Friday Wrap Up: There Will Be No Football This Weekend

There will be no football this weekend for the first time in a long time.  We have the Super Bowl next weekend and that's it.  What are we going to do to pass the time?? 

Former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader Sarah Shahi is here to help take us into the weekend though, and that should help soften the blow.  She's got this new show on USA called Fairly Legal that looks decent, but I haven't had time to check it out yet.  Maybe I'll get to that this weekend sometime, since there won't be any football.

1. Royals pitcher Gil Meche is retiring from baseball, and giving back the last $12m of his contract to the Royals.  This story is pretty amazing, not to mention very refreshing to hear.  An modern athlete that is not out for every dollar he can get?  Pretty few and far between these days.  Tyler Kepner has a story in the New York Times that is a great read. 

But Meche knew the Royals really signed him to start games and log innings. His deteriorating shoulder, surgically repaired twice in 2001, would not allow him to do that. As a divorced father of three, he believed his children — ages 7, 5 and 3 — needed him more than his teammates did.

Meche told the Royals’ general manager, Dayton Moore, that he did not want any of the paycheck due him. No settlement, no buyout, no strings. The Royals had been roundly criticized for signing Meche in the first place — he was 55-44 with a 4.65 earned run average in six seasons for the Mariners — and Meche believed they had already paid him enough.

Friday Wrap Up: Brooklyn Decker Stops By To Say Hello And Brighten Your Day

Happy Friday everyone.  Seems like it's been a long week, right?  At least for me, it has.  Maybe it's the clouds and grey skies.  Luckily, Brooklyn Decker is here to make us forget about the grey skies.  Hell, she can help you forget anything you need some distraction from. 

1. Aaron Rodgers isn't that bad of a guy after all.  Earlier this week, a video of the Green Bay QB was making the rounds through the internet.  It is a video of Aaron Rodgers walking by a fan at an airport that is dressed in all pink breast cancer swag.  When watching the video, it looks like Rodgers purposely ignores this lady and snubs her autograph request.

Every column and blog had their shot at Rodgers during this past week.  But Gregg Doyel of CBSSports.com sets the record straight about what kind of person Aaron Rodgers really seems to be.  Good stuff.

2. Blake Griffin's hot girlfriend is just some random hot chick, and not really his girlfriend.  This whole thing got really confusing today when Brooks over at SPORTSbyBROOKS posted the story breaking down how this fake "Blake Griffin's girlfriend" rumor got started.  It's a good story and it looks as though, for some stupid reason, someone started this internet rumor.  Well, all I know is that whoever actually calls Jasmine Shein his girlfriend, he is a lucky, lucky man.

Then, like an hour later, John Canzano of the Oregonian tweeted that Blake Griffin says he met his girlfriend on Facebook, which is in line with the original rumors that SPORTSbyBROOKS debunked.  So Blake Griffin may or may not have a hot girlfriend and he may or may not have met her through Facebook.  Or something.  Anyway...(UPDATE: Looks like Canzano has since deleted that tweet, but below is a picture of it.)

3. Homeless dude wins ESPN.com fantasy football contest.  And he won it all on the last week, when at the very last minute, he decided to start Tim Tebow, instead of Matt Cassell and Josh Freeman.  Pretty freakin' incredible if you ask me.  This season, I qualified for the playoffs with my crappy 8th seeded team, and very nearly made a Cinderella-like run and won the whole damn thing.  But geez, I needed like an ounce of this guy's luck and the title would have been mine.  Maybe next year, I guess.  Pretty crazy story though.

The best part of the story is this sentence: "My fiancee says she's never going to say a word about fantasy football when I'm on the computer again," Harrington said.  Yeah, I bet she won't.

4. The Oregon Duck cheerleaders are the hottest damn group of hotties in this fine country.  Watch the video and then google them sometime.  Anytime.  Just do it.  You'll enjoy it.

5. Why no one remembers the Mark Sanchez rape case.  Personally, I don't even remember hearing about this.  Nothing against Mark Sanchez, but this is pretty interesting stuff.  Everyone has been killing Ben Roesthlisberger for his off-the-field miscalculations and problems.  But he may not be the only one that has his share of issues.  The Deadspin article ends with this, and it seems to be the point of the article: "There's a story everyone wants to tell about Sanchez, and his getting popped on a rape accusation doesn't fit."

Anyway, folks.  Have a good and safe weekend.  Catch you all later.

Things I'm Tired Of This Week: Blake Griffin

Lately, everywhere I turn, I see nothing but highlights of Blake Griffin dunking.  Whether it's SportsCenter or one of the various websites that I visit each day, I cannot escape his mug.

Listen, I get it, this guy is good.  And at the moment, he's playing some of the best basketball of anyone in the league.  He's probably going to make the All-Star game this season, which is (in case you've forgotten) still technically his rookie year.  People, Blake Griffin is going to be a good, if not a great, basketball player for the rest of his career.

But geez, will people just shut up about him already?  Let's calm down the hype already.  I can't take it anymore.  If I see another video of one of his highlight dunks posted on a website, I'm going to barf.

First of all, as of today, the Los Angeles Clippers have a record of 15-25, which is good for 13th place in the Western Conference.  That is 13th place out of 15 teams in the conference.  So can we stop referring to the Clips as a "playoff team", at least for the time being? 

I saw a video clip on ESPN.com where Bob Ley mentioned that Blake Griffin's name has been brought up for MVP consideration.  When I heard that, I laughed so hard I almost pooped myself, seriously.  MVP??  MVP of what?  To get to the spectacular record of 15-25, the Clippers have had to win 10 of their last 14 games.  Before that streak of games, they were 5-21.  Read that again, five wins and twenty-one losses.  Does anyone remember this?  There is no way he should be talked about for MVP.

The other thing that is bugging me about Blake Griffin is all the recent talk about how he's getting bullied around because everyone is sick of him dunking on them.  Awwww, poor little Blakey Griffin.  Poor baby.  Marc Spears of Yahoo! Sports writes about it here and Scott Howard-Cooper of NBA.com writes about it here. 

It's not a secret that Griffin has already started to get under some players' skin in his short time in the NBA.  He's gotten into it with Lamar Odom, Mario Chalmers, Andre Miller, Ron Artest and James Posey.  I think it's funny and far-fetched to think that in all of these situations, Blake Griffin was a complete angel and didn't do anything wrong.  But if you read what Spears or Howard-Cooper wrote, that is what they're making it sound like.

Gimmie a break.  The guy plays very physical and you get what you get when you play like that.  I wish the media would stop whining about how aggressive teams are being with Griffin.  And if you ask me, if Griffin keeps putting his crotch in dude's faces, he's just going to have to deal with the consequences.

So I'm just sick of all the hype and all the talk about this guy.  Yeah he's good.  I am not saying that he's not.  Kevin Love is good.  LaMarcus Aldridge is good.  If I was going to start a team today, I would actually take either Love or Aldridge over Griffin for the long haul.

[ NBA High-5 -- Oregon Live ]