How Stupid Is This?

It never ceases to annoy me at the greed players have, but rookie wide receiver Michael Crabtree takes the cake. He and his agent Eugene Parker tried to manipulate the draft system by sitting out the season and getting more money next year, but in a rare case of justice served, it has backfired on them. Last time I checked, Crabtree has still never played an NFL game (He hasn't even played competitively since January), he's missed all of training camp and the first four games of the season, and he's staging this kind of holdout? He wasn't even the first pick of the draft (as if that would justify things). He was taken #10 overall by the San Francisco 49ers. "He has talent!" people will say. So what? As far as I'm concerned, his biggest talent is that he's a complete idiot.

Want proof? One of Crabtree's "advisors" is none other than NFL Network annalist Deion Sanders, who once again proved how much of a moron he is by blathering on the air that two other teams were interested in Crabtree, which led to 49ers owner Jed York to file tampering charges against the New York Jets. Crabtree pretty much had no choice but to sign because, according to an NFL source, this development was going to kill Crabtree and Co.'s chances to buck the system. “I don’t know if anything would ever have been proved, but I can tell you this: People were running from this mess,” the source said. “They didn’t want to have anything to do with it. They didn’t want to be associated with it. I think Crabtree and [Parker] would have had a really tough sell with any team next year for a lot of reasons.” Makes sense (That's the only part of this saga that does).

Here's where it gets fun: Eugene Parker also represents Deion Sanders and now Sanders has to answer a lot of questions about his involvement and his job with the league could be in jeopardy. And Parker also looks pretty bad, even if he had no contact whatsoever with the NFL in this case. But here's where it gets stupid again: At the signing, Crabtree brought in that legendary financial guru M.C. Hammer (?!) of all people, to act as an advisor! That all by itself should show everyone what we're all in for with Michael Crabtree. What was Hammer going to demand, that Crabtree be allowed to wear parachute pants during the game? With Crabtree's choices of Sanders and Hammer to advise him, imagine what kind of ingenious decisions he'll make on the field.

The call here is that even if Michael Crabtree does become a Pro Bowl-caliber wide receiver, he'll wind up going down the same path that many other stupid, greedy, talented athletes have, meaning that if he doesn't get in any major legal trouble, he'll express unhappiness with his contract every season and go from team to team trying to glom his way onto a Super Bowl champion (right Deion?) only to wind up on a team that's desperate for instant publicity because they don't have a good team to promote (Right T.O?).

So, here are my early holiday wishes for this lovely occasion:

1) Michael Crabtree falls flat on his face.

2) Deion Sanders get the boot.

3) M.C. Hammer takes out a loan and signs up for a money-management class (and pays back the loan!).

4) Eugene Parker gets out of the sports agent business and takes an equally credible job as a televangelist.

Hallelujah!!

LeBron James vs. Elgin Baylor

With the pennant races at full throttle and football season starting up, now's the time to start talking about....basketball? Well, why not?

I recently lined up LeBron James' 6-year career alongside Hall-of-Fame legend Elgin Baylor's at the same point and the results are extremely interesting. It makes more sense to compare James with Baylor instead of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant because James and Baylor are both forwards who play multiple positions and they play a very similar style, being exceptionally agile, versatile and unstoppable.

Here are Lebron James' numbers to this point:

Position: Forward

Height: 6'8" Weight: 250 lbs.

.....................G Mn. FG% FT% Rb Ast Pts PPG

2003-04: Cle. 79 39.5 .417 .754 5.5 5.9 1654 20.9

2004-05: Cle. 80 42.4 .472 .750 7.4 7.2 2175 27.2

2005-06: Cle. 79 42.5 .480 .738 7.0 6.6 2478 31.4

2006-07: Cle. 78 40.9 .476 .698 6.7 6.0 2132 27.3

2007-08: Cle. 75 40.4 .484 .712 7.9 7.2 2250 30.0

2008-09: Cle. 81 37.7 .489 .780 7.6 7.2 2304 28.4

Career.......472 40.6 .471 .738 7.0 6.7 12,993 27.5
Career High: 56

Now, take a look at Elgin Baylor's first six seasons:

Position: Forward

Height: 6'6" Weight: 225 lbs.

