>>>>>>Tebow! Tebow! Tebow!
>>>>>
>>>>>Three more.
>>>>>
>>>>>What that mean ?
>>>>
>>>>Tim Tebow is the quarterback of John's favorite NFL football team, the Denver Broncos. Since being promoted to starting QB earlier this season he has led the woebegone Broncos to 7 wins in 8 games. What has really been notable about it is that almost all the wins have been dramatic late game comebacks. They have played badly before the last quarter -- VERY badly this Sunday against the Chicago Bears -- then somehow pulled the game out.
>>>>
>>>>What has given it extra spin is that Tebow is the son of a minister and wears his Christianity on his sleeve. It's almost like the games are being decided by divine intervention. (So not only is there a God, He cares who wins football games). If the Broncos' season to date were a work of fiction no one would believe it.
>>>
>>>What I haven't figured out yet, is why they don't use somebody else for the 1st 3 quarters who might actually do something, and then bring in Tebow for the 4th. Or does he need the 1st 3 to warm up?
>>
>>Good point ;-)
>>
>>It's good to bump into you because for the past week I have been thinking a lot about about baseball. Specifically, Albert Pujols and Ryan Braun.
>>
>>Pujols first. It's been interesting here since he signed with the Angels. It's not surprising that he left for "greener" pastures but the level of rancor on both sides has surprised me. If he had just kept quiet and kept a lid on Lady Macbeth Pujols I think it would be fine. Cardinals fans are among the most astute and loyal in baseball and I think they understood that as a small market team the Cards would not be able to fend off offers from the rich teams. The Angels are in a much larger market and just came into a $150 per year long term agreement with Fox for broadcast rights. The Cardinals couldn't match it, plain and simple.
>>
>>Where the resentment came in was that Albert has been saying for two or three years, since his next contract came into view, that it wouldn't be all about the money. Then it did turn out to be about the money. The Cardinals made him a very sweet offer last winter and then upped it a few weeks ago. It was very, very big money and for 9 or 10 years. In a way it was a crazy contract to offer a guy who is about to turn 32. (My housemate and Cardinals fanatic Katrina said she was almost scared that he would take it because they wouldn't have money left for anyone else). But the Angels came in with a little more money and off he went. That was not taken well.
>>
>
>Outside of Doc Halladay and Cliff Lee, I'm really hard pressed to come up with a player to whom it wasn't all about money. Doc accepted more than one contract in Toronto at less than he knew he was worth because they kept telling him that they were going all out to build a contender. He finally got wise. Cliff Lee, as you are well aware also took less than he could have to move to Philadelphia. And Doc is still an inordinately loved player here in Toronto, and that isn't always usual when a player leaves to go elsewhere.
>
>>His wife has not been doing him any favors in the PR department. She is a piece of work. What has put me off, along with many others, is her speaking for both of them and not having an off button. Everything she says seems to be "we" and "us." "We were insulted that the Cardinals only offered us a five year contract." "I can't believe the anger of Cardinals fans. I thought we had earned their loyalty." "I am just grateful that God decided to send us to a team named the Angels." Obviously athlete's spouses are impacted by the choice of team but she is really overplaying her hand.
>>
>>(She and Albert are both very religious, which is fine. They have ownership interest in a local Christian radio station called Joy 99, which was where she gave her now infamous interview about what Albert thinks about it all. One of the snarkier comments in the online comments on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch site was, "And give us our radio station back." Another poster found it interesting that California is a community property state and Missouri is not. Even more to the point, another one advised Diedre to keep that butt in shape or he'll throw you over the wall the same way he did the Cardinals).
>>
>
>Too many players (sometimes including wives) just never seem to grow up. Class is not something that can be learned.
>
>>The more disturbing baseball news, as you will have guessed, is Ryan Braun testing positive for steroids and due to be suspended for the first 50 games of the season pending his appeal. My first reaction was shock. Utter disbelief. He is not only my favorite player (Tim Lincecum 1-B), he has always seemed aboveboard and shrewd. Not bulked up like Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and other famous juicers, If anything he is undersized for a slugger. I was completely stunned. He denied it vehemently, as did his agent, but I suppose that is to be expected. There were a couple of things among the leaked news that gave me hope. One was that the test did not find any specific banned substances, there was just a ratio out of whack between his testosterone level and some other bodily measure. Like, we don't know what it is but there is something going on. Even more encouragingly, it was reported that he immediately appealed the test and voluntarily took a second test two weeks later. The results were normal. Obviously just a false positive the first time, I thought.
>>
>>Then I read that it takes almost no time for the flag indicators to disappear from the system. There is a documented case of an athlete testing positive by a German lab, the level way higher than Braun's, and then testing clean 12 hours later.
>>
>>I like to think I have lost most of my illusions. That athletes are not heroes, they're just very good at what they do. But this one really hits me, I'll admit it.
>
>Frankly, I've never been a real Braun fan. I fully acknowledge his abilities and value to the team, but that whole "Beast Mode" hot-dogging by him and others on the team turns me off. I don't care that Fielder is the one who started it. I don't like hot-dogging in baseball. We have to put up with it in football and basketball, but I'd really like to keep it out of baseball. Baseball is just a classier game than the other two and deserves to be treated with more respect. I know that they tell the world that it's a hug for the team, and not hot-dogging, but they can call it whatever they like and I'll still see it as hot-dogging.
>
>Now, having said that, I'm unconvinced that he's a cheater. I don't say he's not; I'm just not convinced. Like you said, he's not bulked up, so I don't know what sort of PED would help him that much without reshaping his body. His reading was off the charts, and if he were doing that much of whatever it is, you'd have to think he'd have been caught before now - that is, unless he started using it just for the series. But then, again, you just have to wonder what this stuff really does and how it can do it so quickly.

He has been tested since 2005 and this was the first positive reading. But I also wonder about the test itself if what it catches disappears so quickly. It almost sounds like someone has to be unlucky to get caught, unless they're taking if every day.

There is speculation Braun was taking something to try to speed up his recovery from nagging injuries, which he had this season. No way to know if that was the case, of course.

The beast mode stuff was overplayed. I saw a LOT of Brewers games this season and it was only an occasional thing. Nyger Morgan was the one who really irritated other teams doing it (among other things). With Fielder and Braun -- when they did it -- it always seemed to me like a joyous thing that energized the Brewers, not to show the other team up. But maybe I'm biased ;-)

Morgan is one of those guys who you like if he's on your team but can't stand when he plays for an opponent. Actually I don't like him that much, even though there's no denying he brought energy to a team of bland personalities. I call it Lenny Dykstra Syndrome ;-)

My teams are really on a roll. You may have heard that a journeyman wide receiver for the Bears was arrested this week and charged with distribution of cocaine and marijuana.. The feds had been watching him for a while and in fact he was detained by TSA (not sure why they were involved) last summer, literally the day before the Bears signed him for around $4.5 million as a free agent. He had tens of thousands in unexplained cash and a bunch of pot in his car, both of which were impounded. What kind of idiot would drive around with that in his car? There are rumors, which Hurd's lawyer denied today, that the feds have also been watching people he was selling to and the list includes a large number of NFL players. Unconfirmed.