April 15 - Shef Rubbed The Wrong Way

****** One of the great benefits of being unemployed is that I had no income last year and thus no tax liability. As such, I had plenty of time today to work on this column ********


Here is my question – did Gary Sheffield get hit harder last night then Sonny Liston did in the first round of Ali-Liston II? The answer to that question is neither got hit even though Gary Sheffield would like the world to believe he got nailed by sledgehammer in the right field corner of Fenway Park last night. I am not going to pretend to know what went on in that corner, but why are people blowing this up into anything more then a sidebar? What we had last night was a case of some fan interference and a bit of an overreaction from a guy who is a bit surly from a couple years of steroid abuse. That is it! It was no big deal yet it was plastered all over New York’s tabloids this morning. To hear the Post tell it, a Yankee was assaulted last night and the rest of the team was lucky to escape Fenway without severe bodily injury. What a bunch of nonsense.

The whole world, at least along I-95 from New York to Boston - is discussing this incident so I guess I will offer my two meaningless cents. Upon review, it looks to me like the fan at the heart of this matter, was trying to distract Sheffield as the Yankee was playing Jason Varitek’s hit down the right field line. It didn’t look to me that the fan was going for the ball or trying to hit Sheffield. Instead, it looked like he was just trying to distract Sheffield, perhaps flip his lid, hoping that such a move would cause Varitek’s hit to get by the Yankees cuddly right fielder. I have watched the play 25 times and that is the best I can come up with. Should he have done that? The answer is obviously no and for his transgression, he deserved to get booted. But let’s tone down the rhetoric here. He didn’t exactly assault Sheffield, as some of the ass clowns on YES claimed. In fact, I am not even entirely sure he even touched Sheffield despite Gary’s claim that he was clocked and felt his lip explode. To hear Gary explain it, he should have gotten a purple heart for being wounded in battle. On that note, I found the pictures in the papers this morning of Sheffield holding his chin to be completely laughable. It reminded me of a WWE wrestler feigning injury after being struck by an imaginary punch.

Following his assault, Sheffield went a bit nuts but I am not going to kill him. He looked like he was going to cross the line and I will give him a point for pulling back. I actually was a bit surprised he did pullback, and I am sure that wouldn’t have been the case two years ago when he was juiced up like the health bar at my gym. But before you think I am going to second Shef’s nomination for man of the year, I should point out that I will have no problem if Selig suspends him for a couple games. It is not so much because I think it is deserved, but I love hearing this retard speak and a suspension would surly lead to an interesting session with the tabloids. (I got to throw this out there - Shef is not only the dumbest English speaking player in baseball, but he is neck and neck with Manny Ramirez for the top spot in the whole sport.) Summing up, I think the only people who should really care about this incident are those who sit atop the waiting list for Red Sox tickets. I say that because the fan involved is probably going to lose his tickets and some lucky bastard will now get a crack at buying tickets to the remaining seventy-eight games at Fenway. Just imagine if this had happened a year ago and the guy who bumped Sheffield had lost his tickets to the 2004 playoffs. That is both cruel and unusual in my book.

A great injustice took place this week when gymnast Paul Hamm was awarded the prestigious Sullivan Award as America’s top amateur athlete of 2004. It simply boggles my mind how this award fell into the lap of anyone other then Michael Phelps, who won eight medals - six of them gold - at the Summer Olympics in Athens. Hamm’s resume was highlighted by his gold medal in the men’s all-around at the Olympics, but just in case you forgot, Hamm’s victory in that competition is not without controversy. That is because the judges at the meet incorrectly docked a point off the silver medalist’s score. Had that error not occurred, the silver medalist would have had enough points to take Hamm’s spot atop the medal platform. There is plenty of debate on this subject and I am going to steer clear of it today, but it goes without saying that Hamm was hardly the world’s dominant gymnast in 2004. The same thing cannot be said of Phelps who put on a display in Athens that is probably the greatest in swimming history. Phelps won four individual gold medals at the meet – which matched Mark Spitz performance from 1972 – and was a part of a relay that pulled off one of the great upsets in swimming history. I know participation on relays sometimes gets overlooked, but this one shouldn’t because it was a race for the ages. I don’t care if Hamm won his event going away because there is no way you are going to convince me that his feats in Athens came close to Phelps. They aren’t in even in the same ballpark. Now some may argue that Hamm’s feat was particularly noteworthy because U.S. male gymnasts rarely do that well in international competition so Hamm’s accomplishments are all that more impressive. BULLSHIT. Why should Phelps be penalized because male gymnasts in this country are the Detroit Tigers of international gymnastics? That makes no sense to me whatsoever. But here is the real reason Hamm won. The voting was conducted on USA Today’s website which is a departure from years past when it was done by a panel of experts. Some 500,000 people submitted votes and that is the problem right there. When you let Americans vote on anything, they usually fuck it up. I am sure Clay Aiken agrees with me on this one.

