The Juice Report

As George Mitchell prepares to unleash his list all over the baseball world, join us over at Drunk Jays Fans for our coverage before, during and after his press conference and Bud Selig's response.

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Newsflash - Edmonton Sucks

Well, I'm here in Edmonton and every second I spend here makes me more and more grateful to live in Toronto.

If it's true that you can judge a civilization by their media's coverage of athletics, Edmonton's CFL team's nickname makes a lot more sense. I'm stranded in a place where the birth of a child belonging to a forgotten figure skating tandem leads the sports section, followed by sixteen stories about hockey.

Other newspapers have a separate section devoted exclusively to Snowsports (all one word) and rodeo news takes precedence over NBA basketball scores.

The sports radio station, Team 1260, is a poor man's version of the FAN 590 with the same annoying Sling Box advertisements (Aside: Is there anything more annoying than radio ads?) and a pension for those stuttering deep voice introductions that are supposed to grab your attention. My favourite thing about sports radio in Edmonton though is the Super Mario Bros. 2 music that plays just before news updates and the soft core porn music that plays during sports updates. There are some serious bah, bup, bup, bah base lines.

However, there are no shortage of sports bars in town, so I'll keep my fingers crossed that a hockey game won't interrupt coverage of the Broncos and Texans game tonight, which starts at 6:00 p.m. locally.

Ex-Site-Ing News

I'm leaving for Edmonton in a few hours to do some actual real work that I get paid for, and because I'm not sure if they have the interweb in Alberta yet, the postings here may be sparse over the next couple of days.

I'm especially upset about possibly missing the opportunity to make fun of 'roided up ballplayers when the Mitchell Report is released on Thursday, but I'll leave it to the unreliable chuckle brothers who write on this site with me to keep you informed and your sensibilities offended.

If things get desperate, I'm sure Stoeten will be complimenting himself over at Drunk Jays Fans for his outstanding off-season baseball coverage, while Bergkamp bemoans the Josh Towers contract negotiations.

If my plane doesn't crash, I'll see you when I get back.

Picture Pages

"When Spud Webb wants to pull it out, Spud Webb pulls it out. He don't care 'bout no Erin Andrews. Or no crowd o' people. He be Spud Webb just being Spud Webb."

TJ Ford: Scary Injury in Atlanta

I had no intention of posting anything tonight, but I know a lot of our readers are from the States and I figured you'd get no better perspective on TJ Ford than from here. (Updates at bottom).

After a night of giving Atlanta fits, Ford stole the ball with about 90 seconds left in tonight's ballgame between the Raptors and the Hawks. He went in for a layup at the right side of the basket, with Al Horford in pursuit. As TJ tucked the ball under, trying to lay it in on the left side, Horford's huge arm swiped at the ball and inadvertently caught TJ on the upper part of his face and head. Dazed, or even knocked cold from the blow, Ford hit the floor hard, his neck snapping back violently when he came down-- a sickening sight for anyone who has followed his career and knows about his injury history.

He stayed down for 10 minutes before being taken off the court on a stretcher and immediately to an Atlanta-area hospital. The latest is that he will stay there overnight for x-rays and observation with a skeleton crew of Raptor officials, as the rest of the team returns home to play the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday night. The Fan590 in Toronto is reporting as of 10:40 PM EST that "initial signs were all good, as far as feelings [in his extremities]." (An 11 PM EST report attributes this statement to Raps guard Anthony Parker.)

TJ had just returned from another injury-- termed a stinger-- suffered after a scary fall in Dallas, which caused some pain in his arm and thumb. Speculation is that this injury may have been aggravated by the initial blow. Of course, most NBA fans know that during his rookie season in Milwaukee, he suffered a career-threatening spinal injury that caused him to miss all of 2004-05.

That injury history makes the incident with Horford (who was assessed a Flagrant 2 foul, despite very clearly from his reaction having no intent to injure) all the more frightening-- something teammates Chris Bosh and Jose Calderon touched on in post-game interviews. Bosh told Canadian network The Score that he thought a lot of it was that TJ was scared and that he hoped it wasn't as bad as it looked. Thankfully, some of the other quotes we're seeing from the Raptors share this sentiment-- it would be a completely understandable reaction from Ford, and hopefully most of what's going on is just precautionary.

The Raptors' broadcast showed a reply of the incident several times, but this wasn't just to be ghoulish. It was noted by play-by-play man Chuck Swirsky that the Raptors bench was directly next to the their TV monitors, and TJ's concerned teammates kept requesting to see what really happened.

The rest of the telecast and the game itself was unsurprisingly sombre. Coach Sam Mitchell-- who sprinted across the court to defend his player after the incident happened-- gave an extremely brief and downcast post-game press conference, saying that the team had just got back to the locker room so they didn't have any news on TJ, and that the players that played played well, but that they were all focussed on TJ and hoping for the best.

Ford's status with the team is frequently the subject of discussion in Toronto, due to the stellar play of backup Jose Calderon. But to a keen observer, it's clear that Ford's physical talents give him the potential to go farther than his steadier counterpart in time. TJ's game is a little uncontrolled at times, but the belief is that he has all the tools needed to become a genuinely elite point guard as he matures. He shows that potential in flashes, as he did tonight before the injury-- he had 26 points and 8 assists in 29 minutes.

