Random Friday Stuff

I was searching the Internet this morning and realized that pretty much everything that sports columnists I have bookmarked are talking about is the Boston-Chicago series, Alex Rodriguez, and a ton of other shit I don't really care about right now. I am mildly depressed there is nothing of great value out there for me to write about today. Fortunately, I was able to scrounge up some stuff we can talk about for the day. I wish one of the many hack writers I follow would put something up today that is just absolutely horrible to read...but they have not yet. So I thought I would just post some notes and other stuff here that are of interest until someone on the Internet gets a bad idea for an article and I decide to write about it.

-We are still in the middle of our "name as many NFL players as you can who played the same position in college together at the same time and either sucked or did not suck in the NFL," so I can have some hard data and prove Gregg Easterbrook makes things up when he says he does not trust Ron Brace and B.J. Raji in the NFL because he believes one made the other look good.

This is a much better game than my personal favorite game of all-time I play with my two friends in the world called, "Name a player who was on steroids in the late 1990's and early 2000's and then he got off the steroids and it is completely obvious." Basically, it is just a fun game of slandering players who had bizarre jumps in their statistics during that time period.

I always start my list off with Brian Giles and Marcus Giles. It's a fun game because you can research the players on Baseball Reference and watch their numbers drop off when MLB started testing for steroids.

Here are a couple more college players who made the pros and played the same position:

Dwayne Jarrett and Steve Smith: one sucks and one is average

Keary Colbert and Mike Williams: both sucked

Lawrence Maroney and Marion Barber: average (I guess) and great

-Commenter and professional writer from FJMariotti (which I know he probably tires of me calling him a professional writer) Chris W made a comment yesterday that he is not inclined to believe the new allegations of pitching tipping concerning Alex Rodriguez, and even if he did believe it, how is anyone going to prove it? I am inclined to agree with him, but thought I would share this brief interview with Selena Roberts from SI.com (who is desperately trying to give her book some credibility). I still say I think this is as bad as anything Pete Rose did, if it could be proven, which it can't.

Only a small number of Rangers knew about the quid pro quo that Alex was involved in and did not want it to spread around the clubhouse because it would have been devastating to the team.

This is where it is starting to fall apart a little bit for me. It is almost like there were certain Rangers "in the know" about this but they were protecting A-Rod and the team from his actions. It doesn't really make sense to me because I would think, if certain Rangers knew about it, they would want the team to know so the pitchers who gave up the late inning hits would feel comfortable knowing it wasn't completely their fault and possibly punch A-Rod in his purple lipped face. Maybe I don't understand clubhouse dynamics though. I just feel like it would devastate the team in a certain way to not reveal what A-Rod was doing.

SI.com: How did this pitch-tipping originate?

Selena Roberts: I don't know the history of how it has worked in the major leagues,

She is kind of avoiding the question in that sentence, I don't think the question was on a history of pitch tipping.

it just became more noticeable that his mannerisms on the field were different in games that were already over, its 10-2, something like that.

As I said yesterday, if this was true, I think A-Rod should be in as much trouble with MLB as Pete Rose was, but this all seems pretty vague to me. If the game was a blowout, I would guess he was probably more relaxed and that is why his mannerisms changed.

they noticed this behavior with Alex where he would do very obvious signs, presumably to an opposing hitter who would be a middle infielder on an opposing team, where they believed that he would tip the signs.

I really hate defending A-Rod or even giving him the benefit of the doubt, but this is pretty vague. They "believed" he would tip signs, but do not seem to "know."

If it was a changeup, sources say, he would twist his glove hand. To indicate a slider, he would allegedly sweep the dirt in front of him, and he would bend in the direction of where the pitch was going to be, inside or outside. I don't know that it's easy to decode. You're talking about people who see a player on an every-day basis, day after day, year after year.

I like that reporters are able to keep their sources private here in America, but it also creates the problem that no one has a clue who is the "source" Selena Roberts has and how much credibility that person has.

At least one teammate in a very gentle way did say, "Hey, you might be tipping a little too soon out there." What would usually happen would be for Alex to signal the pitch to his teammates as the pitcher was in the windup; that way the batter is focused on the pitcher and not able to see the sign.

