(HT: Laura)
Fox Sports: The Texas Rangers beat the Detroit Lions in a slugfest last night
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Tag Archives: fox sports
Bay of Cigs: The Departed
Last baseball season, I kept a Detroit Tigers diary here called “The DET Offensive,” a nod to all of the offensive firepower Detroit added in the offseason, primarily in the form of Prince Fielder. This season, the return of Victor Martinez and the acquisition of Torii Hunter make the Tigers even more of a threat with the bat. Their biggest question headed into the year is at the closer position. Jose Valverde had a perfect season two years ago, but he dropped off significantly last year, and GM Dave Dombrowski sent him packing as a result. Phil Coke filled in at that position quite admirably during the playoffs, but for whatever reason, he isn’t being considered for it as we head into the 2013 season. Instead, management seems to be waffling between minor league sensation Bruce Rondon (intriguing) and Rick Porcello (GAHHHHH!). Continue reading
Jeff Backus is transparently terrible
Goodness gracious he’s the worst. Once the pride of the Wolverines, he no longer can block opposing defenders from destroying Matthew Stafford and, apparently, cannot even block the general public from seeing his hindquarters. (Semi-NSFW.) He should be fired for wardrobe malfunction or football-playing malfunction. Either way is fine with me.
(HT: Laura)
A little reminder that it’s spring training for everybody right now
(via Deadspin)
(HT: @MitchOConnor)
Scrutiny of the Bounty: An Epilogue
The prequel and pretension past, along with the run-of-the-mill fodder, we found ourselves– thanks to a reader tip– staring down the barrel of epiloguist Jen Floyd Engel’s perspective-granting long lens in the form of her piece for Fox Sports, “Blaming Saints is height of hypocrisy.” Looking back on the NFL bounty story, Engel seeks to contextualize the thematic strands of that story with those of another and mix in a bit of stern-faced judgment for total effect. Standard-issue English 110.
I can’t specifically recall reading anything of Engel’s before, although I surely have, but the first stumbling point for me came before I even made it to the text. Maybe I still am crotchety after Charles P. Pierce’s bit on this matter, but as someone slightly out of the mold in the nomenclature realm, I have to wonder why Engel goes (presumably) nickname, middle name, last name. If she wants distinction, isn’t Jennifer Floyd Engel the way to do it? For example, Pierce doesn’t use Chuck P. Pierce (although Google suggests he sometimes uses Charlie, but where he does, he drops the middle initial (Google doesn’t know Pierce’s full middle name)). But ok, enough.
After “soak[ing] in all of the moral outrage and denunciations” of NOLA football, Engel shares with us her “first thought”: “Who will play Barry Bonds in this ‘sports tragedy’”?
Huh? Hopefully no one! Why would anyone bring Barry Bonds into this? Watch out sophomore seminar in comparative literature, here comes one now.
Daytona 500 preview
Trevor Bayne: defending Daytona 500 winner.
Tomorrow, the first and biggest race of the NASCAR season rolls off for 500 miles in Daytona, Florida. Trevor Bayne, just 20 years old, introduced himself to the wider world with his surprising win a year ago, and although he ran a majority of his season on the second-tier Nationwide Series, he’ll be there tomorrow to defend his win. It will be an uphill battle for him to repeat, though: he starts in the 40th position.
Bovada (formerly Bodog) has a Bayne win at 16/1 and likes Kyle Busch (5/1), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (5/1), and Tony Stewart (7/2). Stewart is the defending Cup champion, and after reeling off five wins in the ten-race Chase (the playoffs) to win it all last year, it’s easy to see why he’s favored in the season-opener this year. Kyle Busch has been strong in the first half of the season the last few years, so it makes sense that he would be a favorite too. Cynics might see Earnhardt Jr. as a sucker bet up there, slotted because his popularity, which outpaces his performance, will net the house some easy money, but he never can be counted out, especially at a track like Daytona, which best suits his driving style and where he has won before, and especially because he drives for Hendrick Motorsports, the best team in the sport. Roush is the next best team, and two of their drivers– Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle– are starting first and second on Sunday and have to be considered strong contenders as well.
