Why Is Everyone Beating On The Dead Horse That is the Red Sox?

ESPN: Former Boston Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon, who was with the team from 2005-11, said Saturday that he and numerous other Red Sox players were regularly injected with Toradol, a legal anti-inflammatory drug whose use has become increasingly controversial in sports.

Toradol is the nonsteroidal drug that Red Sox pitcher Clay Buchholz  acknowledged last season might have contributed to the esophagitis that sidelined him for 20 games. Buchholz was hospitalized in intensive care and lost three or four pints of blood while dealing with the condition, which is a known side effect of the painkiller.

Papelbon said that when he was administered a physical by the Philadelphia Phillies prior to signing as a free agent after the 2011 season, doctors asked him if he used Toradol. When he answered in the affirmative, he was told that he would have to stop.

     Hey I have a quick newsflash for ESPN but there is nothing wrong with Toradol.  It's just an anti-inflammatory, essentially it's a shot of Motrin in an inflamed area. Real scary huh? It's not any more or less dangerous than any other kind of anti-inflammatory.  It's a blood thinner and very hard on your stomach (so is Advil) and guess what, if you already have an ulcer and you use it you're gonna have a bad time like Clay.  It's pretty clear the Red Sox medical staff is far from a crack squad of the best doctors in the world, which is disappointing because Boston is arguably the medicine capital of the world but unless they knew Clay Buchholz had an ulcer they did nothing wrong.  
     I don't know if ESPN is trying to make a connection to Schilling's steroid allegations last week but I really don't see the story here.  The Red Sox training staff is using a legal drug to manage players discomfort.  What are we going to talk about next how they give them melatonin to help them fall asleep and encourage them to eat a lot of fruit?   

Husband of The Year Waterboards Wife With A Dog Bowl

CBS TAMPA: Orange City police say a man tried to kill his wife by holding her head in a dog bowl full of water after they fought over pizza.
     Police arrested Richard Watson, 47, after they received a violent disturbance report in an apartment. According to the police report, Debra Watson started watching the “12-12-12” benefit concert while her husband was in another room and he joined her after his show was over.
The two then got into a fight about the frozen pizza that was cooked after Richard Watson complained the crust was “raw” and flung his dinner plate on the floor. Debra Watson also threw her plate on the floor in response.

     Did anyone even hesitate to think this happened in Florida. I don't know what's in the water there but clearly they need more lithium.  If you didn't laugh out loud reading that news story you might wanna get checked for a pulse.  The only downside to the article is how much information it's missing.  A perfect example of the lazy journalism prevalent in the main stream media.  If I'm on this story there is no way I'm going to accept raw microwave pizza crust as the cause for this.  Before you freak out I'm not downplaying the atrocity that is raw microwave pizza but that's not enough to make you want to drown your wife in the dog bowl.  The bathtub maybe but a dog bowl?  Something else has got to be in play for a guy to not even want to take the time to fill up the tub to drown his wife.
     I have no clue what preexisting condition would be present for that kind of urgency to exist but I hope I never get to that point in a relationship.  Then again if I'm 47 and I'm still eating frozen pizza I'd probably be on edge too.    

Bob Costas Being Bob Costas

     Just incase you missed it, above is the video of Bob Costas's halftime rant on how guns are evil.  Bob Costas is a giant condescending douche.  While you could argue it took balls to take a stance on such a big stage the medium was completely inappropriate.  People aren't tuning into Sunday Night Football to hear your hot takes Bob they're watching to see grown men scramble each other's brains.  He should be saving shit like this for his show on NBC Sports.  Then again, I guess he did something right because instead of talking about the Sunday Night Football game a lot of people are talking about him which is exactly what he wanted.    

     I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that Jevon Belcher's heinous acts had much more to do with his scrambled brain than it did that he owned a gun. When Chris Benoit went berserk and smothered his wife and kids and hung himself where was the outcry for pillow control? It couldn't have been that Benoit's brains were scrambled it has to be America's terrible pillow culture.  Blaming the gun is taking the easy way out.  Why try to analyze a person's mental state when you can just blame it on the inanimate object?  The NFL is taking all these precautions to limit head injuries but (at least from what I'm aware of) do little to protect/improve players mental-health.  There's a really good article on Deadspin in which a friend of Jevon outlines all the things that were off with Belcher mental-health wise.  Hindsight might be 20/20 but there's no denying that to some extent his health was being overlooked.    

