February 2009 Archives

Update: 11:30 AM. So I found Youtube video of Dave Neal's screen on Nolan Smith. It's a bit grainy, but well worth the watch. It's embedded in the story on the second page. Enjoy!

So the final score was not exactly close. The Terps lost to Duke 78-67 in an effort to upset another ACC leader just days after knocking down North Carolina. But the game was much closer than that until the last few minutes. As usual for MD-Duke, the arena was packed. The game started with old tradition as Maryland students read the Diamondback during Duke player introductions. But for this battle, the Comcast Center was filled with newspapers so everyone got to participate. Maryland continued to wear the yellow jerseys that have brought them good vibes this season.

Maryland hung tough, holding off Duke the entire first half. A few times, Duke came close and finally tied it in the last minute of the half. The Sports Freak noted that Maryland couldn't break that 4 point lead barrier. But still, this was not the same Maryland team that was blown out a month ago at Cameron Indoor.

It was a physical match that had uneven officiating. Many a time, Duke players would hand check, charge, or manhandle Terps with no calls. Fans sitting behind us noted Coach K's defensive instructions. "Place your left hand on the opposing player's hip and then switch to the right hand". Possibly the worst call was Brian Zoubek in the paint shoving senior Dave Neal to the floor and using the open space to score easily. On the Terps, most handchecks and charges were called, sending many Terps to the bench, including Grevis Vasquez.

A warning to the organizers of the World Baseball Classic: if you allow Major League teams to prevent players from competing in the WBC, then the event will be doomed to failure. This comes about from a recent news story that the Tampa Bay Rays are preventing Scott Kazmir from pitching in the WBC. Kazmir wanted to pitch but the team won't let him, citing "concerns about his health and workload." While these are valid concerns, every single team could cite these same concerns about every single player. If this attitude is allowed to prevail, the WBC will turn into an Olympic style competition where minor leaguers play to determine the best national team in the world. The WBC's best hope for success is in drawing fan interest to see the top players in the world play for their home countries, not in seeing the second best players. If Scott Kazmir is one of those players, he should be allowed to pitch no matter what the Rays think.

The Terps look to avenge the 41 point humiliating blowout loss to Duke from earlier in the season as they are coming off arguably the most gratifying and significant win in recent memory since winning the ACC Tournament in 2004,. Maryland corrected many of the miscues that occurred in the first meeting against the Blue Devils to defeat UNC on Saturday.

Where Duke can methodically work their spread offense in a half court set play, UNC looks at every opportunity to keep the game running from end to end negating much of their size and three point shooting ability. It is what allowed Maryland more of an opportunity to stay in the game without the scoring struggles in a half court offense that doomed them for most of the first Duke game.

Thomas Boswell wrote an excellent column in the Washington Post today regarding the waiting game on Jim Bowden. It has more insight, but there's no real new news there, so we'll move on to things that are occurring on the field.

Oh wait, this doesn't occur on the field either.

Odalis Perez decides not to show up for Spring Training. Does he call the team? No. E-mail? No. Communication through the agent? No, even the agent is MIA. After signing a $850K minor league contract, Perez is not communicating and not showing up. It reminds me a little of the late Redskins defensive back Sean Taylor. Except Taylor was good, under contract, happy with it, and was seen at the University of Miami. Perez seems to be gone.

From his stats, his best season appears to be 2002, when he had an ERA of 3.00. Not too shabby, but the rest of the time except for 2004, he hovered around 5.00 or higher. And he expects to get a bigger contract? Or maybe he wants a major league one.

I guess time will tell, as now that he's a free agent again, he can test the market. But remember, Manny Ramirez is still out there. Maybe he's got an advantage since he's a lefty pitcher, but they've all reported in the past couple of weeks. Some team will really need that southpaw to sign him. We'll see if he gets closer to a million or is he just getting $875K?

North Carolina may have NBA talent, but Maryland has a head coach as the Terps upset the (third ranked) Tar Heels 88-85 in OT Saturday afternoon at Comcast Center. Greivis Vasquez return to the point guard position yielded Maryland's third triple double in team history with 35 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 assists. He also scored the Terps first sixteen points.

