Happy Thursday everyone, here's my Top 5 for August 4, 2011 from Len Berman at www.ThatsSports.com.
1. Quick Hits
- Former NFL star turned actor Bubba Smith is dead at the age of 66.
- Word is the new collective bargaining agreement will limit Commissioner Roger Goodell's powers for player disciplinary action. He'd no longer be the sole judge and jury.
- Philadelphia Eagles defensive tackle Mike Patterson was doing well at the hospital after suffering a seizure during practice.
- Tiger Woods ends a three-month break at the Bridgestone Invitational today in Akron.
2. Alex Who?
Normally, if your highest-paid player is injured, there's a steady drumbeat. How can he be replaced? When's he coming back? Then there's Alex Rodriguez. He hasn't played in a month after knee surgery, and nobody seems to notice. The Yankees are merrily rolling toward the playoffs. But whether Rodriguez plays or not, he always seems to make news. Major League Baseball is investigating him for illegal poker games. Supposedly, one game took place in Beverly Hills where cocaine was openly flaunted, and it nearly turned violent when a player refused to pay his losing debt of over half a million dollars. According to one baseball source, a suspension for A-Rod is "very much in play." The way things are going, the Yankees might not miss him.
3. The Heat is On
According to the Wall Street Journal, as temperatures go up, so do ejections in baseball. Over the past 10 years, when the temps fell below 50 degrees, there were 5.8 ejections per 100 games. When the temperature soared above 90, ejections rose to 11.4 per hundred games. As the temps rise, do umpire fuses grow shorter? Or is it that players and managers are more likely to go ballistic when it's hotter? Now, what if the umps wore white?
4. Oops
Oh, the life of a pro athlete. Flying all over the place just to play sports. Serbian tennis player Bojana Jovanovski was heading to Carlsbad, California for the Mercury Insurance Open. By mistake she went to Carlsbad, New Mexico. Some quick shuffling got her to the right Carlsbad with 30 minutes to spare. She still lost her first round match, but had a story to tell. Despite her travails, she has to go a long way to match a college student named Michael Lewis back in 1985. He was traveling home to Oakland from Europe, misheard the announcement and found himself on a plane from Los Angeles to Auckland, New Zealand. Oakland. Auckland. To-MAY-to, to-MAH-to.
5. When Your Time Is Up
Don't screw with the authorities in Butte, Montana. During a recent boxing match between Brock Aleksich and Bobby Moreno, the crowd was chanting for Moreno. Aleksich didn't like it, so between rounds he pulled off his boxing glove and shot the bird to the crowd. A police officer in the arena warned him not to do it again. But during the next break, he did it again. So police arrested him on the spot, and off he went. As for Moreno, he won one of the strangest TKOs in boxing history.
Happy Birthday: Pitcher Roger Clemens. 49.
Bonus Birthday: The Prez, Barack Obama. 50 (That's according to his birth certificate).
Today in Sports: Yankee outfielder Dave Winfield accidentally killed a seagull during warmup tosses. 1983.
Bonus Event: John Peter Zenger goes on trial. He is found not guilty of libel, paving the way for freedom of the press. 1735.
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