Being An Idiot Has A Price, Folks

Helpful tip:  If you see a post on Facebook searching for people who committed a crime, don't respond saying you did it.

This concept sounds so obvious and so simple.  If you actually did do it and you confess, then you are an idiot. If you didn't do it, but instead just trying to be "funny," then you are an idiot.  Under no circumstances do you come out looking good.  Either you just gave yourself up on the internet for everyone to see and will be fined and do some time, or you are going to be highly inconvenienced by the police and have your false confession show up every time someone Googles your name.  And possibly get fined in the process.  This is simple.  Don't admit to doing something that is a crime on the internet.  I just wasted a paragraph on something a concept a 3rd grader would understand.  You know this.  I know this.

But amazingly enough, Edward Neary does not know this.  For if he did, he would not have responded to a Broad Street Hockey post searching for people who assaulted Rangers fans outside of Geno's Steaks following Monday's Winter Classic.  He has since deleted his posts, but thanks to the magic of screenshots, are still available online for all to see. You have to read this to believe it.

Edward Neary has spoken to the police.  He has since denied all involvement.  Someone who went to high school with Edward Neary tweeted to me that this is something he would do because he finds it "funny."  In case you have not yet figured out, at best, Edward Neary is guilty of being one of Philadelphia's dumbest people.  At worst, he is one of Philadelphia's dumbest criminals.  Because innocent and just trying to be "funny," or not, this has been on the internet and the top hits when you Google "Edward Neary".  Employers know what Google is.  His future employment may or may not have a few roadblocks in the future.

As for the Rangers fan that got beat up?  The Purple Heart recipient and off-duty cop has been released from the hospital after suffering bruises and a concussion.

The stupidity of humanity never ceases to amaze me, though by this point, it really should.

Hypocrisy By Brooks

Sometimes I feel like it is best to take a deep breath and just ignore Sports By Brooks.  After all, he is nothing more than a sleazy sports gossip writer with about as much dignity as the people that feel the need to follow Lady Gaga everywhere she goes, including stalking the drainage system she empties her bodily waste in to examine her poop to see if the feces reveal anything about a sex scandal.  And then sometimes it is best to stoop to that very level of depravity yourself just because, well, actually it is not for the best it is fun for me to expose how much of a hypocrite someone is.

I am not going to link any tweets, but if you take a look at Sports by Brooks's timeline you will see the sports gossip columnist has ceased to be a sports gossip columnist and has turned into a full time Penn State gossip columnist since the Penn State flattery.  In this timeline, you will see a bunch of tweets about rumors, speculation that Jerry Sandusky will be acquitted by a jury of his peers in Centre County (?), and several tweets perched atop his moral high horse as he uses mental gymnastics of the amazing kind to equate a vote in support of Joe Paterno and Joe Paterno's legacy as a vote in support of child molestation and this tweet of what can only be described as pure insanity.  Even if Sandusky does shockingly get acquitted, to suggest something of the nature this early on in the process is nothing short of insanity.

Here is the graphic, 23-page, grand jury report.  This is what is known, both in terms of what Sandusky did and what McQueary and Paterno knew and did.  You can try make heads or tails of comments and actions from the early 2000s to try and infer more about what was known and who knew it, but I won't get into that.  If you choose to believe the interview Sandusky gave last night and the interview Mike McQueary is giving tonight then we know that too.  But outside of that, everything else is opinion disguised as fact, or moral high horse rantings disguised as opinion.  Rumors/reports from a gossip columnist are unfounded at best and trolling for followers/pageviews at worst.

But, SbB is indeed that.  I said as much above, and I think Brooks might even say as much.  It is his job to do this.  But I am writing a post because there is a catch.  The point of this post is not to chide someone for having an opinion.  You do not need me to tell you that this Penn State scandal has elicited some violent opinions.  Brooks is not the first person to espouse such opinions on this issue and he damn sure will not be the last.  But what makes Brooks a special case is that everytime he tweets something from his moral high horse on the Penn State scandal, he is setting in a glass house, trying to throw stones.  Now as far as we know, Brooks does not have a history of pedophilia, but I can confirm he has a perverted history of ephebophilia.  Behold, the hypocrisy of Sports by Brooks!

Yes.  You saw that link correctly.  That is Brooks.  Unabashedly ogling at a 17-year old's breasts.

