Forum: Talk Sports

When Carl Crawford dove full out Friday night to catch a line drive in the gap, ESPN baseball analyst Buster Olney predicted it would be one of the Top 10 highlights of the season.

He is right, of course. But we’ve come to expect the spectacular out of Crawford and it’s altogether fitting. He has suffered as much as anyone with the Rays’ legacy of losing and he is enjoying the ride now more than anyone.

His 3-run homer Sunday helped the Rays beat the Angels and complete a series sweep, which pushed the Rays 5 games over .500.

Crawford is hitting .289 after this weekend (which certainly is fine) with a .318 OBP, but that OBP will likely end up .350 or better based his last two seasons; it rose 20 points this weekend alone. His OBP for May is .362.

His batting average also has room to rise another 15-20 points, since he has been over .300 the last three seasons.

Crawford does more than that, though. He stole two bases Sunday and helped put pressure on the Angels from the outset. You know his defensive range in the outfield. After the Rays’ sweep of Boston at the Trop a couple of weeks ago, Boston Globe baseball writer Amalie Benjamin referred to him as “ridiculously good.”

A lot of things have to come together for any team to be contender, but there needs to be a catalyst, too. Crawford could be that guy for the Rays. If he gets a whiff of a playoff race after all these years of losing, who knows what level his game might rise to. It would be fun to watch, though.

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I got back from Jefferson High a little while ago where I got to hear Tony Dungy address the student body. The school used his book “Quiet Strength” in a school-wide reading project. Here’s a column about it from Friday’s Tribune.

Let me just say this: I wasn’t quite ready for the scene that unfolded. As much as I admire Dungy as a human being, he is in Tampa so often that I wasn’t sure what else there was to ask him or why the stopover at Jefferson was special. Trust me though, it was.

Maybe it was so cool because it was unexpected. Jefferson has deliberately downplayed it to the public because school officials didn’t want a lot of outsiders coming onto campus to get a glimpse of Dungy.

Most of the time I just watched and recorded the scene as he and co-author Nathan Whitaker addressed the student body in a gym that was packed on both sides, but I did squeeze in a question while walking with him from a reception to the gym. To keep him from retiring after last season, the Colts offered to let him use a team plane to fly to Tampa on Friday nights during high school season so he could watch his son, Eric, play receiver for Plant. I wasn’t sure Dungy would actually do that, since NFL coaches tend to be totally involved during the season - but he says he is going to try.

“I’ll be back a lot,” he said. “I don’t know how many times exactly, but I’ll be here as much as I can on Fridays.”

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If Roger Clemens doesn’t have a pickup truck and a hound dog, he needs to get them immediately. His life has become a bad country song that got worse when that didn’t seem possible. He is traveling 50 miles of bad road on bald tires.

It’s getting to the point where we need a scorecard to keep track of Roger’s problems.

The feds think he lied under oath to Congress, which could get him a room with bars and a view of the exercise yard if that is proven. He won’t have to worry about which team to pitch for this summer, although it’s starting to look like he might need sharpen some other skills (like working in the laundry, maybe).

While that’s going on, he now has to deal with what the New York Daily News called a “tearful but resolute” Mindy McCready, the country singer whose own past is so checkered it could be a chess board. The Daily News reported over the weekend that Clemens had an affair with McCready, who said in a follow-up story that basically those are the facts.

Oh, she was 15 years old when they met, supposedly on karaoke night at a Fort Myers bar. Roger was married with two kids. Not sure how that corresponds to the time line when Roger’s wife, Debbie, admitted to trying HGH.

This matters because Roger is suing Brian McNamee for defamation of character for saying Clemens was a steroid user. McCready could wind up being called to court to testify that Roger has no character to defame.

Let’s review to see if we have the necessary elements for a country song: We’ve got a man (allegedly) done wrong. We’ve got (alleged) infidelity. We’ve got a tearful (allegedly) “other” woman. We’ve got the cops (well, the feds) and we might have prison.

Stories like this will keep newspapers alive forever - at least the tabloids.

Here’s another twist to that saga from The Boston Herald.
Warning: You may need a shower after reading all this.

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The Bucs quarterback of the future remains someone who isn’t here yet. They may address that today when the draft resumes, but given that they have only a handful of picks in this draft I guess they can’t address everything.

