Say What?
Harvin quickly wears out his welcome in Seattle
Percy Harvin was no more popular in Seattle than he was in Minnesota, where he began his pro career. He reportedly scuffled with fellow Seahawks receivers Doug Baldwin and Golden Tate and complained to coaches about his playing time, sometimes wanting more and sometimes less. The coaches became weary of his begging out of practice because of headaches and other ailments real or imagined. So he was traded to the New York Jets for a 2015 fourth round draft pick that could move to second depending on how he performs the rest of this season. Former Seattle QB Warren Moon said on 1090-AM: “Chemistry on any team is very important. I think in some ways Percy upset that chemistry.”
Between the Lines: Harvin was leading Seattle in receptions with 22, but averaging just 6.0 yards per catch, no TDs. He’s only 26, but a string of injuries may have slowed him. That said, defenses still fear him. In Sunday’s loss, with Harvin gone, the Rams took liberties they would not have taken.
Bears snarling at fans and their teammates
Fans and players expressed anger with the Chicago Bears falling to 3-4 for the season and 0-3 at home, losing 27-14 to Miami on Sunday. Guard Kyle Long complained of fans booing the Bears as they walked off the field at halftime. After the game, reporters heard loud arguments from inside the locker room. Brandon Marshall led the tirade, saying, “There are some very selfish individuals in this locker room.” He was reportedly most upset with his close friend Jay Cutler, who committed two turnovers that led to 10 Miami points. “We’ve got to protect the football,” Marshall said. “We’ve got to execute the game plan. We’ve got to adjust when things don’t go as we saw on the film.”
If Janay were blonde, would outrage have been greater?
African American columnist Howard Bryant wrote in ESPN Magazine (Oct. 13) that the Ray Rice domestic violence would have been treated more seriously “if Janay Rice were blond and blue-eyed,” because “neither the Ravens nor Rice’s attorney would have been so brazen to suggest that she was the aggressor that night in the elevator. . . . A white woman would have been valued. Black women are not.” Bryant feels the NFL’s hesitant reaction reinforced the stereotype of black women “as unbeautiful, indelicate and violent.”
Baseball uses clock, NBA shaves quarter to 11 minutes
While Major League Baseball considers using clocks to speed up its game, the National Basketball Association is looking at ways to get its game times down from 2 ½ hours to the 2 hours it took in the 1990s. The Boston Celtics and New Jersey Nets played an exhibition game in which the quarters were trimmed from 12 minutes to 11. On the same night when two League Championship games took the usual three hours to play, the Arizona Fall League finished a game in 2 hours, 14 minutes. It employed a clock to force pitchers to throw every 20 seconds, and it cut time between half innings to 2 minutes, 5 seconds. It also limited each team to three mound conferences.
Dear NBA: Why not cut down on the timeouts that make the final two minutes seem like a lifetime?
World Series tickets selling for $1,000 in Kansas City
This being the first time in 30 years that the Kansas City Royals have been in the postseason, the World Series is extra special to their fans. In fact, tickets to Tuesday night’s opening game were going for $1,000. The price drops to under $700 when the Series moves to San Francisco for Game 3.
High school football game ends 83-82
Woody Hayes, the legendary 3-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes, would spin in his grave if he knew two high school teams in his state scored 80 points in one game. But there they were, Tiffin Columbian beating Shelby 83-82 in overtime. Tiffin running back Cliff Miller scored 10 TDs. It was hard to keep track of the stats, but best guess is the teams totaled 1,376 yards.
Klinsman, MLS feud over U.S. players leaving Europe
Jurgen Klinsman, German-born coach of the U.S. National Soccer team, suggested that Americans Clint Dempsey and Michael Bradley were hurting their careers by leaving European teams to play for Major League Soccer, which Euros such as Klinsman consider to be minor league. “It’s going to be very difficult to keep the same level that they experienced at the places they were,” Klinsman said. But of course that was not what MLS commissioner Don Garber wanted to hear. “Jurgen’s comments are very, very detrimental to the league, to the sport of soccer in North America, detrimental to everything we’re trying to do.”
Between the Lines: Klinsman is thinking short-term; Garber is looking long-range. Having America’s soccer stars playing in their home country promotes the future of US soccer but hurts its World Cup chances in the next few years.
Kobe, ranked 40th, calls ESPN experts ‘a bunch of idiots’
In its annual preseason ratings of 500 NBA players, ESPN’s basketball experts ranked at No. 40 former Most Valuable Player Kobe Bryant, 36 and coming off a season in which he missed all but six games. Bryant’s response: “I’ve known for a long time they’re a bunch of idiots.” Will the 16-time All-Star use this snub as motivation? Probably not. “I tend to use things as motivation that tend to be in the realm of reality.”
LeBron says Bulls are better than Cavs
Cleveland Cavaliers superstar LeBron James said the Chicago Bulls “are much better than us right now, just off chemistry. They’ve been together for a while. We’ve got a long way to go. . . . We’ve got to get in an argument every now and then just to test each other out.”
