Recorded Thursday October 16, 2014
On the Royals making like it’s 1985, Mike Matheny’s stupid/handsome face, why the Dolphins make Rob cry.
Recorded Thursday September 25, 2014
On #BUCTOBER, Derek Jeter’s last stand, and some NFL odds & ends.
Recorded Thursday September 12, 2014
Recorded on Monday August 18, 2014
On rookie quarterbacks and why teams won’t play them from the get-go.
Recorded Wednesday July 23, 2014
On Tony Dungy’s comments about Michael Sam, why gays are lumped into the “distraction” pool, and baseball writers that should have their voting revoked.
Recorded Tuesday June 24, 2014
On the USMNT blowing a 2-1 lead with 25 seconds left in extra time, Michael Vick being a revolutionary, The Decision 2.0, and movings & shakings in the NHL.
Those are some outtakes from Mike Ditka’s 1993 (taped) SNL appearance.
Wonder if he acts the same way on the set of NFL Countdown on Sundays. Probably not…he’d have to actually be awake to be that gruff.
Love Keyshawn’s reaction. I’m pretty sure he thought Ditka was dead for a second before he shook him awake.
Because this is the view from my front porch,
HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!
I’ll try to keep this quick.
It may be Memorial Day weekend (or just Saturday to Canadians) and i got a cooler full of beer to eradicate and a buncha’ meat to cook via fire, but I gotta make mention of this bizarre Rice family apology press conference.
First, i suggest watching the following video. It’s seven minutes and fourteen seconds of pure Louis CK-style, completely awkward and extremely uncomfortable entertainment guaranteed to make you either laugh or squirm depending on your mental makeup.
I just want to do this in couple quick points/observations that came to me as i watched this train wreck. The quotations are verbatim statements from Ray Rice (and one from Janay Rice) and the inspiration for the thoughts which follow them.
1. “I want to first off apologize to [owner] Steve Bisciotti, [general manager and executive vice president] Ozzie Newsome and [head] coach [John] Harbaugh, and I also want to apologize to my fans, to the kids, to everyone who was affected by this situation that me and my wife were in.”
So Ray Rice begins the “I’m-sorry-for-punching-my-wife” press conference (with his wife sitting next to him looking like she was forced to be there) by apologizing to everybody except his wife.
Classy.
When Rice says, “that me and my wife were in.” to me, that indicates that he thinks, for some reason, his wife is somehow culpable for him knocking her out and putting them both in this situation.
That means ukeither A., he thinks she made him uppercut her which makes his wife partly at fault for making him knock her out. Or B., at the very least, he blames her for not being tough enough to walk it off and thus his wife put them both in this predicament, which could have been avoided if only she had took her uppercut like a man and walked out of the elevator instead of having to be dragged out.
This press conference is not off to a good start for Ray Rice.
2. “One thing I can say is that sometimes in life, you will fail. But I won’t call myself a failure. Failure is not getting knocked down; it’s not getting up.”
Is Ray Rice implying that his wife is a failure because she didn’t get up and walk out the elevator on her own? Because that’s what I see when I read between the lines.
Very bizarre, I don’t understand the motivation behind this statement at all. And what exactly did Ray Rice fail at, not punching his wife? I did not know that was a pass/fall thing. I thought you just didn’t do it unless you were a piece of garbage. Who knew?
3. “I know many of my supporters, sponsors who have acted as so to not want to be in partnership with me – that’s my fault. That’s my fault. I take full responsibility for that.”
So at this point Ray Rice decides to “take full responsibility” for whatever sponsorships he lost but still has yet to take full responsibility for his actual actions that caused them (his sponsors) to leave him nor has he apologized to the direct recipient of those actions.
By now, I still have no idea what Ray Rice’s goal for this press conference is. He could have said nothing, or simply walked up to a microphone and just said, “I’m sorry, ” and accomplished a whole lot more.
4. “My wife is here, and I just want to thank her for loving me where I was weak and building up where I was strong throughout this whole situation.”
