Sorry, I'm Just Not Done with This.

Eugene Robinson, who I know from personal experience is a pretty nice guy, but whose writings I'm typically not a big fan of, has a pretty good take on the media/societal reaction to Sean Taylor. I appreciate the fact that he's one of (if not the first) major media figure to take on Wilbon's inappropriate and asinine comments that he is defiantly still sticking by the notion that, as Robinson puts it, Taylor's "suicide-by-bad-attitude".

There's also a little well-written article about Jason Campbell and his friendship with Taylor. Campbell speaks a little bit to the fact that the best tribute that the Redskins can give Taylor is to win out this season. I hope it doesn't sound insensitive, but it will be interesting to see how they play with his death hanging over them the rest of the season.

Still want to write one more thing about this (at least).

Change of Pace

If only voter turnout for US elections equaled that for "Best Sportscenter Commercial."
I've got 1) Talent Search 2) Final Cut 3) Paper Jam [cuz we've all been there]. Honorable mention goes to Lance and Network News. Can't stand Reception, for obvious reasons.

Nice Tribute on The Coach Is Killing Me

Link is HERE.

It is a pity the press cannot observe a moment of silence, at least waiting until after a person's funeral before drawing conclusions about their life and the lessons to be drawn from it.
There will be plenty of time to figure out the context, if any, once any facts come to light.

RIP Sean

This photo from The Washington Post summed up my feelings on the death of Sean Taylor. I never knew the man, but for the past several years I've rooted him on. May be later this week we'll post some photos of #21 laying peple out or monster tackles.
But for now, we wish the Taylor family well.

Further Reading

Cause I can link now and I don't feel like putting a whole new post up.

Sumo great calls it quits.

The Redskins are 5-6, and critics are saying they're dead in the water, everyone was convinced Gibbs was over the hill. Hmmmm, when was the last time this happened? Oh yeah, two years ago, when they went 10-6 and made the playoffs.

Yeah, Bill Cowher can suck my balls.

Yikes

We're not going to comment on the Sean Taylor incident right now. We know, everyone's been anxiously awaiting Sandy, Baby's take on the entire situation, but we're going to hold our official comment until the situation is more clear cut.

But really, it's too serious for the snarkiness that sports blogging typically entails, and we really don't know what's going on for sure. Nor, it seems, do most of the other Redskins (this is where I'd hyperlink the text to Jason La Canfora's Redskins Insider for the latest info, but the 11 year-old iMac my "job" provides me with won't let me...just click on the link to the side).

I was going to talk about how it was dumb to call the season over when the 'Skins are only a game behind Detroit and to dissuade any further talk of Chin/Colbert with a hard "t" for coach/GM in 2008, but it seems kind of dumb to talk about right now.

One thing "we" (I) do take issue with, though, is Michael Wilbon's snap judgement of the situation, witout having any knowledge of the details about what happened. In his usual Monday afternoon chat on washingtonpost.com, somebody asked him for his comment about the entire mess (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/11/20/DI2007112000544.html?hpid=topnews)

"I've known guys like Taylor all my life, grew up with some. They still have shades of gray and shouldn't be painted in black and white...I know how I feel about Taylor, and this latest news isn't surprising in the least, not to me. Whether this incident is or isn't random, Taylor grew up in a violent world, embraced it, claimed it, loved to run in it and refused to divorce himself from it. He ain't the first and won't be the last. We have no idea what happened, or if what we know now will be revised later. It's sad, yes, but hardly surprising."

Typically, we here at Sandy, Baby have the utmost respect for Mr. Wilbon, even if he is an ally of the Salieri, and even though he has made some ridiculous statements (he once criticized the Patriots for hiring Bill Belicheck instead of a black coach, with the inference that race was a factor. Now we know that Belicheck just got the job because he sold his soul to Beelzebub....he also said he was certain that Michael Jordan wasn't coming back to play for the Wizards (yeah, that actually happened). Uh, oops?) and despite the fact that he co-authored Charles Barkley's debacle of a "book".

