COMMENTS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY
Written by: Astro Mike Ganis aka Mike In DA
Date Posted: 05-19-2010
Even the Best Baseball Historians Commit Flubs!
On Friday night’s (May 14) Mets-Giants game, during the third inning of the game, FSH Astro analyst/baseball historian, Jim Deshaies, was talking about this day in baseball history in which Willie Mays hit a game-winning homer for the Mets vs. his old team, the Giants, in 1972.
JD then mentioned that Willie was 0-for-21 as a rookie before he got his first hit – a homer off of Warren Spahn of the Boston Braves on May 28, 1951. Willie was actually 0-for-12. JD either reversed the digits or was thinking of Warren Spahn’s uniform number (21).
Was LeBron Momma Rumor Started by a Knick Fan?
On Friday night’s (May 14) Night Show with Shaun Bijani and Barry Warner on SportsRadio610 (7-11 pm nightly), Cleveland Cavs’ announcer, Joe Tait, was a guest. When Shaun asked his guest about the rumor on the Internet about Delonte West being “involved” with LeBron’s 42-year-old mom, Gloria James, Tait said a lot of the stuff on the Internet should be flushed down the toilet, which got a big laugh from the hosts.
The rumor hit one blogger website on Friday afternoon (May 14) and when you see something like that, it sounds so outlandish that you automatically dismiss it. Then a couple of related e-mails came into my inbox. Then I was told it started making the rounds on Twitter. Then I thought you can’t rule this entirely out and that this rumor could have some legs.
Rumor has it that LeBron found out about the “alleged” transgressions before Game 4 which is where the entire series changed. Delonte West stopped playing as much and LeBron’s numbers fell.
On May 7, the Cavs took a 2-1 lead going into Game 4 in their series with the Celtics with a 124-95 blowout win in Boston. The Cavs then dropped Games 4, 5, and 6 and are now home in front of their TVs watching the Eastern Conference Finals.
Suddenly, in Game 4, Delonte West stopped playing the majority of the games and LeBron James completely stopped playing like LeBron James. Most assumed he was hurt worse than initially reported, but GM Danny Ferry said he won’t be having surgery. No reason was given for shaking up the Cavs rotation that had been working all season and through the first 8 games of the playoffs
In the first eight games of this year’s playoffs vs. the Bulls and Celtics, West averaged 28 minutes per game. In Games 4, 5, and 6 of the Celtic series, he averaged only 14 minutes per game and shot 1-for-11 (9 percent) over that period.
That’s a big drop off for a guy that played 42 minutes a game during last season’s playoffs. This season he played 25 minutes a game during the regular season for the 61-win Cavs. Why does one of the Cavs’ best players suddenly fall out of the rotation in the most important games of the season?
As for LeBron’s performance going into Game 4 against the Celtics, LeBron was shooting 55% and averaged about 32 ppg during the first eight games of the playoffs. In Games 4, 5, and 6, he shot a combined 33 percent and averaged just 21 points a game. He was standing around on offense and when he was trying, it didn’t look like the old LeBron.
Something happened between Games 3 and 4 that affected both Delonte West and LeBron James. Sometimes rumors become reality.
Indian Givers?
There was an overabundance of Brian Cushing/enhancing drugs/testicles talk the last two weeks. Let’s cool it for a while, but this incident could be a bad omen of what may be in store for the Texans this upcoming season. As Al Jolson once said, “You ain’t seen nothing yet!” Wait till the injuries and losses start piling up by mid-season.
Some of the rules of sports journalism are to avoid making yourself part of the story, gather news objectively and report only the facts. Then there was the opportunity this past week that The Associated Press gave 50 voters in deciding who deserves its NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year award.
With a second chance to make a first impression, the group collected the new facts, took an objective look at things, and decided not to reinvent its own news. So Brian Cushing - who denied last Thursday ever using a banned substance - comes out a two-time winner. Democracy in action. Cushing is now the first player ever to win the Rookie of the Year Award twice.
And if anybody wants to start retroactively taking away awards from people who used performance enhancers, then the 1988 AL MVP should go to Mike Greenwell, as Jose Canseco has openly admitted to using steroids during that season when he won the award.
Know Your History Or Look It Up!
On the May 12 Night Show on SportsRadio 610 with Shaun Bijani and Barry Warner, the topic was professional sports cities starved for championships. Barry mentioned Cleveland, which among the four major team sports last won a championship in 1964 (the Browns won the NFL Championship).
Shaun then threw out Detroit as a championship-starved city. Not so fast Shaun. Since 2002, Detroit has won its fair share of championships, as follows:
2002 - The Red Wings win their tenth Stanley Cup.
2003 - The Shock win their first WNBA Championship.
2004 - The Pistons win their third NBA Championship.
2005 - The Shock win their second WNBA Championship.
2008 - The Red Wings win their eleventh Stanley Cup and fourth in twelve seasons.
2008 - The Shock win their third WNBA Championship and the team's third title in six seasons.
I wouldn’t actually call Detroit a city starved for championships.
I’m Still Waiting for Hoffy’s Bio?
Most radio stations on their websites include a section for biographies of their major on-air personalities. In August 2007, when KGOW 1560THEGAME went on the air for the first time, under the biography for Ken Hoffman, it read. “Ken’s Bio will be up soon so in the mean time read David Nuno’s bio”.
