Archive for January, 2011

Gil Meche Walks Away From $12.4 Million Guaranteed

By | January 29, 2011 | Baseball, WTF? | 2 Comments

Originally written for and posted on BlogHer.com

It isn’t often that someone just walks away from a guaranteed $12.4 million, but that is exactly what Kansas City Royals pitcher Gil Meche did last week.

In a practically unprecedented show of moral fiber in Major League Baseball, Gilbert Meche decided to retire with a year remaining on his contract. That year guaranteed him a $12.4 million salary – even if it meant him sitting out while in recovery for a needed surgery.

Meche didn’t quit because he was angry with the team; in fact, it is quite the opposite. Gil said that the Royals had treated him so well that he wasn’t comfortable taking $12 million that he didn’t feel he earned.

I know. I can’t believe it either.

$12.4 million!

Meche said “When I signed my contract, my main goal was to earn it. Once I started to realize I wasn’t earning my money, I felt bad. I was making a crazy amount of money for not even pitching. Honestly, I didn’t feel like I deserved it. I didn’t want to have those feelings again.”

It wasn’t just that he wanted to retire. Meche wanted to do the right thing. Seriously? I feel like I should take back some of the things I have said about professional baseball players. Then again, I’m not going to hold my breath for Derek Jeter to follow suit.

I kid… It’s actually a breath of fresh air. This proves that greed is not the driving force behind allprofessional athletes. It’s insane, but ya gotta hand it to the guy. He’s got balls.

- Sooze, Babes Love Baseball

Gil Meche is an anomaly. Not just in baseball, not just in professional sports. Gil Meche is only 32-years-old, but he has done quite well for himself being a professional baseball player, and he can support his three children. I suppose the $43 million he has earned since 2005 will cover college for three, but an extra $12 million could have put all of his grandchildren though the Ivy League.

Don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying what Meche did was wrong. In fact, I think it is one of the most noble stories I have heard all year. I am just a little surprised. How many Americans would do something like this? I’d love to say I would, but let’s not get crazy. I made less than $20,000 last year – I would probably keep $12 that I didn’t earn.

He walked away from millions of dollars because he didn’t feel like he deserved it. Screw going out winning a World Series. Gil Meche just showed Major League Baseball and the rest of us how you retire with dignity.

Yes, I’m looking at you Brett Favre.

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13 University of Iowa Football Players Hospitalized

By | January 27, 2011 | College Football, Football, NCAA, WTF? | Comments Off

Several University of Iowa football players were admitted to Iowa City’s University Hospital Monday after a grueling week of off-season workouts. Wednesday reports said the 13 players suffered from a condition called rhabdomyolysis, which is supposedly caused by extremely strenuous exercise.

Now, I’m no doctor. I don’t even play one on the internet, but something fishy’s going on here. My first thought was some kind of steroid/exercise enhancement mishap. What about a tainted sports drink? Were 13 student athletes so out of shape that they all came down with the same rare muscle/kidney condition? If so, why has this not happened on this scale before? The Hawkeyes are certainly not the only team in the history of football to go through ultra-strenuous off-season workouts.  According to the above-linked article alcohol or drug use can also cause this condition, especially cocaine and amphetamine use. Were these players partying as hard as they were working out? Was it something else?

It’s reported that all 5 of the strength coaches were present at all of the workouts, so there was plenty of supervision. However, head coach Kirk Ferentz was out of town on a recruiting trip and has not yet commented on the situation.

I’m not the only one questioning this story. Adam Rittenberg of ESPN.com has raised questions as well in his article Notes from Iowa News Conference. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what the players and staff have to say in the upcoming days as the young men are released from the hospital.

Kendra just doesn’t buy it.

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Living Behind Enemy Lines

By | January 26, 2011 | Football, NFL | 3 Comments

That's an expensive tie.

I’m a Cleveland Browns fan. I live in Pittsburgh. And believe me, I understand what Chicago resident John Stone is feeling.

Sort of.

Stone is the latest victim of what we’re going to call Sports Discrimination, which is what happens when an out-of-town sports fan pokes the locals by wearing gear of his favorite team and then is shocked — SHOCKED — when he catches some abuse in return.

Stone was working as a salesman at a Chicago-area auto dealership, and one day after Green Bay beat the Bears, Stone, a Packers fan, wore his favorite Packers tie to work. The trouble is that he not only works with a business full of pissed-off Bears fans, but the guy who signs his paychecks is also a sponsor for Bears radio broadcasts. That guy doesn’t want to irritate any potential customers, so he tells Stone to take off the tie. Stone refuses, apparently several times.

And Stone was fired.

This seems to happen a lot during the NFL playoffs. It happened a couple weeks ago in Tacoma, Wash., when Grendon Bailie , a seventh-grade student at Truman Middle School, had the audacity to wear a Steelers jersey to school on a day when the school’s normally strict dress code had been relaxed to allow Seahawks gear. Bailie was sent home for the day.

And then there was Joshua Vannoy, a student at Beaver Falls (Pa.) High School who wore a Denver Broncos jersey to school during a Steelers playoff run in 2006. Vannoy’s teacher in the school’s honors ethnic relations class made Vannoy take a test while sitting on the floor in the middle of the classroom; the teacher, John Kelly, also had the other students in the class throw wads of paper at Vannoy while he took the test.

Outrageous, right?

Maybe. Think about the context in each situation.

Stone is an at-will employee. When the boss tells you to do something, it’s probably best that you do it.

