- Let this be a warning to all athletes who would consider throwing a ball or other piece of equipment into the stands out of anger: learn from Julio Castillo and don’t repeat his mistake. You may remember Castillo as a pitcher for the Peoria Chiefs, a Chicago Cubs Single-A affiliate, who threw a ball into the stands during a game against the Dayton Dragons when the bench-clearing brawl broke out. The ball struck a fan and gave the fan a concussion, leading prosecutors to charge Castillo with felonious assault causing serious physical injury and felonious assault with a deadly weapon. Castillo contended that he threw the ball downward toward a dugout to try to keep opposing players from rushing the field and was not aiming at anyone. Montgomery County Common Pleas Court Judge Connie Price didn’t buy that story and convicted Castillo on the charge of assault causing serious physical injury. Price did acquit the pitcher on the charge of felonious assault with a deadly weapon, so it could definitely have been worse for Castillo. He’s no longer a member of the Chiefs and now plays for the Boise Hawks, another Single-A affiliate of the Cubs. However, the Cubs have been holding him out of action until the charges against him were resolved. Sentencing is still ahead for Castillo, but don’t expect too much sympathy or leniency. Yes, he acted in the heat of the moment, but that’s no excuse for throwing a baseball into the stands, especially not for a professional baseball player who makes his living throwing balls in excess of 90 mph. A few inches in a different direction and Castillo’s errant throw could have done a lot more damage than simply giving a fan a concussion………
- I shouldn’t be impressed by Bill Clinton being able to fly to Pyongyang, North Korea, and secure the release of two journalists imprisoned by the North Korean government. Slick Willie appears to be able to talk just about anyone into doing just about anything, but I didn’t think that even he could convince a maniacal, irrational dictator like Kim Jong Il to let Laura Ling and Euna Lee go free. On top of that, my man Willie didn’t even have his patented means of persuasion available, namely getting the person in front of him to sex it up with him. Above all, that’s this guy’s most potent weapon, even if the women he (allegedly) scores with (Paula Jones, Ginnifer Flowers, Monica Lewinsky) aren’t exactly hall-of-famers, if you catch my drift. But using his pull on the opposite sex clearly wasn’t a weapon for Slick Willie in this situation and yet he walked in to Pyongyang, sat down with the North Korean leader and was able to convince K.J. Il to set Ling and Lee free. “We feared at any moment that we could be sent to a hard labor camp, and then suddenly we were told we were going to a meeting," Ling said at a news conference Wednesday morning in California shortly after arriving by plane with Lee and Clinton. Make no mistake about it, I’m glad that Clinton was able to negotiate a pardon for these two women, who had been held in a North Korean prison since March. Not as a glad as Lee and Ling had to be when they saw Clinton standing in front of them, telling them they were headed home, but still glad. "The past 140 days have been the most difficult, heart-wrenching time of our lives," Ling said. "We are very grateful that we were granted amnesty by the government of North Korea, and we are so happy to be home." Ironically both women are employed by Current TV, the California-based media company for Clinton’s former Vice President Al Gore. They were arrested in March while reporting from the border between North Korea and China and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor on charges of entering the country illegally to conduct a smear campaign. They were obviously trumped-up, bogus charges by a totalitarian regime, but that certainly didn’t make things any less scary for Lee and Ling. Big ups to both of these ladies and to Slick Willie for fighting the good fight and ultimately coming out on top…….
