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The biggest golf announcer blunders

On the heels of David Feherty’s insulting comments about our troops and two of our political leaders, Devil Ball Golf lists several of the biggest blunders made by golf announcers over the years.

Here’s a sampling:

Andrew Magee: At the FBR Open in February of this year, Andrew Magee remarked on-air that he saw a guy wearing a t-shirt that read, “I got kicked out of the Boy Scouts for eating a Brownie.” Was it a pedophile joke? A drug one? Could go either way, but Magee got a reprimand from the Golf Channel.

Feherty’s comments are dangerous because they incited violence against Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and put those two congressional leaders in the same category as Osama Bin Laden. But the most offensive thing was the implication that the average soldier would like to kill two fellow Americans. He meant it as a joke, but only the hardcore Pelosi and Reid haters would find any humor in it, and many of them would be insulted by Feherty’s use of our military personnel in his quip. It was just a bad, bad decision by Feherty.

Clemens once again refutes steroid allegations

While appearing on “Mike & Mike in the Morning” on ESPN Radio on Tuesday, Roger Clemens bashed the new book “American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America’s Pastime,” written by four New York Daily News reporters, and once again denied being injected with HGH by former trainer Brian McNamee.

When asked about the physical evidence reportedly handed over by McNamee to federal investigators and whether it had his DNA on it, Clemens said “Impossible, because he’s never given me any [performance-enhancing drugs], it’s as simple as that. He’s never given me HGH or any kind of performance-enhancing drug, so it’s impossible.”

Later in the interview, he said McNamee “… never injected me with HGH or steroids.” Pointing out that his family has a history of heart conditions, Clemens said “It would be suicidal for me to even think about taking any of these dangerous drugs.”

Asked about Pettitte’s testimony that Clemens had told him he used HGH, Clemens repeated a line that he uttered during his congressional testimony: “Andy misremembers.” He said he’d only talked to Pettitte a few times since then because of the legal issues.

“I still consider Andy a friend,” Clemens said.

One of the biggest crocks in Clemens’ testimony is his claim that ‘Andy misremembered.’ I find it incredibly hard to believe that Andy Pettitte (or anyone for that matter) would have a conversation about HGH and not remember that one of his friends and teammates told him that he had taken the drug.

If I was having a beer with a buddy of mine and he confessed that he was taking HGH, had cheated on his girlfriend, had stabbed a panda, had stolen a car or whatever, I would remember the pertinent details. It’s not like that kind of information would go in one ear and out the other, you know?

Clemens is going to get his in the end, because McNamee has cooperated with investigators this entire time. Whether or not Clemens eventually gets busted for lying depends on the evidence, however.

Peter King loves himself some Jay Cutler, Bears

Peter King of SI.com ranked all 32 teams in the NFL based on how they look after minicamps wrapped up and he had a bit of a surprise in his top 5.

4. Chicago
I may not like how Jay Cutler babied his way out of Denver, but by Labor Day, the football world will have forgotten, and by Thanksgiving, the most popular baby name in Chicagoland will be Jay. (Unless it’s Jerry, as in Angelo, the man who stuck his neck out and made this deal.) Cutler’s a big-time player, and I suspect we’ll find out over the next few years if he has nerves of steel and can win the big game.

Now, there’s two things we don’t know about Cutler and this offense. There’s not a great receiver in the house and no promise of one on the way (Angelo should have guaranteed Torry Holt more money to get him to come to the Windy City). So Cutler’s going to have to make do with the Devin Hesters and Rashied Davises, apparently. (Not that there’s anything wrong with Hester. But he should be a third receiver, using his speed to game-break.)

Two: How good of a leader can Cutler be, coming in with the knock that he chafes on some teammates. It’ll be interesting to see if he meshes well with Brian Urlacher; I don’t take for granted that he will. Because of the Cutler factor and because I don’t love the defense the way I did two or three years ago, I didn’t want to leap the Bears over so many other teams. But then I went back and looked at their 2008 numbers. The bedrock stats for a good defense, I’ve always thought, are opponents yards per rush, turnovers forced and opponents’ yards per pass. The yards per rush, 3.4, was excellent, third-best in the league. Turnovers forced, 32, was very good, second in the league. And yards per pass play by foes, 6.20, was eighth in the league. All good. If Cutler can lead an offense that puts up 400 points, only a point and a fraction more than a year ago, the Bears should win 12.