Rice thanks his wife but still has yet to apologize to her. Real nice, notice how enthusiastic she is to be here with you. (Sarcastic)
5. “We’re working on our relationship, but one thing you [do] is trust me that I have Janay’s best interests [at heart].”
What does this mean? How could Rice have had his wife’s “best interests” at heart on the night he knocked her unconscious? That makes no sense.
This part might be the most bizarre of all. Why does Ray Rice need a press conference to apologize to his mom for punching his wife? Can’t he just pick up a phone instead of doing it through the media?
6. “I really treat my job as a very special job, and I failed miserably. But I wouldn’t call myself a failure, because I’m working my way back up.”
Based on this statement, as well as everything leading up to it, it seems like Ray Rice is much more concerned about his job as a NFL running back and not his job as a husband nor being a decent human being. Everything about this screams forced and contrived rather than genuine and contrite and that is sad.
7. Janay Rice’s turn to speak:
‘I do deeply regret the role that I played in the incident that night, but I can say that I am happy that we continue to work through it together…”
One of the main, reoccurring , themes in this press conference is, it takes two people to knock someone out. One person to do the knocking out (Ray Rice) and the other to get knocked out (Janay Rice). And for some reason, which is never mentioned, both are to some extent responsible.
What a terrible, disingenuous day for the Rice Family, fans of the Baltimore Ravens and the NFL. It’ll be a travesty and gross miscarriage of justice if Ray Rice is suspended for any less than four games which is equal to the ban Dwight Freeney got for taking fertility products in order to, successfully, get his wife pregnant.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, when it comes to discipline, Roger Goodell and the NFL have a very skewed set of morals for gauging appropriate punishment.
And as for Ray Rice, I’ll leave it at this, this is a classic example of someone who is not sorry for what they have done but rather someone who is only sorry that they got caught.
Check out the full transcript from the Ray Rice press conference and read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/ravens/ravens-insider/bal-full-transcript-from-ray-rice-news-conference-20140523,0,2238567.story#ixzz32fpXc2gj
Check out the above article for full story on the incident regarding Carolina Panthers DE Greg Hardy and his girlfriend.
Here some excerpts from the article outlining Hardy’s (alleged)actions:
“Arrest warrants accuse the 6-foot-4, 290-pound Hardy of throwing the 24-year-old Holder to the floor and into a bathtub, slamming her against a futon and “strangling” her during an argument at his home.”
“Hardy also said he would kill her, the warrant stated, a threat “made in a manner and under circumstances which would cause a reasonable person to believe that the threat was likely to be carried out.””
“But in a complaint accompanying her request for a restraining order against Hardy, Holder added compelling details to her version of the fight. They include allegations that an enraged Hardy choked her with both hands and threatened to kill her.”
“At one point during their struggle, she said in her complaint that Hardy picked her up and threw her into a tub, then dragged her across the floor by her hair. As Hardy screamed threats, Holder said he lifted her over his head and threw her on a couch “covered in assault rifles and/or shotguns.”
“She said Hardy keeps a cache of 25-30 “AK-47s, automatic-looking weapons, shotguns, rifles and pistols” in his North Tryon condo and a former residence.”
“Holder said Hardy threatened to shoot her if “I went to the media or reported his assaults to anyone,” according to her complaint.”
It amazes me that in the state of North Carolina, choking a woman with both hands then suplexing her onto a pile of loaded assault rifles and threatening to kill her, is only a misdemeanor and a $17,000 bond. But what’s even more incredible is that nowhere does it say that Hardy had to surrender his arsenal.
The NFL needs to starts getting a little more heavy-handed with its discipline when it comes to incidents like this (as well as the Ray Rice incident) and relax on the season-long bans for trivial (compared to this) things like marijuana.
Here is something that will help you put Roger Goodell’s and the NFL’s idea of discipline, and priorities, into proper perspective. In 2006 Miami RB Sammy Morris got a 4-game ban for taking Sudafed, or, exactly as many as Ben Roethlisberger received after his second alleged sexual assault in 2010 and twice as many as Mike Vick got after serving his sentence for his role in a dog fighting ring.
Part-Timers Sports Podcast 