The Britt List (9/22/09)

My friend Jim asked me last week, "Isn't it about time you write a blog about the latest antics of spoiled sports figures." And he carries a gun to work every day, so Jim gets what Jim wants (Go Seahawks, by the way).

I should probably find some sort of common thread that I could use to string all of these stories and non sequitors together into some sort of cohesive commentary. But that's much harder and I am not getting paid for this. Plus it's been a while since I've really written much and the "notes" section of my phone is getting really long and really need to just empty it out, so here goes...

1. How can I start a list of spoiled sports figures anywhere other than with Serena Williams? Two week ago she got smoked by eventual U.S. Open champion Kim Clijsters for 1 set, 5 games, and 2 points. Then two points from the end, she was called for a foot fault on her serve (that is, she stepped on the line while serving...probably a bad call). The penalty for this is the loss of that point. So that makes it match point.

But that little mistake isn't why she heads up this list. No, her out-of-control, profanity-laden, physical-harm-threatening breakdown that got her a 1-point penalty, which cost her the match because it was match point, is what got her on this list. It was definitely one of the most great freak-out's I've ever seen in sports, not up there with George Brett or the minor league baseball manager who pretended to be in a foxhole and toss a grenade of course, but it's impressive. It starts at about :46 in this video and peaks at about 5:20.

Serena later tried to be her normal disingenuously adorable self and said that it's just because she's so passionate and competitive and it got the better of her this time. That explains it; other athletes who get hosed on calls are just not competitive and that's why they act with grace and decorum. I've often felt that Serena Williams (and to a slightly lesser extent, Venus Williams) has been protected by the sports media with the same umbrella that they used to protect Roger Clemens for such a long time. "He's a fiery competitor." Or, "It's her intensity that makes her a champion." No, he was a 'roid raging egomaniac and she is a spoiled bully. I'd like to think that the press has finally turned on her and decided to finally write her off as the poor-sport that she is, but I think Kanye West might have distracted everyone too much with his blowup last week. (Seriously, is the jury still out on Kanye? So the guy sings a song every now and then about praying, and he cried on Leno, that doesn't mean he isn't just a huge asshole.) (And as a second side note, why is the adjectival form of "fire"not "firey?" I mean why suddenly move the "e" inside the "r"?)

2. Robert Henson of the Washington Redskins wrote the following on his Twitter page after some home fans booed the 'Skins in a home loss on Sunday: "All you fake half hearted Skins fans can...I won't go there but I dislike you very strongly, don't come to Fed Ex to boo dim wits!...The question is who are you to say you know what's best for the team and you work 9 to 5 at McDonalds."

There is no way I can write anything here that remotely compares to the sentiment and emotion expressed by Mike Greenberg of ESPN, so I won't bother. And there is nothing to add to Greeny's rant, so I won't. Except this: is it possible that this is all a grammatical misunderstanding? I mean, look at what he wrote: "Don't come to Fed Ex to boo dim wits!" Isn't Henson saying that he and the other players and coaches are "dim wits" and telling fans not to come and boo them? Yeah, probably not. He's just too dim witted to know what the comma is for.

3. Phillip Rivers seems like the perfect example of a kid who was always a really good athlete, so he just never really got put in his place on the field and was never disciplined by his parents, teachers, or coaches. Once again last week he took a penalty for taunting - he leaned over and yelled in the face of an opposing player who had fallen down next to Rivers. The problem is, he is still a really good athlete and won't be getting put in his place any time soon. And he's clearly too immature and/or stupid to realize that he'll never win a Super Bowl with this kind of leadership style, talent be damned.

4. It took Terrell Owens exactly one game to throw his new quarterback under the bus, saying that Trent Edwards showed poor judgement and missed plays where Owens was open. I know, I'm shocked too.

5. Jacksonville Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver came out after the team's Week 1 loss and said that he was hoping to draft Tim Tebow for next season. Tebow is the reigning Heisman Trophy winner and BCS Champion quarterback from Florida, which is in Jacksonville and is far more popular than the Jags. That's good. Way to piss on the millions of dollars spent by fans on tickets and TV packages for this season, let alone on your current players, by already writing the season off within hours of its start. But hey, the good news is that they're gonna get totally hosed if they don't get the #1 draft pick because if they want to move up to get Tebow, the price just went way up when Weaver tipped his hand 8 months before the draft. Whoops.

