Welcome back, Plax

By Jeff

There is a whole heck of a lot going on right now. Especially since I go AWOL every month. So let's try and catch up!

• Plaxico Burress is coming home! The big wide receiver signed with the Steelers this week because Antonio Brown and Jerricho Cotchery are hurt. It's a good signing as long as we keep our expectations in check. Burress is 35 and isn't a deep threat anymore. But it is nice to have another red zone option other than Health Miller.


• The NHL is still stupid.


• The Toronto Blue Jays and Miami Frauds trade went through. The commissioner had no right to block the trade, so I'm glad he didn't. But the Frauds deserve to be ripped by fans, media and everyone on the planet. They promised a committment to winning and broke that promise in less than a year.


• Phil Jackson is a better coach than Mike D'Antoni, but he has quit twice before on the Lakers. There is nothing wrong with the Lakers moving in a different direction. They could have handled the situation better, but can you blame them for not bringing Jackson back when everybody knows it could be just a one-year thing?


• Philadelphia Eagles fans really hate Andy Reid. Philadelphia media is also going crazy. You should hear them talk about how they should find a new coach. Sal Paolantonio says they need to move Andy out, hire a consulting group that includes ex players and really show fans they are determined to bring legitimacy back to the Eagles. This is a little over a year after they made a huge splash in free agency and people were picking them as Super Bowl contenders. One mediocre year and one bad year do not warrant the panic that has set in over here. Just hire a new coach. Done.


• Just saw "Silver Linings Playbook" last night. I usually HATE BRadley Cooper, but he was great and stole just about every scene he was in. That is saying a lot considering he shared many scenes with Robert De Niro. The dialogue was the best I've heard since "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang". Not sure it should be getting the Oscar buzz it is as a whole, but Cooper's name should be tossed around. 


• I've been playing a lot of "LA Noire" for the PS3. It's a very cool and unique game, as it lets you play detective by searching for clues and trying to figure out if people are lying or not with some groundbreaking gaming technology. It gets a little redundant, but that's how all Rock Star games are.

• I get that Mike Golic played football and doesn't like that the game is focusing more on safety. I do. But it still bothers me that every time there is a hit to the head and a fine, he complains. We get it, Golic, you were a very tough man when you played. That doesn't mean that hits to the head have a place in the NFL with all this new research showing how dangerous headshots are. Maybe he should have manned-up and healed naturally instead of using steroids. Zing!

• I hate to say it, but Notre Dame deserves their ranking. They played a tough schedule, and despite some close games, they are the only undefeated team that matters (Ohio State hasn't lost, but they are on probation).

Big Country - The Promised Land

Give me back my hockey!

By Jeff

Yes, I'm channeling my inner Mel Gibson. No, not the anti-Semitic, anti-women drunk. I'm talking about the one in "Ransom" who wants his son back and kicks some ass to do it.

What the hell is wrong with the NHL? I would give the definition of insanity, but we've all heard the saying. But truly, the NHL is insane. They are pushing their fans to the brink.

We want hockey. We want to pay to go to games and we want to watch throughout the week. But it seems the NHL doesn't give a damn about those that make their business possible.

We've lost one season to CBA negotiations, and now three others have been shortened because owners and players can't agree.

There is not another major league in the country that has lost a season to labor disputes, yet the NHL may lose two in less than 10 years. That's embarrassing. It's a $3 billion business, and they can't find common ground?

One of the big sticking points right now is the contract rights. The league wants to limit the number of years a deal can have, as well as delaying free agency by a year.

I understand the idea behind limiting deals to 5 years, especially when you see they 10-year, mega-deals that circumvent the cap. Of course, the league could have hindered this by actually having a spine and rejecting all the deals like this, not just the Ilya Kovalchuk contract. At the same time, it was the OWNERS who gave these contracts in the first place!

As for delaying free agency until the 8th year of NHL service instead of 7, that's just stupid. If you have a player in your organization for 7 years and don't know if he is right for your team or ready for the NHL, then you need to fire your scouts/development team because they are failing.

