First of all I’d like to apologize for not posting in awhile, I’ve been busy with college. I know, excuses, excuses. I promise to start posting more often (unless I’m told to stop). Tonight’s Primetime is going to be huge though. At 7:30, radio legend Norm Hitzges joins us from Dallas to talk sports and stuff. If you have a question for Norm, tweet me (@CincoDeMino) or Casey (@KCWieds) and we might ask it on-air. If you’re in the Ottawa, Kansas area between Main Street and Cedar you can listen to us on 88.9FM, if not watch us live on Ustream HERE tonight from 7-9. Have a happy Pi Day.
Last week’s Primetime was great, tonight’s will be even better. At 7:30 we’re excited to have ShutdownInning.com’s co-founder and editor Patrick Despain on with us. His website is greatness. If you’re a fan of the Rangers or just baseball in general, you should check it out; it’s very educational and entertaining to the sports fan. 8:10 tonight is our interactive segment where Casey and I answer your hypotheticals on-air. They can be sports related or silly, just be unique and we’ll have fun with them. Tweet your hypotheticals to us @CincoDeMino and @KCWieds. We expect a great show tonight so make sure to watch/listen to us tonight on Ustream from 7-9.
With the 2012 NFL season ending last Sunday with Eli Manning and the New York Giants defeating the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI, it’s about time for sports America to look forward to the 2012 NFL Draft. In the next couple months I will profile a few players the Cowboys should take a look at in the first round to better the team next year.
The Cowboys have many holes going into the 2012 season but the one I think they need to address the most is the defensive secondary. I wanted to sports-puke in week 17 while watching Terrence Newman let the Giants receiving core run him ragged. Newman will be gone in 2012, I can almost sports promise you that. Mike Jenkins showed some flair in the past but hasn’t lived up to his 2009 Pro Bowl season, Orlando Scandrick was handed a five year $27 million extension this season. That must be hush money for his Sam Hurd knowledge because he is definitely not worth it. The Cowboys need to find a young corner that can play and be effective immediately, and Janoris Jenkins can be that guy.
Janoris Jenkins is a senior cornerback out of the University of Northern Alabama. Yes, THE University of Northern Alabama. It’s been a long and tough road for Jenkins as he played his first three seasons at the University of Florida but was dismissed from the team before his senior year in 2011 and joined the UNA Lions.
In Jenkins’ freshman season at Florida in 2007, he became only the second freshman in school history to start opening day at corner. In 2010, Jenkins’ final season at Florida, he matched up against the top two receivers taken in the 2011 draft, Julio Jones and A.J. Green. He limited them to a combined eight catches for 61 yards.
Jenkins is one of the most athletic and explosive players in this year’s draft class. He absolutely has high first round potential; the only thing weighing him down is his previous bad decisions. Jenkins was arrested a total of three times during his career at Florida, the first coming in June of 2009 after punching a man in the head outside a bar in Gainesville and resisting arrest. In January of 2011, Janoris was arrested for possession of marijuana. However, he did not learn his lesson and the final straw was in April of the same year when Janoris was caught smoking the green stuff again. Three days later, Jenkins was off the team.
Instead of going into the NFL’s supplemental draft or going to another division 1 school and sitting out a year, Jenkins decided to go to the division 2 school where he could play right away. Not much was different for Janoris at the division 2 level. He dominated division 2 football just like he dominated the SEC.
On most early draft boards, Jenkins is the third highest ranked cornerback in the draft only behind former SEC rivals Morris Claiborne of LSU and Dre Kirkpatrick of Alabama. If Jenkins could’ve stayed at Florida for his final collegiate season, he might be ahead of both of them.
Jenkins can also return punts; this is another area where the Cowboys have struggled in the past. In his senior season at UNA he returned 18 punts for a 21.7 yard average including three touchdowns and a season-long return of 92 yards. He only had two interceptions in his senior year but that’s mainly because division two quarterbacks were too scared to throw to his side. He did however show that he plays physical; recording 53 tackles including four tackles for loss.
This is a player that I can see Jerry Jones falling in love with. If it wasn’t for Jenkins’ off the field issues, he would easily be a top ten pick and Jerry will see him at 14 as a steal. Jerry has been known to take risks on players in the past: Dez Bryant, Pacman Jones (fail), Tank Johnson (fail), and Deion Sanders. Taking Jenkins will be the highest risk in the first round because of his previous troubles, but if he has kicked his old habit, he could be the shutdown corner the Cowboys are looking for.
