A few people have found it curious that Hope "T.O'' Solo has gotten largely a free pass for stabbing teammate Briana Scurry in the back while complaining about being replaced as starting goalie in yesterday's World Cup spanking. Like ESPN.com's Jemele Hill and CBS Sports' Mike Freeman. Yes, bonehead move by coach Greg Ryan. But a completely inexcusable response by Solo -- or so it seemed, although it clearly isn't unanimous.

Now Solo has made a public comment on her MySpace site. One might term it an apology ... except that it wasn't, unless she's saying she's sorry some of these fools misunderstood her and got mad at her. Solo says this about her pretty unmistakable criticism of her far-more accomplished teammate:

"Things were taken out of context, or analyzed differently from my true meaning of my own words.''

Gotta give her credit. It takes guts to play the out-of-context card when you've spoken live on camera and into a microphone, and the video, questions and answers included, are played in full and uncut. And truth be told, we should have better analyzed the true meaning of her own words, namely: "There's no doubt in my mind I would have made those saves ... You have to live in the present. And you can't live by big names. You can't live in the past."

The great thing is, this is going to get her even more off the hook than she was. Certainly readers on her MySpace page had already forgiven her, with some lovely cheap shots at Scurry thrown in as a bonus, as if it's somehow her fault that the coach made such a terrible choice. But you know those who were skeptical about climbing all over her the way they did the likes of Terrell Owens, Kobe Bryant and (to go back three years to another international sports embarrassment) Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James, have even more reason to not only let her slide, but to admire her competitiveness and candor.

And yeah, as Hill pointed out, it's likely due in no small part to Solo being cute and blonde. Good for her. You know, one woman's competitiveness and candor is another man's selfishness and bad attitude. One's a plain-speaking hero, another's a locker-room cancer. Ah, sports, the great leveler of society's playing fields.

Posted by David Steele at 3:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
                    

As you might have heard by now, the U.S. women's soccer team, the best team nobody's heard of (a point the players themselves made frequently even without the ads), got waxed by Brazil, 4-0, in the World Cup semifinal this morning. It was a 90-minute comedy of errors. An own goal. An ejection. Bad offense. Bad defense. Bad coaching. Or so that's what the message-boarders are saying. Plus massive team dissension, because the coach changed goalies before the game.

Here's how massive the dissension is.

That was the goalie who got benched speaking.

Now, ponder all of this on its own merits -- the build-up, the hype, the self-promotion, the ad campaign, the borderline arrogance, the vicious comeuppance and the back-stabbing, excuse-making and selfish post-loss whining. Gather your feelings. Lock them in. Decide whether it bothers you or whether you're shrugging it off, because it's just women's soccer, America's darlings just a few years ago but kind of a pleasant distant memory, and besides, now it's football season and the climax of the pennant races.

Then imagine if this was the U.S. basketball team at any recent international competition doing all the exact same things.

Discuss.

Posted by David Steele at 3:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

You know, the one going on the 756 baseball ...

If the Hall of Fame really allows a marked-up ball to be put on display, they should just shut the whole thing down and start over from scratch, because this act would render the whole operation even more worthless than it is. To allow Bonds and the record to be singled out in the Hall of Fame as tainted by something that, face it, has never even been proven, taints everything else in the Hall and everything the Hall is about. And the head of the Hall says he's "delighted'' to have the defaced ball?

Does he really think that somehow, this doesn't represent an official slap in the face by Major League Baseball to Bonds and an official accusation -- even a verdict of guilty -- from the sport? Is that how things work in the national pastime now? Some rich, attention-starved, culture-stealing T-shirt designer can manipulate the very history the Hall is dedicated to preserving, and the Hall grins and goes along with it? Hate the guy all you want (Bonds, not Marc Ecko, but feel free to hate Ecko, too), but at least do him the favor of leaving his judgment up in the air until anything is proven.

If this really happens, and they don't follow my suggestion and blanket the rest of the Hall in asterisks as well (starting with the plaques of the players who played while baseball was segregated, for one thing), then Bonds has every right to go on a Mike Gundy-level tirade against the Hall and baseball every day for the rest of his natural life. The whole asterisk thing was cute and clever for a while, and the column I did was pretty tongue-in-cheek, but this is ridiculous. How two-faced can an entire society get?

I swear, Bonds does so much to turn you against him, and then the game and the general public does something even more heinous to get you defending him again. C'mon, people. This has got to stop.

Posted by David Steele at 9:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (22)
                    

Barry Bonds last night played his last game as a Giant in San Francisco and, apparently, his last as a Giant, period. There is no chance in hell, of course, that he'll get any sympathy from readers outside of the Bay Area, even though he's the all-time home run leader, with or without the asterisk. (More on that in Part II of this posting.) And Bonds probably doesn't deserve a lot of the sentimental musings a moment like this should invoke, since much of the bitterness he brought on himself over a long, contentious career.

