The Red Sox v. Yankees Battle Heats Up?

A Red Sox jersey was unearthed at Yankee stadium last week, prompting the question of whether a Bronx-resident construction worker was trying to put a hex on the team.

Yankees' management has decided to clean up the jersey and send it to Boston for auction. They have also decided to speak to the Bronx D.A. to find out if criminal charges can be filed against the construction worker who allegedly buried the jersey. Any thoughts?

Bonehead Comment of the Week: St. Louis basketball coach Rick Majerus

Apparently, working for a Catholic University precludes you from expounding on your pro-choice take on abortion: who knew?

However, Rick Majerus (not to be confused with Mark Mangino, who is pictured to the right — both men challenge for the most overweight coach in his respective NCAA Division I sport) has done just that.


While speaking to a local St. Louis television station at a pro-choice rally, Majerus publicly supported stem cell research and the pro-choice position on abortion.

"It's not possible to be a Catholic and hold those positions," [St. Louis Archbiship Raymond] Burke said. "When you take a position in a Catholic university, you don't have to embrace everything the Catholic church teaches. But you can't make statements which call into question the identity and mission of the Catholic church."

Ok. A couple things — first, I disagree with the first statement Burke makes, but that's neither here nor there; the Church can call whomever it wants "Catholic" or "not Catholic," and individuals can call themselves whatever they want; I'm pretty sure Catholics can be pro-choice and support stem cell research. Maybe God would disagree — I wouldn't know, but I doubt Burke does either.

Secondly, although I'd like to get off on some sort of "who cares what he says, he's a basketball coach, not a 'beacon for the Lord'" rant, what exactly did Majerus think was going to happen??

However, in an interesting development mentioned further in the article:

"Last year, St. Louis U. celebrated a legal victory that affirmed it is not controlled by the Catholic church or by its Catholic beliefs. . . In a 6-1 decision, the court said SLU 'is not controlled by a religious creed.'"

In addition, University spokesman Jeff Fowler supported Majerus, saying that "Rick's comments were his own personal view. They were made at an event he did not attend as a university representative."

So, in the end, it appears that Archbishop Burke was just shooting off his mouth, as the University doesn't seem to be terribly concerned. Looks like Majerus will be able to coach incredibly potent team another day. But it's still not great publicity, for the University or the Catholics.

Files "mysteriously disappear" from Rich Rodriguez' office

The already messy divorce between Rich Rodriguez and the University of West Virginia football program seems to have hit another snag: nearly all of the files from Rodriguez' tenure as head football coach are missing.

The way this headline on ESPN's Bottom Line read seemed like Rodriguez destroyed the files himself, and it certainly looks like he has (or at least someone who worked for him). However, the article leaves things up in the air; I'm sure they'll keep us posted on further developments.

Regardless of what comes out, there are a couple possible reasons it happened. A justifiable reason would be that Rodriguez has a very specific system, and it's plausible that he wanted no one to be able to steal any of his secrets. Yet, I wonder if there's that much information available in all of the player information missing — like "contact information, scholarship money awarded, class attendance records and personal conduct records. At first glance, it seems like a cover-up for NCAA violations.

However, ESPN does report that Rodriguez' camp suggests not everything is missing, and as the details unfold we'll be able to speculate better.

At best, though, I think Rodriguez looks crazy, guilty of violating NCAA regulations or not, if it turns out he was responsible for destroying the files. By doing so implies guilt, justified reason or not. If he wasn't guilty, then why do it?

A Finals News Dump

Hello Pasty Quaildom! As we've made ourselves scarce for the past couple weeks, I've still been reading on the ol' series of tubes we call the Internets, and here are just a few of the things I've come across that fit the "miscellaneous" category. By shying away from my daily religion news dose (though be sure, I've had plenty of time to think about religion), I found a few other interesting articles.

-- First, Deadspin had a couple intriguing posts I wanted to reproduce. Big Daddy Drew, of Kissing Suzy Kolber fame, posted an article about why the NFL should adopt the NCAA overtime format.

