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Taxman after Jeter

The city of New York is after Yankees’ shortstop Derek Jeter’s money, citing that he possibly owes over a million in unpaid taxes. Jeter has homes in both Florida and New York, but apparently only pays taxes in the sunshine state.

Lawyer Robert Brown, who is co-chair of Multistate Tax Issues for the New York State Bar Association Tax Section Executive Committee, noted that the process of establishing residency is quite complex, and the state’s court action is just the preliminary stage of a case that could take years.

He suspects Jeter’s purchase of his $13 million Upper East Side Trump World Plaza apartment in 2001 may have set off some audit alarms.

That same year, Jeter signed a 10-year, $189 million contract with the Yanks.

“My suspicion is if you have a person who’s a multimillion-dollar entertainer, and all of a sudden you see that the most expensive house he has is a house in New York, you might reasonably ask about his [residency],” Brown told The Post.

Boy between Jeter possibly owning the state of New York millions, Barry Bonds being indicted and Alex Rodriguez re-upping with the Yankees, it’s been an eventual 24 hours in baseball. What’s next, Texas Rangers GM Tom Hicks demanding an apology from Kenny Rogers (for his incident with a cameraman a few years back) before offering him a free agent contract?

Curse of the #2

Cue Queen, because another one bites the dust in college football – this time it was #2 Oregon. With Dennis Dixon suffering a knee injury early in the first half, the Ducks floundered under Ryan Leaf’s younger brother, Brady, losing to Arizona 34-24.

The loss marked the fifth time this season that a team lost within two weeks of being elevated to #2 in the rankings. Oregon joined USC, California, South Florida and Boston College of those programs who fell victim to the curse of the #2. The Ducks just couldn’t operate without Dixon and Brady Leaf looked as befuddled and confused as well, Ryan Leaf in the NFL. Sorry, I couldn’t help it. It’s scary how much he looks like his older, messed up brother.

Even though their offense sputtered for most of the night, this was an impressive win by Arizona. They got a 42-yard inception return for a touchdown and a 56-yard punt return for a score. Even more remarkable, however, is how the students showed so much restraint before rushing the field at the end of the game. They rushed the sidelines with about three minutes still on the clock, but managed to stay off the field until the final second ticked off the clock. I’ve never seen so much discipline from a bunch of riled up college students!

A-Rod to re-sign with Yankees

While it’s not entirely official yet, Alex Rodriguez is set to agree in principle to a deal to return to the Yankees for $275 million over 10 years according to ESPN.com. He also has incentives in the contract that could potentially push his salary up over $300 million.

The amount of the guaranteed money was revealed by a person familiar with the negotiations who spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity because the deal hasn’t been finalized. A-Rod met Wednesday in Tampa, Fla., with the Steinbrenner brothers but the parameters of the deal were set in place last weekend.

According to Rotoworld.com, A-Rod will receive bonus money for passing Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds on the all-time home run list. He currently has 518 long balls, 244 behind Barroid.

Bonds indicted

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Barry Bonds has been indicted on four counts of perjury and one count obstruction of justice for lying to a federal grand jury in December of 2003. Among other claims, he told the jury that he never knowingly took performance-enhancing drugs. If convicted, Bonds could face up to 30 years in prison.

According to the indictment, in response to one question, Bonds told prosecutors that he didn’t believe that his personal trainer, Greg Anderson, had ever given him banned drugs. Anderson later pleaded guilty to steroid distribution charges in the BALCO case. Bonds’ statement was false, the grand jury that indicted Bonds today concluded.

Likewise, the grand jury said Bonds also lied when he testified that Anderson had never injected him with drugs, and when he said Anderson had never supplied him with human growth hormone. Anderson has been imprisoned for more than a year for refusing to testify before the grand jury.

If the Michael Vick-dog fighting scandal taught us anything, it’s that the feds don’t indict somebody without expecting to win. They probably have an airtight case against Barroid and no matter how invincible he thinks he is, he’s likely heading to prison.

You might have thought you got away with lying to baseball fans, Barry, but you’re not going to get away with lying to federal investigators. Too bad this didn’t happen last year, just before he had the chance to break one of the most sacred records in all of sports; a record he cheated to obtain.

You gotta be kidding me

Michael David Smith is obviously smoking the same crack rock as Ricky Williams, because he’s actually suggesting in one of his recent blogs for AOL Fan House that Joey Harrington is better than Michael Vick.

That Harrington is a better passer than Vick is indisputable: Harrington’s completion percentage is 11 points higher this year than Vick’s was last year, Harrington averages more yards per pass and throws interceptions less frequently. If you like more advanced stats, check out the quarterback stats at Football Outsiders from this year and from last year. It’s not even close. Harrington is well above average; Vick was well below average.

And there you have it. Stats don’t lie kids, they just provide a safety blanket for some writers who are clearly delusional. Better accuracy? Better human being? Better public speaker? Yeah, Harrington has all of that over Vick. Better overall? There’s no way in hell and Harrington’s atrocious record as a starter supports that.

Harrington doesn’t have the cherries to make plays on a consistent basis. He holds the ball too long, looks for the check down instead of going through all his reads, won’t take shots down field, has poor pocket discipline, often resembles a deer in the headlights, remarkably throws short of the first down marker (it’s not always the receivers cutting off their routes), has poor arm strength and overall, is highly ineffective.

Harrington doesn’t beat the Packers in the playoffs at Lambeau Field in 2002. He’ll never lead a team to the playoffs (nevertheless to a championship game), rush for 1,000 yards, keep defensive coordinators up at night (in fact, he probably insures them a good night of sleep), and will a team to victory on his own. There’s a reason why every offense he’s been in has had similar problems and despite what Smith says, Harrington does deserve a ton of the blame. He’s a backup, period.

Vick is a scumbag and was overrated, but he’s better than Joey Harrington.

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