Daily Brew 7/29

Kind of a slow sporting day, the Brewers lost again last night, 3-0 to the Giants. How did they lose you ask, Victor Santos gave up a three-run bomb to pitcher, read that again, PITCHER Brad Hennessy. WTF? It was a legitimate shot too. How much longer can you trot that guy out to the mound. It's becoming like the Glendon Rusch experiment in 2003, only his era isn't quite as bad. Every time Santos takes the mound you know the team is going to lose. Time to give Dana Eveland or Jorge de la Rosa a chance Ned.

Manny Ramirez wants a trade, and has reportedly made this request annualy during his tenure in Boston. His own wife said she didn't even know that was the case. Just another case of Manny Being Manny.

Tony Parker has proposed to Eva Longoria.

I was really starting to feel a void in my life on Thursdays (the O.C. doesn't return until September 8, and no more Thursday Night Sports Talk at Brothers) so I bought the first season of the O.C. on DVD just to get that back in my life. It is awesome, it's just like watching ESPN classic and analyzing a game with hindsight. I've already stumbled upon tons of gems with Gaddis. Ryan Atwood is introduced to us as a sort of idiot savant type guy who's an outsider and rough around the edges (Goodwill Hunting style), when he's busted for drinking who takes the drink from him? Kirstin, who if you saw season two we find out she has a drinking problem (foreshadowing?) The kids actually look like kids, and not models. Summer was a whore/lusch/bitch, Marissa has a younger sister who all of a sudden just vanishes from the episodes without any mention, and the biggest one of all Ryan Atwood becomes a good influence on these kids? Are we really supposed to believe that they all partied more, and got in more trouble before he arrived and less afterwords? There's no way thats happening in real life, but god do I love it. The big question is this, is the NFL still doing that Thursday night game to kick off the season? God I hope not, that would be the same Thursday as the season premire of the O.C.

Grady Jackson has asked for his release or a trade to which Ted Thompson quickly responded, "No." Just do it, if he wants a new contract and thinks he's worth more money than what he's already making, when he only played 36% or less of the downs last year, just axe him. Actually the more I think about it, I agree with Gaddis, keep him. Keep him and just don't play him. Don't give into him by granting his release and allowing him to play elsewhere, just sit him and then we'll see how easy it is to get a new contract when you're previous season totals were: 0 sacks, 0 tackles, o tackles for loss.

In other packers news, heres what the boys from profootball.com thought about Javon Walker's attempted holdout:

“Walker received more than $5 million from the Packers in 2002 and 2003, but started in only five games and caught only 64 passes. And, as far as we know, he didn't pay any of the money back. Even with his breakout season of 2004, his career totals (153 catches, 2417 yards, 22 touchdowns) are borderline laughable in comparison to the first three seasons of production generated by Randy Moss (226, 4163, 43).”

I'm sorry Javon, could you please repeat why it is you feel you're underpaid?

The Yankees acquired Shawn Chacon from the Rockies for two minor leaguers. Shawn Chacon. If that is considered news, this is going to be a very boaring trade deadline.

Gotta give a shoutout to fkrosters.com. I sent in my XBOX memory card to them about a week ago and just got it back last night. I now have all of the players named on NCAA Football 2006, even the historic rosters. This is freaking great, they did a dynamite job. If you're interested, check out the site, it's awesome.

So my prediction was right yesterday, and Bret Bielema will take over for Barry next year (only I thought in two years). I love this guy and I love this move. He is going to be an awesome coach and do a great job of recruiting. I met him a few times last year while covering Badger games, and he is intense. By the end of the interview he had me ready to go out and hit someone. It goes without saying, but we owe a lot of grattitude to Barry Alvarez. Before he arrived they averaged 4.5 wins per season, with him 7.2. His winning percentage .604, before him the schools was .540. He's appeared in 10 bowl games and won 7. Before him, six appearances and one bowl win. Three Rose Bowl wins, to bring the Schools total to...three. He has been the Vince Lombardi of the Badgers. Thank you Barry.

