Rodriguez banged his bat against the dirt, as if he had missed a pitch he felt he should have clobbered.
“I think the thing to remember is that when I hit this, nothing’s going to change,” Rodriguez said. “We’re in the middle of a pennant race, and we’re just trying to play good baseball.”
Since hitting No. 599 last Thursday at Yankee Stadium, a span of 30 at-bats and 34 plate appearances, Rodriguez has rarely shown any frustration.
Boston Red Sox hero Curt Schilling has been taking some hits from Rhode Island politicians.
Former Red Sox hero Curt Schilling said that people who think he used paint, ketchup or anything else on his ankle during the 2004 World Series are 'stupid and bitter' (katchop)
“I don’t know if I trust Curt Schilling,” said former Sen. Lincoln Chafee, who’s running for governor as an independent. “I just remember his own teammates didn’t like him. They thought he was a bit of a salesman.”
Chafee went farther—some say too far—when he cast doubt on the bloody sock, a talisman of the 2004 World Series victory that ended an 86-year championship drought for the Red Sox.
With an ankle injury that would otherwise have kept him from pitching, Schilling asked team doctor Bill Morgan to stitch a flapping tendon in place so he could make his start in Game 6 of the AL playoffs. They repeated the procedure five days later in the World Series—with another bloody sock, and another Red Sox victory.
The performances gave birth to a stubborn urban legend that Schilling stained the sock with ketchup or paint to call attention to himself. He has denied it, Morgan has vouched for him, and the Hall of Fame, which has the sock in its collection, has said there is no reason to doubt the stain is blood.
“It was blood, my blood, and it was coming from the sutures in my ankle,” Schilling said in 2007. “You’re either stupid or bitter if you think otherwise.”
But veteran Chipper Jones, who played on 11 consecutive division champions beginning in 1995, sees a completely different key to the club’s success.
“We all enjoy hanging out,” Jones said. “In the past, a clique may have consisted of three or four guys. You’d have seven or eight cliques on the team. But I’ve been to many dinners already this season where we’ve gotten into a town on the road and there’s been 15, 18, even 20 guys all eating together.”
It’s what everyone expected would happen by sometime Wednesday morning: Terrell Owens(notes) is a Bengal. According to ProFootballTalk.com citing a league source, Owens will be signed for $2 million to play with Cincinnati in 2010, with a chance at another $2 million in incentives
Of course, before each season, hope springs eternal and somesuch other cliches about how things can go right for nearly any NFL team under the correct set of circumstances. And, indeed, the Falcons are one of those teams that can fare very well, provided everything falls into place for them. But such calculated assessments don’t do well with the ticket-buying public.
That’s when you need to haul out the gospel choir to harmonize behind Samuel L. Jackson shouting messages of encouragement. YES ATLANTA WE GONNA RISE UP! I’M SAYING RISE UP! RISE UP RIGHT NOW! RISE THE HELL UP! DO THEY SPEAK FALCON IN RISE UP?
There were 19 players in camp competing to make the final 12-man roster, and USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo said the number will be cut to 15 by Monday in preparation for the Aug. 10-16 camp in New York.
Colangelo told FanHouse after the game that Sacramento guard Tyreke Evans being cut is “pretty obvious.” Evans, who missed the final three practices and Saturday’s game due to a sprained left ankle, had told FanHouse on Friday he didn’t expect to survive the cut, and Colangelo had pretty much agreed with that.
David Kahn, GM of the Minnesota Timberwolves, has been fined by the NBA for discussing Michael Beasley’s drug use.
The GM of the Minnesota Timberwolves, David Kahn, has been fined by the NBA. Immediately, Kahn issued a statement directed at David Stern that reads: "I will grapple with thee... from Hell's heart, I stab at thee! For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee! (katchop)
He’s a very young and immature kid who smoked too much marijuana and has told me that he’s not smoking anymore. … if you had given me this kind of money and put me in this kind of world with these kinds of pressures attached to it and some of the demands, I don’t know (that) I would have handled it any easier than, say, he has.”
But I feel very strongly that some of these kids simply deserve the opportunity to make mistakes and grow up.”
A source told sportsnet.ca that the only way a grievance would not be filed was if the Devils and Kovalchuk restructure the deal. However, the source also said that even if the two parties do re-work the contract, the NHLPA may still elect to file a grievance to prevent the league from taking similar action on future deals.