Finally, Danica Patrick may be the biggest story going into Daytona this year, as she makes the jump from open-wheeled racing to stock cars on NASCAR’s biggest stage. She’s in good hands working with Stewart, but other successful IndyCar drivers have struggled to make the transition, and one has to expect that it will take her time to adjust as well. Still, she’s finding early success. Everyone’s focusing on a very bad wreck that was not her fault during the final lap of one of the pre-race races (I know), but she starts a respectable 29th on Sunday and has the pole position for today’s Nationwide race, remarkable for any rookie driver.
The full starting grid is here, and the top ten looks like this:
| 1 | 99 | Carl Edwards | Ford | Fastenal | |||
| 2 | 16 | Greg Biffle | Ford | 3M | |||
| 3 | 14 | Tony Stewart | Chevrolet | Office Depot / Mobil 1 | |||
| 4 | 17 | Matt Kenseth | Ford | Best Buy | |||
| 5 | 88 | Dale Earnhardt Jr. | Chevrolet | Diet Mountain Dew / National Guard | |||
| 6 | 78 | Regan Smith | Chevrolet | Furniture Row / CSX “Play it Safe” | |||
| 7 | 9 | Marcos Ambrose | Ford | Stanley | |||
| 8 | 48 | Jimmie Johnson | Chevrolet | Lowe’s | |||
| 9 | 31 | Jeff Burton | Chevrolet | Caterpillar | |||
| 10 | 33 | Elliott Sadler | Chevrolet | General Mills / Kroger |
Other stories to read before tomorrow’s race:
- How owner points deals determine who makes it into the 43-car field at Daytona – NASCAR.com
- Two-time winner Bill Elliot’s
backnot back – ESPN.com - How Tony Stewart spent his championship offseason – FoxSports.com
- “Where have the Southern drivers gone?” – FoxSports.com
- Why Danica Patrick can win – Yahoo! Sports
- The latest on Jimmie Johnson’s “major” rule violation – Jayski
- Blast from the recent past: Ex-driver Jeremy Mayfield says he’s the victim of a NASCAR conspiracy – ESPN.com
Finally, a programming note: ALDLAND will be hosting its first live-blogging event during tomorrow’s race. Check back here or on our new Podcasts & Live Blogging page for details.
Cinco de MayNo
Old news by this point, but the announcement came on Wednesday that Floyd Mayweather’s May 5 opponent would be Miguel Cotto, not Manny Pacquiao, as some had hoped and anticipated. Mayweather had been making public (twitter) and private (telephone) ovations to Pacquiao this year (a bit of a role reversal, at least as far as casual public perception was concerned), but the fight of the century will not come to pass, at least as far as 2012 is concerned. Reports have been sketchy as to why the top two fighters won’t be in the ring together in Las Vegas on 5/5/12, some briefly mentioning “an impasse in talks.” while others suggesting there was a lack of agreement over how to divide the pay-per-view money. Mayweather made his own view of the situation known:
My interpretation of the apparent lack of media probing into the breakdown in talks is that it is evidence of the changing perception of the two fighters toward a more positive view of Mayweather.
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Cinco de Mayweather
Four rounds with Floyd Mayweather and Victor Ortiz
Should NCAA sanctions against Jim Tressel affect his ability to work in the NFL?
The NCAA hit Ohio State with a one-year bowl ban and additional penalties Tuesday for violations that started with eight players taking a total of $14,000 in cash and tattoos in exchange for jerseys, rings and other Buckeyes memorabilia.
Tressel was tipped to the violations in April 2010 but didn’t tell anyone — even after the athletes got caught last December but were allowed to play in the Sugar Bowl against Arkansas if they served suspensions to start the 2011 season. Among those in the group: starting quarterback Terrelle Pryor and leading rusher Daniel ”Boom” Herron.