Lastly, this weekend the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame will induct it's 2005 Class. Wade Boggs, Ryne Sandberg, Jerry Coleman and Peter Gammons. As a self professed Cub hater, I will say this much, there were two Cubs I enjoyed watching. Mark Grace, and Ryne Sandberg. He made ten consecutive All-Star appearances, won nine consecutive Gold Gloves and won one MVP award. Ryno was a classy guy, and one of the greatest second basemen of all time.

Daily Brew 7/28

Javon Walker announced late last night that he will indeed report to training camp. One Packers source said his contract was not reworked, but they are open to future discussions. There has to be something else going on that we are unaware of, otherwise the Packers officially made Drew Rosenhaus their bitch. Why would he all of a sudden give in and report with no new deal, and no promise of one in the near future. Other than the Packers reportedly willing to drop the fines for missing mandatory camps earlier, Walker gained nothing here. The fact that earlier in the week TO also announced that he would report, but he woulnd't be happy makes me believe something else is going on here.

The Badgers have scheduled a 1pm news conference today to make a significant announcement regarding the athletic department. It is believed that this will involve Barry Alvarez and one of his two positions (Head Coach and Athletic Director). Alvarez is 58, and this will be his 17th season at Wisconsin. Yeah, 17, has it really been that long? Wow. Speculation is that he will give up the AD position, but I think he will announce his intentions to step down as head coach within two years and turn the reigns over to possibly Brett Bielema.

The Brewers lost to the Diamondbacks yesterday 3-0. The Diamondbacks got only five hits, and scored thier runs on two errors and a wild pitch. F'ing Brewers. C'mon, we're not in little league anymore. I can understand that kind of a performance the first year you're not hitting off a tee, but this is the major leagues.

Before the game the Brewers announced that they have designated Ricky Botallico for assignment and have summoned up Rick Helling from AAA Nashville. Helling will do a good job of filling this years "Dave Burba" role. You know, the experienced vet who's pitched in the playoffs before and helps some young guys out. I like it. Botallico was becoming dead weight, and let's face it, he signed a one year deal and there was no way he was coming back next year. Helling will be used mainly as a long reliever, but I wouldn't be surprised if he made the rotation and replaced Victor Santos if he has a few more bad starts.

Another Brewers note, contrary to the information in the Brewers media guide, Lyle Overbay IS eligable for salary arbitration after this season. This leads me to believe he will be dealt in the offseason. The one positive to keeping Overbay around a little longer and giving Prince more time in AAA was the fact that Overbay was grossly underpaid. That soon won't be the case anymore.

The Redskins traded wide reciever Rod Gardner to the Panthers last night for a draft choice. Gardner had pretty much become dead weight in Washington, but still has a lot of promise and may benefit from a change of scenary. The Panthers now have a nice recieving corp or Gardner, Steve Smith and Keary Colbert. The Redskins however are now left with 5'8 Santana Moss, and journeyman David Patton. Has the game passed Joe Gibbs by?

Larry Brown has accepted the Knicks job and will officialy be announced as coach today. The deal is believed to be 5 years and $50-60 million. Five years? You know he's leaving after 3 at the most, so you're essentially giving him free money for two years when you buy out his deal like the Pistons did.

Amongst the many reasons why I can't wait for college football to start was SEC Media Day yesterday. The Ole' Ball Coach is back, and full of more one liners. Steve freakign Spurrier, man I've missed you. I can't wait for him to get the fued back in effect with Phillip Fulmer and Tennesse, and the much anticipated return to Gainsville. Did you see him mocking Kenny Rogers the other day, it was hillarious. College football missed this guy the last few years. I can't wait.

20 Questions which need Answers

1. First and foremost, after listening to today's game, why am I a Cubs fan? Even when they come back and win like today, it physically drains me to follow them. Why am I a Cubs fan? Wait, I'll answer that one, because following them physically drains me.

2. Is it just me or is Larry Brown the most selfish coach ever? For a guy who preaches selflessness on the court, doesn't he always just do what is best for himself?

3. Is there a correlation between amount of air/print time spent on stories or individuals by those in the sporting news world and how much animosity there is towards them?

4. JG touched on this the other day, but who would you rather be in this situation; Sidney Ponson or Phil Nevin? Ponson is in the position of someone at ESPN almost getting fired until Max Kellerman decided not to take their job. If you're Ponson, don't you throw every game on purpose? He hasn't been throwing well all season, so this wouldn't even be that hard to disguise!