Now, we don't officially know what's being said in these negotiations. But to me it seems like the players are being asked to give up more than the owners, again. You can only push a person so far until they can't take being pushed around anymore. That's where the players seem to be now.

If I lose the NHL this season, I will place all the blame on the owners. And I don't think I'm wrong.

David Essex - Rock On

Marlins are jokes

By Jeff

How are the Miami Marlins still a professional franchise?

For the third time in my lifetime, they have sent their best players packing to say boatloads of money. Josh Johnson, Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle, John Buck and Emilio Bonifacio are all headed to Toronto for Yunel Escobar, Jeff Mathis and three of the Blue Jays' top prospects.

Baseball should be furious. Other teams should be furious. Marlins fans should be furious. The three Marlins players left should be furious.

In the words of Donald Trump, we need a revolution! (Seriously, what a joke the Donald is. What's scary is some people think he makes good points.)

Marlins ownership lied to the public. In order to get more than $300 million of public money for their new stadium, they said they would field a competitive team. They tried for one year. Yes, they started with a bad year, but that's not reason to blow it up. The team had boatloads of talent. Maybe it just needed to gel. Maybe it just needed a manager who cared more about managing and less about attention.

Sad to say it, but the Pirates are in a similar boat. They received hundreds of millions of public dollars to fund PNC Park and promised a winning team. They haven't had one and have consistently made questionable baseball decisions.

This is a problem for baseball and fans in these cities. With no salary floor and revenue sharing, teams like the Marlins can make a lot of money while putting terrible teams on the field. It doesn't matter that people don't show up for games, because teams like the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox will fund the poor teams.

What a joke.

Now, as a Blue Jays fan, I am excited for Toronto. If Johnson and Reyes stay healthy, they could actually compete for the AL East for the first time in a long time.

As a fan of baseball, the deal angers me and just shows how silly this league can be. Teams that are not committed to winning should not be rewarded. If you don't have a payroll of X amount, then you should not be eligible for revenue sharing.

David Bowie - Heroes

Don't blame the refs

By Jeff

Before a co-ed IM soccer game in college, a student referee completely changed the way I view refs in sports.

Prior to the game starting, the official was going through his pregame spiel (wear shin guards, no slide tackling, etc.) and he finished with a simple request. Don't yell at him if he makes a mistake. Well, what ref wouldn't say that? It was what he said after that has resonated with me since.

"If you guys make a stupid play or kick the ball over the net, I'm not going to tell you how much you suck," he said. "So give me a break if I miss something. I'm trying my best."

Having never been a ref, I never looked at it from that perspective. And it's a brilliant point. I've never experienced a ref ripping me for all the poor plays I've made throughout my life. I've never seen a ref tearing into anybody for their poor play, so why are we so quick to not only tear them new ones, but blame them for our losses?

This memory has been on my mind recently with the replacement officials in the NFL and the recent controversial call in the NL Wild Card game between the Atlanta Braves and the St. Louis Cardinals.

The former was really highlighted at the end of the Week 3 Monday Night Football game between the Green Bay Packers and the Seattle Seahawks. Seattle won on a last-second hail mary where the Seattle receiver should have been flagged for pass interference and most observers will tell you that Seahawks' Golden Tate did not have duel possession as the refs ruled.

The replacement officials messed up on the final play of a game, which is pretty rare. Usually people screw up, but teams have time to overcome it. This was different, but it still didn't cost the Packers the game. The Packers offensive line gave up eight sacks and their high-octane offense didn't do squat. Their defense let the Seahawks get to the 30-yard line and have a shot at the endzone.

The refs screwed up at a vital part of the game, but the Packers had 59 minutes to make that last drive irrelevant.

As for the umpires in last night's Wild Card game, it is a lot easier to defend. Now I don't know how a fly ball to the middle of left field could be an infield fly rule, but that is what the umps decided. I don't care what Joe Torre says, it looked wrong to me.

But once again, the umps didn't decide that game.

The fact the Braves couldn't get timely hitting when they had runners in scoring position is a reason they lost. Three errors certainly didn't help the Braves either. The umps made a bad call, they didn't cause the Braves to lose.