6. The Cowboys apparently sold something like 30,000 standing-room only tickets (called "Party Passes") to their opening night game against the Giants on Sunday (the Giants won because Tony Romo sucks). The goal was to set the record for the largest regular season crowd in football history, which they did (105,121). Sadly most of those folks who shelled out $29 to stand on a huge balcony facing but far away from the field couldn't actually see the field at all, and some were not allowed into the stadium. It nearly caused a riot and the extra fans couldn't help lift the Cowboys to a win anyway, but the only part of this paragraph that Jerry Jones is probably capable of comprehending is, "Cowboys...set the record for the largest regular season crowd in football history...face...lift...Jerry Jones."

7. Flozell Adams is a very, very fat former great NFL offensive lineman who now just resorts to cheating in order to stop players from exposing the staggeringly large weaknesses in his game. He has led the league in penalties in each of the past 3 seasons. This week the Giants' Justin Tuck apparently told him there was a gigantic plate of ribs over his left shoulder and when Adams went left to look, Tuck bolted the other way to go sack Tony Romo. Adams became angry that there weren't actually any ribs and rather than shift into position and block Tuck, he instead illegally stuck his hippopotamus-sized leg out and tripped him, causing Tuck to fall awkwardly, injure his shoulder and miss the rest of the game. Adams later blamed Tuck saying, "Tell him to stay up." Adams then leaned back over and continued eating from his trough.

8. We always hear what a genius Pete Carroll is, so it must be true. So when he disgracefully shunned his golden boy, Mark Sanchez, last spring when Sanchez chose to enter the NFL, some wondered why Carroll the Genius did it. Why go on record on the biggest day of Sanchez' career, a celebratory day marking his graduation from USC football, not just USC academics, and say the kid isn't ready for the NFL and he has stats that show that Sanchez will fail? Granted, it's only two games into his pro career, but Sanchez seems to pretty pretty damned ready for the NFL. I guess Carroll was wrong on that one.

Once Matt Barkley got the USC starting quarterback job, every time you heard Carroll talk about him you got a kinda creepy, borderline-inappropriate, "I want to carry his babies"-kind of feeling. Though you know Carroll is faking it since he had already named Aaron Corp his starter until Corp got hurt in preseason workouts. And having seen Corp play last weekend in Washington, we now see that Corp getting hurt and forcing Carroll to start Barkley was the best coaching move he'll make this year.

You might wonder why Carroll was singing the praises of Barkley so loudly, besides that the kid is pretty good. But you have to remember that this is Division I-A college football. The title game participants are chosen as much through the politics in the press room as they are through play on the field. USC couldn't afford to start the season ranked in the teens because that makes one-loss a season-ender. So Carroll had to convince voters in that first poll that Barkley is the best quarterback that had ever come through his program so they'd keep USC from tumbling out of the preseason top 5. Now they've lost a game and dropped to 12th, but can still climb back into the conversation. Had they started at 12th and lost, dropping to 20th or below, the season would be over. Maybe he is a genius.

The good news for USC fans is that we've already seen that they don't need to win, let alone play in, the BCS Championship Game to call themselves National Champions at USC. So the polliticking is all kind of a waste anyway, I guess.

9. This one isn't directly at any particular stupid/spoiled sports figure, but rather all the national reporters covering the Giants. Why is everyone so shocked at the skills and performance of Steve Smith? He came from a major college program (USC) where he was a star. He was a high draft pick (2nd round). He led the team in receptions last season (his first as a regular player, though he was still considered the third receiver). And as if all of that wasn't enough to gain him the notoriety he deserves, as a rookie Smith made the most skilled reception and play on that Super Bowl winning drive, saving the Giants' hopes. He is the victim of circumstance, it seems. No one remembers his play on the big drive because it was sandwiched between David Tyree's helmet catch and Plaxico Burress' touchdown. No one recognizes his name because when he came into the league, there already was a star-receiver named Steve Smith. No one remembers his 2008 success because it was overshadowed by the Burress-gun debacle. But it doesn't seem to bother Smith or Mario Manningham or any of the Giants' other younger receivers that they are considered the team's weakness. It just makes it easier to embarrass seemingly unsuspecting and overconfident secondaries (we're looking at you Terrence Newman, Orlando Scandrick, Keith Hamlin, Mike Jenkins...).

10. Who do I pick for the last one?

-LeGarrette Blount of Oregon for kissing his senior season (and draft status) goodbye when he punched a Boise State player and attacked BSU fans after their season opening loss.

-Whoever at Boise State thinks it is a good idea to have a blue field and blue uniforms that make their players invisible on TV, thus making their games unwatchable.

-Whoever at ESPN still think Lou Holtz should be a commentator? I mean he's knowledgeable, and you just wanna cuddle in his lap (with an umbrella) and hear stories about the olden days, but you can't understand a shingle thing that comesh out of hish mouth.

