Possible Fallout From The Pat Tillman Tribute Glitch?

Almost two weeks ago, the Arizona Cardinals unveiled their tribute to Pat Tillman, and attempted to play audio and video on the giant screens inside the stadium honoring his life. Unfortunately, the audio part of the tribute did not play correctly, and many fans were "angered at the perceived disrespect shown to a football player many of them had followed for years". The Cardinals issued an apology a few days later saying:

"During the Ring of Honor ceremony for Pat Tillman at halftime of Sunday’s game against the Cowboys, the tribute that ran on the stadium’s scoreboard did not operate properly and we sincerely apologize for that. While the technical reasons for those audio problems have been addressed, the bottom line is that we dropped the ball. Our intent was to provide a very special tribute to Pat and in the end we did not do that. We regret that very much."

Currently, there's an advertisement for a Video/Scoreboard Engineer position with the Arizona Cardinals. The responsibilities include: "the operation, installation, design and maintenance of all production systems throughout the University of Phoenix Stadium building including all control room equipment, RF transmission equipment, television, sound, communications, closed captioning and signal distribution systems. The Engineers must also be able to meet the requirements of the broadcasters that interface with video/audio systems."

Makes you wonder if the "technical reasons" were mostly human related.

Floyd Landis, Victim of "Administrative Error"?

Obviously, one of the biggest stories of the Summer of '06 was relative unknown American cyclist, Floyd Landis, winning the Tour De France, and his subsequent positive tests with regard to testosterone and epitestosterone ratios.

In the days after the test results were revealed, Landis produced a number of reasons why his testosterone levels could have been off. They included a condition whereby his body naturally produced higher levels of testosterone, thryoid medication, a conspiracy against him, cortisone shots and my personal favorite, drinking a lot of whiskey.

Today though, it appears that Landis may have a reasonable argument against the lab and their results. The French newspaper, Le Monde, has reported that "the French anti-doping lab that tested American cyclist Floyd Landis' urine samples made an 'administrative error' when reporting its findings on his backup 'B' sample". Apparently, someone confused sample 994,474(originally thought to be Landis') with 995,474(the real Landis sample). So basically the French lab tested the wrong sample, and pinned the results on Landis. Of course the lab is stating that "the error, of an administrative nature, does not mean the positive B sample was not that of the American". But right now it looks like there are enough legitimate questions and concerns surrounding the lab's testing procedures to cast doubt on the supposed positive tests.

I can only imagine how much whiskey Landis will drink should the positive results prove to be false. Someone might want to put Lynchburg, TN on notice.

So, Youth Athletics Have Become Our Most Dangerous Spectator Sport

About two weeks ago, a PeeWee football coach by the name of Robert Watson became so irate at his ejection from a game due to yelling and cursing at a referee, that he charged the ref, threw a punch and knocked him out.

Other coaches, spectators and parents rushed onto the field, and soon there was a decent sized scrum with most of the kids just standing around wondering what the heck was going on.

Like most everything, the incident can be seen on video, and sadly, someone yelling "call the cops!" has become all too commonplace. Although, the one woman kicking the other in the ass, and actually pushing her into the fight has a small bit of comedic appeal. Though, I'm sure she'll be hearing from a lawyer in the next few days.

Seriously, when the threat of being assaulted or killed at a PeeWee football game is probably higher than of the same occuring at NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL games combined there's something wrong. Just remember to pack heat along with your kid's pads.

Just When You Thought O.J. Couldn't Go Any Lower...

It's being reported that O.J. Simpson has written a book titled "If I Did It", and that he will be conducting an interview with Judith Regan on FOX. The interview is one segment of a two-part special called "O.J. SIMPSON: IF I DID IT, HERE’S HOW IT HAPPENED".

Apparently, O.J. is putting all of this together as a way to show everyone how he would have committed the horrendous murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. You know, the ones that he constantly denies that he committed, and spends multiple hours of his days on golf courses searching for clues about.

