For the record…

I neither agree with what A.J. Daulerio did last week with his ESPN rumors, going live with them in what can only be characterized as a malicious attack, nor do I condone anything ESPN has done in the last decade.

I feel that ESPN has ruined sports in a major way. And that Daulerio set blogs back about 5 or 6 years.

A pox on both of their houses.

That is all.

Steve McNair, 1973-2009

50 games later, I strike again!

Oh man! What happened!

I put the shame on Manny, he goes down for 50 games, and I forget where I blogged!!!!

So… now that he’s back… I guess I return too…

Here’s hoping I have a better second half than Manny.

I’m so tired of this.

Are you KIDDING me?!

This made NBC News… and as The Nationals Enquirer says, How come this stuff always happens to the Washington Nationals?

Not Adam Dunn's fault: Nice spelling, guys. (AP Photo)

Roger Dean Stadium, spring training and Real Housewives?

It’s unavoidable: You live 10 minutes from a spring-training stadium, you have to try to see a game.

So I decided I would treat my lady to a game featuring her beloved Braves — who’ve dealt her plenty of heartache over the years — and the local boys, the Marlins.

Now, I’m not going to say I love the Marlins. They’ve torn apart their team so many times, it’s impossible for me to become attached. But working for a daily news organization, you end up keeping up with the local boys.

For the most part, it was a first rate experience. Roger Dean Stadium is superb — we’ve been going for years, and having toured various MLB training sites, I’d say the Marlins (and the Cardinals, whom they share the place with) have it pretty good.

Addictions: ESPN’s Streak for the Cash

First of all, what do you think of the new look? I kinda like the duskiness of it all. And it looks like a horizon, which is what I’m all about — looking to the horizon for the new frontier. Etc. Etc.

Secondly, I admit that I’m addicted to a few things — sadly, blogging isn’t one of them. Not yet.

But one thing I find myself gravitating to like a giant bug zapper is a game ESPN.com put up called Streak for the Cash. It’s deceptively simple — you pick a game out of a menu of several going on that day, and then you pick a winner. If you win, you start a winning streak. If your winning streak reaches 27, you win $1 million. 

But it’s harder than it looks. Sure, they have straight-up battles in popular sports, but you can also try your luck at contests such as who’ll score more or how many total points will be scored.

And they also choose more obscure sports as well. Which is why I’m hoping Colchester United finds a way to beat Tranmere Rovers today. 

I don’t know WHERE Colchester IS!!! (I do know it’s in England, but that’s as close as I can get.)

All I know is that I hope the U’s (that’s Colchester’s nickname) can do it, because I’m on the schneid and I need to win, baby.

UPDATE: Tranmere 1, Colchester 0. Dammit! 

Also, here’s where Colchester is. Close to the North Sea, etc.

Bowl games suck, blah blah wahhhh

Colorado State's Kory Sperry pulls in a touchdown right before halftime. (AP)

Anyone who thinks the early bowl games are a waste are invited to find a replay of today’s New Mexico Bowl and try to turn away.

Fresno State and Colorado State played a non-stop game that had everything you want, including a monster performance by CSU’s Gartrell Johnson, who ran for 285 yards. 

It also had what many coaches would consider a foolhardy play, a bomb to a tight end with 2 seconds left in the first quarter half by the Rams.

It worked!

Despite an awesome job by Fresno, Colorado State won 40-35. And this bowl season is underway.

Hacking the Games

OK, first of all, I don’t necessarily have a problem with China winning gold medals in women’s gymnastics. Their athletes are obviously talented and well-coached.

That said, what Stryde Hax, an Internet security consultant, has done is nothing short of great detective work. The media has been batting around the allegations that at least one of the young gymnasts were too young to be competing, but it wasn’t until Stryde did some searches and found that at least one — He Kexin, the gold medalist on uneven bars — seems to indeed be under the Olympic age limit of 16.

Stryde, whose real name is Mike Walker, dug past Google searches, used a China-based search engine and was able to track down pretty damning evidence that He was born Jan. 1, 1994, making her 14.

Again, the story here for me isn’t that He could be made ineligible and forced to give back her medals; that Nastia Liukin, who ended up with the silver on bars due to an odd tiebreaking procedure, would get the gold; that Beth Tweddle, Britain’s gymnastic superhero, would finally get an Olympic medal.

All of these resukts would be interesting, should China and He be punished: Rules are rules and those that broke them for He should be made to pay; Liukin is a deserving champion; Tweddle, save for one error, probably would’ve won the gold running away.

No, for me, Stryde has shown that given the gumption and a little know-how about how search engines work, anyone can bust a huge story wide open.

Goodbye, Skip…

While most know the idiosyncratic broadcast style of the late Harry Caray, I’m here to salute the much more polished, warm style of his son Skip, who died today. Skip was a part of my adolescence, as he was to a lot of folks who are between 35 and 45 who caught a Braves game on TBS (something, by the way, they don’t do anymore — what’s up with that?!).

Though I am an Orioles fan and bleed orange and black (and haven’t had a lot of fun in the last 10 years), I will always remember this play from ’92, when Sid Bream scored the winning run in the NLCS, putting the Braves in the World Series. Here’s Skip’s call: