Month: May 2008 (Page 7 of 28)

The asterisk is back – Porter wants asterisk placed on Pats

May 25, 2008 / Anthony Stalter

Former Pittsburgh Steelers’ linebacker Joey Porter thinks there should be an asterisk placed on the Patriots’ Super Bowl seasons.

“They [the Patriots] cheated, there should be an asterisk. They cheated and they got caught,” the All-Pro linebacker, who spent eight seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers before joining Miami in free agency last season, said in an interview on “NFL Live.”
“Why, if you have nothing to hide, would you destroy [the evidence]? That’s how I’ve looked at it from the beginning. Why destroy something that doesn’t have to be destroyed? Let everyone know what was on the tapes. Why would you destroy them so fast?”
“They went from zero to 60 overnight and [Belichick] went from a good coach to a great great coach and he got caught cheating,” Porter said on “NFL Live.”

I love when players and coaches break out the asterisk comments. There will never be any asterisks in sports record books. The asterisks come into play by us fans getting upset and never forgetting how the Patriots cheated or how Barry Bonds used steroids to break the all-time home run record. Fans talking about those situations and choosing not to acknowledge that they happened is the asterisks.

NFL

Top 10 Active Batting Average Leaders

May 24, 2008 / Mike Farley

Batting average can be a deceptive figure sometimes. Guys like Tony Gwynn always hit for a very high average but didn’t drive in as many runs as you might think. But average is still a great indicator of a player’s offensive skills, and some hitters have both home run power and the ability to spray base hits all over the field as well. Here, we take a look at the Top 10 active batting average leaders in Major League Baseball today:

1. Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals (.332)—Okay, so Albert might look like he has a little too much air in the tires, if you know what I mean. But chemical enhancement of any kind isn’t really going to make you hit for a higher average. You have to have natural talent for that, and Albert just oozes it. It’s amazing to think he’s only 28 years old too.

2. Ichiro Suzuki, Seattle Mariners (.331)—Ichiro came over from Japan in 2001 and won the AL MVP AND Rookie of the Year honors as a 27-year-old MLB rookie. And he really hasn’t stopped hitting since then.

3. Todd Helton, Colorado Rockies (329)—Helton has played his whole career in Colorado (since 1997), which means he has had roughly 800 at-bats in the thin air of Coors Field. But thin air isn’t going to help your batting average, so clearly this dude can see the ball and hit the ball as well as anyone in the game today.

4. Vladimir Guerrero, Los Angeles Angels (.322)—Thankfully we’re done hearing about Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, because now we can focus on some of the guys like Vlad. He’s truly one of the greatest hitters of our generation, but he’s only played in Montreal (baseball purgatory) and Los Angeles (plays too late for most of the country to watch), so he’s gone largely unnoticed.

5. Derek Jeter, New York Yankees (.316)—Mr. Yankee, Mr. Clutch, Mr. Everything. Derek Jeter represents everything that is good about the game. He plays hard, he plays fair, he plays to win, and he consistently delivers.

6. Nomar Garciaparra, Los Angeles Dodgers (.314)—I don’t know about you, but it’s still odd to me seeing Nomar in anything but a Red Sox uniform. I sort of feel bad for the guy that he left Beantown right before the Sox won a World Series in 2004, but then again, maybe he’s like A-Rod. You know, for whatever reason, the team he’s on can’t seem to win.

7. Manny Ramirez, Boston Red Sox (.312)—“Manny being Manny” bas become a catch phrase that follows this animated player around, but it has meant different things over the years. Here, we’ll just pay homage to the fact that Manny can mash. Always has, probably always will. Dude is inching toward 500 homers and still has a career batting average of .312. That’s ridiculous.

8. Magglio Ordonez, Detroit Tigers (.311)—After battling injuries for a couple of seasons, Ordonez has had a renaissance of sorts with the Tigers, helping them win the AL pennant in 2006, and then leading all of baseball with a .363 average in 2007.

9. Miguel Cabrera, Detroit Tigers (.310)—Maybe Miguel Cabrera hasn’t figured out American League pitching yet, but he’s still hitting .310 for his career, and he’s only 25. I have a feeling this guy’s best is yet to come, and that there is an MVP Award in his future.

10. Chipper Jones, Atlanta Braves (.309)—Chipper is the epitome of consistency, and he’s now in his fourteenth full season. And he gets better with age, having batted .337 last season, and currently at .415 through 45 games in 2008. And if you’re a Mets fan, you surely don’t want to hear his name.

Source: Baseball Reference

MLB

Correcting Bill Simmons, Part 2

May 23, 2008 / John Paulsen

Welcome to the second part of my infinite-part series, Correcting Bill Simmons. To find out why I started this series, feel free to read the first part. Simply stated – Bill Simmons is an entertaining writer, but sometimes he goes off the reservation and says something absurd.

This week, in his Ramblings column, he defends his Patriots over the whole Spygate fiasco.

If you have a national column in which you’re excoriating a sports team for cheating even though it already paid a severe penalty for what it did, and you’re hinting more revelations are coming down the road, and then it’s proven you were barking up the wrong tree … you need to admit defeat and quit blowing the situation out of proportion. No, really.

What gets me is that he thinks that the Patriots “already paid a severe penalty” for what they did. This is why Boston fans annoy me. Let’s see, the Patriots were caught videotaping the Jets sideline in a game last season and Matt Walsh produced more videotapes from 2000-2003, so it’s pretty clear to anyone that’s objective about the situation that the team has been videotaping their opponents’ sidelines during Bill Belichick’s entire run. And the “severe penalty” is losing a single first round pick and paying a fine? Is he serious?

If you took a poll of all NFL fans, I think the overwhelming majority would say that the Pats got off with a slap on the wrist. Their “punishment” was a joke considering that they knowingly broke the rules by stealing signals for at least seven years. If this were the Giants, Boston fans would be foaming at the mouth, bitching and complaining that the penalty wasn’t stiff enough.

Bill, take the Patriot Glasses off for a minute and look at this situation objectively.

Fantasy Football, NFL, NFL Draft, Super Bowl

Bill Simmons correcting Bill Simmons

Taylor to the Ravens?

May 23, 2008 / Anthony Stalter

CBS Radio in Baltimore is reporting that the Miami defensive end Jason Taylor wants to be a Raven and it’s a legitimate possibility he could be very soon. Apparently the Dolphins and Ravens are already in discussions about a trade.

I believe that the Ravens are seriously in the mix for Jason Taylor and look for the deal to be structured as follows: Miami gets a (2009) 3rd round draft pick with the pot possibly being sweetened to a 2nd round pick; the Ravens get Jason Taylor; Taylor signs a 2-3 year contract extension that is cap friendly for the Ravens.
If this trade happens, look for news to break that Cam Cameron and a number of current/ former Ravens players helped to sway Taylor towards Baltimore. Also, look for Taylor to play the pure rush-end position which will give the Ravens insurance against any downtime for an aging Trevor Pryce also giving them continued flexibility in how they use Terrell Suggs. Also, look for the Ravens to play more of a pure 4/3 if they can land Taylor – in a 4/3 base look for the box to have (DE) Pryce (DT) Ngata (DT) Gregg (DE) Taylor with (MLB) Lewis, (SAM) Scott, (WIL) Suggs/Johnson…etc.

The source seems a little shaky, so take it for what it’s worth. But obviously the Dolphins are interested in dealing Taylor, so this isn’t a far-fetched rumor.

NFL