This is my final rant of the year. So, Happy New Year to all. May 2006 be a healthy and prosperous year for all of you and all the people who are important to you.
One of the “big deals” in the sports world in the last week or so was the signing of Johnny Damon by the NY Yankees. Frankly, I don't get all the hysteria about this happening. The Yankees signed a center fielder but let's not delude ourselves into thinking that this is the next player in the lineage of DiMaggio and Mantle. The Red Sox lost a talented outfielder to the Yankees and some have spoken of a new curse that might visit itself on the BoSox for another 87 years. That's cute but that will be the only time that anyone ever hints at the fact that Johnny Damon and Babe Ruth have any baseball talents in common. Look, this is a good but not great centerfielder who played very well for the Red Sox who will go and play very well – for a few years – for the Yankees and then will fade from the communal memory rather quickly. Johnny Damon is not a great baseball player; he should not be mentioned in the same sentence with Babe Ruth.
But of course, the NY tabloids had to make this happening into something humongous. And one of the things they focused on was the fact that Damon would have to cut his hair and shave his beard to match the Yankees' self-imposed standard of trimmed tresses and no facial hair. Wow, imagine that. For a guaranteed $52M, he agreed to get a haircut and a shave. For $52M guaranteed, I'd agree to get my butt shaved on national TV - - twice. So I began to think how the Yankees might make this into something light and humorous that would take the edge of stupidity off the “haircut story”. Then I remembered that Sal “The Barber” Maglie used to pitch for the Yankees back in the middle 1950s. And so, I intended to suggest that the Yankees hold a press conference to introduce the newly coiffed and shaven Johnny Damon with Sal Maglie “presiding”. But to be certain that Maglie had pitched for the Yankees – indeed he did – I went to the web and learned another fact about him. Sal “the Barber” Maglie is no longer exchanging oxygen in the biosphere and has gone to the great bullpen in the sky about 15 years ago. Sorry folks, the Yankees are on their own with this one.
Last time I checked the myriad Internet websites, Kevin Millwood and the Texas Rangers were in the throes of a mating dance that had lots of money involved. Scott Boras has a history of fleecing the Rangers (see Rodriguez, Alex and Park, Chan-Ho); and in this case, Millwood was seeking a five-year deal at age 31. That may be tempting to a team that needs pitching the way Count Dracula needed hemoglobin, but that's not going to be a deal that the Rangers will look upon fondly in another couple of years. If I'm a GM, I'd pay for 2 years at the going rate and have a club option for a 40% raise in a third year if Millwood is really a stud for the next two years. After that, he'll be turning 35 and at that age the only kinds of pitchers who are worth the kind of money he wants are pitchers like Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling. Millwood is a good pitcher but he ain't in that class - - any more than Johnny Damon is in Babe Ruth's class.
Charlie Walters reported in the St. Paul Pioneer-Press that Tony Oliva had just had his third knee replacement and that Oliva commented that every time he has such a surgery he feels younger. Excuse me, but if I have a knee replaced, I'm thinking it should be a lifetime deal. After all, it wasn't that long ago when the “original equipment” knee was a lifetime deal. So, what is this guy doing getting his third knee replaced? And if he keeps feeling younger, does that mean there is an orthopedic surgeon somewhere who is aging at an alarming rate? Could his surgeon be Dr. Dorian Gray?
I mentioned a week or so ago that the Sixers' attendance had been falling off and that their GM had offered an illogical and lame excuse blaming it on the donations to Hurricane Katrina relief and how those acts of charity had drained fans' of their disposable funds. A reader sent me a note saying that I was being unreasonably harsh on the Sixers – and the NBA in general – because attendance was still very strong. So I went to the Philly papers for data to see if I had overblown the situation. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Sixers averaged just over 16,500 fans for their first 14 home dates last year. This year they are drawing an average of 15,000. So, let me say that the reader is right to a point; 15,000 fans per game is not something to sneeze at. However, attendance is down 10% from last year; that is really bad; and the Sixers – who are actually leading their division – are 27th out of 30 teams in terms of average home attendance. Now, when you factor in that the Sixers drew about 19,000 for the same period of time two years ago, that makes the percentage attendance drop over two seasons more than 20% and that is very bad news that you can't sugar-coat and pretend that it will just go away. Let's just say that with 15,000 fans going to all the home games, no one who wants to see the Sixers needs to worry about buying tix in advance; there will be tickets available at the ticket windows for folks with that last minute urge to see Chris Webber call a time out that the team does not have…
Boxing promoter and impresario, Don King, made the news with the recent heavyweight championship fight wherein the winner was a 7 foot tall Russian that no one had ever heard of until he won his fight. King immediately ditched the loser of the fight and tried to latch onto this latter-day Primo Carnera for future promotional deals. At one point, King said that one of his objectives was to stage exhibition boxing matches in Baghdad as a means of raising the morale of US troops stationed in Iraq. King went on to say that he would even consider staging a real championship bout if he were granted the license and authority to do so. So far, there's no real problem; that is what I'd expect of Don King as a boxing promoter and publicity hound. Then came the comment that put it over the top. Said King:
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“I want to be known as the Black Bob Hope of boxing.”
Memo to Don King: Mentioning you and Bob Hope in the same sentence is even less congruous than mentioning Johnny Damon and Babe Ruth in the same sentence. Bob Hope was funny and made people laugh. You are a clown; you make people laugh at you.”
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“Jets receiver Wayne Chrebet says that, after suffering a season-ending concussion, he's planning to call it quits after 11 NFL seasons. In a touching retirement ceremony, the team plans to fly in ex-teammate Keyshawn Johnson just to throw him the damn gold watch”
But don't get me wrong, I love sports...
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