Update: Ocho y Cinco

Just reported on ESPN’s pregame show of Monday Night Football, Chad Johnson will be fined $5000 dollars by the NFL for violation of the uniform and personal message policy.

Johnson wanted to be known as ocho y cinco in a tribute to Spanish Heritage Month earlier last week. Chad, who is known for his touchdown celebrations, also went out and did the salsa dance after he scored his touchdown during yesterday’s loss to the Falcons.

Personally, I think it is BS that he will be fined by the NFL. I guess the NFL really stands for the “No Fun League”.

Note to Chad: It’s ochenta y cinco.

UPDATE 11/2: Chad was fined by the league $5000 dollars and he plans to appeal the fine.

Sports Agent Charged With Conspiracy to Smuggle Cubans

Well I know what you might be thinking here. A sports agent was caught smuggling in Cuban cigars. Nope that’s not the case here.

Gustavo “Gus” Dominguez and four others were charged with conspiracy to smuggle Cuban immigrants into the United States, including some that were baseball players.

“Though the case involves a Beverly Hills sports agent and talented baseball players, it is remarkably similar to the human smuggling operations that ICE (the immigration agency) encounters every day,” Julie Myers, the agency’s assistant secretary, said in a statement. “The ringleaders put the lives of illegal immigrants at risk and sought to profit from their labor.”

According to the indictment, Dominguez and two others successfully smuggled in 19 Cuban Nationals into Florida and transported them to Los Angeles. There they were provided with food and clothing along with a place to live and began baseball training there. It is not know whether or not any of these players were signed by any major league clubs.

Is the guy that hard up for money that he has to illegally import players into the country. A good percentage of the Cubans who defect to the United States usually end up with a decent major league contract with the agent taking usually 10% of that. Is spending the rest of your life in jail worth that? To me, it is not. But obviously Gus Dominguez and his associates thought they could get away with this. It will be interesting to see as this case comes to fruition whether or not any of these players were signed by an major league clubs.

Men’s & Women’s Preseason College Basketball Polls

Here are the Preseason Rankings for the Men’s and Women’s teams of Division 1

Men’s Women’s
1. Florida2. North Carolina3. Kansas

4. Ohio State

5. Pittsburgh

5. UCLA

7. LSU

8. Georgetown

9. Wisconsin

10. Arizona

11. Duke

12. Alabama

13. Texas A&M

14. Memphis

15. Boston College

16. Washington

17. Marquette

18. UCONN

19. Texas

20. Syracuse

21. Georgia Tech

22. Kentucky

23. Creighton

24. Tennessee

25. Nevada

 1. Maryland2. North Carolina3. Oklahoma

4. Stanford

5. Tennessee

6. Duke

7. Ohio State

8. UCONN

9. Georgia

10. LSU

11. Rutgers

12. Arizona State

13. Purdue

14. Texas A&M

15. Vanderbilt

16. Kentucky

17. Michigan State

18. Baylor

19. Depaul

20. New Mexico

21. California

22. USC

23. UCLA

24. BYU

25. Washington

Note: This is from the USA Today/ESPN Coaches Polls

Celebration of Another NBA Season

In celebration of another NBA season getting underway, I have given you a video to watch. It is a collection of arguably one of the best players ever to play the game and my favorite player, Michael Jordan, top 10 dunks.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=
59TbG7HQSN8[/youtube]

College Basketball Season Getting Underway

Well, its that time of year where colleges start playing their exhibition schedules. Lately most of the Division 1 schools have been scheduling Division 2 schools. We all know exhibition games don’t mean much at all but to the teams they actually do. They have been basically scrimmaging themselves since the start of practice on October 13th. These games will give the coaches a chance to see where the players are and how they fit in to the team’s plans for the season.

These exhibition games will be beneficial for the UCONN Huskies team (UCONN opens with AIC tomorrow night). This season, the team welcomes 8 new freshman. These freshman are going to be counted upon from day 1 by Jim Calhoun. The Huskies are a young team this year and should be fun to watch at times. Calhoun has stated recently that this is the fastest team he has ever had at UCONN. So we should see a lot of the run and gun and a lot of pressing by the Huskies. Reminds me of back in the day in the early 90’s when the team would run and press. Should be an interesting season for the Huskies.

