Former Mets' reliever, Guillermo Mota, has filed to become a free agent. The fact that he's now sitting on a 50-game suspension as a result of testing positive for a performance-enhancing substance isn't going to enhance his leverage for a big payday. Let's see, the 50th game of the season would be sometime around June 1; lots of teams ought to be on the lookout for a middle reliever who will not be available until then.
The PGA Tour Championship comes up this week but Tiger Woods says he won't be able to make it there because he needs the rest and wants to be ready for competition in 2007. Look, I don't give a fig if he plays or doesn't play in that golf tournament or any other tournament; and I give him positive marks for coming up with a different/better excuse than needing to "spend time with his family". However, here's a potential problem I could have with all of this in terms if events show Woods to be a lying weasel. I read somewhere recently that he was going to be traveling to China to play in a tournament there before Thanksgiving this year and had demanded a $2M appearance fee for that trip/competition. Now, if he actually goes there to play and pick up a fat appearance fee check, I've lost respect for him over his explanation here. If he wants to skip the PGA Tour Championship, then skip it. He doesn't have any need or any obligation to play in it. But don't put out a story just because it sounds good when the publicist reads it to a focus group; just tell the truth. There's nothing wrong with Tiger Woods saying:
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"I'm going to skip this PGA Tour tournament because I have agreed to play in a tournament in China soon afterwards. Making that long trip will set the stage for me to go into the "vacation phase" of my annual calendar. I'll be back in 2007. I'm already looking forward to The Masters."
Since many people assume that Brady Quinn will be the overall #1 pick in the draft next spring, I think it is interesting that the Dolphins are hot on the trail of the first pick in the draft. Yes, I know that the Cardinals are 1-7 now and that the Dolphins are merely 1-6, but I consider these teams neck and neck at the moment because each has only one win on the books and not an abundance of chances to win a whole lot more games. If the draft were today, the Dolphins would get the first pick because the NFL breaks ties for draft position on the basis of strength of schedule and not based on the same hierarchy that they use to break ties for things like division championships or playoff berths. At the moment, the Dolphins have one win against a much weaker schedule than anyone else; that will change as they play the Bears this weekend.
Another 1-6 team that could make a run at "Brady Quinn rights" would be the Detroit Lions. And this is a franchise that knows all about losing football games. Since the merger of the NFL and the AFL, the Lions have lost more games (328 and counting) than any other franchise in the league.
We're halfway through the NFL season and we have the following folks starting at QB or getting large blocks of playing time at QB: David Garrard, Bruce Gradkowski, Damon Huard, Tony Romo, Sage Rosenfels, Seneca Wallace and Andrew Walter. I wonder how many folks could have matched these players with their teams back before the season started if I had done it as a Quick Quiz. To tell the truth, I would have missed Gradkowski and Rosenfels; I thought Rosenfels had gone to Buffalo so I was really surprised to see that the Texans had inserted him into the game last weekend.
The San Francisco 49ers have played seven games so far this year; in those seven games, the Niners have lost 12 fumbles. That's the number they've lost, not just the number they have put on the ground. That projects to 27 fumbles for a full 16 game season. Last season, the Saints led the league in fumbles lost with 19; that may give you a perspective on just how butterfingered the Niners have been so far this year. Oh, and the Saints didn't have all that good a record last year in case anyone has forgotten; losing fumbles at that rate is not a success strategy in the NFL.
With the college basketball season just around the corner, Bob Knight is in the news. He has suspended his team's highest scorer, Jarrius Jackson, for failing to meet academic standards. These aren't the NCAA academic standards he missed; Jackson meets those standards. He failed to meet "standards that we have for our men's basketball team" according to Knight. Many folks think Bob Knight is an officious jerk and some of his previous behaviors have given those folks plenty of justification for such deductions. But this is not the first time he's taken a hard line on the importance of academics and you have to give the man his due. He wins; and simultaneously, he maintains a roster of players who are not academic embarrassments to the school.
Oh, and for the Bob Knight haters out there, prepare to be very unhappy sometime soon after the New Year. Bob Knight begins this season with 869 career wins; Adolph Rupp had 876 wins and Dean Smith leads all Division 1 coaches with 879 wins. Even if Jarrius Jackson does not right himself academically and play later in the season, the odds are that Texas Tech will win 11 games this season and that will make Bob Knight the winningest coach ever in Division 1 college basketball. Deal with it.
Last weekend was a happy one for the fans and alums of Division III Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon. I mentioned about a month ago that they had lost the first two football games this year and put an amazing streak in jeopardy. Linfield College has had 50 consecutive winning seasons in football; so, starting a season at 0-2 might have put some butterflies in the stomach of their fans. But last weekend the Wildcats won their fifth game in a row guaranteeing them their 51st consecutive winning season in football. Head coach Joe Smith is in his first year at Linfield and I have to believe he's happy not to be forever known there as "the guy who screwed up the streak".
Here's a public service announcement. Today is National Men Make Dinner Day; and simultaneously, it is Plan Your Epitaph Day. And you think that the folks who arrange these kinds of things have no sense of humor…
Finally, an observation from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald about last weekend's Florida/Georgia football game:
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"Gators and Bulldogs went at it Saturday up in Jacksonville, but they're no longer calling it The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party because school officials think that reflected negatively and did not accurately represent the majority of fans. So now they're calling it The World's Largest Outdoor Keg Party."
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