Archives for July 2008

Junior goes to Chicago

Fox Sports reports that Ken Griffey, Jr. has approved the trade offer dealing him to the Chicago White Sox.

The Reds will receive pitcher Nick Masset and second baseman Danny Richar in return for Griffey.

We’ll be sorry to see him go. Perhaps Junior will get his opportunity to finally contribute to a World Series team, if the Sox can keep their lead in the AL Central.

Link

Pitcock retires after one year

FootballQuinn Pitcock, ex-OSU captain and All American defensive tackle (the one with the Wolverine blood on his thigh to your left), has announced his retirement from the NFL, after only one season with the Indianapolis Colts.

“After much deliberation and careful thought, Quinn resolved to retire from the NFL… Quinn is grateful for the opportunity the Colts gave him, and he wishes his teammates and the whole organization nothing but the best going forward.”

As of now, there are no reasons being given. However, rumors indicate that Pitcock simply lost his desire to play football, and didn’t want to mislead the team, where he was expected to be instrumental in the four-man rotation at DT this season.

 

LOLBucks

Vote for the Silver Bullets

MotSaG’er Brad alerted us to a poll going on over at The ESPN’s Sports Nation, searching for College Football’s coolest helmet. Of course, we can’t let our Buckeyes go down in the first round, so head on over and vote for the Silver Dome adorned with those beautiful buckeye leaves.

Weak Sauce (UPDATED)

BlogLast week, Molly @ Buckeye Commentary published an article discussing OSU’s NFL draft history.

It was a well-researched piece, about 1300 words or so, and one that clearly took quite a bit of time and effort. She even included three paragraphs on LeCharles Bentley, for crying out loud.

So I was confused when my feed reader showed me the same article again, only this time, from Buckeye Legends, and under another byline (Katie Bernal).

When I double-checked later, the BL version had added a final paragraph:

“Portions of this article compliments of Bleacher Report.”

If by portions, they mean ‘the entire article word-for-word.’ It’s an unwritten rule of the blogosphere to credit the source, and if copying a section verbatim, to use blockquote elements (like I did in the preceding paragraph). Otherwise, it’s good form to at least use quotes and a reference link. However, you won’t find many bloggers copying and pasting someone’s entire post into their own – that’s what we call weak sauce.

I gave Molly the heads-up, and judging from her comment over at BL, it does seem that their re-publishing was not authorized.

BL is a good blog. They have great writers with good stories and inside perspective. Hopefully they’ll do the right thing and give Molly credit for the piece.

UPDATE:

Buckeye Legends has pulled the post, without explanation. It’s not on Google Cache, and I didn’t manage to grab the HTML or make a PDF of the page. But the fact they pulled the article is at least some concession – it’s a de facto admission of their role in what happened.

We cry, we cry…on the 28th of July

We are a few weeks away from the beginning of fall camp and you can see that the mainstream college football writers are starting to get back in the swing of things. Obviously, there can only be so many Barwis articles written before you want to stab yourself in the face with a rusty butter knife.

So, we went from Barwis puff pieces to this…

At the same time are you tired of seeing Ohio State get beat in the championship (that) bad? It’s not fair.

The man that I tend to refer to as “The Crazy Uncle” of college football writers, “Dennith Dodd,” decided to layout the idea that the voters are sick and tired of seeing our beloved Buckeyes lose to SEC teams in the BCS Championship each year. Original thought…I know.

The “Let’s give someone else a chance” stance by Dodd is a bit ‘re-donk-ulous’ and ultimately is something that I would expect to see out of a biased SEC Blog. You do have to give “Dennith” some credit though. I mean, he did ask someone from the Birmingham News (ahem…lookie me…no bias) if they thought OSU should be given the opportunity again. The answer (above) from the Birmingham News columnist was reserved (afterwards quietly under his breath saying “Roll Tide…SHESH-SHEE-SHEE”), but you could tell from the statement that he was being as PC as possible in his reply. I really dont have too many issues with the article itself, but…

I am not understanding how the SEC media became the “end all, be all” sources for hard-hitting journalistic college footbaw information. You may say “YNBA, why the angst with an opinion piece..within your opinion piece?” Call me “old-fashioned,” but I think an unbiased source (outside of number-crunchin’ Jerry Palm) would be a nice touch. Hell, give us Phil Steele. His information and opinions are at least researched and genuine.

