Month: February 2012

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Miguel Tejada wants to return to the Athletics? No thanks.

These were some good memories.

So let me get this straight: The A’s need a third baseman with the injury to Scott Sizemore and Miguel Tejada thinks he’s the answer?

It appears that Tejada is looking for one last “hurrah” in his career but there is nothing that he has done recently that suggests that this would be a good move for the Athletics.

His tenure with the San Francisco Giants last season was a disaster and his performance in the Dominican League this offseason was unimpressive. What’s worse about it is that Tejada is possibly 37 years old and that is not a very good age for someone to be productive at the hot corner.

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Sabbath puts end to Robert M. Beren Academy’s playoff run

I was watching Outside the Lines on ESPN today and they were talking about this very interesting story about a team forfeiting a playoff game because the start time of the game fell on the Sabbath.

Here’s the link to the story.

Since the game fell on the Sabbath and the team wanted to observe it, they have decided to forfeit the game. Their appeal to change the start time of the game was denied.

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Heath Bell apparently is left handed and the Marlins uniforms are very bad

Heath Bell is left handed and Carlos Zambrano looks silly in the new uniform.

I do enjoy the player photos teams before the start of spring training games. For the most part, it’s first time we see new faces in their new uniforms and it’s pretty neat to see how they look.

Browsing through the log of wire photos, I noticed a couple very interesting photos from Marlins camp.

As you can see in the photo of Heath Bell, apparently he decided to take all his photos as a left-hander. Bell throws and bats with his right, yet in the photo, he holds the ball with his left hand and has a glove made for southpaws. I am not sure if I missed something, but I know that in San Diego, Bell pitched with his right.

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Even in the All-Star Game, LeBron James is afraid to take the last shot

Kobe was clutch while LeBron was not.

“Yeah, he was telling me to shoot it,” LeBron James recalled of Kobe Bryant’s message to him during the final seconds of the All-Star Game. “I wish I could have that one back.”

That was LeBron James’ recent years as an NBA player in a nutshell. Even during a meaningless exhibition game, James had the opportunity to take the final shot and give his team a chance to win but decided to pass that shot up.

What happened on Sunday was another sad example of how James refuses to rise up to the occasion. Despite all his great work during the game, when the team needed him to step up one more time late, he didn’t deliver.

A part of this is our fault as fans and media in how we perceive the basketball star. Have we kept expectations too high for James? Since he entered the league, the league has wanted to make him a star. But since he bolted to the Heat, it was clear that maybe James doesn’t want to be the star.

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Jeremy Lin, Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream and the non-existent racist fortune cookie

Is this really racist?

This commentary is in response to the supposed racist ice cream that Ben & Jerry’s produced. To read about it, click this link.

As I have mentioned before, I am over the Jeremy Lin is Asian-American thing. I just want to view him as a basketball player. I don’t want his skin color or Harvard degree to be how I judge him as a player.

So when I read about the new ice cream flavor, I thought it was a cool idea and was not offended at all when I saw that it would include fortune cookies. But apparently, it was offensive in some way.

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I’m hopeful that ‘Moneyball’ wins at least one award at the Oscars

Tonight is the Oscars and I did not get a chance to see a lot of movies in 2011. But of course one movie that I had to see was Moneyball. As some of you know, I am an A’s fan and I have read the book. The movie was something I could not miss and I saw it four times in the theaters.

The movie is up for awards in six categories tonight.

  • Best Picture
  • Best Actor (Brad Pitt)
  • Best Supporting Actor (Jonah Hill)
  • Best Adapted Screenplay (Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian)
  • Film Editing (Christopher Tellefsen)
  • Sound Mixing (Deb Adair, Ron Bochar, David Giammarco, and Ed Novick).

I really think Hill’s performance in the movie was really superb and he is deserving of the award. The adapted screenplay also was done well and that might be another category the movie might take. It’s the only nominated movie for that award that was actually based on a non-fiction book.

I doubt I will watch the awards show tonight but I am at least hoping that this movie gets at least one award.

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There’s no real excitement in the slam dunk contest anymore

I remember back in the day when the dunk contest used to be a real entertaining part of the NBA All-Star weekend. I still remember watching the dunk contest from Vince Carter and was blown away by such a fantastic performance.

But for a while, it wasn’t all that fun. It was nice seeing Jason Richardson win back to back titles. But I think it was in 2006 when Andre Iguodala was robbed of the title when I started to not care so much about the contest.

As you guys remember, Iguodala put on a great show but Nate Robinson won the contest despite going over his time limit on dunks. And when I saw that, I knew that the dunk contest was losing its flair.

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I just took the Wonderlic test and I am smarter than Philip Rivers

I am smarter than Philip Rivers, but for me, you can't measure street smarts.

I never thought of the Wonderlic test as something that’s difficult. Most of the questions there are basic things that I remember from my freshman year in high school.

Most of the questions are common sense and I am usually very surprised at how long some scores end up being for some football players. But of course, I personally do not do well on tests regardless of how well I actually know the material.

I think the Wonderlic test actually tests how well you know how to take a test than actually knowing the material.

I just took a Wonderlic test and I tested better than Philip Rivers. But of course, this test was timed so I had to rush through all of them. I didn’t even get a chance to finish the last question.

Let me know what your score is by taking the test here.

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Ryan Braun is technically clean, but we won’t see it that way anymore

Ryan Braun is clean, but his image is tainted.

With Ryan Braun’s successful appeal of the 50-game suspension, Braun will not miss any time during the regular season and all his achievements from the 2011 season, including his MVP award, are not tainted.

But his image is now.

Because of the snafu of the testing process, the technicality of the entire ordeal has now put a cloud of Bruan’s image. And with the harsh criticism that previous athletes related to PEDs have received, Braun is in for the same criticism for the remainder of his career.

It’s still unknown whether or not the delayed delivery made any real difference in the high testosterone levels found in Braun’s sample. But because of the error in the entire process, Braun is clean from the accusation but isn’t clean in the eyes of Major League Baseball.

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Why don’t people take off the stickers after buying a New Era cap?

Yes, please take it off.

With the popularity of New Era caps growing in the sports world (outfitting the NFL, MLB and occasionally other leagues), fans now have more access to these caps for their own collection. Especially with baseball caps, New Era has branded itself as not only for the professional leagues, but also as a fashion statement.

But the trend I have noticed with these caps is that when people buy them, they don’t remove the sticker on the bill.

I am not sure if these people want me to know their cap size or if they actually just stole it from the store. But what it reminds me of is the sticker on newly purchased pants. I think it’s the same equivalency.

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