Despite the fact that he is New York Yankee, many people respect Alex Rodriguez as one of the greatest current players, possibly even one of the best of all-time. His Hall of Fame chances were never in doubt, until the past two weeks. Still people say he had a HOF career before taking "boli".

But really there are still so many questions. Was 2001-2003 his only PED taking period? Was it just "boli"? What is "boli"? Too many questions to really say if he should be in the Hall. Jeremy Schaap of ESPN recently discussed this. In the ESPN Extra Point Podcast from 2/20, he discusses the chances of A-Rod's induction. I'll say that this is one of the few times I have agreed with Schaap. I usually find him too arrogant to believe, but here he makes a good argument. A-Rod takes these PEDs for 3 years sure, but what are the long term effects? How do we know they don't have a long lasting tenure to allow him to enhance his play? Moreover, why should he deserve to make it to the Hall when Pete Rose and Joe Jackson are banned for life? Rose and Jackson have been banned mostly for non-play actions, although one could argue their actions have affected play.

So the question now becomes, why shouldn't A-Rod get into the Hall? Arguments are that the Hall of Fame is a museum, so the "good" and the "bad" should be in. But the Smithsonian does not hold induction ceremonies, so how is that the same?

So the Nationals have their own little medical mystery of their own. In July 2006, the Nationals signed Esmailyn Gonzalez as a 16 year old shortstop prospect. However it has been revealed that he has aged to 23 and is really Carlos David Alvarez Lugo as si.com reported Tuesday.

Team President Stan Kasten has called it a deliberate fraud. The juicy details are showing several connections to the Nationals front office, as the team's own website is reporting. It goes as far up as Jose Rijo, special assistant to GM Jim Bowden. Given this little tidbit, I don't think it's a stretch that Bowden is on the hot seat. Rijo and Bowden are being investigated for skimming money designated for development of Dominican players and Bowden's previous drunk driving accusation in Florida are not making this situation easier. Also that Bowden was an MLB hire by previous team president Tony Tavares when the team was still owned by the league and not a Kasten/Lerner hire.

To me, they shouldn't do anything until his contract expires or he is officially charged with said crimes, if he is involved in this Gonzalez Lugo debacle. While his hands have been somewhat tied by a non-public salary cap, his performance as a GM is not the brightest. Not the worst, but not the best. I hope he is clean from all of this and the Nationals can make a clear decision based on his work as the GM.

This seems to be an odd circumstance. Alex Rodriguez was never suspected of using performance enhancing drugs. That is until Sports Illustrated published a little story a couple of weeks ago. I was at work today, so unlike the Roger Clemens fiasco where I was home sick in bed, I am only reading the pieces of the press conference he did today.

What gets even better is the oddities of his story.

- Selena Roberts is a stalker? I am paraphrasing of course, but he seems to have an issue with her. I heard this morning that she received a private apology. However, based on what I read, he did not apologize publicly during the press conference as some might want.

- He didn't know what he took last week, now it's "Boli"? I guess there is truth to that, as he's not sure what Boli is. So now, we've gone from having your teammates shoot you up in the ass, to cousins doing it. Hey, keep it in the family.

We've created this poll. We'll close the voting Friday night.

Adam Dunn signed a two year $20M deal with the Nationals. Initially this article was going to be Dunn done with Nationals, but it appeared Dunn was tired of waiting on Manny to sign with a team. If Manny had signed with the Dodgers that would have limited the options for Adam Dunn and pushed the Nationals offer to the top of the list. If Manny had signed elsewhere, it would have allowed Dunn to possibly fill the void in LA and absorb some of the dollars slotted for Manny. With Bobby Abreu reaching a one year deal with the Angels, the dominos began to fall into place for corner outfielders.

You know we've been looking at Peter Angelos so wrong. Maybe he knew all the problems and got rid of the players at the right time. Miguel Tejada, Rafael Palmiero, and Sammy Sosa...all suspected performance enhancing drug users.