-Kick returners who call fair catches at the 5 yard-line or take kicks out from 8-yards deep in the endzone?

-Whoever at Yahoo! Fantasy Sports ranked LaDainian Tomlinson as highly as he did causing me to get a completely wasted first round draft pick because we've known for two years that LDT was toast?

-Whoever started calling Tomlinson, "LT," despite that there was already a better player in the same sport with the same nickname and you just don't do that?

-Whoever at ABC wrote the stat-list for Pete Carroll for Saturday's game that said he was a two-time National Champion with USC even though the team has only won the National Championship game once in his tenure. Either we have two polls, and its the same split-champion situation that the BCS was created to avoid, or not. But we can't have both. If only there was such a thing as an event where various teams met and played against one another in elimination games to determine the last team standing.

-Milton Bradley who is getting run out of yet-another baseball town after being suspended for the remainder of the season by the Cubs for being a surly prick all the time. If your playing the Milton Bradley home edition, the winning cards this season were: Bump an Ump: Get suspended two game, Throw a Ball Into the Stands With Only Two Outs: Move two baserunners up two bases each, Freak Out After a Flyout, Again: Get sent home during the game, and later get in a fight with the manager in the clubhouse, Say You Hate Coming to Wrigley Field Because The Fans Are Racist: Turn your last remaining supporters against you, and finally for a bonus... Rip the Fans and Local Media For Expecting You To Play Well for the $10,000,000 They're Paying You: Get suspended for the season.

-Bud Selig for lowering the four-game suspensions of Jorge Posada and Jesse Carlson to three-games after the two agreed not to appeal the suspension. So what are we saying here, that they always deserved a three-game suspension but you were gonna make it four for no good reason? Or that saying "I won't appeal," is just as effective as actually appealing?

Or maybe all of them will just tie for 10th. Yeah, that'll work.

A Befuddling Baker's Dozen

I was in a fantasy baseball draft Yesterday afternoon and there were a lot of things I found completely baffling about the standard player rankings that are provided to help you pick your team. Most notably, Matt Kemp is considered the 33rd best non-pitcher (16th best outfielder) in baseball. This is only taking batting average, runs, home runs, RBI and steals into account. The guy is a "power hitting" outfielder who hit 18 home runs and had 76 RBI last year. He stole 35 bases, and I can only assume that is why his rating jumped, because other than that, his numbers are decent...for a second baseman. Of course I was gone for part of the draft and my team auto-selected the bum. I offered him in a trade the moment the draft ended, so we'll see how that goes.

But Kemp's high ranking is one of many things in sports that have utterly baffled me of late. For instance, if a 2-seed beats a 7-seed, do you say that the "higher" seed won or the "lower" seed? This is like how the expressions, "sub-par performance," or "above par" mean exactly the opposite of their meanings in golf, which is where they were borrowed from. Or how about when there is a "jump ball" called in college basketball, there is no subsequent jump ball. They just take it out of bounds. Not to mention the Big Ten having eleven schools, as I mentioned last week.

Andruw Jones hit 3 home runs and batted .158 in a 2008 season shortened by injuries and Joe Torre having both mercy and good sense. So now he is on the Rangers and has been playing Spring Training games in their minor league system. He could have opted for free agency last week but instead decided to stay with the Rangers in the hopes of making their Major League squad as a bench player or part-time DH. Perhaps it got lost in translation, but someone should have told Andruw that the "H" there stands for "hitter" and his chances of getting that job is around 16%*. Incidentally, with regard to Jones making the team, the Rangers basically told him to not hold his breath. Is it more embarrassing that the Netherlands passed on Jones or the last place Rangers?

*-like his batting average

In other baffling news, reports are floating around that the Giants have made offers to trade for Braylon Edwards, who had more dropped passes than Terrell Owens last year. They make offers for this guy and not Anquan Boldin or T.J. Houshmandzadeh?

Two powerhouse European soccer teams are making a 6-city U.S. tour coming up. U2 will likely outsell these games 4-1 in each of those six cities. Are they still trying to tell us that soccer is up-and-coming? I know the stat that more kids in America are playing soccer than any other sport, but that has been the case for some time now...what impact has it had on the American sports scene? Did you know the MLS is expanding? Do people go to these games? They get less national interest than the World Baseball Classic, which no one cares about because the U.S. team is fielded mostly by the 3rd or 4th best Americans at many positions, all of whom are out of shape because it is Spring Training.

