The rumors have been circulating for a while now, but on Wednesday morning the Philadelphia Phillies made it official and announced that they've signed future Hall of Fame pitcher Pedro Martinez. As for when Martinez will make his first start in a Phillies uniform, well, we're going to have to wait at least fifteen more days to find out...
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Ever since news broke late Monday night that the Blackhawks were replacing Dale Tallon as general manager with Stan Bowman, former Blackhawk Martin Havlat has been a Tweeting machine on his Twitter page. He's been letting his thoughts be heard in 140 character or less bursts.
Here are some examples of what Havlat had to say.
I guess everyone saw what happened to Dale....yes, the story is starting to come out but it's just the tip of the iceberg.
Lot's of people are telling me to stay quiet but shouldn't the fans know the truth? It's your loyalty, season ticket money and emotions here
What do you people think? Interested to know your thoughts.
Just so everyone begins to understand, Dale was like a 2nd father to me.
Want to be clear. I loved my time in Chicago but moved on. Very excited about Minny,going to give everything I have to the Wild.
"My negotiation with Chicago was not between Dale and my agent, it was between Dale and McDonough," Havlat said "Why? Because McDonough couldn't stand that Dale was so successful and getting the credit for building the Hawks from a last place team to making the Conference Final in three short years. Remember, we were also the youngest team in the NHL last year."Well then.
"I was too closely identified with Dale," he continued. "McDonough knew long ago he was going to fire Dale. He wanted someone he could claim as his own He wanted to stand up at the convention and claim credit for signing this guy or that guy."
Havlat's candor won't be easily accepted by the Blackhawks, and there may be claims of this being nothing more than the backlash of a jilted player, but Havlat's appreciation for Dale Tallon is what drove him to speak up mere hours after Tallon's firing was confirmed.
"Dale and I were very close and I stand for loyalty. The players loved Dale and they are with him. Every single player on that team is with Dale. I still talk to the guys all the time, hockey players know a phony when they see one."
"I was part of a very special team but that team doesn't exist anymore. I am really disappointed that Rocky Wirtz would let something like this happen," Havlat told TSN.ca.
Now I can't remember what Eddie O. said word for word because I only heard it the once and they haven't replayed it, but to paraphrase, here you go. Basically Olczyk said that Havlat came to Chicago as an extremely overpaid player who had trouble staying healthy. The Hawks gave him a chance here, and he was hurt all the time except last season, which happened to be a contract year for Havlat.
Olczyk then went on to say that if Havlat loved Chicago so much he could have just signed a one-year deal with the Blackhawks to prove to the team he could stay healthy and that he wanted to be here.
Instead he bristled at the idea and took a deal with the Minnesota Wild.
Like I said earlier, I'm not sure how to feel about this thing. While I think there's some truth to what Havlat is saying, I think a lot of it is just sour grapes. At the same time, I don't really buy the story the Blackhawks are selling either.
Listening to their answers during yesterday's press conference, there were some things said that seemed to contradict other things that were said in the same press conference. I mean, in one sentence McDonough said that if the restricted free agent fiasco hadn't happened, Tallon would "probably" still be the general manager.
Then a minute later he was saying the blame for the offer sheets laid with the entire organization, but ultimately, himself.
So frankly I don't think either side is being completely honest with us about it, and if I'm going to be completely honest about it, I'll just say that I can't wait for next season to start so the Blackhawks can start winning some games and we can all just move on.
The last year has easily been the best year for the Chicago Blackhawks as a team and an organization in a long, long time. Not only was the team very good this season with a young nucleus of players that reached the Western Conference Finals, but they also led the NHL in attendance after playing in front of sparse crowds at the United Center for a while now.
They've also managed to bring legends like Stan Mikita, Bobby Hull and Tony Esposito back into the fold, and have shown a willingness to spend money the last few offseasons, which is something I'd never seen the team do in my lifetime.
Last year they signed the top two free agents available in Brian Campbell and Cristobal Huet, and this summer they signed Marian Hossa.
So what's the next logical step for an organization to take after having such a successful run? Why, fire the general manager of course. Wait a second. What?