Still, you wonder if the gamble to pick up a couple of late picks for trading back in the second round was worth it after top QBs Brian Brohm and Chad Henne were taken just ahead of them. They wound up with Appalachian State receiver Dexter Jackson, who has the kind of big-game speed the Bucs desperately need at wideout. He is also a work in progress, but you like the upside. He wound up on the cover of Sports Illustrated after leading App State to the upset of Michigan last year.

We talked about the risk associated with the Bucs first pick – cornerback Aqib Talib of Kansas – in a previous post. I still can’t get too upset about them taking a corner at pick 20 in the first round though, and Talib has all the physical tools to succeed.

Back on Jackson for a second, he isn’t very big – just 5-9 – but he has 4.3 speed. There are a lot of early comparisons to Carolina’s Steve Smith, who has tormented the Bucs at times.

We said they needed a playmaker and Jackson surely seems to be that.

Give the Bucs a “B” for the first day and pray that a quarterback is there when they pick today. Jeff Garcia isn’t getting any younger.

That grade will plummet though if the Bucs fail to secure a quarterback on the second day. They might still focus on Hawaii’s Colt Brennan, USC’s John David Booty, or Kentucky’s Andre Woodson. They’re all still available.

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Ideally, a first-round pick in the NFL should be free of risk but that’s not the case with cornerback Aqib Talib of Kansas, taken by the Bucs at No. 20 late Saturday afternoon.

It’s not so much the three failed tests for marijuana and a two-game suspension in 2006 for some undisclosed disciplinary issue. Talib makes big plays – his 60-yard interception return for a touchdown in the Orange Bowl helped him win MVP for that game – but that is countered by a tendency, reports say, to be caught out of position.

Heck, we don’t know.

I didn’t sit in a dark little room and break down Kansas game film before the draft, so if Monte Kiffin is satisfied that Talib is worth the risk then I’d say Kiffin’s track record is pretty good. Besides, Gaines Adams, the top pick a year ago, had a positive weed test too before the draft and he is working out just fine.

We won’t know until the draft gets a little deeper just how good this pick is, though. Quarterback Brian Brohm was available, as was Michigan QB Chad Henne. Receivers DeSean Jackson and Devin Thomas were there, and we all know how badly the Bucs need one or two big playmakers. Either one of those might have had a greater immediate impact than Talib.

But there’s another thing about the draft. Your first-round pick should be a major contributor for many years and Talib may fit that mold. Since the Bucs are known for defense and cornerback was a position of need, it’s tough to be upset with this pick. Talib has more size than USF’s Mike Jenkins and, like Jenkins, can contribute on special teams. Depending what they do with the rest of the draft, this pick has a chance to look good for many years.

Provided his dope-smokin’ days really are behind him.

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The Rays’ mediocre start can be somewhat explained by the 10 trips they have already made to the disabled list. That doesn’t explain everything, though.

Shortstop Jason Bartlett has shown the range that was advertised and has looked spectacular at times, but he also showed a disturbing penchant for throwing problems, resulting in four errors in eight games before he was given a day off Sunday to rest a shoulder now described as “a little bit achy” by Manager Joe Maddon.

First baseman Carlos Pena has six home runs, which is just fine, but his batting average is hovering at .206. Starting pitcher Edwin Jackson remains exasperatingly inconsistent, dialing up two spectacular starts to open the season but following that with two flops. B.J. Upton, who is on a roll offensively, still shows a puzzling lack of focus at times - particularly on the base paths. The retooled bullpen, while generally solid, has spit up a couple of games and right field looks like it’s going to be a revolving door all year.

Maddon has groused about his team’s fundamental breakdowns, and the starting pitching has been all over the board.

The injury to Clif Floyd seems to have a particularly strong impact on the lineup, which most nights looks pretty weak after you get past No. 6 in the order. Having his bat out of the middle of the lineup has had an obvious ripple effect that isn’t easily solved. And, of course, having two of their top three starting pitchers out for essentially the season thus far would put any team in a bind. I’ll say this though - you can attribute some of Matt Garza’s struggles to the irritated nerve in his arm, but let’s just say it would be nice to see a little more polish out of the Rays’ No. 3 starter.

I still this is a capable team that has hit a rough stretch of road, but the Rays need to get healthy and they also need to play smarter baseball.

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ST. PETERSBURG - Just got back from the news conference to announce Evan Longoria’s new contract and a couple of things stand out.