But, in the words of GOB Bluth, C'mon! Like you know how the guy is living his life more than his teammates? The general consensus seems to be that (1) This was an armed robbery. This was not Batman rounding up a posse to go get his ATVs back, and (2) His teammates have said that he had matured a great deal in the past 18 months (which is a subjective judgment) but clearly he can't be that married to a "violent world" when he moves to the other side of town and the typical statement of each one of his teammates and coaches was that he's actually not a bad guy and WAS distancing himself from the people he'd been around when he was getting in trouble. AS Jason La Canfora, who actually covers the team and is with them on a day to day basis reports:

"Also, just to clear something up - this is a different house in a different part of South Florida than where Sean had the ATV incident two years ago and was arrested on firearms charges. He was in his old neighbrogood near his mom's house when that incident occured, he has moved to a nicer part of town since starting his family and, according to teammates, had stopped hanging around a lot of his former associates after his last legal problems."

Of course, all of this seems trivial since the latest headline on Redskins Insider is "Sean Taylor "Clinging To Life"".

Smackdown!

Nothing to say. Just liked the photo. I mean, we are the "leading Source for Late-Breaking Sumo Wrestling News."
Here, Kotomitsuki tosses Tochinonada at the New Year Grand Tournament in Tokyo. Time to throw some pillows!

Nüse & Notes

x Wiz rocket to 4-5! B. Hay(ve)wood puts big boy pants on with no Etan around to steal minutes and toys! Double-double-toil no trouble!
x Sandy, Baby exclusive video-blog with Wizardsrookie Nick Young, flashing back on his short tenure with the team. Except the part of Nick Young will be played by Nick Newman of Young & the Restless fame!
x Minor Thread and Ollie infiltrate enemy territory to attend a Hawks/Wizards preseason game at Phillips Arena aka the Highlight Factory (I kid you none). Highlight was calling Andrae Blatche by his new nickname, "John-School," then running away. Chase footage here!
Goons almost got us, but the Sandy, Baby-mobile got away! We love you, J-School!
x Skins get pummeled by Cowboys on national TV. Oh, wait, that hasn't happened yet! Post editorial details how the season could have turned on 'one foot.' Unless that foot is Gibbs's and it's out the door, we're still stuck in neutral. Today's loss will help us crawl into tomorrow...
x Apologists like Michael Wilbon are back-pedaling as fast as they can in light of the new charges against Barry Bonds. We've had all the evidence we've needed to know the records weren't legit for years. It's a shame the courts have to be the ones to step in when baseball, sports reporters, the sports establishment will not because it will hurt the bottom line $$$. Everyone's going to sigh, wipe their brow and say, "Whew, glad that's over with!" Wrong. Time to go after the single-season homerun records of Bonds, Sosa and McGwire. Or else it's all a show.

Rocky vs. the Rook

A few posts back I made fun of the German's passion for Handball. Did they really think this was an exciting sport? But then I learned to respect their taste, when I learned about the one, the only, Chess Boxing. Two men enter a ring, beat each other senseless for six rounds interspersed with games of speed chess. A knockout or checkmate wins. Brillant! Berlin recenly hosted the first world championship of chess boxing. (Click below the photo to watch it.)
I am ready to create whole new sports leagues based on this theme -- Checkers Wrestling, Battleship Badminton, Monopoly NASCAR. The ideas are endless. Candyland Karate. Go with it ...

The Wide Receiver

B. Lloyd broke his collarbone during practice the other day, right when the Redskins needed him to step up. Of course, I don't blame him for the inury. It's extremely painful, unfortunate, annd not his fault. I don't want to kick a man when he's down, so I'll refrain from making fun of, say, his hair or bad rapping or poor playing. In fact, it really does suck he got hurt. I mean, here was his best -- and most likely last -- chance to show the world what, if anything, he can do.
And by the world, I mean, me. I'd be totally willing to go 180 degrees on this dude if he could step up. But, alas ...
I also want to promote The Washington Post's gameday chatroom. Minor Thread and I participated intercontiental style (is that right? Intercontiental? Or Outercontenintal? Ah, screw it) and encourage others (YOU OLLIE!) to join in Sunday.
It's the best way for people who can't watch the game to enjoy it. It's almost like being at the stadium. And by being at the stadium, I mean locked in a jail cell thirty feet below the field in a room full of blindfolded men making inane, barely audiblle comments about a game they can't see, hear, or smell.