CSN's Josh Mora is reporting that the Blackhawks have fired GM Dale Tallon and an official announcement will be made on Tuesday.While I was very surprised to hear this news, at the same time, I'm not all that shocked by it either. When the team brought Scotty Bowman in last offseason to be senior advisor of hockey operations, you kind of got the feeling that Tallon's time was running out. After all Scotty's son Stan had been assistant GM for years, and I figured he was going to get a shot to run the team on his own with his father around.
Tallon has recently come under fire when the team failed to get qualifying offers out in time to several restricted free agents including Kris Versteeg.
Stan Bowman will replace Tallon as GM.
I remember after Tyrone Willingham was fired by Notre Dame back in 2004 the frenzy that followed surrounding the firing, and who would be replacing him in South Bend. I had one name in mind for who I wanted to take over the program.
Urban Meyer.
At the time Meyer was at Utah and had somehow managed to turn a quarterback like Alex Smith into the first overall pick of the NFL Draft. That was all I needed to see from the man to know that if he could do that, he could return the Fighting Irish to college football glory.
In the end, though, Meyer didn't take the job and it went to Charlie Weis, who I was also fine with at the time as a second choice. As we all know, Meyer then went on to Gainesville to coach the Florida Gators where he has won two national titles in the last three years and introduced us all to the wonder that is Tim Tebow.
Well, it still seems that every few months there's speculation that should the Fighting Irish struggle again this fall and Charlie Weis get the axe, Meyer will leave Florida for South Bend. I don't see why Urban would do such a thing, but that doesn't keep me from hoping that it might actually happen.
Well, Urban is intent on crushing my dreams.
Urban Meyer spent an hour of his Saturday at the 15th Bob Dooley Invitational, a tournament I host to benefit STOP! Children's Cancer. He also kicked off the tournament with a speech about family, the SEC and Tim Tebow.Now for all of you Notre Dame fans who want Meyer in South Bend as well, don't worry, this probably won't actually end any of the speculation. Especially if Notre Dame gets off to a bad start this year.
Midway through the talk, Meyer was talking about the "nonsense" that came up again last week when a column by Paul Finebaum in the Mobile paper indicated (again) that Meyer is leaving Florida for Notre Dame after this season.
He turned to me and asked. "Is it OK to make this announcement here?"
I knew what he was going to say because he said something similar when the speculative story surfaced three weeks ago.
Meyer turned back to the golfers and said, "I'm not going to Notre Dame. Ever. I'm going to be the coach at Florida for a long time, as long as they want me."
He turned back to me and told me to put that in the paper, then to three other writers playing in the tournament and told them to print it.
Here's an example of how badly the Chicago Cubs need another left-handed arm in their bullpen for the second half of this season. On Sunday night manager Lou Piniella had his lone lefty reliever Sean Marshall in to pitch the ninth inning. Well, with the bases loaded and nobody out, the Cardinals had Brendan Ryan at the plate so Piniella brought in righty Aaron Heilman to face him...
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To be honest with you, as much as I love baseball, I'm pretty bored by the All-Star Game. For me the best part of the break is the Home Run Derby -- which we'll be live-blogging over at FanHouse tonight -- and the Futures Game.
Still, I realize that some of you actually enjoy the game itself, so with that in mind, here are tomorrow night's starting lineups for the American and National Leagues.
AMERICAN LEAGUE
It seems like we've been waiting forever for the Tribune Company to finally complete its proposed sale to the Ricketts family, and there's even been word that a new buyer may emerge before everything is said and done. While I'm not sure how much stock to put in that rumor -- it could just be a ploy to speed up the Ricketts bid -- I do know that the faster this sale gets done, the better for everybody involved.
The Tribune can get a nice influx of money to help with other areas, and the Cubs can finally start running the team as if they have solid ownership.
So how can they speed up this process? Well, it doesn't sound good when you first hear it, but it seems that having the team file for bankruptcy could really speed things up.
