Excessive Fandom

The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the defending world champion San Francisco Giants in their season opener yesterday. That's all good and dandy. It just wasn't enough for a few Dodgers fans.

Dodger fans and Los Angeles fans in general have a rap about being too laid back. If I'm wrong about this let me no, since I'm not a native in your city. A pair of Dodgers fans laid a critical beatdown on a fan wearing Giants gear in the Dodger Stadium parking lot.

"The man suffered a serious head injury during the assault after the game,'' said Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Sanford Rosenberg. (LA Times ).

Rosenberg said the victim was one of three Giants fans attacked in the parking lot around the end of the game by two unidentified men wearing Dodgers clothing.

Police are trying to get any witnesses to come forward since there was a pretty large group and the attack happened when everyone was coming out. Hopefully someone will come forward and identify the people that did this crime.

It's fine to talk trash to one another while supporting your team, but keep it non violent. Let's hope the perpetrators of this sad and cowardly act are brought to justice. There's no place for this junk in being a fan of professional sports -- which are supposed to be fun.




  

Lon Kruger Is Oklahoma Bound Depending On Who You Ask

Various reports are saying that Oklahoma will name UNLV's Lon Kruger as its men's basketball coach. Oklahoma says they will hold off on the announcement until the players at UNLV are informed. Kruger has told CBSSports.com that  he hasn't seen the report.

Say anything to soften the blow. Kruger said he was staying at UNLV as recent as yesterday and now it's looking like he has a change of heart. It's known that coaches will always do that. Say one thing and do another. It's in their DNA. As far as Kruger goes he's becoming another version of Larry Brown. He can't ever get comfortable in one place. He's not a bad guy, just a rolling stone.

This is a good hire for Oklahoma and a big loss for UNLV. He's won everywhere he's been, except the NBA. There's never been a hint of scandal anywhere he's been and he is a class guy. He should have the Sooners back to respectability in a few years.

UNLV might have to turn to a former Rebel to take over (Dave Rice, Reggie Theus). This is going to be a key hire for the program. They've built up some momentum after being irrelevant since the mid 90s. They need someone to keep the ball rolling, not a big name seat filler.   

Coach K Blasts Rose, Michigan

Let me preface my comments with this...Mike Krzyzewski is a snobbish, self-serving, condescending, self-righteous, egomaniacal, little troll. His holier than thou Duke attitude smells of jealousy and smarminess because he feels that nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody, should be talking about any other university but Duke when it comes to college basketball. And it almost seems as if he feels that Duke is THE basketball university in the NCAA and that nobody should look at his recruiting under the microscope while Jalen Rose suggests that Krzyzewski discriminates against inner city kids. It's funny to me that Krzyzewski, who's from Chicago which is an inner city full of basketball talent, cannot find players from his own backyard that he can recruit successfully, even missing the boat on potential NBA MVP Derrick Rose, now of the Chicago Bulls, and Juwan Howard, both from Krzyzewski's hometown. Krzyzewski even goes so far to claim that Duke recruited Chris Webber, well I don't hear Chris Webber coming out and backing that claim, nor do I see Krzyzewski pulling out anything showing the proof of recruitment to Chris Webber that he so "frankly" claims. What I do hear is the troll, aka Coach K, babbling out of the side of his mouth with his whiny voice and talking down the basketball program at the University of Michigan and the Fab Five's legacy. Regardless of their inability to finish an NCAA tournament on top to close out their college careers and with the timeout that never was in 1993...sorry Chris Webber, the Fab Five's impact on the young and old college basketball fans of all races (not just African American), is a part of history that may never repeat itself. Talent like that can't be harvested all at once in one school so we have to appreciate it when we can, no matter the result of it.


In closing, I would like to express my sheer delight in seeing Duke get their collective asses handed to them by Arizona, thank you Wildcats! Suck on that bit of history "Coach K"!

Krzyzewski had some comments regarding Rose's comments about Duke when he was an impressionable youngster in high school. More about the "Uncle Tom" comments than anything. To me this is nothing more than piling on. Personally I'm tired of hearing of it. What do you think Kentucky players were privately thinking before they played Texas Western back in 1965. Do you think they still harbor those same feelings? I don't think so. Rose admitted that he said it and that's how he thought back in 1992, when he was 18. Just because he was young doesn't make it right, but I understand.