.......................G Mn.FG% FT% Rb Ast Pts PPG

1958-59: MnL 70 40.8 .408 .777 15.0 4.1 1742 24.9

1959-60: MnL 70 41.0 .424 .732 16.4 3.5 2074 29.6

1960-61: LAL 73 42.9 .430 .783 19.8 5.1 2538 34.8

1961-62: LAL 48 44.4 .428 .754 18.6 4.6 1836 38.3

1962-63: LAL 80 42.1 .453 .837 14.3 3.8 2719 34.0

1963-64: LAL 78 40.6 .425 .804 12.0 4.4 1983 25.4

Career........419 41.8 .429 .782 15.8 4.4 12,892 30.8
Career High: 71

[In 1961-62, Baylor was in the Army reserve and was called to active duty, and being stationed in Washington State he could play for the Lakers only when on a weekend pass.]

As amazing as LeBron James is (and he is amazing), the numbers clearly show that after six seasons Elgin Baylor was the better player. We all know about James' athletic ability and mind-boggling moves, but Elgin Baylor is the absolute prototype of the spectacular modern player. Before LeBron James and Kobe Bryant, before Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins, even before Julius Erving and Connie Hawkins, Elgin Baylor was the one making the moves on the court that nobody had ever seen before. And unlike those later players, half-a-century ago there was literally nobody to compare Baylor with. Nobody. He was a true original.

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LeBron James has an advantage over Baylor as a playmaker (although Baylor's assist numbers aren't too shabby), but Baylor was a more dominant scorer and a much better rebounder. And while James is pretty much a one-man gang on the Cavaliers, Baylor's teammate, Jerry West, averaged 25.8 PPG from '61 through '64 and Baylor still put up sensational numbers for the Lakers, which included a 38.3 average in 1961-62, the highest single-season average by a player other than Wilt Chamberlain (Ironically, that was the year Wilt averaged 50.4).

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It was in his eighth season that Baylor's knees began to drag him down and obviously we don't know what the future holds for LeBron James - only time will tell. But in the meantime, Elgin Baylor is the better player...

...so far.

Letters From the Abyss

Yo, Allen Iverson,
This B my side of the street, playa!
Check it!
- Stephon Marbury


Dear Roger Clemens,
See? See? If you had stayed away from steroids like I did, you could have maintained your image and skipped spring training every year.
But nooooo...
- Sincerely,
Brett Favre


Dear Quentin Richardson,
Impressive, but it's still a
long,
long,
long,
long,
long,
long,
long,
long,
long,
long,
long,
long,
long,
long,
long,
long,
road.
Sincerely,
- Bobo Newsom: Traded 16 times in 23 years.


Dear Los Angeles,
Manny who?
- Juan Pierre


Dear Plaxico Burress,
Thanks for taking the heat off me.
- Brett Favre

Dear Brett Favre,
Thanks for taking the heat off me.
- Michael Vick,

Dear Michael Vick,
Thanks for taking the heat off me.
- Rick Pitino

Dear Rick Pitino,
Thanks for taking the heat off me.
- David Ortiz

Dear David Ortiz,
Thanks for taking the heat off me.
- Josh Hamilton

Dear Josh Hamilton,
Thanks for taking the heat off me.
- Donte Stallworth

.... ..... ..........
...... ... ....... ... .... ... ..
. ... .....

Hamilton's Choice

Maybe all the never-ending stories of substance abuse among pro athletes has made me a card-carrying cynic, but I don't have a lot of sympathy for Josh Hamilton. Falling off the wagon is one thing but judging by this picture he was having one hell of a good time with it. I don't see a lot of "remorse" there, do you? His "coming clean" after the pictures came out is no different than a player confessing he juiced after he failed the test.

It's all gotten so old now. Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden turned out to be the biggest disappointments I can remember. They had legitimate Hall of Fame potential, but they screwed their careers up with drugs and drink and cheated the fans in the process. Darrel Porter, a prominent catcher for Milwaukee and St. Louis in the early '80s, also had a major alcohol problem. Now, with the current Josh Hamilton debacle, I have to ask: How long am I supposed to be inundated with sympathy for drug and alcohol abusers, even after more than one failure at sobriety? You have to be from another planet not to know at an early age the dangers and risks involved, but here, a full generation later, Josh Hamilton goes down the same road anyway. Again! I don't believe for a nano-second that he never heard of Strawberry and Gooden - the poster kids for what drugs and drinking can do to your career, reputation and your life. But, as it was with them, it was Hamilton's choice, and his failure to stick with the plan was his choice as well. It's good that Strawberry finally got his life together and I certainly hope Hamilton gets past his problem, but whenever I hear these stories, I can't feel sympathetic. Who was holding a gun to their heads? As kids growing up, and later as amateur and pro athletes, the message of substance abuse was driven into their heads incessantly.They supposed to know better. They're certainly paid enough to. But unless they have a serious mental problem I refuse to feel sorry for the lazy and weak-minded.

