And the HORSE You Rode In On!!

One of the reasons I love running this blog is because it makes me hunt down and find things like this. Kelly Dwyer of Yahoo Sports has an NBA Blog, and this recent entry absolutely calls it like it is regarding Michael Jordan and his (ahem) handling of the Charlotte Bobcats.

It's an absolutely stunning read from start to finish, passionately written with an emphatic emotional plea and a long term memory of someone standing up to a bully. It's essentially an Anti-Michael Wilbon written piece, in that it's not written with intent to further kiss Jordan's ass for things Jordan did when Bill Clinton was still President. It's written truthfully, factually, and with an appropriate amount of vitriol for Jordan who in The Beard's (and thankfully an increasing number of other people's) opinion has gotten away with too much B.S. for far too long.

All the Jordan lovers will undoubtedly have a problem with this piece because they can't let go of childhood/childISH memories of Jordan's Bulls Championships and feel those memories still entitle Jordan to act like a jerk. All the Jordan haters will feel what I feel which is a feeling of hope that eventually people will finally realize that he's never been worthy of the praise,esteem and myopic hero-worship he once had.

AL Central Door Open?

Joe Nathan, a surprisingly 35 years old Joe Nathan at that, has a "significant" tear in his ulnar nerve on his right throwing elbow. In the words of Whitey Guccione, "Not good man...not good." The injury is usually treated with the dreaded Tommy John surgery, and as anyone on this list will tell you (minus the dead guys), it's a very long and painfully slow recovery of 12-18 months. Understandably, at 35 years old Nathan is seeking a second opinion from Doctor James Andrews, and will try to pitch again in two weeks. If he can deal with the pain, he says he'll pitch through it for the entire season. If he can't take the pain, he'll have the surgery. Here's to going out on a limb and thinking that it's a pretty safe bet the Twins wish they didn't sign Nathan to that contract two seasons ago that guarantees him $11.25 million for this season and next.

What I find interesting is the general consensus among White Sox Nation and the White Sox themselves, that Nathan's injury equals a significant increase in the Sox's chances at winning the American League Central this year. I am not one of those voices who share that opinion.

First of all, I've learned this the hard way too many times to never count out the Twins in the division race. Five Central Division titles over the last ten years kind of speaks for itself. Secondly, while Nathan maybe a key component for them, and is one of their outstanding star players, the Twins have always had replacements come in and get the job done whenever they lose a great player. It's a benefit of having arguably the best farm system in Major League Baseball over the last decade.Thirdly, the closer position historically is one of the easiest to replace. There have been 32 different pitchers (some multiple times) that have saved 40 or more games in a season since 1983, so it's not that hard to find a guy to get 3 outs at the end of a ball game.

While every little bit helps, Nathan's injury doesn't provide answers to the questions the White Sox had going into this season. That's only going to come from the White Sox themselves, and not their competition's Disabled List.

Memory Lane And/Or Deja Vu?

Not too much happening in the sports world today. Ben Roethlisberger is once again in trouble of the sexual assault variety , although the details are pretty murky much like his alleged Lake Tahoe incident.

College basketball is starting to get interesting. A remarkable fact regarding college basketball was brought up by Terry Boers on WSCR-AM today. North Carolina, UCLA, and UConn are NOT going to the tournament this year. This is the first time that all three have missed the dance since 1966. Dayton was able to make the 1966 tournament, but won't be going this years Big Dance.

With that said, I found this interesting little piece on Chicagonow.com. It's a slide-show and career retrospective on Free Agents the Bears have signed over the years.

Some of the good include:
1. Ted Washington (picture) & Keith Traylor ("700lbs of Ass" era)
2. Thomas Jones
3. Erik Kramer
4. Andy Heck
5. John Tait
6. Ruben Brown
7. Desmond Clark

The Iffy:
1. Marty Carter
2. Lewis Tillman
3. Muhsin Muhammad

The god-awful:
1. Bryan Cox
2. Phillip Daniels
3. Kordell Stewart
4. Merril Hoge
5. Craig "Ironhead" Heyward (the late)

Hope you Bear fans out there remember that Mark Hatley made Phillip Daniels the richest Chicago Bear of all time in 2000. Ouch...still, I'm not letting that fact scare The Beard because Daniels was paid on potential (20 1/2 sacks in four seasons). Peppers is getting paid to be what he already is (averaged 10 sacks per season).

