A Smattering of Super Bowl Babble and a Thought on Plagarism

Rodney Harrison (pictured), noted cheater and performance-enhancing drug abuser, spoke earlier this week about his team's performance against the Giants on December 30. Specifically, he talked about the defense, of which he is a part.

I don't have the exact quotes here because I saw him talking about it on SportsCenter, but his general feeling was that he "doesn't want to take anything away from the Giants because they played a good game..." oooh, boy, here we go... "but, we did not play well that day. In fact, that was the worst we played all year."

I see. This reminds me of one of the many times when Fat Charlie used some kind of backhanded comments in his typically classy way and Boilerdowd emailed me and said, "He reminds me of someone who apologizes to you for your reaction, not for his action: 'I'm sorry you were upset after I called your sister a whore....furthermore, I'm sorry she has to dress like a prostitute.'"

That's kind of like Rodney Harrison right now. Yeah, he doesn't want to take anything away from the Giants, but, well, he's going to anyway. We'll see, Rodney. I have no doubt the Pats are the better team, but with a 16-0 record on the line and not a single person on the team suggesting they didn't care about that game, you guys had no reason not to bring your A-game. How about admitting that maybe the Giants game-planned well. Not well enough to win, we all remember, but pretty damn well.

-----------------------------------------

Following up on my post from earlier in the week about classy Boston-based writer Jessica Heslam, her commentary made its way around the 'net, and one of the best follow-ups is over at Joe Sports Fan where they post this picture, featuring a classy Boston fan -- most likely taking a break from reading Wine Spectator -- showing off his love for Purdue alum Rosie Colvin. Only he has Colvin's name spelled wrong. Maybe he has a properly spelled one in his "sturdy" Volvo.

-----------------------------------------

One final note in this post, and maybe it deserves to be its own post, I don't know.... but earlier this week, the fine gents over at Black Heart Gold Pants fired a shot across the bow of another blog, Off The Tracks. Now, I'm not here to defend OTT because it's a Purdue blog -- or even to "defend" it at all. We know Travis a little bit and he's always got thoughts on what's going on at Purdue, in the Big Ten and even across the country. We often don't agree with his takes but that's what makes for healthy debate. Plus, we're jerks anyway.

However, BHGP actually accused OTT of plagarism for this post about the Big Ten basketball programs and Travis' comparison to Simpsons characters.

All I want to say about this is that, as a writer, there is nothing worse that I could be accused of than plagarism. I mean, nothing. If I was accused of a sexual relationship with Tim, it wouldn't even compare. Wait, maybe that's a bad example -- Tim is rather handsome.

But you know what I mean. Again, I'm not legitimizing BHGP's claim nor am I saying they're way off base. But I will say that there's a lot of content out there and the ideas can sometimes be similar and, well, if you think someone is plagarizing, the best way to handle it is probably to contact them directly and give them the chance to a) explain themselves, or b) remove, correct or credit the content in question. I think publicly calling out someone like that is a bit extreme, especially when the supposed plagarizing is at least questionable.

Travis has answered the issue on his site and I think he does a good job, but there's a clear hurt in what he wrote -- which is justified -- and I can't blame him. In addition, if this goes even a step further, it could get rather ugly and we're all supposed to kind of be friends (sort of?) around here.

So let's play nice, boys, and keep the accusations to "your team sucks."

THIS JUST IN -- I'M A PUTZ: As always, I'm an imbecile. I now join the ranks of those who were fooled by BHGP. They were actually joking in their shot at OTT, as evidenced by this post... in which THEY point out that they aren't plagarizers for the same exact reasons OTT isn't. Yes, I'm a moron. I'm saying it here so you don't have to. But you can anyway.

Now That's A Sports Weekend

It was such a tasty sports weekend, wasn't it Erin Andrews?

I don't even know where to begin with this smattering. (But it won't be with Purdue.)

The ALCS is looking to be a good series. The Indians put up 7 runs in the 11th inning to win Game 2 and that has to have Boston fans thinking now. Schilling was terrible, the Indians got very little from Fausto Carmona and still won. Uh-oh, Boston. Maybe this is punishment for disrespecting the Anthem.

The Rockies have are now 20-1 in their last 21 games and they're up 3-0 on the D-Backs. That's kind of ridiculous and awesome at the same time.