This type of stuff always revolves around the SEC now, which is pretty much the norm at this point. I think most of us have graciously accepted that the SEC is a very good conference with an assortment of “damn strong football teams.” Regardless, it gets a little stale that all of the media wants us to believe that Atlanta is the NHL-equivalent of Toronto and that all communiques originating from the ‘404’ are to be treated as the “golden bible” of college football prognostication. Any attempts of obtaining opinions from other locales is borderline heresy and could result in high-treason. Digressing…digressing…

Bottom line…

Look, all of us Northerners realize the tough stretch of any SEC schedule (which any god-lovin’ SEC fan will argue to no end, inlcudes Ole Miss, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt) is equivalent to the yearly sherpa marking of the Khumbu Icefall. However, any BCS team that can navigate it’s own schedule (regardless of BCS conference affilation) to an undefeated regular season deserves to be in that MNC game. It is that simple. If OSU goes undefeated this year along with two other teams, it would be better to evaluate the situation at that point. Not in July or August (I’m looking at you Dennith). I’m just sayin’…

Clifford free to pursue “other schools”

The Dispatch has the story that “reserve safety Eugene Clifford has been granted a release that would allow him to pursue his football career at another school.”

It’s always sad to see someone with such talent waste such golden opportunities. Regardless, he made his bed and now he’s sleeping in it. It’s good to see Tressel Law in full effect.

Who is YNBA? Why am I here? Stop yelling at me!!

Blog

So…You may have noticed a new moniker posting on MotSaG.

YNBA…

Who is this guy?

If the smell of warm Hefeweizen and stale GORP has an air of familiarity, don’t be scared. You are in the presence of a manufacturer of bookish mediocrity…

YNBA (“You’ll Never Buckeye Alone”) or the artist formerly known as “Herringbone” from Death Cab for Woody has made the move to MotSaG. If you are fretting for new material at DCfW (I mean…seriously…who isn’t?), continue to fret good people, because the site has “gone the way of the dodo” and ceases to be. Don’t expect new material…evah.

Why is he here?

The fine gentleman at MotSaG were gracious enough to extend an offer to an aging veteran in the twilight of his short blogging career in hopes of kindling a literary rapture. Much love to the sportsMonkey and el Kaiser.

What will he do?

Well…after this post, he will no longer write about himself in the third person, but he digresses…

For those of you familiar with my style of writing (some people have and will continue to call it drivel), it contains copious amounts of sarcasm with a dash of angst towards anyone that is considered as a “fanatic” In my world, a fanatic is a person who simply refuses to let things like facts or evidence get in the way of a belief (I’m looking at you SHESH-SHEE-SHEE fan…and Carson Palmer). The correct mixture of this angst and sarcasm will sometimes result in a finely prepared quiche of unadulterated sports lovin’ ready to satisfy the palate of the OSU sports fans that already frequent this site.

Seriously…I look forward to trying to keep up with the current level of awesomeness that already exists at MotSaG and, again, thank sportsMonkey and el Kaiser for the opportunity.

West Ham Fans? Really?

CrewA short note on this one…

The Hammers of West Ham United FC (middle-of-the-road English Premier League soccer team) are currently on a short tour to play a few “friendlies” against the MLS All-Stars and started with a fixture against Columbus in Crew Stadium on Saturday evening.

Apparently a group of West Ham fans decided it would be a good idea to mess with the Hudson Street Hooligans at Crew Stadium, during the first West Ham “friendly” this past weekend. The H-Street Hooligans are an extremely rowdy section of Crew followers located in the northeast corner of Crew Staium that would be somewhat equivalent to “The Kop” at Anfield on massive amounts of valium. After a small altercation where the Ohio State Highway Patrol was called in to restore peace, there are a few questions that need to be addressed.

  1. How did all the six of the US contingent of West Ham fans find their way to Columbus?
  2. Can the MLS guarantee that this behavior will continue at every game? Toronto already does it’s part. I, for one, cant wait for Philly to get it’s expansion team. If yes, I may double the amount of season tickets that I may purchase for the Seattle Sounders FC in 2009.

Ahh…”The Beautiful Game”…Indeed.

Now back to regularly scheduled Buckeye programming.

Greg Oden is kind of a big deal

I think the thing that endears Greg Oden to most people is his unashamed self-deprecation. I know he was only a Buckeye for one year, but his impact will be felt for years to come. Check it:

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Oden? More like OLDen.