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It is sad when the biggest news story that came out of the Tennessee-Rutgers National Championship Game is another bonehead comment by Don Imus.
Imus started out talking about the Rutgers team as, “some rough girls from Rutgers. They got tattoos,” and then went on to call them “some nappy-headed hos.”
He compared them to the Tennessee team, saying “The girls from Tennessee — they all looked cute.”
The conversation then went on to compare the game to “the jigaboos versus the wannabes.”
To pay tribute to the 60th Anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s first baseball game, Major League Baseball is unretiring Robinson’s number 42 for a player on each team to wear. The Dodgers took a slightly different approach to picking who will wear #42, they picked everyone.
After extensive deliberations, the Dodgers decided to have their entire team wear uniform No. 42 on Jackie Robinson Day in tribute to the late Hall of Famer who broke baseball’s color barrier while wearing Dodger Blue.
“Jackie Robinson was a Dodger and the most fitting tribute the Dodgers can pay to him is for the entire team to wear his number on the 60th anniversary of his breaking the color barrier,” said Dodgers President and Vice Chairman Jamie McCourt.
MLB will celebrate the 60th anniversary of Robinson’s first game on April 15.
Tuesday it looked as if failure to reach an agreement would of led to Charter Cable dropping Versus from their expanded basic cable package or their cable system all together. Since then Charter Cable has reached an agreement with Versus and the Golf Channel to continue the broadcast of those channels.
Comcast-owned sports channels Versus and Golf Channel late Tuesday reached an agreement in principle with cable operator Charter Communications that avoided the networks pulling their signal from Charter’s 4 million-5 million subscribers.
Versus and Golf Channel both threatened to pull the signal by midnight Wednesday if a new carriage agreement hadn’t been reached. Charter’s agreements with Versus and Golf Channel both ran out more than a year ago but had been extended until recently.
Terms of the deal weren’t announced. The parties declined comment on the specifics Tuesday, though at least Golf Channel was going to stay on its basic cable position.
“Golf fans will continue to be able to enjoy Golf programming, including the PGA Tour, on basic cable as they have for the past decade,” a Golf Channel spokesman said late Tuesday.
It wasn’t clear whether the same could be said for Versus. Versus declined comment.
Good news for Charter Cable customers who like the niche sports that don’t get much play on ESPN.
With Carolina’s 3-2 Loss to Tampa Bay, the Hurricanes became the first defending Stanley Cup winner to miss the playoffs the next season since New Jersey in 1996. However, that is not this history… Thanks to the Edmonton Oilers collapse since the NHL Trade Deadline, this will be the first season ever where both teams that played in the previous season’s Stanley Cup Finals will fail to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs in the following season.
This raises an interesting question is this a case of parity or was last season a fluke?
Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory throws out the first pitch at Red’s opening day, it was just a bit outside, at the umpire, who ejected him for fun… don’t worry there is a YouTube of it as he replaces John Kerry for biggest sissy throw ever.
This may just be taking fantasy sports just a little too far:
The ultimate fantasy reward is now a reality starting with the Signet ring at just $99. Custom built with the year, winner’s name, team name and league initials. Handcrafted by Jostens, the world’s legendary Super Bowl ring maker.
I think I have played a fantasy season twice in my life. Once in college where I drafted my baseball team and never looked at it till the end of the season and finished last. The other was football where despite having I put slightly more effort and managed a 3rd place finish via the playoffs (8th by regular season record). Beyond that I have had no desire to play, especially with all the leagues that charge you to play and the “opportunity” to buy a championship ring strikes me as just stupid. I don’t know what is worse, Jostens offering these rings or the fact that someone will actually buy them.
Charter Cable has made some noise about potentially dropping the sports channel Versus (formerly OLN) prior to the start of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Sports fans on Charter look to lose exposure to the following sports:
Exclusive coverage of the NHL playoffs, including the Eastern and Western Conference Finals and the first two games of the Stanley Cup Finals.
