Scripting News: “MLB should shut down, as should the NBA and NFL.”
I agree with Dave. This virus is just too dangerous to flirt with.
We should also shut down schools until this this mess is over. All that’s ever mentioned is how resilient kids are to the virus. What about their parents and teachers? Think of the wild fire that would turn into? We’d have to shut down schools anyway.
New York Times: “A No. 16 seed had never beaten a No. 1 seed in the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament.”
Are you watching BCS, FBS, or whatever name you go by today? I know you have your little tournament to decide a National Champion but it’s time to get real. Expand to 16-teams.
What UMBC did to Virginia would be like TCU knocking off Clemson. Think about that for a minute. It’s a big deal.
Bring us a real tournament.
ESPN: “Pelini improved to 67-27 as Nebraska’s coach on Friday with a 37-34 overtime win at Iowa. The victory pushed Pelini’s win total past Tom Osborne for the most ever at the school in a coach’s first seven years.”
Good luck finding a coach to replace nine wins per season.
Tim Tebow is one of those guys, you either love him, or hate him. At one point I couldn’t stand the guy, but that was mainly because I can’t stand the Florida Gators. I now like him. By all accounts he’s a great young man, but I digress.
Let’s talk about Tim Tebow the football player. Not Tim Tebow the quarterback, Tim Tebow the football player.
It’s no secret the New York Jets made a mistake acquiring him in the off season. It seems the decision was made in the corporate office and Rex Ryan was told “Make a spot for this kid.” Obviously Rex didn’t have a place for Tim Tebow.
This morning ESPN’s Adam Schefter shared a quote from an unnamed NFL General Manager:
“I think his career is over without playing another position.”
That’s a very bold statement, but probably has some validity.
Do you remember Pat White? If I’m not mistaken, and I could be, Pat White was encouraged to change positions once he reached the NFL if he wanted to have a career. He decided not to take that advice and insisted on remaining a quarterback. He lasted one season as a backup with the Miami Dolphins and was cut the following season. He hasn’t played in the NFL since.
How about Michael Robinson? Do you know who he is? He’s the fullback for the Seattle Seahawks, and a darned good athlete. Here’s the deal. He was a quarterback out of college and was encouraged to change positions. He was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in 2006, he listened to his coaches, became a running back, worked hard, and the rest is history. He’s still playing in the NFL.
Here’s another great example and a name you probably won’t recognize. Jim Jensen. Jim Jensen earned a roster spot on a Miami Dolphin’s team each year he played by being a football player. He was a quarterback by trade, but how can you play that position when you’re on a team with Dan Marino? You can’t. You have to play other positions. Over his career Jim Jensen was known as a great special teams player but played quarterback, wide receiver, and running back. The man kept two pair of shoulder pads on the sidelines in case he was needed at quarterback. He wasn’t a star, he was a player. He is a guy that wanted to play the game so badly he’d do anything. That man is the definition of football player.
Yeah, yeah, I’m an armchair analyst. What NFL loving person isn’t? I think Tim Tebow should think about becoming a fullback or possibly a tight end. He’s a big kid: 6’3″ tall and 236lbs. There is no doubt he’s a winner and he works very hard. I find it curious General Managers are writing him off after seeing what he did in Denver. Really? How can you not believe he’s a football player? That’s right, a football player, not a quarterback, just a player.
We’ll see if he lands with a team in 2013. As a fan I certainly hope he does.
Pssst, can you imagine what Bill Belichick could do with him? That’s a scary thought.
My brother, Jay, or rather Jerry as you know him, usually has a piece on his weblog called “Saturday Morning Coffee.” It’s something I look forward to reading. There’s always something I find interesting. It looks like we’re not going to get a post today, so I thought I’d run one.
Let’s get started. Here’s how Jay starts his post:
“So much happens each and every week that it’s hard to keep up sometimes. Here are some of the tabs that are open in my browser this morning along with some random thoughts….”
Oh, he also includes a picture of the coffee mug he’s using. Here’s mine. Unlike Jay I only have one I use regularly. Not that we’re lacking in the coffee mug department, we have quite a few, but this one is mine. It’s a hand crafted masterpiece I purchased at our local Farmers Market.
Unless you’re one of those folks that don’t like football you know tomorrow is Super Bowl XLVII, in beautiful New Orleans, LA. The Baltimore Ravens will face the San Francisco 49ers. I’m pulling for the Ravens. I’ve had a hate-hate relationship with the Niners since “The Catch.” I was a Cowboys fan at the time and even though I’ve moved on to the Bears the hate for the Niners remains. Let’s hope Baltimore can pull a rabbit out of the hat.
Speaking of Baltimore. It looks like Ray Lewis has caused a bit of a crap storm over his quick recovery from a torn triceps early in the season. PEDs, or performance enhancing drugs, are not new to pro sports. This is just another in a long line of pro athletes being called out. I’d wager to bet he did use something to help him recover, so did Lance Armstrong, and Barry Bonds. Hey, it’s a part of pro sports. I’m probably in the minority here but I say let them use PEDs under the care of a licensed physician as long as they’re aware of the problems associated with them. They’re adults, let them make the decision.
Hey, how about this for goofy move. CBS has banned SodaStream’s Super Bowl commercial. Really weird. From a Forbes report:
“CBS banned SodaStream’s Super Bowl spot because, apparently, it was too much of a direct hit to two of its biggest sponsors, Coke and Pepsi.
Please pause and read that sentence again.”
That says a lot about how fragile Coke and Pepsi have become as a business. It looks like it’s time for those companies to rethink what they do if they’re scared of SodaStream. Things change. Roll with the punches guys. Good luck SodaStream.