Personally, I'm surprised that O.J. is still around, as it seems that most of his actions would really piss off friends and relatives of the deceased. Sadly, I bet his book sells a number of copies.

A $500 NFL Fine? What is this, 1946?

A week ago, on Monday Night Football, Oakland's Tyler Brayton and Seattle's Jerramy Stevens got into a pushing match that ended with Brayton kneeing Stevens in the crotch. In the days following the event, fans and analysts debated what the fine would be, and whether or not Brayton, and/or Stevens, would be suspended.

Last Wednesday, two days after the incident, the NFL fined Stevens $15,000 and Brayton $25,000. Neither were suspended.

Somewhat lost in all of this was that apparently Brayton's 81-year old grandfather, Bobo Brayton, was in the stands to witness Tyler's WWE moves. After being ejected, Tyler told his grandfather that he would probably be fined, and his grandfather responded with, "I told him, 'It will be, what, five hundred, a thousand bucks?"

Ok, I know the guy is 81, but does he have any idea what the NFL has become? He obviously has to be somewhat lucid because he drove five hours to see the game. Though, there are quite a few elderly people on the roads here in Florida that I don't think have any brain matter left. Anyway, most NFL players could light $500 on fire and not really think twice about it.

Although, extrapolating the percent difference between $25,000 and $500, and applying it to the prices of other things would be fun. For instance:

Gasoline. If supreme costs $2.50/gal, then in Bobo's World it would cost $.05. That's right, a nickel. Though, we would still bitch if it went above a dime.

Wendy's. Right now, Value Meal items are $.99. In Bobo's World they would be $.02. Two pennies for a junior bacon cheeseburger?!? Damn, the U.S. would be full of even more fatasses.

Citifield. The Mets new home is going to cost $800 million to build. If Bobo were in charge, it would be Wal-Mart cheap at $16 million. Seriously, $16 million? That's enough to buy two of those badass scoreboard setups at the University of Texas with no field or seats.

But yeah, a $500 NFL fine? Ray Lewis would be stabbing people on the field if that were the case.

100 Loogies! Do I hear 125?

While PacMan Jones run-ins with the law have seemingly just started in recent months, it was way back in April that many of us got our first "dose" of him.

Back then, PacMan chomped his way into the headlines by melting down in front of TV news cameras when asked about his connection to the central figure in a Nashville drug bust. The fact that one of the cars seized had "Pac-Man" embroidered in the headrests, and that the primary target in the investigation, Darryl Jerome Moore, was identified as an acquaintance of PacMan's made the connection that much more intriguing.

Since then though, there haven't been any updates regarding PacMan's ties to the case other than supposedly he loaned it to someone to use in a music video and forgot about it. That was, until yesterday when the Cadillac XLR in question went up for auction by the city of Nashville.

The Caddy comes with matching spinners, though there might be quite a process to get it licensed and insured as the auction site states: "No Title will be given to the winning bidder by the Metropolitan Government/Nashville. An affidavit, court order, or sales under special conditions will be issued to title this vehicle."

Still, it's not everyday that you can own a special piece of "history" like this. However, I don't see anything about the passenger seat spitguard option being included.

Do 5 Months, 29 Tackles and 5 Interceptions Make a Difference Coach Meyer?

This year, the NCAA implemented a new rule regarding transfer students whereby "a student-athlete who earns an undergraduate degree in four years but still has one year of eligibility remaining can transfer into another college's graduate school and finish his or her playing career there immediately without having to sit out a year."

One of the biggest opponents of this new rule was Florida coach, Urban Meyer. At least he was five months ago. Back then Meyer stated, "It's unbelievable. It's a loophole that needs to be closed."

However, that was before Ryan Smith, the former starting cornerback for Utah when Meyer was head coach there, transferred to Florida. It was also before Smith took over a starting cornerback position on this year's heralded Gator defense, and racked up 29 tackles and a team leading 5 interceptions through the first 8 games.

Without Smith's contributions the Gators might not have their 7-1 record, be on track for a shot at the SEC Championship, and be close to getting into the BCS Championship game. Something tells me that if either of those two things happen, Coach Meyer might reconsider his opinion.

