Sampras robbed

Poor Pete Sampras has had his trophy collection stolen according to reports in the LA Times. They said that thieves made off with most of his trophies from his sixty-four tour wins, his two Davis Cups, his Olympic ring and six trophies from his world number one rankings from 1993 to 1998. Ouch.

Luckily, Sampras does not keep all of his hardware in one place. The lost trophies were robbed from a Los Angeles warehouse. The most valuable trophies to him, he had on the mantle at home. He still has thirteen of his fourteen Grand Slam trophies.

Look for this stuff to surface on the blackmarket in the years to come. Here is hoping the thieves get busted.

Can they play the next one in Minnesota?

This guy is going to need help...and maybe a hat

We have, by now, likely all seen the amazing video highlights of the roof's collapse at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. This collapse led the Vikings and the Giants to reschedule their Sunday game for Monday night in Detroit. The NFL did the fans of the beleaguered city a solid and let them attend the game for free. Good job NFL.

NFL execs also pointed out the amazing job done by the Lions franchise in preparing the facility for an unscheduled game only 24 hours after a Lions home game. Vikings officials are facing an equally difficult challenge. Can the roof of the Metrodome be repaired in time to host a Monday game against the Bears this week? The speculation in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune is no.

The quest for a home field would then turn to other sites. The smaller TCF Bank Stadium, home of the University of Minnesota's Golden Gophers, is being considered. It is an outdoor stadium. The Gophers season is over so it has been winterized, shut down. It will need the water turned back on, facilities heated and tested, and all by Monday night. Odds are the Vikings will have to be carpetbaggers again.

Favre streak over

Gehrig
An unfathomable streak of one era, a streak that stood for generations ended here...


Favre
A mind-boggling streak of another era ended here, will it stand for generations?

Peter King, the hall of fame quality NFL columnist for Sports Illustrated, had a fascinating note about Brett Favre's consecutive game streak in his column this morning. It will be no doubt picked up all over the place, since Favre was unable to play tonight with numbness in his hand, bringing to an end his record 297 straight started streak. King pointed out in his "Factoid of the Week That May Interest Only Me,

"One of my best friends in the business, longtime Lions beat guy Mike O'Hara, sent me a great note last night regarding Brett Favre's consecutive-game streak perhaps ending tonight in Detroit. Lou Gehrig's streak of 2,130 consecutive games played ended in the same city seventy-one years ago. "He left old Briggs Stadium, had a cup of coffee at a diner, and walked to the team hotel,'' O'Hara messaged.

I looked it up, and O'Hara was spot on. Gehrig's streak ended on May 3, 1939, when a weakened Iron Horse bowed out of the lineup for the first time in 14 years. Incredibly, the man he replaced 14 years earlier, Wally Pipp, was in the small crowd of 11,000 that day at Briggs Stadium, looking on as Gehrig brought the lineup card to home plate. Gehrig then sat in the dugout for the rest of the game. Gehrig would never play another game. Six weeks later, he was diagnosed with ALS, the disease that now bears his name.

If Favre doesn't play tonight, his streak of 297 straight starts (321 including postseason games) will end at Ford Field, 1.3 miles from where Gehrig sat in the dugout at Briggs (later Tiger) Stadium."

Much ado...

about very little. The media is trying to stoke the perception that the Red Sox have massively closed the gap on the Yankees and that therefore the Yankees must sign Cliff Lee at any cost. To this, the Clarion Content says, "Hah! Pu-leeze."


More valuable to the Yanks than Cliff Lee...

The Red Sox acquisitions of Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez certainly help the team, but measured in light of losing Adrian Beltre and Victor Martinez from their line-up, they barely represent a net gain in offense.

Gonzalez .298 AVG, .393 OBP, 31 HRs, 101 RBIs

Beltre .321 AVG, .365 OBP, 28 HRs, 102 RBIs

Victor Martinez .302 AVG, .351 OBP, 20 HRs, 79 RBIs

Carl Crawford .307 AVG, .356 OBP, 19 HRs, 90 RBIs

Remember too, Gonzalez compiled his statistics playing in the AAAA National League, whereas Beltre was playing big boy baseball in the toughest of divisions. Recall too, that Crawford's 19 dingers and 90 RBIs were career highs. Still, Crawford represents a slight step up from Martinez, who was atrocious defensively at catcher. Crawford is a plus defensive outfielder.