The Lady Huskies will open their exhibition schedule on Thursday against Team Concept. Team Concept will be sporting four former members from UCONN (Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird, Rita Williams, and Maria Conlon). This will also give Coach Geno Auriemma a chance to see where his team stands right now. The Lady Huskies have 5 new freshman this year who are expected to contrinite as well. With no seniors on the team this year, the state of Connecticut may see another National Championship soon.

UNH Lady Chargers NCAA Bound

In local news today, the University of New Haven Lady Chargers soccer team received an at-large bid to the NCAA Women’s Division II soccer tournament.

The Lady Chargers were seeded 3rd in the Northeast region and will face Indiana University of Pennsylvania, who is seeded 2nd. The other seeds in the region are the host and #1 seed, West Chester Univ. and the 4th seed, Slippery Rock Univ.

The Lady Chargers come into the NCAA’s not having lost a game since October 7 when they lost to nationally ranked, Franklin Pierce College. While the Chargers did lose to Adelphi in the ECC tournament, it goes down in the book as a tie per NCAA rules.

The game time for this Friday hasn’t been announced but once it is I will update the post here. If your interested and want to listen, go on over to WNHU to listen to the game. Good luck to the Lady Chargers!!!!!

UPDATE 10/31: The game time has been announced. The Lady Chargers will play at 1:30 PM on November 3. The game will be broadcast on the internet at WNHU at 1:25 PM.

Updated: Boston Red Sox Offseason News

Today the Red Sox officially announced that they had resigned Mike Timlin and they also announced that they picked up the option on Tim Wakefield’s contract. You can read about my thoughts on resigning Timlin here. This will mark Wakefield’s 13th season with the Red Sox making him the longest tenured player.

Wakefield may be looking for a new battery mate as Doug Mirabelli filed for free agency. Rumor is that this is just a formality and Mirabelli will be back behind the plate when Wake pitches. Also filing for free agency were Gabe Kapler and Trot Nixon. Trot’s time in Boston may be done as he tests his worth out on the free agent market.

Stay tuned for more Red Sox news as it comes forward.

UPDATE: I just saw this on Redsox.com. The double play combination of Mark Loretta and Alex Gonzalez have also filed for free agency. Odds are Mark Loretta will be back in a Sox uniform.

UCONN Loses to Rutgers

Another UCONN football game on national tv (ESPN), another loss for the Huskies as UCONN was defeated by the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers 24-13.

Stupid mistakes and turnovers plagued the Huskies again as DJ Hernandez fumbled yet again which led to a Rutgers touchdown. Rutgers also scored a touchdown on special teams as they blocked a punt at the end of the game to put the game out of reach.

Notes and observations from the game:

  • Coach Edsall named DJ Hernandez the starter for today’s game. It will be interesting to see who QB’s the Huskies against Pittsburgh as DJ only threw for 67 yards.
  • Terry Caulley sat out the game with a gimpy ankle and may have lost his starting job to Donald Brown II.
  • Donald Brown II rushed for 199 yards and 2 td’s in what turned out to be an audition for the Huskies. His rushing performance in the 2nd half basically got UCONN back in the game after trailing 17-0 at the half.
  • Brown’s rushing performance tonight was the most yards Rutgers had allowed by a running back all season.
  • The UCONN Defense held Ray Rice, who had the 2nd best average at 161 yards per game, to 79 yards.
  • Matt Nuzie missed another field goal. Big shocker! I will say though with the winds we have had in the northeast this weekend and the distance he kicked from, 51 yds, we can let it slide this time.
  • UCONN also missed an extra point. This wasn’t Tony Ciaravino’s fault as the snap was bad. UCONN’s regular long snapper suffered an injury in practice and was unable to play tonight.
  • Larry Taylor had a great game returning kicks. His best runback of the night was nullified by a block in the back call that cost UCONN 50 yards.
  • Rutgers remained one of the 6 unbeaten teams (8-0) in the nation going into their showdown with Louisville on November 9th.

Well this loss drops the Huskies to 3-5 on the season. I am gonna say our bowl hopes this season are slim and none, With slim about to leave the building. Next up for the football Huskies is the Pittsburgh Panthers on Saturday, November 11th at 3:30 PM at the Rent.