Posted on April 16th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
As has been customary since 2009, all Major League Baseball players, managers, coaches and umpires wore No. 42 on April 15 — Jackie Robinson Day — to commemorate the pioneer’s debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Ceremonies were held in every stadium, with video tributes and on-field celebrations to honor Robinson’s legacy. His family, former teammates, former Negro Leaguers and NBA great Bill Russell were among those who took part in the celebrations.
But another custom has evolved over the years since MLB retired Robinson’s number in 1997, the 50th anniversary of his debut. The day is also used to highlight the dwindling number of African-American players in the big leagues. USA Today reported that the percentage has dropped to 8.05 percent, the lowest since the earliest days of the sport’s integration.
That represents a dramatic decline from the peak of 1975, when 27 percent of all rosters were African American, according to the newspaper, adding that the percentage was 19 percent as recently as 1995. “Baseball likes to say things are getting better,” said agent Dave Stewart, a former pitcher and front-office executive. “It’s not getting better. It’s only getting worse. We’ve been in a downward spiral for a long time, and the numbers just keep declining.”
At least one player is tired of the same old narrative every year. Chicago Cubs center fielder Marlon Byrd said that the focus on Jackie Robinson Day shouldn’t be on the decrease in the number of black players but instead on the increase in the number of black professionals.
Continue reading…
Posted on April 16th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
A three-time NBA All-Star at the time, Gilbert Arenas catapulted into the national discourse for all the wrong reasons in December of 2009. He became infamous in an instant, the player who brought guns into the Washington Wizards locker room after a confrontation with a teammate.
“Someone said they were going to shoot me,” Arenas told USA Today recently in his first extensive comments on the incident. “So since I’m one of those guys who says, ‘I want to see this happen; I want to see you actually shoot me,’ that’s where that came from. I brought the four guns in and said [in a note], ‘Pick one so the day you want to shoot me, let me know; I’ll be ready to get shot.’
Convicted on gun charges, he spent 30 days in a halfway house, performed 400 hours of community service and paid a $5,000 fine. NBA Commissioner David Stern suspended him for 50 games without pay. Arenas became persona non grata in Washington and flamed out last season through a 49-game stint with the Orlando Magic. The team released him in December, though it still owed him the $62 million left on his contract.
Continue reading…
Posted on April 13th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
Time is money, and charity begins at home. But those truths can be taken too far if there’s never time for serving and giving, free of charge. Participating on the U.S. Olympic basketball team is just one example.
All-Stars Ray Allen of the Boston Celtics and Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat caused a brouhaha this week when they said that NBA players should be paid for competing in the Olympics. “You talk about the patriotism that guys should want to play for, but you [need to] find a way to entice the guys,” Allen told Fox Sports South on Tuesday.
Wade co-signed after Miami’s practice the next day. “I do think guys should be compensated,” he told reporters.
Wade quickly backed off on Thursday, perhaps in response to the rapid-fire backlash from across the country. He issued a statement — “I do not want to be paid to go to the Olympics” — and he went into further detail on his Twitter account.
Continue reading…
Posted on April 12th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
The Washington Nationals were quite popular among the baseball media during spring training, drawing postseason predictions from multiple prognosticators. Virtually everyone spoke highly of the Nats’ rotation, bullpen, defense and core youngsters.
However, there was a nagging concern with a much-discussed, easy solution: The Nats needed a center fielder who, preferably, could bat leadoff. That was the team’s Achilles’ heel, a glaring weakness that general manager Mike Rizzo needed to address.
Shortstop Ian Desmond couldn’t do anything about the outfield situation, but he could erase the notion of a hole atop the batting order. All he had to do was pick up where he left off last season. Or continue to take it up a notch, which he did in Thursday’s home opener against Cincinnati.
Desmond went 3 for 5 with a run scored in the Nats’ 3-2 victory. That improved his batting average to .406 on the season, with a .441 on-base percentage and a .563 slugging percentage.
“He’s more than a table-setter,” manager Davey Johnson said before the game. “He’s a run producer. … I think he’s getting more comfortable in who he is and what his job description is. That’s fun to watch.”
Continue reading…
Posted on April 11th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
The Los Angeles Lakers apparently broke Lamar Odom’s heart and crushed his spirit when they elected to trade him last December. The deal wasn’t approved, and the NBA’s reigning Sixth Man of the Year stayed in Hollywood momentarily. But the relationship was fractured, the damage was irreparable and the Lakers shipped him to the defending-champion Dallas Mavericks.
Odom should have thrived with the Mavericks, but he pouted instead. His indifference finally led owner Mark Cuban to confront Odom in the locker room last weekend. Shortly thereafter, Dallas told him to stay home for the rest of the season.
“Everybody goes through ups and downs,” Cuban told ESPNDallas.com on Tuesday. “Every player does. We tried to put him in a position to succeed … And I just asked him, does he want to go for it or not? Is he in or is he out? I think he thought we were playing poker. I just didn’t get a commitment. And that was the end.”
Continue reading…
Posted on April 11th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
The affair with a woman young enough to be his daughter was the least of Bobby Petrino’s worries. If that was the sole charge he faced, Petrino still would be employed as Arkansas’ football coach, mapping out practice schedules with an eye toward next week’s Red-White spring game.
Claiming that he was alone last week when he crashed on his Harley-Davidson was problematic but probably survivable. When the truth came out, revealing that mistress Jessica Dorrell was a passenger, it was a huge embarrassment but not necessarily a fireable offense.