Brett Favre became the all-time leader in career interceptions just two weeks after becoming the all-time leader in TD passes. That's kind of amusing. I don't think they stopped the game to present him with a statue of him chasing a DB returning a pick, though. (But it would have been funny if they had.) ESPN is still finding new ways to slobber Brett's knob -- right now they have a "list of Favre's best games played right after his birthday." Seriously? Give it a rest.

The Patiots absolutely pasted the Cowboys (in Dallas, no less) yesterday. I don't think I've ever been happier about a Boston sports team winning. The Cowgirls are not nearly as good as their 5-0 record suggested and the Patriots completely de-pantsed them and exposed it for all to see. Tom Brady is having a superhuman season right now, and the Patriots haven't scored less than 34 points in any game this season.

George Steinbrenner is apparently "ceding" control of his Yankees to his sons. Okay, then. Does anyone still think George is running the show? He doesn't appear in public anymore, he's never at Yankee Stadium... it's kind of silly at this point.

Vinny Testaverde is still alive. Who knew? The Jets probably should have re-signed him.

The BCS Standings are out (and, really, doesn't it make sense for all polls to start around this time?) and Ohio State, amazingly, is #1 despite being in what they were even admitting was a rebuilding year. Get ready for more insufferable tOSU fans and shirts that say, "We don't rebuild -- we reload!" But it's pretty damn amazing to look at the BCS as well as the other, more traditional polls. South Florida is #2 in the country?? They've only existed as a D1 program for like a decade.

Once again, our friends over at Hawaii almost blew their chance at a perfect season, narrowly beating San Jose State in OT. And yet they find themselves at 18 in the BCS and 16 in the AP. Completely ridiculous and unjustified. I know this is the voters humoring Hawaii/WAC supporters because it is indeed hard to say a D1 program that is 7-0 shouldn't be ranked. But they're really not even as good as their ranking suggests. Just wait and see if they get into a major bowl against a big-time program. It might get embarrassing for them. Like, I'm talking 6 or 8 picks for pass-happy, overrated sexual assaulter -- err, I mean, quarterback -- Colt Brennan. Hell, he threw four picks against San Jose State! He threw for a ridonkulous 545 but also tossed the ball 75 times. Hawaii rushed for... 56 yards. Total. That's kind of... imbalanced.

Amazingly, I'm going to talk about the WAC twice in this post -- I actually watched the OTs last night in the Boise State-Nevada game. (Why college football is being played on Sundays now, I do not understand.) BSU won the game, 69-67 because Nevada failed to get the two-point conversion in the fourth OT session. I'll admit, I wanted to see them hit 70 points. But still, can you imagine your school putting up 67 points... and losing? One thing I also have to say about this game is that the combo of WAC offenses, weak defenses and tired players led to the offenses in the OTs being completely unstoppable. Just look at the OT scoring summaries... the first few were one or two play "drives" of 25 yards and, boom, there was your TD. What irritated me, though, was Bill Curry, who was supposed to be providing color analysis for the game, just wanted the game to be called a tie and wouldn't let it go. At about the third overtime, he began pointing out that these "kids" were "tired" and that "somebody could get hurt." Jeez, Bill, are you a cub scout den mother or something? It's (supposedly) big time college football. Don't give me this "the kids are tired" bullsh-t. They want to win as much as anyone. And ties were eliminated a while ago, Bill. Deal with it, or shuffle off to retirement. At one point, a Nevada defender twisted a finger or wrist or something on an awkward tackle and Curry acted like this proved his point. Like guys couldn't get hurt earlier in the game. Just intolerable to listen to. Shut up and call the game.

Hey, is anybody else tired of seeing Dane Cook pretend to be such a huge baseball fan and continually enunciating to us that "There's only one October"? Well, Saturday Night Live finally decided to have some fun with it and what bothers me about this sketch is that practically nobody laughs... maybe they don't get it because they haven't seen the commericals, or maybe they all just really love Dane Cook. Still, pretty funny and it's about time.

Last week, during the first couple games of the MLB postseason, you may have seen a few ads for Frank TV. Or like a few thousand. After about the 500th cutaway to a Frank TV ad, one of our readers and friend (when he doesn't do his disappearing act) sent me a text message that simply said, "Frank TV looks good." Sometimes it's the simple humor that makes me laugh most.

I'm sure there was more -- I know there was -- but that's all the time we have now, folks.