We Just Can't Catch A Break

I'm not going to comment (too) much on the Redskins perfection of the proverbial art of shooting one's self in the foot today. If not for the Patriots game, they'd be undefeated. They've beaten six teams this season. Five were opponents, but they've managed to beat themselves three times so far...and we're only 10 weeks into the season. Today's game was not about coaching; Gibbs, Saunders, and Williams did a great job gameplanning for the Eagles, and thoroughly outcoached Andy Reid from what saw. Buges did a great job on the offensive line, which had been offensive in more ways than one earlier this season (after being decimated by injuries). What the Redskins staff didn't know, however, was that Andy Reid had given access to his "Drug Emporium" to several of the Redskins' players (Chris Cooley, Ladell Betts, Casey Rabach, among others).

Meanwhile, the Wizards are pretty much embodying the above picture. Mike Wise, who despite past shots this blog has taken at him, is actually an excellent basketball writer, gave me a pretty good idea of how the season has gone so far in one column. I just wish he would stick to basketball and hilarious, mindblowing 'incites' into the personal lives of our favorite Redskins players, instead of writing "hard facts" Redskins columns that are written like he just got off the Amtrac train from New York and desperately wanted to fit in with the local sports scene by writing the safest, most obvious columns possible ("Wait, the Redskins have beloved old player doing their radio broadcasts? No way, I didn't know that!"). But hey, I'm trying to give the man his props, as Wilbon has said in the past, he really knows his stuff when he's talking hoops, and he's hit the 'Zards debacle of a season (so far) on the head. I agree (Ed. Despite the win today over a talented Hawks team) that they should shut Arenas down. He's not himself right now, and his knee is clearly hurting him. This is a situation where it's both in the team's interest and the player's to have him shut it down for at least a couple of weeks. If they can't win when he's toughing it out there's no point in not taking a more longterm perspective on the season and letting him rest up and come back at a later date. He won't like it because he's a baller/shotcaller and it's a contract year for him, but it's worth it for both parties in the long run. Arenas' next contract goes down anywhere from $500k to $1 mil everytime people see him hobbling off the court with his knee packaged more securely in ice than a transplant organ, so why not take a few weeks off and start dropping thirty or forty on people when you come back?

Sorry for getting serious for a minute, please accept this entertaining video evidence of how Rugby is much more manly a sport than Soccer, via Deadspin, as my apology. (Lil Bro, I know you have plenty of time to enjoy it....I expect an 800 word response by tomorrow).

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now....

Brothers, friends, Washingtonians, lend me your ears! Hear me for my cause; and be
silent, that you may hear: believe me for mine fandom, and have
respect for my fandom, that you may believe: censure me in your
"wisdom"; and stop talking out of your asses.

So let it be with J. Gibbs.
He is our coach, faithful and innovative,
Yet Minor Thread says he is senile,
and wants the Chin to assume the position,
because Joe is over the hill,
and the Chin reclines in a heated studio.
Joe hath brought many Lombardis home to Ol' DC,
for whom doth he win these trophies of inconceivable
value? Dost this seemeth anachronistic playcalling?

See the wounds that the Wide Receiver rendeth,
Missing important team meetings with "shin splints",
A thousand curses upon B.Lloyd and his "Euro-cut"!
Lo, how quickly the hurts of Burgundy and Gold faith
full turn on he who brought us to the promised land, not
once, not twice, but thrice.

Et tu Minor Thread? Et tu Lil Bro?

In The Chin We Trust

If the Skins run the table and go 13-3 this year, their record under Joe Gibbs the last 4 years (34-30) would equal the WORST 4-year stretch in Bill Cowher's coaching career.
15 years.
11 winning seasons.
10 trips to the playoffs.
161-99-1.

Relocated to just down the road in Raleigh.
Worked with Saunders in Kansas City.
Would demand a terrific GM, even though Pittsburgh has thrived for many years without paying top-dollar for free agents and instead cultivated team-first superstars.
Would headhunt Tom Brady if Patriots had tried to run up the score on him.
Would replace fear of God at Redskins Park with fear of him.
Would kick ass, take names.

Handballing

I was in my flat in Cologne, flipping through the channels when I come across the Handball World Championships. Germany won against Poland, and it was big news. I however am a little confused by this sport. Admittedly it's been around for years, but still looks like BaseKet Ball to me. I mean, I like odd sports. Australian Rules Football is totally bizarre and enjoyable. But team handball just seemed lost on me. It just seemed like a game my friends and I in 5th grade would make up -- two goals, carry the ball, throw it at the goal. It seems all other popular sports -- soccer, American football, basketball -- deviated from this basic idea in order to make sport more interesting, challenging, and exciting.
Well, watch this YouTube video and tell me what you think.