That how it is with pretty much all blown calls. Like the Packers games, the call may be the last play of the game and cause a win or loss. But these games are four quarters, nine innings, three periods, whatever. There is plenty of time for teams or players to win or lose the games. They have vastly more control from the refs, and those who blame the refs need to look at themselves or their team more closely.

Weezer - Teenage Victory Song

When did journalism and fact checking separate?

By Jeff

Anyone else notice a strange happening going on in the media? No, not that thing where networks like Fox News and MSNBC are the most popular cable news networks because they promote partisan hackery. That is old news.

The strange happening I am talking about is the rise of the all powerful fact checkers. We have FactCheck.org, Politifact.com, The Fact Checker for the Washington Post and countless others. These Web sites and individuals look at what is being said in the political world and determine if these statements are true or not.

While I like that these resources exist, it's strange that they have to. From my understanding of journalism, it is the responsibility of the reporters and editors of the news media to check facts and hold people accountable when they lie to the media and the American people. But at some point, journalists seemed to have stopped doing this. They let political candidates and their supporters spout lies. They don't point out in their stories that these statements are actually false. They just get their quote and go on their way.

Look back at the Republican National Convention for a perfect example. Vice president candidate Paul Ryan told some lies in his speech. Some of the news organizations covering the event (I'm looking right at you, Wolf) knew that he was lying. They mentioned on the air that some of the things Ryan said sounded false. But instead of them informing the viewers about the truth, they said they would leave it to the fact checkers.

Are you friggin' kidding me! You're supposedly journalists! It's you're job to report the facts. If a man, especially a vice presidential candidate, is lying, you call him out and educate the audience to the truth.

To be fair, there are plenty of real journalists out there who understand their responsibility and do great work. Unfortunately, these folks aren't as popular or big personalities.

Sure, the Internet had a lot to do with the decline of traditional media, but maybe these editors, publishers and producers need to look in the mirror and realize that they have become part of the problem too. Our watch dogs have turned from dobermans to greyhounds. You see, greyhounds are known as the 30-mile-per-hour couch potatoes. If there is a furry creature a greyhound will sprint after it without thinking twice. But when they are not racing after rabbits, they are sitting around doing nothing.

Kind of like many of the popular media today. When they have a juicy story, they chase it and report on it with all kinds of enthusiasm, even when said story is a silly as that Chick-Fil-A garbage. And they do it until the story is utterly exhausted. But then they are crazy lazy when it comes to other stories. They don't ask tough questions out of fear as being labeled bias, unless it's Fox News, then they embrace the fact they are bias (Well, or they are just lazy and don't care. It's hard to tell.). They sit back and let other people (fact checkers) do their jobs.

Fortunately, much of what our elected officials do and say are public record. We as good citizens don't have to rely on journalists or fact checkers to see if we're being lied to. We just need to have open minds and get off our asses. Whether we are liberal or conservative, but we need to recognize that not everything our side says is true.

Weezer - Tragic Girl

Some love for some Buccos

By Jeff

If you told me before the MLB season that Pittsburgh Pirates center fielder Andrew McCutchen would be the favorite for the NL MVP in August, I would have said it's a possibility, but probably too soon.

Now, if you told me that newly aquired starter A.J. Burnett would be in the Cy Young race, I would have laughed at you. Maybe slapped you if you were smaller and/or slower than me.

But here we are in August, and McCutchen and Burnett are having tremendous seasons. McCutchen is the NL MVP right now and if the season finished today, Burnett would have to be in the top five for the Cy Young.

It's amazing to follow these guys right now.

Ever since Pittsburgh fans saw McCutchen speed out of the box on the way to his first triple in 1999, we all knew he could be great. Finally, Dave Littlefield got one right! In a little less than four seasons, McCutchen has career numbers of 74 home runs, 582 hits, .295 average, 332 runs, 268 RBIs (Yeah, I put the "s" in. Deal with it.) and .377 OBP. This year, he's already matched last year' shome run total (23) and is batting more than 100 points better (.370 compared to .259).

