Tag: USA Today

Oakland A’s Sign a Fan After Seeing Him Throwing HEAT in Stadium Speed Pitch Challenge

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USA Today – Baseball fan Nathan Patterson lit up the speed-pitch radar booth at Coors Field a few weeks ago while attending a game with his brother. Now, he has signed a contract with a Major League Baseball team.

Patterson casually threw a 96-mph fastball at a Colorado Rockies game July 15, and on Thursday, the Oakland A’s made his dream come true as the 23-year-old signed a contract with the club.

The backstory makes Patterson’s journey even more epic. He played high school baseball but never pursued it in college, but he started taking baseball seriously again last August. He originally caught the A’s attention at a Nashville Sounds game (the team’s Triple-A affiliate at the time) when he threw 96 mph there as well…He was injured in a car accident in December and needed surgery. But Patterson was resilient, kept training and stayed sharp in a rec league.

This is literally a movie plot except if you tried to get this made they’d laugh you out the fucking door saying we already made this movie.

As much as the hater in me wants to knock a guy for falling ass backwards into a major league contract (and he’s clearly over the line)…

Despite all that, you can’t lie this is impressive AF. You ever try one of those speed pitch radar booths at a game? Incredibly humbling. Everyone likes to think they’re just a tick below a professional athlete (“yea well I played varsity my senior year in high school but wanted to focus on my studies in college”) until you get in front of the radar gun and can barely top 60 mph. Thats not even fast enough to be considered a knuckleballer in the pros so for you to be crow hopping and blowing out a shoulder just to hit 62 mph ain’t gonna cut it.

So props to this guy for coming out of the clouds to earn a contract with the A’s and, at least for a little while, getting out of the rate race that is cube life.

Former Disgruntled Patriot Jamie Collins is Already on a List of the Worst Contracts in the NFL

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Browns Wire – “[Jamie Collins] is entering the second season of a four-year, $50 million deal signed after being acquired in a trade with New England. Collins has the seventh-highest contract at his position group. It’s a major stretch to include him as one of the 10 best at his position.

Collins ranks 19th on the list of the worst contracts for each of the 32 NFL teams. The explanation, from Jason Fitzgerald of indispensable contract tracking site Over The Cap, makes a lot of sense,

Collins is a good player, but he is not a difference-maker and does not play an expensive position. The Browns still signed him to a top-market contract, which treats Collins as if he were an elite-level player. He played only six games in 2017 and recorded just 21 tackles with one sack.”

Remember when every story written about the Patriots was focused around how they had so many budding young stars on defense that they would need to find a way to pay them all? Times have changed. Dont’a Hightower, Chandler Jones, Malcolm Butler, and Jamie Collins. Now just a couple of years later only one remains with the team. That is downright shocking.

Chandler Jones has come back to bite the Patriots hard, despite his fondness for consciousness altering edibles, recording 17 sacks last year, made the Pro Bow and finished 3rd in Defensive Player of the Year voting. I always take this list with a grain of salt because its voted on by the players, but Jones was also ranked 28th in the NFL Network Top 100 Players this year. Meanwhile the Patriots had only two on the entire list, Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski, with exactly zero on the defensive side of the ball.

Now the effect of Malcolm Butler’s departure remains to be seen as his tenure kicked off in an absolutely legendary fashion, clinching a victory in Super Bowl XLIX. It clearly ended badly in New England though with his ultimate and baffling benching in Super Bowl LII. I love Butler, I think he’s a great player but we’ll see how he performs down in Tennessee. Unless Butler is an absolute disaster for the Titans from Day 1, there’s probably no coming back from the roasting Belichick will get for benching Butler in the Super Bowl for the rest of his life.

But, moving on to our old friend Jamie Collins. Jamie, Jamie, Jamie. For every move that Belichick screws up with a Chandler Jones, theres 10 Jamie Collins he ships out of town. The guy was an athletic freak, most notably jumping the offensive line and blocking a kick, as seen above, before the NFL outlawed that too. Collins fell out of favor though and famously bitched about his role on the team. Bill didn’t even blink before he shipped Collins out mid-season to the NFL purgatory that is Cleveland. That very offseason Collins got PAID by the Browns with a 4 year $50 million deal. I remember all kind of shook our heads. Sure Collins had great potential, but potential doesn’t sign the paychecks.