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Tressel, who guided Ohio State to its first national championship in 34 years after the 2002 season, was pressured to resign after 10 years with the Buckeyes. The NCAA hit him with a five-year ”show-cause” order which all but prevents him from being a college coach during that time.”Of great concern to the committee was the fact that the former head coach became aware of these violations and decided not to report the violations,” the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions wrote in its report.
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Under a show-cause order, any school that hired Tressel would have to present its case for why it needed to employ him, and would risk severe penalties if he were to commit any further infractions after that.The NCAA also issued a public reprimand and censure, put the Buckeyes on probation through Dec. 19, 2014, and reduced football scholarships from 85 to 82 through the 2014-15 academic year.
The full article is here.
This fall, Tressel, recently hired as the Indianapolis Colts’ in-game video replay consultant, delayed his first day on the job, apparently to comport with the suspensions Ohio State players were facing.
A five-year show-cause sanction is a different animal, though, and Tressel’s multi-week, self-imposed suspension of sorts is not as apt a comparison as NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s suspension of Terrelle Pryor. Back in August, I wrote about the Goodell Doctrine and the Pryor Precedent (and the potential Benson Exception), which apparently reflect NFL policy in the context of the relationship between the NFL and the NCAA and situations in which those facing NCAA sanctions seek to avoid them by fleeing to the NFL.
At this point, I haven’t formed any opinion on how Tressel’s five-year show-cause sanction compares with Bruce Pearl’s three-year show-cause sanction except that there’s a two-year difference between the two and the men coach different sports. Right now, my only question in the Tressel matter is for Goodell: Will the NFL impose a five-year requirement on the Colts and all other teams that they must meet the show-cause burden before hiring Tressel for any job starting in the 2012-2013 season?
Busy Monday
It was a busy weekend, really, and mostly because it was twice as long as most ordinary weekends. Plenty of football, including another Lions Thanksgiving day defeat at the hands of the Packers, injuries, and Ndamukong Suh (more on him later), a dominant performance by LSU over then-number 3 Arkansas that left Razorbacks head coach Bobby Petrino less than happy with the Tigers’ Les Miles (Clay Travis (who else?) has the video here), Michigan State rolling over Northwestern in a classic trap game, Michigan beating Ohio State for the first time since 2003 (more on that exciting game later), and Vanderbilt destroying Wake Forest to finish the regular season with a bowl-eligible 6-6 record, tripling their win total from last year and besting their win total of the last two seasons combined. In an era when a new coach routinely gets three or four years to “get his guys in” before he has to show success, Vanderbilt’s James Franklin turned a 2-10 team into a 6-6 team in one year, playing in the toughest conference in America, and he’s mad because they were a couple plays away from being 9-3. The Commodores’ loss to UT still stings, but the Vols’ defeat at the hands of lifeless Kentucky will keep the Big Orange out of a bowl this year, and that definitely is a silver lining for Vandy fans.
In Sunday NFL action, I have to mention Tim Tebow, who continued his improbable winning ways, and the Indianapolis Colts, who continued their extremely probable losing ways.
Two pieces of basketball news sure to be disappointing to large segments of the population: first, throwback UNLV took down top-ranked UNC in decisive fashion at the Las Vegas Invitational on Saturday, and the NBA is back, games to start piously on Christmas Day (link to the entirety of Grantland.com pending) (UPDATE: here it is.). (More seriously, the situation in Syracuse seems to have entered a new phase.)
In hockey, the Red Wings took down the pesky Predators and the Capitals fired their coach 22 games into the season.
Oh, and despite their loss in Ann Arbor, Buckeye hearts are aflutter with news of the hiring of Urban Meyer as OSU’s next head football coach. (More on that later, too.)
A reexamination of performance enhancing drugs in sports, and Peyton Manning’s neck
Jason Whitlock, a writer for Fox Sports, formerly of the Kansas City Star, even more formerly a footballer for Ball State, and sometimes guest host of Jim Rome’s radio show, asked in his NFL column this week, “If human growth hormone or some other performance-enhancing drug would help Peyton Manning’s nerves regenerate and heal his neck, would you be against the NFL’s top player using it/them?”
ALDLAND 