Lawrence Phillips: On A Roll
So what has Larry been up to lately? Doing time, mostly. And preparing for another criminal trial. And preparing to do still more time.
Life after football has not gone so well, as you can see.
Somewhere out there, Dick Vermeil must be sad for him. The same goes for Dr. Tom Osborne, his enabler at Nebraska.
CARDS-CUBS: YAWN
Forbes.com ranks the Cubs-Cardinals rivalry as merely the sixth-best in baseball.
Here is the explanation:
“Midwesterners will howl at this match-up’s low placement, but the simple fact is that history is not on the Cubs’ side (it would help if they won more often). The two teams have never finished first and second in their division despite the fact that they’ve always been in the same division. It’s simply not a very good rivalry when one team puts together eight World Series-caliber teams (Cardinals) and the other one finishes in last or second-to-last place in 29 of the 60 seasons we measured.”
Well, OK, that makes sense. A one-sided rivalry isn’t much of a rivalry.
MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE
Questions to ponder while wondering why Major League Baseball bothered coming back to Washington D.C.:
- Do the Nationals really believe they can win Kip Wells and Julian Tavarez in the eighth and ninth innings?
- How can that team be bad year after year after year? Shouldn’t they accumulate some players at some point?
- And just how bad is the National defense? What did those guys do all spring?
- Was the Celtics-Bulls playoff game one of the best ever? Should we take Steven Jackson’s word for it?
- With the Saints recommitted to New Orleans for the long haul, does that make Rams fans nervous about L.A.’s ongoing NFL quest?
NEW WAY FOR CANSECO TO FAIL
Jose Canseco washed out of baseball, flopped as a movie action hero, make America groan in two reality shows and got thrashed by former Gridbird Vai Sikahema in a celebrity boxing match.
So what’s next? A chance to get pounded in a mixed martial arts event. He is expected to fight 7-foot-2, 330 pound Hong Man Choi May 26 in Yokohama, Japan.
“I have no idea if I can do it,” Canseco said Thursday night, according to the Associated Press. “It’s a tough sport.”
CHANGING GOLF FOREVER
Thanks, Padraig Harrington, for validating Happy Gilmore’s unique swing.
If everybody did this, golf would suddenly be way more interesting to watch.
QUIPS ‘R US
Here is what some of America’s leading sports pundits have been writing:
Greg Cote, Miami Herald: “Forbes’ latest estimate of Major League Baseball franchise values puts the Yankees first at $1.5 billion and the Marlins last at $277 million. The Yankees were cleaning the mansion the other day and found the Marlins’ net worth under the sofa cushion in loose change.”
Mike Lupica, New York Daily News: “When Phil Jackson said he’d pick Dwight Howard over Kobe or LeBron if he were starting a team — he WAS talking about a basketball team, right?”
Dan Daly, Washington Times: “It’s been a rough few weeks for Louisville coach Rick Pitino. First his club was upset in the Elite Eight, then the whole Extortion Thing exploded and now 6-foot-11 phenom Jeremy Tyler, who had already committed to the Cardinals, announced his intention to skip college - not to mention his final high school season - and play the next two years in Europe. If Rick enters another horse in the Kentucky Derby this year… well, let’s just say I won’t be putting any money down on it.”
Scott Ostler, San Francisco Chronicle: “Milton Bradley, who woulda thought he’d already be suspended for bad behavior, and injured?”
DJ Gallo, ESPN.com: “In 2008, the Rams had the No. 2 overall pick and desperately wanted to take Michigan OT Jake Long. But the Dolphins took Long first. So now the Rams will settle for Smith as their tackle of the future. Hopefully they won’t try to dress him up to look like Long. That would be weird.”
MEGAPHONE
“Last year, I was with the Texans, and when we played the Browns, Braylon Edwards asked me between plays if we could talk after the game about modeling and acting.”
Texans safety Will Demps, ratting out Edwards to ESPN The Magazine.
The sheer number of articles on this website with typos and grammatical errors is beyond pathetic. It pains me to read this paper these days. It reflects poorly on our city. I’m not going to point out where the error is in this article and do the editor’s jobs for them, but there are high school papers that do a better job editing copy than the PD does.
In five years when the PD has closed its doors for good, we’ll no doubt hear about how the Internet destroyed the newspaper industry. However, the reality is that amatuerish, incompetent quality control will have had as much to do with it as anything else. A newspaper that can’t publish clean articles doesn’t deserve to stay in print.
PD management, can you please, PLEASE, hire editors who are literate? Or writers that can turn in mistake-free copy? I’m really tired of feeling like I just got stupider after reading this paper.
I agree….but is stupider a word? Let’s try dumber.
And how much are you paying to read tipsheet?
Do you really have nothing better to do that complain about typos? Go back to China.
Rams Fan, this is not isolated to Tipsheet. The whole website has this issue. The P-D admitted that a lot of proofreading and editing things have been cut to save money in one of the other blogs not too long ago. Mistakes in AP stories get right on through because they get cut and pasted in without so much as a cursory glance. This paper is just like any other business when it is struggling - it shows.
Cards: When you get 11 walks from a lousy team, you really shouldn’t have to rally in the ninth inning to win it. But I am glad they won. 16-7 for April is just an incredible start. Boggs has impressed so far as a starter.
Why don’t they have interns? Seriously, you have the best J-School in the nation right up the street. Surely some of them would like to put the Post Dispatch on their resume’ for doing a bit of copywriting. Anybody with a good high school education who is awake could do a little bit of proofredung.
GREAT…I had to watch Stephen A. Jackson talk about Jose “Fricking” Conseco. Now I feel MUCH DUMBER…and like a portion of my soul was snapped-off, chewed-up and spit out. Thanks, Gordo.
I think the Chargers have better chance of moving back to LA than the Rams do, but I could be wrong.
Hey Geniuses…
Are you CERTAIN that the printed version reads exactly as the online version does?
If you are, and it is, then maybe you have a case…
If you are not, and the printed version undergoes much more scrutiny before going to press, then you may want to reconsider some of your comments, as an online medium does NOT and should not, by the nature of the medium, go under more scrutiny.
I live outside of STL (as do you, China) and thoroughly enjoy the coverage that I’m able to get of my home teams.
Maybe I’m just less critical… or maybe I read for enjoyment and don’t get so caught up in it… or maybe I don’t need to be yelling and pointing out flaws to feel significant…
Or maybe you’re right.
Hey Myers, if you have to ask the question about the online verses the print version, you obviously don’t have the first damn clue yourself. That didn’t stop you from behaving like an ass though, did it.
As a matter of fact, the articles are identical in print and electronic form. What, you expected a paper that can’t afford proofreaders and editors and made their employees take unpaid leaves this spring has the money to create two different articles so they won’t be the same version? You are a financial genius…