Still ... he is one of the biggest names ever to take a major league baseball field and one of the significant figures in sports history. You'd think he'd be a candidate for something more of a farewell than a press conference a week earlier announcing that the team he defined for 15 years wasn't re-signing him for next season. Doesn't anybody get to retire from their sport anymore?

No, and they never really did.

In younger days, Dr. J's farewell tour was a huge deal; he had announced beforehand that his last season was coming up, and the NBA sent him out like royalty, with ceremonies in every city and gifts galore and ovations all over. A few years later, Kareem got the same treatment. Walter Payton got a similar NFL farewell tour, and everyone remembers him with his head in his hands on the bench at the end of the playoff game against the Redskins that signaled the end.

And that's about it for great farewells. A relative handful of other players, in all sports, get to do huge press conferences where they sit or stand at the mike and fight back tears and get hugs from the family and bouquets of praise from coaches and teammates.

The overwhelming majority, though, simply get kicked to the curb when their team, and their sport, are through with them. Or they limp or stagger to the curb because of injuries, huge ones or accumulated little ones.

Here's a partial list of names you might recognize, even revere: Babe Ruth (sold by the Yankees to the lousy Boston Braves, who cut him in midseason). Johnny Unitas (as we all know, traded to the Chargers). Jerry Rice (first cut for cap reasons by the 49ers, then buried at fifth receiver by the Broncos). Steve Young (too many concussions). Jerry West (contract dispute with the Lakers). Wilt Chamberlain (another contract squabble, signed by the ABA to coach, never played again). Hank Aaron (traded at his request to his original baseball home, Milwaukee, by a Braves team that was done with him after 715). Willie Mays (traded by the Giants, washed up on the Mets). Magic Johnson (HIV, then a bad decision of a comeback five years later highlighted by him shoving a ref). Michael Jordan (fired by Wizards owner Abe Pollin). Kirby Puckett (glaucoma). Sandy Koufax (prematurely blown-out arm). Barry Sanders (just got tired of it and walked away). Emmitt Smith (cut by the Cowboys, hung on too long with Arizona).

Those are just the ones off the top of my head, and they're the legends. The masses just get released, or their contracts run out, or they just disappear one day. Lots of glory while they're playing, but virtually none when it's over, at least until Hall of Fame time, if they're good enough. But overwhelmingly, their careers come to an end because teams don't want them around anymore, don't want to pay them, don't want to see them. For the most part, no one cares about them until they start making noise about their pensions and long-term health benefits, or lack thereof. That makes their graceless (and, by then, forgotten) exits even more painful.

Most fans couldn't care less about the cruel ends to the careers they worshiped and idolized so much during those players' primes. People have felt the same level of sympathy for beloved players as they surely will about Bonds' departure from the Giants, who he made unfathomably rich over 15 years, whose acquisition made the 11th-hour rescue of the team in 1992 worth the effort, and on whose back they built a gem of a ballpark.

He became unfathomably rich, too, so that's supposed to make things even when they say, "We've wrung all we can out of you, so beat it, take you and your records and the fans you brought in and scram.'' But believe it, if Bonds was still hitting 40 homers a year and had the knees he had a decade ago, and they thought he'd guarantee another season of sellouts at AT&T Park, this wouldn't be happening.

That's life in the big leagues. Every once in a while it should be recognized as the same cutthroat, bottom-line world we all live in, but usually there isn't time to reflect on that, not with better, younger and more fun players to glorify. So Barry Bonds gets to join his brethren on the scrap heap, and most people either have said or will say, "Good riddance, let's talk about the playoffs.''

Posted by David Steele at 9:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

You know the smart-aleck comment made in the posting below about Michael Vick and whether readers are more comfortable reading about easy targets like him, instead of more complex, challenging topics?

Never mind.

Positive marijuana test, right there in court documents. After his sentencing, yet. Can we help you dig an even deeper hole there, Mike? Oh, wait, you've got your own shovel. Good thinking.

Posted by David Steele at 3:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Well, based on the replies to the post yesterday about Mike "I'm a man! I'm 40!'' Gundy, it appears there's overwhelming support across the board for a person charged with being a responsible, mature leader of men (not boys, men, as in college juniors and seniors) throwing a completely juvenile temper tantrum, as long as it's directed at those mean media people. What a relief. I thought for a second that bullying, tyranny and rampant entitlement was being eased out of coaching by men like Tony Dungy. Nah.

Anyway, enough of this challenging conventional thinking and poking holes in the bloated self-importance of the college football machine and holding officials responsible for their public actions. Time to make things easy on myself, and you. So ...

* Here's an item on O.J.

* And one on Barry Bonds.

* And on Michael Vick.

* And, finally, on Isiah Thomas.