Kovalchuk’s contract with the Devils was rejected by the NHL earlier this week after the league ruled that the deal violated its salary cap.
Under the signed agreement, Kovalchuk was slated to earn $98.5 million in the first 11 years of the deal and only $550,000 in each of the last five seasons. The extra years tacked on at the end of the deal took the contract through the 2026-27 season and lowered the overall salary cap hit to $6 million.
Chris Paul has asked to be traded from the New Orleans Hornets, with the Knicks, Lakers and Magic as his top 3 choices.
Chris Paul has announced that he would like to be traded to the Knicks because he wants to win a championship. He also announced he wants to climb Mt. Everest, so he's booked a vacation in Egypt. (katchop)
“He wants out,” said a person familiar with Paul’s exit strategy, according to the report. “He wants to play with another superstar. He wants to follow LeBron’s model of teaming up with other great players.”
Newly acquired Amar’e Stoudemire represents an enticing teammate to Paul, 25, who earlier this month reportedly toasted to the idea of forming “our own Big Three” with Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony in New York. But the Knicks would have to come up with a good enough offer for the Hornets, who still planned to meet with Paul to sell the direction of a franchise that’s rebuilding and failed to make the playoffs last season.
ESPNDallas.com reports that the 67-year-old former Cowboys coach will join the 21st incarnation of the CBS’s Survivor.
Survivor: Nicaragua places Johnson among a group of contestants who compete through challenges to gain immunity from being kicked off the set. The popular series has been taped in locations including Panama, Kenya and Brazil since it began in 2000.
The Dallas Morning News noted that Johnson “will be one of the oldest contestants to ever appear” on the show.
As first reported by Canada’s TSN.ca and later repeated by multiple news outlets, the deal brought down the wrath of a league that had done little but squirm when other teams structured lucrative, long-term contracts in that manner. The NHL had previously said it was investigating the Philadelphia Flyers‘ seven-year, $34.45-millon deal with Chris Pronger, the Vancouver Canucks‘ 12-year, $64-million deal with Roberto Luongo and the Chicago Blackhawks‘ 12-year, $62.8-million contract with Marian Hossa but has not publicized its findings.
In those cases, each player’s compensation tails off dramatically as the contract progresses. But none declined so markedly as Kovalchuk’s deal, leading the NHL to intercede.
It can’t be a coincidence that the final number was $102 million. That makes it more–by $1 million–than the offer Kovalchuk turned down from Atlanta before the Thrashers traded him to New Jersey in February. He wanted Alexander Ovechkin-like numbers and no one thought he’d get $100 million in this league and with this economic climate. He not only got his numbers, he got more than the most lucrative previous offer.
Here’s the contract structure, as first reported by Michael Russo of the Minneapolis Star Tribune and later verified by capgeek.com:
Kovalchuk, in his prime at 27, will earn $6 million in each of the first two seasons. But then he will earn $11.5 million each of the next FIVE seasons. Then his salary goes to $10.5 million for one year, followed by seasons of $8.5 million, $6.5 million, $3.5 million and $750,000. The last five seasons he’s scheduled to be paid $550,000 each. He will be 40 then.
Burnett was far from good in the first two innings of Saturday’s 10-5 loss to the Rays at the Stadium. That caused him to retreat into the clubhouse, where he slammed both his hands into the clubhouse doors, cutting them. Trying to stay in the game, he lied to Yankee trainers and Joe Girardi, at first telling them he had cut his hands when he braced for a fall as he slipped on the steps.
He faced only two batters in the third inning before Girardi pulled him. After the game, Burnett came clean to Girardi and Brian Cashman, admitting he caused the injury in frustration.
Burnett, 33, said he did not have a chance to address his teammates after Saturday’s game. He was the first one in the clubhouse when it opened at 9:30 a.m. Sunday, and waited to face his teammates. He said he met with them to apologize before he went out to test his hands.
It’s the Katchop.com company picnic today, so here is an alternate Lakers logo.
This logo was made in the event the LA Lakers lost to the Boston Celtics in the 2010 NBA Finals. The Lakers weren't losers, but we need something to put up today (katchop)
Wind is an inescapable part of the British Open at St. Andrews, and so is luck when it comes to morning and afternoon tee times. The trick for the contenders was to not get too upset about it. Those who fared best in the gusts of 35 to 40 miles per hour were those who didn’t let the bluster completely rob them of their composure, those who were content just to survive and not shoot themselves out of it.