Well after just one year of that albatross of a contract, a year where Collins played only 6 games and had just 21 tackles, its already on the list of worst deals in the NFL.

Somewhere on the calm and icy blue waters of Nantucket Belichick smiles quietly to himself while laying out in the sun on the VII Rings.

Is Shohei Ohtani Charmin Soft for Asking Fans to Be Quiet When He Hits?

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Yahoo – USA Today reported that three women who were sitting behind the visitors’ dugout at Kauffman Stadium on Friday night for the Angels game against the Kansas City Royals were asked by stadium security to stop cheering so loudly during Shohei Ohtani’s at-bats. The message reportedly came from the Angels dugout.. The women, who were Japanese exchange students, had no problem quieting down. And they didn’t just quiet down, they fell completely silent during Ohtani’s next at-bat. After the game, a 5-4 for the Angels in which Ohtani went 2-for-4 with a double, Ohtani’s translator Ippei Mizuhara shed a little light on the situation to USA Today. “He heard it, he’s thankful for the cheers,’’ said Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s interpreter, “but at the plate, he likes to focus and block out the noise.” Ohtani, as is his way, focused on the effect it had on the team as a whole. “I was aware of that,’’ Ohtani said, “but I wasn’t the one that asked for that. (The Angels) just did it so everyone could focus at the plate. “I was thankful for that.”

If I’m an Angels fan I would be RATTLED by this story. You mean the guy that of all the places he could have signed with he chose the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim? The guy that dodged every single big market. That guy is now complaining that fans are CHEERING too loud for him? Ohtani said he didn’t actually request it, but he appreciated it. Ya sure thing buddy. I’m sure Mike Trout knows how tough cheering fans can be so he made security tell these 3 college kids to pipe down.

Now Ohtani has been incredible to start his career so this isn’t really a huge story. Yet. But if and when he hits some turbulence I will be fascinated to see how he responds. Does he block it all out and get back on track without issue? Or does he crumble because everyone is yelling at him?

This was at a home game by the way. Just wait until he plays a big game on the road. Red Sox and Yankees fans are going to have a field day with this. Just imagine trying to tell these boozed up degenerates they need to be quiet so Shohei can concentrate at the plate. Good. Luck.

David Price Doing His Best to Deter Free Agents from Signing With the Red Sox

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ESPN –  J.D. Martinez had no shortage of information to consider before agreeing Monday evening to sign with the Boston Red Sox. But ace David Price tried to make the slugger’s decision a little bit easier. “I’ve talked to him a couple of times,” Price said recently. “I told him we’d love to have him here.” Price, Martinez’s teammate with the Detroit Tigers in 2014-15, elaborated in an interview with USA Today Sports that was published Tuesday. “I told J.D. he will love the guys here in this clubhouse, but also told him he’ll get booed,” Price told the newspaper. “He’s a quiet, soft-spoken guy, but he’ll handle it. Besides, everyone gets booed. I heard Big Papi get booed many times in Fenway.”

Jesus christ this guy just can’t get out of his own way. Just lie to us. Just lie. Don’t tell me that you told a Free Agent Boston is a great place to play, but then follow that up IMMEDIATELY by saying its a negative shit hole and all the fans will boo you and are mean on Twitter.

“It’s tough here,” is how Price described his first two seasons in a Red Sox uniform, according to USA Today’s Bob Nightengale. “There’s just so much more negativity.”

And whats all this about booing David Ortiz? Many times? I mean maybe some fans did in 2009 (the only year from 2004-2013 he didn’t make the All-Star team) when he hit .238? That was also a cool 7 years before Price played for the Red Sox. Did fans boo Big Papi many times in the one season they played together in 2016? Ya know the year Ortiz hit .315 with 48 Home Runs and 127 RBI’s on his retirement tour? The year he had a 1.021 OPS, the 4th best of his entire 20 year career?

I call Kangaroo Court.

But, I digress. If anything, this tells you what JD Martinez thinks of David Price’s opinion. Oh its a miserable, negative shit hole? I’m in.

