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| Tuesday, June 20, 2006 |
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban screamed “Your league is rigged!” to NBA commissioner David Stern after his team’s controversial loss to the Miami heat Sunday night, reports Miami Herald reporter Greg Cote.
”We Wuz Robbed!” has long been the handiest excuse of teams that cannot find a decent reason for their collapse that doesn’t involve the ignominy of a mirror. The convenience of alleging bad calls, or even willfully biased officiating (you’ll recall the Seattle Seahawks conducted a remarkable seminar in early February), also is the blame-dodge of choice among teams that cannot bear to properly credit the opponent.
And so there it was for all to see past midnight Sunday in Miami’s downtown bayfront arena: the sourest, saddest, sorriest display by a losing team that you’d ever wish to witness.
Not the loss itself; that was rather valiant. The reaction to it.
There was Cuban, whose billions can buy just about anything but a mortal slump by D-Wade, careening onto the court in a blue Jerry Stackhouse jersey after the final buzzer, screaming profanely at referee Joe DeRosa.
Cuban then turned to Stern and other NBA officials who were seated at the scorer’s table and was overheard to shout venomously in the jubilant din, “[Bleep] you! [Bleep] you! Your league is rigged!”
Cote was on ESPN Radio’s “Mike and Mike” show around 8:35 this morning defending this quote, which he alone has published. He admits that it is a “third hand” quotation that was passed from an unnamed “league official” to an unnamed source in whom Cote has great confidence. He says he emailed Cuban for a reaction (when, he doesn’t say) but did not get a response. I’ve now done the same.
Cote contends that he didn’t make too big a fuss about Cuban’s quote (it was several paragraphs into the article) because it is, after all, Mark Cuban, who has a reputation for spouting off. Still, this is beyond anything Cuban has said before and, given that he allegedly said it right there on the court after a nationally televised NBA Finals game, it’s rather odd that no one else is reporting this.
In a somewhat related matter, Cuban posted on his blog yesterday afternoon on the subject “Cursing.”
I like to curse. I like to curse because I enjoy how it gets everyone in an uproar. I wont curse in an environment where I have accepted an invitation or am a guest of someone else. I will play by their rules.
But if you come on my home turf and want something from me. Its my rules.
Last night in the locker room after we lost in overtime to the heat. I was asked by reporters to answer some questions. I told them i would if they asked good questions and didnt ask the same cliche’d questions they had asked after other games. It was interesting how quiet everyone got.
then someone asked “Is this your worst loss ever†. What the f@#^ kind of question is that ? Is this for a VH1 special ? “Worst Losses Ever ?†If it was, then maybe it was a decent question. Otherwise, how do you answer that question…
[...]
So I told the reporter to “Ask me a real f@#^ing questionâ€
Apparently some folks have taken exception to me cursing in my response. Well in this case, the reporter was using my time, we were in a locker room and I was trying to provide a response that had no value to me, but could only help him. If he doesnt think enough of either of our time to invest the brainpower and minutes it takes to come up with something different than has been asked a thousand times.
F@#^ em.
Needless to say, the symbols are mine.
UPDATE: Cuban has been fined a cool quarter mil.
Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was fined $250,000 by the NBA on Tuesday for his outbursts following Game 5 of the NBA finals. Cuban was cited for “several acts of misconduct” he committed after Dallas lost 101-100 in overtime to the Heat in Miami on Sunday night.
Furious with several calls, Cuban went onto the floor to vent directly to official Joe DeRosa. He then stared down and screamed toward commissioner David Stern and a group of league officials, from the court, then the stands. He later used profanity during a postgame session with the media.
Announcement of the fine came hours before Game 6 of the NBA finals in which the Mavericks trail the Heat 3-2.
Cuban said Monday he was bracing for the fine, his second this postseason. He also was assessed $200,000 during the second round for going onto the court and for an entry on his blog criticizing the way the league selects officials for the playoffs.
Stern said Tuesday that he believes Cuban’s more vitriolic outbursts are “not healthy for either him or the game.” “I don’t think he is crazy. I think he is smart. I think his recent loss of self control is not planned and not calculated, and I think if he could, he would like to have some of it back,” Stern said in an interview on San Francisco radio station KNBR. “Because at bottom, I really do believe it distracts the players and that can’t be good. It sets a bad tone.
Cuban has a statement at his blog, Blog Maverick, unequivocably defending the League’s integrity.
