News Item: Cardinals GM Upset at Media For Coverage of Cardinals’ Collapse.
The Cards are about to complete the worst end-of-season collapse in baseball history. Yea, it’s the media’s fault. I guess they should’ve just ignored it.
“Why on earth would a good liberal/progressive/moderate/Democrat be less than thrilled when a giant like Frank Rich is kind enough to give us a book?… As a political writer, Rich is a marginal crackpot just this side of a flat-out shelled nut. And yes he’s done gigantic harm to liberal interests over the course of the past dozen years. And yet, sensitive liberals cry and complain when someone dares to notice the problem. Why would a Democrat dislike Rich’s work? Frankly, because he has read it.”
–Blogger Bob Somerby, sounding off against Rich, who is truly a special kind of bad writer, even when I agree with him.
During a Comcast Sportsnet segment tonight on the T.O. fallout (isn’t there always some sort of T.O. fallout?), the reporter interviewed Jets running back Kevan Barlow, a teammate of Owens’ in San Francisco, for reaction. Barlow said that he wished Owens well, because he always found T.O. to be “a great guy.”
Yes, this is the same Kevan Barlow who, after being traded from the Niners last month, said that San Fran coach Mike Nolan is both “like a dictator” and “like Hitler.”
So, let’s review: Terrell Owens = Great guy. Mike Nolan = Hitler. Though if you believe Owens, the only person in that formulation who has ever attempted suicide is… Hitler.
Everyone’s favorite Kazakh TV personality visited Washington yesterday, in connection with the state visit of Kazakh president Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, as well as his upcoming feature film (Borat’s, not Nursultan’s).
I got the press release about this e-mailed to me yesterday morning; had I had more than 24 hours notive, I may very well have made the trip down to DC for that, and for the delayed-five-hours-by-rain Phillies/Nats game.
Which when everyone, including Gleeman, had conceded the AL Central to Detroit, the Twins charged back tonight to tie the division again, hitting a game-tying homer with two outs in the ninth, before Jason Bartlett won it in the 10th on a Gene Larkin-like bases-loaded single to center.
The Tigers lost earlier in the day, in order to facilitate the tie. However, the tie isn’t really a tie, since Detroit wins the tiebreaker, so the Twins will have to make up one more game in order to claim their fourth division title in five years.
Best of all? Brad Radke returned to make the final regular-season start of his career, pitching five innings of three-hit ball, and giving up only a single (unearned) run. With him, and not Carlos Silva, in the playoff rotation, the Twins’ chances of winning at least one series raise about 1000%.
And that vaunted Yankees lineup we’re supposed to be afraid of? They almost got no-hit, at home, by Baltimore.
Oh, there are so many, after one of the wildest days in sports/news media history. We’ve now clearly reached the Terri Schiavo phase of the T.O. suicide/overdose case, in which everyone feels the need to supply an exact medical diagnosis, despite no inside information, medical knowledge, or any expertise whatsoever.
My hunch? In that press conference, T.O. didn’t look to me like someone who had tried to kill himself less than 24 hours before. But he didn’t sound honest, either. My guess? He was doing something untoward with the painkiller drugs, whether it’s an addiction or simply overdependence. When, in the press conference, he mentioned “Romo,” it took me a minute to realize he was referring to backup QB Tony Romo, and not Bill Romanowski. The latter Romo would certainly be the man to approach in regards to obtaining pills, possibly even from his own personal tacklebox.
At any rate, a few unanswered questions that remain, 24 hours after the Overdose That Shook the World:
– If Owens is now popping more pain pills than is generally recommended to heal a minor hand injury during Week 3 of the regular season, how many was he stuffing in his mouth in order to play in the Super Bowl two years ago, post-ankle surgery?
– What was T.O.’s young, attractive, female “publicist” doing at his house late at night? And, what ever happened to his “fiance,” the one with the last name “Terrell”?
– Speaking of the soon-to-be-out-of-work PR “professional,” what kind of publicist chews gum during a nationally televised press conference?
– And where was Rosenhaus? Did he decide, after last year, that perhaps having him at his side for Owens’ bimonthly public apologies wasn’t helping? Then again, maybe he was off with his other client.
