Cheap Chinese basketball players fall apart after a couple of years

HOUSTON—Reports from several NBA teams indicate that cheap, flimsy Chinese basketball players frequently break down and fall apart when faced with the normal wear-and-tear of an NBA season. “We got one a couple years ago, but the foot broke,” said Rockets GM Carroll Dawson about Chinese center Yao Ming. “Now it just sits there. We don’t even use it anymore.”

The Onion 

Move to declare Steve Fossett and NY Knicks officially dead

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The wife of American adventurer Steve Fossett has filed a court petition to get him declared legally dead.
Mr Fossett has been missing for three months since his single-engine plane disappeared over the Nevada desert.

The Knicks have been playing for three months:

it’s safer to stare into the sun and count to a thousand than watch the Knicks without those glasses.

… People used to hearing about the Knicks being bad may be overlooking the fact that they’re actually considerably worse this season. Last year, they were 17th in offense and 24th in defense (in efficiency terms). The year before that, they were 25th in offense and 26th in defense. This year they’re 26th in offense — a new low! But they’re also dead last in defense — another new low! In short, they’re really, really, really terrible and there’s essentially no end in sight.

Stanford disposes of USC, says “bring on global warming, cancer, AIDS, the common cold…..”

The Stanford University football team, a forty point underdog, polished off the nationally number two ranked USC team yesterday in Los Angeles, 24-23. After the game, Stanford president Hennessy stated, “We were just fulfilling the terms of a grant proposal.”

Don’t worry, UC Berkeley is alive and well

Those of you who noticed that UC Berkeley’s football team is nationally ranked, don’t worry; the craziness is alive and well:

Superior Court Judge Richard Keller granted UC Berkeley a preliminary injunction against the protesters, who have been perched in an oak grove near Memorial Stadium since December hoping to stop the university’s plan to build a sports facility there.

The judge barred the protesters from “lodging in, scaling, climbing or hanging or sitting or standing” in tree-houses, hammocks or platforms in the grove, according to the order.

University officials asked for the injunction because of what they described as rapidly increasing safety and sanitation problems at the grove. UC police have issued almost 200 citations for trespassing, assault and other infractions, and some officers have complained of being hit with feces and urine from the tree houses. Several of the tree houses also have propane tanks for cooking.

Michael Vick: “I’ve met Jesus,…turned my life over to God.”

I assume that Vick’s business manager made the introductions.

Why Michael Vick will never play in the NFL again

Some people think Michael Vick will play again in the NFL. That it’s “silly” to think he won’t.

Ha. Who’s being silly? He’ll never play in the NFL again. I mean, the Falcons were getting fed up with him. His on field accomplishments were limited. His off field behavior sucked. He shot the bird to the fans on television. He lied to the commissioner and the Falcons.

He’ s not much of a quarterback. Basically, the only thing he does well is run from the quarterback position. You’ll never win with that. The Falcons are basically a .500 team with Vick, and it’s on a downhill course. WTF?

He doesn’t have another position, and don’t tell me he could be a running back or a punt returner or a wide receiver. He’s never played those positions, and they do have necessary skill sets and physical demands.

He is going to prison, where he will hang out with a bunch of bad dudes with bad habits.

He isn’t very smart

He isn’t very nice.

He’s already been in the NFL longer than the average career.

He’ll be rusty.

He won’t be very popular.

Gambling, drugs, dogfighting, cruelty, arrogance, stupidity, no position, felon, ex inmate, 29 years old…

and he’ll be on probation in some sense, from a legal standpoint. He may face state charges for killing dogs.

If you sign Vick, you have to pay the veteran minimum, which is substantial money. You have to cut somebody to keep Vick. There are 50 other players on the roster, and probably not many of them are pals of Michael Vick; Vick doesn’t have any friends.

Even Al Davis wouldn’t touch this guy. Seriously. Name a franchise that would?

I would even be surprised if he doesn’t get AT LEAST a three year suspension, because of the gambling, that would mean he’s thirty before he could even be available.

won’t happen.

Michael Vick to take plea bargain

San Jose Mercury News reports that pro footballer Vick has agreed “in principle” to take the deal offered by prosecutors. I can’t imagine he’ll ever play in the NFL again.  I don’t think he has to go to prison for 5 years. I mean, if he lived in a trailer on the edge of town, what would happen to him? He’d go to jail for 18 months, get fined, and do community service.

Baseball: Will Dodgers get snookered out of Clayton Kershaw?

I can’t imagine why LA would make this deal, but it keeps popping up in the news.  Texiera is a nice first baseman, but he’s getting Hall of Fame money.  Kershaw is the best lefty prospect in the country, and Loney is doing a good job.   Signing Juan Pierre was bad enough; if the Dodgers’ GM pulls the trigger on this deal, he should be fired.

Baby boomers wear out their knees; feet are sometimes to blame

Just a tip, you aging exercisers: knee pain is sometimes caused by a lifetime of subtle foot/gait issues. Be sure that you have your feet and gait checked out before deciding on knee surgery. Not all orthopedic surgeons are attuned to this issue, and I’m not a big fan of podiatry.

If you have a full service athletic shoe store, that may be your best bet. They can generally see any significant gait problems. Be sure to take along a pair of old shoes so they can see the pattern of wear.

They may be able to suggest a shoe or insert that will normalize your gait and thus take the pressure off the part of the your knee that is wearing out.

ps: surgery is a very serious step and shouldn’t be undertaken without a second opinion; knees are bad enough, but don’t let anybody operate on your feet.

Baseball: NYTimes gets it wrong on Gary Sheffield’s racism

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William C. Rhoden writes that Sheffield is right…

[Sheffield] spent most of the week responding and not responding to comments he made in an article in GQ magazine to the effect that Latino players are more desirable to major league teams because they are easier to control than African-American players.

Sheffield’s choice of the word control was harsh. There is a malaise among athletes in general in terms of challenging the status quo. But at a time when immigration is a searing topic, Sheffield raised a crucial issue about a delicate subject: the competition for jobs between African-American and Latino players in Major League Baseball.

“Baseball has a choice of which black faces it wants representing baseball,” Sheffield said Thursday during a telephone interview. “They’re choosing Latinos. What I was saying is that they’re choosing them because they can sign them for $2,000 and if they don’t take it, what do they have to do? They got to go back to where they’re from and they got to eat hot dogs for dinner.”

Rhoden is wrong and more importantly Sheffield is wrong. If Sheffield wants to draw a line between Americans and Latin Americans, he can try and do so, but he will have some real factual, as well as logical, problems in those efforts. But to say that baseball is choosing which black faces to employ is RIDICULOUS, and some of his other comments certainly utilize racial stereotypes and overgeneralizations. The idea that immigrants are taking American jobs is certainly worth discussing, as is the “draft,” but making it into a differential racial issue is not only inaccurate, it’s destructive.

Try again, NY Times. This was an easy one, and you got it wrong.