The Chicago Cubs may become the first Major League Baseball team in 39 years to file for bankruptcy as Tribune Co. seeks to sell the franchise after months of negotiations.Now I'm nowhere near educated enough in this business side of things to even pretend I have a real clue what's going on here, but from what I read in the article, this is what I understand. Essentially by filing for bankruptcy the Cubs are divorcing themselves from any financial problems the Tribune Company is having, and therefore Ricketts starts his reign with a clean slate and nothing to worry about.
Tribune sought Chapter 11 protection in December. It is contemplating a separate filing for the Cubs to expedite the team’s estimated $900 million sale to interested bidders, including Incapital LLC Chairman Tom Ricketts, according to four people familiar with the plan.
A brief Cubs bankruptcy would be a legal maneuver to clear the team from any future liability in the Tribune bankruptcy, according to two of the people familiar with the matter. Sam Zell, chief executive officer of Chicago-based Tribune, pledged the company’s interest in the Cubs as collateral when he negotiated the deal to take the publisher private in 2007, according to one of those people.
“You take it in the front door, and it’s just like you’re getting radiation,” said Michael J. Cramer, a former president of the Texas Rangers who teaches sports business at New York University. “It comes out the other door about a half minute later. It’s clean.”
With the Home Run Derby taking place on Monday night in St. Louis as part of MLB's festivities for the All-Star Game, we've been left wondering exactly who would be representing the American League. The National League announced its participants last week, and now, finally, we know who will be swinging for the fences for the AL...
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Here's the aforementioned interview. Thanks to Ryan Phillips of Rumors and Rants for the link.
Unfortunately this video doesn't include Lesnar's interview after the fight, which was quite entertaining. Seems Brock still thinks he's in the WWE as he talked about the horseshoe up Mir's ass in their first fight and how he "pulled that sumbitch out and beat him over the head with it" before moving on to slam Bud Light for not paying him and closing by saying he was going to go home and have sex with his wife.
As Panger pointed out afterward when we all wondered who would fight Lesnar next, I think the only opponent they can find for him at this point is one of the Pamplona bulls.
Had a great time watching UFC 100 on Saturday night, and while I really enjoyed Georges St. Pierre's win and was somewhat entertained by Brock Lesnar's antics after knocking out Frank Mir, there's no question this was the highlight of the night.
Since they keep deleting the video, courtesy of Chicago's MMA.
I think it's safe to say that Michael Bisping will have no recollection of Dan Henderson's right cross.
It's been a pretty odd season for the Chicago Cubs. For the most part everybody and their mother had the team picked to run away with the NL Central this season but ten days into July and the north siders are 41-41. They trail the Cardinals by 3.5 games in the division as they prepare to start a four-game series with St. Louis this afternoon.
Well, if this weather lets them anyway.
Of course it's due to the fact that they're only 3.5 games behind the Cardinals that most baseball fans in this city have been of the opinion that sooner or later, this team is going to wake itself up and get going. I repeat, however, it's July 10th and they're still a .500 team.
Now when Aramis Ramirez came back this week a lot of people, myself included, saw this as just the tonic the Cubs struggling offense needed to get itself cranking again. Today, though, today I wonder if we're all not just fooling ourselves.
Maybe the Cubs just aren't going to live up to the expectations. I mean, how many signs do we need to see before the light goes on in our brains? Aramis Ramirez is back for five minutes, and immediately any optimism that sparks is crushed by finding out that Ryan Dempster may miss an entire month because he's white and has trouble jumping over anything that's more than six inches off the ground.
Now today the Cubs get the news that they could be without Geovany Soto for a month as well, as that strained left oblique he suffered in batting practice has put him on the disabled list.
Soto may not be having the same year with the Cubs in 2009 as he did in 2008, but his absence still hurts. A struggling Soto is still better than Koyie Hill and whoever the Cubs replace Soto with on the roster.
So maybe it's time that we stop listening to that voice in our head that says this team is going to be fine. Maybe we should all start to just accept that fact that even though the Cubs have made the playoffs for the last two seasons, that's not a guarantee they're going to get back for the third.
The Baseball Gods are sending us all of these signals that this is the case. I think it's time we open our eyes and start listening to them.
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