Call me cynical, but I'm guessing that there won't be too many complaints about how "the media'' covers these stories.

In all seriousness, though, check out these wildly differing views on the societal rifts caused by the Vick case, from ESPN.com columnist Howard Bryant and Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Jeff Schultz.

Finally, on Gundy: It is somewhat commendable that so many readers believe that college athletes deserve some protection by their programs from media intrusion because they are not professionals and because they are still growing into adulthood and all its challenges.

But where were all these advocates 25 years ago when Georgetown basketball coach John Thompson was preventing his freshman players (Patrick Ewing, Reggie Williams, etc.) from doing interviews -- when he was being called overbearing, obnoxious, controlling and coddling, and the program was stuck with the label "Hoya Paranoia?''

From the looks of the responses to Gundy, Thompson apparently wasn't paranoid after all.

Posted by David Steele at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

Now, for Part II of our anger-management class, we bring you Mike "I'm a man! I'm 40!'' Gundy, the Oklahoma State football coach.

Where do we even start? How about at the very beginning, when he refers to a Saturday column in the Daily Oklahoman as an "article'' about 10 times? How about the way he constantly berates the writer for not having children (which, among other reasons this is so below-the-belt, we don't know if it's true or not)? How about where he claims that "three-quarters'' of the "article'' is inaccurate, but never says which parts? How about the applause at the end from the Oklahoma State toadies who were allowed access to a postgame press conference?

How about the entire implication that he, the head coach, should have the final say on how the media should write about his players, and that "amateur'' athletes (at a BCS program at a state institution openly and publicly bankrolled by T. Boone Pickens, one of the richest men on the planet) are exempt from media criticism? How about how he never explains why the player in question got benched in the first place, or in fact says a single word about the game his team had just played? How about how, in his attempt to show what principles he has, he calls the sports editor of the Oklahoman, who he may or may not have ever met, "garbage''?

How about the yahoos on all the OSU message boards applauding what he did, and the athletic director not having a problem with the head coach of his biggest-revenue sport looking and sounding like a 12-year-old who didn't get the PlayStation he wanted for Christmas? How about the writer herself asking Gundy yesterday what exactly was "inaccurate'' about her "article'' and him replying that he didn't have to say?

How about the suspicion here that the entire supposedly spontaneous, out-of-control tirade smelled incredibly calculated and pre-fabricated?

Gundy didn't invent the ploy and won't be the last to use it. What's better to talk about -- his career 13-15 record? The loss to Troy (41-23!) the week before, the game that seems to have cost the player in question his starting job? That day's 49-45 win over Texas Tech, whose defense is so wretched that its defensive coordinator quit the next day? Or an "article'' in that morning's paper, which he conveniently had with him when he spoke to reporters after the game? And remember, berating the writer in private wouldn't have the same effect on players, athletic officials, boosters and fans, who otherwise would have been preoccupied with actual game results.

It's called changing the subject. It worked. Now, no one's debating whether he's a lousy coach, they're debating whether he's crazy, whether the columnist is a fraud (and whether she has children), and whether this makes the Meltdown Hall of Fame. I say no, because real meltdowns -- Dennis Green's, for one, or Hal McRae's, or the grand-daddy of 'em all, Lee Elia's (extreme language alert) -- have to be authentic. Pure, in a sense. This was as phony as phony can get.

In Gundy's defense, if the scene the writer described in her column isn't true, he has a right to be mad. If it is true, then it's unbelievably embarrassing to everybody involved. We're talking about the scene where the player is being fed chicken by his mother outside the team charter after a game. Eeeeewwwww.

Bottom line: Mike Gundy is a jackass. Don't worry, though, he can take the criticism. He's a man, he's 40.

Posted by David Steele at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (26)
                    

This was a great weekend for anger-management trainers, and a bad one for proponents of such virtues as self-control and professionalism. Milton Bradley (in a tandem with umpire Eric Winters) and DeAngelo Hall seemed a little touchy. Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy, who we'll discuss in a subsequent post, took it to another level.

* The Padres are probably going to miss the playoffs because of what went down among Bradley, Winters, manager Bud Black and first base coach Bobby Meacham. Has a player-umpire confrontation ever done so much damage? The only one that comes to mind is the Roberto Alomar spitting incident, and that damaged Alomar's image more than anything. It didn't affect the pennant race; the Orioles already were locked into a playoff berth (which tells you how long ago it happened). It's interesting to note, though, that both the Alomar case and the blow-up in San Diego involve allegations of umpire name-calling. It's just as interesting that the reaction by fans and others has been that no matter what vile thing Winters is accused of saying to Bradley (Meacham, the coach, backed up Bradley's story), it's all Bradley's fault for taking the alleged bait, a textbook case of the victim's reputation preceding him. If Bradley is Ron Artest, then Winters appears to be a combination of Ben Wallace and the fan who threw the cup.