To sum: “Q: But doesn't that dilute the sanctity of the game?

A: I thought about this as well. And here was my conclusion: FUCK THE SANCTITY OF THE GAME. Who gives a shit? Are there any fans of college ball who wish they had the NFL's overtime format? Or that they had ties back? No. The purity of the game is overrated. The whole reason these games are played is to entertain fans. And college overtime is kickass entertainment.”

I think you might agree that this is worth a quick, mindless read.

Second, Deadspin reports that everyone's favorite person that constantly speaks above 100 decibels, ESPN's Stephen A. Smith (see picture), has called for the eradication of the blogosphere.


He says that "non-professionals" shouldn't be reporting on sports. There are so many ridiculous things to point out here that I don't know where to start. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.


-- On the political side, after the Romney ridiculousness last week, I've moved away from any Election coverage, so I don't have anything on that front. However, I do have some stuff on the Sean Penn acting like his opinion matters front. There's a transcript of his entire "major political address" that is well worth a read.


-- Finally, I have to work in my religion news. Here's an article re-posted on Dallas Morning News' religion blog, explaining that fictional religious people can, in fact, have intelligent and insightful things to say. This comes on the heels of a post I put up a couple months ago regarding a more realistic version of Christians in fiction.

Who Will Get 2nd Pick in the 2008 NFL Draft?

So, last night, while I was watching the pitiful Falcons lose their 10th game of the season, I started wondering what team will get the 2nd pick in the 2008 Draft?

For those of you who don't follow, the NFL ranks the teams from worst to best to determine the draft order for the following year. Miami has virtually wrapped up the 1st pick with their 0-13 performance this year, but there are 4 teams with 3-10 records in line for the second pick, and another three with 4-9 records. After doing some research, I found that the first tie-breaker will be based on strength of schedule.

Since exams are over and I have nothing constructive to do with myself, I decided to figure out the strength of schedule for each of the teams in the race for the 2nd pick. Here is what I found out (SOS = Combined wins of all past and future opponents to this point in the season):

Jets (3-10) – SOS = 109
- Remaining Opp. = @NE (13-0), @TEN (7-6), KC (4-9)
Falcons (3-10) – SOS = 107
- Remaining Opp. = @TB (8-5), @ARIZ (6-7), SEA (9-4)
49ers (3-10) – SOS = 100
- Remaining Opp. = CIN (5-8), TB (8-5), @CLE (8-5)
Rams (3-10) – SOS = 107
- Remaining Opp. = GB (11-2), PIT(9-4), @ARIZ (6-7)
Baltimore (4-9) – SOS = 107
- Remaining Opp = @MIA (0-13), @SEA (9-4), PIT (9-4)
Oakland (4-9) – SOS = 106
- Remaining Opp = IND (11-2), @JAX (9-4), SD (8-5)
Kansas City (4-9) – SOS = 106
- Remaining Opp = TEN (7-6), @ DET (6-7), NYJ (3-10)

Looking at this information, I have to figure that the 49ers (now without Alex Smith for the remainder) are the odds on favorites to have the 2nd pick. The Falcons will probably grab the 3rd spot, assuming they don't do something absurd like win out the season (This seems, um, unlikely now).

So what does it mean? Check here for ESPN's draft board, including a ranking of the top 100 players who are likely to throw their names in. Some highlights:

Darren McFadden, Glenn Dorsey, Matt Ryan, Brian Brohm, and Andre Woodson.

Heisman Hopefuls '07

I was going to put up an actual photo of the Heisman trophy, but this photo from GoogleImages is far superior. I think it's the look on the baby's face that gets me.

In case you've been under a rock, this year's BCS race was insane, if nothing else, and the final selection of LSU and Ohio State for the BCS Championship is not without controversy. I'd like to think of the BCS ranking criteria as much like the Electoral College: mysterious, ethereal, byzantine, and the correction of which is likely an exercise of futility.