Fun Fact: I host a sports talk show every Wednesday night from 7-9 on my school’s radio station. I’m proud to say that Casey Wieder and I are the hosts of Ottawa University’s longest running radio show in the school’s history. It’s a little show we like to call, Primetime. Tonight’s show marks our fifth year anniversary and we are still madly in love, with the show that is. Something new we’re trying this semester is streaming webcam on Ustream. So tonight from 7-9; check us out Here.
Last week I grossed some people out when I posted the Most Graphic Sports Injuries. I think I’ll continue the gross factor this week and go into a subject that you don’t hear about every day with sports vomiting. To pay homage to Junior Miller’s 27 year no-vomit streak coming to an end and mine going strong at 18+ years, I proudly present to you my Top 10 Most Glorious Sports Vomits. This list unlike my last one, isn’t necessarily counting down the most graphic, but the best manly performance given by the puker.
10. Jahvid Best – Best had a pretty good little career for Cal collecting 2,668 rushing yards and 29 touchdowns in 3 years and going on the be the 30th overall pick in the 2010 NFL Draft by the Detroit Lions. This moment against Maryland where Best gets absolutely destroyed and is laying on Maryland’s Bermuda grass vomiting and looking near death, isn’t his finest.
9. Cade McNown – During this incident in 1998, the refs had to stop play before the snap and McNown left the game for a play to rehydrate. The next play was a run up the middle. I guarantee you the running back never had more motivation to gain more than one yard so he wouldn’t fall in the future first round bust’s stomach content.
8. Alvin Gentry – Gentry’s Suns were defeated by the Lakers in six games in the 2010 NBA Playoffs. In a losing effort in Game Five at the Staples Center, Coach Gentry lost his pre-game dinner in a trash can on the Suns bench. In the video it looks like Gentry says “duck” or something like that at 0:03 mark in the video.
7. Fat Philly Fan – This has to be the worst fan ever. He got the beat down he deserved.
6. Donovan McNabb – I’ve always been anti-McNabb and this moment against the Tampa Bay Bucs is one of my favorite moments of his career. He also puked in the Super Bowl.
5. Riley Cooper – The current Eagle spare had an outstanding game for the Gators against Charleston Southern (who?) in 2009 tallying five catches for 105 yards. After catching three passes in a row in the first half, Cooper jogged over to the sideline and puked then tried to act like nothing happened. He didn’t fool anyone though as it was caught on national television.
4. Matt Ryan – Matty Ice rallied his 2007 Boston College Eagles to defeat Virginia Tech throwing two touchdowns in the final 2:11 of the game. With eight seconds remaining, Ryan let out a nice victory vomit on the Eagles sideline.
3. Sean Williams – Williams was in beast mode during some garbage minutes of the Dallas Mavericks loss to Denver on December 26, 2011 scoring 12 points and picking up five fouls in only 11 minutes of play. The Crab Man took himself out of the game late in the fourth and as the great Mark Followill described during the Mavs broadcast, “A lot of the fuel that was in the tank came back up.” Despite playing some aggressive minutes and leaving it all on the court that night, it wasn’t enough to keep Williams on the team; he was demoted to the Texas Legends on January 6th.
2. Pete Sampras – After playing four hours of exhausting tennis in the 1996 US Open, Sampras was drained. At 1-1 in the fifth set tiebreak, Sampras walked to the back of the court and barfed which resulted in a time delay warning by the ref. After the rally-puke, Sampras went on to defeat Alex Corretja in this quarterfinal and ultimately winning the US Open.
1. Riley Dodge – With Southlake Carol tied with Austin Westlake with 7:43 remaining in the fourth quarter of the 2006 Texas 5A Division 1 State Championship game, Riley Dodge lined up in the shotgun formation, removed his mouth-guard, hurled, then threw a 30 yard touchdown pass, then hurled again, and finally ended up winning the State Championship. A puke for the ages.
Last semester I put together a top ten list for my weekly radio show that turned out to be a pretty big hit with my listener(s).