Here's what the mighty Coach K had to say about Rose and Michigan.

"We were very successful against them and, to be quite frank with you, we recruited Chris Webber," he said. "I didn't recruit Jalen Rose because we had Grant Hill and I'm happy with that. We didn't look at the other, Juwan Howard [because] we knew he wasn't going to come to Duke. The other two kids we didn't think were the caliber that could play as well as Thomas Hill and Brian Davis and Billy McCaffery. They're good kids. They were good kids."



"They had a heck of a run but, they didn't leave anything, they didn't establish anything there," Krzyzewski said. "The guys that I had established something that Jay Williams continued to do 10 years later -- the standards of what it meant to be a Duke basketball player."

What was said there pretty much validates what Rose was saying and how he felt. At this point it's just piling on. Where was Krzyzewski when the documentary first came out? He waits until his squad gets eliminated then he comes out and says something. How macho is that?

Of course I don't think anyone that reads this to agree with what I said here, but it's done and over and it's time to put this subject to rest.
     

Austin Carr Calls Chris Bosh A "RuPaul" Look-A-Like

Cleveland Cavs announcer Austin Carr went a little overboard when assessing Chris Bosh's appearance. During tonight's game against the Miami Heat Carr called Bosh a RuPaul lookalike.

Yes RuPaul the well known drag queen. He must think like a few of my friends at work who think Bosh may be 'suspect'.

Jalen Rose Arrested For DUI

Jalen Rose has been under attack ever since the 'Fab Five' documentary came out, but that's another subject for another day. Now he has to fight a DUI charge from earlier this month.

Rose was arrested earlier this month on suspicion of drunken driving. Law enforcement sources say the 38-year-old former NBA star was driving along an icy roadway on March 11 when he lost control of his vehicle and crashed.


West Bloomfield Township Police Lt. Tim Diamond said Tuesday that Rose was arrested around 2 a.m. March 11. He's accused of operating a vehicle while impaired.

Not the kind of publicity that Rose was looking for.
Mug shot courtesy of tmz.com

Brad Stevens And Shaka Smart Invited To Sing At Wrigley

The Chicago Cubs want Shaka Smart to sing at a game during the seventh inning stretch at Wrigley Field. Of course he'll be singing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame".

Smart says he would take the invitation if given. Butler's Brad Stevens has also been invited. He sang at Wrigley last year after the Bulldogs' run to the finals last year. Both coaches are Cub fans. Smart has called Chicago a second home.

"Chicago is my favorite city in the whole country, and I've spent a lot of time in the city of Chicago as a kid," Smart said. "It was kind of a second home for me.


"I'm a big Cubs fan, probably been to -- conservatively -- 50-60 Cubs games over the years. I once caught a Ryne Sandberg foul ball at my grandfather's feet. So I'm a big Cubbies fan."


Smart is a hot name in coaching circles and should capitalize on his hotness right now. Just don't make a bad decision by taking the N.C. State job.
 



 

Dez Bryant Sued Over Jewelry Bill

Dallas Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant is having a busy offseason. First there was the incident at Northpark Mall. Deion Sanders blasted him in the media. And now he's being sued for not paying his jewelry bill. And that's all we know of.

Bryant has been sued by Rafaello & Co according to a report in the Dallas Morning News, for $246,000 for eight to 10 pieces of diamoned-encrusted jewelry that he ordered more than a year ago after he declared for the NFL draft.

“My client’s counsel in New York has been trying for at least six months to get him to pay,” said Mike Bowers, a lawyer with the firm of Bell Nunnally & Martin in Dallas, who is representing the jeweler. “We still would obviously like to have a satisfactory resolution to this outside of a trial.”

Of course, Bryant couldn't be reached for comment. I guess Dez never got the memo that the "bling" era was done and over.

Bryant ran up a $267,000 bill and paid $21,000 of it. I know Deion didn't mentor him on that.

"One was religious-type jewelry," Bowers said. "One was his name with his area code."

Maybe the good lord can help him in getting this matter taken care of. Clean it up Dez. Starting right now.