Sports Curmudgeon 12/30/00
 











  It is Saturday morning and the winter blizzard that had been predicted for Washington failed to materialize. It is cold here but nary a flake of snow fell in this area. I'll try to warm things up a bit with some mythical picks for the playoffs. Note this is written and sent prior to the kickoff for any games; I may be a curmudgeon but I am not a weasel. There are three home underdogs this first weekend of the NFL playoffs; I don't ever recall seeing that.
  1. I'll take Indy minus 1.5 at Miami for $33. The Colts are hot; The Fish are not. The game is not even sold out in Miami and will not be shown on TV there.

  2. I'll take New Orleans plus 6.5 vs St. Louis for $22. I have no confidence in the Rams' defense and this is a big number to get at home in a playoff game.

  3. I'll take Philly/Tampa Bay UNDER 35 for $11. It will be cold and windy at the Vet so look for lots of punting. A final score of 10-6 would not be impossible.

  4. I'll take Denver plus 3 at Baltimore for $22. Big power offense against big power defense. Probably a low scoring game so I'll take the points here - but I'd really like to see the Ravens win.
Michael Vick is now reconsidering his decision to stay at Va Tech for his junior year since he says he just discovered that he might be the first overall pick in the draft. Where the hell has he been? Even on Neptune they realized that he would be the first overall pick in the spring draft if he were in it. Sounds like another athlete who can't just tell the truth is about to show up over the horizon.

Rod Strickland is back to acting like the antisocial egomaniac that he is. After being late to practice about a dozen times and having the team "take care of it within the family" he overslept one more time and missed a practice entirely and then complained when he only got 18 minutes in a game. He said the Wizards were embarrassing him on purpose.

    Memo to Rod: You are the point guard leader on a team that is currently 5-24. You are part of them and they are embarrassing themselves nightly. You are embarrassing yourself.
If the Wizards would do something more creative than trying to reform this cretin like shunning him, it would probably be entertaining. It won't work since he is beyond help now at age 33 but it might be enjoyable to watch. Here is what they can do. Every time he is late to practice or misses a meeting or a plane or a bus - which will happen about once a week - fine him and/or suspend him for a game. Then when he is on the team, sit his butt down at the end of the bench and give him only the final 90 seconds of blowout games as his time to play - if you give him any at all. When asked, the team could just say that they had found the single best way for him to contribute to the team; stay out of the way of people who may not have that much talent but actually have a dim notion of what a team sport is all about.

Gene Upshaw has said that he will put pressure on Danny Boy Snyder to hire a black head coach. I am hereby declaring that I will put pressure on Danny Boy to hire a coach with a club foot who is lefthanded and who suffered the heartbreak of psoriasis as a child. We have had more black head coaches than we have had coaches who fit my description. It is time for people to stop keeping score on the characteristics of people hired for coaching jobs and to focus far more clearly on what they have done in the past in comparable jobs. And just as an aside, Art Shell who is usually given as an example of a man who is clearly ready to assume any head coaching job in the NFL is on the hot seat as the offensive line coach in Atlanta because the OL there stunk this year. He may actually be fired as an assistant and may be removed from consideration for replacing Dan Reeves when Reeves retires at the end of next year - if Reeves is not fired this year. Rumor is that the Falcons will try to hire Chan Gailey from the Dolphins as offensive coordinator with the understanding that he gets Reeves job in 2002.

Speaking of offensive coordinators, the Cardinals are supposedly going to fire theirs and hire a new one. One guy on their list is someone named "Geep" who is currently the offensive coordinator in San Diego. Will you tell me how the offensive coordinator in San Diego can use the performance of that team as a way to make his resume look attractive? And even more bizarre is the story that Kevin Gilbride was "shocked" that he was fired and that people in the league see the Steelers' offense beginning to emerge and all that crap. Stand by for Gilbride to get a job somewhere and it might just be in Buffalo where Ralph Wilson seems to have taken leave of his prior common sense and is firing the people who built the Bills.

Supposedly, Al Groh has interviewed for the job of head coach at UVa to replace George Welsh. I can understand that coaching in NY with Bill Parcells looking over your shoulder in a year when the Jets missed the playoffs while the Giants have home field advantage throughout the playoffs may be a bit "taxing". But isn't UVa a big step down on the food chain???

In college football, cornerback Fred Smoot was declared ineligible by Mississippi State for their bowl game against Texas A&M. Mississippi State coached by Jackie Sherrill has declared one of their top players academically ineligible? Until that announcement, I thought that even Blutarsky from Animal House could be academically eligible to play for MSU with Jackie Sherrill at the helm. This kid must have committed some kind of academic faux pas. Maybe he colored in the pictures in the library book…

Tim Raines signed a minor league contract with the Montreal Expos. Raines has been out of baseball for a year and is now 41 years old. The Expos need him to help them make their run to the World Series, right?

Just so you don't lose sight of the general intellectual level of the majority of sports fans in the US, consider that Alonzo Mourning continues to lead the balloting for center in the Eastern Conference of the NBA. His lead is now more than 20,000 votes; he has yet to play a second this year and will not play at all. Sadly, he may never play again.

    Memo to Mouthbreathers: Don't vote for NBA All-Stars if you don't even know who is actually playing in the league this year. Please do not write in Wilt Chamberlain's name. He can't "get up" any more - in any sense of that phrase…
After Mario Lemieux' return game where he scored three points, a reader asked if Mario is that good or if the league is that bad. The answer is, "Yes!". As in baseball, the talent in the NHL is way over diluted. And Mario Lemieux is in the Hockey Hall of Fame through the front door and not the side door!

It is too late for those of you who made a New Year's Resolution last January to start and finish reading War and Peace. But if you made that resolution, you can play a hunch bet at Laurel today. If you hit this one, you may be able to hire someone to read War and Peace to you!

    In the 3rd race War Orphan is entered at morning line odds of 20-1.

    Parlay that with an Exacta Box in the 6th race with Dance for Peace (5-1) and Little Bit'o Peace (6-1)

But don't get me wrong, I love sports...

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