Abut six months ago, I told you about a guy in California who was suing the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim for discrimination on the basis that they had a Mothers’ Day promotion – - and Mothers’ Day by definition is discriminatory on the basis of gender and he didn’t get a tote bag of goodies that the women did on that day. I had few if any nice things to say about him or about the legislators in California who would pass a law that could possibly be interpreted in a way such that Mothers’ Day celebrations might find themselves on “the wrong side of the law”. Well, according to SI.com, a judge in Orange County California has summarily thrown out this suit in a way that makes it unlikely to reappear in a new guise. On the assumption that report is correct, I want to make two statements about this judge:
I want this judge, whoever he or she may be, to be on the short list for the Supreme Court of the United States the next time a vacancy happens on that bench no matter what President of which party is in the White House and no matter which party controls the Senate of the United States.
Here is a judge that “gets it”. Some people go to court who have not been injured in any significant way and those people need to be told to get the hell out of there to make way for proceedings where someone may in fact have been injured ins some significant way.
Since that lawsuit pertained to baseball, that got me thinking about some of the nonsense that happened over the last month or so in baseball; and the first thing that came to mind was that the Chicago Cubs seem to have been responsible for the ridiculous free agent market in baseball this winter. Ted Lilly is a career .500 pitcher; his lifetime record is 59-58; let’s just say that the mayor of Cooperstown, NY is not anticipating giving Lilly the key to the city. Nevertheless, the Cubbies gave Lilly $10M per year for 4 years. And that sets a salary standard for pitchers…
Barry Zito is a significantly better than .500 pitcher and now he is making $18M per year. Even if Zito never has a twinge of an injury, the best a team can hope for is that he will participate in 40 games in a season. That translates to $450K per game. Barry Zito is a fine pitcher and someone who would be a positive addition to any rotation on any team in MLB. But is he worth $450K every time he strides to the mound? I don’t think so.
But the Cubbies may get beaten by the karma stick here. Carlos Zambrano’s contract is up after next year. If you look at Zambrano’s “numbers” over the last 4 years, you’ll see that he’s three years younger than Zito, pitched about as many games and averaged about as many innings per start as Zito. But his record is much better than Zito’s (59-32 for Zambrano versus 55-46 for Zito) and his ERA is 0.72 lower than Zito’s and his WHIP is slightly lower too. So, what will the Cubbies have to pay to keep Zambrano? Maybe $20M per year for 5 years – if they’re lucky? If they don’t come up with that kind of offer, there are teams that will…
Since I’m saying some less than nice things about the Cubs, here’s an observation. Ever since the 2003 playoffs when the “Bartman Incident” happened and the Cubs imploded I the playoffs, things have been unusually painful for Cubs’ fans – - way over and above the normal angst that those folks suffer. In 2004, the Boston Red Sox ended their 86-year absence as World Champions; next to the Cubs, it was the longest drought in MLB. Then in 2005, the cross-town White Sox won it all and White Sox fans could hold mini-World Series parades on Waveland Avenue for a year. And last year, the archrival St. Louis Cardinals won it all whilst the Cubs never really threatened to be part of the post-season activities. So what evil will befall Cubs’ fans this year? I don’t know what would be worse – having the Milwaukee Brewers or the Pittsburgh Pirates win the NL pennant with the Cubs finishing somewhere near but below .500.
During Super Bowl week, there was a story that a Los Angeles-based publicist attended one of the “significant parties” in Miami and let it be known that a former NBA player would be making an announcement on Valentine’s Day that the former player is gay. The player was unidentified but it was announced that there would also be a book coming out related to this entire subject. When I read about this, my reaction was “So what?” However, the story seems to have gained traction and on Pardon the Interruption yesterday, they said that the alleged retired player who will be coming out of the closet is John Ameche. If that is the case, let me say two things:
I will not be buying the book because I don’t really care enough about his trials and travails as an NBA player who happened to be gay.
I hope that this revelation brings him some measure or peace and happiness because it is not likely to bring him great wealth or supreme stature in the society.
Now that the dust has settled with regard to Lane Kiffen assuming the head coaching position with the Oakland Raiders, I think someone needs to sit down with him and give him a clue about topics he needs to talk about and topics he needs to talk around with the press. As Kiffen was revealing the foundation pieces of his coaching philosophy – that same philosophy that convinced Al Davis that this was THE man to lead the Raiders back to glory – he said a couple of things that made you sit up and shake your head in wonderment:
On offense and defense, he intends to utilize the team’s skill players – their big time players. Wow! I never thought of that! You mean that the Raiders now have a coach who intends to use his best players as part of his game plan? Hold on while I catch my breath here. And to think that he announced this ploy to the world so that other coaches might hear it and catch on to this novel approach to the game… Oh, and can someone tell me who all these “big time players” on the roster might be?
He said that the players on the Raiders were going to “play happy” and because they were happy, they would also “play hard”. Can you imagine the way Randy Moss and Jerry Porter took those remarks since neither played happy or hard last year – - and Porter didn’t’ play much at all no matter what his state of mind. Coach Kiffen is just as likely to get pantsed by some players and have a “smiley face” painted on his butt-cheeks as he is to get that assemblage to “play happy” or “play hard”. How many players will have to be unconditionally cut to put together a roster that makes these conditions even remotely achievable?
Finally an item from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:
“An Oklahoma woman made medical history of sorts, Tulsa’s KOTV reported, when doctors surgically removed a 93-pound tumor.
“Proud Texans, refusing to be outdone by their border rivals, immediately demanded that the Cowboys get rid of Terrell Owens.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…