- Not that this is a surprise, but the state of Nebraska has at least two police officers who are FAT. Yes, I know, cops who are FAT, verrrrry surprising. It’s a problem because there are times cops need to a) pursue suspects on foot or b) fit into confined spaces. The latter is what caused problems for Sgt. Matt Jarvis, an officer in the town of Bellevue, Nebraska. Jarvis and his partner answered a break-in alarm at Scooter's Coffee Shop on May 5 and went about their normal operating procedure. Security footage from the café shows Jarvis' partner entering the building through the front door's broken glass. The partner has no problems squeezing through the opening, but when Jarvis attempts to enter through the same opening, he has issues. Because of his large girth, Jarvis cannot bend over to get through the entrance. He struggles and tries his best, but for more than a minute his partner is left alone in a potential dangerous situation inside the coffee shop. Jarvis eventually puts down his gun and struggles for the next 30 seconds to squeeze through the door. What happened from there is something that Bellevue Police Chief John Stacey has his own interpretation of, an interpretation I don’t exactly agree with. Stacey says the officer got through the door and did "what he was supposed to do. To have somebody armchair-quarterback them who's never done that, that's not my game.” That’s the chief’s take, but a look at the video shows that even after Jarvis managed to force his way through the door, it took him at least six seconds after entering to roll into a position where he was able to pull himself up with the help of store shelves. In spite of this evidence that Jarvis may not be physically fit enough to perform all of the duties of his job, Stacey insists that Jarvis, a defensive tactics instructor, has passed all state-mandated gun tests that require officers to kneel down, shoot and then stand back up. He went on to say that only one officer has failed the state gun test -- Chris Parent, the 350-pound officer who just won his job back after a long legal battle. “The only time we can get involved is if they cannot do the job," Stacey said. "It's like, are you too tall, too short, too fat, too homely-looking? Where do you draw the line?” Where do you draw the line? How about at the point where an officer is too FAT to perform a task that helps ensure the safety of himself, his partner and the community he’s supposed to serve? Feel free to mix in a physical fitness portion to the exam you give your officers, Nebraska……
- Despite buzz coming out of Dork Fest ‘09/Comi-Con in San Diego, myself and other fans of NBC’s awesome action-comedy Chuck won't be getting our beloved show back on the air any time soon. Reports of an early return for Chuck have been creating buzz, but Angela Bromstad, the network's president of primetime, says there is little truth to those reports. Speaking at an NBC executive panel discussion, Bromstad said that Season 3 will run for 13 episodes beginning in March. In other words, after NBC wraps its coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics, it’ll get around to bringing Chuck back. One positive note to this is that the show won’t have a major interruption in its schedule both during the normal holiday break and during the Olympics, but the downside is that fans will be waiting a long time to see the show they love. Bromstad also floated the idea that NBC may consider extending Chuck's episode order to help launch a more high-profile summer 2010 slate. "Right now we're asking ourselves: Is this something we let run into the summer season?" she said. "But we haven't decided.” Not the most optimistic, hopeful words if you’re a Chuck fan, but at least it’s a better fate than Friday Night Lights, which NBC announced wouldn't return until summer 2010. Bromstad was up front about that decision, stating plainly that FNL’s ratings don't justify a slot in the fall lineup. Not exactly the news you want to hear if you’re trying to get pumped for the fall TV season, but at least NBC will still have Heroes leading the charge this fall……
- Training camp is a long, though grind for NFL players. Camp often means being crammed into a dorm at some small liberal arts college, practicing twice a day and being with your team 24/7 for a month. Practicing and scrimmaging in the heat, cracking heads with the same guys over and over and doing seemingly mundane drills dozens of times can wear on a guy’s psyche. To break up the monotony, players try a lot of different things - hazing rookies, playing cards, pulling pranks - but most of them don’t go the route that Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Juqua Parker apparently went. Parker has been arrested on a marijuana possession charge in Bethlehem, Pa., site of the Iggles’ training camp. Lower Saucon Township police said Parker was a passenger in a vehicle that was stopped for a traffic violation at 12:33 a.m. ET Wednesday near the Eagles' training camp at Lehigh University and the officer who made the stop smelled something not quite right. He searched the vehicle and found Parker to be in possession of "a small amount of marijuana." Hmm, a pro athlete in possession of weed. I wonder how long it took Parker to go to the old standby, “It’s not mine, I was just holding it for a friend.” That’s straight from the athlete/celebrity 101 handbook of how to deal with an arrest for possession of the herb - or any drug for that matter. It’s never yours, it’s always someone else’s. But like I said, training camp is hard and guys need a way to make it through. Of course, most guys don’t take Parker’s route. Don’t get me wrong - athletes, both pro and college - love to bake and do so often. However, most NFLers are smart enough to either a) leave the weed at home during training camp or b) not have it in their possession anywhere they might be arrested. So no, it’s not the end of the world that Parker is a stoner or that he was busted with a small amount of the hippie lettuce on him. Let’s just hope that this isn’t an omen for how this season is going to play out for the Eagles, because everyone knows stoners aren’t the most motivated people when it comes to winning Super Bowls…..or getting off the couch…..or doing anything else, for that matter………
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