The games are not rigged. Thats a complete insult to the players on the court and the incredible amount of effort they put into preparing for and playing the games. All 82 regular season and post season games. The NBA couldnt rig the games if it wanted to. And it doesnt want to. Its that simple
Do i like that i have gotten more than 12,000 emails in the last week and probably 80pct have questioned some level of honesty. No, I hate it. I hate it more than you will ever know because these are my customers, NBA customers, who are questioning our enterprise. Thats never a good thing and each one is a business hole I have to work harder to dig us out of.
Do I wish there was better communication from the league ? Yes. I dont like when my email box fills up with nonsense. Yes. I wish the league would just come out and explain events that occur in a game to the public. I think it would help the perception of our game. I think it would help fans better understand not only the rules of the NBA, but also the nuances, strategies and challenges of the game. I have suggested it. Many others have suggested it.
Getting an explanation pretty much eliminates everyones ability to question what just occured. Some media people have suggested that the same approach that MLB takes would work well. Simply allow reporters to ask officials questions after a game. Why not ?
He emphatically denies Cotes’ third hand report, though:
pparently the Miami Herald is reporting i screamed at the NBA comissioner after the game the other night. Didnt happen. Didnt say a word to the man. Not a single word. And that was absolutely by intention.
I believe him, incidentally.
While I find Cuban likable and think he’s an incredibly smart businessman, I agree with Stern that these outbursts are bad for the game. Cuban’s heart is in the right place–I think he’s genuinely trying to make the NBA better and many of his complaints about the quality of the officiating have merit–but his approach is wrong. That said, I think the idea that a man, even a billionaire, should be subject to fines of this ridiculous magnitude without much more substantial due process bizarre. Stern’s integrity in unquestioned but no man should have that amount of unchecked power.
Via IM from Jeff Quinton
OTB
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The Florida Masochist linked with The Knuckleheads of the Day award...
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The Bullwinkle Blog linked with The Knucklehead of the Day award
Ricky Williams‘ CFL regular season debut turned out well. In Toronto’s 27-17 win over Hamilton the suspended Miami Dolphin rushed for 97 yards and caught two passes for 24 yards.
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| Monday, June 19, 2006 |
Ben Roethlisberger apparently did not have a license to operate the motorcycle he crashed last week.
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger will be cited for not wearing a helmet and not having a motorcycle license for a traffic accident last week in which he collided with a car, police said Monday. Roethlisberger and the driver of the car he crashed into on June 12 both had the green light, but the driver of the vehicle will be cited for failing to yield when she made a left turn in front of him, police said.
Only licensed motorcyclists can ride without a helmet in Pennsylvania.
Roethlisberger was traveling at the speed limit a posted 35 mph zone, but he braked and hit the car at a slower speed, police officer Dan Connolly said Monday. There were no mechanical problems with Roethlisberger’s Suzuki Hayabusa or the woman’s Chrysler New Yorker, he said.
Roethlisberger and the woman will be sent summary citations. Fines and costs for Roethlisberger’s citations are $388.
This just adds to the “not too smart” list for Roethlisberger’s accident. No that $388 will be a major burden for Big Ben.
Brandon adds: Apparantly, his fine will be higher than the person who was at fault, who they did not specify the citation amount, but the fine for her offense is typically just over $100. So to review: Big Ben gets fined more money than the person at fault for his stupidity.
The 29-year-old Australian won the US Open in an astonishing way. Duel 18th hole collapses by Colin Montgomerie and Phil Mickelson.
MAMARONECK, N.Y. – Phil Mickelson’s bid for a third consecutive major ended with a shocking collapse Sunday when he bungled his way to a double bogey on the final hole, giving the U.S. Open to Geoff Ogilvy.
The winning shot in this test of survival at Winged Foot was Ogilvy’s 6-foot par putt that he figured was only good for second place.
The memory will be Mickelson on the 72nd hole, one minute on the verge of joining Tiger Woods as the only players over the last 50 years with three straight majors, the next minute looking like the Mickelson of old with a reckless attempt to get out of trouble.
*****
Ogilvy, whose resiliency carried him to the Match Play Championship in February, closed with a 2-over 72 in the highest-scoring U.S. Open since 1974 at Winged Foot. He became the first Australian to win the U.S. Open since David Graham in 1981.
*****
Ogilvy didn’t just stand around waiting for handouts, though. The 29-year-old Aussie battled to the very end. He holed an 18-foot chip to save par on the 17th hole and then had to overcome a miserable break on the 18th when his tee shot landed in a divot. His approach lost power as it reached the green, tumbling down the slope. He chipped up and, unlike Colin Montgomerie and Jim Furyk before him, made the putt.