Don't Spend That $200k Just Yet Jemele

A little over one week ago, it was reported that ESPN had hired Orlando Sentinel sports columnist, Jemele Hill, to be a contributor on their Page 2 segment. The Big Lead stated that she had supposedly signed a 2-year deal worth $400,000. However, in the past few days some of Hill's columns, and responses to readers, could have ESPN rethinking their decision.

On Thursday, October 26, an Orlando Magic fan by the name of Hooman Hamzehloui was kicked out of the Magic/Rockets game for calling Rockets' player, Dikembe Mutombo, a monkey. He issued an apology, and volunteered to donate $5000 to a charity of Mutombo's choice. It was reported on Monday, October 30, that Hamzehloui's season tickets had been revoked, and that he had been banned from all NBA arenas for the entire season.

On Tuesday, October 31, Hill wrote a column expressing her opinion that she believed the Orlando Magic and the NBA had done the right thing. She stated that she thought Hamzehloui believed that "buying a ticket gave him license to act like a jerk". For the most part, Hill condemns the fan's actions, and states that he's "uninformed", acted like a "jerk", and has used "ignorance as an excuse to stay uneducated and make excuses". However, at the end she takes a shot at the Orlando Predators, and their fans, by stating(in reference to Hamzehloui's statement that he won't return to the NBA), "If that's his attitude, he won't be missed. He would make a great Predators fan."

Without that final line, her column probably wouldn't have garnered too much press, at least not of the negative kind. However, as soon as that issue of the Orlando Sentinel hit newstands everyone was talking about how Jemele Hill had put down the Predators and their fans. By the way, the Predators are the most successful professional sports team in Orlando history.

A popular morning talk radio show, "The Monsters in the Morning", devoted quite a bit of time to discussing the issue, as they do many promotions with the Predators, and frequently have Predators president, Brett Bouchy, on the air. In response to the backlash, Hill wrote a column expressing her opinion that the Predators' fans aren't racist. Though, she never addressed her comparisons to someone who is "ignorant" or "acted like a jerk".

The Predators oraganization has responded with two postings on their website(here, and here) addressing Hill's comments, and urging Preds' fans to let her know what they think about the columns.

This morning, Brett Bouchy was scheduled to engage Hill in a debate on "The Monsters in the Morning" regarding her comments, and the opinions that she expressed about the Predators' fans. However, she backed out because, according to Brett Bouchy, "the Orlando Sentinel wanted the story to die". Though, she's supposedly scheduled to make an appearance on another talk radio show that has an opinion similar to hers regarding Predators' fans. Bouchy also read an e-mail response that Hill had supposedly sent to a fan in which she states that the "Predators cater to idiot fans". Bouchy has vowed to make ESPN aware of this incident.

Obviously not everyone is going to agree with everything that someone writes or says. However, it appears that Jemele Hill has gone out of her way to publicly slam the Orlando Predators and their fans, and it seems that quite a few people are pretty upset about it. Before even writing a word for ESPN, Hill will probably get a stern talking-to from the higher-ups in Bristol. She probably shouldn't spend that $200k just yet.

Dikembe Mutombo Is NOT A Monkey!

Apparently, during Thursday night's Orlando Magic game against the Houston Rockets a fan decided to heckle Rockets' player, Dikembe Mutombo, by calling him a monkey. Supposedly, he yelled "Mutombo the Monkey", and did it enough to cause Mutombo to make a move toward the stands. A referee ended up restraining Mutombo, though he didn't restrain his hand and Dikembe did get in a nice "one finger salute". The fan was escorted from the building, and it turns out that he's actually a corporate sponsor. From what I've heard, the guy was acting like a jerk during the exchange, and shortly thereafter. However, now it appears that he's changed his tune, and has apologized to Mutombo. He's also "vowed to never attend another Magic game until Mutombo notifies the club to approve his return" and has offered to donate $5000 to a charity of Mutombo's choice.

