In some Canadian circles today is special - not quite Boxer Day but more meaningful than Blue Jays Fans Appreciation Day. Today is the one-year anniversary of the death of favorite son, Corey Haim. Moment of silence please. That will do. Reminder time, this is the last call for the Friday mailbag and if some of you need to share your favorite moments of the artist that was Corey Haim, well knock yourself silly.
Anyhoo, here we go...
MR. SHEEN NEEDS A JOB; MR. DAVIS NEEDS SOME "WINNING"
OK, this is one of those things that seems too perfect not to happen, right?
Al Davis, the self-made owner of the Oakland Raiders who coined the phrase "Just Win, Baby," and has become synonymous with the accessories of the adult-entertainment world like sweatsuits, gold medallions and slicked-back hair, needs new blood in his organization.
Charlie Sheen, the silver-spoon son of Hollywood royalty who has coined countless InterTube phrases starting with "Winning" and "Tiger Blood" and has become synonymous with members of the adult-entertainment world, needs a new job.
This must happen. In fact here is one guestimation of how the interview could play out:
Al Davis: Glad you could make it. I'm a big fan - loved you in "Top Gun."
Charlie Sheen: That was Tom Cruise you old coot.
Davis: Was it "Breakfast Club?"
Sheen: That was my brother, Emilio Estevez, you old bat.
Davis: Anyhoo, the Raiders have been a proud and successful franchise...
Sheen: Cut the crap, old man. Are you about winning? I don't have time for the history of football; I need to know are you prepared to run with Adonis DNA and party like a rockstar from Mars? Are you about WINNING?
Davis: (shaking his head) Shut your pie hole boy. I invented winning. I partied with Ken Stabler for Christmas Sakes. I hung out with Joe Willie and the Beatles and made my bones while you were holding hands with cheerleaders. Just pipe down for a second and ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
Sheen: Al. Al! ALLLLL! Oh my Emilio, he's dead.
Davis: What? Dead. For the love of Ted Hendricks will you stop you whinning. Listen up boy, this is not some mamby-pamby operation like that cute little family thing you and "Ducky" and that fat boy did. This is the NFL. This is about Lombardi and Jim Brown and Johnny U. ... And Ditka.
LONG SILENCE
STILL MORE SILENCE
LITTLE MORE SILENCE
Sheen and Davis: (together in a hushed whisper) Ahhhhh, Ditka.
Sheen: Is is true that Ditka managed to take on 11 guys one-handed and ...?
Davis: It's true. It's all true.
Sheen: Wow. That would melt the face off most people. Ditka is the ultimate high priest Vatican assassin warlock. The scoreboard doesn't lie.
Davis: (shaking his head) I like where you're heading. Go on.
Sheen: It's simple. It's all about winning. I'm on a drug, and it's called Charlie Sheen.
Davis: (eyebrows raised) I've been addicted to the drug Al Davis for more than a decade. Do you want to trade?
Sheen: Only if you have one of those long things that holds a cigarette. You know what I'm talking about, one of those lengthy do-hickeys cigarette-thingees? What are they called?
Davis: A cigarette holder.
Sheen: Winning.
Davis: You're quite strange.
Sheen: It might be lonely up here but I sure like the view.
Davis: One last question - in two parts. If you had the first pick in the draft, who do you take, and if you can have anyone coaching your team, who is it?
Sheen: Duh, it's me. Both times. Winning.
TONY SOPRANO MUST HAVE GONE AGAINST RUTGERS
Just kidding about the fix being in, but the end of Rutgers-St. John's hoops game last night was awful. If you have not seen the controversial finish, well, sorry about your power being out this morning because it's been everywhere.
You can check out the YouTube clip but here's the quick recap: Rutgers loses by two because the referees melted down at the end. There you're caught up.
Referees have insanely tough gigs, and for the most part they do very, very good jobs. But those guys blew the final seconds last night and it ended Rutgers season. That's sad and hard to handle. Should have they brought the teams back? Should the refs be hung by their toenails?
I'm torn on this: I don't think we need more replays, but nobody wants endings like last night, especially when it ends the college career for the Rutgers seniors. I will say that the Rutgers coach handled the entire situation with the utmost class.
What are your thoughts?
Quick sidebar: Playing high school hoops in metro-Atlanta, former Braves catcher Bruce Benedict T-eed me up one night at the Cobb Civic Center. My offense: I told him I called a game like he hit a curveball - badly.
COLLEGE HOOPS UPDATE, VOLUME 7, CHAPTER 4
In this file photo Arkansas forward Michael Sanchez (31) and Tennessee forward John Fields (25) battle for control of a loose ball as Arkansas forward Delvon Johnson (21) looks on during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game on Saturday, Jan. 8, 2011, in Fayetteville, Ark. (AP Photo/Beth Hall)- Huge day for your Tennessee Vols basketball team today. With all due props to Joe Lunardi, who seriously knows his college hoops, the 5-at-10 thinks the Vols have to beat Arkansas to get an NCAA tournament bid. Lunardi thinks differently, as our UT ace Patrick Brown tells us here.