If Longoria plays anything like everyone says he is capable of doing, the Rays got themselves a tremendous bargain. And it’s legitimate to wonder how this will play in other parts of the Rays’ clubhouse.

Longoria’s deal is guaranteed for six years at $17.5 million, with the club holding a one-year option for 2014 and a two-year option after that. If the Rays exercise all the options, the contract increases to $44 million.

It’s the latest signing among a list that includes James Shields, Carlos Pena and Dan Wheeler. Previously, the Rays gave long-term deals to Carl Crawford and Rocco Baldelli, and have talked with the agents for Scott Kazmir and B.J. Upton about similar extensions.

Longoria has just seven days of major league service time but the Rays believe he will be a superstar. Executive vice president Andrew Friedman said talks were under way during spring training and the deal would have been completed even if an injury to Willy Aybar hadn’t forced Longoria’s promotion to the Rays last Saturday.

“There was a very real chance this deal could have been announced while he was in Durham,” Friedman said.

Longoria was drafted by the Rays with the third overall pick in 2006 and signed a contract the same day. He ckombined for a .304 average, 44 home runs and 153 RBIs in two seasons of minor league games. He was sent to Triple-A Durham near the end of spring training for more seasoning but the Rays’ injury situation forced a change in that plan.

“That’s kind of been the story of my career,” he said. “Everything has been fast-paced.”

Friedman declined to specify if similar talks are under way with some of the Rays other young stars, but added, “Some [talks] have not been successful to date but we’ll try to continue.”

Longoria said he wants to be a Ray for the long term.

“These are not the Devil Rays of the past, but the Rays of the future,” he said.

Friedman admitted signing a largely unproven player to a long-term deal is a risk, but said it was worth it to keep a young core together that can grow into a championship contender.

“We feel like Evan is the kind of player and person who can lead us to that goal,” he said.

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Chad Johnson wants out of Cincinnati again and I have the perfect place for him to go - Tampa.

He is cocky, arrogant, and more than a little wacky. In other words, he is a clone of Jon Gruden, but with a bigger body, better speed, and hands. But seriously folks, if the Bucs are looking to upgrade at wide receiver - and if they aren’t, they should be - they could do much worse than coax Johnson away from the Bengals on draft day.

And the Bengals basically have to trade him now. His position in Cincinnati became untenable after he told ESPN’s John Clayton, “Nothing has changed from what I’ve been saying for three months that I don’t want to play for the Bengals ... I want to be traded before the draft, and if that doesn’t happen, I want to be traded as soon as possible.’’

The Bengals control his rights through 2011 but so what? It’s not a question of whether they will trade him now, but when it will actually happen. He is owed about $18.5 million over the balance of his contract and, as we know, the Bucs have plenty of room to absorb that cost. The Bengals are reluctant to trade him because of the $8 million salary cap hit they would take, but that’s their problem.

Think of how quickly the face of the Bucs’ offense would change with Ocho-Cinco in the lineup on opening day at New Orleans. He’d bring the same kind of juice to the offense that Warren Sapp brought to the defense back in the day and the Bucs surely can use that. He may be a problem child at times and it wouldn’t be easy pulling this off, but if the Bucs want to make a bold statement about their intention to go for it, bringing Chad Johnson to town would do the trick.

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Twenty-five years ago, a zany coach named Jim Valvano ran all around the court in Albuquerque after his North Carolina State team upset Houston for the national title.

Upset?

I was far from the only one who picked Houston to win that night, but I was a little bit over the top rope. Parts of the story I wrote leading into that game wound up being quoted in Valvano’s book. I think it was the part of, “N.C. State will be escorted into the arena tonight by armed guards and priests mumbling the 23rd Psalm. Rain would make it perfect because it always rains at an execution.”

Well, that was dumb, even if I did get a certain immortality out of the deal.

You’d think I’d learn. But no.

Memphis and Kansas are playhing in a little less than two hours. Popular sentiment says Memphis will win.

So do I.

Memphis’ guards Derrick Rose and Chris Douglas-Roberts will be too much for Kansas. The Jayhawks have a decided edge inside, in my opinion, and they defended the perimeter like crazy in their semifinal rout of North Carolina. Try that against Memphis, though, and Rose will drive right by them - just as he did all night against UCLA.

