Thursday, March 23, 2006

Wide World of Sports

Random thoughts day.

As a football team, what’s the next best step after you dump the most accurate field-goal kicker in NFL history? Yep, you sign the most clutch field-goal kicker in NFL history. Seems the Colts have locked up Vinatieri to a 5-year deal that made him the highest-paid kicker in NFL history. Lot of history in this one transaction, eh? Considering Vanderjagt missed a field goal in the closing seconds of the AFC Championship game last year, I can see why Clutch would be an important word to the Colts for next season.

I’m curious to see how Vinatieri is going to hold up in Indy, though. Here’s a guy that spent his whole career kicking field goals in the brutal weather of New England. Snow, wind, rain, you name it, he’s kicked in it. Now he’s hopping over to the weather-less dome of the Colts? I bet he shanks some very makeable attempts early in the season.

Vanderjagt, meanwhile, has picked up with the Cowboys, one of the more fitting signings this off-season in my opinion. Well, personality-wise, at least. Over the years, the Cowboys have been chock-full of players with attitudes (see Irvin, Michael and Lett, Leon), so why not pick up a kicker who likes to bash his own players? And with a team like the Cowboys around him, he’ll have plenty of ammunition to last all season long.

More ‘roids, please! The big names have started to drop out of that already-infamous Barry Bonds steroid book, but they’re nothing surprising. The latest player to get sucked into the scandal, or sucked back into the scandal as it were, is Yankee right-fielder Gary Sheffield. Not that this is news, since Gary admitted to taking the Cream and Clear already, claiming he didn’t know they were steroids.

Am I the only person who’s offended by such accusations by these big MLB stars? You mean to tell me you took an oral medication when you weren’t 100% sure of its contents? These guys live and die by the performance of their bodies, you can’t tell me they would take such a risk.

And flaxseed oil? This is something that’s supposed to help prevent heart disease and cancer. Didn’t Sheffield and Bonds question why a physical trainer would be giving this to them? Is heart disease and cancer a hot-stove issue around the clubhouse that they wouldn’t question this?

Now rumors are flying that Bonds is going to sue over this book. The specific basis for the suit hasn’t been made public, but it seems they are trying to seize all the profits from sales of the book. Not halt the publication of the book, not demand a retraction for defamation of character, but seize the profits.

Guess Barry isn’t expecting to collect a paycheck from the Giants this year, eh?

The Sweet 16 tips off tonight, and I couldn’t be less interested! I only picked eight of the 16 correctly, only two of my Final Four teams remain, and my pick of OSU in the finals went sour last weekend. I have more red marks on my brackets than a heroin addict’s arm.

At this point, I’m just watching in hopes some underdogs go far and the big seeds fall miserably (hello Duke!). I’m still hoping Gonzaga takes the dance, no matter what some expert columnists say about rooting for your conference when your team is eliminated. Since I’m an ACC guy (frickin’ Terps lost in the FIRST ROUND of the NIT at HOME to MANHATTAN. I will now poke my eye with a stick.), and UNC lost to phenom George Mason, that would mean I’d have to root for Duke to win it all. Duke.

Um, yeah, I don’t think so. Go Zags.

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