Since the season ended, NBA.com’s editors have been working tirelessly to bring us the Top 10 plays from all the NBA’s superstars. Below are the clips for three of the best athletes in the league: Derrick Rose, D-Wade and Russell Westbrook.
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After giving up yet another home run while working two innings in middle relief on Wednesday against the Nationals, Cardinals’ pitcher Ryan Franklin sounded off on the boo birds that have recently come out at Busch Stadium.
“You should go write stories about the fans booing,” Franklin told reporters after Game 1 of a double-header on Wednesday. “They’re supposed to be the best fans in baseball. Yeah right.”
Never, in the history of sports, has it ever been wise for an athlete to bash his own fan base. There’s just nothing good that can ever come out of it. Even if the athlete is right (and I’m not saying Franklin is), the fans will likely only respond with more booing. It’s not like 40,000 fans are going to collectively get together and go, “You know what? Ryan Franklin is right. We’re better than this, people! Let’s get behind our red birds whether they have a 1.57 ERA or a 11.57 ERA!”
Franklin later backed off his remarks and somewhat apologized. The quote below is from a story on MLB.com.
“Obviously these last 2 1/2 weeks have been frustrating for me, and I’m frustrated with myself,” Franklin said. “I can understand why the fans are frustrated. I’ve loved my time here in St. Louis. It’s my favorite place to play. It’s just a frustrating time for me right now, because I feel like I’m letting everyone down.”
It’s funny, whatever athletes usually say in the follow up interview is the thing they should have said first. Had Franklin come out and said what he did above, he may still have gotten booed but at least fans would respect him for owning up to the suck. But when a player bashes a fan base and then later says that he’s just frustrated, people tend to have less empathy.
Ah, well. Do you know how Franklin rectifies this? By pitching well. We fans will turn on a dime when a player starts producing again. Athletes can go from being a bum to a hero overnight.
Packers’ defensive end Johnny Jolly must have a horseshoe up his ass because the Houston Chronicle is reporting that he’ll avoid jail time despite his 2008 arrest for possession of at least 200 grams of codeine.
According to the Chronicle, Jolly agreed to a pretrial diversion last August, which is a form of probation that would have resulted in dismissed charges for his 2008 arrest had he stayed out of trouble for one year. But he didn’t stay out of trouble. In March, his Cadillac Escalade was pulled over because his tinted windows were too dark and he was arrested after police saw a bottle of codeine in his ride.
Due to the two charges, Jolly was facing up to 20 years in prison. Instead, he agreed to a plea deal and will now be placed on probation for five years, which starts with 90 days of mandatory drug treatment.
Now, I’m not a lawyer and I’m not familiar with court proceedings, so excuse my ignorance on the subject. But it seems to me that Jolly caught a break last August when he agreed to one-year probation. Yet, he got into trouble seven months later and again he gets probation? Hello?
It’s not like he killed anyone, but one would think that a judge would make this guy see the inside of a jail cell for at least 18 months to wake him up. Instead, he agrees to 90 days of therapy and more probation time. Good grief. I think it’s great that the judge wants to get Jolly help, but would anyone be surprised if gets nailed for a third time in the next 6-8 months? I sure wouldn’t.
Oh, and I guess since he avoided jail time that there’s a chance he’ll be able to play again in the NFL. Who says justice isn’t always served?
NBC Sports is reporting that the agents for Ryan Mallett are disputing the claim that their client skipped a scheduled meeting with the Panthers on April 9 after a “long night out” on April 8. The Panthers have also joined Mallett’s agents in denying the report.
“There is absolutely no truth to the unfounded and irresponsible report that Ryan skipped his visit with the Carolina Panthers on April 9 because he was too sick after a late night out on the town the previous night. Rather, Ryan had dinner with club officials from the Panthers on the evening of April 8 and then returned to his hotel that evening along with Julio Jones. Ryan and Julio were together the entire time that evening until Ryan and Julio turned in for the night around 10:00 — 10:30 pm.
“Upon returning to his hotel room, Ryan became ill and was up most of the night and into the morning with flu-like symptoms. Keep in mind that this was Ryan’s fourth team visit in the previous week and that Ryan had crisscrossed the country with stops in Cincinnati, Fayetteville, Seattle, Fayetteville again and Minneapolis before Charlotte. Nevertheless, Ryan met with Panthers representatives on the morning of April 9 as scheduled and informed the club at that time that he was extremely sick. Carolina officials decided to send Ryan back to his hotel room for some medicine and additional rest in hopes that they could meet with Ryan later that morning. Ryan did as instructed and contacted Panther officials later that morning to resume his meetings with club officials. However, given that Ryan was still sick, Carolina officials decided to cancel the remainder of Ryan’s visit with the team.”
The Panthers have corroborated that version of the events, in an e-mail to PFT: “Ryan Mallett came for a visit to Charlotte two weeks ago. He had dinner with our coaches the evening he arrived and came down from his hotel room for a scheduled breakfast meeting the following morning upon which time he informed a staff member that he had been sick all night with nausea. We told Ryan that if he was ill to remain in his room as long as the nausea existed. We took him to the airport later that afternoon for his scheduled flight.”
Interesting. So you have the National Football Post, the Chicago Tribune and the Charlotte Observer all claiming that Mallett skipped the meeting because he was out late the night before, while Mallett’s agents and the Panthers themselves claiming that he truly was sick.
If I’m picking sides here, I’m siding with the Panthers, even though they have nothing to gain by tarnishing Mallett’s image a week before the draft. They’re not going to take him and on the outside chance that he falls into the second round and some team wants to trade up to acquire him, Carolina may be able to make a deal. Even the report was true and he wasn’t sick, the Panthers aren’t going to badmouth him now. There would be no reason to.
Still, I choose to believe (for now) that Mallett was a victim of bad reporting. While I enjoy their content, The National Football Post has developed into a highly unreliable site when it comes to reports like these. Granted, the Chicago Tribune and Charlotte Observer are reliable, but maybe they too got bad information on this story.
Either way, there are still concerns surrounding Mallett’s character. I stand by what I wrote on Tuesday in that teams may regret passing on him next week because from a physical standpoint, he’s a great talent and I don’t mind that he’s a little cocky/arrogant. But as I pointed out yesterday, some GM might be saying to himself, “Why bother?” given all of the contradicting reports that have surrounded this kid the past three months.
Gary Myers of the New York Daily News hears that Judge Susan Nelson will rule on the validity of the owners’ lockout on Monday.
I’m hearing Nelson will issue the ruling on Monday. The players are the heavy favorites to win this round.
That doesn’t mean the lockout ends right away and free agency starts. Nelson will either issue a stay on her ruling pending appeal to the Eighth Circuit in St. Louis or the loser will get a stay pending appeal directly from the Eighth Circuit. The winner of the appeal gains the leverage.
Either way, the stubbornness of the players and owners will eventually burn one of them with litigation taking over for negotiation. After two years of negotiating on their own, 16 days in federal mediation with George Cohen in Washington and four days in court-ordered mediation, which ended yesterday, with U.S. Magistrate Judge Arthur Boylan in Minneapolis, it’s all about the lawsuits.
As Myers points out, mediation between the two sides has been put off until May 16 because Boylan has scheduling conflicts. It’s nice to know that Judge Nelson picked someone to mediate this dispute that would eventually need a nearly month-long break in between. No wonder the NFL wanted to continue mediation under George Cohen (pictured above).
A lockout injunction is likely, but don’t assume that the NFL’s doors will be open for business following Judge Nelson’s ruling. The owners are expected to appeal the decision, which means free agency, trades and fun will once again be put on hold for more lawsuits, bickering and nausea.
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