What is even more impressive about McCutchen's season is for the first two months of the season, he had almost no help in the lineup. In April and May, the Pirates had a almost historically bad offense. It was like the team was running out McCutchen and eight minor leaguers every game. Yet McCutchen kept lighting up opposing pitching and somehow led the Pirates to a .500 record after the first two months of the season.

Now that the rest of the team has started hitting (They had the most runs in the league in June.), the Pirates are sitting at 16 games above .500 on August 9. Hard to believe, right?

Of course, the pitching has also been a major factor. While James McDonald started hot, it's Burnett who has been the most reliable. When the team was facing a sweep by the Reds last weekend, it was Burnett who came in and picthed 8+ innings to stop the slide. After a bad loss to the Cubs, Burnett stepped to the rubber and nearly pitched a no-hitter.

For the season Burnett has an ERA of 3.19, WHIP of aorund 1.15, 14 wins and 109 strikeouts. Other than wins, he's outside the top 10 in the major categories, but I'm not sure there is a single guy in the NL who has been more important to his team than Burnett.

When was the last time the Pirates had a starter who actually made you feel confident that a win was coming? Honestly, I can't remember one. Maybe the year Oliver Perez had people making comparisons to Randy Johnson (Yes, people were actually doing that because Perez's slider was nasty and his K/9 was greater than 11.) had fans thinking that, but I don't recall.

When Burnett takes the mound, fans and the team alike know there is a better chance of a win. That can do a whole lot in terms of motivating everyone to step up their games, because they don't want to be the ones to let the team down.

While McCutchen will probably be the unanimous MVP choice if he keeps up his pace, Burnett would probably have to be even better than he has been to win the Cy Young. I'm not sure that's possible, but in this season of improbabilities, I'm not betting against it.

Cookie Monster - Share it Maybe

Civilians should not be allowed assault rifles

By Jeff

Even before the tragedy in Aurora Colorado early Friday morning, where a nut job killed 12 people and wounded over 50 at the midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises" I thought our nation needed to wake up and not allow the sale of assault rifles to civilians.

Assault rifles have nothing to do with defending your family. These weapons can fire hundreds of rounds in a minute. There are only two reasons a person not currently in combat for the military would need these weapons. The first is to kill a lot of people. The second is a zombie apocalypse. Oh, and the second one is a fictional scenario.

The NRA and the political leaders that they pay a whole lot of money to make sure gun control laws in this country are a joke will tell you that the tragedies in Aurora, Virginia Tech, Tucson and Columbine would have occurred with or without guns because the murderers in these events were psychopaths who would have found a way to kill people.

Well, let's think about that for a moment. If James Holmes, the Aurora shooter, could have planted a bomb in the theater that killed everyone in the theater, why didn't he? Probably because him carrying in explosives would have been a bit obvious. Whereas he could legally purchase and carry around the guns he used to kill 12 people.

Guns, especially assault rifles and extended magazines, are easy for killers to access in this country.

Sure, there would still be tragedies with guns in this country, even with bans on assault rifles, but they will happen less often and casualties will be reduced.

Cries of the Second Amendment will rain down from the NRA and Republicans, but think about it. When the Second Amendment (The right to bear arms) was drafted, the country so different. First, we were under the threat of England coming to take back their colonies. Second, there were Native Americans that were thought to be a threat, especially with families living miles away from their neighbors. Third, there were no telephones. If you were being robbed or threatened, there was no real way to get help quickly. There were also no cars, so law enforcement had no way to quickly get to victims' homes. Fourth, look at the weaponry from the 18th century. There were rifles that fired one shot in a minute. Pistols had to be cocked for every shot. Today we have rifles that fire a hundred shots in a minute without the need to reload.

The Founding Fathers had no idea how advanced humans would become at killing one another. I doubt they could even fathom a weapon like an AK-47 or an M-16.

The country needs to learn from these tragedies. We need better gun laws, and while this post is not about mental health, the citizens need easier access to mental health.

Big Country - Peace in our Time