Category Archives: general sports

It’s sure fun what happens in the wild, unpredictable world of sport. Especially when one considers that almost all of it is completely meaningless and ends up being forgotten only hours — sometimes just moments — after it all took place.

There are times, it seems, when the only thing that makes this outrageous stuff interesting is when the mainstream media turns nothing into something. More often than not, the media creates its own alternate universe and some innocent bystander is beaten to a pulp. That’s what happened in a number of cases this past week. In a few others, it was just people being post-hole dumb.

In all, it’s been another wacky week here in the trenches — watching, observing and wallowing in it like a pig in mud.

Let’s look at this week’s Top 5 in the World of Sports Crazy for the week of August 15-22.

A-Rod

1) Another example of the mainstream media’s love of complete unadulterated bullshit were the allegations that New York Yankees’ third baseman Alex Rodriguez was involved in an illegal high stakes poker game in California on the night he was playing in a World Series game in 2009.

Now, two weeks after those initial reports surfaced, A-Rod has responded, saying “I look forward to meeting with the league.”

His feelings about the reports suggested he was angry, but muted.

“The only thing I have to say about that is it was extremely inaccurate and unfair,” Rodriguez told ESPN New York.

Two days after the report came out, Rodriguez’s publicist refuted the allegations, claiming that the accusation contained, “numerous factual inaccuracies,” but, of course, the mainstream media, which believes it should have been alerted by Rodriguez himself, didn’t accept that response as a denial. If there is one thing about the media mob’s gigantic ego, it’s that it gets real scratchy when some big star doesn’t call them first. And, of course, when it comes to baseball writers, that can ultimately mean keeping someone out of the Hall of Fame as revenge.

It certainly appears that if they can’t destroy a career, the American mainstream media just isn’t happy.

2) The death of Winnipeg Jets forward Rick Rypien, a former member of the Vancouver Canucks, was a shock to a lot of people and when about 1,000 showed up for Rypien’s funeral, it was obvious that the young hockey player had an affect on a lot of folks.

Rick Rypien

That’s part of the reason why the Canucks are seething at the Toronto Star right now.

The day after Rypien’s body was found in his home, the Star wrote a story that made reference to how Canucks general manager Mike Gillis treated Rypien’s depression. The Star wrote: “But general manager Mike Gillis told the Vancouver Sun at the time, ‘When you come to know somebody and realize they’re a really good person … but crazy… You don’t only support them when they’re at the top of their game … you support them when they’re not feeling good about things or have other issues they have to deal with.’”

Crazy???!!!

The Canucks were shocked. Gillis did not use the word “crazy,” in any context at any time when discussing Rypien. Still, the “but crazy” remark was printed  in the Star and the Canucks, as one would expect, went off.

Here was the team’s response to that little bit of newspaper insanity: “A quote used in an article today in the Toronto Star sports section attributed to Mike Gillis is not accurate, not factual and does not reflect in anyway the feelings or level of commitment both Gillis and the organization had for Rick Rypien. Our organization is tremendously saddened by the passing of Rick and the newspaper’s choice of words in this article is unfair.”

The Star apologized the next day: “An Aug. 16 article about the death of former Vancouver Canuck Rick Rypien misquoted Canucks general manager Mike Gillis as having referred to Rypien as “crazy” in an interview with the Vancouver Sun last November when Rypien took a personal leave from the Canucks. In fact, Gillis never said that.”

Too little, too late.

The Canucks are now considering a libel suit. They should do more than just consider it. Newspapers have editors. Editors control what is printed. Even if the quote had been accurate, an editor with a brain larger than a walnut would have pulled the quote at the time of a person’s death. Even if it had been a proper quote and not a fabrication, it was still an offensive statement at the time of a young man’s passing.