Check it out here for a stroll down memory lane.

Balls That CLANK!

Color me "impressed", if anything else...The Chicago Bears decided to come out of the Free Agency gate swinging with not one, not two, but three splashy free agent signings today, including the biggest Free Agent fish of this years class, Julius Peppers.

There's no getting around it now, the Bears understand they need to win in 2010. Not just a playoff appearance, not just a division title, but a Super Bowl run. The proof is in the money. Since this is the NFL, whatever the contract is worth, is not necessarily what will be paid since most of the NFL Money isn't guaranteed, just the signing bonus. Peppers is getting $42 million guaranteed, and potential for more with incentives tied to performance. Chester Taylor is getting $7 million guaranteed, and Brandon Manumaleuna is getting a guaranteed $6 million. Pretty substantial financial commitments that's true, but commitments that are not being made for annoying empty NFL speak of "development" or "long term vision". These are "win right now" commitments, and all three players, the rest of the roster, the coaching staff, the front office, the fans, and the rest of the league knows it.

Speaking of the rest of the roster, it's also become pretty clear that Greg Olsen is now on the Trading Block. Mike Martz's offense has always featured a Tight End that is little more than another Tackle who blocks. Brandon Manumaleuna is exactly that, since he is a wall at nearly 300lbs. There are also reports that Greg Olsen has told friends he no longer has a spot on this team, and the Bears are definitely trying to trade him. The Beard has little issue with it. Nothing against Greg Olsen personally. I think he's a good player, but left some things to be desired too. He might still end up on the roster, but if that happens, he has no chance of seeing the field.

So what really do these moves today mean? Well it's hard to say exactly other than the Bears seem to know what they want to do, identified the talent they needed in order to make it work, and are going full speed ahead with their plans, money be damned. It doesn't guarantee that they will win in the least since there are still holes in the secondary, particularly with the safety positions, offensive line, and receiver positions.

With that said though, the Bears at the very least have done two things. One, they've showed that they want to matter again in terms of being referred to as Super Bowl Contenders. Two, Lovie Smith and Jerry Angelo have decided that if they are going to be fired at the end of next season, it won't be because they were tentative to spend money, or be above certain things like showing up at Peppers doorsteps at Midnight last night in order to court him.

Will this work? Time will tell. Obviously I hope it does. Should be a helluva ride regardless. Bear Down!

Hank Gathers R.I.P.

March 4 marks the twenty year anniversary of the passing of Hank Gathers. Hank was a remarkable combination of scoring, size, and athleticism, yet also possessed an intelligence and charm that made it real easy to root for him and Loyola Marymount. It's safe to say that Gathers was well on his way towards a career in the NBA until his life was cut tragically short as he collapsed in the middle of a game live on TV. An hour later, he was dead of an irregular heartbeat.

Deadspin found this nice tribute to him which pointed out the game where Hank had 48 points and 13 boards against LSU where he went head to head with some stiff named Shaquille O'Neal. The Boo-Yah's also had a nice tribute to him ,here and unfortunately an awful made for TV movie was made based on his life called "Final Shot : The Hank Gathers Story".

As a friend pointed out to me, Hank should be 43, a basketball network analyst, and about 300lbs by now. Instead he will serve as a stark reminder of what could have been, and how preciously short life can be. R.I.P. Hank.

Storm Coming?

In case you have forgotten (and Steve Henson of Yahoo Sports hasn't), Doctor Anthony Galea is still in a lot of trouble. Galea is still facing charges in Canada for selling a drug called Actovegin (which is an unapproved drug extracted from calf's blood), and his assistant is facing charges in the U.S. for trying to cross the border with HGH. Galea's official specialty is using a blood spinning technique, in which the blood is literally spun in a centrifuge and re-injected into the injured joint in order to accelerate healing. That sounds somewhat different or cutting edge at first glance but apparently it's not. Despite this apparently rudimentary treatment, it certainly didn't stop a whole lot of athletes and sports figures from travelling north of the border to seek him out. It should also be mentioned that Galea himself has admitted he uses HGH for himself, but never prescribed it to athletes (my B.S. Detector just exploded as soon as I heard Galea say that btw).