What I did was painstakingly search YouTube for what I thought to be the most gruesome sports injuries of all time, and then I shared these videos on-air with my co-host, Casey Wieder. Even though the listeners couldn’t see the graphic videos, it made for radio gold to hear the commentary and Casey’s reactions. If you weren’t one of our very few listeners that night in Ottawa, Kansas, you missed a great segment. I’ll give my readers a chance to revisit this top 10 list but let me warn you, all of these videos are extremely graphic.
10. Patrick Edwards – The University of Houston receiver suffered a compound fracture in his leg after running full speed through the end zone and colliding with a cart.
9. Sid Vicious – The former WCW champion attempted a high-risk-maneuver from the second turnbuckle on January 14, 2001 against Steiner. Vicious landed awkwardly on one leg causing him to fracture both his tibia and fibia. Thankfully we can’t see inside his boot, and nobody watched the WCW in 2001.
8. Eric Foster – The most recent of my top ten happened on Monday Night Football on October 3, 2011 between the Colts and Bucs. Late in the first half, Foster’s teammate Tyler Brayton rolled over Foster’s ankle causing it to graphically twist in the wrong direction. This dislocated Foster’s ankle forcing him to miss the rest of the season. There wasn’t much worth playing for anyway.
7. Willis McGahee – We all saw this one live during the 2003 National Championship Game between Miami and Ohio State. In the fourth quarter, McGahee caught a screen-pass and was hit immediately bending McGahee’s knee backwards tearing his ACL, PCL and MCL.
6. Shaun Livingston – On February 26, 2007, the former 4th overall pick missed a layup and awkwardly landed, dislocating his kneecap and caused his left leg to snap laterally. Livingston tore up just about every part of his knee, the ACL, PCL, lateral meniscus, spraining his MCL and dislocating his patella and tibia-femoral joint. Doctors allowed Livingston to return to basketball on June 16, 2008. Since then he has played for Miami, Oklahoma City, Washington and Charlotte but has not lived up to the potential he had before the injury.
5. Djibril Cisse – In a match against Blackburn Rovers on October 30, 2004, the former Liverpool striker challenged Blackburn’s Jay McEveley for a loose ball, Cisse’s shoe got caught in the grass and his leg snapped. The result was a broken tibia and fibula.
4. Tyrone Prothro – In a 31-3 win over the Florida Gators on October 1, 2005, the Alabama receiver suffered a complete fracture of his tibia and fibia in his lower left leg. After three surgeries and intense rehabilitation, coach Nick Saban said there was no way Prothro could ever play again. This is our first career-ender on my list.
3. Joe Theismann – On November 18, 1985, Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor sacked Theismann after a failed attempt at a flea flicker. Taylor broke just about every bone in Joe Theismann’s leg and forced him to retire from football and go into broadcasting. If Sandra Bullock would’ve been at the game, this would have never happened.
2. Clint Malarchuk – This is by far the most life threatening injury on my list. On March 22, 1989, Malarchuk caught a skate to the throat by Blue’s defenseman Uwe Krupp. Malarchuk was within moments of dying but his life was saved by trainer Jim Pizzutelli. Pizzutelli reached in Malarchuk’s neck and pinched off the bleeding. Malarchuk returned to the ice in the playoffs that season against Boston but was bounced in the first round. Malarchuk’s performance declined over the next few years and was out of the NHL in 1992.
1. Napoleon McCallum – My top 3 injuries were all in discussion to be my number one, however this one in my opinion takes the cake. On September 5, 1994 the Raiders fullback Napoleon McCallum’s cleat got stuck in the ground while being tackled by 49ers linebacker Ken Norton Jr. McCallum’s career came to an end that night after suffering a complete hyperextension of the left knee, ruptured artery in his left knee, tore his ACL, MCL and PCL, tore the calf and hamstring from the bone, and suffered nerve damage to the knee. Dan Dierdorf says it best in this video, “Don’t look at this if you don’t want to see it.”
The Texas Rangers finalized their deal Wednesday afternoon with Japanese pitching phenom Yu Darvish.
The deal will pay Darvish $60 million over six years to pitch for the back-to-back American League champs; this makes him the highest paid right-handed pitcher in the history of the game. Let’s not forget the $51.7 million posting fee the Rangers had to pay Darvish’s former team, the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, just to talk (through a translator) to the right-hander. So if my math is correct, the Rangers paid just over $111.7 million for this pitcher.