None other than Charles Barkley had a recent take: "It's the jackass generation. You got every little nitwit walking around with a cell phone trying to catch you in a compromising position. I mean, my man Michael Phelps can't even smoke no dope with his friends. If you can't smoke with your friends, who the hell can you smoke with?"

How typical of Charles "I don't like white people" Barkley. He makes an excellent point about the "jackass generation" then proceeds to ruin it by defending Phelp's drug use. Talk about nitwits. Here we have a lifelong motormouthed clown who's been busted for drunk driving and actually brags about his gambling addiction, and he's trashing "nitwits" with cell phones? Everyone says, "He's funny," "He's opinionated," "He's entertaining," and the worst excuse of all, "It's just Charles being Charles." No, it's Charles being a loudmouthed, irresponsible, racist fool and anyone who is "entertained" by him and takes him seriously is gullible beyond belief. Barkley should stick to comedy because that's about as seriously as he deserves to be taken.

It's gotten to the point where the only thing left to admire about athletes is their chutzpah. It's disgusting.

Drug addiction is the same as alcoholism, not only for the dangers of becoming chemically dependant, but it's a choice to do so. But since alcohol isn't illegal, that, in a way, makes it more dangerous and presents a different viewpoint. So to all you people who call alcoholism a disease, here's my rebuttal: Alcohol is not an airborne pathogen, a bacteria or a virus that's contracted through sexual or physical contact. It is an intoxicant and consuming it is a deliberate choice - the same as with another well known addictive chemical: Nicotine. And unlike getting sick and relapsing by not recuperating long enough, it's a choice to drink again, not a "relapse." Do you decide to risk catching a cold? Do you plan on risking pneumonia? God forbid, is it your intention not to use protection and risk becoming HIV Positive? Of course not. Nobody plans to be an alcoholic either, but it's a lot easier to become one through carelessness and irresponsibility because it's not unlawful to drink, and the only way to protect yourself against the risks is knowing your limit or not drinking at all. For most young people - as well as many pro athletes in this case - they don't drink because it tastes great or it's less filling. They drink to get drunk because any combination of needing to be the biggest, baddest partier in the room, peer pressure, the thrill of the risks involved (or not giving a damn about them) are the driving force. And only after that drunken "driving force" kills somebody you know with a car (and the drunk driver survives, as often happens), is when you'll suddenly get mad about the dangers of drinking and drugs, only by then it will be too late. How many times have we heard the saga? That's the most tragic part of it because if that anger after the fact can be transported to before the fact, all this could easily be avoided. It's not a difficult concept.

Non-stop sympathy for abusers and so-called relapses is enough of a security blanket for any substance abuser to take a chance again. Now before you give me the usual, "You've never been through it; you couldn't possibly know what it's like; it's not as easy as you think" propaganda, here's my justification: You're right, I've never been through it, and you know why? Because I'd heard enough horror stories by the time I was 12 years old to understand that I did not want to know what it was like. I'm not above anyone, but I am living proof that avoiding trendy chemical amusement aid in the first place is a lot easier than alcoholics, drug addicts and their many sympathizers think.

The List

No sympathy for Manny, David, Alex, Barry, Roger, or anybody else on the dreaded PED List. They cheated, they look us in the eye and lie about it, they shrug and say, "Big deal," and so on. New names, same BS, old news. The outrage has long since been replaced by reluctant acceptance that these guys are total scumbags.

The thing that's bothering me now is that the controlling influence in all this is...guess who? The media, of course. That's the very reason why The List was supposed to have been destroyed. But - like the Watergate tapes - The List survived because MLB - like Richard Nixon - was careless (The similarity is awful, isn't it?).

So instead of The List being gone and in the process of being forgotten, now some lowlife has The List and is likely getting a real good payoff to provide information on a timely schedule. This is how it's playing out. Every couple of months more names will be released, the furor will erupt anew and it will go on and on until all the names are gradually made public and the story is wrung out drier than Death Valley. The media is orgasmically happy to have that "unnamed source" available so they can endlessly shove this garbage in our faces instead of allowing us all to move on. It's disgusting - and in this particular case, it's illegal - but hey, that's the media for you. Again.