I don't know why this one surprised me, but Terrell Owens was a no-show at the Bills voluntary training camp opening Monday. It is only voluntary so it isn't a big deal, but shouldn't he be trying to fix the image that he is an asshole? Or is it too far-gone? Last week his new coach Dick Jauron said, "I hope that he's here. He knows how important it is for us, particularly in his first year with us." T.O. allegedly replied, "Who's Dick Jauron?"**

**-I may or may not have made this quotation up.

The NFL released some scheduling information for this upcoming season. The Raiders were given prominent games on the opening Monday Night game and also as a Thanksgiving game. How does it make advertising-dollar sense to give a team that bad that kind of stage? Are there that many Raiders fans? Or is it that a lot of people will watch to see the Raiders lose? Because if multiple people are watching the same TV, that doesn't help ratings. And being that each individual Raider fan doesn't have his own TV in his own personal cell, that means they will all watch the same set in the common area, so that is bad for ratings. And they also don't count stolen TVs piled up in the garage either.

North Carolina coach Roy Williams said last week that "A building never won a game in a tourney." I get the point he was trying to make: despite the expected home-court advantage that fans would give Carolina in Greensboro for the NCAA's 1st and 2nd rounds, the players still needed to go out and make shots and make stops and win the game. But really? The building never won a game. I know it is kinda weak to defeat an argument with one, extraordinary example, but does the Miracle on Ice ring a bell? Do you think if that game had been played in Moscow, or London, or Tokyo, or at Amundsen-Scott, the results wouldn't have been the same?

There is a new professional football league called the United Football League that will start next year with four teams. The league's site says that they chose their franchise homes so that they could cater to large markets that do not currently have representation in the NFL. So they picked San Francisco, New York and Orlando because those areas only have two NFL teams each.

And the final thing that completely baffles me is how the hell they decided to make a Donnie Darko sequel. When a story has a truly perfect ending, what kind of moron decides to tell what happened seven years later? What a cop-out of creativity. Write a new story for God's sake! And really, his little sister starts getting apocalyptic visions (including Frank the Bunny, of course) while stopped in a spooky small town during a wacky, cross-country road trip with...wait for it...Elizabeth Berkeley. How do you smear the legacy of one of the most beloved, well performed, intricately crafted movies of all time? Rub Jessie Spano all over it. Coming to a theater near you soon (and then a Blockbuster very, very shortly after that).

The Ultimate Power Rankings, March 10

Every sports site and channel seems to publish a constant stream of power rankings (I am guilty considering I have a weekly California Division I college basketball power ranking on CBS2.com), so I have decided to add the Ultimate Power Rankings here occasionally. This week's top 10 are as follows, in no particular order, and there are only 9:

Oklahoma Women's Basketball player Courtney Paris took the microphone at Senior Night and declared that if the Sooners do not win the national championship this season, she will return her scholarship to the university. It has been reported that this is worth about $64,000. My head is spinning with follow up comments on this one: "Suck on that, Jim Calhoun!" $64,000 for room, board, books, fees and meals at OU? How much does this girl eat (a lot, by the way)? Oklahoma lost by 30 to the undefeated Connecticut early in the season, so I hope Paris has a good job lined up after graduation (does the WNBA even pay $64,000 year?).

Gonzaga led the WCC men's final game against St. Mary's 1-0 with 20 minutes to go in the first half. How? Apparently a St. Mary's player dunked a ball in warm up and was assessed a technical foul and the Zags made the shot before the tip-off. Imagine if St. Mary's had lost by 1. Fortunately they doused that fire early and went out and lost by 100 (approximately).

Dwyane Wade is pretty good, whether he knows how to spell "Dwayne" properly or not. Monday's finish was one of the great endings to an NBA game in a long, long time, and it was one of three buzzer beating 3-three pointers for Wade in this game alone! How good is that LeBron vs. Wade second round series going to be?

There is nothing better than blind homer announcers. On AM710 yesterday (ESPN radio in L.A.), they had three local NBA "experts" talking about the Lakers and Andrew Bynum's return. One guy said that having him get hurt and not return till the playoffs have already begun is a blessing in disguise because he will have to come back and play with the second team until he shows he is ready to start (if ever). So this guy said that this is all a good thing because of what a boon he'll be to the Lakers' second team. Now that is how you find some silver lining.

My ultimate frisbee team, Slow Children at Play, won the L.A. Winter league title this weekend after last year going 0-the season, including being beaten 15-0 in one game. But that's not the best part. In the final game, we were down 14-7 (game to 15, win by 2) and we came back to win 18-16 in easily the most dramatic sporting event I have ever been a part of. I kid you not, people rushed the field.

