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| Monday, June 12, 2006 |
Some photos from the Ben Roethlisberger accident scene, taken by Philip G. Pavely of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:
   
From AP-
NEW YORK – Embattled pitcher Jason Grimsley was suspended 50 games by Major League Baseball on Monday, less than a week after federal agents raided his home during an investigation into performance-enhancing drugs.
Grimsley was suspended for violating baseball’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program, based on his statements to authorities regarding human growth hormone.
The Arizona Diamondbacks released the reliever last Wednesday and his agent said he did not expect Grimsley to play again.
If he returns, the penalty would take effect when he’s placed on a 40-man roster.
Last Tuesday, 13 agents searched his Arizona home following his admission he had used HGH, steroids and amphetamines.
According to court documents, authorities tracked a package containing two “kits” of HGH — about a season’s worth — that was delivered at Grimsley’s house on April 19. He failed a baseball drug test in 2003, documents showed.
Acting on those documents, MLB suspended him for his alleged possession, admitted use and intended use of HGH. Baseball toughened its drug program and penalties this season, but there is no test for HGH.
Grimsley’s career was as good as over. He was barely hanging onto a ML job at the time of his release. So what good is a 50 day suspension?
Why not just ban Grimsley for life? What does MLB plan to do when more players are discovered to be using HGH? I think we all know what will done. Little to nothing.
This story isn’t a joke. It is MLB that’s the joke. A not very funny one either.
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| Monday, June 12, 2006 |
From a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette chat transcript to a sports writer on staff:
“matt1996: I heard in an extrodinary move of team unity Coach Cowher has graciously agreed to donate his jaw to Ben’s recovery. Can you confirm that?”
Now that WOULD be a sacrifice.
Link.
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| Monday, June 12, 2006 |
NOTE: Links involved with this story may be slow to load or not load at all, as Pittsburgh media sites are under quite a bit of strain today.
The Tribune Review is posting a summary of Roethlisberger’s injuries. These are words you don’t like seeing in conjunction with your starting quarterback’s name:
Roethlisberger lost most of his teeth, fractured his left sinus cavity bone, suffered a nine-inch laceration to the back of his head and a broken jaw, and severely injured both of his knees when he hit the ground, police said.
Knee injuries? Not good, espicially with a QB who has had knee problems in the past. Ironically, a helmet wouldn’t have saved him from those.
This line, I had to admit, cracked me up. It appears in its own paragraph:
A plastic surgeon has been summoned.
From where, I wonder? And how does one summon a plastic surgeon? Is there an ancient ritual involved?
He had a concussion after the accident, not knowing what city he was in. The woman he was talking to had told him the tunnel he was near, the tunnel that he drives through to get to the Steeler’s office facility, and he didn’t know where it was.
While I want to reserve judgement until some experts chime in, I’m beginning to think the Big Ben’s season is over before it even begins, and with that, the Steeler’s chances have greatly diminished. With Carson Palmer’s start still up in the air, and Roethlisberger questionable, and Steve McNair arriving in Baltimore, I foresee a very interesting season for the AFC North. Before Roethlisberger’s injury, I would have said that McNair is washed up, a shadow of his former self, and not likely to make the Ravens contenders. However, as the division currently stands, he may be the best healthy QB out there – and suddenly, a shadow of Steve McNair’s former self looks good enough to win in the AFC North. I also have to look at Cleveland again – they could make a run, given the favorable conditions in their division.
In another story, the Post-Gazette talks about how the onlookers reacted as they found out that the crash victim was none other than Roethlisberger.
As in most serious motor vehicle accidents, the curious gathered late this morning at Second Avenue and the 10th Street Bridge, surveying the aftermath of a motorcycle-car crash.
They saw the smashed front end of the motorcycle with pieces strewn about. They noted the 6-inch hole in the car’s windshield where the motorcyclist’s head impacted. They blanched at the blood pool where the motorcyclist’s head struck the pavement after flying over the car. A red hooded sweatshirt was nearby. They expressed sadness for the accident victim.
And then, the word spread throughout the crowd of 15 or so people that the injured motorcyclist wasn’t some anonymous person but was Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.