The other thing the Red Sox are touting about Crawford is his speed and stolen bases. This is a Trojan Horse. Last year demonstrated the foolishness of trying to play UZR based Moneyball in Fenway Park. Yankees fans can only hope they try it again. The net Moneyball World Series titles won to date, zero. As the old saying goes, "Stats are for losers."

Crawford will turn thirty next year, just about the point where stolen bases start to rapidly decline for most players. A useful analogy might be Carlos Beltran, whom the Mets overpaid almost as badly as the Sox overpaid for Crawford. Beltran had five consecutive thirty plus SB seasons before signing with the Mets. Not counting his injury decimated 2010, Beltran has averaged a meager nineteen SBs a year as a Met. Crawford is unlikely to top that number by much over the duration of his Red Sox contract.

Player-for-player, after signing nearly $300 million in bats this offseason, the Red Sox line-up still does not measure up to the Yankees. Let's go around the horn to underline the veracity of that statement.

1B Mark Teixeira vs. Adrian Gonzalez

At very worst a push, we rate it, slight edge Yankees.

2B Robinson Cano vs. Dustin Pedroia

Edge Yankees.

SS Derek Jeter vs. Marco Scutaro

Edge Yankees.

3B A-Rod vs. Kevin Youkilis

Push.

RF Nick Swisher vs. J.D. Drew

Edge Yankees.

CF Curtis Granderson vs. Jacoby Ellsbury

Edge Yankees.

LF Brett Gardner vs. Carl Crawford

Edge Red Sox.

Catcher Jesus Montero vs. Jarrod Saltalamacchia

Push

DH Jorge Posada vs. David Ortiz

Push

The tote board reads then, five spots advantage Yankees, one spot advantage Red Sox and three pushes. Doesn't exactly sound like much to worry about really. The Yankees bigger threat will likely once again come from the Tampa Bay Rays. The only thing that could make a Cliff Lee signing urgent would be if Andy Pettitte elected to retire. The Yanks would then need another starting pitcher. Otherwise, it is much ado about nothing, manufactured media hype.

The Yankees would actually be worse off by tying their hands with a seven year contract to an aging lefty who was 26 up and 22 down the last two years, a guy who has won more than fifteen games only twice, a guy who is already thirty-two. Cliff Lee reminds our sports editor of the Mike Mussina signing, a good player, but not worth the money.

What's Oregon about?

Curious what Oregon football is about? They will be playing in the National Championship game versus the cheaters from Auburn. Michael Sokolove wrote a fascinating profile in the New York Times Magazine last month.

Oregon's Coach Chip Kelly told Sokolove, "If someone says to me, 'What do you stand for? I should be able to invite them to practice and in five minutes, they’d say: 'I see it. I get it.' They stand for playing hard and playing fast."

Sokolove notes John Wooden, the legendary U.C.L.A. basketball coach, was known for fast-paced practices that reduced the need for aerobic training. Kelly has taken a page from Wooden's playbook. Oregon may ride that vision all the national championship.

Read the whole article here.

Smoking gun

The internet digs some stuff up, and there is no surer check on power than freedom of information. In this case, something we had not seen before surfaced on the internet (via Twitter) and made us feel compelled to admit we may have gotten it wrong.

The Clarion Content has long defended Latrell Spreewell when it came to the choking of Coach P.J. Carlesimo. There were three primary reasons for this, one legitimate, the other two emotional. First the reasonable one; one of our editors spent significant time in Newark while and shortly after P.J. was coaching at Seton Hall. His reputation as a dick was widespread in the community, especially in the local service industry. He was said to be impolite and a poor tipper. Word was he screamed and cursed at his players; and if he was a jerk to the servers, well it was believable.

