Sorry: I intended to link to this yesterday, but got distracted.
Rich Cho out as GM of the Portland Trail Blazers after 10 months on the job.
Archive for the ‘Sports’ Category
Blue Blazers.
Wednesday, May 25th, 2011Chutzpah.
Wednesday, May 18th, 2011The classic definition is, of course, the guy who murders his parents and then asks the court for mercy because he’s an orphan.
I think we may have a new one: the Fiesta Bowl wants their illegal campaign contributions refunded.
Obit watch: May 17, 2011.
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011Harmon Killebrew. (What a great name. Why don’t parents give their kids names like “Harmon” any more?)
Sold!
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011Sorry, not really much to say beyond that.
How many bags of Tostitos will a million dollars buy?
Thursday, May 12th, 2011The BCS oversight committee has rendered their decision in the case of the Fiesta Bowl. (See previous blog posts here, here, and here.)
And the decision is…the Fiesta Bowl stays in the BCS, but pays a one million dollar fine.
Also, there’s a bunch of happy horses–t about hiring outside auditors, doing an annual audit, “cut[ing] ties with board members who engaged in inappropriate behavior”. You know, the usual load of crap.
In other news, Captain Renault is shocked, shocked to find out that gambling is going on.
(Hattip: NRO‘s “Right Field” blog.)
Randomness in my pocket like grains of sand.
Thursday, May 5th, 2011I have no joke here, I just like saying “competitive pole dancing“.
In case you were wondering, the sanctioning organization appears to be the US Pole Dancing Federation.
Lawrence pointed me to Bill Simmons’ recent column about the NBA playoffs. I don’t care much about the NBA, but I loves me a good “The Wire” quote fest. Shame that Simmons couldn’t find a way to work what’s recently become my own personal favorite quote, but what can you do?
TMQ Watch: May 3, 2011.
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011So we’ve reached the last TMQ of the interregnum. What pressing questions were you hoping TMQ would answer? “What does Bin Laden’s death mean for U.S./Pakistan relations?” “Trump: serious contender or joke?” Nope…
TMQ Watch: April 26, 2011.
Friday, April 29th, 2011WCD got into it a bit last week with Lawrence over the merits of the NFL draft. It is our position that the draft just really isn’t that important to NFL teams. We do not dismiss the draft totally; a team may get lucky and pick up, say, an Earl Campbell. But teams are just as likely to get lucky and pick up, say, a JaMarcus Russell. Our belief is that good coaching, good team building, and good player selection (remember, players don’t have to come from the draft; undrafted unwanted free agents that do surprisingly well are an ongoing TMQ trope) are more important than draft choices.
With that introduction out of the way, let’s jump into TMQ’s annual “mock the mock drafts” column.
Football players go wild!
Friday, April 22nd, 2011Felony possession of a firearm. Drug possession. Theft. Four arrests in one week.
Sounds like the UT football players have gotten out of hand, doesn’t it?
Oh, I’m sorry. Did I say UT? I meant Rice University.
(Sadly, these arrests weren’t enough to push Rice onto the board in the most recent Fulmer Cup update. Maybe next week?)
Baseball. You bet.
Wednesday, April 20th, 2011The Los Angeles Dodgers are now being run by Major League Baseball.
And we’re only 1/10th of the way through the season.
I may have more to say on this later. Not sure.
New and possibly noteworthy.
Tuesday, April 19th, 2011By way of the LAT, we have learned of a new book: Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption, and Baseball’s Longest Game
Barry’s book is about the April 18, 1981 game between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings, which went for 33 innings, the longest game in baseball history.
We’re not sure if we’re going to purchase this or not. On the one hand, it does push some of our hot buttons (failure, Rhode Island). On the other hand, it sounds like the kind of lyrical baseball horseshit we hate. If any of our readers purchase and read Barry’s book, we’d welcome a review.
Edited to add: Lawrence pointed us to a review of a new Richard Feynman biography, Quantum Man: Richard Feynman’s Life in Science
Random notes: April 13, 2011.
Wednesday, April 13th, 2011The Dallas Stars have fired Marc Crawford. I think I speak for many of my readers when I say “People still play hockey? That’s a thing?”
The California Legislature is considering revoking the city charter of Vernon, a notoriously corrupt city in L.A. County. But business owners are worried…
Random notes: April 4, 2011.
Monday, April 4th, 2011Should the Chowchilla school bus kidnappers be paroled?
Sagra Italian Restaurant damaged by fire. The SDC ate there, and, well…we wish the owners the best, even if we can’t say we were wild about the restaurant.
I intended to blog this a few days ago: the latest APD suspension is for 90 days. In this case, the officer in question “was rude to a citizen and initially gave misleading statements to investigators”.
Oh, sure, you laugh at me for picking the Cubs to win it all. But I’ll point out that the Cubs have actually won a game this year, unlike certain other teams (cough cough Houston cough cough) I could name.
