- Things are getting very ugly between the Atlanta Braves and 300-game winner Tom Glavine and the blame appears to have a very deserving target: the Braves. Glavine has spent 17 of his 22 Major League seasons with the Braves and although he won his 300th game during his five seasons with the New York Mets, he is inextricably linked to Atlanta in the minds of baseball fans. He’ll go into the Hall of Fame wearing a Braves lid - assuming he doesn’t file a lawsuit to prevent that. At this point, I wouldn’t put it past Glavine, not in light of the atrocious fashion in which the team has treated him. Glavine has yet to pitch in 2009 as he attempts to make a successful return from surgery on his elbow and shoulder. He had been working his way back to health and had been pitching in the Braves’ minor league system to rehab his injury. Last week, Glavine pitched six scoreless innings in a start for the Braves’ Class A affiliate in Rome, Ga. After coming off the mound and figuring that he had taken a big step toward making it back to the majors, Glavine was stunned to learn that he had been released. Braves general manager Frank Wren said Glavine was released because they did not believe the 43-year-old left-hander would be able to get batters out at the major league level. Glavine clearly feels differently, because he’s said to be considering filing a grievance against the team. Glavine said Friday he believes he was released for financial reasons (he was due a $1 million bonus if he had made the MLB roster) and to clear a roster spot for Tommy Hanson, who made his major league debut Sunday against the Milwaukee Brewers. “It was purely and only on the merits of what gave us the best chance to win, no financial interest whatsoever involved," team chairman Terry McGuirk said. Riiiiight. There are multiple issues here, with the claims of dumping Glavine to avoid paying that $1 bonus not even the most offensive point. For a guy who was a mainstay on an Atlanta team that won 13 straight division titles and a World Series title, being unceremoniously dumped in this fashion is unthinkable. As Glavine rightly pointed out, the team had clearly made up its mind to release him before his last rehab start, yet they allowed him to trot out to the mound before a packed house in a Class A stadium and pitch. Give a 300-game winner the dignity and respect to tell him that he’s not going to be given a fair shot at making it back to the bigs before he pitches his guts out at the lowest level of the minor leagues in a rehab start. “I don't believe for a minute that it was totally a performance-related issue, which I'm totally fine with, but I would have appreciated the honesty,” Glavine said Friday. The actual motivation for the decision to release Glavine could be difficult to prove, but it should be noted that according to the collective-bargaining agreement, players can't be released because of financial reasons. The Braves clearly realized how bad they looked in all of this, because later in the day on Friday, team president John Schuerholz issued an apology Friday for "the environment and the tone and the manner" of the release. “I, as the president of the club, could have taken more time to explain not only the circumstances around the decision, although we made that decision in unanimous fashion, but to explain to Tommy our high regard for him,” Schuerholz said. Fine, but not nearly enough after the bush league treatment you gave him. Being the class guy that he is, I imagine Glavine will eventually forgive the Braves for this and mend the relationship, but I wouldn’t blame him if he never did…….
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! The villagers in a remote northern region of Peru have attained the ultimate honor for any group of social dissidents: forcing the country’s government to declare a state of emergency. The government of Peru on Friday declared a state of emergency in the remote northern area after a clash between police and indigenous people protesting what they say is the exploitation of their native lands. Nothing is more grassroots than protesting and rioting because someone is coming in an ripping your land from you. Thankfully the Native Americans didn’t think of this when we were busy stealing their land the past couple of centuries, but I digress. The natives were becoming increasingly angry and a clash with The Man was clearly coming, so when the festivities finally touched off at dawn outside the northern province of Bagua in the Department of Amazonas, it was a long time coming. Demonstrators had been protesting for 59 straight days and I guess the police decided they’d had enough. As they attempted to break up a roadblock on the 59th day of protests, all hell broke loose. In the resulting battle, at least eight police and 22 protesters died. Ironically, Foreign Minister Jose A. Garcia Belaunde claimed that the state of emergency was ordered to give the government the opportunity to re-establish order and reopen talks with the protesters. Call me zany, but I don’t think they’re in much of a mood to talk at this point. You just violently attempted to break up a protest and killed 22 of their people, so why would they want to sit down and chat with you? “Look, the use of force is legitimate," Beldunde said. "Today, what we have received in response were gunshots -- directed at police helicopters, killing eight or nine police.” Yes, you read that right: shots at police helicopters. Big ups for that, Peruvian protestors. You may not have the weaponry to bring down those police helicopters, but shooting at them shows major kahones. I like that mental picture so much that I’m going to choose to ignore the fact that Alberto Pizango, the principal leader of the indigenous group, said his followers could not have been responsible for killing any police, because they were armed only with stones and arrows. I’m also going to ignore his claims that the demonstrators had been pursuing a peaceful protest because “peaceful” protests are boooooooring. Instead, I’m going to dwell on the fact that the director general of the police, Jose Sanchez Farfan, said government buildings in Bagua had been looted and set aflame. I loves me some government buildings set on fire and looted. That is what makes a first-class riot a first class riot: things burning and things being destroyed. Keep it up, Peruvian protestors. And by the way, if you’re not doing the outlandish and violent things the government is accusing you of, here’s a suggestion: start doing them immediately………