Emerging from the fray this year are four standouts:
1. Colt Brennan of Hawaii
2. Chase Daniel of Mizzou
3. Darren McFadden of Arkansas
4. Tim Tebow of--ahem--that hated team to the south that shall remain nameless

ESPN has an insightful piece on the individual candidates' successes and reasons why they will/will not win the Heisman. Enjoy.

EDIT: Are there any members of the UGA--or any other college--team that you would support for the Heisman if you could?

A Ragin' Cajun' start to your day (though it's almost noon)

As you've probably noticed this week, we here at The Pasty Quail are immersed in exam and paper season, so our usual posting efforts have been slower and more sporadic than usual. However, we hope our well-informed (?!) insight on the random topics of the day are helping you through this tough time of year, whether you're in school yourself, or working and trying to push through the holiday season.

Today, we have the famous James Carville, noted political analyst, going off on the BCS College Football system, despite the fact that his alma mater, LSU, is a chief beneficiary of the debacle this year. Enjoy!

Slate supports Pasty news, and more

I tend to scour Slate every couple of weeks, and it's kind of nice to get on there to find a wide array of exciting news, as opposed to checking it every 15 minutes to see whatever is new, like I used to do when I was working and staring at my computer for at least 6 hours a day (sound familiar to anyone?). So, in that vein, here are a couple of stories from our friends over at this fine voice for online news that align with some of the news we've presented in the last couple of days, probably more eloquently put than what we have here:

- In context with the Sudan teddy bear situation, the "Explainer" column clarifies proper etiquette when naming your child after a holy figure, such as Jesus or Mohammed.

- Further, the site's "Sports Nut" feature discusses why there probably shouldn't be a BCS National Championship Game this year, because, in his reasoning (and as an LSU fan, to boot) is that every team already has proven they are NOT the best team.


- Finally, in other, not related to Pasty Quail, Slate news:

The Diaries of Facebook’s founder have been released. Turns out he's a pretty big asshole.

Maybe some of you are not terribly into reading about this guy’s personality, but in the true Facebook spirit, here it is, out there for the world to see.

Can't Spell "Sugar" without "UGA"

Though this phrase has lost some of its meaning — seeing as the old adage usually comes in context with winning the SEC Championship to make the Sugar Bowl — our good ol' Georgia Bulldogs are headed to New Orleans on New Years' Day for the 3rd time in 6 years.

Thanks to The Great Pumpkin and his underachieving set of bastards some call a football team, we didn't get a chance to play LSU in the SEC Championship, and therefore didn't have a chance to go to the National Championship game, even though we were ranked #4 going into the week, and numbers 1 and 2 lost this weekend. However, I'm proud of LSU and our fine conference, which will have another chance to wax Ohio State, keeping the BCS crystal trophy in the south. Just wish it could have been us.

That said, I'm excited for us to play Hawaii, which remains the only unbeaten team in Division I-A. Here's ESPN's breakdown of the game. There is some concern about overlooking this team, as they haven't gained much respect due to their soft schedule and weird lifestyle out there in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. However, their quarterback Colt Brennan is the NCAA's all-time leader in touchdown passes, and there's not much else to speak of on their team, so I think we should be able to handle focusing on stopping him — the only problem will come if we can't do that.

As an addendum, I heard we're going to break out our black jerseys again; hopefully Evil Richt will show up with them and remember the last time we played a team in the Sugar Bowl with a high-flying offense and virtually no defense.

Finally, GO DAWGS!

BCS Conference Championship Preview

As we descend upon the conclusion of the NCAA Football season, here's a quick round-up of the major BCS Conference championship games, with apologies to the Pac-10 and the Big East, because while both are lame and do not have conference championships, at least every team plays each other team in a conference game. No apologies to the "Big 10," which has 11 teams and does not have a schedule designed to prove which team is best.