5. How long will or should I say can the Curt Shilling bull-pen experiment possibly last?

6. Which will happen first, Danika Patrick wins an Indy Car race or Michelle Wie wins a professional event? Oh yeah, and who cares, no really, who seriously cares? Anybody, anybody, Bueller, anybody?

7. When are the Brewers going to take our advice and make the nickname of Miller Park, The Keg, and start referring to it as such?

8. Is there a better indicator throughout color commentators as to how a team is doing than Ron Santo?

9. Would you accept free season tickets right behind home plate for you favorite team if there was not a protective net hanging there? How about if you weren't allowed to bring a glove?

10. Non sports related, but why did this heat wave all of a sudden become national news when it hit the east coast and not when it was making us Midwesterners wish for death?

***Horrible joke warning***

Man, 4:00, I need another hour of work like Matt Clement needs another liner to the head! Oh, too soon?

(Seriously, Matt, get better, hope you can regain your old form and have no lasting side effects. It looked quite vicious.)

11. How long will it be until the New York/ Larry Brown love fest turns into booing and Larry wanting out? Oh yeah, two years, never mind.

12. Will anyone ever care about cycling again, ever? Not many people did before, but Lance Armstrong put a face on the sport, now it has nothing. So, seriously, will this ever again matter?

13. When will Wes just admit to everyone in Austin that he is in fact Abe?

14. If the Brewers don't make a run at a playoff berth in 2007, what then?

15. How can Drew Rosenhaus get up in the morning, look himself in the mirror, and not want to punch himself?

16. Who wins more games this year, Packers or Bears?

17. Is anyone actually excited that hockey is going to be back and just had their first day of business again since the lockout? Why do we as fans still put up with this?

18. Would we have our own sponsored website if The Daily Brew had come out when we first started this whole ordeal?

19. How many of the lines from Wedding Crashers does everyone think I can use at the wedding I am going to be at this Friday? Fine, I won't be that guy, but you're taking all the fun away.

20. Why do the Cubs want to try and make someone a closer who has a strikeout to walk ratio of just under 2.4 to 1, and has been quite wild this season (21 walks in 54 innings)? I don't understand this. Also, since we (Cubs fans) all know he will never be the pitcher he was during the 2003 run, why don't they try and trade him? Actually, this deserves it's own column.

Daily Brew 7/27

The Brewers picked up another big win last night, and Rookie shortstop JJ Hardy is really starting to come around offensively. Where are all those "Bill Hall should start over JJ," or "Send JJ down to AAA" naysayers now? Hardy has been on an absolute tear as of late, he homered to give the Crew the lead on monday and then singled to give them the lead last night. His batting average has raised to .214, not great but considering where he was two months ago I'll take it. You had to expect some early offensive troubles from him, the guy basically missed a full year of baseball. Even when he was struggling the encouraging thing was he was never overmatched. He didn't look bad at the plate, and rarely struck out. He is going to be a .280 hitter and will probably replace Ricky Weeks in the two hole next year.

Greg Maddux picked up his 3000th career strikeout last night. He became the 13th member of this elite club, and it couldn't have happened a more appropriate way. Called strike three.

The Red Sox beat the Devil Rays 10-9 in 10 innings last night, but a real scare came in the third inning when Carl Crawford drilled a line-drive off the right side of Matt Clement's head. The game was delayed for 11 minutes while Clement layed on the mound only blinking his eyes. This is the scariest sight in baseball, and it's truely remarkable that it doesn't happen more often.

Sammy Sosa blasted his 586th career home run last night tying him with Frank Robinson for fifth place on the all-time list.

Larry Brown will be introduced tomorrow as new coach of the Knicks. It's still uncertain where this leaves Herb Williams, and why the two had lunch the other day. Why Larry? I understand this is who he is, but you leave the Pistons for the Knicks? Isiah Thomas has no idea what he's doing, the roster is in bad shape, and theres no real possibility of improving it anytime soon. There you go Larry, you got what you wanted.

