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Bud Shaw's Sports Spin: Tribe cashing in on Lee's resolve, but will they pay for it later?
by
Bud Shaw
Wednesday September 03, 2008, 10:01 PM
Cliff Lee won his 20th game and was named the AL's top pitcher for August
When Lee says he never stopped believing in himself, what he doesn't say is, you know, as opposed to the Indians.
Lee's comeback from being shipped to the minors, sent to the bullpen and kept off the playoff roster was in part a product of the hard edge last year left on him. He's always been stubborn. He returned this season stubborn with a cause.
Will he be the happily-ever-after story CC Sabathia was supposed to be writing here?
Lee is signed the next two seasons. The Indians own a club option in 2010. But they should already have a sense of where the market is heading for left-handed Cy Young Award winners and it's nowhere affordable.
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Bud Shaw's Sunday Sports Spin: Tressel's new deal and a challenging 'hump'
by
Bud Shaw
Saturday August 30, 2008, 10:21 PM
Jim Tressel is the highest-paid coach in the Big Ten
Tressel will make about $3.5 million annually, which is why it was also necessary to include 3 to 4 percent yearly increases.
Try getting by on that kind of money without a built-in cost of living bump.
A man could run short of hair gel halfway through the season.
Tressel deserves every penny just for spanking Michigan, but clearly this contract was an offshoot of his second-straight BCS title game appearance. A clause in Tressel's previous deal said the contract would be renegotiated in good faith if OSU reached the BCS championship game.
That clause is not included in his new deal. If anything, erasing the clause is to the benefit of OSU, which wouldn't be compelled to rework Tressel's deal again should this season end where the past two did.
With Pryor, excitement runs (primarily) wild in college debut with Buckeyes
by
Bud Shaw
Saturday August 30, 2008, 6:00 PM
COLUMBUS -- Selling Terrelle Pryor as a thrower first and a runner by default -- the opposite of Troy Smith, the Wonder Years -- well, you can't blame Jim Tressel for trying.
Nobody's buying it quite yet. No doubt, that includes USC.
Don't get me wrong. Pryor's debut against Youngstown State Saturday showed off his startling talent, resulted in his first college touchdown (a run) and was of adequate length to make the Trojans spend time game-planning for him.
Except for the possibility of losing a Heisman Trophy candidate running back in a game they could've won, 43-0, without him, it was mission accomplished for the Buckeyes. They played everybody except the drum major.
Pryor's the future. The immediacy of this season, though, is a USC game approaching like a highway sign post at 70 miles an hour.
Bud Shaw's Sports Spin: Crennel is too tough? Baseball enters (finally) the 20th century
by
Bud Shaw
Wednesday August 27, 2008, 7:26 PM
This just in: Romeo Crennel is a taskmaster
Steelers receiver Hines Ward told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that head coach Mike Tomlin takes care of his veterans, especially by comparison to other coaches -- Crennel for one.
And Ward knows this ... how?
Seems former Browns (and Steelers) defensive end Orpheus Roye, who signed with Pittsburgh last week, told Ward that.
"He said their coach beat them up in training camp and, by time they got to the season, in the fourth quarters they were beat up, physically and mentally drained," Ward said. "Coach Tomlin has been good about it."
The Marquis de Crennel? The same coach who blamed himself for the performance against the Giants two Mondays ago because the Browns had played the equivalent of flag football during the week?
Bud Shaw: Games did have redeeming qualities
by Bud Shaw, Plain Dealer Columnist
Monday August 25, 2008, 6:42 AM
Eight-time gold medalist Michael Phelps delivered one of, if not, the greatest Olympics performances ever.I'll take the Redeem Team. You can have the Dream Team.
Not that this one could beat that one. Who cares? This time around, NBA stars sat and watched other Olympians perform, didn't use their days off to fly somewhere to golf, and didn't use the American flag to cover themselves because their Olympic uniforms weren't Nike-issued.
Oh, yeah. And they won, playing together and even playing defense (at least up until the gold-medal game).
They committed three summers to an endeavor in which they had more to lose than gain. Not that NBA players are often portrayed as overpaid and self-absorbed, but had they lost in Beijing, they would've been sentenced to membership in the Axis of Evil in living rooms across America . . .
Continue reading "Bud Shaw: Games did have redeeming qualities" »Bud Shaw's Sunday Sports Spin: Youth served in China; IOC's Rogge's bizarre blast against Bolt
by Bud Shaw
Saturday August 23, 2008, 10:14 PM
A memorable Beijing Olympics come to a close
And just in time.
The Chinese were just about ready to release the scorpions, the ones not already fried and on dinner plates, if their guests continued to ask too many pointed questions about the age of the Little Tikes-riding, bib-wearing, Hello Kitty purse-swinging gymnastics team.
The International Olympic Committee feels the need to appear in control here, so it delegated the International Gymnastics Federation to pretty-please request of China to once again supply proof that its gymnasts aren't underage.
Guilty until proven innocent? What kind of democratic principle is that?
Oh.
Good thing China's government is accustomed to that approach in dealing with its dissidents or it might really take offense. Instead, it just feigns indignity over the repeated assertions that it changed the birth dates of its top gymnasts to comply with international regulations.
Bud Shaw's Sports Spin: Quinn's start no omen; are Brewers overworking CC?
by Bud Shaw
Wednesday August 20, 2008, 8:13 PM
Brady Quinn will start Saturday in Detroit
There's a theory that says if Quinn didn't possess matinee idol looks and had gone to school at, say, Middle Tennessee State instead of Notre Dame, the clamoring for him to become the starter would match the sound of one hand clapping.
To that we say, not here. Not now. Or ever.
Remember Kelly Holcomb, who did go to Middle Tennessee State and wasn't GQ material. Or even Subway worthy, having to settle for his own barbecue sauce.
The backup quarterback is the most popular guy in many towns, but here even more so. The biggest injury risk to Quinn is carpal tunnel from signing autographs.
Not only isn't there a quarterback controversy this season, there's no quarterback competition. There wasn't even a conversation until Derek Anderson was swallowed under a Giant avalanche Monday night.
Crennel's Browns aren't ready for prime time yet
by Bud Shaw, Plain Dealer Columnist
Tuesday August 19, 2008, 10:02 AM
The Giants' Domenik Hixon burned the Browns for three touchdowns in the first half.No sense getting too carried away with anything that happens in the preseason -- good or bad -- but we can say this: Tom Coughlin's team looked like the hungry upstarts ready to feast on whatever gets put in front of them in 2008.
The Browns? They looked like they thought they won the Super Bowl last year and had spent the off-season on the banquet circuit.
By the way, that performance would've looked ugly in any color pants. Brown isn't the problem by itself and didn't look too bad on the quarterbacks, wide receivers and defensive backs. But Big Brown? That's a completely different story.
Please shelve those pants before we have to see them on Shaun Rogers.
In any uniform, the Browns have some catching up to do now. Given that their regulars won't play much in the final exhibition game, they have one more chance against Detroit to restore whatever sense of confidence they had before playing New York.
Crennel didn't get the Browns ready to open the season last year.
Judging by Monday night, his secondary isn't all that needs fixing before the opener. So does his approach.