Vannoy was abused in a ethnic relations class where the teacher frequently singled out students so they could have some real-life experience with the subject matter; the teacher said he saw Vannoy’s John Elway jersey as a an opportunity for another teaching moment. To my knowledge, no one else in the class sued the teacher and the district because they felt “dehumanized.”

I think the administrators at Bailie’s school could have cut him some slack, but if they make one exception to a strict dress code — Seahawks gear only — then they can at least say they’ve been consistent in the enforcement of those rules.

And here’s the other thing: I’ll cut the middle-school kid some slack, but I am not buying the notion that Stone or Vannoy were surprised when their co-workers or classmates reacted negatively. When I drive around Pittsburgh with the Browns flag flapping from the passenger-side window, I know I’m going to get some middle fingers. When I leave home wearing my Bernie Kosar jersey, I expect some comments when I’m walking around town.

I’m not surprised by it; the reactions are why I do it. Stone’s a grown-up, Vannoy an honors student; each had to know they were in for a little abuse when they showed up at work and/or school, and in both cases, they reacted badly.

Photo source.

That Was Dirty, Sanchez

By | January 26, 2011 | Bad calls, Crazy People, Football, NFL, Unsportmanlike Conduct | 4 Comments

I thought I was dreaming the other day when I was watching the Jets/Steelers game and inexplicably, as the camera centered on Mark Sanchez and Mark Brunell having a conversation on the sidelines, Mark Sanchez picked his nose, pulled out a prize and wiped it down the front of Mark Brunell’s jacket.

Couple of things. There’s no venue where this is okay.  There’s no friend you can do this to and have it be funny. Short of shitting on someone’s chest, this is about the worst thing you can do to a person. I’m gagging just thinking about it.

The Pick

The Wipe

This is wrong on so many levels I’m having difficulty finding where to begin, so let’s start with you jamming your finger in your nose in front of the entire country. Though, I shouldn’t be surprised by that when I take into consideration you’re the type of person who would wipe it on your buddy and giggle. How old are you? As if there’s an age this is okay. There’s not. You’d better be cooing and in your non-booger toting hand be holding a bottle. Only then might I not try to set you on fire.

And why didn’t Mark Brunell destroy him? Why was Sanchez standing there laughing when he should have been on the ground being bludgeoned into lifelessness?  Is Brunell an actual Saint? Jesus? I’m not even sure Jesus would have turned the other cheek on that one.

I doubt the younger Mark is going to have a tough time getting chicks from now on, but what about Brunell? You might as well have given him a wedgie, a purple nurple and finished him off with the old retracting goober gag.  Except what you did was worse. You wiped a booger on his awesome jacket. I kind of hate you now and it’s your fault.

Did the losing quarterbacks from this past weekend games just have a total mental regression? Cutler was on the sidelines listening to his iPod, Sanchez is wiping boogers on people… what the hell is going on here? Is this part of the 7th sign? Birds falling from the skies, temperatures dropping out of control, people wiping boogers on other people… it’s mayhem.  If there’s a hell, it’s a room where people wipe boogers on your chest.

This is it, people. If you try to wipe a booger on me, I will chop off your arm, burn it and bury it in China. I was hoping it wouldn’t go down this way, but I see my worst nightmares have come to fruition.  This is truly horrible.

Steelers: Bigger Than Ben Roethlisberger

By | January 26, 2011 | Football | 9 Comments

Tweets about evil quarterbacks and home team love were running rampant during Sunday night’s AFC championship game between the Steelers and Jets. Some chimed in about never forgiving Michael Vick, a position I support with every fiber of my being. As a Pittsburgh resident, I’m caught between a rock and very hard and cold place. I love my Steelers. Ben Roethlisberger? Not so much. At the start of the season I went on record saying I’d rather see Charlie Batch and that Leftwich guy play every down, even if it meant we would lose every game, than have Ben as our quarterback. Unfortunately, head coach Mike Tomlin and the Rooney family ownership group didn’t call to consult with me.

Draft Day Suit coach Laurie and I had the following exchange:

No.No.No. Not the gagging part. I get that, but I know I can love a team while harboring intense hatred for their quarterback.  There’s more to love about the Steelers than Ben. So much more.

Like head coach Mike Tomlin, a man I respect and trust like few other people I have never met. He’s a grown up, despite being an infant in NFL head coaching terms at just 38 years old. (For a little comparison, his defensive coordinator, Dick LeBeau, is 73 and already in the Hall of Fame.) When Tomlin and his family moved to Pittsburgh he didn’t settle in one of the ‘burbs, like most of the team has done. He very purposefully bought a house right in the city, in the heart of the East End. He’s our kind of no nonsense, work hard, get the job done sort of guy.

Like Troy Polamalu, who will hang out with kids and throw passes for hours in Arizona, surely risking sun damage to his heavily insured locks.

Like the Rooney family, owners of the team since 1933 and named by Sport Illustrated as the best NFL ownership group in 2009. While the record of six Super Bowl victories is admirable, what amazes me most is that since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970, the Steelers have had exactly three head coaches. Three. I’ll wait while you do a little math and wrap your head around that. While certainly not the only measure of a franchise, it speaks volumes about the way the franchise is run.

And like Antonio Brown, a rookie who found himself getting the call at the end of the two most important games of the season (so far). And he did.not.fail. I like his mind as much as his sure hands. In a post-game interview following the victory over the Ravens, Brown said, “I’m a part of something special — something that’s bigger than me.”

Say that again. Bigger than himself. Bigger than any one guy. Bigger than, dare I say it, the quarterback.

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