When news of Galea's arrest broke, the first "name" patient that emerged was Tiger Woods. As time and the investigation have moved forward, some other superstar names have come to the forefront. Alex Rodriguez, Huston Street, Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes, and Carlos Delgado either have spoken to or have appointments to meet with the Feds regarding the Galea case. What was said to the Feds is unknown at this point. It may just simply be the athletes confirming that Galea worked on their knees, and they never received HGH or any other Performance Enhancers from Dr. Galea. However, the term Benefit Of The Doubt, does not fly on this blog, especially when it comes to possible Drug Cheating.

That being the case, there are a few things that arouse my curiosity, some of which include why would all these players, specifically New York based players, actively seek out a Canadian Doctor for simple knee treatment? How did they find him? How did the guys referring these players to Galea know how to find him? Apparently Dr. Richard Steadman, the same doctor whose clinic operated on Kobe Bryant's knee in 2003, is among one of the main referral sources for Galea. Still though, it seems a little too random that they would all be so willing to travel to Toronto on a referral for simple knee treatments?

Another curious question that comes up is why indeed are the Feds talking to all of these players with such frequency and urgency? The most obvious case where this type of behavior from the Feds took place was BALCO . As a result of the investigation, and some nice Grand Jury testimony leakage, the biggest Doping In Sports scandal was exposed, of which Major League Baseball-specifically the past decade, has never fully recovered from.

All these little coincidences and reminders beg the overall largest question to be asked which is : Is this the beginning of another storm of drug cheating surrounding Major League Baseball players, Olympians, NFL players, and The Goliath Of Golf? Is this as big, or possibly bigger than the BALCO case, in terms of inter-agency cooperation, public disclosure, and re-examination of the legitimacy of certain sports achievements? Or is this simply a case of a whole lot of smoke but no fire?

The problem is, we might never know. It took a crooked lawyer talking to two reporters in order for BALCO to fully come to light. ESPN certainly won't be devoting anyone to this story full time since they are still in bed with MLB. One thing's for sure though, if this were to be BALCO Part II, Bud Selig might finally understand that there is no "moving on" from the steroid era, unless he really is interested in getting to the bottom of the steroid era. Somehow I don't see that happening either...

Adios

The Free Agency period is rapidly approaching the NFL Landscape, and two interesting names have been thrown back into the market, in Thomas Jones and Orlando Pace. What makes them interesting, is they are both former Jerry Angelo gambles that ended up being significant losing bets for good old, nautical referencing Big Jer. Most importantly though, both decisions drastically altered and diminished the Chicago Bears chances of postseason success since Super Bowl XLI.

Angelo (with the help of Lovie Smith) bet the farm that Cedric Benson was going to be a better fit as the franchise running back for the Chicago Bears than Thomas Jones in 2005. Jerry still believed this to be the case in 2007, despite obvious overwhelming evidence that Jones was a far superior fit (ran for 1335 yards in 2005, 1210 in 2006, and led the team to the Super Bowl) than Benson. Now Jones after rushing for 3,833 yards and 28 TD's in 3 seasons including a career high of 1,402 yards plus 14 touchdowns last season, finds himself released by the New York Jets after refusing to take a paycut. It would never happen, but ask yourself this Bears fans, which available free agent running back would you pay $5 million for right now? Washed up Ladainian Tomlinson, washed up Jamal Lewis, concussion case Brian Westbrook, or the pride of Big Stone Gap, Virginia who showed he's still plenty effective at 32 years old in Thomas Jones?

On the other side of the coin is the release of Orlando Pace. Angelo signed the veteran left tackle the same day of the Jay Cutler trade (btw I'm still waiting for that "winner" Kyle Orton's playoff game to start? When is that supposed to happen? He's a proven winner right so shouldn't his team have played in the playoffs this past season?), and the results were not pretty. Pace was a shadow of himself the entire season, both in pass and run blocking to the point where he was demoted to a reserve in favor of second year player Chris Williams. What's even more interesting about this move is that Pace initially was thought to be returning to the Bears with the hire of offensive line coach Mike Tice. There was also talk about Pace retiring as well. Neither of these scenario's happened however, as the Bears gave Pace the "see ya later".

It's pointless to ponder what could have been since the past is for "...cowards and losers." Still it does make Bears fans uneasy about the decision making process heading into this Free Agency period., It's even more disheartening when Jerry Angelo still hasn't hired his buddy Tim Ruskell as Bobby DePaul's replacement.