Plus, Memphis has just killed everybody it has played (except Mississippi State, a 77-74 win) in this tournament.

I don’t feel like you need to break out the 23rd Psalm for Kansas, but call it 88-79, Memphis.

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SAN ANTONIO - Saturday night just before tipoff of the UCLA-Memphis game, I snapped this picture from press row, which happens to be courtside (don’t hate me). Look at the poor folks way, way, way up top. There’s no way to accurately tell what they paid for those tickets, but we can make a reasonable guess.

Final Four tickets have a face value between $140 and $220, if you can get them for that price - which, of course, you can’t. Brokers always wind up with a big share of the prized tickets, then wind up selling them in packages to starry-eyed fans willing to pay anything to see their alma mater in the Final Four. The Alamodome seats about 44,000 for basketball, and it’s basically a typical dome setting. It ain’t exactly the ol’ gym back in Hickory where they put 800 in there on Friday nights, if you get my drift.

Now, tickets to some brokers were estimated to be going for 10 times face value or greater and scalpers seemed to be doing a good business as well. So look back up there in the corner again. Those folks are, my goodness, more than 100 yards from the court and they’re waaaay up high. They no doubt wound up watching the game on the giant scoreboard video screen, and some of them likely paid well over a grand to to do so.

Even Bob “Great Seats” Uecker would look at those people and shake his head in amazement.

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SAN ANTONIO - Memphis Coach John Calipari may lose freshman guard Derrick Rose after just one season if, as many suspect, Rose jumps to the NBA. It’s a common problem for elite programs, but Calipari’s outlook on that is interesting.

“I’m not sure if a kid is really talented and he’s a junior, even sometimes a sophomore, to stay another two years - if you’re a first-round pick - I’m not sure it’s very intelligent,” Calipari said. “Seems to me that history says the longer you stay [in college], they’re finding more kinks in your armor.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t want kids to graduate; I do. But if a kid is a first-round draft pick, my recommendation will be that you need to go for it. I ask you to come back and finish up. We’ll help you with courses in the summer. We’ll do our thing. But you should probably do this.”

This became a bigger issue in college a couple of years ago when the NBA regulated against taking a player straight out of high school, a la LeBron James - mandating that they have to stay at least a year in college. Last year, the top two picks in the NBA draft - Kevin Durant and Greg Oden - spent just that one year. That could make it tough on a coach trying to stay on top when he has a player for just one season, but Calipari said you have to look at the big picture.

“When the NBA started drafting players directly out of high school, you had 10th graders whose whole mindset was, ‘I’m going straight to the NBA.’ Then the NBA came back and knew they had made a lot of mistakes on kids and paid a lot of money to kids that had not been tested, except in a McDonald’s All-American game in a pickup game. They said, ‘You’re going to have to go to college for one year,’ knowing the kids would go to the biggest leagues, biggest schools, and be challenged by juniors and seniors. You could see what they were. That now keeps some of these kids in [school].”

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SAN ANTONIO, Texas - The normally light-hearted practice session that marks the day before the Final Four turned sad for Kansas when senior guard Rodrick Stewart suffered a broken kneecap while planting his leg to dunk.

The injury will require surgery and, obviously, Stewart will miss Saturday’s NCAA semifinal game against North Carolina.

Stewart averages about 12 minutes a game but has played sparingly during the Jayhawks’ tournament run, playing only one minute combined in their last three games.

KU Coach Bill Self said it was “a subdued locker room” when he disclosed the extent of the injury to the team after practice.

“I don’t know exactly how it happened,” Self said. “He said he slipped on a wet spot. I told our freshmen they could go dunk and then Rodrick jumps out there and goes and tries to dunk. I’m disappointed. We do that every tournament. I’m hurt for him because guys practice their whole life to participate in the Final Four and that’s been taken away from him.”

Teams often use the public practice sessions on Friday to entertain fans and let loose steam. UCLA players, for instance, spent much of its practice launching full-court shots. Teams often go to another site for the “real” practice.

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SAN ANTONIO, Texas - On the eve of the men’s Final Four ...

All the teams will be here and talking later today. We’ll quiz UNC’s Roy Williams hard about his feelings about coaching against Kansas for the first time since he left there five years ago. He’ll get peeved, probably, and say that subject is old news. So it goes. Williams really seems like a good guy to deal with generally and he obviously is on the top rung of coaches. He knows how the game is played.