Considering the wild success Petrino enjoyed, going 21-5 the past two seasons while Arkansas raised a reported $53 million in donations for athletics, terminating his employment would require a major violation or two. Even then, football’s rabid nature in the Southeastern Conference and Arkansas’ desire to run with the big dogs could give Jeff Long pause.
But Long, the athletic director, couldn’t overlook all of the above plus Petrino giving Dorrell $20,000 in cash before hiring her two weeks ago for a job in the football program. Despite the career risk in firing a coach who led Arkansas to its first BCS bowl game in 2010 and a No. 5 final ranking in 2011, Long couldn’t keep Petrino.
Continue reading…
Posted on April 11th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can hurt you, too. We lie when we tell children otherwise.
Words don’t leave visible scars, but they can cut and sting like a lash. The latest case in a long line of examples was on full display Tuesday at Marlins Park, where Miami manager Ozzie Guillen apologized over and over again for comments about Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
Guillen is known for making outrageous and controversial remarks. His barbs, sometimes laced with profanity, have been aimed at virtually every segment of baseball, including writers, umpires, opponents, broadcasters, fans and his own front office. But he has demonstrated an amazing, Teflon-like ability in keeping his utterances from sticking … until now.
He obviously didn’t realize the impact of his words — “I love Fidel Castro” — in a recent Time magazine article. Such sentiment is especially explosive in Miami, home to one of the nation’s largest, strongest and most politically active Cuban-American communities. Guillen spent about an hour Tuesday in apologizing and claiming that his comments were misinterpreted. He’ll have a hard time convincing passionate critics that his true feelings were lost in translation.
Continue reading…
Posted on April 6th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
Let’s make this as simple as possible: The NBA has absolutely no reason — at least not a good one — to increase the minimum age for entry to the draft. Such a move would be completely arbitrary and totally unnecessary, causing needless harm and financial distress to NBA-ready 19-year-olds who want to begin their careers.
It’s easy for NBA Commissioner David Stern to push for a bump to 20 years old. It’s easy for Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban to go a step further, proposing that players be ineligible until three years after their high school class graduates. Stern and Cuban are grown men who have already pocketed millions of dollars; they couldn’t care less about keeping money out of a young adult’s pocket.
Never mind that some of the NBA’s top stars entered the league straight out of high school, players such as LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett. Never mind that young talent has continued to flourish since 2005, when the NBA instituted the age limit and sparked a wave of “one and done” college freshmen stars such as Kevin Durant, Derrick Rose and John Wall. Never mind that players in virtually every sport except football (for relatively obvious reasons) can begin pro careers immediately after high school.
Cuban’s line of reasoning is particularly irksome — the paternalistic notion that the NBA must protect youngsters from themselves. Kids leave college all the time, whether to take a job, take a breather or take a chance. But somehow, if you’re skilled at playing hoops, you can’t be trusted to make your own decisions.
Continue reading…
Posted on April 5th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
As it turns out, Nene and Brian Cook weren’t the only bigs Washington acquired when it traded JaVale McGee, Nick Young and Ronny Turiaf. The Wizards also got the new-and-improved player who was buried on their bench. Wednesday’s game against Indiana presented more evidence of the discovery, yet another exciting chapter in “The Evolution of Kevin Seraphin.”
Seraphin scored a career-high 19 points and grabbed a game-high 10 rebounds in the loss, continuing an impressive stretch of play since the trades March 15. He actually provided a glimpse of the future three games earlier, when he broke out for 14 points and nine rebounds in the Wizards’ shocking upset of the Los Angeles Lakers.
But the 6-foot-9 forward/center from French Guiana really took off after McGee’s departure. Seraphin played 1 minute, 35 seconds — with zeroes across the board — in the Wizards’ last game with McGee on the roster. Seraphin started the next game, contributing 12 points and nine boards in 29 minutes. He has reached double figures in scoring in 10 of the Wizards’ 13 games since the trade and recorded the first three double-doubles of his career.
“For a young man who just started playing basketball five years ago, it’s amazing,” said Nene, the player to whom Seraphin compared himself after being selected 17th overall by Chicago in the 2010 draft.
Continue reading…
Posted on April 5th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
Maybe Muhammad Ali wanted to be on that golf cart Wednesday night. Maybe he wanted to hear a crowd’s cheers one more time. Maybe he actually feels a real strong connection to Miami, where he beat Sonny Liston in 1964 and where the Marlins opened their brand-new stadium Wednesday.
If that’s the case, if “the Greatest of All Time” was eager and anxious to be part of Opening Day ceremonies at Marlins Park, officials should have come up with something else. Perhaps a brief shot of him on the video screen, waving from the owner’s suite. Because putting him on a golf cart for an excruciatingly slow ride from the bullpen to the pitcher’s mound was a total buzzkill.
The scene didn’t fit the rest of the evening, which was joyous, festive and celebratory. Instead, Ali’s appearance was sad, awkward and eerie. When the crowd stopped trying to muster up cheers and a half-hearted “Ali, Ali!” chant, it watched in stunned silence. The 70-year-old former champion, his frail body ravaged by Parkinson’s disease, trembled uncontrollably as Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria wrapped an arm around him.
Loria, who isn’t very popular among fans, likely would have been booed if Ali weren’t next to him. That’s one reason the move to include Ali seemed so exploitative — Loria using him as a shield and unnecessary, high-profile prop.
Continue reading…
Follow
By DERON SNYDER