“Players get together and decide they want to do this or that … but the owners are still involved in it,” Robertson said of the arrangements that enabled James and fellow free agent Chris Bosh to land with Dwyane Wade in Miami. “When those three guys went down there and talked to the Miami Heat, (the Heat management) had to have known about that.
“The players decided they wanted to play together, but it still takes the owners to pay the money. Nobody is going to pay the money if they don’t know anything about it at all. I mean, come on. It was a surprise that these players were coming to your team and, all of a sudden, you have the contracts there, and you have this ready and you have that ready in a day? Come on.”
How has this relatively flat, not very long (7,377 yards) par-72 course, which has been tweaked but never had a major redesign, been able to withstand the tests of time and more than a century’s worth of advances in talent and technology? It helps to have 112 strategically placed bunkers, the vagaries of Scottish weather and huge greens with undulations subtle and overt that form a last line of defense.
Geez, LeBron. Way to almost ruin your friend’s wedding by choosing to play in Miami. It’s like that old saying: “You made your multi-millon dollar free-agency bed, now get booed by Knick fans in it.” Or something like that. LBJ might as well hear the jeers now, since he’ll be getting heckled basically everywhere but Miami-Wade County. Better to start with a few scattered New Yorkers than 20,000 rabid Clevelanders who hate his guts.
For the Dutch, the loss is the third in the finals after two crushing defeats in 1974 and 1978. But while past Dutch failures saddened admirers of the beautiful game worldwide, the current Dutch team is unlikely to garner as much empathy. The Dutch side’s extremely physical style of play shows little resemblance to that of their predecessors.
“It was very tough, very rough,” said Iniesta immediately after the match. “And I think Spain deserved to win this World Cup. It’s something that we will remember. It’s something that we will enjoy and we are very proud.”
Alex Rodriguez had been booed lustily all night, as has become de rigueur with each return to Seattle. The obligatory dollar bills came fluttering down from the upper deck.
But in the end, the Yankees star also aroused the passion of the numerous Yankees fans among the 37,432 at Safeco Field, delivering a two-out, two-run single off David Aardsma in the ninth that lifted New York to a 3-1 victory on Thursday.
Clearly, this is bitterly disappointing to all of us.
The good news is that the ownership team and the rest of the hard-working, loyal, and driven staff over here at your hometown Cavaliers have not betrayed you nor NEVER will betray you.
There is so much more to tell you about the events of the recent past and our more than exciting future. Over the next several days and weeks, we will be communicating much of that to you.
You simply don’t deserve this kind of cowardly betrayal.
You have given so much and deserve so much more.
In the meantime, I want to make one statement to you tonight:
“I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE”
The one-hour LeBron James ESPN special (how could he knife his hometown of Cleveland?) seemed as much like Grace Kelly choosing the Prince of Monaco as it did a sporting event, with gleeful suitor, heartbroken gentlemen callers and a trousseau large enough refloat the American economy.
Could it have been done in 15 minutes? Sure, but that wasn’t the point. It was ESPN meets MTV with a side order of BET – all for a player who hasn’t won an NBA title. TV ratings will be available Friday, but industry insiders are saying James’s free-agent decision broadcast could exceed the numbers for the NBA draft lottery or even the draft itself.
Wade on LeBron James coming to Miami: “There’s no secret that myself and Chris and LeBron are all good friends. We all came into this league together and played together. But we all make our own decisions at the end of the day. So, of course, we would love for LeBron to join Miami. Who wouldn’t. But at the same time LeBron is going to make his own decision.”
Note: Reading way too much into this, but … It has been well reported that Wade, James and Bosh have talked extensively about this, and it’s interesting that Wade doesn’t say anything about being happy to let James go elsewhere. He leaves the door wide open. It’s impossible to think James has told them he will go elsewhere.
Chris Bosh on why he wouldn’t take more money in a sign-and-trade to play in Cleveland: “It was just about me and Dwyane talking at that time. I wasn’t sure if LeBron was coming back. And I just wanted to leave that decision up to him.”
