Every Swingin’ Dick

UK player’s mom sees Final Four

Let’s hear it for Kentucky’s newest basketball recruit Alex Legion. Or at least for his delusional “prophet” mom. Here are a couple of choice quotes from the article:

“I’m a prophet,” she said, “someone who can prophesize about your future and what’s going on in your life.”

“The Lord has shown me: They’re going to the Final Four,” she said, before adding a qualifier, “providing they play together.”

“I have spoken these things into existence.”

and my favorite:

“I had no clue Kentucky was a basketball school. No clue,” Annette Legion said. “But God knew.”

I mean really, how would any of us know that Kentucky was a basketball school unless the lord told us?

I officially hate the Kentucky Wildcats until this kid leaves the team. Even though it was his mom spouting all of this rubbish, I just can’t stand the idea that she is able to speak a team’s Final Four appearance into existence. My greatest wish is that UK spends the next however many years as a .500 or worse team. Aw hell, who am I kidding. I can hear the excuses from Ms. Legion now, “The Lord meant the Final Four of the NIT tournament…”

Thank all that is good in the world that the Stephen A. Smith hecklers are back! With 100% more sock puppetry than last year.

“I think you know what time it is…It’s time for Steven A. to visit the can.”

*Update*
I’ve watched this clip about six times already today. Still funny.

- Looks like I jumped the gun a bit on all of the Charlie Batch talk. Big Ben appears to be on the road to recovery already, and didn’t suffer any injuries to his knees or shoulders or anything else important. Well, the head I guess…

- USA is out of the World Cup. Ghana saw to that this morning. Well, Ghana and the blasted ref. I hate to bitch about refs normally when I watch sporting events–I am of a mind that most calls even out over time. But in soccer when you can be penalized SO heavily for a judgment call, in this case a penalty kick which is about as sure a thing in sports, well I just hate it. Especially when you consider how few and far between scoring opportunities are to begin with. I don’t like it one bit.

- Grimsley’s big take down has led to the first admission of HGH usage. From David Segui. That is not exactly the smoking gun that the anti-steroid-type-substance crowd was looking for:

Career HR’s – 139
Season high in HR’s – 21
Lifetime SLG% – .443

Maybe the next name will be a better catch for them…

Mark Cuban fined $200,000 by NBA

Holy crap! I know Cuban is like a multi-gazillionaire or something, but $200,000 is serious coin for anyone. To say that David Stern is sick of listening to him criticize his officials seems to be a bit of an understatement at this point.

It’s March Madness, and I don’t care.

I used to be a huge College Basketball fan in the early to mid-90′s. You know, back when it was good? Remember? Way back when guys used to actually stay in college for at least three years so teams had some continuity. Remember? It seems like an eternity ago. My man Knee and I were having a conversation about a month or so ago, and I said that I couldn’t name 5 college basketball players right now. JJ Reddick and Mister Bad Porn Mustache (Adam Morrison) are the only two I could come up with. I just have no desire to try and invest my time in learning to know the names of these guys who are going to play for one year, then end up the 10th man on an NBA bench. No thanks.

I don’t know what the solutions is. I can’t blame these kids for wanting a payday. But it is a detriment to their college teams and themselves to leave so early. The players need the extra experience, and the teams could get a big boost from not having to rebuild a team every year. College Basketball seems as popular as ever, so maybe I’m just a fuddy duddy who can’t change with the times. Maybe. All I know is that I’m not watching until I can name more than five players in all of college basketball because they have actually starred at the college level for more than a year.

I PVR’d a couple of games from Japan and watched them over the weekend. I missed the 18-2 mercy rule game unfortunately, and neither game was particularly interesting but as I said before–it is baseball in March. No better or worse than a spring training game.

I did take pleasure in listening to Jeff Brantley, aka the worst booth guy in the business, try and fumble his way through the pronunciation of the Korean and China team lineup. And the Japan vs. Chinese Taipei featured a voice I had never heard before. I was puzzled for about 3 innings, as he sounded like a cross between David Justice and Mike Piazza, until they flashed the announcer’s names on the screen. Darnell Coles. When the hell did Darnell Coles start doing games? I know he played in Japan for a few years, maybe that is the connection? Am I the only one who remembers Darnell Coles? After that revelation, I am fully expecting to hear Barbaro Garbey broadcast Cuba’s games.

This week the tastier games begin, with the North American, South American, European (plus the Australian and South African?) teams starting play. I’ll be interested to see if the US can play team baseball and not get caught up patting themselves on the back for being the best of the best. Like we do in basketball.

With all the furor over Cheney and his hunting accident, I’m reminded that Bob Knight once shot a man while hunting as well. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

Much thanks to The Mighty MJD who provided a sound file that perfectly exemplifies what a prince among men that guy is. Just why someone would want to send their kid to play for Coach Knight, I’ll never know. Give it a listen:

Bob Knight Yells

Note: in case you are either incredibly dense or have no idea who Bob Knight is, be forewarned that this mp3 is not safe for work. Rated R for language if you will.