Sports Blog

When Brett Favre announced his retirement at the end of last season, we all had one thing on our mind: How long until the old gunslinger flirts with a comeback?

Well, whoever had their money on the beginning of July, proceed directly to Go and collect your two hundred dollars.

Watching the press conference of his retirement, you can’t question Favre’s love for the game. To see a grown man crying in front of a national TV audience, seemingly trying to justify his departure from the game on the spot, is a sight that should remind us all of why we love sports in the first place.

It is easy for people to label athletes as money hungry, selfish or disloyal, but at one time in their lives they were all just kids on the playground playing a game they loved. They spend their entire lives watching game film, fine tuning their bodies and preparing to entertain the millions of us who love the game just as much as they do.

So while the media will criticize Favre for toying with us once again – after all he has flirted with retirement and has held us all hostages for a few years now – I say Favre should do whatever he wants. If he wants to play, the Packers should let him play. If they don’t want him, they should release him and allow him to play somewhere else. Nobody likes to see legends fall from grace, but after all the time they spent working for us, don’t we owe it to them to let them have one last hurrah?

As a child, I was obsessed with Michael Jordan. I watched him win 6 championships in Chicago and more than anything I wanted that shot over Byron Russell in Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals to be how I remembered Jordan forever. Then a couple years later, even though I didn’t want him to for my own selfish reasons, he played a couple forgettable seasons with the Washington Wizards.

And you know what? I still remember Jordan for that memorable shot. I still admire his game, and if he wanted to, I’d watch him lace up his shoes one last time.

Brett Favre has been the face (not to mention the arm) of Green Bay for 16 years. He brought them an NFL championship, racked up several awards, and brought hope and joy to millions in the process. Could you walk away from all that?

If your favorite NFL franchise called you right now and said they wanted you to be their starting quarterback, could you say no?

Brett Favre isn’t my favorite quarterback (Joe Montana) and Green Bay isn’t my favorite team (49ers), but this summer I’ll be rooting for both.

Brett Favre is a living legend. If he is has the “itch” to play again, I say we let him decide if he wants to scratch it.

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It looks like Alex Rodriguez can start hanging out with as many strippers and singers as he pleases now. He’s a free man!

Although divorce papers have not been filed, Cynthia Rodriguez has been spotted in Paris hanging out with her own rocker: Lenny Kravitz.

Not bad Cynthia.

Rumors were already swirling about A-Rod’s downward spiraling marriage after he’s been seen paying late night visits to Madonna since Tuesday. And that’s not the first time he was seen with the Material Girl. He was even spotted in Miami with her as early as a day after his daughter was born on April 21.

You’d think that Rodriguez would have tried to clean up his act a bit after he was spotted last year with stripper Joslyn Morse. Many thought his wife would have left him then, but instead, she got pregnant.

What I want to know if why Rodriguez is going for a much older Madonna, who is closing in on 50, while A-Rod is only 32.

Technically since she is almost 20 years older than Alex, does this situation count her as a cougar?

Source: NY Post

After many and highly publicized attempts to bring Barry Bonds’ record breaking home run ball to the baseball Hall of Fame, it looks like Marc Ecko has finally gave in.

The fashion designer donated the ball, home run number 756, to Cooperstown yesterday after a long day of back and forth negotiations, where Ecko had originally just wanted to give the ball to the Hall as a loan. But since the Hall did not want to receive the moment in history as a loan, they declined until Ecko agreed to give the ball as an “unconditional donation.” And a very expensive one at that.

For those of you who don’t remember, Ecko originally bought the ball in an online auction in September for $752,467. Man, what it must be like to blow away that much cash on a baseball.

Anyways, after the purchase, Ecko had asked fans to vote in an Internet poll about what he should do with the ball and this was the verdict: Brand the ball with an asterisk and send it to the Hall.

And, as instructed by the people, Ecko branded the ball, despite Barry Bonds saying he would boycott the Hall if they displayed the ball with an asterisk.

Well, it looks like Ecko is going to hold true to the second part of the deal.

Lets see if Bonds is a man of his word.

Source: SI

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With that debacle known as the NBA finals behind us, teams are already looking towards next season and beyond.

That’s right folks … the 2008 NBA free agency period has begun! With the uncertainty that comes with draft prospects, GM’s are now turning their heads to already proven NBA talent. The dream of winning the NBA championship is alive in all 30 NBA teams, probably with the exception of the Charlotte Bobcats, who for some reason let Michael Jordan make important personnel decisions.

Free agency is always one of my favorite times of the year. Not only does it provide the drama of high-priced athletes potentially leaving their team quicker than you can say mercenary, but we get to see floundering teams pillage other team’s rosters with the hopes of taking one team’s trash and turning it into another team’s treasure.

Really, what can be more entertaining than seeing historic mistakes like the Heat giving Brian Grant $84 million? Even Grant must have laughed hysterically when he got a call from his agent, which probably went something like this.

“Hey Brian, it’s your agent. You’ll never guess what happened.”

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It looks like former Major Leaguer Lenny Dykstra can’t stand living in his huge mansion, so it’s time to unload.

The little, fireball formerly referred to as “Nails” is trying to sell his home for about $25 million, even though it is worth closer to $27 million. The reason? It’s just too big.