Let's Do A Smattering

I've often thought it would be fun to have some regular features around here but since this isn't our primary job, it seems the only regular feature is people coming by to tell us we suck.

Anyway, so I thought it might be fun to sometimes lump together some of the popular sports-related topics into a smattering of sorts. There are all sorts of things going on that I'd love to blabber about, so I'll just throw them into smaller tidbits for you to chew on. I'm good like that.

(Oh, and why the photo? Well, I wanted to institute Sideboob Friday a while back and it fell apart fast... so what better way than showing a different part of a sideboob? Of course, then I found an even better one once I started looking.... [Warning: mature eyes only])

I wonder if, next season, anyone will use the phrase, "The Falcons are in a dogfight today!" -- You know, it's always been interesting to me how much everyone on ESPN and other similar places liked to anoint Michael Vick as the next great QB, a guy who will change how the position is played, etc. Yet, here we are, six years into his career, and the little guy is the very definition of mediocre (75 career rating). But that's not what he's in the news for these days. No, Mike Vick is a dogfighting sicko and not just like, on the periphery. He might have a few dozen dead, mutilated dogs on his property. Yikes, this is just disgusting and deplorable. And, I mean, how sick do you have to be to witness this stuff over and over and get your rocks off on it? This guy needs serious therapy. When Marcus Vick was getting into all that trouble at Va Tech and getting kicked off the team and people were wondering about why Michael didn't play the big brother role and wise him up... well, it's because this is the kind of person Michael is, too.

A-Rod's a big cheater because he yelled -- Come on, seriously? This was all over the radio waves in New York the day after A-Rod spooked a rookie third baseman into dropping a pop-up, prompting Toronto manager John Gibbons to say ARod is "bush league." As bush league as getting into a fistfight with one of your pitchers, John? If it's anyone besides ARod who does this, the conversation isn't happening. But just so we're clear... the fans can scream and yell but the players have to be silent... do I have that right? Please.

Eljah Dukes is a classy guy -- Further proof that if you've got some talent, people will overlook everything. Elijah Dukes threatened to kill his wife and her kids and he did it over voicemail and text messaging. I guess the good thing about this is that he's wayyyy to effing stupid to ever get away with anything. According to catcher Shawn Riggans, though, Elijah is a swell dude:

"A lot of people make these assumptions based on what they read in
newspapers or what they hear," catcher Shawn Riggans says, "and it's just totally, totally unfair to do that. I love Elijah. He's a great guy. I'd take a bullet for him."

And you very well might do just that one day, Shawn. Like, if you ever drink his YooHoo or something.

The NBA sucks but has a few moments now and then -- Kobe is a whiny, petulant bitch. and how absolutely great is it that LeBron chose the day after Kobe's taking over the NBA headlines as his date to absolutely single-handedly beat the Pistons in Game 5 of the Eastern Finals? I mean, I'm not a fan of LeBron's and I think he's a bit too arrogant for a guy who is weak at the free-throw line and hasn't won squat yet, BUT.... when you think about how he's got a very mediocre Cavs team one win from the Finals, well, it's hard to disagree that he's the man. And that performance Thursday night was simply hard to believe. Hey Kobe, LeBron might have just leapfrogged you in more ways than just this week's headlines.

(Oh, and you'll also note that one of our co-authors, Tim, is noticeably silent on this series. You'd think that living in Cleveland and writing for a sports site, he might actually have something to offer. But no, Tim still thinks that he can jinx his teams and that talking about them might have some mystical, wizard-like effect on the franchise. Tim also still believes in Santa Claus so don't spoil that for him, either.)

The truth, as always, is that lying is better -- So, let's get this straight: fans and self-righteous sportswriters have been demanding that players apologize for the steroid era and morons like Mike Golic go on and on and on about how if a player apologizes for something they did, no matter what it is, they'll be forgiven and then beloved. Except that when Jason Giambi -- a guy who is very well-liked in the game -- actually says that he and all of baseball should indeed apologize for "doing that stuff," he gets investigated by the commissioner, his team's owner says he "should have kept his mouth shut," and his team begins exploring (again) whether they can void his contract and screw him out of something like $40 million. I'm sure everyone will want to come clean now.

Athletes cheat on their wives -- This is news? A-Rod was seen with a blonde in a couple of locations while the Yankees were in Toronto. You're kidding! A professional athlete, who is always on the road, cheating on his wife? Unheard of!

Right, Kobe? Uh...Kobe?