– Was anyone really surprised when T.O.’s other “agent,” Dan Le Batard, wrote an ESPN.com piece called “I Believe T.O?” I am shocked- shocked! This would be like Sean Hannity writing a book called “I Believe Dick Cheney.”
– When Bill Parcells went before the cameras, admitted to the press corps that he had no idea what was going on with the Owens story, got testy, and then walked out, isn’t that an indication that Jerry Jones has kept him significantly out of the loop? Parcells said he hadn’t heard anything was wrong until mid-morning today. I heard something was wrong from reading the AP wire at around midnight last night. It doesn’t bode well for the Cowboys if I’m more in the loop than Parcells is.
– And, now that it appears Owens will return to football as though nothing happened, how much crazier does this situation make the Eagles-Cowboys game on October 8? I can predict the litany already: Fans throw aspirin bottles at Owens, tell him to kill himself, chant “OD, OD, OD, OD,” and probably worse. National media is OUTRAGED at behavior. Philly fans are OUTRAGED that they’re singled out when other cities are (cough) worse. Of course, they’ll be even more OUTRAGED after the game if the Eagles lose, at which point a couple dozen lunatics will suggest to WIP that hey, despite it all, they should’ve kept Owens instead of McNabb after all.
Like they wouldn’t cheer at the Linc if Owens suffered any kind of injury. I know I would.
The right-wing radio talker Jay Severin, who is every bit as entertaining as he is batshit insane, has announced that he will cease his nationwide talk show, known as “Jay Severin Has Issues,” in order to appear exclusively on WTKK in Boston.
Severin, among other misdeeds, has: Referred to Pat Buchanan as “my personal and political hero”; spread on the air an obviously false internet meme that suggested Al Gore didn’t know who Osama Bin Laden was; advocated invading and occupying Mexico “and making English their official language;” lied about winning a Pulitzer Prize; and left Tucker Carlson’s MSNBC show under mysterious circumstances. Other than that, though? Great guy.
My favorite moment of the all-too-brief Syndicated Severin Era? Probably the time the Kidd Chris-affiliated Cream Team bombarded him with five prank phone calls in a row. I don’t think Jay ever recovered.
I’m sure more exciting stuff than that happened, but Severin’s show has been pre-empted most nights in Philly by baseball games (and by Sinatra on Fridays).
From Bill Simmons’ mailbag column this week, after Bill was asked if he would accept, if offered, the GM job with the Sixers:
“Running an NBA team is my dream job. And I’d have a built-in competitive advantage, being one of the only GMs with any semblance of common sense. I think I’d have a 95 percent chance of succeeding as long as I didn’t suffer a head injury. Plus, the chance to become a lifelong hero in a city as bitter as Philly would be too enticing to pass up. It would be like dating a girl who had just had 39 consecutive horrible boyfriends over the past 10 years. How could you lose?”
That bitter city almost had a reason to be bitter again tonight, after the Phils beat Washington in 13 innings to avoid a third straight loss, and keep the Dodgers’ wild card lead at 1.
What a weird game. It was horribly played by both sides, at bat, in the field, and on the mound, and most strangely of all, half the crowd or more seemed to be Phillies fans, and the Nats fans lookd like they all went home after the 9th. One Philly sportswriter noticed today that earlier in the series, Pat Burrell had achieved the rare feat of being booed for striking out in another team’s stadium. (After Thursday, the Phils will finish the regular season in Florida, where there are expected to be next to no fans of either team in the stands).
In other news, the Twins and Tigers both lost, keeping the gap at 1- and the Twins really need to drop Carlos Silva from the postseason roster before he ruins the season completely.
News Item: Screech of ‘Saved By the Bell’ Appears in Sex Tape Threesome
The biggest surprise? I wouldn’t have thought that Dustin Diamond had slept with two different women in the last ten years, much less at the same time.
News Item: Vikings Sign Drew Henson to Practice Squad
He’s already washed out of two different sports, and couldn’t even get on the depth chart in Dallas, but Henson was a pretty good QB at Michigan- good enough, in fact, to keep Tom Brady on the bench. And, the Vikes have had success with reclamation-project quarterbacks before. It can’t hurt to give him a shot.
Stephen Silver, Writer 