Sunday, February 27, 2011

Chipper Jones Tells Cynical Fans What They Can Do

Last season Atlanta Braves third baseman Chipper Jones suffered a torn ACL and everyone figured that he should step away from the game. Jones isn't that kind of guy to walk away from something without giving it a try. That's what I see from him after countless years of watching baseball. At age 39 that just isn't in his nature.

Some writers, fans, and bloggers have written him off and according to him say that he's only playing for the money. Jones scoffs at that notion and quite frankly it pisses him off. I don't think he plays for the money at this point in his career. I just think he's one of those players that loves the game so much he might be buried in his uniform. He's still a dangerous hitter, efficient in the field, and capable of mentoring the youngsters. Jones alsomprobably wants to play to see can they make another playoff run and possibly get to another World Series. I don't think like some who think he does it for the money.

“If they think I’m doing this for the money, they obviously haven’t seen my bank account,” he said. “I’ve never played this game for money. Nor will I. My mind doesn’t work that way. I play this game because I love my teammates and they wanted me to come back.



“I still feel like I have something to offer, and the cynical fan can really kiss my ass. I really don’t care. There’s a bunch of true fans and the people who actually want to take the time to get to know me know who I am. The guy who sits in his mom’s basement and types on his mom’s computer, I couldn’t really care less about.”

Of course he plays for the money, but that's not his motivation. He plays for the money only because he gets paid for it. I think he'd play for free if you asked him. Just my opinion. Besides, he's made $141 million throughout his career and $127 million in the past 10 years. He'd have to drop money like Bryant McKinnie to burn through all that cash. 

Will Hill Is A Family Man

After having pictures of him with bikini clad women, and talking about his exploits and escapades, via the social media giant , Twitter, former Florida safety Will Hill says he's a family man and not the outrageous party animal everyone's made him out to be. He was more Benny Hill than Will.

Hill says he has grown up and has been married for a year, with three children. Damn, Will has been putting in work in the bedroom. This was said at the NFL combine in Indianapolis where Hill is trying to improve his draft stock. The only way Hill does that is by telling interviewers he's changed for the better and he's no longer the guy that talks about defecating in an airport bathroom.

"The photo, yeah, I'm at a pool party and people wanted to take pictures with me," Hill said. "It got blown out of proportion to, Will did this Will did that. People don't know I've been married for a year now. All that Twitter stuff was seven, eight months before my marriage. Everybody is going off previous things not knowing the real Will HIll. I'm a family man. I have three daughters. They all look up to me. There's rumors out here that Will Hill is a party guy. If I go out now my wife is with me and my kids. I don't go out to meet people or galavant. I sit back and just relax and enjoy my time."



Of course actions are louder than words and Hill has to do a lot aof convincing to NFL suits who are doing the drafting. He's going out of his way to show them he's not a troublemaker and he'll do whatever it takes to be a success in the NFL. He wants to let whoever is considering him that they'll get a player.

"They are not giving me skepticism, they are accepting me," Hill said. "They know guys make mistakes. You have to live and learn. I'm learning from this experience just being here and guys tell me what to do next time. I deleted my Twitter. I have no Twitter now. As a football player, they get a passionate guy. "This is all I know. I come on the field and I go to work. I cover much ground."


He'll have to do a whole lot more than talk about being a high character guy but getting rid of the Twitter account was a start.

 

Referee And Brazil Soccer Federation On The Hook For $96 Million

I'm not big on soccer. Don't like it won't watch it and will dispute it till I'm blue in the face that it's a legit sport. But this story caught my eye.

The Brazil soccer federation and a referee are sharing a $96 million dollar fine. That's like being sentenced to 120 years in prison. How do you pay that back. Their great great grandkids will be paying back that money. I understand that they're are a lot of people involved in this, but $96 million. I'm lucky to have $96 dollars.

All this over a match fixing scandal. You know if that happened over here there would've been conspiracy theories everywhere. Remember the Lakers-Kings playoff series? That has nothing on this.

A civil court has ruled that the federation and Edilson Pereira de Carvalho must share the fine for the scandal that forced 11 matches to be replayed after the referee confessed to accepting bribes from gamblers to ensure the outcomes of games. Corinthians eventually won matches that it had lost and clinched the title.-The Associated Press


No word on how this is going to be divided up. No college basketball point shaving scandal has ever been this large.