Note: Chris Bosh just walked away from a lot of money! Makes clear that playing with James was a real priority, at least in Cleveland.
As soon as Meals made the ruling, Manuel sprinted out of the dugout to argue the call alongside catcher Rod Barajas — who had to be restrained — and David Wright. Manuel spent a long moment arguing the call before Iassogna, who said he has the utmost respect for how Manuel handled the situation, ejected him.
“The [umpire] told me that he saw it hit the guy, which from that angle I refuse to believe. What I saw was a reaction from the batter,” Manuel said. “This is a game that the human element is a part of it, and that’s what makes it so beautiful and what it is. Maybe the home-plate umpire missed it. That’s part of the game. But I don’t know if you can make it right by saying you saw something that maybe you didn’t see.”
In fact, if Stoudemire can convince James or Wade to join him, he will represent the smartest signing the Knicks have ever made.
This isn’t the time to focus on what or who Stoudemire is not. If he fails to stay healthy, or if he fails to shape a consistent contender without a quarterback named Steve Nash throwing him spirals, Stoudemire will get what’s coming to him from the Madison Square Garden crowd.
That’s fine. Stoudemire wouldn’t be the first big-name, bigger-money ballplayer jeered out of New York, and he sure wouldn’t be the last.
Only this much is certain for now: Stoudemire is the Knicks’ best player since Patrick Ewing, better than Allan Houston and LJ and Spree, even if every New Yorker — the new power forward included — hopes Amare surrenders that title by the end of the week.
Major League Baseball teams all wore “Stars and Stripes” hats this weekend.
All MLB players, like Jose Reyes of the NY Mets, wore special "Stars and Stripes" caps to honor veterans, but the hats wound up looking like they were made to honor chefs and not soldiers (katchop)
For games on July 4 weekend, Major League Baseball Clubs will wear special “Stars & Stripes” caps, which have the American flag etched into the team’s logo and are off-white in color with red or blue brims (the Toronto Blue Jays hat will incorporate a Maple Leaf design instead of the “Stars & Stripes”). Major League Baseball Properties will donate 100% of the proceeds it receives from the sale of the caps to Welcome Back Veterans, a program which addresses the needs of returning American Veterans and their families.
According to my source, LeBron James plans on signing with the Los Angeles Clippers.
“He’s going to California,” my source told me. “He wants to compete head-to-head with Kobe.”
My source is a mole. Literally. He’s a brownish oval, roughly one half-inch in diameter, located on the right side of my stomach. I’ve been itching to have him removed, but my dermatologist says there’s no good reason. Hence, he stays.
The San Francisco Giants are running out of patience with Pablo Sandoval.
Nothing really earth shattering happened in NBA or NHL free agency today, so here is a photo of Pablo Sandoval of the San Francisco Giants running away from a diet book (katchop)
A year later, Sandoval is getting lampooned for his askew baserunning, beer-league-softball belly and, above all else, slumping bat. Call this mantra: “Pick on Pablo.”
This does not faze Sandoval. Should it? Is it time he stops treating this game like, well, just a game?
Be careful what you wish from him. His happy-go-lucky attitude is an asset. The world doesn’t need another jaded, disgruntled, inconsolable, elitist athlete.
How Sandoval copes with his recent failures, however, will point the Giants in the direction they will go in the second half of this still-alive season.
“I come in every day with my head up, and I work game by game,” Sandoval said before Tuesday’s shift against the Los Angeles Dodgers. “You have to believe, you have to trust yourself. I want to (succeed) so bad. I try to do too much.”
What the Giants need is for him to hit. And not into double plays.
In the past, James hosted executives from Fortune 500 companies and discussed business ventures here, a town traditionally known as the rubber capital of the world, in which the Cleveland Cavaliers star has forever laid his stamp. At 12:01 a.m. Thursday, James would begin to discuss, dissect and debate his next business venture.
Northeast Ohio is the Grand Central Terminal of N.B.A. free agency until James makes a decision. It will be the landing spot for foreign multibillionaires, longtime N.B.A. owners and well-respected coaches.
All but the Cavaliers will come to extract James. The Nets were scheduled to meet him first. The Knicks, the Chicago Bulls, the Miami Heat and the Los Angeles Clippers will follow, commencing the wildest free-agent period in history.
Places not as good as Katchop that you still might go to anyway:
