#1: Who is Kyle Busch?

Well kids, he’s the jackass race car driver who thinks he’s special, you know like the people who park next to the curb at the grocery store while they run in to buy whatever it is that people with fancy cars buy.

“Ah”, said the oldest, “he must have an expensive car”.

Righty-o chap. He does have that.

Kyle says he was test driving a new Lexus and got carried away and he’s sorry for his ” lack of judgment”.  Oh, it’s okay Kyle. I’m sure you didn’t mean to do it.

#2: How fast was he going?

He was driving 128 mph in a 45 mph zone. Yes, kids, he was driving super fast. In fact he was driving 33 mph over the “reckless” driving statute in North Carolina. That is a mere 83 mph over the posted speed limit.

Kyle only had his license suspended for 45 days. If it was me, they would have locked me up and thrown away the key, no matter how many times I said I was an excellent driver. Just because he drives fast cars for a living doesn’t mean that he should be driving a fast car on the mean streets of the city or the suburbs or even a country road. He’s just another dumb son of a gun who thinks he’s invincible and gets away with it.

#3: Does he still get to race cars?

Yes, kids. Yes he does.

How does that work? You get your driver’s license suspended, but you can still drive? I don’t get it.

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How mad would you be if you spent hundreds of dollars on a plane ticket to get to Dallas plus hundreds of dollars on a ticket to the Super Bowl and bam, I’m so sorry, you don’t have a seat? I’d be pretty mad. Actually, I’d be super pissed.

My friend Mike is having that experience right now. He was lucky enough to have a ticket bought for him by his family and as he was waiting with his dad and brothers to take his seat, the folks at the stadium announced: “I’m so sorry, the Fire Marshal has declared your whole section unsafe.”

These guys may be getting three times the face value of the tickets and the stadium is setting up an area for these fans to watch the game. However, they won’t be at the game, in the stadium.  Is the money worth it? My friend is just heartsick. They spent thousands of dollars to get to Dallas, they’ve been up since the middle of the night, because they are staying in a hotel two hours away.

I can’t even imagine how angry they are or what kind of a lawsuit is going to come of this, because you know someone is going to sue.

Update: Here’s a link to the breaking news

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My husband threw away the article, but I need to share it with you even if I have to paraphrase, because I know you will appreciate it too.

So there is this kid, Ike, and he attends a local high school. His parents were starting to worry because he wasn’t his usual shiny happy self for a while. His parents approached the football coach and asked if he could be a part of the team. They thought it would help his self-confidence and feelings of self worth.

Normally, that would be a crazy request, but because Ike was born with Down syndrome they made it anyway. The coach said yes and Ike was welcomed with open arms by players and coaches alike. The team even came up with a couple of plays called the “Ike Special” that they run once a game so he can have a chance to be on the field.

We come to the team’s game against their division rivals. They were getting blown out. The score was 35 – 0. Their coach, Perry, calls a time out to get ready to run the “Ike Special”, because win or lose, they were still going to run it.

Perry had already discussed the play with their rivals coach. The opposing coach was okay with it. Perry went out to talk to the opposing players and asked them to let Ike run 10 yards or so before they tackled him. He told them they deserved their shut-out so just a few yards would do, and thank you very much for letting him run.

Here’s what happened:

Sometimes it’s how you win, lose and play the game.

It seems that Mr. Stephenson pushed his girlfriend and baby mama down the stairs in their home.

Actually, I noticed a couple of things that seem off about this whole situation.

Why, if he’s only 19, does he have a two-year-old, with his 21-year-old girlfriend?

Also, did he not realize he had everything going for him? He just signed a $700,000 one-year deal, with $500,000 for his second year with the Pacers. That’s $1.2 million for playing ball for two years, something that he loves to do.

Why is young Mr. Stephenson following the example of so many professional athletes?

Silly, stupid boy.

Why is this such a trend with professional athletes? Are we paying them too much money, attention, or adulation? I’m thinking it’s the adulation and the ego that comes from it.

Do athletes need to start taking classes in high school about how to act like contributing members of society? Scratch that, do they need to start in pre-school?

Stephenson is not new to breaking the law. At 17 he was busted for sexually abusing a 17-year-old girl inside his high school, the  same school where he won four city championships and was the leading scorer in New York State history.

He’s such a super-awesome example for our young men to follow.

Maybe if he would have had better examples when he was a young man he would be able to make better decisions now, as he’s starting his professional career.

***Update***

Apparently his girlfriend didn’t answer her phone while on a girls’ night out and he ambushed her when she came home. He didn’t mean to hurt her, it just happened.

DUH she didn’t answer her phone. She’s not supposed to.

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Well, well, well, it seems that the  Major League Baseball association is trying to clean up it’s act. Or at least trying to prevent more embarrassing messes in the future.

How? No, they aren’t going to be breaking out the cleanser, though it would probably need a little lye to really clean those hard to reach spots. Instead commissioner Bud Selig just announced the MLB is going to start testing minor league players for human growth hormones.

“The implementation of blood testing in the Minor Leagues represents a significant step in the detection of the illegal use of human growth hormone. The Minor League Program employs state of the art testing procedures and the addition of HGH testing provides an example for all of our drug policies in the future.”

This isn’t your average pee test. The players will be submitted to random blood testing that will take place after games and the blood will be taken from the players non-dominant arms.

This makes me sad.

Why the heck do these athletes think they need to juice up? I hate it!

My dad was a baseball player all his life and could have gone pro, but my mom got knocked up in high school, so my dad married her and had to get a job to provide for his new family. He never would have used steroids, if just out of principle.

The fact that these guys think they have to use something to amp up their game is so disappointing.

Hopefully this type of testing will weed out the idiots and we’ll be able to get back to watching a game in which every player gives his all to the team. You know, they would actually use skill and finesse, play a little small ball and not just use power to hit the ball out of the park every at bat.

I hope this works, if only for the sake of our national pastime. It’s so sullied these days that it’s not the sport that parents want their kids to play anymore. That’s just sad.

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I was really sad to hear about the passing of Manute Bol yesterday. In my mind he was the epitome of what a professional athlete should strive to be off the court.

Bol died at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville. No cause of death has been reported, but he was reportedly being treated for severe kidney trouble.

At 7’7″ it comes as no surprise that he holds the record for career blocks per 48 minutes, (8.6), and blocked a record 2,086 shots, but scored only 1,599 points. He was the only player in NBA history to block more than he scored, but it was his actions off the court that really impressed me.

Throughout his career he was active in charitable causes related to his native Sudan. He visited refugee camps, and gave almost all of the money he earned in his NBA career to causes that supported the refugees of Sudan. He raised global awareness of the Sudanese with the Sudan Freedom Walk. The walk aimed at finding a solution to the genocide in Darfur.

He was a great example of what athletes, the “role models” of today’s youth, should be doing.

Manute, it is also rumored, may have started the phrase ‘my bad” that is so prevalent today.

Our thoughts go out to those who loved him and were loved by him.

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I can understand the need for money, but I guess the $17 million he would receive next year isn’t enough. He wants more than $17 million.

As you can see I’m perplexed by the turning down of $17 million dollars.

Amare says that he deserves the maximum contract the NBA will allow and he wants a six-year deal worth $127 million.  And if the Suns don’t offer him riches beyond belief he is going to say buh-bye and head to the highest bidder.

I wish team loyalty was more the norm and money-grubbing was something to be looked down upon.

I will be sad to see Amare leave Phoenix. He’s  such a winner with his middle to high scoring average, his middle to high rebounds and his less than average assists. He must be forgetting that he isn’t  the league leader in any category and that his performance in the Western Conference finals  this year was below par, but yet he says this:

“The most important factor of playing for an organization is to be able to be totally comfortable and give them 100 percent. That’s what I’ve done my whole career, so it’s only right to look for a maximum contract.”

So I guess he was just half-assing it all this time so we could see what he’s really worth come contract time. He’s obviously not comfortable giving the Phoenix fans his all. Perhaps they should get someone who will.

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This basketball series is killing me.

I am a Phoenix Suns fan. Also, I am a “Laker hater.” I watch on pins and needles and with bated breath the games between the two teams. I  have to say, I am so excited for game 6 that I can’t even stand it. I really want Phoenix to win, if only so I can talk trash to my new friend from Massachusetts.

Who would’ve thought that the “old men” of Boston would make it to the finals for the 2nd time in three years? She did!

I watched Game 4 in a bar with her and found myself rooting for the Celtics. Not only was I commiserating with her over their loss, I was all bent out of shape with the lack of calls against Orlando and Dwight Howard’s Karl Malone-esque type of play. Also, I don’t think that Steve Nash’s face can take any more hard hits and since Dwight Howard,  of the Magic,  likes to throw his elbows it’s better to just avoid the whole meet up.

I don’t know though, if Boston will be able to defeat the Suns, which of course I don’t want. The Suns are just too fast of a team for the Celtics to try to beat.

The last time these two teams met, in 1976,  Boston won the series 4-2. I’m just hoping that Phoenix holds out against the Lakers and makes it to the Finals.

