Madness, sheer madness

One of the nice things about sports is how it brings us together — except when it kills us.

In Northern Ireland, Protestant backers of a Scottish soccer team beat to death a Roman Catholic man — on Sunday, no less (how perfect).

Witness said more than 20 supporters of the Glasgow Rangers — many of them wearing the team colors — drove into the Catholic area of Coleraine following their team’s clinching of the Scottish Premier League title.

The Associated Press account continues:

“Billy Leonard, a former policeman and politician from the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, said several carloads of anti-Catholic extremists came armed with clubs ‘and literally attacked the first person they came across.’ ”

That turned out to be 49-year-old Kevin McDaid, who was bludgeoned while his wife, Evelyn, and a 46-year-old Catholic neighbor, Damien Fleming, were both injured

Seven men — I use the word men advisedly — have been arrested.

A detective said the victim had four children, did volunteer youth work in the town, and “had been encouraging local Catholics to cooperate with Northern Ireland's traditionally Protestant police.” McDaid, he said, was “a man who would do anything for anybody.”

Rangers fans should be proud.

Seemed like a good idea at the time?

As if to demonstrate that soccer insanity is not limited to Western Europe, on Wednesday a disappointed a Manchester United football fan in Nigeria drove a minibus into a crowd of Barcelona supporters, killing four.

And yes, he did it intentionally.

Ten others were injured in the incident, which took place after Man-U lost to Barcelona in the European Champions League Final.

“The man confessed to doing it on purpose,” a police spokeswoman said.

"He now says he doesn't know why he did it …”

Friday column: The answer probably is ‘not much’

Welcome to another edition of “What was he thinking?”

First up, former pitcher Jerry Koosman.

Koosman won 222 games for four major league teams. He won 21 in 1976 and 20 in 1979 but might be best remembered for helping propel the Amazin’ Mets of 1969 to the World Series title.

Last week he made the news again — by pleading guilty to federal tax evasion.
Koosman didn’t pay federal income taxes for 2002, 2003 and 2004, costing the U.S. some $90,000 in revenue. As a result, he faces a possible year in prison and a $25,000 fine.

What was he thinking?

According to court documents, Koosman told investigators he researched federal tax laws and decided that they applied only to federal workers, corporate employees and District of Columbia residents.

“I guess it’s a combination of being naive and not being able to understand law as I read it or was told,” Koosman told United States District Judge Barbara Crabb during last Friday’s hearing.

Note to Jerry: Stop using Wesley Snipes as your tax adviser.

Next up, Ray Ridder, chief flack for the Golden State Warriors.

Ridder didn’t like the PR hit the Warriors were taking for their 29-53 season, so he decided to inject a little false optimism into the Warriorsworld Internet forums.

Calling himself “Flunkster Dude” — now that sounds authentic — Ridder came to the defense of Golden State’s beleaguered front office, including executive vice president Chris Mullin, with such posts as “Nice job, Mully!” He also claimed to be a season-ticket holder who had re-upped for next season.

Eventually outed, Ridder admitted the ruse, saying, he “just wanted to get the conversation going in a positive direction.”

Nice job, Rayly!

Last up — appropriately, considering his .200 batting average — is Chicago Cubbie Milton Bradley.

The ever-volatile Bradley, known for explosions both on-field and off — including a recent tiff with umpire Larry Vanover — is blaming the men in blue for his anemic average.

“Unfortunately, I just think it’s a lot of ‘Oh, you did this to my colleague,’ or ‘We’re going to get him any time we can,’ ” Bradley said, according to the Chicago Tribune. “As soon as he gets two strikes, we’re going to call whatever and see what he does. Let’s try to ruin Milton Bradley.’ ”

Ruin Milton Bradley? Why would the umps bother when Bradley is so adept at that himself?

“It’s just unfortunate,” Bradley said, “But I’m going to come out on top. I always do.”

Ah, paranoia and braggadocio — what a beautiful combination.

As for what he was thinking ...

We’re talking about Milton Bradley.


Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Yes, I know, I'm probably being too kind

If you’re in the mood for a stomach-churning experience, read ESPN The Magazine’s profile of L.A. Clippers owner and real-estate tycoon Donald Sterling, or at least the excerpts from the piece available on Deadspin.com.

Magazine reporter Peter Keating quotes from depositions from a 2003 discrimination lawsuit brought against Sterling by 19 of his tenants and the Housing Rights Center.

How disgusting is Sterling? Let’s just say he’s clearly a overlooked possible source of swine flu.

