Left Coast Sports Babe

More snide stuff tomorrow…but today,  just Merry Christmas or Happy Whatever You Celebrate and a special thanks to the writers who have in one way or another been incredibly helpful this year.  Apologies to whoever I know I have forgotten.

In alphabetical order

Glenn Dickey

Will Durst

Tom Fitzgerald

Leah Garchik

Cam Hutchinson 

Alex Kaseberg

Bill Littlejohn

Hartley Miller

Scott Ostler

Dwight Perry

Ken Rasak

And thanks to all the politicians and sports figures who make the world the kind of place where sometimes you don’t even need a punchline.  And thank you to everyone who reads this.  

Janice Hough

So Kobe Bryant has now scored 20,000 points.  Amazing, that´s probably includes almost a dozen assists.

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And Mike Bellotti says he has turned down the UCLA coaching job.   ” I have been, and continue to be, 100 percent committed to the University of Oregon and our pursuit of a national championship.”

Translation, the Bruins didnt offer him enough money.

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So Condoleeza Rice is criticizing Mike Huckabee for saying Bush has a go-it-alone foreign policy.

She says it is absolutely not true, that “the President always consults with Cheney and me.”

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And more problems with truthiness for Mitt Romney, as it has now come out that neither he nor his father George  marched with Martin Luther King.  Despite the fact that Romney repeated the story about his father last month.

But he did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once. 

So T.O. accused Jessica Simpson of being a distraction?

Isn’t that like Bill Bilichick accusing other teams of cheating?

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And Tom Tancredo dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Mitt Romney.

This is shocking, Tom Tancredo was running for president?

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As the bowl season begins NBC is considering a special on Notre Dame’s recent BCS history.  The show will be titled “American Idle.” 

And regarding Roger Clemens’ angry declaration that he never “took steroids.”

No doubt, with his reputation I am sure they were given to him for nothing.

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But considering now that the best pure hitter of the modern era is banned for gambling, and both the best power pitcher and hitter are alleged to have taken steroids, shouldn’t we just hang an asterisk banner in front of the Hall of Fame and have done with it? 

Last weekend, Eli Manning broke Joe Namath’s

record for interceptions.  But if we are counting

Namath’s bad passes shouldnt he get credit for the one to Suzy Kolber?

A big storm hit the Northeast last weekend.  Snow was falling faster than Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers.

Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic vice-presidential candidate, is going to endorse John McCain for president.

Well, hawks of a feather…

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And the Boston Globe endorsed Barack Obama for President.  To which a Clinton spokesman replied  “So what does that paper know about winners?  All they do is cover the Red Sox, Celtics and Patriots…er, never mind. 

So the 49ers beat the Bengals 20-13, behind Shaun Hill, a third string quarterback who prior to last week had never thrown a pass in six years in the NFL. 

Usually when Cincinnati is this embarrassed, police officers are involved.

Wow, so it looks like it really is true that steroid use was common in baseball.  And most of the players listed came from a few teams where Mitchell had connections who were willing to talk.  Who knows how many others there were with more careful and discreet suppliers?

Oh well, for those who hate the idea of stars doing anything to their bodies and want to see natural talent without enchancement, there’s always going to the movies.

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John York is handing over day to day duties of the San Francisco 49ers to his son Jed.  Isn’t that kind of like Captain Smith handing over duties on the Titanic? 

The New York Jets have a problem at their home games with drunken men harassing women and urging them to expose their breasts. Think this could be solved by the team inviting as a special guest Rosie ODonnell?

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And the Democratic presidential primary is getting nastier, with all sorts of preposterous allegations being thrown around.  For example, this week, someone accused Hillary of sleeping with Bill Clinton.

Ah for the good old days in Major League Baseball.  When the list that players were most worried about being on belonged to Heidi Fleiss.

Since we’re renaming teams based on performance – how about the NBA with the Minnesota Timberpuppies?   The Memphis Cubbies?  Or the Miami Not-so-Hot?

Other suggestions encouraged.

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There has been a lot of disagreement in Republican presidential debates  about the legality of various tortures. But today all the candidates agreed, if elected they would not make Americans  watch the Miami Dolphins.

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In Iowa City Monday night Bill Clinton was heckled by
a robot, or rather, a man dressed as a robot.

Out of habit he responded, “Yes, Hillary.”–

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And Led Zeppelin played their first concert this week in over 19 years.  Apparently they opened with a rousing version of “Wheelchair Ramp to Heaven.”            