People seem to forget to mention Greg Olsen when they crap on the Bears’ receiving corps. Olsen wasn’t drafted a couple years ago to block – he’s the best receiver Chicago has on its roster. He has outstanding hands, great athletic ability and is fast enough to line up in the slot. Offensive coordinator Ron Turner just needs to find more ways to use Olsen in the passing game.

Another thing to remember is that Earl Bennett played with Cutler at Vanderbilt and the Bears are extremely high on the second year wideout, despite him going o’fer in the catch department last year. The knock on Bennett is that he struggled learning the offense as a rookie and the Bears just couldn’t get him onto the field. If Cutler can help his old Vandy teammate pick up the offense, Bennett could be a wild card for the Bears.

I wouldn’t put the Bears ahead of the Colts or Eagles as King did, but there’s a ton of optimism in Chicago these days.

Manny had elevated testosterone level

According to a report by ESPN.com, Dodgers’ slugger Manny Ramirez had synthetic testosterone in his body when he was tested this past spring.

Ultimately, Ramirez was brought down by his own private medical records — records that the Major League Baseball Players’ Association turned over on his behalf, as required under the sport’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program.

The Ramirez saga, as described by three sources with direct knowledge of the case, began to play out in spring training when the 36-year-old outfielder provided a urine sample for testing.
The test came back showing elevated levels of testosterone. Every individual naturally produces testosterone and a substance called epitestosterone, typically at a ratio of 1:1. In Major League Baseball, if the ratio comes in at 4:1 during testing, a player is flagged. In Ramirez’s case, his ratio was between 4:1 and 10:1, according to one source.

Within the records was a prescription written for the drug human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) — No. 55 on the list of banned performance-enhancing substances in the policy. The drug is mainly used for female fertility issues, but it is best known among male steroid users as a substance that can help kick-start the body’s production of natural testosterone, which is stymied when using synthetic testosterone (aka steroids).

The biggest question left unanswered in all of this is how long Manny was taking PEDs. Did he start in Boston? Did he start last offseason when he and Scott Boras were trying to get him a long-term contract? Barry Bonds started using when his body was falling apart, so Manny could have started using PEDs when he got to L.A., although it’s doubtful. Either way, we can’t come to any conclusions on when he started using – we can only speculate.

But one thing is for sure – the smoking gun will eventually come out. It did with Bonds, Michael Vick, Roger Clemens (well, sort of – if you believe Brian McNamee it came out) and Alex Rodriguez. Eventually some reporter stumbles onto the most damning evidence of them all, and I’m sure Manny’s situation won’t be the exception.

Ryan Zimmerman’s hitting streak reaches 29 games

There isn’t much positive news coming out of Washington these days when it comes to the Nationals…outside of Ryan Zimmerman’s now 29-game hit streak, that is.

Zimmerman went 4 for 5 with two homers for the Nationals, including a solo shot in the sixth off Johnson and a three-run shot in the ninth. He wasted no time extending the longest hitting streak in the Nationals’ brief history and the longest by a third baseman in a quarter-century when he slapped a first-inning single.

“He’s a big man. I’ve got legs and arms and everything coming at me,” Zimmerman said of Johnson. “His slider looks pretty good, just like it does on TV. I can see why he’s been so good.”
With his ninth-inning shot off the tin covering on the right-field arcade, Zimmerman improved to 48 for 126 (.381) since the streak began.

What’s rather impressive about Zimmerman is that he stands away from the plate, which leaves the outside corner exposed (or one would think). But Zimmerman is anticipating pitchers trying to work the outside corner and he’s just going with the pitch. He’s not trying to do too much with the pitch and he’s not trying to pull the ball like so many batters (on all levels) do. He’s seeing the ball incredibly well right now and the 3-run dinger he hit last night at AT&T Park was impressive given how high the ball must travel over the wall at that stadium.

He’s got a long way to go to catch Joe DiMaggio’s 56 games, but it’ll be fun to watch Zimmerman try to extend his streak on a nightly basis.

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