The patron saint of Morality, everyone!

(h/t @AvalonBryan and the essential @zoowithroy)

I Doth Protest: Trying To Sort Today's Debacle Between The Phillies And The Marlins

In a season where Wilson Valdez played 18 innings in the infield, pitched the 19th, and became the winning pitcher after starting in the field for the first time since Babe Ruth, incredibly, that is no longer the strangest Phillies game of the season. That honor now belongs to today's Phillies-Marlins game which ended on a walkoff walk. Though it was not the 3rd walkoff walk of the 2011 season that made it bizarre and strange, but rather the 6th inning where Hunter Pence hit a deep fly ball to right that was initially called a double before being reviewed and (rightly) determining that there was fan interference on the play. Now whether or not Bryan Petersen would have actually made that catch is certainly suspect at best. It looked like his glove was closing as the ball was the falling down and it would ultimately bounce away from him, however, that is not for sure. What is known is a fan definitively reached over the wall and made sure Petersen had no chance of making what may have been one of the great plays of the day. That is certain.

Now if only it were that simple. Where the controversy occurs is how the umpires went about today's festivities.

That the exact written rules for instant replay are not available online do not make things easier in judging if Joe West acted properly or not. This is what we know. Instant replay is used for reviewing home runs. This was ruled a double turned to an out based on fan interference. A home run does not factor into that at all, although if the umps wanted to review to see if it was home run, then they can make the call that they made today.

Joe West said Charlie Manuel requested a review. Charlie Manuel said he did not request a review. The rules say a manager does not need to make a request for there to be a review. Judging from the video that it never appears Charlie Manuel approaches the umpires asking for a review certainly does not lend credit to Joe West's case. Jack McKeon, on the other hand, does appear engaged with the officials. It is highly doubtful he would be requesting the umpires see if that play should result in two runs for the other team.

Joe West would go on to say, "We’ve got a decision as to whether the spectator inference happened over the fence or before the fence."

The question here is about the process, not about the results of that process. It certainly appears that at the very best there was a stretching of the rules to get where they got to, and if not, then a lot of lying on the part of Joe West after the game. Whether or not they got the call right, I believe they did, but at the same time, it is a stretch to say that the Bryan Petersen making that catch is a given. According to Rule 3.16, "If spectator interference clearly prevents a fielder from catching a fly ball, the umpire shall declare the batter out." It is unknown if the catch would have been made, but that fan reached over the wall and clearly prevented denied him that chance. But were the umps allowed to review it?

That's the question MLB will be asking when they rule whether or not to uphold the Phillies' official protest of the game. So much has been said, and the instant replay rules are not readily available online preventing me from definitively for sure, but given Joe West's comments, it certainly appears suspect. It's been 25 years since a protest has last been upheld. Regardless of it MLB should uphold the protest, it certainly would be shocking if they did based alone on their dealing with the umpires and historical precedence.

The Problem With MLB's Discipline Of The Phillies-Giants Brawl

In case you did not hear, the Giants and the Phillies got into a benches clearing brawl. As a result of this brawl, Shane Victorino got suspended three games, whereas Placido Polanco was inexplicably fined and Ramon Ramirez and (in particular) Eli Whiteside were only given fines. A few comments.

a). Shane Victorino was suspended for one reason and one reason alone: He pushed an umpire to re-enter a brawl. Why he is appealing that I have no earthly idea. The Phillies are entering a three-game series tonight against the Dodgers and following that will play in a three-game series at home against the Nationals. Please, Shane, do yourself and your team a favor and sit out against the weaker teams and end that.

b). Now that we got that taken care of. Why wasn't Eli Whiteside suspended? I can understand Ramon Ramirez not getting anything (I don't agree, but I understand why), but when a guy is hopping like around like he's Little Bunny Foo Foo and/or the world's worst Muhammad Ali impersonator, he has gone from the threshold of protecting his pitcher (which you could argue he was not even doing that as in the time between the plunking and Whiteside's tackle of Polanco, Ramirez advanced more than Victorino did, who before Whiteside's tackle, never exhibited any signs of wanting to fight) into the territory of "I want a fight." We all know what happened next. It is clear as day that Whiteside and Ramirez incited a bench-clearing brawl. Why is not that a suspension worthy offense? Better yet, what does that say about MLB?

