now he's a teenage boy in Spain

Has anyone seen video of Ricky Rubio yet? He's a 17 year old, 6'4 point guard from Spain currently playing in the Euroleague. I am 100% convinced that Pistol Pete Maravich has been reincarnated as this kid.

Check him out for yourself:

Jigsaw

Good grief...

The Roger Clemens Congressional Hearing sessions are starting to sound like the early stages of a murder trial.

Brian McNamee recently turned in syringes, gauzepads and other physical evidence to Federal Investigators that he claims have Clemens' blood and DNA on them.

A few more solid pieces of evidence and the prosecutors will be able to prove that Roger Clemens is in fact... the Jigsaw Killer.

Patriots, that's why you will not survive!

"You got no time for the messenger,
got no regard for the thing that you don't understand,
you got no fear of the underdog,
that's why you will not survive"
(Spoon The Underdog)

In theory, I have always thought of myself as a fan of the underdog in sports competition. However, a few of the teams that I root for include: the San Antonio Spurs, The Boston Red Sox, The New England Patriots, and the University of Kentucky Wildcats. These teams have collectively won about a gazillion championships in the past 10-15 years.

To be fair though, I was a Spurs fan during the D-Rob era before they won their first ring, a Red Sox fan before the curse was broken, a Patriots fan in the Drew Bledsoe days before they became the juggernaut that they are today, and Kentucky is my home state.

Even though I am a "kind of" fan of the Patriots, I'll be rooting for the Giants in the Super Bowl. Here is my logic:

a.) I like mixed fruit Mentos (I'll explain in a second)
b.) Eli Manning has a chance to go down in sports folklore.
c.) Eli Manning is not Peyton Manning.

Now, I'll explain each.

a.) I like to eat Mentos. You know, the chewy mint with the lame commercial in the 90's. When I get a pack of the mixed fruit ones I labor through the orange and lemon ones to get to the strawberry ones which I love. Recently, I found packs of all strawberry Mentos. After I ate a few I was really burned out. So, in conclusion; without having to endure the bad ones I didn't enjoy the good ones as much. This is my analogy on the New England Patriots season. How much fun is it to win every single game? How much fun would it be to have a team crowned as champion that hasn't had to endure any hardships this season?

b.) Eli Manning is establishing himself as a true sports hero. Self made and not the media hyped kind. Eli has been unfairly criticized his whole career for not being a leader, for being mentally weak and easily rattled, for being aloof and for not being passionate about the game. All of which are way, way off base. Eli now has a chance to possibly top Joe Namath as the quarterback who engineered the biggest upset in Super Bowl history. These playoffs Eli has already outdueled maybe the greatest quarterback of all time on his home field and under extreme circumstances. Eli Manning is deserving of a cult following. He's easily one of the most interesting athletes in all of sports.

c.) Eli Manning is not Peyton Manning. He doesn't have that smug look about him. He's not overconfident, he doesn't call out teammates for making mistakes and he doesn't bash his team's kicker. If someone were going to write a book and title it "How To Be Competitive and Successful and Make it Look Like You're Not Even Trying" then they should get Eli as the spokesperson. This guy is as cool as it gets.

Fear the underdog.

28 Days Later

The Mitchell Report was released December 13th, 2007. In the report 89 players were named as having taken performance enhancing drugs. Many of the players have since come forward and admitted to their use of the illegal drugs; most with the hilarious “I only did them once” tagline which is not unlike Bill Clinton’s admittance to smoking marijuana but not inhaling. One player (Roger Clemens) is fighting like hell and denying everything. He, of course, is the player on the list with the most at stake.

During the period since the Mitchell Report I have been collecting my thoughts...

I want to start off by saying that the 89 players named is probably a fraction of the overall number of players in the MLB who have used performance enhancing drugs.

Well, what does the report mean?

Absolutely nothing.

The Mitchell report was a lot of work and effort and money spent trying to make people feel outrage, excitement, embarrassment,... something. Maybe people wanted his findings to mean something and to change the way we think about modern sports. Truth is, didn’t we feel differently about modern sports already, without the aid of the Mitchell Report?

Exactly how are we supposed to feel about drugs that make people better at sports? I would say much like we feel about drugs that make people more artistically creative. Are we outraged that the Beatles more than likely used psychedelic drugs to create great rock n’ roll albums or that Jack Kerouac was on every drug under the sun when he wrote On the Road?

It is safe to say that Barry Bonds benefits the most from the Mitchell Report. He is no longer the scapegoat. He is no longer a selfish prick and a despicable cheater. He’s just one of the guys. Okay, he is still those last two things.

I still love baseball. Nothing in the Mitchell Report has changed this since nothing in the report was revolutionary. Baseball is a tainted game, I know this. It always has been to some degree. World Series' have been thrown, players have been involved in gambling, and now players have taken performance enhancing drugs. There will be a next too. The recognition of steroid use does not erode the game. Baseball records have and always will be put into context. Bond’s 73 homers in a season and his career home run record are inflated stats now. A whole era is now inflated just as pitcher’s numbers were inflated in the early days of the game. Cy Young and his gazillion wins anyone?

The Mitchell Report is a story. True fans still love the game. We may not like it’s players much anymore but this does make the players not named in the report more likeable and easier to get behind and root for right?

So, exactly why is the Mitchell Report big news? Because people love hearing bad stories about people that are not them. Sports culture has changed but sports have a way of fixing their own problems. Fans shall soon forget.

When it comes down to it, nothing is changed and baseball is still the shizz.