This is something I did not know, that the SS sometimes tips the pitch to the other infielders. I want to play devil's advocate and ask whether maybe A-Rod was just an asshole and tended to tip the pitches way too early and was not actually tipping the pitch to the batter. I could be wrong, but since he is tipping the pitch to his teammates already, maybe other players on the opposing team knew he would tip the pitch too early and watched him a split second before the pitch to find out the location and pitch type. So anything A-Rod did was unintentional. Again, this is speculation, but it does change things for me a little bit that he was already tipping the pitch to his teammates, so the only problem is actually WHEN during the pitcher's windup he tipped the pitch.

These people who knew about it or witnessed it knew how it would play in the clubhouse if it became an issue. These were all reasons why it didn't become a bigger deal than it was, because people wanted to keep it under wraps.

I find this to be a poor excuse, again maybe I don't understand clubhouse dynamics, but if the very problem was that A-Rod was tipping pitches too early SOMEONE on that Ranger team would have had the balls to say something to him. Especially if it was hurting the team. Look at the 2002 roster and you can tell me there is no one on that team that would have the balls to say something to A-Rod?

It's not that I don't believe A-Rod did this, it's just the information seems pretty vague and unreliable to me...especially since he was supposed to tip the pitch anyway, he just did it too early.

The people that are noticing this, it's not something that you want to tell anybody else. You want to keep it to yourself until it becomes something you can't ignore anymore. If this had been a situation where it was determining the outcome of a game, obviously it would have been a much different story.

I am sorry, this doesn't make sense to me. If it is messing with someone's statistics on the Rangers team, it is a big deal, and considering players cheat and do everything else in their power to stay in the major leagues, I don't see how a player tipping off the pitch to the batter is not a big deal or was not determining the outcome of the game. This type thing messes with a pitcher's livelihood, so I find it hard to believe someone on the Rangers rosters would not say something about, regardless of how well like A-Rod was by Rangers owner Tom Hicks. It sucks to give A-Rod the benefit of the doubt but until I hear a person's name who said this about A-Rod and absolutely knows he did this, I could easily assume A-Rod just tipped the pitches to the other infielders too early and I could be right. Again, if he did this and the Robert's story is true, this is worse than steroids in my mind. It's a hard burden to prove though.

-I have to give it to Pete Prisco, he does something the "great" Mel Kiper doesn't do (to my knowledge) he goes back and reviews his draft grades from 2006. This is a very interesting read because it shows just how fickle the draft process is and how good/bad fans should really feel about who their team drafted.

Here's the original.

Here's the regrading of the 2006 draft. He's actually a little too kind with some of these teams in my opinion. When your first two picks are all busts, like the Arizona Cardinals had happen to them, I don't know how they don't get a minimum of a D.

I always enjoy reading these types of articles but a lot of people who do draft grades won't go back and grade themselves, which I think is a shame, because I enjoy it.

-I did decent in my mock draft. I am counting how many players I got exactly right in the exact position they were drafted, which is always hard, but I got 4 out of 32. I really did not think the Chiefs were going to take Tyson Jackson and the Bucs would be dumb enough to draft Josh Freeman. It's not an excuse though, I kind of sucked. I did get 26 of the players in the first round correct, so that redeems me a little bit.

-It's happening, you know it is happening, so just get prepared for it to happen. SI's Truth and Rumor section is not the best place to get information but we also have this story from the Newark Star Ledger. Brett Favre is coming back and there is nothing we can do about it.

First, following the draft, Favre asked the Jets for his unconditional release for a "second time," I'm told. If you remember, when he retired last February, Favre and his agent, Bus Cook, denied they had asked the Jets for his official release.

This begs the question of why ask for your release if you are retired?

Although Favre said in a statement on Tuesday and through his agent again on Wednesday that he has no intention of returning to football next season, his actions -- asking for his release from the Jets twice -- don't jive with his words.

Well he does have a past history of lying and deceiving so he can get what he wants...so this pretty much jives with his history by not jiving with his words.

There is also this circumstantial evidence. I don't dislike Brett Favre as a person or a football player, but he needs to go away and stay the fuck away. The Jets have moved on, the NFL has moved on, Peter King has moved on, and the entire public has moved on. Go away and stay away.

What you guys think? Is he coming back? I don't want him to, but I think it is just a matter of time, no matter how Favre wants to deny it, and with his job on the line up in Minnesota I can see Brad Childress taking a chance on Favre and Favre wanting to get back at the Packers for treating him so "poorly."

I am still waiting for a shitty article to written by someone...