In light of the unfortunate heckling with racist overtones, it could have been a lot worse. First, it seems that David Stern's plea for NBA players to leave their firearms at home has been accepted. Thankfully Mutombo did not fire any shots as he was leaving the O-Rena. Second, the referees seemingly did a good job of keeping the NBA players and fans from interacting too much. It looks like that chickenwire fence won't be necessary after all. Though, when a corporate sponsor who had "hosted a party 'to sell Magic tickets' last Wednesday night that was attended by Magic players" is the one doing the heckling courtside there might not be much hope for the future.

Personally, I think Mutombo should make the fan wait until February 3rd before he can return to the Magic home games. Not only does he have to sit out for 3 months, but he's also forced to go to a Knicks game for his first one back. Yeah buddy, let's see how much of a fan you really are! A good arm wrestling match to determine his fate might be right up Mutombo's alley as well.

Forgive Me Father, For I Have Infringed...

Ok, so about two months ago I was able to attend the University of Florida football team's season opener against Southern Mississippi. For the most part is was a pretty standard UF game. College kids drinking, fans doing the "Gator Chomp", and lots of loud noise. At one point however, everything went up a few notches as freshman QB extraordinaire, Tim Tebow, made his highly anticipated debut. At this point I pulled out the camera phone and started recording. I ended up with four small clips(around 30 seconds each), but unfortunately time had run out before Tebow got to run his first play and he ended up scoring his first UF TD in the other end zone.

After a night of celebrating, I totally forgot about the camera phone vids. A few days later however, I remembered I had them and decided to upload them to YouTube so I could share them with my friends who weren't able to partake in the drinking, football watching and more drinking.

Now, for those of you unfamiliar with YouTube(well then you're probably not technically advanced enough to even get to this blog but...) it's sort of like the MySpace of the video world. I'm sure you're familiar with MySpace. You know, attention whores, real whores, emo kids looking all sad, etc. Anyway, I put the clips up on YouTube, e-mailed the link to some friends and forgot all about it. That was until I received an e-mail the other day stating that I had violated a copyright law.

-READ MORE ABOUT MY INFRINGING BEHAVIOR-
Apparently, a company by the name of Collegiate Images, LLC claimed that the material was infringing upon their copyright and asked that it be removed. Intrigued, I checked out the Collegiate Images website. It appears that they provide still images and video of college sports to their customers. In fact, here's what they state:

"Collegiate Images exclusive representation of copyright and trademark footage and still images, for major universities, conferences, bowl games and network rightsholders, enables our customers to access fresh, compelling, and unique imagery."

I understand that they're making money by selling videos of collegiate sports. That's cool with me. Though, I wonder how much goes back into the university system to help out the student athletes they're pimping. However, do they really consider four crappy(let's be honest a cell phone cam isn't the greatest A/V device) cell phone vids to be infringing upon their content? Why in the hell do they want to pick on me?

It appears that if I want to fight them on this that I have to write a letter to YouTube explaining why there was no copyright infringement, and why I should be allowed to host it on their site. Though, it also states that I could be held liable if I "knowingly materially misrepresent that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification". Somehow I think that Collegiate Images and YouTube have a lot more money than I do, and could squash me in court if it ever made it that far.

Instead, I decided to do what any other great American would. Write a blog about it that contains my response! Here goes:

Dear YouTube and Collegiate Images, LLC,
It's come to my attention that four camera phone videos I took while in attendance at the Florida/Southern Miss game this past August might be in violation of some sort of copyright law. Personally, I'm not sure how they violate any copyright as they were pretty crappy quality, I wasn't selling them and I actually attended UF. I'm sure that the horrible resale I got on my textbooks over the course of my studies entitles me to some benefits, no matter how small. With that said, I've decided not to fight you in a court of law, but rather bring this issue out to the court of public opinion. Hopefully, others will read this post, and realize what horrible corporate jackholes you are and will hate Collegiate Images, LLC forever and ever.

Have a Nice Day!
-BDoc