Professional Bull Riders (PBR)
America’s Cup
Field Sports
The Tour de France
Mountain West Conference College Football, Basketball and more
Of course Versus provides you with a who to call and email form to voice your displeasure to Charter Cable. This all becomes a game, because really the only people who really get harmed in this are the people who watch Versus, like those 5 hockey fans.
Some days even a business that is quite sucessful makes a decision that just doesn’t make business sense. Putting the NCCA Women’s Championship Game between Rutgers and Tennessee on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN HD, ESPN2 HD, ESPNU, ESPN360, ESPN International, ESPNNEWS, ESPN Radio, and ESPN.com is one of those decisions. Sorry, but not that many people care that much about women’s basketball, fewer than that watch it, and I don’t see sponsors spending more to buy ad space during the Women’s NCAA game over the NBA and MLB games on at the same time. Not to say they shouldn’t show the game, but putting it on more than one channel doesn’t make sense.
Good news for the Angels bullpen as they lock up rubber-armed setup man Scot Shields through 2010.
Los Angeles Angels reliever Scot Shields agreed Thursday to a $14.6 million, three-year contract extension through 2010.
Shields, the Angels’ setup man, had agreed last month to a $3.4 million, one-year contract. The new deal adds salaries of $4.25 million in 2008, $5 million in 2009 and $5.35 million in 2010.
According to Bob McKenzie at Tsn.ca, Los Angeles Kings General Manager Dean Lombardi is ruffling feathers among his fellow GMs after his signing of free-agent defenceman Joe Piskula from the University of Wisconsin.
As part of Piskula’s contract, there are games played bonuses of $25,000 for playing one game, three games and five games. In other words, he gets $75,000 guaranteed for playing just five NHL games with the Kings, which will likely happen by the weekend.
The NHL believes this bonus structure violates the CBA clause on guaranteed monies for entry-level players and, therefore, rejected the contract when the Kings submitted it. But the NHL Players’ Association filed a grievance over that rejection and so Piskula’s contract will stand until such time that an arbitrator rules on it.
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And Lombardi’s managerial brethren are fuming at what they think is a blatant attempt to dress up a bogus games played bonus as an extra signing bonus, as signing bonuses are capped at $85,000 per year. They think Lombardi is setting a bad precedent of guaranteeing money to entry-level players without them earning it and that larger-market teams with cash to throw around will have a big advantage in the college free-agent sweepstakes.
Some of them are still angry at Lombardi over Owen Nolan’s lockout protection contract and previous contract controversies involving Kelly Miller and Craig Simpson. Lombardi and the Kings, meanwhile, maintain they are simply playing by the rules, and that Piskula’s total compensation falls within the $850,000 entry level limit.
Some of this strikes as an “I’m mad because I didn’t think of it first” reaction. Of course this isn’t the first time Lombardi has tested the limits of the new CBA. Earlier in the season the Kings were not able to call up the #3 goalie on the depth chart because he would of had to clear waivers and there was a 99.9% chance he would of been claimed. Sitting in 2nd to last place in the NHL at the time, Lombardi brokered a deal with Philadelphia (who holds last place) to trade a low round draft pick to the Kings for the goalie. Phildelphia would then turn around and send him to the minors, requiring him to pass through waivers allowing the Kings to claim him and assign him to the NHL Club because they would of had first rights to anyone on the waiver wire. The NHL also vetoed that deal.
I can’t fault Lombardi for two reasons: (1) I’m a Kings fan and (2) I can’t fault any GM for pushing the limits to make their team better, thats what they are supposed to do. Of course from pervious statements Lombardi made during one of many “Breakfasts with the GM”, he has laid out his severe dislike of of salary caps (so much so he let Ron Hextall take the mic and answer cap related questions to avoid “ripping the league”) covering how the salary cap has ruined the NBA, gives young players too much money too fast, hinders player development, doesn’t allow teams to reward veteran players, and inhibits the ability for teams to fix mistakes or fill holes in the line up.
Only time will tell if this deal holds up, but I give Dean full support to keep pushing the limits. 40 years and 1 Stanley Cup Finals appearance just isn’t cutting it.
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