New batting helmets for MLBers, Fiji runs afoul of the Commonwealth and a big week for mayors in Connecticut

- You could see this response coming. A new batting helmet is being introduced in professional baseball to help reduce the occurrence of concussions and head injuries for players hit in the head by pitches and the majority of MLBers are reacting in just the way you’d expect. In other words, they’re balking at the idea and looking to lob any criticism they can think of at the new helmet. The new helmet, the S100, is manufactured by Rawlings. The primary criticisms to this point seem to be that the helmet is to big and bulky. "I don't really think the fear of me getting pitched inside is too great," Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster said. "I just thought I'd try it out to see how it felt. It felt like my own bobblehead day today. I have a big enough head as it is. They could probably see that from the top of the Sears Tower." However, not everyone is against the new helmet. New York Mets third baseman David Wright, who was struck in the head by a pitch two weeks ago and went to the hospital with a severe concussion, plans on trying out one of the six sample helmets Rawlings is sending to every MLB team for use over the final month of the season. . "I imagine they got some pretty smart people that designed them so I'm sure it works pretty good," the All-Star third baseman said. "If it provides more safety, then I'm all for it." While the S100 won't be required attire for major leaguers, it will be required in the minors beginning next season. It should make batters and baserunners safer thanks to thicker protection created by a composite insert and an expanded liner made of Polypropylene, a hard, supportive material also used in some industrial and bicycle helmets. Rawlings has subjected the new design to extensive testing over the last two years that included an air cannon firing major league balls at the helmet to ensure it would hold up. "We're confident that it will withstand a pitch up to 100 miles per hour," said Mike Thompson, Rawlings senior vice president for sports marketing and business development. In spite of these added safety features that will protect their health and could even save their life in the long run, major leaguers are still extremely picky about their equipment and will likely be slow to adopt the new helmet and b*tch as much as possible along the way. But now that the sport’s top prospects will be forced to wear the helmets throughout their minor league careers, perhaps the S100 will begin to gain more widespread acceptance and head injuries will be lessened as a result……….

- Uh-oh, Fiji done run afoul of the legendary Commonwealth and you know what that means…..okay, so you probably don’t. Allow me to explain what the heck the Commonwealth is and why exactly this international organization has expelled the tropical paradise that is Fiji. The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 53 countries that, according to the organization’s website, “support each other and work together towards shared goals in democracy and development.” Basically, it’s a diverse group of large and small countries, rich and poor nations whose members span six continents from the Caribbean to the South Pacific. Now, on to the good stuff. The Commonwealth has expelled Fiji because it failed to announce plans to hold elections next year by the organization’s September 1 deadline. That date marks the third anniversary of the coup led by Commodore Frank Bainimarama, chief of the Fijian armed forces, a coup that ousted the country's elected government. Since then, Bainimarama has ruled the country as a military leader and for some reason, he feels that Fiji simply won't be ready for elections any time before 2014. Of course, that decision came after Bainimarama promised to hold polls by 2009, then 2012. Once it became clear that the Commonwealth wasn’t down with that, the commodore had three words for the organization: last-minute negotiations. He had sought 11th hour talks with the 53-nation group in a bid to avoid expulsion, but to no avail. Kamalesh Sharma, the Commonwealth secretary-general, announced the expulsion in a statement on Tuesday: "This is an announcement I make with deep regret - it is a step the Commonwealth is now obliged to take, and one that it takes in sorrow." What I don’t get is how Bainimarama and his government just can’t have a new constitution in place until 2013. Color me crazy and inaccurate, but I don’t think it took that long for the U.S. to write its constitution and we were forming a brand new nation at the time. Oh, and as a quick aside between myself and the commodore, no one buys your claim that this new constitution and elections the following year are part of your "road map" for returning the country to democratic rule. If that’s code for keeping your illegitimate, unelected military regime in power as long as possible, then I agree, it’s a “road map” to return your country to democratic rule. Multiple international bodies, including the UN, seem to agree with me and they have demanded a rapid return to democracy in Fiji. These groups and the countries that comprise them have begun a steady economic and diplomatic isolation of Fiji, which has struck the country’s tourism and sugar-export dependent economy hard. Bainimarama doesn’t seem to give a crap about most of those sanctions and penalties, as he’s imposed and expanded emergency restrictions, sent troops and police into media and government offices to gag opposition to his reform plans and expelled or fired journalists and judges who refused to stay silent. He continues to issue angry comments about the mess he’s created and the international reaction to said mess. "It is actually up to them whether they want to go ahead with the ultimatum or not, but as far as government is concerned, whatever is in the road map, that's it," Lieutenant-Colonel Neumi Leweni, a government spokesman, said. So it’s quite a political quagmire you’ve got there, Fiji, lots of luck resolving that………