Follow the money.
Thursday, March 31st, 2011In the comments to this thread, Lawrence notes that former Fiesta Bowl CEO John Junker was a heavy contributor to John McCain and other Republican politicians.
The Fiesta Bowl Special Committee Report (as I also noted in that thread) contains a list of political figures and organizations receiving contributions from Fiesta Bowl employees; contributions that were reimbursed by the Fiesta Bowl. This is, of course, illegal. (The report uses the phrase “a Class 6 felony violation”. If you check out the link, a Class 6 doesn’t sound all that awful; but remember, it is a felony, with all the burdens that come with a felony conviction.)
I want to quote this from the report:
Although we have not interviewed any of these individuals or entities, no one we spoke to alleged that any of these candidates had any knowledge that the Fiesta Bowl reimbursed contributions to their campaigns or related entities.
Which is an interesting statement. Why would the Fiesta Bowl be giving money to these people, if they didn’t want these people to know they were giving money and were looking for something in exchange? That’s also strange in the light of quoted statements such as this one:
John: I spoke with Senator Carloyn [sic] Allen and said we would round-up some checks for her campaign: [¶] Checks should be made out to CAROLYN ALLEN 2006 [¶] The maximum individual contribution is $296.00 [¶] I told her we would have them by Friday. Thanks. GH168
(John is former Bowl CEO John Junker. “GH” is attorney Gary Husk, “an attorney and public affairs professional on retainer with the Fiesta Bowl.” “Husk, and his company Husk Partners, were public-affairs consultants or lobbyists for the Fiesta Bowl.”)
Here’s the list of political figures and organizations that received contributions later reimbursed by the Fiesta Bowl. I’ve added notes of political affiliation when I could find it, along with links to websites.
- Allen, Carolyn (R)
- Arizona Republican Party (R – duh)
- AZ Wins (The only “AZ Wins” I could find was this group, which I’m not sure is political.)
- Bennett, Ken (R)
- Brewer, Jan (R)
- Bundgaard, Scott (R)
- Carpenter, Ted (R)
- Cummiskey, Christopher (D? He appears to have been former Arizona CIO under Napolitano, and now has a management position in DHS with the current administration.)
- Flake, Jake (R – apparently deceased)
- Gardner, Mike (R)
- Hayworth, JD (R – ran against McCain in 2010. Hedging your bets, anyone?)
- Knaperek, Laura (R – sorry for the Wikipedia link, but her campaign site doesn’t seem to be active)
- Kunasek, Andrew (R)
- Kyl, Jon (R)
- Lane, Jim (R)
- Manross, Mary (D – former mayor of Scottsdale, defeated by Jim Lane)
- Martin, Phil (I can’t find anything about this guy.)
- McCain, John (R)
- Mitchell, Harry (D)
- Navarro for City Council
- Pearce, Russell (R)
- Rios, Pete (D)
- Shadegg, John (R)
- Weiers, James (R)
- Wilcox, Mary (D)
Seven against Fiesta!
Thursday, March 31st, 2011So it may be too early to speculate on the future of the Fiesta Bowl.
At least that’s what Bill Hancock, executive director of the BCS, says.
Oh, by the way…
What is “Fiesta Frolic”?
And the BCS has created a seven member task force to review the allegations against the Fiesta Bowl.
Speaking of the report, I’m slowly going through it. There’s some stuff I haven’t seen reported yet. For example, someone seems to have been a gold bug: there’s an estimated $22,300 worth of gold coins (including $20 gold pieces “ranging in date from 1877 to 1924”) that are supposedly in the possession of the Fiesta Bowl. (I do not see anything in the report, though, that states possession of those coins was actually verified.) In addition, the bowl apparently paid for subscriptions to:
- The Fractal Market Report and The Fractal Gold Report.
- The Shadow Government Statistics newsletter.
- Grant’s Interest Rate Observer.
- Innovomark, which appears to be some sort of marketing consultancy. “The central theme that links all of the products and activities of the company can be concisely described by the formulation of ‘Strategies’ and execution of the appropriate ‘Tactics’.” Yes, that’s a direct quote from their website. No, I don’t know why they put “strategy” and “tactics” in quotes.
- Le Metropole, “where the real gold story has been told for the past 12 years by Bill Murphy, the Chairman of The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA)”.
Note that all of these were personal subscriptions for former CEO John Junker, for which he was reimbursed by the Bowl (according to the report).
I’m also amused by the discussion of payments to someone identified in the report only as “Person X”. Mr. “X” was apparently being paid somewhere around $40,000 a year (the amount varied from year to year, but $40,000 seems to be a good average) plus six tickets to the game. And nobody knows what he did for that money. Literally. That’s a direct quote from the report: “I don’t know what he does. Kelly doesn’t know what he does.” The Arizona Republic has managed to identify Mr. X.