- It will be interesting to see how different teams (talking about you Georgia and you Boston College and you Colorado) handle the pressure of playing in tournament situations today knowing each likely needs a win to get into the NCAA tournament.
- Today's schedule is so loaded with interesting matchups, that the 5-at-10 is starting to feel a 12-hour cold coming on. Cough, Cough. Sneeze.
SLOW TIME MEANS FANTASY TIME
Dennis Quaid in "The Rookie."The 5-at-10 used to play in a bunch of fantasy sports leagues. Shut up.
Work and family and a serious commitment to providing the best family-oriented, web-base InterTube sports rambling blog to you have made that a distant memory. Like most things, fantasy sports take time and energy and attention to be good. Well, like most things save the fact that fantasy sports are kind of the imaginary friends for sports-minded grown-ups. Like I said, shut up. Let's move on.
Well, this time of year - the lulls between college tournaments and the NCAA tournaments - and the lack of daily sports happenings make those memories a little fonder.
In fact friend of the show A.J. - who may or may not have a fantasy baseball addiction - sent along a five-person league he is part of, and Sweet Vince Coleman's Stirrups it's pretty fan-tab-ulous.
Here's the gist: Draft the best movie baseball players. That's right the movie characters - think Crash Davis or Ricky "Wild Thing" Vaughn (Winning!) - and put together a team of eight players and two pitchers. It doesn't matter about stats, so much, as the fact that it's fantasy baseball and it's not work. If my bosses are reading this, well, it's kind of work.
Here are the first two rounds:
1st Round
- Team A: Roy Hobbs, OF, The Natural
- Team B: Benny "the Jet" Rodriguez, SS, The Sandlot
- Team C: Darryl Palmer, OF, The Slugger's Wife
- Team D: "Nuke" Laloosh, P, Bull Durham
- Team E: Clue Haywood, 1B, Major League
2nd Round
- Team E: Willie Mays Hayes, OF, Major Leauge
- Team D: Bobby Rayburn, OF, The Fan
- Team C: Jack Parkman, C, Major League II
- Team B: Steve Nebraska, Pitcher/Hitter, New York Yankees (The Scout)
- Team A: Joe Hardy, Washington Senators (Damn Yankees!)
The 5-at-10 loves any draft - you know this - so a couple of quick thougts: Hobbs had to be the top pick if for no other reason than he's Roy Hobbs, the best there ever was in this game. Loved the pick of Darryl Palmer - great, Great, GREAT player in an awful, Awful AWFUL movie. The second round was awesome. Great grab getting Haywood fifth overall since, in the words of Harry Doyle, "he leads the league in most offensive categories, including nose hair." Sadly, the 5-at-10 could spend a good portion of the morning discussing this. Let's just move on.
THIS AND THAT
- Here's your Braves report (i.e. a L-Dub report since Chipper Jones is by far the biggest key to the Braves spring training): 1-for-3 (a double) in a 6-1 loss to St. Louis. He's hitting .269 and appears to be strong. All good news for you, Johnny Braves Fan.
- The 5-at-10 is so thankful to have the teary-eyed Miami Heat. Now Dwayne Wade is so put off by the stories of his teammates crying after a regular-season loss and the negative stories that come with it that Wade has said he no longer watches TV. Uh, OK. But what's the connection between a good "Family Ties" marathon or a "Saved by the Bell" two-fer and the fact that your and your teammates are a bunch of sissies? Here's an idea for D-Paid, if you don't want the attention, don't have a NBA title-level celebration BEFORE the season starts. Seriously, we're getting to the point that it's impossible not to have an opinion on the Heat - either you love them or you would root for Satan's All-Stars against them, and there's little wiggle room. This a great thing for the NBA, by the way.
- The 5-at-10 loves the draft. You know this. Two interesting draft developments from Wednesday: Mark Ingram apparently posted a 40 time in the low 4.5s-range at Alabama's pro day. If that's true, Ingram secured his spot as the first back off the board. Second TFP ace David Paschall had this on UTC cornerback Buster Skrine, who has moved into a possible third-round pick according to ESPN draft guru Mel Kiper Jr. Not for nothing, but (research alert) Google-searching showed that the average signing bonus for third-round picks last year was $668,000. That sum divided by Skrine's heading turning 4.29 40-time that catapulted him up draft boards, means that in that fateful 40-yard sprint, Buster made a shade less than $156,000 per second. That's Bill Gates-level cash.
- Don't know if you've noticed, but NASCAR has gotten off to a very nice start. Three races in and attendance is up, TV ratings are up and the racing has been better. If you like NASCAR, you need to listen to the guys at SportTalk on Wednesday nights at 6:05 p.m. Plus, you never know when you may get to hear a whooper like last night when Dr. B said that Danica Patrick would "need to grow a pair" to compete at Bristol in 10 days. Turn your head and cough Danica - he's a Doctor, after all.
- Quick programming note - I'll be making my regular 2 p.m. appearance on the Chris Goforth Show on 1310 AM today. He's a good dude, and occasionally I say something that makes sense. Maybe today will be one of those days. Or maybe not.
Until tomorrow when the mailbag returns.