Our Hollywood stop ended on a fun note. Toward the end of the game someone noticed Terrell Owens outside our dugout. We spent five minutes debating if it was really him or a look-a-like, but then we saw him sign an autograph and we all got excited. He came onto the field after the game and a few of us bugged him for autographs and pictures. He was really nice and honored all our requests.
You can see the photographic evidence here. (I'm particularly fond of the Don Zimmer pic -- he's a good foot shorter than the two Olympic team members in the shot.)
As Tim MacMahon notes on the Cowboys Blog, Owens is "an equal opportunity sports enthusiast while relaxing in the Sunshine State." In addition to softball, he's also a big volleyball fan, apparently. The best part of the Page Six item is that Owens was allegedly "overheard discussing a modeling career for himself." It sounds like a bit much, but in a wholly believable, "yeah, I could see T.O. saying that" sorta way.
Patriots safety Rodney Harrison made an interesting comment last week about his teammate, wide receiver Randy Moss. Harrison was asked about Moss's speed, and he said Moss is the second-fastest wide receiver he's ever seen. The fastest? Former Raider James Jett.
That shouldn't be a big surprise, I guess, seeing as Jett won a gold medal in the 4 x 100-meter relay at the 1992 Olympics. But it raises an interesting point about the way some players with blazing speed are actually able to become complete wide receivers, whereas others are the guys who can just go long.
Moss is, obviously, in the former group: When he actually feels like playing hard, as he has this season, Moss runs good routes, has good hands and is generally an all-around excellent player. But Jett was in the latter group. Although he had a solid rookie year, averaging 23.4 yards a catch on 33 catches, he never built on that. For his entire career he was just a guy who tried to outrun the secondary, and once he lost a step in his late 20s, he was done.
I don't know if Moss is as fast now as he was in his rookie season, but he's as good a wide receiver as ever. That's the difference between being a complete wide receiver and just being a fast guy.
When the dust settles over Marion Jones' admission that she used steroids, the track and field authorities will treat her the way Stalin treated his opponents: They'll make her disappear and pretend she never existed.
Jones' name will be completely wiped from the record books, and the next time the International Olympic Committee prints an official account of the Sydney Olympics, it will be as if the woman who won three gold medals and two bronze medals hadn't been there at all. Even the women who medaled as Jones' relay teammates will have their accomplishments wiped from the record books.
That's not the way American sports leagues do things. Shawne Merriman was busted by the NFL for using steroids last year and was suspended for four games, but if you turn to Page 681 of the 2007 NFL Record & Fact Book, his name is listed right there as the 2006 leader in sacks.
Why the different approaches? Why do international sports pretend their steroid users never existed, while American leagues just suspend them and move on? If anything, the NFL should be harder on Merriman than the IOC is on Jones, as Merriman was caught by the NFL's own drug testing program, while Jones was only caught by the legal system.
I don't know the answer, but I know which approach I like better: The American sports leagues. I watched Marion Jones win the 100 meters and I watched Shawne Merriman get 17 sacks and I watched Mark McGwire hit 70 homers, and I don't want to read a record book that treats my memories as fake. Jones may be a cheater, but she won five medals, and no amount of revisionist history can change that.
Big ups to the folks at the ubiquitous Fark.com for passing along the theatrical trailer for what is sure to be the year's hottest movie: O.J.'s Eleven.
You can watch the film to get the full lineup, but rest assured that every prominent criminally involved athlete -- with the possible exception of Barry Bonds -- makes an appearance. Not gonna lie: after five seconds or so, I expected this to suck. It most decidedly does not.
Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated had an interview with Dan Patrick last week in which Patrick discussed leaving ESPN Radio to get his own syndicated radio show with Content Factory.
Patrick talked a bit in that interview about his desire to cover the Olympics, and this week Deitsch has a prediction:
Look for him to appear on NBC sometime in 2008.
That most likely means Patrick would be used on NBC's Olympics coverage from Beijing. But if he's going to sign with NBC, what I really hope NBC does is reunite Patrick with his old pal Keith Olbermann. NBC now has Olbermann on Football Night in America, and it would be outstanding to see the two of them teamed up on Sunday nights, doing the highlights the same way they did in the good old days on SportsCenter.
That's a long shot, though; 2008 is an election year and Olbermann does more politics than sports these days, so he's going to be awfully busy next fall. Still, the Olbermann-Patrick SportsCenter was the best sports highlight show in history, and it's fun to dream about a reunion.
Bob Hayes, the great sprinter who was called "the Bullet" when he dominated the 100 meters at the 1964 Olympics and who later became a Pro Bowl wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys, has been lying in an unmarked grave in Jacksonville since his death five years ago, the Jacksonville Times-Union has reported.
"It really hurts, with all that he's done as a citizen and his reputation in Jacksonville," said City Councilwoman Glorious Johnson, who was a big fan of his while growing up on the Eastside. "We could have cared more for where they laid the body to rest."...
The family says there are plans to move the casket into a mausoleum, yet five years after Hayes' death the site remains barren.
Hayes' life deteriorated after his athletic career ended, and he spent time in prison for delivery of narcotics. But Hayes has such a unique place in American sports history -- he's the only athlete with a gold medal and a Super Bowl ring -- that it's a real shame that there's no place for fans to go to pay their respects.
The British sprinter Dwain Chambers, who was banned from track and field for taking THG, is back in the news again, this time for saying the scientists who help athletes cheat with performance-enhancing drugs will always be ahead of the scientists who conduct drug tests.
And that serves as a good reminder that there's a whole lot more than speed involved in playing wide receiver. Sometimes during the NFL scouting combine you get the sense that it's just a track meet with some football drills mixed in, but all the speed in the world isn't going to turn a guy who can't catch and can't cut into an NFL receiver.
When you think about it, punt returning is a lot like downhill skiing. In both, you've got to stay under control and agile while going as fast as you possibly can.
So I've always wanted to see Jeremy Bloom, a former Olympic skier and Colorado punt returner, make it in the NFL. Last year the Eagles drafted him, but he spent the season on injured reserve. At the Eagles' minicamp this weekend, he said he plans to make the most of his opportunity this season.
Sometimes Bloom can't believe how long he's had to wait. Last season was especially tough, being forced to just watch.
"The one thing that I missed most was actually being out there practicing," he said. "That was the unfortunate side of being on IR."
It would be great to see Bloom, an exciting athlete with an interesting personal story, have a successful pro career. I'm skeptical, though. Bloom hasn't played football since he was at Colorado four years ago, and at just 5-foot-9 and 180 pounds, he looks too slight to make it in the league. Still, I'm pulling for him, and I think there are more elite athletes who could cross over from skiing to football.
Patriots safety 
When the dust settles over 
Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated 
The British sprinter Dwain Chambers, who was banned from track and field for taking THG, is 
When you think about it, punt returning is a lot like downhill skiing. In both, you've got to stay under control and agile while going as fast as you possibly can.