Deadspin excerpt:

http://deadspin.com/5263277/the-sordid-life-of-clippers-owner-donald-sterling

ESPN The Magazine story:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4187729

Please, oh please …

A Los Angeles Times story says Manny Ramirez might just decide that silence — silence about his 50-game drug suspension, that is — is golden.

A source says that Manny will cite legal reasons for his failure to address the circumstances that led to his banishment, which, if true, means Manny might have a future in politics.

After all, seamy pols for years have used that particular excuse to explain their clamming up. It normally comes with an insincere smile that tells reporters, “We both know this is a dodge – but it’s my story and I’m sticking with it.”

Except — to make it even slightly plausible — there has to be some legal action to cite, and here’s where it might get interesting. Manny is said to be considering suing the physician who allegedly prescribed the female fertility drug he took that landed him on baseball's list of banned substances.

If that happens, it would mean depositions and disclosure, which I imagine is the last thing Manny and his brain trusts actually wants. I, however, would dearly love it.

From the wonderful folks who brought you Jayson Blair

This just in from The New York Times and Randy Cohen, its “ethicist”: Manny Ramirez’s apparent use of banned substances, while possibly unwise, is not unethical.

Yeah, that must be it

Ah, sports.

It brings you a mature, humble, self-deprecating athlete like Calvin Borel one day — and a Dinara Safina the next.

After recently claiming to be underappreciated, Safina the world’s top-ranked tennis player, had a simple answer as to why:

“I guess they're jealous that I'm so young and No. 1.”

Friday column: For Borel, the oval is unbroken

What goes around comes around.

Calvin Borel, 42, has been going around racetracks for 34 years; patience, hard work, respect and love for his sport have gone around with him.

For 31 of those years, Borel toiled uncelebrated — a journeyman jockey who still mucked stalls and worked out horses in the morning as well as racing them in the afternoon.

In 2006, he won the first Grade I stakes race of his life on a 75-1 long shot. Then — given a promising mount for a change — he won that year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile on Street Sense.

In 2007, his brilliant ride of the same horse made him a Kentucky Derby winner. He was at the pinnacle of his career — or so it seemed.

Until his amazing ride of 50-1 shot Mine That Bird in this year’s Derby, followed by his victory on Rachel Alexandra in the Preakness. Now, with the Belmont beckoning, Borel is in position to become the first jockey to win the Triple Crown with different horses.

Not bad for a man whose first races were on Louisiana “bush tracks” where, according to ESPN’s Pat Forde, “they used to tie chickens to the tails of some horses to make them to run faster.”

Borel’s story now is well known — his beginning to race at age 8, his dropping out of school at age 12, his tutelage from his older brother Cecil, the many injuries he’s suffered.

The first serious one came early in his career at the less-than-prestigious Evangeline Downs in Lafayette, La., when his horse, Miss Touchdown, clipped heels with another horse and hit a light pole. Borel was left with broken ribs, a punctured lung and a ruptured spleen. He went in and out of a coma.

When he recovered and returned to the track, his brother had a horse waiting for him — Miss Touchdown.

“Can you imagine how scared he was at 16 to get back on the horse you almost died on?” Dale Barras, an old friend, said. “That race made him a rider right there.”

If the Cajun has shown courage in his career, he has also shown humility, a determination to “never, never forget where you come from.” He still helps his brother clean stalls, which makes him a favorite among track hands, and the day after winning the Preakness, he raced — and won — a $7,500 claiming race.

“These are the horses that got me here,” he told The Associated Press.

Borel has seen lean days and dark days. If they ever got him down, they didn’t keep him down. There always was another horse, another race.

“My dad always said that hard work is rewards,” Borel said. “That if you treat people nice and like you want to be treated, everything eventually comes back to you.”

Everything is, indeed, coming back to Calvin Borel. What goes around comes around.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Calling all enablers

One of the reasons steroid use has been rampant in Major League Baseball is the tacit acceptance of it by players not juicing themselves.

Witness Friday’s love-fest between Manny Ramirez and his Dodgers teammates.

Manny dropped in on the team he essentially lied to and betrayed to apologize for his recent 50-game suspension but, hey, it turns out there was no need.

“He knows he made a mistake. I forgive him,” Dodgers third baseman Casey Blake said. “It's his business.”

Hey, Casey, are you brain-dead? It IS your business. It is also MY business. It’s the business of anyone who cares about the game of baseball.

“I don’t think anyone was really looking for” an apology, Blake added.

Goodness, no, Casey — no one wants to make Manny uncomfortable.