So, without further ado, and with many thanks to the Worldwide Leader for its previews, here's a quick rundown of Saturday's three major championship games:

ACC Championship: Boston College vs. Virginia Tech

Saturday, 1:00pm Eastern, Jacksonville, Florida


These two teams played earlier in the season, with No.2 (at the time) Boston College winning a miracle game 14-10 by scoring two touchdowns in the last 2 minutes. Since then, BC has lost two games and Va. Tech has remained solid (it's only other loss coming in the second game of the season against a then-unstoppable LSU).

It looks like Tech is the stronger team coming into this game, and if this Atlanta BC fan is right, the Eagles' lack of a fan base in Jacksonville may end up hurting their chances in the Championship. I guess that's what happens when the closest team in your conference is 500 miles away.

Anyhow, the winner of this game will play in the Orange Bowl unless something strange happens and they end up in the title game. This is unlikely.


SEC Championship: LSU vs. Tennessee

Saturday, 4:00pm Eastern, Atlanta, Georgia

In actuality, this column was inspired by my desire to post this article, explaining how Tennessee is an embarrassment to the SEC Championship.

Further, in another mostly negative article, an LSU source explains the team's declining state going into the game.

Both of these suggest that UGA is better than both teams, which I like, but unfortunately we won’t get the chance to prove it. Regardless, hopefully the entire game will be embodied in a similar manner to this:



Tennessee and LSU have not played this year, so there's no follow-up on that front. The winner of this game goes to the Sugar Bowl. If Tennessee wins, I might slit my wrists.


Big 12 Championship: Oklahoma v. Missouri

Saturday, 8:00pm, San Antonio, Texas


This is possibly the most hyped game of the weekend, seeing as Missouri is ranked #1 for the first time since 1960. Unfortunately, their one loss was to Oklahoma. If Missouri wins, they stamp their ticket to New Orleans for the National Championship game. If they lose, there's going to be a wrench thrown into the BCS machine to figure out what to do with all the two-loss teams as West Virginia and Ohio State battle it out for the title.

In the meantime, here's an article about Missouri not choking this year like they usually do. Don’t speak too soon. . .

And finally, a quick piece on Oklahoma from the AP. Surprisingly there isn't much presence in the blogosphere regarding Sooner football. Maybe there's a market out there for it.


Enjoy your weekend watching!

Sports Story Spawns Racial Debate

Two days ago, we mentioned the tragic story of Sean Taylor's death.

Since then, Jason Whitlock, who left ESPN two months ago, has stirred up quite a controversy with this article, blaming what he calls "the Black KKK" for keeping black Americans "uneducated, outside the mainstream and six feet deep."

Not surprisingly, the Fox Sports message board is ablaze with commenters falling all over themselves to alternatively berating and lionizing Jason Whitlock. Someone even transcribed this interesting comment from the often-less-than-intelligible Steven A. Smith.

More news from the wide world of sports, or football

Keeping the light news separated from the heavy, here are a couple news items of the weird from the last couple days in the sports nation.

- Due to a rain delay last night, The NFL decided to forego the National Anthem before last night's game between Pittsburgh and Miami. This is just an interesting oversight of a time-honored tradition. Though I'm sure whatever C-list celebrity they had to sing before the Steelers played the 0-10 Dolphins was happy he or she did not have to be out there in the cold rain, how long does the Anthem really take? Three, maybe four minutes?

- And now for something completely different, but awesome nonetheless. I have the video of yet ANOTHER Auburn player being bitten by a dog during a game. Auburn head coach Tommy Tuberville claims this is the first instance he's seen of a dog bite in a game, but, obviously he doesn't remember Uga going after an Auburn player back in 1996, which, luckily, is also shown in the video. Oh, and the dog bite is listed on the injury report. Enjoy!

NFL Player dies from gunshot wound

In a bit of disheartening news from the sports world, Washington Redskins defensive back Sean Taylor died overnight from a gunshot wound inflicted on him in his home in Miami.

