As an astute sports fan, I’m disheartened by the most recent round of LeBron James bashing/emasculation. No one is booed more heavily and lustily than Bron: an entire state celebrates his “failure.” Sure, there are a millionreasonstorightfullyhate him, but the sad thing is, the harder he tries, the more people loathe him. Well, here at the Deuce we don’t do problems, we do solutions. It’s time for the King to take a page out of the old WWE book and embrace the hate. It’s time for Bron to turn heel. Read the rest of this entry
It’s pretty easy to get obsessed with the MLB Trading Deadline, but as I get older I find myself getting tired of being jerked around. In my mind, I’m able to live with certain guys no longer being on their previous team as long as I have proper time to visualize it. For example, it was tough for me to accept Roy Oswalt in anything but an Astros uniform, but when I thought he’d land with the Cardinals, I started to make peace with it. When he was traded to the Phillies, that messed up the entire part of my brain dedicated to processing Roy Oswalt’s existence in my feeble mind. It’s a rather small existence, but still… Since there is a new Adam Dunn trade rumor just about every couple of hours, that part of me is in utter disarray. I don’t know how I’ll contemplate him in a Tigers or White Sox uniform. That wouldn’t look right. What if he stays in Washington? Will I still view him as a National or does part of me think of him as a rental from the Reds? I don’t know. That one may take some time. But I do know this: it’s time to do some headlines:
Roy Oswalt waived his no-trade clause in order to complete a trade sending him to the Philadelphia Phillies.
Not a bad consolation prize for basically giving Cliff Lee away this past winter. In the past year, the Phillies have traded for three of the best pitchers in baseball (combined career record: 402-222) without giving up their best prospect. Ifthe Yankees had done this, we’d have to hold an intervention for ESPN.com story commenters. Either way, Team Roy should form a pretty good 1-2 punch as the Phils try to get back to the World Series.
Bengals coach Marvin Lewis must be a glutton for punishment. Here are his starting wide receivers, or as I like to call it, the “Depth Chart of Crazy”:
Chad Ochocinco: Twitter-addicted egomaniac who legally changed his name to “eight-five” in Spanish. Budding reality TV star, possibly insane.
Terrell Owens: Egomaniacal cry baby who throws quarterbacks under the bus like temper tantrums: regularly. Budding reality tv star, probably insane.
Antonio Bryant: Labeled as a “bad character” guy dating back to his college days at Pitt, he repeatedly gets into fights with his coaches, probably because of his ego, which usually leads to him having to find a new team (or because he fails a drug test). Maybe insane.
See a trend here? Sidenote: Marvin’s starting running back is Cedric Benson… So good luck with all that…
I don’t know what took the Orioles so long, but Showalter is probably the best hire the Orioles could have made. He has a solid track record of getting his players to play disciplined baseball. Granted, he usually gets fired after three or four
There's a part of me that forgot this ever happened.
seasons because his players grow to hate him, but with 32 wins through July, the O’s aren’t really in a place to call the shots. One O’s fan reaction: “Did Showalter count how many times ‘major league worst’ can appear in one article about the Orioles before he took the position?” Needless to say, Buck will have his work cut out for him. First suggestion: hire this man! You can never have too many “Bucks.”
The rumor circulating was that the writer misidentified himself to Team LeBron. Silly ESPN, how dare they report something unflattering about a basketball player. Best leave that to those scalawags at Deadspin! And how come Bill Simmons wasn’t writing this piece? He knows more about Vegas and the NBA than anyone! Oh wait, it was because he was busy hopping off the Red Sox bandwagon to write a “This Third Place Boston Red Sox Team Doesn’t Entertain Me” article for the front page of sonsofsamhorn.com espn.com.
Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez made his minor league debut for the Washington Nationals’ Rookie League affiliate.
Duque is one of my favorite players of all time. He tells people he’s 44 years old but it’s probably closer to 46. Despite his World Series rings and career earnings over $34M, he’s still holding on to the dream. Or he’s broke. I hope it’s not the latter. Either way, I’ll be pulling for him.
That’s it for me. If you need me, I’ll be on a gigantic boat, resting my shoulder, preparing for one last summer push into the MLB playoff races and the start of football. Gotta make some room in my brain:
Lebron James ended his season last night as valiantly as possible. With an elbow that looked positively damaged, he managed to keep the Cavs alive for most of the game, even if it looked like the rest of his teammates were busy planning their next tattoos. After the game, Lebron said all the right (albeit boring) things — officially kicking off what has the potential to be the most annoying 45 days of sports coverage of all time: ”Oh, where will Lebron sign!?!?!?!?” Expect a month and a half of Farvian-coverage that will be more psychologically damaging than a Michael Irvin and Emmitt Smith production of “Hamlet.” Until then, on to some headlines:
Pretty sure at this point it’s safe to say the NHL regular season means nothing. Regardless of who wins the Flyers-Bruins series, none of the top five seeds in the Eastern Conference will be in the Stanley Cup Finals. With the Red Wings knocked out in the West, my only question is if there’s a Nielsen TV Rating that measures less than zero.
Trey Hillman had an impossible job: take a team of crappy players and make them play well. Can’t believe he failed. Sure, there were plenty of signs that Hillman was in over his head – his use of Joakim Soria was puzzling to say the least but firing Hillman is like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. You see Kansas City, firing a manager or coach in any sport is kind of useless unless the organization is strong from the top. For instance: when your GM tries to make Kyle Farnsworth a starting pitcher or gives Jose Guillen $36 million, you’re past the point of bad managing, you’re screwed. First lesson: start stealing signs. Hell, Charlie Manuel could teach you.
Cushing is the third NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year to be suspended for performance-enhancing substances in the last eight seasons, following Julius Peppers and Shawne Merriman. The equivalent to this in baseball would be if Evan Longoria, Ryan Howard and Hanley Ramirez all tested positive for PEDs. If that had come to pass Congress would be involved, columnists would have their heart medication doubled and we would all be forced to think of the children under penalty of law.
I don’t think I could say it any better, so I won’t. Is this the worst NFL offseason ever? I think so. And while Cushing is clear to point out he did not have a positive test for steroids, I’ll let this picture do the talking:
Instead of putting videos of fanboys on your website slobbering all over D-Wade’s Jordans, there’s a better solution here. Dwayne Wade is going through a divorce. So, how about you go down to Cocount Grove, round up 30 of the most beautiful women in the area and put them on the website instead? This doesn’t seem that difficult. Here are a few other teams that have decided to start campaigns to appeal to their players:
Toronto & Chris Bosh: Since the G-20 is coming to town, the Raptors have scrapped their Bosh campaign and are just going to give him to Philly.
Detroit Pistons & Kwame Brown: The Pistons are raising money to purchase a bus ticket to Charlotte, NC so Kwame can be reunited with the only person in the world who ever thought he’d be good at basketball: Michael Jordan.
I called Ken Sanders, the real estate consultant overseeing the sale, and he says, yes, Kevin Costner is part of the deal. This includes but is not limited to: signing autographs, “having a catch,” harvesting corn and replaying scenes from “Tin Cup.”
That’s it for this week. Everybody have a good weekend, I’ll be watching these idiots.
As an astute sports fan, I’m disheartened by the most recent round of LeBron James bashing/emasculation. No one is booed more heavily and lustily than Bron: an entire state celebrates his “failure.” Sure, there are a million reasons to rightfully hate him, but the sad thing is, the harder he tries, the more people loathe him. Well, here at the Deuce we don’t do problems, we do solutions. It’s time for the King to take a page out of the old WWE book and embrace the hate. It’s time for Bron to turn heel. Read the rest of this entry