Sosa - The Orioles used his bat for a year. His arrival came with the departure of Jerry Hairston, Jr. Hairston was a problem as he was a better than average second baseman and had to share time with real starter Brian Roberts. Sosa came in with the Cubs footing nearly half of his salary. Orioles opted not to pick up his 2006 year, as he waived the option prior to the trade. Excellent move.

Palmiero - Provided great years for the Orioles, though apparently juiced up. First solid first baseman since Eddie Murray left. In what was going to be his final year anyways, he tested positive. No harm, since it occurred in August or September and the Orioles were already out of the race.

Tejada - This is the one that boggles the mind. How did Houston not see this coming? The Orioles manage to dump him off to the Astros for nothing. He immediately comes under scrutiny for PEDs and now faces charges today of lying to the courts. Another good move, and possibly the best of all.

Amazing. Maybe we've had Angelos wrong all these years. He's genius!

And we thought the Clemens stuff was interesting last year. Unless you have been under roid-rage since Friday, it was revealed that Alex Rodriguez tested positive for performance enhancing drugs in the 2003 "survey" testing. On Monday in an interview with ESPN's Peter Gammons A-Rod admitted to taking it from 2001-2003.

What's interesting is that this is not the most shocking part, IMHO. It's his accusations against Selena Roberts. Stalking him in NY and Miami? This makes Joe Torre's Single White Female accusations seem plausible, if you didn't believe it last week. Wait, Torre doesn't know SWF. I'm confused. Are there police reports of this? Certainly the part about Roberts attempted break-in while his children were sleeping warranted a call to the authorities?

As to the PED's, A-Rod also notes that he's not sure what he took. Excuse me? From Jose Canseco and his band of "Roiders", we learn that it's best to ask your friend and teammate to inject you in the ass when you need a fix. Now we learn from A-Rod that you just get the stuff, not knowing what it is, and take it. Cyanide pill please?

OK, aside from this shocking revelation, at least he came clean unlike Mark "The Past" McGwire, Sammy "No Hablo Ingles" Sosa, and Roger "Rocket has a totally different meaning" Clemens. Maybe he'll get into the Hall of Fame. Because we have also learned from Pete Rose that lying to the baseball public is the worst sin possible.

Maryland football has solidified the future of the team by naming James Franklin the future head coach after Ralph Friedgen steps down. "Fridge" still has three years remaining on his contract. This is a good sign for the program as they won't have recruits wondering about the coaching of the team. They will know Franklin will be there. Since he is the current offensive coordinator, there may not be much change in the system.

This is where the Terps athletic program is succeeding, by allowing a plan of succession. Let's hope Debbie Yow and her staff can give Gary Williams the room he needs to work. While she supported him earlier in the week, that does not guarantee future seasons, thus putting recruits at the position of guessing if Williams is still around when they play.

Yesterday, Debbie Yow put forth her support of Gary Williams in the regular pre-game press conference. Maryland Athletic Director dispelled rumors of Williams being on the hot seat. The timing of the support was delayed because Yow was with her family after the loss of her sister, NC State Coach Kay Yow last week.

While delayed, this support came at an important time. The Terps face 3rd ranked North Carolina this evening. A blowout or likely loss to the Tar Heels will bring more talk of getting rid of Williams. Talk, IMHO that is not warranted. Yow's comments yesterday should put the talk down for the rest of the season.

Can we put to bed this notion that the Super Bowl is usually a boring blowout that doesn’t live up to the hype? I can understand how that attitude came about, when from 1984 to 1995 there were numerous lopsided games. That was 25 to 14 years ago. Since then there have been plenty of close, competitive games that have come down to the wire that should have ended the perception that the game is anti-climactic. The New England Patriots won three Super Bowls in four years by three points each time. Then they lost last year’s Super Bowl to the New York Giants by three points. It’s time to stop expecting the Super Bowl to be dull and to start looking forward to the kind of excitement that this year’s game provided.

The Terps held off a late second half charge by Miami to win 73-68. Miami was outcoached by Gary Williams again, but this time the Terps held on for the win. While watching the game and walking out of Comcast center, it was interesting to hear the thoughts and reactions of both students and alumni when asked if Gary should remain head coach at Maryland.