MLB's statement on the matter might as well have been this: "MLB will not tolerate the physical abuse of umpires. However, if you incite contact with members of the opposing team, you will get away with only a paltry fine. Good friend and closer adviser to MLB, Gary Bettman, believes this is a good way to conduct business."

This is not a matter of wanting Eli Whiteside off the team in order to sabotage the Giants in the standings. Quite the opposite is true, in fact, it could be that MLB is getting very creative in their punishments and punishing the San Francisco Giants as a whole by not allowing them to have games where Eli Whiteside is not an eligible player. Cruel, unusual, and given the fact Whiteside has amassed a paltry 0.6 WAR in 60 games this season, effective.

c). Placido Polanco got fined for being on the wrong end of the worst-looking double leg takedown since Hornswoggle last stepped in a wrestling ring. What Placido Polanco was going to do, I have no idea, but aside from being on the wrong end of a tackle my grandmother could have executed better, he only showed he was doing the same thing everyone else was doing at that point. How on earth is it fair that he gets singled out because he made Whiteside look like he had less muscles than a toddler?

Ramon Ramirez, Eli Whiteside, and Placido Polanco got the same punishment for that fracas. Major League Baseball, ladies and gentlemen!

Thank you! Good night! Tip your waitresses! Try the veal!

This Is The Kind Of Stupidity You Get With The Philadelphia Sports Media

Here are Mandy Housenick and Marcus Hayes talking about the Phillies with some very fun splicing done by @tonyisdynamic. Tony's splicing is fantastic. The idiotic comments by Housenick and Hayes are not.

Can We Please End This Nonsense About Citizens Bank Park Being A Bandbox?

The Marlins poll question for the day:

"How would you classify CBP?"

A. Bandbox
B. Cozy
C. Hitter Friendly."

To which my answer would be D. Neutral.

"Oooh, oooh, Justin, but didn't you hear John Smoltz and the Marlins announcers and everyone else in the mainstream media?! Citizens Bank Park is such a bandbox!"

I hate to break this to you, I am sorry, but your heroes in the mainstream media are wrong. Citizens Bank Park is not a bandbox.

I invite you to play around with ESPN's Park Factors chart and see this for yourself. Compare it to the likes of Coors Field, Rangers Ballpark, AT&T Park, Petco Park, and Dodgers Stadium. Feel free to go back a few years and look at the long term trends. This is not a 1-year aberration. Here is a further analysis of this from October 2010.

It may seem unbelievable, but it is true. Citizens Bank Park is a neutral Major League Baseball park. Believe it, Rich Waltz and Tommy Hutton, it is true. CBP is neutral. Now go find another lie to feed your audience as fact.

Blah Blah NHL Discipline Blah Blah Blah Rant Blah Blah Blah

Someone please explain to me how this is a 4-game suspension.....



But this does not even get a hearing.



Want the difference between the two in terms of how they should be treated with discipline? Last time I checked, you cannot piledrive someone into the boards like Boychuk did. And if you break down CBC's angles screen by screen (because all NBC gave was shitty angles that show nothing), you can clearly see Boychck did just that. The main crime Aaron Rome committed was he hit Horton late. Not only did Boychuk hit Raymond late, the actual check was much more vicious.

Though while I am pointing out stupid things Boston Bruins did, Patrice Bergeron, once a victim of this, elbowed a guy in the head.

And here is Brad Marchand being an ass just because he "felt like" it.



But go on, people. Keep believing the Canucks are the only team in this series that uses dirty tactics. Yeah. Sure. Whatever.

The Appalling Lack Of Consistency Of The NHL's Discipline System

As I am sure you all know by now, Aaron Rome knocked out Nathan Horton in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals, sending Horton to the hospital and Rome to the dressing room early. Horton's out for the series with a severe concussion. Rome is out for the series with a four-game suspension. On the surface, it may seem like a fair punishment and just desserts for Rome, who may have done permanent damage to Horton's playing career. But in Gary Bettman's NHL, unfortunately, this exposes a much deeper problem.