Hoffy is possibly a candidate for the “Most Interesting Man in Houston”. However, it’s now 33 months later and I’m still waiting for his bio. At this rate, Hoffy’s obituary may appear here before his biography.
King Solomon’s Mind
On chron.com, Jerome Solomon’s blog column is entitled “King Solomon’s Mind”. My question here is: Who anointed Jerome a King? Possibly, the same guy who commissioned John McClain as "The General".
Now I Know Why They Call Her the "Sexy Traffic Lady"!
In my blog of May 9, I mentioned that the role of Erin Andrews was played by SR 610's “Sexy Traffic Lady", Laura Reynolds, at SR 610’s Fan Fest 2010. I was referring to the job she was doing taking questions during the various panel discussions. At the time, I didn’t understand her moniker. That is, until I visited the SR610 website recently. She's definitely giving Erin a run for her money.
Judge for yourself.
It looks like somebody's been visitng the nude beach at Negril. Anybody want to buy naked pictures of Laura R.? Awesome!!!
Tuesday Night Lights at Odessa Permian!
A lot of guys dream about going back to high school and recapturing their athletic glory days. A man who went by the name of Jerry Joseph did it, and now he's in big trouble. That was one of the topics on some of the local sports talk shows last Wednesday (May 12) and again this week.
The “16-year old”, a West Texas student who led the Permian (Odessa) High School basketball team to the state playoffs this past season was actually a 22-year-old man, named Guerdwich Montimere, a Haitian immigrant, who police say admitted to posing as a 16-year-old high school basketball player. He is facing potentially 20 years in jail for the latest charges against him.
As of Sunday night, he was in the Ector County jail after being arrested three times last week. The most recent charge is sexual assault after a 16-year-old Odessa girl told police and school district officials she had sex with Montimere at an East Odessa home in August when she was 15 and thought he was 15-year-old Jerry Joseph.
Playing under the name of Joseph, Montimere averaged more than 20 points a game in Permian's final nine games and was named the District 5A-2 newcomer of the year. He may soon be the West Texas Prison Newcomer of the Year.
Last Tuesday (May 11), Montimere was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of failure to identify himself to a police officer. After he posted $500 bail the next morning, he was arrested Thursday on a third-degree felony charge of tampering with a government document, but he was released after posting $7,500 bond. On Friday, he turned himself in and was arrested by the Odessa Police Department on the sexual assault charge, which carries a maximum fine of $10,000 and a sentence of two to 20 years in prison. He is being held in jail in lieu of a $50,000 bond.
He was known as Guerdwich (GERD-itch) Montimere (MONT-i-mere) when he helped Dillard (Fort Lauderdale) reach the Florida 5A state semifinals in 2007. His deception began to unravel last month when AAU coaches from Florida said they recognized Montimere playing as Joseph at a tournament in Little Rock. AR.
What an idea, why not go back to school and bang all of those popular girls I missed out on as a little outcast.
And if you think basketball age-cheating may not be unusual, try keeping tabs of international soccer players that are coming to the US for a HS and/or college free ride as soccer players in their early 20's playing against 14-18 year old kids. It happens.
And if you haven’t seen actual high school and junior high kids lately - there are a lot of them who look like they are in their mid-20's or even older!
WE GOT NEXT!
Just in case you missed it, last Saturday (May 15) was the opening day of the WNBA. Yay!
PLEASE NO MOCK DRAFTS UNTIL MID-JUNE!
On Tuesday, May 18, the NBA held their 2010 Draft Lottery in Secausus, NJ. The three top winners were (1) the Washington Wizards, (2) the Philadelphia 76ers, and (3) New Jersey Nets, with the remaining teams drafting in reverse order of their regular season records with the NBA Champ getting the last pick in each of the two rounds.
The actual NBA Draft itself will be held on June 24, 2010 at the Theatre at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The draft, which starts at 7:00 pm EDT will be broadcast on ESPN.
To our local sports talk hosts, please do not start NBA mock draft talk until about ten days before the event. The Rockets are picking 14th, so there is no need to waste time trying to figure out who their pick will be. Since Yao Ming, when was the last time a local sports talk host hit a Rocket pick on the nose.
It might make for entertaining reading for those interested, but for most of us radio listeners, it is as boring and as much a waste of time as the NFL mock drafts that get shoved down our throats by talk hosts almost daily for two to three months prior to the NFL draft. Most teams are so secretive of whom they are going to take, these mock drafts are basically useless and often inaccurate compared to the actual draft.
SEE ROBIN HOOD AND HIS MERRY MEN!
Every so often, radio stations give out "free" tickets to previews of upcoming movies. Last week, SportsRadio 610 gave pairs of tickets to "lucky winners" to join Josh Inness at the Edwards Marq*e 23 on a Tuesday night at 7:30, mind you, to see the new “Robin Hood” flick with Russell Crowe. That’s the good news. The bad news is that there was a caveat that you weren't guaranteed a seat. WTF! Thanks guys! I’ll watch Errol Flynn's version at home for about the 15th time instead.
If you're going to give out prizes, make sure they're worth at least $25. Not this petty stuff. But I realize, there will always be "prize whores".
Astro Mike Ganis aka Mike In DA
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