Author: Anthony Stalter (Page 1272 of 1503)

Jake Long doesn’t want Dolphins?

FOX Sports columnist John Czarnecki is reporting that “the word on the street” is that Michigan offensive tackle Jake Long doesn’t want to play for the Miami Dolphins.

The word on the street is that Michigan offensive tackle Jake Long doesn’t want to play for the Dolphins, who continue to negotiate with him as the first overall draft choice. There’s a special honor in being the first pick so Long’s agents continue to talk.

Of course, there is a deadline to these contract talks and then the Dolphins will move onto the next person on their board. Apparently, it isn’t Virginia’s Chris Long.

The Czar’s information has always been a little hit and miss (biased too in my opinion), so take this rumor with a grain of salt. But if there’s any truth to it, Jake Long needs to buck up and go where he’s drafted. Please, no more John Elway and Eli Manning I-want-to-go-here-drafts.

No team envious of Fish

Greg Cote of the Miami Herald makes a good point about the Dolphins choosing a wrong year (in terms of the draft) to be a bad team.

Here is the problem for Miami as the April 26 draft thunders in:

The Dolphins, who continue to clearly need the rescue of a great quarterback more than anything else, keep picking really bad years to be really bad.

The Dolphins should be the envy of the draftosphere right now. Instead, every executive in the NFL is glad he isn’t Bill Parcells, because in a draft in which the top six or seven guys are judged pretty even, the only thing picking first gets you is the honor of paying many millions of dollars more than the team probably getting somebody just as good two or three spots lower.

Cote makes a good point, although it’s ludicrous to think the Dolphins won’t get a good player. Several folks in the media are down on this April’s draft, but I actually think it’s the type of year that could surprise. Chris Long, Jake Long and Glenn Dorsey are likely going to be very good football players at the next level. Sure, Darren McFadden is the arguably the only flashy player that will be chosen in the top 10, but teams are more about substance anyway. Fans are about the flash.

Photo Courtesy of Flickr

Has baseball lost the meaning behind Jackie Robinson Day?

Angels’ outfielder Torii Hunter recently had this to say about so many teams sporting No. 42 jerseys for baseball’s annual Jackie Robinson Day:

This is what Los Angeles Angels outfield Torii Hunter said, to USA Today: “This is supposed to be an honor, and just a handful of guys wearing the number. Now you’ve got entire teams doing it. I think we’re killing the meaning. It should be special wearing Jackie’s number, not just because it looks cool.”

What upset Hunter, he says now, was this: The Houston Astros had no black players on their team last April, and yet the entire team wore No. 42. Said Hunter: “That got it away from, ‘OK, we don’t have any blacks,’ ” he said. To Hunter, a roster with no black players did not represent the progress for which Robinson stood, and baseball celebrated according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

I obviously can’t speak for everyone, but I’d like to assume that any player that wears No. 42 on that day is doing so in tribute to Robinson and not because “it looks cool.” I could be naïve here, but I’d like to think that baseball players understand the importance of what Robinson did for the game and donning his number on your back should be done with the utmost respect.

What do you think? Does Hunter have a point?

Photo Courtesy of Flickr

Mariotti calls out Tiger

Chicago Sun Times columnist and everyone’s favorite bigmouth Jay Mariotti called out Tiger Woods for not backing up his words at this year’s Masters, won by Trevor Immelman on Sunday.

In one disjointed sense, this truly was a piece of history we should tell the grandkids about. Never before has Tiger Woods been so fantastically presumptuous — and so gloriously wrong. Without prompting from any source but his own inner voices, he had the temerity to suggest that a calendar-year Grand Slam was “easily within reason” for him.

While we applaud him for manufacturing drama that otherwise wouldn’t have existed in April, do note that unkept promises usually aren’t part of a sports legend’s resume. What does it say when Plaxico Burress nails a Super Bowl prediction but the extraordinary Woods, never known for outlandish boasts of any sort, instantly blows the forecast and loses the Masters by three strokes to the worthy but previously obscure Trevor Immelman?

It tells us that Tiger, who made the comments on his personal Web site as the season began, might want to withhold such bold opinions if he can’t take the heat. As dusk fell over Augusta National, he clearly wasn’t happy that his self-fueled Slam talk had become such a hot-button topic — and a major letdown Sunday. What, when Eldrick Woods interjects “Grand Slam” into the discussion, people aren’t going to listen and react? Um, aren’t we talking about the world’s biggest sportsman, the first billion-dollar athlete?

Tiger can’t take the heat? After one bold comment on his personal website that wasn’t even that bad to begin with? Stop stirring the pot Mariotti – Tiger has nothing to prove and he’s always been a class act. And the comparison to Plaxico Burress was a reach to say the least.

Photo Courtesy of Flickr

What’s wrong with Big Papi?

ESPN.com wants to know what’s wrong with Boston Red Sox slugger David Oritz, who is hitting just .070 on the season.

I love ESPN. Without fail, whenever a player or team is slumping, they run the “What’s wrong with…” segment. Big Papi isn’t 28-years old anymore and he’s battling a nagging knee injury. He’s going to turn things around and once he does, ESPN can run the “Which Big Papi is the real Big Papi – the Big Papi who started the season batting .070 or the Big Papi that is on a 34-54 tear?” segment.

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