Even so, this was Mickelson’s major to win, and the first one he threw away.
Instead of being linked with Woods in the majors, the comparisons turned to Jean Van de Velde at Carnoustie in 1999, when the Frenchman took triple bogey on the last hole of the British Open. But at least Van de Velde got a chance in a playoff.
Mickelson could only cup his hands over his cap and acknowledge a New York crowd that he disappointed again.
*****
He had a two-shot lead with four holes to play, but his stubborn side continued to hit driver, and his miscues finally caught up with him. Mickelson hit only two fairways in the final round, none on the back nine. And while he found a way to escape most times, Winged Foot got its vengeance at the end.
Mickelson’s tee shot on the 18th went so far left that it clattered through the trees by a corporate hospitality tent, into the trampled rough. Instead of playing out to the fairway and trying to get par — just as Payne Stewart and David Toms had done in beating Mickelson in majors — he went after the green and hit a tree, the ball advancing only 25 yards.
The third shot sailed left of the green and buried in the bunker, plugged so badly that Mickelson had no chance to get close to the flag because the green ran away from him. He blasted out and through the green, into more rough, then chipped back 8 feet past the hole before making the last putt to close with double bogey.
*****
Ogilvy finished at 5-over 285, the first time a U.S. Open champion finished over par since Andy North at Cherry Hills in 1978. And it was the highest score by a winner since Hale Irwin won at 7-over 285 at Winged Foot in the ’74 U.S. Open.
*****
Mickelson wasn’t the only guy to blow it on the 18th.
Montgomerie had his best chance in 11 years to win that elusive major. He holed a 75-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole for a share of the lead and was in the middle of the 18th fairway, 172 yards from the hole, in prime position to do no worse than a playoff. But he missed well to the right, down a steep slope into rough that covered the cuffs of his pants.
The best he could do was chip some 40 feet by the pin. Then he did the worst thing he could do, running his par putt 10 feet by and missing the next one for a double bogey and a 71.
*****
Furyk also will have a restless night.
One of five players tied for the lead on a steamy afternoon, he was 5 over and in the bunker on the 18th when he played a splendid shot to about 5 feet below the hole. He backed off twice, and the par putt caught the right edge of the cup, giving him a 70, one shot out of a playoff.
*****
Ogilvy earned $1.225 million for his first major, and his third career victory on the PGA Tour, and it should be enough to put him into the top 10 in the world ranking.
He became the first Aussie to win a major since Greg Norman in the 1993 British Open, and Ogilvy showed he can never be counted out. When he won the Match Play Championship at La Costa, he set a record by winning four consecutive matches in extra holes.
My obervations
*- Two things I said earlier today proved prophetic. First that I said Mickelson couldn’t keep driving it in the rough. I was right. He only hit 2 fairways the whole round.
Then there was my pick of Ogilvy. Yes Monty and Mickelson double bogied 18 but Ogilvy played the steadiest round of the leaders. Geoff won and he is a deserving champ.
*- AP writer Doug Ferguson overreaches with the Van de Welde analogy. That’s my opinion.
*- Ferguson proves once again he is a hack. Steve Elkington was the last Aussie to win a major, The 1995 PGA Championship. All Doug had to do was ask Colin Montgomerie. Why Colin? Colin lost that PGA in a playoff to Elkington.
Then what do you expect from a golf writer who called Birdie Kim’s holeout bunker shot at the 2005 Women’s US Open mediocre. A bunker shot into the hole is mediocre? Ferguson’s writing is full of either factual errors or nonsense like that. It’s pitiful for AP is a wire service and publications around the world will publish this man’s mistakes.
From AP-
MAMARONECK, N.Y. – The yardage book Phil Mickelson keeps in his pocket is filled with copious notes from nearly a dozen practice rounds at Winged Foot that have prepared him for this U.S. Open.
The way he surged into a share of the lead Saturday, it looked like he borrowed a page from Tiger Woods, the man he’s trying to catch in the record book.
One by one, the leaders collapsed in a series of miscues that sent them tumbling down the leaderboard. Mickelson marched along with his best golf of the tournament, hitting the last five fairways and giving himself a birdie putt on the last eight holes.