“He was a guy concerned about his team and his teammates,” Blake said. “I know he feels bad.”

Actually, Casey, he was a guy more or less ordered by Dodgers owner Frank McCourt to apologize for what he’d done. As for feeling bad, yeah — he feels bad he was caught, like every other steroid cheat who gets busted.

Jeez-Louise, Casey: Take a ride on the clue bus.

Vituperation all around (and well-deserved)

Recommended reading: Nicholas Dawidoff’s New York Times review of Selena Robert’s book A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez.

Besides portraying A-Rod as a “a needy, phony, preening, petulant, self-absorbed narcissist” — in Dawidoff’s words — Roberts doesn’t mince syllables when attacking all the elements of the game that were complicit in the steroid scandal.

Writes Dawidoff:

“Ms. Roberts’s depiction of Rodriguez’s agent, Scott Boras, as a greedy, vengeful manipulator in league with the feckless Players’ Association and a pliant commissioner’s office, to help ballplayers inflate their statistics, and so their attendance figures, and so their salaries, is the most devastating part of her book.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/books/15book.html?_r=1&ref=sports

Give me the munchies concession at Corrie’s house

It’s not good when police find 18 pounds of pot in your house. It’s not good when they intercept another 11 pounds sent to you. The authorities might think you were dealing or something.

So former NBA player Corrie Blount can be forgiven for not thinking that clearly when it came time to explain all the cannabis.

But Blount’s story — all the weed was for his personal use and for that of his friends — didn’t fly with Hamilton, Ohio, judge Craig Hedric.

Said Hedric: "Cheech and Chong would have had a hard time smoking that much." He then sentenced Blount to a year in prison, fined him $10,000 and ordered him to surrender two vehicles and $34,000 in cash seized in the bust.

It’s just a guess but ...

A story in Thursday’s Fort Worth Star-Telegram quotes Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones on why the team has largely been silent about the collapse of its practice facility.

Jones said there are three reasons:

1. The team wants the full investigation to be complete.

2. It doesn’t want the employees who are still traumatized by the events and/or were injured to see more coverage of the day’s events until more time has passed.

3. Legal reasons.

Considering the collapse left a scouting assistant paralyzed from the waist down and sent two other staff members to the hospital — and considering the collapse is being investigated by United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration — I’m guessing that reason No. 3 is actually reasons No. 1, 2 and 3.

Friday column: Lies? Bet the House on it

So.

Outfielder Manny Ramirez tested positive for banned substances because his doctor prescribed something for a “personal health issue.”

And NASCAR driver Jeremy Mayfield came up dirty because “the combination of a prescribed medicine and an over-the-counter medicine reacted together and resulted in a positive drug test.”

Even Louis Caldera — the Ground Zero Fly-by Guy — has a prescription-related excuse for his boo-boo: The suddenly former head of the White House Military Office told The Associated Press he was suffering from severe muscle aches and had been prescribed pain medication.

They say that hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue; if so, those are about the only props virtue is getting these days.

What’s that line uttered by House’s Hugh Laurie? Everybody lies. Let’s update it. Everybody cheats, then lies. No, you’re right — sometimes they lie, then cheat, then lie some more.

Here’s one way athletes lie: “I made a mistake.”

Let’s be clear: When a copy editor misspells a word in 72-point type, that’s a mistake. When an athlete uses steroids or human growth hormone, that’s cheating. Mistake and cheating are not synonymous.

Neither are team and fan, though you wouldn’t know it by the way some jock devotees stick with their favorites through thick and trick — like the Dodgers fans who don’t appear to have a problem with Manny being Manny, even when that turns out to mean Manny being Barry.

Many of the same fans who excoriated the Giants for keeping Barry Bonds — Mr. Steroid — on the payroll, are making excuses for Ramirez — Mr. Female Fertility Drug.

Fans have been known to accuse athletes of being self-absorbed at the expense of the game, saying that for certain athletes, “It’s all about me.” Well, sports fans, guess what? When you support a player like Ramirez or Bonds or A-Rod (or just fill in the cheat), because they help your team win and elevate your little ego, you, too, are saying, “It’s all about me.”

Staying with hypocrisy (a rill that never runs dry), we also have the various enablers — agents, lawyers, flacks — who make a living promoting lies, like so many dung beetles pushing excrement. Where would our heroes be without their sage advice?

In his first — and so far only — public statement, Ramirez followed his lame excuse by saying he’d “been advised not to say anything more for now.” I completely understand. After all, how’s Manny going to know what to say next until Scott Boras has crafted the requisite talking points? It takes time to mold excreta into just the right shape.