It looks like BlackBerry is not the official name of the company formerly known as RIM. Does anyone else remember the “RIM Jobs” website. Good one. Anyway, BlackBerry announced the new BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 phones this week. The Z10 is a touch based device while the Q10 holds true to a traditional BlackBerry device and has a physical QWERTY keyboard. At first glance I thought the Z10 looked a lot like an iPhone 4, and tweeted as much, but later I realized it’s not as similar as I thought. At first glance the back of the device looked like the all glass iPhone 4 back, it’s not.
I think the Z10 looks pretty nice and the Q10 is a great choice for the keyboard loving BlackBerry loyalists. Will they succeed? Only time will tell.
It looks like hackers were able to gain access to 250,000 user accounts. Whoops. I find the choice of headlines in the weblog post announcing the hack disingenuous. The headline read “Keeping our users secure” then goes on to explain:
“This week, we detected unusual access patterns that led to us identifying unauthorized access attempts to Twitter user data. We discovered one live attack and were able to shut it down in process moments later. However, our investigation has thus far indicated that the attackers may have had access to limited user information – usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords – for approximately 250,000 users.”
Come on guys. Quit spinning bad news like it’s a good thing. You should’ve said something like “We’ve been hacked. We’re sorry.”
It looks like Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is number one at the box office. We haven’t seen a movie since The Hobit and have missed a bunch of great films that have released since the fall. I think my wife and I need to get out a bit more often. Maybe we can catch Hansel and Gretel soon.
As Jay pointed out last weekend, Apple took a hit on the stock market. They reported record revenue. The largest revenue of any corporation, ever. From an Extreme Tech article:
“Yet again, Apple has broken its own record and posted revenues of $54.5 billion — the greatest quarter of any company ever — driven entirely by sales of the iPhone and iPad.”
Of course the stock tanked.
On the flip side we have Amazon. A great company? Absolutely. They did however report a $39 loss million for the year. Their quarterly report wasn’t great either:
“Net income fell 45% to $97 million, or 21 cents a share, down from $177 million, or 38 cents a share, a year ago. Street consensus was for EPS of 27 cents. Sales were up 22% to $21.27 billion, from $17.43 billion a year ago. That, too, missed Street views of $22.26 billion.”
The stock was up, of course.
The market is a fickle thing.
Have a great weekend and make sure to visit Jerry’s site next weekend for the real deal, not this wannabe version of Saturday Morning Coffee.
The Nation: “They loved their team but refused to pay for a new taxpayer funded $300 million arena. Seattle’s citizens voted down referendums, organized meetings and held rallies with the goal of keeping the team housed in a perfectly good building called the KeyArena”
I wrote about how frustrating the Sonics becoming the Okies was back in 2007. Very frustrating. Thing is, I can’t stand Lebron James.
I wish Boston could’ve pulled a rabbit out of the hat. It wasn’t meant to be.
This week Tiger Woods declared himself a “traditionalist”, when it comes to the game of golf. What prompted the declaration? Golfers using long putters, or belly putters. Tiger Woods would like to see the rules amended to exclude the use of the long putter. I find that ridiculous. I’m not a golfer and I can understand the desire to maintain tradition, but this is a bit silly when you consider the technology Mr. Woods, and the rest of his fellow professional golfers, deploy when they step onto the links. They use clubs with shafts made of exotic fibers and heads made of titanium. I don’t think the original clubs were made of those materials, right? Well, no, they were made of wood and in some cases iron.
“Club heads were made from beech or the wood of fruit trees such as apple. Some club heads for were made from hand-forged iron. Shafts were usually ash or hazel. Balls were made from tightly compressed feathers wrapped in a stitched horse hide sphere. The sport was somewhat exclusive due to the expense of the handcrafted equipment. After 1826, persimmon and hickory were imported from the USA to make club heads and shafts respectively.” – Golf Europe, A History of Golf since 1497
That’s a description of a traditional golf club. I’m pretty sure you won’t find a single all wood club in Tiger Woods’ golf bag. Here’s a better description of the clubs Mr. Woods carries, and it describes clubs from 1991. Can you imagine how far they’ve advanced since then?
“Taylor-Made was the first company to manufacture metal woods. Only recently have they become more popular than persimmon woods. The most successful club in history is Callaway’s over sized wood, the Big Bertha which was introduced in 1991. Today there is an enormous variety of woods to choose from. The latest trend is woods with titanium heads and graphite shafts which are very expensive.” – Golf Europe, A History of the Golf Club
I think it’s time the PGA introduced a Traditionalist Tournament. The Traditionalist would feature clubs made completely of wood and a very low end golf ball. The clubs and the golf balls should be provided by a single manufacturer and every golfer in the tournament would be required to use this equipment. Then it’s down to the golfer to perform. At that point a belly putter would be the least of Tiger Woods worries.
ESPN: “Only hours after No. 15 seed Norfolk State stunned No. 2 seed Missouri 86-84 in a West Regional game in Omaha, Neb., Lehigh pulled off an equally impressive upset, surprising No. 2 seed Duke 75-70 in Greensboro Coliseum.”
This is why I love sports. Most of the time Goliath crushes David, as expected, but every once in a while we have a day like this. Two number two’s go down in the tournament. It’s a beautiful thing.
Chances are these two teams will win another game on pure momentum. This is exactly why the BCS needs to become a tournament, or be disbanded all together. Tournaments are exciting, anything can, and does, happen.
ESPN: “While the Yankees were eliminated in the postseason with a one-run loss at home for the first time since the 1926 World Series against St. Louis, Detroit won an all-or-nothing postseason game for the first time since beating the Cardinals in Game 7 of the 1968 World Series.”
Ahhhhh, music to my ears. I hate, hate, hate, the Jankees. It’s always a great day when they lose.
So, now it’s Tigers vs. Rangers for all the marbles in the AL. Looks like the AL East was full of pretenders.