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      Couch Potato Alert: 8/15

      August 15, 2008 /

      – I do not know if you heard but Brett Favre has un-retired. And he will be playing this season in New York for the Jets. Sorry ESPN, his first game back will be on the NFL Network on Saturday at 8 p.m. EST. Maybe Rachel Nichols can give updates from the sidelines on Favre’s progress in grasping the Jets offense for ESPN News.

      – The men’s 100-meter finals in track & field take place on Saturday evening. It could be the most competitive event at the Olympics, as all of the contenders have beaten one another in the past. Asafa Powell of Jamaica was defeated by USA’s Tyson Gay at the World Championships so badly that he disappeared from the scene. His countryman, Usain Bolt, returned the favor by beating Gay this past May. All three will run in Beijing, and it might just be the best 10 seconds of the Olympiad.

      – Michael Phelps is on target to break Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals at one Olympic competition. The 100-meter butterfly is this evening, with the 4 x 100 medley relay wrapping up the swimming competition (and Phelps’ quest) on Saturday night.

      – The top matchup in baseball this weekend could be a possible playoff preview between the Milwaukee Brewers and Los Angeles Dodgers at Chavez Ravine. Both teams made significant additions to improve their chances of playing into October, so this should be a good series.

      Couch Potato Alert, General Sports, MLB, NFL, Swimming, Television, The Olympics

      Manny Ramirez buckles and gets a haircut – kind of

      August 15, 2008 /

      One of the most talked about and debated sports topics of all time can finally come to an end: Dodgers’ outfielder Manny Ramirez abided by manager Joe Torre’s demands and got a haircut.

      That’s right – Manny cut a full one-inch off that mane.

      “One inch, half-an-inch,” Ramirez said regarding the cleanup. “It’s still long. If I come back next year, it will be shorter.”

      “I was in the principal’s office right now,” Ramirez said upon emerging from Torre’s office some three hours before the Dodgers faced the Philadelphia Phillies. “(Torre) told me he’s fine, for now.”
      When asked what that meant, Ramirez said: “Ask him. I’ve got to go stretch.”

      Said Torre: “He came in and showed me. As Billy Crystal said in `Analyze That,’ it’s a process. He took a little bit off. It’s within the rules of cleaning it up a little bit. Right now, it’s around his shoulders. It’s not covering his name up. We’ll continue to monitor it.”

      Boy, Joe Torre really laid down the law. Maybe by the time the season is over, Manny will have trimmed his hair all the way to the back of his neck!

      Like I wrote Wednesday, Manny is going to do things his way and this situation proves it. “Get a haircut,” Joe Torre says. So what does Manny do? Gets an inch taken off and calls it a day. Hey, it’s a haircut, right?

      It’s Manny’s world – we’re just renting space in it.

      MLB

      Michael Phelps still has a familiar hurdle to overcome

      August 15, 2008 /

      Michael Phelps goes for seven gold medals tonight when he swims the 100-meter butterfly, the only event in which he doesn’t hold the world record. The race is a short one, so any mistake could cost him the win. Throw in the fact that American Ian Crocker is a serious threat and you have the makings for a very interesting race.

      But the story doesn’t stop there.

      Crocker has held the record since July 26, 2003, when he broke it at the World Championships, and has since lowered the mark twice. Before Crocker, Phelps held the record for one day — his reign lasting from semifinals until finals the next night, when Crocker took the record, and the world title.

      Phelps got revenge in Athens, beating Crocker by .04 of a second for his fifth gold medal. That left Crocker with silver to add to his bronze, which he earned earlier in the week when a poor swim on the 4x100m freestyle relay left the favored U.S. team in a disappointing third.

      The next day Phelps, having earned a spot on the 4x100m medley relay by winning the 100m fly, announced he would cede his spot to Crocker. Phelps would earn a medal anyway for his butterfly swim in the preliminaries, and gave Crocker, who was the world-record holder and more experienced relay swimmer, the chance to earn gold.

      “He was the fastest 100m butterflyer, and I wanted to give him the opportunity to get up and get his gold medal,” Phelps said.