Meanwhile we have Rick Porcello going the complete opposite direction in his assessment of Boston when asked by Martinez:

“It’s honestly a pleasure playing in Boston,” he explained. “Yeah, there are tough times if you’re not playing well. You’re going to hear about it. But what’s wrong with that? Who doesn’t want to hear about it? Because when you are playing well, it feels like you’ve got the entire world behind you, and that’s all you can ask for as a player. That’s fair.”

Little tidbits like this make me wonder just how divided this Red Sox clubhouse really is. You have guys like Porcello and Chris Sale talking about how they love the pressure and accountability of Boston, which is the antithesis of Price who bitches about everything every chance he gets. I wonder if one of the veterans is going to, if they haven’t already, tell Price to just STFU.

Before the negative attitude infects all of the good young players on this team and they think its natural, encouraged even, to piss and moan to the media every time Dan Shaugnessy writes a mean word about you.

This is what guys like Price say they understand, but they don’t really get it. If you 1.) play hard and 2.) perform well you’ll be scotch. Hell even if you can’t do #2 but you still do #1 then you’re good in my book. Trot Nixon is a goddamn legend in this town. People to this day still lovingly refer to him as a dirt dog. The guy with a .274 career batting average and 137 Home Runs. That guy is revered around here because he played his balls off every day.

I’m not saying you can’t complain or you can’t get mad because that’s only human, but channel that negative energy man. Use it. Get pissed off. Pitch well for an entire season. But don’t cash those $31 Million checks every year while whining about every little perceived slight every single time there’s a mic in your face. And definitely do not tell prospective Free Agent signings that they will get booed by the fans if they sign here. Christ.

LiAngelo Ball is Already Fighting Off Female Fans in Lithuania

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USA Today – LiAngelo Ball didn’t say much during his introductory press conference with Prienu Vytautas on Friday. He did, however, manage to make news while sandwiched between LaMelo and LaVar Ball. At the end of the presser, a Lithuanian reporter asked Gelo if he had a girlfriend and if he’d like to go out with her. “I just came here to play,” LiAngelo said sheepishly. When pressed for a “yes” or “no” answer on her offer, Gelo replied simply, “No comment.”

GET IT, Gelo! Barely in Lithuania a week and you already got local female reporters risking it all to take a shot. I suppose being a public access sports reporter in Lithuania probably ain’t paying Katie Nolan money, but still impressive nonetheless.

LiAngelo may end up meeting a nice Lithuanian girl and settling down in Kiev to start a family. Just can that whole NBA dream after he averages 4 points a game for Prienu Vytautas. Who knows?

PS – I know a hot topic recently has been NBA coaches saying how “disgusted” they are with ESPN reporting everything LaVar Ball says, but the guy is popular and gets clicks. Thems the rules. How about USA Today though? They created a goddamnit subdomain called “Lonzo Wire.”

Rick Carlisle literally just puked seeing that. Get them clicks, USA Today. As the wise Missy Elliott once said:

I Am Offended at the Lack of Patriots Fans That Want to Go for 19-0

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It seems like the topic du jour around the local sports media is whether the Patriots can realistically (or should even attempt it) go a perfect 19-0. Except there seems to be less people talking about if they can do it and more people just straight up refusing to talk about it and saying its stupid to do so. USA Today thinks its doable. But basically every other media personality wants no part of it.

As a Patriots fan, the lack of people that want to go for 19-0 personally offends me.

Guys, I know it brings up bad memories. We almost had it in 2007. It was in the palms of our hands, less than 2 minutes to go and the 07 Patriots would be crowned the greatest team of all time.

If Asante Samuel makes that interception. If David Tyree plays like the insurance salesman he really is, if Rodney Harrison somehow jars that ball lose from his fucking helmet, if the refs actually called holding on the Giants offensive line on that play. The list goes on and on.

That shit used to kill me. Used to. But I noticed something recently. The 07 Super Bowl highlights come on….and I watch them. It doesn’t make me physically ill anymore. I can watch those clips and say ah man that sucked, without smashing a pint glass off my wall like I would have done a few years ago. Winning two Super Bowls since then goes a looong way in healing that pain. Brady’s 5-2 in the SB for christ’s sake. That will always be the most painful loss of my life. I was a freshman in college and my direct roommate was a Giants fan, not to mention half my hallway. So losing in that fashion, surrounded by that many Giants fans in neutral territory as a young, inebriated boyish man, that was a tough pill to swallow.