Meanwhile, manager Bud Black has to be a basket case by now. He was only doing his job, trying to keep his player from bum-rushing the ump and getting suspended -- and he ends up wrenching the guy's knee. It's a miracle, actually, that it hasn't happened more often, the way some players and coaches have to be restrained sometimes -- and how often umps keep arguments going long after they should have ended. OK, it's another one of those dumb baseball traditions, umpires and managers/players going eye-to-eye and saliva gland-to-saliva gland. But it's completely unacceptable from both sides in every other sport known to man -- and thus, there are no other incidents that come to mind of someone blowing out an ACL arguing with an ump.

Bottom line: Bradley should get a refund for the anger-management classes he took a few years ago; Winters, the ump, should sign up for some of his own, and Black should work on his footwork and leverage for next time he's wrestling one of his own players.

* If what DeAngelo Hall did on Sunday in Atlanta when his Falcons lost to Carolina has ever been matched -- he was personally responsible for 67 penalty yards on one possession, including two personal fouls -- I beg you to let me know here. And it happened to be on the drive on which Carolina tied the game and never looked back. Plus, all the penalties were against wideout Steve Smith, and the last one was, basically, for running his mouth too much after the play was over -- a third-down play that was about to force Carolina to try a long field goal, but instead kept the drive alive.

And, as Smith himself described the so-called "trash talk,'' "They were real minute ... just real immature stuff.'' Take his word for it, he's an expert in the field.

Now, talking stuff per se is not a problem, especially if it's good stuff and a player can back it up. Hall usually scores on both counts. He was, in fact, backing it up against Smith that day, until that drive. Then, a 37-yard interference call. Then a cheap shot on Smith at the line of scrimmage away from the ball. Then the mouthing off to Smith as he left the field.

Now, new coach Bobby Petrino plans to discipline Hall, and he hashed out ideas with his veterans, which tells you that it isn't just Petrino who's mad about this. Hall buried his own teammates by getting caught up in some stupid personal feud that could have been settled by a bunch of pithy quotes in the locker room after the game.

Bottom line: looks like the Falcons didn't get all the poison out of their locker room when Michael Vick was sent up the river.

Posted by David Steele at 8:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

I truly was hoping that when the time came to return to the Press, it would be with something lighthearted, mildly amusing or at least witheringly sarcastic. After all, the posting that sat here for three-plus weeks while I got a little more medical fine-tuning, was about Javon Walker being drenched in teammate Darrent Williams' blood last New Year's Eve. Now, it's the opening weekend of the NFL season, and who wasn't looking forward to that for some relief from this continually miserable sports summer?

Then, halfway through the first set of the first Sunday games, this news comes across: Bills special teamer Kevin Everett, possibly paralyzed making a tackle on the second-half kickoff.

I give up. Not on the blog, mind you, although a lot of you understandably were wondering; since I last posted, a couple dozen new blogs on this site alone got started, and apparently all of them are written by Milton Kent. ('Bout time. He had to be getting tired of coming out of the bullpen all the time.)

No, I give up on this sports year. This last weekend was a perfectly good example. There was so much opportunity to begin the week by piling ridicule on Michigan and Notre Dame, to start the official countdown toward the Orioles clinching their 10th straight losing season, even to the growing list of names in BALCO II (or is it III, or IV?), the now-infamous Signature Pharmacy (yes, the site is still up), alleged suppliers of the first-ever performance-decreasing drug.

And goodness knows there was plenty of material coming out of most of the NFL schedule yesterday. I mean, the Raiders and Lions played each other. To borrow a phrase the immortal Chad from "Wedding Crashers,'' that's like fishing with dynamite.

Then, a guy almost got killed on the field.

To think what's gone on in the six weeks since I wondered on this site whether we'd just experienced the worst week ever in sports. It's obvious now that a change in seasons isn't going to stop the mind-numbing march of misery. It's as if the sports gods are saying, "Oh, you think that's funny? Try this on for size'' -- and something terrible happens that slaps everybody back to reality. I have to think that's exactly the way it happens. Here I am on Saturday night pondering the depth of comedic gold to be mined from the fact that Charlie Weis is 0-2 and Ty Willingham 2-0, and less than 24 hours later, I'm seeing the Bills and Broncos players kneeling at midfield.

Come to think of it, you can't even laugh at "Wedding Crashers'' the way you used to anymore.

OK, I think I brought everybody down just about enough on a Monday morning -- just hours before the Ravens opener in Cincinnati. (And it turns out that Everett, the injured Bills player, is from The U, which means he'll be on the minds of a few of the Ravens tonight.) Sorry. Hey, tonight might brighten things up. But I'll just be happy if the game ends with nobody getting arrested, suspended, indicted or driven off the field in an ambulance. I'm setting the bar kind of low.

Posted by David Steele at 9:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)