Sox Sign Napoli To A 3 Year $39 Million Deal

    I realize it's the middle of football season but there's really not much for me to say about the Patriots until postseason starts.  Until the everyone else in the AFC East gets their shit together the regular season is a formality for the Pats, so I figured I'd give you my take on newest addition to the Red Sox.
     First off, I love this signing.  Is Napoli worth thirteen million? No but this is a shitty free-agent market so teams are going to have to overpay for players or not sign them at all.  Napoli fills a huge hole in the Red Sox line up.  Batting wise he's something the Sox have neglected in the past few years, a right handed power hitter.  Ever since Manny left the Sox have been lacking in right handed hitters, and despite playing in Fenway Park have almost exclusively pursued left handed hitting free agents.  No one is going to mistake Napoli for Manny Ramirez at the plate but he is a good addition nonetheless.
     In addition to being a good right handed bat he fills a gaping hole at first base for the Sox.  He is also a viable option to DH if/when Ortiz goes down and will probably see some action behind the plate at some point in the season.  Let's not forget that two years ago, had the Rangers won the World Series, he would have been World Series MVP.  He's a guy that's proven he can play when the spotlight is on and that's why I believe he will do well in Boston.  Simply put, the Red Sox are a much better team now then they were this time yesterday.  With just a three year contract he's not going to be a huge burden if his stats fall in a couple years and while 13 million a year might be excessive it's not my money and it's what team's should expect to pay in this mediocre free agent market.

David Stern Just Doing His Thing

ESPN: The NBA's most powerful man and its most respected and iron-willed coach plunged into an unexpected battle of wills Thursday over a basic tenet: A coach can decide what is best for his team.

San Antonio's Gregg Popovich sent stars Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, plus key role player Danny Green, on a commercial flight home instead of playing them in a nationally televised game against the Miami Heat so they could rest ahead of the Spurs' Saturday home game against the league-leading Memphis Grizzles.

NBA commissioner David Stern issued a statement before the game started apologizing to fans and saying, "This was an unacceptable decision by the San Antonio Spurs and substantial sanctions will be forthcoming."

     David Stern sucks.  There's no other way to put it.  He's just a shitty person.  I'm not saying he's stupid or immoral, just clueless.  Commissioner Stern's head is so far up Lebron's ass he doesn't know which way is up.  Would this be an issue if Popovich sat his players for the Magic game?  Both games are equally meaningless November basketball games between two nonconference teams, but I guarantee Stern doesn't do anything if this happened against the Magic. Greg Popovich's job isn't to win meaningless basketball games in November, it's to win basketball games in May and June when it really counts.  Now Stern might have had a semi-decent argument had this game been a blowout.  Patrons (I refuse to call anyone who roots for the Heat "fans" they're all frauds) at the game paid top dollar to watch professional basketball and had the Spurs sent out a team that struggled to put up 70 points they would have been justified in griping a little. This was not the case however as the Spurs were able to keep pace with the Heat and it was a one possession game with less than 20 seconds left.  Regardless of  the competitiveness of the game, it is still Popovich's right to do as he pleases with his players, especially in a MEANINGLESS November basketball game.   

I'm Sure This Is Helping Marcus Lattimore Recover Quickly

            Every week that passes I am more and more convinced that the government created college football to ensure that the south would never again have the ability to revolt.  This woman is a great example.  As if the ridiculous get up isn’t enough, she goes and makes a video in which she sings a song dedicated to a player that doesn’t even play on “her” team.  The scariest part about the south is by far how passionate they are about watching 18-22 year olds play football.   

NBC Wins Rights To Broadcast EPL In America

NBC has won the American Broadcasting rights to English Primer Legaue games starting in 2013.  I absolutely love this move from NBC.  Selfishly I am slightly concerned that the number of games I will be able to watch will go down with the loss of ESPN 3 streaming, but this is a great move for NBC to eventually compete with the four letter network. 

NBC currently shares rights to air MLS games.  The MLS is comparable to NBC in that it is much less established than other foreign soccer leagues.  The MLS will only be popular when they can make enough revenue to pay the elite players as much as they can in other leagues.  The MLS is lightyears away from a matchup that is comparable with Chelsea v Man U.  While there are sure to viewers who are just lovers of the game and willing to watch anything most people will want to watch the best product out there.  There is a very good chance that in the next ten years American popularity of leagues such as the EPL grow at a larger rate than the other major sports simply because there is so much more room to grow. 

Lets face it, ESPN has loyal viewers in fans of the NBA, MLB, NFL and College Football.  No matter how much money NBC pays to get a piece of those pies the majority of viewers will go to ESPN for coverage regardless because ESPN is a more established brand.  However, the NHL and EPL both have growing popularity.  These growing fan bases really don’t have a place to go for coverage and starting next year their best option will be NBC.  If NBC can establish a good base of viewers from hockey and soccer fans they can eventually expand to the other major sports and take a serious swing at ESPN.  At the very least it will keep ESPN honest and make the cut the “when was the last time Lebron took a shit” talk and produce more quality shows like the 30 for 30 documentaries.