But like I said, one of the greatest Super Bowls EVER against Seattle with the Malcolm Butler pick to seal the W was cathartic; the greatest comeback of all time against the Falcons in 2016 gave us all our swagger back. You can’t say shit to us. You can’t hurt us.

The Patriots have 5 Super Bowl rings, Tom Brady is a 2x MVP, a 4x Super Bowl MVP, he had one of his greatest seasons ever during the Deflategate saga, and then was suspended the following year only to come back, tear it up and win another fucking Super Bowl. Belichick and Brady are the. Greatest. Of. All. Time. So…what do you get the men who have everything? The only thing left. Perfection

Its the ultimate. Its the only thing left that the Patriots don’t have. And there will always be the Felgers of the world saying we as Patriots fans all have a persecution complex (is it paranoid if its true though?) and theres nothing left to prove. But, tell someone they can’t do something or don’t need something and what do they want? Exactly. We’ve conquered the AFC East, we’ve conquered fan bases in St. Louis, Carolina, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Atlanta, we’ve taken on the league and the commissioner himself and come out with one for the thumb. TB12 is 40 years old and playing better than anyone has ever played the position. Minneaposix™ is the goal, but 19-0 will always be the ultimate.

PS – Plus if the Pats do go 19-0 I can get my fucking t-shirts back stateside.

Todd Marinovich is Back in Football!

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USA Today – It’s hard not to root for a successful Todd Marinovich turnaround. The former USC and Los Angeles Raiders quarterback prodigy, whose football career and life has famously been derailed by substance abuse on multiple occasions, was in Indian Wells on Friday for a news conference to announce that he is returning to competitive football. The former NFL and college star who just turned 48 on July 4, has joined the desert’s developmental football team the SoCal Coyotes after serving as an assistant coach last season.

Remember the kid you grew up with who played sports year round then went to camps and played travel ball all summer long without any time to be a kid because his dad was a psycho living variously through his kid? Yea thats Todd Marinovich times 1,000.

For anyone who’s not familiar Marinovich was basically bred to be a quarterback by his insane father. Marinovich’s dad is essentially Tim McGraw from Friday Night Lights, an absolute maniac who couldn’t let go of the glory days and drilled his kid into the ground to try and make him a better football player.

Seriously, look at this description of the dad from Wikipedia:

“His father, Marv Marinovich, an openly abusive parent, had been a lineman and a captain for the University of Southern California Trojans during the 1962 national championship season, and played in the 1963 Rose Bowl…After harming his own National Football League lineman career by overtraining and focusing too much on weight and bulk, Marv studied Eastern Bloc training methods and was hired by Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis as the NFL’s first strength-and-conditioning coach. Marv later opened his own athletic research center and applied the techniques to his young son, introducing athletic training before Marinovich could leave the crib and continuing it throughout his childhood and adolescence.”

The dad even had the mother in on it, basically feeding the kid like an olympic athlete.

“During her pregnancy, Trudi used no salt, sugar, alcohol, or tobacco; as a baby, Marinovich was fed only fresh vegetables, fruits, and raw milk…The question I asked myself was, How well could a kid develop if you provided him with the perfect environment?”

That shit is child abuse. This is how serial killers are born, let the kid have a McChicken every once in a while. So no wonder Marinovich is a little loopy himself. Now hopefully he’s getting back into football at the age of 48 because he loves the game and wants to play and not because he wants some side cash to buy some dope. But for anyone who saw his 30 for 30, Marinovich did NOT look like a guy who missed two-a-days.

But ya know thats why the Sandlot is one of the most popular sports movies of all time. Because organized sports and practice and conditioning camp and coaches yelling in your face is not fun. It sucks actually. The fun part is playing ball with your boys. So maybe getting on the High School field and slinging the ball around will be good for the guy. Who knows maybe even Brett Favre will make an appearance in his Wranglers, NOBODY likes backyard ball more than that guy.