Thursday, February 12, 2009

Snark break ...

Roberto Alomar has a girlfriend, named Maripily Rivera. You can all relax now, shame on you for being uncomfortable. How about that Bears game last week? Helluva game, helluva game. Bears got a good team this year.

Don't worry. If you're looking out the window and a falling figure goes shooting past, it's probably just the Montreal Canadiens.

Aussie basketball legend Shane Heal is playing his final pro game Saturday. It means nothing, other than a chance to recall Zander Hollander's summation of Heal's one full season in the NBA, where he shot 26.8%: "Maybe the ball rotates differently in his hemisphere."

You are not alone in thinking the Globe & Mail and TSN are word-flogging the Olympics so badly that everyone will have five-ring fatigue before they even light the flame. Two columns in the same day from Stephen Brunt is more obvious than a three-dollar bill. (Granted, two Brunt columns are better than 200 from a lot of writers.)

Mike Wilner, Sun Media's Steve Simmons, in a brawl to settle it all. It has happen. Wilner noted last night that Simmons' suggession "that a distinction has to be made between (Alex) Rodriguez and (Barry) Bonds because Bonds 'abused' steroids, but Rodriguez only 'used' steroids ... might just be the most ridiculous thing that I have ever read."

And they say newspapers don't know their readers anymore. The Hamilton Spectator notes the Hammer's $94-million contribution to a stadium for the 2015 Pan-Am Games could buy "195 Tim Hortons franchises or 43,300,000 medium coffee and donut combinations."

It is ridiculous when college basketball coaches don't trust a player to stay on the court despite foul trouble.

More great moments in fantasy sports: Manu Ginobili scored 32 points against the Raptors, but missed the game-winning shot with 10 seconds left. The beauty of being a Canadian playing fantasy hoops is you can blame your team's record, if need be, on the TSN2 controversy. Granted, it hasn't hurt the other 11 owners in the Rockhard Fantasy League.

Last but not least: Try to get, "How was your time with the Unabomber?" into conversation at some point today.



This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting:
  • Toronto-area hoops hotshot Cory Joseph (Devoe's brother), who's playing high school ball down in Nevada, scored 20 points last night. He had a better night than fellow Canadian up-and-comer Tristan Thompson, who's been thrown off his New Jersey high school team.
  • The Score has cancelled The Score In The Morning, the show that was co-hosted by good Kingston lad Adnan Virk and Nikki Reyes.
  • Down Goes Brown has some random early 1990s Leafs playoff memories. Guy Hebert would be the goalie for the Pierre Garcon All-Stars (pro athletes with French names who aren't French-Canadian).

6 comments:

Sam said...

The constant 2010 previewing is getting beyond annoying. Brunt - the best sports writer in Canada hasn't written about anything other than Vancouver 2010 in about three weeks. The Globe is making up for its massive cut backs by changing their sports section into a sports PAGE, and a three page Vancouver 2010 preview.

Dennis Prouse said...

Did you read Alomar's statement? That was a classic, "non-denial denial".

sager said...

Alomar doesn't have to prove anything. It's on the plaintiff to prove the allegations.

Dennis Prouse said...

From a legal perspective, Neate, you are absolutely correct. Don't you find it interesting, though, that he doesn't come right out and deny that he has AIDS? If someone said that you had AIDS, and you knew you didn't, wouldn't you explicitly state that? I know I would.

Instead, we had Alomar saying that he is in, "very good health". That is the very definition of a non-denial denial. He is trying to leave people with the impression he is denying the allegation, without actually denying it. Couple that with Alomar's lawyer saying that his client preferred to leave, "details of his health status private", and the cynic in me says that the allegation of his HIV+ status is likely true. Now, won't that rock the baseball world?

All of this certainly brings the Hirschbeck incident into clearer focus, given the anti-gay slur Hirschbeck allegedly directed at Alomar.

sager said...

Dennis,

Paraphrasing Daley Thompson, who says the best ballplayer the Jays ever had has to be gay?

I never said people had no right to be interested, and we'd be naive to think it happened in a vacuum (does anyone believe athletes' habits have changed since Nov. 7, 1991?)

At the same time, beyond what is established in a court of law, it's none of my business. The fact his poster was on my wall when I was 16 years old changes nothing.

He discloses he is HIV+, fine, I'll deal with it, then, but beyond what comes out in court, it's Alomar's personal business.

Rob Pettapiece said...

Don't you find it interesting, though, that he doesn't come right out and deny that he has AIDS?

You asked Neate, but my view on this is no, it's not interesting. That's a typical Law & Order tactic: "if you know you didn't kill him, just give us a DNA sample." But citizens have rights, or at least they should, and Alomar is under no obligation to answer anyone's questions at this point.

Let's let Woodward and Bernstein play the "non-denial denial" games.