If the Celtics and the Lakers meet,  I just don’t think the Celtics can battle through Kobe and his compadres.

That’s just my opinion though.

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Then I thought that Cuban said something entirely inappropriate about LeBron and all the hoopla about his mother, but alas, it wasn’t so.

Mark Cuban was fined for violating the NBA’s anti-tampering rules.

I’ll admit I didn’t know what that meant entirely. Then I read the statement he made and now I’m totally confused. The rule seems pretty crazy to me, especially since there are quite a few owners who seem to have pretty strong opinions about everything and most of them like to hear themselves speak.

Cuban stated that he hopes LeBron will force a sign-and-trade when it comes time for him to make his move at the end of the season, because then the Mavericks would have a chance at acquiring LeBron and his crazy skills.

“Come July 1st, yeah, of course, anybody would be interested in LeBron James. And if he leaves via free agency, then it’s going to be tough. If he does like I’m guessing, hoping he will, which is say, ‘I’m not going to leave the Cavs high and dry,’ if he decides to leave — there’s still a better chance he stays — then he’ll try to force a sign-and-trade and that gives us a chance.”

Was that worth $100,000? It sure is better than the $5 million fine the team could have received and surely much better than the penalty of not being able to pursue LeBron at all.

Cuban is no stranger to the fact that his mouth gets him into trouble to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I think it was totally worth it. It lets LeBron know that Dallas is interested, it gets the team some publicity, plus Cuban gets to shoot off his mouth, which we know he likes to do.

On a side note, Steve Kerr was fined $10,000 for his comments about LeBron as well. He said that he would like to sign LeBron too. He said in an interview that he’d offer, “About five-and-half million, I think he’ll take it. Don’t you think?” Kerr was obviously joking, but got slapped with a fine anyway.

Kerr has no idea where LeBron will go next year:

“I have no idea. I want him to stay in Cleveland. I think that’s good for sports when you’ve got players you connect to over a long period of time, so I hope he stays.”

Opinions are like arseholes, everybody has one. It’s just a good thing we all don’t get fined every time we voice ours.

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The Philadelphia Phillies are in the the Major League dog house. They’ve been accused of sign-stealing, and it’s not the first time.

The full accusation is this: the Phillies have been using binoculars to steal pitching  signs and phone the information to their own bullpen.

What the truck man!?!

Shall we just lump them together with the New England Patriots or are they only as bad as the 1951 NY Giants were?

“Giants coach Herman Franks would sit in the Giants clubhouse, just behind center field at the Polo Grounds, and would read the sign the catcher was making to the pitcher. He would then set off a bell/buzzer system in the dugout that would signal the pitch. The Giants would then relay the pitch to the batter.”

Same thing, right?

I’m sure all baseball players would love to know what pitch is coming next and I don’t really have an issue with the batters checking out the signs, but binoculars, really?

FSN Rocky Mountain has a video that shows Phillies’ bullpen coach Mick Billmeyer checking out home plate and Shane Victorino using the bullpen phone. Did those things happen coincidentally and do we really know what Victorino was saying on the phone? Perhaps he was just ordering a pizza.

Technically sign stealing on the field is legal in baseball, but the use of “technology” is a big no-no.

The Phillies received a slap, if that, on the wrist, because the video was inconclusive. But they’ve been accused of similar acts by both the Red Sox and the Mets in the last few years, but apparently nothing was to be made of the accusations. Until now!

Whatever it is they are doing this year, stealing signs or ordering pizzas, it’s working; the Phillies are  currently leading the National League East right.

Cheating in baseball isn’t new and we shouldn’t be surprised by it at all. It’s probably been as much a part of the game as the game itself is part of Americana. It’s even created its own sub-culture.

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When I Googled “cheating in baseball” I had a plethora of sites to visit, but I found my favorite example actually involved a whole family of groundskeepers with a plan.

“Another elaborate tale of deception is not from the players or coaches, but from a grounds crew. They can do as much to affect the outcome of a game as anyone else out there. For instance, the popular example is of the famous family of groundskeepers, the Bossards. Their family started in the 1920′s when Emil Bossard would move back the portable fences as a Cleveland Indians’ groundskeeper to nullify the distinct power advantage that the Yankees had. Then his son, Gene, would take it a step further. He would “freeze” balls, keeping them in a room with a humidifier for a period of almost two weeks, which would subsequently make them heavier and less likely to travel further than a normal ball. Then his son, Roger, was actually the one who made the basepaths softer and, thereby, harder to steal bases from and stretch long plays out for an extra base.”

The list goes on and on, but really how can you beat that story? The whole family was involved, for generations.

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