the last week. I am a religious person and pray, too. I own a golden cross that has been blessed by Pope Francis. I believe I will go to heaven one day – but I believe there is no hell. I disagree with the pope on that.”
A hint: think as-yet-unindicted head of FIFA.
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One headache down: Los Angeles Kings defenseman Slava Voynov got 89 days in jail (90-minus-one for time served at his arrest) for his alleged assault on his wife in October. He pleaded no contest, which is essentially an I-did-it-but-I-prefer-not-to-have-to-say-it plea, and here’s hoping he does every day of it. As for the possibility that he may also be deported, that remains to an immigration court, though his wife’s reluctance to press the prosecution may work in his favor.
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And finally, Sunday’s Women’s World Cup Final between the U.S. and Japan has been singular in one way -– U.S. head coach Jill Ellis is now being called a tactical mastermind after being ripped for the team’s desultory earlier-round wins.
This is known as shameless bandwagoning, and men’s teams have enjoyed the same thing for years. This is a positive advancement for coverage of women’s sports -– at least unless Japan wins, in which case Ellis will be called an idiot.
Which, now that I think of it, is just like what happens to men’s sports, too.
Oh, and I know you don’t care whether I wish you a happy holiday weekend, so let’s just agree to assume I don’t and reconnoiter Sunday night, shall we?