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“You’re kidding me? That was Roethlisberger?” one motorist who saw the aftermath of the accident said to a reporter.
One woman, who saw the accident and rushed to Roethlisberger’s aid, likewise was shocked when told it was Roethlisberger.
“That was him? Oh, my! He did say his name was ‘Ben,’ she said, recalling that the injured man didn’t know where he was but knew his name.
Interesting that the woman who went out to help him didn’t recognize him. Then again, with the injuries he suffered, he probably didn’t look much like the Big Ben everyone in Pittsburgh knew.
This story will surely continue to unfold as the days and weeks go on.
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| Monday, June 12, 2006 |
Despite coming into the tournament ranked number five in the world, mostly thanks to playing against relatively weak competition in the Americas, Team USA was trounced in their opener in the 2006 World Cup.
 Jan Koller scored early, and Tomas Rosicky added two more goals Monday to lead the Czech Republic to a 3-0 win over the United States in Group E of the World Cup. Koller, who returned only last month from knee surgery, already had been fouled by Oguchi Onyewu and Eddie Pope in the first two minutes. He then headed a cross to put the ball past United States goalkeeper Kasey Keller for his 43rd goal in 69 international appearances, a Czech record.
Rosicky scored on a soaring 25-meter (yard) shot in the 36th minute, and the Americans never got back into the game. Rosicky hit the crossbar in the 68th and added a goal in the 76th minute, getting past the United States defense off a through pass from Pavel Nedved and beating Keller on the breakaway.
Koller injured his right leg battling Onyewu for a ball on the flank in the 43d minute, and was taken off on stretcher. He was taken to a hospital to be examined, the Czech team said.
It’s looking like another first round exit for the Red, White, and Blue. And they wonder why Americans don’t get excited about soccer.
UPDATE: Commenter Brandon Minich notes that the Czechs were ranked 2nd in the world, and thus should have beaten the 5th ranked USA team. A fair point; only Brazil is ranked higher.
Of course, this points to another reason why the World Cup is unlikely to cultivate much of an American fan base: Idiotic bracketing. There are 32 teams in 8 brackets. How on earth can the 2nd and 5th teams be in the same bracket, virtually guaranteeing one will be eliminated in the preliminary rounds?! Wouldn’t we expect teams 1-8 to be in separate brackets, with teams 9-16, 17-24, and 25-32 distributed accordingly to give the top seeds the best shot at advancing?
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| Monday, June 12, 2006 |
Charean Williams goes back to Terrell Owen’s hometown, Alexander City, Alabama, and discovers that people there love the polite young man who grew up there.
Terrell Owens doesn’t get back home much anymore, but when he does, he’s still the same ol’ Terrell. The same Terrell who did odd jobs around his high school coach’s house to earn spending money. The same Terrell who won the Tallapoosa County spelling bee. The same Terrell who was a puny backup receiver at Benjamin Russell High School.
The T.O. that NFL fans know — a touchdown-scoring, celebration-inventing, controversy-making star who signed a three-year, $25 million contract with the Cowboys this off-season after talking his way out of Philadelphia — is not Alexander City’s Terrell. “He gets a lot of bad press now, and some of it rightfully so…but I don’t know anything negative about him,” said Steve Savarese, the former head football coach at Benjamin Russell High. “He was never ugly. He was never disrespectful. People who care about him, he cares about them. I never, ever had a problem with him. “He’s such a competitor. That’s his No. 1 asset, his competitive spirit, and he’s always had that. But the game he plays now is such a brutal game. He tries to have a little fun doing it, and I think it’s misconstrued sometimes.”
[...]
Owens never was a star at Benjamin Russell. In fact, he hardly was a starter.
It took an illness to Ricky Morgan for Owens to crack the starting lineup during his senior season. When Morgan was hospitalized with pneumonia, Owens started and scored a touchdown in front of a Tennessee-Chattanooga recruiter there watching fellow receiver and close friend Derek Hall.