This is the kind of news that makes sports journalism difficult, I think. For example, how else to segue from this back to halftime of a meaningless and boring Monday Night Football game that ESPN had to hype up ridiculously to get any ratings?

I make fun of ESPN constantly for over-dramatizing stories that are not really all that serious, and there is a difference when they make things serious when they should not be. It’s easy to blast sportswriters for sensationalizing, but do they do this because the rest of the content is light, and to make a smoother transition to reporting this kind of news?

Either way, I wish Mr. Taylor a peaceful rest, and it’s a sad way to see such a talented young man go.

ESPN Radio personality admits to using steroids!

And for some lame reason it's a big deal!

Mike Golic, co-host of ESPNRadio's "Mike & Mike in the Morning," apparently admitted to using steroids while he was in the NFL.

Golic (not to be confused with his brother Bob, aka Mike Rogers from "Saved By the Bell: The College Years) glazed over the question and the show went on, but as angry bloggers tend, someone picked up on the fact that ESPN deleted a call about the incident from its podcast, implying that The Worldwide Leader thought it was a big deal.

I'm not so sure. While Awful Announcing here is a little overzealous in its attempt to indict ESPN for this, I can see that side of things. Why not make this public? Who even cares? He argues that if ESPN makes such a big deal of Barry Bonds, then why not of this?

I'd respond to that by saying it's a completely different situation. It is ESPN's job to pretend that sports records matter; therefore, Barry Bonds using steroids was a big deal to them. This guy is their employee, and may or may not have used steroids 20 years ago.

However, Deadspin brings up a good point, saying “Seriously, Golic: We don't mind if you did steroids. It's really not a big deal. . . But seriously now: It happened. We heard it."

Greg brought up a good point when he and I were chatting about this, because I was kind of confounded by why ESPN is trying to keep this so hush-hush. If you care that much, fire him; if not, let it go. Greg mentioned that this could be a good thing for them, as Golic could bring up why he took steroids (he said it was for an injury, which is a perfectly legitimate reason), and open a discourse about it instead of continuing with the "Drugs are bad, mmmm-kay?" discussion that solves nothing and will perpetuate illicit drug use unless we actually do something about it.

This doesn't really pose a problem for Golic's stint on the radio at ESPN; however, it could throw a thorn in the side of the diet food he peddles along with a bunch of other former NFL players.

Dawgs Black Out, Beat the Tigers, 45-20

The Dawgs carried on several of their new traditions for this year, including Knowshon Moreno running for over 100 yards (101 and 2 scores), scoring more than 40 points, and dancing to "Crank Dat" in the break before the 4th Quarter:



As you can see in the video, the Dawgs came out in black jerseys; according to Dan Magill, this is the first time we've ever come out in the blacks; others have claimed that the 1942 National Championship team wore black jerseys in the Rose Bowl at the end of that season. Either way, the stands were full of fans in black; the team looked great in the jerseys and, more importantly, they looked jacked up for the game. It seems like another psychological ploy by Mark Richt has paid off.

Georgia came out hot to start the game, scoring on a FG following a Kelin Johnson interception. After an Auburn FG, Mohammed Massaquoi caught a long touchdown to give the Dawgs a 7 point lead. After getting the ball back from Auburn, Sean Bailey added another touchdown to stretch Georgia's lead to 14. But Auburn would come back to score before halftime, and at the break, the Dawgs were clinging to a 17-10 lead.

As hot as we looked in the first quarter, we came out flat to start the second half. Auburn scored, and then drove down again to kick another FG with 6:47 to go in the 3rd Quarter. That kick gave Auburn a 20-17 lead, their first of the game.

After that, everything went Georgia's way. Knowshon scored twice, and Thomas Brown and Brannan Southerland each scored once; the Tigers never even sniffed the end zone after that. We quit scoring when the score got to 45-20, with just less than seven minutes left in the Fourth Quarter.

The Worldwide leader has the recap. Paul Westerdawg, at the Georgia Sports Blog, has an article about the Jekyll and Hyde effect of the black uniforms on our head coach. PWD also has pictures of the defense and the offense.