But before we get into that, I wanted to share a story that ran Thursday in USA Today about the 1985 Memphis team that lost in the Final Four to Villanova. The story details all the tragedy that has befallen the Tigers since that day; some of it self-inflicted, some of it not.

The Tampa connection is Dana Kirk, who coached at the University of Tampa before going to Memphis State (that’s what the school was named then). He was outgoing and generally fun to be around (on a superficial level) but he eventually landed in a lot of hot water there. A year after the trip to the Final Four, he was fired for multiple NCAA violations and later faced 11 counts of tax evasion, filing false income tax returns, mail fraud and obstruction of justice. He spent four months in prison for that.

I covered that Final Four and remembered being struck by how badly Kirk was outcoached in the semifinal loss to Villanova. Not long after that, an executive at Florida State - the Seminoles were in the same conference then as Memphis State - told me that a bad moon was rising at Memphis and it would shine baddest on Kirk. He wasn’t wrong.

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SAN ANTONIO, Texas - I arrived at the men’s Final Four late Thursday afternoon, secure in my pre-tournament preparations. I watched the last 30 minutes of movie classic, “The Alamo.”

Who says size doesn’t matter?

The movie - John Wayne version - is a classic, but the actual experience of seeing the old fort was somewhat different from expectations. To be fair, I was warned that I might even walk right past it if I wasn’t paying attention. It wasn’t quite that bad, but then again I was paying attention. I had to see this place. This is my first trip to San Antonio and I think visiting the Alamo is mandatory.

It’s right downtown, sitting along a street and surrounded by a bunch of stores, including a Haagen-Dazs ice cream parlor. Davy Crockett would be pleased to know he died so that visitors here can enjoy their cinnamon dulce de leche without the threat of Gen. Santa Anna’s reinforcements sticking bayonets in their ribs.

Overall though, my first impressions of San Antonio are good. The famed Riverwalk downtown is excellent (listening, Mayor Pam?). The San Antonio River is misnamed though; it looks more like a little brook meandering through town, but that didn’t stop folks here from taking full advantage of it. In Tampa, we have an actual river. Imagine what we could do.

Oh, basketball. Yeah, that.

The teams are arriving and practice starts Friday. I like North Carolina to beat Kansas; Memphis to knock off UCLA; and North Carolina to win the national title. Don’t put much stock in that, though. My original brackets did indeed have N.C. in the final - opposite Pitt. What can I say?

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You can tell things must be slow at the NFL offices. Now the Grumpy Old Men who run that league want to pass a rule regulating the length of players’ hair. More specifically, they want to regulate how much of that hair shows. Image is everything, as someone once said.

Well, Pacman Jones hasn’t been arrested in a while and the Cincinnati Bengals are staying off the police blotters, so the button-down stuffed shirts who run this league have to do something.

Why, yes!

Let’s make a rule that says a player can get in real trouble if his hair covers up his name and on the back of his jersey. That’s an honest-to-you-gotta-be-kiddin’-me proposal that has worked its way onto the owner’s agenda next week in Palm Beach.

What is this - 1965?

Then again, what do we expect? This is a league that promotes mayhem of the highest order, yet will fine a player for not tucking his shirt in or showing 2 inches too much of his sock. Following this logic through, the NFL should fine players if their uniforms get so muddy that we can’t quite make out the number.

The NFL clearly wants society to morph back to a simpler time, way, way back to the good ol’ days where Men were Men and long-haired hippie types were a danger to society. Personal choice? All for it - as long as your personal choice agrees with mine. Otherwise, gotta stomp you like a bug.

Not too far back though. Tickets only cost a couple of bucks to a game back then. Gotta stay hip and current, too.

To be fair, the league says players who don’t want to get a haircut can stuff their locks down the back of their jersey or something, like that’s practical. But you know players will do their best to get around it if possible, so the NFL may have to hire an enforcer, just to keep things in line in case some player has a bad hair day.

Do you maggots understand what it takes? Only a pro will do.

Maybe someone like this guy. Wouldn’t you love to see him out there on Sunday afternoon, ruler in hand, going from player to player. “Polamalu! The first and last words out of your filthy sewer will be Sir!”

“Sir yes sir!”

Wow. And we haven’t even gotten to tattoos yet.

So much control to take over people’s lives, so little time.

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