- As someone who plays fantasy football and enjoys it, I nonetheless find this next story moronic and disturbing. While I play only free fantasy football, meaning I neither pay to play nor have a chance to win money by playing, there are a lot of people out there who play in leagues where everyone chips in $15-25 and the winner takes the pot. It is for those people that this story has more meaning, because when you’re playing any sort of game for money, you want to do everything you possibly can to avoid losing your money. That being said…..fantasy football insurance? Are you kidding me? Sadly, no. An insurance company in Long Island is offering insurance on your fantasy football season, meaning that if any of the stipulated top 50 players go down for a significant part of the season, and you’ve paid for their insurance, Fantasy Sports Insurance will pay your entry fee back. Basically, a dork, er, player, must select a player (one policy allows you to group three players), pay the insurance –- roughly 10 percent of your entry fee -– and watch that player miss roughly two-thirds of the games with an injury. And how big of a trend might this become? Well, the Web site for Fantasy Sports Insurance Inc. estimated that Tom Brady’s knee injury last season (which caused him to miss 15 of New England’s 16 games) could have shifted $150 million in fantasy winnings. Should you be asking who the crackpots are that developed this concept of fantasy football insurance, look no further than Henry Olszewski, one of the two brokers who came up with the idea. “The nightmare scenario is the guy who loses his player and either starts trading away his team or sits idle,” Olszewski said. “That affects the entire league. If that guy has insurance, he’s playing with the house money and that guy has more motivation to see what he can do to be competitive.” Oh, and I should also mention that these insurance policies for fantasy dorks are underwritten by none other than famed insurers Lloyd’s of London, which also insures things like NBA players’ knees, singers’ vocal chords and other absurd stuff for ridiculous amounts of money. So far, this little scam has sold close to 400 policies to degenerate fantasy losers and with the start of the fantasy season a mere week away, that number should only go up. One caveat: there is a list of fantasy players who are considered too injury-prone to insure, including Ben Roethlisberger, Fred Taylor, Torry Holt, Brett Favre, Matt Cassel and Chad Ochocinco, so drafters beware………..

- Boy, here is some elite musical company I would just love to be in. Pop-ster Jason Mraz recently managed to beat out pop-country twanger LeAnn Rimes for the oh, so distinguished honor of having the longest running song in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Make no mistake about it, never has there been a less appropriate name for a list or any other entity, because there is nothing hot about the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Mraz’s song, "I'm Yours," is a hippie-friendly jam that has actually been around even longer than it’s been a published song. Mraz has played the song on tour for five years and the reaction from fans when he played it convinced him to record it and drop it onto an album. “The song was really born into the crowd. ... I noticed almost an immediate response to it and people really celebrated in a different way during that song," Mraz said. "And then by having those three years to jam to the song, it gave us the opportunity to do something simple, yet spirited.” The song first hit the charts in May 2008, reached No. 6 in September 2008 and has spent 71 weeks on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart. That’s good enough to unseat Rimes' whiny, snooze-inducing late-1990s song, "How Do I Live," which lasted 69 weeks on the charts. And no, I don’t care that Mraz's song was also nominated for "Song of the Year" at this year's Grammy Awards, because the Grammys don’t rank much higher than the Billboard charts in my book. I hold both in low esteem and remain confident that neither is a good measure of what the best music truly is. So once again, if you’re looking to add some great music to your collection, for the love of God, don’t scan the Billboard charts, don’t see who has been nominated for any of the music industry’s self-congratulatory awards shows and whatever you do, avoid music by Mraz and Rimes at all costs…….

- Quite a stretch for mayors in the state of Connecticut, I have to say. Granted, it’s not on par with the stretch that mayors and clergymen across the state of New Jersey had a couple months back when literally dozens of them were busted in a federal corruption probe, but we can’t all be superstars, y’know? So I’ll still salute Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez and East Haven Mayor April Capone Almon, who are each looking at their very own personal appointment with John Q. Law. It was announced Monday that Mayor Perez has a warrant out for his arrest and Mayor Capone Almon may be seeing one. Perez is looking to get out in front of his own legal dilemma, professing his innocence in a press conference early Monday evening. The funny thing is that dude was already facing a corruption trial starting in October, but these charges are unrelated. “I have been informed, this afternoon, that a warrant has been issued for my arrest in connection with allegations involving former state Rep. Abraham Giles," the mayor said. "I intend to fight these charges and to continue to serve as your mayor.” The case against Giles dates all the way back to 2007, when state investigators began looking into a no-bid parking lot deal between the city and Giles, a Perez supporter. They seem to believe that the mayor was in on the deal and will be bringing the legal lumber against him. That might be enough to scare some politicians into tucking tail and running away, but not Perez. He reiterated several times during his brief statement that he will not step down as mayor. "I will not resign. I will continue to serve the people of Hartford," he said. "I am confident that I will be acquitted of all charges.” Ah, the tried and true phrase of choice for public figures accused of crimes for which they will eventually be convicted and forced from office: “I am confident that I will be acquitted of all charges.” As for Mayor Almon over in the town of East Haven, the police chief Leonard Gallo had the distinct honor of filing the paperwork asking for the arrest of his very own boss. Although the chief wouldn’t say what charge is outlined in the warrant application complaint, he did state that it stems from a July incident when an officer accused the mayor of interfering. The police report contains a claim from the officer that the mayor ordered him to stop ticketing and towing cars from a beach parking lot even though the officer, Michael Sarbo, claimed the cars were blocking an exit. According to Sarbo, the mayor then accused him of ticketing the cars as some sort of political ploy because he had run unsuccessfully as a Republican for town council and Almon is a Democrat. Almon didn’t exactly look to put out that fire when she commented on the case a couple of weeks ago. “My response is that I certainly believe in our officers and their judgment and their ability to follow the law when I see that judgment is skewed; I will step in," Almon declared. Now I don’t know the constituents in East Haven personally and I’ve never been there, but I have to think that this whole matter can’t be helping Almon as she runs for re-election. Getting slapped with an arrest warrant while trying to stump for votes doesn’t exactly boost the approval ratings, if you follow. But still, quite a run your cities’ mayors are having, Connecticut, quite a run………