Friday, May 6, 2011
We have breaking news -- Uncle Mo was ruled out for Saturday's Kentucky Derby. Wow, more to come and more below. Anyhoo, welcome to the regular Friday mailbag. See if you can guess which question the 5-at-10 spent too much time on this week.
From the "7-UP Stinks Studio" here we go...
From SteelerFan
Hey Fiver,
Here are my Top 10 Rejected Race Horse Names:
- Bold Cadaver
- Seattle Slow
- Man O'Pause
- Smarty Farty
- Limpaway
- Effeminate Ruler
- Alyfrazier
- Splint Hog
- Night Mare
- Buck-ya-butt
Steelerfan,
Great list. We added that to some of the best ones that have been offered up this week. Here is our field of 20 for the Kent-Sucky Derby for racehorse names. Since we can't have a full on sprint -- and since everyone loves a playoff system -- we have seeded the names and will have a tournament. The bottom eight seeds will play in the play-in rounds and then we'll go to a 16-horse bracket. Giddy-up.
Here are the seeded horses:
Play-in round (winners):
First round (winners)
Quarterfinals
Semifinals
Finals
Editor's note: Wow -- huge news about Uncle Mo, one of the favorites being ruled out with stomach issues. (Maybe he had too much Beef-a-reno?) Question for the group -- if someone submitted Uncle Mo in the Derby Drama Challenge, do they get a redo? Thoughts.
From ElJefe
Where was the weekend 5 at 10 for the draft? Are you somehow suggesting The Masters' Tournament is more important than the Draft? What happened to love, Love, LOVING it?
So, what's your take on Mel Kiper's pained looks when someone deviates from "the Big Board!" Seriously. Watch the DVR of Coach Gruden mocking him. What is Kiper's deal? Did he ever play or is he just a numbers cruncher? I love, Love, LOVED Coach Gruden giving it to him. Gruden is a maniac! He seemed to be thoroughly unimpressed with Kiper (as am I).
(I'll withhold the remainder of my Kiper comments so as not to offend the family base). OK, one more but only because you asked. ESPN has Todd McShay. He's a handsome devil and he flat out knows what he is talking about. So what if Kiper knows what the draft will be sixty-two years from now, he is such an arrogant (bleep, bleep, bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep) (wow, I do fell better) I would fire him and stick with McShay.
I was extremely impressed with the move the Falcons made to get Julio Jones (even if he did go to Alabama). Bold Moves always have rewards. Mostly I was happy because Kiper seemed to hate the move. See how I tied all that up there?
ElJefe --
Extremely fair question, and in truth there should have been a Saturday 5-at-10 last Saturday. The 5-at-10 loves the draft -- you know this. But do not confuse love for value, and we're not suggesting the Masters is more important than the draft, we're shouting it. The Masters is one of THOSE events. You know, one of those events that changes an athlete's life. The Olympics, Super Bowl MVP, Wimbledon, the Masters -- winning one of those can define an athlete's career and is always in the first line of any introduction and in the first paragraph of an athlete's obit. That said, we should have made an effort to be here on Saturday. Lesson learned.
As for Kiper, why the anti-hair helmet venom. Is he brash? Yes. Outspoken? Certainly. Opinionated? Of course. But never say he's unprepared (and we'll put him in the top five of guys at ESPN who flat-out know their stuff). Guy knows his draft stuff, and there's a real chance you mentioned the answer to why Kiper seems miffed when a team deviates from his Big Board.
ESPN's has draft expert 1 (Kiper) and 1A (McShay) and while those two work together there certainly seems to be a nice amount of competition.
That said, Gruden was the absolute breakthrough star of this draft. His "Quarterback Camp" shows were outstanding, and while he was a little too "I love this guy, he's a football player" during the draft, he was still insightful and he's obviously flush with knowledge. If you had asked us a year ago, the 5-at-10 would have said it was just a matter of time before Gruden returned to the sideline. Now, he may be the next generation's John Madden -- and we mean that in the most complimentary of ways.
