My Problem with Naismith and Thoughts on Manny

Next week will be the first of March, so our collective sports focus turns to basketball and the fun of the tournament. Kansas is right in the hunt again this year and having a good season despite losing some stars from last year’s championship squad. Whether you want to or not (and most of us don’t want to), when you live in the Midwest, you hear a lot of chatter about Ohio State during football season and Kansas during basketball season. The Jayhawk faithful despise and look down upon anyone who does not embrace all of their traditions with fondness. From my observations, the first commandment for being a Jayhawk fan is to worship James Naismith as if he were a God. I want to point out a simple problem that I have had with Dr. Naismith for years, and I simply cannot get past. The fact is that I do not find Naismith to be nearly as admirable as whichever of his students decided to cut a hole in the bottom of the peach basket. That is really the person to admire and the history I find simply says it was a student. Just imagine if every time Kansas scored a basket, someone had to get out the ladder to get the ball.



Manny Being…Humbled…

Is anyone else as happy as me to see that teams are not lining up to try and sign Manny Ramirez to the money that he believes he deserves? Manny is truly a gifted talent, and as good with the bat as you will ever see. Maybe that fact is what makes his ‘bigger than the program’ attitude the saddest of all. Still, I am glad that the collective memory of baseball owners and GM’s is long enough to remember that if Manny decides your team has not given him enough money at any particular time, he will turn off the switch and shut down. Well Manny, it looks like there are not a lot of folks that are going to fight for your services, so you might want to think about that before you shut down next time. The rest of us will continue working our 9 to 5 for whatever we can fight and claw for and with the economy as it is, we will be glad to simply have a job.

Free Advice - Combine Week Edition

It is NFL combine week here in the Circle City, and FFF has some free advice for those that might be wandering around downtown. After a few years of watching combine weekend from a local perspective, I have found that there are essentially only three things you need to know for a successful combine weekend.

- If you see a guy who can run like Bo Jackson in Tecmo Super Bowl, draft him first.

- If you see a guy who hits like Tecmo Super Bowl Ronnie Lott, take him second.

- No, that slickster in the fancy suit with the two hot blondes is not a pimp, he is an agent. In his case, he makes money off the dude, not the ladies. Strange, I know.

Fox Sports or Animation Nation?

Are you looking forward to the Daytona 500 as much as Two Beer Jess? I doubt it, but just in case you were, here is something to turn your stomach. Did you see the latest plans for Fox Sports broadcasting? The link below details their plans to use "Digger" even further during their Nascar telecast.

Here is the release:

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/hiestand-tv/2009-02-11-fox-nascar-digger_N.htm

I realize that Rupert Murdoch built much of his broadcast empire on The Simpsons, and that he was selling animation long before he was selling Sean Hannity and the BCS. Still, the bleed over of animation to their sports broadcasts has gone way too far.

In baseball, they had Scooter. You know Scooter, right?



Scooter was the talking baseball that was used to try to make Tim McCarver seem intelligent. Scooter was eventually ousted when it was discovered that attempts to make McCarver seem intelligent were useless, even for an animated baseball. Scooter would come on and say things like "a curve ball is called a curve ball because it appears to move in a curve-like motion". Then, later in the same broadcast, with zero sense of irony, McCarver would opine to the viewers something like "an off speed pitch is usually just a dialed down fastball. It will make the batter swing too early because of the speed change". Wow - thanks Tim. Hey Rupert, in this case, bring back Scooter and ditch Tim.

In football, of course Fox continues to demand using the stupid Robot.



During the playoffs, I was actually planning to do a full blog on this damn robot, and then when searching for photos to use for the page (our viewers love photos), I realize that the robot maybe the most hated object on the internet. There are blog opinions galore on this thing. It's unreal. There is even more online venom for the football robot than the octuplet mother. So, I will leave all robot commentary to the others - but, let's just say that I think Digger and the gang will be more popular.

Which brings me back to Fox's newfound furry friend...

Message to Fox Sports. Enough already with the animation. You already have Darryl Waltrip in the booth - that is funny enough on its own.

Are they related?

FFF Debuts its...

“Separated at Birth” Series

Volume I

TV’s Norman Fell (aka Mr. Stanley Roper) and U.S. Senator Arlen Spector (R) of Pennsylvania.




























The Three Stooges’ Larry Fine and dry-wit comedian Steven Wright





















































NBA star and part-time Canadian Steve Nash and 1970s TV heart-throb David Cassidy.






































Network news anchor Katie Couric and game-show/talk-show hostess Meredith Viera

CNN’s Anderson Cooper of Anderson Cooper 360 and venerable star of the Muppets Show, Sam the Eagle

The best 30 seconds of your life

So, let's just say that you are a retired middle aged man (let's call you Morty), who moves from upstate New York down to Del Boca Vista in Tucson, Arizona. You gather with your other retiree friends to check out the Super Bowl game. As fortune would have it, somehow the team from Arizona has stumbled into the game, and so you and the other folks are pretty happy already. The game starts and goes along nicely. Then, in the second half, as Larry Fitzgerald breaks into the end zone to score a touchdown and make the game interesting, your television cuts to a 30 second clip of hard core pornography. Fantastic - Del Boca Vista erupts in cheer. Go, Larry, go. As if things could not get any better - I read today that Comcast now plans to give each of it's viewers in the Tucson area a $10 check to compensate them for the interruption and the inappropriate images that appeared on their screens. I hope you read this story, because honestly I still cannot believe that people not only got major network porn, but they have now been paid to watch it.

So, let me get this straight...the majority of viewers in Tucson not only would be old enough to have seen the original Heidi game, but they have now witnessed the most exciting 30 seconds in television sports history and they are getting paid for this? Awesome. Touchdown Cardinals.

Worst Day of the Year

It is National Signing Day. This is the only day of the year in which I am annually guaranteed to get my dander up.

Think about it...

If middle aged men fawn over high school girls, detailing stats, body type and physical abilities - they call that a felony. If the same men do the same thing with high school boys - they call it National Signing Day.

The last time I personally cared about a decision that a high school student was making was related to the prom.

Chip Off the Block

As I watched Pat Knight's inexcusable and childish display of anger last night, I was reminded of something his dad once said at one of his finer moments..."You've got a long way to go to be as good as your dad. You better keep that in mind."

The worst part for you Pat is that you don't have a great record or championship rings to protect you from the negative publicity. You better keep that in mind also.