I had the chance to see "Real Sports" on HBO last night and they ran a feature on our favorite agent, Drew Rosenhaus. It was on this taping where he announced that Javon Walker would not report, and where he spelled more ludacris statements. While asked by Bernard Goldberg "If you can hold out for more money when a player overperform their contract, what about when they underperform thier deal, will you give back money?" Good question, an argument all of us have made. Rosenhaus' answer was absolutely not, that player deserves that money, he worked for it. What? Isn't that a double standard? He also tried to make the arguement that no one cares when Tom Cruise makes $25 million for a movie but when TO wants to renegotiate his contract he's a villan. Well maybe becuase Tom Cruise isn't threatening to hold out and breaking his contract with MGM to make that movie, TO meanwhile is holding out and breaking his contract. He also said the longer this goes on with TO and Javon, eventually the teams will break because the games start to count and their jobs are on the line. The longer it goes on, the more I get the impression the teams will defeat Rosenhaus. If you're so highly underpaid and not making that much money, then it's really going to hurth when those game checks aren't coming in and you're still getting fined for breach of contract, isn't it?

Daily Brew 7/26

Alright lets start with the obvious here, what the hell is Ned Yost doing calling for a squeeze play with one out and his pitcher at the plate? You're in the 4th so you've gotta assume you'll have more scoring opportunities in this game, there's already one out, Brady Clark (who already had two hits at that point) is on deck, there are two strikes, and possibly the worst hitting pitcher in baseball is at the plate. Why? How many times has Ned managed his team out of scoring opportunities this year? Once again though, Yost will catch a free pass on this one because his team bailed him (and for once Ben Sheets) out and won. If the Brewers honestly expect to contend for the wild card in the next year or two, this can't happen. Maybe Yost is not the manager to lead this team to the playoffs. Just because you managed under Bobby Cox doesn't mean you learned anything from him, and I think that's what we're seeing here.

Ricky Williams answered questions from the media yesterday, and I was very impressed. He sounded well spoken, articulate and intelligate and basically admitted he was returning for the money. Listen, if Ricky would have retired in February the whole marijuana thing wouldn't have been an issue, but because he did it so late people made him out to be a "pot head" who quit to get high all the time. I have no problem with what he did, if you don't love the game then don't steal a check, get out. He did, he just did it too late into the offseason.

Phil Nevin killed his potential trade to the Orioles last night, despite the fact that the Padres pleaded him not to and essentially told him if he does kill the deal they won't play him and are going to start Xavier Nady over him. Who is walking into a more awkard situation in their clubhouse today, Nevin or Sidney Ponson? I mean Ponson had no control over this, so that situation has to be really wierd. "Hey Sidney, glad you're still here buddy, sorry about that whole trade thing."

In other baseball news last night, the Cubs got another impressive late inning win over the Giants. Did you see this game? How many pitchers did Felipe Alou use, I swear some of those guys were summoned from AAA. The Curt Schilling experiment took another step backward as the Devil Rays got to him in the 10th and picked up a win, and my team on the west coast picked up another win. It goes without saying but seriously folks, Billy Beane knows what he's doing and he is the smartest man in baseball. Oh yeah, and now there's talk of him making a deal to acquire Adam Dunn.

Alex Smith inked a 6 year $49.5 million deal with the niners and the 32nd pick Logan Mankins also signed with the Patriots meaning the first and last picks of the draft have signed. Is this not the longest we've gone before a pick from the draft has signed?

Larry Brown and Herb Williams are meeting over dinner to "discuss" the Knicks job. Why is Larry meeting with Herb? To tell him he's sorry for stealing his job, and that he has no room for him on his staff?

Raise your hand if you watched Monday Night Golf last night. Okay keep em up, one, two, three, four, fi....oh you were scratching. Four people.

Kerry Wood was placed on the DL again and the Cubs announced when he returns it will be out of the bullpen. I agree with Gaddis on this, just because a guy throws hard doesn't mean he'd be a good bullpen guy. Wood is too erratic and walks too many guys for late innings bullpen appearances.

One more Yost note, did you happen to see who was behind the plate last night? It was Damian Miller, not Sheet's personal catcher Chad Moeller. When asked why Yost said he didn't want to give Miller two consecutive days off, and he noticed his team didn't score that many runs for Sheets so he wanted his better offensive catcher in. Wow, he finally realized what we all did three months ago, but it took you to mid July to do this?