Trouble is, most daily newspaper editors exist for no other reason but to find ways to make people’s lives miserable. Just consider the current ugliness of The News of the World/News Corp. scandal; the Duke lacrosse fiasco when a group of young athletes were railroaded by a hooker and the American media; and the trial by media of Richard Jewell, the unfortunate security guard whose life was destroyed by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that claimed, without any evidence, that he was the Atlanta Olympic Bomber. There are many more examples and, sadly, there will be many more to come.

The Star‘s gaffe was just another day in the mainstream media.

Charles Barkley

3) The great Charles Barkley recently spoke with Scott Kaplan and Vencie Glenn on XX Sports Radio in San Diego. He didn’t have much good to say about the “upcoming” NBA season.

“I don’t think they’re gonna play at all this year,” said Barkley. “I feel bad to be honest with you, I feel bad for the people who work for the teams and the people who work for the arenas. The players and the owners are going to be fine because it’s gonna get settled at some point. The NBA has already laid off 100 people so it’s gonna get ugly, real ugly.”

The NBA is a mess and if David Stern can fix this thing, he’s a genius.

However, Barkley is right. It’s not the millionaire players and the billionaire owners who will miss a season. It’s the little guys who sell beer and programs and work in the teams’ front offices. The NBA has put itself in a position in which it over-spent and didn’t care and now it’s up-to-its collective ass in debt.

This is a league that probably needs to be shut down for a year just to get a handle on perspective. Sadly, the ticket and beer sellers might have to try hockey and that’s certainly no gold mine in the United States.

4) The Saskatchewan Roughriders fired head coach Greg Marshall and offensive coordinator Doug Berry this week. After losing to the Toronto Argonauts 24-18 on Thursday night in a game in which the Argos did everything humanly possible to choke late and hand it to the Riders, Saskatchewan refused to accept the gift and fell to 1-7 on the season.

Brendan Taman

When a team is 1-7, one year after it has gone to two straight Grey Cup games, one can understand the angst. The Riders will now be coached by Ken Miller, the man who took the team to both of those championship games.

“It was tough. It was really tough,” said general manager Brendan Taman. “He (Marshall) took it like a pro, like he is, and he understands this is the business, but it’s disappointing to everybody in this organization that we didn’t succeed with Greg and it surprises all of us that we didn’t.”

Brendan Taman, the guy who writes scouting reports on restaurant napkins, speaks “Footballease.” We will translate.

“Boy we screwed up this team and I released a bunch of guys in the off-season that maybe I shouldn’t have,” said general manager Brendan Taman. “Throw in the fact that Andy Fantuz went to the NFL and Rob Bagg was hurt and our offense went all to hell, and the players I gave Marshall, Berry and (QB Darian) Durant to work with still aren’t up to snuff and here’s the deal.Either I fired those guys now, or the board of directors was going to fire me. Maybe Kenny can bail out my sorry ass.”

That about sums it up.

5) There is a sense that most Winnipeg hockey fans (not all Winnipeg hockey fans but quite a large majority) want Curt Keilback to call the play-by-play of Jets hockey this season.

He won’t.

Curt Keilback

It’s more likely that the guys who call the games on TSN, will call the games on radio, too (simulcast when both games are on, straight radio when the games are on CBC). and that won’t sit well with most hockey fan. However, when the building is sold out for five years, you aren’t beholding to anybody. You hire the people you feel you have to hire and popularity isn’t an issue.

Well, for those who do want to listen to Curt this winter, you’ll get him 20 times from October-March on NCI 105.5 FM in Winnipeg as Keilback calls the play-by-play of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League for the second straight year.

Tentatively, the 2011-12 MJHL season on NCI will open on Oct. 19 with the Blues at Steinbach. It’s the only place you’ll hear the legendary Curt Keilback this season.

(P.S.: Watching the Vikings-Seattle pre-season game. The Vikings led 13-0 on an interception return for a touchdown by Marcus Sherels, but it really doesn’t matter what the Vikings do this year, they don’t have a chance. That offensive line could not block a nine-year-old girl.)