There is no doubt that Aaron Rome hit Nathan Horton way late. But what happens if the hit did not have that nasty result? Chances are Rome would just get a 2-minute interference penalty and it would never be spoken of again. While a counterfactual argument, it is at least worth a thought here. Remember the violent hit where Zdeno Chara sent Max Pacioretty into the stanchion? Remember how many games Chara got? Yep. Zero.

Bad hit. Awful result. Zero game suspension.

Rob Stone Reveals Intimate Details About His High School Sex Life While Calling Basketball On National TV

So, uh, yeah, Rob Stone actually compared the way Arkansas-Little Rock plays basketball to his prom dates during the Sun Belt Championship. Seriously. Here is the video.



The awkward silence at the end totally makes that video well even more hilarious. I have come to expect the weird and bizarre from Rob Stone, having followed him through multiple endeavours on ESPN, but this one flat out takes the cake. Arkansas-Little Rock are like his high school prom date in that both are not pretty, but effective.

Thanks for sharing, Stoner.

The Day Of The Chicken Shit

Saturday may have been one of the worst sports days for me in recent memory. The Flyers blew a 2-0 lead and lost 5-3 to Buffalo, making it 3 losses in a row for the Flyers. The news of Chase Utley's injury keeps getting worse. Dom Brown broke a bone in his hand and will be sidelined 3 to 6 weeks with the possibility that the power in his swing will be gone for a year or more. Drexel lost on a buzzer beater to VCU in the Colonial Athletic Conference quarterfinals. Villanova played a lost a laughably poor basketball game to Pittsburgh. Everything about this day from a Philly sports fan perspective has been frustrating to embarrassing to sad.

So, how fitting is it then that on this same day not one, but two television personalities utter the phrase "chicken shit" over the air?

First up, Bobby Knight unhappy with the results of some competition on Gameday!



Next up, Don Cherry talking about how Ville Leino went into an icing call in the Flyers game against the Maple Leafs on Thursday.



Two "chicken shits" from two different television personalities on that was for me a "chicken shit" kind of day. That sounds about right.

Eff You, Logan Couture

If the Penguins come back and take the Atlantic Division, the Flyers will have but one man to blame: Logan Couture of the San Jose Sharks. Coming into the game 7 points behind the Flyers, the Penguins needed to salvage anything they could against the visiting San Jose Sharks. Just getting one point out of the game would be a huge improvement to the Penguins situation as being 6 points behind the Flyers (3 games) with is much better than being 7 points out (4 games). With just over a minute left, and up by a goal, Logan Couture had a chance to put the game out of reach with an empty net goal. Only instead of scoring, this happened.



The Sharks could not win it in the last minute and the game went to overtime. It does not matter that the Sharks would go on to win the game in awesome fashion in said overtime. The fact of the matter is the Penguins got a crucial Bettman point. The Penguins are now three games behind the Flyers instead of four because of Couture's inability to perform simple tasks to skate up to an empty net and put the puck in. So if it comes down to it, and the Penguins win the Atlantic Division by 1 point, there will be only one man worthy of your scorn in the NHL. Your potential 2010-2011 Philadelphia Flyers goat: Logan Couture, ladies and gentlemen!

And The Winner For Most Nonsensical Quote Of The Year Goes To......Ian Kinsler!

Baseball players have had a strange habit of trash talking the Philadelphia Eagles this week. I have purposefully ignored the Mark Buehrle's hateful and ignorant comments for the obvious reasons, but Ian Kinsler's latest jab at the Eagles is just completely nonsensical. It's one thing to not like Vick, I get that (though I do not agree with it), but forgive me for not seeing the parallel between Michael Vick and DeSean Jackson of the Eagles and Michael Young of the Texas Rangers. Yes, Ian Kinsler actually tried to make this connection when speaking about Michael Young's current situation.

"This isn't DeSean Jackson or Michael Vick or Manny Ramirez," Kinsler said. "Michael Young is a professional. It would be completely out of his personality not to be here."

I hate to break it to you Ian, but DeSean Jackson and Michael Vick never held out of the Eagles' training camp or skipped practice because of their contract situation. Never. Not once this year. DeSean Jackson wants a new deal, but when it came time for Jackson to show up at training camp, he did just that and said nary a peep about his contract all year.

But bashing Eagles is currently trendy for baseball players right now. My prediction: Tomorrow Prince Fielder will say Shawn Andrews' weight was the reason the Eagles offensive line performed poorly down the stretch this season.