“It’s a compound; it’s not a house,” said Dykstra, the former All-Star outfielder. “I can go for a couple of days and not see any other family members. I found out I had a tennis court I didn’t know I had. And I had to buy it completely furnished. I couldn’t afford to buy furniture to fill this place. Are you kidding me?”

Really Lenny? You didn’t know there was a tennis court on the lot? Did you not bother to take a little trot around the compound to see what you were getting into? Did you just think the little, tennis fairies miraculously put a tennis court on your lawn? I didn’t know it until now, but apparently mass amounts of chewing tobacco causes brain damage and hallucinations.

So how big is the house formerly owned by Wayne Gretzy? It spreads out to a spacious 12,713 square feet, with eight bedrooms, seven bathrooms and a screening room.

So if you’re looking to buy a home around the Sherwood Country Club in LA, check out this Sotheby’s listing.

Source: Deadspin

I wonder if Gilbert Arenas thinks he’s worth more than $100 million?

Rumors are swirling and there is chatter out there that when the NBA free agency period begins tomorrow at midnight, the Washington Wizards are ready to make Gilbert Arenas a rich man. A very rich man.

The Wizards are expected to make Arenas an offer that is around six years, and valued at or above $100 million. Not too shabby. The deal would obviously make Arenas one of the top paid players in the NBA. Which he definately deserves…when healthy. That is the only knock on the All-Star point guard. He’s had two knee surgeries in the past year and that definitely throws up a red flag on anybody looking into pulling in top dollar.

After opting out of the final year of his contract, Arenas was quoted saying, “I have a number in mind, a number I feel I’m worth and we’ll just have to see what they come with.”

For his sake, lets hope the Wizards at least offer him more than $12.8 million a year.

That’s how much the final year of his contract was worth.

Wow, it takes a very greedy man to walk away from guaranteed millions. Good luck Gilbert.

Source: Washington Post

Tell us what you’d say!

What would you say? Write us your caption and post them in our comments!

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This week in sports news & blogs:

• Shawn Chacon was released by the Astros for choking GM Ed Wade - USA Today
• Celtics coach Doc Rivers auctioned off his Gatorade-strained shirt for $55K - SportsLine.com
• Shaq loses another badge after rapping about Kobe - Busted Play
• Mediate not bothered by NBC’s Johnny Miller’s rude comments - ESPN

This week on the Smarter Sports Blog we covered:

• This Weekend in Sports: Quick Recap
• Four Reasons Why O.J. Mayo Should Never Wear a Timberwolves Jersey
• Vote for Your Favorite MLB Player by July 2nd!
• Video Clip - George Carlin: Baseball & Football
• NBA Draft: Analysis

Image Source: Getty Images

There was some media speculation that the top of the NBA draft was facing a possible shake up, but the first three picks ended up playing out pretty much as most people thought they would.

The Chicago Bulls chose hometown hero Derrick Rose number one overall and it’s hard to argue that he is not going to be a star. One thing to consider, however, is that he lands among a Chicago backcourt already overcrowded with the likes of over-paid Larry Hughes, over-hyped Ben Gordon, and over-paid/hyped Kirk Hinrich. Plus Rose’s nickname is Pooh, making him the player most likely to have his name be the butte of a poor joke (or in this case pun).

Michael Beasley put all the speculation of Riley’s man crush on O.J. Mayo to rest when he was drafted second overall by the Heat. One thing he didn’t do is trick David Stern like he said he would. There were issues about his character going into the draft and I wonder if he was advised by his agent/entourage not to go through with the fake-handshake. Childish antics aside, he did set a record for college freshman by racking up an astounding 28 double-doubles last season and is sure to make an impact on the Heat from day one.

Here is when the draft got interesting. In front of a national TV audience and to no one’s surprise, Kevin McHale did something stupid. Despite my earnest pleas, he selected USC guard O.J. Mayo third overall. I can’t say that I was surprised – after all he did give away the beloved Kevin Garnett for 30 cents on the dollar – but at this point we all have to agree to call bad basketball decisions, McHalean decisions.

“Did you hear about that trade?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t just bad. It was a McHalean bad.”

The rumored Supersonics/Clippers trade fell through the cracks, then for some reason Seattle decided to draft Russell Westbrook about a million spots too high. Hyperbole aside (and this is coming from a Bruins fan), Westbrook wasn’t even the undeniable best point guard on his team last year.

UCLA’s Kevin Love went fifth to the Memphis Grizzlies, the place where good young talent goes to squander in irrelevance. The Clippers took sharpshooter Eric Gordon of Indiana seventh overall and I personally can’t wait for him to make his first all-star team as a member of another team.

The Bucks traded for offensive juggernaut Richard Jefferson, pairing him with Michael Redd and creating in theory a killer one-two punch. Then the Bucks made a truly McHalean pair of decisions. They drafted small forward Joe Alexander eighth overall and then proceeded to take small forward Luc Richard Mbah a Moute in the second round. That’s three small forwards in a span of 24 hours … what in the world were they thinking?

Other notables from the first round: Stanford center Brook Lopez dropping to 10, Arizona’s Jerryd Bayless falling to 11, Brook’s brother Robin Lopez rising to 15, and Georgetown big-man Roy Hibbert going 17.

Image Source:  Getty Images

You all should know by now that the hilarious George Carlin passed away on Sunday.  I thought I’d post a clip of one of his stand up routines where he compares baseball to football.  Enjoy!

                   
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