Eagle River

This past weekend I spent my time in a lovely town in northen Wisconsin, Eagle River. Hanging out with a bunch of college friends is always good times, and even more good times are had when we are sitting around a campfire telling stories by night and playing yard games by day. I have played bocce ball and cornhole many, many times, but this weekend was introduced to two different games which definitely fit the mold of great games you can play while still holding a beer in your hand.

The first was a game called testicle toss (I think the name needs work), but basically involved throwing two golf balls which were teathered together (with about 12 inches of rope) at pvc piping. The "goals" were approximately 20 feet apart and consisted of a pvc base, and then three different rungs going up a total of probably 3 feet. The bars were equi-distant apart and the object was to throw the golf balls so the would wrap around one of the horizontal bars. If you could get your balls to wrap around the bottom rung, you received 1 point, middle rung, 2 points, and top rung, 3 points. First to 21 wins, as is usually the case in yard games.

If you can't understand the description, that's okay, if you saw it, you'd probably know what it was. Basically, the scoring works such that the person or team with the balls wrapped around the highest bar gets the points and the other person or team doesn't get any. Each team throws three sets of balls, so if I threw over the top, middle, and missed my last throw, and the other person threw all three over the bottom rack, I would receive 5 points. How ever many points the scoring person or team has on higher bars than any one of the other persons is how many count. If you go over 21, your score drops by as many as you went over. Let's say you had 16 points, and got 6 points in the round, you would go back to 10 points.

Understand it or not, it is another in the long list of great yard games you can play with minimal amount of money put into the production. You will enjoy it.



By the way, as I'm writting this, the Brewers had the bases loaded with one out, Ben Sheets at the plate and Geoff Jenkins on third. With two strikes on him, the Brewers call for a suicide-squeeze attempt. Let me repeat that, with TWO strikes on Sheets, the Brewers try a suicide-squeeze. Of course, Sheets popped up the bunt and the Diamondbacks turned the double play, throwing out Jenkins at third. Wow, I can't believe Ned Yost sometimes, and especially this time. "Hmm, it's the 4th inning, we're tied at 2, there's only one out, and my pitcher has two strikes on him. Let's try the suicide-squeeze!" I will now throw myself into oncoming traffic.

-Until next time...

Daily Brew 7/25

Ned Yost strikes again. You remember when Ned said he "needed" to see more from de la Rosa and others so he "didn't have" to overuse guys like Wise, Botallico and Santana? de la Rosa, Dana Eveland and at times even Justin Lehr have all looked very impressive lately, so what does Ned do yesterday? He goes with Julio Santana, the same Santana who has pitched in 6 of the last 9 games, but Ned doesn't want to overuse him. End result, walk off home run by Adam Dunn.

Lance Armstrong won the Tour De France for the 7th time yesterday. Does anyone really care? The first win after the comeback from cancer was great, moving and truely heroic, but I stopped caring exactly six years ago.

More news in the "Like I Care Category," the Cubs got a big win last night over the Cardinals. Another bullpend mishap only to find Nefi Perez bail them out with a grand slam. F'ing Cubs.

John Heder (Napolean Dynamite) is appearing in another movie. I saw the trailer for it before Wedding Crashers, and the introduced him as "Napolean Dynamite's John Heder." When they have to remind people who you played or what movie you were in, you career is officially almost over.

The MLB does not test for Human Growth Hormones, but they do test for steriods. Jason Giambi meanwhile has been on a tear. I hope I'm wrong, but hmmm...

The A's have now won six in a row, and are only 5 1/2 back of the Angels. The Angels are officially crapping thier pants.

This time in the "Like Anybody Cares" category, Ben Crane won the US Bank Championship yesterday. How much longer until the PGA Championship returns to Whistling Straits? Yeah, wake me up in 2011.

Too bad Penny Hardaway's career went into the toilet, because it meant no more Lil Penny.

Andrew Bogut's summer league stats: 13.2 ppg, 10.0 rgp, 1.4 bpg.
Marvin Williams summer league stats: 7.8 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 28% shooting percentage.
Again, if Andrew Bogut wasn't white, this pick wouldn't even have been a debate.