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Thursday, April 24, 2008
$57 million for an offensive tackle!!??
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Opinion No. 1: A $57 million tackle? And did you stop to realize that this tackle played on the big-time Big Ten football team that lost to Appalachian State? His major assignment on his football team is to block for the ball-carrier. Sort of drudge work, requiring no sophisticated talent, such as catching or throwing a football, just helping clear a path for the guy who carries it under his arm.
Bill Parcells has always been perceived as one of the brains of professional football. That’s why he was hired to run the Miami Dolphins when the Falcons thought they had him in hand. He is the one who had to OK this deal with Jake Long. Maybe he should have looked at the Appalachian State tackle that Jake didn’t get blocked. You mean to say you have to pay $57 million to get a guy who can play tackle in the NFL these days? And $30 million of it guaranteed, before Jake even makes his first block? I don’t know what that comes out to by the pound, but that’s mighty expensive beef.
Your move, Thomas Dimitroff.
Opinion No. 2: Look, there’s no question that to strike out 3,000 batters in major-league baseball is some feat. Only 16 have done it out of more than 600 pages of major-league pitchers — I don’t have the patience to count them one by one — and I’d say, of them all, none took a more circuitous course than John Smoltz. All the surgeries, re-routed through the bullpen, meaning three seasons were boiled down to one-inning appearances, and he still gets it done. But the television rage reached the point of sickening. Barking repetition, again and again. And through it all, not one time was it mentioned that with 2,714 more strikeouts Smoltz could tie Nolan Ryan, the leader. Ryan struck out 5,714, working between both leagues and a lot of innings. Twice he pitched more than 300 innings in a season and 12 times in the 200s, and most all of those American League seasons against a full lineup of batters to a side.
Of course this doesn’t include all Smoltz’s postseason strikeouts, and he had a bunch of those. Yes, it was quite a record, but if you watched it on television, you got overdosed, seriously.
Opinion No. 3: Yes, Mike Hampton has become an enigma. Is he, or isn’t he? I have no reason to raise the question, but readers and e-mailers are doing it. Here is a pitcher approaching his third season without throwing a major-league pitch and getting well paid as each day passes. Yeah, you get rather irritated at the thought of a pitcher hitting the payroll for millions and never throwing a competitive pitch. I think, though, that you get a good hint at what goes on inside him if you examine something he said the other day.
“I let it go as much as I could in the bullpen. You always wonder if that pitch will happen again when you feel it again. Hopefully, minor-league rehab will get that thought process out of my head,” he said.
That sounded like the thought of a worried, frustrated man, not a major-league employe enjoying the pleasures of one setting a record for highest income for innings not pitched.
Opinion No. 4: Several offended television viewers are calling attention to Tiger Woods and his profanity on the course. It isn’t easy to defend him, but at the same time it’s a case of television picking it up something not intended for broadcast. Yep, it’s bad stuff. Tiger can get as fretted as an 18-handicapper. Only suggestion I can make is that TV keep those furry microphones out of his range. Audiences don’t need to eavesdrop on his privacy, only how he plays. And forgive me, pastor, for I, too, have sinned.
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