The second reason is that same editor attended Indiana University during the Bobby Knight era. Our editor has always believed and continues to believe that the Neil Reed, "Coach Knight Choked Me" incident was a bunch of bullshit. All the video evidence suggests Knight hardly touched the kid, who both later transferred and picked the most self-serving moment to make his much delayed complaint.

Third, that same editor was and is a Knicks fan, who delighted in Spreewell's play on the court.

Reason number three is ridiculous. Reason number two is irrelevant.

What surfaced on the internet to change our mind about the incident in general was a photograph of Carlesimo's neck after the incident. Knight barely touched crybaby Neil Reed, but this photo of Carlesimo's neck tells a much different story, about a much different level of violence, a level of violence that is unsupportable in response to verbal abuse.

If the photo is not a fake, there is no justification for the level of violence Spreewell obviously used. We always thought it was nowhere near this malevolent.

The Ashes, a cricket match?

Ashley Kerkes is a twenty-two year-old Massachusetts babysitter. Her nickname and her twitter handle, is "The Ashes." Turns out, much to her surprise, this is also the name of the cricket series played between England and Australia. The 66th Ashes series began on Thursday.

Cricket fans on Twitter looking for the series swamped Ms. Kerkes's site. They bombarded her with messages. After issuing a series of polite, confused denials, Ms. Kerkes finally exploded with this Tweet Thursday, "I AM NOT A FREAKING CRICKET MATCH."

Cheeky cricket fans encouraged others to follow her. Her following exploded from 300 to 8,400. According to the Associated Press, "...her attitude appeared to soften [and] by Sunday, she was inquiring about the rules of the centuries-old game."

Again, according to the A.P., this had cricket fans enthused and they started a microblogging campaign called, "Get the Ashes to the Ashes." The Australian airline Quantas stepped in and offered her free plane tickets to Australia. Vodafone Australia has since offered to pay for her match tickets.

The Ashes (Ms. Kerkes) said, "I most certainly would not object to a free trip to Australia!"

Ah, what an era...

Watch out for that brick wall!

Mama said knock you out! Oops upside the head, said oops upside the head.

Why are these are things that the announcers at the Illinois-Northwestern college football game might say this weekend? To lighten the mood?

Illinois and Northwestern are playing at Wrigley Field.



The famous baseball diamond with its ivy covered brick walls. Said brick walls are, approximately, twelve inches behind the back of the end zone at some points under the rightfield grandstand.

The other end zone along the third base dugout is no peach either. They cribbed the let's host a college football game idea from Yankee Stadium, but Wrigley looks great.

They have added extra padding to the brick outfield walls. With all the concussion discussion that has been in the air in recent months, we here at the Clarion Content, hope they carefully weighed the players well-being and safety against the value of the all-mighty dollar.

Playing at Wrigley Field will most definitely sell some ducats.

Stevie Johnson got it going on

Stevie Johnson is the Buffalo Bills rookie sensation at wide receiver. He has had a monster start to his career, with six TDs and nearly 600 yards on a struggling team, in just the first ten weeks. It turns out, however, Mr. Johnson, aka Steve Styles, is multi-talented.

We heard our man free-styling on Jim Rome today and had to dig a little deeper. Check him out. He has got some skills.

Latin American baseball players

People mock and deride White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen. Guillen, a sharp tongued Venezuelan, who does not hew to the diktats of political correctness, has warned for years that young Latin American baseball players are exploited. They are generally from impoverished backgrounds with limited educational opportunities. Sharps, handlers, runners and their ilk take advantage of these young men repeatedly. A few years ago it was Jose Rijo and the Washington Nationals front office that was in the spotlight.

Yesterday a federal court indicted David Wilder, a former White Sox scouting executive, and two former White Sox scouts, Jorge L. Oquendo Rivera and Victor Mateo. Charges include accepting about $400,000 to sign twenty-three prospects in Latin America between 2004 and 2008, accepting kickbacks from signing bonuses and contract buyouts, deliberately targeting players from impoverished parts of Latin America. Not entirely coincidentally Major League Baseball announced yesterday, it has expanded oversight of teenage prospects in Venezuela, a similar system to the one they finally implemented in the Dominican Republic earlier this year.

Thanks to the New York Times for the heads up on these announcements.