Morgan ended his senior season in the secondary. Owens ended up following Hall to UTC after the Division I-AA school offered Owens a partial scholarship. (A Pell Grant covered the rest of his expenses.) “One thing led to another for him after that,” Morgan said. “It still amazes me to see him playing on Sunday. Nowadays, I have a hard time convincing people I started over him. I mean, I’m only 5-8, 180 pounds. I don’t have near the build that Terrell has.” Owens didn’t have his build — he’s now 6-foot-3 and 226 pounds — then either. He was only 6 foot, 175. “Skinny” is how he refers to his body back then. Basketball was his preferred sport.
In his 2004 autobiography, Catch This! Going Deep With the NFL’s Sharpest Weapon, Owens writes about a meeting with his mother, Marilyn Owens, and Savarese during his junior year that changed his life. It began his commitment to football and to weight training. “It was because of her support,” Savarese said of Owens’ mother. “If she wasn’t the strong person in his life, he very easily could have gone astray, because there was so much evil so very close to where he lived.”
Marilyn was only 17 when she had Terrell, the first of her four children. Terrell did not learn his father’s identity until he was 11 after he started showing interest in a girl across the street. A neighbor, L.C. Russell, told Terrell he couldn’t be interested in the girl, explaining that she was his half-sister. Owens said in his book that it took a while before he understood that Russell was his father.
Owens was reared by the heavy hand of his grandmother, Alice Black. Her small house on Emerson Street, no longer occupied by Owens’ family, now has fresh green paint and a new porch. But it has the same, old gravel driveway Terrell rode his bicycle up and down because his grandmother wouldn’t let him ride in the street. Miss Alice always had the doors and windows to the house closed, and the drapes drawn. Her rules prevented the children from watching television or using the telephone, and they were allowed to leave the house only for school and church. They earned a whipping for disobeying or talking back.
“Marilyn was a child having a child is what it was,” said Gayle Humphrey, a retired teacher who taught both Terrell and his mother in her history classes. “So Miss Alice took them and raised them, and she was strict. But that was the best thing. She just wanted them to turn out right.”
[...]
Terrell gets back to his roots only occasionally. He was on the sideline in December when Benjamin Russell lost to eventual state champion Homewood High 24-17 in the state semifinals. “Home is home,” Owens said at Valley Ranch last week. “It’s where I grew up. At this point, I’ve kind of moved on, but my mom still lives there, and it’s where we still call home.”
When he is back, Owens still likes to hang out with the boys at the old Graham place on the corner of Robinson and Booker, and they still play pickup basketball at the Alexander City Housing Authority Youth and Adult Services Center. “He’s still one of us,” said Fred Norris, the director of the recreation center. “He just blends in….To me, he’s the same kid he was growing up.”
Owens has contributed financially to the school district and to the Alexander City Housing Authority Youth and Adult Services Center. Norris would like to see Owens eventually sponsor the recreation facility that would be renamed after him. “That’s our goal,” said Norris, a diehard Cowboys fan who has an Owens-signed 49ers photo on his office wall below his Cowboys memorabilia. “I’ve been trying to communicate that with him. He’s still young, and when he settles down we’re hoping he’ll come down and do these things in the community. We would like him to come back and establish a business here, put his name on something.”
Owens is from my home state and was a senior at UTC during my year there as a professor, although I wasn’t aware of him at the time. Now, he’s with the Dallas Cowboys team that I’ve been following for nearly thirty years and we’re all aware of him.
It’s difficult to think of a man in his early 30s as “still young” but he’s got a good foundation thanks to Miss Alice. I’m hoping that, given yet another fresh start and a very generous contract, he’ll be more like that man everyone in Alexander City seems to like.
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| Monday, June 12, 2006 |
Ben Roethlisberger involved in a motorcycle crash this morning without a helmet.
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was injured in a motorcycle accident on Monday morning.
The Steelers confirmed the accident for Channel 4 Action News.
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review said the accident happened on Second Avenue near the 10th Street Bridge.
A witness told Channel 4 Action News that Roethlisberger went over the handlebars, hit the windshield of another vehicle and then hit the ground.
Roethlisberger was not wearing a helmet, according to the paper.
Police have closed down the bridge, Second Avenue and the Armstrong Tunnels.