This Conversation Is What Happens When Two Idiots Talk

This video that surfaced is admittedly a few months old, but given the fact that Jim Mora, Jr. is a candidate for the Eagles defensive coordinator position, it is somewhat relevant and well worth the watch for hilarity sake as he "discusses" Vick and McNabb. Before McNabb Bowl I, Mora, Jr. was on ESPNRadio with Doug Gottlieb. To the surprise of no one, this interview was a complete disaster and I am pretty sure Mora, Jr. and Doug Gottlieb were ready to strangle each other through the phone.



Hilarious, and yet, this is the guy the Eagles are considering for a defensive coordinator job. Why could not Reid and the Eagles wise up and take a look at Mike Trgovac, Winston Moss, or just a guy with half the brain. Why does it have to be Dick Jauron (a guy whose never had great success), Mora, Jr. (another guy whose never had great success), and Billy Davis (a guy who was a complete and utter failure in Arizona)? The good news is no hire has been made. The bad news is I have this sinking feeling in my stomach that this guy will be the Eagles next defensive coordinator.

America Can't Spell

Behold Twitter's Trending Topics hours after Stanford ended the UConn women's winning streak!

To make America feel better, the world had the same spelling. To make everyone feel worse, uh, this is kind of a big name college we are talking about here.....

The Cliff Lee Signing Made For Some Pretty Awkward Interviews

My sincerest apologies for the lack of posts this week. Finals kicked me in the ass this year like no year before. Even though the videos I am about to post are a couple days old now, I still believe they are worth the awkward hilarity.

We all know that late Monday night, 4 minutes before Matt Schaub threw a game-ending pick 6 on Monday Night Football in overtime and 10 minutes before midnight, Cliff Lee agreed to take his talents to the city of Brotherly Love. That means that the late local news shows had to wait a whole 23 hours for them to cover this story. And when they did, it was showered with uncomfortable awkwardness. First up, NBC10 attempts to interview Cliff Lee who at the time was just arriving in Philadelphia International Airport. Needless to say, he was not really in the mood for a surprise interview.



The interview comes off a whole lot differently when you read the transcript. It's amazing what being interviewed after getting of an airplane can do to words.

As awkward as that interview was, on the very same Tuesday night, the Fox29 10:00 news decided to get even awkward. Luckily for all involved, they strayed away from a surprise Cliff Lee interview. They decided to be awkward by sending a man on the street to interview fans. No, not Phillies fans excited to have their star of 2009 back. But Yankee fans in town, pissed that Cliff Lee spurned them to go to the Phillies. And oh by the way, this was the lead story of the evening.



Douche-tastic!

And this, my friends, is why 6ABC is the most watched local news station in Philadelphia. Wait a minute, on second thought, they are not perfect either.

Dan Dierdorf Does Not Enjoy Streaking Fans

This video is all sorts of funny for so many reasons.



I now eagerly anticipate everyone saying that all New York fans are crazy drunks, just like Philly fans. After all, the same was true about Philadelphia fans once they had idiots running onto the field at Citizens Bank Park. New York Jets fans are going to get the same treatment because of this one dumb drunken idiot, no?

Do San Francisco Schools Teach Math At All These Days?

Uh, sir with the broom, you were attending Game 5 of the NLCS. That means that both teams must have won at least 1 game in the series. Therefore, it is technically impossible for the game to be a sweep.

Now for what the guy was most likely going for, the arbitrary 3-game sweep of the games in San Francisco. It's still just as dumb. Seriously. Talk to any baseball fan. How many people were saying that the Giants fans should bring out the brooms because they have a chance to sweep their home part of the series? I reckon not many. And those that did, well, they are just as dumb as this guy apparently is.

A Lesson To Those Who Think They Can't Make An Impact On The Internet

May I present the power of having a few Twitter followers who have a bajillion more followers than I do.