What does Saturday's win mean going forward? We still need Tennessee to lose another game if we're going to make it to Atlanta; even without a trip to play LSU in the Dome, we're sitting pretty at number 9 in the BCS standings right now. Of the 8 teams ahead of us, two of the three teams in the Big 12 must lose at least one game: Kansas and Mizzou play each other, and the winner of that game will have to play Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship. Arizona State still has to play USC, and Ohio State has to play at Michigan as well. If we win out the regular season, we could easily be in the top 5 of the BCS standings before Bowl Season, regardless of whether we play for an SEC Championship.

Unfortunately, I will be missing the game next weekend; if we can hold serve at home against the Wildcats, we'll be keeping the pressure on Tennessee. The Vols are only one slip-up away from handing us a shot at the #1 team in the country; it's hard to say how we'd fare against LSU, but I'd pay good money to find out.

EDIT: As if the video of Knowshon and TB dancing wasn't enough, here's Verne Lundquist:

Apparently, God doesn't really like Kentucky basketball

Contrary to the opinions set forth by a new Kentucky recruit's prophetic mother, God appears to favor his own, a little Baptist school named Gardner-Webb.

As many people no doubt have heard, this little Cinderella story defeated #20 Kentucky at home on Wednesday night, and though it was the second game of the season, this spells some pretty heavy embarrassment for UK. I know at least one member of the Quail's team is unhappy about this outcome, but, being a North Carolina fan since childhood, and a UGA fan since being at school here, I revel in the desecration of one of the most storied programs in college basketball history.

What famous pop-culture character is your favorite college football team?

These are a year and change old, but I thought about them this weekend and they're worth a solid look if you haven't seen them before, or an entertaining re-look if you have; they're a great time waster either way.

- College Football teams compared to rappers

- College Football teams compared to Simpsons characters

Lots of News and nothing to say

Along many different lines, here are a few links to chew on for the next couple hours:

- Australian Rules Football may be coming to a city near you. Where its global marketing might succeed where the NFL's has not.

- Is the U.S. behind on developing its technology for this series of tubes we call the internets?

- Atlanta Airport steps into the water conservation effort. Though I hate saying "better late than never," because this should have happened long ago, it's better late than never.

- Slate's take on the deplorable state of Sports Illustrated. Lots of thought-provoking insight into current sports media.

The 2008 Olympics, Again

Slate ran an article on a topic we touched on recently.

Pasty Quail: 1, Slate: 50+.

Dawgs Win 42-30 Over Reptiles

As some of you may have noticed undoubtedly noticed, I was out of town this weekend, attending the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party in Jacksonville, Florida. And for the second time since I have been a student here at UGA, the Dawgs pulled out the victory. The celebration at left occurred after the Dawgs scored for the first time; Coach Mark Richt said after the game that he had threatened to make everybody on the team run if they did not get a celebration penalty after the touchdown. This is a marked difference from last year, when CMR had assigned places for every unit on the team, and no-one was allowed to move around on the sidelines.

Matt Stafford went 11/18 for 217 yards and 3 TD's; he did throw an early INT that was returned for a Gator score. Knowshon Moreno ran for 188 yards on 33 carries and punched in 3 TD's of his own. The Georgia D looked solid, holding the Gators to 107 yards on the ground, including a 13-rush, -15 yard (yes, negative 15 yards) performance by Tim "I Can't Believe People Thought I Would Win the Heisman" Tebow. The majority of the Gators' rush yards came from super-freak WR Percy Harvin, who had 10 carries for 97 yards. The Worldwide Leader has an error-filled article about the game; compare the scoring summary on the left to the text of the article and see how many inconsistencies you can come up with.

So Dawg fans, remember whatever voodoo curses you muttered in the direction of Gainesville, and save those socks and boxers. Superstition may be hokey and old-fashioned, but I'll be damned if that drive back from J-ville isn't half as long after a win.