I absolutely love all of the "bubble watch" conjecture that is all over everywhere right now. This is funny because of how much I can't stand mock drafts, which are essentially the same thing. I think the difference is that the NCAA tourney talk starts in earnest about two weeks before selection Sunday and by that time the guesses are fairly accurate and informed. While the mock drafts will start 4-5 months before, when the guesses are like a monkey throwing poo at a draft board and then measuring which players got more crap on their faces.

The Netherlands beat the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic despite having Sidney Ponson as their only Major League star, with the term "star" used extraordinarily loosely. The Dominican team has 23 Major Leaguers. That's a 2008-sized upset and perhaps the first really good one of 2009. They play a rematch-elimination game against one another today. Best of all, the Netherlands dropped Andruw Jones from their team since the last WBC. How far have you fallen if the Netherlands would rather not have you on their team and you are a former Major League Baseball Player of the Year, Rookie of the Year and 10-time consecutive Gold Glove winner?

March Madness is here. Yesterday I watched five college basketball games, four of which were tournament finals with the winners going to the Big Dance. Today around 10 a.m. when I first went to check on who was playing today and when, there were already two conference tournament games underway. Spectacular.

The New York Jets were supposedly a team that "needed" to sign Terrell Owens. And when you consider that they haven't won a Super Bowl in 40 years, maybe the risk of a little controversy in the clubhouse would be worth signing a top-line talent. After all, they did dump their franchise quarterback and send him off to a division rival in order to sign Brett Favre just a year ago, so they're not afraid of making a splash. But despite decades of losing and frustration and embarrassment, a Jets official came out last week and said, "What message are we sending to the team if it signed Owens?” That's how big of an a-hole Terrell Owens is. After allowing star receiver Laveranues Coles to leave via free agency, essentially they said they'd rather not have any wide receivers than have have T.O. on their team. How can you not love the Jets after this?

Huge Personnel Moves Resulting In Very Little

This has been a big week for new contract for big stars so here is a look at some of the big names, what they signed and the expected outcome of the deals.

Manny Ramirez - 1 year, $25M with and player option for a second year at $20M with the Dodgers. Manny will sandbag for 3-4 months, angered that there was no market for him, that the Dodgers never upped their offer, and that he wound up taking less than half of his goal-contract. Then he will go nuts in August and September and bolt for a better deal elsewhere when the economy is improved. He will be pitched around a lot and the Dodgers will struggle with no protection for their new $25M marketing campaign.

Kurt Warner - 2 years, $23M with the Cardinals. Warner's "shopping around" routine was more convincing than Manny's and wound up winning him $3M extra on top of the Cards' original deal, so that's nice. And he is supposedly a great guy and is going to heaven and stuff, so that's cool. But also like Manny, he's not going back to the playoffs under this deal. His age is a problem. Anquan Boldin being gone is a problem. And trying to repeat as the "magical story-team" is a problem.

Terrell Owens - released by the Cowboys. Sometimes clubhouse issues get hyped in the press. We kinda throw around the old "clubhouse cancer" moniker pretty freely because it makes us sound like we really know what the hell is going on. But if you are among the best 2-3 players at your position in your generation and you keep getting released, I think it is safe to say that you are a clubhouse cancer. Where does he go next? Minnesota lost out on T.J. Houshmandzadeh but their coach was T.O.'s offensive coordinator in Phily previously. The Giants need a star at wide receiver but they're too character-happy to go for a slug (again). Miami is like a circus and could throw him into the mix, but Bill Parcells has worked with T.O. before and hated him. Oakland? San Diego? Cincinnati? Which team values character the least? Probably Cincy. But can they pony up the dough? Of course, with just better than average numbers last year, the dough may not be all that tough to pony up? Will there really be a bidding war for this toad?

Ray Lewis - 3 years, $22M with the Ravens. Lewis had one of his best season last year and hasn't killed anyone in nearly a decade (as far as we know), so he was rewarded with a potentially career-ending contract with the only team he's ever been on. Will Lewis' recent admission that he would love to play for the Cowboys hurt his "devotion to the team" quotient this season? Probably not because if anyone doubts him, he might kill them. Lewis' dominance will slowly fade as he gets fatter. The Ravens will miss the playoffs this year and he just won't be a serious threat for too much longer after that.

Laveranues Coles - 4 years, $28M with the Bengals. The only way you will ever hear of Coles in the next four years is when he is invariably arrested.

T.J. Houshmandzadeh - 5 years, $40+M with the Seahawks. The only way you will ever hear of Housh in the next five years is when the story leaks that the quietly asked the team for a new quarterback (because he's a good guy and won't get arrested or demand a trade in the media when he sees how bad a decision it was signing with Seattle).

Matt Cassel - traded to Kansas City. 12 touchdowns, 20 interceptions, 6-10. And so ends the story of Matt Cassel.