Baseball Observations – Why did the MLB baseball package not televise the first game played in Washington since the Nixon Administration? I guess they were waiting for something a bit more historic. MLB didn’t let us see it, but Javier Vasquez was once again tremendous last night, proving last season’s meltdown was no fluke. Break up the Mets, winners of four straight including victories over Smoltz, Petitte and Clemens. The Tribe finally scored some runs last night, but Arron Boone continues to struggle mightily. Boonie’s struggles date back to 2003, when he signed over his life to the Devil in exchange for a shot to hit an ALCS clinching bomb at Yankee Stadium. Since that time, Boone tore up his knee – a move that ended up costing the third baseman about $5 million in lost salary. If that weren’t bad enough, Boone has started off this year by going 4 for 33. Those deals with the Devil are sure getting expensive. Is Magglio Ordonez going to play again this year? Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski is going to lose his job over that signing and Scott Boras will probably end up getting my “agent of the year” award for plugging the Tigers with this broken down wreck. Mark Belhorn notched his 14th and 15th strikeouts last night. Those K’s have come in just 32 plate appearances. I thought this guy was supposed to be a Moneyball guy. Home plate umpire Greg Gibson’s failure to punch out Gary Sheffield on a clear third strike last night cost the Red Sox four runs. As such, Fenway’s Faithful should have gone after Gibson instead of Sheffield. Meanwhile, the Red Sox starting pitching continues to underperform and Keith Foulke looks like he is suffering from a bad hangover. That staff isn’t pretty right now. But is it any worse then the Yankees? Randy Johnson looks like he has lost five miles off his fastball and Tom Gordon looks like a four year old when he is summoned to pitch against Boston. This staff looks like it could fall apart in a hurry. Roy Halladay threw a great game for the Jays last night and don’t look now but Toronto has the second lowest ERA in the American League. If Sidney Ponson can’t get through the Devil Rays, how is he going to stop the Yanks and the Sox? I am not sure that slob could get anyone out back in Aruba, let alone the AL East. Senor Sanchez returned to the Devil Rays last night after serving a steroid-related suspension and had a couple of hits. I knew this guy was innocent all along.

Yesterday, I gave out an award to Timberwolves owner Glen Wilson for straight shooting and today I am giving an award to Eagle lineman Hugh Douglass for being a man of great integrity. This is what Douglass had to say about his annoying teammate’s effort to renegotiate a contract that is still years away from maturity. “I don’t agree with re-negotiating a contract because I believe that when you sign a contract, you’re bound by that contract. [Owens] is doing what he feels he needs to do, but I do believe that if you sign a contract, you should honor that contract whatever the circumstances you signed it under.” Bravo! Bravo! I couldn’t have said it any better myself, although I probably would have called Terrell a jerkoff while I was at it. Owens, and many of his elite brethren in the NFL just don’t get it. Contracts are sacred. If they weren’t, we would have lawless anarchy. Owens doesn’t understand this. To him, contracts are just documents that interfere with his ability to make money. Nobody forced him to sign his current contract, but his old agent screwed up and he wanted out of Baltimore so badly that this is what he had to take. Owens doesn’t seem to realize that a below-market contract is what it cost him to get out of Baltimore. Moreover, Owens needs to learn that the cost of escaping Baltimore has to be amortized over the full life of his current contract, and not just the first year. As such, Ownes can’t just tear up his deal. He has a debt to pay and it requires him to play out the life of this deal. Douglass understands this and I hope some of his wisdom rubs off on Philly’s biggest cheesedick.

You have to feel bad for Chicago Bull center Eddie Curry. It is bad enough that he has an irregular heartbeat, but to find out about it during a contract year is just plain bad luck. Curry was set to become a restricted free agent after this season and with his numbers (16/g on almost 54 percent shooting), he was set for a big payday either in Chicago or elsewhere. Given what big guys like Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur made on the free agent market last year, Curry probably had a $65-70 million dollar contract headed his way. Curry was rolling along just fine until March 30 when he was scratched from a game because of flu-like symptoms. Since that time, Curry has undergone a battery of tests at medical centers around the country but no definitive diagnosis has been reached. Nonetheless, it was announced yesterday that Curry’s irregular heartbeat would keep him out for the rest of the season. The timing of this finding could not have come at a worse time for Curry. Had it been found six months from now, Curry would be sitting at home with that big fat guaranteed contract and few worries in the world. But now, he faces a future where teams are certainly going to think twice about submitting a tender for his services. After all, who is going to pay up for another Reggie Lewis? Curry is a nice player who is finally beginning to blossom. It is too bad this issue cropped up just moments before his maturing game was going to be financially rewarded.