I’ve been asked by friends and followers on Twitter if I thought that this was a good idea for the Rangers. I simply reply, “He’s worth it.” Even though Japanese pitchers haven’t had the best success in the majors, Yu Darvish seems to be a different breed. Many people want to compare Darvish to Boston Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka and so far Matsuzaka hasn’t panned out so they will say Darvish will likely be a bust as well. If you look at the two pitchers stat lines from Japan, Dice-K is not even close to the pitcher that Darvish is. Let’s start at both pitchers age twenty season’s in Japan. Dice-K had an ERA of 3.60 and striking out 214 hitters in 240.3 innings while Darvish had an ungodly ERA of 1.82, striking out almost as many batters, 210, in only 207 innings. Also, Dice-K’s lowest ERA in Japan was 2.13 in his final season at age 25. Darvish has never had a season where his ERA went above 1.88. That is just stupid awesome. Another note on Darvish is that he doesn’t give up the long-ball; he has only given up .3 home runs per nine innings in his Japanese career.
I’m not worried about his talent translating to the American game. Darvish has some nasty stuff and will be affective. My biggest concern about the guy is how he will adapt to the American culture. Last fall, the great Tom Grieve stated on his weekly segment with BaD Radio that the smallest things in baseball are what affect players the most. Not if they are in the middle of trade rumors or might be demoted to AAA, but if the teams flight gets delayed or if they stop serving chili dogs in the clubhouse. This will be a big deal with Darvish as he has never really been in the States before and will have to adapt to our ways. Our music, television, food, transportation and all the little things aren’t something that Yu is familiar with and will be rushing through his brain at the same time that he’s learning how to deal with the American League West.
All of that aside, I think this is a great signing for the Rangers. If Texas wants to return to the Fall Classic for the third consecutive year, they needed to improve their starting pitching after losing C.J. Wilson to the Angels. To be honest I don’t really care if Darvish is our ace right now. At the moment, Texas doesn’t have a distinguished ace but every pitcher is good enough to win any day and there aren’t any weaknesses at the bottom of the rotation. This has been a crazy winter with all of the Yu Darvish excitement and all the hype is just now beginning; the next chapter begins on February 22nd when pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training.
If you have 7 minutes and 57 seconds to spare, he’s a video on Yu Darvish making Japanese batters look silly.
It’s somewhat cliché but I think it’s very sports appropriate that I make my first post about Tim Tebow.
You might think it is very give up of me to write about Timmy in my first post since you could turn on ESPN (Sports Walmart) and be within about 5 minutes of hearing Tebow talk any time of the day. However I have some very hot sports opinions on the man. Coming from my sports friends and people that I follow on Twitter, the percentage of love/hate is about 50/50. To be honest, I don’t know how someone can hate this guy. Sure he only has a career completion percentage of 47%, only has 12 touchdown passes in 14 games this season and sort of has a reputation to be off for the first three quarters. But he plays the game the right way. The way he leads his team and handles himself on and off the field makes him one of the most likable players in the league.
I am not ashamed to admit that I share the same faith as Tebow. Being raised a Christian and then going off to college can be tough to keep a strong faith, but Tebow makes it cool to be a Christian again. A lot of people are anti-Tebow because of how much he talks about his beliefs. I think it is awesome that he shares this with his fans and the media, it takes a lot of courage to do this and Tebow pulls it off. Tim doesn’t use any “Fire and Brimstone” techniques to try to convert his fans to believers, he just simply gives praise to his God and shares what he believes in. I can promise you I’m not going to talk about my beliefs often on here so don’t get scared away if that offends you, I just think it’s cool that there are successful people in this world that share my same beliefs and aren’t afraid of criticism.
I personally think that Tim Tebow is the best thing going for the NFL’s image right now. At this day and age of the NFL when the headline makers are Sam Hurd for trying to be Chicago’s Gus Fring, Plaxico Burress for being an idiot, and the Vince Young’s and Pacman’s of the league that like to get in trouble at strip clubs, it’s hard for a young boy to find a player they can look up to. Tim Tebow fits the mold of a perfect role model. Will Tebow continue his success as a winner and grow to be a great NFL quarterback? Maybe, maybe not, only time will tell. However, I can tell you I’ll be rooting for him this Saturday at New England, and hopefully there will be more players like him in the future that will give the NFL a good name.
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