I know this is much longer and more serious than normal posts around here, but that was a pretty scary thing to watch (seventeen times). Naturally, like everybody else, AYKT hopes he's OK and wishes him a speedy recovery.

(More apologies for the lack of links or proper sourcing, but I actually watched the game, the press conference, and am listening to updates and have yet to sift through any of the articles popping up for written confirmation of my quotes and information.)

UPDATE: Raptor Quotes thanks to the Globe's Larry Millson
"I just said, 'Lay back, don't move,' " [Anthony] Parker said, "because it just seemed like he was kind of on his side. It seemed like he was panicking a little bit and started breathing hard."

Bosh said he did not speak to Ford. "He was too scared," he said. "So I mean I just gave him his space. … He was conscious. He wasn't trying to move too much. I'm sure he was feeling pain in his arms and legs. After a while, I could see him moving and that was a relief."

"I went over and asked him if he was okay," Jamario Moon of the Raptors said. "He didn't say anything, he just shook his head."

Video of the incident from ESPN-- which apparently doesn't let people embed video from their site, and pretty much knew nothing about the situation at the time.

Guess Who

Guess Who is the mystery 'roid game. The fun is trying to guess when you play Guess Who.

Did your steroid user retire in 2004?

Was he a journeyman infielder who began and ended his career with the Baltimore Orioles?

Did he never hit more than 21 home runs in a single season?

Did he purchase his steroids from former Mets attendant Kirk Radomski?

Did he first go public about his HGH use because he thought he'd be implicated by Jason Grimsley?

Is your steroid user David Segui?

Breeders' Cup Introduces Three New Ways To Lose Money

Three races were added to thoroughbred racing's world championships for next year. In 2008, the Breeders' Cup will be a two-day event with 14 races worth more than $25 million in prize money.

When I was twelve years old, my grandpa took me out for dinner at an off-track betting establishment just before a baseball game. While eating our club sandwiches we watched a spectacularly old man, like the epitome of dead man walking, make his way to a video terminal to waste his Canadian Pension Plan money.

My grandpa remarked, "Dustin, check that out. One foot in the grave, the other making a bet on a longshot."

Flash forward fifteen years later and I found myself this past summer pouring over a Daily Racing Forum in a dank attic on Bloor Street that smelled a lot like my grandpa's trench coat, trying to pick which horses I'd wheel in my boxed exactor.

My friends and I had caught the horse racing bug. We claimed that horse racing was the new poker and invited other friends to come out and lose money. And lose money we did. In fact, that was the simple cure for this afflicting infection. Lose enough money and it's amazing how quickly the ponies become less appealing.

So, now I save my big losses for the special races. And believe you me, I stand to lose a lot of money next October 24-25 when the Breeders' Cup takes place at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California.

Vick Gets 23 Months

I'm not sure if anyone out there has heard about this, but former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick was convicted for his role in a dogfighting conspiracy that involved gambling and killing pit bulls.

Today, he was sentenced to 23 months in prison.

I don't really know enough about the laws around dog fighting to say if this is too tough, too lenient or just right, but what I do know is that the sentence will essentially end Michael Vick's professional football career. Forget about the three years that Vick will miss because of his conviction, the NFL would be nothing short of foolish to reinstate Vick after the public outcry against his actions.

Normally, I'd suggest that controversies involving athletes are forgotten faster than the name of a piece of punchmeat, but not so on this one. It involves dogs and as ridiculous as it may seem, somewhere between the movie Old Yeller's release date and today, dogs have attained an unrivaled status of sentiment among the public.

You can accidentally shoot a limousine driver and not face nearly as much scrutiny as you would for cruelty to an animal. In no way am I saying that Vick isn't a rather large piece of shit and deserving of every day he spends in prison. I'm saying that right or wrong, this will end his career as an NFL quarterback. Because of the public's perception, bringing Vick back to the NFL would be PR suicide.

Guns And Stars

There comes a time in every basketball player's life when he must survive a gun fight.

That time came over the weekend for Indiana Pacers guard Jamal Tinsley as gunshots were fired at cars carrying Tinsely and his friends outside the Conrad hotel in Indianapolis early Sunday. The only injury sustained was to Pacers equipment manager Joey Qatato who was shot in both elbows.

I'm not really sure how that happens, but then again, I'm fairly unfamiliar with gun fights in general, except for that video game Red Dead Revolver. That game was pretty cool, but it was set in the Wild West and also fictional.

Apparently, Jamal's brother, James followed the assailants and returned their fire with a gun he was licensed to carry. God, I feel so sheltered.

The smartest thing said about the entire incident came from the lips of Pacers president Larry Bird, who said, "With Jamaal, it's just 'Why are you out at 3:30 in a place like that?' I don't really have a problem with guys being out till 3:30, but you've got to know your surroundings. Obviously, it's time for these guys to take a look at everything that's happened throughout our league, throughout professional sports, and step back and take a hard look at it and make smarter decisions."

This Nine Year Old Is Better Than You

Video courtesy of Going Five Hole.