In a fit of rage on Twitter, someone types the now deleted tweet: "Hey Philly, screw you and your homophobic, battery-throwing, smoke-bomb tossing, Santa Claus-booing fans," minutes after tweeting yet another now deleted tweet about how satisfied she would be: "If some sort of hilarious, season ending illness befell every Phillie," I respond to her with a "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA" and a snide "All Philly fans in a nutshell," and the next thing I know, practically ever Philly sports fan I follow is completely bashing her into smitherines. Read at your own risk. (FYI, this is the smoke-bomb incident she was referring to)

What had happened was after I tweeted it, someone with a lot of followers who follows me also retweeted it, which prompted more retweeting from people with followers and the next thing you know, some reasonably anonymous NoCal and USC fan is a trending topic in Philadelphia. While I obviously had no intention of it becoming a huge deal square in the middle of Game 2 of the NLCS, I can't say that I did not revel in the hilarity of it. If you are going to go on a place like Twitter and spew out the tired generalizations about Philly fans that everyone and their mother is sick and tired of (never mind that the Santa Claus booing was over 40 years ago) on top of calling us homophobes (never mind that Philadelphia is for the most part a politically liberal city), and I am going to re-tweet it to point out the patheticness of it, and if it gets picked up by people with more followers than I have, then be prepared to feel the wrath of your stupidity. To her credit, she did not fire back with thousands of insults, she did apologize, over and over again, and she did seem to take it in stride (although she did delete her controversial tweets), but suffice to say, I think the lesson has been learned.

Now for those wondering how on earth I got to be following said Giants fan, well, she is 49er16's friend and a year or so ago he told me to follow her.

/DUCKS

Think you can't make an impact on the internet? Think again.

A Rundown Of The Play Clock Controversy And Why The Officials Are Entirely At Fault

Here is in more detailed, precise, and clearer terms a run down of what happened with yesterday's end of 1st half play clock controversy between the Eagles and the Redskins and why the sole blame of what happened lies directly on the officials.

1. Shady McCoy is tackled at the proverbial 1 inch line.

2. Referee Alberto Riveron goes upstairs for a booth review to see if Shady McCoy got in.

3. Despite replays being at best inconclusive and at worst short of the goalline, the review takes upwards of 5 minutes.

4. Riveron comes back and rules, "play stands as called."

5. Riveron then goes back and spots the ball at the 1-yard line, something that should not be happening if the play really did stay as called, otherwise, the play would not stand as called.

6. Having heard "play stands," Andy Reid calls a QB sneak to run on 4th and goal from the proverbial 1-inch line.

7. Seeing that the ball had been moved to the 1-yard line, Andy Reid calls timeout, and calls the official over to talk about it because while a good play call from the initial spot, a QB sneak is not so good from a whole yard out and he needs to get things straightened out.

8. All the while Andy Reid is trying to figure out the referee's ruling and why the ball was moved back, Alberto Riveron and his crew inexplicably start running the play clock after the 30-second timeout, even though normal officiating practices dictate that you do not run the play clock while the coach is conversing with the official and trying to figure out a call.

9. Because Andy Reid is talking to the official, he can't relay a different play to Kevin Kolb in time.

10. The play clock inexplicably winds down and because the Eagles just called timeout, they cannot call another one before a play is run and are forced to take a delay of game penalty.

11. That moves the ball back to the 6-yard line and the Eagles have no choice but to kick a field goal before the half.

12. Had the ball been spotted as Alberto Riveron dictated it should have been, the Eagles would have run the planned QB sneak and in all likelihood Kevin Kolb would have found his way in for a touchdown.

As he always does when something goes wrong, Andy Reid claimed it was his fault, but as you can clearly see by the outline of the events above, absolutely none of it was his fault. It is on the referees to not only be honest when they are ruling that a play stands as called, but to not run the play clock without at least alerting someone while a head coach is trying to sort out the controversy, especially after he called a timeout.

All in all it is excuseless piss poor officiating that played a big role in the Eagles losing yesterday's game. Now I am not saying the officials are the only reason the Eagles lost, other factors such as the Eagles shooting themselves in the foot by missing tackles contributed, but to say the officials played no part in the outcome last night is to say that pigs have wings and can fly. It is said that if an official does a good job, no one will notice or talk about him. Well, here is a whole blog post on Alberto Riveron in addition to the mention he got in last night's recap where I outlined some of the other blunders of him and his crew.

When Dumber And Dumberer Are Opposing Coaches In A Football Game...

...This is how it ends.



I did not think it was humanly possible for Les Miles to be out-stupided, but Derek Dooley and the Tennessee Volunteers accomplished that task with flying colors. Oy ve.