Happy Wednesday everyone, here's my Top 5 for August 15, 2012 from Len Berman at www.ThatsSports.com.
1. Quick Hits
- Mutiny on the Fenway? Supposedly several players met with Red Sox ownership last month and told them they didn't want to play for manager Bobby Valentine. Dustin Pedroia who attended the meeting denies that they called for Valentine's firing.
- Baseball attendance is up by 4 percent this season. The extra wild card keeping more teams in the race is probably a factor.
- Need some speed? Former Florida running back Jeff Demps, who was part of the U.S. silver medal winning 4x100 relay at the Olympics says he's ready for the NFL.
2. The Cruelest Cut
First Chad Johnson was arrested for head-butting his wife, then the Miami Dolphins released him, then their reality show was canceled by VH1 and now Evelyn Lozada has filed for divorce after 41 days of marriage. That's basically hitting for the Ochocinco cycle. Plus he had to suffer his firing by the Dolphins being shown last night on HBO's Hard Knocks. I found myself feeling sorry for Johnson. How public does everything have to be?
3. Not So Pee Wee
A kid from the Dallas area has been kicked off his Pee Wee football team because he's too big. The rule says any seventh grader above 135 pounds has to play for the school team, not the local pee wee football league. Elijah Earnhart, 12 years old, is 6'1" and weighs in at a nice rotund 297 pounds, over twice the weight limit. Here's the local TV report. Elijah's mom is staging a protest. How about a diet?
4. Cloak and Dagger
I'm still trying to figure out why the Jets kicked the fans out of practice the other day to practice their "top-secret" wildcat offense, but they let the media stay under the proviso that they couldn't write about what they saw. Rather than saying that we in the media probably couldn't understand an entire football play, let alone write about it, I'll leave it to the Wall Street Journal to describe what happened:
On multiple occasions while Tebow was playing quarterback Monday, Sanchez [REDACTED] to the [REDACTED] and [REDACTED]. And in one surprising sequence, Sanchez [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] Tebow, who instead of lining up at [REDACTED] had [REDACTED].
That should clear things up.
5. Not Necessarily the News
There are all sorts of fake Twitter accounts out there. For example @OfficialSkyNews has nothing to do with Sky News. And Margaret Thatcher is very much alive, as opposed to her supposed death which was tweeted yesterday. On a much lighter note, this was the fake (real) tweet of the day, from a real (fake) Twitter account named: @NOTSportsCenter. Yesterday, on Tim Tebow's 25th birthday they tweeted out: "BREAKING: Tim Tebow just blew out ALL of his birthday candles. 100%!!! Next on SportsCenter: full analysis with a candle-by-candle breakdown."
Happy Birthday: Three time Olympic gold medal beach volleyball player, Kerri Walsh Jennings. 34.
Bonus Birthday: Ben Affleck. 40.
Today in Sports: 15 years ago today, the Dodgers retire Tommy Lasorda's #2. 1997.
Bonus Event: Sex, drugs and rock and roll. Woodstock opens. 1969.
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