And when a torturous day at Winged Foot was in the books, Mickelson shot a 1-under 69 and was on the verge of joining Woods in a small chapter of golf history as the only players to win three straight majors on the schedule.
All that stands in the way is 18 holes and an unheralded Englishman, Kenneth Ferrie, whose three-putt bogey from the fringe on the 18th hole gave him a 71 and dropped him into a tie with Mickelson at 2-over 212, the seventh time in the last 11 rounds at a major that Lefty was atop the leaderboard.
*****
Mickelson sat next to the U.S. Open trophy in a television interview. It was close enough to touch, but he kept his hands to himself.
“I’ve got one round to go, 18 holes, and there’s a lot of guys right there, a lot of good players that are making pars and fighting, just like I’m trying to do,” Mickelson said. “I’m not thinking about those past tournaments. I’m trying to just play one more good round.”
It was the first time the 54-hole lead was over par at the U.S. Open since 1974, known as the “Massacre of Winged Foot,” when Tom Watson led at 3-over 213 and Hale Irwin wound up winning at 7-over 287. That was the year Winged Foot got its reputation as one wicked test of golf, and it sure lived up its reputation on this steamy Saturday.
*****
As for the challengers on the course?
Ferrie is a 37-year-old playing only his fourth major, and his first U.S. Open. He was surprisingly steady except for a flew blips on the back nine, when he took bogey from the bunker on the par-3 13th and ran his birdie putt from the fringe on the 18th some 6 feet past the hole, missing the par attempt badly.
*****
Geoff Ogilvy of Australia, who won the Accenture Match Play Championship in February, made two straight bogeys on the back to wreck an otherwise solid round, finishing with a 2-over 72 that left him one shot out of the lead.
The group at 5-over 215 all had their moments, good and bad.
• Three-time major winner Vijay Singh had to scramble for bogey on the 13th and holed a 30-foot par putt late to secure a 70.
• Ian Poulter of England had a chip roll back to his feet from short of the 18th, making bogey to spoil his round of 70. He only has three shots to make up, far less daunting than last year’s British Open, when he started the last round nine shots behind Woods and made up only one.
*****
• Steve Stricker held on to his tenuous lead for eight holes until he started missing fairways and limped home to a 76.
• Colin Montgomerie dropped five shots on his first four holes, then steadied himself for a 75 that kept alive faint hopes of a first major championship.
“That was a disaster,” Monty said of his start. “Five over to finish was a hell of an effort. I pat myself on the back tonight. The last 14 holes were good.”
The last hole was awful for Padraig Harrington.
The Irishman needed a birdie to catch Mickelson, but made a mess of it. He barely made contact out of the deep rough, moving the ball only about 15 yards into the fairway. Once he got out of a greenside bunker, he three-putted for a triple bogey that sent him spiraling down the leaderboard with a 74, in the group at 6-over 216 with Mike Weir (71) and Jim Furyk (74).
Weir hit what he thought was his best shot on the 18th, only to see it roll off the green and into a bunker. From there, he blasted over the green and couldn’t get up and down, ending with a double bogey
My observations
1- Mickelson is the person to beat. He’ll have to drive better than he did yesterday though.
If Mickelson wins he will have won the last 3 major championships and would go to the British Open with a chance to become the champion of all four professional majors at once. Something only Tiger Woods has done when Tiger won the 2001 Masters.
Warning- Mickelson’s record at the British Open is poor. He has never been a serious factor in that tournament.
2- I don’t think we’ll see as bas as scoring at Winged Foot as seen in the 1974 Open. Still I think 284 will be the winning score and 283 the lowest we could see.
3- Geoff Ogilvy and Ian Poulter I think are the people most likely to challenge Mickelson today. If you want my honest prediction, I think Ogilvy will be the winner.
4- Vijay Singh, Colin Montgomerie, Steve Stricker and Padrig Harrington could still contend.
5- Does the USGA ever learn or are they staffed by sadists? The 18th hole yesterday was ridiculous in how the pin was set up. US Opens in 2004, 2002 and 1998 have seen similar debacles. They should think when setting up the course for what happened to Harrington and others on 18 weren’t the breaks of golf but the breaks of the USGA.
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| Sunday, June 18, 2006 |
Man, we were lucky to get away with that one.
I know nothing about soccer. So it was with some surprise that I found myself watching the USA vs. Italy today. However, it was a good match – the USA played EXTREMELY well compared to their effort before, and certainly rose to the challenge that faced us in this game.