Roethlisberger was taken to Mercy Hospital. There is no word on the extent of his injuries.
This has come up before. Big Ben has refused to wear a motorcycle helmet. Let’s hope that bad decision doesn’t cost him his career . . . or his life.
UPDATE: NFL.com is saying that he was “conscious but appeared disoriented” as he was taken from the scene. Also mentioned that his head was bleeding.
UPDATE 2: ESPN.com is reporting that the injuries don’t appear to be life threatening.
UPDATE 3: (1:48 PM) KDKA reporting that Roethlisberger is in “serious but stable condition”. He is currently undergoing surgery. He had the green light, and a car turned into his path. The driver of that car left the scene with police officers, and it isn’t clear if charges will be filed.
From CBS Sportsline-
HAVRE DE GRACE, Md. — Burned out, injured and all but forgotten for two years, Se Ri Pak returned to the spotlight in stunning fashion Sunday when her utility club from 201 yards stopped 3 inches from the hole for a sudden-death playoff victory over Karrie Webb in the LPGA Championship.
Pak atoned for a three-putt bogey on the 18th hole in regulation that kept her from winning, delivering a spectacular finish to a tournament that was up for grabs over the final two hours at Bulle Rock.
“I’m very happy to be back again,” Pak said. “I’m a very lucky person. I’m as happy a person has ever been.”
It all must have looked familiar to Webb, who was trying to capture the second leg of the Grand Slam.
Just two months ago, Webb holed a pitching wedge from 116 yards on the 18th hole at the Kraft Nabisco Championship for an eagle that placed her in a playoff, and her victory was a sign that the Hall of Famer’s game had returned.
“I thought I was getting my own medicine,” Webb said after watching Pak’s remarkable shot from about 200 yards.
Se Ri Pak wins her third LPGA Championship and fifth major. (AP)
Webb also had gone through some struggles while retooling her swing, and after winning the Kraft Nabisco, Pak saw her a few weeks later and gave her a big hug.
“She told me, ‘Now it’s my turn. I’ll win the next one,’” Webb recalled.
Michelle Wie was among six players who had a chance to either win or get into a playoff on the final hole, but the 16-year-old from Hawaii wasted too many chances.
Pak’s last victory was two years ago at the Michelob Ultra Open, which gave her enough points for the World Golf Hall of Fame. Then, the 28-year-old South Korean and her electric smile all but vanished from the LPGA Tour, and she sat out the last three months of the 2005 season to get healthy and get happy.
She acknowledged being burned out, and considered her injury a gift because it forced her to stop playing. She was never more happy on the golf course Sunday, especially after watching her utility club — the equivalent of a 4-iron — headed for the hole.
It looked like it might go in, much like Shaun Micheel’s 7-iron at Oak Hill when he won the 2003 PGA Championship. This one stopped a few turns short, all but clinching victory. Pak raised both arms in victory, then delivered a massive uppercut to signal her return, and jumped into the arms of her caddie.
“First time I jumped on the golf course,” Pak said.
Webb, who missed birdie putts of 4 and 10 feet on the last two holes in regulation, hit her approach in the playoff to about 20 feet, but the putt to force another hole veered well to the left.
Pak won her fifth major, and joined Mickey Wright, Kathy Whitworth, Patty Sheehan and Annika Sorenstam as the only three-time winners of the LPGA Championship.
Wie’s third birdie in a five-hole stretch brought her within one of the lead, but she missed the 16th green with a wedge and watched her 4-foot par putt spin 270 degrees out of the cup. She narrowly missed an 8-foot birdie on the 171-yard 17th, then had to make a 50-foot birdie on the 18th to join the playoff. It looked good until the final few feet, then ran 8 feet by and she wound up three-putting for bogey and a 72 to tie for fifth.
“I feel like I’m getting closer and closer,” she said. “It shows a lot that I played my ‘B’ game and I’m still in the top five.”
Pak became the seventh South Korean in 14 events to win on the LPGA Tour, and it was fitting that hers came in a major. Pak was responsible for so many joining her in the United States, with 32 players from South Korea now on the LPGA Tour.