PS -- The 5-at-10 also loved the Falcons trade. Yes, Atlanta gave up a great deal, but can you put a price on being a legit Super Bowl contender? Plus, here's saying those black Falcons' No. 11 jerseys (reportedly the number Jones will wear) will be a hot item whenever, you know, they actually get back to playing football again.
From Caveman Lawyer
You mentioned Phil Hartman earlier this week, and that got me thinking: Where does Hartman rank on the all-time SNL list? Thanks.
CL --
Wow, that's a great question. And nearly impossible to answer. In fact, it's an answer that frequently changes depending on which SNL you have seen most recently. But we'll give it a go, and while we'd love to go with 10 we're going to do our best to keep it to a SNL Mount Rushmore (five faces that are all-timers) and their best skit/impression. And yes, we're short on the old-timers like Akroyd, Belushi, Chase, et al., but that was a little before our time and in our mind these guys were funnier. You're welcomed to submit your list, too, because that's what we do here. Here we go:
From First Timer
Mr. 5@10
The NBA playoffs have been enjoyable. In fact, it's the first time in a while I can remember actually watching most of an NBA game -- used to just casually watch then pay attention in the fourth quarter.
With the labor issues coming this summer, is there any issue that has to be solved more than others for the NBA not to go back to being borderline unwatchable?
First Timer,
Welcome to the show and feel free to return.
Without getting into the legalese and the salary cap figures that likely will be the major sticking points, the formation of super-teams has to be a real concern for the majority of the league's owners.
At the current pace, the AAU-ization of the NBA will completely reshape the league within the next three-to-five years. In addition to the Big 3 in Miami, there could be a Kobe-Gasol-Dwight Howard trio in LA and Carmelo-Amare-Chris Paul trio in NYC and even some others like a Deron Williams-Harrison Barnes-Blake Griffin trio in Jersey, Derrick Rose-Joakim Noah- Kevin Martin in Chicago and possibly lesser known trios in Houston or even Atlanta.
The rest of the league will be left with the scraps (and we know the players will fight contraction with all its might). That means the only chance to get competitve again is landing a LeBron in the draft, having a good team for five or six years and then watching as he takes his talents to South Beach or the Southside or the South Bronx.
Some good things can come from labor discussions -- the NBA's rookie pay scale will be the most borrowed idea in sports since $6 beers and personal seat licenses -- and figuring out how to keep teams in Milwaukee and Sacramento and Charlotte and New Orleans competitive needs to be examined.
From CelticVol
Hey 5@10,
I know its still 4 months away but I'm getting excited about the upcoming football season. I don't know if it was the NFL Draft last week or Derek Dooley coming to town next week but I'm stoked. By the way...is it true that you like the draft? I was thinking with Coach Dooley coming to town now would be a great time to look back at the top all-time sports interviews. So in the spirit of Jim Mora, can you give us your top 3 all-time sports rants/interviews/press conferences?
PS - Did you hear that Jim Tressell has known for a month that Osama bin Laden was dead, he just didn't know who to tell.
CelticVol,
Couple of things: The 5-at-10 is always, Always, ALWAYS excited about college football season. Be it October, February or May 6, college football season is always right around the corner. This will be an interesting season for coach Dooley, year two is normally an improvement for coaches and programs but this has hardly been a normal coaching transition. No, this was way more than a transition -- UT underwent a coaching transformation (Fulmer to Kiffin) and 13 months later underwent a coaching transfusion (removing all the bad Kiffin blood and replacing it with the new blood that is Dooley). The Vols will be better, but with a program as proud and as flushed with expectations as UT, better is not the ultimate goal. Dooley is a great bridge to the top three rants/interviews/press conferences question (who can forget Dooley's classic World War II rant last fall -- good times). In fact, this seems like a perfect time for a top five in 10 words or less (yes, the almost-copyrighted, more-difficult-than-it-seems 5-in-10 by the 5-at-10):
Remember your Derby Drama Challenge entries and enjoy the weekend. Until Monday.