The referees were much too eager to bring out the cards in this one. Very quickly in the second half, the US found themselves going from one man up to one man down thanks to two very quick uses of the red card (well, Eddie Pope was a quick use of a second yellow card). Playing almost the entire second half one man down, we were extremely fortunate to keep the Italians from scoring – no team with 9 men has ever scored in World Cup history, and we didn’t buck that trend. But the fact that we didn’t let Italy score either was an amazing effort on defense by our side.
In order to advance, the USA needs to beat Ghana (which may be tougher than it looks) and also needs to root for Italy when they play the Czechs. That would put Italy up on top with 7 points, the USA in second with 4, and the other two teams would have 3. We can’t tie with our current horrid goal differential, as we will probably lose that without scoring a huge number of goals against Ghana.
We have to wait until Thursday to discover our World Cup fate.
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| Saturday, June 17, 2006 |
The United States team got some help from an unlikely source, as Ghana stunned the Czech Republic in World Cup play.
 Ghana pulled off the biggest upset of this World Cup and might have helped the United States along the way. The first win for Africa in this tournament was a stunner, 2-0 over the same Czech Republic team that routed the Americans in their opener. Asamoah Gyan scored in the second minute Saturday and the Ghanians peppered star goalkeeper Petr Cech before getting the clincher in the 82nd.
With the victory, Ghana assured that the United States would not be eliminated from contention even with a loss later Saturday against Italy. A U.S. win would put all four teams even at three points in Group E.
Quite bizarre.
OTB
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| Saturday, June 17, 2006 |
This gives offense vs. defense a whole new meaning.
Uppercuts, haymakers, headlocks, head-slaps, cursing and consequences defined the temperamental Baltimore Ravens’ minicamp practice. It wasn’t a Vince McMahon creation. It was a case of warring factions: offense versus defense.
A series of melees Wednesday eventually completely eroded Ravens coach Brian Billick’s tolerance for the unscripted, extracurricular activity, so he halted practice early. Billick ordered the entire football team to run ‘gassers,’ a demanding regimen of sideline-to-sideline sprints rarely seen in the NFL.
“Since you don’t want to practice and you don’t want to think, you’re going to run until I get [expletive] tired of seeing you run,†Billick bellowed. “Get your [butts] on the sideline!â€
As promised, Billick kept blowing his whistle as the players ran at least eight sprints. Several hefty linemen were left bent over and gasping for air.
“If you can fight, you can run,†receiver Derrick Mason told his teammates while out in front of the pack of runners. “You’ve got to watch each other’s back.â€
Words fail. Couldn’t happen to a better team.
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| Saturday, June 17, 2006 |
This is an interesting use of an iPod.
Three hours before a start against Florida, Colorado Rockies pitcher Jason Jennings sits in front of his locker, puts on his headphones and stares at his video iPod.
Jason Jennings
He isn’t watching the latest Coldplay video or catching up on an episode of “Alias” as a way to relax before the game.
Jennings is doing some last-minute cramming: The Rockies’ video staff has downloaded every Marlins hitter into his iPod, and Jennings is figuring out how to pitch to them. He watches frames of himself delivering the pitch, followed by the result of the play. Everything else is weeded out.
“It’s a good way to refresh yourself on how you got guys out,” Jennings said. “It’s an amazing concept.”
This seems like a decent idea – have video that players use available right up until they take the field. Interesting intersection between technology and sports.
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| Saturday, June 17, 2006 |
In responce to this, I would like to make a point.
I can understand why North Dakota is suing. This isn’t just about keeping a nickname, but from a financial standpoint, North Dakota is going to have to change all of their fields, courts, stationary, etc. Remember, Division II is slightly different in how they handle playoffs for their “big sports”. Unlike Division I, where the NCAA hosts events on neutral sites, allowing teams to possibly keep their nicknames with little penalty, Division II lets the best team in the region host their events until very late in their tournaments.
My alma mater, the Indiana University of Pennsylvania Indians, was also ordered to change their name. They are taking some time to study the issue, which I think they should. I am not personally attached to the nickname myself, and am sort of glad the NCAA has made the university take a stand on an issue they have punted on for some time (I think they should either change everything, or nothing – their solution has been wishy-washy and confusing, without saying anything else). I just hope they don’t pick something lame. However, I understand why a team would sue – North Dakota has traditionally been a very good Division II team, often hosting NCAA playoff events. They do not want to lose those events, but will if they do not change their nickname and mascot. There is more at stake here than just a nickname and a picture.
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