And she needed a few breaks.
She holed a 50-foot birdie putt on the par-3 12th hole to stay in the game, and she surged into the lead with a chip-and-putt birdie on the par-5 15th and a wedge from the rough to within 4 feet for birdie on the 16th.
Better yet, she put the three-putt bogey on the 18th hole in regulation out of her mind.
Pak laid back off the tee on the 385-yard closing hole in the playoff, leaving her a long shot with her utility club. But it never left its line, and all Webb could do was smile.
Se Ri’s victory today had to make golf fans smile and her many fans cry. She was as low as can be at this tournament one year ago. Golf was no longer any fun for her Se Ri admitted to the press.
To win the LPGA one year later. See Se Ri smile back and that jump she made at 18. It was a fantastic finish to a tournament that was a great battle all day Sunday.
I think its safe to say we’ve seen the return of Se Ri Pak.
From US Today-
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A professional wrestler claimed Friday that the state is intruding on her privacy by requiring her to provide proof from her doctor that she is not pregnant within a week of every match.
Julie Utley also said pregnancy testing is too expensive for many women to continue participating in the sport. She estimated it would cost her at least $60 a month for tests.
The rule took effect in November and is part of state requirements for licensing contact sports such as professional boxing, wrestling and martial arts.
Utley, 19, said she has not wrestled since March, when she first became aware of the rule, because she refuses to submit to a pregnancy test.
The Missouri Office of Athletics held a hearing Friday but made no decision on whether to change the rule. The office licenses about 900 boxers and wrestlers, about 100 of them women.
Misti Preston, a spokeswoman for the Department of Economic Development, which oversees the office, said the change did not result from a particular incident. Preston said state officials just wanted to be in line with requirements in many other states.
Opponents said if the state’s motive is legal protection, it could make wrestlers sign a waiver saying they will not sue if they get hurt.
“There is a lot of punishment in professional wrestling. I knew the risk. I knew I was going to get injured,” Utley said. “That was my personal responsibility. This rule takes control away from me.”
Tony Rothert, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri, called the rule “an impediment to equality.”
In particular, he said, requiring the test to be performed by a doctor, rather than allowing women to use tests sold over the counter, and demanding results so often are troubling.
I’ll grant that having it performed by a doctor is a reach. Doctor’s offices use pregnancy tests that are as reliable as those over the counter.
There are women’s health clinics who’ll even do them for free.
The bottom line issue is the health of the wrestler and an unborn child. It isn’t about equality, its about biology. Men and women aren’t the same or has the ACLU forgotten 8th grade health class? If a woman is pregnant, sports like wrestling can be both dangerous to her health and the child’s.
Message to both sides
1- Take the tests Ms. Utley. I’m betting you’re an independent contractor. You can take them as a work expense. Bottom line- The tests are for your own physical well being.
2- The Missouri Dept of Economic Development needs to bring their rules into the 21st century. Healt care has changed.
See everyone can be happy then. Don’t worry be happy.
This news is a little dated but I only saw it today-
LONDON (AFP) – Olympic opening and closing ceremonies are “absolute bloody nuisances” and should be banned, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II said.
Prince Philip expressed his annoyance at the staple of the quadrennial sports jamboree in an interview with the Daily Telegraph during which he also chipped in with a view on an England footballer’s World Cup-threatening injury.
The Olympic Games came up as the 84-year-old — a world champion carriage driver — recalled having to attend as a president of the International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI).
“Opening and closing ceremonies ought to be banned. Absolute bloody nuisances. I have been to one that was absolutely, appallingly awful — aaaagh,” he was quoted as saying, without mentioning the host city.
The prince, who said he would like to do “as little as possible” when London hosts the 2012 Games, confessed he was horrified when told at one competition that showjumping was no longer to be held in the main arena as the last event.
One possible reply- If their such a bloody nuisance, then let someone else host the Olympics in 2012.
Maybe we should excuse the Prince for being irritable about what is six years away. He is getting on in years. He needn’t worry either about the Games too much, for he’ may very well be somewhere they will not disturb him.
Six feet under.
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