Despite all the recent controversy many Californians in fact would be thrilled to support a Mormon leader, especially in the Bay Area.  Unfortunately, Steve Young is going to stay retired from the 49ers.

While Tim Tebow profusely thanked God, his family and friends after receiving his Heisman, he forget one important thing. To thank the NCAA, for creating the rule that says a player cannot be drafted until three years out of high school.  Which means at
least for this year, he cannot be drafted by the  Dolphins.

Scary thought, in twelve games, Heisman runner-up Darren McFadden has scored sixteen touchdowns.  In thirteen games, the San Francisco 49ers have scored eighteen.

In settling the sexual harrassment case involving a former Knicks employee.  Madison Square Garden issued a statement saying they felt the outcome was a “travesty of justice” but that it “is time for us to move on and put this issue behind us.”   So now the
Knicks can get back to normal – being a travesty of an NBA team. 

That’s the day the New England Patriots, with their perfect record and the league’s best offense, take on the Miami Dolphins, with THEIR perfect record, and the league’s worst defense.

So we can all find out the answer to an age-old question.   What happens when an irresistible force meets eleven movable objects?

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Actually, at this point, the only thing that could stop the Patriots is if they were somehow ranked number one or two in the BCS.

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Ann Romney, wife of presidential candidate Mitt, said this in Las Vegas about his speech on religion last week.

“People were saying, ‘It was like George Washington,’  ‘It was the Gettysburg Address.’ ”   Leaving aside the obvious questions about hyberbole and accuracy,  did she really expect anyone in Vegas to remember either of those examples?  Except maybe Wayne Newton.

Regarding the 49ers…

Many fans say Alex Smith is the person reponsible for the fate of the 2007 49ers.

Just as Captain Edward John Smith was responsible for the fate of the Titanic?

Steelers safety Anthony Smith has guaranteed that Pittsburgh will upset the Patriots this Sunday. 

He is even bringing a banner to the Steelers locker room reading, ‘Mission Accomplished.'”

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Balducci’s, an upscale Manhattan deli, posted a sign this week advertising ham for hanukkah.  

What’s next, rabbit for Easter?

And for the first time in a long time, the BCS is confident none of their top teams will lose this weekend.

But speaking of losers…

The 0-12 Miami Dolphins effectively ended Zach Thomas’s
season by placing him on injured reserve.  They  decided they could no longer afford to have a spot on the roster taken up by an idle player. 
 
The Dolphins might be one player away from being a decent
team…unfortunately, that player would have to be
Dan Marino. 

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And President Bush insists that Iran still does have a
nuclear weapons program…the same as he still has a plan
for victory in Iraq.
  

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With all this back and forth about ambition,  going back to a paper Barack Obama supposedly wrote in kindergarten about wanting to be president, I can’t help but wonder…

Could the country be any worse off if  George W. Bush had given a thought to the fact he might some day be president, before the age of about 40?
 

Anthony Smith of the Pittsburgh Steelers is guaranteeing a win against the unbeaten Miami Dolphins Sunday.   Sort of     He said. “Yeah, I can guarantee a win. As long as we come out and do what we got to do. Both sides of the ball are rolling, and if
our special teams come through for us, we’ve got a good chance to win.”

Well, if this football thing doesn’t work out he has a great future at the Pentagon.

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University of Florida football player Jermaine Cunningham was arrested Wednesday and charged with misdemeanor battery for allegedly hitting a restaurant employee with a sandwich.   Good thing he didn’t use a Double Bacon Cheese Whopper,  or he could have been charged with manslaughter.
 

Since it is only 30 days to the Iowa Caucuses….

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So Hillary Clinton has been criticizing Barack Obama
for being ambitious.

Isn’t that like Bill Clinton criticizing Rudy Giuliani
for being a bad husband.

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And the Clinton campaign is complaining that Obama’s
campaign is trying to convince students to come back
to school early for the Iowa caucuses.

So what’s worse, moving back to a dorm where you live
most of the year to vote for president.

Or moving to a state where you have never lived to run
for senator?

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President Bush now wants  to become a peacemaker in the Middle East.   Isn’t that about as likely as John Edwards becoming the spokesman for Supercuts?

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And back to sports.

Travis Henry had his one year NFL  suspension for a positive drug  test overturned.  Did they consider it a mitigating circumstance that he had to feed his families?

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And while he is on a roll, Henry might see if he can get some of those nine paternity tests thrown out too.