Quote Of The Week: George Karl

In the aftermath of the Carmelo Anthony trade to the New York Knicks, coach George Karl seems to have a high opinion of his team, the Denver Nuggets.

“You guys must think I’m crazy but I think we’re good. I had one practice with them, and I’m going ‘whoa!’ What always kind of mystifies me about this world of basketball is there’s so many brilliant minds in basketball; there’s so many guys that believe in the zone or believe in the triangle-and-two, or believe in the slow-down offense, or believe in the fast passing game offense — there’s so many ways to build a philosophy and win. But it seems like in the NBA you can only win with super stars. And I don’t believe that. I’ve always coached kind of doing what everybody else does, I do different. When I went to Seattle, nobody trapped and nobody did anything, so we fronted the post, and we double-teamed post-ups, and we doubled 40 or 50 percent of possessions a game and that worked. I just think why can’t you build a team where you don’t have a top-five player, but maybe a top-20 player at every position. That’s kind of what I’m thinking what we’re going to be. We might not have an All Star, but at every position and maybe even have a bench that has more versatility and explosiveness than anybody else. So you have six or seven weapons, you might not have a superstar weapon, but you have good weapons. And then play hard, play defense, and be the most unselfish basketball team that you can be, because team wins more often than talent in this league anyways.”

Someone has to have confidence don't they? I do think the Nuggets have a future after Carmelo if they make the right moves.

Charles Barkley Is The Number One Auburn Legend

Here's Charles Barkley in a radio interview with KJOX in Birmingham, Alabama talking about his All-Star weekend and more importantly his place in the Auburn athletic pecking order. And he wasn't shy about letting Cam Newton know where he stood.

Here's what he said to Cam Newton about his place at Auburn.

"You know, I finally got a chance to meet him. Since I keep getting him tickets to all these events, I joked with him, 'I keep hearing I'm getting you tickets to all these events.' I finally got a chance to meet him. He came over, we were actually staying at the same hotel and he came over and said hello to me. And I just told him how proud I am of him and the Auburn team, and what a great season they had. ... Then I said I love you, I'm proud of you, but you can't ever go any higher than No. 3 on the list behind me and Bo [Jackson]. No matter what you accomplished, I said if you had stayed another year and did what you did this year I might have moved you up. But right now, I'm No. 1, Bo [is] No. 2, and you're No. 3. And I felt bad that I had to move Frank Thomas down to No. 4."

We get what your saying Charles your the man at Auburn and always will be.


 


Nationals GM Rizzo,Jayson Werth Hates The Phillies

An excerpt from an article in the Washington Post caught an exchange between Washington Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo and new Nationals outfielder Jayson Werth.

Werth was taking some batting practice and Werth might've been taking a break when a reporter got this.

Once Werth got back behind the cage, Rizzo said, "I hate the [expletive] Phillies." The GM then ran off a list of borderline dirty plays and purpose pitches in recent years by the Nats' nemesis. "I hate the Phillies, too," said Werth. Unspoken, but hanging in the air was a new idea for the Nats: So, let's play more like the Phillies: mean, grimy and a little nasty. 

If this is the case then it's game on when the Phillies play the Nationals. I think it might've been more playful for Werth who probably has some friends on the Phillies. Besides they rescued him from the baseball scrap heap so how can he really hate them. Maybe it's because the Phillies didn't want him at an inflated price and brought back Cliff Lee instead.

I think it's Rizzo that has hate and contempt for the Phillies more than Werth. Maybe because the Washington experiment has turned out a bunch of losing seasons and the Phillies have turned into a National League powerhouse.

This might be the only time I check out a Nationals game this year.

Austin Daye Issues An Apology About The Shootaround Incident

After Saturday night's game against the Utah Jazz, Detroit Pistons forward Austin Daye gives an apology to fans and coach John Kuester.

  

He should be apologizing for his actions. Rodney Stuckey and Chris Wilcox should be giving out apologies as well. They act as if they're entitled and the big dogs on the team, when they haven't won anything in their careers. Daye and Stuckey will be here for a while so they need to straighten up. Wilcox is lucky to even have a job in the league so he really should be staying in line.

I'm not a Kuester supporter nor do I support the players in their pseudo boycott, but Joe Dumars needs to come out and give a state of the team speech or something. Come on down out of that ivory tower and give this team a dressing down in private. He's been quiet about this whole mess of a season.