Speaking of guano, Mayfield — after trying to float his verbal lead balloon — told the press, “My doctor and I are working with ... NASCAR to resolve this matter.”

I’m sure he’ll get back to us very soon.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Can’t Tim Floyd afford a bag man?

Yahoo! Sports is reporting that USC basketball coach Tim Floyd allegedly graced a man with $1,000 in cash in 2007 to help steer star guard O.J. Mayo to the Trojans for his “one-and-done” season.

Louis Johnson, a former associated of Mayo and “runner” Rodney Guillory, said he saw Floyd and Guillory meet outside a stretch of Beverly Hills cafes on Valentine's Day in 2007. When Guillory returned to his car, where Johnson was waiting, he had the cash.

Johnson has given this information to investigators from the U.S. Attorney's Office, FBI, IRS and the NCAA.

A former sportswriter, Johnson said the moment he locked eyes with Floyd outside the café was telling. "He knew who I was, a writer," Johnson said. "I read body language well. He was uneasy. It was written all over his face."

USC, which is facing a major NCAA investigation not only over Mayo’s recruitment but also over money and benefits allegedly given to football star Reggie Bush, isn’t talking. Neither is Floyd.

How about a simple denial, Tim? No?

This isn’t looking good for the cardinal and gold.

Coaches can be paranoid and pathetic

Urban Meyer is cracking down — no more criticism of him by former Gators!

The University of Florida football coach apparently took exception to a comment former Gator QB Shane Matthews made during the team’s only loss of last season — a 31-30 setback against Mississippi.

On his radio show, Matthews was critical of the Gators’ failure to aggressively attack the Rebels’ man-to-man coverage. Apparently, that criticism got under Meyer’s skin and has been festering for a while — despite the Gators’ BCS title.

"If you want to be critical of a player on our team or a coach on our team you can buy a ticket for seat 37F, you're not welcome back in the football office," Meyer said at a recent Gator Club appearance.

Matthews has been defended by other ex-players in the media, the point being made that commentators need to be honest to do their jobs.

"Shane, because he bled and sweat for the Gators, has a right to say whatever he wants about the program," former Miami defensive lineman Dan Sileo told the Orlando Sentinel.

"Urban Meyer's not a Gator. He's a caretaker of the Gator program," Sileo said. "Most times these coaches think they're the programs, but really, the program is the players. That's the problem I have with coaches whose egos get too big for their britches. If Urban doesn't like it, that's too bad."

Is he EVER going to learn?

Team Clemens has done it again.

The masterminds that sued Brian McNamee (leading to the release of damaging personal information about Roger Clemens), the brains that wanted Clemens to testify before Congress (leading to what very well might become perjury charges against the former pitcher) have now sent Roger out to discredit the just-released book American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America's Pastime.

This was a book getting very little play in the press — until Clemens attacked it. Now, references to it are everywhere you look.

Way to go, guys.

A poor judge of character — but maybe not THAT poor

That Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki has a woman living with him who has multiple aliases does not speak well for his judgment. Neither does the report that he asked the woman, “Cristal Taylor,” to marry him. Neither does the report the woman is pregnant.

On the other hand, somebody — either Nowitzki or his lawyers — hired a private investigator to probe into Taylor’s background, a move that resulted in the discovery of the aliases and a visit to Nowitski’s house by the gendarmes, who came to evict Taylor and arrest her on a fraud warrant.

All this while Nowitski was in Denver, where the Mavs were losing the first two games of their second-round playoff series against the Nuggets.

Upon his return to Dallas, Nowitski was closed-mouthed about his relationship with Taylor, aka Chrystal Ann Taylor, Crystal Ann Taylor, Debra Johnson, Shana Mancini, Krista Santiago, Crystal Ann Santiago, Cristal Westerhaus and Crista A. Westerhays.

A friend of Taylor’s (I mean Johnson’s, I mean Mancini’s, I mean …) said Nowitski knew the woman had a checkered past, just not how checkered.

Say it IS so, Brett; say it IS so ...

Word is that Brett Favre, in an unusual moment of clear-headedness, has decided to stay retired and not join the Vikings in pursuit of a one-man jihad against the Green Bay Packers.

According to news reports, Favre told Minnesota coach Brad Childress he will remain retired, a source close to the team told Yahoo! Sports. The Yahoo! story said that Favre told Childress of his decision in a phone call, and that he could "publicly explain his decision soon."