      Crocker and his teammates won and, with Phelps shouting from the stands, shattered the world record. After the medal ceremony, in a moment that didn’t go unnoticed, Crocker and Phelps shared a hug as the team walked by.

      “It was an opportunity that it’s hard to say thank you for,” Crocker said after the race. “And I just wanted to do it justice by going out and giving it my best shot.”

      So, theoretically, if Crocker were to deny Phelps his seventh gold medal by winning the 100-meter butterfly, he could offer up his spot in the 4x100m medley relay and allow Phelps to have a chance to tie Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals in one Olympiad.

      It would be only fair after what Phelps did for Crocker back in 2004, right? If Crocker wins the butterfly, he’s under no obligation to give up his spot in the relay, but my guess is that he’d be under tremendous pressure to do so.

      It has been a storybook Olympics for Phelps, but tonight’s race could be the toughest test he’s faced so far. If Crocker wins, he’ll have his own test to face, a moral one.

      Swimming, The Olympics

      Once a limitation, Saints can now count on linebackers

      August 15, 2008 /

      In the weeks leading up to the kickoff the 2008 NFL Season, I’ll take a look at position groups that could potentially lift teams to new heights, or bury them and their postseason hopes. Today I take a look at how the New Orleans Saints can now consider their linebacker corps a strength.

      It would be a mistake to say that the New Orleans Saints’ linebacker corps has been a weakness over the past two years. A “limitation” might be a more appropriate description.

      The trio of Scott Shanle, Scott Fujita and Mark Simoneau wasn’t the flashiest linebacker corps in the league, but they certainly got the job done in 2006 when the Saints fell one win shy of reaching the Super Bowl. And given his 95 tackles, three sacks and two forced fumbles from a year ago, Fujita is arguably one of the more underrated outside linebackers in the league.

      Still, the Saints have lacked bulk and overall athleticism in their linebacker corps, so this past offseason they parted with a 2008 fourth round pick and a 2009 conditional pick to acquire former Jets’ MLB Jonathan Vilma. They also retained Simoneau to help on special teams and provide depth behind all three linebacker positions.

      Although he underwent season-ending surgery on his right knee last year, Vilma was out of place in Eric Mangini’s 3-4 defensive scheme in New York. Vilma will return to a 4-3 front, where he once amassed 173 total tackles and a sack as the Jets’ middle linebacker in 2005. If he stays healthy, Vilma might turn out to be the best bargain of the 2008 offseason.

      Fujita and Shanle will likely be the opening day starters at outside linebacker and with the addition of Vilma, they now have a strong, experienced and athletic trio in the middle of their defense. If first round pick Sedrick Ellis and veteran Brian Young can keep defenders off Vilma, he’ll be a force against the run and the Saints will have one of the better front sevens in the NFC. Not too mention Fujita, Ellis, Will Smith and Charles Grant (assuming the league doesn’t suspend him for legal issues) can all provide a heavy pass rush.

      Questions will remain about Vilma’s health until he proves otherwise and the secondary will need Randall Gay (free agent/Patriots) to step up to complement Mike McKenzie in coverage, but there’s no doubt the Saints’ defense has been vastly upgraded. And that’s a scary thought for the NFC considering the real strength for New Orleans is its dangerous offense.

      NFL

      The Mad Dog is Tamed: Russo Leaves WFAN

      August 15, 2008 /

      “Ahhhh Good Afternoon Everybody!” will no longer be heard on WFAN, as Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo is leaving “Mike and the Mad Dog” sports talk show after 19 years on New York radio and the last seven years on nationwide television (via DirecTV and the YES Network).

      The sports talk format is ingrained in every true sports fan’s heart. We all need our daily fix of sports information, and turning on a radio is a lot easier than picking up a newspaper. We need the soap box to stand on to be able to voice our opinions about our beloved teams (or to yell back at and wonder how the hell the host got that job).

      “Mike and the Mad Dog” has been a staple of the sports talk community since their inception on September 5, 1989. Accordingly to radio industry sources, Russo will begin a show on Sirius Satellite Radio in the fall, while Mike Francesa will continue as a solo host.

      General Sports, Rumors & Gossip, Television

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