Phillip FulmerBefore we get to our work-daily rambles. Let's throw a shoutout back to Wednesday and the post from Volscot, who made arguably the most balanced and fair assessment of Phil Fulmer's recent years. Check out the big brain on Volscot.
Secondly, with the Lil' 5-at-10 getting ready for kindergarten in the background and CMT on the TV, can we all just agree that male country music guys need to wear a hat. Ball cap, cowboy hat, Zac Brown's skullcap/tobaggon-thing, heck mix in a top hat for all we care, but these reverse mullets + Bama bangs = hair-floppin' debacles make our head hurt. And while we're talking 'bout mullets (PLAYOFFS?), have you noticed the, umm, lady of the evening Billy Ray Cyrus' daughter has become. Egads. She used be Hannah Montana for crying out loud; now she makes young Madonna seem pedestrian. Clean it up Miley.
Where were we? Ah yes, the space modulator.
From the "Talks too much" studios, Waylong Jennings would have put a foot on the neck of 80 percent of the pansies singing country music today.
OUCH!
Colorado Rockies' Carlos Gonzalez, right, is tagged out by Atlanta Braves second baseman Dan Uggla, left, as he attempts to steal second base in the seventh inning of a baseball game in Atlanta.Danny Uggla going on the DL because he could see - which has proven to be a hurdle for major league hitters after all - was a good thing.
Jason Heyward looking at missing most of the rest of the regular season is not good. At all.
The Braves were 17-5 in the last 23 games with Heyward hitting in the leadoff spot. He was hitting .341 and had an on-base percentage of .410 atop the order. Things were clicking.
Wednesday, Heyward was hit in the face with a pitch and the broken jaw will cause him to miss 4-to-6 weeks. When he returns, there will be some adjustments getting back on that horse.
Jordan Schafer will be the short term solution. Joey Terdoslavich will help too. (Side note: Is Terdoslavich the worst name in the history of Eastern Euorpeans ever? We think yes.)
But neither can match what Heyward's been doing lately offensively. And defensively, Heyward has become one of the NL's best outfielders.
Will it cost the Braves the division? Of course not. They lead the East by like 12 billion games. But for a team that has overcome one injury after another, this appears to be the biggest so far.
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Prep football kickoff
We have spent a ton of time getting ready for this year's high school football season.
We even have shot a couple of prep football preview videos. Basically we're dealing with a lot of stuff.
It starts for real tonight with McCallie visiting Cleveland. As much as we love high school football - and as Spy can attest, there are many sports editors of papers the size of the TFP that still go cover high school football every Friday night - here are the three things that need to be changed today:
• Kickoff to the season still needs to be a week later.
• Every game needs at least one certified trainer - who has been instructed on spotting concussions - on the field. For the schools that can't afford it, the super-extreme costs sent to the TSSAA can start going for something useful.
• Someone at Finley should make a hard-target push to have a spotlight game every Thursday. A true game of the week that could draw the fans of those schools and all the other high school fans who will be following their teams on Friday nights. And before you say the schools can't afford to give up home pay checks, who says anything about giving them up. Case in point: Tomorrow night, the 5-at-10 and prep sports ace Stephen Hargis will be among the nearly 10,000 folks trying to cram into the Eagles Nest for Signal-East Hamilton. It will be a nice payday for the Eagles this year. But if those two teams agree to play that game at Finley to start the year on a Thursday, and Finley agrees to pay each $20K each year - Finley spends $40 grand for teams and maybe another 10K on everything else and gets to charge 5-7 bucks a head and 3 bucks a car and the concessions - then the crowd could be 15,000. Win-win-win.
That said, tonight should be a hum-dinger.
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Double standards?
Sylvester StalloneSylvester Stallone is discussions to try to turn John Jay Rambo into a TV series. Sweet buckets.
At first we had this as an item in the 'This and That' and had a Rambo joke - Rambon't was one; or would the pilot be Rambo defending the other old-folks home patrons against a tyrannical kitchen steward played by Ben Stiller who is short-changing everyone's pudding? - or two to kick around and move on.
This we started thinking - yes, dangerous we know. Anyone doubt Sly Stallone or the river of shirtless action stars didn't use some chemistry to get that ripped? And if the biggest concern about steroids is the affects on the next generations and kids being forced to use PEDs to compete with the cheaters, is Hollywood not the same role-model-infused scenario with multi-million-dollar stakes?
And Stuck and 9er and a few of the others around here have mentioned that baseball is at least trying to fight the the PEDs problem. Football and basketball - and Hollywood? - ignore it.
Do we really care all that much that these people are using PEDs or are we more hand-wringing to hand wring and bemoaning because we felt duped?
Who cares about cycling? Did you bat an eye about Floyd Landis? Nope. But Lance? We believed in Lance and Lance lied to us so Lance is the boogeyman. Do we hate Brady Anderson? No way. But A-Rod is among the statistical greats of all-time, so he cheated with better success and we hate him for it.
Do we all acknowledge that Stallone and the rest are on the juice and since we know we don't care? Has there been a "problem" with as much outrage and indifference at the same time?
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This and that
- Kudos to Ichiro for getting his 4,000 career hit as a professional baseball player. Is Ichiro a Hall of Famer? We think yes. A bunch of his hits came in Japan of course, but since he came to the States in 2001, he has 375 more hits than any other player in the last 12 seasons. He has an MVP and is a 10-time All-Star and a 10-time Gold Glove winner. Was surprised that he only has two batting titles, though.
- Speaking of Ichiro, and yes it's a cultural thing for him, but what is the current Rushmore of one-name athletes: Tiger and LeBron for sure. Kobe is too. Ichiro may be on that list. Is Peyton? Discuss.
Tiger Woods- Tiger Woods missed half of the Pro-Am this week because of a stiff neck and back that he attributed to a bad bed at his hotel. Sweet buckets of Titleist range balls, just shut your pie hole and play. E-gads. Plus, anyone thinking Tiger's staying at Day's Inn near the Airport. C'mon.
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Today's question
Did you forget the mailbag? Did you? There's still time.
As always, feel free to discuss any of the above topics. If you need a talking point, here are three:
What movie action hero would make the worst TV series?
What athlete would a steroids scandal break the internet?
Where will Bruce Pearl land? (Gary Parrish caught up with the Orange-Chested one in an interesting story on cbssports.com here)