Personally, I don’t really want to hear Favre explain; I just want to hear Favre say it’s true.

Not that I'd necessarily believe him ...

Daddy, may I? ... Thanks!

Talk about a malleable father.

Canadian hockey legend Guy Lafleur recently was convicted of giving contradictory testimony — we call this lying — when he testified at a 2007 bail hearing for his son Mark, who had been arrested on assault charges.

After Mark’s arrest, Lafleur agreed to supervise him as part of his bail conditions, which included a curfew. Asked in court if Mark had ever failed to spend a night at home during the time he was under curfew, Lafleur said no.

But at his son's review for the bail hearing, Lafleur told a judge that he drove Mark to a hotel to meet his 16-year old girlfriend, because "because he felt it was important for them to spend some intimate time together."

What a dad.

Mark, who pleaded guilty to 14 charges stemming from his troubled relationship with his underage petite amie, is serving a 15-month community service sentence.

Dad will be sentenced June 18. Even if he also receives a light sentence, as expected, he now has a criminal record, which complicates his business comings and goings with the U.S.

As well as torpedoing his “Father of the Year” chances.

It’s not all bad news, of course — his son is still in the running for Jackass of the Year.

Friday column: A-Rod to Aquinas to Aristotle

The wicked prowl on every side,/ and that which is worthless is highly prized by everyone. — Psalm 12, verse 8

The wicked get more than enough attention here, so today I want to focus on the second line quoted above. It leapt to mind Tuesday as I looked at the lead photo of The New Mexican, which showed a camera-toting young woman positively ecstatic to be in close proximity — less than a foot! — to Loomis Fall from the movie Jackass.

I don’t mean to be hard on the woman. I was 21 once, and at that age a brush with celebrity of any kind surely would have had me grinning ear to ear, too.

Furthermore, while infatuation with celebrity often decreases with the increase of experience and perspective, some things that are worthless continue to be highly prized by folks of any age.

Which brings me to Alex Rodriguez and, oddly enough, Thomas Aquinas.

In one of his writings, the 13th-century theologian deduced that “man’s ultimate happiness consists in contemplation of the truth.” Along the way, he philosophically discarded certain things that did not bring ultimate happiness; these included wealth, sensual pleasure — and honors.

“Only the good can be worthy of honor,” Aquinas wrote, “and yet it is possible even for the wicked to be honored. Therefore it is better to become worthy of honor, than to be honored.”

If you can believe Selena Roberts, author of A-Rod: The Many Faces of Alex Rodriguez, the Yankees third baseman worries about honor — other people’s opinions of him. Actually, you don’t have to believe Roberts; you can believe Joe Torre or any number of former teammates who’ve testified to A-Rod’s overwhelming desire to be liked and respected.

Unfortunately, for A-Rod, it’s the intensity of this very desire that seems to undermine his efforts to be well thought of, that leads to teammates seeing him as superficial and phony.

Torre, in The Yankee Years, wrote that he used to tell Rodriguez, “You do things on the field that draw attention to yourself that are unnecessary, and you want people to know how good you are, how smart a ballplayer you are. And we already know that. Just play. Stop saying, ‘Look at me.’ ”

That, apparently, is one thing he can’t do, either on field or off — witness his very public fling with Madonna.

As I don’t mean to be hard on the woman thrilled to be in the presence of Loomis Fall, so I don’t mean to be too hard on A-Rod. He might crave the high opinion of others more than many, but few — if any — of us are immune to that desire.

So perhaps it’s well to end with a reminder, a restatement of Aquinas’ final point by the man who was his philosopher master.

“Dignity does not consist in possessing honors,” Aristotle said, “but in deserving them.”

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com

Trouble in Mannywood

We already knew Manny Ramirez was a greed-head and a bad teammate.

Now we can add steroid cheat to his résumé after he was suspended 50 games by Major League Baseball.

No, wait; Manny said it wasn’t a steroid that busted him but some other banned substance that was in a medication he was given by a doctor for a “personal condition.”

Ramirez apologized to his Dodgers teammates, owners and manager Joe Torre.

I hope he also apologized to agent Scott Boras. The suspension will cost Manny a third of this season’s salary. Will that affect Boras’ cut?

“L.A. is a special place to me,” Ramirez said, “and I know everybody is disappointed,” he said.

Not everybody, Manny. In New York, where some thought the Yankees might sign you, they’re relieved. In Boston, where you quit on your teammates, they’re ... what's the word? ... ecstatic.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-manny-ramirez8-2009may08,0,6324894.story