- Ah, the age-old story of call girl working the streets of Sin City meeting the guitarist for a Christian heavy metal band, falling in love and getting married. I’ve heard it hundreds of times, but it brings a tear to my eye every single time. The hooker in question (actually now a former hooker) is Annie Lobért, who worked as a prostitute for 11 years, making as much as $500 an hour. The heavy metal guitarist is Oz Fox of the Christian band Stryper, which stands for Salvation Through Redemption, Yielding Peace, Encouragement and Righteousness. Lobért actually got out of the prostitution game before meeting Fox, founding Hookers for Jesus, an organization whose mission is to save the souls of women who sell their bodies. She actually spends time at night on Las Vegas streets handing out Bibles to prostitutes and seeking to convince them there is a better way to make a living. In so doing, Lobért shares the story of how she hit rock bottom when she overdosed on cocaine and everything went black. According to an interview posted on her Web site, she asked Jesus to help her and became what many jokingly call a "porn-again Christian." The Hookers for Jesus Web site describes the organization as "an international, faith-based organization that addresses the realities of human sex trafficking, sexual violence and exploitation linked to pornography and the sex industry." The wedding ceremony took place at the Church of South Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada and was broadcast live via the Web. Pastor Benny Perez cited Lobért as a shining example of Christ's love for everyone, which I would have to agree with. All kidding aside, I do wish the happy couple a wonderful life together and hopefully Lobért can indeed make a difference in the lives of women who are in the same horrible situation she was once in……..
- I’m not sure what’s sadder: the fact that Somali pirates held a Nigerian tugboat for 10 months or the fact that the pirates held a tugboat all that time only to surrender it. Let’s go ahead and assign equal measures of disappointment to both sides of this sad saga. The tug, Yenegoa Ocean, and its Nigerian crew were released Friday after being hijacked while sailing under a Panamanian flag, on August 4, 2008, in the Gulf of Aden. The boat was on its way back from Singapore after undergoing some minor maintenance and repairs when my boys the Somali pirates saw a chance and seized it. For 10 tense months, the pirates occupied the tug and fended off any efforts to reclaim it. However, the battle ultimately proved to be too much and it was surrendered to the Dutch navy frigate De Zeven Provincien, which then escorted it to a safe harbor. Who knows, maybe this is just a sign of the fact that the vast international coalition formed to patrol the Gulf of Aden, off northern Somalia, and stamp out piracy. But personally, I’m not betting against the fighting spirit of all things pirate-y, yo, ho, ho mateys. When you have some 25,000 ships using the channel south of Yemen between the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea, I’m counting on the scourges of the high seas to do their thing, make scallywags walk the plank and of course, drink plenty of rum…….
- Now this is unexpected. Someone is finally suing Michael Irvin for the crap bomb of a reality show he’s put together and the suit has nothing to do with foisting such an abysmal show on an unsuspecting public. Instead, the lawsuit comes from three men who claim Irvin's "4th and Long" is actually their concept called “Guts and Glory.” Irvin is the host and producer of “4th and Long,” which airs on Spike TV. The show supposedly gives regular guys a shot at making the Dallas Cowboys, something I will have to see to believe. But regardless of how unwatchable the show is, the question here isn’t how much it sucks, but rather whose idea it was. The three men filing the lawsuit contend that Irvin used their work in meetings with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, that they met with Irvin as far back as 2007 and most importantly that contracts were issued splitting money. Basically, they are alleging that they met with Irvin, pitched the idea and he stole it from them and passed it off as his own. The ten-page lawsuit accuses the hall of famer of fraud and breach of contract. Irvin isn’t buying it and sounds very much like a guy who plans on fighting the lawsuit and taking this to court. “Let me tell you something. I didn't steal any ideas from anybody," Irvin declared. He doesn’t deny knowing the men, but believes that they are merely trying to use that relationship to pressure him into giving them some hush money even though they didn’t earn it. “I met with many people when I came up with this idea," he said. "These guys are trying to stir something up, hopefully thinking I'll give them some money, nuisance value to go away. That's all it is.” I’ve yet to see any of the evidence in this case and it remains to be seen if these three men do have the smoking gun to prove that Irvin stole their idea and profited from it, but I have a solution. Take this piece of crap show off the air, burn all of the footage and pretend none of it ever happened. Return all money paid to its original source, wipe the whole mess from our collective conscience and let’s just move on…….
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